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Obama Daughters Doll

Dolls "Sweet Sasha" (R) and "Marvelous Malia." sit on a shelf at Lamont's gift shop in the Ritz-Carlton hotel on January 22, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. The dolls are from the Ty Girlz collection made by Ty Inc, the makers of Beanie Babies. The store quickly sold out of its first shipment of the dolls.

The World's Biggest Cheesecake

On Sunday, January 25th, KRAFT Philadelphia Presented The Biggest Cheesecake Of The World. Chef Miguel Angel Quezada along with 55 cooks spent 60 hours making the world’s biggest cheesecake cake used nearly a ton of cream cheese, the same amount of yogurt, 350 kilograms (772 pounds) of pastry, 250 kilograms (551 pounds) of sugar and 150 kilograms (331 pounds) of butter. The Guinness World Record biggest cheesecake is 2.5 meters in diameter, 55 centimeters high and weighs 2 tons.

Google: 'Human error' brings internet chaos for millions

A simple typing error brought Google's search engine to a grinding halt, preventing millions of people from finding web pages on the internet.

The search engine incorrectly labelled all other websites as potentially harmful and stopped internet users from directly clicking through to their search results.

The problem arose at around 2.30pm GMT on 31 Jan 2009 and was only fixed after 40 minutes – by which time millions of users had been affected.

The company later announced that the fault had been caused by "human error" when an internal list of harmful sites was updated. A single forward slash (/) was put on the list in place of a full web address, effectively blacklisting every website because all web addresses contain the character.

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Excessive chatting on Facebook can lead to depression

Girls can be prone to anxiety and depression by talking too much to their friends through texting, email and social networking sites such as Facebook.

Repeated conversations among adolescent girls, known as co-rumination, can be unhelpful, particularly if it is about romantic disappointments.

Frequently discussing the same problem can intensify into an unhealthy activity for those who use Facebook and other electronic means to obsess about it, according to the researchers.

Psychology professor Dr Joanne Davila and her colleague Lisa Starr, at Stony Brook University in New York, interviewed 83 girls aged around 13 - the age when risk of depression starts to increase.

They were contacted again a year later to follow them up.

On both occasions they were tested for depressive symptoms and asked about romantic experiences considered normal for early teens, such as being asked out on a date and having been kissed.

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Driving while suffering from flu raises risk of accidents

Using a driving simulator, researchers found that people who drove with heavy colds or the flu took 10 per cent longer to react than healthy drivers.

This caused them to travel up to two extra metres at 60 mph before they started to break.

The drivers "under the influenza" were also less aware of hazards on the road if they were feeling ill, the study found.

Road safety experts warned that the effects could be compounded by cold remedies, which can cause drowsiness, and by drinking alcohol.

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NEC to cut 20,000 jobs worldwide

Japanese electronics giant NEC Corp. says it plans to slash at least 20,000 jobs worldwide in an effort to cut 80 billion yen ($895 million) in costs over the next two years.

The Tokyo-based company says its net loss widened to 130 billion yen ($1.46 billion) for the October-December quarter from a 5.2 billion yen loss in the same period a year earlier.

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The World's Biggest Boobs

SHEYLA Hershey’s massive 38KKK breasts have been declared the world’s biggest boob job.

The 28-year-old American housewife and model has undergone nine ops to get her amazing figure. And even though medics have warned that her breasts are in danger of exploding, she does not seem to care.

Sheyla, from Houston, Texas, said: “To me, big is beautiful. I don’t think I have anything to worry about.” Now Sheyla is in the record books for having the largest breast implants ever.

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German software giant SAP to cut 3,000 jobs

The world leader in professional software, Germany's SAP, said Wednesday it will cut more than 3,000 jobs this year to save up to 350 million euros (460 million dollars) as demand slumps.

The company, following the lead of many others as the global downturn bites deeper, said the job cuts will allow it to "adjust to difficult market conditions."

SAP employs 51,000, according to its website.

It added that it would not be making forecasts for this year because of "the limited visibility" in the business.

The company said its 2008 net profit fell 2.0 percent to 1.88 billion dollars as sales rose 14 percent to 8.46 billion euros.

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Starbucks to slash 6,700 jobs, close 300 stores

Starbucks said Wednesday it was slashing 6,700 jobs and closing 300 stores in a further belt-tightenting by the coffee house giant to cope with a rapidly weakening global economy.

The coffee-shop chain, which already announced a massive restructuring in July as wary consumers cut back on lattes and other specialty coffee drinks, reported revenue in the first quarter of its business year fell 6.0 percent from a year ago.

