The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

Today's horoscope says:
You've done a lot in your life that you deserve to be proud of, and learned some invaluable lessons.
But today you encounter someone or something unusual that puts you in a situation you've never experienced before.
Nothing you've been through has prepared you for this, but you have a ton of fun working your way through it.
This is a whole new ballgame, one that stimulates and inspires you.
You get a taste of where your future could take you.

Some of our readers today have been in:

Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia
Sheffield, England, United Kingdom
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
London, England, United Kingdom
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Dublin,Dublin, Ireland
Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Bangkok, Krung Thep, Thailand
Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Milton Keynes, England, United Kingdom
Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Paris, Ile-De-France, France
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel

as well as Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria, Israel, Finland, Austria, Norway, Georgia, Mexico, Peru, Kuwait, Serbia, Bangladesh, Latvia, Greece, Scotland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Wales, Iran, Singapore, Poland, Taiwan, Sweden, Afghanistan, Belgium, Tibet, Croatia, Pakistan, Romania, Paraguay, Sudan, Vietnam, Argentina, Cambodia, Egypt, France, Estonia, Puerto Rico, Maldives, Qatar, Brazil, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Slovenia, China, Iraq, Ecuador, Nigeria, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Paupa New Guinea, Moldova, Venezuela, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Czech Republic, Vietnam, Norway, Finland and in cities across the United States such as Superior, Portland, Austin, Wake Forest and more.

Today is:

Today is Thursday, February 24, the 55th day of 2011.

There are 310 days left in the year.

Today's unusual holidays or celebrations are: 

National Chili Day
And
National Tortilla Day

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

The Top Eleven Deities In Hawaiian Mythology

You know about the Roman gods our planets are named for, and their earlier Greek counterparts, but how much do you know about Hawaiian mythology? For example, there’s Kamoho, the leader of the shark gods.

Kamoho was the brother of the fire goddess Pele and was considered the guardian god of the Hawaiian Islands. He alone of all Pele’s relatives tried to aid her when she was seeking to avoid her marriage to the boar god Kamapua’a. Kamoho also ruled over the shark-men, or “were-sharks” as I call them. These beings were greedy humans cursed by Kamoho to periodically transform into sharks. They could be recognized by the large shark tattoos that Kamoho branded onto their backs.

Read about the other ten at Balladeer's Blog.

Wizard of Id

Woman humbles U.S. oil giant

Ecuadoran grandma humbles U.S. oil giant

A woman with no legal training is an unlikely hero in historic $9.5 billion case.

'They have to pay ... for what they did' 

Also: 

• Oil soars on Libya news
• Grim find on Gulf floor
• Baby dolphins stir alarm

Man attempts stealing chainsaw by stuffing it down front of shorts and waddling out of store

From the Einstein Files:

Police say a Chickasha, Okla., man tried to steal a chainsaw from a store by stuffing it in the front of his shorts.

Two employees saw that he was walking a little strange. At first, they thought he was handicapped but then realized what was going on.

"It was pretty obvious," said one employee. "Imagine it in the front of your pants." The employees tried to chase the man down.

He ditched the chainsaw and took off running, first up a tree, then into someone's house before he was eventually caught after diving into a creek. Police say he appeared to be intoxicated.

Video.

Prank call dupes Wisconsin governor

Further proof (as if any more was needed) that wingnuts are incredibly stupid and just look at the eyes - they say mentally ill ... in fact they're practically screaming it!

Prank call adds to Wisconsin governor's woes

A candid chat with a "billionaire donor" turns into a PR nightmare as the tape goes viral.

Democrats: 'This is... political war' 

Also: 

• Listen to the call
• 5 facts on Scott Walker
• Spotlight on rich brothers

Ziggy

On The Job

How appearance can help or hurt your pay

Women who wear makeup and men without beards seem to have advantages at work.  

Does beauty matter? 

Also: 

• Switch careers in 2011
• Who's getting hired  
• Most dangerous jobs

Dramatic look at income gap

Charts reveal shocking income inequality

Some new data crunches show how the gap between rich and poor has widened into a chasm.  

A new America 

Also: 

• U.S. home sales rise
• Dying U.S. counties
• Homeless beauty queen

Common myths about baldness

Debunking nine myths about baldness

Men commonly believe that hair loss is passed down from their mother's side. 

That's not entirely true, though 

Also: 

• Link to prostate cancer?
• Celebs hiding the gray  
• Healthiest cities for guys

Best burger in America?

Is this the best burger in America?

An L.A. chain has rethought the meat, bun, and toppings to create a new ideal.

