Blue Moon - 12/31/2009

A blue moon is a full moon that is not timed to the regular monthly pattern. Most years have twelve full moons which occur approximately monthly, but in addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains an excess of roughly eleven days compared to the lunar year. The extra days accumulate, so that every two or three years, there is an extra full moon. The extra moon is called a "blue moon".
This New Year's Eve, there will be a blue moon in the sky. What's more, this New Year's Eve, people living in the Far East will see a lunar eclipse, making this an even rarer...er rarity. A blue-moon eclipse only happens once roughly every 15 to 20 years.

Blue Moon Calendar:
2009: December 2, December 31 (Blue Moon on New Year's Eve)
2012: August 2, August 31
2015: July 2, July 31

Enjoy!

Custom-made condoms for Indians

The Indian Council of Medical Research carried out a two-year study which concluded that about 60% of Indian men have penises which are between three and five centimetres shorter than international standards used in condom manufacture. It has led to a call for condoms of mixed sizes to be made more widely available in India.

Nokia suing Apple

Nokia, the world's largest phone maker, filed its new complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC). The complaint relates to seven patents on "user interface, camera, antenna and power management technologies".

Attack On Pope

Today a woman threw herself at Pope Benedict XVI and dragged him to the ground as he entered St Peter's Basilica to celebrate Christmas Eve mass.
As the pontiff passed through the basilica in procession, the woman climbed over a safety barrier and knocked him to the ground. She was later arrested.
The pope was unharmed but a cardinal who was pulled down with him had to be taken to hospital with a broken leg. The Vatican later described the woman as an emotionally unbalanced admirer and revealed that she had also attempted to leap out at the Pope last year, but had been restrained.
Despite the incident, the Pope went on to say Mass as planned.

No comment.

IPO Candidates For 2010

An interesting analisys about potential 2010 IPOs.

Starwars on Facebook

Enjoy! :)

Husband won't eat dinner...

A woman from Texas has called 911 at least 30 times during the last six months for non-emergency reasons, including a call to complain that her husband refused to eat his dinner.
The woman now faces charges of 911 abuse.
How stupid is that? There are people out there who really need this service and hopefully no one got hurt. Hey, I have an idea, why don't you learn to cook?

Have you been good this year?

If you are waiting for Santa, make sure you are ready. You can track him here. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity

I came upon a very interesting article about programmers and their salaries. Here it is:

The most productive programmers orders of magnitude more productive than average programmers. But salaries usually fall within a fairly small range in any company. Even across the entire profession, salaries don’t vary that much. If some programmers are 10x more productive than others, why aren’t they paid 10x as much?

Animals Inside the Womb

National Geographic captured rare highly detailed images of animals at various stages of gestation. The animal's wombs were scanned, then model makers recreated every blood vessel and whisker. The resulting images, while not direct photographs, are, according to the researchers, accurate representations of what goes on inside these creatures' wombs.

Microsoft Word and Office banned

Microsoft Word and Office will be banned from sale starting January 11th, 2010. Microsoft lost a patent infringement suit against XML specialists i4i back in May 2009 when it was found that Word's handling of .xml, .docx, and .docm files infringed upon i4i's patented XML handling algorithms. Existing Office users should also be fine, as only future sales of Word are affected by the ruling, not any already-sold products.
Microsoft replied they will removed the XML algorithm by January 11 and will replace it with their own implementation.
I expect there will be some issues with the product as the code was implemented in the last minute and probably not well tested. I don't think I will upgrade for awhile.

Barbarian But Just

A Pakistanian court ordered that two men have their noses and ears chopped off, after the two were convicted of doing the same to a young woman.
The two men attacked the woman, Fazeelat Bibi, 22, on September 28, in the village of Zafarkey, southwest of Lahore, Inspector Hakim Ali said. Along with their cousin Mohammed Ali and two other men, they hid, stopped Bibi on her way home from work, and strangled her with a wire. When they thought she was dead, they cut off her nose and ears.
I know this sounds cruel. I am not sure how many years of jail can pay for the nightmare this woman has to go through and the new face she has to live with. So, yes, maybe a barbarian decision but I think it's just.