Net profit in the quarter ended December 28 plunged 69 percent to 64.3 million dollars, from 208.1 million in same period in 2007.

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Panasonic to close Malacca plant, 500 to lose jobs

Panasonic Corp said today it will cut 560 jobs in Asia due to the closure of two plants in the region, while declining to confirm a report saying the Japanese electronics giant will likely suffer its first net loss in six years.

The world's largest maker of plasma television will shut down a factory in Malaysia and another plant in the Philippines to "cope with a rapid change in the global electronics market," said spokesman Akira Kadota.

The closures come as Panasonic is in the middle of a US$9 billion (RM31.5 billion) takeover of smaller Japanese rival Sanyo Electric Co to become one of the world's biggest electronics companies.

Around 500 workers at the Malaysian electronics parts plant in Malacca will be out of work, while some 60 employees at the Philippines battery factory will also lose their jobs, Kadota said.

Panasonic also runs two electronics parts plants in Selangor. The spokesman said the company will merge them into one by September. He could not give the number of workers at the Selangor plants, but added the move will not result in job losses.

Kadota declined to confirm a report that Panasonic will likely suffer its first net loss in six years due to plummeting global demand for electronics goods and a strong yen.

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Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference

Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference is now available entirely free of charge! Written by award-winning author Keir Thomas, Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference is a totally unique and concise guide for everyday Ubuntu use.

* Focuses on core competencies and background knowledge needed to be an expert Ubuntu user;
* Readable, accessible, and easy to understand—even if you've never used Linux before;
* 100% new and original! Written from the ground-up to cover Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10.

[Grab the PDF]

Alcohol improves men's sexual performance

Australian researchers have made the surprise discovery that alcohol improves, rather than damages, men's performance in the bedroom.

They hope the finding, which flies in the face of conventional belief, will reassure men who worry about the affects of drinking on their sex lives.

Until now, it has been widely believed alcohol consumption could cause erectile dysfunction, commonly called "brewer's droop''.

But a study of 1580 Australian men has shown the reverse may be true, with drinkers reporting as many as 30 per cent fewer problems than teetotallers.

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What cops do at night?

Solitaire!

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The Hangman Cheat

It weighs the number of occurrences of each letter in all of the words it knows
matching your criteria. It guesses whichever letter occurs in the highest percentage of words.

[Play]

Booth Babes of PC Fair III 2008: Winner

Say hello to Eva, winner of LYN's Choice : Booth Babes of PC Fair (III) 2008. A total of 3529 votes received throughout the voting period. Eva received a total of 2299 votes, while 1st Runner up Sammi received 1755 votes.

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I'm Still Rich T-Shirt

Priced at an entirely reasonable $2695 ($630 extra if you want it in black) the shirt almost manages to be funny.

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Intel to shut facilities in Malaysia, Philippines, US

Intel Corp., the world's biggest computer chip maker, announced plans on Wednesday to close facilities in Malaysia, the Philippines and the United States.

The Santa Clara, California-based company said the moves were expected to affect between 5,000 and 6,000 employees worldwide.

"However, not all employees will leave Intel," the company said in a statement. "Some may be offered positions at other facilities."

Intel said it will close two assembly test facilities in Penang, Malaysia, and one in Cavite, Philippines, in addition to wafer production facilities in Santa Clara and Hillsboro, Oregon.

The closures, Intel said, will take place between now and the end of 2009.

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Wealthy men give women more orgasms

Scientists have found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance.

They found that the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms.

“Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research.

He believes the phenomenon is an “evolutionary adaptation” that is hard-wired into women, driving them to select men on the basis of their perceived quality.

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Boy, 8, becomes youngest IT professional

At the age of 8, Marko has become the world’s youngest certified computer system administrator and was deemed the Mozart of Computers by the press after passing exams for IT professionals with the computer giant Microsoft.

In theory, he could now get a job maintaining complex office computer networks, even though he has not yet completed the third grade in his native town Skopje, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

“The Microsoft officials gave me computer games and DVDs with cartoons when I passed the exams because I am a child. That was nice, but I’m not really interested in those things,” young Marko told The Times.

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NY Times readers choose Penang as No 2 must-visit destination for 2009

Readers of The New York Times have chosen Penang, Malaysia as the second best destination among “44 Places To Go in 2009”.

In top spot in the recommendations found on the paper’s website (http://www.nytimes.com) was Beirut, Lebanon.

