posting these....stuffs..
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posting these....stuffs..
Not really... Are you tired of reading them?
Well, would it matters
[Portage Daily Register, 10-28-04]
Karen Stolzmann, 44, was arrested in October in Portage, Wis., and charged with possession of stolen property, specifically, her long-dead boyfriend's ashes, which police say she dug up more than 10 years ago, perhaps to taunt his family, with whom she never got along. Other items that had been buried with him were found in her possession, and authorities speculate that the beer the family buried as tribute had long since been drunk by Stolzmann. (The couple reportedly had a stormy relationship, and the family believes she provoked his suicide.)
Sub> If you are tired of it or if you are not interested, feel free not to open this thread :)
Basil> Talk about long lasting revenge... (I liked your previous avatars better :blush:)
A journal study by Maastricht University in The Netherlands concluded that even the air quality alongside major highways is not as dangerous as the air inside the typical church (with candles, incense and poor ventilation).
Scher, what's wrong with this one? Do you know what it's from?
Oh Scher, don't get me wrong. I never mentioned (not even once) that I don't like this thread. Wasn't I just asking?
[Northwest Cable News (Seattle)-AP, 11-9-04]
A Junction City, Ore., high school student was arrested after he and a pal allegedly distributed a DVD they had made, complete with rap-music sound track, of them beating up a classmate they had selected at random.
wow there are some sick people in the world (from previous post by basil)
hey parents??? would you go on strike against your children?
Google to scan famous libraries
Google is the world's most popular search engine
The libraries of five of the world's most important academic institutions are to be digitised by Google.
Scanned pages from books in the public domain will then be made available for search and reading online.
The full libraries of Michigan and Stanford universities, as well as archives at Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library are included.
Online pages from scanned books will not have adverts but will have links to online store Amazon, Google said.
Lengthy project
"The goal of the project is to unlock the wealth of information that is offline and bring it online," said Susan Wojcicki, director of product management at Google.
This is the day the world changes
John Wilkin, University of Michigan
There will also be links to public libraries so that the books can be borrowed. Google will not be paid for providing for the links.
It will take six years to digitise the full collection at Michigan, which contains seven million volumes.
Users will only have access to extracts and bibliographies of copyrighted works.
The New York library is allowing Google to include a small portion of books no longer covered by copyright.
Thousands of Oxford's rare books will be made available online
Harvard is limiting its participation to 40,000 books, while Oxford wants Google to scan books originally published in the 19th Century and held in the Bodleian Library.
A spokeswoman for Oxford University said the digitised books would include novels, poetry, political tracts and art books.
"Important works that are out of print or only available in a few libraries around the world will be made available to everyone," she said.
About one million books will be scanned by Google, less than 15% of the total collection held in the Bodleian.
"We hope that Oxford's contribution to this project will be of scholarly use, as well as general interest, to people around the world," said Reg Carr, director of Oxford University Library Services.
Impact on libraries
"It's a significant opportunity to bring our material to the rest of the world," said Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library.
"It could solve an old problem: If people can't get to us, how can we get to them?"
"This is the day the world changes," said John Wilkin, a University of Michigan librarian working with Google.
"It will be disruptive because some people will worry that this is the beginning of the end of libraries.
"But this is something we have to do to revitalise the profession and make it more meaningful."
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4094271.stm)
Singapore heads school test table
School pupils in Singapore lead the world in maths and science, the latest international report suggests.
Of 360,000 pupils aged 10 and 14 in more than 40 countries in the TIMSS study, those in Singapore had the best average scores in both subjects.
England's pupils did well in science but in the older age group too few schools took part, so their results are in a footnote in the report.
Scotland, the other UK nation involved, fared less well in both subjects.
Four-yearly tests
This is the second time in two weeks that England has failed to figure in major international rankings because of low participation.
The UK as a whole was left out of the PISA rankings last week because not enough schools in England could be persuaded to take part.
The latest analysis is from the four-yearly Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).
It was organised by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and co-ordinated by researchers at Boston College in the US.
This is the third TIMSS report, involving pupils typically aged 14 ("eighth grade") in 46 countries and typically aged 10 ("fourth grade") in 25 countries.
Tests were tailored to each participating country's curriculum, main language and culture.
The researchers said Singapore students at both grade levels were easily the top performers in maths and among the best in science, with the highest average scores.
Those from South Korea, Chinese Taipei and the Hong Kong region of China also performed very well across the two subject areas.
...
Trends over time
Because this 2003 round of testing was the third that has been done, the researchers were able to identify trends since 1995.
In mathematics, at the eighth grade, countries with significant increases in achievement included South Korea, Hong Kong, Latvia, the United States and Lithuania.
A number of countries had declined, including Japan, Belgium (Flemish), Russia, the Slovak Republic, Sweden, Bulgaria, Norway and Cyprus.
At the fourth grade, countries showing significant gains between 1995 and 2003 included Hong Kong, Latvia, England, Cyprus, New Zealand and Slovenia.
Only the Netherlands and Norway had significant decreases in achievement.
England's Schools Minister, Stephen Twigg, said: "The fact that our pupils have made bigger progress in maths than any other country highlights how our numeracy strategy has brought real dividends, and is testament to the hard work of teachers and pupils."
In science, countries that showed significant improvement at the eighth grade included South Korea, Hong Kong, the US, Australia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Latvia.
Countries with significant decreases included Sweden, the Slovak Republic, Belgium (Flemish), Norway, Bulgaria, Iran and Cyprus.
At the fourth grade, many countries showed significant improvement, including Singapore, Hong Kong, England, Hungary, Latvia, New Zealand, Slovenia, Cyprus and Iran.
Performance in Japan, Scotland and Norway declined.
The best performer in this TIMSS report, Singapore, was not in the PISA study, reported last week.
Finland, which outperformed other countries in PISA's maths, science and reading tests, did not take part in TIMSS.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4092133.stm)
What next??? :eek:
A Wingman in Action: Here's How It Works
Tue Dec 14, 3:00 PM ET U.S. National - AP
By The Associated Press
So what's a wingperson's role? Gabe Fischbarg, a New York lawyer who wrote the book "The Guide to Picking Up Girls," says it goes something like this:
_ Step One: The wingman or wingwoman is someone who's comfortable talking to strangers and helps find a way to strike up a conversation and introduce his or her friend.
_ Step Two: If the potential love interest is with friends, the wingperson helps keep those friends occupied so there's a chance for the friend to make a love connection.
_ Step Three: The wingperson also does everything possible to make the friend who's trying to score look brilliant, funny and enticing.
"In other words, it's always easier if someone else says nice things about you. If you do it, it sounds like you're bragging," says Fischbarg, whose book dedicates an entire chapter to the topic of wingmen.
He says it's OK for wingpeople to make themselves look silly so their friends can shine. But they should avoid telling embarrassing stories about their friends.
(http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...an_explainer_1)
Dude, you can't be serious!
Linguist deconstructs the word, sees many meaningsThe Associated Press
Updated: 9:59 a.m. ET Dec. 8, 2004PITTSBURGH - Dude, you’ve got to read this.
A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper
deconstructing and deciphering the word “dude,” contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, skaters, slackers and teenagers.
An admitted dude-user during his college years, Scott Kiesling said the four-letter word has many uses: in greetings (“What’s up, dude?”); as an exclamation (“Whoa, Dude!”); commiseration (“Dude, I’m so sorry.”); to one-up someone (“That’s so lame, dude.”); as well as agreement, surprise and disgust (“Dude.”).
Kiesling says in the fall edition of American Speech that the word derives its power from something he calls cool solidarity — an effortless kinship that’s not too intimate.
Cool solidarity is especially important to young men who are under social pressure to be close with other young men, but not enough to be suspected as gay.
In other words: Close, dude, but not that close.
“It’s like man or buddy, there is often this male-male addressed term that says, ’I’m your friend but not much more than your friend,”’ said Kiesling, whose research focuses on language and masculinity.
Decoding the lingo
To decode the word’s meaning, Kiesling listened to conversations with fraternity members he taped in 1993. He also had undergraduate students in sociolinguistics classes in 2001 and 2002 write down the first 20 times they heard “dude” and who said it during a three-day period.
He found the word taps into nonconformity and a new American image of leisurely success.
LIVE VOTE
Dude, whatcha think?
Anecdotally, men were the predominant users of the word, but women sometimes call each other dudes.
Less frequently, men will call women dudes and vice versa. But that comes with some rules, according to self-reporting from students in a 2002 language and gender class included in the paper.
“Men report that they use dude with women with whom they are close friends, but not with women with whom they are intimate,” according to the study.
‘Dudesman?’
His students also reported that they were least likely to use the word with parents, bosses and professors.
Historically, dude originally meant “old rags” — a “dudesman” was a scarecrow. In the late 1800s, a “dude” was akin to a “dandy,” a meticulously dressed man, especially out West. It became “cool” in the 1930s and 1940s, according to Kiesling. Dude began its rise in the teenage lexicon with the 1981 movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
“Dude” also shows no signs of disappearing as more and more of our culture becomes youth-centered, said Mary Bucholtz, an associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“I have seen middle-aged men using ’dude’ with each other,” she said.
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6676586/)
Well I don't think it's weird at all. I mean people do almost everything to get instant happiness these days.