karthik

2009-05-28T01:37:00.000-07:00

Stare at the center for 10 seconds and begin moving your eyes around the outer perimeter...

Does it appear to be moving, shimmering, or just making you dizzy?
Also: Follow the outermost groove and watch it
change from a groove to a hump as you go around the wheel.

Realistic Dice Illusion

As you look at these dice, try to determine if they are standing up, or laying flat.

It seems as if they are doing both.

Elephant Leg Illusion

How many legs does this elephant have?

4, 5, 6, maybe 7?

- - - Good Luck Figuring It Out! -

Tallest Soldier Illusion

Can You Pick Out the Tallest Soldier?

Did You Find Him? Hmm...

They Are All the Same Height!

Impossible Monumental Columns

Are the columns square or round? Will they support anything?

2009-05-23T04:35:00.000-07:00

Mind Trick?

Have you ever wondered if your mind is normal? Well, do this little mind exercise and find out ---- Free will or synaptic wiring? You be the judge.

Check out the following exercise, guaranteed to raise an eyebrow. There's no trick or surprise. Just follow these instructions, and answer the questions one at a time and as quickly as you can. Again, as quickly as you can but don't advance until you've done each of them...really.

Now, scroll down (but not too fast, you might miss something)...

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Now repeat saying the number 6 to yourself as fast as you can for 15 seconds. Then scroll down.

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> QUICK! THINK OF A VEGETABLE! Then arrow down.
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If not, you're among the 2% of the population whose minds are different enough to think something else. 98% of people will answer with carrot when given this exercise.

(Just as a note, everyone I've sent this to so far has replied that they're in the 98%, so it does seem to work... Weird. If anyone has an explanation, I'd be glad to hear it ~jw)

Eye Test - Amazing

This is not a joke... If you can pass, you can safely turn on your ignition key again and cancel your annual eye examination... Can you find the "C”??? (Good exercise for the eyes!) Be ready to go blind.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Once you've found the C..........

Find the 6!

9999999999999999999999999999999999
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9999999999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999999999999
9999699999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999999999999

Once you've found the 6...

Find the N! (it's hard!!)

MMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMNMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMM
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MMMMMMMMMMMMM
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Top 17 Most Creative Uses For Old Stuff

2009-05-20T04:08:00.000-07:00

	If you have set yourself on fire, do not run.
	If you spot terrorism, blow your anti-terrorism whistle. If you are Vin Diesel, yell really loud.
	If you spot a terrorist arrow, pin it against the wall with your shoulder.
	If you are sprayed with an unknown substance, stand and think about it instead of seeing a doctor.
	Use your flashlight to lift the walls right off of you!
	To eliminate smallpox, wash with soap, water and at least one(1) armless hand under a faucet with no sink.
	Michael Jackson is a terrorist. If you spot this smooth criminal with scary eyes, run away now.
	People, animal corpses and the biohazard symbol are all at risk of being sucked into the time-tunnel vortex.
	Be on the lookout for terrorists with pinkeye and leprosy. Also, they tend to rub their hands together manically.
	If a door is closed, karate chop it open.
	If your building collapses, climb under your table and practice yoga postures.
	Try to absorb as much of the radiation as possible with your groin region. The current world record is 5 minutes, 12 seconds.
	After exposure to radiation it is important to consider that you may have mutated to gigantic dimensions: watch your head.
	If you've become a radiation mutant with a deformed hand, remember to close the window. No one wants to see that.
	If you hear the Backstreet Boys, Michael Bolton or Yanni on the radio, cower in the corner or run like hell.
	Your respiratory and digestive systems are optional. Cast them aside if you feel you no longer need them.
	If you are trapped under falling debris, conserve oxygen by not farting.
	Survive a biohazard attack by first standing, then begging on your knees, then rolling over and playing dead.
	Do not drive a station wagon if a utility pole is protruding from the hood.
	A one-inch thick piece of plywood should be sufficient protection against radiation.
	No pyromaniacs admitted.
	A quick family snapshot in front of the latest scene of a terrorist attack may became a treasured family keepsake that will preserve precious memories for years to come.
	That closet door in your bedroom leads to the gates of Hell. Don't go there.
	The middle of a terrorist attack is not an appropriate time to catch up on your reading or paperwork.
	If you see colors in the sky, grasp your throat and pretend to choke yourself. Girls go for that.
	If your intended destination is suddenly vaporized, consider pulling over and watching the cool light show.
	If the weather is overcast with dark skies, look for worms in the grass.
	After all life is gone, modern appliances will continue to run forever. Think about it.
	Your telephone may be a practicing physician. Look for a phone with no numbers on it.
	"Wash your hands" of traditional long distance telephone providers.
	Only the coolest irradiated citizens will be allowed into the 'underground' rave in the shelter.
	In case of emergency, the parking brake may be used as an adult novelty item.
	In time of war, real Americans eat red meat only! No wimpy fish or poultry, please.
	There is a reason you failed chemistry.
	Watch out for people who come out of white tents and try to steal the shirt off your back.
	If you are trapped with no hope of being found, amuse yourself in your final moments with shadow puppets.
	Radioactive materials come in 4 convenient sizes: - individual dose - family value size - neighborhood spray pump size - supersize!
	Satellite photos of Texas show the large embarrassing radioactive crop circle in Southeast Texas.
	When the looting begins remember to consider the weight/value ratio. Here we have a few examples of high value, low effort.

Ancient 7 wonders

2009-05-19T04:15:00.000-07:00

The Seven Wonders of the World (or the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) is a widely-known list of seven remarkable constructions of classical antiquity. The earliest known version of the list was compiled in the 2nd century BC by Antipater of Sidon; it appears to be based on the guide-books popular among Hellenic sight-seers and only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim.

The Great Pyramid of Giza 2500 BC Approximate - Egyptians

Hanging Gardens of Babylon 600 BC - Babylonians - Destroyed Earthquake

Temple of Artemis at Ephesus 550 BC - Anatolians - Destroyed Fire 356 BC

Statue of Zeus at Olympia 435 BC - Greeks - Destroyed Fire

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus 315 BC - Hellenized Carians - Destroyed Earthquake

Colossus of Rhodes 292-280 BC - Hellenistic Civilization - Destroyed 224 BC Earthquake

Lighthouse of Alexandria 3rd Century BC - Hellenistic Civilization - Destroyed Earthquake

New 7 Wonders vs. Ancient 7 Wonders
National Geographic - July 7, 2007 (07/07/07)

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Painting an Eye

2009-05-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

I've finally put together the tutorial that I did some time ago. I thought I'd share :)

Painting an Eye

The eye is probably the most catching thing about the human face. It's where we're looking when we're talking to people. It's where tears emerge from, it's where we indicate what we're looking at and often what we're thinking about what we see. If you're doing a painting and you do everything beautifully but you make the eyes look dead... then that's it, you've not painted a human, you've painted a mannequin. A dead thing.

Instructions: Let us start with a blank piece of paper, only make it flesh coloured instead. Picking a good first colour for skin usually has some impact on all the other colours one will pick thereafter - for this reason, it's always pretty vital to start off in a good way. Not too pink, not too orange, and not too saturated.

Common mistakes: Using a colour that is too saturated or too grey. A colour that is too orange or too pink. Try to find the middle ground, it will affect the rest of the painting.

Instructions: Secondly, sketching a really, really simple eye. There are some things here that people tend to forget. The first one is that there is a lid below the eye as well as above it. Without this lid, the eye will sit very unnaturally in the face. Secondly, we have the corner of the eye - you know, that small bit where the eye starts, where all the tears come from? Leaving these things out are among the most common mistakes when it comes to painting eyes.

Let's keep these 'sketch lines' on an entirely separate layer, on top of everything else.

Common mistakes: Forgetting the lower lid. Forgetting the corner of the eye.

Instructions: Next, we try to get the feel for the shape of the eye. If we shade the bottom eyelid, and highlight the upper one, we suddenly see something emerge. A flat eyeball will mess the entire eye up, so it is very important that we get the roundness through. But the truth of the matter is that the area surrounding the eye should be showing the shape of the eyeball itself. The eyeball is white and you won't be able to show much of its roundness because most of it is hidden, but by shading the lids you'll give the same message without making the eye look like it is bulging. I'm using a warm pink here to highlight, and a desaturated brown for the shadow. This will all change though.

Try to imagine that there are lines running across your face, showing the shape of it - it's sometimes hard to tell how the structure lies by just looking at something. Better yet, if you are ever inclined, paint straight lines running down your face and take a photo of it. You'll see that the lines look everything but straight when you look in a mirror - in fact, you might discover an entirely new way of looking at your own features (I once did this, believe it or not: it took a while to wash all the makeup off afterwards).

When you shade, keep these lines in mind. Don't paint them in unless you feel you absolutely have to (and if so, on a separate layer), but try to imagine them while you shade.

Common mistakes: Imagining the eyeball not as round, but as elliptic. Shading the surrounding area as well as the eyeball as if it is the shape and size of what shows, not what is hidden behind lid and flesh.

Instructions:So, first I'll build the area around the eye up. I do this by picking a highlight (in this case, the same one that I used for the eyelid) and I figure out where the light would fall.

People have different shapes of eyes, but a rule of thumb is that you'll have a soft, pillowed area just below the eyebrow (along the entire length, actually, though I've only highlighted part of it here - the other part 'pops' out because I've shaded below and above), one upon the cheekbone and then it'll always help to make the area just around the corner of the eye look a little less flat. Close your eye and gently trace the shape with your fingertips. You'll have the swell of the eyelid, the area below the eyebrow and then the cheekbone, right? Remember that an area like this is likely to leave a shadow below.

The problem here, of course, is that we're not painting the entire face - it's easier to fit an eye in when there is something to fit it into.

Common mistakes: Too stark shading. Using pure black or even lines to show edges.

Instructions: After this (watch the animation for, perhaps, a few more visuals on exactly what happens between these two stages), we need to define the areas that I only very quickly blurred in on the previous stage. I'm working with soft edged brushes here, all along. In some places, I'll shift to a custom brush that is round but has slightly torn edges.

Pick warmer, more saturated colours. You can highlight and shade by using colours alone. Work shadows into the eyebrow, but more importantly accentuate the eye itself by shading the lower lid more and also adding some shape to the upper lid. Again, touch your own eyelid (now carefully, keep your eye open), it sticks out a little but not too much. A common mistake is to make the upper eyelid look huge, and to forget the crease that shows that while you've got your eye open, the lid is slightly folded back.

Now, we're going to be tricksy. Instead of just shadowing with dark colours underneath the eye and accomplish a look like an alcoholic that hasn't slept for five days, we're going to find the shapes with a combination of highlights and shadows. Never forget that across the planes and curves of a face, the values will be flowing. You'll have light reflecting differently on the different types of skin (often oilier below the eyes, around the nose, moist on the lips). You'll have a few sharper creases (like upper eyelid) and then creases that soften out (like the one on the lower eyelid, which smoothens as it reaches the corner of the eye). A face does not consist only of highlighted cheekbones, nose, lips and chin - it has all kinds of hills and valleys, and however good you become at painting, it will always look flat, false, and fake until you understand these shapes.

Common mistakes: Accentuating all the creases and folds only with shadows instead of highlights.

Instructions: Trying to find shapes with a combination of highlights and shadows isn't always easy, but it's far more effective (to me, anyway) than trying to find it by using lines. For the most part, I won't even have the sketch lines here, they're merely here to demonstrate the shape of the eye as I build the face up around it.

Once more, accentuating the curves, planes and folds with a combination of lighter and darker areas. We're using no black, we're using no white. All variations of the same skin tone. Now - if you're clever, the highlighted area underneath the eye will have a slightly more bluish tone (as the skin here is extremely thin and the vessels underneath have a tendency of showing colour though), and use warmer highlights for the other parts of the face. If you pick the colours directly off this demonstration, you'll see that when I say 'bluish', I don't mean actually blue.

Taking a look, you'll see that in spite of the eyeball itself not having been drawn in, the eye already has shape!

Instructions: Having just said that the face has shape even without the eyeball, that doesn't mean we can skip it altogether, does it now?

Let's sketch it in. Don't use white, use a mix of pale grey-beige and then brush over with the skin tone - I've found that this combination very closely resembles the actual colour of an eyeball (the skin tone is generally reflected on the highly glossy surface). Do not add highlights to this eyeball yet. It's a waste to work in the glossiness at this point - it'll be painted over by the iris and pupil anyway.

What's more important, though, is that the eyeball's shape is consistent with the shading you've done on the eyelids. If you've been thinking right, it should fit right in. If you've messed up, the eyeball will look like a golf ball pushed into an ill fitting hole. Keep imagining the round shape of it, and if it helps, sketch the outlines of the round shape on a separate layer and then shadow the eye below it accordingly.

Common Mistakes: Pure white for the eyeball.

Instructions: The iris is completely round. For the most part, some of it will be hidden by the eyelid - if you hide only a little, the eye will look widened, shocked and staring (such as in the example I'm painting here), while hiding half or more will give the eye another expression altogether: perhaps indolent, seductive, sly.

Like the eyeball, never cease to imagine the iris as a round thing. To make absolutely sure, always paint the full round thing on a separate layer and then simply erase the bit that would be hidden by the eyelid. Like previously mentioned, we see the eyes, and we definitely see if something's messed up. A non-round iris will make it look alien and crooked - a neat thing if that's what you intended, but not so neat if you are aiming for a natural look.

So, pick a dark, random colour (nothing too extreme) and paint in the iris. Then on top of that, paint a lighter colour that will leave a slightly darker edge. Not all eyes have this darker edge at the outskirts of the iris, but we're settling for it this time around.

Similarly, the pupil is COMPLETELY round, no doubt about it. Paint in a round, dark circle in the middle of the iris. Just for the feeling's sake, dab a blotch of white on top of the iris and pupil, just to see how it would feel. There's the eye, suddenly a little glossy.

Common Mistakes: As previously mentioned, there is a tendency to make the iris less than round.

Instructions: There are no dark sketch-lines in a face, so it's time to get rid of them. There are two easy ways to do this - either you simply delete the layer, or you do as I did here: paint over them. I've found that painting over something rather than simply deleting it occasionally helps the liveliness of a picture. So for the sake of this exercise, paint over, don't delete.

What we have after we've done that is an eye that likely looks slightly messed up. We've used the lines as crutches, forgetting to shade the folds instead of letting simple lines do the talking. So the next mission is to do the highlighting and shading in the areas that are now looking stupid. For this, I use a brush that is either just a hard edged round one, or something similar to this:

(I've found that this brush is excellent to blend colours with, either as just painting, or as smudging)

Do not forget the fact that the bottom eyelid sticks out a little. It doesn't fit flat agains the eyeball - we need a little 'rim' to show that there's a shape to it and it's not just pasted in place. Paint this 'rim' (just above the lashes) with a vague pink colour slightly lighter than the skintone below.

Also, it might be a good thing to scribble the eyebrow in at this point, because once the lines are removed, chances are it looked like a dark blur. We'll fix it up more later.

Common mistakes: Leaving the lines in or mimicking them once they're removed.

Instructions: At this point, pick up a mirror. Look at the eye in the mirror, and notice that the white of the eye becomes pinker as it reaches the corner of the eye, and that the pink isn't entirely flat in shape right before the corner. We need a little glossiness here, a little colour to make it believable. A tint of blue added to the eyeball colour, and then some very soft, smooth touches of a round soft brush to pick out little highlights here and there. Most important here - be careful, chances are you'll overdo this area and end up with an eyeball that looks textured. This isn't the point. Point is, adding little touches of realism.

Also, redefining the shape of the eye at this point, and adding more detail to the eyebrow and the corner of the eye is almost a must. I've found that the realism is sometimes helped by further enhancing the shape of the corner of the eye by highlighting around it (take a look to the immediate left of it, you'll find a little highlight there). Try to work in more colours. Try to find little oranges, blues, reds and purples to discreetly add here and there for a more skinlike 'feel' to the area surrounding the eye.

This is where we start thinking about the iris, as well. The iris is a textured, wonderfully intricate thing and usually what makes an eye 'fly'. The first step to defining it would be just adding a very sloppy dark shadow at the top of it (from the eyelid, remember that it sticks out a little.

Common Mistakes: Forgetting to define the corner of the eye, or even leaving out that area altogether.

Instructions: Do a new layer. Set new layer to 'soft light', and paint with a dark, ruddy colour to emphasise the skin tone. This will make more difference than you know. Paying special attention to the eyelids (the lower one in particular) and the area underneath the eyebrow. There is a vast difference now that the skintones are picked up. This sort of alteration goes for any kind of detail in a face, especially the bottom of a nose, around the nostrils and the eyes, but also the corners of the mouth and the side of the nostrils.

In this step and the one before, I've smudged the eyebrows a little with the brush I previously showed.

Common Mistakes: Forgetting about skin tone variation. A face and all its details looks dead and flat without such small devices.

Instructions: Continuing on the skin tone variations around the eye, make yet another layer above the first one, and now add textures. Use a small brush with pressure set to opacity and shape and just scribble away. The eye in the example is slightly exaggerated, but the practice is the same. Skin is NOT just a smooth, polished-stone texture. It's not porcelain. Do not forget to at least hint at the texture and the pores, sometimes only with little skin tone variations. I'll happily say that I learned this from the 3D art forums - watching all these marvellous artists work on the skin textures, and then in the end asking myself: why didn't I think of that?

The good thing about keeping the texture layer separate is that you can use a soft eraser to make some patches more transparent and others more opaque, giving a lively, 'real' look to it. Add a few birth marks while you're at it.

Common Mistakes: Leaving the texture out altogether. Big no-no.

Instructions: Paint the lashes in by using a hard edged little brush with pressure set to size. Keep them just a little bit scraggly, and don't paint them too long. Keep them on a separate layer. (A good thing to keep in mind is that the lashes rarely sweep out towards the outer corner of the eye, as they are often depicted to. Most of them will be curving downwards quite naturally).

After this has been done, use a combination of a tiny smudge brush and the eraser to soften the sharpness of the lashes. Rinse and repeat for the upper eyelid, but in this case remember not to point the lashes straight up, as this has a tendency to look unnatural.

Common Mistakes: Painting eyelashes as unnaturally long, and forgetting to taper them off at the end. Even worse, forgetting about the eyelashes altogether for a creepy-eyed look.

Instructions: We're getting there! The iris is a plethora of textures. If you pick a mirror up and stare at your own eye really closely, you'll see that it's not even just the diamond shaped textures radiating from the pupil, but that they're layered. Layer upon layer of delicate little coloured shapes. Not an easy thing to mimic. We'll try, though, by painting little soft strokes of colour upon one another, not erasing if we make a mistake but just keeping to paint over, paint over, paint over for that right textured, deep look.

In the end, I decided to break the highlight up as well, just to make it look a little more realistic. It's a good thing to think about the light conditions of a picture before deciding where to place the highlight and what shape it should be, but in this case, I just smudged it a little and added the faintest possible touch of blue to it (I doubt you can even see there's blue there, but there is).

Common Mistakes: Making the iris look flat by painting only one layer of texture and using only one colour with different brightness.

Instructions: There's not a lot to say. For the final step, look the picture over for some things you might want to change or do differently - in this case, adding some more shading and shadowing to the eyeball itself as well as adding a touch of gloss to the iris.

I hope the tutorial has been helpful. Best of luck with your eye-painting.

2009-05-17T07:22:00.000-07:00

12 Most Amazing Pools in the World

It used to be that all you had to attract people to your hotel was build a pool. As tourists evolved, the pool was considered a must. Thus the indoor pool became a standard of luxury. Today, both of those types of pools are anything but impressive. It is this reason that many hotels are spending thousands, if not millions, on their pools in hopes of attracting customers. Check out some of these luxury hotel pools to see what we are talking about.

1 - Crown Towers Hotel in Taipa Island Macau

This is a cool infinity pool that looks out over a breathtaking skyline from several stories up. This is definitely a great place to enjoy the sunset in Taipa Island.
>>Crown Towers Hotel in Taipa Island Macau

2 - Burj Al Arab in Dubai

Leave it to the hotel designer in Dubai to create a pool of this magnitude. It’s just too bad you probably have to own a helicopter to be able to comfortably afford to swim here.
>>Burj Al Arab in Dubai

3 - Golden Nugget Las Vegas

While the pool might not seem too cool at first glance, notice the salt-water aquarium complete with sharks that is flush with the pool. There is also a clear tube slide that goes through the aquarium and into the pool.
>>Golden Nugget Las Vegas

4 - Blue Lagoon Geothermal Resort in Grindavík, Iceland

Ok, technically this isn’t a pool in the typical sense of a hotel pool. But, it is a warm body of water that you have to pay a pretty penny to get into. Therefore it falls into the category of a luxury hotel pool.
>>Blue Lagoon Geothermal Resort in Grindavík, Iceland

5 - Begawan Giri Hotel in Ubud, Bali

This small villa style hotels pool might not be big, but it has a million-dollar view. Combine that with the fact that at any given time you will probably be the only person in the pool and you get one luxurious little swim.
>>Begawan Giri Hotel in Ubud, Bali

6 - Mandarin Oriental in New York

At the Mandarin Oriental hotel, you can enjoy the famous New York skyline while lounging in the pool any time of the year.
>>Mandarin Oriental in New York

7 - San Alfonso del Mar in Chile

The pool at the San Alfonso del Mar is a mini ocean in and of its self. This pool is easily large enough to enjoy water sport activities like paddling and sailing, and it’s by far the largest freshwater pool in the world.
>>San Alfonso del Mar in Chile

8 - Four Seasons in Costa Rica

There is no better way to appreciate the coast of Costa Rica than from this infinity pool at the Four Seasons Hotel.
>>Four Seasons in Costa Rica

9 - Six Senses Hideaway in Zighy Bay, Oman

This small infinity pool might not look like much at first, but when you take into account that the pool comes with your own private section of beach, cabana, pool, and more; it gets pretty luxurious.
>>Six Senses Hideaway in Zighy Bay

10 - Perivolas Luxury Hotel in Santorini

The infinity pool at the Perivolas Luxury Hotel may be one of the most famous hotel pools. It has one of the best views from any hotel pool and has been featured on a large number of travel magazine covers.
>>Perivolas Luxury Hotel in Santorini

11 - Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas

The sheer size of the pool at the Atlantis Resort is enough to get it on the list. But the pool features a number a slides, waterfalls, grottoes, and more.
>>Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas

12 - Hotel Villa Mahal in Turkey

The infinity pool at the Villa Mahal made our list because it is a simple infinity style pool that does what infinity pools were made to do; give you the illusion of a pool that drops into the sky.
>>Hotel Villa Mahal in Turkey

All photos are copyrighted to their respective hotels.
Burj Al Arab By: iskandar
Four Seasons By: Shalo/Paolo
Hotel Villa Mahal By: Couldzilla

Grand Portal Point.

Ice on Chapel Beach.

Miners Castle in Fall.

Miners Castle in Winter.

Chapel Beach.

Ice cave (Photo by Megan).

Spray Falls.

Snow blasted trees.

Chapel Road.

Lone iceberg in Lake Superior.

Grand Sable Dunes at sunset.

Trail to Laughing Whitefish Falls (near Pictured Rocks).

Miners Beach.

View from Indian Head in winter.

Chapel Falls.

» sleeping bear dunes

Sleeping Bear bluffs.

The Empire Bluffs Trail.

Sunset from Sleeping Bear.

Bluffs on South Manitou Island.

Tree tops and Glen Lakes.

Storms hitting the west side of North Manitou Island.

Shipwreck off South Manitou Island.

The translucent shallows of Lake Michigan.

» jordan river valley

The view over the Jordan River Valley from Deadman's Hill.

» mackinac bridge

In winter at sunset.

» the thumb

Turnip Rock and the Thumbnail.

» lighthouses

Grand Haven.

Whitefish Point (Photo by Megan).

St. Joseph lighthouse after a winter storm.

» tahquamenon falls

In winter.

» silver lake dunes

Transition from dunes to forest.

» ann arbor

Sunset over the Huron River.

Huron River Drive.

Delhi Rapids of the Huron River.

Law Quad in winter.

Leaves in transition.

2009-05-15T02:22:00.000-07:00

Grimm's Fairy Tales

This book contains 209 tales collected by the brothers Grimm.

The exact print source is unknown. The etext appears to be based on the translation by Margaret Hunt called Grimm's Household Tales, but it is not identical to her edition. (Some of the translations are slightly different, the arrangement also differs, and the Grimm's scholarly notes are not included.)

The etext received by the Universal Library did not include story titles. They have been restored in this edition, based on Hunt's titles. (Thanks also to Steve Nickolas for restoring the end of the last tale in this version.)

Note that these tales are presented more or less as the Grimms collected and edited them (and as Hunt saw fit to translate them). Readers of these versions may find more violence and crudity (and occasional anti-Semitism) than in the retellings that are more familiar to most modern readers. For more about the Grimms and their work, see this page at the University of Pittsburgh.

NEW: There is now a more accurate version of the Hunt translation posted by William Barker. We suggest you use those texts instead of these. We may remove this page (or these texts) in the future, in preference to the more accurate Hunt edition.

The Frog King, or Iron Henry
Our Lady's Child
The Story of a Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was
The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids
Faithful John
The Good Bargain
The Twelve Brothers
Brother and Sister
Rapunzel
The Three Little Men in the Wood
The Three Spinners
Hansel and Grethel (called Gretel in this version)
The Three Snake-Leaves
The White Snake
The Valiant Little Tailor
Cinderella
The Riddle
Mother Holle
The Seven Ravens
Little Red-Cap
The Singing Bone
The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs
The Girl Without Hands
Clever Hans
The Three Languages
Clever Elsie
The Wishing-Table, The Gold-Ass, and The Cudgel in the Sack
Thumbling
The Elves (two stories)
The Robber Bridegroom
The Godfather
Frau Trude
Godfather Death
Thumbling as Journeyman
Fitcher's Bird
The Juniper-Tree
Old Sultan
The Six Swans
Little Briar-Rose
Fundevogel
King Thrushbeard
Little Snow-White
The Knapsack, The Hat, and The Horn
Rumpelstiltskin
Sweetheart Roland
The Golden Bird
The Two Brothers
The Queen Bee
The Three Feathers
The Golden Goose
Allerleirauh
The Hare's Bride
The Twelve Huntsmen
The Thief and His Master
The Three Sons of Fortune
How Six Men Got On in the World
Gossip Wolf and the Fox
The Pink
The Old Man and His Grandson
The Water-Nix
Brother Lustig
Hans in Luck
Hans Married
The Gold-Children
The Singing, Soaring Lark
The Goose-Girl
The Young Giant
The Elves (another story with that title)
The King of the Golden Mountain
The Raven
The Peasant's Wise Daughter
The Three Little Birds
The Water of Life
The Spirit in the Bottle
The Devil's Sooty Brother
Bearskin
The Willow-Wren and the Bear
Sweet Porridge
Wise Folks
Stories About Snakes (called paddocks in this version)
The Poor Miller's Boy and the Cat
The Two Travellers
Hans the Hedgehog
The Shroud
The Skilful Huntsman
The Two Kings' Children
The Cunning Little Tailor
The Bright Sun Brings It to Light
The Blue Light
The Wilful Child
The King's Son Who Feared Nothing
Donkey Cabbages
The Old Woman in the Wood
The Three Brothers
The Devil and His Grandmother
Ferdinand the Faithful
The Iron Stove
The Four Skilful Brothers
One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes
Fair Katrinelje and Pif-Paf-Poltrie
The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces
The Six Servants
The White Bride and the Black One
Iron John
The Three Black Princesses
Knoist and His Three Sons
The Maid of Brakel
Domestic Servants
The Lambkin and the Little Fish
Simeli Mountain
Going A-Travelling
The Donkey
The Ungrateful Son
The Turnip
The Old Man Made Young Again
The Three Sluggards
The Shepherd Boy
The Star-Money
The Stolen Farthings
Brides On Their Trial
The Sparrow and His Four Children
Snow-White and Rose-Red
The Glass Coffin
Lazy Harry
The Griffin
Strong Hans
The Hut in the Forest
The Goose-Girl at the Well
Eve's Various Children
The Nix of the Mill-Pond
The Poor Boy in the Grave
The True Sweetheart
The Spindle, The Shuttle, and The Needle
The Sea-Hare
The Master-Thief
The Drummer
The Ear of Corn
Old Rinkrank
The Crystal Ball
Maid Maleen
St. Joseph in the Forest
The Twelve Apostles
The Rose
Poverty and Humility Lead to Heaven
God's Food
The Three Green Twigs
The Aged Mother
The Hazel-Branch
Cat and Mouse in Partnership
The Wonderful Musician
The Pack of Ragamuffins
The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean
The Fisherman and His Wife
The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage
The Bremen Town-Musicians
The Louse and the Flea
The Tailor in Heaven
The Wedding of Mrs. Fox (two stories)
The Elves (one more story)
Herr Korbes
The Dog and the Sparrow
Frederick and Catherine
The Little Peasant
Jorinda and Joringel
The Wolf and the Man
The Wolf and the Fox
The Fox and the Cat
Clever Grethel (called Gretel in this version)
The Death of the Little Hen
Gambling Hansel
The Fox and the Geese
The Poor Man and the Rich Man
Old Hildebrand
Doctor Knowall
The Jew Among Thorns
The Flail from Heaven
The Three Army-Surgeons
The Seven Swabians
The Three Apprentices
The Lazy Spinner
The Fox and the Horse
The Lord's Animals and the Devil's
The Beam
The Old Beggar-Woman
Odds and Ends (called hurds in this version)
The Story of Schlauraffen Land
The Ditmarsch Tale of Wonders
A Riddling Tale
The Wise Servant
The Peasant in Heaven
Lean Lisa
Sharing Joy and Sorrow
The Willow-Wren
The Sole
The Bittern and the Hoopoe
The Owl
The Moon
The Duration of Life
Death's Messengers
Master Pfriem
The Little Folks' Presents
The Giant and the Tailor
The Nail
The Hare and the Hedgehog
The Peasant and the Devil
The Crumbs on the Table
The Grave-Mound
The Boots of Buffalo-Leather
The Golden Key (end missing)

Math Gems

An assortment of mathematical marvels.

Fun arithmetic with the number nine.	Fun arithmetic with the number seven.	A magic square. All rows, columns, and diagonals have the same sum.
The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is pi. Pi is transcendental, i.e., irrational and non-algebraic.	Area and volume formulas. Archimedes solved the sphere.	Pi, expressed as an infinite series and an infinite product.
The sum of the numbers from 1 to n.	The product of the numbers from 1 to n is n factorial.	Stirling's approximation of n factorial. Euler's gamma function gives factorials for integers but has surprising values for fractions.
A prime number is divisible only by one and itself. The sieve of Eratosthenes finds primes.	The prime number theorem of Gauss and Legendre approximates the number of primes less than x.	The zeta function of Euler and Riemann, expressed as an infinite series and a curious product over all primes.
The binomial theorem expands powers of sums. The binomial coefficient is the number of ways to choose k objects from a set of n objects, regardless of order.	Pascal's triangle shows the binomial coefficients.	Proof that the square root of two is irrational.
The quadratic equation defines a parabola.	The Pythagorean theorem. A proof by rearrangement.	The trigonometric functions. Another form of the Pythagorean theorem.
The golden ratio, phi. The ratio of a whole to its larger part equals the ratio of the larger part to the smaller. phi is irrational and algebraic.	The golden rectangle, a classical aesthetic ideal. Cutting off a square leaves another golden rectangle. A logarithmic spiral is inscribed.	The pentagram contains many pairs of line segments that have the golden ratio.
The golden ratio, expressed as a continued fraction.	Each Fibonacci number is the sum of the previous two. The number of spirals in a sunflower or a pinecone is a Fibonacci number.	The ratio of successive Fibonacci numbers approaches the golden ratio. An exact formula for the nth Fibonacci number.
Napier's constant, e, is the base of natural logarithms and exponentials. e is transcendental.	Calculus, developed by Newton and Leibniz, is based on derivatives (slopes) and integrals (areas) of curves. The derivative of e^x is e^x. The integral of e^x is e^x.	e, expressed as a limit and an infinite series.
Euler's formula relating exponentials to sine waves. A special case relating the numbers pi, e, and the imaginary square root of -1.	The Gaussian or normal probability distribution is a bell-shaped curve.	Gibbs's vector cross product. Del operates on scalar and vector fields in 3D, quad in 4D.
The five regular polyhedra. Euler's formula for the number of vertices, edges, and faces of any polyhedron.	The hypercube. Schläfli's formula for vertices, edges, faces, and cells of any 4-dimensional polytope.	The Möbius strip has only one side. The Klein bottle's inside is its outside.
Fractals of Mandelbrot, Koch, and Sierpinski have infinite levels of detail.	Cantor's proof that the infinity of real numbers is greater than the infinity of integers.	Gödel proved that if arithmetic is consistent, it must be incomplete, i.e., it has true propositions that can never be proved.

To find out more, look it up on the web or in the library.

PDF format for printing

PDF

2009-05-15T01:34:00.000-07:00

The Money Myth Exploded

“The Money Myth Exploded” was one of the first articles of Louis Even, and remains one of the most popular to explain how money is created as a debt by private banks.

1. Shipwreck survivors

An explosion had blown their ship apart. Each one grasped the first bit of wreckage that came to hand. And when it was over, there were five left, five huddled on a raft which the waves carried along at their will. As for the other victims of the disaster, there was no sign of them.

Hour after long hour their eyes searched the horizon. Would some passing ship sight them? Would their make-shift raft finds its way to some friendly shore?

Suddenly a cry rang out: “Land! Look! Over there, in the direction the waves are carrying us!”

And as the vague silhouette proved itself to be, in fact, the outline of a shore, the figures on the raft danced with joy.

They were five. There was Frank, the carpenter, big and energetic. It was he who had first cried, “Land!”.

Then Paul, a farmer. You can see him, front and left in the picture, on his knees, one hand against the floor, the other gripping the mast of the raft.

Next is Jim, an animal breeder; he's the one in the striped pants, kneeling and gazing in the direction of land.

Then there is Harry, an agriculturist, a little on the stout side, seated on a trunk salvaged from the wreck.

And finally Tom, a prospector and a mineralogist; he is the merry fellow standing in the rear of the picture with his hand on the carpenter's shoulder.

2. A providential island

To our five men, setting foot on land was like returning to life from the grave.

When they had dried and warmed themselves their first impulse was to explore this little island on to which they had been cast, far from civilization.

A quick survey was sufficient to raise their spirit. The island was not a barren rock. True enough, they were the only men on it at the moment. But judging from the herds of semi-domesticated animals they encountered, there must have been men here at some time before them. Jim, the animal breeder, was sure he could completely domesticate them and put them to good service.

Paul found the island's soil, for the most part, to be quite suitable for cultivation.

Harry discovered some fruit trees which, if properly tended, would give good harvests.

Most important were the large stands of timber embracing many types of wood. Frank, without too much difficulty, would be able to build houses for the little community.

As for Tom, the prospector, well, the rock formations of the island showed signs of rich mineral deposits. Lacking the tools, Tom still felt his ingenuity and initiative could produce metals from the ores.

So each could serve the common good with his special talent. All agreed to call the place Salvation Island. All gave thanks to Providence for the reasonably happy ending to what could have been stark tragedy.

3. True wealth

Here are the men at work.

The carpenter builds houses and makes furniture. At first they find their food where they can. But soon the fields are tilled and seeded, and the farmer has his crops.

As season followed season this island, this heritage of the five men, Salvation Island, became richer and richer.

Its wealth was not that of gold or of paper bank notes, but one of true value; a wealth of food and clothing and shelter, of all the things to meet human needs.

Each man worked at his own trade. Whatever surpluses he might have of his own produce, he exchanged for the surplus products of the others.

Life wasn't always as smooth and complete as they could have wished it to be. They lacked many of the things to which they had been accustomed in civilization. But their lot could have been a great deal worse.

Besides, all had experienced the depression in Canada. They still remembered the empty bellies side by side with stores crammed with food.

At least, on Salvation Island, they weren't forced to see the things they needed rot before their eyes. Taxes were unknown here. Nor did they go in constant fear of seizure by the bailiff. They worked hard but at least they could enjoy the fruits of their toil.

So they developed the island, thanking God and hoping for the day of reunion with their families, still in possession of life and health, those two greatest of blessings.

4. A serious inconvenience

Our men often got together to talk over their affairs.

Under the simple economic system which had developed, one thing was beginning to bother then more and more; they had no form of money. Barter, the direct exchange of goods for goods, had its drawbacks. The products to be exchanged were not always at hand when a trade was discussed. For example, wood delivered to the farmer in winter could not be paid for in potatoes until six months later.

Sometimes one man might have an article of considerable size which he wished to exchange for a number of smaller articles produced by different men at different times.

All this complicated business and laid a heavy burden on the memory. With a monetary system, however, each one could sell his products to the others for money. With this money he could buy from the others the things he wanted, when he wished and when they were available.

It was agreed that a system of money would indeed be very convenient. But none of them knew how to set up such a system. They knew how to produce true wealth - goods. But how to produce money, the symbol of this wealth, was something quite beyond them. They were ignorant of the origin of money, and needing it they didn't know how to produce it. Certainly, many men of education would have been in the same boat; all our governments were in that predicament during the ten years prior to the war. The only thing the country lacked at that time was money, and the governments apparently didn't know what to do to get it.

5. Arrival of a refugee

One evening, when our boys were sitting on the beach going over their problem for the hundredth time, they suddenly saw approaching a small boat with a solitary man at the oars.

They learned that he was the only survivor of a wreck. His name: Oliver.

Delighted to have a new companion, they provided him with the best that they had, and they took him on an inspection tour of the colony.

“Even though we're lost and cut off from the rest of the world,” they told him, “we haven't too much to complain about. The earth and the forest are good to us. We lack only one thing — money. That would make it easier for us to exchange our products.”

“Well, you can thank Providence,” replied Oliver, “because I am a banker, and in no time at all, I'll set up a system of money guaranteed to satisfy you. Then you'll have everything that people in civilization have.”

A banker!... A BANKER!... An angel coming down out of the clouds couldn't have inspired more reverence and respect in our men. For, after all, are we not accustomed, we people in civilization, to genuflect before bankers, those men who control the lifeblood of finance?

6. Civilization's god

“Mr. Oliver, as our banker, your only occupation on this island will be to look after our money; no manual labour.”

“I shall, like every other banker, carry out to complete satisfaction my task of forging the community's prosperity.”

“Mr. Oliver, we're going to build you a house that will be in keeping with your dignity as a banker. But in the meantime, do you mind if we lodge you in the building that we use for our get-togethers?”

“That will suit me, my friends. But first of all, unload the boat. There's paper and a printing press, complete with ink and type, and there's a little barrel which I exhort you to treat with the greatest care.”

They unloaded everything. The small barrel aroused intense curiosity in our good fellows.

“This barrel,” Oliver announced, “contains a treasure beyond dreams. It is full of... gold!”

Full of gold! The five all but swooned. The god of civilization here on Salvation Island! The yellow god, always hidden, yet terrible in its power, whose presence or absence or slightest caprice could decide the very fate of all the civilized nations!

“Gold! Mr. Oliver, you are indeed a great banker!”

“Oh august majesty! Oh honorable Oliver! Great high priest of the god, gold! Accept our humble homage, and receive our oaths of fidelity!”

“Yes, my friends, gold enough for a continent. But gold is not for circulation. Gold must be hidden. Gold is the soul of healthy money, and the soul is always invisible. But I'll explain all that when you receive your first supply of money.”

7. The secret burial

Before they went their separate ways for the night, Oliver asked them one last question.

“How much money will you need to begin with in order to facilitate trading?”

They looked at one another, then deferentially towards the banker. After a bit of calculation, and with the advice of the kindly financier, they decided that $200 each would do.

The men parted, exchanging enthusiastic comments. And in spite of the late hour, they spent most of the night lying awake, their imaginations excited by the picture of gold. It was morning before they slept.

As for Oliver, he wasted not a moment. Fatigue was forgotten in the interests of his future as a banker. By dawn's first light, he dug a pit into which he rolled the barrel. He then filled it in, transplanting a small shrub to the spot about which he carefully arranged sod. It was well hidden.

Then he went to work with his little press to turn out a thousand $1 bills. Watching the clean new banknotes come from his press, the refugee turned banker thought to himself:

“My! How simple it is to make money. All its value comes from the products it will buy. Without produce, these bills are worthless. My five naive customers don't realize that. They actually think that this new money derives its value from gold! Their very ignorance makes me their master.”

And as evening drew on, the five came to Oliver — on the run.

8. Who owns the new money?

Five bundles of new banknotes were sitting on the table.

“Before distributing the money,” said the banker, “I would like your attention.

“Now, the basis of all money is gold. And the gold stored away in the vault of my bank is my gold. Consequently, the money is my money. Oh! Don't look so discouraged. I'm going to lend you this money, and you're going to use it as you see fit. However, you'll have to pay interest. Considering that money is scarce here, I don't think 8% is unreasonable.”

“Oh, that's quite reasonable, Mr. Oliver.”

“One last point, my friends. Business is business, even between pals. Before you get the money, each of you is going to sign a paper. By it you will bind yourselves to pay both interest and capital under penalty of confiscation of property by me. Oh! This is a mere formality. Your property is of no interest to me. I'm satisfied with money. And I feel sure that I'll get my money, and that you'll keep your property.”

“That makes sense, Mr. Oliver. We're going to work harder than ever in order to pay you back.”

“That's the spirit. And any time you have a problem, you come and see me. Your banker is your best friend. Now here's two hundred dollars for each one of you.”

And our five brave fellows went away, their hands full of dollar bills, their heads swimming with the ecstasy of having money.

9. A problem in arithmetic

And so Oliver's money went into circulation on the island. Trade, simplified by money, doubled. Everybody was happy.

And the banker was always greeted with unfailing respect and gratitude.

But now, let's see... Why does Tom, the prospector, look so grave as he sits busily figuring with a pencil and paper? It is because Tom, like the others, has signed an agreement to repay Oliver, in one year's time, the $200 plus $16 interest. But Tom has only a few dollars in his pocket, and the date of payment is near.

For a long time he had wrestled with this problem from his own personal point of view, without success. Finally, he looked at it from the angle of the little community as a whole.

“Taking into consideration everyone on the island as a whole,” he mused, “are we capable of meeting our obligations? Oliver turned out a total of $1000. He's asking in return $1080. But even if we bring him every dollar bill on the island, we'll still be $80 short. Nobody made the extra $80. We turn out produce, not dollar bills. So Oliver can take over the entire island, since all the inhabitants together can't pay him back the total amount of the capital and the interest.

“Even if a few, without any thought for the others, were able to do so, those others would fall. And the turn of the first spared would come eventually. The banker will have everything. We'd better hold a meeting right away and decide what to do about it.”

Tom, with his figures in his hand, had no difficulty in proving the situation. All agreed that they had been duped by the kindly banker. They decided upon a meeting at Oliver's.

10. The benevolent banker

Oliver guessed what was on their minds, but he put on his best front. While he listened, the impetuous Frank stated the case for the group.

“How can we pay you $1080 when there is only $1000 on the entire island?”

“That's the interest, my friends. Has not your rate of production increased?”

“Sure, but the money hasn't. And it's money you're asking for, not our products. You are the only one who can make money. You've made only $1000, and yet you ask $1080. That's an impossibility!”

“Now listen, fellows. Bankers, for the greater good of the community, always adapt themselves to the conditions of the times. I'm going to require only the interest. Only $80. You will go on holding the capital.”

“Bless you, Mr. Oliver! Are you going to cancel the $200 each of us owes you?”

“Oh no! I'm sorry, but a banker never cancels a debt. You still owe me all the money you borrowed. But you'll pay me, each year, only the interest. If you meet the interest payments faithfully each year, I won't push you for the capital. Maybe some won't be able to repay even the interest because of the money changing hands among you. Well, organize yourselves like a nation. Set up a system of money contributions, what we call taxes. Those who have more money will be taxed more; the poor will pay less. See to it that you bring me, in one lump sum, the total of the amount of interest, and I'll be satisfied. And your little nation will thrive.”

So our boys left, somewhat pacified, but still dubious.

11. Oliver exults

Oliver is alone. He is deep in reflection. His thoughts run thus:

“Business is good. These boys are good workers, but stupid. Their ignorance and naivety is my strength. They ask for money, and I give them the chains of bondage. They give me flowers, and I pick their pockets.

“True enough, they could mutiny and throw me into the sea. But pshaw! I have their signatures. They're honest. They'll honor their pledges. Honest, hardworking people were put into this world to serve the Financiers.

“Oh great Mammon! I feel your banking genius coursing through my entire being! Oh, illustrious master! How right you were when you said: `Give me control of a nation's money, and I won't mind who makes its laws.' I am the master of Salvation Island because I control its money.

“My soul is drunk with enthusiasm and ambition. I feel I could rule the universe. What I, Oliver, have done here, I can do throughout the entire world. Oh! If only I could get off this island! I know how I could govern the world without wearing a crown.

“My supreme delight would be to instill my philosophy in the minds of those who lead society: bankers, industrialists, politicians, reformers, teachers, journalists — all would be my servants. The masses are content to live in slavery when the elite from among them are constituted to be their overseers.”

12. The cost of living unbearable

Meanwhile, things went from bad to worse on Salvation Island. Production was up, and bartering had dropped to a minimum. Oliver collected his interest regularly. The others had to think of setting money aside for him. Thus, money tended to clot instead of circulating freely.

Those who paid the most in taxes complained against those who paid less. They raised the prices of their goods to compensate for this loss. The unfortunate poor who paid no taxes lamented the high cost of living, and bought less.

If one took a salaried job with another, he was continually demanding increases in salary in order to meet the mounting cost of living.

Morale was low. The joy went out of living. No one took an interest in his work. Why should he? Produce sold poorly. When they would make a sale, they had to pay taxes to Oliver. They went without things. It was a real crisis. And they accused one another of wanting in charity, and of being the cause of the high cost of living.

One day, Harry, sitting in his orchard, pondered over the situation. He finally arrived at the conclusion that this “progress”, born of a refugee's monetary system, had spoiled everything on the island. Unquestionably, all five had their faults, but Oliver's system seemed to have been specifically designed to bring out the worst in human nature.

Harry decided to demonstrate this to his friends and to unite them for action. He started with Jim, who was not hard to convince. “I'm no genius,” he said, “but for a long time now there's been a bad smell about this banker's system.”

One by one they came to the same conclusion, and they ended up by deciding to have another conference with Oliver.

13. Enslaved by Oliver

A veritable tempest burst about the ears of the banker.

“Money's scarce on the island, fellow, because you take it away from us! We pay you and pay you, and still we owe you as much as at the beginning. We work our heads off! We've the finest land possible, and yet we're worse off than before the day of your arrival. Debts! Debts! Up to our necks in debts!”

“Oh! Now boys, be reasonable! Your affairs are booming, and it's thanks to me. A good banking system is a country's best asset. But if it is to work beneficially, you must have faith in the banker. Come to me as you would to a father... Is it more money that you want? Very well. My barrel of gold is good for many thousands of dollars more. See, I'm going to mortgage your latest acquisitions, and lend you another thousand dollars right now.”

“So! Now our debt goes up to $2000! We are going to have twice as much interest to pay for the rest of our lives!”

“Well, yes — but I'll lend you more whenever the value of your property increases. And you'll never pay anything but the interest. You'll lump all your debts into one — what we call a consolidated debt. And you can add to the debt, year after year.”

“And raise the taxes, year after year?”

“Obviously. But your revenues also increase every year.”

“So then, the more the country develops each year because of our labor, the more the public debt increases!”

“Why, of course! Just as in your country – or in any other part of the civilized world for that matter. The degree of a country's civilization is always gauged by the size of its debt to the bankers.”

14. The wolf devours the lambs

“And that's a healthy monetary system, Mr. Oliver?”

“Gentlemen, all sound money is based on gold, and it comes from the banks in the form of debts. The national debt is a good thing. It keeps men from becoming too satisfied. It subjugates governments to the supreme and ultimate wisdom, that which is incarnate in bankers. As a banker, I am the torch of civilization here on your little island. I will dictate your politics and regulate your standard of living.”

“Mr. Oliver, we're simply uneducated folks, but we don't want that kind of civilization here. We'll not borrow another cent off of you. Sound money or not, we don't want any further transactions with you.”

“Gentlemen, I deeply regret this very ill-advised decision of yours. But if you break with me, remember, I have your signatures. Repay me everything at once — capital and interest.”

“But that's impossible, sir. Even if we give you all the money on the island, we still won't be square with you.”

“I can't help that. Did you or did you not sign? Yes? Very well.

“By virtue of the sanctity of contracts, I hereby seize your mortgaged property which was what you agreed to at the time you were so happy to have my help. If you don't want to serve willingly the supreme authority of money, then you'll obey by force. You'll continue to exploit the island, but in my interests and under my conditions. Now, get out! You'll get your orders from me tomorrow.”

15. Control of the press

Oliver knew that whoever controlled the nation's money, controlled the nation. But he knew also that to maintain that control, it was necessary to keep the people in a state of ignorance, and to distract them by a variety of means.

Oliver had observed that of the five islanders, two were conservatives and three were liberals. That much had evolved from their evening conversations, especially after they had fallen into slavery. And between the conservatives and those who were liberals, there was a constant friction.

On occasions, Harry, the most neutral of the five, considering that all had the same needs and aspirations, had suggested the union of the people to put pressure on the authorities. Such a union, Oliver could not tolerate; it would mean the end of his rule. No dictator, financial or otherwise, could stand before a people united and educated.

Consequently, Oliver set himself to foment, as much as possible, political strife between them.

The refugee put his press to work, turning out two weekly newspapers, “The Sun”, for the Liberals, and “The Star”, for the Conservatives.

The general tenor of “The Sun” was: “If you are no longer master, it is because of those traitorous Conservatives who have sold out to big business.”

That of “The Star”: “The ruinous state of business and the national debt can be traced directly to the political responsibility of those unmentionable Liberals.”

16. A priceless bit of floatsam

One day, Tom, the prospector, found on a small beach, hidden by tall grass at one end of the island, a lifeboat, empty except for a trunk in good condition lying in the bottom of it.

He opened the trunk. Among the articles within, a sort of album caught his eye: “The First Year of Social Credit”. Between the covers he found the first of a Social Credit publication.

Curious, Tom sat down and began to read the volume. His interest grew; his face lit up.

“Well, just look at this!” he cried out loud. “This is something we should have known a long time ago.”

“Money gets its value, not from gold, but from the products which that money buys.

“Simply put, money should be a sort of accountancy, credits passing from one account to another according to purchases and sales. The sum total of money will depend upon the sum total of production.

“Each time production increases, there is a corresponding increase in the amount of money. Never at any time should interest be paid on new money. Progress is marked, not by an increase in the public debt, but by the issuance of an equal dividend to each individual... Prices are adjusted to the general purchasing power by a coefficient of prices. Social Credit...”

But Tom could no longer contain himself. He got up and set off at a run, the book in his hands, to share this glorious discovery with his four comrades.

17. Money — elementary accounting

So Tom became the teacher. He taught the others what he had learned from that God-sent Social Credit publication.

“This,” he said, “is what we can do without waiting for a banker and his keg of gold, nor without underwriting a debt.

“I open an account in the name of each one of you. In the right hand column are the credits which increase your account; to the left are the debits which subtract from your account.

“Each wants $200 to begin with. Very well. We write $200 to the credit of each. Each immediately has $200.

“Frank buys some goods from Paul for $10. I deduct $10 from Frank, leaving him $190. I add $10 to Paul, and he now has $210.

“Jim buys from Paul to the amount of $8. I deduct from Jim $8, leaving him $192. Paul now has $218.

“Paul buys wood from Frank for $15. I deduct $15 from Paul, leaving $203. I add $15 to Frank's account, and it goes back to $205.

“And so we continue; from one account to another, in the same fashion that paper banknotes go from one man's pocket to another's.

“If someone needs money to expand production, we issue him the necessary amount of new credit. Once he has sold his products, he repays the sum to the credit fund. The same with public works; paid for by new credits.

“Likewise, each one's account is periodically increased, but without taking credits from anyone, in order that all may benefit from the progress society makes. That's the national dividend. In this fashion, money becomes an instrument of service.”

18. The banker's despair

Everyone understood. The members of this little community became Social Crediters. The following day, Oliver, the banker, received a letter signed by the five:

“Dear sir! Without the slightest necessity you have plunged us into debt and exploited us. We don't need you anymore to run our money system. From now on, we'll have all the money we need without gold, debts, nor thieves. We are establishing, at once, the system of Social Credit on the island. The national dividend is going to replace the national debt.

“If you insist on being repaid, we can repay you all the money you gave us. But not a cent more. You cannot lay claim to that which you have not made.”

Oliver was in despair. His empire was crumbling. His dreams shattered. What could he do? Arguments would be futile. The five were now Social Crediters: money and credit were now not more mysterious to them than they were to Oliver.

“Oh!” said Oliver. “These men have been won to Social Credit! Their doctrine will spread far more quickly than mine. Should I beg forgiveness? Become one of them? I, a financier and a banker? Never! Rather, I shall try and put as much distance between them and me as I can!”

19. The fraud unmasked

To protect themselves against any future claim by Oliver, our five men decided to make him sign a document attesting that he again possessed all he had when he first arrived on the island.

An inventory was taken; the boat, the oars, the little press, and the famous barrel of gold.

Oliver had to reveal where he had hidden the gold. Our boys hoisted it from the hole with considerably less respect than the day they had unloaded it from the boat. Social Credit had taught them to despise gold.

The prospector, who was helping to lift the barrel, found it surprisingly light for gold. If the barrel was full, he told the others, there was something in it besides gold.

The impetuous Frank didn't waste a moment; a blow of the axe, and the contents of the barrel was exposed.

Gold? Not so much as a grain of it! Just rocks — plain, worthless rocks! Our men couldn't get over the shock.

“Don't tell us that he could bamboozle us to this extent!”

“Were we such muttonheads as to go into raptures over the mere mention of gold?”

“Did we mortgage all of our possessions for a few pieces of paper based on a few pounds of rocks? It's a robbery, compounded with lies!”

“To think that we sulked and almost hated one another all because of such a fraud! That devil!”

Furious, Frank raised his axe. In great haste, the banker has already taken flight towards the forest.

20. Farewell to Salvation Island

After the opening of the barrel, and the revelation of his duplicity, nothing further was heard of Oliver.

Shortly after, a ship, crusing off the normal navigation route, noticed signs of life on this uncharted island, and cast anchor a short distance offshore.

The men learned that the ship was en route to America. So they decided to take with them what they could carry, and return to the United States.

Above all, they made sure to take back with them the album, “The First Year of Social Credit”, which had proven to be their salvation from the hands of the financier, Oliver, and which had illumined their minds with an inextinguishable light.

All five solemnly promised to get in touch with the management of this paper, once back in America, and to become devoted and zealous apostles of the Cause of Social Credit in their country.

2009-05-15T01:09:00.000-07:00

An Introvert's Lexicon
The following is meant to be a humorous look at the world from an Introvert's point of view.

WORD	Extrovert's Definition	Introvert's Definition
Alone, adj.	Lonely.	Enjoying some peace and quiet.
Book, n.	1) Doorstop. 2) Paperweight.	1) Source of comfort. 2) Safe and inexpensive method of traveling, having adventures, and meeting interesting people.
Bored, adj.	Not frantically busy.	Stuck making small talk, and unable to escape politely.
Extrovert, n.	A nice, normal, sociable person. Never surprises you with anything weird.	A boisterous person who may be very nice, but who is somewhat exhausting to spend time with. Usually not too deep, but fun.
Free time, n.	A time when you do group activities. (See Introvert's Definition of work.)	A time when you read without interruption until you're in danger of going blind.
Friend, n.	Someone who makes sure that you're never alone.	Someone who understands that you're not rejecting them when you need to be alone.
Good manners, n.	Making sure people aren't left all by themselves. Filling in any silences in a conversation.	Not bothering people, unless it's necessary, or they approach you. (Sometimes you can bother people you know well, but make sure they aren't busy first.)
Home, n.	A place to invite everybody you know.	A place to hide from everybody you know.
Internet, n.	1) Another medium for advertising. 2) A place where geeks with no life hang out.	A way to meet other introverts. You don't have to go out, and writing allows you to think before just blurting something out.
Introvert, n.	One of those who like to read. Moody loners. Be careful not to tick them off; some of them are serial killers.	One who shows a perfectly natural restraint and caution when meeting new people. One who appreciates solitude. Often, one who enjoys reading and has a philosophical turn of mind.
Love, n.	Never having to do anything alone.	Being understood and appreciated.
Music, n.	Background noise.	Something with a tune and lyrics which may be moving and intelligent, or may be drivel.
Phone, n.	Lifeline to other people - your reason for living.	Necessary (?) evil, and yet another interruption. Occasionally useful, but mostly a nuisance.
Reading, v.	A chore that a teacher makes you do when you're a kid.	You have to do it in secret and pretend you don't really do it, or people think you're strange.
Shell, n.	Something you find on the beach.	What people relentlessly nag you to come out of. Why do you have to leave it, if you're happy there?
To go out, v.	Requires at least two people, and the more the better. Constant chatter, loud music, sports, crowds, and food consumption are all fun components of going out.	Can be done alone or with others. Enjoyable if there's some point to it; i.e., in order to see a band, a movie, a play, or perhaps to have a stimulating discussion with one or two close friends.
Work, n.	Having to read, write, listen, or concentrate on anything.	Being pestered every five minutes about something trivial, and not allowed to concentrate.

Books You Probably Shouldn't Buy Your Kids This Christmas

By carymc 362 days ago Updated 308 days ago 160011 Views 2 Comments

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the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci

"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding." - Leonardo


Study of a Tuscan Landscape, c. 1473	Study of Arms and Hands, c. 1474	Man with a Staff, c. 1476-1480	Siege Machine, c. 1480	Saint Sebastion, c. 1480	Study of Horse and Rider, c. 1480	Study of Horse and Rider, c. 1481

Designs for a Boat, c. 1485-7	An Artillery Park, c. 1487	Study of a Young Woman in Profile, c. 1485-7	Grotesque Profile, c. 1487-90	Design for a Flying Machine, c. 1488	Design for a Flying Machine, c. 1488	Proportions of the Head, c. 1488-9

Study for the Sforza Monument, c. 1488-9	View of a Skull, c. 1489	View of a Skull, c. 1489	View of a Skull, c. 1489	Study of a Womb, c. 1489	Proportions of the Face and Eye, c. 1489	Five Characters in a Comic Scene, c. 1490

Ill-matched Couple, c. 1490	Study of a Woman, c. 1490	Vitruvian Man, c. 1490	Christ Figure, c. 1490-5	Studies of Concave Mirrors of Differing Curvatures, c. 1492	Coition of a Hemisected Man and Woman, c. 1492	Study for the Last Supper, c. 1495

Stretching Device for a Barrel Spring, c. 1498	Anatomy of a Male Nude, c 1504-6	A Grotesque Head, c. 1504-7	Design for a Flying Machine, c. 1505	Study for the Head of Leda, c. 1505-7	Study for the Kneeling Leda, c. 1505-7	The Principal Organs and Vascular and Urino-Genital Systems of a Woman, c. 1507

Study for the Trivulzio Monument, c. 1508	Study of Brain Physiology, c. 1508	Studies of Water passing Obstacles and falling, c. 1508-9	Studies of the Shoulder and Neck, c. 1509-1510	Studies of the Shoulder and Neck, c. 1509-1510	Studies of the Shoulder and Neck, c. 1509-1510	Sedge, c. 1510

Studies of the Arm showing the Movements made by the Biceps, c. 1510	Views of a Fetus in the Womb, c. 1510-12	Head of Saint Anne, c. 1510-5	Study of Cats and Other Animals c. 1513	Old Man with Water Studies, c. 1513	Possible Self-Portrait, c. 1513	Anatomy of the Neck, c. 1515
					leonardo.tar	leonardo.zip
Detail from a Study of a Dragon Costume, c. 1517-8	Masquerader in the guise of a Prisoner, c. 1517-8	Study of Skeletons	Peter Paul Ruben's copy of the lost Battle of Anghiari, c. 1603	Study of a Figure for the Battle of Anghiari

5 Best Johnny Depp Characters

[Captain] Jack Sparrow

Who can forget the amazing Jack Sparrow, I, for one, cannot.
With the humor of all his previous characters smashed up into one, albeit very well looking, character, who should?

Sweeney Todd

The newest of course. And by far, in my opinion, one of the eeriest.
It also helps that Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman are there-by the way, what's with all the 'Death Eaters', if you catch my drift?

Gilbert Grape

The sensitive side I was never expecting, and oh the hair.
'Nuff said.

Dean Corso

One of the most strange movies I had ever seen, and it took about three times watching it (at least) to get the ending.

Mort Rainey

Yet another strange movie I didn't get until the end, though my father telling me the story 5 minutes before it happens the entire movie doesn't help.

The Buttafly Guide to Interpreting
MySpace / Facebook / Friendster Photos

Example	Photo Type	What They Want You to Think	The Truth
	Blurry	Artistic	Has acne, possibly moustache if female
	Anime	Eccentric, possibly Japanese	Computer programmer
	Holding some sort of alcoholic beverage	Fun, laid back	There has never been a photograph taken of them where they weren't holding an alcoholic beverage
	Very closely cropped	Enigmatic	Fat
	Dude jamming on guitar	He's in a popular band and rocks out all the time	Unemployed
	Close-up of breasts, usually in bustier	Sexy and naughty	Fat
	Face at strange, usually downward, angle	Eccentric, possibly supermodel	Unattractive; this is the only good picture of them ever taken
	Dark, brooding	Doesn't care	Dangerous, possibly a pirate
	Cartoon character such as Bugs Bunny or Tweety Bird	Cute, playful	Immature, probably fat
	Guy with beard sitting on couch	Sits on the couch a lot, has a beard	Sits on the couch a lot, has a beard

You are connected to Osama through:

You

Bush

Chirac

Saddam

Osama

[View all 4 photos]

Osama's Friends (19)

Saddam	Abdelkarim	ReutersSteve

Barbra	Ayman	Parveen

[See all 19 Friends]

Osama
Gender:	Male
Interested in meeting people for:	Dating, Serious Relationship (Women or Attractive Barnyard Animals )
Status:	Open Marriage
Age:	47
Occupation:	Terrorist
Location:	Detroit...haha...kidding...can't really say
Home Town:	Riyadh
Interests:	Slaughtering infidels, Al Qaeda, hanging out in caves, square dancing, destroying United States (and maybe England if they keep pissing me off)
Favorite Music:	Zain Bhika, Dawud Wharnsby Ali, Raihan, Devo, Pet Shop Boys
Favorite Reading:	Koran, Gore Vidal (not bad for a gay infidel!), Terrorist Handbook, Nuclear Weapons for Dummies, New York Times editorial page
Favorite TV Shows:	I can only get an Italian sports station from the satellite dish in my cave :(
About Me:	I enjoy reading, hanging out with my wives, creating terrorist plots to bring about the destruction of the non-Muslim world, etc. I have traveled extensively, though lately it's mostly been in the moutainous nether regions of western Asia. BTW, if anyone has heard from Saddam tell him to get in touch with me, I haven't heard from him lately.
Who I Want to Meet:	People who have access to high-grade plutonium

Testimonials

ReutersSteve, 9/29/01:
Some people say Osama is a mass-murdering terrorist. Others say he's a freedom fighter. Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to.

Parveen, 3/24/03:
My husband is a great man. I like him very much.

Aabirah, 4/17/03:
My husband is gr8. We have lotsa fun.

Faraq, 4/17/03:
my husband is a cool d00d. his otha wives r bitchez but i aint hatin'.

Bush, 12/17/03:
Hey Osama, what's up? I need your address so that I can...umm...send you a Christmas card. Let me know where you are these days and I'll get it out right away.

2009-05-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

Drawn by Matthew Inman, Awesome paper texture provided by Ubersuper

9 Reasons Not to Date a Tyrannosaurus Rex

Posted on 07/11/2008 in Random by Matt

Illustrated by Matthew Inman , with some help on the Dinosaur jokes from Rebecca Kelley

Types of Bad Kissers

Posted on 06/16/2008 in Random by Matt

Draw for fun by Matthew Inman

2009-05-15T00:24:00.000-07:00

The font used on this website is a free font called Diavlo

The Shirt

As with all these designs, try to start with a relatively clean, crisp bill. It will make it much easier. All folds should be sharply creased. It helps to go over the fold with a fingernail on a flat, hard surface.

Start by folding the bill precisely in half lengthwise. (I prefer to fold in toward the front of the bill. I think it produces a nicer design on the end product. For your first attempt, it will be easier to follow exactly the same orientation on the bill as shown in the photos.) Unfold the bill, leaving the crease produced by the fold for the next step.

Fold the bill one quarter of the way in from each side lengthwise. The edge of the bill should just meet the crease made by the fold in the previous step. Do this for both sides as shown.

Turn the bill over. Fold the white of one end over as shown. This will become the collar in the next step. (If the bill is printed unevenly, use the wider edge.)

Turn the bill over again. From this side, angle-in the two corners from the end you folded in the last step. The two points should meet precisely at the centerline. The angle is not terribly important, but should be about the same as shown in the photo.

Fold a little less than one third of the bill lengthwise from the opposite end as shown. If you're following in the same orientation as the photos, use the markings on the bill for a fold point. (Notice that the edge of the bill just meets the word "OF" on the reverse printing.) If you fold too little, the shirt will appear too long in the end. If you fold too much, the next step will not work. See below.

Now you will fold inward in the same direction, tucking the previous fold under the "collar" created in step 4. So far it looks kinda 'nifty, and if you know it is supposed to look like a shirt, you get the collar concept. But wait, there's more...

Gently unfold the previous two folds, keeping the creases. On the lateral fold furthest from the collar, refold it strait across as shown. (On the flatbed scanner, this made a bit of a mess of it, but it is fairly easy in 3D.)

(This step is hard to describe, but it is actually fairly easy.) You are going to introduce two new folds on each "sleeve". I do this by holding each side of the previous fold between thumb and forefinger in the orientation shown, just on either side of the vertical fold as shown. Just force the angle to close slightly, and force the extra paper inside the vertical folds. Once you've got it looking right, force the insides to crease by pressing on a hard surface. (Try looking at the next photo - like I said, it is hard to describe!)

(This is a close-up of what the fold should look like when complete.) Do this for both sides.

(This is what it should look like after both sides are complete.)

When you re-tuck the fold you've been working on back under the collar, you're done! It should look about like this. With the basic shape, the collar and the sleeves, it should be recognizable. Once you've done a few, you can try folding the whole thing into the reverse side, leaving the obverse side out. (Like I said, I think this looks better. This is especially true with 1 dollar bills where the edge seal on the reverse under the collar looks a little bit like a necklace.)

The Serpent

I was fooling around with a rolled up bill one time, and this just sorta came out. It reminded me of the snake/'serpent' from the cartoon strip B.C.

Start by rolling the bill into a tube. (Here are instructions for getting the bill rolled up that way. I use these tubes in the spider and eyeglasses as well.)

Fold back and forth until it looks like this. Really. While this one is laying on its side on the flatbed scanner, these little guys will actually stand up on a reasonably flat, level surface if you're careful making them.

The
Valentine

Okay, this one is terribly simple, but it comes in handy at times.

As with all these designs, try to start with a relatively clean, crisp bill. It will go much easier. All folds should be sharply creased. It helps to go over the fold with a fingernail on a flat, hard surface.

(I used a Casio QV-10A digital camera to get the images. I've tried to reduce the resolution of the JPEGs to the very minimum required to minimize your download time, but it is very graphics heavy.)

Start by folding the bill exactly in half lengthwise two times.

Wrap the bill around in a loop, and insert one end into the other as shown.

You want to have about one third of an inch overlap. (About 1 cm for some of you.)

Fold as tight as you can in the middle of the overlap. This keeps it from slipping apart. Close the circle and fold at the other end. The fold opposite the overlap will be reversed (as shown in the next step), but it helps to make the whole thing symmetrical.

Reverse the fold opposite the overlap. A small quartering fold at the two tips (as shown here on the bottom) will help to keep the two points from unfolding.

What can I say? Just work with the thing until it looks like a valentine to you.

Xmas Tree

Okay, this isn't the greatest, but I get a lot of requests for it, so here goes. This is as attractive as those pine scent cutouts you see hanging from people's rear-view mirrors and apparently as poplular.

I'd suggest that you look through all the instructions before attempting to follow along - it will give you a better idea of why you are doing specific things, and how these affect the final appearance.

Start by folding exactly in half lengthwise so that the reverse face is outside. (The green of the greenback is the right color for the tree.)

From the left-to-right center, fold one corner under at approximately the angle shown. This will be called the side fold, and will appear later in these instructions.

Fold the opposite side under in the same way from the other side (another side fold). The triangle formed on the upper layer is all that is going to be showing (from the front) when we have completed this piece.

Fold one of the two flaps even with the bottom edge of the bill over the triangle as shown. I will refer to this fold as the bottom fold, and will refer to it in the next step.

Continue to fold the remainder in any way desired so that it fits within the boundaries of the triangle. Since this will all be hidden from view, neatness doesn't count. Do try to minimize the number of folds and overall thickness of this section - it will help later.

When the entire tab will fit within the triangle, open the bottom fold, then the side fold for this side. Reclose the bottom fold first, then the side fold. This will hide the other (ugly) folds used to make the tab fit within the borders of the triangle.

Repeat the previous step for the other tab.

This time after opening the bottom and side folds, tuck the remainder of this tab between the front of the triangle and the other tab's bottom fold. This will lock the two in place.

When complete, it should look approximately like this.

Now take two more bills, and fold them approximately two-thirds and one-fourth of the way lengthwise. Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 for each of these bills to create two more triangles that are different sizes. (This picture shows the opposite side as shown in step 2.)

When you have finished, you will have three triangles that are different sizes. This picture shows three of them from the back side.

Now take the three sections and insert the top point of the two larger ones in between the front bottom and bottom fold of the next smaller section. Don't push the sections too tightly together. If your folds are reasonably tight, the whole thing will stay together.

One more thing...a tree stand.

Take another bill and fold over about one third to one half inch of the end. Fold over again and again, making a nearly flat roll out of the entire bill.

Unroll the flat roll you just made. Reroll it in a square roll, using the creases you made in the previous step as a guide. When rerolling this section, it will help sharpen the outer creases as you reroll to make a tighter square.

Flatten out one end keeping the other end square. On the flat end, fold the two corners in toward the center line as shown. This pointy end will get inserted in the largest triangle made in the previous steps, and become the trunk/tree stand.

That's all folks!

These things will stand up on their own, provided that you carefully stack them, and bend the upper portion of the trunk slightly forward or backward to achieve the correct balance. If someone else wants to come up with a better tree stand, knock yourself out.

Okay, these pictures aren't of the nicest tree I've ever made. (I was in a hurry to get this page together and up in time for Christmas.) Some thoughts:

The size differential between the top and the middle triangles isn't as great as I would like it to be.
When making the triangles, you can make the upper angle of the triangle more or less oblique than shown in the instructions.
You can also make these with four triangles, but the top one needs to be pretty small, and it is tough to get that much bill hidden.

Experiment on your own, and you shouldn't have too much trouble making it nicer looking than the one in these pictures.

Gift Box

This box made from two bills. The bills/box can be the gift itself, but it is also just about the right size for a ring box. (Perhaps a dollar-bill ring?)

Get yourself two fairly new, crisp bills. Older "soggier" bills are much harder to work with. For this design to work, the folds should be very precise, and perpendicular to the edges of the bill if the resulting is to be retangular.

Lay the bill on a flat surface, face up. Fold the bill in thirds lengthwise as shown. Gently unfold these folds, you will reuse them later. I will refer to these as the third folds.

Fold the note top-to-bottom just to the right of the portrait, then unfold. Repeat just to the left of the portrait. I will refer to these as the portrait folds. Note that the third folds the oppose (are perpendicular to) the portrait folds.

Starting at the top left corner (as illustrated), close the top third fold to about 90 degrees. Lift the right edge of the bill to the right of the right portrait fold up while holding the top third fold in place, allowing the third fold to close completely to the right of this corner.

Inside this corner will be a remaining portion that you will crease along the natural 45 degree line to complete the corner.

Complete the previous step for the other three corners. Now you will have two "tabs" sticking up on the left and right sides.

For each tab, pull it inside the box, folding so that the natural edge of the box is pulled slightly over inside the fold. (Look carefully at the bottom left of the picture.)

Do this evenly for both tabs.

For the two other sides, evenly fold over the edge of the bill.

You should now have an open box.

If you make another piece just like the first, but slightly larger, you would have a lid similar to that found on most shoe boxes. To adjust the instructions above, you would fold so that the inner rectangle (bounded by the third and portrait folds) is slightly larger.

I do not like the way that looks, so I close the box another way as illustrated below. Try both - choose whichever you prefer.

Fold the second bill lengthwise so that the width matches the widest portion of the open box you just made. I will refer to this bill as the cover, and the previous piece made as the open box in the following steps.

You need two folds as shown to be able to follow the last step (see below). For general appearance, it is nice if these are nearly symetrical as shown. These will be called the width folds.

Holding one end of the cover across the bottom of the open box, find the point which matches the corner of the open box and fold at that point.

After folding, open the fold to 90 degress, hold the cover back in place, and find the point for the next corner of the open box as the cover wraps around.

Repeat this process until the cover wraps over itself (four folds).

These will be called the wrapping folds.

There is now one very long side to the cover. Fold back the long side so that is just a bit shorter than the first side.

I will call this the end cover fold.

In this illustration, the end cover fold is at the left edge of the picture. I have also (gently) completely unfolded the cover, refolded the end cover fold, the width folds, then the wrapping folds in that order. (This unfolding/refolding is optional, but makes the cover look nicer.)

In either case, the end cover fold puts the remainder of the long side inside the wrapping folds. Refold the wrapping folds holding the long side in place to crease it at the correct points.

Open up the width folds slightly on the open end, and insert the last side under the width folds. (Normally I do this with the open box already inside, but for clarity, the picture shows this without the open box.

Slide the open box inside the cover before closing the cover tightly, or close the cover with the open box already inside. In either case you are done.

Of course if the gift box is for something special, a little ribbon adds a nice touch. (I used ordinary curling ribbon, cut in thirds lengthwise for this picture.)

2009-05-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

JOKES

A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?”

The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: “Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: “OK, now what?“

Two guys are sitting on a bar stool. One starts to insult the other one. He screams, “I slept with your mother!” The bar gets quiet as everyone listens to see what the other weasel will do. The first again yells, “I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!”

The other says, “Go home dad you’re drunk.”

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!”

The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.”

Texan: “Where are you from?”
Harvard grad: “I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions.”
Texan: “Okay – where are you from, jackass?”

An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote, “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”

The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.”

“But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”

Two fish in a tank.

One turns to the other and says “Do you know how to drive this?”

A Baboom !

Fry-Day

What do you call a monkey in a minefield ?

A scientist and a philosopher were being chased by a hungry lion. The scientist made some quick calculations, he said “it's no good trying to outrun it, its catching up”.

The philosopher kept a little ahead and replied “I am not trying to outrun the lion, I am trying to outrun you !”

Which day of the week do fish hate?.......

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep.

Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. “Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”

“I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes” replies Watson.

“And what do you deduce from that?”

Watson ponders for a minute. “Well,

	Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.
	Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo.
	Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.
	Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.
	Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe.

But what does it tell you, Holmes?”

Holmes is silent for a moment.

“Watson, you idiot!” he says. “Someone has stolen our tent!”

A turtle was walking down an alley in New York when he was mugged by a gang of snails. A police detective came to investigate and asked the turtle if he could explain what happened.

The turtle looked at the detective with a confused look on his face and replied “I don't know, it all happened so fast.”

HOW SANTA SAVED HIS JOB...

SANTA WAS A CLERK SOMEWHERE IN A FARAWAY OFFICE IN MUMBAI. HIS BOSS,MR. MISHRA, HELD A GRUDGE AGAINST HIM AND SO LOOKED FOR EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO INSULT SANTA AND DOWNPLAY HIS TALENT. ONE DAY THERE WAS A MINOR MISTAKE IN SANTA'S WORK WHICH WAS SPOTTED BY HIS BOSS'S EVER SEARCHING EYES. HAPPY AS HE WAS INSIDE,HE CALLED SANTA IN HIS CABIN AND MADE A VERY GRAVE FACE. HE SAID "SANTA,NOW IT IS TOO MUCH. I CANNOT AFFORD SUCH BLUNDERS TO HAPPEN IN MY OFFICE.SORRY TO SAY BUT YOU ARE FIRED!" INSTANTLY SANTA BEGAN TO CRY...."PLEASE DO NOT DO SO SIR...MERE BIWI BACHCHON KA SAWAAL HAI...AAP KUCHH BHI FARMAAO MAIN WOH KAR KE DIKHAUNGA" BOSS THOUGHT FOR A MINUTE AND SAID " OKAY...DEKH MAIN JIS AADMI SE TUJHE MILWAUNGA USKE SAATH TERI PEHCHAAN HONI CHAHIYE...." SANTA SAID " YES SIR, KISI BHI SHAKHS SE MILWAO"

AND SO BOSS SOUGHT AN APPOINTMENT FROM SHAH RUKH KHAN AND ENTERED HIS CABIN WHEN THEIR TIME CAME. AS SOON AS SRK SAW SANTA HE JUMPED FROM HIS CHAIR AND RAN TO HUG SANTA...."ARE SANTA! KITNE DINO KE BAAD MILA HAI TU! AAJ TO DIN BAN GAYA" AND SRK TAKES SANTA AWAY TO HAVE A LUNCH WITH HIM, LEAVING AN AWKWARD MISHRA BEHIND.THE DUO CAME AFTER TWO HOURS,SRK SAYING GOODBYE WITH A LOT OF GIFTS TO SANTA.

MISHRA WAS OVERWHELMED BUT HE STILL SAID " CHAL BETA SRK SE PEHCHAAN HONA KOI BADI BAAT NAHIN....AB CHAL MERE SAATH". WE DO NO KNOW HOW BUT MISHRA GOT AN APPOINTMENT WITH BARACK OBAMA HIMSELF AND ENTERED HIS OFFICE WITH SANTA BY HIS SIDE. BARACK OBAMA WAS ALL EUPHORIA WHEN HE SAW SANTA....." OH MY GOD! SANTA YOU! IT IS A DIVINE INTERVENTION! I AM SO LUCKY TO MEET YOU AT LAST...THAT IS WHY I BECAME PRESIDENT..SO I COULD MEET MY OLD FRIEND AGAIN..." AND OBAMA CANCELLED ALL HIS SCHEDULED MEETINGS FOR THE DAY AND WENT GOLFING WITH SANTA WHOLE DAY LEAVING A RECESSION TROUBLED USA AND A NEARLY UNCONSCIOUS MISHRA BEHIND.

AFTER THEY RETURNED OBAMA DROPPED THEM OFF AT MUMBAI THROUGH HIS AIR FORCE ONE JET. MISHRA WAS PRACTICALLY STUNNED BUT HE SAID " THIK HAI THIK HAI...OBAMA PEHLE AAM AADMI HUA KARTAA THA TAB KI PEHCHAAN HO SAKTI HAI....AB CHAL MERE SAATH" AND SOMEHOW THEY WENT TO VATICAN CITY TO MEET THE POPE. WHEN THEY REACHED THE DESTINATION, MANY PEOPLE WERE STANDING ON THE ROAD IN FRONT OF POPE'S RESIDENCE WAITING FOR THE POPE TO ARRIVE AT HIS WINDOW TO BLESS ALL THE PEOPLE AND GREET THOSE WHO WERE GATHERED THERE.SANTA AND MISHRA STOOD AMONG THE MOB. AFTER A WHILE MISHRA GLANCED SIDEWAYS ONLY TO SEE THAT SANTA WAS GONE.SUDDENLY THERE WAS AN APPLAUSE AS THE POPE APPEARED IN THE WINDOW..." OH...WE ARE BLESSED" PEOPLE CRIED AFTER THEY SAW THE POPE WAVING AND SMILING AT THEM. SUDDENLY SANTA ALSO APPEARED IN THE WINDOW. AFTER SEEING SANTA , POPE HUGGED HIM AND SAID " OH SANTA.....I AM BLESSED AT LAST! THIS IS MY SALVATION...THANK YOU GOD!" TEARS STREAMING FROM HIS EYES. DOWN THERE MISHRA WAS NEAR THE BRINK OF FAINTING WHEN A MAN ASKED HIM-

" WHO IS THAT OLD GUY IN WHITE CLOTHES STANDING NEXT TO SANTA....WHO WAS WAVING AT US AND TALKING BIBLE TALK.....GUESS HE'LL BE QUITE POPULAR AFTER HIS PIC HUGGING SANTA IS PUBLISHED! SANTA REALLY MAKES PEOPLE'S LIVES MAN...."

NOW MISHRA FAINTED IN EARNEST!!!!!!!

2009-05-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

Free eBooks — All Our Classic Books and Novels

1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Aesop's Fables by Aesop
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Erewhon by Samuel Butler
For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Grimms Fairy Tales by the brothers Grimm
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard by Joseph Conrad
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Great Gatsby
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Iliad by Homer
The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
The Odyssey by Homer
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Duma
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Ulysses by James Joyce
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Deep Thoughts (by Jack Handey)

If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go,
because, man, they're gone.
==========
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them
down?  We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
==========
To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when
you walk around.  That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a
hand?"  You can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."
==========
One thing kids like is to be tricked.  For instance, I was going
to take my nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old
burned-out warehouse. "Oh no," I said, "Disneyland burned down."

He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a
pretty good joke.  I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but
decided to go home instead.
==========
The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
==========
If you lived in the Dark Ages and you were a catapult operator, I
bet the most common question people would ask is, "Can't you make it
shoot farther?"  "No, I'm sorry.  That's as far as it shoots."
==========
Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo,
flying across in front of a beautiful sunset?  And he's carrying a
beautiful rose in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful
painting with his feet.  And also, you're drunk.
==========
I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our
children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex.
==========
If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell
him is, "God is crying."  And if he asks why God is crying, another cute
thing to tell him is, "Probably because of something you did."
==========
If you ever catch on fire, try to avoid seeing yourself in the
mirror, because I bet that's what REALLY throws you into a panic.
==========
Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first
instinct is to laugh.  But then I think, what if I was an ant and she
fell on me.  Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny.
==========
To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no
choreography and the dancers hit each other.
==========
I hope if dogs ever take over the world and they choose a king, they
don't just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with
some good ideas.
==========
If life deals you lemons, why not go kill someone with the lemons
(maybe by shoving them down his throat).
==========
Instead of having "answers" on a math test, they should just call
them "impressions," and if you got a different "impression," so what,
can't we all be brothers?
==========
Probably the earliest fly swatters were nothing more than some sort
of striking surface attached to the end of a long stick.
==========
I wish I would have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out
that I'd just quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because
I was thinking about doing that anyway.
==========
I think a good gift for the President would be a chocolate revolver.
And since he's so busy, you'd probably have to run up to him real
quick and hand it to him.
==========
Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word
itself. MANKIND.  Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank" and
"ind." What do these words mean?  It's a mystery and so is mankind.
==========
If you go flying back through time and you see somebody else flying
forward into the future, it's probably best to avoid eye contact.
==========
It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money.  And I
guess that's what I like about it.  It's easy.  Just sitting there,
rocking back and forth, wanting that money.
==========
If you ever reach total enlightenment while you're drinking a beer,
I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose.
==========
To me, clowns aren't funny.  In fact, they're kinda scary.  I've
wondered where this started and I think it goes back to the time I
went to the circus and a clown killed my dad.
==========
As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red
again, I sat there thinking about life.  Was it nothing more than a
bunch of honking and yelling?  Sometimes it seemed that way.
==========
I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate.
And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
==========
I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in
my brain, because later you might think you're having a good idea but
it's just eggs hatching.
==========
Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there,
in the room talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books.
==========
What is it about a beautiful sunny afternoon, with the birds singing
and the wind rustling through the leaves, that makes you want to get
drunk? And after you're real drunk, maybe go down to the public park
and stagger  around and ask people for money, and then lay down and go
to sleep.
==========
Instead of a trap door, what about a trap window?  The guy looks out
it, and if he leans too far, he falls out.  Wait.  I guess that's like
a regular window.
==========
During the Middle Ages, probably one of the biggest mistakes was not
putting on your armor because you were "just going down to the corner."
==========
If I ever get real rich, I hope I'm not real mean to poor people, like
I am now.
==========
When I found the skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call
the police. But then I got curious about it.  I picked it up, and
started wondering who this person was, and why he had deer horns.
==========
I remember how my great-uncle Jerry would sit on the porch and
whittle all day long.  Once he whittled me a toy boat out of a larger
toy boat I had.  It was almost as good as the first one, except now it had
bumpy whittle marks all over it.  And no paint, because he had whittled
off the paint.
==========
Here's a good thing to do if you go to a party and you don't know
anybody:  First take out the garbage.  Then go around and collect any
extra garbage  that people might have, like a crumpled napkin, and
take that out too.  Pretty soon people will want to meet the busy
garbage guy.
==========
Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights,
even if you don't know what your rights are, or who the person is you're
talking to. Then on the way out, slam the door.
==========
If you're a cowboy and you're dragging a guy behind your horse, I bet
it would really make you mad if you looked back and the guy was reading
a magazine.
==========
If your friend is already dead, and being eaten by vultures, I think
it's okay to feed some bits of your friend to one of the vultures, to
teach him to do some tricks.  But only if you're serious about adopting
the vulture.
==========
Broken promises don't upset me.  I just think, why did they believe me?
==========
If you ever crawl inside an old hollow log and go to sleep, and while
you're in there some guys come and seal up both ends and then put it on
a truck and take it to another city, boy, I don't know what to tell you.
==========
One thing vampire children have to be taught early on is, don't run
with a wooden stake.
==========
If you go to a costume party at your boss's house, wouldn't you think
a good costume would be to dress up like the boss's wife?  Trust me,
it's not.
==========
Most of the time it was probably real bad being stuck down in a
dungeon. But some days, when there was a bad storm outside, you'd look
out your little window and think, "Boy, I'm glad I'm not out in that."
==========
Consider the daffodil.  And while you're doing that, I'll be over
here, looking through your stuff.
==========
For mad scientists who keep brains in jars, here's a tip: why not add
a slice of lemon to each jar, for freshness?

100 Best First Lines of Novels

As chosen by the editors of American Book Review

	Quote	Author	Title	Year
1.	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 (trans. Gregory Rabassa)	One Hundred Years of Solitude	1967
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 (trans. Constance Garnett)	Anna Karenina	1877
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 (trans. Breon Mitchell)	The Trial	1925
14.	You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler.	Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver)	If on a winter's night a traveler	1979
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 (trans. Edith Grossman)	Don Quixote	1605
28.	Mother died today.	Albert Camus (trans. Stuart Gilbert)	The Stranger	1942
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 (trans. Michael R. Katz)	Notes from Underground	1864
32.	Where now? Who now? When now?	Samuel Beckett (trans. Patrick Bowles)	The Unnamable	1953
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 (trans. Lydia Davis)	Swann's Way	1913
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 (trans. Ralph Manheim)	The Tin Drum	1959
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 Trebizon	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

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Image credit: Simon Davison

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Image credit: SL-INC (AKA: Scott)

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50 Strange Buildings of the World

1. The Crooked House (Sopot, Poland)

Construction of the building started in in January 2003 and in December 2003 it was finished. House architecture is based on Jan Marcin Szancer (famous Polish drawer and child books illustrator) and Per Dahlberg (Swedish painter living in Sopot) pictures and paintings.

Image via: brocha

2. Forest Spiral - Hundertwasser Building (Darmstadt, Germany)

The Hundertwasser house “Waldspirale” (”Forest Spiral”) was built in Darmstadt between 1998 and 2000. Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the famous Austrian architect and painter, is widely renowned for his revolutionary, colourful architectural designs which incorporate irregular, organic forms, e.g. onion-shaped domes.

The structure with 105 apartments wraps around a landscaped courtyard with a running stream. Up in the turret at the southeast corner, there is a restaurant, including a cocktail bar.

Image via: Kikos Dad

3. The Torre Galatea Figueras (Spain)

Image via: manuelfloresv

4. Ferdinand Cheval Palace a.k.a Ideal Palace (France)

Image via: Mélisande*

5. The Basket Building (Ohio, United States)

The Longaberger Basket Company building in Newark, Ohio might just be a strangest office building in the world. The 180,000-square-foot building, a replica of the company’s famous market basket, cost $30 million and took two years to complete. Many experts tried to persuade Dave Longaberger to alter his plans, but he wanted an exact replica of the real thing.

Image via: addicted Eyes

6. Kansas City Public Library (Missouri, United States)

This project, located in the heart of Kansas City, represents one of the pioneer projects behind the revitalization of downtown.

The people of Kansas City were asked to help pick highly influential books that represent Kansas City. Those titles were included as ‘bookbindings’ in the innovative design of the parking garage exterior, to inspire people to utilize the downtown Central Library.

Image via: jonathan_moreau

7. Wonderworks (Pigeon Forge, TN, United States)

8. Habitat 67 (Montreal, Canada)

Expo 67, one of the world’s largest universal expositions was held in Montreal. Housing was one of the main themes of Expo 67.

The cube is the base, the mean and the finality of Habitat 67. In its material sense, the cube is a symbol of stability. As for its mystic meaning, the cube is symbol of wisdom, truth, moral perfection, at the origin itself of our civilization.

354 cubes of a magnificent grey-beige build up one on the other to form 146 residences nestled between sky and earth, between city and river, between greenery and light.

Image via: ken ratcliff

9. Cubic Houses (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

The original idea of these cubic houses came about in the 1970s. Piet Blom has developed a couple of these cubic houses that were built in Helmond.

The city of Rotterdam asked him to design housing on top of a pedestrian bridge and he decided to use the cubic houses idea. The concept behind these houses is that he tries to create a forest by each cube representing an abstract tree; therefore the whole village becomes a forest.

Image via: vpzone

10. Hang Nga Guesthouse a.k.a Crazy House (Vietnam)

The house is owned by the daughter of the ex-president of Vietnam, who studied architecture in Moscow.

It does not comply with any convention about house building, has unexpected twists and turns, roofs and rooms. It looks like a fairy tale castle, it has enormous “animals” like a giraffe and a spider, no window is rectangular or round, and it can be visited like a museum.

Image via: JonasPhoto

11. Chapel in the Rock (Arizona, United States)

Image via: santanartist

12. Dancing Building (Prague, Czech Republic)

Image via: jemil75

13. Calakmul building a.k.a La Lavadora a.k.a The Washing Mashine (Mexico, Mexico)

Image via: marj k

14. Kettle House (Texas, United States)

Image via: y luckyfukr

15. Manchester Civil Justice Centre (Manchester, UK)

Image via: tj.blackwell

16. Nakagin Capsule Tower (Tokyo, Japan)

Image via: pict_u_re

17. Mind House (Barcelona, Spain)

Image via: angelocesare

18. Stone House (Guimarães, Portugal)

image via: Jsome1

19. Shoe House (Pennsylvania, United States)

Image via: James Gordon

20. Weird House in Alps

Image via: nicolasnova

21. The Ufo House (Sanjhih, Taiwan)

Image via: cypherone @ Taiwan

22. The Hole House (Texas, United States)

Image via: melinnis

23. Ryugyong Hotel (Pyongyang, North Korea)

Image via: Pricey

24. The National Library (Minsk, Belarus)

Image via: ledsmagazine.com

25. Grand Lisboa (Macao)

Image via: Michael McDonough

26. Wall House (Groningen, Netherlands)

Image via: Liao Yusheng

27. Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao, Spain)

Image via: disgustipado

28. Bahá’í House of Worship a.k.a Lotus Temple (Delhi, India)

Image via: MACSURAK

29. Container City (London, UK)

Image via: y Fin Fahey

30. Erwin Wurm: House Attack (Viena, Austria)

Image via: Dom Dada

31. Wooden Gagster House (Archangelsk, Russia)

Image via: deputy-dog.com

32. Air Force Academy Chapel (Colorado, United States)

Image via: dbking

33. Solar Furnace (Odeillo, France)

Image via: f2g2

34. Dome House (Florida, United States)

Image via: easement

35. Beijing National Stadium (Beijing, China)

Image via: littlemalt

36. Fashion Show Mall (Las Vegas, United States)

Image via: b2tse

37. Luxor Hotel & Casino (Las Vegas, United States)

Image via: wallyg

38. Zenith Europe (Strasbourg, France)

Image via: Edouard55

39. Civic Center (Santa Monica)

Image via: karenchu121

40. Mammy’s Cupboard (Natchez, MS, United States)

Image via: Live Simply

41. Pickle Barrel House (Grand Marais, Michigan, United States)

Image via: the naked fauxtographer

42. The Egg (Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, United States)

Image via: iessi

43. Gherkin Building (London, UK)

2009-05-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

Download FEAR 2 Demo Project Origin

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10 Grammar Mistakes That Make You Look Stupid

2009-05-06T03:12:00.000-07:00

These days, we tend to communicate via the keyboard as much as we do verbally. Often, we’re in a hurry, quickly dashing off e-mails with typos, grammatical shortcuts (I’m being kind here), and that breezy, e.e. cummings, no-caps look. It’s expected. It’s no big deal. But other times, we try to invest a little care, avoiding mistakes so that there’s no confusion about what we’re saying and so that we look professional and reasonably bright.

In general, we can slip up in a verbal conversation and get away with it. A colleague may be thinking, Did she just say “irregardless”?, but the words flow on, and our worst transgressions are carried away and with luck, forgotten.

That’s not the case with written communications. When we commit a grammatical crime in e-mails, discussion posts, reports, memos, and other professional documents, there’s no going back. We’ve just officially gone on record as being careless or clueless. And here’s the worst thing. It’s not necessary to be an editor or a language whiz or a spelling bee triathlete to spot such mistakes. They have a way of doing a little wiggle dance on the screen and then reaching out to
grab the reader by the throat.

So here we are in the era of Word’s red-underline “wrong spelling, dumb ass” feature and Outlook’s Always Check Spelling Before Sending option, and still the mistakes proliferate. Catching typos is easy (although not everyone does it). It’s the other stuff — correctly spelled but incorrectly wielded — that sneaks through and makes us look stupid. Here’s a quick review of some of the big ones.

1. Loose for lose
No: I always loose the product key.
Yes: I always lose the product key.

2. It’s for its (or god forbid, its’)
No: Download the HTA, along with it’s readme file.
Yes: Download the HTA, along with its readme file.
No: The laptop is overheating and its making that funny noise again.
Yes: The laptop is overheating and it’s making that funny noise again.

3.They’re fortheir for there
No: The managers are in they’re weekly planning meeting.
Yes: The managers are in their weekly planning meeting.
No: The techs have to check there cell phones at the door, and their not happy about it.
Yes: The techs have to check their cell phones at the door, and they’re not happy about it.

4.i.e. for e.g.
No: Use an anti-spyware program (i.e., AdAware).
Yes: Use an anti-spyware program (e.g., AdAware).
Note: The term i.e. means “that is”; e.g. means “for example.” And a comma follows both of them.

5.Effect for affect
No: The outage shouldn’t effect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn’t affect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn’t have any effect on users.
Yes: We will effect several changes during the downtime.
Note: Impact is not a verb. Purists, at least, beg you to use affect instead:
No: The outage shouldn’t impact any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn’t affect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage should have no impact on users during work hours.

6. You’re foryour
No: Remember to defrag you’re machine on a regular basis.
Yes: Remember to defrag your machine on a regular basis.
No: Your right about the changes.
Yes: You’re right about the changes.

7. Different than for different from
No: This setup is different than the one at the main office.
Yes: This setup is different from the one at the main office.
Yes: This setup is better than the one at the main office.

8. Lay for lie
No: I got dizzy and had to lay down.
Yes: I got dizzy and had to lie down.
Yes: Just lay those books over there.

9. Then for than
No: The accounting department had more problems then we did.
Yes: The accounting department had more problems than we did.
Note: Here’s a sub-peeve. When a sentence construction begins with If, you don’t need a then. Then is implicit, so it’s
superfluous and wordy:
No: If you can’t get Windows to boot, then you’ll need to call Ted.
Yes: If you can’t get Windows to boot, you’ll need to call Ted.

10.Could of, would of for could have, would have
No: I could of installed that app by mistake.
Yes: I could have installed that app by mistake.
No: I would of sent you a meeting notice, but you were out of town.
Yes: I would have sent you a meeting notice, but you were out of town.

Bonus peeve

I’ll just throw one more thing out here: My current burning pet peeve. At some point, who knows when, it became common practice to say that something is “hit and miss.” Nuh-UH. It can’t be both, right? It either hits or it misses? “Hit OR miss.” Granted, it’s a small thing, a Boolean-obsessive sort of thing. But it’s nonetheless vexing because it’s so illogical. Okay, that’s mine. If you’ve got a peeve of your own, share it in the discussion (or post a comment and tell me to get over it).

The Best Movies of 2008

2009-05-06T03:11:00.002-07:00

It’s that time of year when critics make the often futile attempt to sum up hundreds of movies and twelve months of viewing into a nice, neat package. How do you define 2008 in movies? Personally, I found myself turning away from films that were too focused on the depressing. The movies that I loved not only transcended criticism but also were more often than not “positive.” Maybe Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky wore off on me but bleak films like Revolutionary Road, Changeling, Ballast, Wendy and Lucy, and I’ve Loved You So Long didn’t make my top twenty and I’m completely burned out on everything Nazi (The Reader, Valkyrie, The Boy with the Striped Pajamas). Not that they’re all bad, I just found myself looking for those moments of emotional transcendence instead of reminders about the bleakness of humanity. Walter’s drum-playing in The Visitor, the beautiful wedding at the center of Rachel Getting Married, the Dickensian triumph that has made Slumdog Millionaire a phenomenon, the movement of Milk, even The Ram’s final moment of twisted glory in The Wrestler, and, of course, the little robot who saved planet Earth. Blame the economy, the war, the bitter campaigns, or just the general state of the world, but the movies that really spoke to me in 2008 gave me hope, not just for filmmaking, but for life.

Before we get to the list, I feel I should address the question I’ve been asked the most this season - was 2008 a good year for movies? Let’s break it down statistically. I gave my highest rating (four stars or “bones”) less times this year - 11 out of over 200 seen - than I have since 2002 - and, to be fair, I saw half as many movies that year than I did in this one, so the percentage of quality at the top was disturbingly low. But I also gave three stars more than any other rating in 2008. So, there weren’t a lot of great movies, but there were a lot of good ones. At the same time, and I’ll get into this more in next week’s “Worst Films of 2008″ article, there was an unacceptable amount of total junk - one star or less films. (I shattered my record for that rating.) More three-star films than four-star ones and more one-star films than two-stars - it seems pretty clear that everything slid down a notch, making 2008 not a very good year. But we’re here to stay positive. These were the best…

Acclaimed films of 2008 that I didn’t get a chance to see that could have conceivably made this list: August Evening, Before I Forget, Cadillac Records, Chop Shop, The Flight of the Red Balloon, Frozen River, My Winnipeg, Shotgun Stories, and Waltz With Bashir

Runner-ups: Burn After Reading, Che, The Class, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, The Edge of Heaven, Pineapple Express, Sangre de mi Sangre, Snow Angels, Still Life, Tell No One, Transsiberian, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Wendy & Lucy

Best Free Anti-Virus Software

2009-05-06T03:11:00.001-07:00

If you are looking for the best possible protection my top recommendation is Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic [1]. Although its detection rate is outstanding there are some reservations. First it lacks email scanning; this is only available in the paid version. That means that AntiVir won’t warn you about any infected emails before you open them. However should you open an infected email then AntiVir will still spring into action, so not having an email scanner doesn’t mean you are not protected from email based infections. My second reservation is that AntiVir is quite an intrusive product - you will certainly be well aware of its presence. Finally AntiVir Personal Edition Classic has a time limited license. It is renewable but be aware you will have to periodically go through the hoops.

If you not prepared to accept the drawbacks to AntiVir I would suggest either AVG Antivirus 7 Free Edition [2] or the Avast! scanner [3]. Neither is quite as effective in detection as AntiVir however they are both more complete products and less intrusive in use.

AVG Free has been continuously refined since it was first released in 1991 and the latest version V7.5 makes further improvements to an already solid product. Additionally, it’s relatively small, light on resources, has regular automatic updates and handles email scanning. There is a free and a pro version, the only difference being that the free version has a few non-critical features disabled and has no technical support other than a free user forum.

Equally effective is the free Avast! scanner [3] though its funky media player style interface is not to everyone’s taste. Avast! also required periodic re-registration while AVG does not. However Avast! does not seem to suffer the signature file update problems that plague some AVG users.

AVG and Avast! are excellent free products that will meet the needs of most users. However none of these offer the best malware detection available. That title belongs to commercial products like NOD32, F-Secure, the full versions of AntiVir, Kaspersky AV and others. They are however capable packages that offer the financially challenged a real alternative to the major anti-virus suites.

However if you use AVG or Avast! in conjunction with a sandbox for surfing (see section 4) and an anti-spyware product (see section 3) you can achieve a level of protection approaching that offered by the best commercial AV products.

Further improvement is possible running regular on-demand scans with a different anti-virus product.

On-demand scans should be run regularly, at least weekly, to check for viruses and other malware that may have been missed by your main scanner.

A good option for on-demand scanning is the free version of the commercial AV product BitDefender [4]. It’s a first class product with excellent detection rates but as the free version lacks an email scanner and a resident virus guard, it’s only really suited for use as an on-demand scanner rather than your main AV product. There are some other limitations as well. First it has an annoying habit of detecting malware products that have been quarantined by other security products and you can’t exclude these areas from subsequent scans. Second, it is only available on a one year non-renewable license.

[1] http://www.free-av.com Windows 95-Vista, 20.3MB
[2] http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/ Windows 98-Vista, 29.0MB
[3] http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html Windows 95-Vista, 16.1MB
[4] http://www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en–BitDefender-8-Free-Edition.html Windows 98-XP, 13.2MB

TOP 300 Freeware software!

2009-05-06T03:10:00.001-07:00

Office

OpenOffice - office suite
PC Suite 602 - office suite
AbiWord - text editor
Atlantis Nova - text editor
Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer - power point files viewer
Adobe Reader - pdf reader
Foxit PDF Reader - pdf reader
PDFCreator - create pdf documents
Doc Convertor - document convertor
Convert - unit convertor
Converber - unit convertor
Sunbird - calendar/organizer
EssentialPIM Free - calendar/organizer
PhraseExpress - speed up your writing
ATnotes - create notes on the desktop

Archive managers

7-Zip - compression program
IZArc - compression program
TugZIP - compression program
CabPack - compression program
Universal Extractor - extract files from any type of archive

Internet

Firefox - web browser
Internet Explorer- web browser
Maxthon - web browser
Opera - web browser
Avant Browser - web browser
Thunderbird - email client
PopTray - check for emails
Free Download Manager - download manager
FlashGet - download manager
WellGet - download manager
Download Master - download manager
WGET - commandline download manager
HTTrack - offline browser
WebReaper - offline browser
Yeah Reader - RSS reader
GreatNews - RSS reader
RSSOwl - RSS reader

P2P

µTorrent - torrent client
Azureus - torrent client
BitComet - torrent client
ABC - torrent client
BitTornado - torrent client
eMule - p2p client
SoulSeek - p2p client
Shareaza - p2p client
DC++ - Direct Connect network client
PeerGuardian - IP blocker

Chat

Miranda - chat client
MSN Messenger - chat client
Yahoo Messenger - chat client
QIP - chat client
Gaim - chat client
JAJC - chat client
HydraIRC - IRC client
Talkative IRC - IRC client
IceChat - IRC client
Skype - VOIP client
Google Talk - VOIP client
VoipStunt - VOIP client
Gizmo - VOIP client
Wengo - VOIP client

Security

AVG Free - antivirus
Avast Home Free - antivirus
AntiVir PersonalEdition - antivirus
BitDefender Free - antivirus
ClamWin - antivirus
CyberDifender - Internet Security Suite
Ad-aware - anti-spyware
Spybot: Search & Destroy - anti-spyware
Windows Defender - anti-spyware
SpywareBlaster - anti-spyware
Spyware Terminator - anti-spyware
Tootkit Reveaker - rootkit detection utility
Winpooch - system protection
HiJack Free - system protection
HighJackThis - hijackers detector and remover
Kerio Personal Firewall - firewall
Sygate Personal Firewall - firewall
ZoneAlarm - firewall
AxCrypt - file encryption
Simple File Shredder - securely delete files
PuTTy - SSH client
KeePass - password manager
LockNote - password manager
nPassword - password manager
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer - identify security misconfigurations

Servers

FileZilla - FTP client
FileZilla Server - FTP server
EFTP - FTP client/server
XAMPP - integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl
WAMP - Apache, PHP5 and MySQL server

Audio

Foobar2000 - audio player
WinAmp - audio player
1by1 - audio player
JetAudio - audio player
XMPlay - audio player
Xion - audio player
Apollo - audio player
MediaMonkey - music organizer
The GodFather - music organizer
dBpowerAMP - audio converter
Audacity - audio converter
WavePad - audio converter
Kristal Audio Engine - audio editor
Exact Audio Copy - CD ripper
Audiograbber - CD ripper
CDex - CD ripper
Mp3 Tag Tools - tag editor
Mp3tag - tag editor
Taggin’ MP3 - tag editor
Monkey’s Audio - APE compressor/decompressor
mpTrim - mp3 editor
WavTrim - wave editor
EncSpot Basic - analyse mp3 files

Video

Windows Media Player - audio/video player
VLC - video player
Media Player Classic - video player
MV2Player - video player
CrystalPlayer 1.95 - video player
Zoom Player - video player
GOM Player - video player
viPlay - video player
DSPlayer - video player
VirtualDub - video editor
CamStudio - video screen recording
AviSplit - Avi splitter
Video mp3 Extractor - rip audio from video files
Free iPod Converter - convert all popular video formats to iPod video
MediaPortal - turning your PCinto a Media Center
The FilmMachine

Image

Gimp - image editor
PhotoFiltre - image editor
Paint.net - image editor
ArtRage - image editor
Artweaver - image editor
IrfanView - image viewer
Picasa - image viewer
XnView - image viewer
FastStone Image Viewer - image viewer
FuturixImager - image viewer
Easy Thumbnails - create thumbnails from images
JoJoThumb - create thumbnails from images
iWebAlbum - create web photo albums
JAlbum - create web photo albums
3D Box Shot Maker - design quality box shot
FastStone Capture - screen capture
WinSnap - screen capture

3D

Blender3D - 3D renderer
3Delight Free - 3D renderer
SketchUp - 3D modeling
Maya Learning Edition - 3D modeling

Developers

AutoIt - task automation
SciTE4AutoIt3 - text editor for AutoIt
AutoHotkey - task automation
PHP Designer - PHP editor
Notepad++ - text editor
ConTEXT Editor - text editor
PSPad - text editor
FoxEditor - text editor
Crimson Editor - source code editor
Elfima Notepad - text editor
Notepad2 - text editor
Nvu - HTML editor
Alleycode - HTML editor
BlockNote - web page editor
Weaverslave - web page editor

CD/DVD

DeepBurner - CD/DVD burner
CDBurner XP Pro - CD/DVD burner
BurnAtOnce - CD/DVD burner
Express Burn - CD/DVD burner
Zilla CD-DVD Rip’n’Burn - CD/DVD burner
ImgBurn - ISO, BIN burner
Daemon tools - virtual CD/DVD
DVD Decrypter - DVD ripper
DVD Shrink - DVD ripper
Nero CD-DVD Speed - CD/DVD info and quality test

Codecs

GSpot - codec information
AC3Filter - audio codec
Xvid - video codec
QuickTime Alternative - video codec
Real Alternative - video codec
K-Lite Codec Pack - all codecs

System Ulilities

CCleaner - system cleaner
xp-AntiSpy - OS setup
jv16 Powertools - system utilities
XP SysPad - system monitoring utility
What’s Running - process guard
Registrar Lite - registry editor
WinIPConfig - replacement for “ipconfig.exe” and “route.exe”
Unlocker - file eraser
Eraser - secure file eraser
Undelete Plus - file recovery
freeCommander - file manager
ExplorerXP - file manager
Duplicate File Finder - find all duplicate files
Ant Renamer - file renaming
ReNamer - file renaming
Icons From File - icos extractor
Chaos MD5 - MD5 generator
HashTab - MD5, SHA1 and CRC-32 file hashes
Rainlendar Lite - desktop calendar
Weather Watcher - weather firecast
Subtitle Workshop - subtitles editor
Ant Movie Catalog - movie organizer
Disclib - CD organizer
Dexpot - virtual desktops
DriveImage XML - create partition images
MozBackup - backup and restore bookmarks, etc.
SyncBack - system backup
Atomic Cock Sync - syncronize your clock
Citrus Alarm Clock - alarm clock
TaskSwitchXP - Alt-Tab replacement
Launchy - application launcher
allSnap - make all windows snap
Sysinternals Tools - various system tools
StrokeIt - mouse gestures
Net Profiles - create profiles of your network settings
ResourceHacker - view, modify, rename, add, delete
Java Runtime Environment - java for Windows

UI Enhancements

RocketDock - application launcher
AveDesk - desktop enhancer
IconPhile - customize windows’s system icons
CursorXP Free - change mouse cursors
MacSound - volume control
LClock - Windows Longhorn clock
Y’z Dock - application launcher
Y’z Shadow - shadow effect to the windows
Y’z Toolbar - change the toolbar icons in Explorer and Internet Explorer
Taskbar Shuffle - rearrange the programs on the taskbar by dragging
Visual Task Tips - thumbnail preview image for each task in the taskbar
Badges - put badges on any folder or file
Folderico - change icons of the folders
Folder Marker - mark your folders
Folder2MyPC - add favourite locations to My Computer
Microsoft TweakUI - system settings
BricoPacks - shell packs
ShellPacks - shell packs
Tango Shell Patcher - shell patcher
XPize - GUI enhancer
Vista Transformation Pack - complete visual style
Vista Sound Scheme - Windows Vista sound scheme
Royale Theme - visual style

Hardware monitoring/Benchmarking

CPU-Z - cpu information
CrystalCPUID - cpu information
Central Brain Identifier - cpu information
Everest - system information
SiSoft Sandra - system information
SpeedFan - hardware monitor
Memtest86 - memory test
PowerMax - HDD test
3Dmark 06 - 3D game performance benchmark
Aquamark - performance benchmark
rthdribl - 3D benchmark
Fraps - 3D benchmark, fps viewer and screen recorder
Prime 95 - cpu benchmarking
SuperPI - cpu benchmarking
CPU Rightmark - cpu overclock
Core Temp - cpu temperature
ATiTool - video overclock
ATI Tray Tools - Radeon tweaker
aTuner - GeForce and Radeontweaker
RivaTuner - video overclock
Nokia Monitor Test - monitor adjustmets
UDPixel - fix dead pixels

Games

123 Free Solitaire - solitaire games collection
Arcade Pack - classic arcade games
Live For Speed - online racing simulator
Enigma - puzzle game
Freeciv - multiplayer strategy game
Tux Racer - race down steep, snow-covered mountains

Education

SpeQ Mathematics - mathematics program
Dia - diagram creation program
Google Earth - explore the world
NASA World Wind - 3D virtual globe
Celestia - explore the space
Stellarium - planetarium

Miscellaneous

nLite - Build your own custom Windows disk.
VirtualPC - create virtual machines
grabMotion - webcam capture
iDailyDiary - simple page-for-a-day diary
Pivot Stickfigure Animator - create stick-figure animations
Wink - create presentations
Scribus - professional page layout
FreeMind - midn mapping software
Windows Live Writer - WYSIWYG blog authoring

40 Unusual Websites you should Bookmark

2009-05-06T03:09:00.001-07:00

Top 10:

1. beFunky - Awesome web app that turns images to cartoonized paintings and videos to cartoons.

2. DisplayWars - Incredibly simple tool that helps lots of people. Want to buy a new screen? DisaplyWars lets you compare screen sizes by mapping one display size on top of the other.

3. DocSyncer - Synchronize office documents in your ‘My Documents’ folder with Google Docs account.

4. JotYou - By using this service you can send messages to others so they get them only when they are in the area you specify.

5. Keybr - Online keyboard to practice your touch typing skills.

6. Mint - The simplest way to manage your finances.

7. Numbr - Free disposable phone numbers.

8. PDFHammer - Merge, edit and rearrange PDF documents online.

9. PhoneSpell - Ever wondered if you phone number spells something memorable ? PhoneSpell will find it out.

10. SecondRotation / BuyMyTronics - Want to cash in on your old iPod ? Or mobile phone ? Both of these services will buy your old (broken) gadget, regardless of its condition.

Other

11.

BeamIt

12. BooksInMyPhone - Download and read copyright-free books on a mobile phone. Comes with its own book reader.

13. CallTheFuture - Schedule text messages and get them delivered (as a voicemail) on any desired date in the future.

14. CameraSummary - Extracts so called EXIF data from the images. Shows what model of digicam was used, image creation date and time, resolution settings, location and so on.

15. CanYouRunIt - One-click web app that inspects your PC’s hardware and software settings to determine whether or not it meets gaming requirements for a game of your choice.

16. CellSwapper - Transfer your current mobile contract to someone else. Or get a free plan with only a short term contract.

17. CivilAnswers - Free legal assistance.

18. ControlC - This small cross-platform (Win, Mac, Linux) monitors your clipboard and saves everything online.

19. Definr - Incredibly fast online dictionary. It takes abt 14 ms to lookup a word.

20. Drop.io - By far the coolest service for private file collaboration and transfers. Add files by email, send voice messages from phone, etc.

21. File-Destructor 2 - Generates files (Doc, PDF, … ) that look genuine but won’t launch properly. Basically, it’s a tool that helps you put all the blame on your “faulty computer”.

22. File-encryptor - Secure encryption tool to freely encrypt/decrypt sensitive files online. Quite handy for sending over sensitive files.

23. FlashPhone - Free flash-based SIP-softphone. Simply add your SIP account and you’re good to go. No need to install anything.

24. Google Mobilizer - Makes your fav. websites mobile friendly. Must-have for your mobile bookmarks.

25. GetMyFBIfile - Here you can generate letter templates that you can use to request for a free copy of your FBI file.

26. LetterMeLater - Offers one feature that your email doesn’t have, ‘the ability to schedule when an email should be sent’. Coolest part about, you can use it directly from your email program (GMail, Outlook, etc.).

27. Mailbucket - Finally, a tool to help you forward emails to your feedreader.

28. Mobical - Over-the-air mobilebackup and restore service. Backup phone contacts, calendar, bookmarks and settings.

29. MoDazzle - Access Facebook, LinkedIn and dozens of other web services (weather, stock quotes, etc.) via email or mobile text messaging. Update Facebook ’status’, get un-read messages from Facebook inbox, get someone’s profile info from LinkedIn, and lots more.

30. Nanoscan - Super fast yet compehensive online virus scanner.

31. OhDon’tForget - It does only one thing, but does it really well: Schedule text message reminders to any phone.

32. ProQuo - Reduce junk mail by removing your personal data from telemarketing lists.

33. PPCalc - Comprehensive Paypal fees calculator.

34. Rondee - Fast, easy and free way to arrange phone conference calls with as many people as you want.

35. SpokenText - Convert PDF, Word, plain text, PowerPoint files, ,RSS news feeds, emails and web pages to speech.

36. Sullr - Obtain information about telephone lines in reverse mode. Get address, location, owner’s name etc.

37. WakerUpper - Schedule wake-up phone calls. Lots of useful features.

38. WebMarkers - Adds additional option to your ‘Print’ menu that lets you print documents (or webpages) directly to the web.

39. WhatShouldIReadNext - Book recommendation service. Simply enter the author and title of your latest book and it will give you a list of recommended readings.

40. WorldTaxiMeter - Calculate the cost of a taxi ride in a number of top cities worldwide (London, New York, Rome …). Accessible both from the web and mobile phone.