The only other South-East Asian destination in the ranking is Phuket, Thailand which is in 15th place.

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Dad impersonating son in exam arrested

A 54-year-old Japanese father was arrested after he tried to help his son pass an exam by impersonating the young man and taking the test for him, police said Thursday.

The father, who was not named, put on glasses and straightened his hair to look more like the picture on his son's identity card, said Masaaki Nakamori, a police official in the Nara prefecture in western Japan.

But as he took the test while trying to make sure the examiners didn't get a good look at him, one official noticed that the man looked much older than the picture on the card, Nakamori said.

The father then apologized and confessed. Police said the man runs a company that distributes medicine and had passed an exam in August to earn a license to handle drugs

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Downadup worm has infected nearly 9 million machines

The Downadup worm, also known as Conficker or Kido, is racing across the Internet and has infected nearly 9 million PCs since November. Microsoft has issued a patch to block the worm, but many PC users haven't installed it and portable USB drives are helping the worm spread. The Downadup worm also blocks security sites and changes access rights.

Specifically, the worm uses USB thumb drives to infect other computers. It does this by copying itself in a random folder created inside the recycler directory. The Recycle Bin uses the recycler directory to store deleted files and create an autorun.inf file in the root folder. When the Autorun feature is enabled, the worm executes automatically.

Downadup skirts antivirus protection by working with rarely used APIs to circumvent virtualization technologies. The worm also disables Windows updates and certain network traffic, optimizing Vista features to ease distribution. What's more, this worm removes all access rights of the user, except execute and directory usage, to protect its files.

According to BitDefender, the Win32.Worm.Downadup.B malware comes with a domain-name-generation algorithm similar to the one found in botnets like Rustock. It composes 250 domains every day and checks some of them for updates or other files to download and install.

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Gardening boosts men's sex lives, claims study

As little as 30 minutes a week tending the garden or allotment can dramatically improve men's performance in bed, according to the experts in the field.

Digging, weeding or mowing the lawn for half an hour reduced men's risk of failing to live up to expectations in bed by more than a third, the survey found.

The same study showed other forms of moderate exercise, such as dancing and cycling, could have similar benefits.

Men who spend even more time in the vegetable patch can more than halve their risk of impotence, researchers at the Medical University of Vienna found in their study.

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I'm an Idiot

Let's not fall into the trap. Have a nice day!

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Computer geeks learn to flirt in University

Even the most quirky of computer nerds can learn to flirt with finesse thanks to a new "flirting course" being offered to budding IT engineers at Potsdam University south of Berlin.

The 440 students enrolled in the master's degree course will learn how to write flirtatious text messages and emails, impress people at parties and cope with rejection.

Philip von Senftleben, an author and radio presenter who will teach the course, summed up his job as teaching how to "get someone else's heart beating fast while yours stays calm."

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Four in ten people laugh at bad jokes, scientists find

Almost four in 10 of us will laugh when told a bad joke, while less than one in 100 will groan, scientists at Washington State University have found.

Researchers believe that we may be amused at being let down by the humour - and that we laugh at how bad a joke can actually be.

Dr Bell, an assistant professor of English at Washington State University in the US, said strangers were far more likely to be polite when told a bad joke than friends or loved-ones.

Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from Hertfordshire University, said people might laugh at bad jokes because they were surprised at receiving such a bad punchline.

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Good night's sleep may prevent a cold, study finds

Getting a good night's sleep might not cure the common cold, but new research hints it could prevent one.

People who averaged less than seven hours of sleep a night were about three times more likely to develop cold symptoms than study volunteers who got eight or more hours of sleep, Pittsburgh researchers reported yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

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Two Google searches 'produce same CO2 as boiling a kettle'

A typical search through the online giant's website is thought to generate about 7g of carbon dioxide. Boiling a kettle produces about 15g. The emissions are caused both by the electricity required to power a user's computer and send their request to servers around the world.

The discovery comes amid increasing warnings about the little-known environmental impact of computer and internet use. According to Gartner, an American research firm, IT now causes about two per cent of global CO2 emissions and its carbon footprint exceeded that of the world's aviation industry for the first time in 2007.

Dr Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist from Harvard University who is leading research into the subject, has estimated that browsing a basic website generates about 0.02g of CO2 for every second it is viewed. Websites with complex video can be responsible for up to 0.2 g per second, he believes.

*Update*
Read Google's explanation on why this number is *many* times too high.

