It is too Monday Miscellany, because before I could finish it I got called over to fix my in-laws' computers, which then took all day. The first and last time I had a virus on my computer was in 1996. But somehow I keep having to deal with them, along with pretty vicious spyware. Of course, it did give me an all-day break from my son, who is in his "Screamy McScreamerson" phase again.
Anyhoo. . .
- Western Christians celebrated Easter a while ago, but the Easterners have a different way of figuring when Easter is supposed to happen, so they just celebrated it this last weekend. The island of Chios, part of Greece, stands out among Easter celebrations. They really get into it, by way of making thousands of homemade rockets throughout the year. Then during the Easter Vigil (Saturday night) the parisioners of two churches shoot the rockets at each other's church with the goal of hitting the bell tower. And during this the traditional Orthodox Easter Vigil continues as if nothing is happening outside. There's a video at the link which doesn't allow embedding, so be sure to click through and watch it; it's visually stunning.
- Look at this photo:
Yes, that is an orangutan using a pole as a spear to catch fish. Apparently this individual has been observed watching the local humans hunt fish in this way. According to the article he didn't do very well at it until he used the pole to snag fish that were trapped in nets. It would be fascinating to see what our primate relatives could become as they continue to evolve, but I don't think we're going to allow them enough time.
- "Researchers Create 'Green Gasoline' Ethanol Killer From Biomass." They're using switchgrass and poplar trees, and apparently the resulting fuel is more efficient than ethanol from corn. John probably needs to weigh in on this, but if we can grow plants that don't require more gasoline than they replace, don't result in higher food prices and put a dent in the stranglehold corn has on this nation, then I'm behind it 100 percent.
