Eyecatchers-77: "Orange Consumption"

For the third year in a row, the consumption of oranges in Britain declined because people were too busy to peel the rind off the fruit.

Courtesy: Claire Gutierrez, Weekly Review, Harper’s Weekly, June 10, 2008.
Grateful thanks to Claire Gutierrez and Harper’s Weekly.

Environment-2: Green Power

Two students from Virginia University, Manoj Sinha and Charles Ransler of Darden School of Business, have started a major project with an Indian partner to supply electricity to villages in Bihar by burning rice husk. The partner, Gyanesh Pandey, an engineer, oversees the operations of Husk Power Systems in Bihar. As of now, two pilot rice husk generators provide power to about 10,000 hamlets. The project has the potential to reduce 200 tonnes of carbon emission annually in each village compared to diesel or coal generators. Also, it may help turn the huge piles of husk that accumulate in many villages into two valuable products: ELECTRICITY and ASH, which can be sold to cement factories. The company is planning to put the mini power plants in hundreds of villages within a few years.

Courtesy: The Week, June 8, 2008.
Grateful thanks to The Week.

S&T Watch-9: Supercharging Lithium Batteries

Battery developers continue to push for supercharging lithium batteries . Researchers recently unveiled a nanowire electrode that could more than triple lithium batteries’ energy storage capacity and improve their safety. Nanowires of silicon just a few atoms across can absorb and release about 10 times more lithium ions than the graphite electrodes that are commonly used today.

Additional advances will be required before lithium batteries with nanowire electrodes deliver major increases in performance of electric-vehicle is the need to scale up the process of making nanowires, which have yet to be mass-produced for commercial application. Another limitation is that while silicon nanowires make great anodes, lithium-battery technology has greater need for improved cathodes. Labs are working on novel materials for cathodes. That is the holy grail for this business. Anyone who can generate much higher cathode capacity will bring a huge breakthrough.

Courtesy: The Week, June 8, 2008
Grateful thanks to The Week.

How to Protect Yourself from Workplace Monitoring

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Surveys suggest that 3 out of 4 companies monitor employees' online activity. Protect yourself from workplace prying by following a few simple rules.

Steps

1. Cover your clacks. If you suspect the man is logging your every keystroke, install Spyware Doctor 3.8. It'll expose Any program running silently in the background while you work. (Note: you may need an admin password to install the app. If your IT department refuses to help, try bribing them with a spool of blank DVDs.)
   
2. Surf undercover. Prevent your boss from tracking your daily URL crawl with a Web-based program like The Cloak, which masks the addresses of sites you visit by redirecting your browsing through its domain.
   
3. Change up your email. Don't use your work email for anything other than, well, work. If you want to send private messages over your employer's servers, set up an encrypted email account with a provider like Hushmail.
   
4. IM on the DL. With an admin password, you can download an encrypted service like PSST or a program like Encrypted Messenger, which encodes most IM clients. The quick and dirty way: open an AOL IM account and use the Web-based chat service. With all the Web activity at work, the chance that anyone will notice your texting is small.
   
5. Get peace of mind. Still spooked? Check out the Electronic Privacy Information Center's guide to cloaking tools.
   

Warnings

• Always use Extreme caution when trying anything of these things. If you are caught, you will most likely find out what it is like to have unlimited free time on your hand.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Remove Spyware
  
• How to Install and Use Ad Aware for Spyware Removal
  
• How to Look Busy at Work Without Really Working
  

Sources and Citations

• Wired Magazine - Original source of this article. Shared with permission.
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Protect Yourself from Workplace Monitoring. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How to Unblock Blocked Websites

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit


An editor has suggested that this article be merged with: "How to SpecialBypass a School Filter" Per the merge policy, if these topics are determined to be similar but distinct, then the articles will remain separate. Please comment on the discussion page. Notice added on 2008-02-01.
He is how to unblock those annoying pages that keep you from going to a website at school. For example, imagine this. You're already self-educated. You read the Odyssey in fifth grade, and now your high school teacher wants you to read it again and look on some website to figure out who all the characters are, which of course you already know. So if you want to ditch that and do and check your Neopets auctions instead, here is how.

Steps

1. Type in whatever website you want to go to. If it is blocked then go to www.cloakmyurl.com. Type your website address into the box on cloakmyurl.com and you are done.
   
2. Note that for some schools, that will be blocked. If so, try other proxy sites (these can be found with google).
   

Warnings

• You might get caught
  
• You could get in serious trouble
  
• You may be banned from the computer lab
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Unblock Blocked Websites at School. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Letters-21: "Dumb Cops?"

Are our policemen so dumb that they store hand-grenades that can go off anytime? (‘Bombs don’t matter’, The Week, May 18, 2008). It shows they are not trained even in the most basic things. The blunder would have cost many lives. No wonder many films show the Indian policeman as a pot-bellied, idiotic character. The government should take proactive steps to give policemen a more respectable image. Again, a common sight on the streets is of cops misbehaving with citizens. Giving policemen crash courses in mass psychology will help them deal with people in a more professional way. (Dinesh Bhatia, on email).

Courtesy: ‘The Week’, June 8, 2008 (Letters)
Grateful thanks to Mr.Dinesh Bhatia and ‘The Week’.

A Thought for Today :

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle - Albert Einstein (Grateful thanks to Vinod for the photograph).

Eyecatchers-76: "Chennai Egmore Railway Station celebrates 100 Years"

The station handles about 25 mainline trains and 115 suburban trains and about one lakh people daily. Its average earning per day is Rs.17.06 lakh, according to a Southern Railway press release.

Excerpt from The Hindu, Maduria, June 11, 2008.

S&T Watch-8: 'Roadrunner, the Latest Super Computer'

Roadrunner, the world’s latest super computer, performs million billion calculations per second. It is said that what takes 46 years for 6 million people to do a sum, Roadrunner does in one day. The very same sum will take 1500 years for the world’s first super computer, Cray 1. That should give you an idea about how fast Roadrunner is. It costs US $ 120 million.

It will help scientific studie4s like how HIV vaccines should be administered, mapping of human brain, nuclear fusion, which bring the world limitless cheap energy and climate change.

Based on “Roadrunner is here” by Ian Sample, Guardian Newspapers Ltd, 2008 and excerpted from The Hindu, Madurai, June 11, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Ian Sample, Guardian Newspapers Ltd and The Hindu.

Facts & Figures-31:

1. India has around 40 million widows. [‘The Week’, April 20, 2008 (‘The Living Dead’)]. Many of them are already disadvantaged economically and socially. But life becomes hell for hem when they are made victims of superstition. Society should fight this evil. Widows deserve more respect. (Letter from O.P.S.Bhadoria, Gandhinagar).

2. Much to the worry of environmentalists, India is on the way to becoming the third largest carbon emitter by 2015.

Courtesy: ‘The Week’, June 08, 2008 - Grateful thanks to 'The Week'.

Random Thoughts-12: "On Vaastu"

After numerology, it is ‘Vaastu’ now. Again I picked up the idea during my morning walk. I have already about this hospital. It was an ambitious project: a Medical College Hospital. Even after so many years, the college is nowhere in sight. As for the hospital, it started well and then decline set in. Now under the new management with a clear service motive, it is slowly – very slowly – picking up.

Obviously, the management should have been racking its brain: Why? Why? With very nominal fee (Rs.10 per month per person for any number of consultations!) and real care of the patients by a capable well-qualified physician, why does the hospital not flourish, especially when private hospitals are overcrowded and where the patients are being fleeced under some pretext or the other. Probably at this stage, somebody must have come up with the bright idea of ‘Vaastu’.

First the main entrance was closed and signs were put there directing the patients to the newly-constructed entrance a little farther off. It did not stop there. After a few days, a granite wall was springing up completely blocking the old entrance. It was a pathetic and painful sight to me. When things start failing, human beings, even those with spiritual background, fall a prey to all sorts of advice and desperately try to clutch anything to hold on.

Will the change bring success and prosperity, sorry, more patients to the hospital? Though not necessarily a believer in ‘Vaastu’ , I pray that the hospital succeeds, for it is in the interests of the common people of the locality that such a hospital should not close.

May the Good Lord bless the hospital! May the management succeed in their attempt to revive the hospital!! May it serve the sick-poor and bring them health and happiness. And lastly, may Goddess Visalakshi turn her benign eyes on the place and a full-fledged hospital comes up there, fulfilling the dreams of the promoters of the project!

For reading a detailed article on 'Vastu Shastra' from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaastu

Facts & Figures-30: ‘More on Numerology’

Actor Jim Carrey became obsessed with numerology while making The Number 23. He changed the name of his production company to JC23, citing, among other reasons, the earth’s 23-degree tilt, the 23 seconds it takes for blood circulate around the body, and his birth at 2:30 a.m. The movie DVD contains 23 chapters and was released on July 23, last year.

Courtesy: ‘The Week’, June 8, 2008 - Grateful thanks to ‘The Week’.

Environment-1: 'Spare the Trees'

Hyderabad: As the city grows, the greenery goes. The green cover is fast depleting, making way for spacious roads and concrete structures. Some of the trees are as old as the Qutub Shahi. Saddened, eco-conscious citizens have taken it up with the chief secretary.

They feel that the trees, instead of being cut down, can be transplanted elsewhere as it is being done in Mumbai and Pune. Thanks to the citizens’ movement, the first tree census in the city will begin on a road connecting Rajendranagar and Himayatsagar.

Courtesy: ‘The Week’, June 8, 2008 (Indiana) (Grateful thanks to 'The Week').

A Thought for Today :

The Law of Reversion to Type runs through all creation. If a man neglects himself for a few years, he will change into a worse and a lower man. If it is his body he neglects, he will deteriorate into a wild and bestial savage. If it is his mind, it will degenerate into imbecility and madness. If he neglects his conscience, it will run off into lawlessness and vice. Or, lastly, if it is his soul, it must inevitably atrophy, drop off in ruin and decay – Henry Drummond (Thanks to Vinod for the photo)

Random Thoughts-11: "On Punctuality"

Generally I am very punctual and hate to be late for any event. If I have to catch a train or a bus, I make sure that I am at the station or bus stop at least 15 minutes in advance. And I start shouting and become angry, if and when my people do not keep time and delay me. So I am labeled as a ‘tension-party’. In short, I am stickler for punctuality and expect others also to be so, wherein lies the rub.

So naturally I loved the article, “Punctuality, what?” by Sachidananda Murthy (‘Last Word’, The Week, April 20, 2008, which fell into my hands only today). If you have access to it, please don’t miss it; read it.

If you are nearing 60 like me and have a lot to do and many dreams to realize and “promises to keep” and “miles to go before you sleep”, you realize how precious time is. Time is life itself. So I could empathize with the first century BC Roman poet Virgil and lament, “but meanwhile it is flying, irretrievable time is flying”. (Thanks to Mr.Sachidananda Murthy for the quote).

Further, I enjoyed the lines, “The Indian Standard Time is often described as the Indian Stretchable Time, where the ordinary person gives way to the big man in a car flashing red light. In public functions, the audience invariably waits for the chief guest…”.

But Mr.Sachidananda Murthy, my experience on many occasions has been slightly different. I find nobody there - not the audience, not the chief guest and not even the organizers. They all seem to have a tacit understanding that if the invitation says 10 am, the function will not commence before 11 am. Only dumb bunnies like me go in advance and make a fool of themselves. When somebody goes to a 10 am function at 11 am, he is just keeping “Indian Punctuality” as the saying goes.

Nowadays, I have also learnt to be “an Indian”.

Thanks to Mr.Sachidananda Murthy (sachi@the-week.com) and The Week for the inspiration.

Letters-21: Grandma's Mission

The strangely endearing habit of Sarlaben Gandhi (‘Fruits of Plenty’, Reader’s Digest, August 2007) of going to a municipal hospital with bananas to distribute among the patients touched me deeply. Giving is indeed a divine quality, latent in every human heart. But it manifests in a few. To share whatever one has with others is a lesson that should be imparted to our children. – S.Lakshmi, via email, ‘Have Your Say’, Reader’s Digest, Nov.2007.

Grateful thanks to Ms.S.Lakshmi and Reader's Digest.

A Thought for Today :

I have learned to keep looking ahead. There are still so many good books to read, sunsets to see, friends to visit, and old dogs to take walks with. (An 86-year-old man)
Courtesy: 'Live and Learn and Pass it on' - Compiled by H.Jackson Brown Jr. - Published by BPB Publications, New Delhi
Grateful thanks to H.Jackson Brown Jr and BPB Publications and Jon Sullivan and Public-Domain-Photos.com for freely providing the photo.

How to Make Your Computer Say Everything You Type

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

This article is about making your computer say everything that you type.

Steps

1. Open up Windows Narrator. You can do this by going to start, all programs, accessories, accessibility, Windows Narrator or Narrator.
   
2. Click on Narrator
   
3. Open up notepad. You can do this by going to run, type in notepad.
   
4. Type in what you want to say and the computer will say it.
   

Tips

• This has only been tried on Windows Vista. It's not known if it works in Windows XP.
  
• For vista type in what you want to say in notepad and highlight the words you typed.
  

Warnings

• DON'T MAKE YOUR COMPUTER SAY BAD WORDS
  

Things You'll Need

• Computer
  
• Mouse
  
• Keyboard
  
• Monitor
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Quickly Add Thousands of Points to a Tchart
  
• How to Become Computer Literate
  
• How to Have Computer Fun
  
• How to Make an Aperture Science Themed Ubuntu Computer
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Make Your Computer Say Everything You Type. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How to Control Your Subconscious Mind

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

The conscious mind is a remarkable thing, but there's a whole other level of awareness that, when tapped, can greatly expand your abilities.

Steps

1. Become aware of your subconscious.
   
2. Listen to the "little voice inside your head". What is it saying? When you talk to yourself, what do you say? What do you answer?
   
3. Practice "Stream of Consciousness" writing. Take 5-10 minutes, and write whatever comes immediately to mind, and just keep writing no matter how dull, strange, weird, or whatever it sounds. Although at first this will channel your conscious mind, it will bring up unconscious thoughts. Have patience; writing at first will be difficult but with practice becomes rather easy.
   
4. Learn to Meditate. There are many methods of meditation, but all deal with focusing the mind, quieting it, and allowing you to harness it.
   
5. Take an Art Class. The creative process in art of all types--drawing, photography, painting, clay, dance, and sculpture--all help tap into the subconscious. By taking seemingly disparate elements together, you may learn to use more of your mind to solve problems.
   
6. Learn about the Subconscious The more you learn about the human mind, the more you can use it to enhance your life. Take coursework in psychology. Read Joseph Campbell. Take a martial arts class. Pray and/or meditate.
   
7. To Harness the Subconscious:
   
8. Practice Positive Self-Talk: If you say to yourself, 'I can't do this, I'm going to fail', you will fail. However, if you say 'I can do this, I know I can', you're more likely to succeed. This process is known as "affirmation".
   
9. Visualize. This is one of the most significant keys to success. Actively picturing yourself achieving a goal will help you actually achieve it.
   
10. Study briefly just before bedtime. This is especially helpful for things that require memorization. If you review your periodic table, your Latin vocabulary list, or your football play book just before sleeping, your unconscious will likely process it throughout the night for you.
    
11. Pay attention to your dreams. Your deeper mind will sometimes try to sort out your life issues through dreams. If you pay attention to them, write them immediately down, and reflect on it, you may get insight to the problem at hand.
    
12. Listen to Your Intuition. Your intuition is a way your mind has of warning you to dangers or opportunities before your conscious mind has all the information. If you get an "uh-oh" feeling about a person or situation, listen. This is often a key step in avoiding tragedy.
    

Warnings

• Protect your Subconscious: Turn off the TV when you aren't watching it, and do not fall asleep in front of it. Your mind will absorb ideas that you need things you actually do not.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Reach Your Hardest Goals
  
• How to Be Yourself
  
• How to Meditate
  
• How to Meditate for Beginners
  
• How to Meditate on Breath
  
• How to Meditate for Self Realization
  
• How to Meditate to Get to Sleep
  
• How to Keep a Book Journal
  
• How to Create a Journal or Diary
  
• How to Interpret Your Dreams
  
• How to Remember Dreams
  
• How to Create a Bonsai Tree
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Control Your Subconscious Mind. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How to Find a Hobby

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Having a hobby helps to make you a more interesting person and gives you something fascinating to talk about with others. It can also help you to avoid feeling bored and often provides the opportunity to meet new people with similar interests. Learning something new is always good for keeping the mind alert and active, as is maintaining a long-term interest in something that enthralls you. This will also make your more of an interesting person than a person who is addicted to MySpace, watching TV, or doing other time wasting and unhealthy tasks, such as stuffing your gut.

Steps

1. Think of a hobby that might interest you. It might be an interest that you always wished you had time to explore, but never had the time or money required to pursue.
   
2. Collect things for a hobby. Look at the walls in your post office, and think about collecting stamps and what you might need to do to start and maintain a stamp collection. Think of other items you might like to collect, for example, coins, dolls or chocolate wrappers. You will need to consider how you will get your collectibles, where you will put them and whether you'll display them. And don't forget to think about swaps with friends!
   
3. Discover art for a hobby. Have you ever gone to a museum, looked at the paintings on the walls, and wondered if you could do the same thing? How about trying painting for yourself - in oils, acrylics or watercolors? Or maybe try drawing with charcoal or colored pencils. One particularly wonderful way to get involved in your community and make art at the same time is to participate in painting a mural. This will last for a long time and everyone in your community will see it and smile.
   
4. Enjoy sport as a hobby. Watch soccer, basketball, golf, athletics or tennis tournaments on television or at your local sports ground. Do you feel that a sport is something that you would love to learn? Think about what it would cost, and the time it would take to learn and play. Do you have the funds available for this type of hobby? Would you have the patience it would take to really learn to play or train for any of these sports? Would you rather play a team sport or an individual sport? Maybe there are friends or family members who already have equipment and uniforms you can have, as well as tips for how to begin your chosen sport. Ask them about their experiences and listen to their suggestions.
   
5. Take up an outdoor activity. Maybe you are an "outdoors" person, someone who would enjoy outdoor hobbies, such as fishing, hiking, flying model airplanes or kites in the park, water skiing, camping or cycling. Think about how much you like different kinds of weather (hot, cold, rain, sun, snow etc.) and getting close to nature. If this sounds like something you would really enjoy doing, then investigate how you could start learning one or more of these activities. Often these outdoors activities will have a club you can join, or you could get your friends together and try an outdoors activity as a group.
   
6. Take up an indoor activity. Maybe you are more of an "indoors person". Perhaps you'd enjoy knitting, sewing, doing puzzles and jigsaws, painting, making ceramics etc. Browse around a craft store and find various craft ideas and supplies. Ask friends and family if they have craft supplies and patterns that they're not using. Other places to look for ideas include games stores, toy stores, hobby stores, your local library or activity center and school.
   
7. Combine indoor and outdoor activities. Of course, there's nothing that says you can't be both an indoors and an outdoors person! Maybe in summer you love to cycle and in winter you love to make matchstick castles. Think about which seasons you would like to enjoy your hobby in.
   
