I don't know about others, but i'm getting very tired of sensationalist news. If it's not something negative, violent, scadolist, or otherwise not big enough to grab ratings, it never seems to be on the news. One of the latest 'OMG the world's gonna end' disease/virus would be the possible avian/human influenza pandemic(aka: bird flu). After overcoming my now almost instinctive reaction to block out any absurdly over-hyped fallacious media aimed at ratings, i decided i'd check out what (if any) the possible real ramifications were. Thankfully, there are multiple government sites with just enough information to give a much clearer, less biased perspective. As i first guessed, they are mostly just worried about some super-strain hybrid flu virus that carries the high fatality of one type of avian flu mutating and spreading to the human populace. Of course, as with any new strain of influenza, most people wouldn't have natural resistance to it and would become infected easily. However, considering how the flu is spread; "droplets from a cough or sneeze of an infected person are propelled through the air onto the mouth or nose of people nearby...when a person touches an object contaminated by respiratory droplets and then touches his/her own mouth or nose", i can't say i'm expecting the bubonic plague of the 21st century. Still, it's nice to actually know the basis for the myth the media has been hyping so much.
For the past few days i'd been wondering what the origin was for the heart shape: ♥. After spending a bit looking over various sites online, i bowed to Wikipidea's entry. Alas, it seems that it's too old now to really know where it came from for sure. The best ideas of it's origin: it came from Sumerian cuneiform symbol for woman, or the seeds of a long dead plan, silphium (used as a contraceptive). Oh well, i suppose i'll just write this off as another of those things i'm just not gonna know for now.
For the past few days i'd been wondering what the origin was for the heart shape: ♥. After spending a bit looking over various sites online, i bowed to Wikipidea's entry. Alas, it seems that it's too old now to really know where it came from for sure. The best ideas of it's origin: it came from Sumerian cuneiform symbol for woman, or the seeds of a long dead plan, silphium (used as a contraceptive). Oh well, i suppose i'll just write this off as another of those things i'm just not gonna know for now.
The macro virus, bane of M$ users and sysadmins. Incedibly virulent due to poor coding. |