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FBI demands Wikipedia remove seal graphic, battle ensues

August 7th, 2010 RanDrake No comments

The Federal Bureau of Investigations does not like the fact that its Wikipedia entry has a high-resolution image of its seal, but Wikipedia says there’s nothing illegal about posting it online.

The FBI apparently has no big international crime rings or investigations to conduct, because it now has free time to send a letter to Wikipedia that reads, “The FBI has not authorized use of the FBI seal on Wikipedia. The inclusion of a high quality graphic of the FBI seal on Wikipedia is particularly problematic.”

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Navy’s newest warships top out at more than 50 mph

October 23rd, 2009 RanDrake 1 comment

BATH, Maine – The Navy’s need for speed is being answered by a pair of warships that have reached freeway speeds during testing at sea.

Independence, a 418-foot warship built in Alabama, boasts a top speed in excess of 45 knots, or about 52 mph, and sustained 44 knots for four hours during builder trials that wrapped up this month off the Gulf Coast. The 378-foot Freedom, a ship built in Wisconsin by a competing defense contractor, has put up similar numbers.
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NASA Discovers A Ring Around The Solar System

October 20th, 2009 RanDrake No comments

NASA scientists have discovered a mysterious ribbon around our solar system —- a stripe made of hydrogen —- that defies all current expectations about what the edge of the solar system might look like.

Richard Fisher, the director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, tells NPR’s Guy Raz that this discovery is a big moment for the scientific community. “We thought we knew everything about everything, and it turned out that there were unknown unknowns.”
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Taste Test: Ice Cream Sandwich

September 9th, 2009 RanDrake 6 comments

The Judging Criteria

Vanilla ice cream sandwiches come in various shapes and sizes (rectangular or saucerlike, short or long), with two major components that should not be ignored: the exterior cookie and the ice cream itself. The texture of the chocolate cookie should be moist yet slightly dense. It should not be dry or flaky. The ice cream should be creamy and sweet, never icy or tart. The ice cream–to-cookie ratio is also important: One element should never overwhelm the other.
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New Florida Laws

June 30th, 2009 RanDrake No comments

TALLAHASSEE – The cost of smoking cigarettes goes up Wednesday – and so does the cost of replacing that used schoolbook your kid left out in the rain.

Those and 159 other new laws take effect Wednesday, the start of the state’s fiscal year 2009-2010. Here’s a peek at some of the changes made by the Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist that go into force on July 1:
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What A Barcode Means

June 22nd, 2009 RanDrake No comments

The UPC, or Universal Product Code, barcode is a method of marking consumer products so that they may be identified easily. Most UPC barcodes, called version A, and have twelve numbers. However, there are other versions such as the UPC version E with only eight digits, and the ISBN-13
version with thirteen numbers used for books. There are also other barcode systems such as EAN-13 and EAN-8 that are used outside the U.S. But the UPC version A barcode is the most common.

What do the numbers in the UPC version A barcode mean?
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Finishing Last

May 8th, 2009 RanDrake No comments


Shizo Kanakuri disappeared while running the marathon in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm. He was listed as a missing person in Sweden for 50 years — until a journalist found him living placidly in southern Japan.

Overcome with heat during the race, he had stopped at a garden party to drink orange juice, stayed for an hour, then took a train to a hotel and sailed home the next day, too ashamed to tell anyone he was leaving.

There’s a happy ending: In 1966 Kanakuri accepted an offer to return to Stockholm and complete his run. His final time was 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds — surely a record that will never be broken.

Sources: 1

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Health Benefits of Coffee

April 30th, 2009 RanDrake No comments

Coffee has been a medical whipping boy for so long that it may come as a surprise that recent research suggests that drinking moderate amounts of coffee (two to four cups per day) provides a wide range of health benefits. Most of these benefits have been identified through statistical studies that track a large group of subjects over the course of years and match incidence of various diseases with individual habits, like drinking coffee, meanwhile controlling for other variables that may influence that relationship.
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Best Places To Live

April 30th, 2009 RanDrake No comments

In Mercer Consultings annual Quality of Living Survey, Europe once again dominates the list of 215 countries around the world. The top three cities are, by rank, Vienna, Zurich (last years winner), and Geneva. Commonwealth nations fare pretty well, too, winning 9 of the top 30 spots — even though London comes in only at 38. The U.S. also fares poorly, barely making it into the top 30 with Honolulu and San Francisco in the bottom two places. The top city in Asia is Singapore, at no. 26. No cities from Africa or South America are in the top 30. The bottom? Baghdad once again comes in at 215.

To find out which 30 global cities offer the best quality of life, read on here.

vienna

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Florida teen finds rocks in Nintendo DS box

April 28th, 2009 RanDrake No comments

Jodi Wykle knew her son would be thrilled when she gave him a new Nintendo DS for his birthday.

Instead, he was rocked.

According to WTSP-TV, the confused teen opened up his gift only to find bunch of stones and a rolled up Chinese newspaper in place of the popular handheld.
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