On Creativity

The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

                                                                                                 

(Albert Einstein)

Read More

Babies Jumping Festival

Grown men have been leaping over rows of babies in the north Spanish village of Castrillo de Murcia in an annual rite meant to ward off the Devil. 

Jumpers dressed as the Colacho, a character representing the Devil, bounded over clusters of bemused infants laid out on mattresses.

Nobody appeared to get hurt in this year's festive event.

Castrillo, near Burgos, has been holding the event since 1620 to mark the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi.

The feast is widely celebrated in Spain, often with processions and mystery plays.

Pageants can feature dancers depicting demons and angels or other characters.


What do you think of that ,huh???

Read More

Bouncing babies in India-Horrific Ritual!!!!

Check the Video
Local officials in western India have come under fire from child rights experts over a 700-year-old ritual that sees infants dropped from the roof of a mosque.


Resident in the region believe the fall – which ends when the babies are caught in a bedsheet – will ensure good health and prosperity for their families.

Each year hundreds of people, both Hindus and Muslims, take part in the ritual at the Baba Umer Durga, a Muslim shrine in Sholapur, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Mumbai.

This year though, India’s National Commission for Protection of Child’s Rights took umbrage with the tradition and issued a notice to the local administration and are investigating the ceremony.

Local reports say hundreds of infants, mostly under two years old, were dangled from the roof of the shrine, before being dropped about 50 feet (15 meters) onto a bedsheet held aloft by parents and other believers.

High child mortality rates, especially in India’s rural areas, see many people resort to rituals which they believe will ensure their children’s health.

Despite there being no reports of injuries, child rights activists expressed outrage claiming the event showed, “a complete failure of the local administration to prevent this practice and to create awareness about children’s health”.

This article was provided from The Indian News at  http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/sholapur-officials-under-fire-for-baby-dropping-ritual_100227178.html

Read More

The most astonishing Subways in the world!!!!!!!!!

1-Stockholm Tunnelbana (Sweden)

`Subway stations are usually designed in a clean and modernistic style in order to make people forget they are traveling deep underground. It is different in the Stockholm subway though, in which several of the deep underground stations are cut into solid rock which were left with cave-like ceilings. Old nature meets next nature. The fine ‘cave paintings' make the finishing touch.

2-Munich U-Bahn (Germany)

Munich Public Transport System (MVV) is a splendidly constructed system consisting of dozens of S-Bahn (suburbian trains), U-Bahn (subway), Tram-Bahn / Straßenbahn (streetcar) and bus lines, connecting all parts of the city perfectly. This metro system has been opened in 1972 and has spacious and clean stations. The earlier ones are rather minimalistic in design while the later ones got more interesting architectural features and some works of art.


3-Shanghai Bund Sightseeing Tunnel (China)
This has to be one of the most surreal, psychedlic and fun forms of public transport. The Tunnel connects East Nanjin Rd on the Bund, and Pudong near the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, running under the Huangpu river. It's a psychedelic trip in a glass capsule along the 647 metre flashing, strobing tunnel.


3-Moscow's Komsomolskaya Station (Russia)
The Komsomolskaya station of the Moscow Metro is the most famous of all those on the Koltsevaya Line and of the whole system, and an icon of Moscow itself, partly due to it being located on Moscow's busiest transport hub, Komsomolskaya Square, which serves three railway terminals: Leningradsky, Yaroslavsky and Kazansky. The station's connotation is of a gateway to Moscow and to the rest of Russia, and its theme is of the patriotic history and inspiring future of the nation. It was opened on 30 January, 1952, as part of the second stage of the Ring line.



5-Frankfurt’s Bockenheimer Warte station
A weird entrance, looking like a train bursting through the sidewalk from below, is located in Frankfurt. Architect Zbiginiew Peter Pininski reported he felt inspired by surrealist artist Rene Magritte when creating it .


6-Metro Bilbao (Basque Country –Spain )

Bilbao, a small city in the Basque region, is proud of their subway system, not only because of its speed and efficiency, but also because of its design. Norman Foster, the architect who did the Reichtag in Berlin, the Gherkin in London, and the world's largest airport in Hong Kong, designed Bilbao's metro stations. The stations are well-lit and spacious. Foster uses a simple, yet aesthetically pleasing design, especially with the support beams, staircases, and lights. The entrances are especially unique. Nicknamed “el Fosterito,” the entrances are glass round tubes that emerge to the street level.


7- New York's City Hall station (US)

While the stations of the subway are now often dirty, ugly, and are marginally welcoming places, this is not always the case. New York City once had the imagination to build stations which were beautiful as well as practical. The City Hall station remains the most impressive subway station in New York, and yet it hasn't been used since 1945.


8-Chicago's O'Hare Station (US)

The O'Hare terminal station was built in 1984, looking toward the airport terminal from the platforms. The curved sidewalls of glass block, backlit in different colors, illuminate the platforms and absorb sound in the station. The stairs and escalators at the end of the platforms ascend through a gray metal wall that mimics an airplane fuselage to deliver passengers to the fare controls and out into the airport terminal.


9-Dubai Metro Stations (UAE)

The elevated and at-grade Dubai Metro stations combine both heritage and modern designs. They have been modelled on the shape of seashell, inspired from the diving and pearl-fishing heritage of the UAE, while the interior design depicts the four elements of nature – water, air, earth and fire. Conceptual design of some stations includes traditional architectural ingredients used in antique Arab buildings such as wind towers, oriels, alleyways or internal arches.

10-Pyongyang Metro (North Korea)
Built to link secret underground military facilities, the Pyongyang Metro is nevertheless an important part of the transport infrastructure in the capital of North Korea (officially, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK). There is evidence that it includes secret government-only lines, although the extent of these, if they exist, is unknown. Its station architecture is among the most attractive in the world. However, relatively little is known about the Metro outside the country, as few visitors are able to investigate the system.

Read More

Expensive stuffs in 2010 very luxurious

by Venessa Wong
Tuesday, April 20, 2010


Most Expensive Television

PrestigeHD Supreme Rose Edition by Stuart Hughes
Price: $2.3 million*
Swiss luxury television maker PrestigeHD asked Stuart Hughes of Goldstriker International to design a spectacular piece for the company, says Hughes. So he took a 55-inch PrestigeHD television and covered it in 28 kilograms of 18-carat rose gold and 72 diamonds. Alligator skin was hand sewn into the bezel. This limited edition TV, introduced just this year, surpasses Hughes' £1 million television for PrestigeHD, which uses 22-carat yellow gold and 48 diamonds. PrestigeHD CEO Simon M. Troxler says the company is close to closing its first contract for the Supreme Rose Edition and "we are very confident that the limited edition of only three TVs will be sold out soon."

*Price converted from £1.5 million



Most Expensive Hotel Room
Royal Penthouse Suite, Hotel President Wilson in Geneva
Price: $65,000 per night

This palatial suite, which occupies an entire floor of the hotel and measures 18,083 square feet, has 10 rooms and seven bathrooms. It was renovated in January 2009 to add a new private fitness area, according to a spokesperson.



Most Expensive Motorcycle

Dodge Tomahawk V10 Superbike
Price: $700,000
The Dodge Tomahawk, a 1,500-lb. motorcycle with four wheels, has a Dodge Viper's V10 engine and can go from zero to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds, according to Edmunds.com. The top speed is estimated to be more than 300 mph. The vehicle, which made its debut at the 2003 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, was reportedly priced at $550,000, but a Dodge spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg Businessweek that two units were sold at an even higher $700,000.



Most Expensive Cell Phone

iPhone 3GS Supreme Rose by Stuart Hughes
Price: $2.97 million*
Stuart Hughes—who also designed the most expensive television—made headlines in 2009 when he crafted a 22-carat gold iPhone studded with 53 diamonds for an unnamed Australian businessman for £1.92 million. More recently, he says, he was commissioned to make an even pricier version of the phone in 18-carat rose gold with hundreds of diamonds, including a single-cut, 7.1-carat diamond for the main navigation button.

*Price converted from £1.93 million


Most Expensive Golf Club

Long-Nose Putter Stamped "A.D.," attributed to Andrew Dickson
Price: $181,000

An "A.D." stamp on this circa 18th century, long-nose putter is attributed to Andrew Dickson, the oldest known clubmaker to mark his clubs. He is said to have served as a caddy to the Duke of York as a young boy, according to Sotheby's. This item was estimated to sell for $200,000 to $300,000 but fetched $181,000 in a Sotheby's auction in New York in 2007.



Most Expensive Car

1954-55 Mercedes-Benz W196
Price: $24 million
Think a brand-new $1.7 million Bugatti Veyron is expensive? Try the Mercedes-Benz W196, which won the Grand Prix in 1954 and 1955, and sold at auction in 1990 for a staggering $24 million. According to the U.K.'s Times Online Times Online, Mercedes donated the car to the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu in the 1980s, which later sold it for £1.5 million to finance a museum renovation. It was again sold in 1990 to a French industrialist for $24 million but changed hands once more to a German industrialist for less than half that sum.



Most Expensive House
Antilla
Price: $1 billion
According to a February report by Property Magazine, the most expensive house in the world, named Antilla (in picture above at left), is in downtown Mumbai, India, and will be the residence of Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani. The 27-story, 570-foot-tall tower has a helipad, a health club, and a six-floor garage that can hold 168 cars. Each level has gardens. It will be serviced by a staff of 600 people. Some reports list the price of the house at $2 billion. The architecture and design firms working on this project, Perkins + Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates, declined comment.



Most Expensive Yacht

Eclipse
Price: £1.2 billion
This 560-foot-long yacht has two helipads, 11 guest cabins, two swimming pools, three launch boats, an aquarium, and a minisubmarine that can dive to 50 meters below the ocean surface, according to London's Daily Mail. The master bedroom and bridge have bulletproof glass, and the security system includes missile detection systems that warn of incoming rockets. The owner Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire who also owns Britain's Chelsea Football Club, reportedly fitted the yacht with a laser system that prevents paparazzi from taking photos. It was built by Blohm + Voss in Hamburg, Germany.



Most Expensive Speakers

Transmission Audio Ultimate System
Price: $2 million per pair
With a total of 12 units—four dipole subwoofers, two dipole mid-woofers, four dipole medium-frequency and high-frequency ribbon panels, and two dipole high-fidelity super ribbon panels—Transmission Audio's Ultimate speaker system is a hefty piece of equipment, spanning 37 feet and weighing 5 metric tons. All units are made from aircraft aluminum and have stands in polished red or black granite. The set was introduced in late 2009, and so far two pairs have been preordered, says Bo Bengtsson, president of Transmission Audio. None has yet been delivered, as the assembly time is about six months.



Most Expensive Ring


Chopard Blue Diamond Ring
Price: $16.26 million
The centerpiece of Chopard Blue Diamond Ring is a 9-carat blue diamond (in photo) with diamond shoulders. The 18-carat white gold band is paved with diamonds. It sold overseas in 2007 to a fancy color diamond collector, reportedly for $16,260,000, but a Chopard spokesperson says the estimated value of the ring today is $18,561,310.

Read More

Color Parker, Future Pen for future world

Written By: admin from the most interesting fact

Color Picker is a pen that can scan any color from the objects around us and can be used instantly to draw / write. The way it works are, the first attach sensor on the object that have the color we want, then press the Scan button. RGB cartridge will work so that the color we want appears in the display of the pen.

So Color Parker works simply as follow scan a leave or an apple and you can write or draw after scans through the scanning device at the end of the pen to the desired subject in the exact color of that apple of leaves.

Here are some pictures of the pen:




                                                                     Scan leave 

Draw after scan 

Read More

The Real View

The Real View

Read More

Italy offers lessons in ice cream at Gelato University

see the ice cream univeristy


Italy is world famous for its ice cream, so perhaps it is no coincidence that it claims to host the world's only ice cream university.

Duncan Kennedy reports from the 'Gelato University' in Bologna, which attracts 6,000 students a year.

Read More

Top 10 health innovations of 2009

London, England (CNN) -- No one doubts that the most high-profile health crisis of 2009 was the unexpected outbreak of H1N1 -- the swine flu virus that has claimed almost 10,000 lives, according to the World Health Organization.

The worldwide pandemic was on the front page of every major news outlet for months on end as people struggled to understand the impact of the first such flu outbreak in over 40 years.

Equally, the vaccine for swine flu, which came out a record five months after the first reported cases of the virulent virus in Mexico, has arguably been 2009's most far-reaching health breakthrough.

But this year has also seen other important health innovations, all of which we might have thought were impossible, or many more years away, a mere 12 months ago.

Some, such as the "Electric Eye," a microchip invented by university researchers that will help blind people regain partial eyesight, are still in the development stage.

Others, such as the $20 knee joint developed by a group of students at Stanford University, are in the early stages of production.

But all of them are products that could have very real and important benefits for the health of patients around the world.

see the Top 10 health innovations of 2009

Read More

Teenage girl poised to be youngest Arab doctor

Iqbal al Assaad, a 16-year-old student from Lebanon, has received a full scholarship to attend Weill Cornell Medical College. Abu Nadha for The National

DOHA // At two and a half years old, Iqbal al Assaad taught herself to count from one to 10 in Arabic and English. At five, she was in the second grade alongside seven-year-olds. At the age of nine she passed standardised ninth grade tests for 14-year-olds with flying colours.

“My father said every year we’re going to do this, you’re going to skip one grade and go to the upper one, and it worked out,” said Iqbal, as if it were as easy as skipping rope.


Today she is a 16-year-old medical student at one of the most prestigious medical schools in the region, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. “Maybe other students don’t have this motivation, but I like to study,” she said. “Since I was very young I would go up to my father and ask him to teach me something new.”

That curiosity and a preternatural focus have Iqbal poised to become one of the youngest Arab doctors in modern times.


“It is extremely impressive to have her in class, a student so young and at the same time so mature and capable in handling a very challenging curriculum,” said Prof Marco Ameduri, a Weill Cornell physics professor who taught Iqbal in two premed courses in 2008.

Iqbal grew up in Bakaa, Lebanon, the youngest of four children. Her father ran a covenience shop and her mother ran the house, where studying became a point of pride. Her eldest sister, 25, is married, but hopes to return to university. Her eldest brother, 23, is completing his studies as a mechanical engineer, while the other is writing his master’s thesis in physics, at 20 years old.



The real prodigy is Iqbal – but she has not done it on her own. To help her pass that ninth-grade standardised test, Lebanon’s education minister wrote a letter authorising her to take the test. Soon after, Iqbal fell ill and her parents took her to a local physician.

“He didn’t give me enough time, he didn’t give enough attention to what I wanted to tell him about my sickness,” Iqbal recalled. “It didn’t have such a big impact with me but maybe in other cases, like in cancer patients, where the psychological plays a big role, if the doctor doesn’t treat that patient very well, there’s going to be an impact on the patient – that’s what drove me to become a doctor.”


Hearing of her dream, the Lebanese education minister helped Iqbal again, requesting assistance from the Qatari first lady, Sheikha Mozah bin Nasser al Missned, who oversees the Qatar Foundation, which runs Education City. Sheikha Mozah granted Iqbal a full scholarship to an undergrad program at Weill Cornell, then helped her move to Qatar with her mother in January 2006. Only 12 years old, Iqbal was not intimidated by an unfamiliar country, the vast campus or her much older classmates. She has never known classmates her own age, yet they have never rejected or troubled her.


“I don’t feel that I’m younger than my fellow students – since I was five years old I’ve been with students that are older than me, so I’ve got used to it,” she said. “My classmates have always had the ability to accept me as one of them, and that’s what has happened here at Weill Cornell.” During a recent interview at her Education City campus, she responded to a reporter’s questions eloquently and without haste or apparent anxiety.


“Just observing her interactions with other students, you would not know that she was younger,” said Prof Ameduri, who is also the assistant dean for student affairs. “In fact, I saw her as a student leader, bringing students together, forming study groups and things like that.”

Yet she is up to a decade younger than most of her class, which is set to graduate in the spring of 2013. Iqbal, however, plans to take a gap year, or perform research for a year, before returning to Weill Cornell to graduate and become a doctor in 2014.


Thus she is no threat to become the world’s youngest doctor, widely believed to be Balamurali Ambati, an Indian who in 1995 graduated from Mount Sinai School of Medicine two months shy of his 18th birthday. Still, after three years of undergraduate and premed studies, Iqbal began medical school last fall. She completed her first term last week, which she said was “very good”.

She looked forward to anatomy and human structure classes, and, down the line, conducting physical exams and working with real patients. She plans to be a surgeon, maybe a neurosurgeon.


“I can predict and expect a very brilliant career for her,” Prof Ameduri said. “She will be very successful in clinical care of her patients and in research, and someday I hope to see her back here.”

He will probably get his wish. “I feel responsible towards this country, Qatar, and I want to come back after I finish [medical school] to pay this country back,” Iqbal said, thanking Sheikha Mozah, the university and the Qatar Foundation.


Before leaving for term break, she reflected on her accomplishments. “I’m an example: I’m a woman, but still I made it,” she said. “If you have the motivation and you have the abilities, no one’s going to stop you, whether you’re a woman or a man.”

Read More

On Goodness

To make one good action succeed another, is the perfection of goodness.

- Ibn-Abi-Talib, Ali

Read More

The world’s most inappropriate love hotel Taking a cue from Disney’s ‘Toon Town’, this Thai drive-in looks more like a fun house than a no-tell motel

A friendly dinosaur and an ape welcome visitors to the For You Inn, located down a back road outside of Bangkok

 “Mommy, look! Nice school!” shouted my excited two-year-old son as we drove past the brightly-colored building decorated with cute cartoon characters.

Upon closer inspection, I realized this is no nursery school. This is the "For You Inn," Thailand’s most bizarrely decorated love hotel, where a smiling Mickey Mouse at the gate welcomes you in and wide-striped curtains shroud your car from peeping eyes.

I'd always been curious about Bangkok's "man root" (curtained) motels, but something about For You's Saturday morning cartoon vibe really intrigued me. So much so I grabbed my husband and went back to see what lay inside. Solely for the sake of research, of course.

The first thing that surprised me was that this was no rent-by-the-hour place. Perhaps giving its clients the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sexual prowess, For You Inn charges 370 baht for a minimum of three hours in a stale but seemingly clean room.

Our room featured a black leather massage chair, round bed and whirlpool tub. Did I try out the chair? I might have. The large bathtub was mighty tempting too. Did I use the free condom that was included in the price of the room? None of your business. This is a no-tell motel, after all.

I admit, we did watch a bit of television. Sitting atop a super classy Roman-inspired pillar, the TV offered a selection of the usual Thai channels as well as the de rigeur free porn channel and an in-house movie.

During my one-hour visit, a pirated Thai-language version of “Avatar” was playing. Some say the movie is an erotic, sexually-charged romp through alien territory, much like the For You Inn, I suppose, making it somewhat fitting for the room.

But would James Cameron approve? Maybe. Just For You Inn is colorful, just like Pandora. On the other hand, I think the family-friendly folks at Disney might have something to say about the naughty hotel's fun-loving use of Mickey.

Now don't get me wrong, the whole experience was tacky. Hardly what you'd call arousing. But it must be sparking the magic for some judging by the number of closed curtains I saw outside. Rather than wax lyrical, I'll leave you to check out the pics below.

\

Read More

Chatroulette offers random webcam titillation By John D. Sutter, CNN February 22, 2010 -- Updated 1437 GMT (2237 HKT)

(CNN) -- On Chatroulette, a new and controversial Web site, every click lands you in a face-to-face video conversation with a random stranger.

The setup is simple: Activate your webcam and click "play." Then, as people from all over the world pop up one at a time in a box on your screen, you decide whether or not to chat with them. If you don't like the looks of things, click "next" and the site shuffles you to someone new.

The people you meet could be friendly. During a recent CNN test of the site, a man from France popped up on the screen wearing a jester's hat and telling jokes in French. Two men dressed as skeletons were having a dance party to techno music and flashing lights. A slouched-over man in Tunisia said he was tired because he'd been on the site for four hours.

But the stranger Chatroulette sends you could just as easily be naked -- or even masturbating in front of the camera, which is the case rather frequently.

Two of the first four video chatters randomly selected for CNN by Chatroulette were naked when their pictures appeared. The fifth person simply held a sign up to the screen that read: "Please show me your boobs."

For better or worse, Chatroulette is going viral on the Web in a big way.

Use of the site has grown quickly since it launched in November, and mainstream blogs and media organizations are catching on to the phenomenon. About 35,000 people are on Chatroulette at any given time, according to a traffic count published on the Web site's homepage.

The site has been called many things: the new Wild West of the Internet; a speed-dating replacement; a cesspool of porn; a voyeuristic follow-up to Alfred Hitchcock's film "Rear Window"; a way to get people from different social groups to interact.

Jason Kottke, a prominent blogger, wrote that Chatroulette "is pretty much the best site going on the Internet right now."

But even the haters seem to agree that the site generates a certain potentially addictive intrigue -- whether it comes from the rush of meeting a new person, or the fear of seeing a stranger who's not wearing any clothes.

The anti-Facebook

The site's hallmark feature is the randomness by which it selects companions for Internet chats. Several online video services such as Skype and Google Chat let people conference through live video feeds on the Web. And online dating services like WooMe use similar features.

But, in all of those instances, people choose who they will talk to -- or at least what kind of person they'd like to chat with.

On Chatroulette, every interaction is an adventurous gamble. There's no heed to class, race, geography, age, politics or religion. No way to tell who will appear on the other side of the camera.

This stands in contrast to sites like Facebook, Twitter and online dating sites, all of which are organized around existing social networks, creeds, interests or location, said Adam Ostrow, editor-in-chief at the blog Mashable.

"It completely goes outside of your comfort zone," he said. "Especially with Twitter and Facebook, you're used to associating with people who are like you, whereas on Chatroulette ... you come across just random people.

"It certainly reminds you that not everyone's like you -- that's for sure. You can look at some freakish things."

Michael J. Rosenfeld, an associate professor of sociology at Stanford University, said new friendships could come out of these random interactions.

"My guess is that there's a lot of superficial, but that every once in a while people will strike up a friendship," he said. "That's something that's always valuable and important."

He said people increasingly are forming relationships online, as opposed to only using the Internet to deepen friendships with people they already know.

Conversation shuffle

Still, many of the interactions on Chatroulette could be charitably described as fleeting.

In New York magazine, Sam Anderson wrote that after logging onto the site one day he was rejected immediately by the first 18 people he encountered.

"They appeared, one by one, in a box at the top of my screen -- a young Asian man, a high-school-age girl, a guy lying on his side in bed -- and, every time, I'd feel a little flare of excitement," he wrote.

"It started to feel like a social-anxiety nightmare. One guy just stared into the camera and flipped me off. Another stood in front of his computer making wave motions with his hands, refusing to respond to anything I typed."

When CNN tested the site, one man said he had had a meaningful one-hour conversation through the site. But he said that was "rare" for Chatroulette.

According to reports and a firsthand test, the large majority of the site's users are male and overwhelmingly young. Several reports suggest people in their 30s will be mocked on the site for being "old."

A number of memes have emerged among this young Chatroulette crowd since the site launched. Some users dress in costumes, ostensibly to entertain their chat pairs. Others play music and host dance parties.

Some try to horrify people. One roulette camera that has flashed on computer screens repeatedly shows the image of a man who looks to have hanged himself in the back of a room.

Viability

Whether Chatroulette will be more than just a bizarre blip on the Internet pop-culture radar is still up for debate.

Ostrow, of Mashable, believes advertisers would not want to be associated with the lewdness of the site.

"I think it's certainly an interesting experiment and I can see kind of why it's catching on," he said. "On the other hand, I don't think it's something that is a sustainable business, obviously, when you look at the content that's on there."

Graham Jones, an author who writes about Internet psychology, said the site will fail because it doesn't work with existing social networks.

"I can't imagine that many people will want to use [Chatroulette] for a great length of time, unlike something like Facebook where you're connecting with people you know, or extending relationships with people you know," he said.

A complicated legal environment also surrounds Chatroulette.

Ryan Calo, an attorney and residential fellow at Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society, said some activities taking place on the site, such as men masturbating in front of the camera, may be illegal.

But it's hard to say for sure who would be held responsible for any potentially illegal content on the site, and what would be enforced. That's because so many legal jurisdictions could be in play, and because the site chooses video chats randomly, so it may be difficult to prove someone intended to cause harm, or to view illegal images.

"It may raise legal issues for the platform. It may raise them for people that are misusing or abusing the site," he said. "It probably doesn't raise [legal problems] for people who are just going on there to see what's what."

Calo urged Internet users to be cautious about going to Chatroulette.

Parents should keep their kids away from Chatroulette entirely and should restrict their kids' access to webcams in general, said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

"There's clearly illegal content going on on the site. Exhibitionism, exposure of person is unlawful," he said.

Amar Toorwrites on the site Switched that the smut on Chatroulette and the young people on the site may be its undoing.

"All it takes, really, is one creep to link up with one curious 12-year old, and the site will surely be entangled in a fatal lawsuit," Toor writes.

'Unbelievable things'

Some writers have called for Chatroulette to install filters that would let people meet up to talk with people who are interested in certain topics, or who do or do not want to see pornography.

As of yet, the site has few rules. Users are supposed to be at least 16 years old, and they're not supposed to show pornography on the site. A button at the top of the screen lets people flag video chats they find offensive.

None of those restrictions, however, are clearly enforceable. Kids, for instance, do not have to enter birthdates to start chatting on the site, as is the case on some online social networks.

The site is run by a 17-year-old high school student in Russia named Andrey Ternovskiy, according to the New York Times' Bits blog, which interviewed Ternovskiy by e-mail.

In the excerpted Times interview, Ternovskiy says he codes the site himself and is having trouble keeping up with a swelling flood of traffic.

He said he built the site as a game and is not pleased with the "not-very-nice" things some people do with the site.

"Others do really unbelievable things I could never think of," he wrote in the Times interview.

"They make up songs about strangers and sing to them, draw them, listen to music, broadcast them their own music. Two groups of teenagers can party together. That's just great in my opinion. I am glad that I made this project and it is a pleasure for me to work on it."

Read More

Top 10 Weirdest Guinness World Records

The Guinness World Records Video Game is available now on Wii and DS from Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, so to celebrate we've picked our favourite of the craziest records ever made to put together Top 10 Weirdest Guinness World Records!

One thing we love about this game is that the scores are officially all adjudicated by Guinness, so you can actually get your name into the records books! As well as this, you can also set records at a national and regional level! So you can be a record breaker from your very own front room…. a perfect game to challenge all your friends to this holiday season.

Buy the game for Wii.

Buy the game for Nintendo DS.

Complete with 36 mini-games, including melon bashing, cockroach eating and pogostick jumping the game will keep you and your friends amused for hours and could even inspire a few world records of your own!


1) The World's Biggest Cookie

Hungry? You will be after reading this... Immaculate Baking Co. baked the world's biggest cookie in 2003. The cookie is about 100 ft. in diameter and 40,000 lb in weight! Wow.


2) Eye-Popping Record

Look away now if you don’t like bodily parts… this is a bit gross. Claudio Pinto can pop both of his eyes 4 cm or 95% out of their sockets. He's now aiming (poppin'?) for a world record. Pinto says that he feels it is a ‘gift from God’ and that he feels blessed.


3) The World's Longest Fingernails

Again, not one for the fainthearted… Lee Redmond from Salt Lake City holds the world record for the longest fingernails! 33 inches long! Apparently they don’t hinder her efforts at being able to cook, clean and look after her husband, and she can use them just as effectively as short fingernails!

4) The Most T-shirts Worn At Once

In 83 degree heat, David Alexander donned 121 t-shirts to break the world's record of most t-shirts worn at one time! Alexander, who weighs 210 pounds shirtless, tipped the scale at 285 pounds in his ‘full costume’. You must have some stamina to be able to do this – it took 30 minutes and 4 people to cut Alexander out of it all!! The previous record holder made it to 107.


5) The Worlds Longest Diary

Now this guy really is a writer… his diary is believed to be the longest in the world, standing at 35 million words! Robert Shields of Dayton, Washington, has kept a written record of absolutely everything that has happened to him, day and night for over 20 years. For four hours a day he devotes himself to this task and did this from 1972 until 1996, when he was disabled by a stroke.


6) Typing To One Million

Too much time on your hands? I think this chap probably did… Les Stewart from Mudjimba, Australia, holds the world's record of typing all numbers from one to one million in words (not numbers). He began in 1982 and finished with the entry "one million" on November 25, 1998. Les typed an average three pages a day with just one finger – now that’s commitment for you! 19,890 pages!


7) The Most Piercings In One Sitting

Robison, a Marseilles resident who graduated from Ottawa Township High School, originally planned to get 1,000 piercings, 400 more than the 600 that Kam Ma of Britain got in one sitting in 2002. But apparently the British record holder heard about what Robison was planning, because last week he broke his own record by getting pierced 1,015 times in one sitting. That prompted Robison to increase the number of piercings he planned to get up to 1,200. But after experiencing the pain of hours of piercings all over his back and arms, he decided to settle for the world record and not go any further!


8) The World's Longest Eyebrow

Nasty - someone tell him to get some tweezers! Leonard Traenkenschuh of Port Townsend, Washington, has a 3 and a half inches eyebrow hair (and still growing!). He thinks that he just has ‘fertile brows!’


9) The World's Largest Rubber Band Ball

An old classic… no doubt there will be several attempts in 2009. The largest rubber band ball was made by Steve Milton of Eugene, Oregon, using more than 175,000 rubber bands! He created a 4594-pound rubber band ball.


10) The World's Tallest Chocolate Skyscraper

There is a 6.6 metre tall chocolate sculpture located in a toy ship in Manhattan, New York, that is made entirely of more than 1,000 kg of chocolate. This was constructed by pastry chef Alain Roby and took more than 30 hours to complete! Guinness officials present at the scene have confirmed it as the world's tallest sculpture made from chocolate. This sets a new Guinness Record.

Read More

This day in history

DiscussNelson Mandela Is Freed (1990)
As a young man, Mandela was an active opponent of South Africa's apartheid regime. Initially committed to non-violent struggle, he became the leader of the armed wing of the African National Congress after the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, when police opened fire on several thousand protesters. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1964, but international pressure led to his release in 1990. Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was elected his country's first black president in what year?

try to answer !!!

Read More

Teenage girls eat less healthy food than any other group, survey reveals

Overall UK obesity levels unchanged from 10 years ago, Food Standards Agency study shows
Comments (9)
Buzz up!
Digg it
Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 February 2010 23.15 GMT
Article history


Britain's teenage girls' diet has been criticised by the Food Standards Agency Photograph: Getty Images/Stockbyte

Teenage girls eat more unhealthily than any other group in the population, government research has revealed.

The study, designed to shed more light on what the nation is eating, also shows that despite multimillion-pound government initiatives to encourage us all to eat more healthily, obesity levels in the UK are broadly unchanged from a decade ago.

Rebecca Smithers on teenage girls' unhealthy diet Link to this audio

The research was commissioned by the government's food watchdog, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which said it was worried about girls between 11 and 18 failing to eat enough foods essential for growth and good health.

When they did eat, they consumed food and drink high in sugar and fat such as processed foods, sweets, chocolate and fizzy drinks, the FSA said, and failed to eat enough with important nutrients such as iron and calcium – found in leafy green vegetables and dairy products – which are essential for strong bones and to prevent anaemia. The survey found that among those of secondary school age, 46% were failing to get the minimum recommended amount of iron or magnesium, and fewer than one in 10 (7%) were eating the minimum recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

Dr Alison Tedstone, the FSA's head of nutritional science, said the issue was "an area of concern" and added: "Broadly, teenage girls particularly don't eat enough. Overall they are a group of the population whose diets are poor. Young children's diets are generally OK, adults generally a similar picture, adolescents generally are poor. That's been the picture for a number of years."

She agreed that parental influence was key to good eating, as teenage girls and boys slipped into bad eating habits once they had more freedom from the family home.

"We know the girls are hard to reach," Tedstone said, explaining that the FSA had launched a magazine, Blink, on Facebook and Bebo to try to target teenagers.

Overall, teenagers are consuming too much saturated fat and sugar, despite government campaigns promoting healthier diets. Guidelines recommend that not more than 11% of energy should come from added sugars each day, but the figures are 16.3% for boys and 15% for girls aged 11 to 18.

Younger children aged four to 10 fare little better, with 14.4% for boys and 14.7% for girls. But from 18 months to three years, toddlers were near the recommended level at 11.2%.

Tedstone said parental influence was a key factor: "There are two sides to this. There is telling people, and some people will change because you tell them, and there is reformulation [of products], which is changing things without people knowing about it. That will hit the teenagers. We have seen some changes in the teenagers' diets, and the agency has only just started doing work with saturated fat, so we would hope to see more down the line."

Today's findings are the first from the so-called national diet and nutrition survey, a rolling programme which is the first such exercise for 10 years and will be updated every year. It polled 1,000 adults and children across the UK from April 2008 to last March.

Those who took part underwent a four-day dietary assessment and submitted food diaries, along with physical measurements, blood pressure checks and blood and urine samples. The programme is carried out by a consortium of organisations led by the National Centre for Social Research and involving the departments of epidemiology and public health at the Royal Free hospital, north London, and University College London's medical school.

Despite government guidance recommending that children do not drink any alcohol, the survey also found that 4% of boys aged 13-15 and 12% of girls of the same age said they usually drank once a week or more.

Overall, the survey showed that everyone from the age of four to 64 ate too much saturated fat, which can increase the risk of heart disease, although the amount has decreased slightly in the past decade.

Although on average adults are eating 4.4 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, two-thirds are not eating their recommended five a day. Men and women are eating more oily fish, such as salmon, but still well below the recommended 140g of oily fish a week.

Richard Watts, of the healthy eating charity Sustain, said: "We have had 10 years of mostly weak or voluntary initiatives to improve diet, like Change4Life. Where the government has introduced tough rules, such as improving school food, we have seen real progress; but unless we really challenge our 'obeseogenic' culture by taking steps like introducing proper protections from junk food marketing, these unwelcome trends will continue."

A spokeswoman for the eating disorders charity Beat added: "This report is not really surprising but it is depressing. We must do more to both educate and support teenage girls both to eat more and eat more healthily.

"In a world where teenage girls read magazines filled with often confusing and contradictory messages about food and dieting, it is not enough to police the school canteen. Teenage girls and indeed all teenagers need to have a better understanding of how healthy eating is a key part of ensuring long-term health."
A taste of better things to come

For a nation that loves nothing more than a banner headline announcing that the contents of our fridges are trying to kill us, the results of the first National Diet and Nutrition Survey are going to prove curiously disappointing.

Yes, there are concerns about sugar consumption by children and about the diet of teenage girls in particular, but it seems the rest of us may not actually be determined to eat ourselves to death.

Indeed, if anything we are eating a little more healthily. We may not have reduced the proportion of saturated fats in our diet to the recommended 11%, but at 12.8% we are not that far off.

Likewise, the amount of trans fats is well below the recommended maximum and we're not doing badly on our five a day. As the Food Standards Agency says, the report "does not identify any new nutritional problems".

Hurrah for us. The question is why – and on this the survey is less than revealing. The Department of Health can attempt to claim success for its five portions of fruit or vegetables a day campaign, launched in 2003, for getting us all to a heady 4.4 pieces. But even the FSA admits it has no comparable data with which to measure that change.

This first report from a rolling study is merely a snapshot. On the fats issue, while there has been endless advice put out by the government, specific campaigns have been limited because the subject is so complex. Instead there may be grounds for cautious acceptance that media interest in what we eat, combined with an understanding by the industrial food giants that customers don't really want to gorge themselves to an early grave, has resulted in change. It might be pushing it to call it a step change – obesity levels remain too high – but a genuine change it is: one led by consumers. Jay Rayner

The Gaurdian Magazine

Read More

On Ambition

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.
- Lubbock, Sir John

Read More