Canadians, rejoice! Thanks to an email from Samsung Canada, we now know that the Nexus Prime will indeed be available on Canadian soil.
The email doesn’t provide many specifics, price or release date, but select quotes indicate that Google’s next pure experience device could be available within weeks of tonight’s announcement.
With temperatures falling across the country, it may seem like an odd time to be talking about an Ice Cream Sandwich. But as all first-to-knowers are aware, the classic snack is trending on Twitter because Samsung and Google are about to serve up what could be the most anticipated Ice Cream Sandwich ever! If you're among those who can’t wait to learn more, tune in to the live stream of the official Hong Kong Unboxing event @ http://www.youtube.com/android. The webcast will begin at @ 10:00 p.m. EDT.
As cheesy as some of the wording may be, it’s quite clear Samsung is talking about Ice Cream Sandwich and the Nexus Prime. Or as they like to call it, “the coolest Samsung smartphone.” This isn’t the only source pointing toward a Canadian-bound Nexus. Just a couple days ago, the Samsung GT-i9250M was found in the WiFi Alliance database. Both the Canadian Nexus S and Galaxy S II have model numbers that end in “M”.
Be sure to stay tuned to Android and Me throughout the day as we continue to bring you anything and everything Google has to offer on the next Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich.
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So I’ve been busy living life over here. Turns out the more I have to write about, the less I actually write. Also not blogging turns your blog traffic to zilch! nada! nothing!
I’ve clearly not kept you updated on the #sexyback11 challenge as promised. Whenever we left off I had gained back 1/2 pound and the following week I had stayed there and then the next week I forgot all about weighing in and well I don’t even really know where we are now. I was within 1 pound of my goal when I stopped and it seemed like it was over. However, I am now back to lose that last 1.5 pounds before Labor day. Had to take up the entire challenge with those 8 pounds you know. As for working out, yeah haven’t done any of that in weeks, but I do stairs! Lots of stairs, God bless the two-story house. But not eating out has been a huge win. We are doing fantastic in that area. I’ve kept with the e-mealz and we’ve had food that tastes good for dinner, at our house! Turns out it’s much harder to not have seconds when you really like what you’re eating…who knew? Enough about the challenge.
I’ve picked up a few hobbies in the last few weeks. The first is Battlestar Gallactica, OMG. I fear I may be obsessed, even now as I type this my brain is screaming HURRY UP WOMAN! THE KIDS ARE IN BED YOU COULD BE WATCHING BATTLESTAR GALACTICA! We have a few weekend trips we are planning and I am trying not to think about having to go days (like two, maybe even three!) in a row without watching a single episode, it is going to be torture, torture I tell you!
But onto saner things…like knitting! Yes knitting, you heard me right. Despite a myriad of jokes about going grey (which I already am under the dye anyway, so there!) and aging over night, I have indeed taken up the craft of knitting. I find it fun and I can multitask while doing it, which is always a plus in my book. My first project was a little wash cloth, which came out fairly good. The next was a baby doll blanket for Jena. This was a more complex pattern and let’s just say it had a bit of a learning curve, that and they kids got a hold of it one Saturday while I was sleeping and it turns out ripped out stitches turn into holes! learning! Jena, however, was still thrilled with it, and I’m pretty impressed myself. I’m currently working on blanket binding for a blanket for Jacob’s birthday. I’ve wanted to make him a blanket since before he was born. Being a third child he had not a thing made for him, while the other two, a first boy and a first girl, had tons made for them. I am very excited to be able to rectify that. I’ll try to post a picture of it when it’s done. In the meantime, enjoy the picture of Jena and her new dolly blanket. When she say the picture she said, ‘I habs sad eyes.’ I asked her if she wanted to take one smiling and she said ‘no, I like da sad eye one.’
It’s thursday! Do you know what that means yet? Time for a challenge update. 1.5 LBs down this week! Woo hoo, back on track. I think I finally hit my exercise goals this week. Two workouts with the kinect trainer and two walks, I could majorly feel the difference. I’m also sore, feels good. As for eating out, I don’t think we ate out once this week. We are rocking.
