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den4

先輩
15 Nov 2002
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T3 trailer: (right click on link to download 16mb file)
http://fun.s-one.net.sg:8080/pub/movies/t3_tlr_m480.mov

animatrix: (right click on link to download 141mb file)
http://fun.s-one.net.sg:8080/pub/movies/animatrix_the_second_renaissance_part_1.mov

mutations created artists? :O
Genetic Mutations Allowed Humans To Be Artistic - Slashdot

descendants of Khan: (not the montalban one)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html

biography:
http://americanscientist.org/bookshelf/Leads03/03-01Lthomson.html

green tea gaining popularity:
Home Page | Voice of America - English

fun on venus:
Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | Greenhouse effects also on other planets

replacement for the shuttle:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030217/spaceplane.html

Paul Erdos: math genius obsessed with numbers
http://www.oakland.edu/~grossman/erdoshp.html
http://www.paulerdos.com/ (read excerpt of the book from Scientific American. His bizarre behavior outside of mathematics is what I found interesting. the guys is a genius, but perhaps a lot of geniuses have similar problems in their social/private lives)

Strunk and White's Elements of Style: (for those struggling with rules of grammar)
http://coba.shsu.edu/help/strunk/

Against TCPA
http://www.againsttcpa.com/
{War for digital freedom} Intel founded the TCPA, which stands for Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, with Compaq, HP, IBM, and Microsoft. The goal is to build a new computing platform that will provide improved trust in the PC platform. Palladium is the software that Microsoft plans to incorporate in future versions of Windows that will build on the TCPA hardware with extra features. So what's wrong with that? This set up won't allow you to tamper with applications and such applications can communicate with the vendor. In other words, you won't be able to copy DVDs, swap music downloads, use CDs with a limited number of times to play, and many other possibilities. In other words, it's remote control censorship. If you have something on your PC that the government or Bill Gates doesn't want you to have - click and it's gone. Software companies can take advantage of this to make it harder to switch to competitors' products. All Word-based documents can only be read using Word and nothing else. This Web site does a good job of putting this complex topic into understandable terms and even provides translations of its FAQ in many languages.

A man and his wife are awakened at 3 o'clock in the morning by a loud pounding on the door. The man gets
up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.

"Not a chance," says the husband, "it is three o'clock in the morning!" He slams the door and returns to bed.
"Who was that?" asked his wife.
"Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answers.
"Did you help him?" she asks.
"No, I did not, it is three in the morning and it is pouring outside!"
"Well, you have a short memory," says his wife. "Can't you remember about three months ago when we broke down and those two guys helped us?"ツ?ツ? "I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!"
The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pouring rain.
He calls out into the dark, "Hello, are you still there?"
"Yes," comes back the answer.
"Do you still need a push?" calls out the husband.
"Yes, please!" comes the reply from the dark.
"Where are you?" asks the husband.
"Over here on the swing!" replies the drunk.

From the University of California at Irvine:
Study: People Can Be Led to Believe They Experienced the Improbable
Pioneer in False Memory Research Presents Latest Findings at AAAS Symposium
Irvine, Calif. -- During a recent study of memory recall and the use of suggestive interviewing, UC Irvine cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus successfully planted false memories in volunteers of several study groups -- memories that included such unlikely events as kissing frogs, shaking hands with Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, and witnessing a demonic possession.

Her success at planting these memories challenge the argument that suggestive interviewing may reliably prompt real memories instead of planting false ones. A pioneer in false memory research and Distinguished Professor of Social Ecology at UCI, Loftus will present her latest research at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting in Denver at the "Remembering Traumatic Experiences in Childhood: Reliability and Limitations of Memory" symposium beginning at 2:30 p.m. MST Sunday, Feb. 16.

Loftus conducted her study by having volunteers conduct a set of actions that mixed the common place (flipping a coin) with the unusual and even bizarre (crushing a Hershey's kiss with a dental floss container). Later, her research team asked volunteers to imagine additional actions they performed that day, such as kissing a frog. At a future time, participants were asked to recall their actions on that specific day[j1]. Ayanna Thomas, a doctoral student in Loftus' research group, found that 15 percent of the study's volunteers claimed they had actually performed some of the actions they had only imagined.

In another study, Loftus showed how false memories can be planted with a visual. Loftus and her colleagues exposed volunteers to a fake print advertisement describing a visit to Disneyland where they would meet Bugs Bunny. Later, 33 percent of these volunteers claimed they knew or remembered the event happening to them. (Bugs Bunny is a Warner Bros. character and has never appeared at Disneyland.) The false memory rate was boosted when people were given multiple exposures to the fake advertisement. In one study, 36 percent of those given three exposures said they met Bugs Bunny, compared to only 9 percent in a control condition. Loftus' collaborators on this study included Kathryn Braun-LaTour, Melissa Grinley and Jacquie Pickrell.

These studies continue three decades of research by Loftus proving that memory is highly susceptible to distortion and contamination. Her past work has shown that people can be led to remember rather familiar or common experiences, even when these experiences likely had not occurred. Much of Loftus's work has focused on false claims of repressed memories of sexual abuse. She also has shown that eyewitness accounts, notably those given in court, often are inaccurate. Loftus has served as an expert witness or consultant on some of the nation's most high-profile trials, including the McMartin Pre-school molestation case, the "Hillside Strangler" case, the police officers involved in the Rodney King beating and the Bosnian War Trials.

Ranked among the 25 psychologists most frequently cited in introductory psychology textbooks, Loftus is the author of "Eyewitness Testimony," which won a National Media Award, and co-author of the widely cited book, "The Myth of Repressed Memory."

Scambusters
http://www.scambusters.org/
{E-Zine covering Internet scum} Enough! How many spam emails have you gotten with that word? Enough! Enough, already! Ironically, today I received an email from two intelligent acquaintances with the "Bill Gates gives you more money whenever you forward the e-mail" urban legend. This is older than dirt: tech dirt, that is. I hadn't seen this one circulating in maybe two years. It proves smart people don't always have a feel for what's real and what's fake on the 'Net. Not all intelligent people are 'Net savvy and able to distinguish the good from the bad. Scambusters provides clear information getting its visitors up to speed on the latest scams and Internet fraud. Scambusters has a free e-mail newsletter providing details on the latest scam-spam-fraud activities. Drive by the Scam Check Station for resources and current scams / legends. Internet ScamBusters Contest is one we can all enter, as we've receive far too many [bleep] e-mails. All you need to do is share the specifics of an Internet scam and the three best (or worst) are selected each month to receive a t-shirt. Off to try to win one!

interesting topics:
http://www.justicetalking.org/

Noctilucent (polar mesopheric) clouds:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/18feb_nlc.htm

puzzler:
Q: http://cartalk.cars.com/Radio/Puzzler/Transcripts/200306/index.html
A: http://cartalk.cars.com/Radio/Puzzler/Transcripts/200307/answer.html


The CIA had an opening for an assassin. After all the background checks, interviews and testing were done there were three finalists: two men and a woman.
For the final test, the CIA agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a .45 revolver. "We must know that you will follow your instructions, no matter what the circumstances. Inside this room, you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Kill her!"
The man said, "You can't be serious. I could never shoot my wife." The agent said, "Then you're not the right man for this job."
The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about five minutes. Then the man came out with tears in his eyes. "I tried, but I can't kill my wife," the man said. "You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home."
Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Six shots were heard, one shot after another. The agents heard screaming, crashing and banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow, and said, "This gun is loaded with blanks. I had to beat him to death with the chair."

A little old Irishman gets pulled over by a policeman, who says,
"Sir? Do you realize your wife fell out of the car about a mile back?"
The old fella replied, "Oh, thank Christ. I thought I'd gone deaf!"

:D
 
Wow, I love your news flashes! Took me half an hour to skim though all the articles!

;)
 
hmm...

I'll have to find others, so that it'll take you a few more seconds.... :p

:D

the Paul Erdos (pronounced Er-dish) was an interesting story.....may end up buying the book to read up on this guy.....interesting that geniuses that are extremely genius tend to have an imbalance to be unable to fit in social life.....
 
Justicetalk.org is excellent, just got lost in their pages. These obesity cases are very interesting.

Is junk food a public hazard? Two children have joined the growing list of obese people who claim that fast food industry advertising is deceitful - and they want the 窶徘erpetrators窶 to pay. Advocates for the obese say commercials and on-site promotions omit descriptions of the myriad health risks of fast food. But a recent lawsuit filed against the McDonald窶冱 Corporation was dismissed, causing industry representatives to assert that obesity 窶 and the increased risk of heart disease and diabetes it carries - is a matter of individual responsibility. Companies, they say, ought not serve as the scapegoats of a culture that seeks personal indulgence.

Generally I'm far from siding with McDonald's, but if they had lost the case, personal responsibility would have been reduced to zero. I really dislike this tendency to shift general risks onto others. What's the name of my favourite lawyer, Ed Fagan...?

:box:

As for the Gates interview: must be fake, lol.
 
yeah, there should be a law against frivolous lawsuits....
soon, if they are allowed to persist, there will be somebody suing because they want the sun to be shaped like a fluorescent light bulb....or they want cigarettes to clean your lungs rather than causing carcinogens, or will start suing other countries because their movies don't automatically come to the US with politically correct messages implied...etc... :O

:D
 
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