…at least according to Consumer Reports:
http://autos.aol.com/gallery/consumer-reports-best-worst-car-brands/
If you’re looking for a new vehicle, the above might prove informative, especially the links to the vehicles behind each brand.
Category Archives: General
8 Surprising Historical Facts…
…That Will Change Your Concept of Time Forever, at least according to Todd Van Luling for The Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/26/historical-facts-time_n_4832325.html
I’m not going to spoil the whole relatively short list, but my favorite bit has to be number 3, that the Ottoman Empire still existed the last time the Chicago Cubs won a World Series!
No, I’m not a Chicago Cubs fan nor, for that matter, all that much more than a very casual baseball fan, but I am keenly aware of the struggles that long suffering club and her hometown has had. The last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series was way back in 1908, years before the beginning of World War I and, yes, before the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922.
Amazing.
If that one intrigues you, you’ll enjoy the other 7. My second favorite item is the first one listed and involves Betty White.
I’ll spoil things no more!
What is wrong with these people…?
Article from Huffington Post regarding some rather…uh…strange statements made by General William Boykin to the conservative Wallbuilders Pro-Family Legislation Conference regarding his personal vision of the second coming of Christ and how this time, he’ll arrive armed with an…AR-15 assault rifle?!?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/general-boykin-gun-jesus_n_4826089.html
Taking away for the moment the fact that this speech was delivered to a supposedly “pro-family” group, one wonders what contaminants are in the good General’s tap water.
Which brings to mind one of my favorite Stanley Kubrick films, the 1964 feature Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Bomb. In it, we have a procession of bizarre characters, not least of which are the two very twisted U.S. military higher ups played brilliantly by George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden. Given that Dr. Strangelove was a comedy, one figured such characters didn’t -indeed, couldn’t– exist in real life, right?
After reading the section of General Boykin’s speech presented in the above link, one realizes Dr. Strangelove wasn’t all that far from reality…a very scary thought indeed.
11 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Space Exploration…
…according to the folks at io9.com:
http://io9.com/11-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-human-space-ex-1521023073
The very first item is…uh…interesting? For those too lazy to click the link and read all the items (they’re worth reading!), I present that first item simply to whet your curiosity:
That’s a transcript of a conversation among the astronauts of Apollo 10.
You’re welcome.
Now go read the rest of the items already!
Tiny nano-motors move inside cells!
If you’ve followed my Corrosive Knights books, you know that nano-technology is a big element within them (Note: I’m not claiming to be the only person to come up with the concept or use it in my stories!).
As they say, fiction is approaching reality as scientists have developed tiny nano-motors that can move inside cells, a first step toward targeting and destroying, possibly, cancer cells…among others:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/health/nanomotors-cells-science/index.html
First recorded instance of the “F” word in English…?
Perhaps…
http://io9.com/heres-the-first-recorded-instance-of-the-f-word-in-eng-1519247071
If you click on the link, you’ll discover the word (in this case “fuckin”) was written by a monk in this particular book in 1548, though the context of the statement is in question.
For whatever reason, I find the above simply amazing. It’s fascinating to look at how far back certain phrases/words go, and how the permutations in their meaning changed or, in the case above, apparently didn’t.
Superbowl LXVIII
Did you hear about yesterday’s exciting Superbowl? How the Seahawks pulled it off on the last few seconds to beat the Broncos?
Yeah, right.
It was one of those games where the very first play by the Broncos effectively told viewers what we were in for…
There was talk/analysis that the more veteran Broncos with multiple players who had already experienced at least one Superbowl would have the edge over the far younger Seahawks, a team of which not one single players had so much as come close to a Superbowl before this year.
Yet it turned out to be completely the opposite. It appeared Denver and their players were jittery from the get go, perhaps only too aware of the magnitude of the event while the far younger Seahawks just played hard. And the Bronco’s jitters quickly turned into a nightmare and, for them, a blowout.
As a fan of neither team, after it became all too apparent this game was over before the end of the first quarter, I was hoping at least the commercials would offer entertainment.
Sadly, that proved not to be the case either.
The only commercial I thought was genuinely clever and funny was the Stephen Colbert two part pistachio one…and that was more for the second, unexpected commercial that followed the more blah (as it turned out, on purpose) first one…
The surprise is what made it so appealing, and I’m not sure watching the two side by side this way reflects the cleverness.
As for other commercials, there were a couple of somewhat humorous ones (the Doritos one, the Audi commercial with the mutant doberhauhau and a very funny cameo by Sarah McLachlan) along with a whole bunch of very weird ones (the Bob Dylan one really sticks out, as does the Danica Patrick one where she was wearing a muscle suit(!) yet barely showed her in it, the Arnold ping-pong one).
I’m threatening to slip into complaining/whining mode but in the cold light of morning, I regret wasting all that time yesterday.
But that’s what makes sports what it is. Unscripted entertainment means you never know if you’re going to see something amazing (the Heat’s Ray Allen corner 3 to tie what looked like a championship win for the Spurs and turned out to be the impetus for the Heat to eventually win the series) or something absolutely boring like yesterday.
26 Hilariously Inaccurate Predictions About the Future
Taken from -where else?- Cracked.com:
http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_777_26-hilariously-inaccurate-predictions-about-future_p26/
The very first one had me in stitches…
If you liked that, you should find the rest of the list very entertaining. In case you’re not yet sold, here’s one more, #15:
If you’re at all like me, I think you’ll want to check out the rest.
How the Internet solved a 20 year mystery…
Found this article by Alex Goldman over at Slate magazine and it involves the above, a mystery “code” written by a “non-communicative” grandmother on index cards shortly before she passed away.
The mystery of what the Grandmother wrote on these index cards lasted 20 years…and was solved in a matter of 14 minutes after a relative posted a query asking for help figuring this out on Metafiler!
Read the whole thing here:
The Metafiler link, which shows the very quick process of solving this mystery, is presented below:
http://ask.metafilter.com/255675/Decoding-cancer-addled-ramblings
A fascinating story, and I’m glad the family has closure on what their relative was trying to “say”.
Ghost ship filled with cannibal rats…
…on its way to the UK?!
That alone could be one of the most eye-catching headlines written this year!
As for the story itself, it concerns the possibility of an abandoned (ie, ghost) ship floating out at sea and lost which may be headed in the general vicinity of the UK. As for the cannibal rats, the theory is that the ship probably has rats on board and since they don’t have food, the only way to survive is, you guessed it, by eating each other.
The most interesting thing about the article, to me, was this line:
(Ghost ships are) just the term used for ships with no living crew aboard, and according to Quartz, they’re not that rare — sailors have spotted at least seven such ships in the past 15 years.
Seven “ghost ships” spotted in the past 15 years? That means we’ve got roughly one popping up every couple of years. That is quite intriguing.