Another JK Rowling title? I thought the Harry Potter series was over for good.
But I was so wrong! “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” was the “book” Professor Dumbledore presented to Hermione in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. Of course, this “book” had to see the light of the day too. And yes friends, this latest title by J K Rowling has already hit the shelves in the bookstores.
In “Deathly Hallows” this book “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” helped Harry Potter to achieve Voldemont’s defeat. To quote from wikipedia:
The book Hermione receives in Dumbledore’s will is a copy of the original edition of the fictional book.[10] It is described as an ancient-looking small book with its binding “stained and peeling in places”. In the novel it is also said the book has a title on its cover, written in embossed runic symbols.[2]
The book acts as the vehicle for introducing the Deathly Hallows.[6] Above the story “The Tale of the Three Brothers”, Hermione Granger finds a strange symbol which later is revealed by Xenophilius Lovegood to be the symbol of the Hallows. The triangle from the symbol represents the Invisibility Cloak, the circle inside the triangle symbolizes the Resurrection Stone, and the vertical line represents the Elder Wand.[10]
These three objects are also mentioned in the story itself (see below), and are said to belong to the Peverell brothers,[10] who are later revealed as being Harry Potter’s ancestors.[11] Towards the end of the novel, Albus Dumbledore also confirms Harry’s connection to the Peverells, and states that the three brothers might in fact have been the creators of the Hallows.[12]
Whenever I come across something ingenious I often wonder how would this guy score on a Mensa test. Same thought comes to mind when I look at the lego bricks.
Watching my 3-year old come up with amazingly sturdy and evenly balanced designs with these bricks prompted me to google “lego designs”. I wont deny my own passion and love for these bricks. I was delighted with tons of resources.
But my biggest joy came from the horse’s mouth: The official lego website.
Check these links:
Lego Creator is the destination I am talking about. It has an exciting mix of content, from design studio to step-by-step construction method of various designs, videos, blog, downloads and more.
The lego design school where you can learn everything from the very basics to pretty advanced lego construction techniques.
The Lego Digital Designer. A software that you can download from Lego website and create your designs on the PC, and you can even upload them to Lego’s gallery.
Ever wished you could ask someone for help? Now you have two options:
Ask A Designer section for expert replies from the official representatives
The Messageboard provides you a place to hang out and exchange ideas with other Lego buffs.
All in all, this should be a wonderful treat. Even though I have played with Lego since childhood, there are several things I learnt at the Lego school mentioned above.
Gerald Celente has been monitoring and forecasting trends for a long time. Since mid 80s to be precise. I recently received the following text from Asim Basra, a fellow Mensan who works in the banking industry. When I googled about it, I found that it has been echoing across the blogosphere.
The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting a revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions – all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.
Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.
“We’re going to see the end of the retail Christmas….we’re going to see a fundamental shift take place….putting food on the table is going to be more important then putting gifts under the Christmas tree,” said Celente, adding that the situation would be “worse than the great depression”.
“America’s going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for,” said Celente, noting that people’s refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.
Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as “The Panic of 2008,” adding that “giants (would) tumble to their deaths,” which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others. He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 percent.
The consequence of what we have seen unfold this year would lead to a lowering in living standards, Celente predicted a year ago, which is also being borne out by plummeting retail sales figures.
The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defence report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest,” and that, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.”
In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America.
“There will be a revolution in this country,” he said. “It’s not going to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen.”
“The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You’re going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.”
“It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.”
“We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension.”
But that’s not all. Youtube is loaded with his interviews and appearances in talk shows. One of them, as reported on Daily Newscaster was on Alex Jones Live. Listen to this one.
Simply google “Gerald Celente” and you will be inundated with content he has been forecasting and what the public has been saying.
My question to the world wide Mensa community is this: With all the intelligence and knowledge bestowed upon the members of Mensa, and for that matter, all the others with similar levels of IQ, are we all simply going to watch the world fall into this spiral and philosophize about it, OR, is there anything that can be done and will be done to prevent it, or perhaps at least reduce the impact of this collapse?
I don’t know about you, but my love of the big RR, the angel-mascot car will probably never be taken over by any other car. Its not to say that no other car is as beautiful or as “wow”, but Rolls Royce is something special, very unique, in a class of its own.
And, then, to suddenly come face-to-face with a mint condition 1922 model was a real heart-stopper. Enjoy this collection, friends:
Rolls Royce Mascot
This beauty is currently owned by the Hashoo Group, or most probably by the Pearl Continental, and was on display in the hotel lobby in June, 2008. But the history of this car is far more royal. Its original owner was one of the nawabs, and later it was also honoured to be used by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
[imagebrowser id=2]
For the photography minded, the collection was shot with the iphone.
Certificate distribution ceremony and general body meeting of the Mensa Lahore City Council was held at the Ritz Cinema at Sukh Chan Wellness Club on Friday, November 28th, 2008.
The meeting was attended by Hasan Zuberi, Mensa Pakistan Chairman, Raza Jaffri, General Secretary, Amir Rana, Treasurer, Usman Zaheer & Ahmad Babar of the Lahore City Council, as well as several other members of the Mensa Management Committee, as the members of the Lahore City Council.
The above pictures were few of those taken during the function. The event was invoked by tilawat, followed by a welcome address by the Lahore City Council. Next in line was a presentation about Mensa, Intelligence and Mensa Pakistan. Two short musical films by Animusic.com were screened at the theatre. This was followed by the distribution of certificates to the qualifiers of the last Mensa test held in Lahore.
The event was followed by snacks and refreshments.
On a recent shopping trip I visited four shops, spending 5$, $10, $15, and $20 but not in that order. The items I bought in the last two shops totalled $30 while those from Lewis Johns and Wellys came to $20. I spent less in S&M, which was not my last shop, than I did in Lewis Johns and $5 more in Nick Harveys than I did in the first shop. How much did I spend in each shop and in what order did I patronize them?
I drive a taxi and yesterday I started with four quick fares, picking up my next customer as the previous one got out. One trip was from Regent’s Station to Waterloo Square. My first fare needed to get to Leicester Circus, where I picked up Amy. I took Barry to Northminster and Chris sat in my cab earler than Delia. Can you reconstruct my first four fares of the day?
Mensa Pakistan website is powered by wordpress, and today, it has been upgraded with the latest release, version 2.7.
The new version sports a snazzy, very professional looking interface. This is the last time (and frankly the first as well) I would use the plugin WordPress Automatic Upgrader, becuase now automatic upgrade has been incorporated in wordpress itself.
Whew! What a relief!
But this is not the only attraction for upgrading to 2.7. To read the full list of exciting new ingredients, read the official blog.
Dilbert? Here on Mensa? Does he have the Mensa certificate?
Well, Dilbert may not have the perfect Mensan IQ but he will sure be in good company at Mensa Pakistan website. So friends, check the latest, as well as tons of Dilbert archives right here on our own website.
