The Department of Defense used 1760 Playstation 3s to build a supercomputer because it was the cheapest option!

The United States Air Force Research Laboratory has completed what it calls the Condor Cluster, a supercomputer made entirely of PlayStation 3 consoles. The Condor Cluster, housed in Rome, New York, reportedly has capabilities heads and tails above every other interactive computer in the Department of Defense.

Made of 1,760 PlayStation 3 processors and 168 general purpose processors, the Condor Cluster provides extreme power for it's relatively low cost. It has the ability to calculate 500 trillion floating point operations per second (TFLOPS), but was made for $2 million thanks to the cost of the PS3.

Mark Barnell, director of the Air Force Research Laboratory's High Power Computing division, says this is "a cost savings of between 10 and 20 times for the equivalent capability." It also uses 1/10 the power of a comparable supercomputer, apparently making it "green."

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Asparagus used to be included in emergency pilot kits. When you eat it, your urine attracts fish that they could catch and eat.

Asparagus has always been popular, but it did go out of favor for a while during the Middle Ages and was popular again during the 1600s. It was known to many ancient peoples including Romans, Egyptians and Greeks who cooked and ate it during the summer months and dried the stems to keep them for use during the winter.

Asparagus has very few calories and contains anti-oxidants, but is also full of vitamins A, B6, C, E and K. There is some evidence that it may be beneficial to those with heart disease and that the high levels of potassium in asparagus actually slow down the loss of calcium from the body. Asparagus was included as part of the emergency ration kit given to American pilots.

The idea of the pilots eating asparagus was that it was a very valuable way of feeding themselves. Asparagus contains mercaptans which are powerful chemical attractants, and when the vegetable is eaten, these chemicals pass into the urine.

The pilots were told to urinate into the water, so that the chemicals would spread through the water and attract fish to the area, making them much easier to catch. This was of course, a valuable food source and the smell of asparagus is present in the urine after just fifteen minutes in many people, or thirty minutes at most.

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There's a Beatles song where the lead guitar is actually played by Eric Clapton!

On The Concert for Bangladesh, Clapton performed the song on a Gibson Byrdland hollow body guitar, and later acknowledged that a solid-body guitar would have been more appropriate.

The version in the Prince’s Trust Rock Concert 1987 reunited Harrison, Starr and Clapton, and features an extended coda with the guitars of Harrison and Clapton interweaving. Mark King played McCartney's bass line. On their 1991 tour of Japan, Harrison and Clapton performed a live version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with additional background vocals. An edit combining parts of the 14 December and 17 December Tokyo performances of the song is included on the album Live in Japan.

On 3 June 2002, within the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II concert at Buckingham Palace Garden, Paul McCartney performed the song with Clapton, as a tribute to George Harrison who had died the year before. They were introduced by George Martin. The performance appears on the DVD release Party at the Palace.

On 29 November the same year, McCartney, Starr, Dhani Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Marc Mann, and Clapton performed "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Concert for George in memory of Harrison. This version featured Clapton singing the lead vocal and playing his original guitar solo while McCartney provided background vocals and piano; Mann played Clapton's original fills during the verses.

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The bicycle is one of the most efficient inventions in the history of mankind.

The human body can be compared to a bicycle in terms of engines. The human body's biological engine is it's muscles. A person riding a bicycle at 15 miles per hour burns 0.049 calories per pound per minute. So a 175 pound person burns 515 calories in an hour, or about 34 calories per mile. A gallon of gasoline contains about 31,000 calories.

If a person could drink gasoline, then a person could ride about 912 miles on a gallon of gas. Considering that a normal car gets about 30 miles per gallon, that is pretty impressive results. Of course, people can't drink gasoline and a car weighs about a ton while a bike weighs about 30 pounds. We can, however, vegetable oil which has the same amount of calories as gasoline. Professional bikers get more than 25 miles per hour, too. So, it is a decent comparison of humans to bicycles.

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Michelin gives 3 Stars to restaurants that are so good, it's worth visiting its country to eat there. There are only 81!

The Michelin Guide is a series of annual guide books published by Michelin for over a dozen countries. The term normally refers to the Michelin Red Guide, the oldest and best-known European hotel and restaurant guide, which awards the Michelin stars.

Michelin also publishes Green Guides for travel and tourism, as well as several newer publications such as the Guide Voyageur Pratique, Guide Gourmand, Guide Escapade, and Guide Coup de Cœur.

First published in 1900 for France, Michelin introduced additional guides thereafter for other European countries. In 2005, it published the first guide for the United States focusing on New York City; followed by it's first Asian guide in 2007 for Tokyo.

In 2012, the Michelin Guide collection had 27 guide books covering 23 countries on three continents, with over 45,000 worldwide addresses. The 3 star Michelin rating means the guide suggests you visit the country just to try out the restaurant.

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