We made it through another year, and now, it's time to celebrate. New Years Eve parties will be going off around the world all day today, which means laughing, dancing, eating, and yes, drinking. With all the hype, it's easy to get caught up in the celebrations and have too much to drink, which can be dangerous for you and the people around you.
One of SocialVibe's new sponsors, Pernod Ricard, is offering up 100 points for you if you Spin the Wheel of Binge Drinking. Each time you spin it, you'll get another ridiculous reason why people binge drink (accompanied by a video).
It's funny, but the message is also extremely important and relevant today. Click here to spin the wheel now and get 100 points for your Cause!
Please drink responsibly when you're out celebrating NYE tonight!
Getting ready for your first year at college and stuck on what major to pick? Maybe you're in need of something new and are thinking of switching job fields. Choose wisely, as not all jobs are created equal - especially in this faltering economy. Huffington Post recently listed off the top 10 industries that will lose the most jobs in the next decade. In other words, steer clear, or beware.
10. The Bureau of Labor Statistic predicts that the wired telecommunications industry, which provided 666,000 jobs in 2008, will lose 11% of its employment opportunities by the end of the next decade.
9. By 2018, the number of gas station industry jobs, which in 2008 stood at 843,000, is likely to be cut by 9%, according to the government report.
8. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that around 23% of the jobs in the mining support industry -- which as of 2008 sustained around 328,000 jobs -- will be lost by 2018.
7. Think the worst is over for print media? The government estimates that within the decade that number will dwindle by nearly 25%, to 245,000.
6. Despite widespread outsourcing to overseas manufacturers, in 2008 there were only 155,000 jobs in cut and sew apparel manufacturing in the United States -- the industry with the fewest jobs on this list. The Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates that the industry will lose 89,000 jobs -- 57% -- by 2018.
5. Whither Kinko's? The printing industry provided 594,000 jobs in 2008, of which the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates it will lose about 16%, bringing the number down to just under 500,000.
4. The postal service employed 748,000 people in 2008, but the government anticipates the number will fall 13% over the next decade to 650,000.
3. The auto parts industry contributed about 544,000 jobs to the U.S. economy in 2008. Despite massive bailouts of the Detroit automakers last year, the government predicts the industry that serves those companies will lose almost 19% of its jobs.
2. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the semiconductor manufacturing industry will lose almost 34% of its jobs by 2018. That would bring the industry's total jobs down to 287,000 from the 432,000 jobs the industry supported in 2008.
1. In 2008, there were 1,557,000 jobs in department stores -- more than any other industry on this list. But the government forecasts the industry will lose 159,000 of them -- more than 10% -- over the next ten years.
Some of these are no-brainers, but we hope this provides some insight on what to focus on when you're planning the next steps in your education and career.
One of our favorite things about December is looking back at all the hilarious things that happened around the world in the last twelve months. Asylum has a great list of the 100 Weirdest News Stories Dugg in 2009. If you're bored at home on holiday vacation, this list will provide hours of entertainment.
Here are the top five:
5. Lady, your husband is a sick.......DUDE WTF?!?!?: Worried that a former boyfriend had downloaded child porn onto her computer, Michelle Owens handed the laptop over to police and asked them to search it for illegal images. BIG MISTAKE, as Owens had clearly forgotten that the most incriminating images they would find were two videos of her having sex with a beagle. Even after she was arrested for bestiality, Owens declined to waive the consent she had given cops to search her laptop, still hoping they'd find evidence to bust her ex for something even more heinous.
4. Girl arrested for swearing on 9-1-1 call:
Adrianne Ledesma was understandably upset when she called 911, as her father had just suffered a seizure. After her call to emergency services went unanswered, she dialed the number again, uttering some choice curse words as she did. Sgt. Robert McFarlan, who was manning the 911 desk, heard her F-bombs and admonished the panicked girl -- then hung up without even asking her what the problem was.
After a delay, Ledesma was able to get attention for her father, who turned out to be OK. But, to further her ordeal, McFarlen had Ledesma arrested for abusing 911! Eventually Ledesma got a little bit of justice when McFarlen was suspended two weeks for his outrageous behavior.
3. Man Paid $2500 To Impregnate Neighbors Wife - Fails 72 Times: Being sterile, Demetrius Soupolos was unable to have children with his former beauty-queen wife, Truate. So he paid his neighbor Frank Maus, who looked like him and had a couple kids' worth of proof that his boys could swim, $2,500 to knock up his wife. After 72 sexual encounters over six months failed to put a baby into Truate's belly, Demetrius demanded his neighbor have a medical examination.
Much to both men's surprise, Maus was found to be sterile too. (But not to Maus's wife's surprise -- she was forced to confess she always knew Maus wasn't the real father of their children.) Long story short, Soupolos is suing Maus, and Maus is countering with the always popular "I didn't guarantee contraception, just my best effort over and over again" defense.
2. Why you shouldn't have your boss on Facebook: Who knows what exactly is real or fake when it comes to screenshots of supposed social networking blunders. But Diggers were buying the hilarious gaffe an English office worker made when she posted a Facebook status update that read, "OMG! I HATE MY JOB!! My boss is a total pervy wanker always making me do sh** stuff just to piss me off! WANKER!!"
Of course, the colorful complainer had forgotten she and her boss were Facebook friends. In his response, for all to see, the wanker admonished her for not realizing that he is gay -- and thus probably not really perving on her. Later in his note he unceremoniously made her an unemployed person.
