Vertor

VERTOR (VERified TORrents) is the new generation torrent site that provides users with links to verified torrent files. All the torrents collected here were checked for viruses, passwords, DRM protection and more. Music files were cut to give users the option of preview, screenshots for video files were made. All the files here are 100% verified and safe to download!

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Dying Wish Of 4-Year-Old Girl

LITITZ, Pa. - A Lancaster County girl suffering from a rare, incurable brain tumor is at the center of a widely distributed e-mail that is bringing out the best in many people.
An e-mail has been making the rounds, detailing Hannah's situation and asking people to send a card to give her a little holiday joy. Hundreds of people have responded.

Hannah is largely confined to bed and opening cards is one of the few things she can enjoy. If you would like to send Hannah a card, you can send it here:

Hannah Garman 259 North Reading Rd. Ephrata, Pa. 17522

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Religion and Sexual Ethics

This chart appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in December 1994. It was compiled, according to them, "based on official reports and expert advice."

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Most Popular DIY Projects of 2008 (and All Time!)

When it comes to saving time and money, sometimes the best approach means rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself. Check out the best DIY projects featured here in 2008 and beyond.

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The 1940 Barn Dodge!

You have heard stories of barn finds before. Some sound incredible, some unbelievable. But here's one that might top 'em all. It's the true story of one 1940 Dodge Deluxe Sedan.

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USMC Rules for Gunfighting

1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.

2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Your life is expensive.

3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.

4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.

5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)

6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.

7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.

8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.

9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent accuracy of the gun.

9.5 Use a gun that works EVERY TIME.

10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.

11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.

12. Have a plan.

13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.

14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.

15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.

16. Don't drop your guard.

17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.

18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. (In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them).

19. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.

20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.

21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.

23. Your number one Option for Personal Security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.

24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a ".4"

Navy Rules for Gunfighting

1. Go to Sea

2. Send the Marines

3. Drink Coffee

List of common misconceptions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This list of common misconceptions details various ideas described as widely held by the general populace, but which are fallacious or flawed.

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50 Skills Every Real Geek Should Have

Back in our September 2008 issue, we published a list of 9 Skills Every Nerd Needs – a lighthearted examination of the essential abilities Maximum PC readers should have in their geek arsenal. We still stand by that list, but we were somewhat one-upped last month when we saw that Gizmodo had since run its own list of 50 key geek skills. Their list was very respectable, but we thought that we could do better by not only expanding and refining our original story, but actually teaching you these skills. The highest echelon of geeks will be able to do everything in this list, and this is by no means a full categorization of the complete geek skillset – only what we consider to be the most indispensable abilities.

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Open Source E-Books for Linux

A wonderful list. And a site worth looking at.

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Most Bizarre Suicide

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Sciences, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story...

On March 23 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation to that point had revealed that the decedent had jumped from the top of a ten story building with the intent to commit suicide. (He left a note indicating his despondency.) As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor level to protect some window washers, and that the decedent would not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this...

Ordinarily a person who starts into motion the events with a suicide intent ultimately commits suicide even though the mechanism might be not what he intended. That he was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not change his mode of death from suicide to homicide, but the fact that his suicide intent would not have been achieved under any circumstance caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands...

Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an interspousal spat and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking the decedent.

When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her; therefore, the killing of the decedent appeared then to be accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded...

But further investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son's financial support, and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus...

Further investigation revealed that the son became increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window.

The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

Source

******** Sadly, this story turns out to be not true. Sigh. Read about it HERE

Installing an Operating System on a USB drive

I'm sure that you would have, at one time or another, felt the need for a portable Operating System that you could carry around with you and to help troubleshoot and backup your friends' crashed PCs. There are several Live CD based Linux distributions[distros] where you just slide a CD in, boot from it and enjoy the new OS. But what if you need your Data and settings to be remembered[also called persistence]. A good alternative is to use a Live USB based OS. So here's a small guide for getting a small OS up and running on a USB flash drive.

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Celebrating Prohibition's repeal

Dec. 5, 1933: Seventy-five years ago, America ended Prohibition's 14-year dry spell. For that time, it was illegal to make, sell, transport or possess alcoholic beverages.

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Maori Haka V's Aboriginal War Cry

Michael Malloy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Malloy (1873 – February 22, 1933) was an Irish vagrant from County Donegal who lived in New York City, during the early twentieth century. Although he was a former firefighter, he is solely known for his constitution. Many attempts were made to murder him.

Murder of Malloy

The events that led to Malloy's death began in January 1933. He was, at the time, alcoholic and homeless. Five men who were acquainted with him, Tony Marino, Joseph Murphy, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kriesberg (later dubbed "the Murder Trust" by the headlines), plotted to take out three life insurance policies on Malloy, and then get him to drink himself to death. The first part of the plot was successful (probably achieved with the aid of a corrupt insurance agent), and they stood to gain over $3,500 (almost $57,000 by 2008's standards by the CPI) if Malloy died an accidental death.

Marino owned a speakeasy, and gave Malloy unlimited credit, thinking it would soon put an end to him. Although Malloy drank for a majority of his waking day, which would kill an average man, it did not kill him. To remedy this, antifreeze was substituted for liquor, but still Malloy would drink until he passed out, woke up, and came back for more. Antifreeze was substituted with turpentine, followed by horse liniment, and finally mixed in rat poison.^[1] Still, Malloy lived. The gang began to get creative, thinking raw oysters soaked in wood alcohol would do the trick (this idea apparently came from Pasqua, who saw a man die after eating oysters with whiskey, which was probably an anomaly, still they substituted whiskey with methanol, which is a potent poison able to cause blindness even if ingested in small amounts). Then came a sandwich of spoiled sardines, carpet tacks, and metal shavings.

