flows of structurized thoughts and sporadic ravings..

Understanding Marketing

2009-04-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

You see a fabulous girl/guy at a party. You approach them and say, "I’m fantastic in bed."

That’s Direct Marketing.

You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a fabulous girl/guy. You have one of your friends approach them, point at you and say, "She’s/He’s fantastic in bed."

That’s Advertising.

You see a fabulous girl/guy at a party. You approach them to get their telephone number. The next day you call and say, "Hi, I’m fantastic in bed."

That’s Telemarketing.

You’re at a party and see a fabulous girl/guy. You get up, straighten your clothes, walk up and pour them a drink. You open the door, pick up their bag after it drops, offer them a ride, and then say, "By the way, I’m fantastic in bed."

That’s Public Relations.

You’re at a party and see a fabulous girl/guy. They walk up to you and say, "I hear you’re fantastic in bed."

That’s Brand Recognition.

Source here.

Some George W. Bush Quotes

2009-03-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

"I think we can agree. The past is over."

"I have learned from mistakes I may or may not have made."

"It was just inebreating what the Midlands was all about then." (A slip on exhillerating)

"It's clearly the budget. It has a lot of numbers on it."

"The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case."

"Will highways on the internet become more few?"

"Like your neighbor just like you like to be liked yourself."

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? Laura and I really don't realize just how bright our children is."

"I was raised in the West. The West of Texas. It's pretty close to California. More so than Washington, D.C. is close to California."

"I propose that every city have a telephone number 119 -- for dyslexics who have an emergency."

"There ought to be limits to freedom." Said about parody websites of him.

"I believe that we are on an irreversible trent toward democracy and more freedom- but that could change."

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared.'"

"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."

"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the poles."

"Illegitimacy is something we should talk about, in terms of not having it."

"We are ready for any unseen event that may or may not occur."

"For NASA, space is still a high priority."

"We have a firm commitment to NATO; we are a part of NATO. We have a firm committment to Europe; we are a part of Europe."

"Who is to blame for riots? The rioters are to blame."

"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."

"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children."

"It isn't pollution that's ruining the environment; it's all the impurities in the air and water that's doing it."

"It's time the human race entered the solar system."

Source here.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road (selected)?

2009-02-21T11:49:00.000-08:00

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.

George W. Bush: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.

Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.

Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned,because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Emerson: The chicken didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Epicurus: For fun.

Louis Farrakhan: The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken "crossed" the black man in order to trample him and keep him down.

Freud: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Grandpa: In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.

David Hume: Out of custom and habit.

Saddam Hussein: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Captain Kirk: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

John Lennon: Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace.

Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.

Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

Moses: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the Chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Ralph Nader: The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.

Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

Plato: For the greater good.

Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?

Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Jerry Seinfeld: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway? Where do they get these chickens?"

Dr. Seuss: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I've not been told!

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.

The Sphinx: You tell me.

Oliver Stone: The question is not, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Rather, it is, "Who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

Thoreau: To live deliberately and suck all the marrow out of life.

Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Voltaire: I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the death its right to do it.

Wittgenstein: The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road", and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.

Molly Yard: It was a hen!

Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.

Source is here.

10 Great Quotes From 10 Great Business People

2009-02-08T00:46:00.000-08:00

1. Jim Rohn

“Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune.”

2. Henry Ford

“Paying attention to simple little things that most men neglect makes a few men rich.”

3. Walt Disney

“All our dreams can come true - if we have the courage to pursue them.”

4. Peter Drucker

“Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.”

5. Edwin H. Stuart

“Men who do things without being told draw the most wages.”

6. Vincent Lombardi

“Winning is a habit. Unfortunately so is losing”

7. J. Paul Getty

“To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business.”

8. Sam Walton

“High expectations are the key to everything.”

9. Steve Jobs

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

10. Warren Buffett

“I like to go for cinches. I like to shoot fish in a barrel. But I like to do it after the water has run out.”

Source is here.

20 Famous Last Words

2009-01-20T01:59:00.000-08:00

1. Pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose.

Said by: Queen Marie Antoinette after she accidentally stepped on the foot of her executioner as she went to the guillotine.

2. I can’t sleep

Said by: J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan

3. I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.

Said by: Humphrey Bogart

4. I am about to — or I am going to — die: either expression is correct.

Said by: Dominique Bouhours, famous French grammarian

5. I live!

Said by: Roman Emperor, as he was being murdered by his own soldiers.

6. Dammit…Don’t you dare ask God to help me.

Said by: Joan Crawford to her housekeeper who began to pray aloud.

7. I am perplexed. Satan Get Out

Said by: Aleister Crowley - famous occultist

8. Now why did I do that?

Said by: General William Erskine, after he jumped from a window in Lisbon, Portugal in 1813.

9. Hey, fellas! How about this for a headline for tomorrow’s paper? ‘French Fries’!

Said by: James French, a convicted murderer, was sentenced to the electric chair. He shouted these words to members of the press who were to witness his execution.

10. Bugger Bognor.

Said by: King George V whose physician had suggested that he relax at his seaside palace in Bognor Regis.

11. It’s stopped.

Said by: Joseph Henry Green, upon checking his own pulse.

12. LSD, 100 micrograms I.M.

Said by: Aldous Huxley (Author) to his wife. She obliged and he was injected twice before his death.

13. You have won, O Galilean

Said by: Emperor Julian, having attempted to reverse the official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire.

14. No, you certainly can’t.

Said by: John F. Kennedy in reply to Nellie Connally, wife of Governor John Connelly, commenting “You certainly can’t say that the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome, Mr. President.

15. I feel ill. Call the doctors.

Said by: Mao Zedong (Chairman of China)

16. Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here

Said by: Nostradamus

17. Hurry up, you Hoosier bastard, I could kill ten men while you’re fooling around!

Said by: Carl Panzram, serial killer, shortly before he was executed by hanging.

18. Put out the bloody cigarette!!

Said by: Saki, to a fellow officer while in a trench during World War One, for fear the smoke would give away their positions. He was then shot by a German sniper who had heard the remark.

19. Please don’t let me fall.

Said by: Mary Surratt, before being hanged for her part in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. She was the first woman executed by the United States federal government.

20. Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.

Said by: Voltaire when asked by a priest to renounce Satan.

Source is here.

Definitions of Terms Commonly Used in Math

2009-01-14T04:06:00.000-08:00

CLEARLY: I don't want to write down all the in-between steps.

TRIVIAL: If I have to show you how to do this, you're in the wrong class.

OBVIOUSLY: I hope you weren't sleeping when we discussed this earlier, because I refuse to repeat it.

RECALL: I shouldn't have to tell you this, but for those of you who erase your memory tapes after every test, here it is again.

WITHOUT LOSS OF GENERALITY: I'm not about to do all the possible cases, so I'll do one and let you figure out the rest.

ONE MAY SHOW: One did, his name was Gauss.

IT IS WELL KNOWN: See "Mathematische Zeitschrift'', vol XXXVI, 1892.

CHECK FOR YOURSELF: This is the boring part of the proof, so you can do it on your own time.

SKETCH OF A PROOF: I couldn't verify the details, so I'll break it down into parts I couldn't prove.

HINT: The hardest of several possible ways to do a proof.

BRUTE FORCE: Four special cases, three counting arguments, two long inductions, and a partridge in a pair tree.

SOFT PROOF: One third less filling (of the page) than your regular proof, but it requires two extra years of course work just to understand the terms.

ELEGANT PROOF: Requires no previous knowledge of the subject, and is less than ten lines long.

SIMILARLY: At least one line of the proof of this case is the same as before.

CANONICAL FORM: 4 out of 5 mathematicians surveyed recommended this as the final form for the answer.

THE FOLLOWING ARE EQUIVALENT: If I say this it means that, and if I say that it means the other thing, and if I say the other thing...

BY A PREVIOUS THEOREM: I don't remember how it goes (come to think of it, I'm not really sure we did this at all), but if I stated it right, then the rest of this follows.

TWO LINE PROOF: I'll leave out everything but the conclusion.

BRIEFLY: I'm running out of time, so I'll just write and talk faster.

LET'S TALK THROUGH IT: I don't want to write it on the board because I'll make a mistake.

PROCEED FORMALLY: Manipulate symbols by the rules without any hint of their true meaning.

QUANTIFY: I can't find anything wrong with your proof except that it won't work if x is 0.

FINALLY: Only ten more steps to go...

Q.E.D. : T.G.I.F.

PROOF OMITTED: Trust me, it's true.

Here is the source.

25 Thoughtful Quotes From Carl Jung

2009-01-09T05:09:00.000-08:00

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and is renowned as the founder of analytical psychology. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician, much of his life’s work was spent exploring other areas, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts. His most notable ideas include the concept of psychological archetypes, the collective unconscious and synchronicity. Jung is the source of some of my all time favorite quotes. I admire how he mixes logical thinking along with a grain of spirituality and the subconscious realms. Here is a list of my favorite quotes from Carl Jung:

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotions.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

The word “happiness” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Source: 25 Thoughtful Quotes From Carl Jung

If You Can..

2008-12-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

If you can start the day without caffeine;
If you can get going without pep pills;
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains;
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles;
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it;
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time;
If you can forgive a friend's lack of consideration;
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when,
  through no fault of your own, something goes wrong;
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment;
If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him;
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend;
If you can face the world without lies and deceit;
If you can conquer tension without medical help;
If you can relax without liquor;
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs;
If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice
  against creed or color, religion or politics; then, my friend, you are
  almost as good as your dog.

Source: Jim Geary

The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski

2008-12-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

your life is your life
don't let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can't beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

35 Thought Provoking Education Quotes

2008-11-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

1. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~Aristotle

2. Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. ~Hector Berlioz

3. An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. ~Niels Bohr

4. Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. ~Albert Einstein

5. What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child. ~George Bernard Shaw

6. Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century. ~Perelman

7. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. ~Mark Twain

8. Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. ~Jim Rohn

9. Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. ~Ambrose Bierce

10. In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

11. The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change. ~Carl Rogers

12. A liberally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination. An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear. ~James B. Stockdale

13. A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. ~Thomas Carruthers

14. The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn. ~Cicero

15. Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself. ~Chinese Proverb

And the rest is here.

List of 100 global public intellectuals (2005)

2008-10-24T04:49:00.000-07:00

In 2005, Prospect and Foreign Policy asked 20,000 people to vote for their top names of global public intellectuals from a longlist of 100. The criteria were simple. Candidates have to be living, and still active in public life. They have to have shown distinction in their particular field as well as an ability to influence debate across borders. The first ten names are:

1 Noam Chomsky
2 Umberto Eco
3 Richard Dawkins
4 Václav Havel
5 Christopher Hitchens
6 Paul Krugman
7 Jürgen Habermas
8 Amartya Sen
9 Jared Diamond
10 Salman Rushdie

Source: Prospect Magazine

Top Ten Things That Math and Sex Have in Common

2008-10-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

1. Explicit discussions of either topic is a faux pas at most cocktail parties.
2. Historically, men have been in control, but there are now efforts to get women more involved.
3. There are many joint results.
4. Both are prominent on college campuses, and are usually practiced indoors.
5. Most people wish they knew more about both subjects.
6. Both involve long and hard problems, and can produce interesting topology and geometry.
7. Both merit undivided attention, but mathematicians are prone to think about one while doing the other.
8. Saint Augustine was hostile to both, and Alan Turing took an unusual approach to both.
9. Both typically begin with a lot of hard work and end with a great but brief reward.
10. Professionals are generally viewed with suspicion, and most do not earn high pay.

Source: Math Humor

Some useful Latin phrases

2008-10-05T03:56:00.000-07:00

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
If Caesar were alive, you'd be chained to an oar.

(At a barbeque)
Animadvertistine, ubicumque stes, fumum recta in faciem ferri?
Ever noticed how wherever you stand, the smoke goes right into your face?

Sona si Latine loqueris.
Honk if you speak Latin.

Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes
If you can read this you're over-educated

Vidi Vici Veni
I saw, I conquered, I came

Vacca foeda
Stupid cow

Raptus regaliter
Royally screwed

Si hoc signum legere potes, operis boni in rebus Latinus alacribus et fructuosis potiri potes!
If you can read this sign, you can get a good job in the fast-paced, high-paying world of Latin!

Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.
I'm not interested in your dopey religious cult.

Noli me vocare, ego te vocabo.
Don't call me, I'll call you.

Utinam barbari spatium proprium tuum invadant!
May barbarians invade your personal space!

Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!
May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy!

Radix lecti
Couch potato

O! Plus! Perge! Aio! Hui! Hem!
Oh! More! Go on! Yes! Ooh! Ummm!

Tam exanimis quam tunica nehru fio.
I am as dead as the nehru jacket.

Ventis secundis, tene cursum.
Go with the flow.

Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?
Is that a scroll in your toga, or are you just happy to see me?

Nihil est--in vita priore ego imperator Romanus fui.
That's nothing--in a previous life I was a Roman Emperor.

Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem!
Stand aside plebians! I am on imperial business.

Fac ut vivas.
Get a life.

Best Bush T-Shirts

2008-09-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

1) (On an infant’s shirt): Already smarter than Bush.
2) 1/20/09: End of an Error!
3) That’s OK, I Wasn’t Using My Civil Liberties Anyway
4) Let’s Fix Democracy in This Country First
5) Bush. Like a Rock. Only Dumber.
6) You Can’t Be Pro-War And Pro-Life At The Same Time
7) If You Can Read This, You’re Not Our President
8) Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?
9) George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight
10) Impeachment: It’s Not Just for Blowjobs Anymore
11) America : One Nation, Under Surveillance
12) They Call Him “W” So He Can Spell It
13) Which God Do You Kill For?
14) Jail to the Chief!
15) Who Would Jesus Torture?
16) No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade?
17) Bush: God’s Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full Of Crap
18) Bad president! No Banana.
19) We Need a President Who’s Fluent In At Least One Language
20) We’re Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them
21) Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s Blood
22) Is It Vietnam Yet?
23) Bush Doesn’t Care About White People, Either
24) Where Are We Going? And Why Are We In This Handbasket?
25) You Elected Him. You Deserve Him.
26) Impeach Cheney First
27) Dubya, Your Dad Shoulda Pulled Out, Too
28) When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46/gal!
29) The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century
30) 2004: Embarrassed - 2005: Horrified - 2006: Terrified
31) Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

Source: Best Bush T-Shirt

Some of Heinlein's quotes

2008-09-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an "intellectual"- find out how he feels about astrology.

Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.

The three-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.

To get anywhere, or even to live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer.

To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.

Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense.

Source: Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

Don't eat bread

2008-09-18T03:18:00.000-07:00

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations

4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average North American eats more bread than that in one month!

6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.

7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.

8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.

9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.

10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.

11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 240 degrees Celsius! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.

12. Most bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

Death quotes

2008-09-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying. Martin Luther (1483-1546) German priest and scholar

All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) British poet and playwright

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?
Socrates (BC 469-BC 399) Greek philosopher of Athens

The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.
Socrates (BC 469-BC 399) Greek philosopher of Athens

For the sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast. And the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest.
Lord Byron (1788-1824) British poet

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) American black leader

Dying is a wild night and a new road.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
Marcus Tulius Cicero (106-43 BC) Writer, politician and great roman orator

The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, and dramatist

Those to whom we say farewell, are welcomed by others.
Unknown Source

Risk (author unknown)

2008-09-08T15:56:00.000-07:00

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to others is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken,
because the greatest hazard in life is to do nothing.

The person who risks nothing,
does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.

They may avoid suffering and sorrow,
but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.

Chained by their attitudes, they are a slave,
they forfeited their freedom.

Only the person who risks can be free.

Some questions I found interesting

2008-09-05T16:38:00.001-07:00

· What's special about 4th May 2006, and specifically two minutes and three seconds after one o'clock in the morning?

· What are the astrological star signs and the two months that each sign represents?

· Who wrote: "Bring me my bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire.."?

· What connects the words sitcom, smog, brunch, muppet and cyborg?

· What symbolic item did Lauren Bacall put into the urn containing Humphrey Bogart's ashes?

· Which one of these is on the coast: Cairo, Johannesburg, Tripoli, Sarajevo, Nairobi, Khartoum?

· What upper case (capital) letter of the English alphabet requires that the pen be lifted from the paper twice (providing no lines are re-traced)?

· Who was the 'The Wizard of Menlo Park' who said, "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." ?

· There are four (known to us - perhaps there are more) perfectly recognizable and understandable words in the English language having one of each vowel in reverse alphabetical order (UOIEA), what are the words?

· Why would the following stand no chance of being approved as official names for British racehorses? - Salisbury Cathedral, Wonderful Terminator, Sexy Disciplinarian or Sea Bee.

· How much time elapses between any Sunday 29 February and (going forward in time) the next respective Tuesday 29 February? (This is not a trick question) A supplementary question is: what year was the last Sunday 29 February?

The Wisdom of the Heart from the 14th Dalai Lama

2008-09-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

1. Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

2. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

3. Sleep is the best meditation.

4. Spend some time alone every day.

5. We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

6. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

7. We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

8. Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

9. If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

10. The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.

Two Wolves (Cherokee Wisdom )

2008-08-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

50 Things Professors Can Do on the First Week of Class

2008-08-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

1. Address students as “worm”.

2. After confirming everyone’s names on the roll, thank the class for attending “Advanced Astrodynamics 690″ and mention that yesterday was the last day to drop.

3. After turning on the overhead projector, clutch your chest and scream “MY PACEMAKER!”

4. Announce “you’ll need this”, and write the suicide prevention hotline number on the board.

5. Announce that last year’s students have almost finished their class projects.

6. Announce that the entire 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica will be required reading for your class. Assign a report on Volume 1, Aardvark through Armenia, for next class.

7. Announce that you need to deliver two lectures that day, and deliver them in rapid-fire auctioneer style.

8. Announce to students that their entire grades will be based on a single-question oral final exam. Imply that this could happen at any moment.

9. Ask for a volunteer for a demonstration. Ask them to fill out a waiver as you put on a lead apron and light a blowtorch.

10. Ask occasional questions, but mutter “as if you gibbering simps would know” and move on before anyone can answer.

11. Ask students to call you “Tinkerbell” or “Surfin’ Bird”.

12. Ask students to list their favorite showtunes on a signup sheet. Criticize their choices and make notes in your grade book.

13. Ask the class to read Jenkins through Johnson of the local phone book by the next lecture. Vaguely imply that there will be a quiz.

14. Begin class by smashing the neck off a bottle of vodka, and announce that the lecture’s over when the bottle’s done.

15. Bring a CPR dummy to class and announce that it will be the teaching assistant for the semester. Assign it an office and office hours.

16. Bring a small dog to class. Tell the class he’s named “Boogers McGee” and is your “mascot”. Whenever someone asks a question, walk over to the dog and ask it, “What’ll be, McGee?”

17. Claim to be a chicken. Squat, cluck, and produce eggs at irregular intervals.

18. Deliver your lecture through a hand puppet. If a student asks you a question directly, say in a high-pitched voice, “The Professor can’t hear you, you’ll have to ask *me*, Winky Willy”.

19. Devote your math lecture to free verse about your favorite numbers and ask students to “sit back and groove”.

20. Every so often, freeze in mid sentence and stare off into space for several minutes. After a long, awkward silence, resume your sentence and proceed normally.

21. Give an opening monologue. Take two minute “commercial breaks” every ten minutes.

22. Gradually speak softer and softer and then suddenly point to a student and scream YOU! WHAT DID I JUST SAY?”

23. Growl constantly and address students as “matey”.

24. Have a band waiting in the corner of the room. When anyone asks a question, have the band start playing and sing an Elvis song.

25. Have a grad student in a black beret pluck at a bass while you lecture.

26. Have one of your graduate students sprinkle flower petals ahead of you as you pace back and forth.

27. If someone asks a question, walk silently over to their seat, hand them your piece of chalk, and ask, “Would YOU like to give the lecture, Mr. Smartypants?”

28. Inform your English class that they need to know FORTRAN and code all their essays. Deliver a lecture on output format statements.

29. Jog into class, rip the textbook in half, and scream, “Are you pumped? ARE YOU PUMPED? I CAN’T HEEEEEEAR YOU!”

30. Mention in passing that you’re wearing rubber underwear.

31. Pass out dental floss to students and devote the lecture to oral hygiene.

32. Pick out random students, ask them questions, and time their responses with a stop watch. Record their times in your grade book while muttering “tsk, tsk”.

33. Point the overhead projector at the class. Demand each student’s name, rank, and serial number.

34. Refer frequently to students who died while taking your class.

35. Show a video on medieval torture implements to your calculus class. Giggle throughout it.

36. Show up to lecture in a ventilated clean suit. Advise students to keep their distance for their own safety and mutter something about “that bug I picked up in the field”.

37. Sneeze on students in the front row and wipe your nose on your tie.

38. Sprint from the room in a panic if you hear sirens outside.

39. Start the lecture by dancing and lip-syncing to James Brown’s “Sex Machine.”

40. Stop in mid-lecture, frown for a moment, and then ask the class whether your butt looks fat.

41. Tell students that you’ll fail them if they cheat on exams or “fake the funk”.

42. Tell your math students that they must do all their work in a base 11 number system. Use a complicated symbol you’ve named after yourself in place of the number 10 and threaten to fail students who don’t use it.

43. Turn off the lights, play a tape of crickets chirping, and begin singing spirituals.

44. Use a graduate student to bang cymbals every time your name is mentioned.

45. Warn students that they should bring a sack lunch to exams.

46. Wear a “virtual reality” helmet and strange gloves. When someone asks a question, turn in their direction and make throttling motions with your hands.

47. Wear a feather boa and ask students to call you “Snuggles”.

48. Wear a hood with one eyehole. Periodically make strange gurgling noises.

49. Wear a pointed Kaiser helmet and a monocle and carry a riding crop.

50. Wear mirrored sunglasses and speak only in Turkish. Ignore all questions.

Source: FunBlog

Advices to save money

2008-08-15T04:04:00.000-07:00

Dean Kamen, Segway inventor: “Find work in something you love and it won’t feel like work.”

Derek Jeter, New York Yankees shortstop: “Always know where your money is. Even if you have someone who handles your finances for you, you should be involved in the process.”

Whitney Tilson, manager of T2 Partners LLC: “Read all of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway shareholder letters. That’s all you need to know.”

Meir Statman, professor of finance at Santa Clara University: “Use money well, but do not waste it.” Be frugal but not stingy. Money is there to do good things.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray Love: “Borrowing money is like wetting your bed in the middle of the night. At first all you feel is warmth and release. But very, very quickly comes the awful, cold discomfort of reality.”

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist: “Material stuff won’t make you happy.”

John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group: “Whoever cultivates the Golden Mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.” In other words, seek the middle ground.

Olivia S. Mitchell, director for the Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Research: “Save your money first and get used to living on what’s left over.”

Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics: “Don’t save too much.” Take advantage of consumption smoothing. (I’m still not sure I agree with this advice; it relies too much on predicting the future.)

Source: GetRichSlowly

Quotes about the Bible by famous men of the past

2008-08-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” George Washington

“That Book (the Bible) is the rock on which our Republic rests.” Andrew Jackson

“I am sorry for men who do not read the Bible every day. I wonder why they deprive themselves of the strength and pleasure.” Woodrow Wilson

“The Bible is a book in comparison with which all others are of minor importance, and which in all my perplexities and distresses has never failed to give me light and strength.” Robert E. Lee

“If we will not be governed by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants.” William Penn

“Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible.” Ronald Reagan

“The more profoundly we study this wonderful book [the Bible], and the more closely we observe its divine precepts, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation.” William McKinley

“Education is useless without the Bible.” Daniel Webster

“A thorough understanding of the Bible is better than a college education.” Theodore Roosevelt

“It is necessary for the welfare of the nation that men's lives be based on the principles of the Bible. No man, educated or uneducated, can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.” Theodore Roosevelt

“I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.” Sir Isaac Newton

“Those who sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety are not deserving of either liberty or safety.” Ben Franklin

“Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties, write its precepts on your hearts and practice them in your lives.” Ulysses S. Grant

“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people...so great is my veneration of the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read, the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens in their country and respectful members of society.” John Adams

“We must not build on the sands of an uncertain and ever changing science…but upon the rock of inspired Scriptures.” Sir Ambrose Flemming

“England has two books; the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England.” Victor Hugo

“No lawyer can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.” Rufus Choate

“It has been my custom for many years to read the Bible in its entirety once a year“ John Quincy Adams

“Almost every man who has by his lifework added to the sum of human achievement . . . has based his life-work largely upon the teachings of the Bible.” Theodore Roosevelt

“All Scripture is God-breathed and He doesn’t waste His breath.” Jim McCotter

“Tell your prince that this book is the secret of England's success.” Queen Elizabeth

“The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in the right for anybody except the state.” Harry S. Truman

“A single line in the Bible has consoled me more than all the books I ever read besides.” Immanuel Kant

“I have known ninety-five of the world's great men in my time, and of these eighty-seven were followers of the Bible.” W. E. Gladstone

"I was humbled to learn that God sent His Son to die for a sinner like me. I was comforted to know that through the Son, I could find God's amazing grace, a grace that crosses every border, every barrier and is open to everyone. Through the love of Christ's life, I could understand the life changing powers of faith...Faith changes lives. I know, because faith has changed mine. I could not be governor if I did not believe in a divine plan that supersedes all human plans. Politics is a fickle business. Polls change. Today's friend is tomorrow's adversary. People lavish praise and attention. Many times it is genuine; sometimes it is not. Yet I build my life on a foundation that will not shift." George W. Bush

Tricks on body (dug out from some email)

2008-08-03T13:14:00.000-07:00

1. If your throat tickles, scratch your ear.

When you were 9, playing your armpit was a cool trick. Now, as an adult, you can still appreciate a good body-based feat, but you're more discriminating. Take that tickle in your throat; it's not worth gagging over. Here's a better way to scratch your itch: "When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm," says Scott Schaffer, M.D., president of an ear, nose and throat specialty center in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. "This spasm relieves the tickle."

2. Experience supersonic hearing

If you're stuck chatting up a mumbler at a cocktail party, lean in with your right ear. It's better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech, according to researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. If, on the other hand, you're trying to identify that song playing softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left ear is better at picking up music tones.

3. Overcome your most primal urge

Need to pee? No bathroom nearby? Fantasize about Jessica Simpson. Thinking about sex preoccupies your brain, so you won't feel as much discomfort, says Larry Lipshultz, M.D., chief of male reproductive medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. For best results, try Simpson's "These Boots Are Made for Walking" video.

4. Feel no pain

German researchers have discovered that coughing during an injection can lessen the pain of the needle stick. According to Taras Usichenko, author of a study on the phenomenon, the trick causes a sudden, temporary rise in pressure in the chest and spinal canal, inhibiting the pain-conducting structures of the spinal cord.

5. Clear your stuffed nose

Forget Sudafed. An easier, quicker, and cheaper way to relieve sinus pressure is by alternately thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pressing between your eyebrows with one finger. This causes the vomer bone, which runs through the nasal passages to the mouth, to rock back and forth, says Lisa DeStefano, D.O., an assistant professor at the Michigan State University college of osteopathic medicine. The motion loosens congestion; after 20 seconds, you'll feel your sinuses start to drain.

6. Fight fire without water

Worried those wings will repeat on you tonight? "Sleep on your left side," says Anthony A. Star-poli, M.D., a New York City gastroenterologist and assistant professor of medicine at New York Medical College. Studies have shown that patients who sleep on their left sides are less likely to suffer from acid reflux. The esophagus and stomach connect at an angle. When you sleep on your right, the stomach is higher than the esophagus, allowing food and stomach acid to slide up your throat. When you're on your left, the stomach is lower than the esophagus, so gravity's in your favor.

7. Cure your toothache without opening your mouth

Just rub ice on the back of your hand, on the V-shaped webbed area between your thumb and index finger. A Canadian study found that this technique reduces toothache pain by as much as 50 percent compared with using no ice. The nerve pathways at the base of that V stimulate an area of the brain that blocks pain signals from the face and hands.

8. Make burns disappear

When you accidentally singe your finger on the stove, clean the skin and apply light pressure with the finger pads of your unmarred hand. Ice will relieve your pain more quickly, Dr. DeStefano says, but since the natural method brings the burned skin back to a normal temperature, the skin is less likely to blister.

9. Stop the world from spinning

One too many drinks left you dizzy? Put your hand on something stable. The part of your ear responsible for balance—the cupula—floats in a fluid of the same density as blood. "As alcohol dilutes blood in the cupula, the cupula becomes less dense and rises," says Dr. Schaffer. This confuses your brain. The tactile input from a stable object gives the brain a second opinion, and you feel more in balance. Because the nerves in the hand are so sensitive, this works better than the conventional foot-on-the-floor wisdom.

10. Unstitch your side

If you're like most people, when you run, you exhale as your right foot hits the ground. This puts downward pressure on your liver (which lives on your right side), which then tugs at the diaphragm and creates a side stitch, according to The Doctors Book of Home Remedies for Men. The fix: Exhale as your left foot strikes the ground.

11. Stanch blood with a single finger

Pinching your nose and leaning back is a great way to stop a nosebleed—if you don't mind choking on your own O positive. A more civil approach: Put some cotton on your upper gums—just behind that small dent below your nose—and press against it, hard. "Most bleeds come from the front of the septum, the cartilage wall that divides the nose," says Peter Desmarais, M.D., an ear, nose, and throat specialist at Entabeni Hospital, in Durban, South Africa. "Pressing here helps stop them."

12. Make your heart stand still

Trying to quell first-date jitters? Blow on your thumb. The vagus nerve, which governs heart rate, can be controlled through breathing, says Ben Abo, an emergency medical-services specialist at the University of Pittsburgh. It'll get your heart rate back to normal.

13. Thaw your brain

Too much Chipwich too fast will freeze the brains of lesser men. As for you, press your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, covering as much as you can. "Since the nerves in the roof of your mouth get extremely cold, your body thinks your brain is freezing, too," says Abo. "In compensating, it overheats, causing an ice-cream headache." The more pressure you apply to the roof of your mouth, the faster your headache will subside.

14. Prevent near-sightedness

Poor distance vision is rarely caused by genetics, says Anne Barber, O.D., an optometrist in Tacoma, Washington. "It's usually caused by near-point stress." In other words, staring at your computer screen for too long. So flex your way to 20/20 vision. Every few hours during the day, close your eyes, tense your body, take a deep breath, and, after a few seconds, release your breath and muscles at the same time. Tightening and releasing muscles such as the biceps and glutes can trick involuntary muscles—like the eyes—into relaxing as well.

15. Wake the dead

If your hand falls asleep while you're driving or sitting in an odd position, rock your head from side to side. It'll painlessly banish your pins and needles in less than a minute, says Dr. DeStefano. A tingly hand or arm is often the result of compression in the bundle of nerves in your neck; loosening your neck muscles releases the pressure. Compressed nerves lower in the body govern the feet, so don't let your sleeping dogs lie. Stand up and walk around.

16. Impress your friends

Next time you're at a party, try this trick: Have a person hold one arm straight out to the side, palm down, and instruct him to maintain this position. Then place two fingers on his wrist and push down. He'll resist. Now have him put one foot on a surface that's a half inch higher (a few magazines) and repeat. This time his arm will fold like a house of cards. By misaligning his hips, you've offset his spine, says Rachel Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., co-owner of Results Fitness, in Santa Clarita, California. Your brain senses that the spine is vulnerable, so it shuts down the body's ability to resist.

17. Breathe underwater

If you're dying to retrieve that quarter from the bottom of the pool, take several short breaths first—essentially, hyperventilate. When you're underwater, it's not a lack of oxygen that makes you desperate for a breath; it's the buildup of carbon dioxide, which makes your blood acidic, which signals your brain that somethin' ain't right. "When you hyperventilate, the influx of oxygen lowers blood acidity," says Jonathan Armbruster, Ph.D., an associate professor of biology at Auburn University. "This tricks your brain into thinking it has more oxygen." It'll buy you up to 10 seconds.

General aspects on human interpretation of the world

2008-07-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

Watch, listen and observe, but never conclude

Humans are endowed with sensory organs, which have been put to an extensive use of in our bid of trying to figure out, explain and describe the world. Early humans, due to lack of knowledge and understanding, deployed view, touch and feel to understand and describe natural phenomena. It was however not until Socrates that the systematized reasoning and subsequent rationalization became not only widespread, but also the only norm for explaining away every event and development on the Earth. His theory, immortalized by his pupil Plato (Academy) and latter’s meticulous but decadent apprentice Aristotle (Lyceum), became what now is considered the only approach for understanding various aspects of world evolution. It is easy to understand why this happened. Rationalization is what allows a systematic and logical way of connecting dots and arriving to a line of reasoning, which is easy to grasp and therefore enormously appealing to every human.

Humans must watch, listen and observe but never conclude because there is so much we don’t perceive nor understand and which is off the range of our sensory organs that concluding and generalizing based on what small amount of biased information we receive will undeniably lead to wrong outcomes.

What we think is true because of conclusions of our sciences and religions is not necessarily the truth. It is a human truth, not the truth.

Don’t judge or otherwise infuse meaning

Nothing has meaning. It is our judgments and interpretations which infuse meaning in otherwise meaningless things, events and phenomena. Humans feel the urge of knowing and understanding. Seeing meaning, objective, or intention is easing this urge by satisfying our inner physiological need to understand. That is why we seek and “find” meanings and intentions in everything around and affecting us.

Assigning meaning and intention is only natural for humans. But we mustn’t forget this because if we do, we will start living in an illusionary world – my guess is that 99% of humanity does so – but we will think that it is the only true world.

Interpret from viewpoint of self-preservation

Humans like the rest of creatures walking this world have always been and still are driven by self-preservation instinct. Every explanation or interpretations else must be based on this viewpoint. Sense of beauty and attraction all have their roots in self-preservation.

Our everyday and long-term choices all count self-preservation to one degree or another and we have to remember that.

Loose the illusion of control

Because of trying to explain, conclude and therefore necessarily oversimplifying the world, we think that we are in possession of all knowledge and information and therefore are able to control and influence outcomes and developments.

Nicolas Taleb has written an excellent book called "Fooled by Randomness," which gives a rather exhaustive explanation of how much we are not in control. The recent movie "Kung Fu Panda" is also basing some of its turnkey ideas on this concept.

Consider power struggle as the main objective

What happens when more than one creature of the same species (let alone, many species) are put together in one place, which has limited resources? Power struggle ensues. Creatures try to appropriate resources in proportion to their physical capacity and mental agility. There is no idea or sense of democracy, equal rights or apathy – all of these being recent human inventions for social coherence and unity. Nature pure and raw designates and rewards the strongest.

Humans are no exception and human history is the most solid testimony to this. What is taught in schools is a retrospective and delusionary interpretation of world evolution full of heroes, their (incumbent) good intentions and higher feelings. Needless to say that we couldn’t be farther off the mark. Neither Alexander the Great embarked on his military campaign to spread democracy nor Otto von Bismarck (during the Congress of Berlin in 1878) decided to let Ottoman Empire in one piece for sake of peace and unity. History books teach us what looks like a logical and rational line of developments aimed at proving how humans evolved from barbarian, insensitive, blood-lusty creatures into higher species full of apathy, compassion and awareness of global issues.

Many believe us to be so. Unfortunately, there is no basis for this belief.

25 signs that you lived too long in Egypt

2008-07-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

1. You stop needing “green light” and “zebra lines” to cross streets. You dodge cars, donkey chariots and horses like Leo (from Matrix) dodges bullets of Matrix agents.

2. You start drinking all kinds of water, be it highly chlorified (thus poisonous to stomach) and widely drunk water as in most of Egypt or from the river Nile (yes, you read correctly, from the river itself) and best of it all is that YOU DON’T GET SICK.

3. You start eating any kind of food and your stomach and intestines get used to pretty much everything that might be dubbed food, although 90% of which would not be even considered by poor in developed European countries.

4. Your intake of nicotine rises to levels which are lethal if sustained for moderate time-periods. This is due to compelling and incontrovertible urge to join the predominant majority of Egyptians who smoke daily all kinds of Shishas (from most popular Apple Shisha to Lemon to Coke Shisha to Coffee Shisha).

5. You start appreciating healthy food however ridiculous it might appear to look like (think Egyptian ful or kosheri).

6. You start going to and enjoying all kinds of toilets (as long as one can do what one might in those places) and your habits of using toilet paper become completely optional, while the accepted and usual way is to use floating (of course highly chlorified) water.

7. Even if you were coming from an extremely well-bred and ethical country such as Switzerland (my case), where manners, politeness and tolerance are bywords of everyday life of everyone, you end up being rather indifferent, unpolite (not yet), unsmiling and completely blunt in expressing yourself.

8. You stop being offended by all street beggars, retards, crazy and just seemingly smart locals who try to cheat, lie and get their way into your pocket (everyone from taxi drivers to coke sellers).

9. You start thinking that having bad service or no service in restaurants, bars, and other such places is normal and you will have to leave a tip.

10. You loose all sense of apathy and compassion (this requires time and you have to stay at least 6 months or so). Reason for that is that you end up giving money, tips, BAKSHISH to so many people that you get broke.

11. You are not angry when a car almost crashes you or even when it slightly runs over you. In one month, you will get so many such occasions that you will either have a heart attack or get used to just smile and continue what you were doing before.

12. You get used to drinking lemon juice with mint (best ever, in Europe people have no idea).

13. You get to eat some of best chocolate pastry out there (Egyptians are inventors of chocolate cake) and all things chocolate, even in cheap places, are really good (even compared to Switzerland).

14. You are not surprised when a soldier or someone stops you on a street and for no reason asks for money in exchange for wishing you a good and successful year (sometimes I give them some money).

15. You never tire of hearing people say “Welcome to Egypt” even after you tell them you have been living in the country for a year. They still welcome you and treat you (mostly) like a stupid and ignorant tourist.

16. You take pleasure in making happy Egyptians when you utter few words (or more) in Arabic. Everyone without exclusion starts thinking of you not just as an ignorant, filthy and stupid foreigner but a rather humanoid-looking creature with some culture (that is derived from the fact that you speak Arabic). When you show that you care about their country, culture and indeed the language (my case) they slowly but steadily take you as one of them. Egyptians happen to think that Arabic is so difficult to learn that any foreigner with even a scarce vocabulary in Arabic must be someone deserving respect.

17. You become so relaxed and take-it-easy in being punctual that a 30-mins late arrival for a meeting draws nothing more than a smile and a “Welcome to Egypt” from you.

18. At some point, you start thinking that all foreign tourists – especially those who walk around with LonelyPlanet guides – are stupid (my case).

19. You get comfortable in knowing that you (not necessarily very knowledgeable about Egypt) know more about Egypt than most of Egyptians.

20. (At work)You get used to the fact that almost no deadline is respected and people need multiple reminders and nagging sessions to deliver even the smallest of results.

21. Your sense of humor gets more refined and subtler by day. Egyptians are famous for their sense of humor.

22. You get used to the sight of young Egyptian men fighting (jokingly) and touching, pushing and pulling each other regardless of their environment and time, on streets, in restaurants, in cinemas, etc.

23. You standard of beauty (if you are a guy) goes way up because there are many beautiful Egyptian women out there, worth noting that majority of them are veiled (thus Muslim).

24. You stop being angry at asking direction on a street to five different people about a rather famous and well-frequented place and getting as many different answers.

25. You become very direct, cutting-through-bullshit, very forthcoming and marginally polite (my case) when dealing with Egyptians on streets, shops and restaurants.

You become a little bit or more of Egyptian after more than few months!! I did!

Dead horse strategies for 21st century

2008-07-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

According to the legend and the customary presentation of this item, the tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, presumably passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

An updated version of this approach applied to governments, NGOs, companies and institutions is here presented below.

1. Re-structuring the dead horse's reward scale to contain a performance-related element.

2. Suspending the horse's access to the executive grassy meadow until it improves its attitude and makes good all productivity shortfalls.

3. Finding a mentor or buddy for the dead horse.

4. Examining the cost-savings accruing from de-skilling the dead horse function.

5. Demanding equal rights and representation of the dead horse on all international councils, conferences and public appearances.

6. Denying the existence of the dead horse, until the story appears in the Drudge Report, upon which release ready-made PR featuring the dead horse 'in action', thus totally fooling everyone who thought the horse was dead (but it still is of course).

7. Review and revaluation of the dead horse structural performaces.

8. Re-aligning the organizational aims to better fit the needs of the dead horse.

9. Outsourcing the management and/or the riding of the dead horse to a specialist dead horse management company (offshore to “least developed” dead horses).

10. Bringing in a team of expensive external consultants to focus on dead horse optimization.

11. Re-branding the dead horse a “Fair Trade Horse”, and affixing prominent Fair Trade insignia to its hind-quarters and promoting its image and brand in African continent.

12. Scrutinizing and challenging the dead horse's expenses claims, and leaking baseless related accusations to the media and the dead horse transparency unit.

13. Asking Richard Branson if he'd be interested in running a Virgin Dead Horse joint venture (then asking Google to make a Google Dead Horse Reader killing application with RSS feeds coming from all dead horses).

14. Setting up a free-phone customer service hotline to handle complaints relating to the dead horse fiasco.

15. Re-designing the dead horse's shoes so that they can be made of bamboo and re-cycled.

16. Setting up an inquiry into the dead horse, preferably headed by a dead horse and answerable to other dead horses.

17. Forming a task force to investigate the dead horse's positive benefits on social enterprise.

18. Blaming the dead horse on the sub-prime credit crunch, thereby absolving (and enabling the obscenely generous rewarding of) those responsible for the decision to recruit an emaciated horse, starve it, and keep it in a frozen field (because the stables were sold to property developers years ago).

19. Appointing a top advertising agency to promote the benefits of the reduced carbon hoof-print of a dead horse compared to the ridiculously out-dated and unsustainable notion of a living horse.

20. Off-shoring the stabling and veterinary support of the dead horse to somewhere in the Indian sub-continent.

21. Sending the dead horse on an outward bound or log-carrying weekend with other dead horses.

22. Lobbying ministers and pressure groups for the extension of European standards to encompass the special qualities of dead horses.

23. Nationalizing the dead horse.

24. Making the dead horse redundant, giving it a hefty golden hoof-shake, and then retaining it as consultant at five times its previous annual cost.

For more of dead horse strategies click for example here.

Some blunt and risky insults

2008-07-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

Does your face hurt, because it's killing me!

He's so dumb, he sits on the TV and watches the sofa.

You're so ugly, when you go into the bank they turn off the surveillance cameras.

In a battle of wits she's unarmed.

I haven't been ignoring you; I've been prioritizing you.

Since my last report, he has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.

His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.

He's a few clowns short of a circus.

She's a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

She's a few Cokes short of a six-pack.

He's a few peas short of a casserole.

She's one taco short of a combination plate.

She's a few feathers short of a whole duck.

He has an intellect rivaled only by garden tools.

She's as smart as bait.

This employee is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definite won't be.

When she opens her mouth, it seems that this is only to change whichever foot was previously in there.

She sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.

This employee should go far - and the sooner he starts, the better.

He's as bright as Alaska in December.

One-celled organisms out score him in IQ tests.

He's so fat, his car's seat belts have stretch marks.

He's so dense, light bends around him.

If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.

If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.

He would argue with a signpost.

He's a couple of bricks short of a hod.

He's a couple of dilithium crystals short of a warp core.

He's a couple of knights short of a Crusade.

He's a few ears short of a bushel.

He's a few tomatoes short of a thick sauce.

He's got a room temperature IQ.

He's about a half a bubble off plumb.

He's all lime and salt, but no tequila.

He's an experiment in Artificial Stupidity.

His antenna doesn't pick up all the channels.

He was born during low tide in the gene pool.

He has both oars in the water, but they're on the same side of the boat!

He can't find his ass with two hands and a periscope.

He is diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

God might still use him for miracle practice.

Answering Machine messages

2008-07-07T15:16:00.000-07:00

Looking for some smart message to put on your telephone answering machine?
Here are some real examples .............

My wife and I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number, we’ll get back to you just as soon as we’re finished.

A is for Academics ... B is for Beer. One of those reasons is why we’re not here. Please leave a message.

Hi. This is John.
If you’re the phone company, I already sent the money.
If you’re my parents, please send me money.
If you are my financial aid institution, you didn’t lend me enough money.
If you are a friend, you owe me money.
If you are a female, I have plenty of money.
Leave your message after the beep.

(Narrator’s voice)
There Dale sits, reading a magazine. Suddenly, the telephone rings! The bathroom explodes into a veritable maelstrom of toilet paper, with Dale in the middle of it, his arms wind-milling at incredible speeds. Will he make it in time? Alas, no. His valiant effort is in vain. The bell hath sounded. Thou must leave a message. Hi. Now you say something.

Hi. I’m not home right now, but my answering machine is. So you can talk to it instead. Wait for the beep.

Hello, I’m David’s answering machine. What are you?

Hi! John’s answering machine is broken. This is his refrigerator. Please speak very slowly and I’ll stick your message to myself with one of these little magnets.

Hello, this is Sally’s microwave. Her answering machine just eloped with a tape deck, so I’m stuck with taking her calls. Say... if you want anything cooked while you’re leaving your message, just hold it up to the phone.

Hello. You are talking to a machine. I am capable of receiving messages. My owners do not need replacement windows or a hot tub, and their carpets are clean. They give to charity through their office and do not need their picture taken. If you’re still with me, leave your name and number after the beep and they will get back to you.

This is not an answering machine. It is a telepathic thought-recording device. After the tone, think about your name, your reason for calling and the number where I can reach you. I’ll think about returning your call.

Hi. I’m probably home. I’m just avoiding talking with someone I don’t like. Leave me a message, and if I don’t call back, it’s you.

Hi! This is Anna's disembodied voice, she can't come to the phone right now, leave a message or try another plane of existance.

Hi. This is George. Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now. Leave your name and number, then wait by your phone until I call you back.

Hello. If you’re a burglar, then we are probably at home cleaning our weapons right now and can’t come to the phone. Otherwise, we are probably not at home and it is safe to leave us a message.

You’re growing tired. Your eyelids are becoming very heavy. You feel sleepy now. You are gradually losing your will power and your ability to resist suggestions. When you hear the tone, you will feel helplessly compelled to leave your name, telephone number and a brief message.

At the sound of the tone, you may leave a message. You have the right to remain silent. However, anything you say will be recorded and may be used by us.

Hello. You’ve reached Jim and Sonya. We can’t come to the phone right now because we’re doing something we really enjoy. Sonya likes to do it up and down, and I like doing it left to right ... very slowly. So leave a message, and when we’re done brushing our teeth, we’ll get back to you!

Psychiatric Hotline

Hello, Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.

If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5 and 6.

If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer.

20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the US

2008-07-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm

For the rest please see here.

London Tube announced

2008-07-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

1) "Ladies and Gentlemen, I do apologise for the delay to your service. I know you're all dying to get home, unless, of course, you happen to be married to my ex-wife, in which case you'll want to cross over to the Westbound and go in the opposite direction."

2) "Your delay this evening is caused by the line controller suffering from E & B syndrome: not knowing his elbow from his backside. I'll let you know any further information as soon as I'm given any."

3) "Do you want the good news first or the bad news? The good news is that last Friday was my birthday and I hit the town and had a great time. The bad news is that there is a points failure somewhere between Stratford and East Ham, which means we probably won't reach our destination."

4) "Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay, but there is a security alert at Victoria station and we are therefore stuck here for the foreseeable future, so let's take our minds off it and pass some time together. All together now.... 'Ten green bottles, hanging on a wall.....'."

5) "We are now travelling through Baker Street... As you can see, Baker Street is closed. It would have been nice if they had actually told me, so I could tell you earlier, but no, they don't think about things like that".

6) "Beggars are operating on this train. Please do NOT encourage these professional beggars. If you have any spare change, please give it to a registered charity. Failing that, give it to me."

7) During an extremely hot rush hour on the Central Line, the driver announced in a West Indian drawl: "Step right this way for the sauna, ladies and gentleman... unfortunately, towels are not provided."

8) "Let the passengers off the train FIRST!" (Pause.) "Oh go on then, stuff yourselves in like sardines, see if I care - I'm going home...."

9) "Please allow the doors to close. Try not to confuse this with 'Please hold the doors open.' The two are distinct and separate instructions."

10) "Please note that the beeping noise coming from the doors means that the doors are about to close. It does not mean throw yourself or your bags into the doors."

11) "We can't move off because some idiot has their hand stuck in the door."

12) "To the gentleman wearing the long grey coat trying to get on the second carriage - what part of 'stand clear of the doors' don't you understand?"

13) "Please move all baggage away from the doors." (Pause..) "Please move ALL belongings away from the doors." (Pause...) "This is a personal message to the man in the brown suit wearing glasses at the rear of the train: Put the pie down, Four-eyes, and move your bl**dy golf clubs away from the door before I come down there and shove them up your a**e sideways!"

14) "May I remind all passengers that there is strictly no smoking allowed on any part of the Underground. However, if you are smoking a joint, it's only fair that you pass it round the rest of the carriage."

Art of Fart

2008-06-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Reading recently "Diary of one genius" of Salvador Dali, I came across additional chapters first of which was named "Art of Fart" where the author (not Dali) went at length in explaining and categorizing all different types of farts, their types, intensity, frequency range of course their smell.

Below find a somewhat compressed FAQ on farts, a taboo not frequently discussed among scientists nor among average people in their daily lives.

--------------

Where does fart gas come from?
The gas in our intestines comes from several sources: air we swallow, gas seeping into our intestines from our blood, gas produced by chemical reactions in our guts, and gas produced by bacteria living in our guts.

What is fart gas made of?
The composition of fart gas is highly variable.

Most of the air we swallow, especially the oxygen component, is absorbed by the body before the gas gets into the intestines. By the time the air reaches the large intestine, most of what is left is nitrogen. Chemical reactions between stomach acid and intestinal fluids may produce carbon dioxide, which is also a component of air and a product of bacterial action. Bacteria also produce hydrogen and methane.

But the relative proportions of these gases that emerge from our anal opening depend on several factors: what we ate, how much air we swallowed, what kinds of bacteria we have in our intestines, and how long we hold in the fart.
The longer a fart is held in, the larger the proportion of inert nitrogen it contains, because the other gases tend to be absorbed into the bloodstream through the walls of the intestine.

A nervous person who swallows a lot of air and who moves stuff through his digestive system rapidly may have a lot of oxygen in his farts, because his body didn't have time to absorb the oxygen.

According to Dr. James L. A. Roth, the author of Gastrointestinal Gas (Ch. 17 in Gastroenterology, v. 4, 1976) most people (2/3 of adults) pass farts that contain no methane. If both parents are methane producers, their children have a 95% chance of being producers as well. The reason for this is apparently unknown. Some researchers suspect a genetic influence, whereas others think the ability is due to environmental factors. However, all methane in any farts comes from bacterial action and not from human cells.

What makes farts stink?
The odor of farts comes from small amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas and mercaptans in the mixture. These compounds contain sulfur. Nitrogen-rich compounds such as skatole and indole also add to the stench of farts. The more sulfur-rich your diet, the more sulfides and mercaptans will be produced by the bacteria in your guts, and the more your farts will stink. Foods such as cauliflower, eggs and meat are notorious for producing smelly farts, whereas beans produce large amounts of not particularly stinky farts.

Why do farts make noise?
The sounds are produced by vibrations of the anal opening. Sounds depend on the velocity of expulsion of the gas and the tightness of the sphincter muscles of the anus. Contrary to a popular misconception, fart noise is not generated by the flapping of the butt cheeks. You can see proof of this in the close-up video footage of Carl Plant's fart on Mate-in-a-State.

Source: Brenna Lorentz - Facts on Farts (couldn't find the original text of the chapter I read)

Do you believe?

2008-06-18T08:42:00.001-07:00

Do you believe?

What do you believe in?

In God (are you American or Egyptian)?

In science (a seeming dilemma – contradiction in terms – while science, conventionally is never to be believed in but to be dismantled, analyzed, reassembled and perhaps agreed on its temporal and spatial infallibility for the given context and considering the very special initial conditions and variable parameters)?

In Aristotle (have you even read his Politics or Poetics or just anything)? The guy solidified what his unfortunately not-very-lucid teacher had the bad taste to say and write aloud…

In yourself (planning, effective time management and rationalizing people and their motifs seem like means for understanding this world and yourself)? Go read some literature such as Nicolas Taleb’s “Fooled by randomness” or its sequel “Black Swan” and then we will talk…

Think twice in what you believe or don’t believe…

Not saying you must believe in nothing, you cannot. Human brain activity, as one of its unintentional and collateral consequences, has systematizing the incoming data and building certain set of attitudes, beliefs, approaches in reaction to and in order to cope with this world.

All the above mentioned concepts, ideas, things are usually instilled in us at schools, universities, institutions and in our families and societies. These and more are worshipped, respected, taken as faith and blindly followed by overwhelming numbers of people. Many of those we didn’t chose to believe in. We grew up, conditioned as we were, and never asked a question because we took things and notions for granted, and those things and notions never raised even the smallest of doubts or hesitations in us until…..something happened or someone showed otherwise… All our cherished values or many of them, build, cherished and followed during our lives, collapsed in that very moment, in a split second…Life could have been different if only the right question was asked... An old Arab saying goes, “Asking a right question is already half-way to finding the correct solution.”

Choose what you believe in… Never trust what others say even if all say…Find in yourself the reason, the courage, the commitment to scrutinize and feel what you are about to believe.
See that the belief you are about to follow is worth it, is worth your heart and mind, your body and soul, your time and nerves.

Finally, believe in your belief and stay faithful to it for as long as possible but always find time to take a break, to look back, to look forth and decide whether you still are devoted and committed to you belief.

Good luck.

World's biggest restaurant

2008-06-10T03:42:00.000-07:00

A Damascus restaurant enters the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest eaterie of its kind.

With seating for 6,012 people the Damascus Gate steals the title from the "Mang Gorn Luang" or "Royal Dragon" in Thailand, by just over a thousand covers. During the busy summer period the restaurant can employ more than 1,700 staff. One chef alone can produce up to 30 helpings of any popular dish in one minute - that's one bowl every two seconds.

"It is a big push for tourism in the Syrian Arab Republic and we hope for more achievements. We offer this international success to Damascus, the Arab capital of culture," says General Manager Mohannad Al-Sammant.

There is however no alcohol served.

Origins of English Pound Sterling

2008-05-26T04:47:00.000-07:00

Incidentally the term 'Pounds Sterling' - the modern name of the British currency system - can be traced back to the reign of Henry II, ie., the 12th century. The derivation of the Sterling word is almost certainly from the use of 'Easterling Silver' (the metal itself and the techniques for refining it) which took its name from the Easterling area of Germany. The Easterling area was noted for its 92.5% pure, hard and high quality coin-grade silver. It was also noted for its expertise in silver refining, and it was these techniques as well as the silver itself that Henry II imported when he arranged for the production of 'Tealbay Pennies', which formed the basis of the silver coinage quality standard established at the time. The pennies were not known as 'Tealbay' in the 12th century, they subsequently acquired the name because a hoard of the coins was found at Tealby, Lincolnshire in 1807. A contributing theme was the theory that the hallmark for what became known as Sterling Silver featured a starling bird, which many believe became distorted through misinterpretation into 'sterling'.

The bath and the bucket story

2008-05-18T09:34:00.000-07:00

The story illustrates lateral thinking, narrow-mindedness, the risks of making assumptions, and judging people and situations:

A party of suppliers was being given a tour of a mental hospital.

One of the visitors had made some very insulting remarks about the patients.

After the tour the visitors were introduced to various members of staff in the canteen.

The rude visitor chatted to one of the security staff, Bill, a kindly and wise ex-policeman.

"Are they all raving loonies in here then?" said the rude man.

"Only the ones who fail the test," said Bill.

"What's the test?" said the man.

"Well, we show them a bath full of water, a bucket, a jug and an egg-cup, and we ask them what's the quickest way to empty the bath," said Bill.

"Oh I see, simple - the normal ones know it's the bucket, right?"

"No actually," said Bill, "The normal ones say pull out the plug. Should I check when there's a bed free for you?"

The mobile phone story

2008-05-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

Several men were in a golf club locker room.

A mobile phone rings.

"Yes I can talk," says the man answering the call, "You're shopping are you? That's nice."

The listening men smile to each other.

"You want to order those new carpets? Okay.. And they'll include the curtains for an extra five thousand?.. Sure, why not?"

More smiles among the listeners.

"You want to book that week on Necker Island?.. They're holding the price at twenty-two thousand?.. Sounds a bargain.. You want a fortnight?.. If that's what you want honey, okay by me."

Smiles turn to expressions of mild envy.

"And you want to give the builder the go-ahead for the new conservatory? Seventy-five thousand if we say yes today? Sounds fair.. sure, that's fine."

The listeners exchange glances of amazement.

"Okay sugar, see you later.. Yes, love you too," says the man, ending the call.

He looks at the other men and says, "Whose phone is this anyhow?"

The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

2008-05-17T01:35:00.000-07:00

The Devil's Dictionary was written by American Ambrose Bierce around a hundred years ago, and was first published as 'The Cynic's Word Book' in 1906. It was reissued as 'The Devil's Dictionary' in 1911, and continues to be published today. Its humour and irony still shine. In fact many of its observations perhaps resonate more strongly now than when Bierce first made them. Here are some choice examples of Bierce's wit, and interestingly for a writer considered to be such a 'cynic', these quotes are also examples of a touching sensitivity. These quotes still serve, as when they were created, to remind us that whether a thing is a force for good or bad is largely decided by the human factor. This is an encouraging thought, since the implication of this is that we have it in our power to change bad into good. I think Bierce would have agreed.

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. (If you work for one of these be assured that there are more ethical and caring employers out there who would be more deserving of your efforts and loyalty.)

Duty: That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

Experience: The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

Famous: Conspicuously miserable.

Land: A part of the Earth's surface, considered as property.The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society...... Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living...... It follows that if the whole aea of terra firma (Earth) is owned by A, B and C, then there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist. (How true, and how applicable today.)

Lecturer: One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear, and his faith in your patience.

Marriage: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

Happiness: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

Pain: An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.

Peace: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

This site contains the rest of entries.

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

2008-05-15T09:33:00.000-07:00

Rudyard Kipling's (1865-1936) inspirational poem 'If' first appeared in his collection 'Rewards and Fairies' in 1909. The poem 'If' is inspirational, motivational, and a set of rules for 'grown-up' living. Kipling's 'If' contains mottos and maxims for life, and the poem is also a blueprint for personal integrity, behavior and self-development. 'If' is perhaps even more relevant today than when Kipling wrote it, as an ethos and a personal philosophy. Lines from Kipling's 'If' appear over the player's entrance to Wimbledon's Centre Court - a poignant reflection of the poem's timeless and inspiring quality.

The beauty and elegance of 'If' contrasts starkly with Rudyard Kipling's largely tragic and unhappy life. He was starved of love and attention and sent away by his parents; beaten and abused by his foster mother; and a failure at a public school which sought to develop qualities that were completely alien to Kipling. In later life the deaths of two of his children also affected Kipling deeply.

Rudyard Kipling achieved fame quickly, based initially on his first stories and poems written in India (he returned there after College), and his great popularity with the British public continued despite subsequent critical reaction to some of his more conservative work, and critical opinion in later years that his poetry was superficial and lacking in depth of meaning.

Significantly, Kipling turned down many honors offered to him including a knighthood, Poet Laureate and the Order of Merit, but in 1907 he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature. Kipling's wide popular appeal survives through other works, notably The Jungle Book (1894) the novel, Kim (1901), and Just So Stories (1902).

Enjoy!

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son.

Chinese wisdom quotes

2008-05-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

(Translations have been adapted for the modern age where appropriate.)

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be" (attributed to Lao Tsu, aka Lao Zi, legendary Chinese Taoist philosopher, supposed to have lived between 600-400BC).