1. Girlfriend's angry emails to her vacationing boyfriend: This self-obsessive girl failed to listen to her boyfriend tell her many, many times that he was soon to go off travelling around Europe. When he leaves and therefore can't reply to her emails, she starts up a hilariously tragic and mildly twisted semi-monologue as this over-zealous nut job fears the worst for her 'relationship'.
For the full list, click here. You can always count on weird news for a laugh.
Thanks to your nominations, SocialVibe has officially been chosen as a nominee for the 2009 Crunchie Awards by TechCrunch in the category of Best Social Networking App! We are beside ourself with excitement, but we're up against some pretty tough competition (like FarmVille, for example.) We have a shot at winning here, but we're going to need the help of our loyal members (yes, that would be you.)
TO HELP US WIN:
1. Visit The Crunchies and vote DAILY for SocialVibe under 'Best Social Networking app'.
2. After voting, share your vote with Twitter and Facebook!
You can vote once a day so please bookmark it and come back everyday!
So what do you say - will you help us win?? Thank you in advance!
Snowflakes are one of nature's most whimsical and mysterious works of art. Though scientists have been studying the snowflake for decades, they are still stumped as to the science behind why these unique creations they look the way they do. One discovery scientists have made recently is that the presence of pollution in the atmosphere can dramatically alter the appearance of a snowflake.
Atmospheric chemist Paul Shepson of Purdue University says that pollution and other impurities in the air may contribute to whether ice crystals form in a flat plate, a spiky needle or other shape as it falls. Understanding how ice forms when it falls is extremely important for understanding our future climate, because many atmospheric chemical reactions take place on the surface of the ice (different shapes have different surface areas, affecting the rate of these reactions). Current predictions that our sea ice may be gone by the middle of the century could cause catastrophic changes to our atmosphere.
"The presence of ice and snow has a big influence on what is in the atmosphere," said Shepson. "We'd like to be able to predict how that massive change in the surface of the Earth will change the composition of the atmosphere," he added.
To properly use snowflake science to predict how climate change will affect our atmosphere, scientists first need to understand the actual formations of snowflake design, which they currently do not.
"We really don't understand why a snowflake has the shape that it has. We know really pathetically very little," said Shepson.
What they do know is that different shapes happen at different temperature ranges - for example, from freezing to about 25 degrees Fahrenheit, snowflakes tend to form plates. A little colder, and you get the needle-shaped flakes. And so on and so on.
"This has been known for about 70 years and no one has really figured out why yet," said physicist Kenneth Libbrecht of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Shepson and one graduate student recently performed an experiment to gauge the effect pollution has on snowflake. The two grew tufts of snowflakes on a string inside a very chilly chamber in a laboratory, comparing the shapes made from clean water with that of water containing acetic acid (a test substance that they expect mirrors the effects of other pollutants).
"The bottom line is that we learned the shape of snow crystals can be influenced by the presence of pollution," stated Shepson.
Libbrecht's findings suggest that impurities in the air that sticks to snowflake surface is crucial in determining the shapes that form at different temperatures. He found that snowflakes grew a remarkable 100 times faster under low pressure than normal, atmospheric pressure.
The impurities affecting snowflake shape aren't entirely man-made, he stressed - compounds produced by plants also play a role.
"One of the things I like about this impurity hypothesis is that one of the problems, for 50 years, is, how can just plain ice show all of this variation with temperature? How can you have so much variation with temperature if there's nothing there but ice? Maybe it's not just ice."
Though the evidence is preliminary, Libbrecht is setting up experiments that will test his hypothesis by growing crystals in clean air without impurities.
Looks like snowflakes serve a much bigger purpose than just looking pretty and being universally unique - they are a barometer of atmospheric activity, and hold a wealth of information that will help us better prepare for changes in our climate.
Competing with Ohio and California to become one of the most energy-efficient U.S. states, Oregon will soon be home of the world's largest wind farm. The contract is signed, all that's left to do is watch and wait for the completion of Shepherd's Flat - a 30 square mile wind farm that will generate an expected 2 billion kilowatt hours of energy each year. That will provide 10% of the power needed by California.
GE was awarded the $1.4 billion contract by independent power producer Caithness Energy for 338 of the most advanced wind turbines. The size alone will outshine all others currently in operation around the world.
What great news! It's always nice to see real action being taken in the area of green technology.
Two words that don't regularly come to mind when you hear Paris Hilton are "inexpensive" and "charitable," but that is exactly what the famous heiress' new tank designed for Forever 21 is. The animal-loving blonde scribbled some pictures of puppies, kitties and rainbows to adorn this gray racer-back tank which is available at F21 for the low price of $12.80, every penny of which will benefit The Starlight Foundation.
The Starlight Foundation, who you can support on SocialVibe, provides assistance to terminally-ill children and their families.
This is maybe our favorite thing we've read about Miss Hilton ever. Would you buy this tank?
Seasons Greetings from the world's most itty bitty snowman ever! Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK must be feeling the spirit of the season, because they took some time out this year to create the world's tiniest snowman.
So just how tiny is he, exactly? 10 µm across, or 1/5th the width of a human hair. WOW! The snowman was made from two tin beads used to calibrate electron microscope astigmatism (we'll pretend we know what that means if you do). The eyes and smiles were milled using a focused ion beam, and the nose, less than 0.001 mm wide, is ion beam deposited platinum.
Here's a video with more info about how this little one was made:
