Eming.com » Society

Derek Paravicini, An Inspirational Story

MasPoster — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:35:07 +0000

CBS America recently had an all inspiring story about a disabled musical prodigy Derek Paravicini in their news magazine program “60 Minutes”. Derek was born premature, at 25 weeks (A normal pregnancy lasts 40 weeks), and weighing just over half a kilogram. As a result of the oxygen therapy required to save his life, Derek lost his sight, and his development was affected too. It later became apparent that he had severe learning difficulties.

(Ads)

As an adult, Derek is not able to perform the simplest tasks such as button a button or zip a zipper, tell his right hand from his left, hold up three fingers or even tell his own age. However, he is a musical savant. Derek is able to play any piece he has ever heard, with any key and with any style. He plays entirely by ear, and has a repertoire of many thousands of pieces that he has memorized - jazz, pop and light classical - and he is able to improvise.

Derek's musical talent is only the surface of the story. Music is the channel that allows Derek to communicate with people. Derek loves people and through music he connects with people.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Derek Paravicini website
Derek Paravicini's Blog

No related posts.

Man Arrested For Providing Links To Uploaded Music Files In Overseas Storage Site

MasPoster — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:59:03 +0000

A 46 years old man in Japan was arrested for violation of Copyright Act (Infringement of Public Transmission Rights), that is, putting copyrightable material on the World Wide Web or an FTP server etc, by providing links to uploaded music files in overseas storage site.

He was arrested in connection of personally creating a large number of internet hyperlinks to copyrighted music files that were uploaded in MediaFire, a file storage site located outside of Japan. The links were posted in a web site called “Music Posting Elite Meeting Place”. The website was created using links collection (similar to bookmarks collection) service called “ALink”.

This is the first time that a person was arrested for violation of Copyright Act by providing and distributing links of illegal music files that were uploaded to an overseas storage site. This act of uploading music files to storage site outside of Japan in order to avoid Japanese legal system was viewed as a premeditated criminal act to infringe on copyright.

The copyrights of the music files concerned were managed by JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, Japanese:日本音楽著作権協会 ), which until 2001 was the sole musical copyright administration society. However, since October 2001, competitors were allowed to get into the copyright administration business in Japan.

According to JASRAC, this is a case of illegal distribution of music, acts like this hamper the development of music culture. They will continue stamp out illegal distribution on the net actively together with the police.

ALink is a service where the site creator and other viewers were able to freely enter links of other websites in format similar to a forum or BBS. The entered links are listed together so that they are easily accessible.

The ALink service is provided by UIC. The website UIC provides “Rental CGI Service”, which is mainly message boards or guestbooks in various forms. However, the site itself does not seem to be actively maintained. Their own copyright statement at the bottom of the screen was dated 2000-2003. The page to register a new account was dated 2007.

The ALink site “Music Posting Elite Meeting Place (Japanese: 曲貼り精鋭達のたまり場 )” in concern seems to have been closed.

The arrest was announced by the Hokkaido Prefectural Police and Sapporo Central Police Station on the 1st march 2010.

Possibly The World Oldest Woman Alive At 117-Year Old Living In Hong Kong

MasPoster — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:40:28 +0000

2010 Chinese New Year Day is on February 14, 2010. Chinese New Year Festival spans 15 days and the 7th day is “People’s birthday (人日)” , a birthday for all human. However, a lady in Hong Kong had already quietly celebrated her real 117th birthday a few days earlier on the 4th day of Chinese New Year.

Cheung Gwai Mui (張桂妹) was born in 1893, during the Qing Dynasty (清朝), China. She may well be the World’s Oldest Living Woman.

(Ads)

Ms Cheung loves to eat and takes baths, but because of her old age, she is no longer able to chew, so she has to be fed nutrient liquid through a stomach pipe. She also loves to sing mountain folk songs. According to the nurses, She sings something like "A young girl loves a young boy, the young boy loves the young girl..." almost everyday from early morning.

Her memory and communication abilities has reduced recently years, when she had to renew her Hong Kong ID card a few years ago, the authority came to take her picture instead of having her go to their office. Her birthday on her ID card is actually 04th January 1893, but that was according to Chinese calendar. During Ms Cheung's time, only Chinese calendar was used for the common people in China, not the western Gregorian calendar.

The Oldest Living Man, according to Gerontology Research Group, is an American, Walter Breuning, who was born in Minnesota on September 21, 1896, now 113 years old.

World's Oldest Woman is Kama Chinen, Japan, born on May 10, 1895, now 114 years old. That makes Ms Cheung 2 years 4 months and 6 days older than Kama Chinen, at the current age of 117 years 1 month and 17 days.

Just hope that the Gerontology Research Group or the Guinness Book of World Records will investigate and make an official announcement and clear up the real title holder soon, whoever the oldest living woman might be, these are super-centenarian, but still they are human beings, very old human beings.

But then again, Ms Cheung probably do not care about this title, she is just as happy singing her mountain folk songs "A young girl loves a young boy, the young boy loves the young girl...".

