I was at an event with 4 of my buddies and we were quite bored with the topic at hand.  So since we had a rather good amount of paper in front of us, I decided to throw them some riddles I remember from a game I had played before.  It’s always nice to have friends who like puzzles that challenge the mind.  They didn’t fare quite well, but it was a blast to see their reactions when they finally knew the answers to the riddles.

So just to share, here are a few of them above.  It’s actually from an RPG game I played before, where the only way I could unlock the chest and find out what was inside, was for me to be able to solve the riddle and get the lock to open.  That was a great game.  In any case, let’s see how well you guys do

I know, I know, it’s a bit of old news from the past week, but I wanted to be sure that this wasn’t some hoax so I waited until I knew for sure that it was real.  For a 52-year old, I was still skeptical about him retiring, but I guess with all the success and money he had, what reason would he have to still be working right?  So what’s next?  Gates says that his core competencies are in software and technology, particularly in biotech, as a hobbyist, and he goes on saying that he could never go and make a world-class contribution in another field besides the aforementioned.  Also, his passion in philanthropy by running the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, aimed at fighting poverty all around the world, will also be where most of his time will go to.  So let’s see which one it’s really going to be…

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was set Friday for his last day of full-time work at Microsoft – the company he founded 33 years ago on a hunch that personal computers would become an integral part of everyday life. The world’s largest software company said that it was not planning any public events to observe the transition, though the change would be marked by internal events. Gates, 52, will continue to hold the title of non-executive chairman and work about one day a week at Microsoft. He intends to devote the rest of his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the wealthiest charity in the world, which is aimed at improving health care around the world and reducing extreme poverty.

Gates handed over his role as Microsoft chief executive to his long-time partner Steve Ballmer in 2000, when Gates became the company’s chief software architect. Under a carefully planned succession programme, Gate’s duties will be taken over by two top Microsoft executives. Ray Ozzie will be in charge of day-to-day management issues, while Craig Mundie will be in charge of long-term planning. The company, whose Windows operating system powers some 90 per cent of the world’s personal computers, has a market capitalization of about 260 billion dollars and employs more than 78,000 people in 103 countries.

Links: “Doomsday Seed Vault” in the Arctic Built by Gates

Ever since the time I first saw what a galaxy looked like back when I was a kid, I was enchanted by pictures of them, as well as all the intricacies that went along with it.  All the exploding stars, theories on how everything was created and how it all began, and how really vast the universe was.  I then came upon a book written by Stephen Hawking, one of the best, if not the best mind of the century, called “A Brief History of Time.”  The book I’ll probably write about in a few days, but the concept of which revolves around how images like the one below come about.

The image below, is called the Snowflake Cluster and the Cone Nebula.  One of the many jaw-dropping images that NASA has captured through sophisticated telescopes that bring us these awe-inspiring pictures of the universe we know very little about.  The picture speaks of patterns that result in the tumultous unrest that accompanies the formation of an open cluster of stars in the Snowflake Cluster.

Bright stars from the Snowflake Cluster dot the field. The stars soon heat up and destroy the gas and dust mountains in which they formed. One such dust mountain is the famous Cone Nebula, visible in the above image, pointing toward a bright star near the center of the field. The entire region is located about 2,500 light years away towards the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros).

Now for those who aren’t really into astronomy, you may wonder what 2,500 light years means.  Let’s take the above example and say that a star is 2,500 light years away. The light from that star has traveled at the speed of light to reach us. Therefore, it has taken the star’s light 2,500 years to get here, and the light we are seeing was created 2,500 years ago.  So we are actually looking at the past and seeing how that star looked 2,500 years ago! In a similar way, to put it in a better perspective, our sun is 8 or so light minutes away.  If the sun were to suddenly explode right now, we wouldn’t know about it for eight minutes because that is how long it would take for the light of the explosion to get to the Earth.

So there   More of that when I talk about Stephen Hawking’s book!  For now, if you want to download a higher resolution of the image above, please click HERE.

Ice Age is definitely one of my favorite animated movies.  And one thing that sets it apart from the other animated films out there, is that it has a character that scene shifts in and out of the movie.

That character even has its own short films.  The first being “Gone Nutty,” where he is surrounded by a myriad of acorns he has collected up to when he accidentally rams the last one in the middle of it all and caused a continental drift.  The second installment called “No Time for Nuts,” finds him still searching for his acorn, but this time also finds a time machine that transports him to different historical events.

Not many people actually know that the name of the character is Scrat.  A pesky saber-toothed squirrel in search of the acorn he will forever have for himself.  In the second short film, while trying to bury his acorn in the Ice Age, Scrat uncovers a frozen time machine. Accidentally activating the machine, he goes on a hilarious adventure chasing his precious acorn through time.

This short film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Subject, unfortunately it didn’t win.  But for a 7 minute plus short, it had had great visual effects in terms of where Scrat ended up and how he kept shifting from era to era.  The gags were very clever and funny and Scrat’s character looks as polished as ever.  If you want to take a look at a clip of the short, click HERE.  For the complete short, it is available in the Ice Age: the Meltdown DVD

With 9 out of 10 ESPN experts (and myself) picking the Lakers to win it all this year, the only one who picked it right was Tim Legler and of course the hundreds of Celtics fans in Boston   The Celtics blew the Lakers out of the building by 39 points, 131-92 being the final score.  As history has always shown, defense really DOES win championships, and this Celtic team proved just that.

Before the Finals started, I predicted the Lakers would win in 5 games   What a shame haha!  I said that if Eddie House and James Posey could come in and hit their stride, and most importantly if Rondo can hit his outside jumper and plays well in the point guard spot, the Lakers would be in trouble.  I assumed they all wouldn’t, and they proved me, as well as everyone else who bet against them, wrong.

The Celtics were never out of any of these games because of the amazing D they played on every single position.  Odom could do nothing, Gasol could do nothing, and in the most important game of their season, Kobe could do nothing to stop the Celtics destiny and the Big 3 getting the first rings of their careers.

There’s really no analysis needed, as this Finals series belonged to the Boston Celtics, hands down, without any doubt.  I’m bummed that the Lakers lost, but the Big 3, all really nice guys, totally deserve it… and Paul Pierce, must be in Cloud 9 right now.  He played his best ball around KG and Ray Allen, and TRULY deserved the Finals MVP that he got.  He was definitely the most consistent in all the games even when KG and Allen were resting on the bench.  Ray Allen also ties the most 3’s in a Finals game with 7, and KG, was his most dominant on both ends of the floor today.  There was no way the Lakers could have won, and there would be no comebacks either.  Oh, and what about my favorite whipping boy, who showed up today as well as almost every game in the Finals, Mr Rondo?  These were his stats:  21 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists, 6 steals, and 1 turnover.  Wow.

Last thing I want to say.  If you guys know the history of Kevin Garnett, being part of a very bad Timberwolves team for many years, and always dropping out of the playoffs in the 1st Round, he has finally gotten what he has worked so hard for.  It is a great feeling, also as a fan of KG, to see him finally get what he deserves.  I hope they post a video of how emotional he was when he was being interviewed when the game ended.  He had two great lines that can only refer to his career.  The first was when he said that he’s finally “CERTIFIED” because he has finally won a ring and set his name as one of the greatest power forwards to ever play the game.  And nothing certifies you more than when you win a championship.  And the second, was when he turned around and saw Bill Russell and hugged him, and said “I GOT MY OWN NOW, I GOT MY OWN NOW!”

Better luck next time to Kobe

Wow, it’s been quite a while since my last post. I had the most horrible week since last Saturday, and I’ve only recovered from it right this moment. So I should be back to posting again hopefully, and this should be an interesting start to it.

This was a study made by some guys from Cambridge University, where they proved how the human mind works in terms of interpreting letters and words. Pretty amazing actually, try it out and see if you can read what’s written below

O lny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.

cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy,

it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!