"I see people coming with big idealist visions of becoming a new leader who will create a better world, they enjoy the goal but not the process. But the reality of it is that the work of improving things is in the little achievements of the day and that's what you need to enjoy to stay in that field.
Screen grab from Before Sunset (2004)
I see people who do the real work and what's really sad about it is that, the people who are most giving, hardworking and capable of making this world better usually don't have the ega and ambition to be a leader they don't see any interest in superficial rewards, they don't care if their name ever appears in the press. They actually enjoy the process of helping others, they in the moment."
-Before Sunset
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Here is step by step process to add Facebook comment box to your blog.
Internet has become a new necessity these days. But not all of us have this facility. Today nearly 3 billion people out of a 7 billion are connected to internet via different sources. Starting from 1993, the number of global internet users has increased exponentially, as of 1995 only 1% of worlds population were connected to internet and now its more than 40% of worlds population.
In 2005 the first billion was reached and second billion in 2010, and estimations have revealved we have reached another billion, totalling a 3 billion internet users.
Global Internet Users 2022
Image Credits: InternetLiveStats.com
Among regions Asia has largest share of internet users, Americas on second and Europe on third. While Oceania manged to constituted a share of 25 million users that roughly 0.9% of total users around the world.
Image Credits: InternetLiveStats.com
China being most populous country in the world leads in number of internet users with 641 million users, United states on second with 279 million and India on third place with 243 million users. But countries like Qatar, Bahrain, Iceland and Norway tops the for having 95% of their population connected to internet.
Japan's magnetic levitated trains set a world record of travelling at a speed of 600kph (373mph) on Tuesday in a test run near Mount Fuji. As reported by thegaurdain, the seven-car maglev – short for “magnetic levitation” – train, hit a top speed of 603km/h and managed nearly 11 seconds over 600km/h, Central Japan Railway said. The new record came less than a week after the company clocked 590km/h, by breaking its own 2003 record of 581km/h.
The maglev hovers 10cm (four inches) above the tracks and is propelled by electrically charged magnets. JR Central wants to have a train in service in 2027 plying the 286km between Tokyo and the central city of Nagoya. The service, which would run at a top speed of 500km/h, is expected to connect the two cities in only 40 minutes, less than half the present journey time in the shinkansen bullet trains. By 2045 maglev trains are expected to link Tokyo and Osaka in just one hour and seven minutes, slashing the journey time in half. However, construction costs for the dedicated lines are astronomical – estimated at nearly $100bn for just the stretch to Nagoya, with more than 80% of the route expected to go through costly tunnels.
Japan wants to sell its shinkansen bullet and magnetic train systems overseas. The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is acting as a travelling salesman in chief in his bid to revive the Japanese economy, partly through infrastructure exports. He is due in the United States this weekend, where he will push the technology for a high-speed rail link between New York and Washington. The article originally appeared at Hothcpotch Post. It has been reproduced after taking permissions from Hotchpotch Post.
Nanotube-based batteries Current lithium-ion battery technology will reach its limit soon – there is only so much that can be achieved through tweaking the battery chemistry of a lithium-ion system – but a change in the way the electrode is made, using nanotechnology, could breath new life into lithium. By making the electrodes out of nanotubes researchers have dramatically increased the rate of recharging the batteries, reaching a 70% charge in just two minutes.
Some researchers have used both silicon in place of graphite for the new electrodes. Others, including a team from the Nanyang Technology University in Singapore have patented the use of titanium dioxide nanotubes, which has been licensed for commercial development and could be available within two years. Pros: fast charging, longer recharge life (ie the number of times it can be recharged) Cons: similar energy density to current batteries means similar battery life Sulphur-based batteries Research focused on squeezing longer battery life out of the same-sized batteries has experimented with different battery chemistries. One promising candidate is the sulphur-based battery. Lithium-sulphur batteries promise up to five times the amount of energy per gram as current lithium-ion technology. Once commercially available lithium-sulphur batteries are more likely to have an energy density closer to twice that of current batteries, but that would enable twice the battery life for devices and cars. The technology has been in development for over 20 years, and at least one company is aiming to have lithium-sulphur batteries powering electric cars by 2016, but batteries designed for portable devices such as smartphones are likely to be many years away. Pros: at least twice the battery life Cons: low recharge life, volatile chemistry, similar recharge times Metal-air batteries Metal air batteries replace the cathode, which is typically graphite in traditional lithium-ion cells, with oxygen in the air. This saves weight and provides a cathode that can simply be replaced with fresh air that is essentially free. Saving weight means a higher energy density, which some researchers have claimed to be similar to petrol in these batteries, meaning longer life, making it ideal for electric cars. Tesla has a patented system for integrating metal air batteries into its electric cars, while an electric Citroen C1 was driven 1,800km on a single charge using the technology. But degradation issues, problems recharging them and poor recharge life cycles have hampered commercialisation of the technology. Pros: very high energy density means fantastic battery life Cons: difficult to recharge, poor recharging life Solid-state batteries Solid-state batteries remove the liquid electrolyte required by most other batteries to transfer ions between electrodes and generate electricity. In doing so they have a much higher energy density. Battery firm Sakti3, which recently saw investment and a commercial partnership with British vacuum firm Dyson, claims its batteries could store up to twice the energy and therefore battery life as current lithium-ion batteries. Pros: twice the battery life, safer, could be made into different shapes and sizes, more environmentally friendly Cons: not many Supercapacitors Capacitors are used in all kinds of technology, but commonly in devices that need a lot of electricity in a very short space of time, like a flash or a sub-woofer in a car. They charge in seconds but release all that charge in one go. A supercapacitor works in a similar manner, charging in seconds but releasing its energy more slowly, like a battery. Current research using graphene promises supercapacitors that charge in about 16 seconds and can be recharged over 10,000 times. But even the best supercapacitors can only store energy in densities about the same as current lithium-ion batteries. Pros: almost instant charging, very long recharge life, potential for use as a secondary electricity storage device in electric cars Cons: low energy density, therefore lower battery life New battery technology is coming and could be in electric vehicles before the end of the decade, but it could be several years before cells fit for use in portable electronics make our smartphones last more than a day. Read about Aluminum batteries here. The article originally appeared at Hothcpotch Post. It has been reproduced after taking permissions from Hotchpotch Post.
A research to produce efficient aluminum batteries carried out by students at Stanford claims to produce batteries that can be charged in a minute and can power a smartphone.
The battery is not the first of its kind to use aluminum ions to power the battery. Earlier we have lithium, lithium polymer and nickel-cadmium batteries. The battery has seen to have far better life then previous aluminum batteries.
Stanford’s new battery can be recharged around 7,500 times. Typical lithium-ion batteries used in everything from smartphones and laptops to electric cars last around 1,000 recharge cycles.
The new aluminium-ion batteries are far from being available for commercial use in electronics, as they produce just half the voltage of lithium-ion batteries.
“I see this as a new battery in its early days. It’s quite exciting,” said Ming Gong, one of the authors of the study published in Nature. “Improving the cathode material could eventually increase the voltage and energy density. Otherwise, our battery has everything else you’d dream that a battery should have: inexpensive electrodes, good safety, high-speed charging, flexibility and long cycle life.”
The new aluminium battery technology is not the only one vying to solve our battery life crunch – the primary issue holding back current electronic devices.
Every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on
YouTube and generate billions of views
The number of hours people are watching on YouTube each month
is up 50% year over year
300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
~60% of a creator’s views comes from outside their home
country
YouTube is localized in 75 countries and available in 61
languages
Half of YouTube views are on mobile devices
Mobile revenue on YouTube is up over 100% y/y
Advertising
More than a million advertisers are using Google ad
platforms, the majority of which are small businesses
85% of our TrueView in-stream ads are skippable
Google Preferred has been a huge success - we’ve secured
upfront commitments from many of the top agencies including OMG, Digitas, IPG,
Carat and SMG, and sold out the majority of our product offering
Top YouTube creators were found to be more popular than
mainstream celebrities among U.S. teenagers (Variety)
Want to know more about Youtube stats, check this article. The article originally appeared at Hothcpotch Post. It has been reproduced after taking permissions from Hotchpotch Post.
