UFO or Russian missile or…?

Ok, here’s a new alien story, fresh out from the box. Just yesterday on the 9th of December 2009 an object that cannot yet be identified has appeared in the sky above Norway. According to the story and the video, the object appeared to soar in from behind a mountain and suddenly stop in the middle of the sky. Then, it went all spiral and lasted for about 10 to 12 minutes before disappearing into thin air. The object had a bluish color and although it appeared in an arctic area it isn’t connected with the natural phenomena of aurora borealis (or northern lights). According to witnesses it was bigger than the Moon and apart from that, all other info about it is purely speculative. Some say it is a Russian missile test that went wrong but the Russian military strongly denies this. However, new media reports state that a missile called Bulava (which failed 7 of it’s 13 tests) has indeed been launched from the White Sea. Fresh reports also say that Russia formally notified Norway of a missile test within a time period that coincides with the time the blue light was seen. A Russian military source stated that “the third stage of the rocket did not work” but the Russian Defense Ministry had no comment regarding this. Some witnesses say it was a meteor and speculations about the origin of the light went as far as it being a stargate (yes, like the movie). But what do you think? Here’s the all famous news video, note: the video has gained more that a million and a half views in less than two days and it’s not stopping there. So check it out and state your opinions on the matter in the comments section bellow.

We had a few theories of our own and here’s some of them.

Good Vista… Why Vista never sucked?

We’ve all heard/read exactly how much Windows Vista sucks. But why is that? Does Vista really deserved all that negative criticism. Have you ever tried Vista for yourself? Vista had positive first reviews. In a 2006 review, PC World said, “All in all, Windows Vista is a great leap forward for the operating system”. So what happened along the way? Why did everything went horribly wrong? Well, we’re here today to clear some of those questions up and express our opinion for the matter at hand. This is purely our point of view so don’t get offended if you’re a Vista hater or a Mac lover. So let’s start from the top. Why all of the sudden the greatest Windows to be, became the target for negative criticism from all over the world. In our opinion most of the Vista haters never even tried Windows Vista for them selves. Someone, somewhere said that Vista sucks ass, some other one posted that on his/hers blog, and probably that’s how the whole thing started. The post was so fresh and new that it had to be true, I mean, it’s on the internet. So probably everybody started to copy or rewrite the post, big discussions about how Vista sucks came to be, and now the whole internet is flooded with sites, blogs and posts all saying how bad and crappy Windows Vista is. People somehow forgot the good things and innovations that came with the operating system. We’ve been searching around the net for hours and we couldn’t find one positive post or one good word about the Vista. It was all bad. No one can really say that it’s the perfect OS. It had it’s problems and glitches and nobody can deny that. The high requirements, the lack of backward compatibility with pre-Vista hardware and software and the user control numerous authorization prompts are all bad. But in our opinion that’s not enough to degrade a five year project. The guys at Microsoft started the OS from scratch and managed to put over 50 million lines of code in it. So let’s be clear on that. The OS isn’t just an improvement of an existing OS. It was build from nothing, so it was bound to have some problems. But somehow everybody forgot all that and still bitched about it. I personally have used Vista for a while and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. The software ran great, the games ran great, and it was stable enough. It had it’s glitches, but what OS doesn’t. Can you name at least one OS that runs with absolutely no problems and errors whatsoever on any type of machine available? I didn’t think so. There will always be problems. It’s not possible to create the perfect OS that will run at 100% anytime and anywhere. But enough of the down sides of Vista. Let’s mention some of the many good things and innovations that came with the OS. Things that people seemed to forgot. Let’s start with the security of the system. The guys at Microsoft invested a lot of effort in improving the security of the OS in it’s entirety. Everybody bitched about the XP’s vulnerability to viruses and spyware, and now when the issue is looked into, they bitch again. Next is the improved search and the new display and audio sub-systems, and the pre-installed desktop gadgets were a nice touch. It’s power usage is way better then older versions of Windows’ Operating Systems.And how could we not mention the best and most beautiful graphical user interface and visual style, the mighty Aero. Try to remember this. AERO CAME TO BE WITH WINDOWS VISTA, and god damn it’s as beautiful as a piece of bacon. No man can deny the pure awesomeness of the semi-transparent glassy window borders and the bitchin’ real time thumbnail preview of the opened windows. I mean golly gee willikers Batman, Aero is the shit. So let’s recap, Vista ain’t so bad, but due to popular belief it’s the worst OS that has ever hit the streets. Belief fueled mostly by people that have never even tried the OS, that have never even gave it a chance. Thanks to that, the people at Microsoft kinda bailed on the project and created the new Windows 7 which is just an improved Vista. So the focus now is more on the Windows 7 and less on the Vista, the system that kinda set the future for Microsoft’s operating systems. It’s still early to say how the “7″ will do, but it’s sorta clear that it’s hasta la Windows Vista now. Oh, and as a final personal note I want to say that Vista is the second most widely used operating system in the world with about 400 million users and 23.6% market share (after XP which has over 60% market share). So, up yours Apple. You and your 5% market share (Mac OS X) can go suck it.