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Free Video Media Converter

Quick Media Converter is a powerful and very complete Free video and audio conversion software. Converts to and from formats including: flv, avi, divx, xvid, mpeg4, ipod, iphone, psp, 3GP, 3G2, AVI, DIVX, XVID, TS, DVD, VCD, MPEG, MPEG2, MP3, WAV, amr, m4a, mp4, vob, mov, h264, h263, wmv, wma. Resizing Cropping and also Web Cam or DV Cam fluxes capture to avi divx. Batch Conversions supported, desktop activity recording. Also Included are two users modes:

Mode 1--Easy mode: For all users includes: standard conversions settings to allow users to convert quickly without having any particular skills. Convert In 3-5 clicks. Now also includes custom resizing possibility where appropriate and thumbnails capture.

Mode 2--Expert mode: For skilled and more experienced users, allows more flexibility and more specialized conversions settings such as cropping bitrates frequency rates, sizes ,aspect, includes much more codecs and requires good knowledge of video and audio conversion.

Free PDA App: Multi-language Dictionary

MDict is a multi-language dictionary under WinCE for PDAs, it dosen't provide dictionary data itself, but use libraries built by user.

Features:

• Free for non-commercial personal use!
• Multi-library support
• Multi-language support
• Online word pickup
• Built in Simplfied/Traditional Chinese conversion
• Supports PPC/HPC/Smartphone

Free PDA App: Fizz Bill Now

Fizz Bill Now is a simple, small utility. Supporting Window Mobile 2003SE, & Windows Mobile 5 - All Devices - All Sizes.

We've all been there, been out with friends and family. Dinner's over and the dreaded bill arrives. With Bill Now, simply tap in the bill cost, the percentage of tip you feel they deserve and the number of people the bill should be split by.

This is a free product for Smartphone and Pocket PC devices.

Complete review of 800 MHz processor PDA, ASUS P565

Mobile01.com has a detailed review on the ASUS P565, a business PDA phone that boasts an 800 MHz processor. (Sorry, it's in Chinese)

Delete 10 Facebook friends, get a free Whopper

Facebook's developer platform has been used for a zillion marketing campaigns so far, but this one is actually dead-on hilarious.

Fast-food chain Burger King has created "Whopper Sacrifice", a Facebook app that will give you a coupon for a free hamburger if you delete 10 people from your friends list. (Coupon offer available to U.S. residents in the 50 United States and the district of Columbia only.)

Burger King has put out some interesting campaigns as of late ("Whopper Virgin," "Subservient Chicken"), but this one piques our interest because of how gleefully it pokes fun at our social-networking obsessions. "Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships to the test," the Whopper Sacrifice site explains. "Install Whopper Sacrifice on your Facebook profile, and we'll reward you with a free flame-broiled Whopper when you sacrifice ten of your friends.

The funniest part: The "sacrifices" show up in your activity feed. So it'll say, for example, "Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper." Unfortunately, you can't delete your whole friends list and eat free (however unhealthily) for a week. The promotion is limited to one coupon per Facebook account.

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Japan's TDK to cut 8,000 jobs

Japan's TDK Corp. said Thursday that it was cutting 8,000 jobs and closing four plants overseas as the worsening economic crisis prompted fresh emergency action by the central bank.

The electronic component maker warned it expects a net loss of 28 billion yen (301 million dollars) for the financial year to March 2009 due to weak sales and the stronger yen.

"There was a sharp drop in orders, which overwhelmed our expectations," TDK president Takehiro Kamigama said.

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Lenovo axe 2,500 jobs

Lenovo Group, the world's fourth-biggest PC maker, forecast a quarterly loss as China's slowing economy hit sales, and said it will axe 2,500 jobs as part of a restructuring to cope with falling demand for computers.

Shares in the company, which bought IBM's PC business for $1.25 billion in 2005 to put the Chinese brand on the global stage, slumped by more than a quarter, their biggest fall in 11 years.

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Fat bottoms may be good for health, Harvard researchers

WOMEN can stop worrying about pear-shaped figures - fat bottoms have been scientifically proven to be a sign of good health.

New research, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, suggests the fat responsible for producing the pear shape flaunted by celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce may be active in protecting women from diseases by releasing certain hormones.

Buttock and hip fat may protect women against type 2 diabetes, from which more than 1.7 million Australians now suffer, researchers from the Harvard Medical School found.

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World's thinnest television unveiled

The world's thinnest television was unveiled on Tuesday measuring just 6.5mm (0.26inches).

The wafer thin television, which was created by the South Korean company Samsung Electronics, is being hailed as the world's slimmest television ever created.

