Month: November 2016

During the World’s Fairs of the early 20th century, architects dreamed up what the future of home design could look like with the “House of the Future.” Some of these houses still exist, and in Palm Beach, Florida, you can actually live in one. The first-prize House of the Future from the 1939 World’s Fair (theme: “Building the World of Tomorrow”) is currently up for sale.

The Fore and Aft House was designed by the architect Belford Shoumate and built in 1940. The 5645-square-foot house is designed to look like a boat, and is situated just off the Palm Beach Intracoastal Waterway. In keeping with the ship theme, the long structure has porthole windows and an upper balcony with steamship-style railings.

The house was one of Shoumate’s first projects in Florida, where he lived for over 50 years after relocating from New York City. The designer helped reshape Palm Beach’s architecture to reflect Art Deco and other styles that provided some variety in contrast to the city’s ubiquitous Mediterranean Revival buildings. One of his other Palm Beach houses has been designated a city landmark.

The unique Fore and Aft House is currently priced at just under $8 million. Check out the interiors in the photos below:

All images courtesy TopRenRealEstateDeals.com.

Your sister-in-law gave you a pair of beautiful statement earrings for your birthday—but you only wear studs. Your mom gifts you a gorgeous vase every Christmas, and you literally cannot fit another one in your cabinet. These trinkets are just dying to be regifted so they can be put to good use, right? Right?

Absolutely, says lifestyle and etiquette expert Elaine Swann. “Regifting is perfectly acceptable if done correctly,” she says. With gift-giving season upon us, here are her cardinal rules for recycling a present without looking like a cheap jerk. 

1. IT MUST BE NEW.

The item should be less than a year old and in its original packaging, says Swann.

2. IT MUST HAVE VALUE.

No, you may not regift that canvas tote bag from the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting. If you or the initial gift-giver didn’t pay for it, you can’t give it to someone else. The only exception is if a piece of swag is high-quality and has meaning for the receiver. Swann once received an “Oprah”-engraved keychain when she attended a show taping; she gave it to her mom, a huge fan. “Although it was free, it was not your run-of-the-mill keychain,” she says.

3. IT MUST BE REWRAPPED.

This is perhaps where people fail most frequently. Frantically regifting at the last-minute because you forgot to buy something is a recipe for disaster. Take fifteen minutes to ensure all old wrapping and name tags are removed, and splurge on a pretty bow or cute gift bag.

4. IT MUST MOVE TO A NEW SOCIAL CIRCLE.

Swann remembers a friend who didn’t like a wedding present from her aunt, so she regifted it—to another aunt, the original giver’s sister. Oops. To avoid overlap, consider Swann’s method. She keeps a bin in her closet for gifts that can be reused, along with a notebook in which she records the date she received an item, and from whom.

5. YOU MUST NOT LIE.

If you are caught, just tell the truth. You can put a positive spin on it (“I really appreciate the sweater you gave me, but my best friend looks much better in coral”), but you cannot pretend it didn’t happen. “They might be a little sore, but lying about it will always make it worse,” Swann says. Own up to it and move on.

Some people say there’s no substitute for experience and hard work—but in the eyes of hiring managers, Forbes reports, a candidate’s natural talent is considered more impressive than their career credentials.

In a series of studies published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, University College London professor Chia-Jung Tsay discovered that recruiters interviewing job candidates tend to be biased toward ones that demonstrate innate skill. The catch? They weren’t aware of this preference, and thought they preferred ambitious career-climbers to bright novices.

In one study, participants were provided with information on a fictional applicant named Charles. Half were informed that Charles was a natural leader, and the others were told that Charles had to work hard for his success, and became a boss by forming important work alliances. The participants then evaluated a recorded business pitch from Charles, using criteria including his likelihood for success and whether they would consider hiring him or investing in his business. Sure enough, the subjects who were told that Charles was inherently gifted gave him higher scores.

