The Interesting Facts Blog

Final Landing for Space Shuttle

Professional Writer — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:12:55 +0000

Final Landing for Space Shuttle

Atlantis recently made its long flight home ending a long, rich, and memorable history of space exploration. The four astronauts on Atlanta touched down on Thursday to a large crowd of onlookers. 2,000 people gathered to catch a final sight of a space shuttle in motion.

Atlantis has been a historic flight with its first mission occurring in October of 1985. The first flight was highly classified but believed to be aiding the department of defense in launching defense satellites with this mission only lasting 4 days. The final Atlantis flight served to provide supplies to the International Space Station. Along with typical supplies, this last mission brought with it supplies in order to complete experiments aboard the ISS. Among these was an iPhone that was to log experiments progress.

There has been a surge of private companies vying at space exploration continuation. Although it could take three to five years before we see any notable efforts from Americans to return to space, there is hope. Many ideas are being thrown around from advertising on space shuttles to unique ideas such as a reality show (Americas Next Top Astronaut) to use TV revenues to fund the next mission. However, none have been innovative enough to provide a quick solution.

The return of Atlantis at 5:57 am was joyous for many but others throughout NASA fear mass layoffs coming their way. However, this is not an immediate viable concern as data from past space shuttle missions still needs processing as well as developing the information from space experiments to possibly be used for commercial use.

While some have called the space shuttle programs closing a very sad event, others welcome it saying that the space shuttle program has been nothing more than a billion dollar disaster. They are excited that these budget expenses that could have once been spent on space can now go to other more worthy causes such as cancer research. However, with America’s financial crisis in and out of government, increased spending on any cause does not seem likely. Nevertheless, these individuals still insinuate the space program never reached its mission of finding easy space travel as we have not left the atmosphere by more than a relatively small margin.

Many people including these final astronauts were in tears after the mission was completed. Many of them gave the media their favorite memories as well as some parting words for the space program.

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Shake Hands with the Devil

Professional Writer — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:18:45 +0000

I just watched a documentary about the horrible slaughters in Africa approximately 15 years ago. I remembered those times and it make me think about how many people today are completely unaware of what happened…

It also made me think about how much goes on every day that I am not doing anything to in any way make a difference to help/improve.

It made me think of the enormous difference that would be made if every individual alive were to be doing at least one thing every day to help positively affect the world.

It makes me wonder if there is one thing I could do….right at this very moment…that would make a positive difference in the world.

Another thing I started thinking about were the media channels that provided more news to the important matters that the rest of the world attempts to ignore so that they don’t have to feel badly enough to be motivated to act in order to help with or to outcry about the lack of action regarding.

And then I thought about the news channels that today actually deliver more coverage of the current events… Some of which are public radio stations.

Then I thought about the way that the public radio stations have to beg and beg and beg for money just to stay alive.

Which is completely horrid…

Considering that they are only there for the people…and that the people want them around….and yet, still, they are left barely functional….dealing with sometimes even being locked out of their own spaces, unable to pay rents…barely getting by….because we the people, aren’t willing to simply take care of things so that we actually get some form of media that isn’t paid for by large corporations and henceforth deliver news as it is appropriate to the interests of those money mongers….

We should be ashamed…But better than being ashamed…. We should all just contribute and stop making those poor folks beg…

Just my two cents for tonight.

Oh…and one more thing… How did I go from “Shake Hands with the Devil” and the Rwandan tragedies to public radio….easy….news…people knowing about things….having even just the opportunity to know that there is a scenario that they should and perhaps could help with….

I’m tired and the details are too many to mention now…

Delicious Bookmarking

Professional Writer — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:42:27 +0000

Delicious bookmarking has been a tool used by a lot of people through the past few years to organize the websites they like to visit, as well as for the SEO purposes of many marketers.

With all of the recent Yahoo upheavals, etc. they decided to discontinue providing the Delicious services and shut down the site.

However, there was an outraged cry from the public and Yahoo backed out of their decision to shut it down. Apparently now they plan to simply not support it well, but to let the public just keep using it…. For now at least….

Houston New Years 2011

Professional Writer — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 07:46:31 +0000

The interesting fact is that in Houston, Texas it was extremely difficult to find any information online about the NYE 2011 fireworks displays. This is just plain wrong and will be corrected for the next year….

Informative Health and Fitness Website

Professional Writer — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 23:24:08 +0000

Informative Health and Fitness Website

History of the Word Aardvark

Professional Writer — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:01:21 +0000

Quote from Word Histories and Mysteries (print book) -

Word Histories – Aardvark: The aardvark is a burrowing mammal, with a stocky hairy body, large ears, and a long tubular snout somewhat resembling a pig’s. It is found over much of Africa and it eats the ants and termites that it excavates with its powerful digging claws. The animal is in actuality a pale yellowish-gray color, but in the wild it is usually seen covered with a thick layer of reddish dust from its digging activities.

The English name for this animal is borrowed from Afrikaans, the languages descended from the Dutch dialects spoken by settlers from the Netherlands who moved to the south of Africa in the 17th century. Today Afrikaans is one of the official languages by a large percentage of the population of Namibia. The Afrikaans spelling system differs somewhat from the one used in Modern Standard Dutch, and there are some differences in grammar and vocabulary between the two languages. Nevertheless, modern Afrikaans and standard Dutch still resemble each other quite closely, and a speaker of Dutch and a speaker of Afrikaans can converse without difficulty.