On to more important things. I have been meaning to write my little angel a letter lately and after writing it in my head for the past month, I am finally putting pen to paper…you know…in the figurative sense. Here goes.
Even though you are almost two, you are still my little baby. From your scraggly baby hair to your limited vocabulary you still retain babiness, I am enjoying it. A few months ago you exited my favorite stage and entered what had been my least favorite. I say had because once again you’ve changed all I know about parenting. Some day you need to thank your brother and sister for being such difficult strong willed 2 year olds, they really set you up for sainthood. I am still in awe of you, your fits, when you have them, last all of 3 seconds. You express your frustration and move on, and you don’t even get frustrated that often. You are still your happy go lucky, easy going self, you amaze me.
You have decided it is time to start trying this talking thing. It’s probably been about a month since you turned parrot. You don’t always know what to say when you need it, but you can repeat most of what we say if we ask you to, and you’re so easy going you’ll even do it almost every time we ask you! (can you tell that was not our previous experience with new talkers…) I taught you the sign for please a few months ago, it was taught to get you to stop screaming and tugging my legs when you wanted to be picked up. You picked it up right away and about a month ago decided you could use your mouth to say it too. You now walk around the house saying please for everything, which sounds more like peeeaas! I find it absolutely adorable that I have the most polite almost two year old on the planet…even if it has slightly backfired as I no longer know what you are saying please for anymore…you literally use it for everything. You’ve also decided we are mommy and daddy, instead of mama and dada. The cutest part is that you have added y’s to most of your other words too, including wawa. It took me 2 days of serious frustration for you to realize you’d turned wawa into wawey. It still makes me laugh, it’s too cute.
You play nicely for the most part with other babies, another marvel. As long as someone asks you please you willingly give up almost anything you are playing with. Now if they forget the please, well that’s a different story we won’t tell right now. You are even fairly good at asking please for a toy before grabbing it, like I said, please is your favorite word right now. Though it is closely followed by thank you, the next sign you learned. You also say that one with your mouth too, though it is a bit garbled. What took me 2 years (ok maybe not quite that long, but it felt that way!) to teach your brother and sister you picked up in a week. You say thank you whenever you are given something, spontaneously most of the time and always when prompted. I would like to attribute this to my amazing parenting skills. However, once your siblings caught this one they got it down and I believe it is really a result of peer pressure. Which has gotten a really bad rap all these years, it can be used for good! Poor peer pressure, unjustly judged you have been…whoa yoda moment.
I also night weaned you this month. That has been an interesting process. You are still waking up asking to nurse in the second half of the night. You will go back to sleep when I tell you too, but you are up again shortly after. I have felt like I have a new born again this week. Oh I know what happened! You knew you had a little friend born this week! This is sympathy wakings isn’t it? You are so sweet, but you can stop now, really it’s ok. The gesture is appreciated though, I’m sure, by someone, somewhere…I’ll stop now.
I love you so much it feels like it will burst out of my body sometimes. I am enjoying watching you grow into a big boy.
First things first, challenge update. I stayed the same this week. Got sick on saturday and exercised not a bit. Looks like the exercise really was helping! Who knew. I’ll be back on it this week, still happy I didn’t lose any ground.
1) Turns out I’m a clean person, with the state of my house most of the time I would have never guessed it, but I am!
2) When I don’t cook for days I start to get creative and want to cook. I actually made stuffed mushrooms while they were gone, yummy.
3) It is ridiculously easy to keep up with three people’s laundry, I went 5 days in a row without doing a single bit of laundry, because I could, not because I neglected it.
4) I think I raised my voice, once, maybe twice, and only for a moment to get someone’s attention. I never lost my cool and actually enjoyed my kids, for 10 days. I think that is some kind of record, also wondering what I can do to make it more like that all the time.
5)I don’t have many rules. Play nice, don’t whine. I think that about sums it up. Amazingly they seemed better behaved with less rules.
6) I really am an introvert. Who would have thought all those nights alone would have been so enjoyable, certainly not me.
