Blog Marco

Join the latest craze! Instead of wearing a sexy bikini consider wearing a Burqini this Summer beach season. With in-built SPF50+ protection, this modest swimsuit for any lady, woman or girl, you won't need to worry about sunscreen. (except for the exposed facial part). Made with polyester, it is chlorine, water repellent and quick drying.

Aheda Zanetti is the Australian inventor of this modest swimsuit, humbly called a Burqini (a play on the word bikini). The leg and head covering polyester swimsuit was brought to market in 2003 and is highly controversial in many countries. The swimsuit was banned in most countries before being accepted. For example, the burqini was initially banned in the UK, The Netherlands Germany, Sweden and Austria before being approved. More recently, a 35-year-old French woman was banned from her local swimming pool after wearing the swimsuit. Business is booming for the burqini as Muslim and non-Muslim women seek a conservative approach in their swimwear.

The Seven Deadly Sins, the Capital Vices or Cardinal Sins, is a list of the most objectionable vices which tend to destroy the life of grace and create eternal damnation that can only be absolved through Confession or be forgiven through the perfect contrition of the penitent.

The Lord, in the Book of Proverbs, specifically regards these as haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief, a deceitful witness that uttereth lies and him that soweth discord among brethren.

The Epistle to the Galatians gave another list which also included the traditional seven sins. Pope Gregory I, in 590 AD, revised such but was consequently changed because the traits weren't collectively referred to by the Bible itself. The modern concept of the Seven Deadly Sins is linked to Evagrius Ponticus, a 4th century monk, who listed eight Latin evil thoughts which then gave birth to the modern concept of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Is it incest to marry your first cousin? Why am I even writing and researching this? My inquiries all started with this unusual question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire where the hosts asks: "Which of these famous people was never married to his first cousin?" Is that even legal? Did you know household names such as Edgar Allan Poe, HG Wells, Charles Darwin, Johann Bach, Jerry Lee Lewis, Igor Stravinsky, John Adams and Albert Einstein have married their first cousins? (oh and perhaps most of Europe's royal family - but I think thats common knowledge) oh and also (Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, and his second cousin once removed, Regina Peruggi)... plenty more names...

I have the mother of all conspiracy theories... The robots and the bears are quietly planning their conquest for world domination. The bears have been busy examining bikes and learning how to cycle. While robots are advancing so fast... Where am I coming up with all these weird and crazy ideas?

There were two articles of interest in my weekend reading: "Bear-Proof Can Is Pop-Top Picnic for a Crafty Thief" and "Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man".

Be Afraid... Be very afraid... the robots are soon going to be taking over the world... complete with Skynet and Terminator...

Cars.Gov the new cash for clunkers website was launched last Monday. The government website offers information on how the process of trading an older vehicle for a more-efficient model will work, and urges customers to call dealers to see if they will register for the program. Last Thursday, US Congress sent the $1-billion Cash for Clunkers 2009 bill to President Barack Obama for his signature. The Cash for Clunkers program should put $3,500 to $4,500 in the pockets of about 250,000 people trading in older gas guzzlers for new, more environmentally friendly cars.

Cash for Clunkers 2009 – Car Allowance Rebate System

The cash for clunkers program is supposed to help get old cars off the road and replace them with newer more safer, fuel efficient vehicles. Here are the rules:

• Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
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Submitted by Marco on Wed, 24/06/2009 - 8:43am.

I was reading a few forums about learning about "money making" schemes and gurus and one forum member advised to take their advice "with a pinch of salt." To take (advice) with a pinch of salt means: to listen to a story or an explanation with considerable doubt or to take a story and not completely believing in it and refusing to believe it is completely true. Where does this idiom come from? In Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, 77 A.D. he writes:

After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.

More recently, John Trapp wrote in "Commentary on the Old and New Testaments", 1647:

"This is to be taken with a grain of salt."

There are plenty of spoof motivational posters out there, some websites even claim to have 53,000 of them! But a "good" one is a rarity, most are unfunny, crude, rude and tacky. This motivational poster makes you look twice. (!) Is it a Sexy Butt or are they a pair of sexy heels?

Blasphemy - "A ticket to Hell Has Never been funnier" - YMCA

I don't usually repost jokes but here's a goodie about what a widowed wife did with her husbands money.

