What does it take to make you believe?

"Extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence", someone once said.

Would you believe someone on the street if he/she told you something unbelievable? Would you believe if he/she was a car saleman? Would you believe if he/she was a teacher? A policeman? A judge? A doctor? What about if he is an astronaut? How about 3 remarkable astronauts?
 

by new realities [1]

Edgar Dean Mitchell, Sc. D., born September 17, 1930, NASA astronaut Apollo 14, the 6th person to walk on the moon [2].

Happy Holiday - Australia Day!

photo by Caveman Chuck Coker

Happy holiday - Australia Day!

The day of the arrival of The First Fleet

Laughing Buddha

2012 Chinese New Year
May everyone be this happy.
And More!

Laughing Buddha. Fat Buddha. Happy Buddha. Smiling Buddha. Phra Sangkajai. Bu Dai. Or Hotei'.

His power: absorb negative energies or negative feeling and radiate positive feeling. Chinese people put him inside their houses facing the front door for bringing luck.

Why does golf ball needs two pair of shorts?

photo by J4913

"Want to hear a joke?", my 9yo son asked. Since he started to read, he loved reading and telling jokes.

"Why does a golf ball needs two pair of shorts?", he asked.
I smiled, "I don't know!"

Why 8-hour working day, 5-day week?

"It's manic monday!", that was what the Bangles said. 

"I wish it was sunday. Cause it's my funday..." 

Hmm. For along time, I have never met anyone who *likes* monday! What else does it associated with? Upset. Manic. Madness. Rush. Cranky. Moody. Aunt-Irma-visits!.  Did I say "upset"?!

The Dragon is Coming! Happy New Year!

辰 2012 Chinese New Year is on Monday January 23. It is the year of the water Dragon. Chinese New Year is the most important day for chinese. It's also known as the "Spring Festival" holiday.

"iCuriosity.com" wished everybody that this year be the most happy, healthy, and prosperous year."

References:
[1] Chinese New Year, Wikipedia.org

Another Place. Another Time

"Another place, Another time,
Where once my dream rhymed,
Who I am to make a demand,
Just this photo to remind me of that time."

Secret to growing *hot* chillie

People at iCuriosity.com worship Chillies. The hotter the chilli the more respectful it gets. Growing up in Thailand, I am familiar (addicted!) to hot food. The hotter the better. My friends suspected me of being Masochist!

Masochist:
"2: pleasure in being abused or dominated : a taste for suffering"
from Mariam-Webster.com

In Australia, we spent decade searching for fruit/veggie shops that sell super hot chilli. We gave up and decided to grow our own. After another decade, we think we've found the *secret*! Here is what you need:

Pins & Needles in my leg

"Sitting down for too long, I literally had pins & needles in my leg. Ha ha ha"

Ancient Astronaut: Pacal's sarcophagus lid

photo by Ariaski

"It can't be more obvious than this!", I announced.

To the right is the engraved picture on Pacal's Sarcophagus found in Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque, Mexico.

King Pacal died in 683 CE, give or take, this sarcophagus is approximately 1300 years old!

I downloaded this image. Rotated it around in all angles and could only arrive at one conclusion.

"You are too bias," my partner said. "It's because you've been reading Von Deniken's books too much," she concluded.

She maybe right, so I turned my macbook around and showed the image to my kids.

"Uhhh, it's a man working in factory", my 5 years old son reckoned.

Top-view line-drawn version by Madman2001 Pacal The Great Tomb Lid image by Madman2001

"Oooh! ooh!", my 7 years old daughter got excited, "It's a man riding a rocket!" I turned my mac around and gave a victory-look to my partner, "See! It can't be more obvious than this."

Image: Pacal_the_Great_tomb_lid.svg

obtained under Creative Commons

Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

.

Today Match: Federer Vs Karlovic

Australian Open 2012 Rod Laver Arena Fri Jan 11am
	Roger Federer	Vs.	Ivo Karlovic'
Rank:	3rd		57th
Country:	Switzerland		Croatier
Age:	30 (8 Aug 1981)		32 (28 Feb 1979)
Career Prize:	$67.47m		$4.14m
H/W/Hand	1.86m/85kg/right		2.08m/105kg/right
Career Win	810		195
Career Lost	186		181
Strength	being Federer!		Aces serves (up to 251 km/h)
Result	Federer won 7-6(6) 7-5 6-3

Clear Soup Noodle with Tender Veal

Preparation

• wash veggies

  Chemtrail anyone?!

• Preparing the clear soup

  Psst! This is a "secret" for cooking this type of noodle like a pro - this noodle has *clear* soup.

  • Boil 3 litres of water. Wait until boiled then reduced to simmer
  • added osso bucco veal
  • added 1 whole peeled onion
  • 1 tbls of crystal salt
  • 2 celery sticks chopped to the size of about 3"
  • 8 roots of coriander (root only)
  • topping up water to the soup if it's running dry. Do not stir.
  • Simmer for at least 2 hours keep removing froth. Do not stir
  • After 2+ hours (the longer the better), remove everything, keep the clear soup and osso bucco meat. Remove bones. Keep it warm.
• Soak vermicelli noodle in room-temperature fresh water for 1/2 hour
• Slice celeries to thin slice
• Slice fresh chillies and put in a small bowl. Add 3 tbls of white vinegar. Add this to your noodle to your taste
• Peel and flatten 1 glove of garlic. Submerge it in 1 tbls of cooking oil. Microwave high until golden brown

  Don't tell anyone - add a few drops of this gives wonderful aroma!

