Wednesday, August 11, 2010

koan \KOH-ahn\, noun:

• A nonsensical or paradoxical question to a student for which an answer is demanded, the stress of meditation on the question often being illuminating.

Koan is Japanese, ko "public" and -an, "matter for thought." It enters English through Zen Buddhism before achieving a more general sense.

HPOA

• hot piece of ass.

dangggg gurl, she's a HPOA. i bet her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. 

Trivia

What was the original name of the Web search engine known today as Google?

• BackRub, in 1996. The name was based on the search engine’s unique ability to analyze the “back links” pointing to a given website.

History

• SOS: Arapahoe became the first American ship to use the distress signal (1909)
• Alcatraz: island prison in San Francisco Bay received its first civilian inmates (1934)
• Hussein ibn Talal: 16-year-old was proclaimed king of Jordan after his father was declared mentally unfit (1952)

• Watts riots: civil disturbances in Los Angeles left 34 dead (1965)
• The Mall of America: the most-visited mall in the world opened on the site of Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota (1992)

Birthdays

• Julia Anne Clarke (38): aka Julie Clarke, Playmate 03/91, actress, model, hardbody
• Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852): father of gymnastics
• Alex Haley (1921-1992): author of Roots; also, writers Eduard Devrient (1801-1877), Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978) and Louise Bogan (1897-1970)
• Jerry Falwell (1933-2007): Moral Majority founder
• Steve Wozniak (60): cofounder of Apple Computers
• Hulk Hogan (57): wrestler/actor, host of NBC's American Gladiators