And a totally random bit of news. We finally have real live toy organizers, the kind my husband has been wanting since Jena was born. We didn’t have them because 1) at that point it would have been me putting all them away, not the kids and 2) they are usually 70 bucks a piece, we all know how che, I mean frugal I am. Now that the kids are older, these make much more sense. Then some one at work posted they had 2 to sell for 20 bucks each, it was made to be. I love a good deal, especially one I’ve been looking for.
Minus the big toys that go in the toy box, all the rest are now neat and organized in their little bins. I even have an empty one. Those of us who appreciate organization and order (and we are the majority in this house) are happy.
Today is the end of week two. I went down another 2.5 LBs this week! woo hoo! So excited. Half way to that goal. On the work out front, I’m rediscovering how difficult this is to work into parenting life. So I’ve changed my strategy a bit. I did get one workout with system, then I swam with the kids and walked once. Still trying for more, but anything is an improvement, I’m happy!
Eating out, well let’s not talk about that. But I’ve gotten really good deals! And I’ve eaten half the portions I usually do, so I’m following the spirit of the goal…right? Yeah. That’s it. Spirit is good.
First order of business, sexyback11. Lost 1.5ish pounds this week! yay! I say ish, ’cause it’s not a digital scale and really first thing in the morning I can’t see exactly where that line falls, and I am certaintly not going to weigh again later in the day. Anyone whose’s ever been on a diet should know that’s just craziness. I only worked out twice with my x-box trainer, but I swam with the kids and played kinect adventures with Grant so I’m saying I hit my goal. Eating out, well we ate out for father’s day and then again tonight. I’m not counting father’s day, so we’re good. Man I am good at justifying, bend a little here, stretch a little there, and it’s all good, scary.
In other news. Neil and Grant are off on their grand Michigan adventure, I will not see them for real again for 10 days. I’ve never been apart from either of them for that long. I’m feeling very mixed at the moment. Jena was not to pleased we left daddy and Jacob screamed half the hour ride home because he missed them so much already…or the sun was in his eyes…it’s really hard to tell at that age.
I have grand plans for us three (or just me) left at home, beach trips, blogging everyday, catching up with all my friends, play dates, reading a couple books. Since my head has only been able to process that there is one less kid to take care of it hasn’t really processed that there is also now one less adult to take care of the remaining two. All this free time I think I’m going to have is most likely going to end up being a joke, but for now it staves off missing them, so I’ll keep it thank you.
It's a geological feature so massive, so vast and so imposing that it makes Mount Everest look like a mole hill by comparison. Unlike Everest, though, it's nearly invisible and will be forever unseen by the unaided human eye. It's the Mariana Trench, an underwater gash in Earth's crust that's five times longer than the Grand Canyon and much, much deeper.
In fact, the Mariana Trench is the deepest part anywhere in the Earth's oceans. Estimates vary a little, but at its blackest depths, a crease called the Challenger Deep, this abyss is close to 36,037 feet (10,984 meters), or about 6.8 miles (10.9 kilometers) deep. If you inverted Everest and plunged it into the Mariana, it highest craggy peak would fall short of the bottom by more than 7,000 feet (2,134 meters).
The trench forms where two tectonic plates (jigsaw-puzzle-shaped pieces of Earth's crust) crunch into each other. As the plates collide in slow motion, the edges push downward into a V shape, creating a valley that has no equal on our planet.
It's a place so foreign that until recent decades, scientists had almost no clue as to what — if any — sort of lifeforms might be hovering there. If you plunge deeper than 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) into the ocean, there's no sunlight to spawn life. Water temperatures often settle in at just above freezing. And food isn't particularly plentiful.
The water pressure in the trench is nearly 1,000 times greater than at sea level. The pressure is so high that it will crush nearly any creature (or manmade object), unless that animal or vessel is built specifically to withstand those extremes. This particular area of the sea, then, is more than a little inhospitable. But these expanses are not lifeless.
