Measuring Time

The measurement of time covers an incredible range. Here are some common time spans, from the shortest to the longest.

-1 picosecond (one-trillionth of a second) - This is about the shortest period of time we can currently measure accurately.

-1 nanosecond (one-billionth of a second) - 2 to 4 nanoseconds is the length of time that a typical home computer spends executing one software instruction.

-1 microsecond (one-millionth of a second)

-1 millisecond (one-thousandth of a second) - This is the typical fastest time for the exposure of film in a normal camera. A picture taken in 1/1,000th of a second will usually stop all human motion.

-1 centisecond (one-hundredth of a second) - The length of time it takes for a stroke of lightning to strike

-1 decisecond (one-tenth of a second) - A blink of an eye

-1 second - An average person's heart beats once each second.

-60 seconds - One minute; a long commercial

-2 minutes - About as long as a person can hold his or her breath

-5 minutes - About as long as anyone can stand waiting at a red light

-60 minutes - An hour; about as long as a person can sit in a classroom without glazing over

-8 hours - The typical workday in the United States, as well as the typical amount of sleep a person needs every night

-24 hours - One day; the amount of time it takes for the planet Earth to rotate one time on its axis

-7 days - One week

-40 days - About the longest a person can survive without food

-365.24 days - One year; the amount of time it takes for the planet Earth to complete one orbit around the sun

-10 years - One decade

-75 years - The typical life span for a human being

-5,000 years - The span of recorded history

-50,000 years - The length of time Homo sapiens has existed as a species

-65 million years - The length of time dinosaurs have been extinct

-200 million years - The length of time mammals have existed

-3.5 to 4 billion years - The length of time that life has existed on Earth

-4.5 billion years - The age of planet Earth

-10 to 15 billion years - The suspected age of the universe since the big bang

Time's Origin

Webster's New World College Dictionary (Fourth Ed.) defines time as:
II. a period or interval. 1: the period between two events or during which something exists, happens or acts; measured or measurable interval
At its core, time is fairly elusive. We can't see it or sense it -- it just happens. Human beings have therefore come up with ways to measure time that are totally arbitrary and also fairly interesting from a historical perspective.
The day is an obvious starting point for time. A day consists of a period of sunlight followed by night. Our bodies are tuned in to this cycle through sleep, so each morning we wake up to a new day. No matter how primitive the culture, the concept of a day arises as an obvious and natural increment.

We use clocks to divide the day into smaller increments. We use calendars to group days together into larger increments. Both of these systems have very interesting origins that we'll find out about in the course of this article.

Host cities of Olympic Games Briefly

Since their resumption in their modern form in 1896 in Athens, the Olympic Games took place in the following cities:

1896 Athens
1900 Paris
1904 Saint Louis
1908 London
1912 Stockholm
1916 Cancelled (was due in Berlin)
1920 Ambers
1924 Paris
1928 Amsterdam
1932 Los Angeles
1936 Berlin
1940 Cancelled (was due in Tokyo)
1944 Cancelled (was due in Helsinki)
1948 London
1952 Helsinki
1956 Melbourne
1960 Rome
1964 Tokyo
1968 Mexico City
1972 Munich
1976 Montreal
1980 Moscow
1984 Los Angeles
1988 Seoul
1992 Barcelona
1996 Atlanta
2000 Sydney
2004 Athens
2008 Beijing

Olympic Summer And Winter Games

Summer sports include archery, basketball, boxing, canoeing, cycling, equestrian events (horseback riding), fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, handball, judo, rowing, shooting, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, weight lifting, wrestling, and yachting. Winter events include skating, skiing, bobsledding, luge, tobogganing, ice hockey, and the biathlon (skiing-shooting).

The most exacting track and field event is the decathlon (from the Greek words deka, meaning "ten," and athlon, "contest"). Contestants compete in ten different running, jumping, and throwing events. The athlete scoring the greatest total number of points is the winner. The pentathlon, consisting of five such events, was discontinued after 1924. It was restored in the 1948 games as the modern pentathlon, based upon five military skills--fencing, riding, running, shooting, and swimming. The marathon race, covering 26 miles 385 yards, honors the ancient Greek runner Pheidippides, who ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory against the Persians.

Women take part in separate summer and winter events. Ten new women's summer competitions added in 1984 included the marathon and a 49-mile cycling event. The pentathlon, introduced in 1964, was replaced by the heptathlon, which consists of 100-meter hurdles, shot put, high jump, long jump, javelin throw, and 200- and 800-meter races. Additional events for women in the 1992 Winter and Summer Games included the biathlon, 10-kilometer walk, baseball, and judo.

Brief History Of Olympics

The Olympic Games begun at Olympia in Greece in 776 BC. The Greek calendar was based on the Olympiad, the four-year period between games. The games were staged in the wooded valley of Olympia in Elis. Here the Greeks erected statues and built temples in a grove dedicated to Zeus, supreme among the gods. The greatest shrine was an ivory and gold statue of Zeus. Created by the sculptor Phidias, it was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Scholars have speculated that the games in 776 BC were not the first games, but rather the first games held after they were organized into festivals held every four years as a result of a peace agreement between the city-states of Elis and Pisa. The Eleans traced the founding of the Olympic games to their King Iphitos, who was told by the Delphi Oracle to plant the olive tree from which the victors' wreaths were made.

