Underpants for your Hands
Men's Bra
Infant Pillow
DVD Rewinder
Pepsi White
Inflatable Toast
Handsets for cell phones
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Unwanted Products
Monday, June 7, 2010
Ancient Pagan rituals
In the ancient world, a Pagan was anyone who worshiped gods that were different to those worshiped by the Romans and the Greeks before them. In particular, the Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and the Celts were classified as Pagans and their religious rituals were seen as weird, often because they were!
1. The Druid Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe
To the early Druid priests of Gaul and Britain, the oak tree held great significance in their rituals and was considered sacred. Likewise mistletoe, which can grow on the oak, also had an important role in their religion. According to a Roman chronicler 'Pliny the Elder' writing in the 1st century AD, it was believed that when mistletoe fell from an oak, it was a sign that the tree had been selected by their god.
Pliny states that on the 6th day of the moon, Druid priests dressed in white robes would prepare a banquet beneath the tree and bring up to it two white bulls. A priest would then climb the tree and cut down a branch of mistletoe with a golden sickle. The white bulls would be sacrificed while the attendants prayed to a god; the mistletoe was then given to livestock in a drink which, it was believed, was an antidote to all poisons and would make any baron animal fertile.
2. Anglo-Saxon's and the Wild Boar
The boar was a very important symbol in many pagan societies and was associated with both warrior and fertility gods and goddesses. In the Anglo-Saxon midwinter feast, a wild boar would be sacrificed and vows made for the following year, giving us the tradition of New Years Resolutions. According to the Roman commentator Tacitus, they would wear boar skin into combat instead of armor, believing it would give them the protection of 'the Mother of the gods' and guaranteeing the warrior would be fearless in the heat of the battle.
3. The Pagan Origins of Easter
The word 'Easter' was first proposed as the name for the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus by the 8th century monk St Bede. He derived the word from an Anglo-Saxon mother goddess of the spring, dawn and new life and beginnings, called Eastre.
On the day of the spring equinox, 21 March, the Anglo-Saxons held a festival in honor of Eastre, during which a rabbit was used as a symbol of fertility and eggs were painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight brought by the coming of spring. The eggs were then given to friends and families as gifts, or used in egg rolling contents.
4. Viking Blood Sacrifice (Blot)
The Viking blood sacrifice or Blot was practiced at various times of year to give thanks to the gods or to try and please them. While the blot was usually performed with animal blood, one saga mentions the King of the Swedes being sacrificed to Odin.
The ritual would be performed out in the open and no violence was allowed at the meeting place. The animal would be sacrificed over an alter made of pilled stones and the blood collected in a bowl. The priest would recite songs in honour of the god being worshiped then pass the bowl around a flame three times while reciting magic words. The same was done with the meat of the animal before finally, the priest sprinkled the blood of the sacrificed animal on himself and all attending and poured what was left on the altar.
5. The Wicker Man
Perhaps the weirdest and most notorious ritual of the ancient Pagans was human sacrifices. Historians debate whether Pagan cultures actually practiced human sacrifice as most writing on the subject comes from their enemies. Tales of human sacrifice may be real or just Greek and Roman propaganda designed to encourage support for war against Pagan cultures from the citizens back home.
In his 'Commentaries on the Gallic War', Julius Caesar talks about the unusual ritual practiced, according to him, by the Gauls in the 1st century BC. Although admitting that he hadn't seen the ritual with his own eyes, Caesar claimed that large man-shaped effigy called a Wicker Man would be built out of sticks and set alight, with those to be sacrificed to the gods trapped inside. Usually criminals would be used but if none could be found then innocent men would be burned alive instead.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Dreams
10. Blind People Dream
People who become blind after birth can see images in their dreams. People who are born blind do not see any images, but have dreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell, touch and emotion. It is hard for a seeing person to imagine, but the body's need for sleep is so strong that it is able to handle virtually all physical situations to make it happen.