A few manned and unmanned vehicles have parted the waters of the trench in recent years, proving that there are indeed organisms living and even thriving in this nearly alien environment. Fittingly, some of these critters are wonderfully strange.
Let's shine a dim ray of sunshine through this watery, mysterious underworld and peek at a few of the most bizarre living things on the planet. But these species aren't just weird; they're also some of toughest animals around.
The dumbo octopus may look cute, but it swallows its prey whole. © 2015 HowStuffWorks, a division of Infospace LLC
It's an octopus that Walt Disney would've invented for one of his animated films. It's the dumbo octopus, which has cute little Dumbo-the-Elephant-like ears atop its 12-inch (30-centimeter) body. This adorable animal also has precious wiggly eyes and a delightful puckered mouth that only add to its cartoonish looks.
This octopus may look dainty, but it's actually durable enough to make it the deepest dwelling octopus known to science. It prefers to make its home all the way down between 9,800 and 13,000 feet (2,987 and 3,962 meters).
When you think of octopuses, you probably envision a bulbous mantle sprouting eight dangly tentacles. The dumbo, however, falls into a category of so-called umbrella octopuses with webbed tentacles that give them, well, an umbrella appearance. The effect is something like a starfish with a balloon head emerging from the center.
Unlike most octopuses, this species doesn't chomp and grind food with a beaklike mouth. Instead, it simply swallows its prey whole. So if you happen to be on the dumbo octopus's menu, it probably doesn't seem nearly as cute.
If the dumbo octopus is one of the most harmless-looking ocean animals, then the deep-sea dragonfish is the opposite. With oversized teeth and a hideous face, the dragonfish is an assassin of the unfathomable deep. Although it's a fish, it has no scales, but instead a slippery, slimy skin that resembles an eel's.
Dragonfish, which are about 6 inches (15 centimeters) long, prefer to swim between 700 and 6,000 feet (213 and 1,828 meters) under the surface, where the waters are lightless and cold. Like many deep-water creatures, this species relies heavily on bioluminescent body parts, which leverage internal chemical reactions to produce an eerie glow.
The fish may use this glow to communicate with other fish or to provide camouflage. It also dangles a lighted barbel, or whiskerlike protrusion, from its lower jaw. Other fish are attracted to the barbel, mistaking it for an easy meal. But in a flash, the dragonfish gets lunch instead.
Some dragonfish have also evolved the ability to produce a red glow — an unusual color of light for ocean dwellers. They may use their reddish hue to signal their brethren, but it's more likely that they're using the red lamp to illuminate prey just before launching an attack.
Light is a rare and precious thing in the midnight zone of the ocean. The ability to detect even a glimmer of sunshine can mean the difference between catching a meal and being one. So creatures of the trench, like the barreleye fish, evolve unusual features to use shreds of light to their advantage.
How unusual? Well, for starters, this fish has a transparent head. Inside that head are two sensitive barrel-shaped eyes which are most frequently pointed upwards, allowing the fish to see silhouettes of its prey. As for the clear head, scientists think this feature may simply allow the fish to collect just a little more light, which may give this strange animal a bit more of an advantage over its competition.
The barreleye fish wasn't even known to humans until 1939, when it was pulled from its habitat 2,500 feet (762 meters) below the surface. Even then, the specimens were less than ideal because they collapsed in the pressure changes from deep to shallow.
Now that researchers have access to deep-diving remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) equipped with lights and cameras that can withstand the pressure, they're able to observe the barreleye more closely. Yet this odd fish still holds many secrets, leaving scientists puzzling over its lifecycle and reproduction patterns.
The tiny benthocodone is unique among jellyfish in its opaque red color. © 2015 HowStuffWorks, a division of Infospace LLC
Jellyfish are fairly common sea creatures, washing up on shores and clogging fishermen's nets. The benthocodon, though, is an unusual type of jellyfish that prefers an environment far out at sea at depths of more than 2,500 feet (762 meters), often right on the seafloor.
