////////////Smallest man meets leggiest woman
7 hours ago
The world's smallest man met the woman with the longest legs in the world - but his thoughts were elsewhere.
He Pingping, who is just 74.61cm tall (2ft 5.37in), posed on steps in London's Trafalgar Square with Russian Svetlana Pankratova, whose legs have been measured at 132cm (4ft 3.9in) - almost twice his height.
He Pingping, 20, who was born with primordial dwarfism, was thinking as ever of his girlfriend back in Inner Mongolia.
///////////////////////////////Chapter II: Sankhya Yoga
(Krishna speaking to Arjuna)
II.69. That which is night to all beings, in that the self-
controlled man is awake; when all beings are awake, that is night
for the Muni (sage) who sees.
COMMENTARY: That which is real for the worldly-minded is illusion
for the sage, and VICE VERSA. The sage lives in the Self. This
is DAY for him. He is unconscious of the worldly phenomena. They
are NIGHT for him, as it were. The ordinary man is unconscious of
his real nature. Life in the spirit is night for him. He is
experiencing the objects of sensual enjoyment. this is day for
him. The Self is a non-entity for him! For a sage this world is
a non-entity.
The worldly minded people are in utter darkness as they have
no knowledge of the Self. What is darkness for them is all light
for the sage. The Self, Atman or Brahman is night for the worldly-
minded persons. But the sage is fully awake. He is directly
cognising the supreme Reality, the Light of lights. He is full of
illumination and Atma-Jnana or knowledge of the Self.
////////////////////
Before dinosaurs, pigs ruled the Earth
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Jonathan Leake | September 15, 2008
FIRST there was the Permian era; then came the Triassic period. Now palaeontologists have discovered an intriguing interlude, the porcine age, when pig-like creatures ruled the earth.
The animals, known as lystrosaurs, were among the only survivors of the greatest mass extinction event the world has seen, when, around 251m years ago, 95 per cent of all living species were wiped out by a series of volcanic eruptions.
The eruptions eliminated every large predator, so for a million years or more the lystrosaurs had the planet — and all its succulent plant life — almost entirely to themselves.
“They fed and spread. We think there were billions of them,” said Paul Wignall, professor of palaeo-environment at Leeds University. “Their fossils are everywhere.”
The lystrosaurs evolved towards the end of the Permian period, around 260m years ago, long before the time of modern mammals and reptiles and even of the dinosaurs. They belonged to a group called the cynodonts. Reconstructions from fossils suggest they were similar in size and stature to modern pigs, complete with snouts and small tusks for rooting around in vegetation.
This was a period in Earth’s history when complex life had established itself on land and sea, with new species evolving rapidly into every available niche. Early lystrosaurs, with their sprawling gait, ungainly bodies and bulbous heads, would have been easy meat for the abundant predators and so seem to have evolved as underground beasts. Fossils show they dug burrows, which in turn implies they may have been nocturnal and have had the ability to hibernate.
In that period all the continents were joined together in one huge land mass now called Pangaea. Geological records suggest the world was then much warmer, with forests covering Australia, then lying over the south pole, and no icecaps.
About 251m years ago everything changed. “A massive volcanic eruption began in the northern part of Pangaea in what is now Siberia,” said Wignall, speaking at a conference last week. “Over thousands of years about 5,000,000km3 of basalt erupted onto the Earth’s surface and billions of tons of CO2 poured into the air.”
The initial result of each eruption was rapid cooling as the volcanic haze blotted out the sun. Then, over the following decades, the world warmed sharply because of the CO2. The eruptions came in pulses over thousands of years, so this pattern of warming and cooling was repeated several times.
“We can only speculate on how lystrosaurus survived while the rest died, but perhaps its ability to burrow and hibernate protected it from the worst periods,” Wignall said.
A number of species did survive, including other cynodonts. These would later give rise to the mammals and eventually humans. Back then, however, they were just tiny shrew-like creatures. A second group of survivors were diapsids, the group that would later give rise to the dinosaurs, reptiles and birds. They, too, were tiny.
Wignall said: “The remarkable thing about the lystrosaurs was their size. Nothing else that big seems to have got through the destruction, and that is why they were able to dominate the earth for so long afterwards.”
One mystery is why the lystrosaurs did eventually disappear. But Wignall believes their fate and that of other Permian species holds clear lessons for modern humans: “The amounts of CO2 we are emitting are roughly equivalent to those poured into the atmosphere during the Permian eruptions. Our climate is changing like theirs did.”
The Times
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20 Ways To Maintain A Healthy Level of Insanity
1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and Point A Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with that.
4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It "In."
5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone Has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch To Espresso.
6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write "For Sexual Favors"
7. Finish All Your Sentences With "In Accordance With The Prophecy."
8. Don't Use Any Punctuation
9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.
10. Ask People What Sex They Are. Laugh Hysterically After They Answer.
11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is "To Go."
12. Sing Along At The Opera.
13. Go To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme
14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And Play Tropical Sounds All Day.
15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party because You're Not In The Mood.
16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Hard.
17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream "I Won! I Won!"
18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking Lot, Yelling
"Run For Your Lives, They're Loose!!"
19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner. "Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go."
And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity.......
20. Copy this and Send an E-mail To Someone To Make Them Smile..
It's Called Therapy...
//////////////////Statistical and applied probabilistic knowledge is the core of knowledge; statistics is what tells you if something is true, false, or merely anecdotal; it is the "logic of science";
///////////////Chapter II: Sankhya Yoga
(Krishna speaking to Arjuna)
II.68. Therefore, O mighty-armed Arjuna, his knowledge is steady
whose senses are completely restrained from sense-objects.
COMMENTARY: When the senses are completely controlled, the mind
cannot wander wildly in the sensual grooves. It becomes steady
like the lamp in a windless place. The Yogi is now established in
the Self and his knowledge is steady.
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