Francis WORLD 2006 YEAR OF THE WORLD CUP

Thursday, April 28, 2005


Checking messages constantly makes you dumber, says study

LONDON - WORKERS distracted by telephone calls, e-mail messages and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study has shown.

It says that the repeated interruptions reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic.

The survey, commissioned by Hewlett Packard, was carried out by TNS Research and covered 1,100 Britons, CNN reported.

The research study also found that:
Almost two out of three people check their electronic messages out of office hours and when on holiday.

Half of all workers respond to an e-mail message within 60 minutes of receiving one.

One in five will break off from a business or social engagement to respond to a message.

Nine out of 10 people thought colleagues who answered messages during face- to-face meetings were rude, while three out of 10 believed it was not only acceptable, but a sign of diligence and efficiency.

However, the most striking finding was that the mental impact of trying to balance a steady inflow of messages with getting on with normal work took its toll.

Psychiatrist Glenn Wilson of King's College at London University monitored the IQ of workers throughout the day during 80 clinical trials.

He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points.

That is the equivalent of missing a whole night's sleep and more than double the four-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.

'This is a very real and widespread phenomenon,' Dr Wilson said.

The obsession with looking at messages, if unchecked, could damage a worker's performance by reducing his mental sharpness, he said.

'Companies should encourage a more balanced and appropriate way of working,' he said.
Mr David Smith of Hewlett Packard was quoted as saying: 'The research suggests that we are in danger of being caught up in a 24-hour 'always on' society.'

Thursday, April 21, 2005


Club CD Freaks - Knowledge is Power


Earn your wing here at Fras flying club Johore


Nikon Learning Centre

Monday, April 18, 2005


Nikonians


Pac SAFE


Hong Kong DisneyLand

Sunday, April 17, 2005


Astrophotography Guide


DaLian China

Friday, April 15, 2005


Photographing the Northern Lights


Photographing the Northern Lights
Photographing the Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis can be a challenging endeavor. First and foremost, you must get to the right location. Some of the best sites in the world are Alaska, Finland or the northern portion of Canada. March and September are the premier months to photograph the Lights. For this shot, I flew into Fairbanks and traveled north eight hours into the Brooks Range. What I like about this location is that because it is above the Arctic Circle it increases your chances of seeing the Northern Lights. The weather in February and early March is often very clear and you are reasonably assured of clear nights. My accommodations were at a truck stop north of Fairbanks just inside the Brooks Range that offers food and lodging. I've found certain techniques will render the best results. First, a wide-angle lens increases the chances of incorporating the full sweep of these magnificent displays. Another benefit of using a wide-angle lens is to include some sort of landmass, such as the mountains in this example. I would recommend photographing the Northern Lights when there is a half moon out. The half moon provides enough illumination on the snow-clad mountains to bring out detail in the land and in the Lights. Fuji Provia 400 is an excellent film for this type of shot. It's fast enough and has a full range of color similar to the finer grain films. A 30-second exposure is long enough to capture the Northern Lights and yet short enough so the motion of the Lights is not washed out. If you use a longer exposure of one minute or more, often the lines within the Northern Lights move, producing a shot that is diffused and less striking. The fastest shutter speed that you can get away with produces the most interesting display. With Provia 400 you can be confident that at a 30-second exposure you're getting more than enough light for a proper exposure of the display. It's essential to use a cable release and a tripod. I set the camera's focus on infinity at the widest aperture, which was f2.8 for the lens I used. If you were to use an f1.4 or f1.0 lens, then you could use a faster shutter speed. On some lenses you have to be careful where you focus. If you go slightly beyond your lens' infinity point, as I have, you may be putting your subject out of focus. If you can use auto focus you'll find that's easier than trying to focus in the dark on a dark subject. When I came back from my trip to the north I was a little disappointed because I thought I had no color in the sky. To my naked eye the display appeared as a very pale green, almost white, display. After I got my film processed I was delighted to find beautiful reds and purples in the photo. This tells me that the color of the display is often deceiving and that the spectrum of red is not very evident to the naked eye in the darkness of the evening but it can be recorded on film. I photographed the Northern Lights at approximately 1:00 am and, fortunately, it was only about 10 degrees below zero with no wind. This is quite comfortable in the dry cold of the north. It could easily have been 50 degrees below zero, which presents all sorts of issues. Keeping yourself warm and your equipment functioning is a challenge. It's best to keep your camera reasonably cold, perhaps in the trunk of your vehicle, so there isn't a large temperature variation from warm to cold which will cause condensation to form on the lens.


About capturing the Aurora on Photos
For the first -time or for seasoned aurora photographer, a 35 mm camera on a tripod equipped with a cable release is a must. Use a wide-angle 24 mm to 50 mm lens and set it to an f-stop which is the fastest - or one slower to avoid distortion of bright star images - usually f/1.4 - f/2.8.


Photograph Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights)
How to photograph aurora borealis (northern lights)? You will first need the right camera equipment and know how to us it. You will need an SLR camera (film or digital) that allows your to control the shutter speed extensively, as well as a tripod, small flashlight, high speed film for film cameras (lower ISO speeds will work, but longer exposures are required). It is important to note that higher speed film will generally produce grainier pictures while low speed films might be too slow to capture fast moving northern lights effectively. Manual digital cameras can provide the best option for amateur photographers giving them the ability to immediately see the results and make necessary adjustments to their shutter speed, ISO setting, and aperture settings to capture the perfect northern lights picture.

Thursday, April 14, 2005


northern lights


Underwater Camera Housing


Cows Spotted at Chinatown Point

Wednesday, April 13, 2005


Viewing the Earth
You can view either a map of the Earth showing the day and night regions at this moment, or view the Earth from the Sun , the Moon , the night side of the Earth, above any location on the planet specified by latitude, longitude and altitude , from a satellite in Earth orbit , or above various cities around the globe

Monday, April 11, 2005


PSP Video 9

PSP Video 9 is a free PSP video conversion and management application. It can convert regular PC video files (avi, mpeg, etc) into PSP video files, as well as manage/copy these PSP video files between your PC and PSP.
When combined with another application, Videora + PSP Video 9 form the first PSPcasting solution, allowing you to download, convert and copy video to your PSP, automatically using BitTorrent and RSS technology.


Wired News


Friends Are Friends Forever
Packing up the dreams God planted
In the fertile soil of you
I can't believe the hopes He's granted
Means a chapter of your life is through

But we'll keep you close as always
It won't even seem you've gone
'Cause our hearts in big and small ways
Will keep the love that keeps us strong

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
'Cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

And with the faith and love God's given
Springing from the hope we know
We will pray the joy you live in
Is the strength that now you show

We'll keep you close as always
It won't even seem you've gone
'Cause our hearts in big and small ways
Will keep the love that keeps us strong

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
'Cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never
'Cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

To live as friends

Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

No a lifetime's not too long
To live as friends

Sunday, April 10, 2005


Dreamcars Asia SuperSpecial Rally 2005


Vancouver hotels


Cruise forum


Vision Of The Seas


Friday, June 10, 2005 Vancouver, British Columbia 05:00 PM Saturday, June 11, 2005 Inside Passage, Alaska -- -- Sunday, June 12, 2005 Ketchikan/Misty Fjord, Alaska 07:00 AM 02:00 PM Monday, June 13, 2005 Skagway, Alaska 10:00 AM 08:30 PM Tuesday, June 14, 2005 Juneau, Alaska 07:00 AM 06:00 PM Wednesday, June 15, 2005 Icy Strait 07:00 AM 05:00 PM Thursday, June 16, 2005 Hubbard Glacier, Alaska 07:00 AM 11:00 AM Friday, June 17, 2005 Seward, Alaska 08:00 AM --


Vancouver, BC

Friday, April 08, 2005


Id Bands


Underwater casing for D2X / D2Hs / D2H


memories captured in Digital, snap club


Cheer leader wisdom

Wednesday, April 06, 2005


http://px.experiment-i.net/tak_giu.wmv

Tuesday, April 05, 2005


Royal Caribbean Vision of the Seas 7Nites Cruise
from 10th June 2005 to 18th June 2005
Northbound Gulf of Alaska byChina airline
*WeeEeEeEeeee* so happy.