Internet speeds are not the same around the world. It is something in which west lags a lot. Asian countries like South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan have much better internet speeds than US, UK or other developed western countries.
The following infographic is created by Reddit user DMan9797,
that compares internet speeds of different countries.
The data comes from Speedtest.net, a website that lets users
test their own internet connections. It indicates that the fastest internet in
the world is in Hong Kong, with an average of almost 80 million bits per second
(Mbps). Other high-speed countries include Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Romania,
the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The United States clocks in at number 30,
with average speeds of 24 Mbps.
It's important to note that these figures are based on a
self-selected sample: users visiting the Speedtest.net website to test their own
broadband speeds. It seems likely that users with fast connections would be
most likely to try it. So these data likely overstate average broadband speeds
somewhat — other measures, for example, peg the average US broadband speed at
more like 12 Mbps than 24.
Still, the map gives a pretty good sense of which countries
enjoy fast internet access (mostly in Northern Europe and parts of Eastern
Asia) and which ones are relegated to the slow lane (much of the developing
world).
Here is another infographic that compares internet speeds and their costs around the world, as of Feb 2011.
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
Source: Internet World Stats Broadband Penetration
Below is infographic that compares internet speeds and their costs around the world in different countries, as of September 2010.. Japan tops the list with highest speed of 81mbps and $0.4 per megabyte of internet.
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
This infographic created by cira.ca that shows the internet costs and speeds around the world in the OECD Broadband Portal Rankings.
Pi (π) The number π is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159(The first 100 decimal digits are 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679).
Pi Day Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant Ï€ (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (or 3/14 in the U.S. month/day date format), since 3, 1, and 4 are the three most significant digits of Ï€ in the decimal form. In 2009, the United States House of Representatives supported the designation of Pi Day. Pi Approximation Day is observed on July 22 (or 22/7 in the day/month date format), since the fraction 22⁄7 is a common approximation of Ï€, which is accurate to two decimal places and dates from Archimedes
History The earliest known official or large-scale celebration of Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where Shaw worked as a physicist, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies. The Exploratorium continues to hold Pi Day celebrations. On March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution (HRES 224), recognizing March 14, 2009, as National Pi Day. For Pi Day 2010, Google presented a Google Doodle celebrating the holiday, with the word Google laid over images of circles and pi symbols. The entire month of March 2014 (3/14) was observed by some (University of Maryland Alumnus) as "Pi Month". In the year 2015, Pi Day will have special significance on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m. and p.m., with the date and time representing the first 10 digits of π. That same second will also contain a precise instant corresponding to all of the digits of π. However, some argue that 9:26:54 a.m. and p.m. on 3/14/15 are more accurate because of the 11th digit of π being 5, which would cause the 10th digit to round up to 4.
Observance Pi Day has been observed in many ways, from eating pie to discussing the significance of the number π. Some schools hold competitions as to which student can recall Pi to the highest number of decimal places.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has often mailed its application decision letters to prospective students for delivery on Pi Day. Starting in 2012, MIT has announced it will post those decisions (privately) online on Pi Day at exactly 6:28 pm, which they have called "Tau Time", to honor the rival numbers Pi and Tau equally.
The town of Princeton, New Jersey, hosts numerous events in a combined celebration of Pi Day and Albert Einstein's birthday, which is also March 14. Einstein lived in Princeton for more than twenty years while working at the Institute for Advanced Study. In addition to pie eating and recitation contests, there is an annual Einstein look-alike contest. Source Wikipedia. The article originally appeared at Hothcpotch Post. It has been reproduced after taking permissions from Hotchpotch Post.
