Celebrity birthdays and children

Kanye West is only 16 days older than me. I would have guessed he was at least 35.

Liv Tyler is nine days younger than I am, which I think I knew. If not, I would have guessed she was a bit younger, like 28.

I love this picture of Lourdes.

Panda Trivia

There are only four cities in America that have Pandas on display in their zoos: Washington, DC, San Diego, Memphis and Atlanta. The only other cities outside of Asia with Pandas are Mexico City, Berlin, Vienna and Madrid. If I go through either Berlin or Vienna on my way to Prague, I'll try to see one.

There are two subspecies of Giant Pandas, Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca which is the most common, and Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis, which only live in the Quinling Mountains.

While Giant Pandas are classified in the bear family, the Red Panda is not a bear, but is more closely related to raccoons and is considered the only living member of the Ailuridae family.

It's All Greek to Me

A Prologue is a piece of writing at the beginning of a larger work, while an Epilogue is at the end. Now an Epigraph is a short saying or quote, again usually at the beginning of a larger work, while an Epigram is a short poem or saying with a twist at the end.
None of those should be confused with an Epitaph, which is text that honors the dead, and is usually on a tombstone.

Did you know...

That Tennesse Williams was born in Mississippi and Minnesota Fats was born in New York? Neither of them lived in the state they used as their nickname. Williams is buried in Missouri.

Giant Manta Rays

The first ever captive birth of a giant Manta Ray happened in Japan this week. The pregnancy lasted just over a year!

Did you know...

"If you ask for lemonade in a British pub or restaurant, you'll most likely get a can of 7-UP ... or Sprite"
via Metafilter

and

"While root beer is so popular in the US & Canada ... it is relatively unknown in the UK"?
via Root Beer in the UK

Did you know...

That your family tree probably contains duplicates?

This, That and the Other

On February 17, 2009, broadcasters will have to stop broadcasting an analog signal.

Frozen dishwashing liquid makes a great ice pack.

Did you know...

Pistachio nuts are highly flammable when stored in large quantities, and are prone to self heating and spontaneous combustion!?

Did you know

that Central Park (843 acres) is almost twice as big as the whole country of Monaco (482 acres)?

And that's not the only one: Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is 1,017 acres, Balboa Park in San Diego is 1,200 acres, Griffith Park in Los Angeles is 4,210 acres and Mission Trails in San Diego is a whopping 5,800 acres. None of those are actually the biggest city park in the country though, that honor goes to South Mountain Park in Phoenix, which contains over 16,000 acres.

Del.icio.us Hints

Using a watch as a compass - align the hour hand with the sun, and get out your protractor

Getting free Whoppers - not to actually get them, but to witness the saddest comment-thread argument ever

The Best Time to Buy Everything - buy Champagne in December

18 tricks to teach your body

Get 100 of your flickr photos printed for $19.99 - business card sized prints

46 Things I Wish My Mom Taught Me About Money

Quickly resize your images

How to be a Geek and be popular - worth reading especially if you are not a Geek

Make beautiful things out of paper

Have a nice, cheap organizer in minutes

Did you know

that the US Mint currently makes about ten billion pennies each year? They estimate there are around 140 billion pennies in circulation right now.

Did you know...

that the nearest black hole to our planet is 1600 light years from Earth in the direction of Sagittarius, orbiting V4641?

Did You Know

that Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious? Actually, I wouldn't know since I can't seem to get enough Dr. Pepper lately. But watch the video on the link above for great humor involving cupcakes and Alexander Hamilton.

Did you know

that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that we use only 10% of our brains?

Surftracks

Drive to China: a proposal for a bridge over the Bering Strait

IGN interviews Billy West, the voice of Fry, Zoidberg, the Professor and Zapp Brannigan on Futurama.

Placeopedia connects Wikipedia articles with their locations.

See the world from the top of Mt Everest.

Want to watch live tv from around the world?

MIT offers OpenCourseWare which is "a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world."

Read who made the list of the 50 biggest nerds of all time, including what their Defining Nerd Moment was. Example: 14. Millhouse Van Houten Bart Simpson's bull-nosed sidekick. Defining nerd moment: Millhouse manages to out-nerd other Simpsons' characters, even Martin Prince, Professor Frink and Lisa, when he buys Bart's soul for $5 and sells it to Comic Book Guy for Alf pogs.

Keep track of the numbers that shape our world, and then visit the hunger site and the five other tabs it links to so you can help save the planet a little each day.

What makes Uranus unique?

The planet of Uranus has an axis that is almost parallel to it's orbital plane (most planets' are close to perpendicular), so it looks like it's rolling as it orbits the sun. This means the polar regions would experience 42 years of light and 42 years of darkness, since one Uranian year is equal to 84 earth years.