A sauce that puts others to shame 

Also: 

• Best fast food burgers
• Cooking up your own  
• 7 unhealthy hamburgers

Beer to be classified as alcohol for first time in Russia

Beer is to be legally classified as an alcoholic drink in Russia for the first time as the Kremlin forges ahead with the toughest anti-alcohol campaign since the fall of the Soviet Union. The beverage is technically classified as a foodstuff for now, an anomaly that has allowed producers to avoid a sweeping new crackdown on alcohol advertising and night-time sales.

But a new Kremlin-backed bill that passed its first reading in the lower house of the Russian parliament on Tuesday will abolish beer's special status, dragging Russian alcohol regulation into the 21st century. "Normalizing the beer production market and classifying it as alcohol is totally the right thing to do and will boost the health of our population," Yevgeny Bryun, the ministry of health's chief specialist on alcohol and drug abuse, said.

"We have been talking about and have wanted such a measure for ages. I take my hat off to the parliament." The new law would restrict beer sales at night, ban its sale in or close to many public places such as schools, and limit cans and bottles to a maximum size of 0.33 liters. Although vodka, the national tipple, remains extremely popular, Russia's beer consumption has more than tripled in the past 15 years, boosted by low prices, ready availability and lax regulation.

Industry sources say Russia is now the third or the fourth biggest beer market in the world by net consumption after China and the United States. But with a historic penchant for strong spirits such as vodka, many ordinary Russians regard beer as a soft drink. It is not uncommon to see men swigging a can of beer on their way to work or teenagers downing a swift lunchtime beer or two in the park.

Big surfing contest wipes out ... no waves

An epic U.S. surfing contest that in the past featured athletes riding huge waves is washing out this year, due to a lack of big surf, organizers said.

Full Story

Shoe

Discovery blasts off on final voyage

Discovery blasts off on final voyage

The most traveled shuttle will be sent to a museum after its 39th mission.

Beginning of shuttle era's end 

Also: 

• Watch the liftoff
• Meet the astronauts
• Discovery by the numbers

Cell phones alter brain activity

Cell phones proven to alter brain activity

Researchers uncover definitive evidence that having a device "glued to your ear" affects your brain.  

What they found 

Also: 

• More about the study
• Wireless surge concerns
• Cell phone security tips

The Drinking Bird

... a Scientific Toy for the Ages

The bird never stops, and since there’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, there must be some reasonable explanation for the bird’s persistence.

One can only wonder if the inventor of the dipping bird, Miles V Sullivan broke even from his invention.  The idea began years before the patent and originally, as you might suspect, it had nothing to do with the bird.  Sullivan was an inventor-scientist at Bell Labs but as a young man he enjoyed evenings out.
It wasn’t the music or the lights but the bubbles in the tube at the sides of a juke box that grabbed his attention.  He noticed that the energy wasn’t going anywhere and the inventor determined that something could be done with them.  What he wanted to do was to harness motion- the idea of the bird came along later to make it more entertaining.  Of course, while it is simply for fun it is the science behind it which makes it work.

Oh, you’ll get an explanation of how it works, and more, from Kuriositas.

Newly-Discovered Dinosaur Named "Thunder Thighs"

But the scientists mean it as a compliment, not an insult. The brontomerus had exceptionally large leg muscles:

It could have given other animals a hefty kick, say its discoverers.
It seems most likely to us that what this is about is being able to deliver a strong kick”
“If predators came after it, it would have been able to boot them out of the way,” said Dr Mike Taylor, from University College London, UK.
The team has named its dinosaur Brontomerus mcintoshi – from the Greek “bronto”, meaning “thunder”; and “merós”, meaning “thigh”.
The fossilised bones of two specimens – an adult and a juvenile – have been dated to be about 110 million years old.

Suggestion: playfully address your wife and/or girlfriend as “thunder thighs”. Explain that you mean it in a good way, particularly that they give the ability to kick hard.

Full Story

Self-Doubting Monkeys Know What They Don’t Know

Some monkeys have enough self-awareness to realize when they don’t know an answer, and will tell us if we make it worth their time. It appears that uncertainty is not an exclusively human trait.

A team of researchers taught macaques how to maneuver a joystick to indicate whether the pixel density on a screen was sparse or dense. Given a pixel scenario, the monkeys would maneuver a joystick to a letter S (for sparse) or D (for dense). They were given a treat when they selected the correct answer, but when they were wrong, the game paused for a couple seconds. A third possible answer, though, allowed the monkeys to select a question mark, and thereby forgo the pause (and potentially get more treats).
And as John David Smith, a researcher at SUNY Buffalo, and Michael Beran, a researcher at Georgia State University, announced at the AAAS meeting this weekend, the macaques selected the question mark just as humans do when they encounter a mind-stumping question. As Smith told the BBC, “Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to make an error…. They seem to know when they don’t know.”

The same experiment with capuchin monkeys returned different results: they didn’t use the question mark button.

Full story

Animal Pictures

At the mountain cabin.