When we talk about global warming at the poles, the Arctic tends to get more press than the Antarctic, because it's happening faster there
than anywhere else on Earth. But Antarctica is still a juggernaut. Antarctica is approximated to contain 90% of world's ice and 70% of world's fresh water reserves. The amount of ice is so enormous that if a fraction of it gets melted into the water, the oceans can rise in feet. Current situation of global warming has lead to collapse of ice sheets in Antarctica, and this process is termed as irreversible by scientists, and believed that it may raise global sea level as high as 10 feet.
Greenland is also on its way to melting its reserves of ice. According to scientist the rate at which it is melting is 60 years ahead of what has been previously called as worst case.
After much controversies United Nations called the largest political summit on global climatic changes in 2014. In contrary to that people in United states are still debating on this issue of climate change. Even one of the senator termed global warming as a hoax. Still people are denying the current increase in global temperatures. According to Joe Bast, President Heartland Institute, climate change is not man made and there is no data that proves global warming is a crisis. But some politician are serious about the issue as Vice President Joe Biden, said "Denying climate change is like denying gravity", in his interview by VICE documentary series on HBO.
Getting to the science of this glacial melting in Antarctic continent, Dr. Eric Rignot says its because of stronger winds circulating around Antarctic continent that drives warmer water towards Antarctic ice. These warmer currents of water melts icebergs from below, thus collapsing the ice sheets. This is termed irreversible contrary to reversible that is the ice melting in summer and freezing again in winters.
In 2013 a iceberg of size equal to Singapore (length ~21miles) broke off the Pine Island Glacier in the western Antarctica. While other parts in western Antarctica are melting at higher rates was confirmed by British Glaciologist in 2014, including Pine Island Galcier, Thwaities Glacier, Haynes Glacier, Pope Glacier, Smith Glacier and Kohler Glacier in western Antarctica bordering with Amundsen Sea.
The solution that is proposed to deal with this situation by scientists and climatologist is to cut off carbon dioxide emissions. Dr. Andrew Clark, an Emeritus fellow, with experience of over 40 years of researching and 215 scholarly papers says about the climatic change as "To slow the pace of damage, maybe in very long term, but for generations to come there is red button and its going to continue."
The result of this melting is inundation of coastal areas. Bangladesh is at top of the list of countries that will face such situation, because of its low lying flat land. According to Dr. Atiq Rehman an environmentalist (who is a co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize for for his work on climate change), for 1meter rise in global sea-level, Bangladesh's 17% land is to be inundated for this rise in sea level. A total of 300million people are to suffer by end of this century due global sea-level rise.
Thus its time to make our contribution towards the saving of the environment. Everyone has to share his own part in saving the humanity from this crisis. Either it's decreasing the carbon based fuels or turning towards green energy solutions. Also we need to make up for the damages we had done in last decades.
Instrument 1 is a Kickstarter project by Artiphon. Artiphon is a Nashville base start-up by Mike
Butera and Jacob Gordon. Instrument 1 is a multi-instrument, Now whats a multi-instrument? A guitar is designed to be strummed; piano keys are pressed; drum
pads are tapped; violins are bowed. But what if a single instrument
could be played with any of these techniques? That's exactly what a multi-instrument is. According the creators of Instrument 1 their patented technology enables a new type of musical experience
focused on exploration and creativity rather than skill sets and signal
chains. It’s an entirely new approach to what a musical instrument can
do.
What Instrument is capable of?
Can play any instrument, style, and sound with a single device that connects directly to your smartphone, tablet, or computer.
INSTRUMENT 1
can be played as a guitar, violin, bass, piano, drum machine... it's any instrument
you want it to be.
Plug in and play 100’s of apps like GarageBand with universal musical gestures: strumming, tapping, bowing, sliding, and more.
Digital string-like interface works with any MIDI-compatible software.
The unique ergonomic design can be held in multiple positions, and is fully ambidextrous.
Design new instruments and custom tunings via the Artiphon companion app.
It's compact, portable, durable, self-powered, and simple.
How it is Played?
The INSTRUMENT 1 to adapt to the
way you want to play, and it scales in complexity based on your style
and skills.
If you want to play like a guitar, you can chord and strum in
familiar ways. In a piano preset, put it on your lap and the frets
become “keys” like a piano (with up to six stacked octaves at your
fingertips!). If you’re a drummer or a DJ, transform a whole fret into a
pressure-sensing pad like a drum machine. And if you want to play a
violin or pedal steel, slide your fingers along the strings to create
sweeping fretless melodies.
What if you aren't a Musician?
You've got this. Our goal is to create the most effortless
music-making experience at any skill level. Music isn’t about gear; it’s
about self-expression. Every aspect of the INSTRUMENT 1 can be
customized to behave the way you want it to. Tune it all to E-major if
you like, adjust the sensitivity, or forget strumming altogether and let
it auto-play the notes you press.
Effortlessly explore and create together.
The INSTRUMENT 1 grows with you as you explore new styles of playing.
You can increase complexity as you go, allowing for greater control
over every aspect of your performance with its feather-touch playing
surface. It's always in tune, and you'll never break a string!
Interfacing with Smartphones and PCs
Connect the INSTRUMENT 1 can be connected to hundreds of apps on mobile devices and
computers, and it can literally make any sound imaginable. No really,
we’re serious.
For instance, you can plug it into Apple’s
Garageband and start strumming. If you’re set to a guitar sound, it will
sound like a guitar. Then switch to piano, and start matching your
technique to new sounds. Or open a synth app like Moog’s Animoog and
explore sounds you’ve never heard before.
Because the INSTRUMENT 1 is fully MIDI-compatible, it works with
100's of MIDI apps and software like Ableton Live, ProTools, Logic, and
many more on your computer. The Artiphon INSTRUMENT 1 connects directly to iPhones, iPads, Macs, and PCs via Lightning or USB.
It
works with any music creation software that uses the MIDI standard,
which is the universal language of digital music. MIDI has been around
for over 30 years, and lets electronic instruments tell each other what
notes to play and how they should sound. But don’t worry: we’ve made it
easier than ever to get started making digital music; no acronyms
required.
Nashville Edition with hardwood back
Oh, and did we mention it has built-in speakers? This means no more
worrying about external speakers when you play with your favorite apps.
It's loud enough to play and sing along with friends, and you can even
use it as an external speaker when you're not making the music. Of
course, there’s a headphone output if you want to keep it quiet until
you drop the album.
Artiphon App
Artiphon is creating a companion app so you can customize your
INSTRUMENT 1. Basically, you can easily create new instrument presets
and play them immediately. Want to strum a piano? Bow a banjo? Pluck a
drum? Done.
Create and play new instruments in seconds.
It’s a great way to get inspired to play new styles of music. Whether
you’re a songwriter, electronic music producer, or just playing your
first notes, Artiphon lets you try out many different styles and sounds.
Strings that do not break
One of the revolutionary things about the Artiphon INSTRUMENT 1 is
its string-like playability on a purely digital device. Use hammer-ons
and pull-offs on on the fingerboard, strum on the bridge, and the notes
ring out based on the velocity of your touch.
Artiphon’s patented technology also enables entirely new musical
techniques, letting you play in ways that no stringed instrument ever
could:
1) Turn the frets on and off. This is the first digital string-like
instrument to support fretless playability, which is revolutionary for
violinists, bassists, and anyone interested in sliding between notes.
2) Use vibrato to naturally add real nuance to your performance.
3)
The entire interface is continuously pressure-sensitive, allowing for
unprecedented control over software instruments via polyphonic
aftertouch.
4) Instantly change to any tuning (guitar, bass,
banjo, dobro, uke, violin... koto anyone?), with capo buttons at your
fingertips.
5) Assign a different instrument to each string. For example, play a bass on the bottom and a guitar on the top.
6) Pressure-sensitive effect control, tap and auto-strum modes, multiple notes per string...
