Blog Marco

We previously had a look at what the term "pound for pound" meant. This time we look at the current top fifty (50) Pound for Pound Boxers in this point in time. Remember this list is PURELY SUBJECTIVE. Perhaps a mathematical equation can be used to find out who is the best boxer pound for pound. ([Number of Wins - Number of Losses - (0.5 * Number of Draws)]/[Weight (Pounds)]) Or maybe something more complicated to add in other variables such as KO's, TKO's, length of match, number of punches thrown and landed, etc...

Current Top Fifty (50) Boxers Pound For Pound

1. Floyd Mayweather Jr. (147)
2. Manny Pacquiao (140)
3. Joe Calzaghe (175)
4. Juan Manuel Marquez (135)
5. Israel Vazquez (122)
6. Bernard Hopkins (175)
7. Shane Mosley (147)
8. Paul Williams (154)
9. Rafael Marquez (122)
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Submitted by Marco on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 11:34am.

"Pound for pound (the best boxer)" in boxing means to subjectively rank all the boxers disregarding weight class. So taking the boxer's skill/style/etc except their weight class who would be the best? "Pound for pound" is also used in mixed martial arts and other combat sports to describe a fighter's value in relation to fighters of different weight classes. (By the way - in the photo are Pacquaio and Mayweather Jr.)

The origin of the "pound for pound" terminology was coined to describe world Welterweight and Middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson. Robinson is one of the most accomplished fighters of all time, but his supporters realized that, while he could beat anyone in his own class, as a Middleweight he would not be able to beat a top Heavyweight. Hence, Robinson was called the pound-for-pound best without being expected to beat much larger fighters, under the belief that he as a Middleweight was still a better quality fighter than any fighter fighting at heavier or lighter weights than him.

Here's the recipe I use for making a pizza base. This quantity makes about 4 x 30cm diameter pizzas. Put whatever topping you want with Tomato sauce, basil, and cheese (mozarella).

Here's the recipe for a perfect pizza base: Mix 400g Strong Flour with 350mL warm water + 7g Sachet of Yeast + Brown Sugar to feed the yeast fungi. Mix it up the dough and clump it together. Then cover your mixing bowl with a tea towel or glad wrap and place in a warm place. (I put it on top of my computer or a warm window sill) After an hour, preheat the oven at about 240 degrees centigrade and get 200g of soft flour, a pinch of salt, a dash of olive oil (experiment with the amount) and mix together and knead the dough for about 5 to 10 minutes with your hands. We use a pizza stone to bake the pizza - I sprinkle the stone with bran to stop the pizza sticking to the stone. Put your toppings on. The oven is now preheated some 15 - 20 minutes. Place your pizza in the oven. Time to cook should be 8 to 15 minutes depending if your over is fan forced or not. Just be careful you don't burn your crust or your cheese. When cheese becomes "sunburnt" it doesn't taste as good and is really chewy instead of gooey.

Ever wondered how fish sauce is made? Fish sauce is an Asian dipping condiment and also an essential ingredient to many dishes in Vietnamese, Thai, Lao, Cambodian, and Filipino cuisine and is used in other Southeast Asian countries.

Different fish sauces have different ingredients: Some fish sauces (extracts) are made from raw fish, others from dried fish; some from only a single species, others from whatever is dredged up in the net, including some shellfish; some from whole fish, others from only the blood or viscera. Some fish sauces contain only fish and salt, others add a variety of herbs and spices. Fish sauce that has been only briefly fermented has a pronounced fishy taste, while extended fermentation reduces this and gives the product a nuttier, cheesier flavor.

In other words - fish sauce = rotten fish. But it tastes good. More info here: How fish sauce is made

Viewers know that Doomsday is coming to Smallville in the next few episodes and KNOWING that Superman has to die if the writers and producers want to stick to the myth (created by DC Comics). Which brings me to the question - is Clark Kent aka Superman immortal?

It's known that kryptonite weakens Superman (Although he does eventually become immune to it) and magic can also influence him. Also extreme energy usage as in the fight with Doomsday also weakens Superman to the point where he dies from his wounds. And also, because of the yellow Sun (where he receives his superpowers) the more exposure he has to it the more "immortal" or "Super" Superman becomes - but still mortal as he ages slower (the rate of decay of his body's cells are slower).

A great condiment to have with steak is Worcestershire sauce... Worcestershire... its one of those mysterious English words with weird pronunciation. How do you say Worcestershire (Sauce) anyway? It's that obscure word which a lot of people are afraid to say. Wikipedia says it pronounced this way: /ˈwʊstəˌʃɪər/ But who has time to decipher that code?

Some websites claim Worcestershire is said like: "Woos-tur-shur". Or "wer-chis-ter"... or even try Wurs-ster-sheer or Wurs-ster-shire or Wurs-ster-shur or Woos-ster-shur.

With all the news about the swine flu virus ravaging over the world plastered everywhere, I wonder what the difference is between an endemic, epidemic and a pandemic. (By the way, the photo has a random influenza virus illustrated in brown and the cilia from your lungs in blue)

An endemic is an infectious communicable disease (such as colds, influenza, measles, mumps, tuberculosis, pneumonia, smallpox) that exists permanently in a particular region or population. An epidemic occurs when this disease attack "a lot of" people at about the same time and may spread through one or several communities. A pandemic occurs when an epidemic spreads across the world.

