Do UFO’s exist?

The credibility of UFO’s and extra terrestrial life forms has always been under question and there is no proper evidence for their existence. However, there are a group a people who indeed believe in the possibility of their existence. The reason for their belief can be understood from their arguments.
• Many planets have been found revolving around stars outside the Solar System.
• Alien technology could be far in advance of our own, allowing more effective space travel.
• Einstein’s theory is accepted for now. But it may be wrong. More advanced theories could be discovered in the future that allow faster than light travel.
• There are thousands of UFO photos in the world that claim to show alien spacecrafts. And many more eyewitness accounts of UFO sightings.
• Many UFO could be military craft or man-made objects. But witnesses include air force pilots who are trained in aerial detection.
• Extra evidence has been found by witnesses in the area around UFO sightings, including debris from crashes and burn marks on the ground from landings.

Hi-tech and Hybrid cars

This 1983 Bentley was modified for the rich class. It was actually the Bentley Mulsanne Turbo which was transformed, including parts from nine different cars. The roof was lowered a bit, with the front and rear lights were from a Range Rover. The 328 hp turbocharged engine is alone left unchanged.


The new Knight XV, the new assault vehicle is a eye catcher. It comes with 6 way seating, sunroof glass with privacy shade and laptop station, Alpine DVD navigation and Bluetooth connectivity. This stunning machine is priced at $295,000.


This Chrysler is a hybrid that is capable of traveling a distance of 40 mile on pure battery power. A gasoline engine and electric generator is used to extend the driving range to around four hundred miles.


The Dodge Circuit EV is an improvement over its predecessor, a Dodge electric car. This reworked car is looks attractive than the previous one. It is capable of a quick 0-60 time of less than six minutes. It can span a driving distance of 150 to 200 miles with its charged battery.

Bushido

The Samurais of Japan were the fiercest warriors of their time and they were loyal beyond any question to their leaders. They followed a rigid code of ethics that made them one among the most respected in the society. But after the period when the nation developed peace, they became more spiritually oriented and indulged themselves in teaching and art. The code called Bushido that was followed by them did not teach brute force or impolite manners.

I. Rectitude or Justice The code teaches that a Samurai knows how one must decide upon an important thing and act appropriately. It is the quality of reasoning.

II. Courage that is put in action for the sake of good is worthy of respect.

III. Benevolence was expected as an integral part of a man of honour.

IV. Politeness was an essential attribute. It is to be a part of every true Samurai of Japan.

V. Honesty and Sincerity Greed for money was considered an immoral and lowly quality. The Samurais lived a Spartan life and abstained from seeking money.

VI. Honor was above everything. A Samurai lived a life of honor and anything that affected his honor affected him personally.

VII. Loyalty The Samurais were extremely loyal to their leaders.

VIII. Character and Self-Control The Bushido teaches men to live a life of moral standards. Character is essential for the warrior and equally for the common man.

The rules of the code were those of politeness and respect. It taught to the world, discipline and unfailing morals that will last forever.

Know about F1

The Formula One race is usually preceded by a warm-up lap, and then the cars are made ready to go, in the order they qualified. If a driver stops before the parade lap and all the other cars pass him, then he must start once again. However, if he controls himself and drives off, with at least one car behind his car, then he is allowed to take his position. The driver also has the option to start from the pit-area, if there is any problem with his machine in the last minute. However, the trouble here is that he has to allow all the other cars to pass by him before he can start.
The distance of race is usually the minimum number of laps that serve to cross three hundred and five kilometers. The driver can any number of pit stops during the race for refueling or to do other corrections. The tyres are supplied by Bridgestone, the official tyre manufacturer for Formula One. On completing a successful lap, the driver is required to ward off three blue flags waved on the way. Failing this will invite a penalty from the organizers.

The History of Super Bowl

The Super Bowl was simply a AFL-NFL world championship game in the sixties. It was played where only half the stadium was full. There were two different brands of the game that were contradictory and were designed by the NFL and AFL respectively. There was a clear agreement between the owners of the two leagues, to form a new and united organization, the modern NFL. The two had to separately oblige TV contracts and that kept the full integration pending till 1970. There was a single separate game played at end of season, that was used to name the final winning team as the champion. “Super Sunday” became a trademark name due to the craze that Super Bowl induced in the people. This game has created a special place for itself in the US list of national holidays, the fourth of July. The game is regularly scheduled every year and is watched by almost everyone in the US.

For a good presentation

Presentation is also a form of communication of your ideas and thoughts to others.
The first important thing that you will have to consider to make a good presentation is to understand the audience your audience to whom you are going to make the presentation.
Keep your presentation very simple, to the point and concise, if your audience is general public and common masses.
If your audience is full of technical people, word your presentation accordingly by using technically sound but simple language.
Be clear in your opening statement. Always make eye contact with the audience. Reflect confidence in speech and posture. Plan well and implement with the use of visual aids.
Prepare and rehearse well before you appear for an interview. Your knowledge, communicating ability and presentation skills matter a lot for success in interviews.
Your resume, cover letter, dress and perseverance qualities play a significant role in interviews.
A little thought about the way you carry out an interview and development of some skills can transform your interviews from problems into opportunities.
Interviewers should also prepare well for interviewing, asking questions, listening to answers and closing the interview.

Types of Knowledge

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It is concerned with the nature, structure and origin of knowledge. The following are some forms of knowledge.
Causal Knowledge is the understanding of the underlying cause and effect of various aspects of life.
Procedural knowledge is the knowledge of how to do something like making a cup of coffee.
Declarative knowledge refers to knowledge being expressed as a declarative statement.
Tacit knowledge is also known as the unconscious knowledge since it cannot be expressed very specifically in words. For example, how to ride a bicycle or a horse is something one may know but find difficult to explain.
Deep knowledge is acquired by exhaustive study and understanding of a subject. Usually, it is restricted to one or two domains of knowledge as it is not possible for a single person to study all the different areas learning.
Shallow knowledge is based on superficial or an empirical understanding of a subject.
Heuristic knowledge is a type of shallow knowledge. It is conscious of various rules of thumb based on first-hand experience. They aid in solving problems but there is no guarantee that they will succeed. It is in areas such as medicine and practical engineering that heuristics play a useful role in problem solving

Listening

Good listening is a quality of great men who have reached the pinnacle of glory and is very essential for succeeding in life. But there is a big misconception that is common among many of us that we are good listeners even when we are not. When lecturers lecture, your mind wanders away at least sometimes, if not most of the time. So, you do not generally listen attentively and actively. This creates an inability to understand the lesson. And if you are an employee, it creates problem in your work.
Most of the time we assume that we listen well, though really, we may not. One main reason for this is that more often we complete on our own the sentences of the speaker before he completes them. This is known as predicting. That is, we assume that the speaker is going to say what we expect him to say. This may not happen all time. It’s possible that the speaker will say something different from what we expect. As a result, difficulties in understanding the messages can occur, and misunderstanding will arise as a result. Proper training and control of your thoughts will help gain better concentration to listen well.

Food Preservation

Food preservation is very important as it has become a widely applied method in our day to day life. Cooked food, uncooked meat and fish or fruit lose their freshness, become old and spoil in warm, wet air as these undergo changes because of bacteria. Food science and technology have helped us preserve food with their modern techniques. Factories prepare and produce readymade food-meats, fish, peas, fruits. They use certain processes like canning, dehydration, smoke, refrigeration.
Food can be preserved by controlling or destroying the agents like warm and wet air, bacteria, insect and rodents.
Canning is a thermal processing where foods are subjected to high temperatures that are high enough to kill micro-organisms. Foods are sterilized in air tight, heat-resistant pouches.
Dehydration removes water from food and thus prevents bacteria from growing. It then compresses and freeze-dries food which can resume their normal state on rehydration.
Refrigeration helps store foods with nutrients and flavours. But smoke treatment to foods can preserve them only for a short time.
Certain substances in small amounts are added to foods to make them last longer, to give them color and to add flavour to them, to add minerals. They are known as additives. Benzoates, propionic acids, sodium and calcium salts are a few preservatives. Monosodium glutamate, synthetic and aromatic substances add flavour to foods.

Eat Healthy

Eat more of grain foods such as atta, brown rice, paraboiled rice, jowar, barley, fruits, vegetables and dals
More non-fat or low protein foods like non-fat or low-fat milk, curds, paneer, egg white, chicken and fish at least 3-4 times a week.
Keep refined carbohydrates like cakes, pastries, chips, traditional fried savouries and biscuits to a minimum.
Less unhealthy fats in fried foods, full cream milk and curd, ghee, skin on chicken, marbled meats, sausages and cream biscuits.
Less outdoor foods with description like “super, jumbo, supreme, deluxe”
Moderate amounts of alcohol, if you drink. For women, one drink a day and two drinks a day for men is acceptable.
Eat at regular intervals; do not skip meals.
Cook food through healthier methods like baking, steaming, sauteling, pressure cooking and grilling instead of frying.
Cardio exercises like walking, jogging, swimming increase calorie expenditure and make the heart stronger.
If you can’t exercise, just do some physical work. Use stairs, do gardening, and walk to nearby places instead of driving.