Realizing it was unlikely that anything Malloy ingested was going to kill him, the Murder Trust decided to freeze him to death. On a night when temperatures reached -14 degrees Fahrenheit (-26 °C), Malloy drank until he passed out, was carried to a park, dumped in the snow, and had five gallons (19 L) of water poured on his bare chest. (The gang had successfully used a similar method on their first victim the previous year.) Nevertheless, Malloy reappeared the following day for his drink. The next attempt on his life came when they hit him with Green's taxi, moving at 45 miles per hour (72 km/h). This put Malloy in the hospital for three weeks. The gang presumed he was dead, but were unable to collect the policy on him. When he again appeared at the bar, they finally decided to take an even more direct approach. On February 22, after he passed out for the night, they took him to Murphy's room, put a hose in his mouth that was connected to the gas jet, and turned it on. This finally killed Michael Malloy.

He was pronounced dead of pneumonia, and quickly buried. However, the members of the Murder Trust proved to be their own worst enemies — they talked too much and squabbled among themselves. Eventually police heard the rumors of what they did, and upon learning that a Michael Malloy had died that night, they had the body exhumed. The five men were put on trial. Green went to prison and the other four members were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing.

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The beauty of Antarctica

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Antarctica (/ænˈtɑɹktɪkə/) is Earth’s southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.4 million km² (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice, which averages at least 1.6 kilometres (1.0 mi) in thickness.

7 Underground Wonders of the World: Labyrinths, Crypts, Catacombs and More

What motivates humankind to burrow deep into the Earth? From London to Paris, Budapest to Moscow, the USA to Australia, here are seven of the most amazing examples in the world. Some were built for military defense or shelter, many are abandoned while others thrive. These amazing images feature tunnels, caverns, labyrinths from seven underground location around the world, following the acclaimed 7 Underwater Wonders and 7 Abandoned Wonders of the World from our 7 Wonders Series.

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Russian Army in Berlin, Germany

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Word Clock

Word Clock is a typographic screensaver for Mac OS X and Windows. It displays a fixed list of all numbers and words sufficient to express any possible date and time as a sentence. Word Clock displays time by highlighting appropriate words as each second passes.

There are two display modes; Linear which is shown above and Rotary which has a nice relationship with traditional analogue clocks.

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The 10 Commandments of Bono

Time Magazine Person of theYear 2005, three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Messiah of Rock ‘n’ Roll™, Guardian of Humanity™, Saviour of Africa™, Patron Saint of Cowboy Hats™.

He’s probably to busy to get round to this, so I thought I’d save him getting the stone tablets out and post them here first. So for all of you who have uttered, in a time of darkness, that immortal plea for guidance – “What would BONO do?” – here’s some clarification:

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World War I. snapshots in color

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American Automobile History Vids

Lots of 'em.

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Italian Police 1953

Health Paradoxes Around The World: When Nutritionists Go Wrong

A paradox is a fact that contradicts the paradigm.

Besides probably the most known and discussed “French paradox” there are other paradoxes that were discovered by the researches and they are not less interesting then the French one.

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Art on Wheels: The Magnificent Truck Art of Pakistan

The under-appreciated, indigenous Pakistani tradition of truck painting has an extraordinary history, starting in the days of the Raj. As early as the 1920’s, competing transportation companies would hire craftsmen to adorn their buses in the hopes that these moving canvases would attract more passengers. The technique worked so well that pretty soon you couldn’t purchase a ticket without seeing dozens of beautifully painted trucks waiting to take you to your destination. While the art doesn’t serve the same purpose anymore, it is still as prevalent as ever and has become more intricate and developed a deeper cultural significance over time.

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GBS on the ABCs

On this day in 1962 a bi-alphabetic version of George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion was published in England, as directed by the terms of Shaw's will. For his last half-century Shaw had argued that the irrational spelling and pronunciation of the English language caused not only semi-literacy but a great loss of time and money. He was far from alone in his crusade for an alternative, but Shaw's reputation for tilting at monuments put him in the vanguard -- where he was most happy, of course, but as described here by biographer Michael Holroyd, where he was an easy target:

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The Infamous Double Slit Experiment

Nudibranchs: Beautiful Animals You Never Knew Abou

Nudibranchs are one of natures most exotic animals, true beauties, with over 3000 known species, it is a wonder more people have not heard of them.

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Great Carl Palmer drum solo

A wonderful performance.

Copy of Famed Lincoln Letter Found in Dallas

DALLAS (AP) — A Texas museum hopes a document found in its archives turns out to be an authentic government copy of Abraham Lincoln's eloquent letter consoling a mother thought to have lost five sons in the Civil War.

The famed Bixby Letter, which the Dallas Historical Society is getting appraised as it prays for a potential windfall, has a fascinating history.

The original has never been found. Historians debate whether Lincoln wrote it. Its recipient, Lydia Bixby, was no fan of the president. And not all her sons died in the war.

The letter, written with "the best of intentions" 144 years ago next week, is "considered one of the finest pieces of American presidential prose," said Alan Olson, curator for the Dallas group. "It's still a great piece of writing, regardless of the truth in the back story."

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Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs

One rainy night eight years ago, in Watertown, Massachusetts, a man was taking his dog for a walk. On the curb, in front of a neighbor’s house, he spotted a pile of trash: old mattresses, cardboard boxes, a few broken lamps. Amidst the garbage he caught sight of a battered suitcase. He bent down, turned the case on its side and popped the clasps.

He was surprised to discover that the suitcase was full of black-and-white photographs. He was even more astonished by their subject matter: devastated buildings, twisted girders, broken bridges — snapshots from an annihilated city. He quickly closed the case and made his way back home.

At the kitchen table, he looked through the photographs again and confirmed what he had suspected. He was looking at something he had never seen before: the effects of the first use of the Atomic bomb. The man was looking at Hiroshima.

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5 Jobs You Wanted as a Kid (And Why They Suck)

For some reason, we expect our children to be able to answer the question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Some responses are downright idiotic (I wanna be a dinosaur) but for the most part, kids tend to choose the last person they saw in a uniform.

