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Archive for October, 2009


Ever since the insubordination of Lucifer, there has been an ongoing battle between Good and Evil in God’s Eden.  History is full of the antagonistic battle between these two formidable forces.

In Panama, Evil prevailed for more than 21 years with a military dictatorship which started with General Omar Torrijos in 1968  and ended with General Manuel A. Noriega in 1989.  A lot of blood and suffering was unnecessarily spilled during those long years.  It’s an experience all Panamanians wish to forget as brighter days lie ahead.

Other countries have had their own quota of suffering with unpopular and cruel dictators.   Names like Caligula, Nero, Attila and Hitler come to my mind.  A tyrant that very few people know about is Saparmurat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan located in Central Asia.

In 1991, after the fall of Communism and the USSR, Turkmenistan found itself independent for the first time in a hundred years. The new president, Saparmurat Niyazov, was the obvious successor—he’d been the Communist Party’s puppet governor since 1985.   But easing a country of five million people into a new era of self-sufficiency and autonomy was not the highest item on Niyazov’s agenda. He was more concerned that decades of Soviet control had left Turkmenistan with no national identity. So, in 1993, Niyazov took it upon himself to create the country in a new image:  his own.

First, he took the name Turkmenbashi (Leader of All Ethnic Turkmen) and declared himself President for Life. Since then, he undertook scores of bizarre measures to make Turkmenistan a very unique place.  Let’s take a look at some of these crazy measures:

  • The new president renamed the months. January is now called… Turkmenbashi. April is called Gurbansoltan edzhe, after his mother. (Bread, once called chorek, is now also called gurbansoltan edzhe.)
  • In April 2004 he ordered the building of a giant ice palace in the middle of the desert, the Karakum-–the hottest location in central Asia.  It would also include a zoo with penguins.
  • The airport in the capital city of Asgabat was renamed…Turkmenbashi.
  • The name of the large port city Krasnovodsk was changed to… Turkmenbashi.
  • Dozens of streets and schools across the country are now called… Turkmenbashi.
  • In 1998 a 670-pound meteorite landed in Turkmenistan. Scientists named it… Turkmenbashi.
  • The image of Turkmenbashi’s face is used as the logo of all three state-run TV stations, and is legally required to appear on every clock and watch face as well as on every bottle of Turkmenbashi brand vodka.
  • In April 2004 the youth of Turkmenistan were encouraged to chew on bones to preserve their teeth rather than be fitted with gold tooth caps or gold teeth.
  • In 2004 it was prohibited for news readers to wear make-up.
  • In February 2005 all hospitals outside Asgabat were ordered shut, with the reasoning that the sick should come to the capital for treatment. All rural libraries were ordered closed as well, citing ordinary Turkmen do not read books.
  • In November 2005 physicians were ordered to swear an oath to the President, replacing the Hippocratic Oath.
  • In January 2006 one-third of the country’s elderly had their pensions discontinued, while another 200,000 had theirs reduced. Pensions received during the prior two years were ordered paid back to the state. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan strongly denied allegations that the cut in pensions resulted in the deaths of many elderly Turkmen, accusing foreign media outlets of spreading “deliberately perverted” information on the issue.
  • Car radios, lip-synching, and recorded music were all prohibited.
  • Dogs were restricted from the capital city due to unappealing odor.

On December 21, 2006, Turkmen state television announced that President Niyazov had died of sudden cardiac arrest. Niyazov had been taking medication for an unidentified cardiac condition. The Turkmen Embassy in Moscow later confirmed this report.

Let us be on the alert of keeping Evil away from our lives the best we can.  Tyrants like this could emerge in any of our countries struggling for a change in the status quo if we’re not careful.  Take a look at Venezuela and Hugo Chavez.  Who knows what he will do next?  The battle between Evil and Good continues.  Good Day and Happy Halloween!

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(Credit: Pixdaus.com)

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Little Johnny’s father noticed that Johnny was spending way too much time playing computer games.

In an effort to motivate Little Johnny into focusing more attention on his schoolwork, his father said, “When Abe Lincoln was your age, he was studying books by the light of the fireplace.”

Little Johnny replied, “When Abe Lincoln was your age, he was the President of the United States.”

Source:  Miss Cellania

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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Once Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, announced the Kindle, the publishing industry would never be the same again.  This announcement took the industry by storm.  The Kindle is not yet a mainstream gadget, but it’s on the right track.  Its main hurdles are that it has no color and the price is too steep.  If you add a polychromatic screen and an affordable price, it would be another invention similar to Gutemberg’s movable type printing.

Recently in was on the news that Barnes & Noble, which operates the nation’s largest chain of bookstores,  joined the electronic books race with the Nook.  The Nook, priced at $259, went on sale Tuesday afternoon at nook.com, at a price that matched the latest edition of the Kindle. The Nook will ship starting in late November.

B&N is trying to consolidate sales of e-books onto the Nook, which features a six-inch gray and white reading screen and a color touch screen control panel. In any of the chain’s 1,300 stores, consumers can download books on the Wi-Fi network. Outside the stores, consumers will access AT&T 3G network to download books.

One of the differentiating factors of the Nook is that customers can “lend” books to friends. But customers may lend out any given title only one time for a total of 14 days and they cannot read it on their own Nook while it is lent.

The Nook also has software that will detect when a consumer walks into a store so that it can push out coupons and other promotions like excerpts from forthcoming books or suggestions for new reading. While in stores, Nook owners will be able to read any e-book through streaming software.

Barnes & Noble is jumping into a crowded market dominated by the Kindle. The Reader from Sony is the next most popular such device, but there are several others in the works, including electronic readers from iRex and Plastic Logic.

It’s an interesting race to follow.  B&N, Amazon and Sony are great contenders and they know how to move their pawns.  I hope they realize $200 for a book reader is asking for too much.  I have a gut feeling, that when the dust settles, we will see prices in the neighborhood of $100 for a full-featured electronic book reader.  For sure it will not be possible this Christmas.  Maybe next?  Good Day.

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(Credit: John Cable Mill, Tennessee @Pixdaus.com)

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(Credit: Mozilla.org)

No matter what they say, Mozilla Firefox is the most secure and stable Web browser around.  I haven’t seen such a dedicated and passionate team of developers so engaged in having a secure and reliable piece of software.  No wonder they are the number two player and constantly nibbling away at Microsoft Internet Explorer’s global market share.  In a very short while, Firefox will hit the 25 percent landmark.  That’s a very decent number in today’s hyper-competitive business world.

Firefox raises the bar for security. The new malware and phishing protection helps protect from viruses, worms, trojans and spyware to keep people safe on the Web.  As far as performance is concerned, Firefox’s powerful new Gecko platform, results in a safer, easier to use and more personal product.  It can’t get any better than that.

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.  Yesterday Mozilla announced a new stability and security path for Firefox  browser (e.g., Version 3.5.4).

What’s new in Version 3.5.4?

  • Mozilla Devs crushed 6 critical, 3 moderate and 2 low vulnerabilities.
  • Added the ability to re-submit crash reports.
  • After using Clear Recent History some SSL sites would not load all images and styles without pressing reload.

It is strongly recommended that you upgrade to Version 3.5.4 as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary risks.  Good Day.

Download Firefox 3.5.4

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(Credit:  Pixdaus.com)

(Credit: Pixdaus.com)

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When Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in March 1989, never in his wildest dreams did he imagine the impact of his invention.  In only two decades, the WWW has affected every human activity in every crack of the planet.  It’s by far the most efficient communication system ever.

Companies using the Web like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo—just o name a few—have shrunk the world into a global village using Marshall McLuhan’s words.  Everything is linked to this cloud that hovers above the Earth.  Everything, no matter how simple or complex, is at the reach of your fingers in real time twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.  This is absolutely remarkable and unique in the history of civilization.

Yesterday, I started getting my feet wet with Tweeter. I couldn’t resist the crowd pressure anymore.  Everyone is twitting and I felt awkward not being part of this ubiquitous social movement.  I opened my personal account and started uploading my photographs in an effort to share them via this popular network.  I used a nice software to accomplish this task.   The name of the software is Twitpic.

Twitpic is the most popular way to share your favorite photos on Twitter.  When you first start using this service, you’ll need only to input your Twitter credentials. From there, upload an image, add a caption to go along with it, and send a tweet to your followers. That tweet will then show up in your timeline, allowing users to click on the TwitPic link to view your image.

The site gives you a tally of how many people have viewed your images, as well as a place for folks to comment. TwitPic is simple, it’s convenient, and thanks to its popularity, it’s trusted by Twitter users. It’s a must-see.

I posted about twenty pictures and plan to unload more today.  It’s a wonderful way to share my photo-taking experiences.  I was surprised to see how clear the photographs appeared on Twitter; much better than on my hard disk.  Now I’m more enthusiastic about taking pictures.  This blogging hobby is getting better and better as time goes by—like good wine.  Good Day.

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(Credit: Pixdaus.com)

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My experience in learning another language is that it involves consistent dedication and long hours of study.  In my case, I have been studying the English language since I was six years old.  I know it sounds excessive, but I never had the opportunity of living in an English-speaking country; therefore the use of the language has been sporadic.

Blogging in English has been an excellent opportunity to link me more to the language; specially the written part of it.  Currently, I speak English on rare occasions.  One of those occasions is when I meet Americans at the airport in my freelance transportation business.  I try to make the English conversations as pleasant as I can.  My satisfaction is to leave satisfied customers behind.

Serious blogging requires the proper use of a language, in an effort to keep readers returning for more.  Those of you who are constant bloggers know how difficult this task is.

This post is about the proper usage of e.g. versus i.e. which are frequently confused.

The Latin expression “exempli gratia” (e.g.), usually shortened in English to “for example”, is often confused with “id est” (i.e.).   Exempli gratia (e.g.)  should be used after defining a class, to give an example of a specific instance (or more than one; you can provide a list).  It should be used inside parenthesis followed by a comma.  Literally, exampli gratia means “for the sake of example”.

Example: “The simplest crayon sets feature the primary and secondary colors (e.g.,  red and green).”

In the above example, the general class is the noun phrase “the primary and secondary colors”, which if you remember your first art class is the set {red, blue, yellow, purple, green, orange}.  “e.g.” here has provided examples from that set of colors.

The Latin expression Id est means “that is”“That is (to say)” in the sense of “that means” and “which means”, or “in other words”, or sometimes “in this case”, depending on the context; may be followed by a comma, or not, depending on style (American English and British English respectively).  It is often misinterpreted as “in example”. In this situation, e.g. should be used instead.

To further clarify the expression, “i.e.” should be used after a statement to explain it in another way, typically only one other way but possibly two (more would likely be confusing).  It could also be used to define a single word.

Examples: “Most crayon users prefer to scribble (i.e.,  draw erratically)” or “The most common crayon mishap involves a trip to the otorhinolaryngologist (i.e. the crayon has been inserted into the ear or nose).”

In the first example above, a single word was defined; in the second example, the word was implicitly defined, but the context of the whole phrase was clarified.

It seems to be more common for people to misuse “i.e.” when they mean “e.g.”, as opposed to the other way around.  Next time you want to polish your posts, keep in mind the correct usage of these Latin expressions.  Fine tuning the language is a good habit for a serious blogger.  Good Day.

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