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Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Yahoo!, the world’s favorite Internet destination, reported $373 million in net income for the three month period ended December 31. Revenues were $1,078 million for the fourth quarter of 2004, a 62 percent increase compared to $664 million for the same period of 2003. “We are attracting more and more users to Yahoo!’s network of services and driving their usage deeper with more relevant products and services. This deeper usage is the real magic behind the surpassing of our financial objectives,” explained Susan Decker, the company’s chief financial officer.

• Revenues excluding traffic acquisition costs (“TAC”) were $785 million for the fourth quarter of 2004, a 54 percent increase compared to $511 million for the same period of 2003
• Gross profit for the fourth quarter of 2004 was $691 million, a 56 percent increase compared to $443 million for the same period of 2003
• Operating income for the fourth quarter of 2004 was $235 million, a 149 percent increase compared to $94 million for the same period of 2003
• Operating income before depreciation and amortization for the fourth quarter of 2004 was $327 million, an 84 percent increase compared to $178 million for the same period of]] 2003

Monday, July 26, 2010

Snooker player Alex Higgins, nicknamed “Hurricane”, was found dead in his apartment in Donegall Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland on Saturday. He was aged 61 and had been suffering from throat cancer since 1997.

Born in Belfast on March 18, 1949, Higgins became the champion of the World Snooker Championship at the age of 23 in 1972. He reached the same achievement again in 1982. Higgins’ final title victory was in the Irish Professional Championship in 1989.

During 1986, he received a fine and was banned from five tournaments after headbutting a director of a tournament. He was also banned from playing for one year in 1990 after threatening to have Dennis Taylor, another snooker player, shot.

Recently, Higgins lost all his teeth as the result of having treatment for his cancer. In May 2010, a charity dinner took place in Manchester, England that raised approximately £20,000 (US$30,997, €23,859, A$34,363, C$31,961) so as to allow surgery for new teeth for him to occur. However, Higgins was considered to be too unhealthy to have the surgery in Marbella, Spain.

Dennis Taylor, now a snooker commentator at the BBC, stated that “[t]here was just something about the way he played the game — there was a little bit of [John] McEnroe in there. I don’t think you’ll ever see a player in the game of snooker like the great Alex Higgins.”

Philip Studd, another commentator of snooker for the BBC, has described the late snooker player as being “snooker’s original troubled genius” and that Higgins was “[c]harismatic, flash, fast, unpredictable, combustible — you just couldn’t take your eyes off the ‘Hurricane’.” Studd continued to explain that “[w]hile he could never match the consistency of Steve Davis or Stephen Hendry, Higgins on his day was the greatest of them all. He touched the heights in 1982 when he won his second world title. He pipped Jimmy White to the final thanks to a break still widely regarded as the finest ever made. His tears of triumph after beating Ray Reardon — wife and baby in arms — remains one of snooker’s most iconic moments. Without Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins snooker would never have become one of the most popular television sports in the 1980s and beyond.”

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Studies done on germs and bacteria performed by researchers at the University of Florida show that a dirty kitchen sponge can be cleaned and “sterilized” by microwaving it for 2 minutes, but researchers warn to wet the sponge first.

“People often put their sponges and scrubbers in the dishwasher, but if they really want to decontaminate them and not just clean them, they should use the microwave,” said the professor who was in charge of the study that discovered the results, Gabriel Bitton.

“Basically what we find is that we could knock out most bacteria in two minutes. The microwave is a very powerful and an inexpensive tool for sterilization,” added Bitton.

The sponges that researchers studied, were placed in “raw wastewater” and then put into a microwave to be “zapped,” according to Bitton. The wastewater was a “witch’s brew of fecal bacteria, viruses, protozoan parasites and bacterial spores, including Bacillus cereus spores,” said Bitton.

Researchers say that at least 99% of the bacteria, viruses, spores and parasites in kitchen spongees can be destroyed or “inactivated” by simply microwaving the wet sponge, on the highest power, for two minutes.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Fire fighters in the United Kingdom used a hand grinder to remove a metal ring from a man’s penis 2 days ago. They had been summoned after doctors at the Royal Wigan Infirmary in Greater Manchester became worried that the man may have required amputation of the penis as the ring was cutting off the blood flow.

The man had been taken to the infirmary’s Accident and Emergency department, where attempts were made to cut through the ring. However, this failed as hospital cutting equipment was not strong enough to sever the hard metal the ring was made of.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service responded to the call made at around 12.10 GMT Thursday, after the penis started swelling up. Two fire fighters spent twenty minutes cutting the ring off the then anaesthetised man, who is in his 40s. The mini hand grinder used for the job is more regularly used for tasks such as cutting through padlocks.

A thin sheet of metal was placed around the man’s penis to protect it during the operation. It is thought that the ring had originally been cut off the end of a pipe.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Pakistani security forces, aided by artillery and tanks killed 38 Taliban insurgents today in two separate attacks near the Afghanistan border in the Orakzai district of the North-West Frontier Province of the country, according to government officials.

Security men say that Orakzai, located to the southwest of Peshawar, became a Taliban stronghold since the army led offensives against other Taliban areas in different parts of northwest Pakistan.

An army checkpoint in Sayd Khalil Baba village was attacked by militants early on Sunday. However, security troops killed 26 insurgents with artillery fire, according to Samiullah Khan, a senior administrative official in the area. Sajid Khan, another government official of Orakzai told the Reuters news agency that scores of militants attacked the checkpost in the village on Sunday morning. “They used rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine guns, but our soldiers’ response was quick and tough,” he added. Ten militants were wounded in this attack according to the latter, who is based in Kalaya, the district’s principal town.

Within hours, a military convoy was ambushed by Taliban attackers in an adjoining village. At least a dozen insurgents were killed in this attack, according to local authorities. Officials said only Pakistani soldier was injured in the attack. There was no confirmation of the figures provided by administrative officials available news agencies, as journalists are prohibited from entering the area.

Security officials claimed around 250 militants have been killed in several clashes in the Orakzai district. Pakistani Taliban leader {{w|Hakimullah Mehsud]] was believed to have control over this region. The latter is thought to have been killed in an U.S. drone strike in January this year.