January 2006 Archives

Twenty years ago today, the space shuttle Challenger exploded seconds after take off. It was a cold morning and the O-rings failed. I remember the day quite well. Our biology teacher interrupted our final to let us know. It was also my 17th birthday.

President Reagan cancelled the State of the Union speech scheduled that night and remembered the Challenger instead. Reagan was known as The Great Communicator and this speech demonstrates why. The last paragraph is forever seared into my mind.

...

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."

The text and audio are online.

I feel violated. Looking at web stats, I noticed a number of hits from MiniJuegos.com. Following the link, what do I find but a wholesale copy of Jawbreaker here:

http://www.minijuegosgratis.com/juegos/jawbreaker/jawbreaker.htm
(not linked on purpose)

One difference is that they don't have the statistics of number of games played, average score, etc. Now my license does allow for this, but still, how about a little credit were credit is due.

Fourty eight hours of darkness trigger a shift in the body from burning glucose to fat. Time to hibernate for the summer.

Constant darkness throws a molecular switch in mammals that shifts the body's fuel consumption from glucose to fat and induces a state of torpor in mice...

While their findings could provide new insight into mammalian hibernation, researchers note that the pivotal metabolic signal that emerged from the dark also presents a new target for obesity and type 2 diabetes research.

Read more in Biology News

Jawbreaker's about to hit 20,000 games played. To celebrate, there are two new features today. First up, stats now show the Top 5 Score for both you and the site. I've been bumped from the top for too long :-) Next up, there's now a legend showing how many of each color are left on the board. Good for those of us who keep clicking New Game hoping to find a game winning board, with lots of one color.

For the future, I'm thinking of reseting all high scores and allowing those who get the new high scores to enter their name. Let me know what you think.

I'm not the #1 Steve Spencer on Google. From the looks of #1, it's good to be #2.

But I like Yahoo's search results even better:

The slopes on Mars are now open. The lift tickets are cheap but the commute's a bitch.

Jawbreaker is rapidly approaching 10,000 games. The search engines have discovered it so we're now seeing over 1,000 games played per day for the first time. And I haven't held the high score in over a week. My previous best of 1,510 (not shown above) was beat with 1,572 and more recently 1,992. That's tough to beat.

Slate discusses the short cappuccino, which is better and stronger than the tall cappuccino, but not listed on the menu.

Here's a little secret that Starbucks doesn't want you to know: They will serve you a better, stronger cappuccino if you want one, and they will charge you less for it. Ask for it in any Starbucks and the barista will comply without batting an eye. The puzzle is to work out why.

The drink in question is the elusive "short cappuccino"—at 8 ounces, a third smaller than the smallest size on the official menu, the "tall," and dwarfed by what Starbucks calls the "customer-preferred" size, the "Venti," which weighs in at 20 ounces and more than 200 calories before you add the sugar.

At my local Starbucks, you save $0.25 -- $2.60 for a tall and $2.35 for a short. Here's my secret. If you want to save even more, order an espresso macchiato. An espresso macchiato is a shot of espresso with foam on top (ask for a little milk) and is only $1.60. Might need to sweeten it with a packet of sugar, but it's good and goes down fast.

p.s. Mind those frappuccinos. Cause at 430 calories, you just drank your breakfast.

p.p.s Look up the nutritional information on your favorite drink.