"There is no greater happiness than freedom from worry, and there is no greater wealth than contentment" (attributed to Lao Tsu, aka Lao Zi, 600-400BC).

"People's tendency towards good is as water's tendency is to flow downhill" (Mencius, Chinese philosopher, circa 300BC).

"Eat less, taste more" (traditional Chinese proverb).

"Failure lies not in falling down. Failure lies in not getting up" (traditional Chinese proverb).

"The higher my rank, the more humbly I behave. The greater my power, the less I exercise it. The richer my wealth, the more I give away. Thus I avoid, respectively, envy and spite and misery" (Sun Shu Ao, Chinese minister from the Chu Kingdom, Zhou Dynasty, circa 600BC).

"Success under a good leader is the people's success" (attributed to Lao Tsu, aka Lao Zi, 600-400BC).

"Do not worry if others do not understand you. Instead worry if you do not understand others" (Confucius, 551-479 BC).

"Softness overcomes hardness" (Zuo Qiuming, court writer of the State of Lu, and contemporary of Confucius, circa 500BC).

"The greatest capability of superior people is that of helping other people to be virtuous" (Mencius, Chinese philosopher, circa 300BC).

"A great man is hard on himself; a small man is hard on others" (Confucius, 551-479 BC).

"Failure is the mother of success" (traditional Chinese proverb).

"It is not wise for a blind man, riding a blind horse, to approach the edge of a deep pond" (traditional Chinese proverb).

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." (attributed to Confucius, Chinese philosopher, 551-479 BC, however the origins of this quote are arguably from the writing of the Chinese scholar Xunzi, 340-245 BC, for which clearer evidence seems to exist. The origin of the quote attributed to Confucius is not certain. The Xunzi quote - which is more subtle and complex, and literally translates as: "Not hearing is not as good as hearing, hearing is not as good as seeing, seeing is not as good as mentally knowing, mentally knowing is not as good as acting; true learning continues up to the point that action comes forth [or, only when a thing produces action can it be said to have been truly learned]" - can be traced to an original work, but it seems the Confucius version cannot. It is possible that the Western world simplified and attributed the quote to Confucius, being a popularly quoted source of Chinese wisdom).

"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask is a fool for ever" (traditional Chinese proverb).

"With a strong heart and a ready mind what have I to fear?" (Chu Yuan, aka Qu Yuan, Chinese politician-turned-poet, circa 300BC - China's first great poet and considered the father of Chinese poetry, his death by drowning in 278BC is celebrated every year on the Day of Dragon Boat Festival).

"Half an orange tastes as sweet as a whole one." (traditional Chinese proverb).

"The wise man puts himself last and finds himself first" (attributed to Lao Tsu, aka Lao Zi, 600-400BC).

"He knows most who says he knows least." (Confucius, 551-479 BC).

Human sins - origins

2008-05-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Window (author unknown)

2008-05-13T04:52:00.000-07:00

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour a day to drain the fluids from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation. And every afternoon when the man in the bed next to the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed would live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the outside world. The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake, the man had said. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Lovers walked arm in arm amid flowers of every color of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the landscape, and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words. Unexpectedly, an alien thought entered his head: Why should he have all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never get to see anything? It didn't seem fair. As the thought fermented, the man felt ashamed at first. But as the days passed and he missed seeing more sights, his envy eroded into resentment and soon turned him sour. He began to brood and found himself unable to sleep. He should be by that window - and that thought now controlled his life.

Late one night, as he lay staring at the ceiling, the man by the window began to cough. He was choking on the fluid in his lungs. The other man watched in the dimly lit room as the struggling man by the window groped for the button to call for help. Listening from across the room, he never moved, never pushed his own button which would have brought the nurse running. In less than five minutes, the coughing and choking stopped, along with the sound of breathing. Now, there was only silence--deathly silence.

The following morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths. When she found the lifeless body of the man by the window, she was saddened and called the hospital attendant to take it away – no words, no fuss. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it all himself. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall.

Essential info about human body

2008-05-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.

A fingernail or toenail takes about 6 months to grow from base to tip.

A human being loses an average of 40 to 100 strands of hair a day.

A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.

According to the Kinsey Institute, the biggest erect penis on record measures 13 inches. The smallest tops off at 1 3/4 inches.

An average human scalp has 100,000 hairs.

Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies.

Blondes have more hair than dark-haired people.

Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of blood vessels.

Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

Every person has a unique tongue print.

Every square inch of the human body has an average of 32 million bacteria on it.

Humans have 46 chromosomes, peas have 14 and crayfish have 200.

Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour - about 1.5 pounds a year. By 70 years of age, an average person will have lost 105 pounds of skin.

Humans shed and re-grow outer skin cells about every 27 days - almost 1,000 new skins in a lifetime.

If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.

If you go blind in one eye, you'll only lose about one-fifth of your vision (but all your depth perception.)

In the late 19th century, millions of human mummies were used as fuel for locomotives in Egypt where wood and coal was scarce, but mummies were plentiful.

It takes 17 muscles to smile – 43 to frown.

It would take 1,200,000 mosquitoes, each sucking once, to completely drain the average human of blood.

Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

Some people never develop fingerprints at all. Two rare genetic defects, known as Naegeli syndrome and dermatopathia pigmentosa reticularis, can leave carriers without any identifying ridges on their skin.

The average duration of sexual intercourse for humans is 2 minutes.

The average human body contains enough: iron to make a 3 inch nail, sulfur to kill all fleas on an average dog, carbon to make 900 pencils, potassium to fire a toy cannon, fat to make 7 bars of soap, phosphorous to make 2,200 match heads, and water to fill a ten-gallon tank.

The average human produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools.

The body's largest internal organ is the small intestine at an average length of 20 feet

The feet account for one quarter of all the human bodies bones.

The human body has over 600 muscles, 40% of the body's weight.

The human brain is about 85% water.

The largest cell in the human body is the female ovum, or egg cell. It is about 1/180 inch in diameter. The smallest cell in the human body is the male sperm. It takes about 175,000 sperm cells to weigh as much as a single egg cell.

The largest cell in the human body is the female reproductive cell, the ovum. The smallest is the male sperm.

The largest human organ is the skin, with a surface area of about 25 square feet.

The left lung is smaller than the right lung to make room for the heart.

The longest muscle in the human body is the sartorius. This narrow muscle of the thigh passes obliquely across the front of the thigh and helps rotate the leg to the position assumed in sitting cross-legged. Its name is a derivation of the adjective "sartorial," a reference to what was the traditional cross-legged position of tailors (or "sartors") at work.

The most common blood type in the world is Type O. The rarest, Type A-H, has been found in less than a dozen people since the type was discovered.

The Neanderthal's brain was bigger than yours is.

The only bone in the human body not connected to another is the hyoid, a V-shaped bone located at the base of the tongue between the mandible and the voice box. Its function is to support the tongue and its muscles.

The only time the human population declined was in the years following 1347, the start of the epidemic of the plague 'Black Death' in Europe.

There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being.

There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.

Though it makes up only 2 percent of our total body weight, the brain demands 20 percent of the body's oxygen and calories.

Three-hundred-million cells die in the human body every minute.

Women's hearts beat faster than men's.

Your stomach cells secrete hydrochloric acid, a corrosive compound used to treat metals in the industrial world. It can pickle steel, but mucous lining the stomach wall keeps this poisonous liquid safely in the digestive system.

Best music sites on the web

2008-05-09T17:42:00.000-07:00

Music is the universal language that knows no boundaries and is only limited by the creativity of its creators. Find below the best and most resourceful and diverse music websites I have stumbled upon on the net.

1. Unsigned Band Web

Unsigned Band Web delivers on the promise that new bands are discovered everyday, because at Unsigned Band Web visitors to future music starts who are waiting for their chance to shine before their audiences.

2. Grooveshark

This one of top web2.0 musical players online where you can make and save playlists among and the best of all is that all music is of high quality.

3. Artist Direct

Artists Direct is the place to visit when in the mood to listen to Hip-Hop, Pop. Rock and the rest of styles out there. Download free music or watch free music videos to reserving your concert tickets in advance with the speed and convenience found at Artists Direct each and everyday.

4. Spiral Frog

Signup at Spiral Frog and get access to over one million songs that you can download legally and free. Discover new artists that you probably haven't ever heard of before or stay with the tired and true recording artists that are known for packing large stadiums of screaming and adoring fans.

5. Pandora

Fall in love again, with the possibility of stumbling across a brand new artist, group or band that have been captured through Music Genome Project and overseen by Pandora, so that the flow of new musical talents don't go unnoticed. If you enjoy sampling the sounds of a creative crop of new and still probably new, undiscovered talented, then you will find a whole new world of sounds to delight your listening pleasures.

6. Roxwel

Get all of your metal rock, rock-n-roll and indie rock all on one comprehensive website and download load the music that you like for free.

7. Blastro

Bust a beat to your favorite Hip-Hop, R&B, Latin, Pop and Dance music genres where the songs are sassy and the music is free.

8. Digitally Imported

Get ready to burn up the dance floor to the electrifying electric dance music with highly addictive elements of the unique style that only electronic music can bring. Get free radio channels featuring recording superstars, DJs and the hottest exclusive shows anywhere.

9. Deezer

Listen to or download your greatest music icons' masterful works for free or participate in the Deezer online community and make new friends who enjoy the same music as you do.

10. Free Music Zilla

Freemusiczilla is an application that gives you a possibility to download music directly from social music services from places such as: IMEEM, Last.fm, Pandora, MySpace, eSnips, Mog, Digg, Radio.blog.club and almost all social music services. Freemusiczilla supports all web browsers, has no adware or spyware and is super light, micro-sized and resource-friendly. Best of all, it's free to download.

Wake-up...

2008-05-05T04:15:00.000-07:00

I woke up twice today.

First time I woke up I felt as if I had a head left squashed by a train passing through it. It felt as if I had a day long boxing tournament the day before and I lost…The only desire in such case is to fall as quickly back asleep as possible. Sleeping is the best and the surest of cures in many cases – in this case in particular. I fell asleep…

The second time I woke up I felt differently. There are times when you wake up not realizing where or when you are. Time and space mold together creating a single time-space dimension where the time-space flows in one direction, and by happenstance you don’t really realize in which direction it does. You feel afloat – you don’t even know afloat of what. You are unable to feel the difference between a dream and a reality. You close your eyes and you open them again and the only difference it makes is the amount of light. It takes you some few or more seconds to get your bearings back and to locate yourself by an unconscious but very rational and ultra-rapid questioning of your mind on subjects of where and in which time you were yesterday. The moment you localize yourself by such a query, you start feeling better, but not really. You now have a rational explanation somewhere in your head concerning your current location, and flows of thoughts and with them your worries, fears and hopes keep on pouring into your now increasingly awake mind. Thick fog –as you come to realize now - dissipates, and you start discerning then and now, here and there, yesterday and today. Like in a chemical chain reaction, this realization accelerates the entire process. All of sudden you feel as if someone came and kicked you abruptly awake and gave a you a good doze of food for thought and worries to think about.

At this point, you don’t have to persuade yourself or do a mental exercise of self-instilment for shaking your mind and body awake because they both become as alive and as awake as they ever could. But it doesn’t stop there. The ongoing rush of thoughts and worries – usually negative, anxious and worrying pieces of information have an unsurprisingly heavier impact – makes your brains feel – at least for a split second – rather livid and drained of al energy. Without realizing it, your entire body and mind go through a mental exercise of thinking and living, to a certain extent, logical ends and consequences of those thoughts, which sometimes can make your body and mind quite tired. In a matter of minutes, you experience the blur and fuzziness followed by increasing awakening doubled with acuteness of senses and dawning realization of surroundings followed by drenching flow of accelerated mental scenario shifts taking you sometimes to rational and sometimes intuitive, irrational and full-of-bias ends of your thoughts, fears, aspirations and making these few minutes feel equivalent to months and years of your life not yet lived.

The five minutes after the second wake-up..

Fostering Innovation in Pixar

2008-05-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

This week The McKinsey Quaterly asks: what does stimulating the creativity of animators have in common with developing new product ideas or technology breakthroughs? Apparently, a lot.

In Innovation lessons from Pixar, McKinsey writes:

Brad Bird makes his living fostering creativity. Academy Award-winning director (The Incredibles and Ratatouille) talks about the importance, in his work, of pushing teams beyond their comfort zones, encouraging dissent, and building morale. He also explained the value of “black sheep”—restless contributors with unconventional ideas.

Steve Jobs hired him, says Bird, because after three successes (Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Toy Story 2) he was worried Pixar might struggle to stay innovative. Jobs told him: “The only thing we’re afraid of is complacency—feeling like we have it all figured out,” Bird quotes his boss as saying “…We want you to come shake things up.” Bird explains to McKinsey how he did it — and why, for “imagination-based companies to succeed in the long run, making money can’t be the focus.”

The piece is behind McKinsey’s pay wall, but we extract its 9 key lessons below.

Lesson One: Herd Your Black Sheep

The Quarterly: How did your first project at Pixar—The Incredibles—shake things up?

Brad Bird: I said, “Give us the black sheep. I want artists who are frustrated. I want the ones who have another way of doing things that nobody’s listening to. Give us all the guys who are probably headed out the door.” A lot of them were malcontents because they saw different ways of doing things, but there was little opportunity to try them, since the established way was working very, very well. We gave the black sheep a chance to prove their theories, and we changed the way a number of things are done here.

Lesson Two: Perfect is the Enemy of Innovation

The Quarterly: What sorts of things did you do differently?

Brad Bird: I had to shake the purist out of them—essentially frighten them into realizing I was ready to use quick and dirty “cheats” to get something on screen… I’d say, “Look, I don’t have to do the water through a computer simulation program… I’m perfectly content to film a splash in a swimming pool and just composite the water in.” I never did film the pool splash [but] talking this way helped everyone understand that we didn’t have to make something that would work from every angle. Not all shots are created equal. Certain shots need to be perfect, others need to be very good, and there are some that only need to be good enough to not break the spell.

Lesson Three: Look for Intensity

The Quarterly: Do angry people—malcontents, in your words—make for better innovation?

Brad Bird: Involved people make for better innovation… Involved people can be quiet, loud, or anything in-between—what they have in common is a restless, probing nature: “I want to get to the problem. There’s something I want to do.” If you had thermal glasses, you could see heat coming off them.

Lesson Four: Innovation Doesn’t happen in a Vacuum

The Quarterly: How do you build and lead a team?

Brad Bird: I got everybody in a room. This was different from what the previous guy had done; he had reviewed the work in private, generated notes, and sent them to the person… I said, “Look, this is a young team. As individual animators, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, but if we can interconnect all our strengths, we are collectively the greatest animator on earth. So I want you guys to speak up and drop your drawers. We’re going to look at your scenes in front of everybody. Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together…

Lesson Five: High Morale Makes Creativity Cheap

The Quarterly: It sounds like you spend a fair amount of time thinking about the morale of your teams.

Brad Bird: In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget—but never shows up in a budget—is morale. [what’s true for a movie is true for a startup!] If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.

Lesson Six: Dont Try To “Protect your success”

The Quarterly: Engagement, morale—what else is critical for stimulating innovative thinking?

