//beconfused

The 6 Most Frequently Quoted Bullsh*t Statistics

1. You Accidentally Swallow About 8 Spiders a Year: Back in 1993, people were already getting fooled by online urban legends at an amusing rate. So, a columnist for PC Professional named Lisa Holst decided to prove that you could make up anything on the internet and people would believe it. (I guess everyone can sleep well tonight already.)
2. You Only Use 10% of Your Brain: I knew this is totally nonsense because I don’t find brains that useful.
3. You Must Wait 30 Minutes After Eating Before Swimming: This somehow spread to my mom and she is a firm believer in a 30-minute wait at the swimming pool if something was eaten.

Read more at Cracked.

I always hear strange unverified statistics. You can’t possibly get your friends to include a source in whatever they say. But sometimes, I wish they did. My mom tells me the strangest statistics and health tips. We really shouldn’t go into that.

Finally I finished one assignment. It sure took long to launch Microsoft Word and start typing the answers. I hate having to type and type things I consider to be quite “common sense”. I finished it quite quickly surprisingly, I was expecting myself to take much longer.

Lessons at school are kinda ending already. Made me a little happier, a little worried too. It only means examinations are coming and I am not good in examinations somehow.

School’s been interesting. I enrolled into university into a course I pretty much expect myself to be alone. I didn’t know anybody who would join the university and didn’t expect to make friends much either. Before course commencement, I was still feeling pretty down that life’s going to be boring and routine.

Even when school starts, things didn’t start off too well also. I had a hard time grasping business and mathematics concept. Things are starting to get better and discussions with my clique helped a lot. I start having this feeling that discussions would eventually be stopped. Seems like not much people is really contributing to discussions.

Discussions require contribution and sometimes the contribution level falls so low that it is like a kindergarten teacher leading a class of 4. I watch the discussions die off a couple of times making no attempt to save it. Sometimes I tried to, sometimes I just don’t. Some things I note are:

1. If one person is teaching and receives little to no feedback during a discussions, he or she quits contributing. One person talking by himself or herself for fifteen minutes is not a good discussion.
2. Some people try to continue the discussion by asking more question. That typically fails after a while…
3. There are times contributions are disruptive. When one person understand the discussion and the other person doesn’t, the discussion doesn’t go on. Instead it gets stuck at one point where explanations just keep getting repeated and I had to visit the water cooler twice to excuse myself to keep awake.
4. Unproductive discussion often result when any one of the participants is feeling sleepy or joining in late. Feel sleepy then quit the discussion and go somewhere else, better than killing the discussion by asking for repeats.
5. Might be helpful for discussions to have a participant that would take up a moderator role.

Anyway… I doubt that our discussions would continue due to certain issues. I just have a feeling that it probably won’t happen again.

Five excuses to use when caught sleeping at your desk:

1. “They told me at the Blood Bank this might happen.”
2. “This is just a 15 minute power nap they raved about in the time management course you sent me to.”
3. “Whew! Guess I left the top off the Whiteout. You probably got here just in time.”
4. “Did you ever notice sound coming out of these keyboards when you put your ear down real close?” And the NUMBER ONE best thing to say if you get caught sleeping at your desk…
5. Raise your head slowly and say, “…in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

[via Atlanta Illustrated]

The tragicomic presidency of George W. Bush, in his own words. Bushism at its best.

1. “They misunderestimated me.” –Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000
2. “I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is right.” –Rome, Italy, July 22, 2001
3. “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on –shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” –Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
4. “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.” –Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000
5. “If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” –Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000
6. “The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.” –Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2001. And later, “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” –Washington, D.C., March 13, 2002.
7. “Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.” –Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004
8. “My answer is bring them on.” –on Iraqi insurgents attacking U.S. forces, Washington, D.C., July 3, 2003

For the full list, read it at About.com. I actually quite dislike About.com, oh well, once in a while they do have pretty good stuff.

[via Digg]

Here’s a summary of some signs to show that you’ve grown up:

1. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
2. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.
3. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
4. You feed your dog “Science Diet” instead of McDonald’s leftovers.
5. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
6. You take naps.
7. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
8. Ninety percent of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
9. …

Read the full list at DivineCaroline.

I read through the list and realized that I probably haven’t grown up yet. (Partly because the list is really for 40 year olds.) Made me kinda happy and quite fearful of growing up all of a sudden. And I noted Americans love to drink too.

Sleeping on a couch makes my back hurt already and I am starting to take naps a little too much.

[via Digg]

My very delicious del.icio.us links, if you’re bored, you can check out the links that I have compiled:

Most of the things I compiled are something to do with web design and development. Some photoshop and CakePHP articles too. Someone may just find it useful.

Not A Blind Date did a feature on 94 of the Best Free Software Applications that are Better than Purchased Software which is cool by the way but I can’t help to wonder what comparison are they making with.

They went on to place AVG in their list as the best anti-virus software. It’s probably the best free anti-virus software but it’s just not the best in the field. Best Image Editor is given to GIMP too when Photoshop is clearly superior.

And there is the Best Md5 Checksum Creator/Checker, since when someone is trying to sell a MD5 checker? Best Office Suite goes to OpenOffice, I don’t think the author check out Office 2007.

The list has nothing to do with recommending a free software that’s better than the paid counterpart. But some free software is actually worth noting.

I would recommend some of the free software:

• 7-zip if you want to open RAR and ZIP file. You can’t create RAR files with it though.
• Google’s Picasa excels in photo organizing. I think it’s better than the Windows Vista one.
• NotePad++ for HTML editor. It’s quick and easy to use.
• µTorrent is quick, simple and not at all resource hogging!
• YamiPod is great when you want to add songs into your iPod without iTunes installed.
• Audacity does its job well in editing audio files.
• Scribus is a free layout and publishing software. Think of it as a free and open source Adobe InDesign, however you can’t get too serious with this tool.
• Filezilla does its FTP job well. It doesn’t have the prettiest interface but it just works!
• Free Download Manager is my favorite free download manager.
• I personally prefer Opera to Firefox or Internet Explorer. All 3 browsers are good though, use what you’re familiar with and don’t bother switching but keep your software to the latest version!
• Blender is does an acceptable job in 3D modelling. Of course it can’t compete with the bigger boys but it’s free.
• Combined Community Codec Pack is a great codec pack.
• Windows Live Messenger is good for keeping up with your pals.
• Eraser cleans your files completely. It’ll overwrite the sectors till its unretrievable.
• If you want to die early but need a free Office program, check out OpenOffice. It’s the best free software.
• AVG antivirus software protects your computer. It has a free one and one that you have to pay for.
• Inkscape is a vector editing program. Not as powerful as Illustrator but it remains my favorite tool to use for vector edits. It’s quick and easy.
• Try Paint.NET if you hate GIMP.
• I prefer Foxit Reader for reading PDF over Adobe Reader. I love the quicker loading in my slow computer.

The software list above is what I have used before, perhaps you can take a look and you may just find the right tool for you too. Some are open source, some aren’t but they’re all free.