The world's funniest joke

The world's funniest joke has been revealed after a year-long search by scientists. In an experiment conducted in Britain, people around the world were invited to judge jokes on an Internet site as well as contribute their own.The LaughLab research, carried out by psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, attracted more than 40,000 jokes and almost two million ratings.

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"

Sky Is Falling

An American Spy satellite sent to orbit lost its power just after it launched in 2006. For the last tow years it was hanging above our heads, now its going to fall on earth in late February or early March . Is there a danger? The satellite includes some small engines that contain a toxic chemical called hydrazine -- which is rocket fuel. But they say they are not large booster engines with substantial amounts of fuel. Us Army doesn't reveal any information about the size of the satellite, but according to an armature satellite watcherJohn Lockers captured video, show it to be about 13 feet to 16.5 feet across. He believes it weighs a maximum of 10,000 pounds. Locker calculated its size with data on its altitude and location provided by other amateur satellite watchers, using the International Space Station as a yardstick. The impact will be somewhere on North America, the final burn up through the atmospher may take about 30 minutes,most of its mass is expected to be burnt during the re-entry. Read more

UAV- The Size of A Cigarette For the Army

Researchers in Oklahoma State University are working on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle which could be the size of a cigarette. It uses plasma thrusters which doesn't have any moving parts.

"What we want the infantrymen to be able to do is pull a pack of six or so out of their pocket and have them ready for use," Jamey Jacob, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering told the Daily.

This aircraft is capable of doing surveillance of hostile areas, and would be a significant improvement to the surveillance capabilities today. What are the precautions against these tiny vehicles, I would say “Put up some mosquito nets”.

You Can Make a Change- Donate Unicef

Some people in this world live like this, can you believe? How can we be so ignorant about others. Its a shame, isn't it? being the most intelligent creature and all. How could this happen to a human, How could we let it happen?I have seen animals in the wild living a better life. This picture is a reflection of our selfishness and morale values. Please donate some money to unicef, 36$ can provide 60 packets of high energy biscuits for children like this, It may even help this guy to live few more days, or at least to make him smile for once in his life time.

Biased Media and LTTE Killings

LTTE bus bomb victims [image from defence.lk]

This year is going to be the year of BLOOD. Even a 3rd grade school boy can predict this fact. It started with killing of T. Maheshwaran (Tamil MP of Opposition), it created huge debate among media and politicians. I watched the TV station "S" reporting the whole incident, step by step, wife crying, kids confused and disturbed. It was really sad to see people trying to over come the fact that they have lost some one they loved, brought tears o my eyes. The coverage was exclusive (bit too much I guess), more than half of the allocated time was spent on reporting this story. The news channel was clearly trying point the finger at the government for his death. Then came the assassination of D.M dassanayake(MP of the government), I switched on the TV to watch "S" news expecting an exclusive coverage, this time it was different, bit boring, the news was not designed to create sadness like in T Maheshwaran incident. And it didn’t mention any thing about the suspects, which was clearly a work of LTTE. I could clearly see a difference in reporting the incidents, may be it was just the way I felt. In my opinion both of them were humans, and should not be killed brutally like that. Both of them deserve the same media attention, why make a difference. Then LTTE ambushed and bombed a bus carrying innocent civilians, 27 killed, twice of that injured. I watched news in all channels. The channel in question was not reporting it as it did for the first case, it was clear as day. I didn’t see people crying, wailing, and asking their loved ones to come back. That’s good in one way, I was really sad when I was watching the first incident, almost choked my food. Is it fair to be biased like this, is this the media freedom? I observed similar reactions in some of the blogs, for an example Anandawardana author of a sinhala blog called webalochana was quick in writing a post about killing T . Maheshwaran[I repeat , killing him is totally wrong]. But he never wrote anything about the bus BOMB or the incidents after that(May be he's still writing). I even posted a comment asking him to do that, he couldn’t even post that comment. What’s wrong with these people, can’t they remove their colored glasses and look at the reality.

