Posts

Its a tough to get through to your representatives right now. Their offices are slammed and phones are ringing off the hook. How can you, the concerned citizen, get your message through? We talked to some staffers to find out. The two senators from your state and the House representative from your district work for you. The DC office will employ staffers for various topics, but the local offices are just a few people....

The Krumlov Castle is unusually large for a town of Krumlov’s size. It is the second largest castle in the Czech Republic, after the Hradcany castle complex of Prague. The Rosenberg family had a long association with bears. The bear motif is also found in the Rosenbergs coat-of-arms, in which two bears are shown as shield-bearers. But Petr was forced to sell the castle to the Romans in 1601. His death, a decade later, brought to a kill the three-hundred-year-long reign of an illustrious dynasty....

Noon was also signaled by observatories for the benefit of astronomers and the general public. Some observatories still do it. The worlds only functioning sundial cannon in the Swedish town of Atvidaberg. It was a sundial equipped with a tiny cannon. The sundial cannon was used in parks to signal noon. A smaller variety was used in many large estates to signal the time for midday meals. Some sundial cannons approached the size of a real cannon and its boom could be heard for miles....

Last week, readerstold us their biggest life hacking fails, and some of them were truly spectacular. So good, in fact, we just had to share them with you. These stories have been edited for grammar and length. Heres a pick of the immediate results: I was pretty pleased. I found some heavier-duty ones and havent had any problems since. The one with the mess-cato, fromTJ: Watched a video on how to Sodastream wine to make bubbly....

It is only 2.4 acre in size, yet, its home to 1,200 people. Thats a population density four times that of Manhattan. But Santa Cruz del Islote is no Manhattan. There is no running water or sewage system. So why do people live there? The story goes that the men slept so peacefully that night that they decided to stay. Its the most densely populated island on earth. Space is so limited that many of the structures extend onto the water, supported by artificial means....

Its seldom our worlds are fully silentso seldom that complete silence feels shocking. This post originally appeared on theZapier blog. We welcome sound into our lives sometimes to our detriment. Silence, perhaps, is our most under-appreciated productivity tool. So lets talk about noise. Two types of everyday noise can be bad for us. One is excessive noise, such as the prolonged loud noise of being near an airport. The former may seem worse, but both can be detrimental to our productivityand sanity....

Still,you do have to care about securitywhen youre out and about. Heres how to surf safely, on any gear. Avoid working withat least onlinesensitive data when youre using unsecured, public Wi-Fi. Opt for those instead. or Absolutely Free Internet!you should probably avoid them. Sometimestools like Wi-Fox, which we mentioned above, have those in their database. you might also turn to Google Places, Yelp, oreven good old FourSquareto find those passwords....

For four months, Alert exist in total darkness. The land remains frozen and snow covered for almost ten months of the year. Winters are harsh and cold with temperatures regularly dropping thirty degrees below zero. Peak summer temperatures are just a couple of degrees above freezing. Photo credit:Johannes Zielcke/Flickr At any time in this godforsaken place, youll find several dozen people living. Thankfully, Alert is not their permanent home; they are merely here on work....

Before we get to gooey stuff though, lets talk about thosemelting salts, particularly sodium citrate. I then submerged the bag in a water bath set to 167F and waited for the cheese to melt. Now we were getting somewhere. This stuff had the consistency of processed cheese sauce, and the taste of Tillamook cheddar. After a quarter hour in the tub, I pulled everyone out and hit em with the immersion blender....

When my husband and I had our first child several years ago, we felt financially prepared. Our bank account was in solid shape when our baby boy was born. We were a little family of three. This post originally appeared onLearnVest. A few days after our sons first birthday I took a pregnancy test, assuming it would be negative. It was a wonderful surprise, but this time our balance sheet wasnt looking so good....

The Super Bowl is Sunday, with the Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots vying for the championship. Still, every year the NFL goes and tinkers with the rules, and this year is no different. Touchbacks on kickoffs now come back to the 25 yard line instead of the 20 yard line. As it turns out, therule change had no real effecton injury rates. Kicks were still returned about as much as usual, as touchbacks only increased by around two percent....

Resentment and anger started to build. But when she texted, So sorry, be there soon, I replied, No worries! Take your time :) Id had it. I was really sick of this being nice shit. Agreeable VersusTooAgreeable Over the years, Ive developed a problematic habit of taking my agreeableness too far. Being agreeable isnt a bad quality. In psychological terms, being agreeable usually means youre anempathetic person who craves social harmony....

Some of these paths are twenty to thirty feet deep, and look more like gorges than roads. A hollow way (chemin creux) at La Meauffe, Manche, France. The county of Dorset, in particular, is rich in holloways. Others are more recent, but at least three hundred years old. A sunken lane in Ille-et-Vilaine, Bretagne, France. Photo credit:Olybrius/Wikimedia A sunken lane in Nantes, France. Photo credit:Jibi44/Wikimedia The Washwell Lane in Wadhurst, England....