Unfortunately, no one is explaining to our children that there are reasons most people don't stick with the careers that sound so awesome in kindergarten.

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James Inman Snaps at City Council Meeting

A fan of John Tesh? Whoa, that's a bit harsh.......

101 New Uses for Everyday Things

Get 10 times more uses from such sure-to-have-around items as salt and dryer sheets with these clever ideas

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wiseGEEK

wiseGEEK is a very straightforward website: we offer free and clear answers to common questions.

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Obama Fever in Africa

Top 10 Most Expensive Accidents in History

Throughout history, humans have always been prone to accidents. Some, such as the exotic car crashes seen on this page, can be very expensive. But that's trivial compared to the truly expensive accidents. An accident is defined as "an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss". Our aim is to list the top 10 most expensive accidents in the history of the world as measured in dollars.

This includes property damage and expenses incurred related to the accident such as cleanup and industry losses. Many of these accidents involve casualties which obviously cannot be measured in dollar terms. Each life lost is priceless and is not factored into the equation. Deliberate actions such as war or terrorism and natural disasters do not qualify as accidents and therefore are not included in this list.

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The Science Museum's hidden treasures

It is guarded by Gurkhas, peopled by ghosts in flying jackets and filled with vintage planes, strange machines and a teamaker the size of a wardrobe. Lucy Davies visits the greatest museum you'll never see

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Daily Gyan

Linux, Windows, Office, Firefox tips. Something for everyone.

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Ecscavator Craziness

Forget the atrocious spelling and check out this sequence of photos.

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Graffiti from Pompeii

Each inscription begins with a reference to where it was found (region.insula.door number). The second number is the reference to the publication of the inscription in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Volume 4.

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One Million Beer Bottles Later and it’s a Buddhist Temple

Thai monks from the Sisaket province have used over one million recycled glass bottle to construct their Buddhist temple. Mindfulness is at the center of the Buddhist discipline and the dedication and thoughtfulness required to build everything from the toilets to their crematorium from recycled bottles shows what creativity and elbow grease can accomplish.

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Van de Graaff Levitation Wand

Magical Science in Action

"Todays magic is tomorrow's science"... as we always say here at ThinkGeek. Now you can get a bit of magic for yourself with this amazing Fly Stick Van de Graaff Levitation Wand.

This battery powered wand features a mini Van de Graaff generator inside. Push a button on the handle and the static charge built up in the wand causes the included 3D mylar shapes to levitate at your command. You can also do some cool tricks causing the shapes to jump back and forth from your hand to the wand. Not quite Harry Potter... but hey, we do our best for you.

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20 Wonders of the Microscopic World

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4 Ways To Play Windows Game On Linux

Playing Windows games on Linux is not really a difficult task. Most gamers are reluctant to migrate to Linux because they have this misconception that Windows games cannot be played on Linux. How wrong they are. If you are one of those avid gamers that I mentioned above, here are 4 ways that you can play Windows games on Linux.

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Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight was a famous gun fight that occurred on April 14, 1881 on El Paso Street, El Paso, Texas. Witnesses generally agreed that that the incident lasted no more than five seconds after the first gunshot, though a few would insist it was at least ten seconds. Marshal Dallas Stoudenmire accounted for two of the four fatalities with his twin .44 calibre Colt revolvers.

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Herbert von Karajan conducts The Blue Danube Waltz

Ok. No more. For a while.

Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.1 Op.10 Movement 3 (Ashkenazy)

Top 10 traditional pubs in Ireland

The traditional Irish pub is now an endangered species, with one closing almost every day. Turtle Bunbury went on a pub crawl around all 32 counties in search of the best

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Perlman in Russia Violin Concerto in D Opus 35

Ok, no more videos. Maybe.

The Lethal Legacy of World War II

Germany remains contaminated with unexploded bombs that are becoming increasingly unstable with age, warns one of the country's most experienced bomb defusers. He has just retired after a perilous career spent tackling the deadly legacy of World War II.

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A Melting Arctic: Happy News for Mankind

Alarm over sea ice loss is misplaced.

Recent short-term gains in Arctic ice coverage indicate nothing about the eventual state of the Arctic. Answers to the long-term status of the region lie in the realm of a scientific branch known as paleoclimatology. What does it tell us?

The Earth is currently in the geologic epoch known as the Holocene. This began nearly 12,000 years ago when the last ice age (more precisely, the Weichsal glacial) ended. Temperatures warmed, glaciers began to retreat, and the Arctic began to melt. This began what is called an interglacial: a warmer period between glaciation.

We tend to think of the poles as immutable, but geologically speaking, permanent polar ice is a rare phenomenon, comprising less than 10% of history. Icecaps form briefly between interglacials, only to melt as the next one begins -- this time around will be no different.

So we know the Arctic will eventually be open water. The only question is how it will affect us.

The language the media uses to describe Arctic melting is usually emotionally loaded. Filled with terms such as "concern", "desperate", even "dying" and "doomed", one would think a living organism was being described. Experts are always quoted as "warning" us, rather than simply speaking -- classic propaganda techniques.

Even the scientists themselves have an emotional stake in the argument. After all, when you've spent your entire career studying Arctic ice, the possibility of it vanishing is understandably horrifying. But what about the rest of us? Will Arctic melting be good or bad?

Let's look at the scorecard.

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David Oistrakh, Debussy - Clair de lune

Bank Robber's Names

Serial bandits are bank robbers who have robbed two or more banks. We give them a "bandit name" for law enforcement tracking purposes.

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If You Open Your Mind Too Much...

Bach - Cello Suite No.1 i-Prelude

Solved: mystery of The Ugly Duchess - and the Da Vinci connection

Subject was suffering from rare disease, say experts, and painting is not a copy

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Gaeltacht Travel in Ireland

10 Stunning Flickr Photos of the Gaeltacht

Posted on October 11, 2008 under the gaeltacht

The Gaeltacht regions are the official regions in Ireland defined as where Irish is the spoken language of the communities. The Gaeltacht covers some of the most beautiful scenery in the country, and somehow encompasses the spirit and the atmosphere of the people who live there. Below are 10 amazing photos of the Gaeltacht regions that I’ve picked from Flickr.

