Tawauonline.org

Of 200 Jobs studied, these came out on top — and at the bottom:

Source taken from here. Want more interesting.?? visit worst-jobs.com

Taken from Linux.com

The past couple of years have seen an explosion of open source programming languages and utilities that are geared toward children. Many of these efforts are based around the idea that, since the days of BASIC, programming environments have become far too complex for untrained minds to wrap themselves around. Some toolkits aim to create entirely new ways of envisioning and creating projects that appeal to younger minds, such as games and animations, while others aim to recreate the “basic”-ness of BASIC in a modern language and environment.

Read the whole article here.

This is so interesting. Maybe someday they will teach simple programming like this at primary school. Well, they teach Java, C, and HTML in secondary school, who knows what the future might hold.??

Anyway, Happy New Year 2009. I still have a lots of things to do, and not yet post a compilation of the most and most of 2008. But, I’ll try to make it by this week.

News taken from here

SAN FRANCISCO – The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.

Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.

In her San Francisco dining room lab, for example, 31-year-old computer programmer Meredith L. Patterson is trying to develop genetically altered yogurt bacteria that will glow green to signal the presence of melamine, the chemical that turned Chinese-made baby formula and pet food deadly.

“People can really work on projects for the good of humanity while learning about something they want to learn about in the process,” she said.

So far, no major gene-splicing discoveries have come out anybody’s kitchen or garage.

But critics of the movement worry that these amateurs could one day unleash an environmental or medical disaster. Defenders say the future Bill Gates of biotech could be developing a cure for cancer in the garage.

Many of these amateurs may have studied biology in college but have no advanced degrees and are not earning a living in the biotechnology field. Some proudly call themselves “biohackers” — innovators who push technological boundaries and put the spread of knowledge before profits.

In Cambridge, Mass., a group called DIYbio is setting up a community lab where the public could use chemicals and lab equipment, including a used freezer, scored for free off Craigslist, that drops to 80 degrees below zero, the temperature needed to keep many kinds of bacteria alive.

Co-founder Mackenzie Cowell, a 24-year-old who majored in biology in college, said amateurs will probably pursue serious work such as new vaccines and super-efficient biofuels, but they might also try, for example, to use squid genes to create tattoos that glow.

Cowell said such unfettered creativity could produce important discoveries.

“We should try to make science more sexy and more fun and more like a game,” he said.

Patterson, the computer programmer, wants to insert the gene for fluorescence into yogurt bacteria, applying techniques developed in the 1970s.

She learned about genetic engineering by reading scientific papers and getting tips from online forums. She ordered jellyfish DNA for a green fluorescent protein from a biological supply company for less than $100. And she built her own lab equipment, including a gel electrophoresis chamber, or DNA analyzer, which she constructed for less than $25, versus more than $200 for a low-end off-the-shelf model.

Jim Thomas of ETC Group, a biotechnology watchdog organization, warned that synthetic organisms in the hands of amateurs could escape and cause outbreaks of incurable diseases or unpredictable environmental damage.

“Once you move to people working in their garage or other informal location, there’s no safety process in place,” he said.

Some also fear that terrorists might attempt do-it-yourself genetic engineering. But Patterson said: “A terrorist doesn’t need to go to the DIYbio community. They can just enroll in their local community college.”

Credit to yahoo! news

Wired.com make a nice list of product that can make us forget ‘08. This is my favourite one on the list.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700

Sleek Sony Cam Shows Off Family Photos on the Spot

Face it: No one checks your Flickr page. The only time friends see your photos is when you whip out the old digicam and cruise through whatever happens to be stored on it. The crafty folks at Sony know this, which is why they made the Cyber-shot DSC-T700, a pocket snapper that’s as adept at displaying images as it is at capturing them. Just 0.7-inch thick, the sleek case incorporates a 10.1-MP sensor and Carl Zeiss lens, giving pictures a crispness rarely found in compact cameras. Flip it over and you’ll find that the back is literally all display — a 3.5-inch, 16:9 touchscreen that replaces every hard button except Review, Zoom, Power, and Shutter. But this rig’s beauty goes way beyond the surface: 4 gigs of onboard memory hold up to 950 hi-res shots. So enough with the uploading. Quit spamming the world with links to 40 shots of your lunch and start bragging with this. —John Mahoney

$400

For the whole list, visits here. Credit to Wired.com for the list.

p/s : sorry for the late update. I’ve been terribly sick these few days. I got a flu, fever and and a bad cough. Barely lost my voice.

