Blog Together

Here’s something to lift your spirits and refill your cuteness meter before the beginning of another loong work week! ;)

Out of all the online social networks I have tried, the one I always continue to use on a regular basis is Stumbleupon. Clicking that Stumble button is like a drug and many a hour has disappeared without a trace while I find sites that I wouldn’t normally have found without the aid of this amazing social network.

But to simply label Stumbleupon a social network where you can find other amazing websites belittles its other amazing potential. For example, I have noticed it starting to influence search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Could Stumbleupon’s human-filtered search results be the beginning of the next evolution of search engines that could see the all-powerful Google algorithim be made redundant?

If you switch on the relevant feature in the Stumbleupon toolbar and then go searching in Google or Yahoo, you will then see this in your search results :

I chose “Garfield” as it was the first thing that popped into my head!

But you’ll see that there are now Stumbleupon factors in the search index. There are thumbs up, indicating a positive reaction from a Stumbleupon user, a speech bubble (indicating there are reviews available to read), the name of the Stumbleupon user that recommended the page and the category that the website appeared in Stumbleupon.

Now for Garfield, it’s no big deal whether someone likes him or not. But if you’re looking to buy something online or you’re looking for facts online, it helps to have pages that have been recommended by actual human beings, rated by human beings and reviewed by human beings.

Google may brag about its all-powerful algorithim but the one thing the algorithim doesn’t have is its ability to smell a scam or its ability to work out when a fact isn’t a real fact. Only real human beings can do that and that’s what makes Stumbleupon users with their ratings and reviews stand out from the crowd.

I’m very fond of calling Stumbleupon the “fledgling web democracy” because that is precisely what it is. It isn’t just a bunch of people looking at stupid websites and making profile pages. It’s a democracy of web users filtering out webpages and voting them up and down. That part, I think, is often overlooked by others and now that Stumbleupon has integrated itself into Google and Yahoo, that web filtering can start to influence overall search results and all the bad sites can now be voted to the very bottom. Something an anonymous computer algorithim can never do. Stumbleupon is the “Quality Control” of the World Wide Web.

If you want to take part in this web democracy, all you need to do is download and install the Stumbleupon toolbar and then switch on “Highlight Recommended Search Results”. Then start stumbling and voting!

But feel free to look at some LOLcats every now and then.

When you answer to nature’s call sometimes she says ‘hello’ back. Via

Imagine a common scenario: you’ve been driving for hours, you’re hot, partially sweaty and full to the brim, you’ve recently missed that ‘turn here’ sign and that next sign ain’t appearing on the horizon line any time soon, so you stop the car, do your business and then drive on, right?

Wrong this is a story of a man whose penis was bitten by a snake.

It certainly had a swipe at him, but it didn’t envenomate him.’- ambulance driver.

The man who has been unnamed for obvious reasons, was a tourist driving through a road in Queensland, on nearing the Town of Laura he realized he couldn’t hold it in any longer and decided to make a toilet stop. At the side of the road he undid his pants and crouched down.  Only moments later, a venomous brown snake had slithered through his legs and bitten his “Prince Albert.”
The tourist miraculously survived, as an ambulance spokesman elegantly explained ‘It certainly had a swipe at him, but it didn’t envenomate him.’ He was treated at the scene by having his penis wrapped in plastic. It was later confirmed that no poison had spread.
He did however receive a savage gouging to his gonads and tip, and a heavy combo of multiple vomiting and stomach pains. After recovering at the hospital he quotes with hindsight “I’m a bit shocked and embarrassed but I’m lucky.’

Image via Flickr User Sniggity

Have you ever swam out in a deep lake and not been able to see the bottom? All you can feel is the freezing cold water beneath your feet, all you see is darkness extending to infinity.

There is nothing wrong with being afraid of deep water even if you’re the best swimmer in the world, but when you add some fantasy to the story and consider the legends and mysteries that lie underneath the murky depths, fear can eat you alive.

As with any lake, depths fluctuate with climate and in particular rainfall. Notwithstanding this, today we’ll explore the top ten deepest lakes in the world and the stories and legends behind them.

10. Lake Matano

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With a tectonic origin and located in South Sulawesi in Indonesia, Lake Matano is an important freshwater resource in the area and the country’s deepest lake, with a maximum depth of 1936 feet. It drains from Patea River and later flows through a waterfall into Lake Mahalona (the Malili Lakes).

Lake Matana is famous for its extremely clear waters and the many endemic fish species which have arisen from a single ancestor diversified over time.

9. Crater Lake

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With a violent volcanic past, the caldera lake in the Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, is a place of immeasurable beauty. Surrounding cliffs of up to two thousand feet high, two small islands and spectacular blue water, make this “outdoor laboratory” the perfect place for photographers.

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Crater lake is the deepest lake in the United States with a maximum depth of 1949 feet. It may also have one of the purest water, in North America, (in terms of absence of pollutants) thanks to the generous amounts of winter snow that supplies it with water.

It was created when Mount Mazama (12,000 feet high) collapsed 7,700 years ago following a large eruption, but the legend has more details. The Klamath Indian tribe talks about a raging war between Llao, the spirit of the Below-World who lived in Mount Mazama, and Skell the spirit of the Above-World.

Llao felt in love with Loha, daughter of the Klamath Indian chief, but got rejected and decided to punish humans with the curse of fire. Skell came in to help and after a long battle he managed to defeat Llao, whom he imprisoned deep down into the Under-World, collapsing the top of the Mount Mazama over. At last he wanted peace and decided to cover the pit with magnificent blue water.

8. Great Slave Lake

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Also known as the Grand lac des Esclaves after the Slavey North American Indians, it covers 11,000 sq miles in the Northwest Territories of Canada and goes down to 2,015 feet which makes it the deepest lake in North America. Because of the low temperatures in the area, for about eight months of the year, the lake is at least partially frozen, while during winter, the ice is so thick that trailer trucks can pass through.

There is currently no physical evidence to suggest that an unidentified large creature is living in the Great Slave Lake, but many people traveling to the lake have said otherwise. Some talk about a large hump in the water, usually mistaken for a rock until it submerges, or an alligator-like body, with a head like that of a pike.

From his house, a Roman Catholic priest even saw a large dragon-headed creature that rose six to eight feet above the water and moved rapidly on the shores of the lake. The creature was subsequently named Ol’Slavey.

7. Issyk Kul Lake

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In the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, the northern Tian Shan mountains, Issyk Kul is an endorheic saline water lake that was supposed to be an ancient metropolis, 2,500 years ago. The average water depth is 1,000 feet while the deepest point goes down to 2,192 feet.

According to the legend, during pre-Islamic times, the king of the Ossounes had donkey’s ears. He managed to hide them however, by killing all his barbers to make sure the secret wouldn’t leak out, yet one day, one of the barbers escaped and yelled the secret into a well and left it uncovered, which caused water to rise and flood the kingdom.

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It would be interesting to explore the truths behind this story, as archaeological finds indicated the presence of an advanced ancient civilization where the the Issyk Kul lake is currently located.

6. Lake Malawi

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Also known as Lake Nyasa, Lake Malawi is the most southern lake in the East African Rift valley system, located between Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. At 2,316 feet deep, it’s the second deepest lake in Africa and thanks to the tropical waters it has more fish species than any other lake on Earth.

Researchers have studied sediments from core samples of Lake Malawi, which revealed that 100,000 years ago, water levels dropped to about 2,000 feet, turning the land around the lake into semi-desert and arid scrubland habitat. According to some, this may be why early man fled from Africa to colonize other parts of the world.

5. O’Higgins/San Martín Lake

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Located in Patagonia, between the Aysén Region and the Santa Cruz Province, the lake is called O’Higgins in Chile and San Martin in Argentina. It is the deepest lake in the Americas with a maximum depth of 2,742 feet (measured near the O’Higgins Glacier). The lake is very irregular consisting of eight well-defined arms with milky light-blue water coming from the suspended rock flour.

The lake is named after South American heroes José de San Martín of Argentina and Bernardo O’Higgins of Chile, who fought together for the liberation of Chile.

4. Lake Vostok

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Out of the 140 sub-glacial lakes on earth, Vostok is the largest and the deepest, with a maximum depth of 2,950 feet. Beneath Russia’s Vostok Station, 13,000 feet under the surface of the central Antarctic ice sheet, may be the most unspoiled lake on Earth. British and Russian scientists only discovered it in 1996.

The average water temperature is -3 °C and the reason why it is still liquid below freezing is the high pressure from the weight of the ice above it.

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Scientists also discovered that the ice core may be 420,000 years old, meaning that the lake could have been sealed for over 500,000 years and the water beneath could be doubly as old.

So far there isn’t any proof of life in LakeVostok. Notwithstanding this, in case there are species living beneath the murky depths, they are most likely to have evolved special features in order to survive the lake’s oxygen-rich environment.3. Caspian Sea

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Between the southern areas of the Russian Federation and northern Iran, lies the largest enclosed body of water on Earth. It’s an endorheic lake with salty water (salinity of approximately 1.2%) that was landlocked due to continental drift 5.5 million years ago. An ancient remnant of the Tethys Ocean, (just like the Black Sea or the Mediterranean Sea) it is the third deepest lake in the world going down to 3,363 feet.

Fauna in the Caspian basin is very rich: great numbers of sturgeon (that’s where you get the great caviar), the Caspian seal and some fish endemic to the Caspian Sea like the Kkturn (Caspian white fish), Caspian roach, Caspian bream and an array of rare species of salmon only to be found in that area.

