Taking his cue from the kids who convinced their parents to give them a puppy after getting 1 million likes on Facebook, Petter Kverneng of Norway got his high school crush Catherine to agree to sleep with him if he secured as many Facebook likes himself.
“It was meant as a joke for our group of friends,” Kverneng, 20, told the local press.
Joke or not, the “status upgrade” soon hit 4chan’s /b/ imageboard, where users naturally felt compelled to help Kverneng out.
Within a matter of hours, the solicitation gained over 900,000 likes, and is presently steamrolling ahead to the 1 million mark.
Kverneng, who has been friendzoned by Catherine for years, told Norway’s Nettavisen that the two plan to “keep what we promised.”
His only concern now, he said, is that her father might find out.
As part of the first demonstration of laser communication with a satellite at the moon, scientists with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) beamed an image of the Mona Lisa to the spacecraft from Earth.
The iconic image traveled nearly 240,000 miles in digital form from the Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) station at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument on the spacecraft. By transmitting the image piggyback on laser pulses that are routinely sent to track LOLA’s position, the team achieved simultaneous laser communication and tracking.
To clean up transmission errors introduced by Earth’s atmosphere (left), Goddard scientists applied Reed-Solomon error correction (right), which is commonly used in CDs and DVDs. Typical errors include missing pixels (white) and false signals (black). The white stripe indicates a brief period when transmission was paused. Image courtesy: Xiaoli Sun, NASA Goddard
“This is the first time anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances,” says LOLA’s principal investigator, David Smith of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use. In the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide.”
Typically, satellites that go beyond Earth orbit use radio waves for tracking and communication. LRO is the only satellite in orbit around a body other than Earth to be tracked by laser as well.
“Because LRO is already set up to receive laser signals through the LOLA instrument, we had a unique opportunity to demonstrate one-way laser communication with a distant satellite,” says Xiaoli Sun, a LOLA scientist at NASA Goddard and lead author of the Optics Express paper, posted online today, that describes the work.
Precise timing was the key to transmitting the image. Sun and colleagues divided the Mona Lisa image into an array of 152 pixels by 200 pixels. Every pixel was converted into a shade of gray, represented by a number between zero and 4,095. Each pixel was transmitted by a laser pulse, with the pulse being fired in one of 4,096 possible time slots during a brief time window allotted for laser tracking. The complete image was transmitted at a data rate of about 300 bits per second.
The laser pulses were received by LRO’s LOLA instrument, which reconstructed the image based on the arrival times of the laser pulses from Earth. This was accomplished without interfering with LOLA’s primary task of mapping the moon’s elevation and terrain and NGSLR’s primary task of tracking LRO.
The success of the laser transmission was verified by returning the image to Earth using the spacecraft’s radio telemetry system.
Turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere introduced transmission errors even when the sky was clear. To overcome these effects, Sun and colleagues employed Reed-Solomon coding, which is the same type of error-correction code commonly used in CDs and DVDs. The experiments also provided statistics on the signal fluctuations due to Earth’s atmosphere.
A man posted in Facebook‘ I am about to be shot’ and got shot.
What about his friends?
Well, Facebook friends are just that Facebook friends!
‘ I am About to be shot’ Facebook Timeline
Story:
It appears that one of the last things Eric L. Ramsey did before he was shot and killed by police Thursday was to let his friends and family know on Facebook that he was about to die.
“Well folkes im about to get shot. Peace” Ramsey posted on the social network at 3:15 a.m. Jan. 17 using his mobile phone.
How Ramsey had the presence of mind — or the time — to make such a statement isn’t known. The 30-year-old man from Mt. Pleasant, Mich., had just come off a crime spree that included kidnapping and raping a woman, setting a house on fire and stealing a sanitation truck, then ramming the car of a Michigan state trooper, according to police.
Michigan Department of Corrections via AP Eric L. Ramsey, in a previous Michigan Department of Corrections photo.
“A short while later, a Crawford County Deputy located the sanitation truck and the suspect ended up hitting the deputy’s car head on. The deputy then got out of the patrol car, ran up to the cab of the pickup and fired shots, fatally wounding the suspect,” Isabella CountySheriff Leo Mioduszewski said in a press release.
“I did it,” Obama said as he hugged his wife, Michelle, and daughters Sasha and Malia. “Thank you, sweetie,” he told Michelle when she congratulated him. “Good job, Dad. You didn’t mess up,” 11-year-old Sasha Obama told her father.
It was a low-key start to the first African-American U.S. president’s second term, which is likely to be dominated – at least at the start – by budget fights with Republicans and attempts to reform gun control and immigration laws.
Obama, 51, will be sworn in publicly on Monday outside the West Front of the Capitol overlooking the National Mall in front of as many as 800,000 people, a much bigger ceremony replete with a major address and a parade.
Downtown Washington was all but locked down with heavy security. Many streets were closed, lined with barricades. Police sirens blared. Outside the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, an elaborate presidential viewing stand encased in bullet-proof glass was set up for Obama and other VIPs to watch the parade.
Let’s look at some Inauguration cereminies of The US Presidents.
President Warren Harding inauguration, 1921 As President Barack Obama prepares to take his second oath of office, we’re looking back through our archives at other presidential inauguration ceremonies Daily News photographers have snapped through the years. From Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address to President Bill Clinton’s swearing in, take a look back in history … Dressed in fancy top hats and overcoats, Woodrow Wilson (l.) and the newly-elected President Warren Harding ride to the Capitol in Washington D.C. for Harding’s inauguration in 1921.President Calvin Coolidge inauguration, 1925 Thousands of people brave cold temperatures to crowd Capitol Hill for the inauguration of President Calvin Coolidge in 1925. The ceremony was the first one to ever be broadcast to Americans via radio.President Franklin D. Roosevelt inauguration, 1937 After being elected for a second term as President, Franklin D. Roosevelt waves to the crowd outside the Capitol during a rainy ceremony in 1937. Because of the inclement weather, the Inauguration Committee of Congress had considered holding the ceremony indoors until F.D.R cut short their discussion.President Dwight D. Eisenhower inauguration, 1953 Monty Montana, a cowboy from California, rises from his saddle to throw a rope around President Dwight D. Eisenhower during the 1953 inauguration ceremonies. In the background, former President Herbert Hoover raises his arm to protect himself from being hit by the lasso.President John F. Kennedy delivers his inaugural address after taking the oath of office at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 20, 1961. During his historic speech, Kennedy wagged his index finger as he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.President Bill Clinton inauguration, 1997 President Bill Clinton clasps hands with his wife Hillary as the couple marches down Pennsylvania Avenue with daughter Chelsea following his second inauguration ceremony. It was the same walk Clinton had made four years earlier after taking his first oath of office in 1993.President Barack Obama inauguration, 2009 With his wife Michelle holding the Bible at his side, President Barack Obama takes the oath of office as he is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. It’s an act the President will repeat on Jan. 21, 2013.
People forget that even if you happen to own millions of Dollars, you may eat three square meals,Sleep for ten hours,Drink probably a Bottle a day,have women restricted by one’s capacity (physical) at the most.
Then what?
Temporarily you are satisfied and the whole process begins all over after some time.
A vicious cycle.
Satisfaction of the desires of the senses is like poring Ghee into a Fire.
The more you satisfy, more they demand!
Again the objects of satisfaction varies , not the pleasure.
This pleasure changes from time to time and Age.
When one falls sick and befalls a bed, these pleasures are a Mirage.
Senses are meant to enjoy for limited purpose/enjoyment.
Over indulgence leads to Emptiness and disillusionment.
Things are enjoyable till they remain a mystery and seemingly unattainable.
Money is an instrument for satisfying needs.
Once the basics are met, better to say quits.
This is the key to happiness.
Now Read what Bil gates has to ay on the use of Money.
Also refer my blog on the Lifestyle of Bill Gates.
Otherwise they become stale.
Later this month, Gates will deliver the BBC’s Dimbleby Lecture, taking as his theme the value of the young human being Photo: Andrew Crowley for the Telegraph
“It’s very rare that you become a Billionaire.
But still rarer is to donate have your feet planted in the ground.
Bill Gates has frugal tastes. Asked to name his luxuries, he lists DVDs, books and takeaway burgers. It is hard, however, to think that any fast-food outlet would get rich on Gates’s custom. During a long list of engagements beginning well before dawn, he consumes nothing but cans of diet cola.
For America’s wealthiest citizen, austerity is relative. The retinue of staff and the private jethint at a fortune said to be approaching £40 billion. As he told pupils at a south Londonschool he visited this week: “If I hadn’t given my money away, I’d have had more than anyone else on the planet. Ninety-nine per cent of it will go.”
“I’m certainly well taken care of in terms of food and clothes,” he says, redundantly. “Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point. Its utility is entirely in building an organisation and getting the resources out to the poorest in the world.”
That “certain point” is set a little higher than for the rest of us – Gates owns a lakeside estate in Washington State worth about $150 million (£94 million) and boasting a swimming pool equipped with an underwater music system – but one gets the point. Being rich, even on the cosmic scale attained by Bill Gates, is no guarantee of an enduring place in history. The projection of the personal computer into daily life should do the trick for him, but even at the age of 57 he is a restless man and wants something more. The “more” is the eradication of a disease that has blighted untold numbers of lives: polio.
Later this month, Gates will deliver the BBC’s Dimbleby Lecture, taking as his theme the value of the young human being. Every child, he will say, has the right to a healthy and productive life, and he will explain how technology and innovation can help towards the attainment of that still-distant goal. Gates has put his money where his mouth is. He and his wife Melinda have so far given away $28 billion via their charitable foundation, more than $8 billion of it to improve global health.
“My wife and I had a long dialogue about how we were going to take the wealth that we’re lucky enough to have and give it back in a way that’s most impactful to the world,” he says. “Both of us worked at Microsoft and saw that if you take innovation and smart people, the ability to measure what’s working, that you can pull together some pretty dramatic things.
“We’re focused on the help of the poorest in the world, which really drives you into vaccination. You can actually take a disease and get rid of it altogether, like we are doing with polio.”
This has been done only once before in humans, with the eradication of smallpox in the 1970s.
“Polio’s pretty special because once you get an eradication you no longer have to spend money on it; it’s just there as a gift for the rest of time.”
One can see why that appeals to Gates. He has always sought neat, definitive solutions to things, but as he knows from Microsoft, bugs are resilient things. The disease is still endemic in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and killing it off altogether has been likened to squeezing jelly to death. There is another, sinister obstacle: the propagation by Islamist groups of the belief that polio vaccination is a front for covert sterilisation and other western evils. Health workers in Pakistan have paid with their lives for involvement in the programme.
Venkat Ramanan All the best.Inform of developments!
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