weird facts
TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian oil-field worker, stunned to get a C$85,000 ($83,700) cell phone bill, has had the charges reduced to C$3,400, but is still fighting them.
Piotr Staniaszek, a 22-year-old oil and gas well tester in rural northwest Alberta, became a figure of international media attention this week when his father went to the press to complain about the size of his son's bill.
Staniaszek's father, also named Piotr Staniaszek, said his son thought he could use his new phone as a modem for his computer as part of his C$10 unlimited browser plan from Bell Mobility, a division of Bell Canada.
He downloaded movies and other high-resolution files unaware of the charges they would incur.
"He's working in the field sometimes, alone, in the shack. What to do? Drink vodka or go on the Internet?" Staniaszek senior told Reuters on Thursday from Calgary, Alberta.
"Now it's $85,000 and nobody told him," he said.
According to his invoice, the son rang up C$60,000 in charges in November, and they have since climbed to C$85,000.
Staniaszek senior said Bell has agreed to reduce the charges to C$3,400 for "goodwill".
"It's still high...Who can afford it?" he said, adding his son can barely make payments on a new truck he bought for work, and will continue to fight the charges.
A Bell spokesman said the plan is not intended for downloading files to a computer, and that's clear in his contract.
Staniaszek said his son did not want to talk to the press after the interest his story has received and that he is afraid to use his cell phone and incur more long-distance charges.
[Via - The Weird World Of Economics]
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Weird Facts: Human Calculator's New Record
weird facts
World's fastest human calculator today broke his own record for working out a 200-digit number using nothing but brain power to produce the answer in just over 70 seconds.
Alexis Lemaire, a 27-year-old Frenchman, correctly calculated the 13th root of a random 200-digit number from a possible 393 trillion answers.
The so-called 'mathlete' produced the answer of 2,407,899,893,032,210 in 70.2 seconds, beating his previous record of 72.4 seconds, at London's Science Museum.
A computer was used to produce a random 200-digit number before he sat down to calculate the answer in his head.
The museum's curator of mathematics, Jane Wess, said: "He sat down and it was all very quiet - and all of a sudden he amazingly just cracked it.
"I believe that it is the highest sum calculated mentally.
"He seems to have a large memory and he's made this his life's ambition. It's quite remarkable to see it happen. A very small number of people have this extraordinary ability; nowadays there is only a handful."
Mr Lemaire, who attends the University of Reims in northern France, began demonstrating his prowess by finding the 13th root of a random 100-digit number but gave up trying to improve his performance when he calculated an answer in under four seconds in 2004.
Like an athlete, he trains his brain daily for the far harder task of finding the 13th root of 200-digit numbers.
Via - Human Calculator Sets New Record
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Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Weird Facts: 100 million pennies displayed in NYC
weird facts
NEW YORK -- One hundred million pennies for your thoughts on the latest display in Rockefeller Center. New York first lady Silda Wall Spitzer joined hundreds of public school children on Monday to unveil a mass of $1 million in pennies collected for charity. The display, called the Penny Harvest Field, includes an estimated 100 million pennies - plus a few nickels, dimes and quarters that slipped in by mistake.
The exhibit, 30 feet by 165 feet, as long as a city block, is the culmination of the nonprofit organization Common Cents' 17th annual Penny Harvest, a national educational program designed to teach children about their value as contributors to society. Hundreds of thousands of city students from more than 800 schools spent the weeks between Oct. 22 and Thanksgiving going door to door and collecting the pennies, which will be donated to organizations of their choice for causes such as protecting the environment and helping the elderly.
The exhibit was designed by architect James Polshek and will be on display in Rockefeller Center, near the famous Christmas tree, through the end of the year.
[Via - SeattlePI.Com]
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Monday, December 10, 2007
Weird Facts: How To Get Paid For Your Opinion - ePoll.com
weird facts
The E-Poll Market Research Panel was founded in 1997, and has a primary focus on gathering research on consumer attitudes and behavior towards entertainment and media. Members are invited to take mostly entertainment and media related surveys, and membership to the panel is free.
Members that complete these online surveys are rewarded with points that can be redeemed for gift certificates from online retailers like Amazon.com.
