There’s gold up in them thar hills!

Afghanistan thought economic prosperity was only true in fairy tales; made for someone else but not for her. War was out to get her, that’s the way it seemed. Disappointed haunted Afghanistan’s dreams…

Then recent geological surveys determined that the country is sitting upon over $1 trillion in untapped minerals and Afghanistan is a believer. To the impoverished, landlocked nation suffering from perpetual conflict, this discovery could be a dream come true. While the United States Department of Defense set the estimate at around $1 trillion, several more optimistic surveys believe that there is more than $3 trillion dollars worth of iron, cobalt, lithium, copper, and gold pie nestled beneath the dry crust of Afghanistan.

But ever silver lining belongs to a cloud. This information happens to come out in a very violent time in the war, when national and international opinion is leaning away from continued action. Allow me to educate you with the help of a metaphor. You and all of your NATO friends threw Afghanistan a surprise party. Afghanistan is missing an arm, suffering from a skin disease, and suffering from multiple personality disorder. Its late, the chips are gone, and Germany and Poland’s respective parents are calling them telling them to come home. You need to get them to stay, because Afghanistan is getting a pool, and you want to be cool with Afghan so you can take have access. How do you get them to stay? You bring out the surprise pinata!

Long story short, the U.S. brought out a prize to garner public support on the home front and ensure that our international comrades won’t get cold feet. Unfortunately, the idea sounds a little pie in the sky to this stalwart columnist.

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Sixth Man: (n) orig.Los Angeles, 1) Adam Morrison | FTW

Baller. Shot Caller. Likes to Holler.

Adam Morrison is the definition of a sixth man. You know, the guy who doesn’t start, but still brings a lot to the game. He brought his tie, his jacket, and his stache to every game of the 2010 NBA Finals.

Despite being a Laker, injuries kept Adam from playing at all during this year’s NBA Finals. This well edited youtube video helps visualize exactly what he added to this championship caliber team. I say, he’s the spark that ignited the fire that is the LA Lakers.

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Visualizing the Oil Spill | WTF?

Smog Smog Smog

No, this is not an image depicting the Smog in the LA basin

Imagining the recent oil spill has been hard for some. Perhaps it’s been impossible to get information about it, you have closed your ears and plugged your eyes for the last month. Perhaps it’s just difficult because you don’t live anywhere near the gulf coast. ifitwasmyhome.com helped me see how vast the spill is. From my home, the spill reaches down to Los Angeles, and all the way over to Bakersfield. Check out how the spill would look from your home town!

About the Spill

An explosion on the BP operated Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed eleven crew members on April 20, 2010, sparking the greatest environmental disaster in United States history. In combination with the Texas City Refinery Explosion and the Prudohoe Bay Oil Spill, this marks the third serious incident involving BP in the United States in the last five years. Current estimates put the amount of oil being discharged from the broken well at above 1,050,000 US gallons per day! There are over 400 different species of animals living in the area affected by the spill. 316 sea turtles and 38 dolphins have been found dead within the spill area (NOAA). BP is operating oil skimmers and other cleanup tools to try to remove oil from the water and Louisiana is building oil containment berms to halt the spread of oil. Experts are uncertain what effect, if any, these efforts will have.

What Do I Do Now?

There are plenty of stances to take on this tragic disaster. Some try the blame game (majority of people) while BP pulls out a game of their own, Sorry! There has been talk about whether BP should even exist anymore. Should they go bankrupt trying to clean this up? Should they stay in business only to have their profits stolen on a regular basis? What do you think?

On a lighter note, here’s a video of BP’s tragic incompetency.

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Kanye West Makes Famous People Look Bad

Longer chest hair than real hair, that's how I roll. -Kanye

Are you an African American? If so, Kanye demands that you stop reading this post. In fact, everyone should stop reading this. Instead, go out, buy his book, and read it… but don’t read anything else. Kanye is a self proclaimed “non-reader”. I can’t blame him, if I couldn’t read I wouldn’t call myself ‘illiterate’ either.

Kanye went out and ambitiously co-authored a book called, “Thank You And You’re Welcome.” Sounds promising, with a title like that it could be filled with advice on how to be more polite. It could even go into great detail and describe how not to interrupt an acceptance speech, how not to be an asshole and turn the spotlight onto whoever you would have selected. Sadly, it doesn’t.

This book is filled with self-proclaimed “Kanye-isms.” Brilliant.

His book is 52 pages — some blank, others with just a few words — and offers his optimistic philosophy on life.

Click read more for some brutal commentary.
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95% of college grads can’t answer this, but 85% of teens can..

This is taken from a facebook fan page that forces you to take a survey to see the answer. Simply click read more for the answer!

It’s only behind a link so that people can guess at the riddle if they so desire.

The Answer is:

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The Status Update that got a Student EXPELLED!

View the photo Here!

This came from a facebook page that forces users to view surveys/quizzes in order to see simple content. Don’t be suckered into their scheme!

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Get 100% Perfect Scores on Scantrons! – Clever Exploit!

Not My Image.

Whoever made the website that forces people to take pointless surveys, shame on you! Here is all the information from http://scantron-exploit.blogspot.com/

I want to point out to you that the results from which the methods and results I write about came from REAL experiments with REAL Scantrons and the scanton machines. I spent a
long time working these out. I have tried nearly everything to beat the scantron machine, and I can happily say that it can be done. I would like to thank someone that was essential to making this possible, but I doubt that he would want to be identified. He was one of my teachers. That’s as far as I’ll go with that.

Now, let’s get it on with the GOOD stuff!

1. Marking the black lines (Black on Black method)-
On the left side of most scan trons that I know of, there are black
lines next to question numbers. My hypothesis is that these black lines
tell the machine where to scan. I don’t know how it works, but it does,
but not as often to create a great advantage. It works about 25%-30% of
the time. I suppose coupled with actual guessing, this does add to the
probability of getting a correct answer. This is my recommended hack.
This is the hack that will work more often than any other. Do it only on
the ones you can’t answer.

2. Erasing the same black lines (Erasure method)-
Now this hack is pretty self-explanatory. You erase those same black
lines, only on the ones you can’t answer though. Sometimes the machine
skips the question and doesn’t mark it at all. This leaves you with a
correct answer.
-OR-
The machine will record an error and not mark the paper at all,
including the score. This will then allow the teacher to grade it by
hand, where he or she may notice the tampering.

3. Erasing the big black block (Big block eradication method)-
Along the left side is a big black block. It is on the upper part of
the column before the question lines. Occasionally, the machine will just
skip over the whole damn thing but leave you with a 100%. This is
practically impossible to get to work. I have gotten it to work twice out
of hundreds of trials, but it can be done. My reasoning for this is
because there is another similar block at the bottom of the column. I
believe that the big block tells the machine when to begin scanning for
questions. I think that variations in the printing of scantrons probably
produce a block on the bottom similar enough to the erased block. Thus,
the machine sees the block begins scanning, sees nothing to correct and
gives you a 100%. Like I said this is probably less than 1% success, but
it can work.

4. Cutting out that big block (Hole in your head method)-
I have had more success with this than erasing for some reason. Again
this is an all or nothing proposition. If you like gambling, go ahead.
Remember that you will leave more noticable physical evidence.

5. Cross-hatching fill-ins (Cross method)-
This method works about 20%-25% of the time. I believe it is pretty
self-explanatory. I find that the best patterns are diaganol
cross-hatches, or horizontal lines. I can’t explain why this works, I
assume you are simply confusing the machine.

6. In-between shading (Grey areas method)-
By in-between shading, I mean finding a level of grey that is not too
dark or too light. I believe this will work because of the same reason as
#5.

8. YOU FILL IN THE CORRECT ANSWER!

9. According to Anthony Iannone …
This person states that he has worked on maintenance of those
wonderful machines that CORRECT those beloved scantrons. Anyway, he
states that almost ALL scantron readers work differently. Makes enough
sense… anyway, I would think the methods are generally workable for any
machine…. only trial and error will tell.

