Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Why Cant we walk Straight ?
Try this: Put a blindfold on someone, take them to a park or a beach or a meadow and ask them to walk for as long as they can in a straight line. Then watch what happens:
Credit: Benjamin Arthur, Robert Krulwich
So why, when blindfolded, can't we walk straight? There is still no good answer. Jan Souman, a research scientist in Germany, co-wrote a paper last year about this human tendency to walk in circles.
Like Asa Schaeffer in our animation, he blindfolded his subjects (if you can call what he did to them "blindfolding;" it's more like head wrapping) and told them to try to walk straight for up to an hour.
Read more at www.npr.orgThey did this in the Sahara Desert. They did it on a beach. As usual, the blindfolded subjects could not keep to a straight line.
Monday, 29 November 2010
The London Palladium
100th Anniversary
Above - Birthday cake celebrating 100 years of Great Entertainment
at the London Palladium.
The
London Palladium opened on Boxing Day, the 26th of December 1910,
and so in December 2010 the Theatre is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
Several events have been held at the Theatre to mark
this event, one of which was on the 12th of November in the Cinderella
Bar of the Palladium when many people involved with the Theatre over
the years gathered to toast the Palladium's anniversary and catch
up with faces from the past.
Right - The London Palladium's Cinderella Bar shortly
before guests arrived to celebrate the Theatre's 100th Birthday on
the 12th of November 2010.
See more at www.arthurlloyd.co.uk
Sunday, 28 November 2010
The Smurfs
SMURFS 101
What are the Smurf names? Who and what are the Smurfs? Where do the Smurfs live? The Smurfs friends and enemies are all listed below, including the number one asked question - what is the name of Gargamel's cat! If you still have questions about the Smurf characters please write us here and we'll try our smurfiest to answer it.
Papa Smurf : Papa Smurf is the leader of the Smurfs, and the only Smurf who wears red. Papa Smurf brings the Smurfs to safety in times of danger and crisis. Everyone in Smurf Village turns to Papa Smurf when things go awry. Papa is always busy making magical spells and potions in his laboratory. ♪ Listen to Papa Smurf
Lazy Smurf : Lazy is perhaps the most aply named Smurf in the village. Almost certifiably narcoleptic, Lazy can fall asleep anywhere, anytime, day or night. ♪ Listen to Lazy Smurf
Handy Smurf : Handy wears a pencil in his ear and helps fix things in the village. Handy is known for his amazing technological creations, such as the telesmurf (telephone), Weather Smurfing Machine, and Smurfmobile. The rest of the Smurfs have a bit of a Luddite bent and often criticize (and eventually abandon) Handy's inventions. ♪ Listen to Handy Smurf
Smurf Village : This mushroom village is where the Smurfs live and play. Gargamel and sundry other bad buys are always trying to find their way here with little success. The Smurfs have rebuilt Smurf Village many times.
Are there any female Smurfs?
As listed in our big list of Smurf characters at the top of the page, there are three female Smurfs: Smurfette, Sassette, and Nanny.
WE HAVE MANY MORE PICTURES OF SMURFS THAN JUST THIS!
If you're looking for pictures of Smurfs, then what you see above is just the beginning of what we have to offer! BlueBuddies.com has thousands of Smurf pics and thousands of smurfy items of interest. To check out the whole gallery visit our main page - click here!
Read more at bluebuddies.com
Rubber band Gatling Gun for Big Kids
What do you think ?
Okay, let’s get right to the point – this thing is expensive. Like $500 expensive. So, let’s glory in expensive contraptions. The rubber band gatling gun is one bad, er, toy.
It’s pretty explanatory. Here are the features:
- Mounted flashlight. (batteries included)
- 100 rounds capacity, “shoot as fast as you crank” gatling gun. (2 lbs of rubber bands included)
- Gun self-supports with the barrels aligned with the users arm to aid in accuracy
Read more at gopaultech.com
- Ships with operators manual, and features a pictorial loading instructions quick-guide.
Sage
Tips & recipes
A mainstay of Mediterranean cuisine, sage has a pungent flavor and aroma variously described as musky, minty, and slightly
floral.
Season: Year-round.
- How to Choose Sage
Select fragrant, vibrant green gray leaves with no signs of wilting, browning, or other damage.
- How to Store Sage
Roll sage in a damp paper towel and refrigerate in a tightly closed plastic bag for up to 4 days.
- How to Prepare Sage
Wash leaves just before using, pat dry, then slice. Prevent bruising by using a sharp knife and cutting just before serving.
To slice many leaves at once, stack them, roll them up lengthwise (like a cigar), and slice crosswise.
