Linson's Freeway!

GOOD THINGS TO KNOW

noreply@blogger.com (Frozen Fire) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:37:00 +0000

If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on the right side of your mouth. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on the left side of your mouth.
To make half a kilo of honey, bees must collect nectar from over 2 million individual flowers
Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by 'Bayer'.
Communications giant Nokia was founded in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill by Fredrik Idestam.
Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult! In America tipping is forced upon customer at 15 to 18%.
People in nudist colonies play volleyball more than any other sport.
Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he declined.
Astronauts can't belch - there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.
Ancient Roman, Chinese and German societies often used urine as mouthwash.
The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.
The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. In the Renaissance era, it was fashion to shave them off!
Because of the speed at which Earth moves around the Sun, it is impossible for a solar eclipse to last more than 7 minutes and 58 seconds.
The night of January 20 is "Saint Agnes's Eve", which is regarded as a time when a young woman dreams of her future husband.
There are over 25 million bubbles waiting to burst out of each bottle of Champagne
Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros
It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times!
The heat of peppers is rated on the Scoville scale
Gold is the only metal that doesn't rust, even if it's buried in the ground for thousands of years
Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end
If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. When a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.
Each year 2,000,000 smokers either quit smoking or die of tobacco-related diseases.
When it originally appeared in 1886 - Coca Cola was billed as an Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage.
Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals
Kites were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.
The song, Auld Lang Syne, is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year.
For every real Christmas tree harvested, two to three seedlings are planted in its place.
Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent
Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn't smoke unless it's heated above 450°F
The Shell Oil Company originally began as a novelty shop in London that sold seashells
The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.
Nine out of every 10 living things live in the ocean
The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man
Airports at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density
Fish and Chip selling officially remained an offensive trade until 1940 due to the smell it produces
The University of Alaska spans four time zones
The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.
In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.
Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil) and Mazaru (Speak no evil).
Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
A comet's tail always points away from the sun
The Swine Flu vaccine in 1976 caused more death and illness than the disease it was intended to prevent
Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines.
The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.
If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up, you can see stars, even in the middle of the day.
When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go. The first sense lost is sight
Trivia in Roman mythology was the goddess who haunted crossroads, graveyards and was the goddess of sorcery and witchcraft. She wandered about at night, and was seen only by the barking of dogs who told of her approach.
In ancient times strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed
Strawberries are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside
Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams
It cost the soft drink industry $100 million a year for thefts committed involving vending machines
The moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year
The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust
Due to earth's gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters
Men's shirts have the buttons on the right, but women's shirts have the buttons on the left
Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" in Italy
Soldiers do not march in step when going across bridges because they could set up a vibration which could be sufficient to knock the bridge down
The painting that won second place in a competition held by the US National Academy of Design was hanging upside down when it was judged
Everything weighs one percent less at the equator
For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off
The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.

India's $35 tablet

noreply@blogger.com (Frozen Fire) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:06:00 +0000

India on 22nd July unveiled a prototype tablet computer that would sell for a mere 1,500 rupees, or $35, with the price possibly dropping even further as R&D efforts continue.

Kapil Sibal, the country's Minister for Human Resource Development, showed off the super-cheap touch-screen device in New Delhi as part of a push to provide high-quality education to students across the country. The tablet also comes with a solar-power option that could make it more feasible for rural areas.

The Linux-based computer at first glance resembles an Apple iPad and features basic functions you'd expect to see in a tablet--a Web browser, multimedia player, PDF reader, Wi-Fi, and video conferencing ability. It has 2GB of RAM (but no hard disk, instead using a memory card) and USB ports and could be available to kids from primary school up to the university level as early as next year.

Students from several branches of the Indian Institute of Technology co-designed motherboards for the computer, which the ministry would like to see dropping to $20 and possibly getting as low as $10.

Sibal called the as-yet-unnamed device India's answer to MIT's famed OLPC laptop aimed at children in developing nations, which started off five years ago with a projected cost of $100, but ended up going for $200. In May, Marvell Technologies announced that it would partner with the OLPC foundation to create the hardware for a proposed OLPC tablet, currently named the XO-3, that would go for around $100.

But while the extremely low price of India's newly unveiled tablet is generating much hoopla, the gadget still faces hurdles before it lands in the public's hands.

"This is just a prototype," education expert Zubin Malhotra told Newsxlive. "We need to find people who will be able to manufacture these devices at these price points and continue to develop them going forward."

