Saturday 21 February 2009
Geo: Did you Know ...
Damascus, Syria ~ was flourishing a couple of thousand years before Rome was founded in 753 BC, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence.
Friday 20 February 2009
Some Thought ...
An expert is someone who takes a subject you understand and makes it sound confusing.
Some Thought ...
Since Light travels faster than Sound, people appear brighter before you hear them speak.
Thursday 19 February 2009
Geo: Did you Know ...
Canada - has more lakes than the rest of the world combined. Canada is an Indian word meaning 'Big Village.'
Tuesday 17 February 2009
What happened to "Please!"
I was in Starbucks getting a Soy Latte (love it with brown sugar).
The English woman next to me collects her coffee from the barista and then says: "Can I have a tray?" She didn't say it rudely -- she just wasn't polite.
That got me thinking. Whatever happened to "please"?
To me:
'Please' means 'I respect you'.
'Thank you' means 'I appreciate you'.
Good manners are powerful in showing those around you that you care about them.
I love Frankie Byrne's line that "Respect is Love in plain clothes."
How often have you bought something at a store or ordered something in a restaurant and just ached to hear some good manners?
Authentic success is not complicated. It comes down to consistently following a series of fundamentals. Those who get to greatness just run the basics-bit by bit, day by day-over many months and years.
It's not hard at all. It just takes small acts of daily discipline around a few important things.
But when done over time -- amazing results appear.
The best among us just do the things most of us already know we should do to live an extraordinary life really well. And they do it consistently.
One of the key things they do is say "Please" a lot. Good manners are a stepping stone to being a remarkable human being, whether as a mother, a father, a salesperson or the CEO. They really do show people that you respect them.
Yes, having good manners is common sense. But as the French philosopher Voltaire once said: "Common sense is anything but common." And if all this stuff is so obvious, how come most people don't do it?
The English woman next to me collects her coffee from the barista and then says: "Can I have a tray?" She didn't say it rudely -- she just wasn't polite.
That got me thinking. Whatever happened to "please"?
To me:
'Please' means 'I respect you'.
'Thank you' means 'I appreciate you'.
Good manners are powerful in showing those around you that you care about them.
I love Frankie Byrne's line that "Respect is Love in plain clothes."
How often have you bought something at a store or ordered something in a restaurant and just ached to hear some good manners?
Authentic success is not complicated. It comes down to consistently following a series of fundamentals. Those who get to greatness just run the basics-bit by bit, day by day-over many months and years.
It's not hard at all. It just takes small acts of daily discipline around a few important things.
But when done over time -- amazing results appear.
The best among us just do the things most of us already know we should do to live an extraordinary life really well. And they do it consistently.
One of the key things they do is say "Please" a lot. Good manners are a stepping stone to being a remarkable human being, whether as a mother, a father, a salesperson or the CEO. They really do show people that you respect them.
Yes, having good manners is common sense. But as the French philosopher Voltaire once said: "Common sense is anything but common." And if all this stuff is so obvious, how come most people don't do it?
Thursday 12 February 2009
Sunday 8 February 2009
Geo: Did You Know ...
Antarctica : is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country. Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica . This ice also represents seventy % of all the fresh water in the world. As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert. The average yearly total precipitation is about two inches. Although covered with ice (all but 0.4% of it, i.e.), Antarctica is the driest place on the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.
In Japan, You Are What Your Blood Type Is.
Tokyo: In Japan, “What’s your type?” is much more than small talk; it can be a paramount question in everything from matchmaking to getting a job.
By type, the Japanese mean blood type, and no amount of scientific debunking can kill a widely held notion that blood tells all.
In the year just ended, four of Japan’s top 10 best-sellers were about how blood type determines personality, according to Japan’s largest book distributor, Tohan Co.
The publisher, Bungeisha, says the series — one each for types B, O, A, and AB — has combined sales of well over 5 million copies.
As defined by the books, type As are sensitive perfectionists but overanxious;
Type Bs are cheerful but eccentric and selfish;
O's are curious, generous but stubborn;
AB's: are arty but mysterious and unpredictable.
Even PM Taro Aso seems to consider it important enough to reveal in his web profile. He’s an A. His rival, opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa, is a B.
It doesn’t stop there. Matchmaking agencies provide bloodtype compatibility tests, and some firms decide about assignments based on employees’ blood types.
Not all see the craze as harmless, and the Japanese now have a term, “Bura-Hara”, meaning bloodtype harassment. And, despite warnings, many employers continue to ask blood types at job interviews, said an official at the Health, Welfare and Labour Ministry.
Blood Works: An employee displays a Japanese publisher’s best-selling book series ~ one each for types B, O, A and AB
By type, the Japanese mean blood type, and no amount of scientific debunking can kill a widely held notion that blood tells all.
In the year just ended, four of Japan’s top 10 best-sellers were about how blood type determines personality, according to Japan’s largest book distributor, Tohan Co.
The publisher, Bungeisha, says the series — one each for types B, O, A, and AB — has combined sales of well over 5 million copies.
As defined by the books, type As are sensitive perfectionists but overanxious;
Type Bs are cheerful but eccentric and selfish;
O's are curious, generous but stubborn;
AB's: are arty but mysterious and unpredictable.
Even PM Taro Aso seems to consider it important enough to reveal in his web profile. He’s an A. His rival, opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa, is a B.
It doesn’t stop there. Matchmaking agencies provide bloodtype compatibility tests, and some firms decide about assignments based on employees’ blood types.
Not all see the craze as harmless, and the Japanese now have a term, “Bura-Hara”, meaning bloodtype harassment. And, despite warnings, many employers continue to ask blood types at job interviews, said an official at the Health, Welfare and Labour Ministry.
Blood Works: An employee displays a Japanese publisher’s best-selling book series ~ one each for types B, O, A and AB
Wednesday 4 February 2009
Shark Encounter
Michael C. Scholl is a (Hardy Researcher) marine biologist specialized in sharks, very well known for his researches. He is also the Founder and Trustee of the White Shark Trust.
In these pictures we can see him approached by a shark while he was paddling in a kayak. The images are really famous on the web insomuch as they have created many urban legends, like the one about a grateful shark who follows continuously his human saviour!. The truth is simply related to the researches of Michael Scholl as we can read directly from his words:
"Sitting in a 3.8-metre sea kayak and watching a four-metre great white approach you is a fairly tense experience. Although we had extensively tested the sharks' reactions to an empty kayak and had observed no signs of aggression, this gave us little comfort as we eyed a great white heading straight for us, albeit slowly. Just a metre or so from the craft it veered off, circled and slowly approached from behind. It did this several times, occasionally lifting its head out of the water to get a better look. Then it lost interest, and as it continued on its way we were able to follow a short distance behind.
Once we'd come to terms with having nothing between ourselves and a four-metre shark except a thin layer of plastic, our kayak made an ideal research platform for observing great white behaviour in shallow water. Its advantages are twofold: it is inconspicuous and appears not to cause the sharks to alter their behaviour for long, and it allows us to watch them in a natural situation, as it is not necessary to attract them to us with food."
This documentry can be viewed on National Geography.
In these pictures we can see him approached by a shark while he was paddling in a kayak. The images are really famous on the web insomuch as they have created many urban legends, like the one about a grateful shark who follows continuously his human saviour!. The truth is simply related to the researches of Michael Scholl as we can read directly from his words:
"Sitting in a 3.8-metre sea kayak and watching a four-metre great white approach you is a fairly tense experience. Although we had extensively tested the sharks' reactions to an empty kayak and had observed no signs of aggression, this gave us little comfort as we eyed a great white heading straight for us, albeit slowly. Just a metre or so from the craft it veered off, circled and slowly approached from behind. It did this several times, occasionally lifting its head out of the water to get a better look. Then it lost interest, and as it continued on its way we were able to follow a short distance behind.
Once we'd come to terms with having nothing between ourselves and a four-metre shark except a thin layer of plastic, our kayak made an ideal research platform for observing great white behaviour in shallow water. Its advantages are twofold: it is inconspicuous and appears not to cause the sharks to alter their behaviour for long, and it allows us to watch them in a natural situation, as it is not necessary to attract them to us with food."
This documentry can be viewed on National Geography.
Monday 2 February 2009
Geo: Did You Know ...
Amazon : The Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% the world's oxygen supply. The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean. The volume of water in the Amazon river is greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined and three times the flow of all rivers in the United States.
Some Sharaab, Much Bawaal
Some of my friends are at the Jaipur Literature Festival, and one of them, Sonia Faleiro, interviewed Vikram Seth on the opening day of the festival. Much fun was had by all, eyewitnesses and participants tell me. There was even some wine on stage—and why not?
Well, according to this report in Dainik Bhaskar, local writers are up in arms because they feel that drinking wine on stage was a “Kalank” on “Sahitya, kala [and] sanskruti”, and are demanding that the state government take action. (If I was the state government, I would confiscate the bottle.)
It’s hilarious stuff—if you can read Hindi, go through the piece, it reads like an India TV script.
And if you can’t read Hindi, even better—this Google translation of the page is much more hilarious. I especially loved what Google made of Nandlal Burner’s quote:
Public exemplary conduct of the writer should be. Tire or Kabir, Rskhan or basil, or Muktibod offerings, those who write them live too.
That surely has to be the last word on the subject.
Well, according to this report in Dainik Bhaskar, local writers are up in arms because they feel that drinking wine on stage was a “Kalank” on “Sahitya, kala [and] sanskruti”, and are demanding that the state government take action. (If I was the state government, I would confiscate the bottle.)
It’s hilarious stuff—if you can read Hindi, go through the piece, it reads like an India TV script.
And if you can’t read Hindi, even better—this Google translation of the page is much more hilarious. I especially loved what Google made of Nandlal Burner’s quote:
Public exemplary conduct of the writer should be. Tire or Kabir, Rskhan or basil, or Muktibod offerings, those who write them live too.
That surely has to be the last word on the subject.
Geo: Did You Know ...
Alaska : More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in Alaska
Sparky
This Logo took me back to memory lane during my time of childhood in Kenya.
I remember our Electricity Bill had this “Sparky” printed on all Electricity related documents.
I remember our Electricity Bill had this “Sparky” printed on all Electricity related documents.
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