Xangelo

Go science.

Apparently we’ve now been able to create “dry” water. It’s essentially still wet water (or you know, water) but surrounded by silica, effectively making it the smallest water balloon ever.

Why is this important? Apparently it’s phenomenal at soaking up CO2 (will help with the fake/real greenhouse warming effect). Not just that, but it speeds up reactions between other chemicals and can also be used to move dangerous chemicals around safely. Or at least slightly more safely.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7964109/Scientists-create-dry-water.html

I like to think that dogs are just really really retarded wolves (while some may find my description offensive, just change it to whatever you want that still has the same connotation. I’m tired of thinking about how to be politically correct). And they are not just retarded wolves, but actually bred for their retardedness (retardability?).

Scientists tend to agree with me. While focussing on breeding animals that showed a natural inclination towards being tamed, all of a sudden random variations showed up in physical appearance. A lot of the animals retained their childish looks (pedomorphism). Interestingly enough, this happened within a 40 year span.

Humans have been domesticating dogs for much longer than that.

http://8e.devbio.com/article.php?id=223

Gmail just rolled out a new feature called “Priority Inbox”. Basically it ranks and organizes your email based on how important it thinks a certain sender is. That way emails you NEED to respond to are not lost in the 100’s of emails and notifications you receive daily.

The Priority Inbox ranking algorithm seems to take into account not just who emails you most (although it will look that way when you turn it on first) but also who you respond to and anyone else you say is “important”. That means while your realtor MAY be sending you automatic messages daily, clicking a single button will move her from the “important” list to the regular queue. The reverse works just as well.

While there have been some “contrarian” viewpoints, Liane Cassavoy of PC-World is an idiot, so you really shouldn’t be listening to her anyways.

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/priority-inbox.html

As of tomorrow morning some new things come into effect for those of you with cars. Your coverage is now half of what it used to be! Yay!

Apparently in an effort to grant MORE options to users, the government forced insurance places to have a lower minimum and a higher maximum. While the intentions WERE good, here’s how it’s already shaping up: You pay more for less.

Insurance companies decided that it would be easier (and better) if you paid the same amount for less coverage than you currently get. If you want to move back to what you WERE paying, you’ll have to cough up more cash.

Oddly enough, this won’t affect you until you get your insurance renewed, but because of legislation earlier this year, they’ll claim the price increase is actually because of that. Huzzah for the government stepping in!

http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/08/30/15190321.html

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/08/30/15190226.html

Mayoral hopeful Rocco Rossi is proposing a new solution to the age old “politicians lie” problem. At least, a new solution to Ontario. Once voted into office, if the people aren’t happy with a particular politician, they can vote to pull him out of office. Currently British Columbia already imposes this with a 40% rule. As in, if 40% of the people who voted during the election in that zone said “get them out of office”, they have to leave.

While I completely agree with this idea, to me, 40% seems a tad on the low side.. after all, elections are rarely a landslide victory. I would say that majority of the people would need to vote (51%) in favour of removing him.

Of course this poses another problem. When a mayor needs to make a decision that no one likes, but needs to be made… does he get kicked out of office?

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/politics/Rossi+proposes+voter+recall/3462560/story.html

What’s more terrifying than a shark? A fucking Sharktopus. I try not to swear here, keeping at as safe for work as possible, but goddammit sometimes I just have to. It’s an event of Ginormous proportions. I HIGHLY suggest you check out the link and watch the little gif of awesome!

Roger Cormans Sharktopus hits SyFy on Saturday September 25 at 9pm!

http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/50358892.html

Taking a page out of a movie, an nameless police officer went undercover to trick a murderer into confessing. The officer pretended she was trying to write a book about Phillip Vince, getting him to say that he committed yet another murder while in prison. He was supposed to get out on parole soon, and if convicted, he should spend some more time behind bars.

While the police do pose as gangsters and other such low-life, this is probably the first time someone has posed as a journalist. Because of that the real issue here is just how the officer managed to convince Vince to spill the beans. By posing as a reporter has she damned all future media to getting exclusives from prisoners? And is that even legal? Lawyers are in a tizzy.

As a side note, does anyone else find it odd that we take murderers and rapists, drug dealers and burgulars, and then we toss them into a building with nothing to do except work out? We send in these, fairly useless people, and then make them spend 10 or 20 years doing nothing except putting on MORE muscle before we let them back into society? God dammit I love our justice system.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/article/853861—undercover-cop-posed-as-journalist-to-trick-killer

In probably one of the most gruesome accidents this year (and possibly even this decade to date) a girl was thrown off the back of a motorcycle and hit by multiple cars this weekend.

The driver was apparent weaving through traffic erradically and cops tried to pull him over. He then tried to oturun cops, accelerating rapidly. This caused his passenger, a girl who is yet unamed, to be thrown off the back of the car into traffic on the 401 around Whitby. Although The Star reports that she was hit by at least one car, the Sun and Jerry Agar of News Talk 1010 confirm that it was multiple cars, some of which didn’t bother to stop.

If anyone was around at the time and saw ANYTHING that may be useful, don’t hesitate to call the OPP at 1-888-310-1122, or their Whitby detachment at 905-668-3388.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/08/29/15181051.html

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/article/853831—hwy-401-closed-in-whitby-for-siu-probe

Toronto’s waterfront plans now include an estimated 88 million dollar, 4 level glass hockey arena. I’m not sure where we’re getting 88 million dollars to build a hockey arena for kids in a place kids don’t go, but there it is. It’s been likened to Sydneys Opera House.

Note that by the time it’s done, Jerry Agar figures it’s going to be about 2 years late and actually end up costing us about 150 million. Of course, that’s all thanks to our “fair wage” laws, which we’ll need to talk about another day.

Now Ottawa is fronting $34 million, and we can apparently take on an additional 30 year debt of about $21 million but we’re still missing a sizable chunk of cash.Over $30 million actually.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/847405—stacked-four-pad-arena-to-cost-88-million

Image if you will the peaceful waters of a river. Flowing gently around you as you sit in your boat and lazily drift about. As your boat drifts below some low hanging mangrove trees you notice a small caterpillar on a low hanging branch. Suddenly a jet of water shoots out of the lake, smacks said caterpillar off the branch and then a fish eats it.

Wait, what? Meet the Archerfish. A fish who has much better aim that me. It sticks it’s snout slightly above the water.. and then contracts its gills to shoot water right at insects. It can shoot this water about 2 meters and it’s very accurate till about 1.5. But that’s not even the craziest part. Birds that hunt fish tend to have special lenses over their eyes to auto-correct the refraction of light (google it, no physics lession today), this is so that they can see where the fish actually is, instead of where you think the fish is. 

Archer fish don’t have that. They learnt to correct their aim to take into account refraction. If you want to imagine just how hard that is, drop a penny into a bucket of water. Then stick your hand in where you think it is, chances are, unless you already have terrible aim and are very lucky, you’ll miss. The Archer Fish however doesn’t miss. In fact, it’s so accurate that it actually controls insect populations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archerfish

http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/verts/archer_fish.htm