Food for Thought

Here's an idea,

A boy was born, when he was 2 his mother died.
A boy needs a mother so his father married a stepmother.
The boy got attached to that step mother and treats her like a real mother.
By the time the boy became 6, his beloved father died.
A lonely mother needs companion, so she marries another guy.
This guy is mean to the boy, but the mother loved that guy so the boy welcomed him in the family.
The time the boy grew to 11, her stepmother died in an accident.
Since the guy wants a woman, he remarries.
The boy could not run away, he has no where to go.
The woman was cruel to the man and the boy, but the woman has money so the guy lived with it
Soon, the man became powerful and governs high
Many people wants to get rid of him so he was assassinated when the boy was 13
The Woman, who is rich and full of lust, marries a man Richer than her.
He has no choice but to live with them until he is 18 to be free.

Lets review the situation. The boy lost his real parents and step-parents which he also loved.
Now he completely lives in a house with a couple of strangers not nearly related by blood, but bound by contract of adoption.

The woman didnt even know the boys name, but the boy in the story grew up with principles and lots of philosophy to lived by as he grew.

...and that concludes it...

Human-Dog Psychology: 5 Weird Studie

[Photo by mcsixth]

Cat or dog? If I have to choose, I choose dog. It seems, if pushed, most academic research psychologists choose dog as well. I say that because there are quite a few studies about how we interact with dogs but hardly any (none?) about cats [UPDATE: actually there are studies on human-cat psychology].

Here are my five favourite studies on the psychology of human-dog interaction.

1. Is talking to a dog like talking to a baby?

Are these people talking to their babies or their dogs:

"Coochie-coochie-coooo!"

"Who's a clever little boy?"

"Oh my God, the living room carpet is ruined!"

Difficult to tell right? So Mitchell (2001) thought, which is why he decided to compare how people talk to infants with how they talk to dogs. He found both similarities and differences:

Similarities: high-pitched voice, repetitive use of grammatically acceptable words, present-tense verbs.

Differences: Dog-talk involved shorter sentences and more orders while baby-talk included more questions.

Which all raises the question of whether we're treating our babies like dogs or our dogs like babies. Either way, the authors point out the main problem in talking to both babies and dogs is it "involve[s] communicating with a limited and inattentive addressee."

I think that's a bit harsh on dogs.

2. Do we think dogs understand us?

What with all that baby-talk going on, you'd think that dogs would pick up the odd word or two. To examine people's perceptions of their dog's understanding Pongracz, Miklosi and Csanyi (2001) gave Hungarian dog-owners a questionnaire. It asked them to rate the types of utterances they thought their dogs could understand. Top of the list came questions, followed by permissions and information giving. It seems these dogs are regular little Lassies.

But what proof is there that they really understand? Well, we can only tell by how the dog responds. So, next the authors asked dog-owners how often their dogs demonstrated understanding by obeying a command. Our hardy Hungarian dog-owners reckoned:

• Dogs obeyed 31% of the time under all circumstances.
• Dogs obeyed 53% of the time when the context was right

Seems pretty high to me. Or perhaps Hungarian dogs are very smart.

3. Are dogs ice-breakers?

Even if dogs can't understand what we're saying they're still fantastic props for starting conversations. When taking a dog for a walk, you can't help getting chatting to people. OK, so you're mainly apologising to parents as your dog mauls their children, but at least its social contact, right?

The evidence for this one is provided by Rogers, Hart and Boltz (1993) in an observational study of elderly dog walkers. They found dog owners have more conversations in which, surprise surprise, they often talked about their dogs.

Not only that, but dog owners tended to report higher satisfaction with their emotional, social and physical states. So not only do dogs start conversations, they may also make you healthier.

4. Do dogs resemble their owners?

I recently covered a study finding that couples come to resemble each other facially over time. So what about dogs and their owners? There are a few studies on this - well actually there's three academic articles and just one study.

a. Roy and Christenfeld (2004) find that, yes, dogs do resemble their owners, but only if they're purebreds - that's the dogs now, not the owners. So, the old chestnut is true. Hooray!

b. Levine (2005), reanalysing the data collected in the first study, say no - there's problems with Roy and Christenfeld's (2004) study. This means we can't yet be sure purebred dogs resemble their owners. A new study is required. Booo.

c. The authors of the original study say yes their original study was correct (Roy & Christenfeld, 2005). Hooray! (I think?)

The world still awaits the conclusion...

5. Is it wrong to eat your dog?

Dog lovers: look away now. Cat lovers: sharpen your knives. Haidt, Koller & Dias (1993) wanted to find out how culture affects the way we moralise about different types of behaviours using fictional stories. One story participants were told goes like this:

"A family's dog was killed by a car in front of their house. They had heard that dog meat was delicious, so they cut up the dog's body and cooked it and ate it for dinner."

Then they're asked if the dog-chomping family should be stopped. Turns out the answer you give depends on your culture and socioeconomic status. If you live in the US and you're well off you're likely to agree that eating your dog may be disgusting but seeing as it isn't harmful, shouldn't be stopped.

On the other hand, if you're a poor US citizen, or you live in Brazil, you're much more likely to moralise and think the dog-chompers should be stopped in their tracks.

Cat conclusions

As there's little research on cats for all you cat people, I've had to make some inductive leaps based on the research about dogs:

• Cat-talk and baby-talk is completely unrelated
• Cats can't understand us (mostly)
• Cats are not ice-breakers
• Cats and their owners may (or may not) resemble each other.
• Only eat your cat in a poor neighbourhood

Err, we might need a little more research on this...

UPDATE: I've since discovered that there is a small literature on the psychology of cats. Read on about whether cats improve our mood, become attached to us and have personalities.

» This is part of a series on the psychology of the everyday.

References

Haidt, J., Koller, S.H., & Dias, M.G. (1993). Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of personality and social psychology, 65(4), 613-28.

Levine, D.W. (2005). Do Dogs Resemble Their Owners?. A Reanalysis of Roy and Christenfeld (2004). Psychological Science, 16(1), 83-84.

Mitchell, R.W. (2001). Americans' Talk to Dogs: Similarities and Differences With Talk to Infants. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 34(2), 183-210.

Pongracz, P., Miklosi, A., & Csanyi, V. (2001). Owner's beliefs on the ability of their pet dogs to understand human verbal communication: A case of social understanding. Cahiers de psychologie cognitive, 20(1-2), 87-107.

Rogers, J., Hart, L.A., & Boltz, R.P. (1993). The role of pet dogs in casual conversations of elderly adults. J Soc Psychol, 133(3), 265-77.

Roy, M.M., & Christenfeld, N.J.S. (2004). Research Report Do Dogs Resemble Their Owners? Psychological Science, 15(5), 361.

Roy, M.M., & Christenfeld, N.J. (2005). Dogs Still Do Resemble Their Owners. Psychological Science, 16(9), 743-744.

Source website:

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/12/10-weird-psychology-studies-vote-now.php

Visit the link for other weird psychological studies.

Why we crave for Horror Films?

by Stephen King


I think we're all mentally ill: those of us outside the asylum only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better, after all. We've all known people who talk to themselves, people who sometimes squinch their faces into horrible grimaces when they believe no one is watching, people who have some hysterical fear - of snakes, the dark, the tight place, the long drop. . . and, of course, those final worms and grubs that are waiting so patiently underground.

When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie, we are daring the nightmare.

Why? Some of the reasons are simple and obvious. To show that we can, that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster. Which is not to say that a really good horror movie may not surprise a scream out of us at some point, the way we may scream when the roller coaster twist through a complete 360 or plows through a lake at the bottom of the drop. And horror movies, like roller coasters, have always been the special province of the young; by the time one turns 40 or 50, one's appetite for double twist or 360-degree loops may be considerably depleted.

We also go to reestablish our feelings of essential normality; the horror movie is innately conservative, even reactionary. Freda Jackson as the horrible melting woman in Die, Monster,Die! confirms for us that no matter how far we may be removed from the beauty of a Robert Redford or Diana Ross, we are still light-years from true ugliness.

And we go to have fun.


(((( to be CONTINUED))))))

INTERESTING COWS

Holstein (Holstein-Freisian) cows are the black and white cows most frequently seen.

A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

Cows have cloven hooves. In galloping through boggy places or in deep mud, cattle can distance a horse. Their toes spread, and therefore their wide feet do not sink so deep as do those of the solid-hoofed horse. Furthermore, the cleft between the toes permits the air to enter the hole in the mud as the foot is raised; wheras the horse must overcome a partial vacuum when it withdraw its hoof, and so wastes considerable muscular effort beside having its speed retarded and its self-confidence shaken.

A cow doesn't bite the grass that feeds her, she curls her tongue around it.

A Holsteins spots are like fingerprints. No two cows have the same spots.

A cow can't vomit.

Her intestines can get up to 170 feet.

The cow must be a mother before she will produce milk.

Cows live to on average 6 to 7 years.

Dairy cows can produce 125 lbs of saliva a day.

Texas has the most with over 13 million cows.

Did you know: In india, cows are considered to be sacred. Cows are the highest form of reincarnation and the lowest is the worm.

Facts about Cow

Binomial Name: Bos taurus

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Artiodactyla

Family: Bovidae

Subfamily: Bovinae

Genus: Bos

Species: B. taurus

Weight: 600 to 900 kg

Number of Teeth: 32

Heaviest Calf: British Friesian cow (225 lbs)

Diet: Herbivorous

Natural Habitat: Throughout the world

Age: 15 to 25 years

Age of Maturity: 2 years

Gestation Period: 9 months

Number of Offspring: 1 to 2

...and that concludes it...

The Terror of Death

Name: Haseo

Weapon(s): Dual sword
Broad Sword
Sycthe ( Job Extension form)
Dual guns (Xth form)

Haseo is one of the keepers of Epitaph. There are seven epitaph in all, Haseo has the Epitaph of "the terror of death". Haseo can be seen in .hack//roots and vol.2 hack// games.

Haseo was just a newbie in the game called "The World", a cyber online game, when he was Pked (player kill). he had no power yet, his level was low. Haseo's character turned out to be a special one. He can call upon the power of Skeith, the terror of death.

Skeith is probobly the most deadly but most smallest Epithat there is, but he has the power of "data drain".

Haseo joined an in game Guild, where he met Ovan and Shino. Haseo grew fond of Shino, then a sad news beggan spreading that she was killed by "TriEdge". Anyone killed by TriEdge ends up in a comma in the real world.

Haseo couldnt accept Shino's death, so he grew stonger to kill TriEdge. Haseo became a PKK (player killer killer), who kills pkers violently using and abusing his given Epitaph gift. When he was strong enough to kill TriEdge, they fought.

TriEdge was strugling to fight, but apparently, TriEdge also has a DataDrain power and used it on Haseo, Then Haseo's High level Character became level one and weak against TriEdge.

Many PKs are hunting Haseo down and he is as weak as ever now. He found a couple of friends and made a Guild named "Canard", which grew well and became popular. Its was haseo's first time to have friends and he learns that looking for power is not the only thing you can do in the game.



...and that concludes it...

chain of informatioN

Example:

Barry wrote a quote: "Quote Quote Quote"
then published it in the internet. He is the official author of the quote.

Then, May saw the quote and she liked it. She asked the authors permission if she could post it in her blog as well. the author was delighted and allowed May to have the quote in her page.

May now have that said quote in her page, it tuned out that May was a popular girl in school and everyone checks her blog once in a while. They happen to like the quote as well.

It is written: "Quote quote quote" by Barry
May's Blog

Then a chain has been made because lots of people want that quote on their pages

"Quote quote quote" by Barry
From May's blog
Gerald's blog

"Quote quote quote" By Barry
from the blog of May
from Gerald's Blog
Stephens Blog

"Quote quote quote" By Barry
from the blog of May
from Gerald's Blog
Stephens Blog
George's Blog

and so on. Barry in the other hand got tired of approving request from many students
Barry was so irritated that he confessed that he isnt the author, which he lied.

He said May is the real author, and May became more popular. Same as barry, she grew tiresome of the request approval and passed on and on.



My point in this story is: nothing, I just want to write. hahaha