Mind-blowing Celebrity Portraits Made from Scribbles

Mind-blowing Celebrity Portraits Made from Scribbles

by Vince Low
Many of us idly doodle on notepads to pass the time, but one artist has made scribbling an artform in its own right. Artist and illustrator Vince low, from Kuala Lumpur, creates artistic order from the chaos of pen lines to produce stunning portraits of famous faces.  His 'Faces' project began when, as head illustrator at advertising agency Grey, he created three portraits of famous dyslexics to create awareness for the disorder: Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein and John Lennon.

He decided to use the scribbled style for a personal project featuring other famous faces. Vince Low, creates detailed portraits of celebrities like Morgan Freeman, Leonardo Di Caprio and Jack Nicholson using only numerous overlapping swirling lines or scribbles.

Vince explains: 'It all started with an advertising campaign for the Dyslexia Association of Malaysia. In Malaysia, most people are not aware of dyslexia at all. The advertising campaign for the Dyslexia Association of Malaysia struck home with Vince as he is dyslexic himself.

 Source:   http://www.behance.net/gallery/Faces/8234027

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Untranslatable Words from Around the World!

Untranslatable Words from Around the World!

There are at least 250,000 words in the English language. However, to think that English  or any language  could hold enough expression to convey the entirety of the human experience is as arrogant of an assumption as it is naive.

1. Toska

Russian - Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something
specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

2. Mamihlapinatapei

Yagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) - “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start”

3. Jayus

Indonesian -“A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh”

4. Iktsuarpok

Inuit - “To go outside to check if anyone is coming.”

5. Litost

Czech - Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, remarked that “As for the meaning of this word, I have looked in vain in other languages for an equivalent, though I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can understand the human soul without it.” The closest definition is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.

6. Kyoikumama

Japanese - “A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement”

7. Tartle

Scottish - The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

8. Ilunga

Tshiluba (Southwest Congo) - A word famous for its untranslatability, most professional translators pinpoint it as the stature of a person “who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.”

9. Prozvonit

Czech - This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.”

10. Cafuné

Brazilian Portuguese - “The act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.”

11. Schadenfreude

German - Quite famous for its meaning that somehow other languages neglected to recognize, this refers to the feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune. I guess “America’s Funniest Moments of Schadenfreude” just didn’t have the same ring to it.

12. Torschlusspanik

German - Translated literally, this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to “the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.”

13. Wabi-Sabi

Japanese - Much has been written on this Japanese concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”

14. Dépaysement

French - The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.

15. Tingo

Pascuense (Easter Island) - Hopefully this isn’t a word you’d need often: “the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.”

16. Hyggelig

Danish - Its “literal” translation into English gives connotations of a warm, friendly, cozy demeanor, but it’s unlikely that these words truly capture the essence of a hyggelig; it’s likely something that must be experienced to be known. I think of good friends, cold beer, and a warm fire.

17. L’appel du vide

French - “The call of the void” is this French expression’s literal translation, but more significantly it’s used to describe the instinctive urge to jump from high places.

18. Ya’aburnee

Arabic - Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.

19. Duende

Spanish - While originally used to describe a mythical, spritelike entity that possesses humans and creates the feeling of awe of one’s surroundings in nature, its meaning has transitioned into referring to “the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.” There’s actually a nightclub in the town of La Linea de la Concepcion, where I teach, named after this word.

20. Saudade

Portuguese - One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word “refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.” Fado music, a type of mournful singing, relates to saudade.
Source:  http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2008/10/12/ten-most-difficult-words-to-translate/

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How TO Prevent Your USB Devices From Getting Infected?

How TO Prevent Your USB Devices From Getting Infected?

Source: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

Question: How can you protect USB devices like sticks or drives from being infected with computer viruses?
Some users are lucky enough to have USB devices that have write protection switches, just like floppy drives had back in the good old days. They just need to pull the switch to write protect their devices.

Modern USB devices on the other hand do not ship with write protection switches anymore, which means that other solutions need to be discovered that work equally well.

What if you’d fill the storage on the USB device to the brim? That’s what USB Dummy Protect does. The idea is simple. You create a fake file that takes up all free space on the device. With no space left on the drive, viruses cannot write on it which means that they are blocked and cannot replicate.

The software is fully portable and needs to be placed on the USB device. You can run the program on any computer system that runs the Windows operating system.

USB Dummy Protect detects the free size on the device directly after it has been started, and begins to write a dummy file of the same size to the drive. The file name is always dummy.file.

If you need space to store files on the drive, you need to remove the dummy file first, copy or move the new files to the drive, and run USB Dummy Protect again to fill the remaining free space again with a dummy file.

The protection is basic, and advanced viruses may be able to circumvent it, for instance by deleting files on the stick to free up space before writing to the stick.

Still, USB Dummy Protect is relatively comfortable to use, especially since it is always located on the USB drive so that it can be used to write a new file whenever that is necessary.

The software worked fine on a 64-bit Windows 7 Pro test system. The developer notes that it only works on USB devices of up to 4 Gigabytes if they use the FAT file system.

You can download USB Dummy Protect from the project homepage at Google Code. http://code.google.com/p/usbdummyprotect/
Softpedia:
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/UsbDummyProtect-Download-172266.html
USBDummyProtect is a freeware which does the same thing - Provides protection to your USB drive.

Once copied into your USB drive and  run the program, it fills up the remaining space in your drive. Suppose you have a 4 GB pen drive and you have a small file in it and you want to put your drive in a computer which you know is definitely affected by viruses.  You just run the USBDummyProtect and it will make a dummy file and consume all the remaining space in the drive.  Now, since the drive is full, no viruses can copy itself into it.  When you bring back your drive, you can again run the USBDummyProtect and it will clear the dummy file and make room for you.

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FORCIBLY REMOVE FILES FROM YOUR SYSTEM

FORCIBLY REMOVE FILES FROM YOUR SYSTEM

YOUR system may have several files that pop-up errors upon selecting them and pressing the 'Delete' key. This might be a corrupted file and may occupy your system space unnecessarily. In such cases, Unlocker can come to your rescue. 

Unlocker 1.9.2
This free utility can delete any undeletable i  le on your system and restore some system space. You can download this utility from the website http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/
Once the application has been installed, browse to the file you would like to delete.
Right-click it, and select the 'Unlocker' option from the contextual menu. You will be able to view a list containing details of why the file is undeletable or locked.

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Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons completely

Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons completely in XP

To remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons in any type of document:

a) Perform instructions described under ‘Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons’. For your convenience, steps 1 to 3 are reported here.

b) Perform instructions described under ‘Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons (2)’. For your convenience, steps 4 and 5 are reported here.

c) And finally, do the same with conferencelink, docshortcut, internetshortcut and wshfile.

So, here is a summary of all actions:

1. Start regedit.

2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile

3. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

4. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile

5. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

6. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ConferenceLink

7. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

8. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DocShortCut

9. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

10.Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut

11. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

12. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WSHFile

13. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

14. Close regedit.

Logoff and… Enjoy!

Note : Please note that in some cases deactivating the arrow for *.LNK files might lead to duplicate items in the Explorer Context menu.

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How Can I Eliminate Stress from My Life?

How Can I Eliminate Stress from My Life?

As we have seen, positive stress adds anticipation and excitement to life, and we all thrive under a certain amount of stress. Deadlines, competitions, confrontations, and even our frustrations and sorrows add depth and enrichment to our lives. Our goal is not to eliminate stress but to learn how to manage it and how to use it to help us. Insufficient stress acts as a depressant and may leave us feeling bored or dejected; on the other hand, excessive stress may leave us feeling "tied up in knots." What we need to do is find the optimal level of stress which will individually motivate but not overwhelm each of us.

How Can I Tell What is Optimal Stress for Me?
There is no single level of stress that is optimal for all people. We are all individual creatures with unique requirements. As such, what is distressing to one may be a joy to another. And even when we agree that a particular event is distressing, we are likely to differ in our physiological and psychological responses to it.

The person who loves to arbitrate disputes and moves from job site to job site would be stressed in a job which was stable and routine, whereas the person who thrives under stable conditions would very likely be stressed on a job where duties were highly varied. Also, our personal stress requirements and the amount which we can tolerate before we become distressed changes with our ages.

It has been found that most illness is related to unrelieved stress. If you are experiencing stress symptoms, you have gone beyond your optimal stress level; you need to reduce the stress in your life and/or improve your ability to manage it.

How Can I Manage Stress Better?
Identifying unrelieved stress and being aware of its effect on our lives is not sufficient for reducing its harmful effects. Just as there are many sources of stress, there are many possibilities for its management. However, all require work toward change: changing the source of stress and/or changing your reaction to it. How do you proceed?

1. Become aware of your stressors and your emotional and physical reactions.
Notice your distress. Don't ignore it. Don't gloss over your problems.
Determine what events distress you. What are you telling yourself about meaning of these events?
Determine how your body responds to the stress. Do you become nervous or physically upset? If so, in what specific ways?

2. Recognize what you can change
Can you change your stressors by avoiding or eliminating them completely?
Can you reduce their intensity (manage them over a period of time instead of on a daily or weekly basis)?
Can you shorten your exposure to stress (take a break, leave the physical premises)?
Can you devote the time and energy necessary to making a change (goal setting, time management techniques, and delayed gratification strategies may be helpful here)?

3. Reduce the intensity of your emotional reactions to stress
The stress reaction is triggered by your perception of danger...physical danger and/or emotional danger. Are you viewing your stressors in exaggerated terms and/or taking a difficult situation and making it a disaster?
Are you expecting to please everyone?
Are you overreacting and viewing things as absolutely critical and urgent? Do you feel you must always prevail in every situation?
Work at adopting more moderate views; try to see the stress as something you can cope with rather than something that overpowers you.
Try to temper your excess emotions. Put the situation in perspective. Do not labor on the negative aspects and the "what if's."

4. Learn to moderate your physical reactions to stress
Slow, deep breathing will bring your heart rate and respiration back to normal.
Relaxation techniques can reduce muscle tension. Electronic biofeedback can help you gain voluntary control over such things as muscle tension, heart rate, and blood pressure.
Medications, when prescribed by a physician, can help in the short term in moderating your physical reactions. However, they alone are not the answer. Learning to moderate these reactions on your own is a preferable long-term solution.

5. Build your physical reserves
Exercise for cardiovascular fitness three to four times a week (moderate, prolonged rhythmic exercise is best, such as walking, swimming, cycling, or jogging).
Eat well-balanced, nutritious meals.
Maintain your ideal weight.
Avoid nicotine, excessive caffeine, and other stimulants.
Mix leisure with work. Take breaks and get away when you can.
Get enough sleep. Be as consistent with your sleep schedule as possible.

6. Maintain your emotional reserves
Develop some mutually supportive friendships/relationships.
Pursue realistic goals which are meaningful to you, rather than goals others have for you that you do not share.
Expect some frustrations, failures, and sorrows.
Always be kind and gentle with yourself -- be a friend to yourself.

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Celebrity From The Golden Globes

Celebrity From The Golden Globes

New York photographer Tricia Messeroux has painstakingly recreated the stars' iconic looks from this week's Golden Globes - using kids.

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