There was a man who worked all of his life and saved all of his money. He was a real miser when it came to his money. He loved money more than just about anything, and just before he died, he said to his wife, "Now listen, when I die, I want you to take all my money and place it in the casket with me. I wanna take my money to the afterlife."

So he got his wife to promise him with all her heart that when he died, she would put all the money in the casket with him.

Well, one day he died. He was stretched out in the casket, the wife was sitting there in black next to her closest friend. When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said "Wait just a minute!"

She had a shoe box with her, she came over with the box and placed it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket down and rolled it away. Her friend said, "I hope you weren't crazy enough to put all that money in the casket."

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Submitted by Marco on Thu, 14/05/2009 - 8:41am.

I had my car tuned up last month. And now the car started playing up. The car is a 1989 Holden Apollo aka a rebadged Toyota Camry. The car is actually going to celebrate its 20th birthday on the 20th of October this year! Anyway, the car started to have "attitude problems" a week ago. When in neutral, the car would sputter as if it were dying. Other days it would run really smoothly. Then if the car was in a bad mood, when you're cruising, it would suddenly have difficulty in changing gears. I thought the transmission was gone. But the problem was with the high tension leads.

I brought in the car for the mechanic to check. For I know nothing about what's under the hood. I mean, I know that you need to maintain the oil levels and other lubricants under there - the air filters etc. I know the engine runs the car through valves etc... but I don't have the knowledge to diagnose the problem. Anyway - it wasn't the transmission - but the High tension leads were cracked.

After the Sudoku Fun from yesterday, I decided to try the next upcoming "craze": KenKen. First of all why is it called KenKen? "'KEN' means wisdom in Japanese. KenKen means "wisdom squared," but you'll also gain some square wisdom as you solve our puzzle blocks!". If you want to learn more you can go visit the official website here: KenKen HQ.

KenKen Rules in Solving a Puzzle

For a 3x3 puzzle, fill in with numbers 1-3.
For a 4x4 puzzle, fill in with numbers 1-4.
For a 5x5 puzzle, fill in with numbers 1-5.
For a 6x6 puzzle, fill in with the numbers 1-6.
For a 7x7 puzzle, fill in with the numbers 1-7.
For a 8x8 puzzle, fill in with the numbers 1-8.
For a 9x9 puzzle, fill in with the numbers 1-9.

Do not repeat a number in any row or column.
The numbers in each heavily outlined set of squares, called cages, must combine (in any order) to produce the target number in the top corner of the cage using the mathematical operation indicated.

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Submitted by Marco on Tue, 12/05/2009 - 12:19pm.

I knew that Sudoku was a craze a few years ago. I didn't know the rules of the game until today and have not tried a puzzle ever. I played my first game on the miniclip Sudoku page. I completed the puzzle in 17 minutes and 57 seconds. If you are into the facsinating world of mathematics you may want to read this. However there is a new puzzle craze out there called KenKen

Sudoku (数独 ,sūdoku?)is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9 only one time each. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid.

Completed puzzles are usually a type of Latin square with an additional constraint on the contents of individual regions.

Schadenfreude - delight in another person's misfortune: there's a word for everything isn't there?! Usage: "The explosion in productivity, transparency, community and knowledge has been accompanied by largely unfettered pettiness, vituperation and schadenfreude." (from this opinion piece)

According to Wikipedia: Schadenfreude (IPA: [ˈʃaːdənˌfʁɔʏ̯də]) is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. The word referring to this emotion has been borrowed from German by the English language and is sometimes also used as a loanword by other languages. Philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno defined schadenfreude as “largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another which is cognized as trivial and/or appropriate.

I was surfing around and I stumbled on a bunch of Tae Kwon Do (TKD) videos on YouTube. Some comments to some of the videos said that the moves in one step sparring are robotic, not fluid and therefore unrealistic. The commenter also said that "You would never survive in a real fight if you relied on those moves as your defense." And another: "Not good. The practioners are WAY too far apart to make this effective training. In sparring or, God forbid, a real fight, the person will try to attack from too far a distance or have no experience in defending a real attack." When I used to train in TKD - I had the same thoughts in my mind, and so did the other students. We used to joke around about how funny and unrealistic the movements are. But in reality, this exercise trains your overall technique and discipline. One step sparring is done repetitively - and eventually it becomes second nature. So if ever the moment arises that you need to execute a move, you wouldn't even think it - you'll just act out the best move for that circumstance.