■ On-line to the throne
Flushing out the secrets of America's Web surfers, a new survey of Internet use has found that more and more people are logging on -- in the bathroom. The snapshot of how the Internet has changed American life, concluded that home wireless connections were allowing people to stay connected everywhere -- even in the smallest room in the house. "A significant number of Americans use the computer connection in the bathroom," said Jeffrey Cole, of the University of Southern California Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future. Since people were unlikely to be surfing in the bath, or while brushing their teeth, Cole said he had concluded that many of them went off into cyberspace while on the throne. "Over half of those who used Wi-fi had used it in the bathroom," said Cole, remarking that he believed some people in busy homes retreated there for some privacy.
■ Cyprus counts cost of Viagra
The Cyprus government is proposing that condoms and the anti-impotency drug Viagra be included among a raft of new items being added to the monthly consumer price index that tracks inflation. The state statistics department is preparing a list of 153 more goods and services to be added in the first change to the cost of living index since 2000, according to the Greek-language Phileleftheros newspaper. The proposed list reflects the change in the eastern Mediterranean island's lifestyle trends by including the average price of hair waxing, contact lenses, hair gel, hands-free mobile phone accessories, vodka, pay-TV subscriptions, hunting licenses, blank CDs and a visit to the osteopath.
■ `12 days of Christmas' index up
One partridge in a pear tree: US$104.99, up 12.9 percent. Seven swans-a-swimming: US$4,200, up 20 percent. Overall, the cost of the items cited in the holiday song The Twelve Days of Christmas is US$18,348, up 6.1 percent over last year, according to the annual Christmas Price Index released this week by PNC Bank. "The Christmas Price Index reflects the economic trends that we have witnessed during the past year," said Jeff Kleintop, chief investment strategist for PNC Advisors. The bank said high energy costs and the impact of avian flu on imported bird prices was the main driver of Christmas inflation. Costs for domestic birds (four French hens and two turtledoves) were unchanged from a year ago.
■ Norway makes Santa its own
Norway will call in extra air traffic controllers for the Christmas rush as hundreds of thousands of tourists, primarily from Britain, take to the skies to visit Santa in Finland's far north, Norwegian officials said this week. Each year during the holiday season dozens of special daily flights link the European continent to the Arctic village of Rovaniemi, the official home of Father Christmas, creating headaches for air controllers in the countries the planes fly over, such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Some 400,000 tourists visit Rovaniemi each year, 90 percent of whom hail from Britain.
■ Seattle sound for literacy
Seattle, the west coast haven of coffee, culture and the Arts has been named America's most literate city. A study put Seattle directly ahead of Minneapolis, Washington, Atlanta and San Francisco in terms of literacy, which researchers said was critical to a city's long term economic and social success. Researchers at Central Connecticut State University surveyed the literacy of 69 of America's largest cities in terms of newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet use.
■ Monkeys have neutral accents too
To the untrained ear monkeys of a certain species may all sound the same, but Japanese researchers have found that, like human beings, they actually have an accent depending on where they live. The finding, the first of its kind, will appear in the December edition of a German scientific journal Ethology that was published yesterday, the primate researchers said this week. The research team analyzed voice tones of two groups of the same species of primates, the Japanese Yakushima macaque also known as Macaca fuscata yakui, between 1990 and 2000.
■ Caps off to Belgian office workers
The ever-efficient Belgian postal service wants to know how long it takes mailmen and women to put on and take off their motorbike helmets, a report said this week. At present, the people delivering mail have to put on their helmets when they leave or return from a trip, but are not obliged to wear them during the trip itself, the Flemish Het Nieuwsblad op Zondag newspaper reported, citing the Belga press agency. The impetus for this helmets on-off calculation is an increase in accidents among the 4,000 motorized mail carriers.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located