Document your program well

As a graduate in Information Technology I get to understand some basic skills that will make lengthy programming easier. One of the mistaken ideas held by many programmers is that the documentation for a program should be written only after the program is ’finished’. This is a very dangerous point of view. It will certainly lead to inadequate documentation and might very well result in an incomplete or incorrect program. Documentation is a continuous process. It starts when we first begin to formulate a clear problem statement and continues as we devise a solution, express the solution algorithmically and code the algorithm as a computer program. Documentation is an inherent part of a program. It is therefore meaningless to assert that documentation should be written after the program is finished.

The Father of Packaged Foods

Francois Appert had no convenient tin can in which to seal his goods. He picked all sorts of food in glass of china containers, poured sufficient water to cover them, and then placed them in a bath of water which was gradually heated to the boiling point, keeping them in this bath for varying lengths of time. While still hot, they were corked and sealed. Perhaps, it may not seem like something that should be rewarded. It is done in many kitchens every autumn when the fresh fruits come in and are preserved for the winter. No, it’s not new or surprising now; it is the common and accepted one.
But, this is the twenty first century, and our French scientist was working in his laboratory in 1800. It is because Appert worked out this process so patiently and thoroughly in his workroom that we can do it so easily and naturally in our kitchens. The test took a long time, for different temperatures and methods had to be worked out. Then the jars must be left closed for months or years to prove the success or failure of each separate method. But by the time a dozen years passed and Appert had learned the best ways and was able to show many kinds of food which had been put away long before and yet came out as sweet and good as when they were placed in the jar.

Management Control System

Management control systems function in three ways. They measure performance, judges it against criteria and suggests improvements or changes. Control is possible only when these functions are taken proper care of. It begins with the measurement of performance of workers. The system devises a method to estimate how much work has been done and how well it has been done. Obviously, it will need criteria to match performance with. Otherwise, it cannot simply function. Of course, these criteria are made ready by an arm of the management other than the control system.
Now, the system measures and records performance over a given period. Once this process is complete, the process of evaluation begins. Recorded performance is matched with the expected standards; conclusions are drawn about the level and the quality of jobs done.
Next, several suggestions or recommendations are made to ensure corrective action. For instance, workers may undergo retraining. Supervision may need to be stepped up. New equipment may be necessary. Or the operational processes may need revision. Further, it may be necessary or desirable to take another look at the standards set for output or quality. Even management goals may require modification or transformation.

Fun Facts

There are more than 40,000 characters in Chinese script.

In the US, more babies are born in July than in any other month.

Australia’s box jellyfish have toxins more potent than the venom in cobras.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

In a deck of cards, the king of hearts is the only king without a moustache.

The inventor of the light bulb – Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark!

A bee could travel 4 million miles at 7 miles per hour on the energy it would obtain from 1 gallon of nectar.

If a single pair of flies was to breed and all the offspring survived, there would be 190,000,000,000,000,000,000 flies in four months.

Baby elephants can drink over 80 litres of milk a day.

Solar Energy

Man has realized that solar energy is a reliable source of energy to meet his energy needs of the century. After all, he has already experienced it for the sun’s rays have been used as heat source for evaporating and distilling water, for salt production and for drying fruits, vegetables, fish and meet. And then, there is solar cooking and other such utilities.

The life of the sun is said to be about 5 billion years; naturally it’s a large and renewable resource. Besides, solar energy has few negative environmental impacts. However, its energy is diffused. Most applications of solar energy rely on systems consisting of collectors, storage and control. Control makes sure that the collection and storage systems operate safely and efficiently.

Solar energy is captured through ponds, collectors and cells. An artificial solar pond has dissolved salt at three levels – at 1.5ft, at 5ft and at much deeper level. It is at the third level with the densest, heaviest water where tapped heat is stored. However, the pond can retail only 10 to 20 percent of the energy. Solar collectors absorb solar energy and produce heat. They are used for space heating and cooling and for heating water. The solar collector is usually a simple blackened copper, aluminium or steel heat – absorber plate which readily absorbs sunlight, covered by a sheet of glass which does not transmit the longer wavelengths emitted by metal. A heat-transfer liquid circulates through a set of tubes and removes the heat from the plate. A typical space-heating system consists of a roof-mounted collector array whose tilt angle is equal to the latitude plus 15°, a heat-storage tank, pumps or a fan and a network of pipe or ducts for distribution of heat. It uses a liquid or air as the transfer medium. Solar cells directly convert sunlight into electricity. It consists of two layers of material, one of which is impregnated with an impurity such as boron or arsenic to make it negative and the other of which is similarly doped to make it positive. The elements silicon and germanium are used as semiconductors. One layer must be extremely thin for sunlight to penetrate. Pocket calculators work on solar cells. Small arrays of solar cells charge batteries and they power irrigation pumps and refrigerators where there is no commercial electricity.

Human Memory

There are three basic activities associated with human memory viz. receiving new data from the environment followed by its processing and conversion into usable information within the brain; storing this information in the memory; and retrieving it as and when required.

