An unusual visitor has been hanging out in the St. Lawrence River for the past three years: A narwhal, more than 1,000 kilometres south of its usual range.
But the lone narwhal is not alone — it appears he has been adopted by a band of belugas.
Read more on CBC.
An emoticon is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. The word is a portmanteau word of the English words emotion and icon. In web forums, instant messengers and online games, text emoticons are often automatically replaced with small corresponding images, which came to be called emoticons as well. Certain complex character combinations can only be accomplished in a double-byte language, giving rise to especially complex forms, sometimes known by their romanized Japanese name of kaomoji.
The use of emoticons can be traced back to the 19th century, and they were commonly used in casual and/or humorous writing. Digital forms of emoticons on the Internet were included in a proposal by Scott Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a message on September 19, 1982.
Posted in Because I Can, Humor, Literary, On This Day
I like this one MUCH more than the real one:
Posted in Because I Can, Critters, Humor, Patriotic, Sports
Coming December 19th:
Posted in Because I Can, Events, The Big Screen, The Little Screen (Television)
On Friday, Sept. 14, Team Vesco and the turbine-powered vehicle Turbinator II went 482 mph to set a new record at Bonneville Salt Flats International Speedway and on Saturday they hit 483 mph. The team broke its own 470 mph record, set in August (video below). Vesco will attempt to reach 500 mph Saturday, Sept. 15.
Posted in Planes Trains and Automobiles
The series premiered on September 17, 1972, and ended February 28, 1983, with the finale becoming the most-watched television episode in U.S. television history.
Posted in Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)
Hogan’s Heroes premiered on September 17, 1965, and quickly became the most popular new show of the year. In fact, for several seasons it ranked in TV’s top 20 programs …but it never escaped the controversy it premise engendered: Was it immoral to portray history’s most evil killers as bumbling -even lovable- buffoons week after week, just to make a buck?
It ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to July 4, 1971, on the CBS network. Bob Crane starred as Colonel Robert E. Hogan, coordinating an international crew of Allied prisoners running a Special Operations group from the camp. Werner Klemperer played Colonel Wilhelm Klink, the incompetent commandant of the camp, and John Banner was the inept sergeant-of-the-guard, Hans Schultz.
168 Episodes, America must have decided it was ok… 🙂
Posted in On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)
On September 17, 1967, the first Hot Wheels was released.
Hot Wheels is a brand of die cast toy car, introduced by American toymaker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Matchbox until 1996, when Mattel acquired rights to the Matchbox brand as well.
Posted in Because I Can, Toys
Posted in Because I Can, Critters
Over the summer, a spectacular golden bridge opened to the public near Da Nang. In addition to a great view from Vietnam’s Ba Na Hills, the Cầu Vàng bridge appears to be supported by a colossal hand.
Posted in Because I Can
Autumn is a rice harvest season in Japan. Every year, farmers make sure that the leftover rice straw, known as “wara”, does not go to waste. From feeding the cattle to improving the soil, the straw finds its purpose. In particular, Niigata province has a very creative way of using these leftover rice husks by hosting an annual event called “Wara Art Festival”.
See more pictures at DesignYouTrust
Posted in Because I Can, Events
Today, the hard drive is found everywhere–from the PCs we use daily to MP3 players and memory keys so small you can toss them in your pocket and forget you’re carrying around a hard drive. But when the hard drive was first introduced on September 13, 1956, it required a humongous housing and 50 24-inch platters to store 1/2400 as much data as can be fit on today’s largest capacity 1-inch hard drives.
Read more
Posted in Because I Can, On This Day
