Top 10 Arguments That Can’t Be Won

Evolution or Creation?

Theologists and scientists have been arguing this one for centuries as well. The argument goes back to the time when organized religion was almost as powerful as the monarchies ruling countries. When people starting postulating that the Earth was not the center of the universe, it gave way to the rise in questioning the idea of a seven-day creation and God’s role in creating the Earth. Enter Darwin and his Theory of Evolution and the debate truly kicks off with an unholy fevered pitch. Add in that there are many stories of creation across many different religions and your brain can really start to hurt.

Nature vs. Nurture

Does how you are raised affect your views as an adult more than what your genetic codes dictate? If your family has always been carpenters, are you destined to be a carpenter because of your genes or because of your familial upbringing? When identical twins are separated at birth and grow up to have identical tastes is that an argument that it has more to do with nature than nurture? However, is it nature to love spicy food, when that’s all that your family and friends eat?

Gun control

It’s not guns that kill people, it’s the bullets. In America, citizens have a right to bear arms, which has proven to be dangerous for many other citizens and police over the centuries since the country’s birth. On the other hand, large portions of the gun-toting population are careful citizens who have never crossed the law. Why should one group’s rights to bear arms be stripped away because another group feels unsafe? Or why should they be allowed to bear those weapons of death among a land of peaceful citizens?

Euthanasia

Dr. Kevorkian helped many people commit suicide due to their health conditions and their desires. His motives were questioned because all life is supposedly precious, but his patients wanted to move on from their frail existence. What if those patients didn’t have a say and we had the opportunity to choose whether they live in agony or die in peace by not giving them medication or a procedure? What is the better option?

The Death Penalty

Centuries ago, the prevalent rule of thumb was an eye for an eye, or in some cases, a life for a life. So the question becomes have we advanced far enough in our social and political structures to ban the death penalty? Or when is the death penalty justifiable? Is the death penalty appropriate for an accidental homicide? How about for a mass murderer?

Abortion or Pro-life?

Does a woman have the right to control her body by ending a life inside her? When is a fetus truly alive? Is all life truly precious? What happens when a woman is raped and becomes pregnant – is that life still precious? There may never be answers to these questions; however, the government has helped us out many times by entering its own opinion whether the pro-lifers like it or not.

Free will or Destiny?

The free will or destiny argument stems back to the Christian doctrine that God is omniscient and has seen everything that will happen. So if God can see everything that happens, is it free will or destiny that makes you choose to continue reading? Some have argued that God knows you will read this but you still have a choice. However, if the path is already apparent to one being, then the path has already been decided for you. However, that directly contradicts our everyday actions where we constantly make decisions – is something, a destiny foreseen by God, guiding us or are we truly free of the strictures of destiny?

Morals – Relative or Universal?

Like the question of gun control, whether ethics being morally relative or universal comes down to whether the good of the one outweighs the good of the many. If it is fine to sleep with another man’s wife in one society but not in another, then the problem is that the morals are relative to the society or person. But why wouldn’t it be universal that it is wrong to sleep with another man’s wife or woman’s husband in any society? Why is it OK to speed, when it is breaking the law? Shouldn’t breaking any law be just as wrong? If you would never steal a person’s purse, why would you pirate a DVD?

The chicken or the egg?

Perhaps one of the most fun arguments on this list, the chicken or the egg debate has raged for centuries mainly because it asks the questions does the animal evolve and then reproduce or was it hatched? That debate can then be transferred to our own existence, which leads into the argument of Evolution or Creation.

Does God Exist?

Since the dawn of recorded time, there have been people trying to prove that there is a higher being or beings that have caused the worlds and its creation. Organized religion comes down to having faith that there is a higher being and a place to go after death. Most people, if not already deeply religious in their life, find religion and start believing as they near their twilight years because they want to believe there is somewhere to go and someone to be with. So the question is how do you prove that god, in which ever religion you believe, exists?

iPhone 4, with 512MB of RAM, to offer 'robust performance'