According to Hippias of Elis, who compiled a list of Olympic victors c.400 BC, at first the only Olympic event was a 200-yard dash, called a stadium. This was the only event until 724 BC, when a two-stadia race was added. Two years later the 24-stadia event began, and in 708 the pentathlon was added and wrestling became part of the games. This pentathlon, a five-event match consisted of running, wrestling, leaping, throwing the discus, and hurling the javelin. In time boxing, a chariot race, and other events were included.

The victors of these early games were crowned with wreaths from a sacred olive tree that grew behind the temple of Zeus. According to tradition this tree was planted by Hercules (Heracles), founder of the games. The winners marched around the grove to the accompaniment of a flute while admirers chanted songs written by a prominent poet.

The Olympic Games were held without interruptions in ancient Greece. The games were even held in 480 BC during the Persian Wars, and coincided with the Battle of Thermopylae. Although the Olympic games were never suspended, the games of 364 BC were not considered Olympic since the Arkadians had captured the sanctuary and reorganized the games.

After the Battle of Chaironeia in 338 BC, Philip of Makedon and his son Alexander gained control over the Greek city-states. They erected the Philippeion (a family memorial) in the sanctuary, and held political meetings at Olympia during each Olympiad. In 146 BC, the Romans gained control of Greece and, therefore, of the Olympic games. In 85 BC, the Roman general Sulla plundered the sanctuary to finance his campaign against Mithridates. Sulla also moved the 175th Olympiad (80 BC) to Rome.

The games were held every four years from 776 BC to 393 AD, when they were abolished by the Christian Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I. The ancient Olympic Games lasted for 1170 years.

The successful campaign to revive the Olympics was started in France by Baron Pierre de Coubertin late in the 19th century. The first of the modern Summer Games opened on Sunday, March 24, 1896, in Athens, Greece. The first race was won by an American college student named James Connolly.

Make Simplicity Your Lifestyle

There is a relatively new phenomenon in North America called ‘voluntary simplicity.’ The term ‘voluntary simplicity’ is used to describe a process whereby people opt out of the harried life of modern day living, and chose to live a life of frugality. Frugality in this sense doesn’t mean poverty rather, it means, enjoying the virtue of getting good value for every minute of your life energy and from everything you have the use of. Frugal is characterised by or reflective of economy in the expenditure of resources.

Simplicity means making time for yourself in a hectic world. You clear out what is superfluous and make room for a life of passion, depth, and joy. As people become more and more stressed out from the pace of modern life and as we become increasingly concerned about the price of our over-consumption of the planet’s resources, the movement to living in a state of ‘mindfulness’ has increasing interest as a chosen life-style. To be mindful means to dwell deeply in the present moment knowing there is only one opportunity and it will never come again.

Voluntary simplicity comes from within. It is a social movement of a more sustainable, gratifying, and spiritually connected existence. Voluntary simplicity is a matter of personal responsibility and conscious awareness of how we live on the planet. It means identifying the difference between our needs and our wants. Needs are those things that are necessary for our survival - food, clothing, and shelter. Wants are all the other things we desire and to a large extent are driven by media advertising. Simplicity as a life-style is the identifiable difference between needs and wants, and the awareness of the cost in terms of our life force energy and our willingness to pay the price.





Pursuing a Life of Simplicity

The Chinese pictograph for ‘busy’ is composed of two characters: heart and killing. When I first read this, I thought of the many people who are ‘too busy’ to make that phone call to someone they love and then one day it is too late; the many children who get gifts and/or money instead of their parents’ time and then one day they leave home and it is too late; the many times we have an opportunity to touch someone’s life with kindness but we are ‘too busy’ and the moment never comes again and it is too late.

As we search for meaning in our lives, we start to become aware of the emptiness and shallowness of a life based on materialism and consumerism. We become aware of the tremendous expenditure of our ‘life force energy’ to just keep up with the daily ‘rat race.’ We start the search for a life of deeper meaning and ask ourselves ‘what gives us joy?’ We realise we don’t know and can’t answer the question but we feel a yearning in our hearts for a sense of connection, a sense of purpose, and the sense that our life matters. The question demands an answer. We discover that all the myths such as: get a job, get married, have children, buy a mortgage with a two-car garage, and you will be happy, makes us wonder what is the matter with us when we feel the increasing futility of it all. The emphasis on externally meeting our needs leaves a ‘hole in our soul’ as we consume more and more and feel less and less satisfied. Consume by definition means to do away with completely; destroy – to spend wastefully; and squander – use up. Is consumed by our meaningless and frenzied consumerism a description that all too closely resembles most our lives?

What we don’t realise is that we are spiritual beings, in a physical body, having a human experience, and when we don’t connect the internal (spiritual) and the external (physical), our lives increasingly lose a sense of balance or harmony. There is literally no distinction between the outer and the inner when our lives are in balance, and as we seek this stability, where do we start? We start by examining our expectations and assumptions including the belief systems that drive us to live our lives ‘zombie-like’ without determining whether or not we want to play this game. We move towards consciously asking the questions about how much of our ‘life force energy’ we are prepared to exchange for the material goods we consume. This expenditure of ‘life force energy’ includes the storing, cleaning, insurance costs, maintaining, etc. all the stuff that clutters our lives.

Practical Steps to Simplifying Your Life

1. Reuse paper bags, envelopes, newspapers, etc. Newspapers and shredded paper make excellent mulch in the garden. The mulch will break down over a period of time and add humus to the soil. (Don’t use coloured flyers.)

2. Have a Buy Nothing Day.

3. Carve some space for ‘mindful living’ so that you have time for ‘beingness’ rather than ‘doingness.’

4. Find friends who know the glass is half-full or in other words, find friends who share the same value system as you do.

5. Grow your own food or buy as much as possible from local growers.

6. Use non-toxic products such as borax, vinegar, baking soda, lemon, and salt in your home, yard, and garden.

7. Before you buy something, write the item down on a note and if you still want it after a month, purchase it then.

8. Decide what is really working in your life and let go of that which no longer serves you.

9. Surround yourself with what you really need and love.

10. Go Organic. Organic gardening is not only about the avoidance of chemicals, but in the larger picture, it is organic living using Nature’s laws.

How to boost your Charisma

Here are 4 top methods to help boost your charisma…

1. Have goals you are working towards

There are a lot more followers than leaders. There is nothing wrong with being a follower, but people are naturally drawn to leaders. Set yourself goals to work to. Have a sense of purpose and a vision - a big goal that you are working towards. You may or may not succeed to meet your goal, or it might change over time, but if you always have one, people will naturally feel drawn to you as you present the possibility of an exciting future. Don’t simply pretend to have a goal as people will quickly see through you and you will lose all credibility. Plus it is far more
satisfying to spend life attempting to meet realistic goals.


2. Love yourself

If you don’t like yourself, how do you expect others to like you? Unknowingly you are constantly giving out thousands of small subconscious clues on how to treat you, and it all begins with treating yourself right. You need to learn to appreciate that you are a unique and valuable human being. Accept yourself as you are. It’s okay to have flaws and work on improving them. Indeed the most charismatic people on earth are the ones with tons of flaws. Someone who is perfect is not really all that interesting anyway! Love yourself and others will soon follow suit.


3. Be honestly interested in others

You must have met many people who talk incessantly about themselves? This may be O.K. at first, but after a while it becomes very tiresome and you just want to avoid them. Charismatic people appreciate other people just as much as they appreciate themselves. Relax and listen properly to what other people are saying. Give them space to talk. You will learn new interesting things, and they will notice and appreciate that you actually listen to them. The Chinese have a saying which is "You have two ears and one mouth – use them in that proportion." Some people do actually struggle concentrating on listening to others, and become anxious that they may forget what they are thinking about saying. Relax, allow that thought to disappear, and listen. This thought will return if it is still relevant. With a little practice listening becomes much easier, and you will enjoy far more productive two way conversations.


4. Model someone who you consider very charismatic

Hypnotherapists and NLP practitioners often very successfully utilise this technique. It could be a friend a celebrity, or even a fictional character that you model. You may wish to be like James Bond for example. Don’t try and copy them exactly, just consider how they would act in the situations you face. You have to sometimes be careful with this as it may not be appropriate to blow the whole building up with your watch! Get a ‘feel’ of a certain character, and how they work on the inside. Try to catch their essence, rather than cloning them. Done with thought and care this can significantly raise your charisma levels.

So remember you must have goals that you are working towards, love yourself, listen to others, and model yourself on other charismatic people. Pretty soon you will notice huge strides in charisma levels, and your success and enjoyment of life will also sour. Now go out there you son of a gun and wow the world with the new charismatic!

How to make handmade paper?

Ancient Egyptians invented the first substance like the paper we know today called Papyrus. Papyrus scrolls were made by taking slices of the inner part of the papyrus stem, flattening then pounded into a hard, thin sheet. The word "paper" comes from the word "papyrus".

The Paper that we know today was invented by Ts'ai Lun in A.D. 105, It is believed that he mixed hemp, mulberry bark, and rags with water, mashed it into a pulp, pressed out the liquid and hung it to dry in the sun. Paper was born and this humble mixture would set off one of mankind's greatest communication revolutions.

Today there is a revival in homemade papermaking crafts. Not only is it a fun experience for you and the kids, but it's a good way to recycle waste into wonderful possibilities.

Below you will find a simple papermaking recipe to get you started. If this is the first time you are making paper, don't be afraid to experiment with different fibers, you don't have to stick with paper related products. Add whole flower heads to the pulp mixture after it has been through the blender. You can add scraps of yarn, tin foil, even seeds. Its all comes down to what you want. Experiment with different textures and colors after all Ts'ai Lun did! Remember, some of your ideas will turn out while others may not. Have fun with it, express your creativity.

-Simple Recipe:

-Many types of paper that can be used include:




*Computer Paper (unprinted)
*Newspaper (If you want a grayish colored paper)
*Magazines
*Egg Cartons
*Old Cards (For heavier paper)
*Toilet Paper
*Paper Bags
*Non Waxed Boxes (Pre-soak in warm water)
*Office Paper
*Tissue Paper (For finer paper)
*Typing Paper
*Napkins
*Construction Paper

-Supplies you'll need:

*Sponge
*Window Screening (mold)
*Wood Frame (old picture frame can be used too) (deckle)
*Plastic Basin/Tub (Large enough to totally immerse frame)
*Blender/Food Processor (For making paper pulp)
*White Felt or Flannel Fabric
*Staples or Tacks (For tacking screen on frame)
*Liquid starch (optional)

-Instructions:

1. Select the pieces of paper to be recycled. You can even mix different types to create your own unique paper.

2. Rip the paper into small bits, and place into the blender. (about half full). Fill the blender with warm water. Run the blender slowly at first then increase the speed until the pulp looks smooth and well blended. ( 30 -40 seconds) Check that no flakes of paper remain. If there are, blend longer.

3. The next step is to make a mold. The mold, in this case, is made simply by stretching fiberglass screen (plain old door and window screen) over a wooden frame and stapling it. It should be as tight as possible.

4. Fill the basin about half way with water. Add 3 blender loads of pulp. (the more pulp you add the thicker the finished paper will be) Stir the mixture.

5. Now is the time to add the liquid starch for sizing.(This is not necessary but if the paper is going to be used for writing on, you should add some, the starch helps to prevent inks from soaking into the paper fibers.) Stir 2 teaspoons of liquid starch into the pulp.

Place the mold into the pulp and then level it out while it is submerged. Gently wiggle it side-to-side until the pulp on top of the screen looks even.

6. Slowly lift the mold up until it is above the level of the water. Wait until most of the water has drained from the new paper sheet. If the paper is very thick, remove some pulp from the tub. If it is too thin, add more pulp and stir the mixture again.

7. When the mold stops dripping, gently place one edge on the side of a fabric square (felt or flannel square). Gently ease the mold down flat, with the paper directly on the fabric. Use a sponge to press out as much water as possible. Wring the excess water from the sponge back into the large plastic tub.

8. Now comes the tricky part. Hold the fabric square flat and slowly lift the edge of the mold. The wet sheet of paper should remain on the fabric. If it sticks to the mold, you may have pulled to fast or not pressed out enough water. It takes a little practice. You can gently press out any bubbles and loose edges at this point.

9. Repeat the steps above, and stack the fabric squares on a cookie sheet. Save one fabric square to place on the top of the stack to cover the last piece of paper. Use another cookie sheet to press the remaining water out of the stack. (do this outside or in the bathtub, it can make a mess)

10. After you press the stack, gently separate the sheets. They can be dried by hanging on a clothesline or laying them out on sheets of newspaper. When they have dried peel them off the fabric and voila! you have paper!

CSR- Corporate Social Responsiblity

With businesses focusing on generating profits, sustainability was not a popular concern among companies up until recently. Now, in an era of globalization, multinational corporations (those that conduct business in more than one country) and local businesses are no longer able to conduct destructive and unethical practices, such as polluting the environment, without attracting negative feedback from the general public. With increased media attention, pressure from non-governmental organizations, and rapid global information sharing, there is a surging demand from civil society, consumers, governments, and others for corporations to conduct sustainable business practices. In addition, in order to attract and retain employees and customers, companies are beginning to realize the importance of being ethical
while running their daily operations. The corporate response has often meant an adoption of 'a new consciousness', and this has been known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) since the 1970s.

As stated by the department of Trade and Industry in the United Kingdom, CSR represents "the integrity with which a company governs itself, fulfills its mission, lives by its values, engages with its stakeholders, measures its impact and reports on its activities". Although most people appreciate the recent advancement of CSR, some argue that corporations are still not doing enough or are only acting in self interest. These people say that multinational corporations are acting ethically in areas that are highly regulated, such as North America, but at the same time, they are acting in an opposite manner
in other parts of the world (such as using cheap or child labour). In addition, while corporations must have good CSR policies in order to maintain their reputation, they are also expected to maximize profits for stakeholders such as shareholders, employees, and customers.
Therefore, people argue that businesses do not put in a sufficient amount of resources to achieve what they have promised in their CSR policies.

In any case, companies are now expected to perform well in non-financial areas such as human rights, business ethics, environmental policies, corporate contributions, community development, corporate governance, and workplace issues. Some examples
of CSR are safe working conditions for employees, environmental stewardship, and contributions to community groups and charities. The problem is that many companies that claim to be socially responsible
often do not live up to such a standard. Because CSR is becoming more commonplace among corporations, there are concerns that some companies promote an image of CSR whether or not they have a true strategy in place and the results to show for. Accountability and transparency are key to conducting business in a responsible manner.
(wiki)

Language Technology- What is it?

The ability to talk is one of mankind's most important characteristics. One of mankind's most important inventions is writing. Communication, the ability to express thoughts and feelings, is the key to our technical advances. The more technology develops the more our need of communication increases.
Language is sometimes described as grammatical system of vocabulary and rules for how words are combined into sentences. But if we think about how we use language and how often we misunderstand one another then we begin to understand how complex language really is. We do not make interpretations and conclusions from what is said alone, but through shared knowledge, gestures, tone of voice, and context.

Computers are programmed to do work fast and effectively. They are powerful and have a large storing capacity. But can they understand language? The grammar system that we use and which appears quite simple to us is nearly impossible for a computer to process. How is it possible to understand one another at all? Can computers also learn this? Is it possible to put all our knowledge into a computer? Within the field of linguistics called Computational Linguistics, researchers are studying how language is constructed and how computers should be programmed to be able to process language quickly and effectively.

Translation is an important area of language technology. The languages of the world do not have a 1-1 relationship. This means that one word does not always have a corresponding word in another language. Furthermore, words are combined in different ways.

One solution to the problem would be if we all spoke the same language, but this is an absurd idea. The European Union decided that all documents would be translated to all of the languages in the union.

