A.P.P.L.E

Timbuktu is a city resides in Mali (West Africa). During its golden age, it was a transit point and a financial and trading center for trade across the Sahara. It was also an influential Islamic intellectual center, a cosmopolitan multicultural city of commerce and learning and the second-largest imperial court in the world. Timbuktu is also known for its manuscripts especially in the subjects of astronomy, music, botany, law, sciences, history, religion, trading, etc.

Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, and silver from the country of the white men, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu. – an old Western African proverb

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How much do you know about Scotland? I didn’t know any of these (which I’m going to share later in this post) until I received a sort-of-funny email in my inbox. To know more about the details, I did some search in Google and found some bizarre things which are actually practiced by the Scottish.

Fried food is actually tasty and favored by lots of people, especially kids. Don’t we love to order French fries when we visit fast food restaurants such as KFC or McD? But do you know…Scottish eat lots of fried food which is claimed to be unhealthy. Ever heard of fried Mars candy bar? Yea, you can easily eat this in Scotland!

First Minister Jack McConnell, the leader of Scotland’s executive cabinet, described the country as “one of the unhealthiest nations in Europe.”

The researchers found that Mars bars aren’t Scotland’s only deep-fried specialties, with chip shops also frying up ice-cream, pizza, pineapple rings, pickled eggs, Snicker bars, and bananas.

The deep-fried Mars bar is believed to have originated in the northeast Scottish village of Stonehaven, following a bet struck between a chip shop owner and a customer. – National Geographic

I suppose you know about the Scottish Kilt, which is a Scottish icon for centuries. There’s something bizarre with it too. Not the costume but the wearer! Men in Scotland wear the skirt-like kilt. The kilt look great and it is a very usual thing to see men in kilt in Scotland.

The following is rated as mature content, please see at your own risk. kekeke..

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Global Warming, it’s not a new phrase anymore. However, human beings seem to ignore this issue and continue doing things that increase carbon emission which increase the process of global warming. An infotaintment movie called An Inconvenient Truth, presented by Paramount Classics and Participant Productions, directed by Davis Guggenheim, featuring Al Gore, is now available. It points out the statistics and facts of this issue. It’s a must watch!

What is Global Warming?
You can make a difference!
Find out how to help stop global warming!However, I think a more practical way which can be applied right now – straight away, is by doing some changes to your desktop. If you are reading this blog, you probably are using a computer with browser that connected to the Internet. FriedBeef mentioned some good tips in his techblog on how to save the world using your desktop. I like the Black Google idea very much!As we know, the leading search engine – Google, gets millions of queries everyday. And the free online encyclopedia – Wikipedia, has also become popular among Internet users. We can in fact change its display mode to save the world! Now you can start using the Black Google instead of the original white background Google Search.

a cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor uses about 74 watts to display an all white web page, but only uses 59 watts to display an all black page.
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A shift to a black background will save a total of 15 watts. If a quarter of the monitors in the world are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that’s about $75,000 a year.Source: The Inquirer

But this only makes the normal query page displayed in black background. Not to worry, here is a cool Firefox add-on known as Stylish, enables you to view other websites with black background too, provided you load the scripts provided.

Installing Popular Site Styles (for Firefox add-on Stylish)

• Google Image Search – dark gray redesign (vC)
• Dark Wikipedia (SKYY’s Version)
• YouTube.com – dark grey redesign (Vc)

Get more site style HERE.

Not using Firefox?
Get Firefox today!
You can make a difference!

I’ve changed my Google search, Wikipedia and YouTube style to dark.
It not only can save some energy, it also make your eyes more comfortable when looking something with dark background. It looks stylish and cool too!
How about you?

>> Tips: Use Firefox keyword search to bookmark your “darken” favorite sites!

A halo circling the sun. An omen of the arriving of the New God to Earth………… Transformers is on it’s way!!!!!

Kidding…

22nd June 2007 (Friday), an unusual yet unique phenomena happened in Kuching – a rainbow circling the sun. Cherry was so excited and keep pm me in the messenger. But I was a bit too late, so I missed it! Didn’t observe this with my own eyes!! Too bad. This is something new for us. Not many people get to see this phenomena because we don’t always stare at the sun. (It hurts our eyes!)

The rainbow around the sun is actually the formation of larger ice crystals in the atmosphere. The sunlight refracts of the ice crystals, making a ring of rainbow circling the sun. That is why we get to see this kind of phenomena. This phenomena was discovered as early as in the 15th century. Similar phenomena of this “sun ring” is usually referred as the sun dog/sundog or sunbow. (More on Wiki)

Here is a vid I found in YouTube: