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3. The Knightsbridge Security Deposit Robbery
One of the boldest and most successful robberies of all time, the Knightsbridge Security Deposit heist happened in London in 1987, when career criminal Valerio Viccei and a small group of accomplices armed with guns managed to make off with 60 million pounds in valuables and cash from safe deposit boxes. The thieves got into the vault by pretending to rent a safe deposit box of their own, and once inside they managed to overpower the employees and security guards and start breaking into the boxes. They escaped without incident, but a bit of blood left behind at the scene allowed police to trace the robbery back to Viccei, who was wanted for a huge amount of robberies in his native Italy. Viccei’s accomplices were quickly arrested, but he fled the country and for some time eluded capture. A known playboy and high roller, he was only arrested after he returned to England in an attempt to retrieve his prized Ferrari sports car.

4. The Harry Winston Heist
One of the most downright brazen robberies in recent memory, the Harry Winston Heist went down in 2008 when a group of four men stormed into one of Paris’s most exclusive jewelry stores and made off with $108 million in diamonds. The men were disguised as women and armed with a .357 Magnum and a hand grenade. They quickly herded the employees and customers into a corner and started breaking open display cases, and after filling a suitcase with precious stones, made their escape. No one from this robbery has been arrested, but police suspect that the robbers– whom they’ve nicknamed “The Pink Panthers”– are a part of a larger criminal organization of Yugoslavians that may have been responsible for a number of other high profile jewelry heists. In the meantime, a $1 million dollar reward is still up for grabs for any information leading to the arrest of the thieves.

5. The Baker Street Burglary
The Baker Street burglary took place in London in 1971, when a team of well-equipped thieves tunneled into the Baker Street Bank and stole 3 million pounds worth of cash and valuables from safety deposit boxes. The criminals used a combination of metal cutting tools and explosives to tunnel to the vault from a nearby shop, and even had a lookout positioned on a nearby rooftop. Near the end of the heist, a ham radio operator overheard some of the lookout’s radio transmissions and contacted the police, who frantically searched over seven hundred banks within the area in hopes of honing in on the location of the transmission. They were unable to catch the robbers at the time, but nearly two years later a number of men were charged in connection with the robbery, though police believe the true mastermind behind the crime was never captured.

6. The Central Bank Of Iraq Heist
For sheer amount of currency stolen, no robbery compares to the Central Bank Of Iraq heist, which is said to have been perpetrated by none other than Saddam Hussein. The robbery happened just before the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 2003. In the middle of the night, a small group of men led by Hussein’s son, Qusay, went to the Central Bank with tractor-trailers and forcibly withdrew just under 1 billion dollars cash. Nearly $650 million of this was eventually found stashed in the walls of Hussein’s palace by U.S. soldiers. A handwritten note was later discovered linking Saddam and his son to the heist, but just who the other men involved were or what became of the remaining $350 million remains a mystery.

7. The Gardner Museum Art Heist
In the biggest art heist in history, two men dressed as police officers managed to contheir way into the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston late one night in 1990. Once inside, the men overpowered the few guards on duty, tied them up, and left them in the basement. They then proceeded to steal several pieces of artwork by Rembrandt, Degas, Manet, and Vermeer, along with a few sculptures and historical artifacts. The total haul is now valued at $500 million, but both the thieves and the artwork have yet to be found. A number of possible suspects have been considered, from Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger to the IRA, but no arrests have been made in connection to the case. Enough time has passed that the statute of limitations on the actual heist has passed, leaving the Gardner Museum art heist as one of the most successful and mysterious robberies of all time.

8. The Great Brinks Robbery
When it was committed in 1950, the $2.7 million Brinks Robbery in Boston, Mass. was the biggest heist in American history. Dubbed “the crime of the century,” the heist was the work of an 11-man gang who used copied keys to gain entry into the Brinks Building. Once inside, they made their way to a room where employees were counting money, and after subduing the armed guards, collected $1.2 million in cash, along with another $1.5 million in checks and securities. The gang’s plan had been to sit on the money for six years, at which point the statute of limitations for armed robbery would have run out, but a police investigation quickly started turning up suspects. After a few of the men were arrested, the criminals started turning on one another, even going so far as to hire hit men and attempt drive-by shootings on suspected snitches. Eventually, though, all eleven of the original robbers were found out and arrested, and many received life sentences in prison.

9. The Agricultural Bank of China Robbery
2007’s Agricultural Bank of China Robbery resulted in the theft of 51 million yuan (roughly $7 million U.S.), and it is said to be the biggest robbery in China’s history. The scheme started when the bank’s manager, Ren Xiaofeng, stole 200,000 yuan from the vault. His unlikely plan was to use the money to buy massive amounts of lottery tickets in the hope of winning a cash prize and returning the money before it was reported missing. Amazingly, the plan worked, and Ren made a huge profit off of his gamble even after returning the 200K. After enlisting the help of another manager, Ma Xiangjing, Ren proceeded to steal nearly 33 million yuan a year or so later, and a month after that another 18 million. In both cases, the men spent nearly all the money on lottery tickets, but they were only able to recoup 98,000 yuan, and the missing money was quickly noticed and reported. Ren and Ma were eventually captured, but very little of the stolen money was ever recovered, thanks to the astronomical amounts the duo had spent on lotto tickets.

10. The Great Train Robbery:
One of the most famed heists in popular culture, The Great Train Robbery was one of the biggest robberies of all time when it was committed in 1963. The heist took place in Buckinghamshire, England, when a mail train transporting millions of pounds was boarded by a team of 15 robbers. The thieves used a fake signal light to stop the train, and after subduing the workers inside the first two carriages, loaded 120 mail bags containing 2.6 million pounds into some cars they had hidden near the tracks. The men all escaped the scene, but 13 of them were quickly captured following an extensive investigation by Scotland Yard. Two of the these men, Ronnie Biggs and Charlie Wilson, would later escape from prison and flee the country. Wilson was caught four years later in Canada, but Biggs famously eluded capture by hiding out in Brazil, and he was only apprehended when he turned himself in to authorities in 2001.

When it comes to the amount of sheer planning, creativity, and outright lunacy that goes into them, few crimes rival the high profile, multi-million dollar heist. And when you consider the colorful characters and criminal masterminds behind these robberies, it’s easy why these crimes continue to be the subject of constant speculation and fascination. Whether the work of teams of highly trained thieves, lowly bank managers, or even a powerful dictator, here are ten of the biggest and most bizarre heists and burglaries in history.

Some 20 years back a iphone6 could only have been what could best be described as alien (dem never even produce 3310 ) and frankly technology is getting crazier and ever innovative, so in some 10 - 20 years definitely there are going to be jaw-dropping innovations. Is it actually possible some of the things I'd list below actually come to reality?
1. Portable wireless network carrier: The idea that you could store up some spectranet 4G in your carrier and use it in the comfort of your room where even mtn network dey struggle to survive sounds catchy, na to dey carry am about sure pass
2. Surf the net on your palm: Is it really possible to actually do away with conventional phones and tablets and do stuffs on your palm with simple gestures (read emails, surf the net etc...)
3. Store information infinitely (leaving out cloud storage?): Many attimes we run out of disk space which requires you to delete stuffs so as to create some space (trust me, even hard disk of 500GB isn't enough to store your music and videos). So, is it possible to have a technology where there is no limit, no 500GB, 1 terabyte...something more like you buy a notebook and u can store any amount of files without running out of storage space.
4. Nanocomputers: Are likely the next generation of gadgets we will be seeing soon ( folded notebooks and stuffs...I mean, the fact that you can roll up your laptop and shove it in your back pocket sounds cool isn't it? But how soon is soon? 5 years? 15 years?


Add yours and let's see how crazy technology can get!

Apatheist: I don't like Mondays either...
Be right back I have people to kill things to do.

Nigerians beware! A serial killer is on the loose!

1. School Shootings
The rise of school shootings has been staggering over the past 15 years and they still leave many people ultimately wondering why? Most of the kids involved had been ridiculed one way or another by not only school mates, but also family members at home. These murderous children acquired large caliber weapons in most cases; though in others, knives, hand guns, or the like were brought in to their schools and use just as effectively. Teachers, faculty, and students loose their lives each and every time this happens. Here are just a few of the incidents:
March 24th, 1998–Andrew Golden (11) and Mitchell Johnson (13) gunned down 15 people in the Westside Middle School Playground.
April 20th, 1999–Eric Harris (18) and Dylan Klebold (17) Columbine High School–13 dead, 25 injured.
November 15th, 1995–Jamie Rouse (17) Richland School Tennessee–4 injured, 2 dead
February 2nd, 1996–Barry Loukaitis (14) Moses Lake, Washington School–3 dead, 2 injured
May 21st, 1998–Kipland Kinkle (14) Springfield Oregon–3 dead including parents, 8 wounded
This list is but the tip of the ever-increasing iceberg.