Killer Mom Won't Be Charged

A woman in Campbell County, Virginia smothered her newborn infant. When the police arrived in her house, they discovered the baby was actually born about ten hours earlier and was already dead. The baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators said because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta.
In the state of Virginia a baby is not considered to be a separate life as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother.
Are they serious? When does a life start? And if you don't want a child why carry the child for nine months? This is crazy and sick.

WTF?

After more than 35 years in prison, James Bain was set free Thursday (12/17/2009) after a DNA test showed he did not kidnap and rape a 9-year-old boy in 1974.
Bain was 19 when he was convicted on charges of kidnapping, burglary and strong-arm rape. He received a life sentence. He's going home for the first time in 35 years.

This is such a scary story. This man wasted 35 years in prison; not 35 minutes, or 35 weeks, but years, the prime years of his life. How does this guy feel now? How will he adapt to his new life? Scary, this is so scary. How would you feel if you were Bain?

Green Dogs in Russia

A pack of some 20 stray dogs has turned green after scavenging for food at an illegal dump on the outskirts of Russia's Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
How stupid are the people who dumped the toxic waste? Don't they realize this is dangerous, affects everyone, and the outcome is unpredictable? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Skin and Lung Cancer Genes Cracked

Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers - skin and lung cancers.

The scientists found the DNA code for a skin cancer called melanoma contained more than 30,000 errors almost entirely caused by too much sun exposure.

The Longest Sea Bridge

12/16/2009
The Longest Sea Bridge China announced they have started the construction of a 30-miles long, Y-shaped bridge, which will connect Hong Kong, Macau, and China. The bridge is designed to withstand the impact of strong winds (100mph), magnitude-8 earthquake, and a 300,000-tonne vessel. The cost is estimated to be $11 billion and is due to be completed by 2015.

[source:guardian.co.uk]

Amazing, isn't it?

Lazy? Google comes to rescue

Google URL Shortener at goo.gl is a service that takes long URLs and squeezes them into fewer characters to make a link that is easier to share, tweet, or email to friends. The core goals of this service are:

Stability – ensuring that the service has very good uptime
Security – protecting users from malware and phishing pages
Speed – fast resolution of short URLs

Google URL Shortener is currently available for Google products and not for broader consumer use.

Cocopus or Octonut?


Scientists have discovered an octopus that collects coconut shells and makes a shelter out of them. Octopuses use foreign objects as a shelter but in this case, the octopus prepared the shelves by emptying them out, carried them for some distance and reassembled them to make a spherical hiding place. This seems to be the first example of tool use in an invertebrate animal. Isn't that amazing? What do you think?

[source:new.yahoo.com]

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest

I understand people's excitement to be on Facebook and easily share their feelings and thoughts with friends. However, let me give you two quick tips to save you some trouble and embarrassment:

Tiger Woods - Woods on Fire

I have always respected Tiger Woods and admired his professionalism and love for the game. He appeared to be a well-grounded and balanced person and I was happy for his successes. I heard on the news about a week ago that he was in a car accident and was a little worried for him. He was just outside of his house when he crashed into a fire hydrant and a tree. He was taken to a hospital. The worry quickly turned into a puzzlement when I found out that there were no alcohol or other cars involved, he was alone in the car, and his wife had to break the SUV windows with a golf club to get him out. Suddenly, I wanted to find out what has happened - drugs, a serious medical condition, a car malfunction? I was glad to find out he was released from the hospital in good health with several scratches around his mouth.

Space Tourism - A Reality


Billionaire Sir Richard Branson, who owns and heads Virgin Galactic a part of the Virgin Group, unveiled today a new commercial spaceship in Mojave, California.

The spacecraft, called SpaceShipTwo, will carry two pilot astronauts and six ticketed passengers. The journey will last about two-an-a half hours from beginning to end and he passsengers will experience weightlessness for a few minutes. The ticket will cost $200,000.