Happy Birthday Cornflakes!

Today is the 101st anniversary of the Corn Flake. A humble breakfast cereal, oft ignored by Phunkidz unless frosted, but a mainstay at the breakfast table across the country. If you haven't had your bowl today, mark your calendar for tomorrow and revel in the crunchy goodness.

1897: Dr. John Kellogg, believing that a strict diet (along with vigorous exercise, fresh air and plenty of rest) benefits the patients at his sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, serves up the world's first corn flakes.

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Late Easter This Year and Hidden Eggs

Easter has always been great as a parent, something Phunkidz will have to wait for (reminder to you, M, you need to wait until you have your second PhD before dating). We parents often have eagle eyes and locate the eggs much sooner than the kidz and it gives us an immense feeling of superiority to announce that there's still an egg in the room that hasn't been found. The following Easter facts were forwarded to me by my father.

Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20, 2008). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar. Based on the above information, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) - that is rare. This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier!

• The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).
• The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818.
  

Link to Snopes entry confirming the facts

Avalanche! (On Mars)

We've long known that there's water on Mars in the form of ice at the poles. A spacecraft circling the dusty red ball of fury recently detected avalanches! The big question is, of course, whether or not there are Martian Saint Bernards available to locate survivors.

PASADENA, California (AP) -- A robotic spacecraft circling Mars has snapped the first image of a series of active avalanches near the planet's north pole, scientists said Monday.

The image, taken last month, reveals at least four avalanches of fine ice and dust breaking off from a steep cliff and settling on the slope below. The cascade kicked up massive debris clouds, with some measuring more than 590 feet across.

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Rambo Would Be Proud

Once in a while someone just does something right. The kind of right that just feels good, right down to your bones. The folks at Nerf have created a Vulcan automatic Nerf gun with a swivel tripod. My Christmas list has been updated.


The best new Nerf toy out of the entire Toy Fair 2008 lineup is this fully automatic dart gun. The toy is $40, and comes with 25 belt-fed darts, powered by six D-cell batteries (!). Paired with the Mission Kit Tactical Light, this is the kind of base unit a Nerf gun modder could really learn to love.

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Creepy Hand Soap

I wouldn't normally criticize products as I don't feel it gives a positive spin to this blog but I just had to comment on this Handsoap set. I have no doubt that this is created with love and attention by the people involved but I just can't get past the idea of cleaning my hands with these little disembodied baby hand pieces. Where's the rest of the babies? That's what I want to know.

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Chocolate Powered Truck

I'm all for using alternate fuels and getting rid of our dependence on oil but I think this goes too far. I don't understand how any chocolate could be deemed as "waste". It's a precious resource that we shouldn't squander on the gaping maws of machines for our own hedonistic driving addictions. Please vote NO on chocolate bio diesel!

While this may sound like something out of a Homer Simpson fantasy sequence a group in the UK just made a journey from the UK to Timbuktu in a truck powered entirely by biodiesel made from chocolate; or rather the waste chocolate from a manufacturer.

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Real or not?

In these days of Photoshop and computer rendering, it's often difficult to know whether anything is "real" or not. This will have profound implications when we get the point where we can't tell any more. At that point, pictures and video will not be able to be trusted.

Have we reached that point already? Check out the link.

There's probably a business to be made in ensuring that pictures are actually taken with a camera instead of rendered and not changed, the equivalent of a digital wax seal that indicates there have been no significant tampering with the photo and validates its authenticity. Do you know about the scandal with National Geographic (a well known and "trusted" publication) moving a pyramid? When does the use of technology to enhance a photo cross the line from an ethical standpoint?