Features
Back the project on KickStarter
Funding for this project is live on Kickstarter. You can back this project on Kickstarter, click on the link to follow to Kickstarter profle.
Some of the greatest scientists of all time were females who
have made important discoveries in a variety of fields in science.
Several of their contributions throughout history have even surpassed
those of their male counterparts. Our list of the most famous female
scientists below are organized in order of popularity so you can read
about the advancements that they made.
Marie Curie (1867-1934) Famous For:Work on radioactivity
Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only woman
to win this award in two categories: Physics and Chemistry. She
discovered polonium and radium and her work helped with the creation of
X-rays.
Jane Goodall (1934) Famous For:Primate studies
Jane Goodall is known world-wide for her groundbreaking studies on
primates. She is considered the top expert on chimpanzeees in the world
and is perhaps best known for her 45 year study on the social lives of
these animals in Tanzania.
Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909-2012) Famous For:Nerve growth studies
Rita Levi-Montalcini was a neurologist who won the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine in 1986 for her findings in nerve growth factor
(NGF). She was the first Nobel laureate to live past her 100th birthday.
Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) Famous For:Research on RNA, DNA, graphite, coal and viruses
Rosalind Franklin was a X-ray crystallographer and biophysicist whose
work greatly contributed to the comprehension of molecular structures.
Her most notable work revolved around X-ray diffraction images of DNA.
Her work in this resulted in the finding of the DNA double helix.
Lise Meitner (1878-1968) Famous For:Work on radioactivity and nuclear physics
Lise Meitner was a key member of a group that discovered nuclear
fission. One of her colleagues, Otto Hahn, was given the Noble Prize for
this work and Meitner’s exclusion from the award is considered to be a
huge error by the Nobel committee.
Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) Famous For:Work in nuclear physics
Shirley Ann Jackson was the first African American woman to attain a
doctorate degree at MIT in nuclear physics. She has received many awards
for her research and work as well as several honorary doctorate
degrees.
Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) Famous For:Findings in astronomy
Maria Mitchell was the very first American female to become a
professional astronomer. She discovered a comet in 1847 that was aptly
named “Miss Mitchell’s Comet.”
Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956) Famous For:Study of radiation
Daughter of famed Marie Curie, Irene Joliot Curie won the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry in 1935 for the finding of artificial radioactivity. She,
along with her husband Frederic, also turned boron into radioactive
nitrogen as well as aluminim into phosphorus and magnesium into silicon.
Elizabeth Blackburn (1948) Famous For:Work with telomere
Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in
2009 for her discovery of telomerase which is the enzyme which
replenishes telomere. Telomere is part of the end of a chromosome which
protects them.
Melissa Franklin (1957) Famous For:Particle physics studies
Melissa Franklin currently holds a position as an experimental particle
physicists at Harvard University where she is Department Chair. She
headed a team at the Fermi National Acceleration Lab in Chicago where
they found the first signs that top quarks exist. Franklin was also the
first woman to get tenure at the Harvard Physics department.
Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) Famous For:Discovering comets
Caroline Herschel worked closely together with her brother Sir William
Herschel throughout their careers as astronomers. Caroline discovered
several comets, one of which, the 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, is named after
her. She was the first woman scientist to be recognized by the United
Kingdom.
Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994) Famous For:Protein crystallography
Dorothy Hodgkin is known for her advancement of X-ray crystallography
techniques which are now implemented to figure out the three dimensional
structures of biomolecules. She was given the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
for her findings on the makeup of vitamin B12.
Gertrude B. Elion (1918-1999) Famous For:Development of new drugs
Gertrude B. Elion was a joint-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine in 1988 “for discoveries of important principles for drug
treatment.” One of her most notable creations was the development of the
AIDS drug AZT.
Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) Famous For:Work with experimental physics and radioactivity
Chien-Shiung Wu is known for her work on the Manhattan Project and her
help with finding the process for separating uranium into U-238 and
U-235. She has several nicknames including the “Chinese Marie Curie” and
the “First Lady of Physics.”