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Whats Under The Streets Of New York

New Yorkers are always in a hurry, never worrying about what is going on under their feet, or the amount of information that pulses not just above their heads but also below their feets.

From cable, telecoms, and subway lines this image should put it all into perspective for you:

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Shuttle driver reflects on Nobel snub

Twenty years ago, Douglas Prasher was one of the driving forces behind research that earned a Nobel Prize in chemistry this week. But today, he's just driving.

Prasher, 57, works as a courtesy shuttle operator at a Huntsville, Ala., Toyota dealership. While his former colleagues will fly to Stockholm in December to accept the Nobel Prize and a $1.4 million check, the former Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist will be earning $10 an hour while trying to put two of his children through college.

"It's a cutthroat world out there," Prasher said during a phone interview yesterday.

Despite his contributions to the groundbreaking research, a Nobel Prize can only be shared among three people

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Rossini - William Tell overture (Part 1)

The RAF bomber pilot who single-handedly recovered the body of the co-pilot and comrade he lost on Berlin raid 60 years ago

Crammed together in their unwieldy aircraft and utterly dependent on one another, the bomber crews of the Second World War forged friendships that often only death could break.

Which is why Pilot Officer Reg Wilson never forgot the night more than 60 years ago when he lost two friends in the night skies over Germany.

As he entered his old age - the memories of his youth perhaps more powerful than ever - Mr Wilson began a quest to find their remains.

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Planet Caravan - Pantera

Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker's Library

Nothing quite prepares you for the culture shock of Jay Walker's library. You exit the austere parlor of his New England home and pass through a hallway into the bibliographic equivalent of a Disney ride. Stuffed with landmark tomes and eye-grabbing historical objects—on the walls, on tables, standing on the floor—the room occupies about 3,600 square feet on three mazelike levels. Is that a Sputnik? (Yes.) Hey, those books appear to be bound in rubies. (They are.) That edition of Chaucer ... is it a Kelmscott? (Natch.) Gee, that chandelier looks like the one in the James Bond flick Die Another Day. (Because it is.) No matter where you turn in this ziggurat, another treasure beckons you—a 1665 Bills of Mortality chronicle of London (you can track plague fatalities by week), the instruction manual for the Saturn V rocket (which launched the Apollo 11 capsule to the moon), a framed napkin from 1943 on which Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined his plan to win World War II. In no time, your mind is stretched like hot taffy.

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Honour sought for 'Soldier Bear'

A campaign has been launched to build a permanent memorial to a bear which spent much of its life in Scotland - after fighting in World War II.

The bear - named Voytek - was adopted in the Middle East by Polish troops in 1943, becoming much more than a mascot.

The large animal even helped their armed forces to carry ammunition at the Battle of Monte Cassino.

Voytek - known as the Soldier Bear - later lived near Hutton in the Borders and ended his days at Edinburgh Zoo.

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Nice story.

Here there be dragons

I’m currently reading Island of Lost Maps (WorldCat) and I came to the point in the book where the author mentions that a version of Ptolemy’s Geographia sells for over a million dollars. I searched and found a reproduction of Ptolemaeus Munster Geographia, 1540 (WorldCat), that was printed in 1966. I’m having so much fun trying to place current cities on the old maps.

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Graffiti

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Ancient Peru pyramid spotted by satellite

A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru's Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome.

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Exploratorium

In this case study on human origins, we explore how scientific evidence is being used to shape our current understanding of ourselves: What makes us human—and how did we get this way?

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Press protected Chuck Yeager after fabled flight under city bridge

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Nothing on the radio. Not a word in the newspaper. Not even a picture to prove it.

But 60 years later, it remains one of the most fabled events in Charleston's history.

"It was known only to those of us who saw it, and through word-of-mouth later on," said Neil Boggs, a Clay County native and retired NBC correspondent.

Nobody talked about it on the record for years, he said. "Tens of thousands of people saw it. They knew it was done by one of them, for one of them, and they joined in a conspiracy of silence."

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Spheres - 3D Art

Here are some very wild and bold, very pretty and interesting 3D images.

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Review: PC-BSD 7

Recently the PC-BSD team released their latest stable version (PC-BSD 7) code-named Fibonacci Edition. Some of major changes from the previous version include a newer kernel, an experimental ZFS module, and a KDE 4 for desktop environment. Being a Linux junkie, I thought of this as a perfect opportunity to venture into the BSD arena.

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Cool Police Cars from around the World

A collection of the fastest and coolest police cars from around the world. Ever wondered what happens to your money when you get a speeding ticket? They splash out on cars like these, that's what they do!

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100 Skills Every Man Should Know: The Instructions (With Videos!)

Brains and charm are fine, but a real guy needs to know how to do real stuff. After months of debate among PM’s expert editors—and a preview of 2008’s ultimate DIY list—now you can explore how to perform life’s essential skills, broken down in 10 categories for the competent man—plus 20 tools you need to own. Did we leave anything out—or included a skill you don’t think is worthy? Scroll down and click through for tips, then sound off in our chat, or take PM’s interactive DIY quiz to see how you measure up against the MythBusters and more TV know-it-alls.

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Carbon nanotechnology in an 17th century Damascus sword

In medieval times, crusading Christian knights cut a swathe through the Middle East in an attempt to reclaim Jerusalem from the Muslims. The Muslims in turn cut through the invaders using a very special type of sword, which quickly gained a mythical reputation among the Europeans. These 'Damascus blades' were extraordinarily strong, but still flexible enough to bend from hilt to tip. And they were reputedly so sharp that they could cleave a silk scarf floating to the ground, just as readily as a knight's body.

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Uncovering Namibia's sunken treasure

A team of international archaeologists is working round the clock to rescue the wreck of what is thought to be a 16th Century Portuguese trading ship that lay undisturbed for hundreds of years off Namibia's Atlantic coast.

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Moon dust

Boulder, CO, USA–The Apollo Moon missions of 1969-1972 all share a dirty secret. "The major issue the Apollo astronauts pointed out was dust, dust, dust," says Professor Larry Taylor, Director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee. Fine as flour and rough as sandpaper, Moon dust caused 'lunar hay fever,' problems with space suits, and dust storms in the crew cabin upon returning to space.

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10 amazingly alternative operating systems and what they could mean for the future

This post is about the desktop operating systems that fly under the radar of most people. We are definitely not talking about Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, or even BSD or Solaris. There are much less mainstream options out there for the OS-curious.

These alternative operating systems are usually developed either by enthusiasts or small companies (or both), and there are more of them than you might expect. There are even more than we have included in this article, though we think this is a good selection of the more interesting ones and we have focused specifically on desktop operating systems.

As you will see, many of them are very different from what you may be used to. We will discuss the potential of this in the conclusion of this article.

Enough introduction, let’s get started! Here is a look at 10 alternative operating systems, starting with a familiar old name…

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Linux Where You'd Least Expect It

OK. You've heard of Linux. It's another operating system for a computer. But why use it when you can choose between Windows and Macs? Unless you run business-class servers, Linux isn't really something consumers really need to hear about, right?

Well, if that's what you think Linux is, you couldn't be further from the truth. Look around you. Linux is everywhere, but you may not know it. However, you'll have to look at the fine print to be sure, because manufacturers usually don't openly advertise with labels announcing "Linux Inside."

For instance, Linux probably drives your HDTV and the set-top box. Linux is now regarded as the de facto operating system of choice by many manufacturers of electronic toys and video and telephone equipment, along with many things that involve hand-held devices and remote controls.

"The only way to find that Linux is inside is to look for the fine print in product materials. That's where you might find reference to Linux. No manufacturer tends to tell consumers that," Jim Ready, founder and CTO of MontaVista Software, told LinuxInsider.

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River Dance

The 10 Manliest Sea Shanties

It’s the 19th century. You’re a young man seeking adventure and a test of your manhood. You decide to sign up on a ship to see exotic foreign lands. You take the trip to the coast. You find a big coastal town and you walk through the docks admiring the ships. Finally, you spot one that you like. You walk on deck and a tall man dressed in black coat confronts you. It’s the captain.

“What do you want lad?”

“I want to sign on board sir,” you say.

He looks you up and down, and says “Aye. But first I need to give you a test.”

You’re not worried. You were expecting this and, in fact, hoping for it. You want to show the captain what you can do. After all, you were always the strongest out of all your friends. You could climb up any rock or tree since you learned how to walk. And you also knew a bit about navigation from your grandfather. You were eager to show what a great addition to the crew you’d make.

“How well can you sing?” the captain asks.

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How to get Windows 7 for free?

If you want to grab an early copy of Microsoft Windows 7 for free, and all above board and legal as well, then you can in late October. Of course, there is a catch or two...
For some people, early reports that Microsoft is going to be stripping out the email, photo gallery and movie maker functions from the upcoming Windows 7 operating system might be enough to turn them off the idea.
Others, of course, will just want to get their hands on a copy as early as possible to see what all the fuss is about.

Microsoft has now confirmed that it will be giving away free copies of Windows 7 in October. So what is the catch?

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Steam candle creation

Sherwood Forest's secret oil

Forget bouncing bombs, the Enigma machine and radar - Sherwood Forest oil was the best kept wartime secret.

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Top 10 Most Amazing Prison Escapes

Top 10 Most Amazing Prison Escapes

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Top Fighters Across the Globe

When stealth became a buzzword that every air force in the world wanted to achieve, the greatest minds in aviation were brought together to answer one question:

“How do we sneak up on the enemy and jam a rocket up their ass without being seen on radar or by the naked eye?”

That’s actually what they said, word for word. We have the transcripts from the US, Russian, Chinese, and British war rooms.

In reality, what they said is nothing compared to the amazing uber-technology they created. Take a peek:

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1986 FBI Miami shootout

The FBI Miami shootout was a gun battle that occurred on April 11, 1986 in Miami, Florida between multiple FBI agents and two heavily-armed and well-trained gunmen. The firefight claimed the lives of special agents Gerald Dove and Benjamin Grogan, as well as the two robbery suspects, William Russell Matix and Michael Platt. In addition, five other agents were severely injured during the gunfight.

The incident is infamous in FBI history and well-studied. Despite outnumbering the suspects 4 to 1, the agents found themselves pinned down by rifle fire and unable to respond effectively. Although both Matix and Platt were hit several times in the firefight, both fought on regardless and continued to injure and kill the officers. This led to the introduction of more powerful handguns to prevent a repeat of this action.

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Shoot the Moon

If you were on the moon, which is a vacuum, and tried to shoot a gun, would it fire? After all combustion needs an atmosphere with oxygen... or does the casing of the bullet create its own atmosphere? If so, the bullet would travel farther in the reduced gravity, but would it travel faster than it does on the earth?

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12 Spectacular Aircraft Photos

Here is a collection of amazing civilian & military aircraft photos, from around the world.

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Hnefatafl

Tafl games were a family of ancient Germanic and Celtic board games played on a checkered or latticed board with two teams of uneven strength. The size of the board and the number of pieces varied, but all games involved a distinctive 2:1 ratio of pieces, with the lesser side having a king-piece which started in the centre. The king's objective was to escape to (variously) the board's periphery or corners, while the greater force's objective was to capture him. There is also some controversy over whether some tafl games (i.e. Hnefatafl and Tawlbwrdd) may have employed dice.^[1] Tafl spread everywhere the Vikings traveled, including Iceland, Britannia, Ireland, and Lapland.^[2] Versions of Tafl, comprising Hnefatafl, Alea Evangelii, Tawlbwrdd, Brandubh, Ard Ri and Tablut, were played across much of Northern Europe from earlier than 400 CE until it was supplanted by Chess in the 12th century.^[3]

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Anyone here ever played this game? I'd be very interested to learn more about playing this.