9. You Forget 90% of your Dreams
Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream if forgotten. Within 10, 90% is gone. The famous poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, woke one morning having had a fantastic dream (likely opium induced) – he put pen to paper and began to describe his "vision in a dream" in what has become one of English's most famous poems: Kubla Khan. Part way through (54 lines in fact) he was interrupted by a "Person from Porlock". Coleridge returned to his poem but could not remember the rest of his dream. The poem was never completed.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
[...]
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
[...]
Curiously, Robert Louis Stevenson came up with the story of Doctor Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde whilst he was dreaming. Wikipedia has more on that here. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was also the brainchild of a dream.
8. Everybody Dreams
Every human being dreams (except in cases of extreme psychological disorder) but men and women have different dreams and different physical reactions. Men tend to dream more about other men, while women tend to dream equally about men and women. In addition, both men and women experience sexually related physical reactions to their dreams regardless of whether the dream is sexual in nature; males experience erections and females experience increased vaginal blood flow.
7. Dreams Prevent Psychosis
In a recent sleep study, students who were awakened at the beginning of each dream, but still allowed their 8 hours of sleep, all experienced difficulty in concentration, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis after only 3 days. When finally allowed their REM sleep the student's brains made up for lost time by greatly increasing the percentage of sleep spent in the REM stage.
6. We Only Dream of What We Know
Our dreams are frequently full of strangers who play out certain parts – did you know that your mind is not inventing those faces – they are real faces of real people that you have seen during your life but may not know or remember? The evil killer in your latest dream may be the guy who pumped petrol in to your Dad's car when you were just a little kid. We have all seen hundreds of thousands of faces through our lives, so we have an endless supply of characters for our brain to utilize during ourdreams.
5. Not Everyone Dreams in Color
A full 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in black and white. The remaining number dream in full color. People also tend to have common themes in dreams, which are situations relating to school, being chased, running slowly/in place, sexual experiences, falling, arriving too late, a person now alive being dead, teeth falling out, flying, failing an examination, or a car accident. It is unknown whether the impact of a dream relating to violence or death is more emotionally charged for a person whodreams in color than one who dreams in black and white.
4. Dreams are not about what they are about
]If you dream about some particular subject it is not often that the dream is about that. Dreams speak in a deeply symbolic language. The unconscious mind tries to compare your dream to something else, which is similar. Its like writing a poem and saying that a group of ants were like machines that never stop. But you would never compare something to itself, for example: "That beautiful sunset was like a beautiful sunset". So whatever symbol your dream picks on it is most unlikely to be a symbol for itself.
3. Quitters have more vivid dreams
People who have smoked cigarettes for a long time who stop, have reported much more vivid dreams than they would normally experience. Additionally, according to the Journal of Abnormal Psychology: "Among 293 smokers abstinent for between 1 and 4 weeks, 33% reported having at least 1 dream about smoking. In most dreams, subjects caught themselves smoking and felt strong negative emotions, such as panic and guilt. Dreams about smoking were the result of tobacco withdrawal, as 97% of subjects did not have them while smoking, and their occurrence was significantly related to the duration of abstinence. They were rated as more vivid than the usual dreams and were as common as most major tobacco withdrawal symptoms."
2. External Stimuli Invade our Dreams
This is called Dream Incorporation and it is the experience that most of us have had where a sound from reality is heard in our dream and incorporated in some way. A similar (though less external) example would be when you are physically thirsty and your mind incorporates that feeling in to your dream. My ownexperience of this includes repeatedly drinking a large glass of water in the dream which satisfies me, only to find the thirst returning shortly after – this thirst… drink… thirst… loop often recurs until I wake up and have a real drink. The famous painting above (Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening) by Salvador Dali, depicts this concept.
1. You are paralyzed while you sleep
Believe it or not, your body is virtually paralyzed during your sleep – most likely to prevent your body from acting out aspects of yourdreams. According to the Wikipedia, "Glands begin to secrete a hormone that helps induce sleep and neurons send signals to the spinal cord which cause the body to relax and later become essentially paralyzed."
Extra Facts
1. When you are snoring, you are not dreaming.
2. Toddlers do not dream about themselves until around the age of 3. From the same age, children typically have many more nightmares than adults do until age 7 or 8.
