4 Ways The Cold Is On Your Side

The hot topic of the week is the drop in temperature. Unless you live under a highly ventilated, heated rock, you've probably noticed that you can't simply wear shorts and t-shirts nowadays. It's that time of the year to dust off the winter jackets and get ready to endure the upcoming cold weather. The thing is, some people find winter one of the worst things in the world, second to world poverty itself. Some people simply find winter as unbearably cold and would rather prefer the good ol' humid, warm temperature. The thing is, the cold winter nights aren't as bad as they're cranked up to be.

"I'm back!"

4. Weight Loss

Doesn't everybody want to lose weight and look handsome? While we can't change your handsomeness-level, we can trim some of the fat on the side. Winter can offer one of the most sought after wishes of every self-conscious, un-secure teen/adult, passive weight loss. Almost all magic "diet pills" use the same cliche to losing weight in exchange of absolutely no work on your behalf. But hold on, instead of expensive pills that "celebrities use", why not simply endure winter?

You can easily burn calories from simply sitting at your desk, freezing your finger tips and ears off. How? By simply sitting around freezing, your body is constantly trying to generate enough heat to make sure you don't die of frostbite. Your body doesn't simply rub two sticks together and achieve 98 degrees worth of temperature. It takes fuel to make that heat, and that fuel is your body fat.

More like 98 degrees of chocolaty goodness!

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Judy - Suspiciously Awesome Prisoner of War

We've all heard of stories of people that overcome the worst possible odds and find themselves standing on a hill of decaying flesh, shining with the mere awesomeness of what they've accomplished. This is one of those stories. Except, instead of a fully capable, well-built, easily adaptable adult, it's a dog. You heard me right, a dog. If you thought that "a man's best friend" was overrated, wait until you hear the story of Judy.

Judy was one of the many dogs born in the Shanghai Dog Kennels in 1937; she was a first class pure bred liver and White Pointer. However, she was offered to the Royal Navy as a typical animal mascot at a very young age. Thankfully, the Royal Navy accepted the offer and took her in to help raise morale for their men. Wise decision.

She was assigned to the HMS Gnat, which was a a small, well-armed ship used for shallow rivers or near the shore. The ship was primarily used in China at the time of Judy's employment. At first, she had a rocky start getting adjusted to the new setting and at one point, fell overboard into the Yangtze River. But despite that, Judy wasn't the type of dog to simply sit around and look cute. She was known by the crew to be able to pinpoint out hostile Japanese aircrafts long before anyone in the human crew could hear them.

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Horrifying Tuesday: The Mystery of The Ourang Medan

Horrifying Tuesday isn't all about scary plants and animals, it's about bringing together the most terrifying things in nature and history, together. Today, we're going to talk about one of craziest ship sinking you've probably heard of. Everybody's heard of the Titanic and it's maiden voyage, but what about the mysterious Ourang Medan, a ship in which it's own existence is in question.

The incident was said to occur around June 1947; two American ships were navigating their way between the Malay Peninsula and the island of Sumatra when they began to receive strange distress messages from a Dutch merchant ship called the S.S. Ourang Medan. The radio operator of the distressed ship reported the death of the captain, the officers, and possibly the entire crew. After saying that, the operator continued to send incomprehensible messages before finally stating "I die."

The first American ship to board the Ourang Medan was the Silver Star. The crew located and boarded a seemingly undamaged Ourang Medan in a rescue attempt. Instead of finding bullet ridden bodies and/or anything that would make sense, they found the entire ship covered with corpses of the crew down to the ship's dog. They found all of the bodies in a fixed, terrified posture, with almost no injuries, All of the bodies were found with their eyes still opened, faces affixed to the sun, mouths stretched opened and a few with arms outstretched.

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Skyakes Update

What's this? An article telling me that there's not going to be a article today? What witchery! But putting that aside, let me inform you that there won't be a post today? But why's that? Did I spend all Saturday sitting around doing nothing all day?

Was this picture taken directly from a google search of "evil villain laughter? Yes. Yes it was.

In other news, I'll like to inform everybody that we're certainly not close to being 'dead' as a blog. I just felt that it was time to take to everybody in a "one on one" approach other than vaguely talking about Skyakes on our Facebook page or our Twitter page.  (All of which you should subscribe to.)

This swiftly placed smiling face has now lighten the mood.

What I'll like to tell you guys is that we've surpassed all of our previous months' page views, this month. All thanks to our dedicated readers and foreign internet wanderers that somehow found their way to this website. For all of which, thank you. It's been a pleasure staying up every night writing articles for your entertainment. While that might have sounded sarcastic, I meant it wholeheartedly. The satisfaction from getting comments, likes, and views really gives me, and our staff the drive needed to keep pushing and pushing.