Kim Jong Il

Town Meeting, Wasilla, Alaska

One of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

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Storozhevoy

Storozhevoy (Сторожевой, Storoževoj in Russian - meaning "Vigilant" - Soviet frigates were given adjective names) was a Soviet Navy 1135 Burevestnik class anti-submarine frigate (NATO reporting name Krivak). The ship was attached to the Soviet Baltic Fleet and based in Riga. It was involved in a mutiny in November 1975.

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Hurricanes, as seen from orbit

Hurricane Ike just rolled across Cuba, and soaked parts of Haiti - both regions still reeling from recent Hurricane Gustav. Ike appears to be weakening now, but is headed tward the Gulf Coast of the U.S., and may yet strengthen. The crew aboard the International Space Station was able to take a photo of Ike from 220 miles overhead last Thursday - one in a long series of great NASA photographs of hurricanes from space. Here are some of the best, from the past several years. (25 photos total)

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Ten things you don’t know about the Earth

Good advice from the 70s progressive band. Look around you. Unless you’re one of the Apollo astronauts, you’ve lived your entire life within a few hundred kilometers of the surface of the Earth. There’s a whole planet beneath your feet, 6.6 sextillion tons of it, one trillion cubic kilometers of it. But how well do you know it?

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How to get a cool, ray-traced animated screen saver for your Ubuntu Linux box

I stumbled on a beautiful screen saver for my Ubuntu box today called Eternity which features several flavors of Ubuntu plus a default animation as well. The screen saver is called Eternity and the flavors are plain old vanilla Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio and oddly enough, the Ubuntu Satanic release.

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Just Ask Anybody!

Just Ask Anybody is a Google Custom Search Engine that searches over 75 Ask-An-Expert and Ask-A-Librarian Web sites. Got a reference question you need answered? Check it out!

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Eyewitness to History

Eyewitness accounts from creating an Egyptian mummy to Nixon's departure from the White House.

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Indian Well - Chand Baori

Chand Baori is a famous stepwell situated in the village Abhaneri near Jaipur in Indian state of Rajasthan.

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How to Fall Out of a Plane and Live, and Other Survival Tips

What to do when you're trapped in the desert, hit by lightning, stranded at sea, etc.

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Coney Island to Close

It’s a sad day for me as I can remember when I was a kid growing up in Queens, NY, my parents would take me to Coney Island for its Famous Nathan Hot Dogs, Amusement Park and Boardwalk. Coney Island says good-bye after 36 years.

The owner of Coney Island’s Astroland said yesterday she is calling it quits and the historic amusement park will close for good on Sunday September 7th.

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The Race to Save the Hubble Telescope

If mission specialist Michael Massimino is worried about performing death-defying repairs on the world’s most famous (and expensive) telescope, he does a convincing job of hiding it. Snug in the electric-orange space suit that he will wear aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, he riffs genially about his Brooklyn upbringing, the search for a great slice of New York pizza, and the absurdities of NASA lingo. He discusses some technical issues about the suit with his crewmates. He reflects on the history around him in this corner of Houston’s Johnson Space Center, where Apollo communications equipment was tested four decades ago. In short, he exudes effortless competence and exactly zero fear.

Massimino will need that moxie and know-how when he and his crew blast off this month from Cape Canaveral and rendezvous with the Hubble Space Telescope 360 miles above Earth’s surface. Once the astronauts secure the orbiting 12-ton observatory to Atlantis, they will embark on five arduous space walks to install a new camera and spectrograph and fix two other malfunctioning instruments to upgrade Hubble’s vision. The crew will also swap in new batteries and gyroscopes, attach a protective blanket, and repair the guidance system.

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Top 10 Men Who Were Really Women

In modern days, transvestitism (dressing as a member of the opposite sex) has become a fairly commonplace occurrence. But in the past it was not only frowned upon, it was often seen as sinful. Due to laws which prevented women from performing in various parts of society, some women decided to live their lives as men. Some had successful lives, while others suffered as a consequence. Saint Joan of Arc dressed as a man to protect her virginity whilst living amongst soldiers and it proved to be her downfall when a kangaroo court found her guilty of heresy and executed her. But Saint Joan was not out to deceive and her trial was overturned and her good name restored. Unfortunately this was not true for some women in the past. For this list I have selected women who sought to disguise their true sex completely; that excludes the likes of George Sands who was known to be a woman and caused scandal by her transvestitism, and the female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read as their crews knew they were women.

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New fingerprint method

LONDON (Reuters) - It's a discovery that would make even Sherlock Holmes proud. British scientists have developed a new crime-fighting technique that allows police to lift fingerprints from bullets even if a criminal has wiped down a shell casing.

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Authorities in Britain and the United States used the method to re-open three cold cases, including a U.S. double murder that police are now optimistic of solving, said John Bond, the physicist who developed the technique.

"In one case there was enough evidence that could lead to an identification of an offender," said Bond, a researcher at the University of Leicester and consultant at Northamptonshire Police in Britain.

The conventional method of taking fingerprints has been around for more than 100 years and involves creating a chemical reaction with the sweat left behind on an object to produce an image police can use.

But if a criminal wipes away the sweat, there is little left to react with the chemical and regular methods are useless, Bond said in a telephone interview.

The new technique allows police to outwit a criminal and produce a fingerprint even if there is no sweat impression to work with.

The British experts focused on hair-width bits of corrosion that sweat often leaves on certain metals in bullets and bombs.

They cover the metal with a fine powder and apply a strong electrical charge that makes the dust stick to the corroded areas, producing a potential fingerprint, Bond said.