3. If you are awakened out of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, you are more likely to remember your dream in a more vivid way than you would if you woke from a full night sleep.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Massive 5MB Hard Disk of 1956
Its a hard disk in 1956.... The Volume and Size of 5MB memory storage in 1956. In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Guerrilla gardening
First, what is guerrilla gardening? Hipsters and housewives alike are part of the rapidly growing underground – or rather, rightintheground – political activism movement to beautify bedraggled corners and unkempt spaces of public places, from streets to curbs to corners and stoops. This surreptitious environmental warfare is fought with pick and hoe; its ammunition, seeds and saplings. That's right: the unlawful (sort of) guerrilla movement sprouting out and cropping up in a city near you is all about gardening. You, too, can be a lawless hooligan bettering your neighborhood's walkways, highways and byways by way of pending marigold circles and nascent juniper hedges. Here's how to do it. You civilly disobedient thing, you.
Step 1: Define Personal Brand
Will you be part of an organized team, launching your green thumbs in an unstoppable offensive of rose bushes at 7th and Westcott? Or will you work alone, vigilante style, bedding down poppies with abandon at 12th and Orchard? Determine your personal guerrilla gardening style and plan accordingly. Working publicly in a group is considered the creation of "graffiti with nature" and there are groups in nearly every major city, while late-night forays to increase the pleasing odors emanating from the back alley with a thorough planting of bleeding hearts would be considered standard-issue, albeit solo, guerrilla gardening and doesn't require joining up with any group. Define yourself, and stick to it. Or don't. Whatever, just plant something already. Remember that affixing "ninja" to anything is practically guaranteed to lend to success in all you do. Now that you have reputation management and brand identity squarely underfoot, you'll need to develop:
Step 2: Your Battle Strategy, Etc.
Technically, guerrilla gardening is illegal. If you're doing so much as pulling weeds from someone else's land, especially Uncle Sam's, you're unlikely to get points for being considerate and helpful. This isn't the UK. That said, you're also highly unlikely to go to jail for the audacious crime of improving neglected crevices and crannies, making this the perfect act of political environmentalism for those too burdened with such things as offspring, student loans and/or impressive Twitter followings to commit more serious crimes of civil disobedience that might land one in the slammer.
Now, strategy. You'll want to pick a method that should inform your choice of location. Questions to consider: will you be a one-time azalea assassin, or will you be making this a regularly scheduled habit of daisy debauchery? Is there a certain spot in your town that you've been in agony about and you're tired of petitioning the city commission to once and for all remove that blasted rusty fence guarding a sagging mailbox of ill repute? Or are the street corners in your area all composed of mud and in need of a little germinal love? Think about this and make a determination of supplies and their corresponding costs, and decide how much crime you can really commit to. Decide if you want to garden in the middle of the night, which decreases your odds of being seen but increases your odds of being questioned, or in the early morning or evening, when you're more likely to be considered sane but also more likely to be identified.
Intention is important. No general takes the battlefield without first harnessing his chi. Take a moment to manifest the positive energy of the universe and/or connect with your deity of choice. Humming kumbayah and telling the plants you love them is also recommended.
Step 3: Logistics and So Forth
Plants? Check. Event scheduled, for least busy time of week at a preferably late-night hour? Check. Bags for cleanup? Check. Tools: headlamp, plastic baggies fastened around boots, gloves, supportive non-drunk friend(s)? Check. You've chosen your spot; go forth and garden. Note, Trader Joe's has the cheapest plants. Birds eat seeds and children delight in trampling any mesh netting you might set up to deter avian meddlers. Consider yourself warned; go for sprouts at the very least. Finally, be sure you manage to leave the spot in better condition than you found it – the whole point is to be caught bettering the world, not grubbing it up, if you should be caught.