Excluding last month, we've been getting increased traffic every month. The first month, we achieved 462 views, on the second, 463, and as of today, 531 views. While this may not sound like a lot to you, why don't you go ahead and trying writing a blog in such a competitive field on the internet? The best part about it, is the fact that I've yet to "advertise" Skyakes in the sense of running around, spamming internet boards and buying ads on the internet. The growth of Skyakes is currently "word of the mouth" and we hope to keep it that way until we're 100% ready for the full force of the internet.

Pictured: Mysteriously whimsical internet dwellers

On a different topic, we are still moving things around a little bit behind the scenes and we'll like to inform you that we'll have everything good and ready by the end of this month, or the start of next month. Until then, I'll see you on Monday.

The Nuclear Football: America's Nuclear Suitcase

All-out nuclear warfare is probably one of the most controversial topics since the cold war. Other than creating awesome post-apocalyptic scenarios, it's a very true, very serious topic. We all know that the United States is one of the world's super powers due to the fact that America was the first nation to create weapons capable of devastating entire cities at a time. But with any weapon, there needs to be someone behind the trigger. It's not like we'll put the power to end the world into the hands of a sentient intelligence.

I don't know about you guys, but I totally trust that face.

Since war isn't exactly something planned like a special graduation reunion, the president might not always have enough time to fly to a fixed command center in order to sit around in dimly lit rooms full of handsome, brilliant scientists and psychopathic military advisers. In order to solve this problem, the nuclear football, the atomic football, the president's emergency satchel, the button, or the black box was created to solve this problem. Now, the president can launch our nuclear warheads on vacation in Hawaii.

"The airport got the suitcases mixed up, again."

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Quick Fact: Why Water Is Blue

Today, we're going to tackle one of the most commonly misconceived questions of life. Why are the oceans blue? Many believe that the ocean is blue due to the reflection of the sky on the surface of the water. But owhy is it that water in a small glass, when placed outside, turn blue from the reflection of the water? Clearly, witchcraft is related to this scenario.

The true reason why water is blue, is because in reality, water is technically, blue. But how is it that in small quantities, water is depicted as crisp, clean, colorless substance, but in large bodies of water, is observed as blue? What's different between the two? They're both water, right? Yep, they are. Way to go, genius.

"They're both water" - You

The reason that smaller bodies of water appear clear and large bodies of water appear blue, is because water has an intrinsic property, which is caused by absorption and scattering of the the color red. In small amounts, light passes through water relatively easily without changing the 'white light' noticeable to the naked eye. In large amounts, the water absorbs and scatters parts of the white light to create a blue hue of the water. This can be demonstrated by looking at white light through a one meter pipe filled with purified water, closed on both ends with a completely transparent window.

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3 Reasons To Loathe Rain

Rain is one of those beautiful things in nature that nourishes all the wild life, both creature and plants alike. However, rain can often be a big problem for various reasons that you may not know about. I'm not talking about obvious reasons like massive flooding and stuff like that, but the passive, everyday things that rain can do to make your life a little bit worse.

"Nobody needs you!"

3. Joint Pain

For most people, spring showers bring trees, flowers, and wildlife back to life. For others, it brings unbearable joint pain. But wait, isn't joint pain only for old people that have nothing better to do but complain all day? False! For one, I experience joint pains in my knees and fingers when the rain arrives. So rain-related joint pain isn't only restricted to Aunt Marge in the retirement home.

So how does it exactly work? Why do peoples' joints hurt before a bad storm arrives? The reason for this is actually quite simple. Inside of everybody's joints, are nerves called baroreceptors which detect the change of blood pressure inside of your body. But the thing is, these nerves can sometimes be sensitive enough to detect the change of pressure in the atmosphere when the rain is about to hit.

Wait, since everybody has these "baroreceptor" nerves, why don't we all clench our joints in pain when the rain passes by? Well, a large majority of the people who experience joint pain before a storm, usually have some form of arthritis. Due to the arthritis, some people tend to feel the change in the atmosphere more significantly because of the reduced cartilage between the body's joints. But heck, at least you can predict weather like a pro right?

When I sense danger, I spontaneously combust. What a cool power, right?