A second study provided Tsay with similar results. This time, Harvard Business Review reports, participants were presented with 18 pairs of applicants, all of whom possessed different levels of management skills, leadership performance, IQ, investor capital raised, and talent versus ambition. They were asked to choose one of the two entrepreneurs to invest in for a new business, and ranked how much of a part of each quality played in their choice.

In the end, natural abilities trumped qualifications, with nearly 60 percent of the participants choosing the candidate with natural aptitude. These hiring managers were even willing to overlook a candidate’s lack of leadership experience, management skills, IQ, and accrued capital if they believed they were talented enough.

This raises the question: How does a candidate showcase innate talent during the recruiting process? In her story for Forbes, Amy Morin, author of the book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, suggests that you skip the speech about what a hard worker you are, and instead impress interviewers by playing up attributes that “come naturally” to you.

Other tips? Since hiring managers will likely Google you before calling you in for an interview, consider making an online portfolio of your best work. Confidence is often viewed as talent and competence, so when you go in for your interview, try to convey your self-assurance with a firm handshake, good eye contact, and a relaxed, positive demeanor. Also, prepare in advance for any surprise skills assessment tests they might spring on you so you can display your ability to think on your feet. Lastly, speak to your references in advance about instances in which you displayed a natural ability to lead or learned new skills quickly; this way, these attributes are top-of-mind when your potential employer gives them a ring.

[h/t Forbes]

Between 7530 and 7320 BCE, a funeral took place on the banks of the river Shannon in what is today County Limerick, Ireland. Now, more than 9000 years later, the site provides a window into the burial practices of the area’s ancient inhabitants. As The Irish Times reports, the grave suggests that Mesolithic Irish people led more complex lives than we previously believed.

The artifact that led to this conclusion, discussed in a paper recently published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, was a stone axe. The polished shale tool, called an adze, was found buried with cremated remains in a pit first discovered 15 years ago. It appears to have been used only for a brief period before someone went out of their way to blunt it. This might indicate it was made especially for the funeral, and that blunting the blade was a symbolic act performed during the rites.

Handled axes dating back as far as 44,000 years have been found elsewhere in the past, but this highly polished tool is believed to be the oldest adze discovered in Europe. Researcher and paper co-author Ben Elliot said in a statement:

“The adze is exceptional as we traditionally associate this polished axes and adzes like this with the arrival of agriculture in Europe, around 3000 years later. Although polished axes and adzes are known from pre-agricultural sites in Ireland and other parts of Europe, to find such a well-made, highly polished and securely dated example is unprecedented for this period of prehistory.”

The site it was uncovered from is also remarkable: The body was cremated before it was buried, a rare practice at the time, and it had the unusual distinction of a wooden post nearby to mark it. The grave may not be the most famous prehistoric burial site in Ireland—that distinction belongs to Newgrange—but it is the oldest known grave in the country.

[h/t The Irish Times]

There are more than 190 countries in the world, and Cassandra De Pecol wants to visit all of them in record time. As Teen Vogue reports, the 27-year-old from Connecticut is attempting to become the first documented woman—and the fastest person—to accomplish the feat.

In 2010, Yili Liu from Ann Arbor, Michigan, completed the around-the-world journey in three years, three months, and six days, setting a Guinness World Record for “fastest time to visit all sovereign countries.” Now, De Pecol wants to break his record. She has visited 180 countries since July 2015, and is currently slated to finish her voyage—which she’s dubbed Expedition 196—in the next month or so.

How much does it cost to visit all of the world’s sovereign nations, along with Taiwan, Kosovo, and Palestine? According to The Daily Mail, Expedition 196 has cost De Pecol nearly $200,000. Hotel chains help her foot part of the bill, offering the traveler free lodging in exchange for promotion on her Instagram account. De Pecol is also filming a documentary of her voyage, which received funding from private contributors.

De Pecol isn’t just lounging on beaches, though. She’s serving as the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism’s Ambassador for Peace, and she’s teamed up with the Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation to gather samples from remote regions of the world. The traveler also tries to spend two to five days in each country, so she gets a sense of its culture and natural surroundings.

Follow De Pecol’s travels on Instagram, or visit her trip’s official website to keep track of her global adventures.

