Shocker: Snail Faster Than Mail
January 24, 2008
It’s official. Postal delivery is as slow as snails, at least in Poland.An IT guy, probably bored out of his mind made some simple math. After receiving a letter on January 3 that was sent on December 20 as priority mail, he calculated that a snail would have made it even faster to his home than the letter.
Daily Gazeta Wyborcza said Michal Szybalski noticed that the mail needed 294 hours to bring him the letter at his home. He also said the distance between his home and the sender was 11.1 kilometers.
Given the distance and the time, the speed of the letter was 0.03775 kilometers per hour. Szybalski calculated that a garden snail travels at around 0.048 kilometers per hour.
2007 Word of the Year
January 24, 2008
The American Dialect Society chose “subprime” as 2007’s Word of the Year at its annual convention Friday. “‘Subprime’ has been around with bankers for awhile, but now everyone is talking about ’subprime,”‘ said Wayne Glowka, a spokesman for the group and a dean at Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia. “It’s affecting all kinds of people in all kinds of places.”
The choice signifies the public’s concern for a “deepening mortgage crisis,” the society said in a statement.
Several people lobbied for “green,” which “designates environmental concern,” but the term has been around for years, he said. The word topped the 2007 “Most Useful” category, one of numerous subgroups the society choses.
Chinese Authorities Shut Down Porn Site
January 23, 2008
Chinese police have shut down a Web site that sold real-time porn and arrested 33 people, according to the news Wednesday, part of a campaign which led to the shut-down of 44,000 Web sites and arrest of 868 people last year. China launched a crackdown on online pornography and “unhealthy” Web content after Chinese President Hu Jintao said the country’s sprawling Internet posed a threat to social stability.
The site was based in Taiwan and the customers watched pornographic performances that were staged in China, Xinhua news agency said.
“This operation started up in the second half of 2006 and took in more than 1 million yuan ($137,000) in just three months,” it said.
Girl Thrown Out of Bus For Wearing Leash
January 23, 2008
Tasha Maltby, 19, told British newspapers she was the “pet” of her 25-year-old fiance Dani Graves. She was lead around by a leash by her boyfriend, considering herself a human pet after the driver kicked her off his bus. Pictures of the girl are probably as you expected, Gothic-style clothing, a lot of black, silver buckles on a silver chain — which the driver of a bus from the firm Arriva took exception to.
She told the Daily Mail newspaper Wednesday she was thrown off and told: “We don’t let freaks and dogs like you on.”
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