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"I am beyond happy because I had to prove that (last year's victory) was not chance, so now I am totally at peace. I love to compete against myself and getting better and better," said Ronnie White, of Fort Worth, Texas. Fifty mental athletes competed all day in the 13th annual championship in lower Manhattan that included events such as memorizing the names of 99 people and their pictures, a 50-line poem in free verse and over 100 single numbers in the right order. In the category of speed numbers, computer science student Nelson Dellis, 26, won and topped White's previous record by remembering in five minutes 178 different numbers in their right order. White, who is able to memorize a deck of cards in 1.5 minutes, will go on to represent the United States at the World Memory Championships in Guangzhou, China in November. Mostly won by Britons, last year's world championship was clinched by Briton Ben Pridmore, who memorized a randomly shuffled deck of 52 cards in 24 seconds. Despite their astounding feats, most competitors profess nothing unusual about their prodigious memories, claiming that all it takes is regular mental exercise.

Evri Ties the Knot with Twine — Twine CEO Comments and Analysis March 11th, 2010  Share Today I am pleased to announce that my company, Radar Networks, and its flagship product, Twine, have been acquired by Evri. TechCrunch broke the story here. This acquisition consolidates the two leading providers of semantic discovery and search. It is also the culmination of my long and challenging venture to pioneer the adoption of the consumer Semantic Web.

Twine was well-received by the press and early-adopter users.

The Twine team is joining Evri to continue our work there. Twine.com’s data and users are safe and sound and will be transitioned into the Evri.com service over time. This process will be done in a manner that protects privacy and data, and is minimally disruptive. I have great faith in the team at Evri and believe they will handle this with great care and respect for the Twine community.

Images of the Future that Never Was The website Paleofuture.com offers a fascinating look at what past eras predicted for our future --and how wrong it was. There are plenty of charming images of flying machines, lunar colonies, and refrigerators of the future:

Researchers in Germany and the UK have discovered symmetry hidden in solid state matter at very small scales. The findings, published in the journal Science, indicate that symmetry involves the golden ratio famous from art and architecture. The research was supported in part by the NMI3 ('Integrated infrastructure initiative for neutron scattering and muon spectroscopy') project, which was funded under the 'Coordination of research activities' Thematic area of the EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) to the tune of EUR 21 million

Scientists say that in mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is the same as the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one.

'Such discoveries are leading physicists to speculate that the quantum, atomic scale world may have its own underlying order,' Professor Tennant, who led the HZB team, said, adding that 'similar surprises may await researchers in other materials in the quantum critical state.

Steven Wright gems 1. Half the people you know are below average. 2. 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name. 3. 42.7% of statistics cited by people in arguments are made up on the spot. 4. A conscience is what feels bad when everything else feels so good. 5. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory. 6. The early bird may get the worm, but it’s the second mouse who gets the cheese. 7. What’s the speed of dark? 8. How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink? 9. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm. 10. Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now. 11. Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines. 12. My mechanic told me, “I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.” 13. If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. 14. A conclusion is the place where you get tired of thinking. 15. The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. 16. The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up. 17. Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don’t have any film.

Please take just a moment to read and consider these three points:Your use of the Internet security vulnerability profiling services on this site constitutes your FORMAL PERMISSION for us to conduct these tests and requests our transmission of Internet packets to your computer. ShieldsUP!! benignly probes the target computer at your location. Since these probings must travel from our server to your computer, you should be certain to have administrative right-of-way to conduct probative protocol tests through any and all equipment located between your computer and the Internet.NO INFORMATION gained from your use of these services will be retained, viewed or used by us or anyone else in any way for any purpose whatsoever.If you are using a personal firewall product which LOGS contacts by other systems, you should expect to see entries from this site's probing IP addresses: 4.79.142.192 -thru- 4.79.142.207. Since we own this IP range, these packets will be from us and will NOT BE ANY FORM OF MALICIOUS INTRUSION ATTEMPT OR ATTACK on your computer. You can use the report of their arrival as handy confirmation that your intrusion logging systems are operating correctly, but please do not be concerned with their appearance in your firewall logs. It's expected.

The Kool-Aid Man can handle smashing through any number of brick walls, but is no match for a Hattori Hanzo sword.  (The Awesomer via FashionablyGeek)

Brazil is one of my favorite countries. Cool people, great music, heavenly beaches, and caipirinhas. But if you have to buy a Mac, you are screwed. And like this graphic shows, it's the same in other places in the world. Brazil wins, however: The price of one MacBook Pro 17" there buys you two identical models in the US. It's the same with other Apple products, so if you can't live without your Apple fix, you better move to another country. I'd take the caipirinhas and the beaches, thank you very much.

As you can see, the chances are very slim. As slim as the chances of the new security rules having any real effect in preventing any new attacks, sadly.

One of the wonders of the Internet is that it can bring the world to you instead of you needing to find the time and money to explore the traditional way. Explore cities, famous landmarks and buildings, museums, college campuses, and even outer space. You can learn how things are made, explore the human body or that of a life-sized whale, and visit ball parks and theme parks. 100 Incredible And Educational Virtual Tours.