Filed under people, technology
So I just wrote about how amazed I was that Matt Mullenweg, WordPress founder, is only 24. Well, I found out today that the founder of Facebook is as young. He is Mark Zuckerberg, dropout from Harvard, and the world’s youngest billionaire today.
Wasn’t Bill Gates also a dropout? I see a trend here.
Tells us all how wit and initiative can get us farther than old school education, of which I was never a fan.
Filed under human interest, people, travel, trivia
It’s Robert Pershing Wadlow, from Alton, Illinois. He was 8 feet 11 inches tall when he was last measured in 1940, when he was just 22 years old. When he was nine, he was able to carry his father, who was 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 170 lbs, up the stairs of their family home.
To illustrate, this is how tall he is, and this is how short I am:
That’s a life-size replica of him at the Guinness World of Records Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a tourist town I visited and fell in love with last week. (That’s for another entry, though. :)) I am half his height at about the same age!
And this is how my foot compares to his:
I wear an Asian size 5 shoes by the way, which is size 4 in the US.
Filed under Photohunt, people, travel
It’s midnight where I am, and I can’t go back to sleep. I’m still on Philippine time, I guess. I thought I’d better do my PhotoHunt until sleep comes upon me. 
I am featuring here some paintings made by children for the Art for Heart, an exhibit set up by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey for the children who lost loved ones at the 9/11 tragedy. It was intended as a therapy for the kids. Look what they’ve come up out of their loss, and notice the raw emotion in the artworks.
Click the photos to enlarge.
The exhibit, by the way, was put up at the site of the World Trade Center. I’m not sure if the paintings are still there today, though.
One of the unlikely places to hear about the dreams and aspirations of random strangers is at the US embassy. There’s this lounge where you wait for the visa interview. On one side of the room is a line of booths where the consuls are. The consuls decide whether you can enter the United States. People try to look their best and arm themselves with the best English they have.
When your number is called, you go to a window, and then the consul grills you on the purpose of your visit, how long you would be staying there, when are you coming back. They also ask you details about your family, your properties, your finances, even your plans for the future.
Because the place is packed, and because sometimes the consuls probe that deep, visa applicants give details of their plans 40 years into the future. One woman the other day said she would manage a restaurant when she gets there, and hopes that that would be her financial investment. Another woman, who I understand is a social studies teacher, said she will share her knowledge when about different cultures, and said some things that an ambassador or a Miss Universe contestant would say.
It’s PhotoHunt time once again.
I met this boy while I was doing my undergraduate thesis two years ago in a remote area in Rizal, about an hour away from Manila.
We had to walk up a slope and then cross streams and log bridges to get to where he lived. The area had no electricity and no running water. The main source of livelihood was farming, and most of the residents, including his parents, had no education.
I can’t quite put a finger on what he must be feeling when I took this shot. I just found him cute, looking up at me like that, while I was talking to the older people in the house. He seemed so innocent, so oblivious to what was happening.