“The only way to fool many of the kinds to to fold the edge over or
cut it off. But the the machiene will pass it trough unmarked, and the
teach will probably notice”

He also states that it will only work on the 50 question ones as the
others are too small…. my own experiments have shown that it all
scantron forms can be manipulated.
Another suggestion of his make alot of answer keys and stick them into
the batch. That is done by filling in “key,” of course. Some machines
only accept one answer key at a time, some will change the key each time
it runs across one…. this doesn’t exactly help your grade, but it does
wreak some havoc. One can also try copy toner, but I’m not going to risk
messing up a scantron machine just to see what will happen.

10. Putting a piece of tape over the black lines (Tape method) -
This just does what chapstick was supposed to do… screw up the
scanning light… and jack up everything… 90% of the time it makes the scantron machine malfunction, and not mark it incorrect.

The scantron machine grades your test in the following manner (at least
the one I have had access to): It takes the maximum number correct from
the answer key, say 20. Then for each incorrect answer, it subtracts one
from that total. And it only subtracts if there’s a mistake recorded.
That is why malfunctions lead to either no markings, or perfect scores.

And as a final note, CHAPSTICK DOES NOT WORK! I don’t know who started
it, but I have tried all flavors of chapstick thinking it might be that.
But it hasn’t worked. I have tried all different brands of lip balm as
well. It still has not worked. Perhaps it worked back in the day, but it
doesn’t now.

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All content of this post is credited to the author of http://scantron-exploit.blogspot.com/

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Israel to investigate timing of announcement

Confusing? Yes.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has set up a team to try to find out what officials were thinking when they decided to announce new settlements being placed in East Jerusalem.

There was an unfortunate incident that was unintentional, and it was hurtful and surely should not have occurred,” Netanyahu said Sunday morning. “We appointed a team that will find the chain of events in order to ensure procedures that make sure incidents like this do not happen in the future.”

Click Read More to get the opinion on this story.

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Website Design | FTW!

Elegance and Design, go together like Cheese and Wine.

After trolling the internet for days, the people at the headquarters of wtforftw.com have found an interesting website than combines intriguing content with tasty design. Dustin Curtis describes himself in one line at the bottom of his site “My name is Dustin Curtis. I make user interfaces.” Being someone who has limited experience with topography, I’m easily pleased with his designs. (This is where someone might make a joke about the font Papyrus) His color choices and user experience on his website is generally spot on. I find browsing the content to be a swift and enlightening affair. Take the design captured above. You would think it’s a desktop on a sleek macbook pro, but in reality it is a cleverly designed webpage.

This particular page discusses the hiring process of most start-up companies. He goes into great detail how hiring low-level positions first often dooms a company to be poorly managed and ultimately fail. It’s an interesting paradox, Do I need a senior advisor or an entry-level designer first? Does talent or experience matter more?

In reading the comment section of his webpage, I gathered a few intelligent responses about the subject matter.

Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.
- Putt’s Law

Does this apply to other industries? Is it merely a joke referring to the rapid pace of technology development and the ability for the young, plastic mind to overtake experience?

Perhaps this post asks too many questions?  At the end of the day, you should check out Dustin Curtis’s page in its entirety.

DustinCurtis.com
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Corruption in Mexico | WTF?

Mexico, where would we be without you? We’d probably be free of disease, have less of a drug problem, and we’d have about 761,610 square miles of inhabitable land. All jokes aside about conquest, the most recent President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, launched a war on drug cartels and corruption in general. In Tijuana and also Ciudad Juárez, the army ordered that all local police officers surrender their weapons, as it is suspected that many officers have ties with drug cartels. This move definitely stepped on enough toes to generate a war zone in these major border cities.

This blog has a suggestion for Felipe, from one world leader to another. How about focusing on your northern border control issues? If you stop the revenue source of the cartels, will you not eventually send them into a fiscal and emotional depression? What do you think? How would you subdue over a century of corruption if you were in charge?

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