Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Interesting facts about rain



The world's heaviest average rain fall (about 430 inches) occurs in Cherrapunji, India, where as much as 87 feet of rain has fallen in one year.


Mt. Waialeale in Kauai, Hawaii, has up to 350 rainy days every year.


The wettest state in the United States is Louisiana, with annual rainfall of 56 inches.


Rainfall is classified as light if not more than 0.10 inch per hour, and heavy if more than 0.30 inch per hour.


All precipitation starts as ice or snow crystals at cloud level.


Freezing rain is rain that freezes as it hits the ground; sleet is frozen ice pellets.


Rain drops are not shaped like this , they are shaped like this as they fall.


The umbrella was originally intended for shade from the hot Egyptian sun.


Raindrops vary in size from 0.02 inch to about .031 inch diameter.


Big, heavy raindrops can fall at speeds up to 22 miles per hour!


Exmouth in Western Australia received some 322mm of rain in the first week of June 2002. 305mm of this total falling in just 24 hours on June 4.


A rainbow was visible for 6 hours (from 9am to 6pm) at Wetherby, Yorkshire (UK) on 14 March 1994. This is rare as most rainbows last for only a few minutes.

The total amount of precipitation to fall to earth in one year is 5,000 million million tones.

The amount of water held in the atmosphere at any time is sufficient to produce about 2.5cm (1 inch) of rain over the surface of the earth.

The most rain to fall in a single 24 hour period is 1,850mm (74 inches) at Cilaos (on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion) between 15 and 16 March 1952.

The Driest place in Australia is Mulka Bore, west of Lake Eyre (SA), with an average annual rainfall of 100mm (4 inches).

The driest place on earth is Wadi Halfa in Sudan, with an annual average rainfall of less than 2.5 mm (less than one-tenth of an inch).

In NSW, the wettest town is Dorrigo with an average of 2,004mm per year.

On average, the wettest town in Australia is Tully (N QLD) with an annual average rainfall of 4,204mm.

In Australia, Bellenden Kerr (NE QLD) received 11,251mm in 1979. With a massive 960mm of this total falling in just 24 hours on January 3/4.

The wettest place in the world (based on the yearly average total) is Mawsynram, India, which receives an average of 11,870mm (474.8 inches) of rain each year.

Low pressure off the Northern Pacific Coast brought rain and gale force winds to the coast of Washington State. Fair weather prevailed across most of the rest of the nation.

The famous "Pumpkin Flood" occurred on the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers. Harrisburg PA reported a river stage of twenty-two feet. The heavy rains culminated a wet season.

A west coast hurricane moved onshore south of Los Angeles bringing unprecedented rains along the southern coast of California.

The most consistently wet place in Australia is Waratah, (TAS) with an average of 314 'rainy days' per year.

The longest dry spell of record in the U.S. commenced as Bagdad CA went 767 days without rain.

The summit is 1,569m (5,148ft) above sea level and receives over 350 days of rain each year.

The wettest place in the world is Mt Wai-'ale-'ale in Hawaii.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

10 Amazing Facts about Human Brain


1. Weight:


Human brain weighs 3 pounds.

2. Pain:

Human brain does not feel any pain because there are no pain receptors in brain.

3. Percentage Of Fat:
Human brain is the fattest organ in the body, its contents are, at least, 60% fat.

4. Survival Without Oxygen:
Human brain can survive for 4 to 6 minutes without oxygen before it starts to die

5. Time before loss of consciousness:
Human brain gets 8 to 10 seconds before losing consciousness due to blood loss


6. Power generated by brain:

Human brain generates 10 to 23 watts of power when awake (that’s enough to turn on a light bulb!)
7. Part of oxygen and blood received by brain:

Human brain gets 20% of the total body oxygen and blood.
8. Total length of blood vessels in the brain:

Total length of blood vessels present in the human brain is 100,000 miles.
9. Number of synapses:

Human brain contains 1,000 to 10,000 synapses for each neuron.
10. Number of neurons:

Human brain contains 100 billion neurons.

40 Interesting Dream Facts

  1. Every human dreams. There are tons of people who can’t remember their dreams when they wake up, but they still get them
  2. Human beings spend roughly around 6 years of their lifetime dreaming
  3. Sometimes we dream outside of our REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement)
  4. Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians were the first to create a dream dictionary in 4000 B.C.E
  5. We roughly spend around 1/3 of our lives sleeping
  6. People who suffer from a personality disorder lack dream activity
  7. Our brains tend to be way more active when we sleep, than when we’re awake
  8. Humans tend to have around 3 to 7 dreams a night. We dream around 2 to 3 hours in a whole night
  9. 90% of the dream is lost the first minute we wake up
  10. Men tend to dream about men more than women, and women dream about people of both genders
  11. Drug withdrawal can cause more intense dreams. People who also quit alcohol and smoking experience heavier dreams and nightmares
  12. You can lucid dream for up to 30 minutes if trained properly
  13. It’s impossible to dream when you’re snoring
  14. Babies don’t dream of themselves until they reach the age of 3
  15. More women than men experience deja-vu in their dreams (eg. you have been in the dream before)
  16. People who experience Sleep Paralysis hear voices and see strangers in their rooms
  17. Nightmares happen more to kids than adults
  18. Blind people dream. Their dreams are auditory if they were born blind. If they became blind at an early age, they still dream of what they remember
  19. Did you know around 100 000 drivers a year crash going in and out of sleep in their cars
  20. Thousands of people suffer from sleep apnea in America
  21. Men get erections in their REM sleep and women have an increased blood flow to their vaginas
  22. You can translate over 5000 dream symbols
  23. The word “Nightmare” was used a long time ago for a female spirit who besets people at night while sleeping
  24. On average, dogs sleep around 10 to 13 hours a day
  25. The colder your house is, the worse your dreams are. They say that if your room is at an average temperature, you have better sleeps
  26. Your body burns more calories sleeping than it does in the day time
  27. Information that we learn before we go to bed tends to stick with us longer than information any other time
  28. On average, cats sleep 10 to 15 hours a day
  29. If you avoid your sleep for more than 10 days, you will die
  30. A giraffe sleeps for only 2 hours a day
  31. Most dreams are based on visual images (Except in people who were either born blind, or who lost their sight at an early age). Occasionally, dreams will include sound and touch.
  32. The normal rules of logic do not apply in dreams. For example, the dream may be taking place in one location – then, abruptly, the dreamer is translocated to a completely different place.
  33. Most dreams occur in a house – but this is usually not your own home. The most frequently reported room is the living room. People rarely dream about their work place or school.
  34. The most frequent scenario is the dreamer plus two other people.
  35. Famous people seldom appear in our dreams. The vast majority of people dream about people who are significant to them, especially if there is an ongoing conflict.
  36. Mundane activities (such as brushing your teeth) rarely appear in dreams.
  37. Dreams tend not to be happy events, and the three most common reported emotions are anger, sadness and fear.
  38. Some themes are so common that they are reported the world over. These universal themes include the loss of a tooth, falling or flying, exhibition, arriving late for exams or other important events, and being chased or attacked.
  39. Cross-cultural research indicates that our dreams reflect normal life events in our own country and culture.
  40. There appear to be some differences in the content of dreams between the two sexes. Specifically, women are more likely to dream about their children, family or household activities; men are more likely to dream about strangers, violence, sexual activity, achievement, and outdoor events.

Friday, June 28, 2013

‎50 Amazing Google Facts and Figures


1. The unusual nickname was BackRub due to the backlink technology used to regulate site importance but ultimately changed the name to Google originating from the misspelling of the word “Googol (the mathematician’s term for the number one followed by one hundred zeros) to imply the large quantities of information for people that it would provide....
2. Google.com domain went online in 1997
3. Google began as a research project in 1996
4. The first backing of $100,000 for Google was provided by Andy Bechtolsheim the co-founder of Sun Microsystems
5. The CEO for ‘Excite’ George Bell rejected to buy Google when it was offered to him for $1 million when Brin and Page were finding the search engine taking up to much time from their research in 1999
6. The first round of venture capital of $25 million was provided in 1999 by Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital 5 years before it floated
7. Google incorporated in 1998
8. 30 million pages indexed in 1998
9. 1 billion pages indexed in 2000
10. Eric Schmidt named CEO in in 2001
11. Acquired Blogger in 2003
12. Adsense launched in 2003
13. Gmail launched in 2004
14. Google IPO in 2004
15. 8 billion pages indexed in in 2004
16. Acquired YouTube in 2006 for$1.65 billion
17. 1 Trillion pages indexed in in 2008
18. Android announced in 2007
19. Chrome launched in 2008
20. 1.8 million shares given to Stanford University for its PageRank Patent sold by Stanford in 2005 for $336 million
21. It currently runs over 1 million computer servers in data centers around the world
22. Google search handles over 1 billion searches per day
23. 7.2 billion daily page views
24. 87.8 billion monthly worldwide searches conducted on Google sites
25. Google’s global search market share is 85%
26. Daily visitors to Google is 620 million
27. Google.com’s worldwide ranking is number 1
28. Revenue in 2000 was $19 million
29. Profit in 200 was a loss of $14 million
30. In 2009 Google’s revenue was nearly $23 billion
31. In 2009 Google’s profit was $6.5 billion
32. 97% is the percentage of revenue from advertising
33. Stock price at its IPO in 2004 was$85
34. Stock price in 2010 was $535
35. Over 19,000 employees
36. 37% are research staff
37. 37% are sales staff
38. A ‘Noogler’ is a new person at Google
39. 45% of Google’s products are currently in Beta
40. YouTube market share is 39.4%
41. 270,000 words a minute are written on Blogger
42. 146 million Gmail users
43. Google analytics is used on 57% of the top 10,000 websites
44. 400,000 new Android devices areactivated every day
45. 100 million activated Android devices
46. 200,000 Apps available for the Android
47. 4.5 billion Apps have been installed from the Android Market
48. Google’s Android mobile operating system is the world’s leading smart phone platform surpassing Nokia and Apple with a 33% share
49. 33 million Android operating systems were shipped in the the fourth quarter of 2010
50. The Google Driverless car named the ‘Stanley’ won the DARPA Grand challenge and the $2 million in prize money from the US Department of Defense in 2005

14 facts about Indian education system


FACT I:
Just one out of nine children finishing school joins a college. India has one of the lowest higher education enrollment ratio of 11 per cent. In the US it is 83 per cent.

FACT 2:
To meet its target of increasing enrollment levels to 15 per cent in 2012, the Eleventh Plan estimates that India needs to invest Rs 2,26,410 crore. Yet it has set aside only Rs77,933 crore-just a fourth of the total needed.

FACT 3:
A recent ASSCoM-McKinsey study showed that only one out of Ten Indian students with degrees in humanities and one out of four engineering graduates are employable. So much for India’s boast of having one of the largest technical and scientific manpower reserves in the world.

FACT 4:
A study by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council showed that 90 per cent of the colleges and 70 per cent of the universities that the council graded were of middling or poor quality.

FACT 5:
Shortage of teachers was endemic with even the IITs reporting a 20 to 30 per cent shortfall in faculty.

FACT 6:
On an average most Indian universities revise their curricula only once in five to 10 yearsbut even then they get defeated in both letter and spirit.

FACT 7:
Over-regulation by the government and a multiplicity of agencies have seen higher education stagnate and corruption become institutionalized.

FACT 8:
In 50 years, only 44 private institutions were granted deemed university status by the University Grants Commission. In the last 5 years, it has granted that status to 49 more, leading to charges of impropriety.

FACT 9:
The shortage of good institutions has seen cut-off percentages for entry into good colleges soar to genius levels. This year’s qualifying marks for RCom (Hons) course in Delhi’s SRCC was 98.75 per cent.

FACT 10:
Studies show that the number of students committing suicide because of the pressure to perform well in secondary board exams is rising alarmingly.

FACT 11:
Indian students now spend $7 billion to go abroad and study in foreign universities because of the poor quality of education at home. Yet the government drags it feet overpermitting foreign universities to set up shop in India. Where in same cost we can successfully implement and run around 10 more IITs.

FACT 12:
The quality of school education hasn’t improved. A recent study found that in rural north India on an average day, there is no teaching activity in about half” of the primary schools

FACT 13:
The US currently accounts for over a third of the entire world’s output of articles in science and engineering. India, in contrast, accounts for less than 3 per cent of research papers published and in terms of citations barely 1 per cent.

FACT 14 :
Almost half of the country’s population is below 25 years. Almost 10 per cent of them or 12 crore are between the ages of 18 and 23. If they are equipped with both knowledge and skills, they could drive India’s entrepreneurial and Competitive spirit and make it into global power.

Why Bother?
Brilliant! It’s good to know what exactly India is missing out on because of all this apathy and sloth. Over a decade ago management guru Peter Drucker had declared: “The Knowledge Society will become far more competitive than any society we have yet known… there will be no poor countries, there will only be ignorant countries… thus the competitive position of every country, industry, institution . and individual will depend on the ability to harness and capitalize on knowledge.”


Now consider following graphic;


what government is doing for it,
on February 28 2008 a committee under the chairmanship os noted scientist, prof. Yashpal was set by HRD ministry to suggest ways to bring about considerable changes in higher education in India.

committee submitted its report on march 1 2009. it is available at this link.

recommendation:Setting up a National Commission for Higher Education & Research (NCHER) as a super-regulator replacing all UGC, AICTE n all.
developing IITs and IIMs as world-class universities,
a common GRE-type entrance exam for admission to universities
inviting the top 200 universities from abroad to set up shop in India
few suggestions to improve the working of universities.

are some of the key highlights of the final recommendations of the Yashpal committee on higher education.

Some more text direct copy paste from the report:-

For students
…..Currently, many students passing out from institutions of higher education do so without obtaining the kind of skills they really need to work in a real-world environment. Among the drawbacks many students face are lack of ability to analyze or solve problems, relate problems to different contexts, communicate clearly and have an integrated understanding of different branches of knowledge…..

…. the student is asked to face a question paper at the end of the year, or in some universities, at the end of the semester. This archaic examination system,…….., unfortunately does not really test the kind of skills they require to be successful in either the pursuit of pure theoretical knowledge or in practical real world situations…..

(The solution given in report is the first 2 points in can we change this article….)

….there must be a provision for student assessment of teachers, for the students can provide an experimental assessment of the quality of teaching….

For teachers…
…..It is also necessary to enhance the quality of teacher education within higher education. At present, Academic Staff Colleges are serving to provide refresher courses required by faculty to acquire eligibility for promotion…..

…..It should be mandatory for all universities to have a rich undergraduate programme and undergraduate students must get opportunities to interact with the best faculty.….

Well there are lot of more recommendation to reform our education system, I just want to say that, the point which I have mentioned in previous article(some of them) are not just problem of FAMT/ mumbai university but of whole nation and CHANGE is utmost important here.

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consider another story…


friends you spend 50000+ as your annual fee for your higher education, it is your right to get it most appropriate manner as it is a commodity n basic need today. unfortunately most of us INDIANS doesn’t even know/care what r our rights and what we deserve, n remain happy in our conservative world.

i just wanted to create some awareness through this article. i have asked some of teachers for changing there way of teaching n expressing with help of new IT techs.

i didn’t want to hurt anyone as there is nothing personal its all professional.

