■ 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.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS