The light bulb is the fruit of the light bulb tree.

Many years ago, the light bulb tree used to yield fruit only during the last two weeks of December. However, lately it's been yielding light bulbs since earlier in the year and for longer each year.

Nobody is really sure of the reason, but most attribute it to global warming.

This proposal automates an existing, and very popular, use case. It is estimated that it will save between 1,000 and 10,000 RPC calls per invocation, and generally increase user satisfaction.

If you are reading this through an aggregator, formatting may have been lost, so you probably want to see this post in the original page.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<hash>
  <request>/spam/all_in_one.xml</request>
  <error>User has been suspended.</error>
</hash>

curl -u user:password -d '' http://twitter.com/spam/all_in_one.xml

“Best of” lists have become very popular in lots of blogs: “the best 10 iPhone applications”, “the 7 most common excuses for tardiness”, “15 things everyone should know about rubber manufacture”. In this post, I analyse the top 3 reasons why those have become so popular.

1. A lot of people still take them at face value.

Many blog writers make a living off advertising revenue, so it's extremely important to attract traffic to boost page views and clicks. Many people don't know that this type of story is very common nowadays, so when they see one they will post a link to it in other sites: usually in their blogs and Twitter, and if you are lucky, it will get to high-traffic sites like Digg or Slashdot. Jackpot!

2. You don't need to actually research them.

The easiest blog posts to write are the ones where you don't actually need to research or document anything. With a “best of”, you don't need to do that. If someone says that you omitted some crucial element, you can just say that it wasn't so important or good to belong in your “best of” list.

3. You can stop at any moment.

For example, if you set out to make a “top 5” but then cannot come up with 5 elements, you can just go and change the title of the story to “top 3”, and nobody will be able to say that it's incomplete!

I hope you enjoyed this article with the top 3 reasons to write a “best of” article.

Tengo un recado para ese grupo de chavales españoles que se ha venido a Dublín de excursión.

Vane, tu amiga te está llamando, a gritos, desde hace cinco minutos. Por favor, hazle caso para que se calle y, de paso, dile que no sea tan ordinaria. Que la oigo desde la otra orilla del Liffey. Gracias.

Poco antes de que comenzara a operar en Dublín el nuevo sistema de alquiler de bicicletas, la prensa pidió su opinión a un representante de la menos numerosa que antaño, pero todavía influyente, comunidad yonki de Dublín.

— Bah, esas bicis no sirven para nada —fue su veredicto—. Son demasiado distintivas.

As you know, I've been living in Ireland for a bit over two years. That's why, even though I'm not an Irish citizen, I was really proud when I heard the news that an Garda Síochána, the Police force of the Republic of Ireland, has won a prize.

Yes, an Garda has won the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize on Literature. Their work: issuing dozens of tickets all over the territory of the Republic to the most persistent infringer, a Polish citizen called Prawo Jazdy. Whose name, coincidentally, means “Driving Licence”.

Congratulations, and good work!

Este vídeo-documental demuestra que el que juega con fuego (aunque sea virtual) a veces se quema.

Lo hago todos los días, pero siempre me da una solución distinta de la del periódico.

En este vídeo vemos lo que ocurre cuando el protagonista de una película de terror tiene tiempo de reflexionar.

A volcano island offers many advantages to the enterprising evil scientist:

• Land near the volcano is cheap, land on the volcano is even cheaper, and land inside the volcano is practically free!
• If the island is far enough from other land, you can use it as a base to launch rockets or intercontinental missiles without endangering or causing inconvenience to any surrounding population.
• Lots of geothermal energy provide heating in Winter and allow you to power a great amount of equipment without spending a single euro and without emitting any CO₂ to the atmosphere. It is Green energy!
• If you ever need to deliver a nuclear warhead or a Laser pulse to the Earth's core, easy access to a magma chamber provides a convenient pathway for a drill.
• If you are artistically inclined, the volcano presents a big face of rock on which you can carve your face, a skull with glowing eyes, or anything you want.

Of course, it also has its disadvantages:

• Its distance to land will mean that you'll need to ferry any materials by helicopter, plane or boat, which can become expensive very soon.
• This also means that you'll need to provide transportation, lodging, food and entertainment to all your minions.
• Finally, take into account that, even though you have the whole island to yourself, this island still belongs to a country, so you may not be exempt from its employment laws and labor agreements. Many forget this, and then get in lots of trouble and have to pay millions in compensation when a secret agent comes and wrecks the place and hundreds of minions die.