2. Mary Bell
Mary Bell was convicted of strangling a young boy, Martin Brown, on May 25, 1968, the day before her 11th birthday. She was, as far as anyone knows, alone on this occasion. On July 31, 1968, Mary and her friend (Norma Bell–no relation to Mary) took part in the death, again by strangulation, of three-year-old Brian Howe. Police reports concluded that Mary Bell had gone back after killing him to carve an“N”into his stomach with a razor, this was then changed using the same razor but with a different hand to an“M”. Mary Bell also used a pair of scissors to cut off bits of Brian Howe’s hair and part of his genitals. As the girls were so young and their testimonies contradicted each other, it has never been entirely clear precisely what happened. Martin Brown’s death was initially ruled an accident as there was no evidence of foul play. Eventually, his death was linked with Brian Howe’s killing and in August, the two girls were charged with two counts of manslaughter. Mary was released in 1980 with court ordered anonymity. In 2003, the courts awarded her and her daughter anonymity for life.

3. Jesse Pomeroy
Jesse Pomeroy was 14 when he was arrested in 1874 for the horrific murder of a four-year-old boy. He was quickly labeled“The Boston Boy Fiend.”His horrible trek had begun three years earlier with the sexual torture of seven other boys. For those crimes, Pomeroy was sentenced to a children’s reform school but was released early. Not long after, he mutilated and killed a 10-year-old girl who came into his mother’s store. A month later, he kidnapped 4-year-old Horace Mullen, took him to a swamp outside town and slashed him so savagely with a knife that he nearly decapitated him. Because of his strange appearance (he had a milky white eye) and his previous abhorrent behavior, he was under suspicion. When he was shown the body and asked if he’d done it, he responded with a nonchalant,“I suppose I did.”Then the girl was found buried in his mother’s cellar and he confessed to that murder, as well. He was convicted and sentenced to death. Following a public outcry against condemning children to death, his sentence was commuted to forty years of solitary confinement.

4. Jon Venables and Robert Thompson
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson (both 10 years old) had been stealing things all day at the shopping center—candy, a troll doll, some batteries, a can of blue paint, and other incidentals. Why did they decide to steal 2 year-old James Bulger? Was it a plot or a sudden, overwhelming compulsion? Once they had him, they didn’t know what to do with him. They could have easily discarded him, leaving him alone on the sidewalk by a shop where someone would discover the crying baby. But Jon and Robert, like children who would rather destroy their own possessions than give them to another, murdered the little boy. James’s parents would never see their baby alive again. The video cameras at the mall caught several images of James Bulger in the hands of his killers, frozen in time. He was to be taken on a long, aimless walk, cruelly tortured along the way. James was senselessly beaten to death by his ten-year-old captors, who callously abandoned him on the railroad tracks.

5. Brenda Anne Spencer
On Monday, January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer used a rifle to wound eight children and one police officer at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, and to kill Principal Burton Wragg and custodian Mike Suchar. The school was across the street from her house. She used the rifle she had recently been given for Christmas by her father. When the six-hour incident ended and the pretty teenager was asked why she had committed the crime, she shrugged and replied,“I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”She also said:“I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun.”“It was just like shooting ducks in a pond.”and“[The children] looked like a herd of cows standing around; it was really easy pickings.”Her lack of remorse and inability to provide a serious explanation for her actions when captured inspired the song“I Don’t Like Mondays”by The Boomtown Rats, written by socialist musician Bob Geldof. Her quote“I don’t like Mondays”also appears written on a wall in the movie, The Breakfast Club.

6. Laurie Tackett
On the morning of Saturday, January 11, 1992, Indiana resident Donn Foley and his brother Ralph decided to do some quail hunting in a nearby Jefferson County forest. Just one mile into their trip, as Donn turned onto Lemon Road, Ralph spotted a strange object just a few feet from the road in a barren soybean field. At once it appeared to them that it might be a body, but the form was so badly burned and scarred that it looked to them to be a doll. Upon closer investigation, it became painfully obvious that it was not a doll. Upon investigation, it turned out to be the body of Shanda Sharer who would later be found the victim of a jealous lesbian love triangle. Her body, prior to the murder, had been slashed and stabbed with death eventually resulting from torching. Laurie Tackett was ultimately implicated along with Toni Lawrence and Hope Rippey.
Mary Laurine (Laurie) Tackett was born on October 5, 1974 in Madison, Indiana. Her mother was a fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian and her father was a factory worker with two felony convictions and prison stints in the 1960s. Tackett claimed she was molested at least twice as a child, at ages five and twelve.

7. Willie Bosket
Willie Bosket, born on December 9, 1962, is a convicted murderer, whose crimes, committed while he was still a minor, led to a change in New York state law, so that juveniles as young as thirteen could be tried in adult court for murder and would face the same penalties. On March 19, 1978, Willie Bosket, then fifteen years old, shot dead Noel Perez on the New York subway, during an attempt to steal some money and a watch. Eight days later, Bosket shot another man, Moises Perez (no relation to his first victim) in another botched robbery attempt. Bosket was tried and convicted of the murders in the New York City Family court, where he was sentenced to five years in prison (the maximum for a minor). The short length of Bosket’s sentence caused a public outcry, and led the New York State Legislature to pass the Juvenile Offender Act of 1978. Under this act, children as young as thirteen years old could be tried in an adult court for crimes such as murder, and receive the same penalties as adults. New York was the first state to enact a law of this nature; many other legislatures have since followed suit. Bosket was eventually released from prison, but has subsequently been convicted of a number of other felonies, for which he has received a number of life sentences. He is currently in the New York prison system, in solitary confinement.

8. Joshua Phillips
In 1998, 14-year-old Joshua Phillips bludgeoned his 8-year-old neighbor to death and hid her body beneath his bed. Seven days later, his mother noticed something leaking from beneath the bed. Joshua claimed that’s he’d accidentally hit Maddie in the eye with his baseball bat causing her to scream. In his panic he dragged her to his home where he hit her again and then stabbed her eleven times. His story failed to convince a Florida jury, who convicted him of first-degree murder. His mother is still appealing his conviction based upon the fact that he was given an adult penalty for his crime.

9. Edmund Kemper
In 1964, when Edmund Kemper was 15, he shot his grandparents, killing them both. He had been planning his repulsive act for some time and had no regrets later. The California Youth Authority detained him in Juvenile Hall so that they could put him through rigorous series of tests administered by a psychiatrist. Because the results suggested that he was a paranoid psychotic, he was sent to Atascadero State Hospital for treatment. There he learned what others thought about his crime and worked hard to make his doctors believe that he had recovered. Although he was considered a sociopath, he worked in the psychology lab to help administer the tests to others. In the process, he learned a lot about other deviant offenders. Kemper was released after another five years and remained under the supervision of the Youth Authority. His doctors recommended that he not be returned to his mother’s care, but the Youth Authority ignored this. After Kemper murdered and dismembered eight women over the next five years, these same doctors affirmed his insanity defense. In fact, even as he was carrying parts of his victims around, a panel of psychiatrists judged him to be no threat to society.

10. Brian And David Freeman / Nelson Byrdwell
Bryan Freeman, 17, and David, 16, who had shaved and tattooed their heads as a symbol of their neo-Nazi beliefs, were immediate suspects when their parents and younger brother were found bludgeoned to death in their Salisbury Township, PA, home. The boys had been terrorizing the family and, as a whole, the town. As the police told it, the triple murder uncovered in Salisbury Township, Pa., that week was every parent’s nightmare—the ghastly culmination of a long-running battle of wills between Brenda and Dennis Freeman and their loutish, hulking sons Bryan, 17, and David, 16.

From time to time the unthinkable happens: children kill. Some decide to murder members of their own family in spite of their seemingly normal upbringing. Others do so because their upbringing was far from normal–often including beatings and abuse. Then there are misguided children who, from the sheer desire to kill, go on murder sprees ending the lives of purely innocent victims. Children are supposed to be innocent and pure; without malice, contempt, sinister anger, or desires to kill, yet every year many commit horrific crimes. Here are Ten of the Most Evil Children in History, with number One exclusively dedicated to one foul group. The age limit for this list is 17 years.

millionaireman: Author Kperogi made mistakes also. First mistake: Those words are not commonly misspelt by Nigerians. Only a few Nigerians who use those words misspell a few of them. Kperogi must have believed he was lecturing kids in the nursery school. Second mistake: Goodluck is a name chosen by two parents for their child. The way the parents chose to write the COMBINATION OF GOOD & LUCK FOR A NAME MUST NOT CONFORM TO HOW THE ENGLISH USE AND WRITE THE TWO WORDS. A PERSON's name can be anything the parents chose to give their offspring. Let Kperogi study names of many Americans. Some of the names are funny, at times meaningless, however, at times were derived from English words.

we talking about the contextual use here, and ideally the message is simple i.e. 'Good luck' a denotation of luck in a positive manner, why isn't bad luck a combined word (badluck)?

gebest: when u remember BRIGHTER GRAMMAR, then u dont need to think about d spelling anymore.

lol...u can still mistake the grammar for grammer

Pvictor10: Like seriously? GEJ? Hmnn!