In Afrikaans, aardvark is a compound that literally means “earth-pig.” The name is motivated by the animal’s piglike snout and its habit of digging in the earth for its food. Afrikaans belongs to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family just like English, and both the words that go in to make up the word aardvark have close relatives in English. Afrikaans aard, “earth,” comes from Middle Dutch aerde, eerde, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *ertho, also the source of the English earth and German Erde. In this case, the th heard in the English word preserves the original Proto-Germanic sound, which both Dutch and German have changed to a d.

The Afrikaans word vark, “pig,” comes from Middle Dutch varken, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *farhaz. In German, this word is preserved as part of the word Ferkel, “piglet.” English too has kept this ancient word as farrow, which can be both a noun meaning “a litter of pigs” and a verb meaning “to give birth to a litter of pigs.” Proto-Germanic *farhaz itself descends from Proto-Indo-European *porko- Developed into porcus, “pig,” and porcus then developed into French porc. Porc was then borrowed into Middle English as porke, which at first could mean both “pig” and “pig-meat.” Only the latter meaning has survived in the Modern English word pork.

Other aspects of the etymology of pork are discussed at the separate entry for the word in this book.

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Houston Moving Companies

Professional Writer — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 04:44:57 +0000

Houston moving companies are actually a lot more affordable than many people think.

Moving can be such a hassle… It is exhausting. It poses multiple injury risks. It’s really easy to scrape up everything you own on doors and walls, doing damage both to the things you have and to the place you are both leaving and moving into. It’s also a great way to alienate friends when you use their help to move your things to your new home…

I had a moving company help me once and it was heavenly….really, truly heavenly…. Other times I have taken weeks to complete my moves all by myself because I really hate asking people for help. When I realized how cheap it was to get help from a moving company is when I realized I should have been doing this all along.

It really makes all the difference in the world and since it’s affordable, it only makes sense to put it into the moving budget.

Not to mention that a lot of people don’t have trucks for moving…. So just think about how much gas money is wasted and the effect on the environment from driving back and forth and back and forth, trying to get everything from point a to point b.
Then of course a lot of people choose to just rent moving trucks and not get professional movers to help and I’ve done this a lot of times too, but I realized that there were way more efficient ways to load the trucks than I instinctively knew how to do and loading time for those professional movers who helped me the other time was only such a small fraction of the time that it took me to load up all of my own belongings, even when I had more people who were just friends and family helping me, than those 3 professional movers took…. They just got it done and knew exactly what they were doing and boom….it was over and done, just like that…

Getting Houston Movers will really feel like the best decision you ever made when you are in the middle of a move….especially if you haven’t hired movers to help you before…. WOW…. What a difference…..

Owning Two Dogs Instead of One

Professional Writer — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 06:13:17 +0000

I recently read in a website talking about dogs, proper care and such, that owning two dogs does not take any more work than owning only one dog takes.

I guess the writer of that supposed “fact” as they relayed the information to be has never had to clean up two piles of dog poop in the house and clean two spots on the carpet instead of just one.

How to Deal with the Wii Hijacker

Professional Writer — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 03:33:21 +0000

Did you buy yourself some kick-ass gaming system only to discover that it has been hijacked by a family member who thinks their quality time spent with the machine is more important than your ability to use the very thing you bought?

If this has happened to you, do not despair. There is hope in the form of social control mechanisms and brain washing techniques.

As our society and governmental authorities have trained us all in how to think, feel and perceive, so you too can implement these effective tactics in a plan developed specifically for your very own wii hijacker.

Your time to play is imminent and coming soon!

The first thing you need to do is think of things that would cause your wii hijacker distress.

Most importantly, while you are implementing this plan, make sure that anything you do is not life-threatening, because cleaning up a dead body would also prevent you from spending time with your new gaming system, as would the prison sentence you would risk serving.

The next thing and almost just as important, you have to make sure that the wii hijacker has no idea you are doing anything to cause him or her discomfort.

If they think you did anything to them, then the entire lesson would be lost.

The point is to create an environment where the hijacker comes to believe in a certain natural order of things, or a conditioned cause and effect belief.

The cause is his or her use of the gaming device.

The effect is negative consequences.

Careful pre-planning will be necessary in order to create this conditioned effect of turning your gaming device hijacker back into a regular family member who you no longer consider to be a terrorist.

Draw no blood. Cause no internal organ damage. Beware of potential allergic reactions. But do cause seemingly random incidences of discomfort to occur on days or nights directly following hijacking incidences.

A great time to handle the tasks involved is when they are in the middle of one of their terrorist acts.

Because, as you know, your gaming device is so incredibly wicked awesome, when they are busy playing it, they will be unaware of your activities. You are also ensuring the effectiveness of your plan this way because in order to make them believe that any negative experience is a result of their hijacking, they must have recently been involved in this action.

This way, they are more easily guided to the conclusion you need for them to develop.

You might want to try such things as soaking their toothbrush in vinegar. Safe, harmless, but may be a bit disconcerting.

Putting a dead cockroach in their shoe or houseslipper would also be a safe, yet horrifying experience.

Whatever course you allow your imagination to take, make sure it is safe, effective and anonymous.

You’ll have your wii or other exceptional gaming system back in a jiffy!

Lots of Info

Professional Writer — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:23:50 +0000

Lots of info is found everywhere you look. Here’s another place: Wired Magazine Makes Me Feel Old