Amazing facts about Indian education history..



<>.Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies which originated in India.

<>.The number system was invented by India. Aryabhatta was the scientist who invented the digit zero.

<>.The' place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.

<>.The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

<>.Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. His calculations was - Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: ( 5th century ) 365.258756484 days.

<>.The value of "pi" was first calculated by the Indian Mathematician Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, which was long before the European mathematicians.

<>.Algebra, trigonometry and calculus also orignated from India. Quadratic equations were used by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10*53 ( i.e 10 to the power of 53 ) with specific names as early as 5000 B.C. during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12( 10 to the power of 12 ).

<>.India has the second largest pool of scientists & engineers in the world.!!

<>. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

5 of the most expensive weddings in history

Weddings are often a pretty expensive occasion in one’s life. Recent surveys suggest that the average UK wedding will cost in excess of £16,164, which by most people’s standards is a lot of money, but rightly so on one of the most important days of your life. With most of us pulling the stops out for our big day, it’s no surprise that the super rich in society go completely overboard with their spending. The trend for expensive weddings among the wealthy has seen spending go completely crazy.

Here are 5 weddings that are reported to be some of the most expensive in history:

5. Liza Minnelli and David Gest – Estimated cost of wedding – $4.2 million / £2.8 million

In March 2002, world famous actress Liza Manelli and (the not so famous) David Gest tied the knot, with a ceremony compared to the Grammy Awards. The wedding was held in front of 850 guests in the world famous Regent Hotel, New York. The guest list was made up of some of the biggest names in show business, with Michael Jackson even serving as the best man.

The couple were estimated to have spent $700,000 on flowers and $40,000 on cake. The couple split after 16 months, so it just goes to show, that you can’t buy love!

4. Wayne Rooney and Coleen McLoughlin: Estimated cost of wedding – $8 million / £5.2 million

In 2008 Wayne Rooney married his childhood sweetheart in a ceremony that saw 65 of their guests flown out to Genoa (Italy) on a private chartered flight. Upon arriving in Genoa the guests were treated to a masked ball aboard a $120 million yacht.

Guests were also given the opportunity to sample the delights of the five star hotel that the couple rented out before exchanging their vows in a 17th century villa and reception at a medieval abbey high above Portofino.

3. Prince William and Kate Middleton: Estimated cost of wedding – $34 million / £22 million

Prince William met Kate Middleton whilst at St.Andrews University; some say it was love at first site with the prince infatuated by the young Kate. In 2011 the young couple sealed the deal in a ceremony fit for a king (literally). Reports suggested that the couple lavishly spent over £520,000 (around $800,000) on flowers, which in a time of austerity was an extravagant demonstration of wealth.

The wedding took place in St. Paul’s cathedral in front of an estimated audience of 2 billion people!

2. Vanisha Mittal and Amit Bhatia: Estimated cost of wedding – $60 million / £39 million

Vanisha Mittal and Amit Bhatia aren’t what you would call household names but they both hail from some of the world’s richest Families. Vanisha is from a family of steel merchants who are reported to be one of the richest families on the planet. Invitations to the wedding were sent out via silver boxes, which included flight tickets and rooms at a Paris hotel.

There weren’t any mobile bars for hire at this wedding, it was strictly Crystal Champagne ($200 a bottle) and performances from the world famous Kylie Minogue and complimentary gift bags filled with jewels to make up.

1. Prince Charles and Lady Diana: Estimated cost of wedding – $110 million / £72 million

Prince Charles and Lady Diana was probably one of the most famous weddings of modern times, the marriage didn’t end in happiness as we all know, but the wedding stank of opulence. Like Prince William and Kate’s wedding, their wedding was held in St.Paul’s Cathedral and watched by viewers from across the world. Highlights of the wedding included a 5 ft wedding cake and a 20ft veil worn by Princess Diana.