culture

8 Habits of Blogger who is highly Effective

2011-06-15T16:15:00.000+01:00

A lot of people think that is easy to be a blogger but there is nothing easy writing is taking times which we need to be with our family and our friends,
there are some people start blogging but after a few months are given up so fast why because they didn't want to be successfuls or don't have the habits and the techniques.
so enjoy this article and have a nice time in this blog.

Do you want to be a successful blogger?
I do. I might be getting a bit obsessed with it, actually.
Post ideas pop into my head unexpectedly. I keep a long running list of ideas for improving my blog.
I also study how the most successful bloggers got where they are, and I pore over every word that they write.
If you want to be a great blogger, you should, too.
A lot of the top bloggers like Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, and Leo
Babauta have shared hundreds of tips about how they made their blogs so successful. But each blogger’s tips are just a little different.

There’s too much advice to follow

So I would read one special report with a great idea and put that into place on my blog. But the next day I’d find a podcast from another top blogger with contradictory advice, so I’d change my blog again. Then I’d come across a third idea from an equally successful blogger, which sent me down a totally new path.
Finally I realized I needed to stop focusing on little things like what plug-ins to use, how to write my About Page, or where to position my ads.
I needed to focus on a bigger picture. I wanted to find out what all these top bloggers had in common. Their mindset, their mental habits.
I spent a lot of time observing, which led to this list of the eight success traits shared by all top bloggers I’ve found. I’m happy to share it with you.
The good news is that even if you don’t have all these personality traits already, most of them can be developed over time. Best of all, if you can cultivate these traits, you’ll become more effective in the rest of your life as well.

1. Effective bloggers are prolific

The first key to being a successful blogger is to write. A lot.
The more you write, the better your writing gets. The more posts you add to your blog, the more juice you’ll get from search engines. And more content means more reader visits to see what’s new.
There’s no way around it; it takes work to be prolific. Effective bloggers work hard. Putting a successful blog together requires a lot of time in front of your computer, and not surfing LOLCats or Twittering about what you had for lunch. Great bloggers put serious time into researching, writing, editing, and planning posts for their blogs.

2. Effective bloggers are concise

It is a truth universally acknowledged by top bloggers; people come to your blog for a reason. Usually because they want to learn something from you.
No one wants to read fluff or blather, especially online.
Top bloggers know how to quickly get people’s attention, how to keep it, and how to make their posts easy to digest.
Most effective bloggers tend toward short posts. They also divide their copy into short paragraphs, and use bullet points or numbered lists to keep the reader scanning. They use compelling subheads so readers can scan for the information they need.
Brevity comes in handy in other areas of life, too. Keep your phone calls short. Pare your email messages down to the essentials. You’ll have more time for creative work, and people will be much more interested in what you have to say.

3. Effective bloggers are analytical

Successful bloggers don’t work or live in a bubble.
They always look to their readers, observing carefully to see what readers care about and respond to.
They study their statistics, so they know where readers come from — what sites, what search engines, what search terms, and even what countries.
They know when they tend to get the most traffic, what kinds of posts are best suited for their audience, and what kinds of headlines get tweeted most often.
Then they tailor the timing, content, layout, and images of their posts to suit their audience.

4. Effective bloggers are lifelong learners

If you’re new to blogging, you’re probably on a steep learning curve at the moment.
Maybe you tell yourself that things will get better when you’ve been doing it longer. There won’t be so much to learn. You’ll have systems in place soon and everything will run smoothly.
Sadly, I think this is a myth. I’ve been using and designing for the Internet for about 15 years, and it keeps changing. Just when you’ve got one element sorted out, something new gets released. Or becomes obsolete. Or mutates in 20 different directions.
If you want to stay ahead in blogging, you have to keep learning.
Fortunately, being curious and wanting to learn keeps you young and your brain active. A love of learning doesn’t just set you up for a successful blog, but for a successful and happy life.

5. Effective bloggers are focused and consistent

Successful bloggers choose a topic and stick to it.
They write consistently about their chosen subject, and with a consistent voice and approach. Even when they write about something that seems to be off-topic, they relate it back to the niche they know their readers are interested in.
Top bloggers are also consistent about timing. Most stick to regular posting schedules. Whether they post three posts a day or two posts a week, their readers know what to expect.

6. Effective bloggers plan ahead

Successful bloggers know where they’re going. They have a master plan and they stick to it. Yes, they adapt based on feedback, but always in service of a vision.
To paraphrase Seth Godin’s recent book Linchpin, “Effective bloggers ship.” Top bloggers don’t waffle for months about the typeface on their upcoming ebook. They may tailor the angle, price, or format to better suit their market. But they don’t let themselves get derailed. They follow the plan.

7. Effective bloggers are persistent

Top bloggers understand that success doesn’t happen overnight. Real success rarely happens quickly.
Time is on your side. To get to the top takes consistency, hard work, serious study, and lots of persistence. Successful bloggers don’t give up.

8. Effective bloggers are self-starters

I’ve been self-employed for years.
I’ve noticed a lot of people like the idea of working from home, working for themselves, being their own boss. But if you want these things, you need to be able to manage yourself.
No one is going to sack you if you’re late. No one reminds you of important deadlines or nags you to get your sales numbers up.
If you want to be a successful blogger, you need to be a self-starter. It’s not enough to have good ideas. You have to act on them.

What trait do you think is most valuable?

What do you think the most important trait of a top blogger is? It might be one of these eight, or something completely different. Let us know in the comments!
About the Author: Annabel Candy is a travel fiend who currently calls Australia home. She has travelled widely and writes a personal improvement blog called Get in the Hot Spot. It’s stuffed with inspiration and tips to help people live their dreams.

Is Facebook growth stalling in North America?

2011-06-14T18:45:00.000+01:00

facebook

is the second site in the world after google it has the largest people in the social networks and always we listen new topic about this site and seriously it is a succes story of the net.

Data from blog Inside Facebook says the social-networking site is losing active users in the United States.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Inside Facebook says the site keeps growing, but is losing active users in U.S., Canada
Data says Facebook lost 6 million active users in the United States in May
Site keeps growing thanks to adoption in big countries like Brazil, Mexico, India

(CNN) -- Facebook, the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of the social-media world, continues to grow, steaming toward 700 million registered users. But has the site tapped out its potential in America?
The site lost more than 7 million active users in the United States and Canada last month, according to data from Inside Facebook, a blog that tracks the site and its development platform.
Mexico, where Facebook use started later than in the other two, added about 1 million users, according to Inside Facebook's data service. But Facebook's slowing growth in North America raises the question of whether the site has finally found all the users it can in places where it's been around for a while.
Last month was the first time the United States had lost active users in a year, Inside Facebook said, while ups and downs have been more volatile in Canada.
Facebook is questioning the accuracy of the data.
"From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions," said a statement Monday from a Facebook spokesperson. "Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn't designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook.
"We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook on any given day."
Facebook reached 687 million users at the beginning of June, according to the stats. But its growth rates appear to be slowing. Facebook gained 11.8 million active montly users in May, compared to 13.9 million in April. More than 20 million users were added during every month last year.
The United Kingdom, Norway and Russia, other countries where Facebook was adapted relatively early in its existence, each dropped by about 100,000 active users in May.
Still, expansion continues as Facebook focuses globally. Major population centers like Brazil, India and Argentina all saw growth of more than 5 percent in May, with Brazil leading the way, jumping from about 17 million users to about 19 million.
Inside Facebook acknowledged that seasonal changes such as college graduation, bugs in the Facebook advertising software or other one-time anomalies can affect data.
But the report does raise questions, they said.
"[B]y the time Facebook reaches around 50% of the total population in a given country (plus or minus, depending on internet access rates in that country), growth generally slows to a halt, as we've noted before," read the post, by Eric Eldon.
"So far, Facebook has been able to make up stalls and losses with big gains in heavily-populated developing countries like Mexico, Brazil, India and Indonesia."

Moving into China would be one way to insure its goal of reaching 1 billion active users, Eldon wrote. But agreeing to the terms that likely would come from the country's Communist regime might also hurt Facebook's popularity back home.

if you catch a hacker what you will do?

2011-06-14T18:31:00.000+01:00

the united states catch hackers

For starters, if you work with the FBI, don't expect to get any credit or a public thank you. This case involved a man who hacked into his neighbor's Wi-Fi and attempted to frame his neighbor, a lawyer, by e-mailing child porn to the neighbor's co-workers as well as sending threats to elected officials.
Johnson, a private IT contractor with over 30 years experience, recounts: "In the beginning of the case I was hired by the neighbor's law firm to find out if he [the innocent neighbor] was the one to blame. There had been a couple of emails sent out at this point and if he had flipped out, the law firm wanted to cut ties with him as fast as possible. I was able to quickly prove that it was not likely the partner in the law firm sending the emails. I also saw that whomever was doing this was also making some fairly big mistakes. If they continued down this path I would have a good chance to catch them. We also had a great honey pot at this time since the hacker felt comfortable using this connection to send the emails."
Because the hacker seemed to want to get the neighbor into trouble, Johnson didn't stop the activity immediately. "If we had locked things down at this point the hacker probably would have tried other ways to get at him and the chances of nailing him would be greatly minimized so I proposed watching the traffic for a while." Johnson says that the FBI agents weren't happy at that thought and let Johnson know, he says. After an unpleasant exchange with the agents, Johnson began to realize that they didn't understand networking technology well enough to understand how Johnson was proposing to catch the hacker. "What I did wasn't rocket science, anyone that understands how information travels from point A to B could have done what I did."
The honeypot method was successful, and the hacker was arrested and later, indicted. Johnson offered to help the FBI with more cases. He didn't get the open-armed response he had hoped for and a conversation with the agents lead him to believe that the FBI was rejecting his offer to become a contractor because he was older than 40.
Johnson said, "You don't, and can't, get my level of knowledge in college or classes. You get it over a long period of time working with the systems."
The experience left him feeling that the FBI Department of Cyberterrorism isn't prepared to do its part to prevent a sophisticated cyber attack. "When I hear about our power plants, the military, and NASA getting hacked I'm not surprised whatsoever," he says. "They can write up success after success because these people are typically not that sophisticated and the data is easily gathered with the pre-canned utilities that they have been provided and trained on."
Johnson also notes that he wasn't mentioned in the FBI press release and felt the lack of public acknowledgement for the part he played was a "slap in the face." He now feels that he should speak out and express his concerns that the Cyberterrorism unit isn't staffed with a high enough level of expertise in the hope that the situation will improve. "We need seasoned IT pros to protect us and the really good people work in the private sector. They need to find a way to tap into the experts that have the knowledge to protect us."
After conversing with Johnson, I came to believe that working with the FBI to catch a hacker is not all sunshine and chocolate roses. When we contacted the public affairs officer listed on one of the press releases involving this case, Jeanne Cooney from the U.S. Attorney's Office responded, "The FBI is a federal investigative agency. When they find evidence of federal criminal wrongdoing, they refer the case to us for prosecution. Even though we are not the investigative agency, I can tell you that federal law enforcement (the FBI and our office among them) are prohibited from talking about the details of any investigation, including who made or might of made statements."

8 People Who Are Seriously Obsessed

2011-06-14T16:20:00.002+01:00

Mad Max

Adrian Bennett may not own as much movie memorabilia as other obsessive fans, but he makes up for it by his dedication to the film. Where most fans will simply collect merchandise associated with whatever their topic of interest happens to be, Adrian took things a step further. He not only built his own custom Mad Max mobile that is exactly like the one featured in the film, but he even moved his family out of the UK and into a tiny Australian town so he could feel closer to the character he loves. Now that's dedication.
Since moving, he's built a few more Mad Max vehicles and opened his own museum dedicated to the film.

(Link | Photo)

Harry Potter

What does it take to become the World's Biggest Harry Potter Fan? Just ask the boy who has dubbed himself with said title. His house is filled with Harry Potter junk, he's read the books over 100 times, he speaks and looks like Harry Potter -he even got a tattoo of J.K. Rowling's signature.
(Link)

Shoes

My Strange Addiction guest Rebecca might not have the world's largest collection of shoes (that honor goes to Former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos), but her obsession is certainly enough to get her in this list. Unlike Mrs. Marcos, Rebecca has deep feelings for each of her 200 pairs of shoes, going so far to worry about them while she's away from home and calling them her “babies.” Her shoes even got in the way of her upcoming wedding when she couldn't afford to save for the big day because she couldn't stop buying more shoes. (Link)

Big Macs

Unlike most people on this list, Don Gorske doesn't express his love for something through a giant collection. He obsesses through consumption. You might recognize Don from the movie Super Size Me, but since then, Don has continued his routine of eating two Big Macs every day for 39 years, keeping a receipt for every one. In fact, he recently enjoyed his 25,000th Big Mac.
If you're wondering why Don isn't obese, it largely comes down to the fact that he doesn't order anything with his sandwiches. Without fries and cola, two Big Macs provide only 1,080 calories and since that's 90% of what Don eats, it's easy to see how he stays so thin. (Link | Photo)

Star Wars Toys

There are so many criteria for being the World's Biggest Star Wars fan that include number of conventions visited, number of times seeing the movie, etc. While it's hard to definitively claim that Rob Foster is the biggest Star Wars fan in the world, as the owner of the largest Star Wars toy collection, he's certainly a serious contender. Foster owns almost every single Star Wars toy released since 1977 and while he doesn't say how many toys he owns in total, he estimates that he has over 2,800 3 3/4 inch action figures alone. (Link | Photo)

Mario Toys

Brett Martin loves Nintendo, and not just their games. He loves the characters from video games so much that he owns over 10,000 toys depicting Link, Mario, Donkey Kong and other classic characters. In order to help share his obsession with the world (and to help thin out his collection by selling a few pieces), he even set up his own website, The Videogame Memorabilia Website, where he shares all new additions to his collection and offers users the opportunity to buy some of his rare memorabilia. (Link | Via)

Snow Globes

Josef Kardinal owns more snow globes than anyone on Earth. In fact, he has over 8,000 now and has no intention to stop collecting any time soon. You can find a small sampling of his collection on his website, but be warned, the text is all in German. (Link | Via)

Santa Dolls

It's pretty easy to guess what Sharon Badgley's favorite holiday is. With her collection of more than 6,000 Santa Claus dolls, Sharon takes over 3 weeks to put all of her toys out on display before Christmas. (Link)

7 Unbelievable Lottery Winners' Stories

2011-06-14T16:19:00.002+01:00

He escaped from a derailed train, a door-less plane, a bus crash, a car into flames, another 2 car accidents... then won a million dollar lottery

Here's the story of how the world's unluckiest man turned his fate upside down. Frane Selak, born in 1929, is a Croatian music teacher who used to be famous for his numerous escapes from fatal accidents:

In January, 1962, Selak was traveling via train from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik. However, the train had suddenly derailed and plunged into an icy river, killing 17 passengers. Selak managed to escape, and only suffered a broken arm and minor scrapes and bruises.
The following year, while traveling from Zagreb to Rijeka when the door blew away from the cockpit, forcing him out of the plane. Although 19 others were killed, he suffered only minor injuries and had miraculously landed in a haystack.
In 1966, he was riding on a bus that crashed and plunged into a river. Four others were killed, but Selak managed to escape unharmed.
In 1970, he managed to escape before a faulty fuel pump engulfed his car into flames.
In 1973, another of Selak's cars caught fire, forcing fire through the air vents. He suffered no injuries save the loss of most of his hair.
In 1995, he was hit by a city bus, but once again suffered minor injuries.
In 1996 he escaped when he drove off a cliff to escape an oncoming truck. He managed to land in a tree, and watched as his car exploded 300 feet below him.

But then, in 2003, the heavens seemed to review his case: he won $1,000,000 dollars in the Croatian lottery!

"I know God was watching me over all these years." he said, and has reputedly refused to fly to Australia to air on a Doritos commercial, saying he "didn't want to test his luck." Frane also said that he can either be looked as "the world's unluckiest man, or the world's luckiest man," and prefers the latter.

Woman googles husband, finds he won the lottery but never told her

On 2007, Donna Campbell became suspicious of her husband, Arnim Ramdass, when he started to keep the television turned off and disconnected the phone line. Her suspicions rose when she found a postcard about a new home purchase.

But Campbell was unaware that her husband was hiding a $10.2 million secret from her until she Googled her husband's name and lottery number. She found a Florida lottery press release that named 17 airline mechanics who won the jackpot, her husband was one of them.

The group of mechanics opted for the lump-sum payment of $10.2 million, meaning each of the 17 winners would receive about $600,000 before taxes. Since the winning, Ramdass took a leave of absence from work, according to his co-workers. He hasn't shown up at the couple's home and servers can't find him to hand him the lawsuit papers: she wants half the money and out of the marriage.

Doubled his share of the jackpot... by mistake!

When Derek Ladner next suffers from absent mindedness, he may think twice before cursing his poor memory. For the 57-year-old's forgetfulness has landed him an amazing double lottery win.

He and his wife Dawn were elated when their six regular numbers came up on the midweek draw on 2007. They were quick to claim their £479,142 share of the £2,395,710 jackpot split between five winners. But, incredibly, a week later Mr Ladner remembered he had bought another ticket with the same numbers for the same draw.

That gave him two of the five shares of the jackpot on July 11, doubling his winnings to £958,284. A spokesman for lottery operator Camelot said it was the first time a player had won twice in the same draw! Mr Ladner's forgetfulness cost the other three winners almost £120,000 each. Had he not bought the extra ticket, they would have split the jackpot four ways instead of five and won £598,927 a person.

Run over by a truck, hours after his win

On 22 January 2004, 73-year-old Carl Atwood of Elwood, Indiana, who won $73,450 in an Indiana lottery game taped for television, died scant hours later. He was knocked down by a truck and expired shortly thereafter in an Indianapolis hospital.

That evening he had been walking to the grocery store that had sold him a winning ticket when a pickup truck rounded a corner and struck him. (The store was located one block from his home.) "It was at an unlighted intersection, and Mr. Atwood had dark clothing on, so the driver did not see him before he hit him," Elwood Police Chief Toby R. Barker said.

Won $16.2 million... got sued by everyone, went broke and died

William "Bud" Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 but now lives on his Social Security. "I wish it never happened. It was totally a nightmare," says Post.

A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a share of his winnings. It wasn't his only lawsuit. A brother was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him, hoping to inherit a share of the winnings. Other siblings pestered him until he agreed to invest in a car business and a restaurant in Sarasota, Fla., - two ventures that brought no money back and further strained his relationship with his siblings. Post even spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of a bill collector. Within a year, he was $1 million in debt.

Post admitted he was both careless and foolish, trying to please his family. He eventually declared bankruptcy. Now he lives quietly on $450 a month and food stamps. "I'm tired, I'm over 65 years old, and I just had a serious operation for a heart aneurysm. Lotteries don't mean (anything) to me," said Post. He died on Jan 15 of respiratory failure.

Won the lottery twice after a dream

Many successful lottery entrants have said their winning combinations came to them in dreams; that they awoke with five or six numbers dancing in their heads, jotted the combinations down, played them, and won. Sometimes the dreamed-of numbers paid off right away, and sometimes the dreamers played those combinations for years before hitting the jackpot. So, that 86-year-old Mary Wollens of Toronto won the Ontario Lottery on 30 September 2006 after seeing "a lotto ticket and a large cheque" in a dream a couple of days before the drawing wasn't all that

unusual — the remarkable part was that her prophetic dream enabled her to win the same lottery twice.

You see, Mary had already purchased a lottery ticket with the combination she later dreamed about, but her vision instilled her with such confidence that she went out and bought a second ticket with those same numbers. Now, some people would consider purchasing a duplicate ticket be a foolish waste of money (because if your numbers lose, you're needlessly out an extra dollar, and even if you hit the big jackpot, you don't necessarily get any extra credit for winning twice), but not Mary — and good thing, too, because she happened onto one of those occasions when having a second ticket paid off big.

As things turned out, someone else had also correctly picked all six numbers for that week's draw, so instead of having to split the $24 million jackpot evenly with another winner, Mary was able to claim a two-thirds share and take home $16 million!

Committed suicide because he mistakenly believed his lotto numbers had come up the one week he didn't play them

In April 1995 Timothy O'Brien committed suicide by shooting himself in the head because his half-share of a five-week ticket on Britain's (then) new National Lottery had expired just before the draw he thought would have made him a multi-millionaire.

The truth is, even if he'd held a valid ticket for his usual numbers, O'Brien wouldn't have won. The numbers that came up would have entitled the ticketholders to a prize of 47 pounds, not the 3.2 million he thought he and his partner had missed out on. And why? Because only four of the six numbers matched those drawn.

8 Craziest Ways to Quit a Job

2011-06-14T16:18:00.000+01:00

The Flight Attendant who quit on a plane and left using the emergency slide

Steven Slater, a flight attendant from JetBlue airliner, got into an argument with a passenger during boarding at a Pittsburgh airport. He finally had enough of his job, quit, and opened the emergency slide on the plane in order to leave. He grabbed the intercom and said: “To the passenger who called me a mother ——, —- you. I've been in the business 28 years. I've had it. That's it.” Mr Slater then activated the emergency exit and slid down the inflatable slide on to the tarmac. He then boarded a train to the terminal, stripping off his tie and discarding it to the astonishment of bemused onlookers. Slater was later arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.

(Link | Via)

The man who quit his job with a resignation letter written on a cake

Neil Berrett gave a two week's notice of his intent to resign. The letter was written in frosting on a full sheet size cake. The cake was delicious and it was well received.

"Dear Mr. Bowers,
During the past three years, my tenure at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard has been nothing short of pure excitement, joy and whim. However, I have decided to spend more time with my family and attend to health issues that have recently arisen. I am proud to have been part of such an outstanding team and I wish this organization only the finest in future endeavors.
Please accept this cake as notification that I am leaving my position with NWT on March 27.
Sincerely,
W. Neil Berrett"

He later submitted a paper resignation letter since it would be hard to file the cake away. (Link)

The girl who quit her job on dry erase board and emailed it to the entire office

On a Monday morning, a girl named Jenny quit her job with a (flash) bang by emailing these photos to the entire office. Awesome doesn't begin to describe this office heroine. In the board she thanks everyone, except her boss. Hilarious.

Note: our readers wrote to us to let us know that this was a hoax from the guys at theCHIVE.com. The girl who supposedly quit her job actually is a model /actress named Elyse Porterfield. Nice one! (Link 1 | Link 2)

The guy who quit his job with a melodramatic act at the cafeteria

Maybe no one cared or even met the guy, but this is a hell of a cool way to quit.

NOTE: the man in the video is Doug Walker and he currently runs a website called www.thatguywiththeglasses.com with his brother Rob Walker, and they help run the meida company Channel Awesome with friends Mike Michaud, Mike Ellis, and Bhargav Dronamraju. Doug's most popular character is the Nostalgia Critic and his website currently has picked up around 40 contributers since April 2008.

The programmer who resigned with a Super Mario Resignation Game he developed for the occasion

If you have ever sweated and worried over writing and handing in a resignation letter, then the latest 'Super Mario resignation game' created by a games dev over at 2K Games is sure to inspire and entertain in equal measure. The Australia-based games dev didn't want to do the boring old 'writing a meaningless letter' thing to tell his boss and colleagues he was throwing in the towel to try his luck in the world of independent game development. Instead, Jarrad Woods' announced his resignation in style, with a slightly reworked version of Super Mario Bros mashed up with his own title Polychromatic Funk Monkey.You can play Wood's resignation game yourself, directing Mario over those familiar blocks to the end of the level where a flashing "I QUIT" sign pops up. (Link | Via)

The designer who left a note on his computer at the office

Apparently this is a real resignation from a designer who left this note on his desktop. According to somebody who allegedly knew what was going on, he believed he was in a temp-to-hire position, and after three months of extra hours and butt-kissing, turns out it's just a temp position. He was a good worker too. I'd have recommended him. Too bad he burned his bridges. (Link | Via)

The CEO who resigned on Twitter in Haiku

When you're on your way out of a job, there's a lot of fun ways to exit. This guy decided to tweet out a haiku. That's exactly what Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz did tonight. Here's his tweet : Today's my last day at Sun. I'll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a #haiku. Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more.

Schwartz had been serving as Sun's CEO since 2006; prior to that he was the company's COO. It has been known that he would resign for several days now following Sun's sale to Oracle, which the EU just approved. Schwartz has always enjoyed this type of public discourse, as he continued to blog in a time when very few CEOs would dare do such a thing. His latest post was on January 27, describing what he'd be doing next. (Link | Via)

The guy who sent a resignation video – of himself naked

The guy who made this video wins the award for weirdest way to quit, with a video that combines Star Wars, a desire to have sex with everyone, and himself naked.

8 Unbelievable iPod Stories

2011-06-14T16:15:00.002+01:00

The girl who survived a lightning strike after the wire of her iPod diverted 300,000 volts

A teenage girl survived a terrifying lightning strike after she was saved by the wire of her iPod.
Schoolgirl Sophie Frost and her boyfriend Mason Billington, both 14, stopped to shelter under a tree when a storm struck as they were walking near their homes. Doctors believe Sophie survived the 300,000-volt surge only because it travelled through the gadget's wire, diverting it away from her vital organs. The teenager was taken to hospital and is recovering from burns to her chest and legs while Mason suffered damage to his eyes. Sophie will be thankful she was wearing her iPod, which she had been given four days earlier as a gift from her grandmother. Sophie and Mason were knocked unconscious by the lightning bolt while holding hands and taking shelter in a field. Mason came round and carried Sophie, who was scorched and unconscious, to a nearby road where he flagged down a female motorist who took the couple to Southend hospital. Sophie suffered burns to her body and legs, some temporary damage to her eyes and a perforated eardrum.

(Link)

The soldier who was saved from an AK-47 attack thanks to his iPod

Kevin Garrad (3rd Infantry Division) was on a street patrol in Iraq and as he rounded the corner of a building an armed (AK-47) insurgent came from the other side. The two of them were within just a few feet of each other when they opened fire. The insurgent was killed and Kevin was hit in the left chest where his IPod was in his jacket pocket. It slowed the bullet down enough that it did not completely penetrate his body armor. The iPod in question was an older and thicker 20GB model, that had been previously manufactured and distributed by HP. The thickness of this model most likely served a big part in slowing down the bullet. Fortunately, Kevin suffered no wound.

Note: according to some sources the iPod did not actually save the soldier's life - it was in fact the vest he was wearing. (Link | Via)

The teacher who got his neck broken by two students after he confiscated their iPod

Two students accused of attacking a teacher in a hallway of Germantown High School are now behind bars. The attack happened after 60-year-old Frank Burd confiscated an iPod from one of the students who was using it in class. The 14-year-old returned later with an 11th grader.
The teens allegedly pushed Burd, who struck his head on a locker. Schools CEO Paul Vallas said Burd broke his neck in two places. He was taken to Einstein Medical Center, but showed no sign of paralysis. The confrontation was caught on videotape. School officials were able to use the tape to immediately identify the students. 17-year-old Donte Boykin was taken to Northwest Detectives in handcuffs shortly after arresting the 14-year-old. Burd, a popular math and photography teacher, was sent to Einstein Medical Center for recovery. (Link 1 | Link 2)

The pair who was arrested for trying to trade iPod Touch and Marijuana for iPad on Craigslist

Police arrested two men in Arizona for attempting to trade a third generation iPod touch and about seven grams worth of marijuana for a 32G iPad via an ad on Craigslist. After receiving a tip about the ad, which included photos of both the iPod touch and marijuana, police officers sent an e-mail purporting to be interested in the exchange. When the police met up under the pretense of completing the trade, 20-year-old Jacob Walker and Jacob Veldare were instead arrested when Walker offered up the marijuana. Both now face charges for possession and the attempted sale of an illegal substance. Not only were the two unwise enough to post pictures of marijuana on Craiglist, but they were also gullible enough to believe that anyone would trade a 32G iPad, which costs $599, for a $299 32G iPod touch and a quarter ounce of marijuana of dubious quality. (Link)

The sub navigator who caused a £60m ship crash because he got distracted with iPod

The navigator of a US nuclear submarine was listening to his iPod when it collided with another ship, causing £60m damage. Crew on board of the attacked sub USS Hartford had also rigged up loudspeakers so they could listen to music on duty. Captain Commander Ryan Brookhart was relieved of his duties after the investigation revealed nearly '30 tactical and watchstander errors' which led to the 'avoidable accident'. The navigator was also revealed to have been revising for an exam at the time of the collision. Fifteen sailors on board the USS Hartford were injured when it rammed into the transport ship USS New Orleans in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage in the Persian Gulf in March 2009. The US Navy report slammed the Hartford's 'ineffective and negligent command leadership' and its 'informal atmosphere'. The damaged sub will cost £57m in repairs, while the USS New Orleans, which 'bears no fault' needs £1.5m. (Link)

The man who found a one-year-old frozen iPod still alive

Andrew Robulack, a resident of Whitehorse, Yukon, found an iPod Classic emerging from a block of ice while he was taking a walk. At first, he mistook it with a piece of canine excrement, a common thing in Whitehorse this time of year, as he gladly informs us. But then he noticed that the unidentified frozen object had a familiar rectangular shape. Obviously, he got the frozen iPod out of the ice in which he thinks it had been laying “since early winter” and took it home to see whether it still worked. Incredibly, after only a few minutes of charging, the player booted up and seemed in full operating order. Of course, it needed some cleaning, but it even displayed the correct date. After the mud was wiped out, the iPod revealed that the only damages were a few scratches and some condensation under the screen; otherwise, it worked just fine. (Link | Via)

The Tokyo subway train that was delayed because of an iPod fire

In August 2010, an unidentified, malfunctioning iPod brought a Tokyo subway train to a halt for several minutes during rush hour in western Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, 17 km (10.5 miles) from the capital's centre. Passengers started complaining about a burning smell, forcing the train to come to a halt while officials went searching for the source. A female passenger then came forward to show that her iPod had burst apart after overheating. The train was delayed for 8 minutes while the stench cleared. For the busy train line, which serves over 1 million commuters daily, that's an extremely rare delay -- the average delay for a train is a scant 20 seconds for some Japanese railways. Apple has described the problem as rare, and attributable to a single battery supplier. (Link)

The girl who almost got injured after her iPod exploded

Ken Stanborough, 47, from Liverpool, had to drop his 11-year-old daughter Ellie's iPod Touch after he started hearing a hissing noise and felt it was getting hotter. After throwing the device out of his back door, within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10 ft in the air. According to Mr Stanborough, Apple attempted to silence him and his daughter with a gagging order, offering a refund, only if he agreed to keep it quiet. A number of bloggers have reported cases where iPods have exploded — usually involving older versions of the digital music players. (Link)

10 Bizarre Business Ideas that Made Millionaires

2011-06-14T16:14:00.000+01:00

The married man who created an affair website for married people

Ashleymadison.com is a dating website with a difference; it only accepts married people, or someone wanting to date a married person. The site's slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair". The site founder is a former attorney Noel Biderman, who is interestingly a happily married man. Although his mission can be perceived as very wrong (for the record: cheating is bad!), the fact that the site claims 3.2 million members suggests that it's also doing something right.

(Link | Via)

The man who created a million dollar business of dog poop-scooping

The most noted pioneer in the poop-scooping business is Matthew Osborn, who runs Pooper-Scooper.com. He never knew that this business would one day make him a millionaire. Osborn got started back in 1987 when he opened Pet Butler in Columbus, Ohio. At the time, Osborn was working two full-time jobs and making less than $6 per hour at each. He had a wife, a daughter and a son on the way, and was desperate to make some extra money. He learned that there were about 100,000 dogs within 15 miles of his home. The business slowly took off, and despite the dirty work, Osborn says he enjoyed satisfying the customers and working outdoors in some of the nicest backyards in Ohio. Eventually Osborn employed seven people and owned a fleet of six trucks serving about 700 regular customers. While Osborn may have put poop scooping on the map, Matt "Red" Boswell is taking it into the future. Boswell owns the Texas-based Pet Butler. Today, Pet Butler is the largest pet waste removal service in the country, and serves about 3,000 clients. (Link | Via)

The teenager kid who made millions selling jam out of his grandmother's recipe

While most successful entrepreneurs make their money building popular Web sites, Fraser Doherty built his empire using a more traditional way. Fraser started making jams at the age of 14 from his grandmother's recipes in his parents' Scotland kitchen, and by 16 left school to work on his jam business SuperJam full-time. SuperJam sells around 500,000 jars a year, which currently has around 10 percent of UK jam market. Doherty's stake is now worth $1 to 2 million. (Link)

The company who made a fortune selling goggles for dogs

Eyewear for a pet dog? Sounds pretty dumb doesn't it? But not if someone actually starts manufacturing them and turns them into a million dollar business. The business has received attention and coverage from CNN, Women's World, People, Regis and Kelly, National Geographic and Animal Planet. Starting off with goggles, they have now expanded their business into a host of other accessories for their animals which include Backpacks, Flotation Jackets, T Shirts, Caps, and Toys. (Link | Via)

The man who became a millionaire producing plastic wishbones

Who would ever think that there would be a market for fake plastic wishbones? Well… there is! Ken Ahroni was frustrated that every year only two people got to make a wish around the Thanksgiving table. So he decided to create LuckyBreak, a company that would make synthetic wishbones with the sound and feel of real dried turkey wishbones. Now the company makes 30,000 wishbones a day, selling custom-designed, imprinted units for personal, corporate and promotional use. Their sales are over $2.5 Million per year. (Link)

The housewife who invented a microwaveable pillow

Kim Levine, invented Wuvit, little bags that come in various patterns and provide soothing penetrating moist heat. Kim realized that if she put some corn in cloth, sewed it together and then put it in the microwave; a warm relaxing pillow would be created. She rushed to create the simple product idea with her sewing machine and her multi-million dollar empire was born! Initially, Kim thought the Wuvit® concept would just be great gift for her kids and for people in her local area. But soon she realized her idea had huge potential. When local parents started calling her in the middle of the night asking for another soothing pillow because their kids could not sleep without the Wuvit®, she knew she had a fabulous opportunity. She started going to local retailers and craft shows, and then eventually got a major break when Saks Department Store decided to put the Wuvit® products in their stores! Now she's a millionaire and has even written a book about her retail endeavors! (Link | Via)

The guy who sold pixels at a webpage for $1 Million

Back in 2005, a 21-year-old student in England named Alex Tew launched The Million Dollar Homepage, through which he sold the pixels of a 1000×1000 grid for $1 each. Although it was an extremely simple idea, the unique project attracted enormous amounts of press coverage, and eventually earned $1,037,100 in a matter of months - the final slot on the page went for $38,100. It also spawned countless copycat websites that virtually all failed, since the idea was no longer novel. (Link)

The guy who created a company that provides excuse letters to miss work

Do you need an excuse to miss work? A company has launched an excuse absence network service for U.S. employees and students which offers a load of excuses you can use to be absent from work. The Excused Absence Network provides all your excuse letter needs for just $25 per excuse note. These can be notes which appear to come from professional doctor or hospital and even fake jury summons and authentic-looking funeral service program with poems and pallbearers. The founder started the business for $300 and currently runs it off a laptop in a small Oklahoma town. The site gets about 15,000 hits a month. (Link | Via)

The monks who sell over 2,5 million in printer cartridge

Father Bernard McCoy is CEO of LaserMonks.com, an Internet retailer that sells discounted printer cartridges and other office supplies. Customers include individuals and churches, along with giants such as Morgan Stanley (Research) and the U.S. Forest Service. It's a lucrative business. Sales have risen from $2,000 in 2002, the company's first full year of operation, to around $2.5 million in 2005. The idea for LaserMonks.com came to Father McCoy one day when his printer ran out of ink. He shopped around for a new ink cartridge but couldn't find one that was reasonably priced. In the beginning LaserMonks.com consisted of a few monks sitting around with black powder and empty plastic cartridges, filling a few orders a day. Today the monks say they have served more than 50,000 customers, and they process 200 to 300 daily orders for a broad range of school and office supplies. (Link | Via)

The girl who made a 1.5 million fortune by offering MySpace layouts

A teenage girl who had a flair for the creative set up a site called WhateverLife to offer layouts for MySpace and free tutorials. Her numbers are now impressive. The 17 year- old high school dropout has made more than $1 million. She earns as much as $70K a month, and owns a website that attracts more than 7 million monthly visitors and 60 million page views. (Link)

10 Unbelievable Sleepwalking Stories

2011-06-14T16:11:00.002+01:00

The sleepwalking nurse who draws masterpieces in a trance

Meet Lee Hadwin, by day a nurse, at night he's a "sleepwalking artist" who produces strange and fantastical artworks which he has no recollection of drawing when he wakes up the next morning.

Dubbed 'Kipasso', he says he is utterly mystified by his nocturnal talent, while at the daytime he shows no interest or ability in art whatsoever. Major galleries have been asking for examples of his work, which they hope to market on its artistic merit as well as its novelty value.

Hadwin first started sleepwalking when he was four years old, but his parents believed it was a normal childhood phase. When he was in his teens, he began producing artwork while asleep, at first on his bedroom walls. Once, staying over at a friend's house, he covered the kitchen walls with doodles in his sleep, an embarrassing discovery at breakfast time the next day. In his late teens and early 20s, the intensity of his sleepwalking increased and Hadwin would wake to find everything in the vicinity: tableclothes, newspapers, clothes and walls, covered in artwork.

Hoping to harness the strange ability, he started leaving artists' materials out when he went to bed and, sure enough, when he awoke he says he would find full-blown pictures beside him. Now, he leaves his home prepared for nocturnal wanderings, with sketchbooks and charcoal pencils scattered around the house, particularly under the stairs, a favorite venue.

(Link)

The sleepwalker who drove 10 miles and killed his in-law

Kenneth Parks, a 23-year-old Toronto man with a wife and infant daughter, was suffering from severe insomnia caused by joblessness and gambling debts. Early in the morning of May 23, 1987 he awoke, got in his car and drove 23 kilometers to his in-laws' home. He stabbed to death his mother-in-law, whom he loved and who had once referred to him as "a gentle giant." Parks also assaulted his father in law, who survived the attack. He then drove to the police and said "I think I have killed some people... my hands," only then realizing he had severely cut his own hands. Under police arrest he was taken to the hospital where he underwent repair of several flexor tendons of both hands.

Because he could not remember anything about the murder and assault, had no motive for the crime whatsoever, and did have a history of sleepwalking, his team of defense experts (psychiatrists, a psychologist, a neurologist and a sleep specialist) concluded Ken Parks was 'asleep' when he committed the crime, and therefore unaware of his actions. (Link 1 | Link 2)

The sleepwalking woman who had sex with strangers

In 2004, sleep medicine experts have successfully treated a rare case of a woman having sex with strangers while sleepwalking.

At night while asleep, the middle-aged sleepwalker from Australia left her house and had sexual intercourse with strangers. The behavior continued for several months and the woman had no memory of her nocturnal activities. Circumstantial evidence, such as condoms found scattered around the house, alerted the couple to the problem. On one occasion, her partner awoke to find her missing, went searching for her and found her engaged in the sex act.

Incredulity is the leading player in cases like this. But a combination of factors convinced the doctors that the case was a real sleepwalking phenomenon, including the distress of the couple, and an in-depth clinical evaluation. She stopped her night-time excursions after psychiatric counselling. Drugs such as benzodiazepines, which are sometimes used to treat sleep walkers, were not necessary. (Link)

The sleepwalking chef who cooks while sleeping

Robert Wood, a 55 year-old chef, gets up four or five times a week while asleep and heads to the kitchen where he prepares omelettes, stir fries and chips. He has been sleepwalking for 40 years but, together with wife Eleanor, is becoming increasingly worried about having an accident while in the kitchen.

The couple from Glenrothes in Fife now cannot sleep for more than around three hours at a time. Mr Wood believes an ulcer in his intestine may be at the root of the problem. Because the condition only allows him to eat very small portions, he thinks his hunger pangs might cause him to head to the kitchen. Once he tried to fill a small bowl with a whole box of cereal and carton of milk. Mr Wood is said to be seeking help from sleep specialists in Edinburgh. (Link)

The sleepwalker who froze to death

In Jan 2009, Timothy Brueggeman, a 51-year-old electrician from Wisconsin, sleepwalked out of his home in Hayward wearing only his underwear and a fleece shirt. His body was found the next morning about 190 yards from his rural home.

With temperatures around -16°F, Brueggeman died of hypothermia.
Investigators found a bottle of Ambien in his bedroom. Ambien is the most-prescribed sleeping pill in the country and has been linked to hundreds of cases of sleepwalking. Sanofi-Aventis, which produces the drug, insists Ambien is safe when taken as directed and not mixed with alcohol or other drugs. But a friend of the victim, Ed Lesniak, admitted that his friend, who was plagued with insomnia, sometimes drank when taking the sleep aid.

This wasn't Brueggeman's first dangerous sleepwalking incident. Last summer, he drove his pickup truck into the side of his own garage. Brueggeman's mother had advised him to stop taking Ambien after the incident. (Link | Photo)

The teenager who sleepwalked out her bedroom window

Just recently, in May 2009, a sleepwalking teenager stepped out of the bedroom window at her historic castle home and plunged 25ft to the ground. Rachel Ward had got out of bed and pulled on a jumper before making her dramatic, unconscious exit from the first floor of the 19th century house.

She landed feet first on a narrow strip of grass next to her car, leaving six-inch divots in the ground, before collapsing. Semi-conscious, she screamed for help and her parents took her to hospital. There, to the amazement of doctors, tests revealed she hadn't broken a single bone. It was only the following day that Miss Ward, an 18-year-old A-level student, properly woke up. (Link | Photo)

The sleepwalker who molested a child and got absolved

In 2007, Alan Ball went to a New Year's Eve house party, drank heavily and fell asleep on a sofa. At some point during the night, he got up, went upstairs and climbed into bed with an under-age girl, whom he kissed on the lips.

After a year in which this lorry-driving father lost his job and was able to see his five-year-old daughter only during supervised visits, a judge at Preston Crown Court cleared him of sexual assault in 2009, after the 35-year-old claimed he was sleepwalking at the time of the incident and had no memory of the events. (Link)

The sleepwalker who mowed the lawn naked

In 2005, a sleep-walking computer expert was reportedly caught by his wife mowing the lawn naked at 2am. Rebekah Armstrong was woken by a noise coming from the garden. When she realized her husband Ian was not in bed she went downstairs to see what was happening.

Rebekah found Ian was mowing the lawn completely starker. She was afraid to wake him up because she had always been told it can be dangerous to disturb someone who is sleepwalking. She just unplugged the mower, went back to bed and let him get on with it. Ian, 34, later got back into bed and didn't believe Rebekah when she told him what he'd been up to. (Link)

The sleepwalker who emailed friends

In 2005, a 44-year-old woman went to bed about 10pm but got up two hours later and walked to her computer in the next room. She turned it on, connected to the internet, and logged on before composing and sending three emails.

Each was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, not well formatted and written in strange language, the researchers said.
One read: "Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4pm,. Bring wine and caviar only." Another said simply, "What the…".

The new variation of sleepwalking has been described as "zzz-mailing". The neurologists said that unlike simple sleep-walking, the activities their patient was involved in required complex behaviour and co-ordinated movements including typing, composing and writing the messages.

She was also able to remember her password and turn the computer on and connect to the internet, although she had no memory of the event. It was thought that the woman's sleep-walking may have been triggered by prescription medication, although the causes of the phenomenon are not fully understood. (Link | Photo)

The sleepwalking dog

Apparently, sleepwalking is not exclusive to humans. Meet Bizkit, a cute dog who suffers from somnambulism and became an instant viral hit on the web.

12 Accidental Deaths You Won't Believe

2011-06-14T16:10:00.000+01:00

Woman gets smashed by huge Taco Bell sign

Diana Durre, of Chambers, Nebraska, died after a 75-foot (23 m) Taco Bell sign fell on top of the truck cab she was in. The pole broke at a welded joint about 15 feet (4.5 m) above the ground owing to strong winds. The sign fell right on top of the quad-cab pickup. Diana was meeting a Wyoming couple to sell them some dogs. They had agreed to meet in North Platte, Nebraska, at about 1 p.m., “right underneath the big Taco Bell sign.” North Platte's Animal Control Division took two Yorkie dogs to the shelter. The Wyoming couple showed up after the accident.

(Link)

Man dies crushed by a suicidal woman

A suicidal woman who jumped from an eighth floor window crushed a passer-by to death in a horrific accident. The woman hurled herself from the balcony in Viladecans, near Barcelona, and landed on top of a 50-year-old pedestrian who was walking below. The jumper died instantly, and the man, from the Ukraine, died in hospital shortly afterwards from his injuries. His wife, who was walking with him at the time, escaped with minor injuries in the incident, which happened at 5.45 on a Monday evening. (Link)

A lawyer, demonstrating the safety of windows in a skyscraper, crashed through a pane and plunged to his death

Garry Hoy, a 38-year old lawyer and a senior partner at the Holden Day Wilson Law firm in Toronto, Canada, fell to his death on July 9, 1993, after he threw himself against a window on the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre, in an attempt to prove that the glass was "unbreakable" to a group of visiting law students. He had apparently attempted this stunt many times in the past, having previously bounced harmlessly off the glass. His first attempt failed to damage the glass at all. On his second attempt the glass still didn't break but instead actually popped out of the window frame, and he fell over 300 feet to his death.

(Link 1 | Link 2)

Man dies after falling into vat of Hershey's chocolate

In a scene straight out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with grim real life consequences, Vincent Smith II, an employee at the Cocoa Services Inc. chocolate factory in Camden, New Jersey, had a fatal accident. He was loading chunks of raw chocolate, when he slipped and fell into a large melting tank filled with 50°C (120°F) Hershey's chocolate, and was knocked out by one of the mixing paddles. Smith was trapped in the melting tank for 10 minutes before rescuers were able to extract him. He was declared dead a short time later. (Link)

Naked man dies suffocated in condom

A thrill-seeker trying to give himself a sexual high killed himself by pulling a condom over his head, an inquest has heard. Gary Ashbrook, 31, was discovered naked on his bed alongside three empty cans of nitrous oxide he used to blow up the contraceptive. A post-mortem examination revealed that Mr Ashbrook, who had been HIV positive for seven years, died from asphyxiation. (Link)

Roller Coaster Operator, caught by hair, gets scalped and killed

In 2003, an American amusement park operator was killed when his hair and arm got caught on a roller coaster car, pulling him up as high as 12 metres before he fell, back-first, onto a fence. Doug McKay, 40, was spraying lubricant on the tracks of the Super Loop 2, a ride at the Island County Fair on Whidbey Island, northwest of Seattle, when his long hair got caught on a car full of fairgoers. It basically scalped him, then he fell and landed on the fence. (Link)

Man dies after bee attack at his wife's funeral

Jaam Singh Girdhan Barela, a 50-year-old man, died after being stung by a swarm of honeybees while he was cremating his wife in a Madhya Pradesh village. The bees were disturbed after flames from the funeral pyre enveloped their nest in Naya Bilwa village in Khargone district, 330 km from there. While others fled, Barela could not, as he was performing the rituals. He died following multiple stings. (Link 1 | Link 2)

An entire soccer team dies after being struck by a lighting during a match

During a game between Bena Tshadi and visitors Basanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all 11 members of a football team were killed by a bolt of lightning which left the other team unhurt. Thirty other people received burns at the match. The two sides were drawing 1-1 in the match in eastern Kasai Province when the lightning struck the visiting team. The athletes from the home team curiously came out of the catastrophe unscathed. (Link)

Teenager girl dies after getting hit by a hockey puck

Brittanie Cecil, an American 13-year-old hockey fan, died two days after being struck in the head by a hockey puck shot by Espen Knutsen at a game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Calgary Flames at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, on March 16, 2002. It was the first fan fatality in the NHL's history. A shot by the Blue Jackets' Espen Knutsen was deflected by the Flames' Derek Morris and went over the glass behind the net, striking her in the left temple. She died nearly 48 hours after being struck. (Link | Photo)

Stewardess was sucked out of a plane after decompression

On Aloha Airlines Flight 243, flight attendant C.B. Lansing was sucked out of an airliner when the bulkhead tore off in mid flight. On April 28, 1988, a Boeing 737-297 serving the flight suffered extensive damage after an explosive decompression in flight, but was able to land safely at Kahului Airport, on Maui. The only fatality was the chief flight attendant, Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing, who was standing at seat row 5 collecting drink cups from passengers. She was sucked through a hole in the side of the airplane. Another 65 passengers and crew were injured. The safe landing of the aircraft with such a major loss of integrity was unprecedented and remains unsurpassed. (Link)

Italian stripper suffocates to death inside surprise cake

In Consenza, Italy, stag party friends were curious when a stripper failed to jump out of a huge cake. Assuming she was no longer in there, they received a nasty surprise when they found her dead inside it. Gina Lalapola, 23, had suffocated after waiting for an hour inside the sealed cake. (Link)

Man dies after his ambulance stretcher rolled down

In 1991, Edward Juchniewicz, a 76-year-old man, was killed when the ambulance stretcher he was strapped to rolled down a grade and overturned. The ambulance attendants, while speaking to a doctor's staff, had left the stretcher unattended. Juchniewicz suffered a head injury and died a short time later. He was being transported from a nursing home to a doctor's office for an appointment. (Link)

10 Unbelievable Prison Breaks

2011-06-14T16:08:00.000+01:00

Pascal Payet: escaped from jail using a helicopter three times!

Pascal Payet, AKA Kalashnikov Pat, was originally jailed for a murder occurred during a botched robbery on a security van, and was sentenced in 2001 to thirty years, yet managed to escape three times by helicopter! The last time, in July 2007, a hijacked Squirrel helicopter --along with its pilot, from the glamorous resort of Cannes half an hour earlier-- landed on the penitentiary's roof, from where three heavily armed men set off in search of Payet. He was lifted off the roof by the masked accomplices. After landing near the Mediterranean Sea, the pilot was released, and Payet and his accomplices have since disappeared.

(Link | Photo)

John Dillinger: escaped from jail using a fake gun made of wood and shoe polish

A bank robber in America's Midwest during the early 1930s, John Dillinger, had robbed at least two dozen banks and four police stations and escaped from jail twice. He served for some time at the Indiana State Penitentiary at Michigan City, until 1933, when he was paroled. Within four months, he was back in jail in Lima, Ohio, but the gang sprang him, killing the jailer, Sheriff Jessie Sarber. Most of the gang was captured again by the end of the year in Tucson, Arizona, due to a fire at the Historic Hotel Congress. Dillinger alone was sent to the Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana. He was to face trial for the suspected killing of police officer William O'Malley during a bank shootout in East Chicago, Indiana, some time after his escape from jail.

On March 3, 1934, Dillinger escaped from the "escape-proof" (as it was dubbed by local authorities at the time) Crown Point, Indiana county jail, which was guarded by many police officers and national guardsmen. Newspapers reported that Dillinger had escaped using a fake gun made out of wood blackened with shoe polish. With his fake gun he was able to trick a guard into opening his cell. He then took two men hostages, rounded up all the guards in jail, locked them in his cell, and fled. (Link)

Alfie Hinds: escaped from jail three times, one of them by locking the guards in the bathroom

Alfie Hinds was a British man who managed to escape the law over and over again – a total of three escapes. Four if you count his final, legal escape. Hinds came by his thievery honestly – his dad actually died while being punished for armed robbery. In 1953, he was arrested for a major jewelry robbery – $90,000 worth of which was never recovered. Although pleading not guilty, he was convicted and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. Somehow he escaped through locked doors and over a 20-foot prison wall. The public started calling him “Houdini” Hinds.

He made an honest living as a builder and decorator across Europe until 1956, when Scotland Yard detectives tracked him down and arrested him again after 248 days as a fugitive. After his arrest, Hinds brought a lawsuit against authorities charging the prison commissioners with illegal arrest and successfully used the incident as a means to plan his next escape at the Law Court. When two guards escorted him to the bathroom and removed his handcuffs so he could take care of business, Alfie shoved them into the stall and locked them with a padlock (accomplices had installed screw eyes onto the door so he could do this). He was captured at the airport only a few hours later.

His third escape was from his Chelmsford Prison. He then returned to Ireland where he lived and worked as a used car dealer for two years. His downfall came once again when he was pulled over for being in an unregistered car. This time, he used his smarts to find a loophole in the law – at the time, prison escapes were not considered misdemeanors, so no time was added onto his original sentence. He finished out the six years from his jewelry theft sentence in 1953, won a libel suit against the arresting officer, and spent the rest of his life as a minor celebrity after selling his life story to the News of the World for a reported $40,000. (Link 1 | Link 2)

Julien Chautard: escaped from prison by clinging to the underside of the van that had just brought him there

In 2009 French-born arsonist Julien Chautard pulled an audacious escape in which he succeeded in slipping away from a group of new arrivals at Pentonville prison in north London. As the other prisoners were being marched inside, Chautard managed to duck behind the prison van that had just brought them there from Snaresbrook crown court (where ¬Chautard, 39, had been sent down for seven years). Chautard then succeeded in leaving the jail a few minutes later clinging to the underside of the same van. He later handed himself into police. (Link)

Frank Morris and Clarence and John Anglin: the only prisoners who may have escaped from Alcatraz

During its 29 years of operation, the penitentiary claimed no prisoners had ever successfully escaped. 36 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, two men trying twice; 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, and three were lost at sea and never found, although their bodies were never found.

But on June 11, 1962, Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin successfully carried out one of the most intricate escapes ever devised. Morris and the Anglins climbed up the ventilation shaft through one of the chimneys and reached the top of the roof. The trio then climbed down the rooftop and paddled away on rubber rafts. The next morning police searched for the escapees on Alcatraz without success.

The acting warden said they put dummy heads - made of a mixture of soap, toilet paper and real hair - in their beds to fool prison officers making night-time inspections. Morris and the Anglin brothers subsequently disappeared without trace and are still wanted by the FBI, although they are believed to have drowned in the San Francisco Bay while attempting to leave the island. (Link)

Billy Hayes: escaped from a Turkish prison and became a writer

Sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish jail for drug smuggling in 1970, the 22-year-old American was originally sentenced to four years and two months in a Turkish prison; with his release date weeks away, he learned that the authorities had chosen to penalize him with a life sentence, so he decided he had to escape. After six months of planning, he fought a prison guard, stole his uniform, and clutching $2,000 his father had smuggled into the prison in a photo album, he stole a rowboat, finally making it to shore. Hoping to reach Greece, Hayes dyed his blond hair black and began travelling towards the border. Barefoot, exhausted, and lacking a passport, he swam across a river and walked for miles. When he finally came upon an armed soldier, he thought that he had lost his bid for freedom, but the soldier yelled at him in Greek. Hayes eventually made it back to the U.S. safely, then wrote an autobiographical book called Midnight Express about his experiences in prison and his escape from it. (Link)

The Texas Seven group: escaped a maximum security prison using a highly elaborated scheme

On December 13, 2000, seven inmates at the John Connally Unit – a maximum-security state prison in Karnes County, Texas – escaped carrying out an elaborate scheme. Using several well-planned ploys, the seven convicts overpowered and restrained nine civilian maintenance supervisors, four correctional officers and three uninvolved inmates. The escape occurred during the slowest period of the day when there would be less surveillance of certain locations like the maintenance area — during lunch and at count time. Most of these plans involved one of the offenders calling someone over, while another hit the unsuspecting person on the head from behind. Once the victim was subdued, the offenders would remove some of his clothing, tie him up, gag him and place him in an electrical room behind a locked door.

The attackers stole clothing, credit cards, and identification from their victims. The group also impersonated prison officers on the phone and created false stories to ward off suspicion from authorities.
After that, three members of the group made their way to the back gate of the prison, some disguised in stolen civilian clothing. They pretended to be there to install video monitors. One guard at the gatehouse was subdued, and the trio raided the guard tower and stole numerous weapons. Meanwhile, the four offenders who stayed behind made calls to the prison tower guards to distract them. They then stole a prison maintenance pick-up truck, which they drove to the back gate of the prison, picked up their cohorts, and drove away from the prison.

A year later they were apprehended, as a direct result of the television show America's Most Wanted. (Link)

The Rat Hell prisoners: the most famous (and successful) prison breaks during the American Civil War

The Libby Prison Escape was one of the most famous (and successful) prison breaks during the American Civil War. Overnight between February 9 and February 10, 1864, more than 100 imprisoned Union soldiers broke out of their prisoner of war building at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. Of the 109 escapees, 59 succeeded in reaching Union lines, 48 were recaptured, and 2 drowned in the nearby James River. The prisoners managed to tunnel through the prison's basement to a nearby vacant lot. This was no easy task, as Libby's basement was a dark and vermin-infested cellar known to the men as “Rat Hell,” but after seventeen days of digging, they reached a nearby tobacco shed. The officers escaped the prison in groups of two and three on the night of February 9, 1864. Once within the tobacco shed, the men gathered inside the walled warehouse yard and simply strolled out the front gate. The tunnel provided enough distance from the prison to stealthily subvert those jurisdictional lines and allow prisoners to slip into the dark streets unchallenged.

The Libby Prison escape was possible thanks to the effort of its leaders, Colonel Rose and Major Hamilton. Rose and Hamilton worked tirelessly together to bring about the escape. It was Rose who thought of breaking into the basement from the chimney and Hamilton who engineered the passage. Rose toiled feverishly in the tunnel and organized digging teams while Hamilton worked out the logistics and invented contraptions for removing dirt and supplying oxygen to the tunnel. (Link | Photo)

Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba: managed to escape from Auschwitz and later compiled a life saving report about the Nazi camp

Wetzler was a Slovak Jew, and one of a very small number of Jews known to have escaped from the Auschwitz death camp during the Holocaust. Wetzler escaped with a fellow Jew named Rudolf Vrba. With the help of the camp underground, at 2 p.m. on Friday, April 7, 1944 — the eve of Passover — the two men climbed inside a hollowed-out hiding place in a wood pile that was being stored to build the “Mexico” section for the new arrivals. It was outside Birkenau's barbed-wire inner perimeter, but inside an external perimeter the guards kept erected during the day. The other prisoners placed boards around the hollowed-out area to hide the men, and then sprinkled the area with pungent Russian tobacco soaked in gasoline to fool the guards' dogs. The two remained in hiding for 4 nights – to avoid recapture.

On April 10, wearing Dutch suits, overcoats, and boots they had taken from the camp, they made their way south, walking parallel to the Soła river, heading for the Polish border with Slovakia 80 miles (133 km.) away, guiding themselves using a page from a child's atlas that Vrba had found in the warehouse.

Wetzler and Vrba later became known for the report they compiled about the inner workings of the Auschwitz camp – a ground plan of the camp, construction details of the gas chambers, crematoriums and, most convincingly, a label from a canister of Zyklon gas. The 32-page report was the first detailed report about Auschwitz to reach the West that the Allies regarded as credible. The report is said to have saved 120.000 lives. (Link)

Dieter Dengler: became the only soldier to escape a prison camp during the Vietnam War

Dieter Dengler was a German-American Navy pilot who made a famous escape from a jungle prison camp during the Vietnam War. In early 1966, Dengler's plane was shot down by an anti-aircraft fire over Laos, and he was captured and shipped to a prison camp run by the Pathet Lao, a group of North Vietnamese sympathizers. Dengler had earned a reputation for his uncanny ability to escape from mock-POW camps during his military training, and he immediately contributed to a plan where the prisoners had to make a getaway. On June 29, 1966, he and six other prisoners managed to escape from their hand and foot restraints and get a hold of the guard's weapons. After gunning down three guards, Dengler escaped into the dense forest. He would eventually spend 23 days in the jungle enduring extreme heat, insects, leeches, parasites, and starvation before being rescued by an American helicopter. Only one of the other prisoners, a Thai contractor, survived the escape. The others were all either killed or disappeared in the jungle. Dengler would go on to become a successful test pilot in his later years, and to this day he is credited as the only American soldier to ever break out of a prisoner of war camp in the Laotian jungle and live to tell the tale.

Note: We had first stated that he was the only American soldier to successfully escape from a prison camp during the Vietnam War. But our readers pointed out there were other heroes to do so, such as Capt. Charles Fredrick Klusmann, who was shot down, captured to escape later with 6 other inmates, 5 of which were never accounted for, and Nick Rowe, who escaped from a Viet Cong camp in Vietnam, and wrote a book about it called, "Five Years To Freedom." (Thanks, Katey and Josiah). (Link)

10 Unbelievable Inheritance Stories

2011-06-14T16:06:00.000+01:00

The Portuguese aristocrat who left his fortune to 70 total strangers randomly chosen from a phone directory

Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara made an unusual distribution of his money after his death: 70 people listed in a Lisbon phone directory were contacted out of the blue after his death to be told he had made them his beneficiaries. They had been chosen at random from the directory, in front of two witnesses at a registry office 13 years before. It certainly came as a shock to them. In the first place, people do not, as a rule, make wills in Portugal. In the second, Portuguese aristocrats are getting thin on the ground, let alone eccentric ones. In the third - to be chosen by phone directory? No wonder that some feared they were being scammed.

(Link)

The homeless brothers who inherited more than 100 million euros

A pair of penniless down and outs inherited a share of a 4 billion GBP fortune after a bizarre twist in family fortunes. Brothers Zsolt and Geza Peladi were so poor they lived in a cave outside Budapest, Hungary, and sold scrap they found on the street for pennies. Now both of them and a sister who lives in America inherited their grandmother's massive fortune after a life of poverty. "We knew our mother came from a wealthy family but she was a difficult person and had severed ties with them, then later abandoned us and we lost touch with her and our father until she eventually died," said Geza, 43.

They learned of their good fortune after homelessness charity workers in Hungary were contacted by lawyers handling the estate of the brothers' maternal grandmother who died recently in Baden-Wurttenberg, Germany. Under German law direct descendents are automatically entitled to a share of any estate - that would pass from their dead mother to them. (Link | Photo)

The student who inherited almost a billion euros from an uncle he hadn't seen for a decade

Sergey Sudev was left a 950 million euros fortune by an uncle he had not seen for 10 years. But he must have made a good impression at their meeting a decade ago, because it prompted the uncle, who lived in Germany, to write Sudev into his will straight away. The student had no idea he stood to inherit a fortune and got on with his course in journalism.Then one day there was a knock at his door in the town of Komrat - his uncle's agents had tracked him down to pass on the incredible news. A shocked Sudev is reported to have said to them: "Is this a joke?" The inheritance means he has become one of the richest men in Moldova, where the average monthly salary is around 270 euros. (Link)

The richest woman in Asia gave away her multi-billion-US-dollar fortune to a feng shui master in return for a promise of eternal life

Nina Wang, who died of cancer in 2007 at age 69, signed over her vast fortune to a previously unknown feng shui master Tony Chan as a promise for eternal life. Wang changed her will in 2006 in order to leave everything to the feng shui master, voiding a previous will written four years earlier that left the fortune to her family and to charity. With no children of her own, Wang wrote a new will in 2006, two years after her ovarian cancer was diagnosed, making 48-year-old Chan her sole beneficiary.

The question is, why would Chan ask Wang to put him in her will if he had ensured her she would live forever, or at least for a very long time? (Link)

The waitress who inherited a little fortune from a customer

In 1992, Cara Wood was 17 and working at Drin's Colonial Restaurant in her hometown of Chagrin Falls, about 15 miles east of Cleveland. She was a good employee – bright, friendly and helpful. One customer, Bill Cruxton, liked her so much that he always sat in her section. A widower with no children, he went daily to the restaurant for his meals and some company, so they became friends. In addition to being his regular waitress, she helped him around the house and ran errands for him. Wood became so important to Cruxton that he rewrote his will, making her the main beneficiary. Cruxton, 82, died of heart failure in November 1992 and left her half a million dollars. (Link)

The Argentine maid who recived $40m after a judicial battle that involved a corpse's robbery

Eva Paole, a retired Argentine maid, has inherited the whopping sum of $40 million after a nine-year legal battle. It was a decade ago that Paole first heard the rumor that she might be the daughter of baron Rufino Otero, who died in 1983 and had no children with his wife. Until then, Paole always had thought she was the daughter of her mother, Josefa, and her partner. Her mother took the secret of Eva's real father to her grave. According to Eva, "money isn't everything" and what is really important for her is that she has finally discovered her true identity. DNA tests showed she truly is the daughter of the powerful landowner who died 25 years ago.

If all of that wasn't enough material for a soap opera, six weeks after Eva began legal proceedings, Otero's tomb was desecrated and his corpse exchanged for another. To establish Paole's relation to Otero, authorities used the remains of the land baron's mother, Justina Porras instead. (Link 1 | Link 2 | Photo)

The teenager who inherited an Island with a buried treasure

Josh wasn't close to his grandfather and in fact, he had met him just a handful of times in his 17 years. Stubborn and highly traditional, Samuel disapproved of his daughter Susan's marriage to a man from outside of their religious faith, but he'd always had a soft spot for his only grandson. Although he hadn't seen his grandson in years before his death in 2007, Josh was named the heir to what remained of his grandfather's estate, including a 36-acre island and more than 80 acres of farmland. But there was something unexpected in the will… a detailed list of antique jewellery and loose gems contained “in the thermos.” There was no indication at all of where this portion of Josh's inheritance was. But Susan did remember the oblique references her father had always made of his “treasure island” when she was a child.

So now the hunt is on, and while finding Samuel's hidden thermos of precious gems is far from a sure bet, the family is confident that it will soon turn up somewhere on (or under) the island's 36 acres. (Link)

The Terrier who inherited a $12m fortune

New York hotelier and real estate billionaire Leona Helmsley (called the Queen of Mean) has left $12m (£5.97m) to her pet dog, Trouble. The pampered pooch received the largest bequest from Mrs Helmsley's will while some human members of Mrs Helmsley's family fared less well, with two of her four grandchildren cut out of the will entirely.

The money for Trouble's upkeep was left in the hands of her brother, Alvin Rosenthal, who inherited $10m himself. (Link 1 | Link 2)

The man who left part of his inheritance to the woman who would give birth to the most children 10 years after his death

Though highly successful in law and in his investments, Millar is now known primarily for his love of jokes and pranks which played on people's greed and hypocrisy. Millar's greatest and final prank was his will, which says in part: "This Will is necessarily uncommon and capricious because I have no dependents or near relations and no duty rests upon me to leave any property at my death and what I do leave is proof of my folly in gathering and retaining more than I required in my lifetime."

The will was full of playful bequests. But the final bequest of his will was the largest and strangest. In the will's ninth clause, Millar's estate's balance was required to be converted to cash ten years after his death and given to the woman who gave birth to the most children in that time. In the event of a tie, the bequest would be divided equally. The resulting contest became known as the Great Stork Derby. (Link)

The homeless who fled police while bringing him news of a $6-million inheritance

A homeless man supposed to be living on the streets of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia fled police who were bringing him news of a $6-million inheritance. Tomas Martinez, 67, apparently thought the police were about to arrest him for his alcohol and drug habits. The man disappeared without a trace, causing Bolivian newspapers to speak of him in 2000 as a "new millionaire paradoxically not knowing his fortune". The inheritance came to Mr Martinez from his ex-wife, Ines Gajardo Olivares, who inherited the money herself from family members. She evidently did not blame him for leaving her several years ago.

The (un)lucky man has never been found. (Link 1 | Link 2)

8 Unbelievable iPhone Stories

2011-06-14T16:04:00.000+01:00

The man who, crushed by rubble in Haiti, survived thanks to his iPhone

U.S. filmmaker Dan Woolley was shooting a video about poverty in Haiti when the earthquake struck. He could have died, but he ultimately survived with the help of an iPhone first-aid app (called Pocket First Aid and CPR) that taught him to treat his wounds. After being crushed by a pile of rubble, Woolley used his digital SLR to illuminate his surroundings and snap photos of the wreckage in search of a safe place to dwell. He took refuge in an elevator shaft, where he followed instructions from the iPhone app to fashion a bandage and tourniquet for his leg and to stop the bleeding from his head wound.

The app even warned Woolley not to fall asleep if he felt he was going into shock, so he set his cellphone's alarm clock to go off every 20 minutes. Sixty-five hours later, a French rescue team saved him. Say what you will about the iPhone. This story is incredible.

(Link)

The woman who fell pregnant thanks to an iPhone app

After trying to conceive for four years, mother Lena Bryce fell pregnant two months after downloading an app on her iPhone. The Menstrual Calendar iPhone app tells women when they're most fertile, acting almost as an alarm for shagging time. Stories of babies born from women impressed by the lightsaber app are unfounded, meaning baby Lola is probably the world's first to be born thanks to an iPhone app. Or at least, the first baby to be branded with the horrendous moniker of 'iPhone baby' by the tabloids. (Link)

The Australian businessman who ordered a £1.92m diamond iPhone

Designer Stuart Hughes, from Liverpool, took ten months to make the phone after it was commissioned by an anonymous Australian businessman in 2009. The casing of the iPhone 3GS Supreme was created using 271 grams of 22 solid carat gold. The front bezel houses 136 flawless diamonds totalling a massive 68 carats while the Apple logo on the back is made from a further 53 gems. The front navigation button is made from a single diamond of more than seven carats.

This diamond iPhone is currently the most expensive phone ieenage who sent 300,000 texts in one

A Sacramento County teenager is bragging about a big accomplishment. She logged more than 300,000 text messages in one month. “My friends said, ‘Text your little thumbs off',” Crystal Wiski said. “Thank God for free texting,” added her mother. Jacki Wiski said she had just bought the iPhone for her daughter one month ago. “I get cramps,” Crystal Wiski said of her habit. Needless to say, it didn't take long for her to get used to it. Her mother is amazed by the number of texts. She must text while she's sleeping.

To put 303,000 text messages into perspective: that's more than 10,000 text messages a day, 421 messages an hour and seven texts a minute. (Link)

The girl who received a 300 hundred pages iPhone bill

Justine Ezarik, a blogger from Pittsburgh, was so gobsmacked when she got her first iPhone bill that she filmed herself paging through her 300-page double-sided invoice to the music of the iPhone advertising campaign. The clip has been viewed more than two million times since it appeared on YouTube. Miss Ezarik's $274 (£137) bill, which details every single download, call and text message down to the very second and file size, had almost twice as many pages as the Jane Austen novel Persuasion. It was so large that it had to be sent in a box instead of an envelope.

AT&T changed the invoice system for the next month.

(Link)

The man who underwent thumb surgery to use his iPhone

North Denver News reported that Thomas Martel, 28, had his thumbs surgically altered so he could better use his iPhone. A new surgical technique called “whittling” involves making a small incision into both thumbs and shaving down the bones, followed by careful muscular alteration and modification of the fingernails. Mr. Martel reportedly said, “Sure, the procedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds so much faster, I really think the surgery will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years. And what it's saving me in frustration – that's priceless.”

InformationWeek claims the story is false – the doctor who developed the procedure is not listed in the Denver phone directory and writer of the story hasn't returned any of their calls. (Link)

The orchestra that uses iPhones instead of musical instruments

An orchestra that uses iPhones instead of musical instruments held a concert at the University of Michigan. The Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble is one of several university orchestras that has foregone traditional instruments in favor of music applications, downloaded on to Apple's iPhone, to play songs. The musicians took a course at the university, entitled "Building a mobile phone ensemble" and learned how to create instruments on their iPhone. The instruments are played using a combination of gestures, including tapping the touch-screen and blowing in to the microphone. The instruments also use the phone's built-in GPS, digital compass and accelerometer, which knows which way round the device is being held, to produce a certain note depending on whether it is being tipped or shaken. The iPhones are attached to speakers, worn around the musicians' wrists, and the instruments produce a combination of familiar and unusual sounds.

(Link)

The guy who was almost killed by his iPhone

Mr. Travis Gohr just may had the first-ever documented iPhone injury. It happened when Gohr was using a treadmill and his iPhone slipped off, hit the treadmill surface and was launched backward. Gohr's injury resulted from him following the phone's 'trajectory' with his head, losing his balance and falling on the moving treadmill. Scary! (Link)

Work At Home Mum Makes $7,487/Month Part-Time

2011-06-14T15:49:00.000+01:00

Have You Ever Considered Working Online?

Kelly Richards from Brooklyn, NY never thought that she would, until curiosity got the best of her and she filled out a simple online form. Before she knew it, she discovered her secret to beating the recession, and being able to provide for her family while at home with her three children.
I read Kelly's blog last month and decided to feature her story in our local job report. In our phone interview she told me her amazing story. "I basically make about $6,000-$8,000 a month online. It's enough to comfortably replace my old jobs income, especially considering I only work about 10-13 hours a week from home.
Working online has been a financial windfall for Kelly, who struggled for months to find a decent job but kept hitting dead ends. "I lost my job shortly after the recession hit, I needed reliable income, I was not interested in the "get rich quick" scams you see all over the internet. Those are all pyramid scams or stuff where you have to sell to your friends and family. I just needed a legitimate way to earn a living for me and my family. The best part of working online is that I am always home with the kids, I save a lot of money."

"I basically make $6,000-$8,000 a month online."
- Kelly Richards

I asked her about how she started her remarkable journey. "It was pretty easy, I filled out a short form and got immediate access to the Automated Profit Package. I got the Kit and within a month I was making over $4,000 a month. Its really simple, I am not a computer whiz, but I can use the internet. I fill forms and surf sites, I don't even have to sell anything and nobody has to buy anything."

Online giant Google, worth over 100 billion dollars is the most used search engine and internet market place. Google is the #1 internet site in the world, over 50 percent of all internet traffic flows through them everyday. Using Google and the other search engines to make money online has been a eye-opener for Kelly. There are plenty of scams on the internet claiming you can make $50,000 a month, but that is exactly what they are scams. From my conversation with Kelly, "I am making a good salary from home, which is amazing, under a year ago I was jobless in a horrible economy. I thank God every day that I filled out that form."
Quickly, Kelly Richards was able to use the simple Automated Profit Package to make it out of the recession.

Kelly had never shared her story before, and with her permission, we are putting it public
Step 1
Go to this link, fill out a basic online form and hit submit at Automated Profit Package
Step 2
Follow the instructions at Automated Profit Package and set up your account.
Step 3
You should receive your first cheque within a week or so. Or you can start to have them wire directly into your bank account. (Your first cheques will be about $500 to $1,500 a week. Then it goes up from there. Depends on how much time you spent on it.)

Associated Links:
- Automated Profit Package

10 Coolest (and 5 Worst!) Father's Day Gifts

2011-06-14T15:28:00.001+01:00

Father's Day is right around the corner, so here's a shopping list full of the coolest (and weirdest) presents for Dad.

Best: Bacon of the Month Club

Two pounds of delicious artisan bacon delivered to your door each month. Where do we sign up?

(Link | Photo)

Best: Corvette Wall Shelf

Combine Dad's love of classic cars with the functionality of a book shelf! Available in many makes, models, and colors, there is a car shelf for everyone. Perfect for Dad's office. (Link | Photo)

Best: An Amazing Experience

You can't wrap it up, but you can give your husband or father an amazing experience that will create lasting memories. Hang gliding, flying lessons, NASCAR driving, dance lessons -- you name it! All are available in a city near you via XperienceDays.com. (Link | Photo)

Best: Personalized Figurine

Now Dad can look at his loved ones every day, no matter where he is! In just a few easy steps, you can create a personalized mini-me. Why not create a figurine for everyone in the family? (Link | Photo)

Best: Grenade Screwdriver Set

Here's a cool twist on a classic gift! This set includes the screwdriver, and small, medium, and large Phillips and flat head-style bits. (Buy it here | Photo)

Best: Beer-Making Kit

This clever kit includes everything you need to brew your own batch of beer! (Link | Photo)

Best: Tailgating Cooler with Grill

What could be more perfect than this? Your father can be the grill master no matter where you go. The built-in cooler keeps food and beverages cold and there's ample storage for the grill, propane, and cooking utensils. (Link | Photo)

Best: On the Rocks

Genuine Vermont-milled soapstone keeps drinks cool without diluting them. Plus, they make a fun conversation piece! (Link | Photo)

Best: Design Your Own Converse All-Stars

Let Dad reflect his unique personal style with customized Chuck Taylors! Select from a variety of colors and patterns, right down to the color of the stitching. (Link | Photo)

Best: The Flying F**k Helicopter

Finally, an answer to the age-old question, "Who gives a flying f**k?!" Answer: your dad does! This fun remote-controlled gadget really flies and is great for the father with a sense of humor. (Link | Photo)

Worst: Duct Tape Roses

Dad doesn't want roses at all, and he certainly doesn't want roses made out of duct tape! Fail. (Buy it here | Photo)

Worst: Weekend at a Nudist Colony

Just... no. (Link | Photo)

Worst: Bacon Air Fresheners

No matter how much Dad loves bacon (see #1), we'd be willing to bet that he doesn't want his car to smell like fried, cured pork! (Link | Photo)

Worst: Mankini

Made popular by Sasha Baron Cohen in the movie Borat, this is a fashion fail to the Nth degree! Please... just say no to the mankini! (Link | Photo)

Worst: Personal Hygiene Hints

It's his special day, so why remind Dad that he has nose and ear hair, bad breath, stinky feet, or B.O.? (Photo)

100 Best First Lines from Novels

2011-06-14T13:58:00.002+01:00

. 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)
29. Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. —Ha Jin, Waiting (1999)
30. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. —William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
31. I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864; trans. Michael R. Katz)
32. Where now? Who now? When now? —Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable (1953; trans. Patrick Bowles)
33. Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. "Stop!" cried the groaning old man at last, "Stop! I did not drag my father beyond this tree." —Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans (1925)
34. In a sense, I am Jacob Horner. —John Barth, The End of the Road (1958)
35. It was like so, but wasn't. —Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1995)
36. —Money . . . in a voice that rustled. —William Gaddis, J R (1975)
37. Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
38. All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
39. They shoot the white girl first. —Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)
40. For a long time, I went to bed early. —Marcel Proust, Swann's Way (1913; trans. Lydia Davis)
41. The moment one learns English, complications set in. —Felipe Alfau, Chromos (1990)
42. Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature. —Anita Brookner, The Debut (1981)
43. I was the shadow of the waxwing slain / By the false azure in the windowpane; —Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)
44. Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. —Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
45. I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. —Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome (1911)
46. Ages ago, Alex, Allen and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement . . . anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation. —Walter Abish, Alphabetical Africa (1974)
47. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. —C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
48. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
49. It was the day my grandmother exploded. —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)
50. I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. —Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002)
51. Elmer Gantry was drunk. —Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (1927)
52. We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. —Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988)
53. It was a pleasure to burn. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
54. A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. —Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (1951)
55. Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. —Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)
56. I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call'd me. —Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
57. In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street. —David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988)
58. Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.
—George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)
59. It was love at first sight. —Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)
60. What if this young woman, who writes such bad poems, in competition with her husband, whose poems are equally bad, should stretch her remarkably long and well-made legs out before you, so that her skirt slips up to the tops of her stockings? —Gilbert Sorrentino, Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things (1971)
61. I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. —W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944)
62. Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. —Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups (2001)
63. The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. —G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)
64. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)
65. You better not never tell nobody but God. —Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)
66. "To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die." —Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (1988)
67. It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. —Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)
68. Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden. —David Foster Wallace, The Broom of the System (1987)
69. If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog. —Saul Bellow, Herzog (1964)
70. Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up. —Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear it Away (1960)
71. Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me. —GŸnter Grass, The Tin Drum (1959; trans. Ralph Manheim)
72. When Dick Gibson was a little boy he was not Dick Gibson. —Stanley Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show (1971)
73. Hiram Clegg, together with his wife Emma and four friends of the faith from Randolph Junction, were summoned by the Spirit and Mrs. Clara Collins, widow of the beloved Nazarene preacher Ely Collins, to West Condon on the weekend of the eighteenth and nineteenth of April, there to await the End of the World. —Robert Coover, The Origin of the Brunists (1966)
74. She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him. —Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (1902)
75. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. —Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929)
76. "Take my camel, dear," said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass. —Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond (1956)
77. He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. —Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900)
78. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. —L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)
79. On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. —Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker (1980)
80. Justice?—You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law. —William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own (1994)
81. Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash. —J. G. Ballard, Crash (1973)
82. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)
83. "When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing." —Katherine Dunn, Geek Love (1983)
84. In the last years of the Seventeenth Century there was to be found among the fops and fools of the London coffee-houses one rangy, gangling flitch called Ebenezer Cooke, more ambitious than talented, and yet more talented than prudent, who, like his friends-in-folly, all of whom were supposed to be educating at Oxford or Cambridge, had found the sound of Mother English more fun to game with than her sense to labor over, and so rather than applying himself to the pains of scholarship, had learned the knack of versifying, and ground out quires of couplets after the fashion of the day, afroth with Joves and Jupiters, aclang with jarring rhymes, and string-taut with similes stretched to the snapping-point. —John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor (1960)
85. When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon. —James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss (1978)
86. It was just noon that Sunday morning when the sheriff reached the jail with Lucas Beauchamp though the whole town (the whole county too for that matter) had known since the night before that Lucas had killed a white man. —William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust (1948)
87. I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as "Claudius the Idiot," or "That Claudius," or "Claudius the Stammerer," or "Clau-Clau-Claudius" or at best as "Poor Uncle Claudius," am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the "golden predicament" from which I have never since become disentangled. —Robert Graves, I, Claudius (1934)
88. Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women. —Charles Johnson, Middle Passage (1990)
89. I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. —Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (1953)
90. The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. —Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (1922)
91. I will tell you in a few words who I am: lover of the hummingbird that darts to the flower beyond the rotted sill where my feet are propped; lover of bright needlepoint and the bright stitching fingers of humorless old ladies bent to their sweet and infamous designs; lover of parasols made from the same puffy stuff as a young girl's underdrawers; still lover of that small naval boat which somehow survived the distressing years of my life between her decks or in her pilothouse; and also lover of poor dear black Sonny, my mess boy, fellow victim and confidant, and of my wife and child. But most of all, lover of my harmless and sanguine self. —John Hawkes, Second Skin (1964)
92. He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. —Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche (1921)
93. Psychics can see the color of time it's blue. —Ronald Sukenick, Blown Away (1986)
94. In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together. —Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
95. Once upon a time two or three weeks ago, a rather stubborn and determined middle-aged man decided to record for posterity, exactly as it happened, word by word and step by step, the story of another man for indeed what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal, a somewhat paranoiac fellow unmarried, unattached, and quite irresponsible, who had decided to lock himself in a room a furnished room with a private bath, cooking facilities, a bed, a table, and at least one chair, in New York City, for a year 365 days to be precise, to write the story of another person—a shy young man about of 19 years old—who, after the war the Second World War, had come to America the land of opportunities from France under the sponsorship of his uncle—a journalist, fluent in five languages—who himself had come to America from Europe Poland it seems, though this was not clearly established sometime during the war after a series of rather gruesome adventures, and who, at the end of the war, wrote to the father his cousin by marriage of the young man whom he considered as a nephew, curious to know if he the father and his family had survived the German occupation, and indeed was deeply saddened to learn, in a letter from the young man—a long and touching letter written in English, not by the young man, however, who did not know a damn word of English, but by a good friend of his who had studied English in school—that his parents both his father and mother and his two sisters one older and the other younger than he had been deported they were Jewish to a German concentration camp Auschwitz probably and never returned, no doubt having been exterminated deliberately X * X * X * X, and that, therefore, the young man who was now an orphan, a displaced person, who, during the war, had managed to escape deportation by working very hard on a farm in Southern France, would be happy and grateful to be given the opportunity to come to America that great country he had heard so much about and yet knew so little about to start a new life, possibly go to school, learn a trade, and become a good, loyal citizen. —Raymond Federman, Double or Nothing (1971)
96. Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. —Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988)
97. He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters. —Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)
98. High, high above the North Pole, on the first day of 1969, two professors of English Literature approached each other at a combined velocity of 1200 miles per hour. —David Lodge, Changing Places (1975)
99. They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. —Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
100. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. —Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895

School jokes

2011-06-14T13:57:00.003+01:00

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America .

MARIA: Here it is.

TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America ?

CLASS: Maria.

____________________________________

TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?

JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables.

__________________________________________

TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell ‘crocodile?’

GLENN: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L’

TEACHER: No, that’s wrong

GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.

(I Love this child)

____________________________________________

TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?

DONALD: H I J K L M N O.

TEACHER: What are you talking about?

DONALD: Yesterday you said it’s H to O.

__________________________________

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we
didn’t have ten years ago.

WINNIE: Me!

__________________________________________

TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?

GLEN: Well, I’m a lot closer to the ground than you are.

_______________________________________

TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with ‘ I. ‘

MILLIE: I is..

TEACHER: No, Millie….. Always say, ‘I am.’

MILLIE: All right… ‘I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.’

________________________________

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father’s
cherry tree, but also admitted it.

Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn’t punish him?

LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand….

______________________________________

TEACHER: Now, Simon , tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?

SIMON: No sir, I don’t have to, my Mom is a good cook.

______________________________

TEACHER: Clyde , your composition on ‘My Dog’ is exactly the
same as your brother’s.. Did you copy his?

CLYDE : No, sir. It’s the same dog.

(I want to adopt this kid!!!)

___________________________________

TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking
when people are no longer interested?

HAROLD: A teacher

__________________________________

List of possible topics for your oral exam – STG / Sujets possibles Bac oral STG

2011-06-14T13:57:00.000+01:00

here is a list which is not complete for sure as there are hundreds of possible documents and therefore possible themes. But here are some of the recurring subjects that you could have to deal with for your oral exam:

- Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, … = dangers and benefits).

- Food (problems of obesity, organic food VS GM Food, …).

- Discrimination and Racism (segregation, Apartheid, racism today, …)

- The environment (global warming, pollution, endangered species, green concerns …).

- Smoking (health, smoking bans, …).

- North VS South (how wealth is unequally distributed, …).

- Our consumer society (shopping addiction, over-consumption, exploitation of child workers, globalization, fair trade, …).

- Appearances and looks (looks, tattoos and piercing, …).

- The American Dream (problems of immigration, success, metling-pot, failure of integration, …).

- Women’s roles in society (evolution, place at work, differences between men and women, …).

- Afro Americans throughout history (from Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King to Barack Obama).

- Television and cameras (reality television, surveillance of society with CCTV, …).

- New technologies (the Internet, computers, mobile phones, blogs, (il)legal downloading, …).

- Travelling (trips, holidays, …).

- Teenager-parent relationship (rebellion, generation gap, …).

- Guns (policies in the US, school shootings, …).

- The Law (death penalty, road safety, …).

Good luck !!!

from : http://www.englishdaybyday.net/article-list-of-possible-topics-for-your-oral-exam-stg-71331010.html

enrichissez votre expression écrite

2011-06-14T13:56:00.000+01:00

Par quels mots peut-on remplacer ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘interesting’, ‘important’ dans les sujets d’expression écrite?

Voici quelques synonymes que vous pouvez utiliser (attention, chaque mot a sa nuance, on ne les emploie pas dans les mêmes contextes):

GOOD: excellent, hard-working, thrilling, fine, positive, proper, appropriate, convenient, desirable, efficient, first-class, first-rate, fit, genuine, satisfactory, suitable, sound, workable, attractive.

BAD: unacceptable, unsuitable, undesirable, absurd, appalling, awkward, criminal, defective, evil, false, foolish, groundless, harmful, second-class, second-rate, unfortunate, serious, useless, hopeless, critical.

INTERESTING: captivating, curious, exciting, fascinating, provocative, stimulating, thought-provoking.

IMPORTANT: major, significant, decisive, consequential, crucial, essential, of substance, paramount, capital, impressive.

BIG: huge, tall, large, enormous, high, gigantic, great, immense, vast, sizeable.

NICE: friendly, lovely, beautiful, kind, attractive, charming, delightful, likeable, pleasant.

Find the French translation of these words on WordReference.

Find more synonyms on synonym.com.

Une bonne copie en Anglais ? C’est possible

2011-06-14T13:54:00.002+01:00

Des conseils ici

Que vous soyez “fluent” en anglais ou que vous redoutiez cette matière au bac, sachez que les épreuves de langues exigent une préparation aussi sérieuse que les autres disciplines ! De précieux conseils et ce qui est attendu des correcteurs, c’est par là !

Quelques conseils pour la compréhension :

Compréhension du texte :

- lire le texte une fois ; à la deuxième lecture, prendre des surligneurs pour surligner les différents personnages, les lieux, les dates ou marqueurs de temps puis lire toutes les questions . Comme vous ne rendez pas le sujet au correcteur, vous pouvez l’annoter.

- vous devez traiter les questions dans l’ordre. Si une question vous parait trop compliquée, laissez de la place sur la copie et revenez-y plus tard.

- faites des phrases complètes : The scene is set in South Africa.

- Notez toutes les citations entre guillemets et indiquez le numéro des lignes. Ne mettez de point de suspension que pour enlever des éléments inutiles dans une phrase. Attention à la façon dont vous coupez vos citations. Choisissez les éléments pertinents.

- Attention aux questions suivantes :

How are the characters related = comment les personnages sont-ils reliés entre eux : liens amicaux, familiaux ou professionnels ?
What are the relationships between the main characters ? = s’entendent-ils bien ou pas ?
Choose the best adjective(s) : attention au singulier ou au pluriel, vous devrez choisir un ou plusieurs adjectifs.
Find information in the text = plusieurs informations. Une information = a piece of information
What do the following pronouns refer to ? Répondre de cette façon : ‘I’ refers to the narrator ; ‘They’ refers to the group of musicians.

Expression :

- ne rédigez pas votre expression entièrement au brouillon, notez-y juste vos idées ou un plan rapide. Vous pouvez rédiger l’introduction et la conclusion au brouillon.

- Ne choisissez pas un sujet que vous n’êtes pas sûr de l’avoir compris à 100%.

- Indiquez le sujet choisi sur votre copie (si il y a des sujets au choix) : I have chosen subject 1. Attention, il faut parfois traiter deux sujets !

- Ecrivez le nombre de mots utilisés à la fin de l’essay : par exemple : 300 words.

- Ne mettez pas de mots dont vous n’êtes pas sûr de l’orthographe, trouvez un synonyme.

- Essayez de trouver des synonymes complexes aux mots de base.

- Ne faites pas de ratures, pensez à l’effaceur et au blanc. Evitez les flèches qui peuvent paraître confuses au correcteur. Attention à l’écriture qui doit être aussi lisible que possible.

Prévoyez au moins 10 minutes pour la relecture de votre copie.

10 Coolest Golf Courses

2011-06-14T01:26:00.000+01:00

The mini-golf course on the top of a Skoda

Car nut John McArthur has the ultimate green motor after turning his Skoda into a mini-golf course – and he doesn't even play the game himself. The 22-year-old has covered the Felicia with fake grass from bumper to bonnet, complete with flag on the roof and a bunker. The film extra was hunting for a replacement for his Renault Megane Scenic when he spotted his dream car on auction website eBay. He drove away with the converted Skoda at a bargain price of £347. One of the bonuses of his green car is that he never has to clean it and it is on a par with other motors when it comes to reliability.

Despite his car, Mr McArthur, from Rayne, Essex, won't be taking up the game of golf any time soon.

(Link)

The golf course located in a prison

This nine-hole course was built and is maintained by prisoners, who aren't allowed to play on it. Prison View Golf Course is located on the grounds of Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, LA, and is operated by the Louisiana State Penitentiary Employee Recreation Committee. It was designed by the prison dentist and appears to be much like any other golf course. Anyone wanting to play must apply 48 hours in advance so they can be screened, and play may be suspended at any time “due to institutional need or at the Warden's discretion.” (Link)

World's first naked golf course

A novel golf concept is played in this course. Naturist golf. “La Jenny”, a resort on the west coast of France – not too far from Bordeaux claims to be the only naturalist golf resort in the world. "La Jenny" was created in 1993 and expanded to cover 9 hectares in 2009. That isn't a big course (6 holes) as championship courses, even non-championship 18 hole courses should cover around 60 hectares. But then again, how long do you want to walk around a course completely nude?

The six playing holes include 4 par 3s and 2 par 4s. We wonder what's in store at the 7th hole for drinks and refreshment. Their promotion mentions a welcoming clubhouse to have an enjoyable time “after golf”. The resort provides individual and group lessons with a professional on their incomparable (according to the website) driving range. There are no restrictions – we suppose that means no handicap is necessary to play. Their slogan is “At La Jenny, golf is available for everyone. See you soon for a tee-off.” (Link | Via)

World's most extreme 19th hole

Should you choose to holiday in the vicinity of the 22,000 hectare Entabeni Safari Conservancy in South Africa, make an effort to play at least one round of golf at The Legend Golf Resort, surely one of the most beautiful courses yet to be created. If the surrounding scenery isn't enough to guarantee your attendance, just take a look at the aptly named ‘Extreme 19th Hole' in the photographs above and reconsider. The good news: it's a par 3. The bad news: you need to jump in a helicopter to reach the tee, which is situated nearly half a kilometre above the green, near the tip of Hangslip mountain. (Link)

The only golf course located in two different countries

Green Zone or Tornio Golf Club is perhaps a unique golf course with 9 holes in one country, Finland, and the remaining 9 in another, Sweden. The border follows the Tornio River which runs through the course. Due to its location, it is possible to play golf at anytime of the day or night in full sunshine during the golfing season. If that isn't a unique golfing experience, I don't know what is. (Link)

World's highest green golf course

This Government Golf Course was the second to be built by the British in India after the Royal Calcutta Golf Club. By the 1920s the resort had two 18-hole courses, the ‘Upper Course' and the ‘Lower' and one 9-hole middle course (the "Rabbits Course"). The only course to survive, however, exists where the Upper Course used to be. It was redesigned in the 1970s by Peter Thomson. At an altitude of 3,730 m Gulmarg GC is among the world's highest and most beautiful greengolf courses in the world. (Link)

World's most dangerous golf course

The US Army maintains a golf course within the DMZ separating North and South Korea. It is the only course in the world that requires all players to be armed, and the “caddy” is actually a trained counter-sniper. The "course" consists of a single 192-yard, par-3 hole that sits 440 yards from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea. (Link | Via)

The golf course inside your own bathroom

Want to play golf while pooping? Now you can. The Potty Putter golf game allows the avid golfer to practice his putting while in the restroom. This gadget may help your golf game, but is guaranteed to also cause you hemorrhoids. It even comes with a "Do Not Disturb Sign" for your practice sessions. (Link)

The golf course inside an airport

From a distance Don Mueang International looks like any other midsize airport. However, smack-dab in the middle of the two runways is an 18-hole golf course. (Link)

The golf course in an island

Set on the island of Mauritius in the sparkling Indian Ocean, Le Touessrok is a pinnacle of tropical luxury and one of the most romantic places on earth. Unique and unusual sites for golf courses are few and far between but now prepare for something unlike anything you have experienced before and add to the above a new description of a golf course - the island course.

Le Touessrok Golf Course occupies its own island, surrounded by a spectacular coral reef. Add in the azure blue waters lapping at white sand beaches and the backdrop of an ancient volcanic mountain and I don't know of any golf sites that compare. A truly unique golfing experience with 18 holes of ocean views. (Link)

BONUS: Taking all the subtlety out of that old golf innuendo about a hole in one.

World's Most Extreme Bridges

2011-06-14T01:24:00.000+01:00

The Immortal Bridge (China)

Mount Tai in the Shandon Province of China has had cultural and religious significance for thousands of years. It is one of the five sacred mountains of China and is associated with the dawn, birth and renaissance. As you progress up the mountain you will come across this – The Immortal Bridge. This Bridge is composed of three huge rocks and several smaller ones. Below it is a valley and to the south is a seemingly bottomless abyss. No one knows quite when these enormous rocks fell into their current place but it is quite likely they have been like this since the last ice age.

(Link | Via)

The Old Bridge of Konitsa (Greece)

This centuries-old bridge in Greece spans the river Aoos, which is
full in winter. If you look carefully to the right under the top of the bridge, you can see a small bell. Villagers say that when there is enough wind to make the bell sound, it is too dangerous to cross the bridge. (Link)

The Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge (Ireland)

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge is a rope suspension bridge near Ballintoy, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The bridge links the mainland to the tiny Carrick Island. The site is owned and maintained by the National Trust, spans twenty metres and is thirty metres above the rocks below. Today the bridge is mainly a tourist attraction, with 247,000 visitors in 2009. When it's windy, this is truly an exhilarating experience – terrifying (if you're afraid of heights) but exhilarating. (Link | Via)

Royal Gorge Bridge (Colorado)

The Royal Gorge Bridge is a tourist attraction near Cañon City, Colorado, within a 360-acre (150 ha) theme park. The bridge deck hangs 955 feet (291 m) above the Arkansas River, and held the record of highest bridge in the world from 1929 until 2003, when it was surpassed by the Beipanjiang River 2003 Bridge in China. It is a suspension bridge with a main span of 938 feet (286 m). The bridge is 1,260 feet (384 m) long and 18 feet (5.5 m) wide, with a wooden walkway with 1292 planks. The bridge is suspended from towers that are 150 feet (46 m) high. (Link | Via)

Inca Rope Bridge (Inca Empire, Peru)

Inca rope bridges were simple suspension bridges over canyons and gorges (pongos) to provide access for the Inca Empire. Bridges of this type were suitable for use since the Inca people did not use wheeled transport - traffic was limited to pedestrians and livestock. These bridges were an integral part on the Inca road system and are an example of Inca innovation in engineering. They were frequently used by Chasqui runners delivering messages throughout the Inca Empire.

The Incas used natural fibers found within the local vegetation to build bridges. These fibers were woven together creating a strong enough rope and were reinforced with wood creating a cable floor. Each side was then attached to a pair of stone anchors on each side of the canyon with massive cables of woven grass linking these two pylons together. Adding to this construction, two additional cables acted as guardrails. The cables which supported the foot-path were reinforced with plaited branches. This multi-structure system made these bridges strong enough to even carry the Spaniards while riding horses after they arrived. However, these massive bridges were so heavy that they tended to sag in the middle, and this caused them to sway in strong winds. Part of the bridge's strength and reliability came from the fact that each cable was replaced every year by local villagers as part of their mita public service or obligation. In some instances, these local peasants had the sole task of maintaining and repairing these bridges so that the Inca highways or road systems could continue to function. The greatest bridges of this kind resided in the Apurimac Canyon along the main road north from Cuzco. (Link)

Pulau Langkawi's Suspended Bridge (Malaysia)

This sky bridge spans around the gorge on Pulau Langkawi, which is the largest island in the Langkawi archipelago, Malaysia. It's suspended at 687 m above sea level, offering magnificent views of the Andaman Sea and Thailand's Tarutao Island. The view from the bridge is really breathtaking – its curves provide different perspectives of the landscapes. The Sky Bridge is one of the most spectacular bridges in the world that delivers quite a pump of adrenaline. This unique cable-stayed bridge is suspended by only one support column. This 95-yard column is held up by 8 load-balancing cables. The curved pedestrian bridge spans 125 m across a spectacular chasm. The bridge is 136 yards long and 2 yards wide. The 1.8 m-wide Sky Bridge had two 3.6 m-wide triangular platforms that provided a spectacular viewing area for visitors. And remember when in the front of the bridge, you are standing 687 m above sea level. (Link)

Puente de Ojuela (Mexico)

Ojuela was a small mining settlement located northwest of the city of Durango, Durango, in northern Mexico. The settlement is now well known as a ghost town as a result of the mineral ore being exhausted. The only surviving and functional structure is a suspension bridge. The bridge is known as "Puente de Ojuela" (Ojuela Bridge) by the locals. The original bridge was designed by the famous Roebling brothers, who also designed the Brooklyn Bridge. At the time of construction, the Puente de Ojuela was the third longest suspension bridge in the world. It was rebuilt recently by the Peñoles Company, the original was scrapped and only the main arches are now displayed at the Torreón Exposition Center. (Link)

Hussaini Hanging Bridge (Pakistan)

Known as the most dangerous bridge in the world, the Hussaini Hanging Bridge is only one of many precarious rope bridges in Northern Pakistan. For most of the citizens, the only way to travel was by walking across mountain passes to Rawalpindi. In 1978, the Karakoram Highway was completed and the region was connected, but inter-region travel remains as difficult as it was 100 years ago. Regular aspects of travel through this region include the rickety cable and plank bridges which cross Northern Pakistan's mountain streams and rivers. Among these is the Hussaini Hanging Bridge, crossing Borit Lake in the Upper Hunza. This rope bridge is both long and poorly maintained. Many planks are missing, and strong winds shake the bridge as you cross it. It does little to ease nerves that a previous, older, broken bridge hangs in tatters next to the "new" one.

Despite its dangerous looks, however, the Hussaini is a relatively safe bridge and has become something of a tourist draw, with hikers testing their nerves as they carefully work their way across. (Link)

Vitim River Bridge (Siberia)

This broad river is the Vitim River in Siberia, Russia. The bridge that's provided to get you across is made of wood and not in a very good condition. It's only wide enough for one car but it's 570 meter (1870 feet) so it takes good 3 minutes to drive across it if you're a skilled driver. If you're not so skilled, you could be looking at a 15 meters drop into the Vitim River, which ain't no fun. And that's really nothing. Vitim River Bridge is in Russian Siberia. For those who don't know this region, it gets brutally cold there most of the year with temperatures way below Northern Ontario and everything covered in snow and ice. This bridge turns into an icicle with no traction yet locals drive up and down this bridge as it's often their only way across Vitim River.

(Link)

Bryce Canyon's Natural Bridge (Utah, US)

Natural Bridge, the most popular arch in Bryce Canyon, is located 1.7 miles past Fairview Point and is visible from the Natural Bridge turn-out. The naming of Natural Bridge in Bryce Canyon caused a slight uproar in the geology circles. Even though the natural-made structure looks like a bridge, it is in fact an arch. (Link | Photo)

10 Weirdest Reasons To Get Fired

2011-06-14T01:22:00.002+01:00

The waitress who got fired because she shaved her hair for charity

Stacey Fearnall, whose father died of cancer, decided to shave her head for a cancer fundraising event. But when she returned to work at Nathaniels restaurant, where she worked as a waiter, she was laid off. The mother of two was told by her boss to go home after she refused to wear a wig. Nathaniels owner and chef Dan Hilliard defended his decision, saying the restaurant has certain standards. He prohibits male staff from wearing earrings and requires employees to keep their hair at a reasonable length. The 36-year-old waitress at Nathaniels restaurant in Owen Sound, Ont., had raised more than $2,700 for the charity Cops for Cancer in exchange for her locks.

(Link | Via)

The woman who was fired for updating her Facebook status

How many times have you updated your Facebook status to say "…is boring at work?" Probably at least once, though statistically that number averages at 3.4 times a week. But can you imagine getting fired for it? Because that's what happened to Briton teen, Kimberly Swann. She was summarily sacked after her boss learned -- via her updated status -- that she was "bored at work." Her boss, meanwhile, says Swann's admission of boredom revealed that "she just wasn't happy here" and thus "it wasn't going to work out." The question is, why was the boss perusing Facebook on company time? Was he, perhaps, a little bored? (Link)

The woman who was fired for sending emails in all caps

An Auckland accountant was sacked for sending "confrontational" emails with words in red, in bold and in capital letters. Vicki Walker, who was a financial controller with ProCare Health, was later awarded $17,000 for unfair dismissal, and plans to lodge an appeal for further compensation. ProCare told the authorities Walker - who was fired in December 2007 after two years of employment - had caused disharmony in the workplace by using block capitals, bold typeface and red text in her emails. She had also acted provocatively in seeking to view complaints laid against her by colleagues. But Walker said they talked about a number of emails she had sent, yet used only one in evidence. The email, which advises her team how to fill out staff claim forms, specifies a time and date highlighted in bold red, and a sentence written in capitals and highlighted in bold blue. It reads: "To ensure your staff claim is processed and paid, please do follow the below checklist." (Link)

The woman who was fired from McDonald's because she added a slice of cheese to a hamburger

A waitress was fired after she sold a hamburger to a co-worker who asked for cheese, which she added. The fast-food chain argued this turned the hamburger into a cheeseburger, and so she should have charged more. McDonald's was ordered to pay the former employee more than 4,200 euros ($5,900; £3,660) for the last five months of her contract. The fast-food chain had argued that the waitress - who was employed at a branch in the northern town of Lemmer - had broken staff rules prohibiting free gifts to family, friends or colleagues. (Link | Via)

The Vodafone employee who was fired over a Tweet to T-Mobile

Companies are clearly beginning to take their Twitter communication channel a little more seriously. For one Vodafone Hungary employee, Müller Tamás, this fact has left him unemployed. It all began when T-Mobile had issues with its mobile network in Hungary. The Vodafone competitor was having trouble connecting phone calls and to keep its customers informed, decided to use Twitter. The first tweet said: “Hungary´s T-Mobile network partly down, software to blame”; then another to calm some presumably furious customers saying:
“There will be an official statement (released) about the network problem. Please be patient!”
Tamas, as a member of Vodafone's marketing staff responsible for the carrier's Twitter messages, decided it would funny to retweet T-Mobiles tweet with a dash of humor to send it on its way. The tweet said: “OK, give us a ring! ;) RT @tmobilehungary There will be an official statement (released) about the network problem. Please be patient!” Needless to say, Vodafone were not best pleased and quick to issue a statement of their own saying that Vodafone had nothing to do with this reply but it would gladly lend a helping hand to T-Mobile to fix its problem. Vodafone didn't leave it there either, the company announced that the Twitterer acted without authorization and the remark was inappropriate. (Link)

The waiter who was fired after leaving shift to save carjacking victim

A waiter in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who left his shift to rescue a woman being attacked by an armed carjacker was fired after the heroic effort. A 22-year-old woman was attacked by a knife-wielding man outside the 84 Thai Food restaurant in the Southland Shopping Center. Restaurant waiter Juan Canales spotted the attack and ran to help. Canales said he tackled the culprit, who police identified as Albert Means, and held him until police could arrive. However, when Canales went back to work, he said his boss terminated him. The woman he saved, Massiel Marquartdt, said she did not understand why Canales was fired. The restaurant manager said Canales may be a hero but he just wasn't that good of an employee. (Link)

The 120-pound model who was fired for being too fat

Model Filippa Hamilton was fired by the Ralph Lauren's clothing company for being too fat. According to her, they told her she was overweight and couldn't fit in their clothes anymore. The company released a statement saying that their relationship with Hamilton ended "as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us." The 5-foot-10, 120-pound stunner was amazed to see her body digitally distorted for Ralph Lauren Blue Label. Hamilton, 23, worked for Ralph Lauren since about 2002 and considered the company like a second family - until she was bounced. (Link)

The judge who was fired over texting during hearings

Most assume unrestrained texting is a juvenile problem. At the Marion County Juvenile Court, where camera phones are banned, it isn't just troubled teens with busy fingers but a magistrate caught breaking the rules. Magistrate Danielle Gregory lost her job because she was caught texting during a trial. Among the text messages she sent were three pictures of herself to a married male employee in the middle of more than one juvenile hearing. Gregory's supervisor wrote in the disciplinary record that "Multiple text messages were sent from [Gregory's] cell phone number to [the male employee's] cell phone during court hours including times [she] was on the bench conducting court sessions. (Link)

The basketball coach who won 100 - 0 and was fired for not apologizing for the victory

Covenant school girls basketball coach Micah Grimes, whose team won 100 to 0 in a shut out ball game against a team from Dallas Academy, was fired for not apologizing for the win. Grimes, who was criticized for letting the game get so far out of hand, made it clear in the e-mail to the newspaper that he did not agree with his school's assessment."In response to the statement posted on The Covenant School Web site, I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed." (Link | Via)

The teacher who got fired for not signing a loyalty oath

Wendy Gonaver lost her teaching job at Cal State Fullerton one day before class was scheduled to begin, because she refused to sign a loyalty oath swearing to "defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job. California State University officials say they were simply following the law and did not discriminate against Gonaver because all employees are required to sign the oath. Clara Potes-Fellow, a Cal State spokeswoman, said the university does not permit employees to submit personal statements with the oath. Prior to that, another Cal State instructor, Quaker math teacher Marianne Kearney-Brown, was fired because she inserted the word "nonviolently" when she signed the oath. She was quickly rehired after her case attracted media attention. (Link | Via)

10 Unbelievable SMS Texting Stories

2011-06-14T01:20:00.002+01:00

The surgeon who performed a life saving surgery in Africa with instructions texted from a friend in London

A British doctor volunteering in DR Congo used text message instructions from a colleague to perform a life-saving amputation on a boy. Vascular surgeon David Nott helped the 16-year-old while working 24-hour shifts with medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Rutshuru. The boy's left arm had been ripped off and was badly infected and gangrenous. Mr Nott, 52, from London, had never performed the operation but followed instructions from a colleague who had. Mr Nott knew he needed to perform a forequarter amputation, requiring removal of the collar bone and shoulder blade. He contacted Professor Meirion Thomas, from London's Royal Marsden Hospital, who had performed the operation before. He texted him and he texted back step by step instructions on how to do it. The operation is only performed about 10 times a year in the UK, usually on cancer patients, and requires the back-up of an intensive-care unit. Patients usually lose a lot of blood during the procedure. Mr Nott had just one pint of blood and an elementary operating theatre, but the operation was a success and the teenager made a full recovery.

(Link | Via)

The trucker who crashed into a pool because he was texting while driving

A tow-truck driver crashed into a car and ended up in a swimming pool. Nicholas Sparks, 25, admitted he was texting on one mobile phone while he was speaking on another when his vehicle struck a car in the upstate Oxford town of Lockport. One of the cars he was towing flew off and struck a house, crushing the air conditioner and gas main system, according to Fire Chief Barry Kobrin. One of the motorcycles being towed flew off the truck, landing underneath the car on the lawn. The tow- truck ended up with its front end in the home's in-ground pool. The homeowner said it sounded 'like a bomb went off.' He was upstairs with his two five-year-old daughters at the time of the crash. Sparks was charged with reckless driving, talking on a mobile phone and following too closely. (Link | Via)

The 15-year-old girl who won 50,000 for texting – in a championship

Think that all that texting is just a big waste of time? Think again! For 15-year-old Kate Moore, texting sure does pay. She won the LG U.S. National Texting Championship. For the Des Moines, Iowa, teenager, her 14,000 texts-per-month habit reaped its own rewards, landing her the competition prize of $50,000 just eight months after she got her first cell phone. Moore, with a speedy and accurate performance, beat out 20 other finalists from around the country over two days of challenges such as texting blindfolded and texting while maneuvering through a moving obstacle course.In the final showdown, she outtexted 14-year-old Morgan Dynda, of Savannah, Ga. Both girls had to text three lengthy phrases without making any mistakes on the required abbreviations, capitalization or punctuation. Moore squeaked through by a few seconds on the tiebreaking text, getting the best two out of three. (Link | Via)

The Finnish author who wrote an entire book in text message

A novel in which the entire narrative consists of mobile phone text messages was published in 2007 in Finland, home of the world's top handset maker Nokia Corp.The Last Messages tell the story of a fictitious IT-executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages. His messages, and the replies — roughly 1,000 altogether — are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in regular SMS traffic. (Link | Via)

The teenager girl who fell in a manhole while texting

A Travis teen trying to walk and text-message at the same time fell into an open sewer manhole -- the manhole was left uncovered and unattended. Alexa Longueira, 15, was walking on Victory Boulevard with a friend, preparing to send a text, when she felt the ground give way. Alexa suffered scrapes on her arms and back as she slid into the sewer, which had some muck at the bottom. Her mother, Kim Longueira, said workers told her they left the open manhole unattended for only a second as they went to fetch some cones from the truck, and the agency said they have launched a full investigation into what happened. While she's thankful the sewer wasn't full at the time, that didn't make it any less gross. (Link | Via)

The Brit woman who set the record for world's fastest SMS texting

A 27-year-old British woman has become the world's faster texter after sending a tongue-twisting 26-word message in just 25.94 seconds. Melissa Thompson wrote the message "the razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human" in 25.94 sec.
She bashed the 26-word statement out so quickly that she texted her way into record books. Thompson shaved a whopping 9.6 seconds off the world record, though it's still subject to verification by the Guinness Book of World Records. Thompson was shopping with her boyfriend Chris Davies, 23, when they visited a Samsung roadshow and she was invited to have a go at breaking the record. She smashed it using the phone's special 'SWYPE' key pad, which enables users to input text without their fingertip leaving the screen. (Link | Via)

The man who set the world record for the most text messages sent in a month – over 180,000

Deepak Sharma went on record with the Guinness Book for having sent the most SMS messages in a single month: 182,689. That's about 6,100 messages a day, 253 an hour, 4.2 a minute, or a new one every 14 seconds or so. So basically this guy gave up a month of his life sending texts. His other reward? A 1,411 page bill (don't worry, he has an unlimited texting plan). Sharma aims to increase his messages to 300,000 in the coming month, he sends his rapid-fire messages to his relatives and friends, who purport to fully support his endeavor. (Link)

The two men who got a $26k bill trying to set a text messaging record

Two friends from Philadelphia—both men—just received a bill for $26,000 after sending 217,000 texts to each other in one month alone. Nick Andes, 29, and Doug Klinger, 30, were looking to beat the highest monthly text message total they could find—182,000 sent by Deepak Sharma in 2005—so they set up their phones to send multiple messages. On a test run the prior month, they found that they could send up to 7,000 texts on some days, which prompted their record-breaking attempt the following month. Throughout the month, their phones were so busy sending texts that Andes's wife, Julie, could rarely reach him because his phone was always tied up sending texts. Although some of the texts were simple—such as "Hello" or "LOL"—and a lot of them were repeats, at the end of March, Andes received an itemized bill of $26,000, which was so large that it came in a package that cost $27.55 just to ship to him. Piling up such high bill for that many texts shouldn't have come as a surprise, except for the fact that Andes and Klinger both had unlimited text messaging plans. However, T-Mobile has apparently credited the phone bill and is now investigating the charges.

Moreover, with Andes sending 140,000 texts and Klinger contributing 70,000 of his own, the two men were able to send about 217,000 texts, which is clearly over the 182,000 text message record they were able to find online. However, representatives at the Guiness World Records have yet to verify whether or not the two men have, in fact, beat the world record. (Link)

The girl who sent 200 messages to help Haiti only she didn't know she had to pay for them

A girl named Cara was really proud she had sent 188 donation text messages which meant almost $2,000 dollars donated to Haiti relief efforts. Only she didn't know that this donation was made by her, or in this case by her parents. It was only when she posted her status on Facebook that her friends advised her to look out her mobile phone bill next month. Well, she probably got grounded for a month, but at least it was for a good cause. (Link | Via)

The mobile company who tried to set the record for world's fastest texting while skydiving

A group of high-flying daredevils gave new meaning to Extreme Text Messaging, as 10 skydivers for Samsung Mobile attempted to set a Guinness World Record for fastest text messaging while skydiving. The team of professional skydivers text messaged while freefalling from 12,000 feet outside the Los Angeles city limits at the Samsung Mobile XTREME TEXTING event. The challenge was the furthest thing from being easy. The skydivers had to accurately text message the following tongue-twisting phrase given to them by the Guinness World Records, which may be nearly equally as difficult to say:

“The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.” The skydivers had only 1 minute to text message the phrase while freefalling from 12,000 feet (3.655 meters) before pulling their parachutes and gliding to the ground.

The feat in the cold California desert proved to be even more difficult than had been expected. Some divers couldn't get more than a word or two typed out, but others were slightly more successful. Barry Chase got through, “The razor-toothed piranha of m.” (Link)

8 Worst Business Screw-ups

2011-06-14T01:17:00.002+01:00

Investing millions of dollars doesn't always mean great results. Take a look at some of the worst decisions, mistakes and business fails ever.

Alitalia and their $39 ticket mistake to Cyprus

Alitalia Airlines is a carrier out of Italy that made a slight mistake on its website in 2006 regarding a fare from Toronto to Cyprus. The fare advertised was $39 – in business class! It was supposed to be $3,900. The rate was posted on a travel website and the rush was on. As many as 2,000 tickets were sold for this price. While Alitalia initially tried to cancel all the tickets purchased for the wrong price, they eventually decided to honor the mistaken fares. If all 2,000 people actually used their tickets, it adds up to a $7.72 million loss to the airline.

(Link | Via)

Coca-Cola Company and their New Coke fiasco

New Coke was the unofficial name of the sweeter formulation introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola. Properly speaking, it had no separate name of its own, but was simply the new version of Coke, until 1992 when it was renamed Coca-Cola II. Public reaction to the change was devastating, and the new cola quickly entered the pantheon of major marketing flops. Company headquarters in Atlanta started receiving letters expressing anger or deep disappointment. Over 400,000 calls and letters were received by the company. A psychiatrist Coke hired to listen in on phone calls to the company hotline, 1-800-GET-COKE, told executives some people sounded as if they were discussing the death of a family member.

New Coke was a disaster not because it was crap (although it most certainly was), but because the consumer sheeple were too attached to their brand of cola which hadn't been changed since 1903 when the good stuff (cocaine) was taken out. The failure of the “new” formula points to the psychology of branding and consumer attachment to a freaking soft drink. It was only 3 months later when Coke Classic was brought back to appease the raging hordes of angry soda drinkers who were obviously in some sugar-induced maniac state. The Coke Classic did so well that it outsold the new coke and Pepsi, leading to some conspiracy theories that this was all planned in advance.

The subsequent reintroduction of Coke's original formula led to a significant gain in sales. (Link)

The AT&T network collapse and the 75 million lost phone calls

In 1990, 75 million phone calls across the US went unanswered after a single switch at one of AT&T's 114 switching centres suffered a minor mechanical problem, which shut down the centre. Normally, AT&T's long-distance network was a model of reliability and strength. On any given day, AT&T's long-distance service, which at the time carried over 70% of the nation's long-distance traffic, route over 115 million telephone calls.

When the centre came back up soon afterwards, it sent a message to other centres, which in turn caused them to trip and shut down and reset. The culprit turned out to be an error in a single line of code -- not hackers, as some claimed at the time -- that had been added during a highly complex software upgrade. American Airlines alone estimated this small error cost it 200,000 reservations. (Link)

Decca Records and the turning down The Beatles decision

Mike Smith and Dick Rowe were the executives in charge of evaluating new talent for the London office of Decca Records. On December 13, 1961, Mike Smith traveled to Liverpool to watch a local rock ‘n' roll band perform. He decided they had talent, and invited them to audition on New Year's Day 1962. The group made the trip to London and spent two hours playing 15 different songs at the Decca studios. Then they went home and waited for an answer. They waited for weeks. Finally, Rowe told the band's manager that the label wasn't interested, because they sounded too much like a popular group called The Shadows. In one of the most famous of all rejection lines, he said: "Not to mince words, Mr. Epstein, but we don't like your boys' sound. Groups are out; four-piece groups with guitars particularly are finished."

The group was The Beatles, of course. They eventually signed with EMI Records, started a trend back to guitar bands, and ultimately became the most popular band of all time. Ironically, "within two years, EMI's production facilities became so stretched that Decca helped them out in a reciprocal arrangement, to cope with the unprecedented demand for Beatles records." (Link | Via)

Ford and their $350 million-loss Edsel

In the mid-1950s, Ford, flush from its exceptionally successful Thunderbird, wanted to create a new model to compete head-to-head with General Motors' Oldsmobile. (The Ford Lincoln had served that purpose, but it was getting a makeover to go against GM's higher-end Cadillac.) Ford's solution: the Edsel, named after the son of founder Henry Ford. Despite all the hype — including a television special called "The Edsel Show" — the Edsel proved to be one of the biggest bungles ever in the auto industry. Ford whiffed on three fronts: style (the car looked too much like other Ford models), size (too large, given the growing trend toward compact cars), and price (initially intended to be priced between a Lincoln and the lower-tier Mercury, the Edsel actually fell within Mercury's price point, and thus confused consumers). Ford sank $350 million (in 1950s dollars) into the Edsel before calling it quits; production of the model ceased Nov. 19, 1959.

Ford has since bounced back, but the lesson remains. "It's a classic case of perspective taking," says Adam Galinsky, a professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "If businesses don't consult outside perspectives to objectively assess consumers' demands, their products are at risk of failure." (Link)

The Canarsee natives and their trade of Manhattan for trinkets

The Canarsee natives took a wise decision in 1626: they traded for trinkets a now rather stylish plot: Manhattan (then called New Amsterdam). Legend states that the Carnarsee sold Manhattan to the Dutch Governor Peter Minuit for "24 dollars' worth of beads and trinkets." The island fondly dubbed "the center of the universe" by many New Yorkers is now worth a cool $1 trillion, estimates Matthew Mondanile of Cushman & Wakefield, a global commercial real estate firm.

According to history, on May 24, 1626, Minuit was credited with purchasing the island from the natives in exchange for trade goods valued at 60 guilders. The figure of 60 guilders comes from a letter by a member of the board of the Dutch West India Company, Pieter Janszoon Schagen, to the States-General in November 1626. Sixty guilders in 1626 had the approximate value of $1000 in 2006, according to the Institute for Social History of Amsterdam.

The transaction is often viewed as one-sided, usually to the benefit of the Dutch, though one popular history of Manhattan claims that Minuit actually purchased the island from the wrong tribe). In any event, there is no evidence that either the Dutch or the Indians believed they had swindled, or been swindled by, the other party to the deal. An 1877 embellishment of the myth claimed that the Dutch offered "beads, buttons and other trinkets," though there is no evidence for this]. A contemporary purchase of rights in nearby Staten Island, to which Minuit was also party, involved duffel cloth, iron kettles and axe heads, hoes, wampum, drilling awls, "Jew's harps", and "diverse other wares". (Link)

ABC-TV and their refusal to have a black family show, The Cosby Show

In 1984, Bill Cosby gave ABC-TV a first shot at buying a sitcom he'd created – and would star in – about an upscale black family. But ABC turned him down, apparently "believing the show lacked bite and that viewers wouldn't watch an unrealistic portrayal of blacks as wealthy, well-educated professionals." So Cosby sold his show to NBC instead. What happened? Nothing much – The Cosby Show remained #1 show for four straight years, was a rating winner throughout its eight-year run, lifted NBC from its 10-year status as a last-place network to first place, resurrected TV comedy, and became the most profitable series ever broadcast. (Link)

Burger King and their $40 million Herb ad campaign failure

In 1985 and 1986 Burger King came up with the Where's Herb? advertising campaign. Supposedly, “Herb” was “the one man who has never tasted a Burger King burger.” In one commercial the camera pans across crowded beaches and escalators in search of Herb. Supposed friends and family are interviewed, and boy are they completely boring losers. Can't wait to meet Herb! In early 1986, Burger King “found” Herb. Soon he was appearing on NBC's Today show and at a New York City press conference. Burger King even cooked up a biography for Herb, (Wisconsin, cheese factory, you get the idea) Herb was played by actor John Merrick, who would randomly appear at Burger King restaurants nationwide; if a customer spotted Herb at a Burger King, he or she would win a prize. Except nobody gave a damn.

Only the corporate world could come up with such a letdown as Herb the Nerd. The icing on the cake is the exclaim “Gary Sirotzke found me!” as if anybody knew who Gary Sirotzke was and should give a damn. So Burger King gives us not one, but two nerdy accountants. Yeah, that'll get them in the door! Burger King spent over $40 million on the Herb advertisements; however, the advertisements were not successful, and are widely cited as a flop. We were totally caught off guard! John Merrick/Herb was never heard from again.