Page 96 - Technology Facts

Nearly 3,000 dead blackbirds mysteriously fell from the sky in Arkansas over New Years.

Scientists are not sure what caused this strange phenomenon, but they believe it may have been due to fireworks fired off over the holiday. Blackbirds typically do not fly at night because they cannot see, which would explain why many appear to have crashed.

This story has gotten even stranger when coupled with other odd happenings in the area. Three days after the bird deaths in Arkansas, another 500 red-winged blackbirds perished of unexplained internal injuries just 300 miles south of the original site. Also, last week around 83,000 dead and dying drum fish washed up along a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River. Officials have yet to confirm whether any of these events could possibly be related.
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Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have all been blocked in China.

Google is available in China, but the Chinese government ordered Google to censor search results. This, and an alleged attempt by the government to hack Google's source code led to Google shutting down its Chinese servers. Google searches can still be performed in China, but they are routed to the company's Hong Kong servers. Google's revenues in China have gone down in China since the move.

YouTube has been blocked in China since March of 2009. China also blocked Twitter, but Chinese activists still access it and use it to communicate to each other through foreign servers. Facebook has been blocked since July 2009, after ethnic riots in Xinjiang. Since then, Facebook clone websites have been popping up in China, making it much more difficult for Facebook to catch on in China if it is ever allowed back in.

New laws in China could make Skype illegal too.
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Rainbows always form opposite the sun in the sky.

Rainbows are formed when light from the sun (or the Moon!) interacts with raindrops. The drops refract the light, splitting the different wavelengths of light (which we see as colors). If you've ever used a prism, the same principles apply.

In order to see a rainbow, the sun has to be at the correct angle for you to see it. The sun is behind you, and the rainbow goes around the shadow of your head. The sun also has to be at the right altitude, so that the rainbow is over the horizon, so you can see it. More rainbow facts!

Sometimes, a double rainbow happens. We don't really know why, but sometimes people get really excited about it.

Thomas Edison held a record 1,093 patents during his lifetime.

Edison's first patent was for an "electrographic vote recorder" in 1869, at the age of 23. This device was actually a bit ahead of its time, as it was TOO efficient and preventing polls from lobbying for vote-switching, a commonly accepted practice at the time. His invention of an improved stock ticker and the sale of its patent earned him $40,000 (worth about $600,000 today). This gave him the financial freedom to explore the thousands of ideas that were churning about in his brain.
Some of Edison's most famous inventions include: the carbon transmitter (which allowed for the later invention of the telephone), the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, the dictaphone, the mimeograph, and the kinetoscope (the precursor to our modern film projector). One of his least successful? The concrete piano.

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