8. Take up woodworking. Look through the Internet at various woodworking hobbies. Things such as toys, desk top items, furniture, games etc. are all ideas to make out of wood. If you have a work room in a garage, perhaps you would like to buy a project kit like a miniature doll house and build and decorate it all yourself. You might even enjoy making the miniature furniture yourself instead of buying it ready-made.
   
9. Consider miniatures. Miniature trains, racing cars, toy soldiers, gaming pieces etc. are an intriguing hobby that will include painting, construction work, craft and more. Making miniatures suits someone with an eye for detail and a lot of patience. This hobby can be as elaborate or as simple as you like; many of the best miniatures are made from things you find around the house and use your imagination to turn into something else.
   
10. Wait until you have researched the initial cost, and the long term expense and time needed before jumping into a hobby. Make sure you can afford it, and have the time to spare. As you begin, start small. For instance, you can do a lot of astronomy with the naked eye. If you have learned and continued with that, the next step should be purchasing a good set of binoculars. Invest in the fancy telescope only when you are sure you are committed.
    
11. Search the Internet or visit a local library or community center for more information. Look for information related to the hobby you are interested in. Find out if you would have to buy supplies via Internet, or if you have suppliers that live in your area. If there is something on the Internet that you want and you don't have a credit card, ask a parent or a friend to help you. Sometimes even a store owner is the person to ask, as they can order the supplies in for you using their own contacts.
    
12. Get started on your hobby! Once you have decided which hobby best suits you in every way and you have bought or borrowed the equipment, clothing, tools and anything else you need, it is time to get it happening. Expect to start slowly at first, while learning, so have patience. You might even find a club to join and meet others with similar interests. This is a great way to make friends and to exchange ideas.
    
13. Display your hobby or compete. Once you become very good at your chosen hobby, you might like to enter competitions to test your skills or to display your work. Think of sports competitions, fairs or shows for craft and artwork, club meetings for show-and-tell or perhaps even a school or college event is a good chance to show off your skills.
    

Tips

• Before you get involved starting your hobby, find a place to work on it, and to store it if it is done indoors. Even outdoors hobbies that need equipment will require storage space - hockey sticks, soccer balls, boots, bicycles, tents etc. all have to go somewhere when you're not using them!
  
• Make sure you hobby will not take away the time you need to spend with your family and friends. Involve them if you can and ask them to come and watch you play sport or to see your work on display.If you don't have much money at the start of your hobby, begin very small or find a hobby that doesn't cost anything. Borrow things from other people - often older people have tried a hobby and no longer care for it and they can give the items to you. Another way to make money is to sell the items that you have created in your hobby. This will work for hobbies such as craft, artwork and woodwork. It will have to be good quality though, so make sure you're good at it first.
  

Warnings

• Do not start a hobby that would be expensive to start and maintain if you have to use money budgeted for family expenses or a college fund for you or your children.
  
• Always get the best instructions on how to make things or do them. If it is sport, be very careful to warm up properly and do not attempt to do anything difficult unless you have had proper training. If it is making something, read the instructions carefully and be patient. If you are handling anything dangerous, either seek assistance from someone else like a parent, colleague or professional or follow the instructions exactly.
  
• Gambling is not a hobby, and it could become an obsession and cost you dearly in the long run.
  
• Don't get too hooked on the hobby or you might go broke and lose relationships with the ones you love.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Cash in on Your Hobbies
  
• How to Paint Miniatures
  
• How to Start a Fountain Pen Collection
  
• How to Collect Business Cards
  
• How to Be a Good Ventriloquist
  
• How to Fix a Coin Toss
  
• How to Knit a Scarf
  
• How to Have Willpower
  
• How to Build a Large Barbie House out of a Cabinet
  
• How to Collect Breyer Model Horses
  
• How to Overcome Boredom
  

Sources and Citations

• http://www.scrapbookingdirections.com
  
• http://www.michaels.com/art/online/home
  
• http://www.craftsfaironline.com/Supplies.html
  
• http://scrapbooking.com/
  
• http://www.stamplink.com/
  
• http://about.com/hobbies/
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Find a Hobby. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.