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30 Mar 2010 20:40

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Offbeat: Is an earthquake coming soon? The toads may know

And after the toads, the livestock will know, and then the locusts, and after that your first born will die. Then an earthquake hits. source

30 Mar 2010 20:33

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Politics: Obama: Those Tea Party types have legitimate concerns

  • My hope is that as we move forward and we’re tackling things like the deficit, imposing a freeze on domestic spending, taking steps that show we are sincere about dealing with our long-term problems, that some of that group will dissipate.
  • President Barack Obama • Discussing, with great care, the Tea Party, which largely views him with disdain. While realizing some of them are on the fringe and tough to court, he does feel that he can win over some of the moderate members with firm economic policies. “I think that there’s a broader circle around that core group of people who are legitimately concerned about the deficit, who are legitimately concerned that the federal government may be taking on too much,” he said. source

30 Mar 2010 11:13

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Biz: Consumers’ confidence bounces back, gains a little swagger

  • 56.5 the consumer
    confidence index
    in
    January, which was
    pretty great
  • 46.4 the index in February, which was its lowest level in nearly a year; we were sad and stuff
  • 52.5 the consumer index in March, which beat analysts’ forecasts; hooray! source

30 Mar 2010 11:06

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Politics: Michael Steele and Tim Kaine are like polar opposites

  • RNC Michael Steele, who got elected to the post last year, has made numerous errors, often grabs the spotlight, and is now the subject of questionable spending practices.
  • DNC Kaine, the former Virginia governor appointed to the DNC by Obama, has been called “boring” in his leadership role, but dude runs a tight, scandal-free ship. source

30 Mar 2010 10:55

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World: Amnesty International says China executed a lot of people last year

  • 1000’snumber of people executed in China last year, according to Amnesty International – note the lack of firm number here
  • 714 number of people executed in 17 other nations last year, including Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United States source

30 Mar 2010 10:48

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Tech: We expect you to print this post out and make copies of it

  • The first Xerox copier hit offices 50 years ago this month. One of modern history’s greatest, if most annoying inventions, it singlehandedly turned the former Haloid Xerox into a household name and in the process created a key part of the office. One that is often broken (the early versions caught on fire) and often a bit huge. “It was a product no one knew they needed until they had it,” said David Owen, who actually wrote a book called “Copies in Seconds: Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine.” source

30 Mar 2010 10:33

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Tech: Pretend you’re a scientist: Study these particle physics terms

  • hadron A particle that has mass,
    bound together from smaller parts called quarks. Protons and electrons are types of hadron
    (which we didn’t misspell).
  • collider A device that takes two beams headed in opposite directions and makes them run into each other, in an attempt to make two sets of particles combine.
  • higgs boson The thing which is suspected to give matter its mass if Peter Higgs‘ theory pans out. The Large Hadron Collider is trying to figure out whether it’s real or not.
  • dark matter This weird, cool stuff that
    scientists think makes up a quarter of the universe, and kinda shapes the trajectory of the universe a little. Like we said, weird and cool. source
 

30 Mar 2010 10:10

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Tech: We admit it, we think the Large Hadron Collider is freaking cool

  • 27km length of the underground tunnel, near Geneva, where
    all the good stuff happened this morning
  • 3.5x the strength of the atom-smasher compared the next-highest level of energy achieved
  • 99.9% the speed of the collider compared
    to the speed of light; any faster, and we might all die source

30 Mar 2010 10:00

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Tech: A Large Hadron collided today. We’re glad we didn’t misspell that

You think this guy on the left would be more excited that science occurred. Instead, he’s deep in contemplation on his life. source

30 Mar 2010 09:55

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Biz: Verizon really hoping this Apple iPhone thang is true

  • 4.7% stock leap on hopes and dreams alone source