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	July 2nd, 2012 The early history of LEGO Posted about 15 hours ago by mental_floss to Holy Kaw! Photo: CC by Jeremy Page Simple, block-shaped toys have been around for hundreds of years, but it took a 20th-century Danish genius named Ole Kirk Christiansen to invent the interlocking pieces we know today as LEGO bricks. It all started in 1932 in the village of Billund, long before LEGO had achieved world domination as a brand. A master joiner and carpenter, Christiansen opened a humble woodworking shop with his son Godtfred, just 12 years old at the time. They manufactured stepladders, ironing boards and later expanded to make wooden toys, and in 1934 dubbed their business LEGO, a contraction of the Danish “leg godt” (“play well”). And play well they did. The company expanded from only six employees in 1934 to forty in 1942. LEGO was also fairly progressive, and became an early adopter of new technologies and materials. In fact, the group became the first Danish company to own a plastic injection-molding machine. When the Christiansens came across prototypes of a British toy called “Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks” in 1947, they adopted the idea and started manufacturing their own version two years later. The bricks had pegs on top and hollow bottoms, allowing children to lock the bricks together and create elaborate structures never possible with the simple wooden blocks of yesteryear. Dubbing them the (decidedly un-catchy) “Automatic Binding Bricks,” they were the forerunner to today’s LEGO brick. But they hadn’t quite got the formula right yet... See the rest at mental_floss. All the top stories from mental_floss. shift Posted 1 day ago by Koichi Mitsui to s a s u r a u 新しいプロジェクト。 Backyard twitillation done right at "50 Sheds of Grey" Posted about 19 hours ago by Kate Rinsema to Holy Kaw! Now that you’ve finished 50 Shades of Grey in all of a week, there’s a long summer ahead to fill with reading, so what’s a mom in search of smut to do? Start following 50 Sheds of Grey, and never be ashamed of that dirty shed again. Full story at Twitter via Pleated Jeans. All the fun’s on Twitter. The cities that air conditioning built Posted about 18 hours ago by Kate Rinsema to Holy Kaw! While there are no doubt people who really don’t feel comfortable if the temperature isn’t topping ninety in the shade, it’s a tad hard to swallow the assertion “I love the heat!” to explain living in an air-conditioned oasis like Phoenix. As Tyler Falk at The Atlantic explains, air conditioning was originally intended for factories and processing facilities rather than the physical comfort of personal dwellings. If the numbers have anything to say about it, the boom of certain southern cities in the U.S. appear to have everything to do with the introduction of this technology. Of course, the U.S. isn't alone in this trend, as some of the fastest-growing cities in the rest of the world are also some of the hottest temperature-wise, and having air-conditioning is a perk the growing middle classes are adopting as fast as possible. 6. San Antonio, TX Population increase from 1940-2010: 572% 5. Las Vegas, NV City population increase from 1940-2010: 6,831% 4. Orlando, FL City population increase from 1940-2010: 549% Full story at The Atlantic . The effect of tech. Photo credit: Fotolia Sent by Posterous. Change your email settings or unfollow. Other questions? We'd love to help.