Tendulkar Vs Ganguly

In his 135-Test career, that began when he was 16 years old, Sachin Tendulkar has scored more than 10,000 runs and hit more centuries than any other player.
In one day cricket, where he averages 44 at a strike rate of 85, he has hit 159 sixes, more than any other player.
Ganguly is the more human of India's batting dynamic duos. Although he still averages more than 40 in both forms of the game and has hit 178 sixes and 1036 fours in one day internationals.They may be two very different characters, but together at the top of India's one day innings they formed an indomitable partnership.As an opener both men scored their three highest ODI scores. As openers they both average more than 40 (Tendulkar 48.28 and Ganguly 42.25).Who do you think is the buggest hitter?

source: sportsasylum.com

New Planet discovered - with Earth like temperatures

Scientists have discovered a new planet outside the Solar system. For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for ''life in the universe.''

The planet is of optimum size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles (193 trillion km) away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a ''red dwarf,'' is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.

Though European astronomers haven't directly seen the planet, orbiting a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, but measurements of the star suggest that a planet not much larger than the Earth is pulling on it, the researchers say in a letter to the editor of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

image courtesy: AP

It is estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius (32 to 104 degrees F), and water would thus be liquid.

Its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky, like our Earth, or covered with oceans.

awwesome road signs

source 2spare.com

Weirdest Phobias

Dextrophobia: Fear of objects at the right side of the body
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: Fear of long words
Paraskavedekatriaphobia: Fear of Friday the 13th
Melophobia: Fear of music
Clinophobia: Fear of going to bed
Batophobia: Fear of being close to high buildings
Arachibutyrophobia: Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth
Ablutophobia: Fear of washing or bathing
Stasibasiphobia: Fear of walking
And most of suffer from this one -
Scolionophobia: Fear of school

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllanty..

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (yes! thats the correct spelling) is a small village on the island of Anglesey in Wales. It is best known for having the longest officially recognised place name in the United Kingdom and one of the longest in the world.

The village's long name was contrived in the 1860s for the prestige of having the longest name of a railway station in Great Britain, and could not be considered an authentic word in the Welsh language.

A translation into English would yield "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave".
source: 2spare.com

Simple Solutions

When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to the writing surface).

To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.

And what did the Russians do…??

They used a pencil.

Source: School Archives

UNDERARM BOWLING INCIDENT

An infamous incident involving an underarm delivery occurred on February 1, 1981 when Australia was playing New Zealand in a One-Day International, the third of five cricket matches in the final of the Benson & Hedges World Series Cup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.New Zealand needed six runs to tie the match from the final ball, with eight wickets down. The Australian captain (Greg Chappell) ordered the bowler (his brother, Trevor Chappell) to bowl underarm: rolling the ball along the ground to avoid the possibility that the No. 10 New Zealand batsman (Brian McKechnie) would score a six from the last ball to tie the match.Australia won the game, but the New Zealand batsmen marched off in disgust, and since that day the underarm bowling incident has been a source of discussion, both heated and jocular, between Australians and New Zealanders.It was described as "the most disgusting incident I can recall in the history of cricket" by the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, Rob Muldoon, who also observed that "It was an act of cowardice and I consider it appropriate that the Australian team were wearing yellow". Even the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, called the act "contrary to the traditions of the game".Brian McKechnie bears no ill will over the incident[2] but both Chappell brothers have publicly stated their embarrassment over the incident and, over 25 years later, are still reluctant to discuss it.As a direct result of the incident, underarm bowling was banned in limited overs cricket by the International Cricket Council as not within the spirit of the game.

SOURCE:- www.wikipedia.com

Common sense!

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was thecase of the empty soapbox, which happened in one of Japan 's biggest cosmetics companies.
The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soapbox that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packagedboxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soapboxwent through the assembly line empty.

Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soapboxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a whoopee amount to do so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but instead came out with another solution.

He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line . He switched the fan on,and as each soapbox passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems. Always focus on solutions & not on problems!

source: school archives

Facts about Dabbawalas of Mumbai

1. A Dabbawala literally means a box-carrier.
2. Everyone who works within this system is treated as an equal.
3. The service is uninterrupted even on the days of extreme weather, such as Mumbai's characteristic monsoons.
4. Regardless of a dabbawala's function, everyone gets paid about two to four thousand rupees per month (around 25-50 British Pounds or 40-80 USD).
5. About 175,000 or 200,000 lunches get moved every day by an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 dabbawalas.
6. All with an extremely small nominal fee and with utmost punctuality.
7. According to a recent survey, there is only one mistake in every 6,000,000 deliveries.

source: wikipedia

Answers to Pressmart Quiz # 1

1. Which was the first movie in which Amitabh Bachchan acted?
SAAT HINDUSTANI
2. Who was the last Indian to win an Olympic medal?
RAJYAVARDHAN SINGH RATHORE
3. In which country would you find the painting 'Monalisa'?
FRANCE
4. One byte consists of 8 bits. What name is given to '4 bits'?
NIBBLE
5. What is the national game of Japan?
SUMO WRESTLING

The winner for this edition is Mr. Vinay Dora. Congratulations!

World's only underarm delivery!

Pressmart Quiz # 1

Pressmart presents, a new quiz series. All answers to me mailed to pressmartquiz@gmail.com
Answers will be put up on the blog within 3 days.

Here are the questions:

1. Which was the first movie in which Amitabh Bachchan acted?
2. Who was the last Indian to win an Olympic medal?
3. In which country would you find the painting 'Monalisa'?
4. One byte consists of 8 bits. What name is given to '4 bits'?
5. What is the national game of Japan?

All the best!

World's highest hotel begins on 53rd floor!

The Grand Hyatt Shanghai is located in the Pudong area, the financial hub of the city of Shanghai. The 555 room hotel occupies the top 36 floors of the 88-story Jin Mao Tower. The hotel at the moment is the highest hotel in the world. The hotel features a dramatic 29-story atrium. The hotel offers spectacular views of The Bund, a stretch of historical buildings restored to their former glory, along the famous Huang Pu river.

image source: sinohotel.com

THE FIRST EVER LAPTOPS!!!!

It is a little hard to determine what was the first portable or laptop computer, the first portable computers did not look like the book-sized and folding laptops that we are familiar with today, however, they were both portable and lapable, and lead to the development of notebook style laptops. I have outlined several potential firsts below and how each qualifies, many of the off-site links provide good photos of the computers that will let you see the progression in design. The First Laptop? Maybe Designed in 1979 by a Briton, William Moggridge, for Grid Systems Corporation, the Grid Compass was one fifth the weight of any model equivalent in performance and was used by NASA on the space shuttle program in the early 1980's. A 340K byte bubble memory lap-top computer with die-cast magnesium case and folding electroluminescent graphics display screen.Gavilan Computer As The First Laptop? Manny Fernandez had the idea for a well-designed laptop for executives who were starting to use computer. Fernandez, who started Gavilan Computer, promoted his machines as the first "laptop" computers in May 1983. Many historians consider the Gavilan as the first fully functional laptop computer.The First Laptop Computer - Osborne 1 The computer considered by most historians to be the first true portable computer was the Osborne 1. Adam Osborne, an ex-book publisher founded Osborne Computer and produced the Osborne 1 in 1981, a portable computer that weighed 24 pounds and cost $1795. The Osborne 1 came with a five-inch screen, modem port, two 5 1/4 floppy drives, a large collection of bundled software programs, and a battery pack. The short-lived computer company was never successful. And today we have a number of laptops, talk about the progress of technology.
source:about.com