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13-story apartment building collapsed in Shanghai (Original Photos)

Reported China Journal: In the weekend’s bizarrest news, a nearly finished, newly constructed building in Shanghai toppled over, killing one worker. As can be seen in the photo below, the 13-story apartment building collapsed with just enough room to escape what would have been a far more destructive domino effect involving other structures in the 11-building complex. See original photos here.

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Transformers Animated

Based on the Cartoon Network’s animated television series, this well-crafted oneplayer Nintendo DS fighting title lets you take control of your favorite Autobot characters, including Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Prow.
As you make your way through each level of the side-scrolling kids game, you collect the lost fragments of the Allspark before the Decepticons intercept it and claim Cybertron as their own. Got that? As you blast through Decepticon-controlled hoverbots, you try to solve puzzles and race through a futuristic Detroit — avoiding oncoming traffic while changing from robot to vehicle form. This makes perfect sense, if you’ve watched the show. Features include three game save slots.
Besides the cartoon violence on par with the show, there is no worrisome content. In short, this is another action-packed fighting game designed to extend and transform the Transformers into an interactive medium. Developed by Artificial Mind and Movement exclusively for the Nintendo DS.
Details: Activision, Inc. Ages: 7-up. Platform: Nintendo DS.

Link to buy Transformers Animated game

The Golem and the Wondrous Deeds of the Maharal of Prague. Review

Yudl Rosenberg’s 1909 version of the traditional Jewish folktale of the Golem transformed this story forever. The Golem is a man made by rabbis from clay and given life, usually by means of Kabbalistic practice. Rosenberg’s book became an immediate bestseller and was immensely influential. It masqueraded as an original account of sixteenth-century events, divided into self-contained stories, which centred on the “Maharal,” the maker of the Golem. “The Maharal of Prague” is another name for Rabbi Judah Loew Ben Bezalel (1525–1609). Rosenberg’s book ensured that he was best known for his fictitious role in the Golem legends, but his reputation as an important thinker of the post-Medieval period is growing. Loew developed an entirely new approach to the aggadah of the Talmud. He was also a progressive educationalist and an enlightened student of science. Far from being a practitioner of the secret arts, his reputation for mysticism rests on his translation of Kabbalistic ideas into clearly accessible terminology. In Rosenberg’s stories this historical personage is transformed into a protector of the Jewish people, whose knowledge of Kabbalah gives him superhuman powers.

An important reason for the success of Rosenberg’s book was a very strong interest in the occult, widely shared by his contemporaries, both Jewish and non-Jewish. This partly explains why this version of the ancient Golem tale transcended a Jewish audience and became widely known. The importance and influence of Rosenberg’s version is beyond dispute, which means that Curt Leviant’s translation performs a vital role in making this book available to a broader audience.

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Robbery

Excerpted from an article which appeared in The Dublin Times about a bank robbery on March 2.
Once inside the bank shortly after midnight, their efforts at disabling the security system got underway immediately. The robbers, who expected to find one or two large safes filled with cash & valuables, were
surprised to see hundreds of smaller safes throughout the bank.
The robbers cracked the first safe’s combination, and inside they found only a small bowl of vanilla pudding.
As recorded on the bank’s audio tape system, one robber said, ‘At least we’ll have a bit to eat.’
The robbers opened up a second safe, and it also contained nothing but vanilla pudding. The process continued until all safes were opened.
They did not find one pound sterling, a diamond, or an ounce of gold.
Instead, all the safes contained covered little bowls of pudding.
Disappointed, the robbers made a quiet exit, each leaving with nothing more than a queasy, uncomfortably full stomach. The newspaper headline read:
‘IRELAND’S LARGEST SPERM BANK ROBBED EARLY THIS MORNING’….

City Limits

It was with mixed horror and depression that I read Ryan Scott’s preview of SimCity: Societies, a game which purports to “return to SimCity’s roots” while stripping out everything that’s made a SimCity title for the last 18 years. No zoning? No power and water grids to worry about? No roads beyond the terribly unrealistic-looking, squashed four-lane things there now? The ability to make haunted theme parks, mime factories, Stalinist cryo-prisons, and a whole city that looks like something out of Willy Wonka’s franchising-opportunities guide is supposed to appeal to lifelong fans of the series?

I humbly beg Maxis to not allow this kind of dumbed-down gameplay style to pervade and become the whole of the SimCity universe. From every screenshot and preview of this game I’ve seen, the hype is all about making totally unrealistic fantasy-type cities: Orwellian slums. Candy Land nonsense, industrial hellholes, things out of the great stereotype playbook, Surely there’ll be fans of this type of city-building genre, a type in which what you plop down and where doesn’t appear to be half as important as what little giggly coiorfui stimulus responses you get from watching it I, however, and many hundreds of thousands of others, I would venture to guess, are not fans of this and were hoping for a rTiore streamlined but also more realistic sim - as in simulation - version of SimCity that would get us ever closer to being able to model our hometowns and cities with better accuracy and fun bells and whistles.

