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Depending on whom you ask, either ice-fiends are suckers who pay for frozen water or ice-avoiders are cheapskates with a perverse attachment to warm fountain syrup. To settle this once and for all, we went to a local cineplex and bought three Cokes with varying amounts of cubes at 4 smackaroos each. Then we broke out our thermometers and measuring cups. The cold, hard data says it all. .headerDivOuter {width:250px;clear:both;float:left;margin-right:12px;} .headerDiv {padding:6px;color:#fff;background-color:#000} .headerDiv2 {color:#A3A3A3} .nImg {clear:left;display:block;float:left;margin-right:12px;margin-bottom:18px;} .nTable {width:300px;} .nTable td {border-bottom:solid 2px #000;padding-top:4px;padding-bottom:4px;} .n_cont {margin-bottom:26px;} No Ice, Please Temperature 40° F Volume of Liquid 31 oz Cost per Degree of Chilling N/A Total Cost for Cold 0¢ Verdict Not fridge-frosty, but at 40 degrees you can't call it tepid. Easy On The Cubes. Temperature 36° F Volume of Liquid 28 oz Cost per Degree of Chilling 9.8¢ Total Cost for Cold 39¢ Verdict Sacrifice just 3 ounces of fizzy corn syrup for a nice, nippy temp. Sweet. Ice,...

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1582: Nobody does anything, anything at all. In fact, nobody does anything whatsoever between Oct. 4 and Oct. 15, 1582, because the 10 intervening days have simply been declared out of existence by the pope. (This offer may not apply outside Italy, Spain and Portugal.) Where did those days go? By the mid-1570s, the Julian Calendar established in 45 B.C. was 10 days behind the real seasons of the year. The spring equinox was actually occurring on March 12 or thereabouts, and Easter (set by a formula based on an arbitrary March 22 equinox date) was falling too late in the real springtime. All this happened because the Earth year is about 11 minutes short of the 365¼ days set by Julius Caesar. It's really 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds. If the drift kept up, Easter would eventually have been observed in the summer, and Christmas in the spring. So Pope Gregory XIII appointed a commission to tweak the Julian Calendar. Under the leadership of physician Aloysius Lilius and Jesuit astronomer Christopher Clavius, the commission consulted with scientists and clergy. After wrestling with various ideas for half a decade, the commission proposed eliminating three leap years in every 400 (years ending in 00, unless they are divisible by 400). That would prevent further creep of the calendar against the seasons (except for a minuscule under-correction). But resetting the calendar so the equinox would come in late March needed a more drastic solution: 10...

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As the Guys Who Can't Stop Talking About Warcraft Party candidate for president of the United States, I am subject to irksome levels of scrutiny. My critics say I have not been properly vetted. Even though most of them think "vetted" means "examined by an animal doctor," I feel it's important to answer their charges so that you, America, know who I am, what I stand for and where I bathe. It is true that I have been cordial with a former domestic terrorist and political radical. I was 8 years old when he committed his crimes, and so was he. My contact with him was limited to working together on the school play, the occasional game of four square and admiring his Evel Knievel wind-up stunt bike. I did not know that he was plotting attacks on the Pentagon and Toys 'R' Us in his spare time, and I still don't. I'm like a goldfish that way; I turn around and, whoop, it's a blank slate. Alt Text Podcast Download audio files and subscribe to the Alt Text podcast. It is true that my youngest child is not mine, and is in fact my daughter's. Actually, none of my supposed children are mine. They're all my daughter's, including those older than her. And herself. She's a naughty girl. It is true that I was involved in a bribery scandal. However, I have been exonerated twice: I have been exonerated of the original crime, and then exonerated of bribing the panel that exonerated me. Charges that I bribed the second panel to exonerate me of bribing the first panel to exonerate...

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Staring across interstellar space, the alluring Cat's Eye Nebula lies 3,000 light-years from Earth. The Cat's Eye (NGC 6543) represents a brief, yet glorious,...