August 1, 2010
A Balisong, otherwise known as a butterfly knife or fan knife, is a folding pocket knife with two handles counter-rotating around the tang such that, when closed, the blade is concealed within grooves in the handles. It is sometimes called a Batangas knife. In the hands of a trained user, the knife blade can be brought to bear quickly using one hand. Manipulations, called ‘flipping’ or ‘fanning,’ are performed for art or amusement. The Balisong is commonly used by Filipino people as a pocket utility knife.
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August 1, 2010
Vampire pumpkins and watermelons are a folk legend from the Balkans. The story is associated with the Roma people of the region, from whom much of traditional vampire folklore originate. The belief in vampire fruit is similar to the belief that any inanimate object left outside during the night of a full moon will become a vampire. According to tradition, watermelons or any kind of pumpkin kept more than ten days or after Christmas will become a vampire, rolling around on the ground and growling to pester the living. People have little fear of the vampire pumpkins and melons because of the creatures’ lack of teeth.
Posted in Food, Humor, Philosophy |
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August 1, 2010
Watermelon steak is a grilled piece of watermelon. Some who have tried it compare its texture to that of seared beef or tuna, while others claim it is unique in its taste and texture.
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August 1, 2010
Happy Farm is a social network game, or massively multiplayer online game, based on farm management simulation. It is played predominantly by users in Mainland China and Taiwan, and is the most popular MMOG in terms of players. At the height of its popularity, there were 23 million daily active users, logging on to the game at least every day. Happy Farm was developed by Chinese social game developer 5 Minutes in 2008. It allows players to grow crops, trade with others, sell produce, and steal from neighbors. The game was influenced by the Japanese RPG series, ‘Harvest Moon.’ The game peaked during the end of the 2000s, and in the following years, experienced a sharp decline in players. As of 2012, it had practically vanished.
‘Happy Farm’ went on to inspire many more farming social network games, including ‘FarmVille,’ as well as parodies such as ‘Jungle Extreme’ and ‘Farm Villain.’ In 2009, ‘Harvest Moon’ developers Marvellous Entertainment eventually released their own farming social network game, ‘Bokujo Monogatari,’ for the Japanese site Mixi.’
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August 1, 2010
A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower.
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August 1, 2010
The Penrose stairs is an impossible object created by Lionel Penrose and his son Roger Penrose. It can be seen as a variation on the Penrose triangle. It is a two-dimensional depiction of a staircase in which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a person could climb them forever and never get any higher. This is clearly impossible in three dimensions; the two-dimensional figure achieves this paradox by distorting perspective.
The best known example of Penrose stairs appears in the lithograph Ascending and Descending by M. C. Escher, where it is incorporated into a monastery where several monks ascend and descend the endless staircase. The staircase had also been discovered previously by the Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd, but neither Penrose nor Escher were aware of his designs.
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August 1, 2010
Salty liquorice, salmiak or salmiakki is a variety of liquorice that contains a relatively large amount of ammonium chloride (salmiac) in addition to the liquorice root extract, sugar, and starch or gum arabic that constitute normal liquorice. Ammonium chloride has a spicy taste that vaguely resembles that of sodium chloride (table salt). However, salty liquorice does not necessarily contain any sodium.
Although some types of regular liquorice can also contain a small amount of ammonium chloride, salty liquorice can contain up to about 8 percent of ammonium chloride. Moreover, the salty taste is typically less masked by a high sugar content compared to regular liquorice. Salty liquorice candies are almost always black or very dark brown and can range from very soft to very hard and may be brittle. The other colors used are white and variants of grey.
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The Daily Omnivore 