More types of roads. Perhaps a preindustrial starting period that would let us watch our cities turn into the skyscraper ferms that SC3 and 4 would generate over time as technology advanced. But all that possibility is thrown out for cheap graphical gimmicks and simplified gameplay. It’s a shame.

Designing a PCB

One of the things I wanna learn this month is to build hardware circuit on a pcb with commercial CAD software which are used to build circuits. The coolest thing about PCB software is that you can actually simulate a circuit without making the real hardware circuit. and it helps you analyze faults before you produce your circuit. I had designed a small PCB for SPI interface of an MMC/ SD card to a microcontroller. It was easy to design as there was no special circuitry needed for except for a few optional pull up resisters which should be used if the BUS is in open drain mode. If it is in push pull mode then there is no need of using pull up resistors. It all depends on which microcontroller we are using. If we are using a low end microcontroller like a PIC which is cheap we must use a Pull up on the data lines of the SPI bus. On the other hand if we use a High end microcontroller, it may provide options so that we dont need pull-ups. Overall PCB design a must learn thingy if you are into hardware and serious about becoming a hardware engineer.

Cinderella in America: A Book of Folk and Fairy Tales. Book review

The title of this superbly edited book is misleading and yet accurate. At first glance, one might think that the book would be about the different versions of the tale “Cinderella” in America. This is not at all the case. Yet the title is apt, for the book is truly about a neglected and mistreated “Cinderella genre,” the wonder fairytale in America, in all its diverse oral and literary forms, and about how scholars and educated readers have tended to believe that the European tale types never took root in the early days of the founding of America. Some have even asserted that there is no such thing as an American fairytale.

McCarthy’s purpose is to prove them wrong. His goal, he states, is “to demonstrate the scope of the Old World repertoire as it settled into U.S. American culture, changing, developing, and acclimating inmuch the same way the tales of this repertoire have always settled and acclimated, wherever they have found themselves”(p. 8). Not only does he fulfil his goal, but he does it convincingly and with great erudition, thoroughness, and originality, and with a stunning collection of approximately two hundred tales from the eighteenth century to the present.

McCarthy’s anthology is divided into six parts and eighteen chapters and a helpful appendix about studying American folktales. The repertoire of the tales is generally Indo-European, and he provides the Aarne-Thompson-Uther tale-type index for those readers who want to compare the tales with similar ones in other cultures. The organisation of the chapters is based on geography and the particular connection that a region may have had to another European country. For instance, the headings of the parts read: (I) The Early Record; (II) The Iberian Folktale in the United States; (III) French Tradition in the Old Louisiana Territory; (IV) The British Tradition of the South; (V) Other People, Other Tales—which includes German traditions in Pennsylvania, Irish-American tales, tales from other communities, and European tales in Native American traditions; and (VI) A Case Study—which includes photographs of Betty Carriveau telling one of her father’s French-Canadian tales entitled “Angel Gabriel.”

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A planet outside our solar system

An Earth like planet was found outside our solar system orbiting a star about 30000 light years away from us ( light year: distance travelled by light in an year). It is about five times the size of earth and is rocky. Observers around the world confirmed the existence of the planet. It seems like there are many earth like worlds in our universe and we have started discovering other planes just like ours. However, they are not expect to support life. Planets such as these are discovered using a principle called microlensing based on a principle invented by Einstein. The light from distant star is bent by gravitational distortion from other stars or large planets when it reaches earth. Scientists have recorded such incidents using telescope networks. The growing perception among the scientific community is that planets such as these are more common in our universe. There are more planets to be discovered in the years to come

Best scifi movies

Recently, I saw two of my all-time-favorite science fiction movies again. Blade Runner and 13th Floor. Both these movies are highly rated and have set the trend for modern science fiction. The 13th floor is about a simulation where there is a earth like world with real chracters in it. It is a must see. The movie Matrix was very much like 13th floor and was based on a similar story. BladeRunner is about a cop whose job is to deactivate “replicants” ( Robots ) in the future los angeles. Deckard and Roy batty have given excellent performances. Harrison ford is remarkable. Here are some of my favorite quotes from Bladerunner.

Roy Batty: I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams … glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All those … moments will be lost … in time, like tears … in rain. Time … to die.

Tyrell : If we gived them a past, we’d create a cushion, a pillow for their emotions and consequently we can control them better.”
Deckard : “Memories. You’re talking about memories.”

Prescription For Painless Play?

I had to sympathize with Darren Gladstone’s column about the pain he’s feeling in his left hand from using the WASD keymap. I had to quit World of WarCraft because of it.

My own keymapping system has never produced those symptoms. With it, I can play for hours and not feel any pain:

A - crouch
S - backward
D - strafe left
F - strafe right
Right mouse - forward
Left mouse - primary attack
Middle mouse - secondary attack
G - reload
Z - use
Left shift - walk/run
V - lean ieft
B - iean right
C - flashiight
Spacebar - jump