Archive for July, 2007

Obesity map: 1985-2004

CNN has a very interesting map showing the increase in Obesity rates across the nation. it’s an interactive map. So to see other years besides the one from my screen capture above, you will need to click the link to the CNN website. It’s amazing how fast our nation has put on the weight. Maybe [ READ MORE ]

Diving the Blue Hole

I’m not really into diving, but seeing these pictures makes me want to get into it. The Blue Hole in the lighthouse reef system off of Belize is an almost perfectly circular sinkhole directly in the reef. The hole goes down over 400 feet, and is the entrance to an underwater cave system. It just [ READ MORE ]

Power outages in San Francisco

Yesterday afternoon a major power outage in San Francisco took many popular websites down. Sites affected included CraigsList, TypePad, and LiveJournal. The most surprising thing in all of the outages, was not that the power went down, but rather that the backup systems for many of these sites failed completely. Companies spend fortunes to provide [ READ MORE ]

Blog image resources

A few people have asked me where to find free images and graphics they can use for their blogs. So I thought I would list a few of the ones I’ve found and use. MorgueFile: Tons of free images and pictures you can use for both personal and business purposes. All of the images are tagged [ READ MORE ]

Harry Potter release madness

Saturday the 21st was the official release date for the 7th book of the Harry Potter series. The above video is of the local Barnes and Noble bookstore in Pensacola Florida late Friday night as people waited for the book to go on sale. The three girls at the 5:40 mark are my little sisters. [ READ MORE ]

Americans not the tallest anymore

It seems that many European nations can now claim the title of having the tallest people in the world. At one time the US held the title of tallest people in the world by a big lead. Look at the chart above. In recent times, that lead has decreased and at this point the US [ READ MORE ]

Mars Rovers stuck in a sand storm

It seems that the two Nasa explorer robots are stuck in sand storms that are hampering their ability to collect power from the sun. According to the Nasa report, 99 percent of the sun is being blocked out. If you saw my previous post about a sand storm in Iraq, you will have some idea [ READ MORE ]

Rice Paddy art

Farmers in the town of Inakadate grow rice that has different colored leaves to make intricate pictures and paintings in their rice paddies. Some of the pictures are absolutely amazing. Inakadate is a small town in Japan that draws thousands of tourists each year with its intricate rice art. For more pics go here [ READ MORE ]

Copyright law boiled down to a simple drawing

Erik J. Heels, a patent and trademark attorney, drew this simple drawing to explain copyright law to the daughter of a friend of his. It’s the most simple and straightforward representation of copyright law I’ve ever seen. So I thought I would re-post it here, and direct you to check out his site where he [ READ MORE ]

Tiger attack with 12 foot leap!

The amazing video above shows a tiger leaping 12 feet into the air to attack a forest ranger who was sitting on top of an elephant. It seems that a rogue tiger had been reported in the area, and a team was sent out to deal with it. Tigers being a protected species, they were [ READ MORE ]