Monday, April 04, 2005


Philips DVDR16LS LightScribe DVD-Writer - Introduction


LightScribe


Getting Married? Today Louis Says July 13th


HDB Pet Regulations


THEDOG-Club

Sunday, April 03, 2005


Pope John Paul II, Roman Catholic Leader for 27 Years, Dies
April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Pope John Paul II, leader of the world's Roman Catholics for more than a quarter-century, died tonight, the Vatican said. He was 84.
The pope, the first selected from outside Italy in more than 450 years, served almost 26 1/2 years as the spiritual successor to Saint Peter in Rome. He died at 9:37 p.m. Rome time.
Thousands of people gathered at the Vatican in a vigil of prayer as they awaited news of John Paul's condition. The church's cardinals have been summoned to Rome for the secretive procedure to choose his successor, which must begin within three weeks of the pope's death.
John Paul II remained in his apartment overlooking Saint Peter's Square this week and didn't return to the Gemelli hospital in Rome, where last month he underwent a tracheotomy to relieve breathing problems. The Vatican said yesterday that the pope's heart and kidneys were failing as he suffered from septic shock.


bringing the Linux operating system http://www.psp-linux.org/ to PSP


The Pope's last lesson in the art of dying well
(Filed: 02/04/2005)
It is said by some people, who have been declared dead after their hearts had momentarily stopped beating, that the experience can be pleasant, as you apparently drift upwards in a dreamlike trance, staring down joyfully at your soulless corpse.
Indeed, Keith Lake, who was interviewed in this paper earlier in the week about his near-death experience in the Maldives during the tsunami, said: "The only thought I had was that [death] wouldn't be that bad. I was totally relaxed, and, strangely, it was almost a good feeling."
But these are people who have sudden deaths, or near-deaths. They are the exception to the rule of modern death, which, for most of us, will tend more to the long, drawn-out agony of Pope John Paul II than the mercifully sudden death of the heart attack on the tennis court or the sideswipe of a 50ft wave.
In these days where medical science has become expert at keeping the body alive for many years, even as the body's various functions shut down, the drawn-out fates of the Pope, Ronald Reagan, Iris Murdoch and, presumably, Prince Rainier are the sad norm.
It sounds competitive to suggest that somebody has had a good death. In the same way that no one says, "He had a bad war", talking of a bad death sounds like the height of bad form.
That said, the Pope has prepared himself for a good death even if, at the time of writing, he is still alive. In the Christian faith, death is seen as the door from one life to another. The Pope has spent a lifetime preparing for the passage through that door to the afterlife; to put it crassly, if he's not going to Heaven, who is?
But he has also faced his actual dying moments - his exit, to continue the door analogy - in the best possible manner.
By refusing to go to hospital to die, he has chosen not to fend off death. But, while staying in the Vatican, he has also stayed in the public eye as long as he was physically able, not squirrelling himself away in his private apartments to cover up the speechlessness and paroxysms of a dying man. Instead, this most histrionic - in the best sense of the word - of popes has used the most powerful imagery - that of a dying man - to bear witness to the life and death of Christ.
In advertising his approaching death so nobly, the Pope is bucking the modern way of dying. As death has been transported from a family affair in hearth and home to a hidden thing in curtained-off cubicles in hospitals, it has become the word that dare not speak its name. In Vatican bulletins yesterday, even many priests, who have more experience of death than most, talked only of the Pope clinging to life, of his lucidity and consciousness, and refused to use the dreaded "D" word.
If death is not quite, as Hamlet put it, a consummation devoutly to be wished, it is one of the pre-eminent facts, if not the pre-eminent fact, of life, by which almost everything else is measured. As Craig Brown once wrote in these pages, how terrible it would be to live for ever: why would you bother getting up in the morning, let alone set about splitting the atom or writing a bestseller, if you knew you could get down to that sort of thing properly in another million or so years?
To face death head on, in all its agonies, is to remove the embarrassment and confusion that comes with euphemisms, with anodyne, bloodless talk of "passing on" and "drawing to a close". The Pope has taught us all how to die.

Saturday, April 02, 2005


Look who's That?



Love-a-Lot Bear
You love to take care of others and people love being around you because you make them feel appreciated. You are very sweet and soft-spoken. You are also a romantic and consider yourself an excellent matchmaker, so you tend to be a bit nosy. But everyone still considers you the sweetest person they know