Humans have three forms of memory. One is the immediate memory. Here one retains all details of an object or a scene or a picture for about 1/10th of a second like a batsman facing a ball. After that much is forgotten. Next is the short term memory where information is retained for a few minutes only. This memory is also known as working memory and has a limited capacity. It is also used for rehearsal, i.e. for mentally repeating the information over and over again so that it enters the long term memory.

The information which is stored in the long term memory can be broadly classified into four categories. First is the information related to specific tasks, which include riding a horse or a bicycle, driving a car, typing, painting, etc. These skills often require several years of experience to perfect. Secondly, the information related to fear-inspired actions like being bitten by a dog, getting hurt due to falling, getting a fire burn, etc. By proper training one can prepare oneself to take specific actions under difficult circumstances or emergency conditions. Third is ‘Episodic memory’, in which information regarding dated episodes or personal experiences is stored date-wise. Finally, the ‘Semantic memory’, relates to the use of words, grammar, metaphors, and all other details of language. However, these different groupings are conceptual in nature and no specific region of the brain as such is reserved for these categories.

Symbols and Signs

There are many ways of communicating without speech. Signals, signs, symbols and gestures may be found in every known culture. The basic function of a signal is to impinge upon the environment in such a way that it attracts attention, as for example, the dots and dashes of a telegraph circuit. While less acceptable to the codification of words, signs contain greater meaning in and of themselves. A stop sign or a barber pole conveys meaning quickly and conveniently. Symbols are more difficult to describe than either signals or signs because of their intricate relationship with the receiver’s cultural perceptions. In some cultures applauding in a theatre provides performers with an auditory symbol of approval. Gestures such as waving and hand shaking also communicate certain cultural messages.

Stretching

Before we begin to do some vigorous exercise we stretch our arms and legs to get some initial comfort. Stretching is recommended as part of warm-ups by most trainers. However, there have been some researches in recent years that claim that it’s a bad idea. It is found that stretching before training decreases the power and output. It does not relieve the muscles or help in hard training, they warn.

The effects of stretching lasting from 10 to 60 seconds on performance have been studied as early as the Greek researches itself. It is found out that stretching for 30 seconds decreases isometric strength by nine percent and stretching for 60 seconds reduces power by 16 percent. It is also observed stretching for 30 seconds or more has similar effects on decreasing muscle power.
It is therefore advised that static stretching be avoided before exercises that require maximum strength and power. Even scientists say that stretching a cold muscle may invite injury.

Efficient Kangaroos.

I want to share some nice information about kangaroos. These marsupials are more primitive than advanced mammals. Many people have been assuming that their way of getting around was not very efficient because of their heavy use of two legs. There are only a few rodents that use hopping as a form of traveling. And the mammals that use this type of traveling are very less. But a recent study has found kangaroos use less energy when hopping than other mammals use when running. But there is of course a limit to the size of any animal that moves in this way, which is the reason kangaroos never evolved.

“I love you” is better than “I love you so much”!

When we feel like expressing something true with sincerity, we use phrases like “I love you so much”, “I am very sorry”, “I really saw it”. But just “I love you” sounds awesome. Words like ‘very’, ‘really’, ‘quite’ and other such intensifiers do not add anything useful to a sentence. Also, in general conversation intense expressions might just make you look hyperactive. Try without these intensifiers and see the difference!

Words of Wisdom

Dale Carnegie was a master in personality development and public speaking. His book How to Win Friends and Influence People was an international best-seller. Through his books and lectures he showed many people, the path to success. There is a lot of wisdom that lies to be learnt from men like him. Here I share with you some of his words that I like the best.

You never achieve real success unless you like what you are doing.

Flattery is from the teeth out. Sincere appreciation is from the heart out.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive.

If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying.

The best things in life are yours if you can appreciate yourself.

The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from the shore.

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.

When You're afraid, keep your mind on what you have to do...if you have been thoroughly prepared, you will not be afraid.

We all have possibilities we don't know about. We can do things we don't even dream we can do.

The next generation city - Masdar

Hope by now you would have got wind of the new hi-tech eco-city that is coming up at Abu Dhabi. The project was initiated in 2006 and is scheduled to be completed in 2009. This will be a city without automobiles; only public mass transit and personal rapid transit systems will be allowed. The city will be walled to keep away hot desert winds. This US$22 billion project will cover 6 square kilometers. Masdar Institute of Science and Technology will be started in the city.
Solar energy to the extent of 130 megawatts can be tapped by means of photovoltaic modules that will be placed on roof tops. About 20 megawatt of wind energy can be tapped by means of wind mills that will be placed outside the city. The plan is to implement a huge hydrogen power plant and to tap geothermal energy as well. The city’s water needs will be 60 percent lesser than a conventional city, as it will use a solar powered desalination plant.