"That very fine powder only sticks to the metal where it is corroded, which means it is only sticking where the fingerprint is and means you see the image of the fingerprint," said Bond, whose team has published its findings in the Journal of Forensic Sciences and the Journal of Applied Physics.

The technique is not foolproof and some people do not secrete enough salt in their sweat to corrode the metal to the point police can get a print, he added.

But for some seemingly dead-end cases it can provide crucial evidence and point to the person who loaded a gun used in a crime, Bond said.

Detective Christopher King of the Kingsland Police Department in Georgia sought the British team's help to crack an unsolved 10-year-old double murder case and said the method had helped reignite the investigation.

"The results are surprising but to say that I am pleased would be an underestimate," he said in a statement. "I feel very optimistic."

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Gaddafi: Africa's 'king of kings'

A meeting of more than 200 African kings and traditional rulers has bestowed the title "king of kings" on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

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The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth

Socotra Island: you have to see it to believe it

We covered some otherwordly places before (see, for example, Bolvian Salt Lake, or The Richat Structure), but this island simply blows away any notion about what is considered "normal" for a landscape on Earth.

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10 of the Best Animated GIFs on the Net

Some are cool, some are silly and a few are just plain odd but the animated GIF has come a long way in a short space of time. Here are 10 of the best on the net at the moment. Prepare to be ever so slightly amused, preoccupied and maybe dazzled.

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Google Chrome, Google’s Browser Project

Today there was a comic book in my mail, sent by Google and drawn by no less than Scott McCloud, creator of the classic Understanding Comics. Within the 38 pages, which I’ve scanned and put up, in very readable format Google gives the technical details into a project of theirs: an open source browser called Google Chrome. The book points to www.google.com/chrome, but I can’t see anything live there yet. In a nut-shell, here’s what the comic announces Google Chrome to be:

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13 of the Biggest, Strangest, and Most Devastating Sinkholes on Earth

One day you’re feeling satisfied with the fruits of all your yard work. The next day, your lawn is a gaping pit of mud. That’s if you are lucky - it could have been your house, neighborhood or, say, local interstate. Sinkholes tend to appear suddenly, and while particular regions are famously prone to sinkholes they happen all over the world. It begins with an innocuous leak in a rusty pipe. The earth beneath your feet quietly erodes until one day…whoosh. Whole buildings have been sucked into sinkholes. Entire roads have been knocked out. Here are some of the biggest and baddest sinkholes in the world.

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How to Build A Skateboard Launch Ramp

Building a skateboard launch ramp follows all the basics for building a large scale structure, only it’s much easier. First you have to decide upon your radius. Ten to Twelve feet is nice for mellow launch ramps and Eight to Ten Feet is better for an all around street quarterpipe. Cut two matching transitions and connect them with joists or cross braces and cut them to your desired width. Lay your plywood level with the sides and bottom of the ramp and screw or nail it down. You will now want to put masonite on the top of the plywood. One sheet of masonite and 2 sheets of plywood will be plenty strong. You will want to bevel the bottom edge of the plywood and Masonite to make the street to ramp transition smoother. Or if you really want to get trick use a piece of sheet metal as the middle man between the ramp and the surface. This will make your ramp last longer and you will not wear the masonite or plywood as quickly this way. This is a launch ramp you will want to move it around so you can cut holes in the sides of the ramp so you can move it around with ease.

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TOP 10 COOLEST COMMERCIALS BY MOVIE DIRECTORS

Advertising is now as big a part of movies as actors or special effects – it's a cold, hard fact of life that wherever there are eyes trained on a screen, there'll be some pen-chewing dickwad executive willing to cram a commercial on it. Product placement is all well and good, but what's the next logical step? Instead of forcing directors to sell your products in their movies, why not pay them shitloads of money to direct your commercials? The results are odd little mini-movies; an experience akin to hanging out with your favourite directors while they try and pick your pocket. We've picked the best of the bunch as an example of directors that have at least tried to turn advertising into art. Bend over and enjoy some corporate shaft: it's the future.

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Optical Illusions in Art

We love it when the picture plays with our mind

To achieve different angle, illusion or an unusual effect with only two-dimensional picture is a challenge many photographers and artists can't seem to pass by. The three-dimensional sculptures can increase the "I simply can not believe this is real" effect. But in every occasion we keep asking ourselves how the trick was pulled off, and such mind-games appear to be a part of the magic.

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HOW TO COOK AN ALIEN

The argument for eating Aliens

1. Aliens come here uninvited.
2. They ate Elvis.
3. They mutilate our cattle, and probe abductees by shoving probes in their rectum and performing other unspeakable acts upon unsuspecting victims.
4. They are plentiful, more plentiful than the strained seas and land resources, and they seem to be coming in increasing numbers (if you beleive what some people are saying).
5. They are Kosher meat.
6. They taste good if prepared well.
7. According to some,they mess around with the Space Shuttle, when astronauts launch sattelites.
8. Their meat is safer than British Beef.

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Korean beach

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Take That, Stupid Printer!

How to fight back against the lying, infuriating, evil ink-and-toner cabal.

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How to get updated world weather maps as your desktop background in Ubuntu

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10 Futuristic User Interfaces

Good user interfaces are crucial for good user experience. It doesn’t matter how good a technology is — if we, designers, don’t manage to make user interface as intuitive and attractive as possible, the technology will hardly reach a breakthrough. To gain the interest in a new product or technology, users need to understand its advantages or find themselves impressed or involved.

And here is where creative ideas and unusual interface approaches become important. Innovative doesn’t mean usable and usable hardly means innovative. As usual, it’s necessary to find an optimal trade-off. And some user interfaces manage to achieve just that.

Below we present 10 recent developments in the field of user experience design. Most techniques may seem very futuristic, but some of them are already reality. And in fact, they are extremely impressive. Keep in mind: they can become ubiquitous in the next years.

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How to move a 200-ton spectrometer across Europe

In November 2006, people living at Leopoldshafen, in Germany, witnessed a 200-ton container moving across the streets. It looked like an alien spaceship, but it was actually the main spectrometer of the KATRIN experiment, a project that will try to to measure the mass of the electron neutrino in 2009.

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Amazing 5,000-year-old skeletons laid on bed of flowers found in Sahara - proving desert was once green and lush

A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert.

Researchers discovered the slender arms of the youngsters still extended to the woman in a perpetual embrace.

The remarkable cemetery is providing clues to two civilisations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.

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Johann Hari: We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

This is a column condemning cowardice – including my own. It begins with the story of a novel you cannot read. The Jewel of Medina was written by a journalist called Sherry Jones. It recounts the life of Aisha, a girl who was married off at the age of six to a 50-year-old man called Mohamed ibn Abdallah. On her wedding day, Aisha was playing on a see-saw outside her home. Inside, she was being betrothed. The first she knew of it was when she was banned from playing out in the street with the other children. When she was nine, she was taken to live with her husband, now 53. He had sex with her. When she was 14, she was accused of adultery with a man closer to her own age. Not long after, Mohamed decreed that his wives must cover their faces and bodies, even though no other women in Arabia did.

You cannot read this story today – except in the Koran and the Hadith. The man Mohamed ibn Abdallah became known to Muslims as "the Prophet Mohamed", so our ability to explore this story is stunted. The Jewel of Medina was bought by Random House and primed to be a best-seller – before a University of Texas teacher saw proofs and declared it "a national security issue". Random House had visions of a re-run of the Rushdie or the Danish cartoons affairs. Sherry Jones's publisher has pulped the book. It's gone.

In Europe, we are finally abolishing the lingering blasphemy laws that hinder criticism of Christianity. But they are being succeeded by a new blasphemy law preventing criticism of Islam – enforced not by the state, but by jihadis. I seriously considered not writing this column, but the right to criticise religion is as precious – and hard-won – as the right to criticise government. We have to use it or lose it.

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This is your captain screaming

The plane was packed when, at 17,000 feet, the windscreen blew and the captain was sucked out. Nigel Ogden, who saved him by hanging on to his legs, tells his story for the first time to Julia Llewellyn Smith.

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Moytura

Many beautiful men fell there in the stall of death. Great was the slaughter and the grave-lying which took place there. Pride and shame were there side by side. There was anger and indignation. Abundant was the stream of blood over the white skin of young warriors mangled by the hands of bold men while rushing into danger for shame. Harsh was the noise made by the multitude of warriors and champions protecting their swords and shields and bodies while others were striking them with spears and swords. Harsh too the tumult all over the battlefield - the shouting of the warriors and the clashing of bright shields, the swish of swords and ivory-hilted blades, the clatter and rattling of the quivers, the hum and whirr of spears and javelins, the crashing strokes of weapons.

'The Irish Celtic Magical Tradition', Steve Blamires, 1992

The Battle of Maigh Tuireadh is the central story, the Jewel in the Crown of Irish mythology. It is a great epic tale of combat between the forces of Light and Darkness. The story was recorded in two versions in the sixteenth century; both of these, though they differ in some respects, follow the same thread which is thought to be based on a twelfth century manuscript. This in turn is known to be based on an ancient oral tradition which probably stretches back thousands of years. There are several folklore versions of the Battle, in particular Lady Gregory's version in Gods and Fighting Men. Here I offer my current version of this wonderful myth.

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Large Hadron Collider nearly ready

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, is nearly set to begin its first particle beam tests. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is preparing for its first small tests in early August, leading to a planned full-track test in September - and the first planned particle collisions before the end of the year. The final step before starting is the chilling of the entire collider to -271.25 C (-456.25 F). Here is a collection of photographs from CERN, showing various stages of completion of the LHC and several of its larger experiments (some over seven stories tall), over the past several years. (27 photos total)

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10 Most Decisive Ancient Battles

Everyone loves a good tale of battles and blood - which is clearly evidenced by the plethora of movies and movie scenes based on them. In this list, instead of just looking at great battles based on numbers or deaths, we are looking at battles that were strategically important or changed the methods of warfare. This list only includes battles from before the time of Christ…. read more at the bottom of the list.

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The 35 Greatest Speeches in History

If a man wishes to become a great orator, he must first become a student of the great orators who have come before him. He must immerse himself in their texts, listening for the turns of phrases and textual symmetries, the pauses and crescendos, the metaphors and melodies that have enabled the greatest speeches to stand the test of time.

There was not currently a resource on the web to my liking that offered the man who wished to study the greatest orations of all time-from ancient to modern-not only a list of the speeches but a link to the text and a paragraph outlining the context in which the speech was given. So we decided to create one ourselves. The Art of Manliness thus proudly presents the “35 Greatest Speeches in World History,” the finest library of speeches available on the web.

These speeches lifted hearts in dark times, gave hope in despair, refined the characters of men, inspired brave feats, gave courage to the weary, honored the dead, and changed the course of history. It is my desire that this library will become a lasting resource not only to those who wish to become great orators, but to all men who wisely seek out the great mentors of history as guides on the path to virtuous manhood.

I know that readers of blogs are often more likely to skim than to read in-depth. But I challenge you, gentlemen, to attempt a program of study in which you read the entirety of one of these great speeches each and every day. I found the process of compiling and reading these speeches to be enormously inspiring and edifying, and I feel confident that you will find them equally so.

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KDE 4.1 rocks the desktop

KDE 4.1 was finally released to the public today. After all the controversy since the release of KDE 4.0, I'm happy to announce that KDE 4.1 simply rocks.

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I've just been checking out the new SuSE with KDE 4 and it looks pretty good. I think that's what I'll go for when I get bored with my Mint.

Top 20 Most Famous Car Logos

All brands of cars have a story, and logos are those that bear them in history. In this article we present the most popular auto logos of the world.

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