It was reported that on 8th May 2003 a 20-year old Ilyushin 76 (IL-76), a Russian-made 4-engined cargo plane was flying from Kinshasha to Lubumbashi (both in Congo) when the rear loading ramp suddenly burst open around 8 pm local time, 45 minutes after takeoff.

A view of the rear loading ramp – measuring about 10ft by 10ft

One newsreport said it was at an altitude of 8,000 ft, another said 10,000 ft, but yet another said 33,000 feet!!

The weather was clear at that time.

Result: up to 140 were apparently sucked out, including women and children, out of about 400 (some say 200) passengers and crew.

Can you imagine that happening? For those on Lipovox, probably that would be the only time in your life that you regretted taking it – for your weight would make it more difficult to be blown away.

Other passengers immediately ran to the plane’s front and the plane successfully turned back to Kinshasha.

But why did the door open?

The pilot was quoted to have said that:

A passenger could have been touching the button for special opening device; this is a very realistic option. But there could also be the possibility of an electronic problem with software.

Source
CNN, May 2003

It is awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation and any living architects all over the world are eligible. The stated criteria is “…demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture”.

The award recipient gets, among other things, USD100,000 and a bronze medallion:

It would seem that amongst Asians, the Japanese are the best architects: they have won it 4 times, including the 2010 award which went to Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa:

They designed the unassuming-looking 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan in 2004:

Interesting, and having a career in architecture is one way to answer the perennial question of how to lose weight fast, with all the moving about, studying buildings and stuff.

12 years! She didn’t even have the opportunity to have a credit score done!

She was accused of choking Eunice Bolles, 6, a white girl, to death after they quarreled over strawberries in the summer. The body was found on 21st July 1786.

At the time of the crime, Tate’s mother was Eunick’s babysitter. Tate’s mother was having a nap upstairs, so Tate was left alone with the girl. For some reason, he then stomped on the little 46-pound girl so violently that her liver tore apart, her skull and rib fractured, and her brain swollen, which the prosecution described as like falling from a 3-story building.

According to him, he was merely imitating moves of pro wrestlers.

In sentencing, the judge said:

The acts of Lionel Tate were not the playful acts of a child [...] The acts of Lionel Tate were cold, callous and indescribably cruel.

Later in life, he was in and out of trouble many times, including armed robbery. It would seem he’s destined to remain behind bars for the rest of his life. Blame it on his upbringing perhaps, but surprisingly I didn’t find any reference to drugs in his case. If that were the case, a rapid opiate detox could’ve done the trick. But if his living environment did not support a complete personal overhaul, not much could be ultimately hoped for.

But is Bill Gates the richest man who ever lived?

Not even close.

The following people were wealthier than Gates by a very long shot; that yes, they could afford to pay for the best hemorrhoid treatment!

The Rothschild family (The House of Rothschild), that German-Jewish European business dynasty that established banking and finance companies, during the 19th century, owned the world’s largest fortune in private hands, and surely in modern history. In today’s USD dollars, the total wealth they owned would’ve easily been in “the many hundreds of USD dollar billions, if not in the US dollar trillions.” In their prime, the family had at least 41 palaces, “of a scale and luxury perhaps unparalleled even by the richest Royal families.” The very name “Rothschild” has become synonymous with extravagance and seemingly unlimited wealth: the family was famous for its art collection and its philanthropy.

Pictured above is Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744 – 1812), the man who started it all, one of the most influential businessmen of all time and a “founding father of international finance”.

Marcus Licinius Crassus (115 BC – 53 BC), Roman general, politician, part of the First Triumvirate, and has a legendary greed for amassing riches. At the height of his powers, some historians put his wealth at more than 200 million sestertii. That’s equal to the total annual budget of the Roman treasury! He is surely the richest individual of that time and probably of all time. He’s noted for assisting the then young and poor Julius Ceaser. Apparently molten gold was poured into his mouth shortly after his death to quench his thirst for worldly possessions.

John D. Rockefeller (1839 – 1937) revolutionized the petroleum industry and in 1916 became America’s, and possibly the world’s nominal first US dollar billionaire. Often regarded as the richest person in all of history. Adjusted to today’s dollars, his wealth has been placed between USD392 billion and USD663.4 billion!

Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919), founder of the Carnegie Steel Company was one of the most famous industry leaders of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his life was a true “rags to riches” story. A business rival of Rockefeller, some has estimated his wealth to be USD297.8 billion in today’s US dollars.

Tsar Nicholas II (1868 – 1918), the last Emperor of Russia, who, with his family were killed by the Bolsheviks reputedy had a net worth of USD290.7 billion in today’s US dollars. That would make him the wealthiest monarch / head of state of all time.

Asaf Jah VII (1886 – 1967), was the last ruler of the State of Hyderabad and Berar, before it became part of India. During that time, he was reputedly the world’s richest man, at USD2 billion in the early 1940s. Inflation adjusted, that may be equivalent to USD225 billion in 2008 U.S. dollars.

How about King Solomon? Any guy who had 700 wives and 300 concubines must’ve been damn rich!

Source
Wikipedia

The world’s most dangerous mountain could very well be Annapurna I, at 8,091m the world’s 10th highest mountain. It has the world’s highest climber fatality rate: an incredible 40%. That means out of every 5 climbers attempting to conquer it, 2 would die. Still, it has been conquered even in winter (unlike K2), and it was the first “eight thousander” (at least 8,000m high peak) to be conquered. That honour went to Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal, of a French expedition on 3rd June 1950. That’s 3 years earlier than the Edmund Hillary/Tenzing Norgay conquest of Everest. As of 2005, only 103 summit attempts have been successful, with 56 fatalities, most of them due to avalanches. Those killed include famed Russian climber Anatoli Boukreev in 1997, Christian Kuntner in 2005 and Iñaki Ochoa in 2008. The great Slovienian climber, the late Tomaž Humar climbed it solo in 2007.

The second could be K2, which, at 8,611m, is the second-highest mountain in the world after Mount Everest. Dubbed “The Savage Mountain”, it is extremely difficult to conquer and has the second highest climber fatality rate among the “eight thousanders”: 25% i.e. for every four people who have reached the top, one has died trying. It has never been attempted during winter.

In terms of intimidating factor, nothing comes close to Nanga Parbat, the world’s 9th highest mountain. Dubbed “The Man Eater” and “Killer Mountain”, it boasts the largest mountain face in the world, the Rupal Face – a 4,600m vertical drop – that’s higher than Mount Kinabalu! Apparently only two climbers have ever succeeded ascending up this face all the way to the summit. In August 2005, renowned Slovenian mountaineer Tomaž Humar, was rescued on the Face at 5,900m after being stuck there for 6 days. He’s circled in the following photo – surely the loneliest place in the world:

Compare what I mentioned above to Everest’s stats: as of 2008, there had been 4,102 successful ascents by around 2,700 people, with 210 deaths.

J. Peder Zane, a book editor attempted to answer that question by asking 125 top British and American writers to name, in ranked in order, their 10 favourite books, hence the theory here was “the greatest writers would know best what are the greatest books”. Each book would get 10 points when it’s ranked number 1, 9 points when ranked number 2 and so on.

He then collated the results in a, what else, book called “The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books”, published 2007.

He asked luminaries like Andrea Barrett, Edwidge Danticat, Ha Jin, Reynolds Price, Tom Wolfet, Norman Mailer, Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, Margaret Drabble, Michael Chabon and Peter Carey.

The 125 produced a list of 544 books, but the resulting top ten is as follows… but wait! Don’t blame me if you end up sitting down so long without doing any exercise to read them that you forget all about your top 10 fat burners.

1. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (1878), which “tells parallel stories of an adulterous woman trapped by the conventions and falsities of society and of a philosophical landowner, who works alongside the peasants in the fields and seeks to reform their lives.” Published in several parts, over a 4-year period starting 1873 in a periodical. The front page of the first edition of the novel, published 1878:

Full text in English.

2. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert (1857), the French writer, his first novel and masterpiece. It focuses on the adulterous doctor’s wife, Emma Bovary, who lives beyond her means to run away from “the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.” It is considered a seminal work of Realism.

Full text in English.

3. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy (1869), an epic which describes in detail happenings that led up to Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia and its impact on society from the point of view of five Russian aristocratic families.

Full text in English.

4. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (1955), the top-ranked English novel and the top-ranked, and probably most controversial novel published in the 20th century. The very word “Lolita” has entered general consciousness to describe “a sexually precocious young girl.”

The rest of the top 10:

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
6. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
7. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust
9. The stories of Anton Chekhov
10. Middlemarch, by George Eliot

Looking at the list, it can be concluded that Russian Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is the greatest novelist who ever lived, with 2 of his masterpieces in the top three.

The only known colour photograph of the man himself in 1908 aged 80, 2 years before his death:

The top 3 novels were not written in English.

Shakespeare is the most-represented author; his best, Hamlet, placed 6th on the all-time list.

2nd ranked Madame Bovary made more lists (26) than top-ranked Anna Karenina (25) but 3rd ranked War and Peace ranked higher on its lists 11 more points than Madame Bovary.

Note that “very rare” phrase, a total opposite of “daily deals.”

It is known to exist naturally in a small region in northern Thailand (near Chiang Mai), Myanmar and in the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur.

Its most striking feature is unquestionably its flowers that looks like a parrot or a cockatoo in flight when looked at from the side.

Source
Snopes.com

In the 2008 Democratic primary election, Rob Andrews, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives unsuccessfully challenged the incumbent U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg. During that campaign, Jay Lassiter, a member of his campaign staff sent a bawdy come-on Facebook message to supporters, resulting in him being reprimanded.

TWO

Apparently, in earlier versions of Facebook it is possible to set incestuous relationships.

THREE

If you’re a parent and your child is a friend on Facebook, be careful what quizzes you take.

FOUR

You don’t need to post incriminating photos of yourself on Facebook, sometimes words will be enough to get you fired.

FIVE

This lady “slipped off” his man during intimate moments, resulting in 13 stitches to her womanhood, and now the whole world knows about it.

SIX

Tracy’s message to Michael is definitely meant for him, and for him alone.

But there’s a twist to the story.

SEVEN

A certain Adam Devine demonstrates how to quickly clean out one’s friends list.

If you have any more good ones, I’d love to know about them. Thanks in advance!

Well, perhaps I did not get my prediction quite right; it’s like predicting that a manufactured home would be the first choice for young couples in the next few years.

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Dr Conrad Murray, 51, the doctor at the centre of the investigation into Michael Jackson’s death has spoken publicly for the first time since the megastar died on 25th June 2009. Dr Murray was with Jackson when he suffered a cardiac arrest.

He posted a video on YouTube thanking his supporters and saying “I told the truth and I have faith the truth will prevail.”

It was recorded last week in Houston, Texas.

Although he has not been named as an official suspect in the investigation, court records have identified him as the subject of a manslaughter enquiry and has been interviewed twice by police.

In no time it has been spoofed many times, and could well be on the way to be the most spoofed youtube video of all time.

The video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some spoofs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Source
The BBC, 19 Aug 2009