Its features include a LCD (liquid crystal display) screen as well as an LED (light emitting diode) backlighting system, to which its creators attribute its record slimline structure.

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Mcdonalds Is Your Only Hope

Why is my teacher so mean to me?

Playing Tetris could reduce trauma, claim Oxford University

Playing the video game "Tetris" after a major shock could reduce the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, claim scientists.

British researchers found that playing the popular computer game shortly after the trauma helped wipe out the bad memories and reduce distressing flashbacks.

The psychologists from Oxford University believe the discovery could lead to new treatments for accident victims in hospitals as well as those involved in war zones.

"This is only a first step in showing that this might be a viable approach to preventing post traumatic stress disorder,' said Dr Emily Holmes of the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University, who led the work.

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Japan's Sanyo to cut up to 1,000 jobs

Japan's Sanyo Electric Co. plans to cut up to 1,000 jobs to revamp its struggling businesses before being bought by Panasonic Corp., a press report said Tuesday.

Sanyo Electric is considering shedding about 500 of its 20,000 regular employees in Japan, mainly in the semiconductor division, by the end of March, the Nikkei business daily reported.

The total number of job cuts, including temporary workers, is expected to reach about 1,000, the daily said, without naming its sources.

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Marks & Spencer Slims Down For 2009

Iconic British retailer Marks & Spencer may have narrowly avoided a worse than expected drop in sales during the Christmas period, but the big picture has not changed all that much. Britain is in a recession; consumers are feeling the squeeze; and as a result Marks & Spencer is going to cut more than 1,200 jobs and close 27 stores.

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Toyota extends plant shutdown

Toyota announced Tuesday it will idle all 12 of its wholly owned factories in Japan for an extra 11 days in response to the slumping auto market.

The company already had announced a three-day shutdown, which was set to begin in January. Company spokesman Paul Nolasco said the longer stretch, scheduled for February and March, will help the company get through the downturn without cutting jobs.

In December, Toyota warned that that it would report its first loss as a public company. Toyota, Honda and Nissan all reported an annual drop in U.S. sales, the first time there's been such a broad-based decline for those powerful Asian brands.

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Marriages improve after children grow up and move out

Popular wisdom has it that parents' relationships may suffer once their young fly the coop, because they feel they have lost their purpose in life.

However a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that many couples actually feel happier when their children leave home because they are able to enjoy spending time together.

In total, 123 American mothers born in the 1930s were tracked for 18 years and asked to rate their satisfaction levels shortly after marrying, when they were bringing up babies, once their children reached their teenage years and finally at age 61, when almost all had "empty nests".

Although not all said they were happier in general, most claimed their marriages had improved since their children had left home.

Researchers believe this is not just because the spouses were spending more time together, but because they were able to enjoy each other's company more.

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Click to Give FREE Food @ The Hunger Site

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1. You click daily.
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3. Shop the store and give more.

Where you sit on a bus can define your personality

Which personality type are you? Research suggests your seat preference on a double-decker could indicate what sort of character you have.

Forward-minded people tend to sit at the front of the top deck, according to Dr Tom Fawcett of Salford University, the independent-minded in the middle and those with a rebellious streak at the rear.

Dr Fawcett, a lecturer on mental toughness who has helped train Olympic athletes, concluded that bus passengers fell into seven distinct groups.

Those at the front on the top deck are generally forward thinkers and those at the back are rebellious types who do not like their personal space being invaded, he found.

Sitting in the middle are independent thinkers - usually younger to middle-aged passengers more likely to read a newspaper or listen to a personal music player.

On the bottom deck at the front tend to be gregarious meeters-and-greeters while those in the middle are "strong communicators". Travellers who automatically head for the rear downstairs are said to be risk-takers who like to sit on elevated seats because it makes them feel important.

He defined a final group as chameleons - travellers who do not care where they sit because they feel they can fit in anywhere.

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Car Key Jams Teen Drivers' Cell Phones

University of Utah engineers developed a new Key2SafeDriving system to prevent teenagers from using cell phones while driving and to reduce cell phone use by adult motorists. Each driver of a car would have their own special key. When the key is extended from the wireless device (sample shown at left), the device sends a signal that displays a stop sign on the cell phone (right) and prevents it from being used to make calls or send text messages. For adult drivers, the system prevents texting and allows calls only on hands-free cell phones. Parents can control the system from a computer. Here, the screen displays safety scores collected by the system based not only on cell phone use, but on driving speed and traffic violations tracked by Global Positioning System satellites.

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