—Melinda Page
Real Simple Sage Recipes
See more at www.realsimple.com
Delhi men in Female only metro forced to do sit-ups
Delhi men in female-only metro forced to do sit-ups: reports
A group of male passengers travelling in a female-only carriage on New Delhi's new metro system were ordered to do sit-ups on the platform by the furious women, according to reports. Skip related content
At least one carriage is reserved for women on every metro train in the Indian capital, where female residents and tourists have complained about sexual harassment on public transport for decades.
The metro has also become severely congested with the lines expanding into the suburbs over the last year and most regular carriages packed to capacity.
See more at uk.news.yahoo.com
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Top 10 British tearooms
A nice cup of Tea November 28th
Here in Britain we take our tea seriously. Each day we sink 165 million cups of it. It’s our national drink – classless, timeless and tasty.
And with a Visit Britain survey recently naming people's favourite cup of tea – Earl Grey with milk, no sugar, best enjoyed while dunking a Digestive biscuit and reading a good book – we thought it was time to look at Britain’s best places to savour a cup of the brown stuff.
The Wolseley, London
Attic, Bristol
Bettys, Harrogate
Time for Tea, London
The Tea Cosy, Brighton
Tchai-Ovna, Glasgow
Llangoed Hall, Mid Wales
Leaf Tea Bar, Liverpool
The Balmoral, Edinburgh
Read more at uk.travel.yahoo.comRead about Visit Britain's International A Nice Cup of Tea Day, which takes place on Sunday November 28th.
How to build an igloo
For the nuclear winter
Read more at io9.comPerhaps an asteroid hit the earth and kicked up enough dust to block out the sun. Perhaps global warming caused extreme temperatures at the lower end of the scale in your neck of the woods. Perhaps a supervillain with a Persian cat got ahold of a machine that controls the weather. Whatever happened, it resulted in you wandering through a frozen wasteland without shelter. You need a place to stay the night, and io9 can help you build one. The first step is to avoid some common misconceptions about igloos.
Love it or Hate it
Marmite stolen
£60k worth of Marmite stolen from warehouse
Savoury spread giant Marmite has been left £60,000 short of stock after thieves broke into a UK warehouse and snatched thousands of items from this year’s Christmas range. Skip related content
The Marmite thieves allegedly left the premises with a truck full of limited edition products, including 15,000 bars of Peculiar Milk Chocolate Marmite and over 2,000 products of its Christmas Gifting range, just weeks before the busy festive period.
Police, who are appealing for witnesses, confirmed to Yahoo! News earlier that the break-in occurred on Sunday 14 November at an anonymous location in West Yorkshire. The company, which has been left stunned by the incident, also urges people to come forward with information.
See more at uk.news.yahoo.com
Girl killed herself after dad posted this to her wall, NO!
A new spin on a facebook scam
Girl killed herself, after her dad posted this to her wall? No, a new spin on a Facebook scam
For a few days we've been monitoring a new spin on a Facebook scam, that claims a girl killed herself on Christmas Eve after her dad posted a message on her wall. Before we've documented both the related hoax warnings spread on Facebook, as well as scam pages that popped up trying to trick users into "liking" them, and the truth about the real woman's death that has been exploited by heartless cybercriminals.
The latest scam is spreading virally, tricking users into liking pages which claim to offer you access to the "horrific wall post" that allegedly made a girl kill herself on Christmas Eve.
See more at nakedsecurity.sophos.com
The word of the Year
Behold, the Word of the Year is unveiled
If you were going to choose a word to represent 2010 what would it be? Debt? Coalition? Wedding? Miners? Gamugate? Snow? There are lots to choose from. There are so many, in fact, that even the lexical behemoth that is the Oxford Dictionaries has struggled to narrow it down to just one word while it was selecting this year's ‘Word of the Year'.
Read more at uk.news.yahoo.comAnd so, without further ado, and not so much as a drum roll, I can reveal the 2010 Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Year is... ‘Big Society' or, yes, BS for short. Exciting, right? Call me a pessimist but it would appear that the Tory party's influence in the posher parts of the country is still rife.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
funonthenet : Message: Beautiful Fresh Roses For You...!!!!!
100 year old Doctor still making rounds
Read more at www.dailygood.org
100-Year-Old Doctor Still Making Rounds:
Dr. Walter Watson of Augusta, Georgia sees a few patients every day. Then, he drives himself down the block to University Hospital where he still serves as chairman of his department. Why is this significant? He's 100 years old. From his first delivery in 1944 until 1995, Dr. Watson ushered in a small army of satisfied customers. Today, they're known simply as the "Watson babies." Having delivered 10 percent of the Augusta population, Watson's patients now range in age from 15 to 66 and their ranks are innumerable. "We went to a basketball game one night and he looked at the program and said, 'I delivered every one of these kids,'" laughs his wife, Audrey.
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