[h/t Teen Vogue]

Opening on May 22, 1985, Rambo: First Blood Part II was a fantasy fever dream of jingoism, Sylvester Stallone’s titular character a monosyllabic redeemer of an America that had failed itself in Vietnam. A onetime Green Beret, Rambo needs little more than 90 minutes to rescue abandoned POWs and somehow salvage his country’s intervention in foreign affairs.

The movie made more than $300 million worldwide. Coleco, which had experienced a phenomenon with the Cabbage Patch Kids, snapped up the rights to produce a toy line. Neutered for young audiences, this Rambo practiced greater discretion, bloodlessly assaulting enemies in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Coleco hoped Rambo: The Force of Freedom would compete with Hasbro’s G.I. Joe for a share of the military-oriented action figure market. Hasbro, which wasn’t about to touch an R-rated film, decided to combat their potential toy aisle rival by enlisting Stallone’s other trademark character: slow-witted boxer Rocky Balboa.

It wasn’t the first time the company pursued a license for a figure that had been established outside of G.I. Joe continuity. Hasbro had released Sergeant Slaughter as a premium mail-away attraction in 1985, co-opting the popular professional wrestler’s recognition among WWE (then WWF) fans.

Slaughter was a success in toy, cartoon, and comic book form, helping reinvigorate a G.I. Joe line that had been on shelves since 1982—an eternity in action figure years. Hasbro hoped Balboa would do the same, aiming to release a mail-away premium figure in 1987 that would be available to customers who sent in proofs of purchase from other G.I. Joe merchandise.

Establishing Rocky’s place in the mythology of the G.I. Joe universe fell on Larry Hama, writer of Marvel’s G.I. Joe comic and a frequent source for hammering out narrative points across the franchise’s many outlets. In a Marvel collection of character biographies titled G.I. Joe: Order of Battle #2, released in late 1986, Hama scripted a brief rundown (above) that presented Balboa as a combat trainer, filling obligations for his “Reserve time” by turning their hands into semi-deadly weapons.

Over at Hasbro, sculptor Bill Merklein was tasked with creating a wax prototype of the character’s action figure:

An in-house Hasbro artist created a mock-up of the card art, which featured the boxer wielding a stick with two boxing gloves attached to either end; another Hasbro designer, Mark Pennington, created the control art, which would have been used to further detail the figure. Curiously, Pennington appeared to take more design cues—headband, long hair—from Stallone’s Rambo iconography than he did Rocky’s:

For kids not yet weaned on crossover movies, this was an exciting prospect: anyone picking up Order of Battle #2 probably imagined a scenario in which Ivan Drago would somehow be dragged into Joe nemesis COBRA’s operations.

But it was not to be. In the very next issue of Order of Battle, Marvel printed what must have been one of the few retractions over the appearance of a fictional character, explaining that Balboa’s debut in the previous comic had been a mistake. It was written with the sober language of someone who had just been yelled at by a lawyer.

How did this awkward partnership between fictional boxer and fictional military force dissolve? According to former Hasbro product manager Kirk Bozigian, Stallone’s representatives knocked him out of contention. “The reason Rocky was dropped from the G.I. Joe line is because his agents got greedy,” Bozigian tells mental_floss. “While we were designing and sculpting Rocky Balboa, a competing toy company, Coleco, was introducing Rambo action figures and vehicles to compete with us. The decision to drop Rocky was an easy one.”

Although they had recruited the more famous star, Coleco wound up enduring protests by antiwar groups angry that the Rambo toy line appeared to be glorifying combat. The accompanying cartoon lasted just a few months.

Stallone’s likeness has never appeared in any subsequent Joe revival, but Hasbro did wind up releasing a villain in 1987 dubbed Big Boa. Considering his boxing gloves and punching bag accessory, it’s very likely he was originally intended to be a personal nemesis for Rocky. Thanks to some legal red tape, he never got to take his swing.

All images courtesy of Tim Finn, author of the upcoming G.I. Joe history A Real American Book.