Thursday, 18 August 2011

18th Aug 2011 Too Much Or Too Little Computing?

Aug 18A
Signs that you've had TOO MUCH Computing ~
1) You try to enter your password on the microwave.
2) You email your son in his room to tell him that dinner is ready, and he emails you back, "What's for dinner dad?"
3) Your daughter sets up a web site to sell Girl Scout Cookies.
4) You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven't spoken to your next door neighbor yet this year.
Too Little Computing If You Don't Know Any Of The Following ~
1) First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
2) The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
3) Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
  • Spades - King David
  • Clubs - Alexander the Great
  • Hearts-Charlemagne
  • Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
4) 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
5) If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
6) Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
7) "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
8) The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
9) The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
10) The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

11) Tell you a secret with nothing to do with computing: the Blog Pic here 3 friends insisted it was me when I was younger. It's not. It looks however almost a double of me 20 years or so ago.



Prev: 18th Aug 2011 An Alzheimer Eye Test - Simple But Fun

18th Aug 2011 An Alzheimer Eye Test - Simple But Fun

Actually it's more of a reading test.
You only need to count
every F in the following text:
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...

(SEE BELOW)

HOW MANY? DON'T CHEAT!


You are likely wrong, there are 6 - no joke!
READ IT AGAIN !

Really, go Back and Try to find the 6 F's before you scroll down.

The reasoning behind is further down.


The brain cannot process "OF"!
Incredible or what? Go back and look again!!


Anyone who counts all 6 "F's" on the first go is a genius.  
Three is normal, four is quite rare.
 


Prev: 18th Aug 2011 Robbing The Dead

18th Aug 2011 Robbing The Dean

Aug 18
Some friends thought me strange when they discovered I have a habit of reading obituaries. It's morbid, they say, and senseless. If the dead person was famous, they argue, you know all about them already; if they were not (those who occupied space in the newspapers were usually known figures if not exactly famous) why bother with the dead person you didn't even know?

I read them, famous or not, because I had always thought that an obituary usually tells about the deceased's life like a condensed biography depicting the key points of his life, character and personality of the person, achievements too, however small. I am just interested in people and their lives, each unique and different, even the person was not a hero, a star, or somebody very important. Everyone must have been important to someone sometime in his/her life time.
 
However, recently, I noticed that obituaries are, borrowing a cliche, not as they used to be. The dead person seems to have been put into 2nd place, with the writer saying 'I' 'me' more than 'he' or 'she': 'I knew him in ...', 'I introduced (promoted, discovered, helped ...) him'. When being generous, then 'we', sharing friends, events, good or bad times and, especially, achievements.

In the present day culture of the all important 'I', even dying couldn't have avoided yielding to the living the 1st position. Couldn't even died alone in peace, but with the writer seemingly getting in the grave right by his side. At the end of an obituary, one learns more about the writer than the person whom he's supposed to honour. 
 
Prev: 17th Aug 2011 Does Fish Sleep?