Sources:
Ming Pao (明報): 117歲婆婆或全球最長壽
Gerontology Research Group: Validated Living Supercentenarians

Full Funeral Held For A Stuffed Toy Doraemon

World’s Most Romantic Word

MasPoster — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:38:52 +0000

According to a report, the following are the world’s most romantic words.

Amour (French) – means “Love”
Amore (Italian) means “Love”
Bellissima (Italian and Spanish) means “Very Beautiful”
tesoro (Italian and Spanish) means “Treasure”

Italian is also the world’s most romantic language.

The world most unromantic way to say “I Love You” are:

私はあなたを愛します (Japanese)
rydw i’n dy garu di (Welsh)
qaparha (Klingon, from the show Star Trek).

Source:
Reuters: Is this the world’s most romantic word?

Life Expectancy Of Okinawan Is Shortening, Who Is The Culprit? Fast Food.

MasPoster — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:54:36 +0000

People on the Japanese islands of Okinawa (沖縄) were not only famous for their long life span but also the health quality of their elderly. Their centenarians are not only very old but most are able to enjoy active and happy life styles.

According to the World Health Organization (2006) and Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (厚生労働省), Okinawan has the highest life expectancy in the world, and the highest in Japan.

(Ads)

However, Okinawa might not be able to enjoy this "Long Life" status much longer. Western fast food culture is shortening the life expectancy of Okinawa especially the male population. According to a 1985 survey by Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (厚生労働省), both male and female Okinawan have the highest life expectancy in Japan. Ten years later, in a 2005 survey, the female Okinawan population still maintains this number one status but the male population has dropped to 25th place, making Okinawa the "Short Life Prefecture" in Japan.

Obesity is becoming a norm, one in two adult male is considered obese. Obesity contributes to the increase of diabetic and cardiovascular diseases.

Health experts advices people that traditional Okinawan food is much healthier, because they mainly consists of vegetables, soya beans or soy products and fish. However, people should also add milk or diary products into their diet because traditional Okinawan diet lacks diary products which provide the needed calcium.
Western fast food contains excess amount of calories, they are high in fat, cholesterol and salt; all are not conducive of a long and health life.

All these are not new news, the problem is that all these fat, cholesterol, salt, artificial favoring, and preservatives laden food tend to be more delicious!

Chunichi News 中日新聞 : 食で若さ保つ　お勧め、やっぱり日本食

“Bing” market share in home is only 2%, accoding to a recent survey in Japan

Full Funeral Held For A Stuffed Toy Doraemon

MasPoster — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:13:37 +0000

Several years a ago, a women in Thailand was seriously ill. A relative who was a monk gave a Doraemon stuffed toy to her and very soon she got completed recovered from the illness. Since then, the Thai woman treated her stuffed toy as a living thing by giving it a name, putting it in school uniform and send it off to real school everyday, and give it birthday parties, etc.
One night, she had a dream that that it is time for her Doraemon stuffed toy to say goodbye to this world, and the toy wished to have a funeral.
So, she hired monks and give her beloved Doraemon a full human style funeral. The stuffed toy was rested in a casket while music played in the background the monks chanted.

Doraemon is a popular cartoon character started in Japan then spread throughout the rest of Asia. (Link to Wkipedia)

Sources in Thai (Pictures of the funeral):
พิลึก! คนจัดงานศพ ให้ตุ๊กตาโดเรมอน
ทำ พิธีเผา”โดเรมอน”-แม่เกาะโลงร่ำไห้

XML Entity Definitions for Characters is a W3C Recommendation

Somalian Pirates Sets Up A Stock Exchange to Fund Their Hijacking.

MasPoster — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:26:19 +0000

Ordinary people can invest in money or weapons.

Reuters: Somali sea gangs lure investors at pirate lair

(Ads)

World’s Most Romantic Word

World’s Worst Photo-fit Helps Capture Suspected Murderer

MasPoster — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:55:42 +0000

A taxi driver, in Bolivia, was murdered. One neighbour came and drew a picture of what she believed the suspect looked like after an appeal from bolivian police.

The picture looked like it was drawn by a school child, was soon dubbed the worst photo-fit.

While people were laughing at the picture, it is reported that the picture actually helped police captured at least one suspect.

Face of the found suspect was not allowed to be shown under bolivian law. So the media simply put the drawing over the suspect’s face.

A news clip presenting this picture has become an international sensation on YouTube.

Here is a funny clip on the popular Spanish TV show Sé lo que hicisteis… (SLQH), (In English, I know what you did…).

Telegraph.co.uk (English)

Possibly The World Oldest Woman Alive At 117-Year Old Living In Hong Kong

Kangaroos Inhabiting In Rural Japan?

MasPoster — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:14:23 +0000

For the past 7 years, there has been eyewitness reports of kangaroos appearing in Mayama area, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.

Kahoku Online Network: In the beginning, local residents laughed it out thinking that those might be foxes. There have be 10 eyewitness reports, however nobody is able to capture the creature either alive or on camera.

Kangaroos are native to Australia. There are possibilities that somebody imported the animals without proper procedures.

So far, no human injuries or agricultural damages is reported.

Kahoku Online Network (Japanese)

No related posts.