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Horrifying Tuesday: CTVT (Transmissible Cancer)

If you disregard the date this article is released, it's technically, Horrifying Tuesday. Which brings us to the topic of the day, CTVT or, canine transmissible venereal tumor. But before we talk about that, lets talk about STDs. (Just because.) What do you think is the worst possible sexually transmitted disease a human can contract? Herpes? Genital Warts? HIV? How about cancer? Wouldn't it be just the darndest thing, if cancer could simply be transmitted from touch?

Tag: The Game Of Death

Thanks to nature, we now have cancer that is transmittable by touch. But before you take out your radiation suit in preparation to isolate yourself from the world, allow me to remind you that the 'disease' is called the "canine transmissible venereal tumor". That means, only dogs can contract these horrible tumors from each other. One of the only cases of cancer transmitting from human to human was when a surgeon contracted it from a patient when he injured his hand during an operation. So unless you're a careless surgeon that runs around injuring your hand around pleomorphic undifferentiated sarcoma diagnosed people, you're safe. For now.

Canines are one of the only three known animals to have a strand of transmissible cancer in the entire world along with Tasmanian devils and Syrian hamsters. But obviously, you don't want to hear me ramble about hamster cancer. The thing about CTVT is that, it's technically not cancer, but it's definitely cancer. The tumor cells formed on the canine themselves are infectious agents that that are not genetically related to the host canine at all. What that means is that the tumor isn't a part of the host dog, and is it's own living, unicellular asexually reproducing pathogen.

Delicious.

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3 Ways People Can Cyberstalk You And How You Can Avoid It

Don't we all get that feeling that we're getting stalked on our way home from work or school? Well worry not, you're probably not getting stalked at all. Why? Because it's so darn easy to stalk you online! The fact is, unbeknownst to you, the cumulative information about yourself that you put online, can really show a lot of personal information that you might not be willing to share to strangers. Unless you enjoy kidnapping, you should follow some of the tips provided below.

3. Facebook

Facebook is one of the most brilliant and easiest ways to get information about someone. There's no need to take out the detective hat and look for little strands of information about you around the deep edges of the internet while Facebook probably has a gigantic treasure box of information about you, all in one place for viewing convenience.

The way people usually use Facebook to cyber-stalk or cyber-spy on people is usually the simple "friend request method" in which you simply request a friend request in order to get access to your photos, statuses, and inner thoughts. The people most commonly susceptible to this method are those who try to get 1,000 friends online to make themselves seem more popular and social to their real friends. However, even tech-savvy internet users can still fall prey to this simple con.

It won't always be this obvious.

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Things That Would Make School Great : Debunked - Part 1

Ever have those hearty discussions with your classmates about 'obvious' things that would make school fantastic and improve both attendance and effort for all students? It's a no-brainer right? Why don't those big guys in Albany take their heads out of their armpits and realize these simple things can fix all of the educational woes?

Students should get paid to go to school

Don't teachers love to remind you that "being a student is your job"? Let's take things out of context and put two and two together. So the big idea of working and putting effort to work is getting paid, right? Therefore, if we get paid to do work in school, we'll work even harder and put even more effort into school. Ignoring the fact that our hard work goes un-awarded by sweet cash, isn't that what educators want? Hard working students start at a paycheck every week!

Hold on a moment. How much should you be paid for doing work that benefits nobody other than yourself? Who's going to pay your paycheck? The same people that pay for your education? So how much higher should the national and state taxes be? Considering the fact that the Department of Education already has a 972 billion dollar budget and is still struggling to make ends meet, can the D.O.E afford to pay 153 million students minimum wage or more yearly? Even at minimum wage, that's almost another billion dollars down the drain every hour the schools are open.

Would you rather have a high school diploma or this handful of cash?

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Horrifying Tuesday : Death Cherries

It's that time of the week again, Horrifying Tuesday. This week, we're talking about that ghastly Atropa belladonna or more commonly known as Devil's Berries, Death Cherries, or Deadly Nightshade. Hinting from the word "death" in the name "death cherries", you can assume what will happen to you if you consume one. But what exactly are death cherries? Are they simply every-day red cherries with white skull and crossbones painted on them?

The skull and crossbones indicate health and beauty.

The death cherry is commonly grown in shrub-fashion, reaching up to 5 feet tall with 7 inch leaves. The berries grown from the plant are commonly green, ripening to a piano black color; most likely to indicate the serious nature of the berry. The berries can only reach about one centimeter long in diameter, but it's as potent enough to kill a fully grown adult if consumed.

