Arf2-D2

1. Fly to NEVER NEVER land 2. Grow up!

I am nowhere near close, but I am definitely HAVING FUN. 1. attended a seance 2. fire a gun (at a shooting range, of course!)

1. piloted a boat through the everglades 2. performed voodoo magic

1. placed a bet on Big Brown 2. cursed a horse

1. wrote a VBA script 2. published a webpage

1. got weighed 2. started diet I'm not implying anything! I swear... I just know that this is stressful :-)

1. balance the checkbook 2. embezzle money! just kidding. how about short sell a stock?

1. run a marathon 2. buy velcro shoes

1. kill free-range chicken 2. eat a free-range chicken

1. find a 5/5 cache 2. swim with a shark

1. plant dahlias 2. skinny dipping

Congrats. Nice fish. 1. skip lunch 2. hmmm you were a tomboy? so, wear pink! with frills! :-)

Is there a limit on guesses? 1. celebrated birthday X. 2. got glasses/contacts/bifocals

1. touch your toes! LOL 2. white water rafting. You have to work today? Sympathies...

Congrats everybody!

Nemi is a Norwegian comic strip, written and drawn by Lise Myhre. It made its first appearance in 1997 under the title Den svarte siden ("The black side" or "The black page"). At that time it was a very dark cartoon about the Black metal and goth subcultures, but Myhre has turned it brighter with the years, although she still frequently publishes strips about serious issues, especially in the larger Saturday panels. The strip is now named Nemi, after the protagonist, and is the second most popular comic strip in Norway, behind Pondus.

Axel Thue 1863 - 1922 Thue studied Diophantine equations, showing that, for example, y3 - 2x2 = 1 cannot be satisfied by infinitely many pairs of integers.

And the girls... Female names 68. Anette 32. Anita 38. Ann 20. Anna 1. Anne 93. Aslaug 8. Astrid 35. Aud 19. Bente 11. Berit 10. Bjørg 90. Bodil 86. Brit 75. Britt 39. Camilla 91. Cathrine 72. Cecilie 63. Eli 30. Elin 17. Elisabeth 29. Ellen 23. Else 9. Eva 13. Gerd 55. Grete 51. Grethe 70. Gro 61. Gunn 87. Gunvor 26. Hanne 37. Hege 22. Heidi 58. Helene 14. Hilde 31. Ida 67. Ingeborg 2. Inger 6. Ingrid 97. Ingunn 66. Irene 79. Janne 94. Jenny 48. Jorunn 69. Julie 73. Karen 3. Kari 33. Karin 96. Karoline 56. Kirsten 77. Kjersti 18. Kristin 49. Kristine 46. Laila 57. Lene 82. Lillian 28. Linda 59. Line 74. Linn 99. Lisbeth 65. Lise 5. Liv 83. Malin 95. Margit 64. Mari 36. Maria 15. Marianne 43. Marie 4. Marit 81. Marte 98. Mary 62. May 54. Mette 41. Mona 47. Monica 16. Nina 21. Ragnhild 12. Randi 40. Reidun 89. Rita 42. Ruth 85. Signe 76. Sigrid 34. Silje 71. Siri 50. Sissel 80. Siv 7. Solveig 52. Stine 78. Synnøve 100. Therese 25. Tone 88. Tonje 84. Torill 24. Tove 60. Trine 44. Turid 53. Unni 92. Vigdis 27. Wenche 45. Åse

the 100 most popular male names in Norway. The data come from http://www.ssb.no/navn/fornavn-kvinner-100.html Statistics Norway, Statistisk sentralbyrå. * The table below lists names alphabetically. * The number to the left of the names shows the relative popularity. Male names 87. Alexander 59. Alf 19. Anders 27. Andreas 51. Arild 6. Arne 88. Arvid 75. Asbjørn 83. Bjarne 3. Bjørn 42. Christian 63. Dag 45. Daniel 61. Egil 37. Einar 49. Eirik 80. Eivind 18. Erik 72. Erling 38. Espen 77. Finn 54. Frank 44. Fredrik 48. Frode 13. Geir 26. Gunnar 11. Hans 24. Harald 35. Helge 52. Henrik 46. Håkon 78. Håvard 50. Ivar 1. Jan 90. Jarle 81. Jens 55. Johan 95. Johannes 17. John 30. Jon 73. Jonas 97. Jostein 60. Jørgen 99. Jørn 62. Karl 68. Kenneth 84. Kim 5. Kjell 57. Kjetil 8. Knut 34. Kristian 79. Kristoffer 39. Kåre 7. Lars 40. Leif 58. Magne 43. Magnus 40. Marius 23. Martin 15. Morten 32. Nils 10. Odd 98. Oddvar 70. Ola 25. Olav 4. Ole 94. Ove 2. Per 64. Petter 67. Pål 74. Reidar 86. Roar 93. Robert 69. Roger 28. Rolf 81. Roy 20. Rune 96. Sigurd 91. Simen 100. Sindre 56. Stein 41. Steinar 33. Stian 66. Stig 9. Svein 53. Sverre 14. Terje 16. Thomas 76. Thor 31. Tom 71. Tommy 12. Tor 85. Torbjørn 22. Tore 21. Trond 92. Trygve 89. Vgard 65. Vidar 47. Øystein 36. Øyvind

Marius Sophus Lie 1842 - 1899 Lie made major advances in the theory of continuous groups of transformations and differential equations. Lie groups and Lie algebras are named after him.

Niels Henrik Abel 1802 - 1829 In 1824 Abel proved the impossibility of solving algebraically the general equation of the fifth degree.

wow. I'm learning a lot about Norway. The 27th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) was hosted by Norway. The Olympiad took place at the University of Oslo from the 30th of June to July 7th 1996 with participants from 55 countries. The total number of people that was involved in this Physics Olympiad was as follows: 260 students, 107 leaders, a number of observers and visitors, about 40 guides, 24 examinors, about 20 translators, and a staff of about 30 people. The Opening Ceremony took place in Oslo Town Hall on Monday July 1, and the Closing Ceremony was in the Aula of the University of Oslo on Saturday July 6. The final results from the examinations are given below.

And the author.... Jostein Gaarder b. 1952 Oslo, Norway A former philosophy teacher whose best-known novel, Sophie's World, was a surprise international best-seller, Jostein Gaarder is one of the most popular of contemporary Scandinavian authors. With over 20 million copies of Sophie in print and with an entire industry having sprung up around that one book -- there's a movie, a musical, a boardgame, even a CD-ROM based on the book -- he is presumably also one of the wealthiest. What's so deucedly odd about this is that Gaarder's books usually mix in a hefty dose of philosophical pedagogy along with the story. Sophie's World is subtitled A Novel about the History of Philosophy and the book often seems closer to being a primer on western philosophical thought than a novel -- so much so that it has become a popular textbook for undergraduate philosophy courses. This hardly seems consistent with "popular" fiction.

The Sophie Prize is an international award (US $ 100,000), for environment and sustainable development, awarded annually. The Sophie Prize is established to inspire people working towards a sustainable future. The Prize was established in 1997 by the Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder and his wife Siri Dannevig. Voluntary organisations, independent research institutions and individual’s worldwide, with knowledge or interest in environment and/or sustainable development or other closely related topics, can nominate candidates for the Sophie Prize. The Sophie Prize is awarded to one or several persons, or an organisation, which has created awareness of alternatives to modern-day development and/or initiated such alternatives in a pioneering or particularly inventive manner.

REDORBIT NEWS Enormous 'Sea Monster' Fossil Found in Norway Scientists from the University of Oslo announced their discovery of a fossilized, 150 million-year-old “sea monster” on Spitspergen, in the Arctic island chain of Svalbard. The 50 ft. sea reptile, nicknamed “The Monster”, is the biggest on record, and is one of 40 such fossils discovered on the island. A prior field expedition in the area revealed remains of another large pliosaur that is thought to be among the same species as “The Monster”. Dr. Jorn Hurum, the expedition’s director, said the new Svalbard fossil is 20% larger than the previous biggest marine reptile, a massive pliosaur from Australia named Kronosaurus. "We have carried out a search of the literature, so we now know that we have the biggest [pliosaur]. It's not just arm-waving anymore," Dr Hurum told BBC News. Pliosaurs were a short-necked, teardrop-shaped form of plesiosaur, extinct reptiles that lived in oceans during the age of the dinosaurs. The pliosaurs had two sets of powerful flippers they used to push themselves through water. "These animals were awesomely powerful predators," said paleontologist Richard Forrest in a BBC News report. "If you compare the skull of a large pliosaur to a crocodile, it is very clear it is much better built for biting... by comparison with a crocodile, you have something like three or four times the cross-sectional space for muscles. So you have much bigger, more powerful muscles and huge, robust jaws. A large pliosaur was big enough to pick up a small car in its jaws and bite it in half," he explained. "The flipper is 3 meters long with very few parts missing. On Monday, we assembled all the bones in our basement and we amazed ourselves - we had never seen it together before," he said. The fossilized “Sea Monster” was excavated in August 2007. Researchers had to remove hundreds of tons of rock by hand, enduring perilous conditions such as high winds, fog, rain, freezing temperatures and under constant threat of attack by polar bears. The team was able to recover the animal's snout, some teeth, the shoulder girdle, much of the neck and back, and a nearly complete flipper. Regrettably, a small river running through where the head lay had washed away much of the skull. A preliminary analysis of the bones suggested the animal was of a previously unknown species. The Reptile has been taken to the Natural History Museum in Oslo. The researchers plan to return to Svalbard later this year to excavate the new pliosaur. A few pieces of skull, some broken teeth and vertebrae from this second large specimen are already exposed and the researchers believe much more may be waiting to be excavated. "It's a large one, and has the same bone structure as the previous one we found," said Oslo Natural History Museum’s Espen Knutsen, who is studying the fossils. Dr. Hurum and his colleagues have now identified a total of 40 marine reptiles from Svalbard, including many long-necked plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs in addition to the two pliosaurs. Long-necked plesiosaurs are said to resemble Scotland's legendary Loch Ness monster, while Ichthyosaurs resemble modern dolphins but with upright tail fins. Richard Forrest told BBC News, "Here in Svalbard you have 40 specimens just lying around, which is like nothing we know. "Even in classic fossil exposures such as you have in Dorset [in England], there are cliffs eroding over many years and every so often something pops up. But we haven't had 40 such finds from Dorset in 200 years." The fossils were found in black shale rock, a fine-grained sedimentary rock. The researchers believe the animals sank to the bottom of a cold, shallow sea after they died, and then became covered by mud. Dr. Hurum said the oxygen-free, alkaline chemistry of the mud could explain the fossils' remarkable preservation. The discovery of another large pliosaur dubbed the “Monster of Aramberri” was announced in 2002, named after the site in north-eastern Mexico where it was discovered. The reptile could be just as large as the Svalbard specimen, according to the discovery team. However paleontologists told BBC News a much more detailed analysis of these fossils was required before a true picture of its size could be obtained. --- On the Net: University of Oslo Natural History Museum