E-cards

I'm guilty of being one of those who have switched to sending e-cards instead of actual cards for pretty much any and all occasions.  It's just easier, more inexpensive (I mean free), and allows for last minute sending.  That last part is especially useful if you remembered the occasion only a day before or even on the day itself!  =P

But of course, I'm still a bit choosy even with e-cards.  There's a lot available out there but I don't want to send just anything to everybody.  There are still factors I'd consider including whether I like the e-card and whether it suits the person I'm sending it to.  Also, some of the nicer ones aren't freely available. So anyway, I usually end up going through site after site after site of e-cards before I find the one I choose to send.

This Christmas, I set out to look for a Christmas e-card to send and found this unique, ingenious one.  =)

Winter Solstice and the earth's magnetic poles...

Ok.
First of all, apologies if the title implies a connection between winter solstice and the earth's magnetic poles.
Uhm... I don't actually know right now if there is a connection between the two or not (I'm thinking not), mainly because I haven't read about it yet.  This is supposed to be just a quick post, you see, so I didn't really do any research.  Maybe I'll do that sometime in the future.  But anyway, right now, the only connection between the two is this: winter solstice was in the news earlier, and that reminded me of something I heard on the radio several days or weeks back about the earth's poles.  That's basically the only connection there is.  =P

Winter solstice was in the news because apparently today is the winter solstice, meaning it is the day when the day is shortest and the night is longest.  From my vague memories of high school science, this has something to do with the fact that as the earth revolves around the sun, it's actually rotating on a tilted axis.  So there is a day when the north is farthest away from the sun and, shall we say, exposed to the sun for the shortest period of time compared to other days of the year.  That's the winter solstice, or what they say is the first day of winter.
Which, incidentally, doesn't really mean much to me because I live in a country that does not have four seasons.  =P  In other words, we don't have winter here. 

So anyway, that reminded me of something slightly related that I heard a while back on the radio for which I thought I'd post a comment about.  I wasn't really able to listen well at the time because I was busy doing something, but apparently a story came out from NASA saying that the magnetic poles are shifting or have shifted.  So I thought yeah ok, fine.
But what made me stop for a second and shoot up an eyebrow was when the radio announcer shared a text message from a listener saying that he/she doesn't need NASA to tell him that the poles have shifted because he can easily tell that the sun has moved several degrees in the sky or something like that.  And I was like what is the connection?  Now, unless I misunderstood something, the listener was implying that the position of the sun in the sky has something to do with the position of the magnetic poles?  Erm.
Now, I'm not sure if a shift in the magnetic poles would have an effect on the earth's movement or rotation (that would take a lot of reading and studying...) but, as I understand it, the sun changes position in the sky year in and year out.  And this has something to do with the earth being tilted on its axis as it revolves around the sun.  And axis here has to do with geographic poles, not magnetic poles.  They're not the same. 

There.  >.>
And one thing leads to another.  While working on this post, I remembered yet another thing that I saw just recently.   Scrat's Continental Crack-Up   Enjoy!  =)