Occasionally Wright

Now That's Cool

This might be the coolest video I've ever seen on the internet. It is what it says it is when you open it up, though it's not the least bit gruesome. Just nature at it's best.

Thank you Google.

Star Light, Star Bright

Random useless fact of the day:

The North Star is 680 light years away. "So what?" you ask. Well, that means that for all we know the star could have exploded or died over a hundred years before Columbus made his famous trip in 1492 and we still wouldn't know because the light from that event wouldn't have reached us yet. And when Columbus was using the North Star to navigateon his way to the New World he was seeing light that was emitted about 200 years before Leif Ericson and his crew made landfall in Newfoundland circa 1000 AD.

Wrap your head around that.

Star Bright

How cool is this?

The stars arranged on the ceiling of a curch in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia were long ago arranged in such a way as to match how they would have appeared in the night sky on December 24, 1 BC. Overlooking that Jesus was probably actually born in August (or so I've been told) and probably in 3 BC that's still pretty cool. Especially for a small church in small-town Nova Scotia.

Hooray! An Excuse For Not Eating Soy!

This just in... a new study shows that soy may make men irritable and violent. As if its bad taste wasn't enough of a deterrent.

Pop Quiz

What is the largest diamond ever discovered?

The Hope diamond?

The Star of Africa?

Nope. It's Lucy. the Star of africa (which is a part of the British crown jewels) is just a wimpy 530 carats. Lucy is about 10 billion trillion trillion carats, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 carats, whichever you prefer. Try fitting that in a ring setting. The thing of it is, it's not here on earth. It's a star. That's right- a star with a massive diamond core. Seriously, you can read about it here.

Hinterland Who's Who

Any Canadian that's 20 or older probably remebers the Hinterland Who's Who pieces that ran during commercial breaks on CBC, informing us of the fate of the swift fox and the ptarmigan. Well guess what folks? They're back. The Government of Canada has decided we need to be brought up to speed on what's happeneing to such Canadian icons as the leatherback sea turtle, monarch butterfly, loons and polar bears. Alright, so some of them are Canadian icons.

All of the old clips, as well as the new ones and kids versions can be found at the new Hinterland Who's Who website. They even have some spoofs. It's glad to see they don't take themselves too seriously.

Interesting Stuff Making the News in Canada

Over the Top

For what is believed to be the first time ever a person has gone over the Canadian side of Niagara Falls without the aid of any sort of floatation device and survived. It's not clear yet if the man was doing it as a stunt or as a suicide attempt but he was able to walk away with police uninjured.

The Power of Water

I've always loved the power of water, and particularly the power of the ocean, but who would have figured you could get real electric power from trickling water running over glass? That's what some Canadian scientists have discovered, and it's actually remarkably simple. Hopefully they can find a way to make it work on a practical scale. It has already been suggested that urinals could become a renewable energy source, though I don't know if you could call it 'clean energy.'

Juan Pictures

Lots of people have been coming here over the last week looking for pictures of the damage caused by hurrican Juan in Halifax and PEI. I have no pictures, but I'd be happy to point you in the right direction.

For a list of sites with great pictures mostly from the Charlottetown area try Acts of Volition or newrecruit.org. newrecruit.org also has some of Halifax. Make sure you check the comments section too since there are more links provided there. For more pictures of Halifax, try this site, which I found over at genx40.com.

The Wake of Juan

Maritimers are an interesting people. The weather on the east coast of Canada can change at a moment's notice, and storms are pretty normal, especially in the winter. 2 feet of snow over night is a minor inconvenience out there and 3 feet is just snowmobiling and skiing weather. They also have a way of taking things in stride. It snows, you shovel. It's hot, you stay inside.

So when a hurricane was heading to Nova Scotia nobody really freaked out. Weather is weather. And maybe that's part of the reason Halifax and PEI were kind of caught off guard. Remnants of hurricanes hit the area almost every year, but when Juan hit last night it was still a category 1. Fortunately only 2 people lost their lives, and there are no reports of deaths or major injuries on PEI. While the damage looks pretty extensive the majority of it seems to be downed trees and utility poles, which is the kind of stuff that really couldn't have been prevented anyway. Unfortunately the falling trees and poles hit a fair number of cars and houses and are making a mess of roads.

I talked to my mom in Charlottetown a little while ago and friends of hers on the south shore went for a drive to check on neighbours and survey the damage and it sounds like a lot of cottages were hit hard. 2 weeks from now all of their windows would have been boarded up for the winter, but a lot of people wait until Thanksgiving weekend (the second Monday in October is thanksgiving here) to lock things up so there are plenty of smashed windows and damaged roofs.

Beware of Falling Segways

Those revolutionary personal transport devices that were going to change the way cities are designed have been recalled. Seems they fall over and hurt people when the batteries get too low.

Since they came out I've only actually seen one in use, and if I remember correctly it was in O'Hare International Airport. They use them to help security and information personel get around a bit quicker, and that's really one of the only practical uses I can think of for them. Has anyone else seen them in action?