This Bird has a Grisly Secret

There he sits, looking innocent, like he wouldn't hurt a fly. Yet this harmless looking chap has a dark and grisly secret. By rights we should be calling him a Loggerhead Shrike but his gruesome habits are such that he is almost universally known as the butcher bird. To find out why, pop over to our sibling site, the Ark in Space.

Image Credit

Redeem: The Beginning - Multi Award Winning Sci-fi Short

In another time, another place, a young woman is surplus to requirements and so subject to elimination by a death squad.   Yet she was given time till sundown to redeem herself – something gave her a second chance.  This multi-award winning short by Dennis Peterson is hopefully to be made in to a feature film, so catch the original while you can!

15 Witty Grammar Jokes for You

There have been a lot of grammar memes over the last ten years and when you see them on social media they are beginning to look their age.  So, Teaching and Learning Resourcesfor Me on YouTube has decided to have a little fun (well, it’s Christmas, I guess) and has put 15 of the funniest in to a new video.  It may not completely satisfy your inner grammar nerd but it’s a start!  You can decide for yourself whether the title of this post is ironic, sarcastic, both or neither.

The Supertrees of Singapore

They look like a set from a forthcoming science fiction movie but these supertrees in Singapore are very much of this world.  A collection of eighteen of these trees, varying in size from 80 to 160 feet (25 and 50 meters), creates an amazing backdrop for Singapore's central business district.  What is more, they actually mimic real trees.

Image Credit Flickr User Bill Rosgen

Eleven of these immense structures are fitted with solar panels.  The sunlight caught by these energies is converted in to energy which helps to run this thriving business center.  They are part of an area known as Gardens by the Bay.  Yet it will be many years before the energy they create recoup their initial cost.  The entire garden, despite its energy-efficient and green credentials, not to mention its increasing reputation as a conservation area for rare plants, cost three quarters of a million US dollars to build.

When Were Slot Machines Invented?

Let’s face it, over the centuries people have created any number of ways to gamble.  It is even said that Keno, an ancient form of lottery invented by the Chinese helped to fund the building of the Great Wall of China.  Today we associate slot machines with online casino bonus software but their origin is not that much older (at least when we take the whole sweep of human history in to account!). Places like online real pokies aus only come a short while after in the big scheme of things!

Whenever you see a machine with three or more spinning reels operated by a single lever at the side then you are in the presence of a slot machine, variously known as fruit machine, the slots, or pokies depending where you are from in the English speaking world. The lever today is mostly gone from designs but a number of new machines keep it as a kind of homage to history.

The precursor of the slot machine was developed in 1891 by Sittman and Pitt in New York.  Although it proved very popular there was no direct payout mechanism – this was considered too complicated as it used five drums.  If you won you had to show the proprietor of the bar and a prize would be given from a pre-written list.  As the prizes depended on the proprietor they could vary enormously.  What was needed was a simpler payment mechanism.

This came about in 1895 when San Francisco based  Charles Fey invented a system based on three spinning reels and five symbols: the Liberty Bell plus horseshoes, diamonds, spades and hearts.  This simplified the complexity of reading a win which meant that payoffs could be made.  The biggest was set if you managed to get three bells appearing in a row – the princely sum of 50 cents would be yours.

Ironically, California banned what became known as the Liberty Bell but Fey found it hard to keep up with demand elsewhere!  This is generally seen as the beginning of the mechanical gaming device industry.  By the turn of the century Fey’s machines (and their copies) were all over the continental United States.

It would take until 1963 for Bally Manufacturing to develop the first fully elctromechanical slot machine.  Known as the Money Honey it was the precursor of all electronic games which followed.  The lever would become defunct (we could even say vestigial) with the advent of these machines.  Fast-forward to today and the online games we play still echo these first machines.  The internet would seem quite foreign to those people who played the Liberty Bell back in the 1890s but the overall concept remains the same.

Liberty Bell image courtesy of Wikimedia