Brad Bird: The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved. … “You don’t play it safe—you do something that scares you, that’s at the edge of your capabilities, where you might fail. That’s what gets you up in the morning.”

Lesson Six: Steve Jobs Says ‘Interaction = Innovation’

The Quarterly: What does Pixar do to stimulate a creative culture?

Brad Bird: If you walk around downstairs in the animation area, you’ll see that it is unhinged. People are allowed to create whatever front to their office they want. One guy might build a front that’s like a Western town. Someone else might do something that looks like Hawaii…John [Lasseter] believes that if you have a loose, free kind of atmosphere, it helps creativity.

Then there’s our building. Steve Jobs basically designed this building. In the center, he created this big atrium area, which seems initially like a waste of space. The reason he did it was that everybody goes off and works in their individual areas. People who work on software code are here, people who animate are there, and people who do designs are over there. Steve put the mailboxes, the meetings rooms, the cafeteria, and, most insidiously and brilliantly, the bathrooms in the center—which initially drove us crazy—so that you run into everybody during the course of a day. [Jobs] realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen. So he made it impossible for you not to run into the rest of the company.

Lesson Seven: Encourage Inter-disciplinary Learning

The Quarterly: Is there anything else you’d highlight that contributes to creativity around here?

Brad Bird: One thing Pixar does [is] “PU,” or Pixar University. If you work in lighting but you want to learn how to animate, there’s a class to show you animation. There are classes in story structure, in Photoshop, even in Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defense system. Pixar basically encourages people to learn outside of their areas, which makes them more complete. [and more creative].

Lesson Eight: Get Rid of Weak Links

The Quarterly: What undermines Innovation?

Brad Bird: Passive-aggressive people—people who don’t show their colors in the group but then get behind the scenes and peck away—are poisonous. I can usually spot those people fairly soon and I weed them out.

Lesson Nine: Making $$ Can’t Be Your Focus

The Quarterly: How would you compare the Disney of your early career with Pixar today?

Brad Bird: When I entered Disney, it was like a classic Cadillac Phaeton that had been left out in the rain… The company’s thought process was not, “We have all this amazing machinery—how do we use it to make exciting things? We could go to Mars in this rocket ship!” It was, “We don’t understand Walt Disney at all. We don’t understand what he did. Let’s not screw it up. Let’s just preserve this rocket ship; going somewhere new in it might damage it.”

Walt Disney’s mantra was, “I don’t make movies to make money—I make money to make movies.” That’s a good way to sum up the difference between Disney at its height and Disney when it was lost. It’s also true of Pixar and a lot of other companies. It seems counterintuitive, but for imagination-based companies to succeed in the long run, making money can’t be the focus.

Source: GigaOm

American government LOVES war in Iraq

2008-05-02T04:40:00.001-07:00

Who profits from the Iraq war? More than a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq.

According to the latest reports, 151 members of Congress invested close to a quarter-billion in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. These companies got more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to FedSpending.org, a website of the watchdog group OMBWatch.

Congressmen gave themselves a loophole so they only have to report their assets in broad ranges. Thus, they can be off as much as 160%. In 2004, the first full year after the present Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers—both hawks and doves—invested between $74.9 million and $161.3 million in companies under contract with the DoD. In 2006 Democrats had at least $3.7 million invested in the defense sector alone, compared to the Republicans’ “only” $577,500. As the war raged on, so did the billions of profits—and personal investments by Congress members in war contractors, which increased 5% from 2004 to 2006.

Investments in these contractors yielded Congress members between $15.8 million and $62 million in personal income from 2004 through 2006, through dividends, capital gains, royalties and interest. John Kerry and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, who are two of Congress’s wealthiest members, were among the lawmakers who garnered the most income from war contractors between 2004 and 2006: Sensenbrenner got at least $3.2 million and Kerry reaped at least $2.6 million.

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees which oversee the Iraq war had between $32 million and $44 million invested in companies with DoD contracts.

War hawk Joe Lieberman, chairman of the defense-related Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had at least $51,000 invested in these companies in 2006.

Hillary Clinton, who voted for Bush’s war, had stock in defense companies, such as Honeywell, Boeing and Raytheon, but sold the stock in May 2007.

Of the 151 members whose investments are tied to the “defense” (war) industry, as far as known, not one of them offered to donate their bloodstained profits to the national treasury to offset the terrible debt they have imposed.

Welcome to reality of America’s foreign policy hypocrisy – bring democracy to Iraq, while in real enriching their own coffers. Read Naomi Klein’s latest book “Shock Doctrine” for further revelations.

Data obtained from: roguegovernment

Some lessons to be learnt from history (I)

2008-05-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

Don’t piss off your peasants. They’ll revolt and kill you.
Never invade Russia from the west. The snow will kill you. (The Russians will help).
All monotheistic (so-called portable) religions claim that there is no God but God in no smaller part considering that Judaism has always been monotheistic. This is absolutely NOT true as YHVE, or Tetragramaton if you prefer, was one of their Gods – the God of War, reaching its eminence through wars of unification and survival against external enemies.
Geography matters.
No other country but Africans cared about Africa. (Every country should).
The French always lose. If the French win it is because they are fighting themselves, being led by someone who is not French, or the US is doing all of the fighting. It’s best to just ignore France.
The Jews are the most persecuted people in history. Statistically, they’re bound to start winning sometime. (As long as they don’t piss of their peasants or invade Russia…or ally themselves with the French).
Don’t think Chinese are too incapable or too modest. The moment will come and they will stun the world like never before. (Indeed this is what is already starting to happen).
Burning down cities will not bring your Messiah back.
Wherever natural resources of any value are discovered, local population suffers massacres, deprivation, and starvation caused by those who can afford.
Every superpower saw its own summit before tumbling down.
The Romans declared war on China. They didn’t know where China was or what it was but they thought it would be a good idea to declare war on it just in case. It’s always good to declare war on people you don’t know…as long as they don’t find out and kill you.
When in doubt pay your enemies to go sack another civilization. Hope that civilization does not have an important looking Pope.
History was always there and available to those who were at crossroads of great events, but they always thought that their case is different not heeding the history, thus ending up in the very same situation that history witnessed.
Conquer the world…but don’t forget to govern your empire or it will fall apart.
Marco Polo invented spaghetti.
Leonardo da Vinci invented chemical weapons.
Guys who talk to statues and appoint their horse Consul of Rome generally don’t make good Emperors.
Armenians (not Jews) introduced coffee to Europe.
You can’t expect much from a guy named after a toilet.
The Phoenicians built an entire empire on snail testicles.
When uniting Germany, don’t try to rebuild Charlemagne’s Empire.
An army of 12,000 terracotta soldiers will not protect you from a mob of angry Chinese peasants.
Switzerland is cool…they have chocolate, pocket knives, watches, banks, the most armed society in the world, and a military that is so effective, its banned from most wars by international law. Not even Hitler was stupid enough to mess with the Swiss.
Trade is the best way to spread culture, disease, religion, language, and technology but conquest works in the unlikely event that you don’t have anything that anyone else wants.
The Europeans first sent merchants to trade with you, then missionaries to convert you, and finally armies to conquer you.
St. Peter’s Basilica cost the Catholic Church Germany.

When I feel frustrated?

2008-04-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

When people around me prove that stupidity is not only occurring occasionally but also being universally accepted.
When a person acts and pretends that the world and creatures therein are mirror reflections of him/her and any deviation is automatically dubbed as erroneous and unsolicited.
When no matter how hard I try to hammer certain rather simple concept or idea into the head of certain people and no matter how much they waive their heads and act affirmatively as if they understood perfectly what was required and expected from them, the results are undoubtfully the same – rather their absence.
When arrogance and ignorance synthesize in such a way as to create a resonance of human irrationality and pettiness, any level of which will not only tend to be toxic but also mortally lethal.
When any rational and explainable behavior is taken to a ride and considered unacceptable just because it is not a corresponding to a norm in that country, group or society.
When ideals, words, actions and intentions of people look very much like four arrows of a compass.
When I see people who wore rosy glasses instilling change, equality and prosperity of human societies and when they don’t realize and thereafter recognize the large disconnect between the world of dreams and reality.
When people tell “I want to make a difference.”
When people evoke methods of Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi as universal rules of achieving drastic change rather then exceptional happenstances.
When people think they really know much when all they know is that they think they know much.
When touching sensible topics (on religions, human rights, etc.) during social outings arouses not only prudence and cultural sensitivity in person but also utter disgust (in the worst case) or polite indifference (in the best case).
When hypocrisy is so flagrant that one feels like closing one’s eyes in order to avoid notice – unfortunately it never helps.

How the world conspires for or against us?

2008-04-28T15:15:00.001-07:00

What is that I was thinking when I logged into my Blogger this time?

By the time I got to this page where I am typing now, I already have forgotten.

This was one of those days when I had my head spinning through the very same and by now banal questions of life and death, change and constancy, intervention and laissez-faire. Same old lines of thought, same old conclusions.

But there was something new that has been buzzing in the corner of my mind for some time now. How much is each individual influenced by thoughts of others about him/her. Did you ever ask yourself, how certain days are good and certain days are bad, be it in our daily or long term accomplishments, relationships, state of mind, etc.

Is each day random? How is the fact that people have me in their thoughts and dreams influencing me? Does it at all? I believe it does.

There are days when many people call me. There are many days when I get much positive input from independent parties. There are many days when I succeed in everything I try myself in. My daily interactions are as varied as they possibly can. There is no correlation, no overlap, no preliminary agreement or accord. But things happen in concert – directing us towards one way or another. Of course, opposite – overall bad or negative days – are totally common place as well.

How is it possible? How so many independent things, occurrences, people, events come together and start acting at one time in one place and on one person in a very concerted way? Think about it and remember that even the most unconceivable of things might and perhaps are possible.

One day perhaps cognitive sciences will come close to answering these and other questions, which many people dismiss as inappropriate due to lack of choice and information.

Think about it..

An occurence during Cairo night or perhaps morning.

2008-04-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

I woke up. It was 3am. I was being to a ride my mosquitoes and alike. I tried to cuddle up in my bed. Right, then left, then centre, then centre-right. Nothing worked. I couldn’t fall back asleep. I closed my eyes and drifted off for awhile, before being abruptly awaken from my light slumber by a shrieky laughter that erupted for few seconds right in front of my door, which was left half-open by a breeze passing through.

I sat up, looked at my watch. 4:03am. The laughter was gone, so was its source. But I was awake, and I felt utterly thirsty – thirsty to the point that this time when I lay down again, my thoughts became pre-occupied with how dire was the need to quench my thirst. Somehow – I still don’t know how – I managed to nap for another 15 mins, during which time I had this passing, light-headed dreamlike imagery in my mind, which gave an impression that I was in some kind of a cell, struggling for water and was unable to get it. This dream or whatever you might call it, has exacerbated even further my need for a liquid. I went out of my room.

4am, Hotel Dahab, Downtown Cairo. Going out of my room, I came across a few acquaintances – foreigners – I have in the hotel – all of them looking as if it was a perfect time of the day to walk around with books in hands and do some intellectually challenging work. One of them addressed me with “Good morning, or good night – not sure which one applies to you because one never knows when you come and go.” It brought a smile to my face and a realization to my mind. Realization that the unpredictability and intensiveness of my working days as well as my hotel-in hotel-out schedule brought much air of mystery and blur around my persona and work.

Further ahead, at the reception of the hostel, I saw another four familiar faces. This time, all locals, Egyptians, some working in the hostel and some of their friends, permanently at the hostel, dwelling on the Internet and entertaining themselves and hostel guests. They all looked shining and fresh, again leaving a somewhat misleading impression that this was a perfectly normal time of the day to be awake, smiling and making noisy and funny conversations.

They invited me to sit with them. I told I had to go get water and then I would join them. Being polite – in terms of social etiquette and politeness in particular, I would rank Egypt among the lowest of all the countries I have heard of or been to – I asked whether they wanted something to drink. They did. I went downstairs, being told in advance that the 24-hour shop was closed – what the heck. In vicinity, there was only one kiosk open, but it wasn’t the few minutes I spent walking towards it, which enchanted me. It was the fact that I saw Cairo, for the first time in eight month, rather empty. Emptiness, serenity, calm – words that appeared to me then. I felt like sitting in the middle of a rather large street, totally devoid of its usual traffic, and meditating. I couldn’t. My physiological needs prevailed – cheers Maslow.

I bought water and Pepsi. I came back and found my Egyptian friends in the same good mood I left them in. I made them even happier with what I bought for them. I then came back to my room, after inquiring at what time the sunrise was supposed to be – around 6am I was told and being on top of the building, 8^th floor, would make it a spectacular view.

I finished the Pepsi can in quick gulps. I then started the water bottle but was unable to se its bottom. Now what? I realized I wanted to write about this rather insignificant, banal, daily occurrence that many other perhaps experience throughout their weeks and months in many other parts of the world. A normal thing. Wake up in the middle of night and do something. I nonetheless wanted to write.

I turned on my computer. I discovered very recently a very impressive Web2.0 site, having same objective but thousand-fold better in design, style, quality and functionality than Youtube – Grooveshark. I turned it on, putting few songs into my playlist – “Is It You” by Cassie Ventura (from Step Up 2), “Bleed It Out” by Linkin Park, “Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne and started writing. And here I am at the end of what I intended to write.

Have a good night Cairo, or rather good morning! It is impossible to say which. Cairo is a city, which never sleeps, and so are those who live and blend into its ambiance, body, spirit.

Some Interesting Facts About Iceland

2008-04-24T17:26:00.000-07:00

Most Icelanders do not have a family name (such as Johnson, Smith, etc). So children have a given name and then father’s-name-son or father’s-name-daughter. Thus:
1. Jon has a son named Thor Jonsson and a daughter named Hafdis Jonsdottir.
2. Thor Jonsson has a son named Bjarni Thorsson and a daughter named Frida Thorsdottir.
3. And so forth.
Icelandic women don’t take the husband’s name when they marry, chiefly because the husband doesn’t have a family name to take.
Because they don’t have surnames, Icelanders are listed in the telephone directory alphabetically by first name.
Because they don’t have surnames, it is not appropriate to call an Icelander by Mr. or Ms. Almost all Icelanders use the first name with everyone—including the president of Iceland.
The English word geyser comes from Icelandic (perhaps the only Icelandic word imported into English). Geysir is the name of a famous geyser in Iceland (which, sadly, no longer erupts).
The Icelanders speak the Icelandic language, which is used only in Iceland and among Icelandic expatriates—chiefly in Scandinavia and North America. Icelandic is very similar to old Norwegian of about 1,000 years ago.
There are only about 270,000 Icelanders in the country. About half of them live in the capital Reykjavik and its suburbs.
Iceland is the world’s oldest democracy. Its parliament (Althingi) was founded about 1,000 years ago.
Iceland has vast amounts of water—because it rains so much. Icelandic water is so clean and pure that it is piped into the city and to the kitchen taps in the home without any treatment (no chlorination needed).
Urban Icelandic homes do not need a water heater or a furnace for heating. Steam and hot water are piped into the city from natural geysers and hot springs for use in homes and buildings.
Because of its bountiful water supply and many rivers, Iceland has vast reserves of hydroelectric power. Electricity is so inexpensive that aluminum ore (bauxite) is shipped in to the country, made into aluminum, and the aluminum ingots are shipped out again. (Smelting aluminum requires vast amounts of electricity.)
The weather in Iceland is not as cold as you might think. (Winter is a heck of a lot colder in Minnesota than it is in Iceland!) The climate is relatively mild because of the influence of the Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf Stream. Average winter daytime temperature in Reykjavik is 31 degrees F. (−1 degrees C.)
Iceland is very green, because there is so much water and the climate is mild. (There are not many trees however.) People like to say that Iceland should be named Greenland and Greenland should be named Iceland. I used to tell my Icelandic friends that they should change the name of their country from Iceland to Waterland.
Iceland lies just south of the Arctic Circle. Winter nights and summer days are long. On December 21 in the capital, the sun rises at 11:30 a.m. and sets at 3:30 p.m. On June 21 the sun sets about midnight and rises at 3:00 a.m. It never gets darker than twilight at night during the late spring and early summer.
During a recent survey, Icelanders ranked the highest of all European countries in expressing general satisfaction with their lives.
Icelanders rank near the top of world nations in the per capita rate of connection to the Internet.
Iceland has no army, navy, or air force. It does have a Coast Guard.

Top 100 Project Gutenberg EBooks 24.04.2008

2008-04-24T17:14:00.001-07:00

Top 100 EBooks 24.04.2008

The rest will be found on Gutenberg Project's website.

Why I Left Greenpeace

2008-04-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

By PATRICK MOORE
April 22, 2008

In 1971 an environmental and antiwar ethic was taking root in Canada, and I chose to participate. As I completed a Ph.D. in ecology, I combined my science background with the strong media skills of my colleagues. In keeping with our pacifist views, we started Greenpeace.

But I later learned that the environmental movement is not always guided by science. As we celebrate Earth Day today, this is a good lesson to keep in mind.

At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.

The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health.

My former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, forcing my departure. Despite science concluding no known health risks – and ample benefits – from chlorine in drinking water, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have opposed its use for more than 20 years.

Opposition to the use of chemicals such as chlorine is part of a broader hostility to the use of industrial chemicals. Rachel Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," had a significant impact on many pioneers of the green movement. The book raised concerns, many rooted in science, about the risks and negative environmental impact associated with the overuse of chemicals. But the initial healthy skepticism hardened into a mindset that treats virtually all industrial use of chemicals with suspicion.

Sadly, Greenpeace has evolved into an organization of extremism and politically motivated agendas. Its antichlorination campaign failed, only to be followed by a campaign against polyvinyl chloride.

Greenpeace now has a new target called phthalates (pronounced thal-ates). These are chemical compounds that make plastics flexible. They are found in everything from hospital equipment such as IV bags and tubes, to children's toys and shower curtains. They are among the most practical chemical compounds in existence.

Phthalates are the new bogeyman. These chemicals make easy targets since they are hard to understand and difficult to pronounce. Commonly used phthalates, such as diisononyl phthalate (DINP), have been used in everyday products for decades with no evidence of human harm. DINP is the primary plasticizer used in toys. It has been tested by multiple government and independent evaluators, and found to be safe.

Despite this, a political campaign that rejects science is pressuring companies and the public to reject the use of DINP. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us are switching to phthalate-free products to avoid public pressure.

It may be tempting to take this path of least resistance, but at what cost? None of the potential replacement chemicals have been tested and found safe to the degree that DINP has. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently cautioned, "If DINP is to be replaced in children's products . . . the potential risks of substitutes must be considered. Weaker or more brittle plastics might break and result in a choking hazard. Other plasticizers might not be as well studied as DINP."

The hysteria over DINP began in Europe and Israel, both of which instituted bans. Yet earlier this year, Israel realized the error of putting politics before science, and reinstated DINP.

The European Union banned the use of phthalates in toys prior to completion of a comprehensive risk assessment on DINP. That assessment ultimately concluded that the use of DINP in infant toys poses no measurable risk.

The antiphthalate activists are running a campaign of fear to implement their political agenda. They have seen success in California, with a state ban on the use of phthalates in infant products, and are pushing for a national ban. This fear campaign merely distracts the public from real environmental threats.

We all have a responsibility to be environmental stewards. But that stewardship requires that science, not political agendas, drive our public policy.

Mr. Moore, co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace, is chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies.

Source: WSJ

The Most Horrible English Words

2008-04-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

Honorificabilitudinitatibus
The word consists of 27 letters. This word appeared in the script of Shakespeare titled “Love's Labour's Lost”, which means “invincible glorious.”
Antidisestablishmentarianism
The word consists of 28 letters. This word means “opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church, esp. the Anglican Church in 19th-century England” as explained in Dictionary.com. It has been quoted once by the British Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone, 1809- 1898.
Floccinaucihihilipilification
The word comprises of 29 letters. It means “act or habit to deny the value of some particular things.”
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
The word comprises of 34 letters. This word appeared in a movie called “Mary Poppins”, which means “good.”
Hepaticocholecystostcholecystntenterostomy
The word consists of 42 letters. It appears in the “Medical Dictionary” edited by Gao De as a surgical terminology, which refers to indirect artificial tube surgery between the intestine and gallbladder or in the gallbladder and bile duct.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
The word comprises of 45 letters. It appears in the eighth edition of Webster dictionary, which means “pneumoconiosis disease caused by inhaling small particles of quartzite.” Miners are particularly vulnerable to this disease.
Antipericatametaanaparcircum -
volutiorectumgustpoops of the Coprofied
The word consists of 50 letters. There is a display of one French writer's ancient story in a library shelf, with this long English word as its book title.
Osseocaynisanguineovisceri -
cartilagininervomedullary
The word consists of 51 letters. This is a terminology related to anatomy. It appeared in a novel called “Headlong Hall” written by an English writer, 1785-1866.
Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoa -
luminosocupreovitriolie
The word consists of 52 letters. This word was invented by the British Medical author, Dr. Edward Strother, 1675-1737. It is used to refer to the composition of mineral water found in England.
Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronn -
konnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntro -
varrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk
The word of consists of 100 letters. It appeared in the book titled “Finnegan wake” written by Irish author, Andean James Joyce, 1882- 1942. This word refers to the downfall of Adam and Eve.
Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranio -
leipsanodrimhypotrimmatosi -
lphioparamelitokatakechymenokich -
lepikossyphophattoperisteralektr -
yonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosi -
raiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon
The word consists of 182 letters. This English word is derived from the Greece word, originating from the drama script of comedy titled “ecclesiazusae” written by a Greek writer, Aristophanes, 448- 385. It refers to spicy foods that cooked from the remaining vegetables and beef.
This word is terribly long in its length as it comprises of 1913 letters as follow:
Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosy -
lglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutaminy -
lleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycyla -
lanylphenylalanylvalylprolyphenylalanYlvalythre -
onylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylg -
lutamylglutaminylsErylleucyllysylisoleucy -
laspartylthreonylleucylIsoleucylglutamy -
lalanylglycylalanylasparthlalanylleucylg -
lutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylalanylse -
Rylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylp -
RolylthreOnylisoleucylglutaminylasPfraginylal -
anylthreonylleucylarfinylalanylphenylalanylalany -
lalanylglycylvalythreonylprolylalanylglutaminy -
lcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucy -
lalanylleuOylisoleucylarginylglutaminy -
llysyhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucylproly -
lisoleucylglycylleucylmethionyltyrosylalany -
lasparaginylleucylvalylphenylalanylasparaginy -
llysyglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalany -
lthrosylalanylglutaminylcsteinylglutamyllysylva -
lylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalny -
laspartylvalylprolylvalylglUtaminylglutamylsery -
lalanylprolylphenylalanylarginylglutaminylalany -
lalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginyvalylalany -
lprolylisoleucylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucy -
lphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalany -
laspartylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginy -
lglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycy -
larginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrOsylleucyl -
leucylserylarginylalanylglycylvalylthreony -
lglycylalanylglutamYlasparainylarginylalany -
lalanylleucylprolylleucylasparaginylhistidy -
lleucylValylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamy -
ltyrosylasparaginylalanylalanylprolylpro -
lylleucylglutaminylglgycylphenylalanylglycy -
lisoleucylserylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminy -
lvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalany -
lglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylsery -
lglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalyllysylisoIeucy -
lisoleucylglutamylglutaminylHistidylasparaginy -
liSoleucylglutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionyl -
leucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanyl -
calylglutaminylprolylmethionlysylalanylalanylt -
hreonylarginylserine.
The above word refers to "Tryptophan synthase a protein", a chemical name for a substance that contains 267 kinds of amino acid enzymes.

Source Writinghood

LEXOPHILES...

2008-04-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

A bicycle can’t stand alone; it is two tired.
A will is a dead giveaway.
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
A backward poet writes inverse.
In a democracy it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism, it’s your Count that votes.
A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
If you don’t pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I’ll show you A-flat miner.
When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.
A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.
You are stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.
Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.
He broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.
A calendar’s days are numbered.
A lot of money is tainted: ‘Taint yours, and ‘taint mine.
A boiled egg is hard to beat.
He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
A plateau is a high form of flattery.
The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.
Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
When you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.
If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.
When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
Acupuncture: a jab well done.
Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

Politics Explained

2008-04-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

(Original source unknown . . . this version expanded and Illuminated by SJ.)

Some of quotations of Frederick Zappone

2008-04-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

• The way out of suffering is through it. Resist suffering and suffering increases. Acceptance, in the moment, that you are suffering will dissolve your suffering instantly.

• You are perfect in every way until you compare yourself with another.

• Your need to control things is based on the fear of things controlling you.

• What you worry about is what controls you.

• Every one of us is allowed to suffer in order that we can grow in compassion and sensitivity towards the suffering of others.

• Only people who live in fear feel the need to abuse others.

• Trying too hard is un-attractive (does not attract) and pushes away from us the very things we want.

• When you encounter obstacles or roadblocks that are between you and what you want out of life choose to be like the "wind and water" and "flow" up, over, around or under them rather than fighting them and giving them power over you.

• We become free to follow the desires of our heart when we are influenced more by our own thoughts than the thoughts of others.

• In life, we always have two choices about our circumstances; we can change our circumstances or we can change our attitude about our circumstances. Once we change our attitude, our circumstances change naturally.

• When we stop finding faults in ourselves, we will stop finding faults in others.

• God lives in the moment. If you want to find God, live there too!

• Life doesn't always go your way, don't take it personally.

• Most people are full of crap, love them anyway.

• If you care about you, others will too!

• Putting other people first all the time will put you back at the end of the line.

• Life is not difficult, it is only our thinking that makes it so..

• Find humor in your problems and they will seem smaller to you.

• Love won't solve the problems of the world but it certainly makes the ride worthwhile.

• Don't take yourself too seriously, no one else does.

100 Best First Lines from Novels

2008-04-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)

5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

6. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett)

7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. —James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)

8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

9. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

10. I am an invisible man. —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

11. The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. —Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)

12. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. —Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

13. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. —Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925; trans. Breon Mitchell)

14. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. —Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler (1979; trans. William Weaver)

15. The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)

16. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. —J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

17. Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. —James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

18. This is the saddest story I have ever heard. —Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (1915)

19. I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost:—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me. —Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1759–1767)

20. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. —Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)

21. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. —James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

22. It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. —Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

23. One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. —Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

24. It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. —Paul Auster, City of Glass (1985)

25. Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)

26. 124 was spiteful. —Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

27. Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing. —Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605; trans. Edith Grossman)

28. Mother died today. —Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942; trans. Stuart Gilbert)

The rest...

Did you know that:

2008-03-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

Twenty leading journalists, including winners of several Emmys and a Pulitzer, have described being prevented by corporate media ownership from reporting riveting stories on major cover-ups.

BBC News has exposed plans of the U.S. military to "provide maximum control" of the Internet, as detailed in a declassified secret Pentagon document signed by the U.S. Secretary of Defense in 2003.

A CBS News report quotes former U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, "According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." That's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America.

Government documents released through the Freedom of Information Act show that the top Pentagon generals once approved plans to foment terrorism in major U.S. cities and even kill innocent civilians.

Multiple, reliable sources show that you may be eating genetically modified food every day which scientific experiments have repeatedly demonstrated can cause sickness and even death in lab animals.

Detroit's leading newspaper reported that the 1908 Ford Model T boasted a fuel economy of 25 miles per gallon. Yet 100 years later, the EPA average mileage for all cars is under 21 mpg.

A highly decorated US General wrote a book titled War is a Racket, which clearly depicts how he was manipulated and how most wars are waged largely to keep the coffers of the big corporations filled.

The former chief of a prestigious medical journal has revealed that the total profits of the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 were more than the profits of the other 490 businesses combined.

London Times reported that several 9/11 hijackers listed in the 9/11 Commission Report are alive. "Five of the alleged hijackers have emerged, alive, innocent and astonished to see their names and photographs appearing on satellite television. The hijackers were using stolen identities." See also BBC report on this.

More than 50 senior government officials and 100 professors have publicly expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report. Many even allege government complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

For more highly revealing media articles hidden in plain sight with links for verification, click here.

Source: WantToKnow

Selected on 21.03.2008

2008-03-21T03:50:00.000-07:00

Where angels no longer fear to tread
Science and religion have often been at loggerheads. Now the former has decided to resolve the problem by trying to explain the existence of the latter.

Sam Harris: The Language of Ignorance
In this essay, the bestselling secularist author of “The End of Faith” delivers a scathing review of “The Language of God,” a new book by Human Genome Project head Francis Collins that attempts to demonstrate a harmony between science and evangelical Christianity.

The Earth Has More Than One North Pole
You may think of the North Pole only as the top of the world—its northernmost point and, if you're younger, Santa's home. But it turns out there are a host of "north (and south) poles" on our planet.

The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat
Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren’t quite understanding what their robots are telling them.

Natural map of humanity

Philosophy games
Test your philosophical acumen by checking out these philosophy games, quizzes, puzzles, and trivia.

35 Fantastic HDR Pictures

300 Million Americans
The United States’s population reached 300 million on October 17, 2006, according to projections by the Census Bureau. To help spotlight this occasion, the Census Bureau steps back in time by comparing contemporary life and statistics to those in the time periods in which the nation reached other noteworthy population milestones in 1967 (when the population reached 200 million) and in the year 1915 (when it reached 100 million).

Shakespeare Insult Kit
For lovers of Shakespeare and adherants of Greek Cynics..

The Resume Bloopers
These are taken from real resumes and cover letters and were printed in Fortune Magazine.
Simply HILARIOUS!!!!

Allah, why refer to him in masculine terms..

2008-03-18T13:59:00.000-07:00

I knew since some time now that the Holy Koran that Allah is refered to in masculine terms "His," "Him," "He."

I never thought of this issue thoroughly, but today somehow the conversation came up with my work colleagues and I asked the question why masculine. Why all references to Allah in the Koran are presupposing or prescribing him a rather very human gender. For that matter, one might also imagine the few references to "Hand of Allah" in the Koran, which thus tacitly presupposes that Allah has a hand or a semblance of it, or at least such is our perceptions, least it were to be described otherwise.

Our discussion on "gender" of Allah went quite far without finding any even approximately exhaustive answer. Admittedly, it is impossible by any means to prove, disprove or to describe in a final manner whether Allah has or doesnt have any or at all human characeristics. It is beyond doubt that Allah transcends all such description and even trying to encompass any charactereistic of Allah in mere human terms or words will be less than satisfactory. The question therefore begged as to why describe by or ascribe any such human "feature" - human gender - to Allah. Furthermore, while in the case of the Bible this and other such occurences might be explained away by saying firstly that Bible was put on paper by humans who were inspired by God. The words however came from humans themselves - Marc, Mathew, John, Luke, Jerome, etc.

In case of the Koran this explanation will not suffise, as the Koran is purpotedly Allah's word directly dictated and trasmitted by Allah's Prophet Muhammad - he himself was illiterate and therefore unable to write anything himself.

The only explanation, which to my view was not satisfactory, of references of Allah in masculine terms was that it was easy for use of language to refer to Allah by masculine terms and that would facilitate comprehension. But this implies that the Koran might have been written by humans keeping in mind human percpetional and other subtleties. But then what about the claim that the Koran is the direct - and this means wihtout any human biases, prejudices and stereotypes, word of Allah and this would mean that Allah described Himself in masculine terms, or...?

Anyhow, the discussion had an end - an end where more knowledgable and versed (in Islam) colleagues of mine suggested to ask their acquantaces, one of whom is very knowledgable in Islamic studies and used to debate precisely on such matters.

Let's wait and see...

One last thing, which I told them was my reason of asking about the "gender" of Allah in the Koran. The reason was that most of ancient civilizations, including Egyptian, Hindi, Greek, Roman and other, initially worshipped Great Goddess and the Bull. This happened independently in many such ancient, prehistoric societies.

However, the advent of monotheistic religions brought forth, first time in the human history, the concept of God unrelated to any natural phenomena, God as an abstract entity, the ubiquitous, all-seeing, almighty.

Even Judaism, a monotheistic religion as it is now, had many Gods and Yahweh, the sole God in modern Judaism, was one among the pantheon of Gods. Yahweh was God of War for Jews during the Age of Israeli Prophets. For political as well as economic and other consideration, Yahweh "gained" ascendancy over others and with time emerged as the unique and most powerful of all other Gods.

This is history. There are facts. This thus shows that the first of monotheistic religions was not "born" as such but was transformed later.

As I said, let's wait and see what the more knowledgable would say about Allah, bearing in mind that Judaism in its cores and therefore Christiniaty, which drew heavily of precepts and ideas of Judaism, were not monotheistic originally and that almost all ancient civilizaiton predating 900BC worshipped women Gods along with male Gods.

The Truth About Barack Obama

2008-03-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

Although the Democracy for America community voted to endorse progressive candidates for president and Senator Barack Obama was one of three who qualified, there's been no further endorsement and this email is not intended to be one.

The purpose of the email is to provide some factual information to people who may have been confused by gossip and a media script that often has little relevance to the election process. Even if elections are mainly a voter-driven activity, it's important that the information distributed about the candidates be accurate.

Enjoy. And, if you find it worth-while, pass it on.

Subject: The Real Truth About Barack Obama!

As enthusiastic volunteers in the Barack Obama campaign for the Presidency, we have put together a list of facts about Barack so that you will know the truth about him. Please follow the links we have included for documentation of these facts. If you value the truth as we do, please spread this information via email, blog, or any other means, to everyone you know.

Did you know that Barack Obama is a Christian? He has been a member of the same United Church of Christ congregation for 20 years, and was married there to his wife Michelle in 1992. [1] [2] [3]

Did you know that Barack Obama often leads the US Senate in the Pledge of Allegiance? [4]

Did you know that Barack Obama is a strong friend of Israel and has spoken out strongly against anti-Semitism? [5] [6]

Did you know his grandparents from Kansas were part of the "Greatest Generation"? His grandfather served with Patton's Army during World War II, and his grandmother, a real "Rosy the Riveter", worked in a bomber assembly plant back home. [7] [8] [9]

Did you know that Barack Obama was opposed to the war in Iraq from day one, before we invaded, even while he was running for the Senate, and knowing his opposition might be politically unpopular? [10]

....

Source: Blog for America

Mamihlapinatapai

2008-03-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

Mamihlapinatapai (sometimes spelled mamihlapinatapei) is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the "most succinct word", and is considered one of the hardest words to translate. It describes a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start. This could perhaps be translated more succinctly as "eye-contact implying 'after you...'". A more literal approximation is "ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other".

Source: Wikipedia

Cool insults for immediate use

2008-03-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

1.Any similarity between you and a human is purely
coincidental!

2.Are you always so stupid or is today a special
occasion?

3.As an outsider, what do you think of the human race?

4.I'd like to kick you in the teeth, but why should I
improve your looks?

5.At least there'e one thing good about your body.It
isn't as ugly as your face!

6.Brains aren't everything. In fact, in your case
they're nothing

7.Careful now, don't let your brains go to your head!

8.I like you. People say I've no taste, but I like
you.

9.Did your parents ever ask you to run away from home?

10. If I had a face like yours. I'd sue my parents!

11. Don't feel bad. A lot of people have no talent!

12. Don't get insulted, but is your job devoted to
spreading ignorance?

13. Keep talking, someday you'll say something
intelligent!

14. Don't you love nature, despite what it did to you?

15. Don't think, it may sprain your brain!

16. Fellows like you don't grow from trees; they swing
from them.

17. He has a mechanical mind. Too bad he forgot to
wind it up this morning.

18. He has a mind like a steel trap -- always closed!

19. You are a man of the world -- and you know what
sad shape the world is in.

20. He is always lost in thought -- it's unfamiliar
territory.

21. He is dark and handsome. When it's dark, he's
handsome.

22. He is known as a miracle comic. if he's funny,
it's a miracle!

23. He is listed in Who's Who as What's That?

24. He is living proof that man can live without a
brain!

25. He is so short, when it rains he is always the
last one to know.

26. He is the kind of a man that you would use as a
blueprint to build an idiot.

27. How come you're here? I thought the zoo is closed
at night!

28. How did you get here? Did someone leave your cage
open?

29. How much refund do you expect on your head now
that it's empty.

30. How would you like to feel the way you look?

31. Hi! I'm a human being! What are you?

32. I can't talk to you right now; tell me,where will
you be in the next 10 years?

33. I don't want you to turn the other cheek; it's
just as ugly.

34. I don't know who you are, but whatever you are,
I'm sure everyone will agree with me.

35. I don't know what makes you so stupid, but it
really works.

36. I could make a monkey out of you, but why should I
take all the credit?

37. I can't seem to remember your name, and please
don't help me!

38. I don't even like the people you're trying to
imitate, if you are at all.

39. I know you were born silly, but why did you have a
relapse?

38. I know you're a self-made man. It's nice of you to
take the blame!

41. I know you're not as stupid as you look. Nobody
could be!

42. I've seen people like you, but I had to pay
admission!

Mistakes

2008-03-14T16:32:00.001-07:00

If a barber makes a mistake,
It's a new style.

If a driver makes a mistake,
It is an accident.

If a doctor makes a mistake,
It's an operation.

If a engineer makes a mistake,
It is a new venture.

If parents makes a mistake,
It is a new generation.

If a politician makes a mistake,
It is a new law.

If a scientist makes a mistake,
It is a new invention.

If a tailor makes a mistake,
It is a new fashion.

If a teacher makes a mistake ,
It is a new theory.

If a employee makes a mistake
It is a "MISTAKE"

Women's Snappy Comebacks

2008-03-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

Man: "Haven't we met before?"
Woman: "Yes, I'm the receptionist at the VD Clinic."

Man: "Haven't I seen you someplace before?
Woman: "Yeah, that's why I don't go there anymore."

Man: "Is this seat empty?"
Woman: "Yes, and this one will be too if you sit down."

Man: "So, wanna go back to my place ?"
Woman: "Well, I don't know. Will two people fit under a
rock?"

Man: "Your place or mine?"
Woman: "Both. You go to yours and I'll go to mine."

Man: "I'd like to call you. What's your number?"
Woman: "It's in the phone book."
Man: "But I don't know your name."
Woman: "That's in the phone book too."

Man: "So what do you do for a living?"
Woman: "I'm a female impersonator."

Man: "What sign were you born under?"
Woman: "No Parking."

Man: "Hey, baby, what's your sign?"
Woman: "Do not Enter"

Man: "How do you like your eggs in the morning?"
Woman: "Unfertilized !"

Man: "Hey, come on, we're both here at this bar for the
same reason"
Woman: "Yeah! Let's pick up some chicks!"

Man: "I'm here to fulfill your every sexual fantasy."
Woman: "You mean you've got both a donkey and a Great Dane?"

Man: "I know how to please a woman."
Woman: "Then please leave me alone."

Man: "I want to give myself to you."
Woman: "Sorry, I don't accept cheap gifts."

Man: "I can tell that you want me."
Woman: "Ohhhh. You're so right. I want you to leave."

Man: "If I could see you naked, I'd die happy:
Woman: "Yeah, but if I saw you naked, I'd probably die
laughing."

Man: "Hey cutie, how 'bout you and I hitting the hot
spots?"
Woman: "Sorry, I don't date outside my species.."

Man: "Your body is like a temple."
Woman: "Sorry, there are no services today."

Man: "I'd go through anything for you."
Woman: "Good! Let's start with your bank account."

Man: "I would go to the end of the world for you.
Woman: "Yes, but would you stay there?"

Differences between you and your boss

2008-02-21T07:47:00.000-08:00

When you take a long time, you're slow.
When your boss takes a long time, he's thorough.

When you don't do it, you're lazy.
When your boss doesn't do it, he's too busy.

When you make a mistake, you're an idiot.
When your boss makes a mistake, he's only human.

When doing something without being told, you're overstepping your
authority.
When your boss does the same thing, that's initiative.

When you take a stand, you're being pig-headed.
When your boss does it, he's being firm.

When you overlooked a rule of ettiquette, you're being rude.
When your boss skips a few rules, he's being original.

When you please your boss, you're arse-creeping.
When your boss pleases his boss, he's being co-operative.

When you're out of the office, you're wandering around.
When your boss is out of the office, he's on business.

When you're on a day off sick, you're always sick.
When your boss has a day off sick, he must be very ill.

When you apply for leave, you must be going for an interview.
When your boss applies for leave, it's because he's overworked.

Shit happens...

2008-02-21T07:41:00.000-08:00

Taoism:

- Shit happens.

Confucianism:

- Confucius says, "Shit happens."

Hare Krishna:

- Shit happens, Rama Rama Ding Ding.

Hinduism:

- This shit has happened before.

Zen:

- (What is the sound of shit happening?)

Buddhism:

- If Shit happens, it isn't really Shit.

7th Day Adventist:

- No shit on Saturdays.

- Shit happens on Saturday.

Protestanism:

- Shit won't happen if I work harder.

Lutheranism:

- Shit happens, but as long as you're sorry, it's OK.

Anglicanism:

- It's true, shit does happen -- but only to Lutherans.

Catholicism:

- Shit happens because I'm bad.

Christian Science:

- When shit happens, don't call a doctor--pray.

- Shit doesn't happen and I am not up to my eyeballs in it.

Jehovah's Witnesses:

- Knock, Knock: "Shit happens."

Mormon:

- This shit is going to happen again

Judaism:

- Why does this shit always happen to US?

Hedonism:

- There's nothing like a good shit happening.

Rastafarianism:

- If shit happens, let's smoke it!

Stoicism:

- This shit is good for you.

Calvinism:

- Shit happens because you don't work hard enough.

Secular Humanism:

- Shit evolves.

Existentialism:

- Shit doesn't happen; shit is. - What is shit, anyway?

Moonies:

- Only happy shit really happens.

New Age:

- That's not shit, it's feldspar.

- This isn't shit if I really believe it's chocolate.

Quakerism:

- There is shit in every one of us.

Atheism:

- There is no shit.

- Shit doesn't happen. Shit is dead.

Fatalism:

- Oh shit, it's going to happen!

Agnosticism:

- I'm not sure about this shit.

Voodoo:

- I'll make shit happen to you.

Scientology:

- Pay us 10,000 and we will make your shit happen.

Aum:

- We'll turn this world into shit.

Marxism:

- One day this shit will be ours.

Liberalism:

- If shit happens to the few, it'll happen to us all.

flows of structurized thoughts and sporadic ravings..

Understanding Marketing

Some George W. Bush Quotes

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road (selected)?

10 Great Quotes From 10 Great Business People

1. Jim Rohn

2. Henry Ford

3. Walt Disney

4. Peter Drucker

5. Edwin H. Stuart

6. Vincent Lombardi

7. J. Paul Getty

8. Sam Walton

9. Steve Jobs

10. Warren Buffett

20 Famous Last Words

Definitions of Terms Commonly Used in Math

25 Thoughtful Quotes From Carl Jung

If You Can..

The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski

35 Thought Provoking Education Quotes

List of 100 global public intellectuals (2005)

Top Ten Things That Math and Sex Have in Common

Some useful Latin phrases

Best Bush T-Shirts

Some of Heinlein's quotes

Don't eat bread

Death quotes

Risk (author unknown)

Some questions I found interesting

The Wisdom of the Heart from the 14th Dalai Lama

Two Wolves (Cherokee Wisdom )

50 Things Professors Can Do on the First Week of Class

Advices to save money

Quotes about the Bible by famous men of the past

Tricks on body (dug out from some email)

General aspects on human interpretation of the world

25 signs that you lived too long in Egypt

Dead horse strategies for 21st century

Some blunt and risky insults

Answering Machine messages

20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the US

London Tube announced

Art of Fart

Do you believe?

World's biggest restaurant

Origins of English Pound Sterling

The bath and the bucket story

The mobile phone story

The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

Chinese wisdom quotes

Human sins - origins

The Window (author unknown)

Essential info about human body

Best music sites on the web

1. Unsigned Band Web

2. Grooveshark

3. Artist Direct

4. Spiral Frog

5. Pandora

6. Roxwel

7. Blastro

8. Digitally Imported

9. Deezer

10. Free Music Zilla

Wake-up...

Fostering Innovation in Pixar

American government LOVES war in Iraq

Some lessons to be learnt from history (I)

When I feel frustrated?

How the world conspires for or against us?

An occurence during Cairo night or perhaps morning.

Some Interesting Facts About Iceland

Top 100 Project Gutenberg EBooks 24.04.2008

Top 100 EBooks 24.04.2008

Why I Left Greenpeace

The Most Horrible English Words

Honorificabilitudinitatibus

Antidisestablishmentarianism

Antipericatametaanaparcircum -
volutiorectumgustpoops of the Coprofied

Osseocaynisanguineovisceri -
cartilagininervomedullary

Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoa -
luminosocupreovitriolie

Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronn -
konnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntro -
varrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk

Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranio -
leipsanodrimhypotrimmatosi -
lphioparamelitokatakechymenokich -
lepikossyphophattoperisteralektr -
yonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosi -
raiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon