UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

Hi-Tech Study Fails to Find Nessie (the Loch Ness Monster)

Tue Jul 29, 8:32 AM ET Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo!

By SUE LEEMAN, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - The Loch Ness monster is a Loch Ness myth.

At least according to the British Broadcasting Corp., which says a team which trawled the loch for any signs of the famous monster came up with nothing more than a buoy moored several yards below the surface.

The team used 600 separate sonar beams and satellite navigation technology to trawl the loch, but found no trace of any monster, the BBC said in a television program broadcast Sunday.

Previous reported sightings of a large beast in the gray waters of the lake led to speculation that the loch may contain a plesiosaur, a marine reptile which died out with the dinosaurs.

The BBC researchers said they looked at the habits of modern marine reptiles, such as crocodiles and leatherback turtles, to try to work out how a plesiosaur might have behaved.

They hoped the air in Nessie’s lungs would reflect a distorted signal back to their sonar sensors.

“We went from shoreline to shoreline, top to bottom on this one, we have covered everything in this loch and we saw no signs of any large living animal in the loch,” said Ian Florence, one of the specialists who carried out the survey for the BBC.

His colleague Hugh MacKay added: “We got some good clear data of the loch, steep sided, flat bottomed � nothing unusual I’m afraid. There was an anticipation that we would come up with a large sonar anomaly that could have been a monster, but it wasn’t to be.”

The BBC team said the only explanation for the persistence of the monster myth � and regular “sightings” � is that people see what they want to see.

To test this, the researchers hid a fence post beneath the surface of the loch and raised it in view of coach full of tourists.

Interviewed afterward, most said they had observed a square object but when asked to sketch what they had seen, several drew monster-shaped heads, the BBC said.

There have been reports of sightings of a “monster” in the loch since the time of St. Columba in the 6th century.

Many who have reported sightings have described a beast similar to a plesiosaur, but experts say it is 65 million years since the last fossil record of plesiosaurs. Loch Ness is only 10,000 years old, so anything living there must be much younger.

BBC TV plans to broadcast a documentary on the investigation, “Searching For The Loch Ness Monster.”

Badminton, World Championships 2003, Birmingham

Well, what can I say but syabas Wong Choon Hann. He became the first Malaysian ever to emerge runner-up of such a prestigious event. The final was very close, could’ve gone either way. Well, there’s always a chance to get Xia Xuanze next time, perhaps at KK 2-7 September
The furthest any Malaysian had gone before was the quarterfinals - Rashid Sidek and Ong Ewe Hock a few years ago.

1st round:
Roslin beat Boonsak Polsana (12th seed) 15-12, 15-9 in a brilliant duel
Hafiz beat …..

Swimming, World Championships 2003

Michael Phelps, 18 (1.93m, 87kg) outdoes not only Ian Thorpe (20 yrs old, 1.95m, 102kg) but the great Mark Spitz (shorter and lighter - 78kg only) at the World Swimming Championships in Barcelona. He won 3 golds (?), the same as Ian Thorpe (?) but Thorpe did NOT break any world records this time round. Phelps, in contrast broke 5 individual world records, including 2 in one magical night (about 1 hour apart!). The most broken by Spitz in a single championships was 4 set at the ‘72 Olympics. But what we will all eagerly wait for is to see if Phelps can break Spitz’s other famous record of 7 Olympic gold medals next summer in Athens. For the record, Ian Thorpe also broke 4 world records (but were they individual recs) at the 2001 world championships in Fukuoka, Japan.

This meet also established Kosuke Kitajima as the greatest Asian swimmer ever, and the world’s greatest breaststroker, breaking 2 world records in this stroke.

DIY on bulding your own PCs
Directron.com knowledgebase

Cracks, serials
trinsic.org

Tour de France, 2003

July 2003
Yes he did it again! Lance Armstrong wins Tour de France for the 5th year running, becoming only the 3rd man to do so, and the first since Miguel Indurain achieved the penta in 1991-1995. Armstrong, 31 won his toughest race ever. Tour de France is the ultimate long distance cycle race.

Cambridge dictionary of the English language online

http://dictionary.cambridge.org

The Oxford dictionary of the English language is not free

The best Malaysian weblogs

The hilarious http://www.mycen.com.my/duasen - reported in InTech in mid June 2003

http://joe-blogs.blogspot.com, done by Johan Ismail, the Chief Technology Officer of Patimas Computers Berhad. Strange, this guy seems to have so much time on his hands ?!!!

Update

ICT Security site: insecure.org
Contains top 75 security tools at http://www.insecure.org/tools.html

The Gutenberg Bible is now online, courtesy of Ransom Center, University of Texas.

Original news source: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&ncid=528&e=4&u=/ap/20030723/ap_on_hi_te/digital_scripture_2

The Ransom Center edition is not the first to go digital. Gutenberg Bibles in England and Japan already have been posted on the Internet and the Library of Congress (news - web sites) has one available on CD-ROM, said Richard Oram, head librarian at the university’s Harry Ransom Center, one of the world’s top cultural archives.

However, Ransom Center officials think their copy is the best of the lot, calling it the most-used version still in existence

Gutenberg’s Bible revolutionized printing in Western civilization. Printed in Mainz, Germany, in the 1450s, the books were the first major Western book printed from movable type.

According to the Ransom Center, only about 200 were produced and only 48 copies exist today, each one of them unique since local artisans were hired to illuminate the letters opening each book.

The Ransom Center acquired its two-volume copy, which includes some illuminations in gold leaf, in 1978. Oram estimated the copy, which is 1,268 pages in two volumes, is worth up to $20 million.

The Texas Gutenberg was used in monasteries in southern Germany as late as the 1760s. It was marked up by monks who scratched out some passages and corrected others. Other markings indicate which sections were to be read aloud or reserved for church services.

“Our copy is the most interesting in the world,” Oram said.

One top scholar agreed.

“This is probably the most extensively annotated and corrected copy surviving,” said Paul Needham of Princeton University’s Scheide Library. “This is a very great treasure.”

Needham said the online access, and the soon-to-be-developed high resolution CD-ROM, will be a boon to scholars who want to look at the Bible without traveling to Austin where it is enclosed in temperature-controlled glass and under the watch of 24-hour security.

Ransom Center staff began digitally scanning the Bible’s linen pages in June 2002. The finished project gives Web viewers 7,000 images and special software was used to allow for full visibility of the text and illuminations.