
(Thanks gregoryat)
LOWER UTILITY BILLS TO ALMOST NOTHINGBut I have to warn you. No guarantees they will work. Ha!
"This spell is a versatile one, which can cover phone bills, electric, water, sanitation or any other bill you would like lowered," said Mandela.
INGREDIENTS: Voodoo doll wrapped in any utility bill (use tape), whole chicken, 5 yards black yarn, 10 dead flies, 1 cup oatmeal (instant, not slow cook), white candles, Crest toothpaste (Colgate may be substituted).
Step 1: Debone chicken and cut flesh into pieces with razor blade. Place in ceramic (nonmetal) mixing bowl.
Step 2: Clean bones and let dry.
Step 3: Mix remaining ingredients (except candles) with chicken parts. Beat at high speed for 5 minutes.
Step 4: Coat candles with paste. Set into holders fashioned out of bones. For each bothersome bill, light one candle and repeat the following incantation: "Thou art a vile money grubber who overcharges and takes away my hardearned cash that could be spent on better things. I deserve more. I should not be held hostage to you anymore." The next time your statement arrives, it should be substantially lower.
The European Union has adopted a target of preventing a rise in global average temperature of more than two Celsius.
That, according to the report, might be too high, with two degrees being enough to trigger melting of the Greenland ice sheet...
A rise of two Celsius, researchers conclude, will be enough to cause:
* Decreasing crop yields in the developing and developed world
* Tripling of poor harvests in Europe and Russia
* Large-scale displacement of people in north Africa from desertification
* Up to 2.8bn people at risk of water shortage
* 97% loss of coral reefs
* Total loss of summer Arctic sea ice causing extinction of the polar bear and the walrus
* Spread of malaria in Africa and north America
I now have a great respect for anal-hair. Like everything in this world God created, it has its mighty purpose in existence. It was only after I had removed it that I started to learn how much I had been taking it for granted. For one, it provides friction. I learned this the next day, when I walked out into the sun heading for class. After climbing two flights of stairs and starting to sweat, I started to notice something unpleasant. The sweat was accumulating in my crack, and was causing the unpleasant sensation of my two asscheeks sliding past each other with every step. I thought about going to the bathroom and wiping it off, but had to get to class. Eventually, I thought, it would dry.I'm keeping my ass as it is ... unshaved!
"People haven't been able to explain it," Linthorne says. He and Everett have now made a detailed study of the football throw-in, videoing a player making a series of throws at different release angles. They fitted the resulting release speeds, throwing distances and flight times to mathematical equations.(Thanks Raul Jo)
This enabled the researchers to find the best release angle for producing a long throw. The answer, it seems, is that it doesn't matter too much, provided that the angle is between about 20 and 35°.
For a fortnight, 24 women and 22 men kept diaries of how often they engaged in various forms of sex.Now you know the trick to giving a good presentation.
Then they underwent a stress test involving public speaking and performing mental arithmetic out loud.
Volunteers who had had penetrative intercourse were found to be the least stressed, and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than those who had engaged in other forms of sexual activity such as masturbation.
The planet is estimated to be about 5.5 times as massive as Earth and thought to be rocky. It orbits a red dwarf star about 28,000 light-years away. Red dwarfs are about one-fifth as massive as the Sun and up to 50 times fainter. But they are among the most common stars in the universe...
It was discovered using a technique called “gravitational microlensing,” whereby light from a distant star is bent and magnified by the gravitational field of a foreground star. The presence of a planet around the foreground star causes light from the distant star to become momentarily brighter.
The paintings in Altay, in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, "have been verified as human hunting while skiing and, therefore, archaeologists prove the Altay region to be a place of skiing some 100 to 200 centuries ago", the news agency said...Now the Chinese can add skiing to their already impressive collection of inventions such as earthquake detector, spaghetti, fan, kites, rudder, planetarium and paper. I would think that if you look hard enough for ancient paintings in caves or cliffs in China, maybe you would also find that the Chinese are the first to use "horse riding" as a form of sexual stimulation, ie iGallop.
"(Experts) held that cliff paintings in Altay were the earliest archaeological evidence to show how humans had skied in the early days and suggest skiing had originated in Altay."
"Google.cn will comply with local Chinese laws and regulations," he said in a statement. "In deciding how best to approach the Chinese--or any--market, we must balance our commitments to satisfy the interest of users, expand access to information, and respond to local conditions."
....The France-based human rights group Reporters Without Borders blasted Google, saying it was taking an immoral position that could not be justified.
"By offering a version without 'subversive' content, Google is making it easier for Chinese officials to filter the Internet themselves. A Web site not listed by search engines has little chance of being found by users," the group said in a statement. "The new Google version means that even if a human rights publication is not blocked by local firewalls, it has no chance of being read in China."
In this blog about jellyfish in Japan, the article alone seems credible, but the commentary which follows is nothing more than a gossip column. Albeit, it's gossip and speculation that happens to be EXTREMELY humorous, especially when attached to such a serious and forboding article...So from now on, my dear readers, please leave intelligent comments ok? Well, at least try.
The comments assert that giant jellyfish are aliens, are sent by other countries to attack Japan, and will eventually morph into land traveling creatures that terrorize citizens...
Comments can also mash, mangle and destroy credibility, turning readers to oppose the view of an author they otherwise would have trusted - whether or not that author is credible.
Apple loses the battle for world dominance this year in our Global results but soundly beats Google at home. Similar to the Global contest, the two have shared top five distinction in the US & Canada results for the last four years.For the Asia-Pacific category, Sony, Toyota and Samsung take the first, second and third spot respectively.
Scooping third place, Starbucks continues to waft through our world. We asked readers to choose those brands that had the most impact on them in 2005; Starbucks is for many a daily ritual, made more noteworthy by the cost and experience of choosing this retailer over the corner street vendor.
Experts believe that the whale's senses could have been damaged by military sonar. Some 30 strandings and deaths of whales around the world - from Tasmania to North America - have been linked to its use. The United Nations and other international bodies have warned that it is a major threat to the animals.This is a shocking example showing how we have played a major part in the killing of other species. I understand that a country has to protect its shores from possible attacks by enemy countries but there also needs to be a balance between protecting a country and protecting the wildlife that is living in the oceans surrounding it. Governments have to take care of the wildlife as much as they take care of their people.
The investigation has also revealed that - in a separate, but deeply embarrassing development - the Government faces being hauled before the European Court for failing to take enough care of the whales and dolphins around Britain's shores.
But the whale died at about 1900 GMT on Saturday as rescuers transported it on a barge towards deeper water in the Thames Estuary.The Observer reports from the scene where hundreds of Londoners and tourists were watching and cheering on the whale. From The Observer:
It was moved after being placed in a special pontoon near Battersea Bridge.
Alan Knight, from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) which led the rescue operation, said the animal died after it began to convulse while it was still on the barge.
It was quite another, 30 minutes later, one minute before noon, to watch it beached, so obviously distressed. To see its would-be rescuers, up to their necks at times in the Thames, attempting to pat, push, calm, to somehow convey the feeling that there was goodwill from man, while that great tail began to flap so frantically. Were we going to end up with happy children, perfect endings: were we going to free Willy? Or were we going to end up with - there's no great way to put this - two tons of dead blubber?The Telegraph has a nice graphic on how the rescue attempt unfolded. The whale's death is a sad end to a story that has captivated the hearts and minds of Londeners and the world. Gonzo may have died but hopefully its death teaches the world a lesson about how important these animals are. The northern bottlenose whale is an endangered species. We must do our best to protect not only the northern bottlenose whale but also other endangered animals from becoming extinct.
The 16-18ft (5m) northern bottle-nosed whale was spotted early on Saturday in the Battersea area - the furthest upstream it has swum....Meanwhile, a blog has been setup by a PR firm to track the progress of Gonzo. Here's a poem sent to the whale blog by one of their readers. From Lewis PR - Whale Watch:
"The whale is currently in the water, it's very quiet," he said.
"We were not 100% sure it was in Greenwich. The fact that it is in the Battersea area suggests the whale is disoriented. It's not going in any particular direction."
He explained it was "impossible" to tell what the whale's condition is like, but he said Paul Jepson, vet with the Zoological Society of London, saw the whale from a boat and it appeared to have injuries.
Oh Gonzo we feel like we know you,I sure hope Gonzo will be alright. After the dolphins, whales are my next favourite animal. Go Gonzo! Swim out to the ocean! For photos, do take a look at A whale came to The Thames photoset on Flickr. Learn more about the northern bottlenose whale here.