The Caspian Sea is very rich in energy resources like oil and gas deposits, which have been tapped since the 10th century. These days, the oil in the Caspian basin is supposed to be worth $12 trillion.

2. Tanganyika Lake

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Divided between Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (45%), Tanzania (41%) and Zambia, Tanganyika is the deepest fresh water lake in Africa and the second in the world with a maximum depth of 4,823 feet. The lake was “mistakenly” discovered in 1858 by two British explorers, Richard Burton and John Speke, in their quest to find the Nile’s source.

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A recent story on National Georgraphic talks about a cold-blooded serial killer on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Called Gustave, it was a 20 feet long crocodile that weighted 2,000 pounds and was responsible for killing hundreds of people.

1. Lake Baikal

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Also known as the “blue eye of Siberia”, lake Baikal is located in Southern Siberia near R near the Russo-Mongolian border. Famous for being the deepest lake in the world with a maximum depth of 5,369 feet it holds a volume of water larger than that of all the great lakes combined.

Lake Baikal is a great eco-system where more than 1,700 species of flora and fauna live; two thirds of them only to be found here. Completely surrounded by steep mountains and dense forests, the lake has an estimated age of 25-30 million years, making it one of the most ancient lakes in geological history.

However, this enormous water formation may harbor a mystery of immense proportions: a gigantic animal, either of sturgeon-like appearance or a rogue sea serpent; Baikal’s very own Loch Ness Monster. No one can tell for sure if the legend is true or not, but the creature exists in people’s minds and haunts their thoughts.

If you know of any other deep lakes worth exploring, please drop us a line in the comments.

CustomizeGoogle is a Firefox extension that enhance Google search results by adding extra information (like links to Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like ads and spam). All features are optional and easily configured.

Pandora is one of my favorite music services. They’ve got a great library and it’s an excellent way to discover music. They also have (I think) one of the larger user bases for online music. But I’d gotten so used to having my music outside the browser that I hadn’t listened to them in a while. But today I woke up to find that they’ve released a beta of a desktop client built on Adobe AIR.

You can grab the bits at http://www.pandora.com/desktop/. The application looks pretty solid. You can log in with your Pandora account and get access to all of your stations. I haven’t tested it on Linux yet, but I think it should work with the beta version of AIR. It’s really cool to see a company like Pandora - a long time user of Flash (and OpenLaszlo) - start to experiment with AIR. Congrats guys!

1. Never save your best for last. Start with your best. Expend yourself immediately, then see what happens. The better you do at the beginning, the better you continue to do.

2. The opening paragraph, sentence, line, phrase, word, title—the beginning is the most important part of the work. It sets the tone and lets the readers know you’re a commanding writer.

3. The first duty of a writer is to entertain. Readers lose interest with exposition and abstract philosophy. They want to be entertained. But they feel cheated if, in the course of entertaining, you haven’t taught them something.

4. Show, don’t tell or editorialize. “Not ideas about the thing, but the thing itself.”—Wallace Stevens

5. Voice is more important than image. “Poetry is not a thing, but a way of saying it.”—A.E. Housman

6. Story is more important than anything. Readers (and publishers) care a lot less about craft than content. The question they ask isn’t, “How accomplished is the writer?” but, “How good is the story?”

7. These rules, pressed far enough, contradict each other. Such is the nature of rules for art.

8. All writing records conflict. Give the opposition quality attention and good lines. The power of the the antagonists should equal that of the protagonists.

9. Shift focus often. Vary sentence structure and type; jump back and forth in time and place; make a good mix of narration, description, exposition and dialogue.

10. Be careful of your diction. A single word, like a drop of iodine in a gallon of water, can change the color of your entire manuscript.

11. Provide readers with closure. The last sentences of the novel echo something that happened earlier. Life comes full circle. “If I have a pistol in my first chapter, a pistol ends the book.”—Ann Rule

12. By the end of the work, the conflict should reach some satisfactory resolution. Not always a “happily ever after” ending, but something should be finalized.

13. Revise, revise. You never get it on the first try. Art shows up in rewriting.

14. Avoid excessive use of adjectives and adverbs; trust the precision of your nouns and verbs. Verb form: the shorter the better. Avoid helping verbs and progressives. Avoid passive voice. Avoid cliche and stock phrases.

15. Be interesting with every sentence. Be brief. Hemingway’s first editor at the Kansas City Star gave him this style sheet: “Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative.” Hemingway later referred to that list as “the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing.”

16. If you can be misread, you will be.

17. There are no rules for good writing. Those who break the “rules” successfully are the true artists. But: learn, practice and master the rules first. “You cannot transcend what you do not know.”—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj