I've travelled a lot, and so have read quite a lot of hotel reviews. But Montreal's very own Hotel Eureka has the worst hotel reviews I have ever seen.
While the the opening of the Burj Dubai hogs the world's headlines, the Ryugyong Hotel, a 105-storey empty building in the heart of Pyongyang, North Korea, is in its 23rd year of construction and would cost 10% of North Korea's GDP to make inhabitable. Whether you are for or against the North Korean nuclear missile programme, you have to admit it it has been more successful than this. Honestly, I still wonder how Kim Jong Il's party was able to win all of the seats in the last North Korean elections after this building fiasco.
I found this explanation of how fast the universe is expanding: "Astronomers measure the expansion of the universe in kilometers per second per megaparsec. This is called the Hubble Constant, and its value is... around 70 kilometers per second per megaparsec... You can also put this into terms of a rate of growth. Roughly speaking, the universe is growing in size by about 7 percent every billion years."
If the universe is 13.7 billion years old, then 1 billion years is 7.3% of its age. The NHL was founded in November 26, 1917, making it 92 years 18 days old. 7.3% of 92 years 18 days is 6 years 262.65 days. 6 years, 262 days ago from today was March 27, 2003. The NHL has not created any expansion teams since that time. For the last 7.3% of their respective existences, the universe has expanded faster than the NHL.
Let's try two billion years. Having no knowledge of astrophysics, I figure if the universe is constantly expanding at 7% per billion years, then all we have to do is add 7% to 107% and arrive at 14.49% expansion for the last two billion years.
2 billion years is 14.6% of the universe's age. 14.6% of the NHL's age is 13 years 160.6 days. From today's date, we arrive at July 7, 1996. Since 1996, the NHL has gone from a 26-team league to a 30-team league (Nashville, Atlanta, Minnesota and Columbus). This is a 15.38% increase.
To conclude, in the past 14.6% of their respective existences, the NHL has expanded at a slightly faster rate than the universe.
It is well known that the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. Less well-known is that East Berliners swarmed the wall in order to see David Hasselhoff:
It's pretty difficult to find a poll by a reliable polling firm on the second round of Afghan elections on November 7, so let's try this unscientific poll:
If an election were held today, who of the following would you choose as President of Afghanistan:
Canada's federal government has put its very useful Termium French-English dictionary on the web for free. It is great for technical expressions that you would not find in a regular dictionary.
Another way to find translations for technical expressions in English or French is to go to Google and type: "site:gc.ca" and then the expression. This will make Google show you all the pages on the Government of Canada website that use the expression. Almost everything the government publishes on the internet is translated, so once you have found your expression somewhere on a government website, click "Francais" at the top of the page to find out how the government translated it.
The first ever African Nations Cup of Ice Hockey will be taking place from September 19-26 in Johannesburg, South Africa, between Algeria (who are fresh off their first ever victory against a French Division II team), South Africa (who I witnessed lose all of their games in the IIHF Div. IIB World Championships last May) and Morocco (who I know nothing about). I will let you know exciting details as they are made available!