The tablet is part of a larger initiative aimed at improving India's educational system through technology. Nearly 8,500 colleges in the country have already gotten broadband connectivity, according to the Ministry for Human Resource Development, and some 500 Web-based and video courses are available for upload on YouTube and other online portals, with more in the works.

Does google search look so simple and lite?

noreply@blogger.com (Frozen Fire) — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:09:00 +0000

Many people have no idea about the amount of energy that is being consumed by surfing the Internet. From the energy of our computers, to the the communications infrastructure linking everything together, to the service providers themselves; each component that assists in the transport or processing of information over the Internet uses energy. It takes a great deal of power to sustain these innumerable connections, but we rarely quantify exactly how much energy we’re using. To illustrate this massive energy consumption, our infographic depicts the energy used in a Google search.

Google Data:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/powering-google-search.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_search
Light Bulb Data:
100 watt bulb uses 100 watts or .1kw in an hour
100 watt bulb uses .001666kw in a minute
100 watt bulb uses .0000277kw in a second
Google search uses .0003kw
100 watt bulb uses 1 kwh every ten hours
100 watt bulb uses .0016 kwh in a minute
One Google search could power a 100w light bulb for 11 seconds (.0003/.0000277)
One month’s Google searches could power a 100w light bulb for 4,534 years (3,900,000/.1 = 39,000,000 hours)
Bicycle Power Data:
http://www.humboldt.edu/~ccat/pedalpower/hec/hpeg/index.html
Average cyclist can generate 75 watts/h this is .075kw each hour
Average cyclist can generate .00125 kw in a minute
Average cyclist can generate .0000208333 kw in one second
One Google search uses .0003kww
One Google search uses the same amount of energy as a cyclist uses in 14seconds (.0003/.0000208)
One month’s Google searches use 3,900,000kwh
One Google search could power a bicycle for 5,936 years (3,900,000/.075= 52,000,000hrs)
Car CO2 Data:
http://www.epa.gov/oms/consumer/f00013.htm
Average car exhales 11,450lbs of CO2 each year or 5,193kg per year (based on 12,500miles)
Average car exhales 0.41544kg of CO2 per mile or 415g per mile.
There are 63,360 inches in one mile, therefore .006g of CO2 released for each inch the car moves
One Google search produces .02g or roughly 3 inches in a car
One month’s Google searches produce 260,000kg or 260,000,000g of CO2
One month’s Google searches equal roughly 626,506 miles worth of CO2 from driving
Breathing CO2:
http://thinkearth.wordpress.com/2007/03/30/how-much-c02-do-we-each-breathe-out/
1g of CO2 has a volume of 556ml.
400ml/min of CO2 are released per person per minute
Therefore 400ml has weight of 0.72g.
Therefore in 1 hour the net CO2 released is 0.72 X 60 = 43.2g
One day is 43.2 X 24=1036g or 1.036kg.
One year is 1.036 X 365= 378.332Kg or 0.378332 metric tonnes
One Google search produces as much CO2 as you breath out in 2 seconds
One month’s Google searches produce as much CO2 as you would breath out in 824 years.
Heart Power Data:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/IradaMuslumova.shtml
Average energy used by a human heart is roughly 2watts or .002kw in an hour
Average energy used by a human heart in a minute is .0000333kwh
Google search averages .0003kwh per search
It takes 6.6 searches to use the same amount of power as your heart uses in an hour(.002kwh/.0003kwh)
Monthly google searches equal 1,950,000,000 hours of human heart beats (3,900,000/.002kwh)
Monthly Google searches could power a human heart for 222,602 years
One Google search consumes as much power as your heart does in 9 minutes (.0003/.0000333)
Home Energy Data:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/esr/table5.html
Average home uses 920 Kwh per month in the US
Google search uses .0003kw per search
Average Home Monthly Energy Usage equals roughly 3,066,666 searches (920kwh/.0003)
Google searches amount to roughly 3,900,000 KWH, this is enough to power 4,239 homes for each month (3,900,000kwh/920kwh)
One Google search uses One 3,000,000th the monthly power used by an average home.
CO2 Volume Data:
http://www.icbe.com/CarbonDatabase/CO2volumecalculation.asp
http://giants.stadiumhotelnetwork.com/information.html
CO2 has a volume of 0.0019 grams per cubic centimeter as a gas.
1 cubic centimeter = 0.001 liters
One Google search creates .02g of CO2 which is 10.52cubic cm or .0105 liters
All monthly Google searches create 260,000,000g of CO2 or 136,842,105,263 cubic cm which equals 136,842,105 liters
Giants stadium has a volume of 64,500,000 cubic feet or 1,800,000,000 liters or roughly 12 times the CO2 output of 1 months google searches

*Images provided by shutterstock.com unless otherwise noted.

