Swine flu

Found a site on facts and myths. Good to read:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090427-swine-flu-facts.html

Blog shift! Change ur bookmarks people!

Hey all

It's been 2 years!! The longest I've ever been at keeping a blog actually. Thank you for being around and reading the posts. Although I don't actually know most of you, I know you guys are around cos my stat counter says so. =p So once again, thank you so much.

I'm shifting my blog to a new site: http://tcube.wordpress.com/

tcube is actually a short form for triviatriviatrivia (t -cubed) cos I know how much of a pain it is to type the whole website out. Hopefully the new site name is easier to remember?

The new site is going to house new trivia as well as other information which I would like to share from my feeds, random surfing etc. So do go there and take a look okay?

Cheerio folks.

Free rice

I've just got this really cool site from a friend: http://www.freerice.com/index.php

What it basically does is that it works on your vocab with you and at the same time, for every vocabulary you learn, you get to 'donate' 10 grains of rice.

Details of how that works can be found on the site itself. I think it's actually quite fun (Maybe I'm a bit of a geek/nerd... heh.) and you get to do good things while you are at it too.

A fun time waster that you actually dun feel guilty about playing. Yay.

Go play now! - I'm at my 1000+++ grains of rice already. whee.

p.s. this post isnt quite my typical trivia post. but hey, you guys wouldn't mind right? =)

Brain freeze

Ever drunk an ice-cold smoothie only to get a throbbing headache?

Congrats, you just had a brain freeze!

How does it work?

Basically, on a hot day, you are probably dying for a cold cold drink. but when u take a sip from the freezing drink, you subject the nerves at the roof of your mouth to extreme coldness. This results in your nerves sending signals to your brain that you are freezing (when u really aren't) and your brain then reacts by heating itself up (to protect itself from being frozen).

When that happens, your brain is actually overheating itself without realising it. Hence, you get a brain freeze!

So if you ever want to avoid a brain freeze, try drinking ur drink such that it does not touch the roof of your mouth so as to avoid the nerves clustered there going haywire and sending wrong signals to your brain! =)

Why does the moon have phases?

What are phases? Notice that when you look at the moon, it looks round on some days and on other days, it looks like a boomerbang or like a half of a pizza (yes i'm hungry). Those are, crudely explaining it, the phases of the moon.

Many people have the misconception that phases of the moon is due to the shadow of the earth falling on the moon. Actually, that's the reason for lunar eclipse not for the phases of the moon. In fact, the shadow of the earth doesn't fall on the moon so often or regularly.

So what's going on?

Again, this is a concept that's difficult to explain using words, so here's a site with diagrams to explain. Do read about it and teach others about the correct reasoning!

Misconception about seasons!

Before I begin... I just wanna say: WOW i'm blogging in here REGULARLY again. yay for me.

Ahem. now to continue.

Does anyone ever wonder why there are seasons in the northern and southern hemisphere and why countries in the equator has none?

Most people have the misconception that seasons are due to the elliptical rotation of the earth around the sun - the longer distance from the sun gives us winter while the shorter distance gives us summer.

That is in fact very wrong!

Think about it, if this explanation was true, why would the seasons of the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere be the opposite of each other? When US and Canada is having their summer, Australia and New Zealand is experiencing winter. Shouldn't they have the same seasons if the earlier explanation holds true?

So what should the real answer be? Seasons have something to do with the tilt of the earth. It's not easy to explain this without diagrams so for more information, do go to this site to learn more!

Miss or Ms. ?

I've always struggled with the titles 'miss' and 'ms.' .

What exactly is the difference between the two? Aren't they both the same??

Today, I've decided to go find out. (Yes, I admit I'm abit slow about checking up on this =p)

So, here's the deal.

'Miss' is the title used for a single woman who has never married before.

'Ms.' is the title used for a woman regardless of their marital status.

Contrary to popular belief, 'Ms' is not short for 'Miss' but it is short for 'mistress' which is the female version of 'mister'.

The general idea is that the titles for men do not specify their marital status so the titles of women should also be ambiguous about it. Hence, people coined the non-marital status specific title - 'ms.'

Nowadays, 'ms' is often used in business correspondence when people do not know the marital status of the person they are liaising with.

So there you have it. the difference between 'miss' and 'ms' is that the former is a title for unmarried women and the other does not specify the marital status.

Extra trivia!

Seldom do people need the plural form of Ms, Mr, Miss and Mrs. But what are they exactly?

Here's the list:

(Mr) Messrs
(Miss) Misses
(Ms) Mses/Mss
(Mrs) Mesdames

[ref 1] [ref 2]