I was a fan of the Diablo RPG Game series, and I thought a big badass game would have another sequel after the success of Diablo II. But it has been what, 8 years since that game was released? Nobody has heard anything about it for a while, although there have been some rumors that it was set for release sometime in 2007 (According to the Diablo Fans online community). Probably here's the reason why (from cracked.com):

Blizzard North, the division of the company devoted to the Diablo franchise, dissolved a few years back. Several Blizzard North employees subsequently formed their own company and started developing Hellgate: London, a game fans considered a spiritual successor to Diablo II right up until the moment it came out and they realized it was complete crap.

Oh well. It would have kicked ass. But all hope's not lost fellow gamers. Because Planet Diablo says the game's already in development. Something to look forward to, right?

Labels: Discovery, Games

Today, 60 years ago, the first WORKING laser was made public. And because of that, Google has personalized their page today! Check out www.google.com to see what I mean!

Oh, and don't forget to click on the image to find out more about the history of the now multi-billion dollar business of lasers.

Labels: Cool Stuff, Discovery, Google, Trivia

WATER

1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (Likely applies to half the world population)
2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is mistaken for hunger.
3. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as 3%.
4. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.
5. Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
6. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a ! printed page.
8. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%., and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer. Are you drinking the amount of water you should drink every day?

COKE

1. In many states the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke and it will be gone in two days.
3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the 'real thing' sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous China.
4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Apply a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of Coke into the load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase of osteoporosis.

Labels: Discovery, Trivia, Weird Stuff

More Animal Trivia brought to you by Avilon Zoo at Montalban, Rizal Philippines!
If you happen to visit the Philippines, then don't miss this. It's the biggest zoo in Luzon and it has a variety of species of animals that you'll surely love to see.

Labels: Cool Stuff, Discovery, Trivia

Going to the zoo last weekend was a great idea because there are several eureka! moments in almost every corner of the zoo. Here are a few discoveries I got during my trip:

Labels: Discovery, Trivia

Did you know?

The male cat's penis has spines which point backwards. Upon withdrawal of the penis, the spines rake the walls of the female's vagina, which may cause ovulation. Because this does not always occur, females are rarely impregnated by the first male with which they mate. Furthermore, cats are superfecund; that is, a female may mate with more than one male when she is in heat, meaning different kittens in a litter may have different fathers. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat)

Wow, it must hurt being a female cat. That must be the reason why cats are so loud at night. And I always thought that a cat's cry meant ectoplasmic organisms were nearby. Next time I hear cats moaning, I'll definitely remember this so I won't get scared haha.

Labels: Cool Stuff, Discovery, Trivia

According to the Guinness Book of World Records:

	Largest Mobile/Cell Phone
		WHO: Maxi Handy WHAT: 2.05 x 0.83 x 0.45 m (6.72 x 2.72 x 1.47 ft) WHERE: Rotmain Centre, Bayreuth, Germany WHEN: June 7, 2004
The world's largest functioning mobile phone is the Maxi Handy (Maxi Mobile). It measures 2.05 x 0.83 x 0.45 m (6.72 x 2.72 x 1.47 ft) and was installed at the Rotmain Centre, Bayreuth, Germany, on June 7, 2004 as part of the 'einfach mobil' infotour. The phone is made from wood, polyester and metal and features a colour TFT screen. It is fully functional and can send and receive SMS and MMS messages.

Now wouldn't you look like a fool if you called using one of those? LOL.

Labels: Cool Stuff, Discovery, Gadgets, Mobile, Trivia

Did you know that Google has more versions of itself aside from the Operating Systems versions that they have? Are the Googlers are just plain bored with that they keep on creating Google versions, or is it their marketing strategy to provide a Google to all walks of life?

Anyway, to keep the story short, here are three Google versions for three different types of people... or animals.

Google for Elmer Fudd
Google Bork
Google in Pig Latin

Labels: Cool Stuff, Discovery, Google, Trivia

I've been using this word for ages, often when playing my online games or when talking to somebody who just had a great victory over someone or something, but I never realized there's more to the word than what it seems!

Did you know that WOOT is actually an acronym originally used by gamers to express victory, joy, or excitement?

WOOT = We Owned the Other Team

Now ain't that a cool definition of the word?
Source: www.unwords.com

Recently, this word has been named as the word of the year by Merriam-Webster!
Isn't that so... Woooooooot!


Thanks Kin for sharing this one!

Labels: Cool Stuff, Discovery, Trivia

Wow! It has been more than a month since I last posted here! My apologies for being too busy to update this blog. Work has been insane, and business trips make things even crazier. Anyway, here I am with a new treat for all of you, today: The MS Paint Magic.

We all underestimate the power of MS Paint. After all, there's Adobe Photoshop and Imageready, or Corel Draw to answer our basic picture editing needs. But what we don't know is that our often-taken-for-granted picture editor also has tricks up its sleeve. Let me show you what it's capable of.

1. Stamp Function. MS Paint is capable of capturing part of an object and pasting it multiple times on the image. To do this, simple follow theaw steps:

- Select which part of the image you want to stamp
- Press and hold the CTRL Key, and drag to where you want to stamp the image part
- Click on the area

You will get something like this:


2. Image Scuffing. MS Paint is also able to scuff images. To do this, simply follow these steps:

- Select which part of the image you want to scuff
- Press and hold the SHIFT Key, and drag to make the patterns

You will get something like this:


Cool, huh?

Source: http://www.eeggs.com/items/48789.html

Labels: Cool Stuff, Discovery, MS Paint, Tricks

I don't know why it took me THIS long to find this great site. Damn, shame on me. Everything you'll need to humor and amuse yourself is in this site (Well, that is IF you appreciate sarcasm and a lot of wit). Anyway, one of the things that caught my attention is this:

The 2 most important rules in life
1. Don't tell everything you know.

