The $5 day

As The New York Times reported, on this date in 1914…

Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, announced…one of the most remarkable business moves of his entire remarkable career. In brief it is:

To give to the employees of the company $10,000,000 of the profits of the 1914 business, the payments to be made semi-monthly and added to the pay checks.

To run the factory continuously instead of only eighteen hours a day, giving employment to several thousand more men by employing three shifts of eight hours each, instead of only two nine-hour shifts, as at present.

To establish a minimum wage scale of $5 per day. Even the boy who sweeps up the floors will get that much.

Before any man in any department of the company who does not seem to be doing good work shall be discharged, an opportunity will be given to him to try to make good in every other department. No man shall be discharged except for proved unfaithfulness or irremediable inefficiency.

Read the complete Times article.

Twelfth night

Tonight, Monday evening, is Twelfth Night (the eve of the Epiphany).

2003 Year-End Zeitgeist

From Google

The 2003 Year-End Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year’s major events and hottest trends based on more than 55 billion searches conducted over the past year by Google users from around the world. Whether you are tracking the global progression of the latest news or learning about healthy searches in Japan, the 2003 Year-End Zeitgeist enables you to look at the past year through the collective eyes of the world on the Internet.

Zeitgeist Explained
The term “zeitgeist” comes from the German “Zeit” meaning “time” and “Geist” meaning “spirit”. The term is defined in English by Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary as “the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.”

55 billion searches — 55 Billion!

Currently (3PM) in Denver…

windchill readings 10-20 below zero.

And 65 vehicle polishers

Effort behind the scenes at the 2004 North American International Auto Show (aka the Detroit Auto Show).

• Fourteen semi-trailers are required to carry the 75,000-plus yards of carpet used for the exhibits and aisles at the NAIAS. If the carpet was made into a two foot-wide runner, it would be 66 miles long. With the average home using 125 yards, the carpet used at the NAIAS would cover the equivalent of 600 homes.

• Auto show exhibits, theatrical lighting and sound equipment will use enough electricity to power a 360-home subdivision for six months.

• Equipment needed to set up the show includes over 1,000 semi-trucks, 14 million pounds of freight, 75 forklifts, 18 45-foot booms, 20 scissor lifts, and 12 miles of electric wires.

• In the 10 weeks it takes to prepare the NAIAS for the media and public, more than 1,500 carpenters, stagehands, electricians, Teamsters, riggers and ironworkers will be employed full time (12-14 hour days; some double shifts) until the job is done.

• It takes many other personnel to prepare the auto show including: 200 janitorial workers, 500-700 catering personnel, 65 vehicle polishers, 135 car porters, 87 full-time Cobo Center staff members and 20 additional part-time Cobo Center staff members.

Umberto Eco…

was born in Alessandria, Italy, on this date in 1932. Look here for an interesting web site devoted to Eco.

“But why doesn’t the Gospel ever say that Christ laughed?” I asked, for no good reason. “Is Jorge right?”

“Legions of scholars have wondered whether Christ laughed. The question doesn’t interest me much. I believe he never laughed, because, omniscient as the son of God had to be, he knew how we Christians would behave. . . .”

– The Name of the Rose

2004 Saturn Curve concept car

Shocking revelation!

Rose: I bet on baseball

NewMexiKen is just dumbfounded. Who would have believed it?

From the ridiculous (Dave Barry)
To the sublime (J.M. Coetzee)

The most recent Nobel prize-winner for literature, J. M. Coetzee, has an intriguing short story, “As a Woman Grows Older”, in the current issue of The New York Review of Books.

Got rig envy? Try Viagra

Dave Barry on trying to watch football through all the insecurities raised by the commercials.

Choices

“American auto buyers, who had about 100 models available to buy in the 1950s and 1960s, now have more than 1,400 choices.”
Source: Columnist Tom Walsh in the Detroit Free Press.

Football factories

Over the past 58 seasons (1946-2003) 76 teams have won or shared in the “national championship” of Division I-A college football. Fourteen schools have won the championship or been co-champions more than once. Together they account for 60 of the 76 champion teams (78.9%).

Oklahoma (6 outright, 1 tie)
Notre Dame (5 outright, 3 ties)
Miami (4 outright, 1 tie)
Alabama (2 outright, 5 ties)
USC (3 outright, 3 ties)
Nebraska (3 outright, 2 ties)
Ohio State (2 outright, 4 ties)
Texas (2 outright, 1 tie)
Penn State, Florida State, Tennessee (2 outright each)
Michigan State (1 outright, 2 ties)
Michigan (1 outright, 1 tie)
LSU (2 ties)

Conference standings for all 76 champions and co-champions (teams included in the conference they played in during 2003):

Big 12 (11 outright, 5 ties)
SEC (6 outright, 10 ties)
Big 10 (6 outright, 9 ties)
Big East (6 outright, 1 tie)
Independent (5 outright, 3 ties)
Pac 10 (3 outright, 5 ties)
ACC (4 outright, 1 tie)
Mountain West (1 outright)

[See also here.]

Diane Keaton…

who has a brief nude shot in Something’s Gotta Give, was born in Los Angeles on this date in 1946. Keaton’s first major role was in the Broadway rock musical Hair — where she did not remove her clothing. As for her nude scene in Something’s Gotta Give she says, “At this point, does it really matter? Nobody is looking at me the way I once imagined people would look at me, like with deviant thoughts. I think they just go, ‘Huh. There it is. Intact.’”

Diane Keaton won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Hall in 1977.

She has never married but has adopted two children. Her real name is Diane Hall; she changed to Keaton, her mother’s maiden name, because there was already a Diane Hall in the Actor’s Guild.

Robert Duvall…

was born in San Diego on this date in 1931. Duvall won the best actor Oscar for his portrayl of Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies in 1983. Among other characters he has portrayed are Boo Radley, Frank Burns, Tom Hagen, Lt. Col. William ‘Bill’ Kilgore, Bull Meechum and the unforgettable Augustus McCrae.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission

NASA has a web site dedicated to the Mars Exploration Rover Mission.