The adaptation and translation of programs and manuals is another area where language technology is useful. It is also becoming common to translate e-mail in order to simplify communication between people. Sometimes a person wants to get information from a database, which is stored in a certain language, although the person speaks another language.

Writing assistance is another area in language technology. When we use a word processor we want to be able to look a word up in a dictionary and see what it means, or look up a synonym, or find out what the word is in another language. We also want to have a spelling check. Words that sound alike can be spelled in different ways, for example "there", "their", "they're". We want the computer not only to check that the word is correctly spelled, but that we have used the right word in the context. Grammar and style controls are other tools of language technology.

Another area where language technology is used is in Speech Technology. Sometimes it is necessary to control a computer using the voice. This requires that the computer understand what the speaker is saying. When the computer "talks" stress, tone, and quality of the voice must be taken into consideration.

Speech technology is used in other areas such as account information at banks, or schedule information at a travel agent. Even within these areas, people are working with translation. Can you imagine speaking Swedish in your telephone and the person at the other end of the line hears Japanese?

Language technology is important when it comes to disabled people. It would enable them to command and control a computer with their voice. The computer could also read texts.

We deal with a large amount of documents. This includes everything from e-mail to manuals and technical documents. To get a quick idea what the document is about we want to have a summary of the text. Sometimes we want to find a certain document that is about a certain subject, and other times we want to find certain facts in a text. In either case, language technology has an important role. One word might not always lead to the right result. Sometimes there is a need to know more details about what the content of the text. As humans, we have quite a bit of knowledge and context dependent interpretations to keep in mind.

Computer assisted education is also an area within language technology. A good way to learn a language is to do exercises with a computer that reacts to errors. This is called Computer Assisted Language Learning.

The interaction between people and computers: computer programs must be adapted to people and user friendly to make it easier to find information and navigate through a program.

This applies to how the program looks on the computer screen and how the documents are structured within the program. Besides having an understanding of computers, a person must have a basic knowledge of how language is structured and how it works to be able to do these things.

Therefore, language must be formalized to a mathematical preciseness, for example, with the help of logic.

Body Language

Do you think we talk with our mouth? We actually talk with our whole body and sometimes the body says more than our words do. We send messages to others in our surroundings with our eyes, facial expressions, gestures, body posture, and by raising the tone of our voice, etc. "It has been said that it is harder to lie to a blind person, because a blind person depends more on the sound of the voice than the words we use".

When we speak the whole body "talks". The face and hands are the parts of the body that we have best control over in communication. We make all sorts of gestures. Some gestures have a specific meaning for a group or a culture. These gestures are called "emblematic". We use them when we shake our head and our friends understand that we mean "no". Emblematic gestures can be used instead of words. We learn emblematic gestures at home, in school, and in other social environments. They do not come naturally, although the relationship between the gesture and its meaning might seem so obvious that we think that they are natural.

However, when we travel abroad, we soon discover that these gestures which we consider natural, are often not understood, or even misunderstood in other cultures. If we shake our head "no" in Greece or Turkey, they wonÕt understand, because in those countries they tilt their head back when they mean "no".

You can also use gestures "to paint a picture". These gestures are called "illustrators". For example when we put our fingers together to describe something that is round.

Nonverbal signals are also used to regulate a conversation. When we are about to finish talking and want somebody else to take over we can give signals, such as, lowering the tone of our voice, looking directly at the person we are talking to, and decreasing hand and arm movements. When we want to come into the discussion, we also send body signals. We shift our body position, we lean forward, pull our legs back, look intensely at the speaker, and maybe we raise our hand.

There are also gestures, which expose our feelings. Often they are unconscious. The basic expressions for emotions such as anger, sorrow, joy, fear, disgust are surprisingly alike in all cultures. Although, the emotion might be interpreted in different ways in different cultures. For example, the ability not to show emotions in public places in Japan is highly valued. From this, you can get the idea that body language is universal and that through nonverbal communication we can rise above all the barriers of spoken language between people.

Nonverbal signals can complement, change, repeat, start, stress, and conflict what is being said verbally. In some cases, they can even substitute speech. When the nonverbal signals conflict with the verbal message, we usually trust the nonverbal signals more than the words. We can usually control our eye movements, facial expressions, or hands better than the other parts of our body. Therefore, we must look to other parts of the body to interpret conflicting signals. Several experiments show that when we lie, there are nonverbal signals such as higher voice tone, larger pupils, more shifts in body position, and less eye contact.

We have always had an interest in the effect of nonverbal communication on others. The behavior of politicians is always interesting to analyze. In a TV debate between Carter and Ford during the presidential campaign in USA 1976, Carter won the second debate without changing his political platform. However, he did change his nonverbal behavior with thanks to his media advisors. Carter increased his eye movements, had a more open body position (arms and legs), showed more decisive gestures, and had better control of his voice.

We usually try to decipher the facial expressions, body movements, posture, and voice quality of others to see how they are feeling and what they are thinking. We try to figure out what kind of personality they have, their intentions, and origins. Then we can adjust our way of acting to them according to the information we think we have. There are people who are better at guessing, such as, psychologists. Several experiments have shown that women are more sensitive than men at interpreting body signals, but this is far from proven.

