My post yesterday on ugly creatures got a some people telling me that I spelt ‘the’ wrong. It was on purpose, to highlight the stupidity of the internet which in that context should be called “teh internets“.
Clearly, the people who were texting me and told me about the “typo” don’t know about geek humor. Well, here is the Urban Dictionary, a place to figure out what all those kids are saying. Some entries are NSFW and kinda tasteless, but hey, so is the internet.
When you take that fresh watermelon home, don’t put it immediately in the fridge. Unlike most produce, watermelons do not deteriorate after being harvested. You can benefit from storing them at room temperature, until an hour or two before serving.
The red color of watermelons comes from lycopene, the valuable antioxidant relative of carotene. Scientists at the USDA lab in Lane, Oklahoma discovered that watermelons held for two weeks at room temperature continue to produce lycopene and deepen in color, ending up with 10 to 40% more pigment than freshly harvested melons. On the other hand, watermelons stored in cold temperatures lose lycopene, and develop areas where cells are damaged and leaky. This may be a result of the fruit’s origins, namely hot and dry regions of Africa, and therefore don’t do well in cold conditions.
A study by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives released its report yesterday entitled, the Social Benefits and Economic Costs of Taxation: A Comparison of High- and Low-Tax Countries by Neil Brooks and Thaddeus Hwong. The report studies high-tax Nordic countries and low-tax Anglo-America countries on 50 social and economic measures and finds the high-tax Nordic countries score better in 42 categories. In short, tax cuts are disastrous for the well-being of a nation’s citizen.
The report alleges that Canada’s fairly low tax rate will cause Canada to fall behind a number of OECD nations in a wide range of social and economic areas. Countries like Finland with high tax rates are actually preforming quite well economically, with a steady share of the research and development market. Smart and savy.
A professor in the UK has come up with a new number (really it’s a non-number-number) that means we no longer have to divide by zero. Instead, zero is replaced with “nullity,” which is nothing times infinity.
“The theory of nullity is set to make all kinds of sums possible that, previously, scientists and computers couldn’t work around.
“We’ve just solved a problem that hasn’t been solved for twelve hundred years – and it’s that easy,” proclaims Dr Anderson having demonstrated his solution on a whiteboard at Highdown School, in Emmer Green.”
In Japan the Minster of the Environment has started a neat way to raise awareness about wastefulness.
“Ms Yuriko Koike, Minister of the Environment, has created the “Mottainai Furoshiki” as a symbol of Japanese culture to reduce waste. Furoshiki is a Japanese traditional wrapping cloth which is used repeatedly in a stylish way. (The utilization of this “Mottainai Furoshiki” will contribute to reducing household waste from plastic bags.) The Minister presented the “Mottainai Furoshiki” at the Senior Officials Meeting on the 3R Initiative held in Tokyo, Japan on March 6-8, 2006″
Thanks Allison Belisle!