I was scrolling down for the next rule, but I couldn't find it. Then as if hit on the head, the answer dawned on me and ended up rolling my eyes for not thinking "that way." Hahaha!

Be sure to check out Murphy's Laws (on Land and Warfare, on Sex, and on everything else!), Idiots, and Words of Wisdom!

:)

Labels: Cool Stuff, Discovery, Weird Stuff, What's Hot

Are you feeling bored? Do you feel as if you're not utilizing your brain at its maximum capacity? Do you want to stimulate yourself intellectually?

Well look no further because our favorite search engine (and probably my favorite company :3) is proud to give us its remedy for brain inactivity. Too bad, though, for us folks outside the US because we won't be able to participate huhuhu. Anyway, they're holding the US Puzzle Championship which is "a national online competition to identify America's most logical minds." For more details, click HERE.

Here are a few samples of their puzzles:

14 cards with digits are placed to make a 3x3 grid of numbers. The totals for the numbers in each row and column are given. Pick up two cards and place them back anywhere in the grid (still face-up) so that the six totals become equal.


Go ahead and try! Hehehe!

Labels: Discovery, Google, What's Hot

So what's a dimension? According to Wiki,

a dimension (Latin, "measured out") is a parameter or measurement required to define the characteristics of an object. In math, dimensions are the parameters required to describe the position and relevant characteristics of any object within a conceptual space—where the dimension of a space is the total number of different parameters used for all possible objects considered in the model.

Okay, so I admit that in this lifetime, I only know 4 dimensions: the usual spatial coordinates X, Y, and Z (length, width, and height) + time. But get this, mathematicians for the past four years and with the help of supercomputers have actually constructed a map of 248 dimensions!! Wow! Something like that is definitely beyond my imagination. So what are the remaining 244 dimensions? Hmmn, let's see... Volume, Smell, Sensation, Color? What else?

For the full story, click HERE.

Labels: Discovery, Math, Trivia, What's Hot

I was reading my other blog and came across a eureka post last year. Let me just share it with everyone:

• Cellular phone signals DO NOT interfere with air control signals. Although Federal law states that it's forbidden to use any cellular phone on an airplane for the very reason that it might cause interference with the air control frequencies, the Mythbusters have proven this wrong. Cellular signals travel through a different frequency. The danger though, is that new phones are being developed everyday, and you'll never know when someone invents a phone that travels the same frequency as that of radio waves. (Source: Mythbusters)

• The scientific name of a fart is actually a FLATUS. (Source: Mythbusters)

• Flying a kite with a key on the far end of the string on a normal day (like Ben Franklin's experiment) will still cause some voltage to build up on the string and the key up to 20,000 volts. This voltage, though, is not strong enough to ignite sparks. A lightning strike on the kite will, however, fry the person if he touches the key on the far end of the string. (Source: Mythbusters)

• Bees can produce 3x the amount of honey that they need. They can also sting just once in their lives, because as soon as they sting someone or something, they leave the tiny needles on their back. Those needles are actually vital organs, which means every sting causes them to lose a vital part of their bodies. And soon after that, they die. (Source: Inquiring minds)

Labels: Discovery, Discovery Channel, Mythbusters, Secrets, Trivia

Last Friday, the Thai government said that it has lifted the 4-month ban on YouTube. This is in response to the video-sharing web site's operator agreeing to not allow videos that violate the country's laws or are offensive to the Thai population. If we can recall, the government blocked access to YouTube on April 4 after Google (YouTube owner) turned down Thailand's request to remove clips that were offensive to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the country's revered monarch.

What video clip are we talking about? Well, let's just say shoes were pointing towards the king's image with the Thailand national anthem playing on the background.

The Thai must be missing a lot without YouTube on their daily to-surf-list. That's what they get for not respecting royalty! Shame, shame.

For more details, click here.

On the other hand, the video-sharing giant was recently used by a group of hackers -- called Storm Botnet -- to propagate the latest worm to make zombies out of your PC's and do the bidding of their botmasters.

The hackers sent barrages of e-mails out over the weekend, inviting people to watch a scandalous video of themselves on YouTube.

The e-mail then offers up what appears to be a link to the clip. The link, of course, does not go to YouTube. It sends the victims to servers that download malicious apps.

Full story Here.

The lesson? Don't just open any email with a suspicious sender or subject. That's the first tip in preventing malwares entering your system. Also don't fall prey to the glory that YouTube videos are offering. I know, they can be very tempting, but for all you know, a lot of people are just abusing YouTube's popularity.

Labels: Discovery, Google, What's Hot, YouTube

For several centuries, the mysteries of the brain have left scientists hanging -- trying to explain the powerful functions of the brain and the things it can do. Even now, they're still trying to figure out how information is coded in the brain, or how memories are stored and retrieved from the nerve cells or neurons of the brain. Nobody knows the answers.... yet. Anyway, here are the interesting things you didn't know about your brain:

• You have a fat head: Neuron cell membranes are made from fatty acids. (LOL!)
• Even though our bodies weigh about the same, our brains are 10 times heavier than a sheep’s.
• The brains of 2-year-olds consume twice as much energy as do adult brains. (Wow, does that mean kids use their brains much more than adults do?)
• Antidepressants such as Prozac stimulate the growth of new neurons in the brain. So does exercise. (Oh crap, I need to exercise then...)
• From birth, the brain matures from back to front. With aging, it degenerates in the opposite pattern.

For the complete article, please visit this site.

Labels: Discovery, Secrets, Trivia