It is easy to think that if we carefully learn all there is to know about body language, we will be able to read a person like an open book. This is not true. The relationship between body language and the content is very complicated, even if it is seldom coincidental. The attempt to understand body language is a passionate project for researchers and others.

Language Development in Childerns

A child growing up in Sweden with Swedish-speaking parents will learn about a 1000 words by the time it is 3 years old. You may ask how a little child can learn so many words. Or how do we actually learn to speak?

When a newborn child cries, it mostly does so, because it is hungry, cold, or tired. A baby can make other sounds such as, burping, coughing, or suckling sounds when being fed. A baby will listen to its mother, father, brothers, and sisters talk, The baby will move its arms and legs to the rhythm of the speech that it hears. Even when the baby is in the mother's womb, it feels safe when it hears mother's voice talking.

Small children gurgle, grunt, and babble quite a lot and by the age of about 6 months the child will start to use sounds such as "ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga". It almost feels like you can talk to the baby, but a Swedish child does not start to use real words until it is about one year old. At that time, it is common that a child will begin to say words like "mama" and "dada". Sometimes the words will not sound exactly the way they should, for example "kacka" will be used for "clock" or "ajaj" for "cat". It is usually quite easy to figure out what the child is saying, because they usually point to the things they are talking about. For example, a child might point to a lamp on the ceiling and say "da", and the mother might interpret this as "Look! There is something hanging there!" and respond by saying something like: "Yes, there is a lamp!

Eventually the child's pronunciation becomes more distinct. By the time, the child is about 2 years old; it will be able to put words together, but only two words at a time. The child will say things like "there ball" or "doll away". The child will start to learn words at a very fast pace.

Before a child's third birthday, they have learned how to put several words together and the child will be able to construct whole sentences. For example: "There is the ball" or "My doll is over there". A two-year old talks about things that are in the same room or that they are playing with just at that moment. A three-year old will talk about things that happened before. For example they will tell what they did at grandmother's last week: "We chased each other and runned on the grass". They start to use past tense forms of words, such as "chased" instead of "chase". Learning the past tense takes awhile to learn, and it is quite common that a child will conjugate all verbs in the same way, for example, "runned" instead of "ran".

A three-year old knows about a 1000 words and is good at putting them together into sentences and making himself understood. However language keeps developing, especially when we begin school. Researchers have estimated that we learn 40,000 - 50,000 new words during the first nine years of school. That means that you learn about 100 new words per week at school. Certain words you during language class, but you also learn new words in other subjects, such as multiplication, economic growth, photosynthesis, and chisel. You also learn how to read and write, and eventually you might learn how to speak another language

Language and Thought

1-Is thinking the same thing as a silent monologue?
2-Can we put words on all of our thoughts?
3-Do people from different countries think differently?


How language and speech are connected in our thoughts has been discussed and throughout history. The ancient Greeks philosophized over this question. Aristotle thought that speech symbolized thought, and that speech was used to tell others what was going on inside in our heads and how we experienced the world around us.

In the 19th century, there was an increased interest for other cultures and languages. For example, people wondered if Chinese speakers thought differently than Swedish speakers. The Philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt (who worked in Germany) thought that language was tightly connected to thinking and therefore people who speak different languages would think differently.

There have also been researchers in the 20th century who believe in von Humboldt's theory, for example the American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf who is the father to the so-called "Whorf-Hypothesis". It is based on the idea that thoughts are controlled or influenced by the language we speak.

In Swedish, there are many different names for colors (for example: blue, red, white, light gray, purple, and cyan), but in certain languages in the world (for example in the Tiv language of New Guinea) there are only two words for color: light and dark. If you think that thoughts are influenced by language, then you might think that a Swedish speaker would be better at distinguishing colors than a Tiv speaker. This was studied, and the results showed that speakers with less names for colors in their language where able to distinguish colors just as well as speakers who had many names for colors. This would suggest that we can think of things which we do not have words for.

In what other ways can we think? We can think in pictures or in feelings. Sometimes it is hard to explain how we are feeling Ð it is hard to put a word on a feeling. Sometimes, we even make up a new word to describe a feeling or thought. Deaf people probably "see" more images in their thoughts. Just as touch probably has a more important role in a blind person's thoughts.

But how does a little child, who has not learned how to speak, think? And how do animals think? Even if animals do not have the same brain capacity as humans, it is possible that animals "think" to a certain degree. But they hardly think in words, because humans are the only species, which have a fully developed language.

Even if we can all agree that we can think without words and language, it is evident that much thinking is done in the form of a silent monologue (at least with the majority). Sometimes we have long dialogues with ourselves in our head, and sometimes we even "think aloud". It can help to talk aloud to ourselves if we are trying to solve a complicated problem.

A deaf person often does not have spoken language as their mother tongue. Instead, they use sign language. Symbols have a more important role than words in thoughts of deaf people.

Another thing that shows that thoughts and language are closely connected is the course of a conversation. Speech is very quick compared to how long it takes to write. Sometimes we say the wrong thing or we have to correct ourselves and start over. When we speak, we often add small words like "eh..." We do this because we need some extra time to plan and think about what we are actually saying.