As for the mythological figure Uranus, he seemed to have a problem with not having kids the usual way. He is credited as the father of the Erinyes, Hecatonchires, Cyclopses and Titans (and therefore the grandfather of Zeus). Then, there was the whole thing where Gaia (his mother and wife) got tired of him constantly reproducing with her and hiding the kids that she convinced their son Cronus to cut his manhood off with a sickle. Cronus then threw the body parts into the sea and stories differ as to whether Aphrodite was born of this, or if it produced the island of Corfu. The blood from this fun family activity fell to Earth and produced giants and nymphs.

Life begins as spat:

Feeling a bit odd today, so I regale you with the following:

Oyster Reproduction: Au Naturel

Members of the genus Ostrea are bisexual, that is, they alternate between being male and female during the course of a single breeding season. During a female phase, the oyster deposits eggs within the shell, and these eggs are fertilized by sperm released when the same oyster switches to a male phase. After a 12-day period of incubation, the larval oysters, or spat, swim away from the parent in search of their own place to settle.
Members of genus Crassostrea are intersexual. They begin life as males, and then change to females the following season. After this, they remain primarily female but revert from time to time into males. Reproduction is quite a bit more haphazard for this genus, because the eggs and sperm are released directly into the water, and fertilization takes place when a pair happens to cross paths. Successfully fertilized eggs, should they survive, rapidly grow into spat, and they, too, swim off in search of a home.

After fourteen days, the spat, whether Ostrea or Crassostrea, must attach themselves to a stationary object - a rock, a mangrove tree, the post of a pier, even another oyster. There they will remain for their entire lives -- unless they happen to be cultured oysters, in which case, the spat has settled on a collector planted there by an oyster farmer

Papal Trivia

The new Pope has selected Benedict XVI as his regnal name, but some of the previous Benedicts have had some bad luck:

Benedict V was deposed by Otto I, and Benedict VI was deposed following Otto I's death and then strangled by order of Crescentius, the son of the notorious Theodora. This was after a period of over fifty years known as the Pornocracy (literally "rule by prostitutes"), where the popes were strongly influenced by Theodora and her daughter Maroiza.

Benedict IX was given the papacy by his father, at a young age in 1032, and had 3 seperate terms due to his first selling the office to his godfather and then being deposed twice.

But all of that pales in comparison to the Cadaver Synod, in which Pope Formosus' body was put on trial nine months after his death!

Did you know

how the moon was formed? Sam's archive explains:
"...an object the size of Mars hit Earth once in the dim and distant past. Rather than simply bouncing off, the object destroyed much of both itself and Earth, causing a VAST spray of matter to be hurled off from the impact point; this matter coagulated into what is now the Moon."

Country Profiles

Always a wealth of information, the BBC website has profiles and timelines for all the countries and territories of Europe

Did you know

that Spam, Krispy Kreme and Kraft Dinner all came out the same year?

Did you know

As of November 6th, 2004, there were over 44 million generic Top Level Domains (.com .edu .mil .net .org .gov) registered?

Did you know...

That the distance between the North and South poles is only 7900 miles if you travel through the center of the Earth?

Did you know...

That retailers report more than $800 million of missing carts in the U.S. alone each year?

Did you know...

That both South America and East Asia are planning to become communities not unlike the European Union, with common economies?

Did you know...

That furkid is another name for a pet?

That your speeding might be because you've been velocitized and you're so used to freeway driving that even 30 mph feels slower than walking?

That I am part of the 13th Generation, those born between 1961 and 1981? We are the 13th generation to know the American Flag.

That driving an SUV produces approximately 5 tons of carbon a year?

Find out these and other amazing facts at The Word Spy.

Did you know...

The last dependent of a Revolutionary War veteran died in 1911.

About 439 children and widows of Spanish-American War veterans still receive VA compensation or pensions.

Six children of Civil War veterans still draw VA benefits.

UPC Codes

You can use http://www.upcdatabase.com/ to look up a product by it's UPC code. Weird, but cool.

Which direction does the water flow down a drain at the equator?

Which direction does the water flow down a drain at the equator?

You know how water flows down the drain the opposite way on the other side of the equator? Well, that's not really the case. The direction that water flows down a drain is based on the way the toilet or sink is built and has nothing to do with which hemisphere it's in. That's just a myth!

A few fun facts

Nearly 3 billion people, or half the world, live on less than $2 a day.

Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names

Less than 1 percent of what the world spends every year on weapons could put every child in a classroom

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 30, 2004 p24

Did you know...

That Norah Jones is Ravi Shankar's daughter?

Did you know...

The name Spain came from a Phoenician word, which means 'rabbit coast'