Hobbes / seamster

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13 January 2012
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In Craft, Entertainment, Wildlife
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I thought that making a stuffed Hobbes doll would be a great gift for one of my sons (whose name coincidentally, is Calvin). However, I knew that the artist, Bill Watterson, famously refused to allow his characters to be licensed and sold as dolls and such, feeling that doing so would undermine the integrity of the strip.

So I was kind of hesitant to make this and offer a pattern and instructions for it online, out of respect for Mr Watterson. I concluded that it shouldn’t be an issue as long as the pattern is available free, for personal, non-commercial use. I’m not selling the pattern or the doll, and you shouldn’t either — via instructables

Sweet Orange Lip Balm / Megan

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13 January 2012
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In Craft
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This recipe is super simple. The only hang up I ran across was getting the honey to mix completely into the coconut oil. And beeswax takes a lot longer to melt than I had anticipated. Otherwise it was a really fun afternoon project. I am left only to kick myself for spending so much money on drugstore lip balms all these years — via The Art of Homemaking

Creative Letterheads

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12 January 2012
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In Design
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You’ll never receive a letter from Andy Warhol, Ray Charles, Albert Einstein or Harry Houdini, but you can still get a peek at what their letterhead looks like — and the designs can be quite revealing. These 17 letterhead designers from architects, musicians, artists, performers, inventors and other public figures range from the humble and minimalistic to the boastful and colourful — via WebUrbanist

Leaked DHS internet watchlist mistakes

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12 January 2012
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In Politics, Technology
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Um. Yeah. So I’m going to be charitable here and presume that whoever compiled that internet monitoring watchlist at the Department of Homeland Security thought that Miss Thirteen, at www.msthirteen.com, was a site about the ultraviolent Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 gang, which originated in El Salvador and now operates in a number of US cities — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Dead body found in tree in Randwick

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12 January 2012
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In Weird
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A decomposing body has been found about 10 metres up a tree in Prince Lane at Randwick at about 11.30am today.

Randwick council workers found the body after investigating resident complaints of a foul smell.

A council spokesman said the council contractors were pruning overgrown English Ivy on the tree to find the source of the odour when they discovered the body — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Unscratchable gold is harder than steel

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12 January 2012
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In Science
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By combining a gold alloy with boron carbide, an extremely hard ceramic that’s used in bulletproof vests, a Swiss team of EPFL researchers succeeded in making the world’s toughest 18-karat gold (75% gold). With a Vickers hardness number of 1000, it’s harder than most tempered steels (600 Vickers) and thus almost impossible to scratch, except with a diamond. This discovery is the result of a three-year collaboration between the Mechanical Metallurgy Laboratory in EPFL’s Institute of Materials, under the leadership of Professor Andreas Mortensen, and the Swiss watchmaking company Hublot — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Nike agrees $1m overtime payment for Indonesian workers

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12 January 2012
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In Business, Rights
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Sportswear group Nike has agreed compensation in a dispute with workers in Indonesia over unpaid overtime.

The company will pay $1m (£650,000) to about 4,500 workers at a PT Nikomas plant in Serang, Banten.

The workers union that brought the case to Nike said in a statement that 593,468 hours of overtime went unpaid over the last two years.

The union said it hopes this will set a precedent for factories across the country — via redwolf.newsvine.com

North Carolina Sets $50K Compensation for Victims of Eugenics Program

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12 January 2012
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In Health, Politics, Rights
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A task force assigned to the grim undertaking of deciding how much to compensate as many as 2,000 living victims of a decades-long North Carolina sterilisation program finally settled on a number on Tuesday.

Each person who was forced to undergo surgical procedures to render them incapable of reproduction under the state’s notorious eugenics programs should receive $50,000, the Governor’s Task Force to Determine the Method of Compensation for Victims of North Carolina’s Eugenics Board announce — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Purl Bee Penguin / the purl bee

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12 January 2012
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Winter in New York City can be hard to love with its frozen sidewalks, dirty snowbanks, and bare trees. But this winter I’m counting on my new cold weather friend, the Purl Bee Penguin, to help me through! Its happy ovoid shape and graphic palette are sure to remind me that joy really does exist in January. Just ask an Emperor Penguin — via the purl bee

1970 Harley FLH / Walt Siegl

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11 January 2012
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In Design
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The FX Roadster started out as a beat-up 1970 Harley FLH. I always liked the look of the shovelhead engine. And the aftermarket offers so many good choices for updated mechanicals — you can build a really strong motor/transmission combo. So Walt Siegl enlisted Andrew Rosa of Rosa’s Cycleson Long Island to rebuild the engine and transmission — via Bike EXIF

Alyssa Bustamante pleads guilty

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11 January 2012
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In World
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A Missouri teenager who told authorities she wanted to know what it felt like to kill has pleaded guilty to murder, telling a judge that she strangled a nine-year-old neighbour with her hands, stabbed her in the chest and cut her throat with a knife.

Alyssa Bustamante pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the 21 October 2009, killing of Elizabeth Olten in St Martins, a rural town just west of Jefferson City. The plea avoids a trial that had been scheduled to start later this month.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Bustamante looked down, her long brown hair covering her eyes, as the judge read out the amended charges and asked her if she understood she was giving up her right to a trial. She replied, yes — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Crisis turns Mafia into Italy’s ‘No.1 bank’

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11 January 2012
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In World
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Organised crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country’s biggest bank and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report.

Extortionate lending by criminal groups had become a national emergency“, said the report by anti-crime group SOS Impresa, released overnight.

Organised crime now generated annual turnover of about 140 billion euros ($175 billion) and profits of more than 100 billion euros, it added — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Nursing’s modern day miracle workers doing it tough

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11 January 2012
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In Health, History, Rights
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Welcome to the world of the Brown Nurses, an intriguing benevolent organisation unknown to most except those who require its services.

For almost 100 years, this unsung group of volunteers, sisters and registered nurses have gone about doing the work inspired by someone whom many Catholics consider to be a Sydney saint-in-waiting.

Based in Glebe, Coogee, Minto and Newcastle, they provide health, welfare and advocacy services to severely marginalised individuals and families.

Many of their clients are suffering the debilitating effects of mental illness, physical disability, chronic addictions or a combination of all three. Being on the Brown Nurses’ books is their last chance to live independently — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Hungry Jack’s cops whopper staff pay bill

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11 January 2012
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In Business, Rights
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A Hungry Jack’s fast food outlet in central Victoria has been penalised for underpaying its staff for more than four years.

The Federal Magistrates Court ordered the operator of the Bendigo outlet to pay a penalty of $46,200, after the company volunteered to pay back more than $104,000 it owed to its staff, who were mostly junior employees.

The underpayments occurred between July 2005 and December 2009 — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Israeli bill would prohibit Nazi comparisons

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11 January 2012
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In Politics, Rights
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Draft legislation in Israel would make it a crime in the country to use the word Nazi or symbols of the Holocaust for purposes other than teaching.

There will be a preliminary hearing in parliament on Wednesday for the bill, which would impose penalties of up to six months in jail and a $25,000 fine.

The move comes a week after ultra-Orthodox Jews dressed in concentration camp uniforms to protest against alleged incitement against them.

The incident sparked outrage in Israel — via redwolf.newsvine.com

New CO2 Sucker Could Help Clear the Air

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11 January 2012
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In Science
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Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. Down the road, the new material could enable the development of large-scale batteries and even form the basis of artificial trees that lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in an effort to stave off catastrophic climate change — via redwolf.newsvine.com

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