I know that I promised an update here and now I can add one, I redeemed my points 3 weeks ago for a Ben and Jerry's certificate for a free pint of ice cream and I have now gotten it in the mail. So it took me three weeks to get that from them and I don't consider that to be too bad of a wait. The redemption process was very simple, they verified I did own the account by asking my password and then I selected how many points I wanted to redeem and then selected my price and verified my address. So overall that was a simple process. They say that it could take up to 6 weeks for you to get your reward, which I'm sure they add in case it does take longer.
But overall I am pleased with the results.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Weird Facts: Chinese Company Destroys $130 Million Plane With Caustic Chemicals
BEIJING weird facts (Reuters) - A Chinese state-run company has been ordered to pay a record $65 million in compensation, plus interest, for destroying a Malaysia Airlines plane with falsely declared cargo of caustic chemicals.
The Airbus A330 was ruined when 80 canisters belonging to the Dalian branch of the China National Chemical Construction Corp. leaked an extremely corrosive chemical, oxalyl chloride, in the cargo hold in March 2000.
The crew of the passenger flight from Beijing detected an acrid odor before landing in Kuala Lumpur en route to India and five ground handlers were taken ill when unloading the canisters to be sold to an Indian company.
The passengers disembarked without incident, but the $130 million aircraft was so badly damaged that the manufacturer concluded that it could not be repaired.
The Beijing Higher People's Court ruled Wednesday that the Dalian company should bear the main blame by declaring the canisters contained a safe chemical in the form of powder, the Beijing Times said Thursday.
The company had to pay five foreign insurers for Malaysia Airlines $65 million plus interest in compensation, ending a five-year lawsuit, the newspaper said.
The compensation ordered by the Beijing court was the highest ever for a civil lawsuit in the Chinese capital, the Beijing Times said.
Both sides had yet to decide whether or not to appeal the ruling, the newspaper said.
[Via - Reuters]
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Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Weird Facts: Santa Claus As Business
weird facts
Mail By Santa is not a unique business idea, but it just proves a point that you don't have to be a genius to make money online.
Children look for reasons to believe. This is what makes these letters from Santa Claus so magical. These letters remove any doubt if there really is a Santa Claus.
The MailBySanta Letters are both personalized and addressed to a child. Imagine the thrill as a child receives a letter from Santa Clause addressed to them.
Each letter is written to a child such as Dear Michael, mentions the achievements along with the names of their best friend, teachers and other information that comes from parents.
The letters are fairly inexpensive, only $9.99 and the shipping is free, so clearly the profit margin has to be fairly big. The only downside is that Christmans is only once a year.
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Monday, December 3, 2007
Weird Facts: Bank Tells Man He Owes $211 Trillion
COBB COUNTY, weird facts Ga. -- It’s one thing to bounce a check and it’s another to be so far in the red Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Donald Trump combined couldn’t come close to bailing you out.
A Cobb County man got a letter from his bank with that very shocking news.“And I open up the letter and I look at it and I’m like, ‘No, you’ve got to be kidding me,’ said Joe Martins.Martins said he recently closed an account at Wachovia Bank and made good on an outstanding check.
He just got a letter about the closure and his negative balance -- $211,010,028,257,303.00. That’s $211 trillion.The letter includes the clarification, “no cents.”“I didn’t know what to think. Obviously $211 trillion is a little above what I put in my bank account,” said Martins.$211 trillion is more than 70 times the entire federal budget.Still, the letter said Wachovia was reporting him to an agency that rates risky bank customers.
“I don’t own $211 trillion but because it is automated and reported to check systems, I assume it will be reported to my credit at some point,” said Martins.He said Wachovia had made mistakes on his accounts before so he called Channel 2 first. Wachovia blamed the letter on a word processing error and the office of the president is sending a letter of apology.
“They tell me it’s going to be resolved but I’m not sure that it will,” said Martins. “I closed my account today.”Since it is a closed account it is now safe to say the dollar figure in the letter matched the account number.Martins said Wachovia told him late Friday afternoon they never did report him for his negative balance.
Wachovia vice president David Oliver told Channel 2, “We can certainly understand how our recent correspondence with Mr. Martins about his account would be cause for great concern. I can confirm that there will be no adverse effect on Mr. Martins’ credit report related to the letter he received. Also, I can confirm that this was an isolated error specifically related to his account.”
[Via - WSBTV]
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