Serving

• Bring the clear soup to gentle boil
• Boil half a pot of fresh water. Put the noodles in strainer then submerge in boiling water for 5-7 sec. Remove from water. Strain all excessive water.
• Put only noodles in a serving bowl
• Add a handful of bean sprouts
• Add half a bowl of clear soup with osso bucco
• Add sliced celeries, sliced spring onion
• Add soy sauce, sugar, ground chillies, pepper, chillies-vinegar, and garlic oil to your taste
• Oh! Eat with chopsticks!

  Eat with other cutlery will ruin the taste of food!

Ingredients (5-6 serves)

• Osso Bucco 5-6 pieces (about 1/2 - 1 kg) 
• Peeled onion (x1) 
• Peeled and flatten garlic glove (x1) 
• Crystal salt (1 tbls) 
• Celery sticks (x2) 
• Coriander (8 roots) 
• Bean sprouts 
• Spring onion 
• vermicelli noodle (1 pack) 
• White soy sauce, sugar, ground chillies, and pepper

Sexual cannibalism

"Take my advice, little guy, stay single!"

Met this little guy in my front garden. So I looked him up. This is what I found. Excerpt from Wikipedia:

"Sexual cannibalism is common among mantises in captivity, and under some circumstances may also be observed in the field. The female may start feeding by biting off the male’s head (as they do with regular prey), and if mating had begun, the male’s movements may become even more vigorous in its delivery of sperm."

Ouch!

BTW: we support Wikipedia.org's fight against SOPA and PIPA. We Support "Free Knowledge" More info here!

Ancient Civilisation: Tiwanaku

Tiwanaku [6]
Location: 16°33'17"S, 68°40'24"W 

Tiwanaku. An ancient's construction site with megalithic structure. Located 3,850m above sea level, in Bolivia, South America [7].

"This make Tiwanaku the highest, above the sea level, ancient civilisation in the world. Why would anyone went up that high just to make a living?!"

Tiwanaku may have been occupied as early as 1500 BC. There is no record that this people have any written language nor they did know about wheel [1]. Their megalith structure comprises of large stones range from several tons up to ~26 tons. The Gateway of Sun God was carved out of a single block of stone weighing up to 10 tons. The quarries where the stones may be obtained from are located at ~80 km away.

This is a bit odd! Any advance and complex construction would require precise written specification and good transportation (by air, wheels, or boats). These people didn't know about wheels and nor that they could fly. So even with boats, they would still need to drag these huge stones around from over 80 km.

Imagine how the working days of its head architect would be,

"Ahh, Tom? I'd like you to take 100-200 people and go across the valley, to the quarry, and fetch me couple of odd thousands block of stones"..."bunches of them should be the size of your head, several hundred more should be the size of (scratched his head - they didn't have written language, remember?)... ah... looked around ... There! the size of 3 of that cow putting together! ..."

Imagine when Tom returned with all the stones that perfectly fit together The construction was done!

Tiwanaku people did not know how the megalith construction was built, so I don't think that  they were the actual builder. From this I incline to think that Tiwanaku megaliths were build way before 1500 BC. The art and carving on the surfaces do not present the same precision and complexity as the megalith construction itself. This implies that the surface arts may not be done using the same techniques, or it may be done by different people, different time, different eras. In fact, [1] suggests that these structures were built by their "Sun God":

"The Tiwanaku believed that Viracocha created giants to move the massive stones that comprise much of their archaeology, but then grew unhappy with the giants and created a flood to destroy them [1]."

Okay! So here is my interpretation...

Some good reading:

• [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwanaku
• [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gate_of_the_Sun
• [3] Sun God Image (available under Creative Commons) 
• [6] Image Tiwanaku, by Alexson Scheppa Peisino(AlexSP) (available under Creative Commons)
• [7] Tiwanaku: Spiritual and Political Centre of the Tiwanaku Culture 

Invitation: Putting your Instagram's Pictures on iCuriosity.com

I love Instagram! I found picture blogging can compliment to blogging at iCuriosity.com. I also found an easy way to integrate your pictures on Instagram to a website - any website. In fact, I have written a how-to blog here.

This is an invitation to all of our readers. If you have some nice pictures that raise curiosity, you are welcome to share them here at our website.

How:

1. Download their free iPhone app
2. Join Instagram if you have not already done so
3. Snap away your pictures and post them using Instagram's iPhone app
4. If you like to share on iCuriosity.com, please add #icuriosity hash-tag anywhere on the image's description
5. That's it!

The next time you visit our site, you will see your photos displayed at the top-right corner of the page.

Thank you for sharing.

Bad Teeth? Bad breath? Chew some bone

I was reduced to two inches when I was stared down by this vet at the clinic - it felt like one of those times when I was sent to the principal's office.

"Your dog has a bit of brown teeth. You don't feed him enough bones to chew?!", he said.

 It turned out raw bones are good for your dog and his teeth. Contrary to my believe, my vet said that giving him raw bones of at least 3-4 time a week helps clean his teeth. Your dog will also has cleaner breath. If dog's teeth, especially molar teeth, look brown it is a sign that your dog's teeth is not clean - source of bad breath and other diseases. You can get him a denture treatment which is very expensive (approx. $600-$800 or more) and it might already be too late.

You can get lamb's bones (for soup) from butcher shop very cheap, about $4-5 for 1-2 kg which should last a week. My vet said to chop them up to size of about my hand, put in plastic bags and freeze them in the freezer. Before going to bed, take one out and let it thaw during the night. You can give it to him in the morning.  I have a two year-old border collie and he loves them.

It works! After just one week, my dog's teeth are now back to pearly white again and his breath is so much better. I could almost kiss him now.

Picture of the day - Saucer in my front yard!

There was a saucer in my front yard!

I did the tossing of the veggy bowl.

My 9 yo son did the snap on my iPhone.

Instagram did the effect and posting (see here).

Pretty cool, huh?

;-)