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3 Reasons You Won't Survive War

Welcome to the United States Army, Private. You are now enlisted into an arm of America's military, the gun boys who go out and fight the good fight for the sake of us back home. Ok, you're not really enlisted but hey, I'm a writer, I have to make you feel the illusion of combat boots and sweaty green clothed people right? Moving on from such tasteful images we go to war. War is by all means conflict to resolve strife between two or more opposed sides. And by conflict I mean armed conflict. You think you have what it takes, don't you? You just smoked Spetsnaz in Call of Duty 0.7 seconds ago, no one can stand against your military prowess! Well Colonel Buttkickkillallmasterdeathmachine, let's probe some aspects of why you won't live up to that wonderful name I just gave you.

Note: This article does not apply to Spetsnaz soldiers.

Seriously, Spetsnaz will kill you upside down flying through the air. With a hatchet.

1. You don't know where you are - If you are deployed anywhere that's not your house, will you know what to do? Modern Warfare (oddly enough this next sentence applies to the video game too!) take place in caves, deserts, mountains, all which have hidey holes and are treacherous to climb sans forty pounds of equipment and armed opposition, so how would you fare with all of that then? Your opposition on it's own soil will know exactly where they are, exactly where everything is, where to hide and where to strike. But there is hope! You after all are armed and armored and in any struggle for survival, your body will adapt to win at all costs. Yay, brain function!

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Unsung Heroes: Your Saliva

Human saliva is probably one of the most looked down 'fluids' in human history. Give me one situation when someone used the word "spit" in a good context. But the truth is, your saliva does more than break down a few food molecules in your mouth. Your saliva does a massive array of things that make sure your mouth can be a shining white smile to oppose to a decaying, rotting mass of teeth and flesh.

"I spat on the ground as I begun to preform life saving CPR techniques on my friend as he went into cardiac arrest."

Your saliva consist of 98% water and 2% of mucus, electrolytes, antibacterial compounds and enzymes. That magical two percent practically protects your mouth from 95% of the things you throw at it. Producing saliva can account for digesting your food and lubricating your tongue, teeth and soft tissues in your mouth. Not only that, but it also pays a vital role to tasting food. Without saliva, that delicious red velvet cake would be nothing but a soft, luxurious, tasteless cake.

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Hugo Tale-Yax: Homeless Hero

On the morning of April 18th, Hugo Tale-Yax was just another homeless immigrant trying to make a decent living in the big city. Hold on, he was a immigrant? Obviously, he must be a tax-cheating, job-stealing, no-good jerk, right? If you just shook your head in agreement, you should hang your head in shame. Discriminating against someone due to their social class isn't as cool as it once was in the 90s; especially if it's Hugo Tale-Yax.

I doubt you'll discriminate me, if I had a knife.

The story began on the early morning of April 18th, 2010. Hugo was probably minding his own business, waiting for sunrise when he was suddenly thrown into a life-changing situation. He suddenly witnessed a strange man approach a woman with a knife. If you were in Hugo's shoes, what would you do? Quietly turn around and walk the other way, pretending not to see anything? Take a step back and quietly dial the police as the women gets robbed at knife point or stabbed to death? Or would you decide that it would be morally wrong to walk away and run over to the knife-wielding criminal and try to save a person you don't even know, risking your life with every step you take?

What Would You Do?

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Things From Birth That Will Determine Your Life

Being born is one of the most obviously important events of anybody's life. Before that, you were just a big stomach ache for your mom, but now, you're all grown up and capable of basic reading, writing, mathematics, and reasoning. Congrats. You're a man/woman of decisions now. But the thing is, some of your paths in life were already pre-determined since birth. No, this post has nothing to do with the aliens abducted you and are watching and controlling your every move. I meant your simple fundamental foundations that make you, you.

Your Name

Your name is one of those things that identify you as you. But I'm not going to state obvious things about your name that may change the rest of your life, like having the name "McDonalds" or something like that. What I meant is the 'secret' behind it. Your name can easily determine the people you will make friends with in elementary school, intermediate school, high school, and possibly college.

The way it works is directly linked to the educational system in America. Almost 90% of all teachers use the alphabetic order of their new student's names to determine seating and other education related things. What this means is that Joan A. will most likely sit next to John B. because of the first letter of their name. It's as simple as that.

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Eddard's Guide to Ostentatious and Sumptuous Words: Romance Edition

That flutter in your chest. The somersaults your stomach does upon occasion. The drool that comes unbidden at the most inopportune times. It can only mean one thing, love. Or like. (Love is intense so for all intent and purposes we'll just say like.) There's a special someone (we'll say a lady) in your sights and you would love (or like) to impress her with your incredible jargon to win her heart. But what ever shall you impress your potential paramour with? "Hi, I like your face.". I guarantee that will not work (maybe from personal experience?). This however is not a guide to smooth talking, but a guide with such smooth words, your stumbly lovesick (or likesick) words will come out like a baby's bottom. Dang, that's smooth. And now, onto five words you can use through different phases of romance!

