Had To Share:Touching Story:The old lady in Copacabana at Paulo Coelho’s Blog

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I posted this a week ago but I wanted to say a little something about this now. I don’t know , can’t we say most of people probably including me does a lot of things not to be alone? It is sad but it is the truth. I probably am bipolar and whenever I am at one extreme I seem to feel the need to connect with people while at the other extreme I have that overwhelming need to be left alone to my own thoughts! The problem is most often when you want to be left alone, those are the exact times people can’t seem to leave you alone, and vise-versa. That’s why sometimes I just leave my phone at my room and don’t check emails for a couple of days. Or why I suddenly message people in facebook or comment on random people’s blogs. It sates the need for aloness/connectedness without real friction.

The old lady in Copacabana
Published by Paulo Coelho on February 20, 2009 in Stories Paulo Coelho
She was standing on the sidewalk of Atlântica Avenue with a guitar and a hand-written sign that said: “Let’s sing together.”
She began to play alone. Then a drunk arrived, then another old lady and they began to sing along with her. In a short time a small crowd was singing together and another small crowd played the audience, clapping hands at the end of each number.
“Why do you do this?” I asked between songs.
“Not to be alone,” she said. “My life is very lonely, just like almost all old folk.”
I wish they all could solve their problems in this way.
The old lady in Copacabana at Paulo Coelho’s Blog.

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Scooping the Loop Snooper — Geoffrey K. Pullum

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Halting Problem in Dr Seuss style! Quite nice! If you are unfamiliar with the halting problem read the thing and then google halting problem and click on the wikipedia link!

SCOOPING THE LOOP SNOOPER
A proof that the Halting Problem is undecidable
Geoffrey K. Pullum
(School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh)
No general procedure for bug checks succeeds.
Now, I won’t just assert that, I’ll show where it leads:
I will prove that although you might work till you drop,
you cannot tell if computation will stop.
Scooping the Loop Snooper — Geoffrey K. Pullum.

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-rePost-Best Read-Believing in the impossible – Part 1 at Paulo Coelho’s Blog

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– Can’t believe it? – the Queen repeats with a sad look on her face. – Try again: take a deep breath, close your eyes, and believe.
Alice laughs:
– It’s no good trying. Only fools believe that impossible things can happen.
– I think what you need is a little training – answers the Queen. – When I was your age I would practice at least half an hour a day, right after breakfast, I tried very hard to imagine five or six unbelievable things that could cross my path, and today I see that most of the things I imagined have turned real, I even became a Queen because of that.

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Right To Live-Wedding Ring Freakonomics

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We must revise our views and accept they way people want to live. This is especially true for cases that does not entail an adverse effect against any thing but our sensibilities. We must not deny people the right to find their happiness if it does not directly affect our happiness in any meaningful way.  Part of me hated making Sean Penn win the Best Actor award at the 81’st Academy Awards for political reasons (Mickey Rourke was really that good!), and I feared that it may be the reason the Slumdog Would lose the Best Picture awards, TGFT. But prop * was California’s black eye and till they find a way to redeem themselves they would always feel shamed with what they weren’t able to prevent!

My Wedding Ring
By Ian Ayres
With great joy, I decided to put my wedding ring back on my finger this past weekend.
I had stopped wearing my ring because I was slightly embarrassed to live in a state where people like my sister couldn’t marry the people they love.
But I have no reason now to be embarrassed on this score, because on Friday the Connecticut Supreme Court struck down the statutory exclusion. You can read Justice Palmer’s opinion here. (Disclosure: An amicus brief was filed in the case on behalf of me and other Connecticut law professors, and my spouse, Jennifer Gerarda Brown, was the co-author of another amicus brief.)
My Wedding Ring – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog.

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Pacquaio to go through strength training regimen

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So Manny Pacquiao is trying weight and strength training now, something that he should’ve done long ago. At this stage of his career, he can’t be in for the fight of his life and do things half-baked:

Unlike in his previous fight preparations, there will be strength and conditioning techniques, cross training and weight training this time to equip Pacquiao against whatever physical advantage De La Hoya has over him, according to a report in www.philboxing.com…
Strength and conditioning will be handled by Alex Ariza, who actually joined Team Pacquiao for the David Diaz fight last June.
Weight training, under Rob Peter’s watch, will entail rhythmic lifting of light weights to enhance Manny’s explosiveness to a large degree.
Pacquiao started sparring Tuesday against 5-foot-11 welterweight Rashad Holloway. Four more boxers will be called in to spar with the Filipino superstar in the next few weeks.
Last Wednesday, Pacquiao also started uphill jogs to build up his oxygen tank.
Incidentally, his 35-year-old nemesis has also been training in high altitude. For the first time since beating Arturo Gatti (in his last welterweight fight) in 2001, De La Hoya hightailed it to the snow-capped mountains of Big Bear, California, with master trainer Ignacio “Nacho” Beristain.
Link