ROTFL

:DYes yes! I got all 6 amazing

killercute16: Nice write up op.....jus learnt smtin today.

lol... I bet it's no 7

1. “Goodluck.”This is probably the most misspelled word in Nigeria today. The reason is obvious: it’s the first name of Nigeria’s current president, Goodluck Jonathan. But there is no word like “goodluck”--or, its other variant,badluck-- in the English language; there is only “good luck”--and "bad luck." Good luck denotes an auspicious state resulting from favorable outcomes, a stroke of luck, or an unexpected piece of good fortune. That someone would be named “Good Luck” (which has now been rendered “Goodluck” in error) is itself evidence of insufficient familiarity with the rules and idiomatic rhythm of the English language.

2. “Defination.”There is no letter “a” in the spelling of that word. Replace the “a” with an “i” to have“definItion.”Related misspelled words are“definAtely”instead of “definitely,”“definAte,” instead of “definIte,” etc.

3. “Alot.”That is not an English word. The closest resemblance to that word in the English language is the phrase “a lot.” Since no one writes “alittle,” “afew,” “abit,” etc, it is indefensible that people write “alot.” But this is a universal spelling error in the English-speaking world; it is not limited to Nigerians. Other cousins of this spelling error are“Infact”instead of “in fact” and“inspite”instead of “in spite.”

4. “Loose/lose.”Many Nigerians use the word “loose” when they actually mean to write “lose.” Loose is commonly used as an adjective to denote the state of not being tight (as in: loose clothes). Other popular uses include the sense of being casual and unrestrained in sexual behavior (as in: loose women), lacking a sense of restraint or responsibility (as in: “Goodluck Jonathan’s loose tongue”). Although “loose” can sometimes be used as a verb, “loosen” is the preferred word to express the sense of making something less tight or strict. “Lose,” on the hand, is to cease to have, or to fail to win, or suffer the loss of a person through death, etc. A safe bet is to choose to err on the side of “lose” when you want to express an action.

5. “Priviledge.”There is no “d” in the spelling of that word. It’s spelled “privilege.”

6. “Nonchallant.”It’s actually spelled with only one “l.” Unfortunately, even news reports in Nigerian newspapers habitually spell the word with double “l.” I wonder if they’ve disabled their spell check.

7. “Grammer.”There is no “e” in the word. Replace the pesky “e” with an “a” to have “grammAr.” I’ve read posts on Nigerian Internet discussion forums and on Facebook railing against “bad grammer”! Well, if you feel sufficiently concerned about bad grammar to write about it, you’d better damn well know how to spell grammar! To be fair, this misspelling isn’t exclusively Nigerian, but its regularity in popular writing in Nigeria qualifies it as a candidate for this list. The people I have a hard time forgiving are those who attend or attended secondary schools with “grammar school” as part of their names (such as my old secondary school, which is called Baptist Grammar School) but spell “grammar” with an “e.” I see that a lot on Facebook. Such people deserve to be stripped of the certificates they got from their high schools!

8. “Proffessor.”The name for the highest ranking position for a university academic (in British usage) and any full-time or part-time member of the teaching staff of a university (in American usage) is never spelled with double “f.” It’s correctly spelled “professor.” So if “proffessor” is wrong,“proff”is equally wrong. The British and Canadian colloquial abbreviation for “professor” is “prof.”

9. “Pronounciation.” Although the verb form of this word is “pronounce,” it changes to “pronunciation” when it nominalizes, that is, when it changes into a noun. Note that there is no “o” after the first “n” in the word.

10. “Emanciated.”It should correctly be spelled “emaciated.” There is no “n” in the word. This widespread spelling error in Nigerian written English is the direct result of the way we (mis)pronounce the word. An “n” sound almost always intrudes on our pronunciation of the word, much like it does in our pronunciation of “attorney,” so that most Nigerians say “antoni-general” of the federation. A related misspelling is“expantiate.”It should be “expatiate.” There is no “n” after the first “a.”

http://www.farooqkperogi.com/2011/04/top-10-words-nigerians-commonly.html

Add yours

Guilty of all except 4 5 n 7