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Are you looking for all the best of what’s up in the night sky for the year 2007? Then download this free e.book— ‘365 Days of SkyWatching’!

(Brought to you courtesy of The Universe Today.) Each day is specifically geared to give you the best of what can be seen with the unaided eye, binoculars, and small telescopes and even has challenge objects for seasoned observers.

It’s beautifully illustrated and contains many special features, such as annotated lunar maps.

Please feel free to pass it along to anyone in the astronomy community and enjoy!

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Each week, the BBC Magazine chronicles interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts from the news, through its strand 10 things we didn’t know last week. Here, to round off the year, are some of the best from the past 12 months.

1. Pele has always hated his nickname, which he says sounds like “baby-talk in Portuguese”.
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2. There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts.
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3. Urban birds have developed a short, fast “rap style” of singing, different from their rural counterparts.
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4. Bristol is the least anti-social place in England, says the National Audit Office.
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5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men.
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6. The late Alan “Fluff” Freeman, famous as a DJ, had trained as an opera singer.
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7. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.
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8. There are 6.5 million sets of fingerprints on file in the UK.
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9. Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.
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10. Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.
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11. An infestation of head lice is called pediculosis.
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12. The Pope’s been known to wear red Prada shoes.
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13. The fastest supercomputer in the UK can make 15.4 trillion calculations per second.
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14. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up.
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15. Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defence secretary in US history.
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16. Spending on Halloween has risen 10-fold - from £12m to £120m in the UK, in five years.
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17. Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.
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18. Up to 25% of hospital keyboards carry the MRSA infection.
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19. The UK population grew at a rate of 500 per day last year as immigration out-stripped emigration.
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20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.
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21. English is now the only “traditional” academic subject in the top 10 most popular university courses.
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22. The number of people committing suicide in the UK has fallen to its lowest recorded level.
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23. More than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet, says a study.
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24. One third of all the cod fished in the world is consumed in the UK.
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25. In Kingston upon Thames, men on average live to be 78. In Kingston-upon-Hull it is 73.
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26. Each person sends an average of 55 greetings cards per year.
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27. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles.
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28. More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.
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29. Tony Blair’s favourite meal to cook is spaghetti bolognaise.
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30. The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.
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31. The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom.
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32. Barbie’s full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.
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33. Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five litres of cooking oil a year.
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34. Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.
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35. There were no numbers in the very first UK phone directory, only names and addresses. Operators would connect callers.
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36. The InterCity 125 train was designed by the same man who came up with the angle-poise lamp and Kenwood Chef mixer.
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37. Pavements are tested using an 80 square metre artificial pavement at a research centre called Pamela (the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory).
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38. A common American poplar has twice as many genes as a human being.
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39. The world’s fastest supercomputer will have its speed measured in “petaflops”, which represent 1,000 trillion calculations per second. More details

40. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is “superior temporal sulcus”.
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41. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen’s image, are printed in Holland.
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42. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Mironov, the daughter of a Russian-born violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
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43. There is only one cheddar cheese maker in Cheddar, even though cheddar is the most popular hard cheese in the English-speaking world.
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44. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality.
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45. Cows can have regional accents, says a professor of phonetics, after studying cattle in Somerset
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46. Involuntary bad language, a symptom affecting about one in 10 people with Tourette’s syndrome, is called “coprolalia”.
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47. Watching television can act as a natural painkiller for children, say researchers from the University of Siena.
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48. Allotment plots come in the standard measure of 10 poles - a pole is the length of the back of the plough to the nose of the ox.
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49. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes just before the camera rolls - it cools their mouths so their breath doesn’t condense in the cold air.
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50. There are 60 Acacia Avenues in the UK.
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51. Gritters come out in hot weather too - to spread rock dust, which stops roads melting.
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52. Forty-eight percent of the population is ex-directory.
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53. Red Buttons - real name Aaron Chwatt - took his surname from the nickname for hotel porters, a job he did in his teens.
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54. The CND symbol incorporates the semaphore letters for N and D for nuclear and disarmament.
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55. While 53% of households have access to a garage, only 24% use them for parking cars.
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56. Mortgage borrowing now accounts for 42% of take-home salary.
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57. The word “time” is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary.
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58. Forty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study.
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59. Dogs with harelips can end up with two noses.
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60. The clitoris derives its name from the ancient Greek word kleitoris, meaning “little hill”.
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61. A domestic cat can frighten a black bear to climb a tree.
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62. Thirty-four percent of the UK has a surname that is ranked as “posher” than the Royal Family’s given name, Windsor.
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63. The Downing St garden is actually a Royal Park.
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64. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666.
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65. The more panels a football has - and therefore the more seams - the easier it is to control in the air.
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66. One in four smokers use roll-ups.
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67. Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%.
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68. The egg came first.
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69. Humans were first infected with the HIV virus in the 1930s.
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70. Sir Paul McCartney is only the second richest music millionaire in the UK - Clive Calder, is top.
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71. Publishers have coined the term “Brownsploitation” for the rash of books that have sprung up in the wake of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code blockbuster.
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72. Modern teenagers are better behaved than their counterparts of 20 years ago, showing “less problematic behaviour” involving sex, drugs and drink.
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73. George Bush’s personal highlight of his presidency is catching a 7.5lb (3.4kg) perch.
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74. Britain is still paying off debts that predate the Napoleonic wars because it’s cheaper to do so than buy back the bonds on which they are based.
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75. Five billion apples are eaten a year in the UK.
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76. In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags.
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77. Metal detector enthusiasts are referred to as “detectorists”; there are about 30,000 in the UK.
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78. The Labour Party spent £299.63 on Star Trek outfits for the last election, while the Tories shelled out £1,269 to import groundhog costumes.
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79. The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle.
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80. Camel’s milk, which is widely drunk in Arab countries, has 10 times more iron than cow’s milk.
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81. Iceland has the highest concentration of broadband users in the world.
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82. There are 2.5 million rodent-owning households in Britain, according to the Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association.
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83. Rainfall on the roof and gutters of a three-bed detached house can amount to 120,000 litres each year.
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84. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger.
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85. The age limit for marriage in France was, until recently, 15 for girls, but 18 for boys. The age for girls was raised to 18 in 2006.
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86. Six million people use TV subtitles, despite having no hearing impairment.
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87. Goths, those pasty-faced teenagers who revel in black clothing, are likely to become doctors, lawyers and architects.
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88. Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child.
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89. There are an average of 4.4 sparrows in each British garden. In 1979, there were 10 per garden.
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90. The Himalayas cover one-tenth of the Earth’s surface.
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91. Lord Levy, recruited by Tony Blair to raise money for the Labour party, made his own fortune managing Alvin Stardust, among others.
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92. In a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win.
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93. If left alone, 70% of birthmarks gradually fade away.
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94. There are two million cars and trucks in Brazil which run on alcohol.
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95. US Secret Service sniffer dogs are put up in five-star hotels during overseas presidential visits.
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96. Flushing a toilet costs, on average, 1.5p.
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97. Tufty the road safety squirrel had a surname. It was Fluffytail.
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98. A “lost world” exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species.
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99. The term “misfeasance” means to carry out a legal act illegally.
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100. In the 1960s, the CIA used to watch Mission Impossible to get ideas about spying.
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As it does every year, Panda Software is publishing its annual list of those malicious codes which, although they may not have caused serious epidemics, have stood out in one way or another:

- The most moralistic. This award goes to the spyware Zcodec which, among other actions, monitors whether users access certain web pages with pornographic content. This may simply be a way of determining whether the user is a frequent visitor to these types of pages in order to send personalized advertising. On the other hand, perhaps the author of the spyware just has voyeuristic tendencies.

- The worst job applicant. The Eliles.A worm sends out CVs all over the place. It even sends them out to users’ cell phones. It would seem that it has little confidence in its own job prospects.

- The most sensationalist. Sensational headlines have always made an impact, now they are even being used by viruses. Of all those that appeared in 2006, Nuwar.A wins hands down with its declaration of the start of the Third World War.

- The most tenacious. They say that all good things come to an end. It’s a shame that the creators of the Spamta worms haven’t heard the saying. Otherwise, they might have stopped sending wave after wave of almost identical variants of this malicious code.

- The most competitive. Once the Popuper spyware has installed itself on a computer, it runs a pirate version of a well-known antivirus application. Far from trying to do the user a favor, it is actually trying to eliminate any possible rival from the computer. It seems that the fight for supremacy has also reached the world of Internet threats.

- The most diligent. In general, phishing messages are aimed at gathering confidential information such as credit card numbers or account access details in order to steal money. However, this isn’t the case with BarcPhish.HTML, which goes much further, collecting information including expiry dates, CVVs (Card Verification Value), last names, membership numbers, five-digit codes, account numbers, etc. No doubt the creator was thinking “better too much than too little…”

- The biggest snooper. In this case, it was not a difficult choice. WebMic.A is a malicious code that can record sounds and images, using a microphone and WebCam connected to the computer. Of course this is not the sort of uninvited guest you would like to have on your PC.

- The most mischievous. Nedro.B is a worm that seems to get bored after it has infected a computer. Perhaps that’s why it decides to change icons, prevent access to tools, hide file extensions, delete options from the Start menu… and basically cause chaos. Maybe this seems entertaining to someone, but it certainly isn’t for the users.

- The most chaste. Malicious codes that spread across P2P networks use enticing filenames in order to get users to download them voluntarily on to their computers. For this reason, many of these names have pornographic connotations. However, among the more than 37,000 different names used by FormShared.A, none of them make any reference to sex. That’s some kind of record.

- The most archaic. Seemingly there are still some retro virus creators around. Whoever created the DarkFloppy.A worm appears not to have heard of e-mail, instant messaging or P2P systems, as the propagation methods they’ve chosen to spread this malicious code is… floppy disks. Not much chance of a massive epidemic then, is there?

-The most promiscuous. This title goes without a doubt to Gatt.A. This malicious code can infect any platform that it is run on: Windows, Linux, etc.

- The most deceitful. SafetyBar supposedly offers security information and anti-spyware downloads. However, the problem is that once downloaded, these programs then warn the user that the computer is infected by non-existent threats.

Even though some of these may seem interesting, or even fun, users should steer well clear of the threats mentioned above or any others. For this reason, Panda Software advises users to ensure they have reliable antivirus software installed and kept up-to-date daily.

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Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, most likely you’ve got the day off this coming Monday. I hope you’ll spend it doing as little as possible.

Forget the email, the IM, the RSS feeds, the Google searches, what Wikipedia has to say about the origins of Christmas, installing that latest Firefox update or running a defrag. Unplug and enjoy. You made it through another year and you’re wiser, more experienced and best of all - you’re alive. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done, spend some good quality face time with the people you love, and have a very merry happy festive unplugged weekend. We know we will. Happy holidays to you and yours from all of us here at Lifehacker. Back on Tuesday.

Source: LifeHacker

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Cityrag has compiled video links for a list of The 50 Greatest Cartoons as voted on by the animation industry in 1994.
Found a cool list of The 50 Greatest Cartoons as voted on by the animation industry in 1994. As a holiday present to their readers they’ve put together a link to an online video for each one below! (we found a video for all but 6.) So many wonderful, funny and trippy cartoons spanning the decades (including some that were banned.) Enjoy!

Click the link to see the video:

1. What’s Opera, Doc? (1957)
2. Duck Amuck (1953)
3. The Band Concert (1935)
4. Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (1953)
5. One Froggy Evening (1956)
6. Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)
7. Red Hot Riding Hood (1943)
8. Porky in Wackyland (1938)
9. Gerald McBoing-Boing (1951)
10. King Size Canary (1947)
11. Three Little Pigs (1933)
12. Rabbit of Seville (1950)
13. Steamboat Willie (1928)
14. The Old Mill (1937)
15. Bad Luck Blackie (1949)
16. The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946)
17. Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor (1936)
18. The Skeleton Dance (1929)
19. Snow White (1933)
20. Minnie the Moocher (1932)
21. Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943)
22. Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943)
23. Little Rural Riding Hood (1949)
24. The Tell-Tale Heart (1953)
25. The Big Snit (1985)
26. Brave Little Tailor (1938)
27. Clock Cleaners (1937)
28. Northwest Hounded Police (1946)
29. Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953)
30. Rabbit Seasoning (1952)
31. The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950)
32. The Cat Came Back (1988)
33. Superman (1941)
34. You Ought to Be in Pictures (1940)
35. Ali Baba Bunny (1957)
36. Feed the Kitty (1952)
37. Bimbo’s Initiation (1931)
38. Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969)
39. Little Red Riding Rabbit (1941)
40. Peace on Earth (1939)
41. Rooty Toot Toot (1952)
42. The Cat Concerto (1947)
43. The Barber of Seville (1944)
44. The Man Who Planted Trees (1987)
45. Book Revue (1946)
46. Quasi at the Quackadero (1975)
47. Corny Concerto (1943)
48. The Unicorn in the Garden (1953)
49. The Dover Boys (1942)
50. Felix in Hollywood (1923)

More info on each cartoon can be found here - The 50 Greatest Cartoons

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