Top Story of the Moment
Palin resignation leaves questions on 2012 run
(AP)
 AP - Even for a nonconformist, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has defied political logic with her sudden, stunning announcement to leave office more than a year early.
|
Top Weird Story of the Moment
Game show looks to convert atheists
(Reuters)
Reuters - What happens when you put a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk in a room with 10 atheists?
|
Daily Trivia
The Answer Man by Andy Seamans
A War Song
Questions:
1. A popular song written during World War I inspired Congress to
present a special medal to the songwriter. What was that immortal song?
2. Name the man who wrote the famous song in the preceding question.
3. The songster in the preceding questions said he was born on the
Fourth of July. Another song he wrote earned him a patriotic nickname.
What was that long-term nickname?
4. What was the early name of what later became the state of Rhode
Island?
5. What Massachusetts Bay colonist founded the settlement that became
Rhode Island?
6. Who created the phrase "Iron Curtain" to describe the Soviet Union's
blocking of freedom?
7. What prime minister of India was assassinated in 1984?
8. Name the top three countries in the world in population.
9. What does unicameral mean?
10. Only one U.S. state has a unicameral legislature. The others all
have two legislative bodies. Name the unicameral state.
|
[CaRP] XML error: mismatched tag at line 8 - This appears to be an HTML webpage, not a feed.
[CaRP] XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 83 - This appears to be an HTML webpage, not a feed.
|
Top Wired Story
[CaRP] XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 60 - This appears to be an HTML webpage, not a feed.
|
Word of the Day
scraggy
DEFINITION: (adjective) Bony and lean.
SYNONYMS: scrawny, skinny, underweight, weedy, boney.
USAGE: She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and drawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck.
Discuss
New York Times Movie Review
An Appraisal: A Character Actor of Intensified Normalness
In his best movie roles, Karl Malden is specifically the other man, the guy defined partly by his lack of certain attributes abundantly present in the protagonist.
|
|
|
New York Times Editorial
[CaRP] Success (0)
Op-Ed Columnist: Behind the Facade
In many ways society has descended into a Michael Jackson-esque fantasyland, trying to leave the limits and obligations of the real world behind.
|
Search Google
|
|
Slashdot
The Chemistry of Firework Displays
Ponca City, We love you writes "David Ropeik writes at MSNBC that there's a lot more to making a basic firework display than putting a fuel source and an oxidizer together. Pyrotechnic chemists, who are trying to create bedazzlement instead of bang, don't want their work to explode, but to burn for a bit, so it gives a good visual show. To achieve the desired effect, the sizes of the particles of each ingredient have to be just right, and the ingredients have to be blended together just right. To slow down the burning, chemists use big grains of chemicals, in the range of 250 to 300 microns, and they don't blend the ingredients together very well, making it harder for the fuel and oxidizer to combine and burn, thus producing a longer and brighter effect. Surprisingly few emitters are used in pyrotechnics, and there are no commercially useful emitters in blue-green to emerald green in the 490-520 nm region. Energy from the fire in the basic fuel is transferred to the atoms of the colorant chemicals, exciting the electrons in those chemicals into a higher energy state. As they cool down, they move back to a lower state of energy, emitting light. So, you actually see the colors in fireworks as they're cooling down. To get the really tricky shapes, like stars or hearts, the colorant pellets are pasted on a piece of paper in the desired pattern. That paper is put in the middle of the shell with explosive charges above it, and below. When those charges go off, they burn up the paper, and send the ignited colorant pellets out in the same pattern they were in on the sheet of paper, spreading wider apart as they fly."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
|
|
