What is a Broad-Based Education?

Some animals in a forest decided to start a school. The students included a bird, a squirrel, a fish, a dog, a rabbit and a mentally retarded eel. A board was formed to determine the curriculum and it was decided that flying, tree climbing, swimming, and burrowing would give a broad-based education. All animals were required to take all subjects.

The bird was excellent at flying and was getting A’s but when it came to burrowing, it kept breaking its beak and wings and started failing. Pretty soon, it started making C’s in flying and, of course, in tree climbing and swimming it was getting F’s. The squirrel was great at tree climbing, but was failing in swimming. The fish was the best swimmer but couldn’t get out of the water and thus got F’s in everything else. They didn’t join the school, stopped paying taxes, and kept fighting with the administration to include barking as part of the curriculum.

The rabbit got A’s in burrowing but tree climbing was a real problem. It kept failing and landing on its head. Suffered brain damage, and soon couldn’t even burrow properly and got C’s in that too.

The mentally retarded eel, who did everything half as well, became the valedictorian of the class. The broad-based education.

A true broad-based education prepares students for life, without losing their areas of specialization and competence.

What Does the ‘95′ Stand For?

Old joke referring to the Windows 95 operating system.

* The required number of megabytes of RAM to run at useable speed.
* The percentage that will be complete on the shipping date.
* The number of floppies it will ship in.

* The percentage of people who will have to upgrade their hardware.
* The number of megabytes of hard disk space required.
* The number of pages in the *EASY-INSTALL* version of the manual.
* The percentage of existing windoze programs that won’t run in the new OS.
* The number of minutes to install.
* The number of calls to tech support before you can get it to run.
* The number of people who will actually PAY for the upgrade.
* The number of MHz required for the OS to run.
* The year it was due to ship.
* The number of seconds before it crashes.
* Bill Gates’ age when it ships.
* Microsoft never told you what century!!
* The number of ships for shipping it.
* The millions of women who will be alone while their partners have opened the ‘Windows’.
* The number of minutes to ‘kill’ the hard drive.
* The number of microsoft support staff that “WON’T” need extreme counselling…
* The percentage turnover rate for staff.
* The number of days until Gates tries to sell you a newer OS.
* The 95 stands for average CPH : Crash Per Hour.

'Power-packed' jeans: Wear them and fear not pickpockets

Imagine a pickpocket trying to steal your wallet but getting a 220-volt jolt! Wearing a special pair of jeans - designed by a Varanasi school dropout using basic scientific principles - might just help avoid a hole in your pocket.

The jeans have been designed by Shyam Chaurasia, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi district. That's not all, with slight modifications, according to him, you can make all your garments "power-Packed".

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"You just need to fit a small battery-operated kit in the garment that you want to make power-packed," Chaurasia, 21, told IANS. Varanasi is around 300 km from Lucknow.

"While I designed the kit to counter pickpockets, the same can be used very conveniently in other clothes, primarily in women's T-Shirts and other garments. It could also give electric shocks to molesters," added Chaurasia, who left his studies after failing twice in his high school examinations.

And if you thought the battery-driven kit requires a good amount of investment, you are wrong. "It's just Rs.300 and its upgraded version can be developed just by spending around Rs.100 more," said Chaurasia.

The kit developed by Chaurasia comprises thin copper wires, which appear as normal stitches on the back pockets of the jeans, capacitors that collect and store electricity, electromagnetic switches, resistance and a 3-volt battery - all packed inside a plastic case of spectacles.

"Whenever you want to use the kit just attach the two thin wires of the jeans with the hand-held kit that stores the battery and other small electronic items and switch it on," Chaurasia said.

"Those who try to put their hands into the jeans will get an electric shock and remove their hands quickly in a reflex action," he added.

"Those wearing the jeans need not worry as they will not get any kind of electric shock while wearing the garment even when the switch is on," Chaurasia said.

"It's the rubber coating inside the pockets that make the jeans completely safe for the wearer," he added.

Explaining the working of the kit, Chaurasia said: "It works on the same principle as an inverter. It changes the DC (direct current) into AC (alternating current) which renders the shock of 220 volts."

"Electromagnetic switches, capacitors and the battery have been connected in such a way that these make the 3-volt current generated by the battery rise to 220 volts," he added.

Chaurasia's kit has become quite popular in Varanasi where people are visiting him to get a kit designed for their personal use.