Mobile Tehnology

*Mobile technology is exactly what the name implies - technology that is portable. Examples of mobile IT devices include:

-laptop computers
-palmtop computers or personal digital assistants
-mobile phones and 'smart phones' - high-end phones with more advanced capabilities
-global positioning system (GPS) devices
-wireless debit/credit card payment terminals
-Mobile devices can be enabled to use a variety of communications technologies such as:

-wireless fidelity (WiFi) - a type of wireless local area network technology
-Bluetooth - connects mobile devices wireless.
-'third generation' (3G), global system for mobile communications (GSM) and general --packet radio service (GPRS) data services - data networking services for mobile phones
-dial-up services - data networking services using modems and telephone lines
-virtual private networks - secure access to a private network

It is therefore possible to network the mobile device to a home office or the internet while travelling.

who invented maths?

-Math was not invented in one day or by some particular person. First people did observations and learned how to cope with everyday problems that might be called "mathematical" like counting (for keeping track of their domestic animals or doing trade), and learning to make different shapes (basket weaving, building shelters, and pottery). Very ancient animal bones with have been found in Africa and Europe containing notches made by human beings, who did some kind of keeping track of counts. These bones are believed to be between 8500 and 11,000 years old. Very old circular structures, which seem to be of astronomical significance, are found all over the world. Perhaps you have heard about Stonehenge in England, for example. This is where first knowledge in arithmetic and geometry comes from.

-We do not know when, how, or why operations like addition or multiplication were invented, but they appeared several thousand years ago, apparently independently, in China, India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The oldest clay tablets with mathematics on it were found in Mesopotamia (nowadays Iraq) dating about 4000 years ago. The oldest written texts in mathematics - papyruses - come from Egypt, where civilization was already about 2000 years old when those papyruses were written. In ancient Sulba Sutras that come from India and are about 3500 years old one can find rules for building altars.

-Among other things there is a famous theorem of Pythagoras about the sides of a right triangle. It is believed that Pythagoras was the first to prove this theorem - which means to answer the question of why this theorem is correct. That is why this fact is known as the Pythagoras theorem. This was happening in ancient Greece about 2500 years ago. From this time on there is a tradition in mathematics to always answer the question of why your result is true.

Why our ear rings?

-"Ringing" in the ears is called tinnitus. It happens when delicate cells inside your ear that send sound messages to your brain are injured or over-stimulated. These cells have projections on them that look like hairs, and they are called "hair cells". The perception of sound starts when pressure waves moving through the air reach your ears. This causes your eardrums to vibrate, and these movements are transferred to the fluid in the inner ear, where the hair cells are located.
Movement of the inner ear's fluid leads to bending of the tiny hairs on the hair cells. This bending excites the hair cells, and causes them to send electrical signals to your brain through a nerve called the "auditory nerve". Your brain interprets the electrical signals from the auditory nerve as sound. The ringing sound of tinnitus is often a high squeal, like the sound of a computer monitor, but it can also be a low roar, and it can affect one or both ears. Usually your ears ring for a brief time after youve been exposed to loud noise, but for about 44 million Americans, ringing in the ears is a constant and annoying problem. It most often happens because people expose themselves to damaging levels of sound over long periods of time and dont protect their ears. You can tell a sound is too loud for safety if you have to shout to make yourself heard over it. Other causes of tinnitus can be an ear canal plugged with ear wax, abnormal blood pressure, allergies, ear infections, medications, and even specific kinds of food! If you have persistent tinnitus, you should tell your doctor about it.

is diamond real or fake?

-The most common types of "fake diamonds" are made out of glass or of materials called cubic zirconia or moissanite. One of the properties that can be used to distinguish diamonds from other materials is its hardness. Real diamonds are the hardest naturally occurring materials, having a hardness of 10 on the Moh's scale which is a relative scale of hardness in minerals. So a real diamond will scratch anything else, including other natural gems such as ruby and sapphire or artificial gems such as the cubic zirconia or moissanite. Fake diamonds that are glass can easily be scratched by a steel file or a piece of quartz or other gems like ruby. The cubic zirconia has a hardness of 8.5 and can be scratched by a ruby or sapphire or a real diamond. The moissanite has a hardness of 9.25 and can only be scratched by a real diamond. However, jewelry that contains moissanite or cubic zirconia is still expensive and beautiful; you may not want to scratch it with a diamond to test whether or not it is real!

-There are often other distinguishing features of diamonds such as small inclusions of other minerals. The inclusions usually cannot be seen without using a microscope or a hand lens (jeweler's loupe), but these inclusions are a way of determining that a diamond is real. Artificial gems will not have inclusions of other minerals. However, the very highest quality real diamonds will not have any inclusions in them.

-Finally, the composition of "fake" diamonds is very different from that of real diamonds. Diamonds are composed of pure carbon. Cubic zicronia is made of zirconium oxide usually with some yttrium oxide. Moissanite is made from silicon and carbon. There are non-destructive ways to analyze materials to determine their composition. Many of these analytical techniques are available in the Cornell Center for Materials Research Shared Experimental Facilities. These analytical tools, which include electron microscopes and x-ray diffractometers, can quickly determine if a material is cubic zirconia, or moissanite, or real diamond.

what makes the weather change?

-Our weather changes because we live on a round, rotating planet with a bumpy surface. The roundness of the planet causes its equator to be heated more than the poles by the sun. The relatively warm air over the equator vertically expands, causing there to be more air over horizontal surfaces aloft over the equator than over the poles. This in turn causes air aloft over the equator to spread toward the poles. This poleward spreading air is deflected to the east by the turning of the earth. This is why winds aloft generally blow from west to east.