Robovie R3

noreply@blogger.com (Frozen Fire) — Fri, 07 May 2010 07:24:00 +0000

Robovie R3 all set to assist, freak out elderly and handicapped shoppers this November

The Robovie R3 is the latest in a distinguished line of humanoid bots developed for the purposes of research, discovery, and (a tiny bit of) geeky fun. Following its predecessor's footsteps -- the R2 secured employment as a guide to lost shoppers -- the R3 will be making its mall debut in November of this year, where it'll assist people by carrying their shopping, providing information about nearby products, and holding their hand as it guides them through the crowds. Intended as a way to get elderly and handicapped people back out into the community, this is part of a viability study for the robot's usefulness, and if it finds success maybe its anime eyes and dalek form factor will find their way outside Japan as well. Video of the R3 after the break.

16 Rules for Success in business and in Life

noreply@blogger.com (Frozen Fire) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:28:00 +0000

1.	Get and stay out of your comfort zone.
	I believe that not much happens of any significance when we're in our comfort zone. I hear people say, "But I'm concerned about security." My response to that is simple: "Security is for cadavers."
2.	Never give up.
	Almost nothing works the first time it's attempted. Just because what you're doing does not seem to be working, doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that it might not work the way you're doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn't have an opportunity.
3.	When you're ready to quit, you're closer than you think.
	There's an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: "The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed."
4.	With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be.
	Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of "undefined consequences." My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, "Well, Robert, if it doesn't work, they can't eat you."
5.	Focus on what you want to have happen.
	Remember that old saying, "As you think, so shall you be."
6.	Take things a day at a time.
	No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don't look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.
7.	Always be moving forward.
	Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.
8.	Be quick to decide.
	Remember what General George S. Patton said: "A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow."
9.	Measure everything of significance.
	I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.
10.	Anything that is not managed will deteriorate.
	If you want to uncover problems you don't know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven't examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.
11.	Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you're doing.
	When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.
12.	Never let anybody push you around.
	In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you're doing as anyone else, provided that what you're doing is legal.
13.	Never expect life to be fair.
	Life isn't fair. You make your own breaks. You'll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).
14.	Solve your own problems.
	You'll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you'll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of SONY, said it best: "You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others." There's also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: "A wise man keeps his own counsel."
15.	Don't take yourself too seriously.
	Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.
16.	There's always a reason to smile.
	Find it. After all, you're really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: "We're not here for a long time, we're here for a good time!"

Rules formulated by BOB, founder and CEO of godaddy.com

The train that never stops at a station

noreply@blogger.com (Frozen Fire) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 05:49:00 +0000

A brilliant new Chinese train innovation - get on & off the bullet train without the train stopping. VERY COOL CONCEPT !

No time is wasted. The bullet train is moving all the time. If there are 30 stations between Beijing and Guangzhou , just stopping and accelerating again at each station will waste both energy and time.

A mere 5 min stop per station (elderly passengers cannot be hurried) will result in a total loss of 5 min x 30 stations or 2.5 hours of train journey time!

How it works (view the movie - in mandarin though!):

1. For those who are boarding the train : The passengers at a station embarks onto to a connector cabin way before the train even arrives at the station. When the train arrives, it will not stop at all. It just slows down to pick up the connector cabin which will move with the train on the roof of the train.

While the train is still moving away from the station, those passengers will board the train from the connector cabin mounted on the train's roof. After fully unloading all its passengers, the cabin connector cabin will be moved to the back of the train so that the next batch of outgoing passengers who want to alight at the next station will board the connector cabin at the rear of the train roof.

2. For those who are getting off: As stated after fully unloading all its passengers, the cabin connector cabin will be moved to the back of the train so that the next batch of outgoing passengers who want to alight at the next station will board the connector cabin at the rear of the train roof. When the train arrives at the next station, it will simply drop the whole connector cabin at the station itself and leave it behind at the station. The outgoing passengers can take their own time to disembark at the station while the train had already left. At the same time, the train will pick up the incoming embarking passengers on another connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof. So the train will always drop one connector cabin at the rear of its roof and pick up a new connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof at each station.

Internet Undersea World

noreply@blogger.com (Frozen Fire) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:51:00 +0000

HOW THE INTERNET COMES TO UR PLACE?

Does internet appear so simple to u? Have any idea how it reaches u?