UPDATE: Wikipedia is already up.

When one huge site is down, people wanted to know exactly what was going on. Such was the case with Wikipedia: it had encountered a downtime that lasted more than an hour just a few moments earlier.

There wasn’t an official release as to what reason the Wikipedia downtime happened. Some say it might have been affected by the power outage in California, while another set of people speculated that the site was hacked – intentionally, while people are enjoying the 4th of July celebrations.

During the downtime, the people behind the wiki assured that they are already working to resolve the problem.

No doubt these months Apple’s products had always been famous in the market; as such there will be people who wishes to own one of Apples expensive gadgets but could not – for most reasons they could not afford it.

As a consequence, scammers are again on the loose to take advantage of people who also wants to have their own iPhones. Take for instance, this website www.applegiftgiveaway.info. This message has been doing rounds as a private message in Facebook:

hey, I haven’t talked to you on facebook in a while, but I thought I would message you from my new iPhone that I just got for free for working with them for 300$ a day. Don’t tell anyone but this site is glitching and sending out free iPhones to anyone that signs up and gets accepted by them, i just confirmed my email a…fter i entered it there: www.applegiftgiveaway.info That is where I got my job too btw, check it out! This seems to be gettin posted on walls, I advise ne one not to trust it….This is the second time I have seen it…so dont be a fool and try it out !!!

The site seemed to be taken down by the webmaster and it was removed from Google index already. However, Facebook users (or any other networks for that matter) should always be on the lookout for similar messages that intend to fool people. On one news this was supposedly made to trick people into seeing a sizzling hot video that was posted in several leading video sites such as YouTube (these videos seemed to be taken down from those sites).

The blogging community and social network sites was buzzing with the noise that WordPress.com site was down. With WordPress.com boasting its 287,309 bloggers and being popular among the blogging community, then its downtime was surely a big buzz after all.

WordPress.com downtime of 110 minutes was their longest downtime in four years which affected 10.2 million blogs including their VIP ones. They haven’t exactly pinpointed the root cause as to what had caused the massive downtime. According to their blog:

We need to dig deeper and find out exactly what happened, why, and how to recover more gracefully next time and isolate problems like this so they don’t affect our other locations.

As of this time, WordPress.com is now back online!

Kia Motors is proud to present their Kia Ray Concept, a new generation plug-in hybrid car at the 2010 Chicago Auto Show.

The Kia Ray Concept’s visible feature is its new aerodynamic design. It is designed to travel up to 50 miles using only the electric motor. It’s top speed is at 109 mph, range of 746 miles and effective fuel economy of over 202 miles per gallon.

However, looking inside the Ray, this uses a lot of eco-friendly features such as using nano-laminate film on the exterior to reduce harmful emissions from air-conditioning. Solar cells are also installed on the roof to run a fan for cooling. The floor is also covered with “100 percent earthy mocha wool.”

If you are in Clendenin, West Virginia, chances are, you had stumbled on the story of the Mothman.

The Mothman was described as a winged creature the size of a human being with large eyes and wings, according to the eyewitness.

An account of the Mothman’s sighting was reported on November 12, 1966 near Clendenin, West Virginia, where five men in a local cemetery actually seen this brown creature which flew over their heads.

There were more sightings witnessed after that first account.

Today, the History Channel will feature this legendary creature in detail.

An explosion rocked Middletown Connecticut at around 11 AM.  The explosion was strong that people near the explosion mistook that for an earthquake. The exact location of the explosion is at Kleen Energy, and it was suspected that the gas leak from the power plant resulted to this unfortunate incident. The power plant is still under construction but is near completion.

According to the first witnesses, there were bodies found everywhere after that explosion. Reports estimated that more or less 100 people are injured.

North America will surely enjoy the parade of another Orionid meteor showers. As long as the weather permits viewing and you are in a location with dark skies that lets you view the wide expanse of the sky using your naked eye. Telescopes and binoculars are useless in viewing those showers. Consider wearing warm clothing too, if you live on a chilly state.

This October 21 meteor shower is best viewed starting at 1 AM. The shower is expected to be at its peak activity at 6 AM ET.

Interestingly, the Orionid meteor shower had been strong since 2006.The meteors showers appear at the rate of 60 meteors per hour. Prior that year, the Orionids appear only at 15 to 20 meteor showers per hour.

Image by c@rljones

If you are male and you are into golf, then consider having UroClub added in your golf luggage.

The UroClub is an answer to people who suffer urinary problems, and golf clubs don’t have bathrooms in the entire golf course. Male golfers can just pee discreetly in the woods (if they are able to sneak out) or they can just use UroClub.

Now the golfer just need to relieve himself in public, using the gadget which looks like a standard 7 Iron. A towel is just needed over this golf club while peeing.

The video below shows the official commercial of the product:

Once again, the internet opens up new uses and possibilities. This time Notehall seemed to be useful to students: Notehall is an online site for buying and selling lecture notes.

The site is mainly focused on helping students catch up in class. However students also find Notehall useful as a supplementary guide to overcome the difficulty in taking down notes during class.

Lecture notes can simply be purchased online then simply downloaded on anyone’s computer.

Students even have the opportunity of earning online by simply uploading notes then selling these to other students who are interested in purchasing these. According to Notehall, topnotch note sellers earn around $5oo per semester just uploading one or two of their study guides.

In December 2008, Kingston, Tennessee suddenly realized that they are flooded with coal ash waste. Kingston is one of the 500 places in the US where coal ash waste is being dumped into its wet ponds.

Now most people think that coal ash should be labeled as another hazardous waste. However, there are experts who still point out that coal ash is still as safe as ordinary dirt.

At present the coal ash dirt in Kingston is being sent off to a landfill in Alabama, and recycling coal ash is being looked into. However, there are still concerns over its beneficial uses: coal ash even made way into carpet products and kitchen sinks! One golf course in Chesapeake even used more than a million tons of coal into their golf course after being convinced that the ash is safe for use.

However, if coal is to be labeled as a hazardous waste, then the costs of disposal could run into billions of dollars.

The video further explores the argument on this issue.

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