10. “Waka Waka Waka, etc.”—Pac-man
Fauzy from the Muppet Babies, is that you? Nope, it’s just everybody’s favorite yellow one-third-of-a-pizza chomping down on pellets while avoiding ghosts, or Ku Klux Klan members, or whatever the hell, Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde happen to be. If you’re good enough to get past the first few rounds, you can even almost forget that Pac-Man is rude enough to talk while he’s eating, as the sound just becomes natural after awhile. Don’t forget the power pellet on your way around the bend!

9. “Aaaaaarrrrriiiiieeeesssss!!!!!”—Kratos, God of War
Shouting at the top of his lungs, Kratos, the pasty anti-hero of the ultra-violent series, God of War, made it clear from the very onset that he was ready to take on the gods. I personally love vendetta stories, and God of War has one of the greatest, this shouted phrase being testament of a character of insurmountable power. Who knew that Kyle Barker from Living Single had such a killer voice?

8. “I’m sorry, but your princess is in another castle”—Toad, Super Mario Bros.
Whether that’s really Toad or not sitting there, fatter and plumper than he’s ever been, is disputable. But what isn’t disputable is that whoever he is, he’s going to be the bearer of bad news, telling you that you went through all that trouble just for nothing. No wonder Mario bangs his head on so many damn bricks all the time.

7. “Aym Banjo, whoooooa!”—Banjo in Diddy Kong Racing
While Diddy Kong Racing might most be remembered for its multi-vehicle awesomeness and Conker the squirl’s miscasting (He used to be so sweet before that dreadful, Bad Fur Day of his), what I remember most about this game was clicking on Banjo from Banjo-Kazooie fame and hearing his God-awful voice. Seriously, could he BE any more Red-necktified? I never saw him the same way again after that.

6. “Upside down whirlwind !#?whirlwind!”—Q*Bert
And you call yourself a gamer? If you can’t read that phrase up above, then you need to play Q*Bert again and land on one of the many enemies that pervade the playing field. That profane little whatever he is, is swearing up a storm!

5. “Jill, here’s a lockpick. It might be handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you.”—Barry Burton, Resident Evil
Okay, what? Wasn’t anybody at Capcom aware that this is one of the worst statements in the history of video game statements ever? First off, who even addresses a person by what they’re good at? It’s not like you’re going to say to me, “Rich, here are some Zubaz pants. It might be handy if you, the master of imitating Joey Buttafuoco, put them on.” That would just be plain silly. And second off, well, there is no second off, this phrase is just plain stupid.

4. “I am error.”—random fat dude in “The Legend of Zelda 2”
It’s been said that this was merely an error in the translation (“I am Errol,” is what some people claim he’s supposed to say), but seriously, can’t anybody check these things out first before they ship them over here? At least it’s not nearly as bad as this next one.

3. “All your base are belong to us.”—CATS, Zero Wing
Whoever this CATS character is seriously needs to brush up on his engrish. If you can actually find the transcripts of what was originally intended for the game, though, you’ll find that it was actually pretty good. At least, good compared to lines like, “Somebody set up us the bomb,” and “You have no chance to survive make your time.” If this is all it takes to become a translator, writing nonsense, then please sign me up immediately.

2. “Do a barrel roll!/Try a somersault!/Use the boost to get through!”—Peppy Hare, Star Fox 64
Oh, Peppy, Peppy, Peppy, bless your heart for being so enthusiastic about your work. I love how every line Peppy says sounds like it has to be louder and more demanding than the last. It makes lines like, “Your father used to do it like that, too!” sound justified. You actually feel proud for following Peppy’s instructions. And heck, half the time, he’s right. I really DO need to do a barrel roll.

1. Hadouken!—Sonic Boom!—Ryu/Ken, Guile, Street Fighter series
Ah, childhood. You could not walk into an arcade without hearing, “Hadouken!”, “Sonic boom!” volleyed back and forth like a tennis match. Sometimes, I’d stand by the arcade cabinet, waiting for my turn to play and watch whole matches that consisted of nothing but hadoukens and sonic booms, the Ryu’s and Ken’s usually beating out the Guile’s since they didn’t have to hold back for two seconds or anything like that. Whoever thought of the idea of shouting out your attack (Probably DBZ creator, Akira Toriyama) before fired it was ingenius, absolutely ingenius. Yoga. Yoga. Yoga. Yoga flame!

Credit via Cinemablend

This is really very good article from lifehacker. It give you the idea on how Windows 7 will look like. Read the whole article at http://lifehacker.com/5078582/top-10-things-to-look-forward-to-in-windows-7