This could be you

1. Pulchritudinous - physically beautiful; comely - A compliment can work wonders towards building true love (or true like). Your dream-lady is beautiful, gorgeous, pretty, resplendent, dazzling, ravishing, but she's heard all of that before! You need to knock her out (poetically of course) with a compliment so unique and unheard, she'll have no choice but to fall into your arms. In comes pulchritudinous, a collection of words that sounds like lingustical regurgitation but is actually a beautiful compliment that praises any lady.
Side Note: Please also remember to like her for herself, not just her pulchritudinous exterior. Don't be a jerk!

2. Parsimonious - extreme or excessive economy or frugality; stinginess - Did that lovely personality, kindhearted, pulchritudinous girl say yes to a date with you? How auspicious! You may find you may never need to actually use this word, and if you do clearly you've done something very wrong or have spent so much money on the date you can speak as so:

Darla - "Wow, (guy)! You've spent so much money on this date!"
You - "Indeed, no one can call me parsimonious!"

If this conversation happens at all, clearly something is wrong with both of you. Anyhow, keep this word as a reminder to yourself, don't be stingy, but don't go overboard either.

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Horrifying Tuesday : Giant Water Bugs

It's that time of the week again, Horrifying Tuesday! This week, we're going to talk about the dreaded "Belostomatidae or more commonly known as the giant water bug. However, other than jumping out of the kitchen sink every now and then, what's the big deal? Surely, I'm not going to write ten paragraphs about how disgusting they are, right? But wait a second, I'm not talking about any ordinary water bug, I'm talking about the giant water bug.

"The hat indicates high social class."

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Is Genetically Modified Food As Bad As We Think?

One of the recent hypes of the last decade was about the consumption of genetically modified food. According to certain people, eating genetically modified food is equal to eating six pounds of pure lard after consuming a entire vat of pure cyanide. Many people have felt strongly that such evil should be erased from the face of the earth and genetically modifying food should be banned indefinitely. But is all the hype true? Should we throw away the test tubes and textbooks and revert back to pushing seeds into the the ground one by one?

No more "science" witchery for us!

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4 Things That We've Used In The Past That Is Almost Obsolete Today

This article is all about childhood inventions and ideas that dominated the industry, at the time. As we all know, if you can't keep up to the competition, you get stomped out, which is what this article about. Below, you'll find four inventions that was once evident in society, that has become almost obsolete in the modern world.

4. Physical Newspapers

Yep. The idea of getting a paper delivered to your door is slowly fading out as the news is widely available in larger, freer sources. In the past, newspapers were more commonly purchased and used as the sole source of information around the city and around the world. Back in the day, you would simply pick up a newspaper on your way to work, read some articles during your lunch break and toss it in the bin the next morning.

It was the bee's knees.

In the modern age however, instead of getting up a cup of coffee and heading to your front door every morning, you can simply wake up, turn your smart phone on, and check Google News at no cost to you. There's no need to pay a few dollars for a monthly subscription or a few nickels for a issue every day. You can simply go to the same quality newspaper company's website and check out all the new articles free of charge. It's cheaper and more convenient, what else would you want?

The only thing it's good for is arts and crafts

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3 Reasons Why You Don't Want To Be Homeschooled

Homeschooling is pretty much school at home with good ol' dad or mom. It's pretty much school, but with more freedom right? You can set your own schedule, eat your own lunch, and even go on "school trips" five times a week right?! Doesn't it sound like the best idea since sliced apricots? But before you throw your bookbag out and get ready to beg your parents to be home schooled, lets look at the fine print.

3. Lack Of Personal Space

Think about it for a moment, where is school located now? In your attempts to avoid school as much as possible, you've brought school into your own home. The instant you wake up, "you're in school", there's no physical barrier between an institution for education and the place you watch cartoons and eat cheerios. It would be the equivalent of sleeping over at school everyday until you move out and get a apartment.

Alternatively, you can place peanuts on a stack of one dollar bills.

Instead of being able to "leave" school to a safe, non-educational environment, you'll constantly be in the threshold of "learning". Your parents could pester you to do homework and study for upcoming tests while you sit in the bathroom pretending to use the toilet or during dinner. The same desk you eat your breakfast on, will be the same desk you do "school work" on. The psychological barriers between work and leisure will slowly interlink, creating an environment that will make it extremely difficult to relax, or work.

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