This month’s feature articles:

Regular monthly features:

As if downloading music and movies on the regular internet hasn’t been attacked enough by the big music and movie industry, here comes more worry for music and movie lovers.

The Recording Industry Association of America is going after people who are using a new internet – Internet 2 - which is being developed at several schools including Boston University, Harvard and MIT. So what? They are going to court before the whole system is even available to anybody! At this time, it is experimental and meant to be used for research purposes. Only about 7,000 or so people have access to the 99 terabytes of data.

Why is it a big deal and problem? Well, this internet is about 10,000 times faster than typical high-speed internet! Waiting time has virtually disappeared. File sharing will be done almost instantly. An entire CD can be copied in about 30 seconds.

The music industry is especially concerned that illegal downloads will increase and are therefore trying to put rules and regulations in place before the new system comes into the world commercially and things get out of hand. It seems they didn’t react swiftly enough when the regular internet was made available to the world.

Aug 9 – International Day of Indigenous People

Aug 11 – City of Toronto Taxi Driver Appreciation Day

Aug 12 – International Youth Day

Aug 19 – Full Moon tonight

Aug 23 – International Day of the Slave Trade and its Abolition

August (last Wed of month) - World’s Biggest Tomato Fight - Bunyol, Spain

____________________________________________

There are many construction sites that involve moving, assembling, cutting, or building something at great heights and they require workers to be suspended from safety ropes. The jobs may be in arboriculture, construction, engineering, government, military, media, entertainment, offshore, telecommunications.

"This is not a career for someone who is easily bored with cold facts and tedious chores, it is a challenge for a person who is curious, has a deep interest in the past and wishes to discover how people of all different races and nations used to live and think. An archaeologist needs patience; dedication; imagination; a logical mind; honesty; the ability to report findings factually and good language and writing skills. As much of the work is done in laboratories, you would need to be familiar with laboratory procedures and able to record, in minute detail, your findings.
You would have to study relics (man-made objects) from the past technological, social, spiritual and other cultural activities in order to determine how long-dead people lived and developed through the ages. There are unwritten prehistories of countries and peoples. In order to understand the relics, you would need a regular use of other disciplines such as zoology, palaeontology, botany, geology, sedimentology, chemistry and physics. Your tasks would include excavation, recording and processing and a great deal of painstaking research. "

_________________________________

_________________________________

____________________________________________

Opening Many Files at Once: Most people open one document, finish the work, close it and then do the same with the next file. Here is a way to save time and effort.

Open up your word processing program. Go to "File" and "Open". Make your way to the documents list from which you want to choose. Highlight the first document using the mouse and then hold down the "control" key all the time while moving to other document titles - one at a time in any order - and highlight each. To unhighlight, just keep holding down the "control" key and click on the document again.

Another slightly different way is to highlight the top document and then hold down "Shift". Go to your choice below of the last file and all the ones in between will also be highlighted.

Press "Open". (They should all open and appear as a set of file cards, one behind the other.)

Go to "Window" at the top and click "Arrange All." The opened documents should now appear as a set of small windows neatly arranged on the screen with their titles showing. Double-click on any document title line (the colored strip across the top of the document, (NOT on the word processing program) and the document will appear in full size. Double click the title line again and the document will go neatly back into its place in the set of windows.

Enlarge and reduce the documents as many times as you want. Click the "Save" button for that document when the title bar is highlighted. This will also work with the directory for spreadsheets documents.

____________________________________________

Biggest "Bombs and Turkeys" in Movieland
(all numbers are in millions)

1. The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002) Budget: $90-100. Box Office Take: $4.4
2. Cutthroat Island (1995) Budget: $100+. Box Office Take: $9.9
3. Town and Country (2001) Budget: $85-90. Box Office Take: $6.7
4. The Postman (1997) Budget: $80-100. Box Office Take: $17.6
5. Heaven’s Gate (1980) Budget: $35-$44. Box Office Take: $3
6. Cleopatra (1963) Budget: $44 (worth $259). Box Office Take: $26 (today $153)
7. Inchon (1981) / Battlefield Earth (2000) Budget: $50/$73. Box Office Take: $1.9/$21.5
8. Ishtar (1987) Budget: $55. Box Office Take: $12.7
9. Hudson Hawk (1991) Budget: $60+. Box Office Take: $17.2
10. Howard the Duck (1986) Budget: $37. Box Office Take: $16

____________________________________________

____________________________________________

(from an article by Meghan McEwen, Toronto Star)

This is garage salers heaven! Imagine a trail that is 725 kilometers long with endless garage and yard sales. Well it is real and in the USA.

Starting on Hwy 127 in Gadsden, Alabama, winding through Georgia and Tennessee, visitors can see thousands of official and unofficial yard sales on their way to the end in Covington, Kentucky.

The idea was made into reality in 1987 to encourage tourist travel through the rural South. The sale lasts 4 days (this year August 4-7) and lures more than 60,000 people.

You name it and it’s probably for sale. Bumper-to-bumper traffic and all those people soon clear out the best of antiques and collectibles. Bargains and rare finds abound.

"Whatever you are, be a good one." – Abraham Lincoln

Taoism - the way of man's cooperation with the course or trend of the natural world, whose principles we discover in the flow patterns of water, gas, an fire, which are subsequently memorialized or sculptured in those of stone and wood, and, later, in many forms of human art."

"It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What’s tough is being good every day." – Willie Mays

"The best defence is no offence." – Anonymous

"I don’t do anything anymore that feels safe. If it doesn’t scare the crap out of you, then you’re not doing the right thing." – Actress Sandra Bullock

Collie + Lhasa Apso = Collapso, a dog that folds up for easy transport

Spitz + Chow Chow = Spitz-Chow, a dog that throws up a lot

Pointer + Setter = Poinsetter, a traditional Christmas pet

Great Pyrenees + Dachshund = Pyradachs, a puzzling breed

Pekingnese + Lhasa Apso = Peekasso, an abstract dog

Irish Water Spaniel + English Springer Spaniel = Irish Springer, a dog
fresh and clean as a whistle.

Labrador Retriever + Curly Coated Retriever = Lab Coat Retriever, the
choice of research scientists

Newfoundland + Basset Hound = Newfound Asset Hound, a dog for financial
advisors

Terrier + Bulldog = Terribull, a dog that makes awful mistakes

Bloodhound + Labrador = Blabador, a dog that barks incessantly

Malamute + Pointer = Moot Point, owned by....oh, well, it doesn't matter
anyway

Collie + Malamute = Commute, a dog that travels to work

Deerhound + Terrier = Deerriere, a dog that's true to the end

____________________________________________