These are compact jellyfish with a rounded top, called the bell. The bell is typically smaller than three-quarters of an inch to 1.2 inches (2 to 3 centimeters) in diameter, and it's laced with an estimated 1,500 wispy red tentacles, which it uses to whisk itself through the water. The benthocodon dines on small crustaceans and foraminiferans, tiny unicellular organisms.
Although many types of jellyfish are transparent, the benthocodon has an opaque reddish coloring on its bell. Scientists believe that this hue may help mask the bioluminescent glow of the tiny animals that the jellyfish eats, hiding the benthocodon from danger.
If a fish has the word "devil" in its name, it's a safe bet that it's going to be freaky. The seadevil anglerfish does not disappoint — it features a whole list of fascinatingly strange characteristics.
It's hard not to start with the seadevil's looks. As its name strongly hints, this is a fish that could've swum up straight from hell, with its misshapen body, razorlike teeth and cold death stare. Although they're bizarre and scary looking, at least they're not huge. Females generally top out at 8 inches (20 centimeters) long. The males are much smaller, at maybe an inch (2.5 centimeters) long.
In a strange evolutionary twist of reproduction, the males actually fuse themselves to the females. Their fins, teeth and eyes disappear, along with a few internal organs, ultimately turning the two individuals into one. What's left of the male's body essentially becomes a storage tank for sperm that will help fertilize the female's eggs when the time is right.
As an anglerfish, the seadevil doesn't dart after it prey. Instead, it has a protrusion from its forehead that dangles a glowing lure to attract starstruck, luckless animals. With its huge, gaping jaws, the seadevil can actually devour creatures larger than itself.
The goblin shark is unusual in many ways; one of those is its pink hue. © 2015 HowStuffWorks, a division of Infospace LLC
If you've ever seen the iconic movie "Aliens," you've been haunted by dreams of toothy, bald creatures bursting from your chest and snapping at your face. Now picture a shark with just such a face swimming around in the darkest, deepest seas. That's the goblin shark, an aptly named monstrosity from your worst nightmares.
Goblin sharks have a protruding snout that looks like a pointy sword. Just below the snout are a set of protruding jaws that appear to be mismatched for the shark's face, as if evolution spun the wheel of ugly and the goblin shark lost in the worst possible way. What's more, these sharks aren't your stereotypical gray color. Instead, their skin has a distinct pink hue.
If you're ever in the water when a goblin shark passes by, you'll find yourself dwarfed in size — they can grow as big as 18 feet (5.5 meters) in length. Fortunately, you're unlikely to encounter such a beast. These sharks typically cruise way down to 3,000 feet (914 meters), and the older they get, the deeper they dive.
As with a lot of deep-sea animals, science knows very little about goblin sharks. No one knows exactly how they reproduce, and a pregnant female has never been captured. So like the goblins of fairy tales, these fish remain a mysterious and fantastic example of just how diverse life on Earth can be.
Hatchetfish can actually shift the intensity of their bioluminescence based on the light available from above to optimize camouflage. © 2015 HowStuffWorks, a division of Infospace LLC
There are a lot of odd-looking fish in the sea, but not many of them resemble humans' hand tools. The deep-sea hatchetfish resembles a silvery swimming hatchet.
There are more than 40 species of hatchetfish. All of them have ridiculously skinny bodies, and many of them have shiny scales, too, which adds to the metallic, hatchetlike appearance. They're small fish, and even the biggest types grow only to about 6 inches (15 centimeters) long. Their delicate looks belie serious ruggedness, because these fish are found in depths pushing nearly 5,000 feet (1,524 meters).
Hatchetfish have bioluminescent bodies, and they can alter the brightness of their glow depending on how much light is filtering from above. In doing so, they're counterilluminating their bodies in a clever camouflage technique. Their dim, self-produced light reduces their silhouettes, making it much more difficult for predators to spot them from below.
Because of its long body, the frilled shark sometimes looks like an eel at first glance. © 2015 HowStuffWorks, a division of Infospace LLC
Frilled sharks look like a mix-and-match special from the discount aisle at your local evolution convenience store. They have the rounded body of an eel paired with a flattened head that would like right at home atop a terrestrial dinosaur. Perhaps that's fitting, because like many sharks, this species has ancient roots that extend back nearly 80 million years.