Step 4: Doing the Deed Requires a Chick
You're far more likely to avoid trouble if you bring a female of the species with you. This lends credibility to your act and averts passerby fears of potential catcalls should they come within 50 yards of you as you flail around in the dirt, since clearly your fine guerrilla acting skills have got you convincingly portrayed as a city employee and unfortunately being a male occupied with a task involving movement of dirt makes you, obviously, a hornballish pervert incapable of anything but apish gestures and whistling. So bring a girl.
It's not likely that anyone will think you're actually a guerrilla gardener – who'd be lunatic enough to garden at their own expense on land that isn't one's own? – so bringing a lass along is more to ease the psychological anxiety and reduce stereotypical assumptions about your obsession with your doubtless overpetted trouser mouse in the minds of passerby than anything else. If you have to make a sudden escape, do not worry; women, especially the young ones, can run surprisingly fast and rarely stumble despite what is depicted in popular cinema. A warning: women are paranoid and will be convinced their sixth sense has detected impending discovery and subsequent prosecution that will inevitably result in social ruin and financial disaster in addition to a rather undesirable relationship with a hairy large inmate, so come armed with plenty of soothing yet ruggedly masculine and most importantly very convincing platitudes deposited in your memory bank.
Step 5: Additional Advice
Make sure you've chosen hardy, preferably perennial plants that are easy to maintain since you're going to have to return to the scene of your crime to maintain them. Why yes, that's right! If you're going to garden a patch of land that's not yours, you have the responsibility to keep those greens at full chlorophyllic capacity.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Impending water crisis
If you were to ask the average person what the most important resource was for the development of human society and is today for the continuation of its functions, you will get many answers, but water will probably not be one of the top choices. This is partly due to ignorance and misconceptions about the availability of water and our usage habits and partly because of the lack of mainstream attention towards the issue. Here's a look at the historical and current importance of water and its vital role in our development and sustenance, and how we continue to disregard its importance and and ignorantly waste billions of gallons of it.
Historical Importance of Water
The difference between flourishing civilizations and those that remained small and eventually collapsed was in a major way their geographic location in relation to water. Those that were located around major waterways, like Mesopotamia and Egypt, owe their development to waterways (Tigris and Euphrates for Mesopotamia and the Nile for Egypt), just as much as relatively modern societies like New York City and Chicago did to their ports in their early days. Not only did their proximity to water give access to safe water for drinking, but also allowed irrigation for agriculture, development of trade routes with other nations, and water for bathing, washing, and more recently, for recreation.
Using Water for Agriculture (Irrigation)
Part of the reason why water is so important is because of the versatility of the resource. Most importantly, we use water for agriculture (via irrigation). In agrarian economies, where agriculture is the main means of sustenance, up to 90 percent of the countries' water resources are used up by irrigation (where agriculture normally accounts for 60-70 percent).
Using Water for Drinking (Hydration)
You probably know that the human body is approximately 60% water (blood is 95% water). For our bodies to function properly, we need on average 2 liters of water per day to stay hydrated. These 2 liters are partly consumed through foods, fruits, vegetables, and other beverages, and partly from drinking water. However, in spite of these requirement, about 1.1 billion people – mostly families in developing countries – don't have access to safe drinking water, leading to the deaths of thousands of children every day.
Using Water at Home (Hygiene and Sanitation)
One of the most extensive uses of water is domiciliary. We use water inside the home for bathing/showering and grooming, washing clothes and dishes, flushing the toilet, and generally keeping the place clean. Similarly, we use water outside the house for watering lawns and gardens or using sprinklers, washing cars, and to fill pools for kids. All in all, though most of these uses are justified and necessary, we waste an excessive amount of water by simply not paying attention to efficient use and conservation. At the same time, about 42 percent of the world's population has no proper means of sanitation which when coupled with the lack of safe drinking water, is responsible for the deaths of almost 5,000 children per day.
Wasting Billions of Gallons a Day
Between wasting water for recreational purposes (water parks, water skiing, swimming/pools, etc.), running showers and faucets and leakages, and using excessive water for raising meat, we waste billions of gallons of water a year. As an example (and one of the reason to embrace an organic and vegetarian lifestyle), it takes 5,000 gallons of water per pound of meat and 25 gallons of water per pound of wheat. Furthermore, a meat-based diet demands approximately 4,000 gallons of water per day while a vegetarian diet demands less than 10 percent of that. While it is true that a little over 70 percent of our planet is covered with water, it is also true that approximately only 2 percent of is drinkable right away (the other 98% is too salty, and while desalination is an option, it isn't always economically viable or environmentally friendly).