Sri Lanka Through My New Camera

trapped, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Nest, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Flower, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Squirrel, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Tamil Tigers, Truth Revealed

the terrorist group LTTE, known as Tamil tigers were trying desperately to be known as freedom fighters for the past five or so years. But the attempt has been completely unsuccessful, because the truth can't be hidden.FBI has recently named them as the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world. The main reasons were,

• Perfected the use of suicide bombers;
• Invented the suicide belt;
• Pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks;
• Murdered some 4,000 people in the past two years alone; and
• Assassinated two world leaders—the only terrorist organization to do so.

This is a list of Assassinations of high profile people done by LTTE

• Alfred Duraiyappah, mayor of Jaffna in the attack that brought them to prominence in 1975
• Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India in 1991
• Ranjan Wijeratne, Sri Lankan cabinet minister and former general
• Lalith Athulathmudali, Sri Lankan cabinet minister
• Ranasinghe Premadasa, President of Sri Lanka
• Gamini Dissanayake, Sri Lankan presidential candidate
• Major Gen. Parami Kulatunga, third-highest ranking officer in the Sri Lankan Army
• Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lankan foreign minister, lawyer and international humanitarian.^[79]

• Appapillai Amirthalingam, leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF)^[84]
• Vettivelu Yogeswaran, TULF politician
• Sarojini Yogeswaran, mayor of Jaffna
• Pon Sivapalan, mayor of Jaffna
• Neelan Thiruchelvam, academic and TULF politician
• Kethesh Loganathan, political activist and second chief of Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat
• Selliah Parameswaran Kurukkal a Hindu priest that blessed Mahinda Rajapakse

...................................................................................................................................................
Here is the complete article which copied from the FBI website ..........................................

TAMING THE TAMIL TIGERS From Here in the U.S.
01/10/08
As terrorist groups go, it has quite a résumé: Perfected the use of suicide bombers; Invented the suicide belt; Pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks; Murdered some 4,000 people in the past two years alone; and Assassinated two world leaders—the only terrorist organization to do so. No, it’s not al Qaeda or Hezbollah or even HAMAS. The group is called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or the Tamil Tigers for short. Needless to say, the Tamil Tigers are among the most dangerous and deadly extremists in the world. For more than three decades, the group has launched a campaign of violence and bloodshed in Sri Lanka, the island republic off the southern coast of India. Its ultimate goal: to seize control of the country from the Sinhalese ethnic majority and create an independent Tamil state. Along the way, it has launched suicide attacks, assassinated politicians (including a government minister this week and even the Sri Lankan President), taken hostages, and committed all of kinds of crimes to finance its operations. The resulting civil war has taken the lives of nearly 70,000 Sri Lankans on both sides of the conflict since 1983 alone. Why should you care? Certainly because of the suffering and bloodshed that the Tamil Tigers have caused. And because its ruthless tactics have inspired terrorist networks worldwide, including al Qaeda in Iraq. But also because the group has placed operatives right here in our own backyard, discreetly raising money to fund its bloody terrorist campaign overseas, including purchases of weapons and explosives. The U.S. government has designated the Tigers a foreign terrorist organization, so their activities here are illegal. And we’re determined to stop them, using the full range of our investigative and intelligence capabilities. In April, for example, we struck an important blow when our Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York arrested the alleged U.S. director of the Tigers. The man supposedly held several fundraising events at a church and various public schools in Queens and in northern New Jersey in 2004. He is also accused of arranging high-level meetings between the group’s leaders and U.S. supporters. We’ve also arrested another 11 Tamil Tiger-related suspects in the New York City region. And in Baltimore, following a multi-agency investigation, a pair of Indonesian men pled guilty and were sentenced recently for working with others to export surface to air missiles, state-of-the-art firearms, machine guns, and night vision goggles to the Tigers in Sri Lanka. You can help by being careful with your donations. Like other terrorists, the Tigers have raised funds under a variety of cover organizations, often by posing as charities. A great deal of money, for example, was raised for the Tigers following the 2004 tsunami that devastated Sri Lanka and many other countries. And please report any suspicious activities to your local field office or anonymously through this website.