-This eastward moving air strikes mountains on the earth's surface, creating atmospheric waves which move eastward, too. Air rises on the east side of each wave, and sinks on the west side. Clouds and rain or snow form in the rising air, while the weather is usually fair under the sinking air. As the waves move eastward, so do the alternating regions of fair and stormy weather. New waves continue to form by winds striking the mountains, resulting in new patterns of fair and stormy weather which move eastward with the waves. On the earth's surface, we observe these alternating patterns by changes in the weather: Fair one day and stormy the next.

-Since there are many mountains of different sizes on the earth, and since winds don't always strike them with the same speed, then many different kinds of waves can form. These waves can interfere with each other, producing very complicated weather patterns. This is why the weather sometimes doesn't change, with prolonged periods of fair or stormy conditions. This is also why weather changes are sometimes difficult to predict, especially more than a few days in advance.

Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach that aims for long-term success by focusing on customer satisfaction. TQM is based on the participation of all members of an organization in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work.

Wimax Technology

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a communications technology that uses radio spectrum to transmit tens of megabits per second in bandwidth between digital devices such as laptop computers. Similar to WiFi, WiMAX brings with it the ability to transmit over far greater distances and to handle much more data.

WiMAX was developed by equipment manufacturers, service providers, and software companies around the world all of who were motivated to ensure that equipment, regardless of who made it, would will interoperate. In practice, WiMax will likely be made available to consumers by companies such as Cingular and Verizon. These companies have purchased the necessary rights to the radio spectrum and are building nationwide networks.

WiMAX will coexist as a radio capability on the mobile computer, along with other radio technologies such as wireless fidelity and third-generation (3G), for many years.

Bluetooth Technology

Bluetooth is a transmission specification for digital data exchange between 2 or more devices over short-range. This data can be anything including documents, images, and voice and the devices include PDAs, phones and desktop devices. The specific is an open standard allowing any one to take advantage of the opportunities it presents.

Unlike other wireless transmissions technologies, Bluetooth is intended to be used by devices that are close to each other. For instance, a PDA could transfer data such as a phone number to a cellphone. A laptop could transfer data such as e-mails to a PDA. With this technology, the need for wires and proprietary file transfer software could be eliminated.

Some examples of bluetooth applications are:

Wireless networking between desktops and laptops.
Bluetooth peripherals such as printers, mice, and keyboards.
Bluetooth cell phones have been sold in large numbers, and are able to connect to computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and, specifically, to hands free devices.
Certain mp3 players and digital cameras to transfer files to and from computers.
Bluetooth headsets for mobile phones.
Bluetooth car kits that allow users with Bluetooth-equipped cell phones to make use of some of the phone's features, such as making calls, while the phone itself can be left in a suitcase or in the boot/trunk, for instance.
For remote controls where infrared was traditionally used.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Defination

Optical character recognition (OCR) refers to the software used to convert letters and numbers that are non-editable into a format that can be edited.
-For example: a magazine article is something that can't be edited. Using OCR software, you could convert this article into a Microsoft Word document and then be able to change any of the words.

Before being able to use OCR software, you will need to get the document in to an electronic format if it isn't already in one. This can be accomplished by scanning it. The higher the quality of the scan and the higher the contrast there is between the characters and the background, the more likely the OCR software will recognize the text. However, even the best of the consumer-grade OCR software isn't perfect so expect a few mistakes.

Typical uses of optical character recognition software include processing checks, archiving library material, and letter sorting by the postal office.

Defination of Biotechnology

-Biotechnology refers to the use of microorganisms such as bacteria or biological substances such as enzymes to perform industrial or manufacturing processes. Although biotechnology seems new but it has been around for quite some time and has been used to produce drugs and synthesize hormones. Biotechnology has also been used to genetically alter bacteria for use with the cleanup of oils spills.

One area of biotechnology uses organisms to manufacture organic products such as beer and milk products. Biotechnology is also used to recycle, treat waste, clean up sites contaminated by industrial activities that is bioremediation.

Another area of biotechnology doesn't use living organisms at all. Examples include DNA microarrays used in genetics and radioactive tracers used in medicine.

Modern biotechnology is often associated with the use of genetically altered microorganisms such as E. coli or yeast for the production of substances like insulin or antibiotics. Another promising new biotechnology application is the development of plant-made pharmaceuticals.

Defination Of IT

-In the broadest sense, information technology refers to both the hardware and software that are used to store, retrieve, and manipulate information. At the lowest level you have the servers with an operating system. Installed on these servers are things like database and web serving software. The servers are connected to each other and to users via a network infrastructure. The users accessing these servers have their own hardware operating system and software tools.

What is Information?

*Information as a concept has many meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. The concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation. In its most restricted technical meaning, information is an ordered sequence of symbols.*A message received and understood.

*In general, raw data that has been verified to be accurate and timely, is specific and organized for a purpose, is presented within a context that gives it meaning and relevance, and which leads to increase in understanding and decrease in uncertainty. The value of information lies solely in its ability to affect a behavior, decision, or outcome. A piece of information is considered valueless if, after receiving it, things remain unchanged.

*Knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction.

*Information can collect through various ways.

*Knowledge of specific events or situations that has been gathered or received by communication; intelligence or news. See Synonyms at knowledge.

*A collection of facts or data that is statistical information.

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