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-Happy Square Root Day!-GMANews.TV – 3/3/09: Math fans to observe Square Root Day – Odds and Ends – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News – BETA

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3/3/09: Math fans to observe Square Root Day
03/03/2009 | 08:58 AM
REDWOOD CITY, California — Dust off the slide rules and recharge the calculators. Square Root Day is upon us.
The math-buffs’ holiday, which only occurs nine times each century, falls on Tuesday — 3/3/09 (for the mathematically challenged, three is the square root of nine).
GMANews.TV – 3/3/09: Math fans to observe Square Root Day – Odds and Ends – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News – BETA.

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Easy Way To Find Things To Do Great Work On (Advice from Paul Krugman)!

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I was, of course, only saying something that critics of conventional theory had been saying for decades. Yet my point was not part of the mainstream of international economics. Why? Because it had never been expressed in nice models. The new monopolistic competition models gave me a tool to open cleanly what had previously been regarded as a can of worms. More important, however, I suddenly realized the remarkable extent to which the methodology of economics creates blind spots. We just don’t see what we can’t formalize. And the biggest blind spot of all has involved increasing returns. So there, right at hand, was my mission: to look at things from a slightly different angle, and in so doing to reveal the obvious, things that had been right under our noses all the time.

From How I Work–Paul Krugman

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Cato Unbound » Blog Archive » Down with the Four-Year College Degree!

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I’m digging through unpublished/drafts in the blog and I found this. Its march already and students are starting to deal with finals and afterwards graduations, and finally the drudgery of work for most other people!  Thought provoking!

Finally, consider the hundreds of thousands of students who go to college just because they have had it pounded into their heads since childhood that the good jobs require a BA The wage premium that shows up in regression equations may or may not apply to them. In Real Education, I offer an extended example involving a hypothetical young man graduating from high school who is at the 70th percentile in intellectual ability–smart enough to get a BA in today’s world–but just average in intrapersonal and interpersonal ability. He is at the 95th percentile in the visual-spatial and small motor skills useful in becoming a top electrician. He is trying to decide whether to go to college, major in business, and try to become a business executive, or instead become an electrician.
Cato Unbound » Blog Archive » Down with the Four-Year College Degree!.

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-rePost-Welcome to Jeepney Tours – Discover the best of Manila with Jeepneytours

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This looks interesting! might try this sometime this summer!

Welcome to Manila Allow us to provide you with more than a great way to travel around the capital onboard a cultural icon of the Philippines, the Jeepney
The Jeepney is a unique transportation that can only be found in the Philippines. It was originally made from the US military jeeps that were left to the Filipinos after World War II, giving it the powerful engine of an army jeep. Due to Filipino ingenuity, the body was remodeled by adding some metal roofs and decorating it with vibrant colors. It has rapidly emerged as a creative and popular means of public transportation.
To allow the travelers to enjoy a more comfortable ride, we custom-made a luxurious 20-seater jeepney equipped with air conditioner, cooler and a tour facilitator. In the event of a traffic jam, fret not as we have a videoke system onboard to keep you entertained during the entire duration of your trip
The Jeepney Tours is an essential introduction to Manila in a fun and informative way and it links you to the attractions of the city. We invite you to experience all the magical sights and sounds of Manila in an entertaining, comfortable and secure environment.
You cannot say that you’ve been to Manila if you don’t ride a Jeepney
Travel with us and discover the best of Manila
Jeepney Features:
• Airconditioned Jeepney
• 20 seating capacity
• Videoke system onboard
• Cooler
Welcome to Jeepney Tours – Discover the best of Manila with Jeepneytours.

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rePost: Clinging to Ignorance:Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive Quite possibly the greatest high school English paper of all time «

One guy got hung up on the notion that Whitman was gay, and therefore refused to discuss the work and made a point of asking me, at the end of class, whether he needed to keep the poems for any reason, and when I told him no, he made a big point of tossing the poems into the trash in front of me. That was depressing enough, but the truly depressing part wasn’t that my “students” (I use the term very loosely) didn’t appreciate Whitman. The truly depressing part was that many of them, nearly all of them, could not comprehend Whitman. And I don’t mean they didn’t understand the imagery. I mean they could not read the sentences and parse them for meaning. They could not understand, from line to line, what was going on in a poem. These students had graduated from high school and were attending university. It was terrifying. Worse yet, they were obstinate about their ignorance, determined to cling to it, resistant to any attempts to help them understand how to read sentences in their own native language. In short, they liked being ignorant. They were proud of it.
Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive Quite possibly the greatest high school English paper of all time «.