The World Health Organisation has raised the pandemic alert level from phase four to phase five, signalling that a pandemic is "imminent". Here are the six different "pandemic influenza phases" defined by the WHO:

Phase 1: A virus circulates among animals but with no cases reported of infections in humans.

Phase 2: An animal flu virus is known to have caused infection in humans, and therefore considered a potential pandemic threat.

This website died for a few hours. Hopefully this information will help someone else with the same fail conditions. Some garbled error messages came up:

MySQL Error: Can't open file: somefile.MYD (errno: 145)
MySQL Error: Can't open file: node.MYD (errno: 145)

...along with random mysql queries and other fail or fatal error messages. After scrambling for an answer browsing through help pages and forums I found that this error is a result of two things:
1) Database crashed and is corrupt. Solution: Use phpMyAdmin to repair tables.
2) Full disk, MySQL will crash if your disk is full. Solution delete stuff, geta bigger hard drive.

So my host expanded my site space temporarily and I cleared my host hard drive space so MYSQL has more wiggle room. FIXED!

It's time to finally tune up the old car. First of all, why should I regularly tune up a car? A car is a machine - and in order for it to run properly it has to be maintained and worn out parts need to be replaced. Tuning up a car will allow the car to perform at its optimal level and may also extend the life of the car's engine. I like to be informed before bringing my car to the mechanic so here's a little more research:

So, what is a car tune up? What actually happens when I bring my car in for service for a tune up? A tune up replaces any worn out car parts. The air filter needs to be replaced every year (or more often if you're located in a dusty area). Having a dirty air filter will reduce the amount of air coming through to the combustion stage and alter the air:fuel ratio - meaning wasted fuel.

Other car parts that may be replaced during a car tune up:

• Fuel Filter - Fuel needs to get through to the cylinders. Replacement helps fuel economy and extends life of fuel pump
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Submitted by Marco on Wed, 08/04/2009 - 12:01pm.

I was watching a DVD of an old tv series called "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" (You know the verison with Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher?) In one of the episodes one of the characters mention going to Gotham City. Which reminded me that Superman and Batman exist in the same DC Universe (as opposed to the Marvel Comic universe where Spiderman, Fantastic Four and X-Men exist) [Oh how geeky is this?!). So the question is how far is Superman's city Metropolis from Batman's city of Gotham?

The answer is not definite. It depends on which comic or TV show you're watching. In TV show, Smallville (which is supposed to be in Kansas) Metropolis is close by as characters easily commute between the big city and the small town. In a Role Playing Game (RPG) in the late 1980s had both Gotham City and Metropolis on the East Coast of New Jersey.

It is also interesting to note that Gotham is a nickname for New York City - used since early 19th Century. Frank Miller (Director of Dark Knight and Sin City) has said that "Metropolis is New York in the daytime; Gotham City is New York at night.

I'm tired to listening to the FM radio. In Sydney the popular radio stations of 2DayFM, Triple M, Mix 106.5, WSFM 101.7, 96.1FM and Nova 96.9 FM keep playing the same songs along with those tiresome repetitive radio advertisement jingles. Well, you probably have heard of internet radio, podcasting, having your own tracklists on your ipod, etc... I've written about internet radio stations before. Here I'm looking for free chillout or ambient internet music stations.

One of the better chillout music stations is from the LastFM Chillout channel. The good thing is that you can tell the radio station if you like the track or not. The station is fully customised to what you want. Although they do have quite a large collection of music - they don't have everything.

I found this cartoon of heaven a while back. Enjoy!

Have you ever what secrets lie in a laptop battery pack? Well I asked myself that exact question. What is inside my laptop battery pack? Well this is it (see photo above and video below). The pack is just a bunch of AA cells in a tight configuration, soldered together and packed in with some circuitry. Yep, just inexpensive AA's in a plastic casing. Why am I interested in this? My laptop battery pack used to hold about 7 to 8 hours of charge for my laptop (unbelieveable? believe it - its for the legendary IBM Thinkpad X40). Now, after 4-5 years it can only hold about 1.5 hours. So its time to find a replacement (or I can open it up and replace the internal rechargeable AA's myself if I'm brave enough). But I think i'll pass - I don't want to risk putting in a battery backwards or risking explosion while soldiering lithium batteries together. Perhaps buying a generic brand replacement would be cheaper than buying the genuine battery part.

It's about time. Finally some action after last weeks somewhat boring episode of Battlestar. Again hop along to Mo's and Alan's blog if you want to read more in depth into the episode. All I'm doing here is a little ranting and raving as well as some summarising...

But that was interesting stuff. We see Gaeta's plan come into action... A mutiny and revolution is underway. Goes to show how important communications is important - Gaeta used his position to his advantage. Of course I wanted Adama to be "right" but it seems that Gaeta and Zarek are on the "right side" now... (which side is the right side now???) At the beginning they were at war with the Cylons and now they are in an alliance. At the beginning Adama didn't want Battlestar Galactica to be networked let alone have any Cylon tech on any of the ships - now he wants Cylon FTL jump drives on all ships. The Cylons have infiltrated all levels of Battlestar command (aka the final five). It was great to see Starbuck again involved in some action and less moping around.

Robert Mugabe (President of Zimbabwe) should watch the above Ducktales cartoon... it teaches a good lesson why you should not keep printing money... The Zimbabwean inflation rate is at world record levels at 231 million percent inflation. Their government budget is sized t $US 3 billion, but in their local Zimbabwean dollars it is 66,500,000,000,000,000,000 - and rising.