Woman Saves Dog From 14 Foot Long Snake

In Hong Kong, a woman fought off a 14 foot long python that was trying to eat her dog. Good for her! She may not have known she was a warrior until she was called upon to defend her dog. The article said she fought it with her hands and feet. Too bad she did not have a handgun or even a good knife.

Top 3 Inventions Which Structure The Modern World

Which 3 inventions are the most significant in defining and structuring our world? Here’s my list, what’s yours?

1. Heat Engine. All kinds of engines that convert heat, from combustion or other sources (nuclear, solar, geothermal, etc.) into mechanical energy. The gas or diesel  engine in your car, the turbine of a jet plane, steam turbines driven by heat from combustion or nuclear reactions spinning generators – this is the way most power plants work.
2. Modern Agriculture. This lets a small percentage of the population produce enough food for everyone. Modern agriculture is based on heat engine driven machinery and the “green revolution” of fertilizers and pesticides. Absent this, most humans would be employed in subsistence agriculture as we were before the industrial revolution (mid 1700’s).
3. Electronics, including computers and telecommunications. If you’re reading this …

Most of this is floating on a sea of fossil fuels, primarily oil. What if the peak oil theory is correct?

Article Link: css float and clear

I’ve frequently struggled with css properties float and clear. This article gives a very good explaination of these with examples.

Note to non-geeks: css controls how an html web page looks.

Mexican Trucks in USA

Mexican trucks are now allowed in the USA  as part of the NAFTA nonsense. American truckers have protested this saying these truck are unsafe. Well, today a Mexican truck carrying hazardous materials exploded and killed dozens – in Mexico not it the US. Not yet.

Man killed by microwave popcorn

9/6/2007 update: FDA investigating this.

It’s not possible to make this stuff up. In this NY Times article, a man died of a lung condition previously seen only in workers in popcorn plants. Seems the killer is s chemical called diacetyl which is used to fake butter flavor in microwave popcorn. Diacetyl … WTF … and I thought popcorn was a natural product from a common food plant (I do know popcorn comes from a specific kind of corn). And butter was made from cow’s milk. I considered popcorn to be a healthy snack …