At 1.30 in the afternoon on Tuesday last week, two women saw a bomb-shaped black object below the rear wheel of a black car in the parking lot on the west side of the Kaohsiung City Government’s Siwei Administration Center. If the car had moved forward, it would have squashed the object. The women hurriedly reported the matter to the building’s security staff. Security guards then turned up to investigate, accompanied by officers from the Kaohsiung City Police Department’s Public Safety Brigade. Not daring to touch the object, they first placed a traffic cone in front of it and then contacted the Police Department’s Linya Precinct, which also dispatched officers to the scene.
At about 1.45, the car’s owner appeared. When he saw a reporter taking photos, he went over to see what was going on. The man said that the object was a tool called a rocket air blower that he used to clean dust off his scanner; it had all been a big fuss over nothing.
The car’s owner said he was a commercial supplier to the city government and had gone there at 11 in the morning to discuss some business, parking his car downstairs by the west side of the building. He said that perhaps the rocket air blower had accidentally fallen out when he opened the rear door of the car. He then picked the object up and proved that it was a dust blower by pointing it at his scanner and squeezing it to blow the dust away.
Photo: Hung Ting-hung, Liberty Times
照片:自由時報記者洪定宏
(Liberty Times, translated by Julian Clegg)
上週二午後約一點半,二名女子在高市府四維行政中心西側停車場看到一輛黑色轎車後輪下,有一個炸彈形狀的黑色物體,若往前移動就會壓到,趕緊向保全反映,保全會同高雄市政府警察局保安警察大隊員警查看,不敢擅動,先用圓錐柱擋著,通報苓雅分局員警到場。
約一點四十五分,車主出現,看到記者拍照,上前查看,才說那是他用來清除掃描器灰塵的工具「火箭式吹塵球」,虛驚一場。
車主表示,他是市府廠商,上午十一點多前去洽公,將轎車停在西側樓梯下,可能打開後車門時,「火箭式吹塵球」不慎掉落,他拿起後,還對著掃描器按壓吹氣,證實為吹塵球。
(自由時報記者洪定宏)
South Korea’s famous kimchi is falling victim to climate change, with scientists, farmers and manufacturers saying the quality and quantity of the napa cabbage that is pickled to make the ubiquitous dish is suffering due to rising temperatures. Napa cabbage thrives in cooler climates, and is usually planted in mountainous regions where temperatures during the key growing summer season once rarely rose above 25 degrees Celsius. Studies show that warmer weather brought about by climate change is now threatening these crops, so much so that South Korea might not be able to grow napa cabbage one day due to the intensifying heat. “We
It’s widely recognized that there are far more right-handed people than left-handed people in the world. Being right-handed simply means preferring to use one’s right hand for tasks that involve only one hand, such as writing and eating. But have you ever wondered about the possible reasons behind the global dominance of the right hand over the left? As with many complex biological questions, multiple factors appear to be at play. First, one reason seems to be genetics. __1__ Therefore, the global dominance of right-handedness is something that has been passed down through many generations of humans. Next,
A: What’s even more horrible is that the five suspects who purposely supplied ketamine to actor Matthew Perry were all his “friends.” B: Who exactly are the five suspects? A: They include Matthew’s two doctors, a broker, a drug dealer, and even his live-in assistant. B: Those scumbags should go to jail. A: Yeah, one of the doctors may be sentenced to up to 120 years in prison. A: 更可怕的是,提供男星馬修派瑞「K他命」的5人全是他的「朋友」。 B: 嫌犯是誰啊? A: 其中包括他的2位醫生、1位仲介、1位毒販、甚至他的同居助理! B: 那些人渣真該去坐牢。 A: 對啊,其中1位醫生可能面臨120年徒刑。 (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
On blazing hot summer days, fresh ingredients and cool refreshments straight from a refrigerator feel like nothing short of a miracle. However, chilled foods didn’t begin with modern refrigerators. In fact, the origin of refrigeration precedes the invention of this now-indispensable appliance by centuries. Initially, the quest for refrigeration was motivated more by the desire to cool beverages than to preserve food. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for instance, used snow stored in insulated pits to chill wine. Around the fourth century BC, the Persians made a significant stride in refrigeration techniques when they devised the yakhchal. Fashioned from