Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are god.
—Christopher Hitchens
(source: The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever by Christopher Hitchens, via The Daily Beast)
(via uberhumor)
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Research shows crows comparable to humans when it comes to waiting
“In a new study published in Royal Society’s Biology Letters, researchers have discovered that crows and raven birds show the same ability to complete delayed exchange tasks as monkeys and humans do. … This study shows that the crows are able to wait before making a decision and that this behavior is not limited to only humans and apes. While the researchers believed that the birds would be able to wait a few seconds, they were surprised that the birds were able to wait as long as they did.” Read more…
(source: PhysOrg)
Bee-Aware, bee very aware!
“I have to admit, seeing a honey bee these days is now like seeing a rainbow or finding a four leaf clover and by chance witnessing a shooting star. As I traveled over the U.S. something I noticed puzzled me. Where have all the bees gone?” Read more…
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man”
—attributed to Albert Einstein
(source: rtruth.blog.com, via Current)
Why is my Chrome browser running so slow?
Short answer:
Long answer:
I’ve been traveling and using my Dell XPS laptop extensively. I noticed that its performance has been getting sluggish, particularly while running the Chrome browser. Page loads were very slow.
Started looking at the usual suspects: disk and memory space, resource hogs, background processes, viruses(?), etc. Finally, I happened to notice that the processor was running stepped down, and also the fans seemed to be on a little more than normal. The laptop was running hot!
I broke the laptop down (pictured above), and sure enough, the fans and vents were clogged with lint, most likely from my cat. Cleaned them out, reassembled the laptop, and all is back to normal. BTW, it does take this much work to get at the fans!
It’s interesting that the Chrome browser’s performance seems to be particularly sensitive to slowdowns in processor speed, in this case caused by a laptop that’s running a little hot.
Lesson: My cat makes Chrome run slow!
Real, or photoshopped? Funny either way! —drego
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Irony
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Study shows elephants capable of insight
“Kandula, a seven year old Asian elephant living in Washington D.C.’s National Zoo, has proven that elephants are as smart as those that spend a lot of time around them have believed. In an experiment carried out by researchers at the zoo, the little elephant figured out all on his own, without resorting to trial and error, how to go get a cube to use as a footstool to help him reach some food that was just out of reach.” Read more…
(source: physorg.com)
Scientists want you to track ants in your neighborhood
“The School of Ants project is recruiting ant-gathering citizen-scientists for help creating detailed lists and maps of ants living in urban areas, particularly around homes and schools. ‘The diversity of ants, even around your home, is pretty high,’ said Andrea Lucky, project leader and ant specialist at North Carolina State University. ‘They’re fairly charismatic, compared with other insects, and we don’t know that much about them.’ The researchers behind School of Ants hope the project will help students appreciate wildlife in their own backyards, while amassing an enormous data set.” Read more…
(source: Wired)
Tell me again how dogs are smarter than cats?
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Eagle owl in flight: captured in amazing slow motion
(source: wickedinsight, YouTube)
