Should my new password be 24awtewLNCSTDY3?

Or, should my password be "password"?

If your password is iloveyou, trustno1, letmein, monkey, dragon, or jesus, you've got one of the 25 worst passwords of this year! Passwords are important, especially for online banking, email, and blogging, and it's frightening to know that someone might be able to get into your data and mess with it.

It's also embarrassing to find out your password is on that list. But what's worse is when you forget your lousy password.

So you really want to make sure that your password is a good one and that you have good security habits to keep yourself and your messaging safe.

Following is a list of secrets to create a strong yet manageable password. Please comment on their ideas. Then enjoy the following video:

Where's the language going in Canada?

The National Post has an interesting article today tracing where language is going in Canada.

Can you answer the following questions?

1. Which of the 25 top immigrant languages most spoken at home is growing the fastest in Canada?
1. Arabic
2. Hindi
3. Mandarin
4. Tagalog
2. Which are the top 5 immigrant languages spoken at home in Toronto?
1. Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, and Russian
2. Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Chinese, and Vietnamese
3. Cantonese, Punjabi, Chinese, Urdu, and Tamil
4. Italian, Portuguese, Cantonese, Tamil, and Tagalog

Answers below:

Congratulations, Mister Felix Baumgartner!

One small step, one giant leap for mankind--you Armstronged it for us, literally!

What an exciting Sunday afternoon it was, watching Felix Baumgartner rising in his balloon-borne capsule, stepping out of it, and jumping down through the sound barrier on his way home!

What went through his mind when he was about to jump? He must have been terrified. I would have been, as most people would. That was the question a reporter posed in the news conference that followed.

Check out the video (below) and see if you can write out the transcript for 14:49 - 15:02, beginning with "What went through your head ...."

Post your transcript on your blog and check it with a partner or with the words below.

Really? That's a Rejoinder?

Mahshallah!

Moming qimiao!

Good grief!

Vous plaisantez!

Itu bagus sekali!

Hē im.

Here are some words in different languages used to show emotions--sometimes indicating surprise, sometimes following, or sometimes happiness or sorrow--depending on the situation.

If you watch a movie and see a car crash, what do you say? "Really?" "That's great!" "Oh no!" or "Uh huh." Most people may think the answer is "Oh no!" but the expression you use--called a rejoinder--really depends on what one sees and feels before the car crash. What might you have said if the car crash happened after a building collapsed, a bomb went off, a truck plowed into a busy sidewalk, and a hundred other mishaps?


Check out the this Liveleak Freaks website and see if you can find any rejoinders. A number of those spectacular video clips have gone viral; so enjoy them. Feel free to respond by posting your Comments there, whether you agree, disagree, or have something to say!

God Keep Our Land

As crazy things happen around the world this week--riots, lynchings, assassinations, etc.--it's a blessing that we in Canada have not been affected by the violence instigated in the name of religion or politics.
But this freedom comes at a price, that of our men and women in the Canadian Forces protecting our values and our liberties half a world away.

This post salutes the good work they're doing and wishes them every success in keeping our enemies at bay.

Trrrrrrrrrrrrue Norrrrrrrrth Strrrrrrong n Frrrrrrreee

How about this for a venue to sing our national anthem, eh?



If you'd like to comment on these young hearts standing "on guard for thee," click on the link below.

Don't Play Around with Plagiarism

In some countries, claiming ideas and words from others as your own on academic papers and publications is considered a common, acceptable, or even smart thing to do. Students would cut and paste paragraphs from Wikipedia, "borrow" outlines or phrases from sources, or share their notes with one another--all this without acknowledging where they got it from--just to get a better mark, which they sometimes do.

What seems a clever way to academic and career success is viewed in North American culture as plagiarism (say PLAY-jer-Riz-zem), a form of stealing or cheating. This wasn't always the case. One very American religion is based on a blatant work of plagiarism. Their 19th-century holy book consists of wholesale copying from an old translation of the Bible dated 200 years before, but followers of that religion are told their holy book was given by an angel and translated by their final prophet by looking at stones placed in his hat.

A side-by-side comparison between the Book of Mormon (1830) and the King James Bible (1611)

Harvard Professor Platt

More recently, Harvard professor Matthew B. Platt caught a number of his students cheating in this way. Instead of typing the number 22,500 without any space after the comma, those students all typed 22, 500 instead--with a space after the comma. 22, 500 vs. 22,500! Good catch! Obviously, mistakes like this are likely to occur and multiply when people simply cut and paste text rather than type out the number.

But there were other clues as well, just like what happens after any burglary.

So what's the result?

The Daily Mail's headline screams, "Harvard cheating scandal which could see over 100 students thrown out." Uh oh.

Interestingly, the Harvard course where this all happened was Introduction to Congress. One wonders how many former students in that course got away with their cheating and are now "successful" members of the American Congress.

As bloggers and ESL learners, let's not plagiarize. We can put quotations in quotation marks and indicate where we got the quotes from. Then it will be clear which words and thoughts are ours and which are borrowed. And we'll be safe!