While the world is focused on an energy crisis and is fighting wars over oil (or working towards finding solutions through alternative energy), a new kind of politics has been quietly emerging – water politics. Due to misconceptions about the availability of the resource, a complete disregard for its conservation and widespread misuse, water pollution, and overpopulation, water is fast become our most precious and most wasted resource, and is already projected to be the next scarce resource we will fight over. As outlined by the IHT, in another two decades, approximately 47 percent of the world's population will be living in areas with severe water stress 2030, about 47 percent of the world's population will be living in areas with severe water stress, making it one of the greatest human development challenges of the century.
But all is not gloom and doom. There are many organizations working together to increase awareness of the water problem and helping people waste less.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Gulf Oil spill
The mayor of Grand Isle, the only inhabited island on Louisiana's Gulf Coast, closed the beach to the public Friday after oil from the BP spill washed ashore.
Mayor David Camardelle closed the 8-mile-long island's beach to its 1,500 residents and the thousands more tourists who normally flock to the vacation spot to fish and swim, The Miami Herald reported Friday.
Lisa Rhobus, who runs the Cajun Holiday Motel, told the Herald all her rooms were booked before the disaster, but now every reservation has been canceled.
"The only paying people I have at Cajun Holiday are workers helping with the cleanup. This could just about kill Grand Isle," Rhobus said.
A giant oil slick 7 miles from Grand Isle was spotted from helicopters Friday.
"It's coming our way. All that oil you're seeing on Grand Isle beach now -- that's nothing compared to what's coming," one deputy sheriff told the Herald.
Oil collects in a cove on Elmer's Island, Louisiana. The oil washed over booms seen in the background designed to protect the beaches from crude oil gushing from the sunken BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Oil continues to leak from the ruptured well some 5000 feet from the surface. UPI/A.J. Sisco
Soaked in oil, a seabird lies dead in the surf on Elmer's Island, Louisiana, May 21, 2010. Oil began washing up on the beaches and marshes of Southern Louisiana after the explosion of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig a month ago. UPI/A.J. Sisco
Thick crude oil drips from a rake on Elmer's Island, Louisiana, May 21, 2010. Workers began scraping the beaches after oil from the sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig began to wash up on the sand. UPI/A.J. Sisco
Rontrell Robertson of Houma, Louisiana, holds a rake dripping with thick crude oil scraped from the beach of Grand Isle, Louisiana, May 22, 2010. Oil has begun to wash up on South Louisiana beaches from the sunken BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which is gushing hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico every day. UPI/A.J. Sisco.
A pool of oil makes patterns on the beach of Grand Isle, Louisiana, May 21, 2010. Crude oil from the sunken BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig has begun to wash up on the marshes and beaches of South Louisiana. UPI/A.J. Sisco
Cleanup workers bag oil-contaminated sand on Elmer's Island, Louisiana, after crude from the Deepwater Horizon rig began washing ashore May 21, 2010. The BP well exploded and has been gushing thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico daily. UPI/A.J. Sisco
A pool of oil collects on the beach of Elmer's Island, Louisiana, May 21, 2010. Crude oil from the sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig has begun to wash up on the marshes and beaches of South Louisiana. UPI/A.J. Sisco
Oil collects in a cove on Elmer's Island, Louisiana. The oil washed over booms. seen in the background, designed to protect the beaches from crude oil gushing from the sunken BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig. UPI/A.J. Sisco
Seabirds flutter over the beach on Elmer's Island, Louisiana, May 21, 2010. Crude oil has begun to hit the coast from the sunken BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig. UPI/A.J. Sisco
A boom is seen in use around the port of Bayou La Batre, Alabama on May 21, 2010. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
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