Archive for September 2nd, 2009

Ben and Jerry’s Gay Ice Cream

Ben and Jerry’s has changed the name of one of it’s best selling ice creams, ‘Chubby Hubby’, to ‘Hubby Hubby’, to celebrate the legalisation of gay marriage in its home state of Vermont.

“At the core of Ben & Jerry’s values, we believe that social justice can and should be something that every human being is entitled to,” said Walt Freese, chief executive of Ben & Jerry’s.

“From the very beginning of our 30 year history, we have supported equal rights for all people. The legalisation of marriage for gay and lesbian couples in Vermont is certainly a step in the right direction and something worth celebrating with peace, love and plenty of ice cream.”

The name change of the chocolate-covered, peanut butter-filled, pretzel nugget ice cream will run for the month of September.

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Happy 40th Birthday Internet?

On September 2, 1969, scientists at the University of Los Angeles (UCLA), connected two computers with a 15ft grey cable that were able to communicate with each other.

The data these early computers exchanged was tiny and meaningless, but it was the breakthrough that eventually created the internet. However, with many other milestones in history, so when should we really celebrate the birth of the internet?

Oct 29, 1969 – The first time a message was sent between two distant ARPANET computers – from UCLA to a machine based at the Stanford Research Institute.

1971 – Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sent the first email. It was simply a test message to himself.

Jan 1, 1983 – On this day all computers on the ARPANET network were required to adopt the TCP/IP protocol, the online communication standard that is still used today.

March 1989 – Twenty years after the earliest incarnations of the internet emerged, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web as an efficient system for posting and accessing information.

April 1993 – The launch of Mosaic, the first web browser to make a real effort at usability, helped popularise the internet.

Whilst many believe that September 2 should be regarded as the internet’s birthday, when do you think is the most appropriate anniversary?

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Lollipop Lets Blind People See With Their Tongues

“An electric lollipop that allows the blind to ’see’ using their tongue has been developed by scientists.

The extraordinary device converts images captured by a tiny camera into a series of electrical tingles, which can be felt on the tongue.

Nerves then send these messages to the brain, which turn the tingles back into pictures.”

Here’s a video of the technology in action:

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Michelle Duggar Pregnant with 19th Child

Michelle Duggar is a 42-year-old mother of 18 children, but that wasn’t enough for Michelle, so now she’s pregnant again with number 19.

The announcement of the Duggars’ 19th child comes as their oldest child, Josh, 21, is about to become a father himself. Josh married last year and is expecting his first child, with Anna Duggan in October this year.

But that’s not the only extraordinary thing about the Duggans. All 18, of the Duggan children have names that begin with the letter ‘J’. The current family includes Josh, Jordyn-Grace, Jana, John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jeremiah, Jedidiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah, and Jennifer. Now the family are looking for help in naming their 19th child.

“The success in a family is first off a love for God, and secondly treating each other like you want to be treated,” Mr Duggar said.

“Our goal is for each one of our children to be best friends, and everybody working together to serve each other makes that happen.”

Quit an extraordinary family, but I sure wouldn’t like to have to wait in the bathroom line in the Duggar household. The lag time between the first and last person having a shower must literally be days.

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No More Sogginess with Unsinkable Biscuits

Those dunkers out there, yes, those who like to dunk biscuits and other such things into their tea, will probably, at some stage, have held their biscuit in their drink for too long, causing it to break up and ruin the beverage. Well fear no more my friends, you can now dunk with an unsinkable biscuit.

“A chef claims to have created a snack that can be dipped in tea for up to two minutes without breaking, meaning drinkers will no longer have to fish sodden lumps from the bottom of their mugs.

The biscuit owes its strength to a special ingredient, sweet potato, according to Felice Tocchini of the Fusion Brasserie restaurant in Worcester.”

Although, sweet potato in a biscuit! I mean, sweet potato and gravy is fair enough, but sweet potato and tea? I’ll let you make your minds up on that one.

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The Article Cash4Gold Doesn’t Want You To Read

Here’s a really interesting post from Consumerist, entitled “The Article Cash4Gold Doesn’t Want You To Read.”

You’ve probably heard of Cash4Gold. They are a company who pay you for your unwanted and ‘not-so-precious’ metals. You may have seen their multi-million dollar Super Bowl XLIII advertisement campaign which raised their profile considerably.

Well now they are suing an ex-employee and Consumerist from exposing and publicly criticizing the company.

Here’s a brief extract from the article:

“The whistleblower’s post appeared on ComplaintsBoard last November. We featured it this February, as part of our ongoing coverage of Cash4Gold, after the company raised its public profile with a multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad. The post was indeed written by an ex-employee, Michele Liberis, who is now being sued by the company for defamation. Recently, Cash4Gold added Consumerist and ComplaintsBoard as co-defendants in its lawsuits against Liberis and another former employee, Vielka Nephew, in an attempt to force us to take the information down. Liberis and Nephew have chosen to stand up to Cash4Gold’s legal attack, and so have we.”

Full article

Los Angeles Fires as Seen From Space

Here is a NASA picture taken from space, showing the Los Angeles fires.

It was taken mid-morning on Aug. 30 by the backward (northward)-viewing camera of the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite, and just so you can get this into perspective, the image above covers an area of 245 kilometers (152 miles) wide. Nature really is a beast.

Click the link for more NASA fire and smoke images.

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