Midspot

As much as we humans love it, chocolate contains caffeine, theobromine, or theophylline, which can adversely affect a dog’s heart and nervous system. Because dogs metabolize their food differently, the ‘people’ food we eat isn’t necessarily good for them. In fact, last year the ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center handled 17,453 cases of pets poisoned by people food. Here’s a partial list of the culprits:

Alcohol

Avocados

Chocolate

Coffee grounds

Grapes and raisins

Gum or candy with xylitol

Human vitamin supplements

Macadamia nuts

Mushrooms

Onions and garlic (raw, cooked, powder)

Salt

Tea

Tobacco

Yeast dough

via Consumer Reports on Safety: People food that can poison your pet.

Recent investigation has proven that the common housefly is a very dangerous enemy to human life. The fact that it spreads disease and is in every way undesirable is sufficient reason why everybody should be as careful as possible to prevent its increase. One of the most successful ways to wage war on flies is to screen our homes so as to shut them out, and then leave no uncovered garbage pails or any other feeding places for them.

In cities where everybody has been interested in disposing of flies the results have been very encouraging. School children have helped wonderfully by engaging in fly-catching contests.

You can do a great practical good for your own home and community by making this flytrap carefully and using it throughout the fly season.

via Fly Trap.

Inventions

Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet;[129] it was invented by Sir John Harrington in 1596. Crapper, however, did much to increase its popularity and came up with some related inventions, such as the ballcock mechanism used to fill toilet tanks. He was noted for the quality of his products and received several Royal Warrants. He was not the origin of the word crap, but his name may have helped popularize it.

Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb.[130] He did, however, develop the first practical light bulb, contemporaneously with Joseph Swan.

Eli Whitney did not invent the idea of interchangeable parts, nor did he invent the cotton gin. He did help to popularize them, and obtained a patent for his cotton gin design.[131][page needed]

Henry Ford did not invent either the automobile or the assembly line. He did help to develop the ideas substantially, sometimes through his own engineering but more often through sponsoring the work of his employees.[131][page needed][132][page needed]

Transportation

The United States Interstate Highway System was not designed with airplane landings in mind. A common urban legend states that one out of every five (or ten) miles of highway must be straight and flat to allow emergency (or military) airplane landings, but this is not the case.[133][134] However, several parts of the German and later the Swiss Autobahn system were indeed designed to be auxiliary military airports, both during World War II and the Cold War.[135]

Toilet waste is never intentionally dumped overboard in aircraft. All waste is collected in tanks which are emptied on the ground by special toilet waste vehicles. A vacuum is used to allow the toilet to be flushed with less water and because plumbing cannot rely on gravity alone in an aircraft in motion.[136][137] The infamous blue ice is caused by accidental leakages from the waste tank.

via List of common misconceptions – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Very interesting list of common misconceptions. I remember learning a bunch of these as “fact” in school.

Somehow budget cuts seems to have put a damper on the experience though…

South African Dr. Sonnet Ehlers was on call one night four decades ago when a devastated rape victim walked in. Her eyes were lifeless; she was like a breathing corpse.”She looked at me and said, If only I had teeth down there,” recalled Ehlers, who was a 20-year-old medical researcher at the time. “I promised her Id do something to help people like her one day.”

via South African doctor invents female condoms with teeth to fight rape – CNN.com.

High Res of the island map

via High Res of the island map.

A must see for any Lost fans

As the remaining pool of IPv4 addresses dwindles (only 623 million are left!), it turns out that the remaining address space isn't exactly beachfront property. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) currently has 16 blocks of 16.8 million IPv4 addresses left—out of a total of 221 usable such blocks. In January, IANA gave the 1.0.0.0/8 block (all IP addresses starting with “1”) to APNIC, the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre in Brisbane, Australia, which distributes IP addresses in Asia (excluding the former USSR) and Oceania. It turns out that this block is attracting no less than 150Mbps worth of assorted traffic before getting put into use.

via Scraping the bottom of the IPv4 barrel for new addresses.

Interesting article on the last remaining IP4 IP addresses. This is hardcore geek stuff. Most of you will not care one bit about this! 😉

Verizon Wireless is toying with the idea of eliminating its unlimited data plans and switching to tiered pricing, according to its parent companys chief financial officer, John Killian.In an interview with Bloombergs BusinessWeek, Killian said, “We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate.”A jump to tiered pricing would mimic a similar move by AT&T, which put the brakes on its unlimited data plan earlier this month.Under AT&Ts DataPlus plan, customers will now pay $15 a month for 200 megabytes of data and $15 for each additional 200MB over their quota. Under the DataPro plan, customers pay $25 for 2 gigabytes of data and an additional $10 for each extra 1GB.

via Verizon Wireless eyeing tiered data service | Wireless – CNET News.

Greedy telcos. Here is an idea, how about creating a network that works and ditch the contracts and let the consumers decide who to do business with.

Someone might be planning a big tailgate party in Bismarck.

Bismarck police took nine reports on Thursday of tailgates being stolen from pickups. Most of the thefts appear to have occurred Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

Sgt. Mark Buschena said seven Chevrolet pickup tailgates, one GMC tailgate and one Dodge tailgate were reported stolen across Bismarck. While taking a report at one home, an officer noticed a tailgate missing from a neighbor’s pickup; however, the officer was not able to speak to the pickup owner to find out if the tailgate had been stolen.

Duane Vetter, owner of Duane’s Body and Frame Shop, said taking a tailgate off a pickup is a quick job.

“If it takes you 10 seconds, you’re slow,” he said.

Lighter tailgates might be around 70 pounds, while bigger ones range from 70 to 100 pounds, Vetter said. Customers brought in two Chevrolet 2500s on Thursday that had tailgates stolen.

“That’s a one-man operation,” he said about removing a tailgate from that size of pickup.

Used tailgates may be worth $500 to $600, while a new one, painted with a new shell, latches and handles, would run $1,800, Vetter said. Though tailgates do have resale value, Vetter doubts they would find any buyers at the salvage yards in the area, as the people at the yards would know something was up if a load of tailgates came in at once.

“It’s got to be pranks,” he said.

via Tailgates missing across Bismarck.