Lake Baikal in winter

Via English Russia, which also offered this photo to illustrate the lack of snow removal in Kiev (March 24):

via TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee") http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2013/03/lake-baikal-in-winter.html

Last by 35 lengths...

Via Criggo.

via TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee") http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2013/03/last-by-35-lengths.html

Why Do Cicadas Spend So Much Time Underground?

In 1996, the cicadas of Brood II (the “East Coast Brood”) swarmed the northeastern United States and then disappeared almost as quickly as they came, leaving only their eggs and molted exoskeletons behind. Once the eggs hatched, the new generation of cicada nymphs crawled underground, where they’ve spent the last 17 years biding their time and living off of tree roots.

via Mental Floss http://mentalfloss.com/article/49609/why-do-cicadas-spend-so-much-time-underground

The Late Movies: Revisiting "The Voyage of the Mimi"

Long before he was an Academy Award-winning screenwriter and producer, Ben Affleck played C.T. Graville on PBS’ educational mini-series, Voyage of the Mimi, about scientists taking a census of humpback whales off the coast of Massachusetts. Here are a few of our favorite episodes.

via Mental Floss http://mentalfloss.com/article/49638/late-movies-revisiting-voyage-mimi

Auto Repair Genius

via MakeUseOf Geeky Fun http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/auto-repair-genius/

Bits ‘n Pieces for March 25, 2013

News and notes from around the interweb:

• PointBreaks are out! PointBreaks are out! Writing about this is all the rage but it’s getting very little ink from me.

Priority Club discounts some properties down to 5000 points for a room night. You have to act fast because while they’re booking out three months, the best hotels get pulled quickly.

And ‘best’ is a bit of a stretch, they rarely offer hotels I actually want to stay in as part of this promotion. Earlier on there would be some nice Intercontinentals. Now, if I happen to search for a hotel and it comes up at 5000 points that’s awesome. I win. But there aren’t any hotels in the new batch I would go out of my way to plan a trip for, even at such a deep discount.

• Buying a US Airways club membership can net you 5000 elite qualifying miles so if you’re a US Airways elite looking to requalify this may be the offer you want to jump on for your lounge access. Or you may want to just status match over to Turkish to get your lounge access for free, knowing that you can always just buy elite qualifying miles from US Airways if you wind up needing them.
• Head for Points says that airberlin is offering status matches. If you have elite status with a Star Alliance or Skyteam airline you may be able to get airberlin status. And since airberlin is a member of oneworld, their Gold status would get you lounge access when flying American Airlines (including on wholly domestic itineraries).
• Via One Mile at a Time, Emirates will begin adding fuel surcharges onto award tickets starting next month. This comes after much availability for Emirates first class awards dried up this year, and Emirates removed the ability to ‘buy out’ of capacity controls for additional miles (Flex Rewards have greater flexibility but not greater inventory).

• Fuel surcharges are a blunt instrument that can quickly and cheaply raise or lower fares across the board in a market (rather than having to re-file each and every airfare). They have the added side benefit of being “something other than the fare” and arguable for a frequent flyer program that they aren’t covered by miles (in this way similar to taxes).

  But this side benefit is disingenuous, it has nothing to do with the price of fuel — there hasn’t been a recent spike correlated with this change.

Related Stories

• Can Your Miles Be Taken Away When You Cancel a Credit Card?
• The Best Mileage Credit Card for Beginners
• Has American Raised the Price of its Choice Plus Fares — By a Lot?

via View from the Wing http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfromthewing/2013/03/25/bits-n-pieces-for-march-25-2013/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boardingarea%2Fviewfromthewing+%28View+from+the+Wing%29

Race Car Driver Forgets That He Switched Teams, Pulls into Wrong Pit Stop

British race car driver Lewis Hamilton worked for the McLaren team for several years, but he recently joined the Mercedes team. In the rush of the recent Malaysian Grand Prix, without thinking, he pulled into the pit box run by his former teammates:

"I don't know how that happened. The teams look so similar. I have been stopping in that pit box for years.

"[It's] an easy mistake and hopefully one I won't make again."

Hamilton soon realised his mistake and drove further along to his new Mercedes team pit box.

You can watch a video of the incident at the link below.

Link and Video -via Blame It on the Voices

(Photo: BBC)

via Neatorama http://www.neatorama.com/2013/03/25/Race-Car-Driver-Forgets-That-He-Switched-Teams-Pulls-into-Wrong-Pit-Stop/

"If You’re Offered a Seat on a Rocket Ship, You Don’t Ask What Seat. You Just Get On.”

There are many factors to consider when contemplating your next career move, but in her new book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead , Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg argues that one criteria trumps all others: fast growth.

The advice came from Eric Schmidt in 2001, when he was Google's CEO:

When companies grow quickly, there are more things to do than there are people to do them. When companies grow more slowly or stop growing, there is less to do and too many people to be doing them. Politics and stagnation set in, and everyone falters. He told me, "If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don't ask what seat. You just get on."

What about you? Do you have any single overwhelming criteria that you look for when deciding where to spend your career?

When Someone Offers You a Seat On a Rocket Ship, You Get On | 99u

Photo by ccharmon .

via Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5992332/if-youre-offered-a-seat-on-a-rocket-ship-you-dont-ask-what-seat-you-just-get-on

10 Old-Fashioned Swears to Spice up your Cussin'

Taboos against what we would today consider pretty mild exclamations led the swearers of years past to come up with creative substitutions that gave them some measure of emotional release while keeping within the bounds of propriety. Here are a few you might not have heard.

via Mental Floss http://mentalfloss.com/article/49652/10-old-fashioned-swears-spice-your-cussin

If you're known as a competent engineer...

More Dilberts.

via TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee") http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2013/03/if-youre-known-as-competent-engineer.html

Modern Life

via: twaggies

via MakeUseOf Geeky Fun http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/modern-life/

Cat Censoring Your Signals

Oh hai! TV reception been a little bad lately? Big Brother Cat is controlling what satellite signals actually reach you. -via Daily of the Day

via Neatorama http://www.neatorama.com/2013/03/24/Cat-Censoring-Your-Signals/

Scott Adams

"'Wrong' is one of those concepts that depends on witnesses."

via Quotes of the Day http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/40540.html

Brainteaser: Twin Birthdays

(Image credit: Flickr user Angela Vincent)

One day Kerry celebrates her birthday. Two days later, her older twin Terry celebrates his birthday. How could that be, when they were born a half-hour apart?

When you've given up and want to see the answer, continue reading.


Highlight the following for the answer: The twins were born while their mother was on an ocean cruise. The older twin, Terry, was born first -on March 1. The ship, traveling west, then crossed a time zone and Kerry, the younger twin, was born on February 28th. In a leap year, the younger twin celebrates her birthday two days before her older brother.

______________________________

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader . The book is a compendium of entertaining information chock-full of facts on a plethora of topics. Highly recommended!

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

via Neatorama http://www.neatorama.com/2013/03/19/Brainteaser-Twin-Birthdays/