Swim swim as best you can
You know what you have to do
all of London is your fan
Gonzo is in trouble -
we must not let him die
If only we could put him in a bubble
Why Gonzo? Oh why?
'We must save Gonzo' we say,
don't let them fill him with lead
At the end of the day
Gonzo is dead.
"It's a very complex record," says Rose, a surprise guest at Korn's tour announcement bash. (Others in the house: Jessica Alba, cast members of The OC, and members of Linkin Park, Good Charlotte and the Used.) "I'm trying to do something different. Some of the arrangements are kind of like Queen. Some people are going to say, 'It doesn't sound like Axl Rose, it doesn't sound like Guns n' Roses.'" He then smiles and adds, "But you'll like at least a few songs on there....Maybe I should not get too excited. We have heard this before. Every year, we've heard news about the launch of Chinese Democracy but it never happen. Hopefully Axl keeps his word this time around. 10 years is a fucking long wait for an album.
"We're working on thirty-two songs, and twenty-six are nearly done," he says. Of those, thirteen are slated for the final album. Among Rose's favorites are "Better," "There Was a Time" and "The Blues."
And, when he's out of the spotlight, Rose says you'll find him doing average-guy stuff: reading books and watching movies. His favorite book is Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly. "I was a little scared when I saw they were making it into a movie starring Keanu [Reeves]," he says. "But I guess if he can handle The Matrix, he can do this."Here are some GNR goodies from YouTube. Watch some of their great performances by clicking the following links.
"It's a terrible problem. They're like aliens," Noriyuki Kani of the fisheries federation in Toyama, northwest of Tokyo, told Reuters ahead of the conference.Wikipedia has an entry on the giant jellyfish. From Wikipedia:
There are no official figures on the size of the problem, but Kani says the financial losses are obvious.
"If your nets are full of jellyfish, of course there is no space for fish," he said.
Nomura's jellyfish (Stomolophus nomurai) is a very large Japanese jellyfish. Known in Japanese as echizen kurage, it is one of the largest species of jellyfish.
Growing up to 2m wide and weighing up to 200kg, with countless poisonous tentacles, they drift across the waters between China and Japan, causing problems for the local residents. Previously found mainly in the Yellow Sea, the Echizen's sting can be fatal, causing a build-up of fluid in the lungs. Victims can take up to a day to die.
Rice said a sustained study was necessary because Singapore's situation is "roughly analogous" to that of Mexico City, which was devastated by an earthquake in 1985 because it was built on an old lakebed.
"You have extensive areas of marine clays, soft sediments, reclaimed land and you're going to have more," he said.
Singapore should not rely on its experience as a modern nation to think it was immune from the threat of a major earthquake off Sumatra's western coast, Rice said.
The Google Pizza Program rewards hard-working engineering students by allowing them to take a study break on Google. Google ambassadors identify opportunities to order pizza for their computer science peers, most often around project deadlines or exams. The pizza ambassadors are Google's main point of contact, and responsible for making the Google Pizza Program successful at their university.I heard it helps if you love pizza.
A press release from the company on Monday said Boisselier has written to Hwang to outline the proposal. Boisselier said she believed Hwang’s discoveries to be original and that groups opposing stem cell research such as the Catholic Church conspired to undermine Hwang by making it appear as though the scientist concocted his data. She said he had become a victim of a conservative anti-scientific faction, according to the press release.Here is the press release found on Clonaid website. From Clonaid:
It is interesting to do the mental exercise, for just a few seconds, and ask oneself - why would Dr Hwang play with the hope of millions of people who are desperately waiting for stem-cell cure to be available for either themselves or one of their relatives? Why would he declare that he has made these lines, if he wasn't able to do it, knowing that millions are watching him and that he would have to deliver them soon?Clonaid was started by a crazy alien cult known as the Raelians. They claimed to have 60,000 members in almost 100 countries. They also said that Clonaid is the first company that had cloned a human being although they have yet to show any prove.
In the same way, how can people believe that Clonaid's announcement of a cloned child being born was a hoax while thousands of parents-to-be were and are counting on us? Thankfully these parents didn't trust the media and today many of them had their baby...
We at Clonaid, believe that Dr Hwang has cloned human embryos and has the knowledge to develop stem cell lines.
We also believe that, like Dr.Boisselier, he has been discredited as he wasn't in line with what the political and religious powers of this world wanted regarding the cloning technology. It is easier to discredit someone than to believe in his words when he disturbs the establishment....
Dr. Boisselier has offered Dr. Hwang to collaborate in one of Clonaid's laboratories.
Finally, Neale originally asked "Who owns my mp3s when I die?". Even assuming that (1) you obtained your MP3s in violation of copyright law, and (2) you transferred them to your heirs in violation of copyright law, your heirs would still "own" the mp3s until the copyright owner (RIAA) brought suit, won, and convinced a court to impound your harddrive. (RIAA would also need to bring this suit within a few years of your death.) All in all, this seems pretty unlikely to me.(Thanks Tzar)
So the short answer is, "Your heirs will probably own your mp3 collection."
On Saturday, at the International Rubik's Cube competition held at the Exploratorium here, Lo took just 11.13 seconds to set the world record for solving of one of the iconic red, white, blue, green, yellow and red cubes....To watch a video of the world record click here. CNET has a set of photos from the competition.
He explained that the solution he'd chosen--based on algorithms he'd memorized for solving the cube as it was presented to him--ended up not requiring a final step that normally would have added two or three seconds to his time.
If your child or teen has a blog, ideally it would be good if he or she told you the blog's Web address so you could monitor what was being posted and be sure your child isn't posting any personal information or anything else that could be harmful. But the truth is that many kids who have blogs are reluctant to tell their parents because they use the blogs to express themselves in ways that they may not want to share with their parents.
May: Tried to make jelly. Wrong instructions...a litre of hot water won't fit into those little packets!Nasty!!!
June: Tried to go water skiing but couldn't find a lake with a slope.
July: Lost breaststroke swimming competition. Learned later, the other swimmers cheated. They used their arms!
August: Got locked out of my car in rainstorm...car swamped because soft-top was open.
Stardust captured particles from the comet's tail in a tennis-racket sized collection unit made with blocks of aerogel, a strong, lightweight silica glass that is 99.8 percent air and looks like frozen smoke.Stardust will launch its capsule containing the comet particles once it nears Earth's atmosphere. The capsule will then enter our atmosphere and will land in Utah with the help of a parachute. Those who are living in California, Nevada and Utah can see the Stardust capsule burn through the atmosphere. From Desert News:
"The fundamental reason for this mission is that we are collecting what we believe are the best preserved samples of the formation of our solar system and they are preserved because they formed these comet bodies beyond the major planets out beyond Neptune," said principal investigator Don Brownlee of the University of Washington.
It will come in at 29,000 miles per hour, its heat shield creating a long blaze in the dark heavens. For those in the best places, "Stardust's return home will look like a bright, fiery meteor streaking from northwest to southeast," said Patrick Wiggins, NASA solar system ambassador to Utah and Nevada.NASA is also covering the landing on its NASA TV. You can view it online here.
While it should be visible across a large swath of the northwestern United States, its landing state may not be a good place to see it. Wiggins said the best places to see it may be along a line from Elko, Nev., to Wendover. People there may also hear its sonic boom.
Content hosts (websites, blogs, discussion forums etc)
US companies would not be allowed to locate their host servers within repressive countries. If the authorities of a repressive country desire the closure of a publication hosted by a US company, they would have to request it under a procedure supervised by the US judicial authorities. Like search engines, content hosts would not be allowed to incorporate automatic filters that censor “protected” key-words.
Internet censorship technologies
Reporters Without Borders proposes two options :
Option a : US companies would no longer be permitted to sell Internet censorship software to repressive states.
Option b : They would still be able to market this type of software but it will have to incorporate a list of “protected” keywords that are rendered technically impossible to censor.
Wikipedia, which offers more than 2.2 million articles in 100 languages, has emerged as an important source of scholarly knowledge in China and many other countries. But its stubborn neutrality and independence on political issues such as Tibet and Taiwan has repeatedly drawn the wrath of the Communist authorities...
Others said the blocking of Wikipedia has been a major blow to their research projects and even to their prospects of passing civil-service exams. "How can I do my thesis now?" a university student asked on another Chinese website.
Okay, so we “experts” got it half right and half wrong. In addition to the iMac, Apple has finally brought the PowerBook out of the G4 dark ages. Or, wait, has it? I guess Apple has finally put the PowerBook — G4 and all — out of its misery. In its place stands a new laptop with a moniker that could choke a horse, the MacBook Pro. (I guess we’ll all get used to it eventually. I understand the need to get the word Mac into the name of every Mac produced, but… PowerBook was a good name. I’ll miss it.)Apple fans are already excited with the new Intel powered Macs. Those lucky ones who tested the Intel Macs at Macworld Expo said that they are faster than their predecessors. From CNET:
"Yeah, it's faster," said Gove, 21, after testing a MacBook at Macworld. "It connects really fast and the picture is really clear. When you're running multiple programs on other computers it really slows them down. I had a bunch of applications up and it ran smoothly."Tags: macworld, apple
Their study of 1.1 million households across India reveals that in 1997, far fewer girls were born to couples if their preceding child or children were also female. “There was about a 30% gap in second females following the birth of any earlier females,” Jha told New Scientist...
Based “on conservative assumptions” the gap in births equates to about 0.5 million missing female births a year, says the team. Assuming the practice has been common in the two decades since ultrasound became widely available, this adds up to 10 million missing girls.
In Japan, troops and workers tried to clear snow that had piled up to more than three metres high in some of the worst-hit areas of Niigata prefecture and to re-open blocked roads in Nagano prefecture. Both areas are northwest of Tokyo...Ahmad Qisa'i, a blogger in New Delhi says that this year's winter is the coldest he has ever experienced there. From Kuch Bhi Kaho:
In China, cattle have died of the cold in the far western province of Xinjiang and a 42-km section of the Yellow River has frozen over in eastern Shandong, officials and news reports said...
In India, residents of the capital awoke on Sunday to the coldest morning in 70 years with the temperature falling to around freezing point, forcing officials to shut primary schools for 3 days.
Local TV footage showed a thin layer of ice on the grass in parks and on the roofs of cars as people came out for early morning walks.
Based on my own experience, having been in India since October 1996, this year's winter is the coldest winter I have ever experienced so far. Today, Sunday, 8 January 2006, Delhi experienced the coldest morning ever in which the morning temperature recorded at 8.30 AM in the city was 0.2 degree celsius, some few degrees well below the normal 5 to 8 degree celsius. Everyone in Delhi was shivering throughout day and the situation is likely to continue for the next few days. The Delhi government has decided to close the primary school for the next two days, until Wednesday, due this severe cold.Blogger Dave who lives in Miyagi-Ken, Japan, has been seeing a lot of snow since last month. He says that having a lot of snow is a nightmare. From English Man in Miyagi-Ken:
When you have to go out in the snow shopping or to go to work it is a nightmare. Trying to walk through snowy and icy pavements is troublsome and riding a bike on the stuff is extremely dangerous. Yesterday I had to go out and it was snowing but not that heavy. Even so I took my bike and my gosh it was dangerous and I had to really concentrate on my biking. One lapse of concentration could be a dissaster,even braking has to be done right or you slide everywhere.Another Japanese blogger Mayuko who lives in Akita-Ken, is also fed up with all the snow and wishes that it will stop. From Kayano:
The snow on the roof appeared like big mass. It was more than my expectation. My family started to shovel snow, but we couldn’t see the roof until it passed thirty minutes. When we found it difficult to finish in a day, a man came to close the house and started to help clearing snow! I kept working with wondering who he is, and found another man was coming to the house. He climbed the leader and started to clear snow. The other men who I don’t know came one after another. At last, there were totally nine people including my family.Click here for Kayano's photos of the snow that is wrecking havoc in her hometown.
While trying to demonstrate the new Yahoo Go TV, which allows people to access Yahoo content and services through a Windows XP-based PC connected to a TV, the Internet connection failed. Executives tried to ad lib until Semel called his surprise guest, Cruise, to the stage....Ok, back to Tom. Tom Cruise is nuts. Really.
Earlier in the keynote, comedian DeGeneres delivered a humorous shtick about how much trouble she has using technology and making puns about how different the gadgets were at the porn convention down the street. She suggested that e-mail developers enhance spell check to include a sarcasm check and a "24-hour hold on angry e-mails."
The Google Pack offering is positioned as a way for PC users to get common sets of software for fixing problems and protecting compatibility, free of charge. A one-click download lets you continue working while Google Pack installs the Mozilla Firefox browser, Picasa photo management software, Adobe Reader, Google Earth, and numerous PC protection titles. Google worked with the software providers so that the download includes no dialog boxes asking questions, and does not step on any existing software, Page said.Click here for Google Pack.
In other news, Google has forged a partnership with CBS to offer $1.99 downloads of many shows through Google Video. The shows include hit names, such as CSI, Survivor, and Amazing Race, but the deal also extends to making available classic shows, including Star Trek, the Brady Bunch and I Love Lucy. The NBA has also agreed to allow users of Google Video to download any game from Google Video 24 hours after the game finishes. In other Google Video partnerships, Google will start offering ITN historical videos, and music videos from Sony BMG.
Saturn: Usually shines like a yellowish-white "star" of moderate brightness. It will be primarily a late-night/early morning object through much of January. By late January into February it will be visible most of the night and will continue to be a convenient evening object through the middle of July. It is at opposition to the Sun on Jan. 27 and will also have two close encounters with other naked-eye planets in 2006.
It will pass just over one-half degree from a much-dimmer Mars on the evening of June 17 and will lie a similar distance from the much-more dazzling Venus on the morning of Aug. 27. Saturn is located within the relatively dim stars of Cancer, the Crab. On February 2 and again on June 5, Saturn will be situated just below the beautiful cluster of stars popularly known as the "Beehive." The famous ring system is visible in telescopes magnifying over 30-power.
From mid-March until the beginning of May, the rings will be tilted at a 20º angle toward Earth. You should take full advantage of this circumstance, because, we won't see the rings tipped 20º or more to our line of sight again until the year 2014!
(via Gizmodo)Point the SkyScout at any bright star and it will instantly identify the object or choose an object from the celestial database of over 6,000 objects and the SkyScout will guide you to it.
The SkyScout includes great information and stories about the most popular celestial objects in scrolling text and narrated audio...
SkyScout combines GPS technology, which gives the time, date and location of the user, software that calculates the position of the objects for that moment and 3 axis sensors measuring gravitational and magnetic fields to determine the true orientation of the SkyScout to the earth.
Microsoft said in a statement that the decision to unplug Zhao was inline with its practice of "ensuring that products and services comply with global and local laws, norms, and industry practices."So I reckon Microsoft took down Zhao Jing's blog because it is unsafe for Chinese readers? I say that's full of crap! Nice work Microsoft. I'm sure after this act the Chinese government will love you guys more.
"Most countries have laws and practices that require companies providing online services to make the Internet safe for local users," the company said. "Occasionally, as in China, local laws and practices require consideration of unique elements.”
Larger and more dominant males = more stimulation. Hehe. That makes sense.
One possible explanation for the baboon behaviour is that the female is trying to avoid being harassed by other potential suitors while she is mating with a choice male, says lead researcher Stuart Semple of the Institute of Zoology in London.
However, the reason for the spirited shouting may be purely physical. The females could simply be more stimulated by larger, dominant males, says Semple.
PERC cited a report by industry watchdog Freedom House which named China, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam as countries where the press is "not free".PERC also said that it will be interesting to see how the Singapore government reacts to the potential use of the internet by opposition parties and critics during the next elections.
Of the four, the most vulnerable to the political impact of the Internet are China, Vietnam and Malaysia where the governments have taken a stronger stance to censor the Web, it said.
"Precisely because they are so vulnerable, the governments in China and Vietnam will go to the greatest lengths to control the information flows over the Internet and cell phone systems in their countries," PERC said.
It’s one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm. It’s another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger’s work. Yes, I know the consequences. Yes, there are thousands of jobs at stake. Billions of dollars. But, the behavior of my company in this instance is not right....I agree with Scoble on this but it is indeed difficult when you are dealing with a country like China. As much as you do not want your company to help censor political views, the company if it wants to do business in China, has a responsibility to listen to what the Chinese government wants. And we all know what China wants which is to censor those who are opposed to its policies and ruling. Will Scoble's bosses listen? Will they risk the potential of millions and billions in China for the sake of one Chinese blogger? I don't think so.
Oh, and to: Zhao Jing, aka Michael Anti I’d like to offer you a guest blog here on my blog. I won’t censor you and you can write whatever you’d like.
Guys over at MSN: sorry, I don’t agree with your being used as a state-run thug.
Yet these stores, and even resellers largely focused on Sony products here, also almost invariably carry something else: iPods. Frankly, we were surprised at just how much of a presence the iPod family has in Singapore, given Creative’s established position and the continued appearance of cheap devices from comparatively obscure companies...Read the Tokyo and KL reports too.
Gobs of iPods. Stores here have lots of them - at least, nanos and full-sized models. As in Tokyo, where we ultimately saw a total of one person (a child) wearing an iPod shuffle during our travels, the lowest-end iPod appears to be very rare here, both in stores and on the streets. We saw a bunch in Little India’s 24-hour Mustafa Centre, but not elsewhere. Rather, the nano appears to be the inspirational iPod of choice, as we’ve seen a couple of different “win iPod nano” contests sponsored by major stores or restaurants.
"We pay attention to the blogosphere," said Scott Anderson, HP's director of enterprise brand communications, in a talk at the Syndicate conference in San Francisco in December. "Our audience is online. They're having discussions about us and about our competitors, and they're talking about the marketplace. It may be good, and it may be bad, but it's important for us to pay attention to what's being said out there."Tags: blogs, hp
Effectively, Anderson said, HP considers bloggers--especially chief-level executives, journalists and "influencers in our market"--to be valuable filters for what people think about its products and services.
"The blogosphere is a great place for customer intelligence," he said. "Things are happening very fast. Bloggers are considered to be people with real strong opinions. So it's a place where people are being really honest about what they think."
Rooftop of Central Library(Thanks Jimmy)
Sweat-Before-The-Act: 2/10
Ranked as the top make-out spot, the only sweat before your act is probably due to the climb up a short flight of stairs. Then again, if you can't even climb stairs, are you sure you are able to handle the strenuous activities that follow?
All buses stop by the Central Library. Just climb up the short flight of stairs opposite the main entrance and you reach the rooftop! If you like, cool yourself down in the air-conditioned library first.
Sex-tisfaction Factor: 5/10
Some might find it uncomfortable making out on the cold and hard cement floor. It is recommended that you bring your own mattress. In fact, we have uncovered mattresses and used condoms at the rooftop.
Climax-ability: 10/10
Where else in campus allows you to make out under the stars, with a fantastic view of the harbour as backdrop and cool breeze caressing your face? This is the experience we so yearn for, or your money back.
Police aren't sure how else to explain it.(Thanks Lord Kimbo)
But when an officer walked into an apartment Thursday night to answer a 911 call, an orange-and-tan striped cat was lying by a telephone on the living room floor. The cat's owner, Gary Rosheisen, was on the ground near his bed having fallen out of his wheelchair.
Rosheisen said his cat, Tommy, must have hit the right buttons to call 911.
“I was trembling with fear as the creature stared at me,” he said, adding that he did not move for about 15 minutes.A director of the Johor National Parks Corporation hopes that the interest in Bigfoot will lead to a boost in eco-tourism for the state and country. From The Star:
Amir, who initially thought the creature would leave, decided to run when the creature continued to stare at him.
“I did not look back and continued running until I reached my village,” he said, showing a clearing in the jungle where the standoff occurred to some 50 people who took part in an expedition to gather information on the Bigfoot sightings in the state.
The one-day expedition, led by Johor National Parks director Hashim Yusof, comprised park officials and press members.
Johor National Parks Corporation (JNPC) director Hashim Yusof in an interview with a Malay daily said any physical and scientific evidence of Bigfoot’s existence would turn the state’s forest into an attraction for researchers and tourists alike.The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) in the US also carries the news on its website. From BFRO:
However, Hashim said that JNPC was unable to track down Bigfoot due to a shortage of manpower to comb the national park.
“But we are willing to work together with relevant authorities conducting researches on Bigfoot,” he said.
Recent news stories from Malaysia describe giant ape sightings in parts of Johor, on the southern tip of the Malaysian Peninsula.According to the BFRO, Bigfoot sightings are common in the US and Canada. Bigfoot has also been reported in Malaysia, Indonesia, China and Australia.
Bigfoot/giganto sightings in Malaysia are nothing new. The new factor is the government's supportive attitude toward projects to investigate the sightings. That's a first, for any country. Government officials and conservationists with the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) are openly discussing the subject with the national news agency (see articles below).
The MNS is urging people to take the sightings seriously and treat the giant apes as national treasures.
A flying ghost at Changi Hospital, a playful tree spirit at Bedok Reservoir and the ghost of a girl who died at the famous Yellow Tower at...