Pleo A Robot To Love

You might think this is a cute toy. Actually this is a glimpse of tomorrows world.Can you believe in a robot pet that begins life by hatching? Which can have emotions and character according o the environment that he lives. Well, start believing Pleo is a robot pet dinosaur which can grow in your house. It has clear infant & Juvenile stages in its life. His awareness of the environment is unbelievable, it can respond or change its behavior according to the environment. It has its own fears, its explores ,understands, responds to the touch & your voice. From the reviews, its hard not to get emotionally attached with it. check the video, its movements and agility is quite surprising. This is what its makers got to say about his drives

Pleo's natural disposition is alert and inquisitive. He ambles about with a bright eye, swaying tail, and leisurely pace, content to explore the sights, sounds, shapes, and textures of his world—and that, of course, includes you.

Have a look inside its sensors.This is something which can make a kid go wild, a grownup flabbergasted. But comes with a hefty price tag of over$349, but its better than giving your kid a toy gun (or a cat that shit every where). At least he'll learn to love. I was disappointed with the sonys failure, Aibo the famous robot dog. It looked too robotic, maybe thats why it failed. Pleo has a bright future.

Our Army Need This Weapon

This is a weapon that can give an extra edge over the enemy when it comes to Urban fighting. This weapon can see around the corners, a good feature which might save your face from blowing off. The Corner Shot consists of a segmented, assault rifle-type which could be folded, onto which is attached a pistol of choice and a compact, detachable color video camera. Our army is planing to capture vanni soon(rebel strong hole town), this weapon could be a perfect tool to neutralize the enemy hiding inside structures.




Amos Golan, the inventor, one of Corner Shot's founders and a former Anti-Terror Unit Commander, said: "I believe that the Corner Shot weapon system can be extremely beneficial in the global war on terror. It protects soldiers' lives and increases their chances of survival, while drastically improving their ability to gather information and transmit the combat scenario as well as pinpoint and engage targets out of their line of sight." He added: "Today's combat situations, especially in low intensity conflicts, involve fighting in urban terrain, and inside inhabited buildings, forced entry into airplanes, buses or trains. This unnecessarily exposes security forces to the enemy and presents an immediate risk to their lives. Corner Shot removes the need for this initial exposure."

Also available from Corner Shot, an assault rifle version that takes standard 5.56mm as well as a 40mm "personal" grenade launcher. Best of all, if for the name alone, is the disposable Corner Shot Panzerfaust 60mm, built in collaboration with Dynamit Nobel Defence of Germany.

Why open source Sucks!

Have you ever realized how much development occurred because of commercial software companies? Development of software industry, internet market, game industry, virtual worlds, movies all these things are because of commercial software industry, not because of open source. Is open source going to be the future of the computer industry? I don’t think so; even if it does it wouldn’t be a bright future.I believe that there should be a balance between Open Source and Commercial Softwares. I personally believe in a future where people can buy softwares close to the price of books.

There are some people who talk highly about open source; most of them hate commercial software and the wealth they have massed from it. They consider themselves as Gods and they all want to crush the evil Microsoft. Anyone who utters a word against OSS is regarded as supporter of evil; most of them don’t even have the courage of saying “Vista is Superb”. But they all have windows installed in their machines. Ask them why open source? They would say, it’s the fastest, safest & strongest, which is totally wrong.

Most academics don’t want to talk in favor of Microsoft or commercial software’s, specially in front of open source guys, unless you can stand that sneering look which say “Oh, a guy with limited computer knowledge”. This could be true because honestly speaking Open Source mostly suites experts, and that’s the fucking problem. Computing wouldn’t be this easy without companies like Microsoft, which managed to invest huge sums in hiring innovative people like Sabeer Bhatia who invented hotmail.

But In my point of view open source could cripple software industry and its development in many ways. When you look at the humanitarian perspective open source software could be seen as a very good thing, most of the people in third world countries doesn’t have money to buy Widows Vista for 399$. Is this the answer? Give it free and Fuck Microsoft! One thing open source world doesn’t realize is that windows actually works, just double click on a program to install click next, next , agree, finish, that’s all, no need to worry about it afterwards. No need to spend 10 hours reading documentations before installing something.

Those who criticize windows have one strong argument in common, security flaws and virus threats. Do you ever think that a virus writer or hacker will get what he wanted from writing program for Linux? He wants to see his virus on the news, to cause lot of damage, for people to talk about it. To achieve this he has to write a virus for an operating system which is widely used, which is windows.

Most open source software’s collapse at the end simply because they don’t have enough money or resources to plan themselves for the future. The best way to sustain the development of the industry is to reduce the price of commercial software, not to give it free. The best example is Google. They have developed a way to offer lots of free services while earning considerable amount of money for future researches and developments. Free means, no money, lack of resources, no innovation and no progress.

Let’s say that Ubuntu became so famous that nobody wants to buy windows anymore, what will happen to the future of the computer industry? We will be stuck with a technology which has a development speed of a snail. Microsoft spent many years and millions of dollars, 1000’s of software engineers to jump from Windows XP to windows Vista. In my point of view Vista is an Excellent Operating System. How long it would take open source community develop something like that?

Let’s look at fundamental issues of Open Source software

1. Bad User Interface Design- If you have ever used Linux you’ll experience the troubles that you might go through unless you have some good knowledge in computers. The problems with open source programming I s that they only think about programming but not about user friendliness or the interface. Ubuntu tries to copy windows XP, but still need lots of improvements in other areas.

2. Bad Documentation-Most of the time the documentation is written in a way that only experts can understand. When you use open source software, if you encounter even a simple problem, you may have to read through 100 of documents and user forum until you find a solution. I installed Ubuntu once and internet was not working, it took me one week to find the solution, many would have already given up.

3. Give us what they want- This is the main disadvantage of open source software projects. Can we play video games in Linux or Ubuntu? Ask this question from an Open Source guy, he will immediately answer “We don’t play games”.

4. Slow development rate- Since so many developers may join and leave the project, it may take a lot of time for a new guy to join the ongoing project and contribute efficiently. This may have a huge impact on the future of the project. There are millions of lines of coding; it could break down on its own weight. ( Check the speed of windows XP vs Red Hat Linux)

5. Refusing to learn from commercial software’s- Most of the open source software guys has strong tendency to refuse to learn anything from commercial rivals. Hence face lots of compatibility problems.

6.Nobody to take responsibility-If some one found a security hole in windows Vista, it would be on the news because there is some one to take responsibility, and there will be an immediate action taken from Microsoft. But if it happens in Open Source software, it’s just a coding glitch, that’s all, no urgency to correct it, that’s obvious; they don’t get paid for that.

Bill Gates is to answer your questions

This is your chance to ask questions from Bill Gates, One of he most innovative persons on earth. You can ask any question, about his life, future of the technology, what made him so successfull, anything you want. Click here to ask Bill Gates a question.

Hunted House Unhunted!

This beautiful 4 store building in China was very famous for scaring away its owners. They claimed that they heard horribly spooky sounds at night in different parts of the house. The house has been passed to more than 4 owners for the past 10 years. It used to be valued at about $34,000, but with the haunting incidents value dropped and two brothers paid $6,500 and bought it. Even they heard the strange sounds but they refused to accept that it was coming from ghosts. So every night they searched the whole house looking for the source of the sounds. Finally, after many nights of searching, they figured out the noise sounded like something flapping in the water and it came from the bathroom pipe on the first floor. So they decide to break it open, this is what they have found. About 10 huge catfish were found swimming in the sewer. How did they end up there? The first owner of the house was a catfish lover, one day he bought some catfish and left them in the bath room, tow of them escaped in to the toilet bowl to make a family of 10 catfish weighing more than 5 pounds. Now the ghosts captured, the price of the house rocketed to over $133,000. There is always an explanation. source