I saw a couple of signs on the wall. The first one looked ok: It read “Wet Paint”. I didn’t touch to see if it was really wet or not.

The next further down the corridor was a sign that went a bit further, and read:

I went back and took photos of the two signs!

Chandra Bahadur Dangi from Nepal is declared the shortest person in the last week of February, last month.

A tiny man, also from Nepal, Khagendra Thapa Magar, was the shortest person in the world until 7 cm shorter Junrey Balawing from Philippines turned 18 and claimed the title in June last year.

Now, another Nepali has become world’s shortest person ever. The 72 year-old man is also the oldest person claiming to be the shortest person in the world.

Last year, Ted Williams was homeless and standing on the side of roads holding a sign that said he had a great voice. Now, he lives in his own condo, and believes miracles has happened in the last year.

Last year, the Columbus Dispatch newspaper posted a video shot by Doral Chenoweth in YouTube that got viral (attached below) and, he got offers to work in radio.

After a three-month drug rehabilitation program, Ted was good to work in a Boston-based cable network. Currently living just outside Columbus, Ohio in Dublin, Ted is now sober, happy, and has also written a book named “A Golden Voice” to be released in May.

Ted Williams, a homeless Ohio man with a golden radio voice has already received job offers after this video, first posted by The Columbus Dispatch, made him an online sensation.

According to the Experian Hitwise report, Facebook was the top searched word in search engines this year. It was not only the first, four out of ten top search had the word ‘Facebook’ in them. Google’s YouTube was the second, Craigslist the fourth.  

1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Facebook Login
4. Craigslist
5. Facebook.com
6. Yahoo
7. eBay
8. www.facebook.com
9. Mapquest
10. Yahoo.com

Continue Reading »
‘Facebook’ was the most searched term in 2011

The 18th birthday of Jyoti Amge, from India, was filled with joy when she was declared the world’s shortest woman by Guinness Book of World Records.

The 62.8 centimeters (24.7 inches) tall lady looked like a doll in her traditional Indian dress. Jyoti is 7 centimeters shorter than the previous title holder, Bridgette Jordan, a 22-year-old American.

Until Dec. 16, 2011 she held the title of world’s shortest teenager. In the last two years, Jyoti has only grown 1 cm taller. In a statement Guinness said that she will not grow more due to a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia.

Historically, the title of the shortest woman was held by Pauline Musters, from the Netherlands, who lived from 1876 to 1895 and was only 61 centimeters tall.

A BC resident, Sum Ying Fung died on December 6, 2011 in Burnaby General Hospital at the age of 112 years. Born in China on January 27, 1899, she had less than two months to turn 113 years.

in 1911, Her husband Chong Lim Fung, came to Canada before marrying her. When he went back to China to marry her, the Canadian government didn’t allow her to join her husband in Canada.

It was only in 1954, the government allowed Sum Ying Fung and their children were allowed to immigrate. Her husband died in 1967.

The City of Vancouver had recognized Fung’s 112th birthday on January 27, 2010 and she also received a letter from the Queen. (Photo credit CBC)

After the analysis of millions of stolen passwords that end up posted online, SplashData has created a rankings of the worst passwords of 2011. SplashData specializes on password management and security solution.

According to the list, the worst password of all is “password” itself followed by 123456.  Some of the common phrases like “letmein” and “iloveyou” also rank 8th and 13th in the list.

1. password
2. 123456
3. 2345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football

The worst are listed. But, what about the best or the strongest passwords? The company has three suggestions to make it difficult for intruders to guess your passwords:

• include numbers, letters and special characters whenever possible.
• choose password that has 8 characters or more.
• It’s bad idea to use use the same passwords in multiple websites or accounts. Password managers can be used to keep track of various passwords (this is SplashData’s main business)

Personally, I don’t believe in password managers. I would prefer the difficulty of password depending on the importance of the account and use a pattern of passwords so that they are easier to remember. Even if I forget a password I can get to the right one after a couple of tries. In almost every websites, there are options to reset password, in worst case.

The Trick-or-Treaters in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada wrote a letter in response to a homeowner’s decision of not handing out Halloween candies. The kids calling themselves “Children of the Hood” also told about the previous owner Miss Toby who was generous enough to hand out candy apples.

The kids told that it was a mistake not to hand out candies in Halloween so they should correct it next year.

The homeowner posted the letter in Kijiji, a classified advertisement site with the title, “Looking for the author of this letter (see image)”.

Smart kids!

A 100-year-old man from UK, Fauja Singh, finished last at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon on October 16, 2011. Although, he was last to finish the 42.195-kilometre marathon in 8 hours, that was, 6 hours after the winner Kenneth Mungara of Kenya finished it, he is proud to finish it as the the oldest runner.

Guinness reject birthdate in British Passport

The marathon organizers, Ontario Masters Athletics, has officially been recognized Singh’s feat. But, the Guinness official claim that he hasn’t supplied enough proof to support he is 100 year-old. Fauja doesn’t have of a birth certificate and they won’t accept the birthdate printed in his British passport.

Singh, a Punjabi, can’t  read or write and lives in east London. He has a British passport that states he was born on April 1, 1911, in India. But, he doesn’t have a birth certificate. According to his friends, during the time of Singh’s birth, in 1911, they had no mechanism to issue a birth certificate. India was an English colony at that time.

It was the eight marathon of the five-foot-eight, 115-pound Singh, nicknamed the Turbaned Tornado . He started running marathon at the age of 89 in 2000 in London after he lost his wife and child.

Continue Reading »
Oldest Marathon runner – Sorry, no Guinness record

It’s flowers’ time, again. It has been some time since I wrote the last post dedicated to flower and National flowers.

Flowers touch a person’s heart and brings peace and tranquility in a person. Literatures give flowers  a special treatment and are compared with women, beauty, love, and peace. A boutique on the table brings the room to life. Although the primary value of flowers are beauty and the fruits that follow them.

In modern times, people cultivate, buy, wear, or otherwise be around flowers because of their good appearance and pleasant smell. Around the world, the use flowers varies in a wide range of events and functions:

• Flowers as gifts and decoration in new births or Christenings
• A corsage or boutonniere worn in social functions or in holidays
• Tokens of love or esteem
• Wedding flowers for bridal parties and hall decoration
• Home decoration and table-top decorations
• Gift of remembrance for bon voyage parties, welcome home parties
• Casual "thinking of you" gifts
• Funeral flowers and sympathy for the grieving
• Memorial ceremonies and paying homage to dead people
• Worshiping Gods and Goddesses (Common in Hindu culture).

Apart from their uses in events and function, personal usages, they are also used in various business. The most common use might be selling the flower as a whole, but there are other industries that depend on flowers. Some of the industries that use flowers are:

Continue Reading »
The uses of flowers