The shark derives its name from six rows of frilly gills that grace its body, which grows up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) long. Just as notably, the shark wields more than 20 rows of wicked, trident-shaped teeth that will tear into any bit of flesh that passes near them.
Frilled sharks probably spend most of their lives near the ocean's bottom, and they like waters more than 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) deep. On the rare occasions that people snag them and bring them to the surface, the sharks almost always perish immediately, making it very difficult for us to observe their behavior and lifecycles.
For years, many people assumed that frilled sharks swam and hunted like eels. Some researchers think an awkward arrangement of internal organs would make that kind of movement impossible. Instead, they say, these sharks may actually strike their prey with the action of a land-based snake, making them even weirder.
The telescope octopus got its name from its protruding eyes, a unique feature among octopuses. © 2015 HowStuffWorks, a division of Infospace LLC
Like wraiths of the abyss, telescope octopuses float and dangle in the deepest currents of Earth's oceans. Unlike most octopuses, this one doesn't flit about on the sea floor. Instead, it drifts through the water column at depths greater than 6,500 feet (1,981 meters), and it doesn't swim horizontally, but rather suspends itself vertically, perhaps to make it harder for deeper predators to see its shape.
If you were lucky enough to spot a telescope octopus, you'd probably wonder if the underwater pressure was making you see things. Its body is so clear that it's nearly transparent, and between each of its eight tentacles is a delicate webbing that lends this species a ghostly shape.
In that cellophanelike flesh, you'll see two protruding eyeballs unlike those found in other octopuses. These eyes provide wider peripheral vision so that the octopus can see predators and prey alike. Like something out of a sci-fi movie, those eyes also rotate, perhaps offering the creature an even better way to see through the darkness of its deep haven.
Officially, it's called the osedax, and its name, as well as its feathery appearance, make it seem like a plant from a Dr. Seuss book. But this worm also goes by fiercer monikers such as bone worm or zombie worm, and it can consume the rock-hard bones of some of Earth's biggest animals, including whales.
The zombie worm secretes acids to help it access the inner contents of those dead whale bones. Then, it uses symbiotic bacteria to convert the bone's proteins and fats into nutrients that serve as its food. Its feathery "branches" wiggle in the water, pulling in oxygen to keep the worm alive.
Female zombie worms can grow up to around 2 inches (5 centimeters) long. The males are microscopic by comparison, and females will collect a male harem of these tiny guys on their bodies. Eventually, the males find their way into the female's oviducts. The female releases her fertilized eggs into the water, the worm's lifecycle begins anew, and the zombie worms go about their business of cleaning up whale debris in the ocean's darkest corners.
Thanks to better technologies, we humans have finally begun to peer into the blackness of the Mariana Trench. Still, this underwater canyon is one of the most unexplored places on our planet, and it will likely remain so until we find new ways to peer into the depths without risking being crushed or drowned (or breaking our research budgets).
So like the trench itself, the animals that live there will continue to be mysteries, too. They may be our Earth cousins, but considering how little we know about them, they might as well be from another world.
More than two decades ago, I was fascinated by "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau," a documentary-style TV show that explored the world's oceans. The crew poked their cameras into every underwater nook and cranny they could find, showing millions of viewers a new perspective on life beneath the waves. Although these days our cameras and scientific technology have improved immensely, we still have more questions than answers about life in the deepest parts of our seas — a testament to just how difficult it is for us to go adventuring in some parts of our own planet.
Harmon, Katherine. "The Clear-headed Fish." Scientific American. (June 26, 2015) http://www.scientificamerican.com/gallery/the-clear-headed-fish/
Kids Discover. "Pacific Barreleye: Fish with a See-through Head." Aug. 19, 2013. (June 26, 2015) http://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/pacific-barreleye-fish-with-a-see-through-head/
University of California at Berkeley Museum of Palentology. "Googly-eyed Fishes." Understanding Evolution. (June 26, 2015) http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/fishtree_03