Apple's iPhone 4 boasts 512MB of system memory, double the amount in last year's iPhone 3GS and the newer iPad tablet..
The additional memory will give the iPhone 4 much more robust multitasking, an Apple hardware expert said today.
Although MacRumors first reported the story Thursday morning, Computerworld independently confirmed the Phone 4's additional memory.
According to MacRumors, iPhone developers were told last week of the memory boost at Apple's annual developers conference, where CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. The new model is slated to go on sale June 24.
In iOS 4, which will launch on Monday, software like Skype or Pandora will be able to take incoming VoIP calls or play tunes while other applications are in the forefront. The mobile operating system upgrade will also let users quickly switch between in-memory applications using an "app tray" that appears when users double-tap the iPhone's home button.
"256MB of system memory will still be pretty robust," said Vronko, but the iPhone 4's doubling means that it will seem snappier, be able to keep more programs in memory for instant access and, most importantly, eat up less battery power. That's because it won't have to swap out sections of system memory to the smartphone's flash RAM-based storage space.
The 256MB mark appears to be the minimum required for iOS 4 to multitask; while iPhone 3G owners can upgrade their phones to the new OS, they won't get multitasking.
By bumping up memory to 512MB, Apple leaves the door open to later expanding the iPhone 4's multitasking abilities. "The bigger issue is that this lets Apple release, maybe gradually, as it has always done with the iPhone, more functionality," said Vronko. "It can provide more [multitasking] APIs, maybe this year, maybe a year from now, that allow for more resource-hungry multitasking."
By this time in 2011, Vronko said, the difference between the iPhone 4's ability to multitask and that of the iPhone 3GS might be stark.
Half a gigabyte of system memory is now standard on top-tier smartphones from Apple's rivals, particularly those powered by Google's Android operating system, Vronko pointed out. "In a sense, then, Apple is just catching up.
"But Apple can better manage the memory it has in the iPhone with its centralized memory management than can Android phones," Vronko claimed. The difference isn't huge -- Vronko estimated that iPhone apps require 10%-20% less memory than similar Android software -- but every little bit helps.
The confirmation of 512MB in the iPhone 4 contradicts evidence gleaned from photographs of prototypes leaked by the Gizmodo technology blog in April, and a Vietnamese site last month. In both instance, experts said that the next-generation iPhone would probably have only 256MB, the same as in the iPhone 3GS and the iPad.
After examining the photographs published by Gizmodo, Vronko said that there was a 50-50 chance that the final version of the new iPhone would have 512MB of system memory.

World largest gold coin set for auction

The world's largest gold coin, a Canadian $ 1,000,000 Maple Leaf, measuring about half a meter in diameter and weighing 100 kilogram, is to go on sale in Austria.
The coin, made of pure refined gold, will go under the hammer at the Dorotheum auction house in Vienna on June 25. The bankrupting company that owns the coin, AvW Invest AG, has been forced to sell the record-breaking golden money. The gigantic coin features the image of three maple leaves -- the national symbol of Canada -- on one side and the image of British Queen Elizabeth II on the other.
Current estimates have put the value of the coin at just less than four million dollars. Prior to the onset of the company's liquidation proceedings, the impressive Maple Leaf was on loan to a museum in Vienna. It is also listed as the world's biggest coin in the latest edition of Guinness World Records.

HIV prevention around the world

Africa is the continent worst affected by AIDS, and because most new infections occur during unprotected heterosexual sex, the main goal in HIV prevention is to persuade people to change their sexual behaviour – to delay first sex, decrease casual relationships, and increase condom use. This is always a difficult task, and in Africa it is made harder by poverty, lack of resources and weak infrastructure. Only around one in ten Africans has been tested for HIV and knows whether they are infected; misconceptions about transmission routes are widespread, and access to condoms is very low. As a result, most countries have yet to see any decline in their epidemics. However, a few notable exceptions prove that such declines are achievable.

Uganda

Of all African countries, Uganda has won the most praise for its HIV prevention efforts. The proportion of adults living with the virus fell from around 15% in the early 1990s to about 5% in 2001, and most experts believe this was largely because of concerted efforts to encourage safer sexual behaviour. The response began in the mid-1980s, and was characterised by strong political leadership, open communication and involvement of numerous grassroots organisations, as well as expanded condom distribution, HIV testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.
In recent years, HIV prevalence in Uganda has failed to decline further, and perhaps has increased slightly. A national survey in 2004-2005 found that around half of men and women did not use a condom the last time they had casual sex, and almost one in three said they had had more than one sexual partner during the previous year.¹⁶ The epidemic is still very severe and there is much room for improvement.

Kuiper Belt world measured in star pass

                                  Pluto is the biggest Kuiper Belt object known so far 

Astronomers say they have observed, for the first time, a distant icy world orbiting beyond Neptune as it passed briefly in front of a bright star.

This "stellar occultation" occurs when a planetary body hides a star as it moves across the sky.
A US-led team of 18 astronomy groups used the occasion to study KBO 55636 from the Kuiper Belt on the outskirts of the Solar System.
They tell the journal Nature that the occultation lasted only 10 seconds.
But this was enough time to determine the object's size and albedo, or reflectivity, the team said.
The Kuiper Belt is a collection of space objects, remnants from the Solar System's formation.
These objects lie beyond the orbit of the Solar System's most remote planet, Neptune.
The Kuiper Belt is similar to the asteroid belt, but instead of being composed of mainly rock and metal, most of its bodies are frozen volatiles - methane, ammonia and water.

Fading data could improve privacy

Our digital footprint should be allowed to fade over time thinks researcher  .

Privacy could be enhanced if data was allowed to fade, suggests research.

Dutch researcher Dr Harold van Heerde is looking into ways to gradually "degrade" the information that sites gather about visitors.
Slowly swapping details for more general information can help guard against accidental disclosure, he said.
"There are so many weak points in security that you can never be sure that your data is safe," said Dr van Heerde.
'Data danger' The research project carried out by Dr van Heerde from the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT) at the University of Twente looked into ways to change the way databases manage information about users and customers.
The ability of those databases to gather information tempts companies and organisations to hoard information just in case it proves valuable, Dr van Heerde told BBC News.
The dangers of having data about us stored more or less permanently in many different places around the web have been proved many times when that information is leaked by accident or design, said Dr van Heerde.
"People make mistakes, people can be bribed," he said. "You cannot protect this data, you cannot be sure it's not been disclosed, privacy policies are simply too weak."
Instead of simply refusing to use services that gather data, Dr van Heerde believes it would be better for people to surrender data knowing that there was a policy that determined how it degraded over time.
At initial use to secure a transaction or get useful information from a search all relevant details might be stored. Subsequently details would slowly be swapped for more general information.
In the case of a location-specific search information about a user's exact GPS co-ordinates could be swapped for a street name, then a neighbourhood and then just a city.
"You can slowly replace details with a more general value," he said.
As well as limiting the impact of any disclosure, such a policy might also force companies to be more explicit about what data they gather and what they will use it for.
"In most cases there's no good reason for them storing data for so long," he said.

Oldest table tennis player, female

The oldest table tennis player is Dorothy de Low. De Low was 97 years old when she represented Australia at the XIV World Veterans Table Tennis Championships at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 25, 2008.

The History of Xerox

In 1937, the process called Xerography was invented by American law student Chester Carlson. Carlson had invented a copying process based on electrostatic energy. Xerography became commercially available in 1950 by the Xerox Corporation. Xerography comes from the Greek for "dry writing".

Who Invented YouTube?

YouTube was invented by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim out of a garage in Menlo Park. The inventors became millionaires when they sold their invention for 1.65 billion dollars to the search engine Google.

According to their fact sheet, YouTube was founded in February 2005, as a destination to watch and share original videos worldwide through the Web. Users can upload and share video clips on www.YouTube.com and YouTube enables video embedding that allows YouTube videos to be placed on non-YouTube pages.

Every child needs a family:

Save your life and use hands free system!

Mr. Bean Was In Twilight

If Mr. Bean Was A pirate

If Mr. Bean Was In Orphan

If Mr. Bean Had A Bady

STUNTS

World's Oldest Father has 21st child at 90

The world's oldest father has done it again, fathering a child for at least the 21st time, at the age of 90.
Indian farmer Nanu Ram Jogi, who is married to his fourth wife, boasts he does not want to stop, and plans to continue producing children until he is 100.
Mr Jogi admits he is not certain how many children his series of four wives have borne him - but counts at least 12 sons and nine daughters and 20 grandchildren.
Proud father: Nanu Ram Jogi with his youngest child, two-week-old Girija Rajkumari
Two-week-old daughter Girija Rajkumari is the latest addition to the proud father's family.
"Women love me," Mr Jogi said. "I want to have more children. I can survive another few decades and want to have children till I am 100 - then maybe I will stop."
Mr Jogi, who attributes his remarkable virility to daily walks and plenty of meat, said: "I eat all kinds of meat - rabbits, lamb, chicken and wild animals."
Mr Jogi fathered his eldest daughter, Sita Devi, in 1943. His latest wife, Saburi, who has given him seven children, was first married to his eldest son Shiv Lal, who died 10 years ago.
Speaking from the family home in a remote village in Rajasthan, she said:
"At first I didn't want to stay here after my husband died. But Nanu promised to look after me and now we have seven children."
Mr Jogi's children and grandchildren live in six houses attached to his two-storey family home.
He said: "I have a perfect life - with so many children and grandchildren all around me, it keeps me young."

FUNNY ROLLER COASTER PHOTOS

Just do it

Microsoft slims down Xbox console

Microsoft has launched a slimmer and more powerful Xbox 360.

Slimmer Xbox 360 going on sale this week

The new console - to be launched this week - will have the same price as the old system, but comes with Wi-Fi and a 250 GB HD.
It follows a similar move by Sony, which released its own slimmer edition in August 2009.
The announcement was made ahead of the E3 games convention in Los Angeles, at which the firm showcased its range of forthcoming games.
The event also saw the first public viewing of Call of Duty: Black Ops, the latest edition in the popular Call of Duty series.
The new edition is set during the Vietnam War and takes the players through the tunnels of South Vietnam and into the jungles of Laos.
The game will hit the shops on 9 November this year.

"Papa?"

"This is it. NO ITS PATRICK !"

History of Sony Playstation

The history of the Playstation begins in 1988 when Sony and Nintendo were working together to develop the Super Disc. The Super Disc was going to be a CD-ROM attachment that was intended to be part of Nintendo's soon to be released Super Nintendo game. However, Sony and Nintendo parted ways business-wise and the Super Disc was never introduced or used by Nintendo. In 1991, Sony used a modified version of the Super Disk as part of their new game console -  the Sony Playstation. Research and development for the PlayStation had began in 1990, headed by Sony engineer, Ken Kutaragi.

Lingo Programming

ohn Thompson invented lingo programming used in Macromedia Director and Shockwave. According John Thompson, "Lingo is a scripting language in the Macromedia Director authoring tool. The content created with Macromedia Director is delivered on the World Wide Web as shockwave movies." 
John Thompson was the principal engineer for Macromedia Director, the inventor and developer of Lingo and XObjects, and a professor of new media at New York University - Tisch Interactive Telecommunications Program. Thompson studied art at the New York Student Art League and the Boston Museum School and earned a degree in Computer Science and Visual Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1983.
From 1987 until 2001, Thompson was the chief scientist at Macromedia where he developed a number of products, including: The VideoWorks Accelerator, VideoWorks II, MediaMaker, Action, and Macromedia Director. John Thompson currently lives in Philadelphia with his wife and four children and is working on custom software for his own realtime video artwork (see artwork above).

History of the Atomic Bomb & The Manhattan Project

n August 2, 1939, just before the beginning of World War II, Albert Einstein wrote to then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Einstein and several other scientists told Roosevelt of efforts in Nazi Germany to purify uranium-235, which could be used to build an atomic bomb. It was shortly thereafter that the United States Government began the serious undertaking known then only as "The Manhattan Project." Simply put, the Manhattan Project was committed to expediting research that would produce a viable atomic bomb.

History of Glue

Archeologists excavating burial sites from 4000 BC have discovered clay pots repaired with glue made from tree sap.
Around 1750, the first glue or adhesive patent was issued in Britain. The glue was made from fish. Patents were then rapidly issued for adhesives using natural rubber, animal bones, fish, starch, milk protein or casein.

The High-Speed Helicopter

Helicopters are good for hauling cargo and rescuing mountaineers. But if you need to cover a long distance fast, you'd be better off taking a plane, as helicopters today struggle to top 180 m.p.h. (290 km/h). Sikorsky's X2 Technology helicopter aims to annihilate that speed barrier. Unlike ordinary choppers, which pair a single rotor on top with an antitorque tail rotor, the X2 has two main rotors spinning in opposite directions and an airplane-like propeller at the rear. This highly stable setup should allow the X2 to cruise at a zippy 290 m.p.h. (467 km/h) — about the same speed as some small turboprop planes. Don't expect to see this real-life Airwolf hovering above your house anytime soon, however: the chopper will be tied up in tests for the next decade.

The Edible Race Car

If it's impossible for a race car to be "good" for the environment, maybe it can at least be a little friendlier. Meet the WorldFirst F3 project, a Formula 3 race car developed at England's University of Warwick: it has carrot fibers in its steering wheel, potato starch in its side mirrors and cashew-nut shells in its brake pads. The whole thing runs on a biodiesel mix of chocolate and vegetable oil.
In a small effort to make the car even greener than it already is, the designers coated the radiator in a substance that converts ozone emissions into oxygen.

The AIDS Vaccine

A vaccine is not exactly a novel invention, but one that's designed to fight HIV certainly is. More than 20 years after the AIDS virus was identified, researchers have devised the first immunization to protect people against HIV infection. A six-year trial showed that the vaccine, which consists of two shots that given individually had failed to protect against HIV, is modestly effective, reducing infection 31% among those receiving the regimen vs. those getting a placebo. Scientists are still trying to figure out how the vaccine decreases infection risk, since the shots did not affect the level of virus in the blood of volunteers. And some experts question whether the small effect is indeed significant. The vaccine is not approved for use yet, but it's the first to make any headway against HIV, and that's a start.

10 Most Controversial Books

1. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

Where to start with this book? Probably one of the most controversial books ever written, upon its release in the late 80s The Satanic Verses caused a huge uproar in the Islamic world. Many believed that Rushdie’s fourth novel was highly blasphemous; for example he referred to the Prophet Muhammad as Mahound. A fatwa was issued against the author by the Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. A bounty of $1 million was put forward to anyone who killed Rushdie and $3 million if the killer was Iranian. Other countries soon jumped on the bandwagon: Venezuela banned the book and threatened 15 months in prison to anyone caught reading it, while in Japan a translator who was involved with the book was stabbed to death. Several other countries, including America, removed the books off the shelves of their book stores. Rushdie lived in hiding for a decade for fear of his life. Despite all this the book was still listed for the Booker Prize in 1988!

2. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

A satirical novel that came out in 1991 highlighting the farce nature of the yuppies in America. The story was told through the protagonist Patrick Bateman, an insane yuppie who happens to be a serial killer. In recent times the novel has been labelled as “one of the key novels of the last century,” but when it came out it garnered huge controversy due to its extreme levels of graphic violence and sexual torture. The author received hate mail and death threats. It still cannot be purchased by under 18’s in some countries.

3. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Another book courting controversy through its religious slurs, this time towards the Christian faith. The story revolves around characters who discover a dark secret that’s been hidden by the Catholic Church for centuries, which sheds light on the divinity of Christ. The book (and film) has become hugely popular but has also gained controversy over its inaccurate descriptions of history, geography, art and architecture. Another author even sued Dan Brown for plagiarism!

4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

If your central character is a paedophile then your immediately going to be putting your neck on the line. It comes as no surprise really then that Nabokov’s novel gained such controversy in 1955 when it was first published in France. Said paedophile was Humbert Humbert, who had a particular obsession with a 12 year-old girl called Dolores Haze. It went on to be banned in France, the UK, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina. Surprisingly though it was a massive success in America where it sold 100,000 copies in its first three weeks.

5. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

One of the most challenged books of all time, especially in the USA. It has been banned from many libraries around the country as well being removed off the school curriculum. It’s also held a spot on the list of the American Library Association’s ‘Most Frequently Challenged Books.’ The reason for all this is because of the racial language used in the book. For example, the word “nigger” features in the book over 200 times.

6. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

The Chocolate War was written for teenagers and young adults but once parents realised what the pages of the book contained there were protests to have it banned. Released in 1974 the novel includes violence, over 200 swear words and a masturbation scene. It is still banned in libraries and shops around the world to this day, and you won’t find it in schools any more either!

7. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

Despite the amazing global success of Harry Potter in among both children and adult readers there is still a huge amount of controversy surrounding the books. Fanatics around the world have cited that the Harry Potter series promotes Satanism. Stats revealed by librarian scientists revealed that over 3,000 attempts had been made between 2000 and 2005 to have the books banned in the U.S.

8. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

When The Wasp Factory came out in 1984 it was Scottish author Iain Banks’ first novel. The bold novel by an unknown writer was hit with controversy over its violent material. Written in first-person and told through the sadistic mind of sixteen year-old protagonist Frank Cauldhame, the character describes his troubled childhood whereby he tortured animals and killed three children whilst only a child himself. Think Patrick Bateman in his early years.

9. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Described by many as one of the greatest novels ever written and included in Time Magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels The Catcher in the Rye is still not short of its controversy and critics. Originally intended for an adult readership, many teenagers enjoyed the novel (and still do) as the rebellious central character is Holden Caulfield. Tackling themese such as confusion, angst, sexuality, alienation, and rebellion many teens related to Caulfield’s issues. But the book gained controversy for these very reasons. Some critics wanted the book censored because of its “anti-Christian” sentiments.

10. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Written by George Orwell whilst he was on his death bead, the novel is influenced heavily by the author’s political views. Themes in the book include the United States and the Soviet Union, and surrounds topics such as totalitarianism, torture, mind control, invasion of privacy, organised religion, censorship, sex and a whole lot more! The novel is also said to have created the notion of “Big Brother”, in that we are always being watched. Many fanatics claimed that Nineteen Eighty-Four was written by a very sick Orwell who wasn’t of sound mind at the time and for that reason it should be banned. Others disagree saying it was his masterpiece.