Things I learned lately 25 November

• Google now has street... errr, canal level views of Venice.
• The fine for texting and driving in Alaska is $10,000. In California, it's $20.
• Prague's public transport company, is planning to provide singles-only train cars.
• The Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart Germany, has the world's tallest indoor (man-made) tornado.
• They don't sell Nestle Aero chocolate bars in the US.
• McDonald's in Japan sells an Ebi Filet-O, which has a fried shrimp patty.
• McDonald's in Japan sells the deep fried pie shell they use for their apple pie, but it's filled with orangey chocolate.
• In Japan, Mister Donut has a square donut filled with peanut butter and jelly. WANT!!
• To promote the launch of Windows 7, Burger King in Japan sold a Whopper with 7 burger patties. 
• A new Japanese LO1 magnetic-levitation bullet train reached 500km/h (311mph) in testing. It is scheduled to deploy on the Tokyo-Nagoya line by 2027.
• There is a quadraplegic controlling her robotic arm with her brain through implants.
• Transparent aluminum is a reality. It's expensive, but it exists. It starts as aluminum oxynitride powder.
• Until 2011, there were no regulations on beer in Russia. Previously, the government declared any beverage with less than 10% alcohol content to be a foodstuff. It was sold all hours of the day and consumed heavily in public. The beverage is now regulated in an effort to curtail heavy drinking.
• In January 2013, comet ISON (C/2012 S1) was clocked at 40,000 mph. By 21 November 2013, it had accelerated to 150,000 mph. By the time ISON slingshots around the sun on 28 November 2013, it will be moving at 828,000 mph. That might seem fast but it's only 1/10th of one percent of the speed of light.