The 10 most ridiculous pie charts

Pie charts are circular charts divided into segments which represent percentage. They are most commonly used to visually illustrate statistics of any kind. You can find them anywhere on the internet and lately it seems as though people have found a way to make them funny. So because of their popularity, we collected the 10 funniest pie charts on the web, and here they are:

1. Well this first pie chart is quite clear.

2. I, on the other hand, am too sexy for this blog.

3. You just got Rick Pie-Charted!

4. I don’t think he did, did he?

5. As real as it gets.

6. Afro is back in style.

7. The resemblance is uncanny.

8. Who would have thought.

9. Capiche?

10. I pity the fool!

15 wacky natural phenomena

Our planet is full of environmental oddities and phenomena we still cannot understand or explain. We barely comprehend common phenomena like lightning and tornadoes so chances are we have a lot more to investigate in the future. Weird shit is happening on our dear uncanny planet, so for you, we have collected the 15 strangest phenomena of nature:

1. Circumhorizontal arcs
This optical phenomenon looking similar to a fiery rainbow has actually nothing to do with rainbows and flames. It is rarely seen and it’s appearance depends on location and latitude. To be formed the sun has to be very high in the sky and a “Cirrus cloud containing relatively large plate-shaped ice crystals must also be present” (Wikipedia Quote). Sunlight entering, hitting those ice crystals and exiting at a 90° angle somehow creates this shiny rainbowy thing in the sky.

2. Sailing stones
Well the name speaks for the product, except they do not sail as much as they move along smooth valley floors in long tracks. How these stones owned the plants at moving and relocating is still not understood. They usually like traveling for 3 to 4 years and they sometimes roll-over and even change direction. Some of them sometimes decide to go back the same way for some peculiar reason.  So what did the scientists think of when it came to explaining this movement of rocks? Strong gusts of wind is what it probably is, though the origins of the Thing sounded more appealing to us.

3. Red tides
Once again a misleading name for HABs in marine coastal areas. The species’ color is often red or brown so they tint the water to a reddish color. Why these so-called HABs happen to occur in such locations is totally unclear, nevertheless the red bloody waves are as beautiful as they are horrifying.

4. Light pillars
One more visual phenomenon caused by reflection of light from ice crystals. It appears when the sun is at or low to the horizon in which case it’s called a solar pillar. The light can come from multiple sources like the Sun, the Moon or even streetlights.

5. Fire whirls
Sometimes called a fire-tornado is a phenomenon where fire takes an upward vertical form resembling a tornado with a fiery filling (yum!). These fires are pretty lethal sometimes reaching heights of more than 1 km and wind speeds over 160 km/h. A good example is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan where a firestorm was caused and created one of these fiery tornadoes that killed more than 35.000 in less than 20 minutes. Don’t play with fire whirls, kids.

6. Blue holes
Also called vertical caves or submarine sinkholes (whatever rocks your boat), these holes are circular depressions and their name comes from the contrast difference between the dark color of the water in their depths and the color of the surrounding shallows. They have low water circulation and therefore they aren’t very good at supporting sea life, though they contain a shitload of bacteria. The deepest one in the world is Dean’s Blue Hole with 202 meters depth.

7. Columnar Basalt
Fractions are formed during the cooling of a thick lava flow. When this cooling occurs rapidly, contraction forces are increased. Since lava flow cannot shrink horizontally without fracturing as easily as it can when it shrinks vertically, a network of fractures develops and columns  are formed. The most popular (probably) basalt flow in the world is Giant’s Causeway located on the northern coast of Ireland.

8. The Moon changing color
The reason why this occurs is due to the scattering of light by the atmosphere. When the Moon is on the horizon, moonlight has to pass trough much more atmosphere than when it’s directly overhead. By the time it reaches us the purple, green and blue pieces of visible light have been scattered away by air molecules leaving only the red, orange or yellow for us to see. The Moon can also “change” color when it’s directly overhead if there’s pollution in the atmosphere. What actually pollutes the atmosphere will determine what color you see as it can be red, orange or even blue.

9. Ice circles
This phenomenon occurs in cold climates where the water is moving slowly. Ice circles form at bends in the river where the accelerating water creates a circular current that breaks off a chunk of ice and rotates it in place. As it grinds against the surrounding ice it smooths out into a circle.

10. Sundogs
An atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots settled on a luminous halo around the sun. These “dawgs” are formed in very cold weather when sunlight passes trough ice crystals found in high and cold cirrus clouds. The actual explanation is much more confusing so we won’t get into that.

11. Lenticular clouds
These saucer-shaped clouds form in high altitudes “where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains” (quoted from Wikipedia). Because of their shape they’ve been mistaken for UFO’s and sometimes even called “visual covers” for UFO’s by paranoid UFO believers.

12. Penitentes
These snow formations take the form of closely spaced blades of ice with the actual blade facing the direction of the Sun. They can be as tall as a person… wait, what now?! Having said that, skiing probably ain’t the most popular sport where these impaling machines are found. They are commonly formed on the Andes by the strong winds there.

13. Mammatus clouds
The name comes from the Latin word mamma which means udder or breast. It’s applied to the pattern of pouches resting beneath a cloud because they appear to resemble boobs. They do resemble many things but I guess it’s what people first think of when they see them. Unlikely to the nature of breasts, these clouds tend to indicate that a strong storm or even a tornado is coming.

14. Sinkholes
Known by many names including shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or cenote, come to think of it, you call them whatever you like. They’re natural depressions caused by removal of bedrock and soil by water. Coming in various shapes and sizes, they acquire depths and diameters ranging from less than one meter to several hundred. Their formation can be slow or sudden, but nevertheless, if your yard starts to descend into a pit to hell, you might wanna consider moving.

15. Ball lightning
This electric atmospheric phenomenon is highly debated and controversial. They’re reported to be seen as luminous spherical objects which last much longer than split-second lightning strikes. The ball lightning has been seen in various sizes ranging from one centimeter to a few meters. Their existence is based solely on public sightings and there’s no physical proof aside from photos reported to be the real deal (kind of a UFO situation).