WOULD AN HOURGLASS TRAFFIC LIGHT MAKE WAITING LESS BORING?????

Sand Glass is a concept traffic-light which gives visual feedback as to just how long you’re going to be stuck at a junction. Using the hourglass as a metaphor, Sand Glass lets its LED-pixels bleed through the lamp’s waist one by one, so you can see just when the lights will change.

It’s great, and if deployed would be diverting enough (for the first few weeks at least) to ease some of the boredom of waiting at the lights. I think the design is a little over-cautious, though, and could be simplified even further.

First, adding numbers seems redundant. Why bother with the whole hourglass schtick if you’re just going to put a countdown up there too? The flowing virtual-sand is plenty clear already, and allows for adjustment of the time remaining, something hard to do inconspicuously with numbers.

The Sand Glass could also remove the amber light altogether. The amber lamp is a throwback to times when both lights at a crossroads would be controlled by the same switch: flipping both lights simultaneously would be dangerous, so the amber light provided a buffer in both directions. With the clear visual timing-signals in the Sand Glass, amber could finally be retired.

I love this concept, especially as it could presumably be made for the same cost as any other LED traffic-light. It might even stop me jumping the lights on my bike.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT FOR EVERYONE..

• Sensible interactive design
• able to see how long to wait or be hurry for everyone, no more reading from numbers
• countdown number 3-2-1 appears while yellow light turns on, warns people to stop or be ready to go
• definitely makes waiting less boring

designer: Thanva Tivawong

So are you ready to replace the conventional stoplights with sand glass traffic lights???????? 

LIFE HACKS

TURN YOUR OLD SOCKS INTO MP3-PLAYER HOLDING ARMBAND

If you have tried exercising with your smartphone or MP3 player, you probably know how much a pain they can be bouncing around your pocket or clipped into your shorts. Clipping it on your arm really is the best way to go, and if you don't want to buy an armband, just cut the toe off an old sock and slide it up your arm. Then, fold the bottom half up to create a pocket for your device. It may not be quite as fancy as the store bought model, but it's hard to beat the low price of ₹0.

Why keyboard letters are not in alphabetical order??

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It is a very common question your friends can ask you anytime. When someone invented the typewriter, why didn't he put the A-Z keys in sequence? I believe it is certainly an obvious question for any computer/type writer noob. Infect when I started with my hands on computer keyboard, even I had this question. Lets find it out

Logic behind the reason

Initially in 1860s, the characters on the typewriters were arranged in alphabetical order. At that time a typewriter use to work using a set on the end of a metal bar which strikes the paper when its key was pressed. However, this procedure was not at all compatible to type faster. Still an operator had learned to type at speed by facing lot complications. Letters that placed close together on the keyboard became tangled with one another, forcing the typist to manually unstick the type bars. This also caused staining the document frequently and jams in typewriter machine. A business associate suggested using nice trick by splitting most commonly keys to speed up typing, so that they also don't get tangled very often. Rearrangement of keys introduced the word QWERTY, the most commonly used modern-day keyboard layout.

QWERTY keyboard layout

QWERTY is designed for English language. By all means the purpose was to rearrange the keys that were expected to be used in quick sequence were less expected to hold up with each other. The top row was planned to have all the letters for the word 'typewriter' hence a typist can easily type the most common words like 'typewriter' more quickly.
QWERTY was designed after spending a lot of time on research allowing one hand to move into position while the other hand strikes a key. Thousands of English words can be spelled using only the left hand and right hand separately. And therefore an unfortunate consequence of the layout goes to right-handed typists because more English words can be spelled using only the left hand. QWERTY layout is helpful for those who use their right hand primarily for the mouse leaving the left hand type.
Arrangement of keys under QWERTY layout may not sound completely sensible to many of us today as we are now many decades ahead to that time.

How Many Teens Actually Smoke, Drink, or Do Drugs?

How Many Teens Actually Smoke, Drink, or Do Drugs?
It’s natural to be curious about your peers—especially when it comes to things that we know can be dangerous, like alcohol and drug use. You’ve probably heard rumors of kids drinking beer at a party or may have a friend who smokes cigarettes.
You may wonder how many teens actually smoke, drink, or do drugs. It’s a question we hear frequently from teens. During NIDA’s 2011 Drug Facts Chat Day, students from the around the country asked NIDA scientists questions such as:

• “How many teens smoke every year?”
• “Has the number of people who abuse drugs increased or decreased in the past 5 years? And why?”
• “What percent of teens has tried drugs?”
• “How many kids are doing drugs?”

In December 2011, NIDA released the 2011 Monitoring the Future Study, and it seems that more teens are making better decisions when it comes to smoking and alcohol use, but not so much when it comes to using marijuana and abusing prescription drugs.
Here’s a glimpse at the most recent trends in teen drug and alcohol use.
Cigarette and Alcohol Use at Historic Low
Teen smoking has declined in all three grades included in the study—grades 8, 10, and 12. Still, almost 19 percent of 12th graders reported current (past-month) cigarette use.
This decline shows that more teens realize the harm smoking does to your body and are making the decision not to start. Also, teens’ attitudes about smoking have changed. They increasingly prefer to date nonsmokers and believe smoking to be a dirty habit.

Likewise, among nearly all grades, trends over the past 5 years showed significant decreases in alcohol use—including first-time use, occasional use, daily use, and binge drinking. As with smoking, this decline may be the result of more teens understanding the risk of drinking alcohol and disapproving of this behavior.
Marijuana Use Continues To Rise
Unlike cigarettes and alcohol, marijuana use is increasing. Among 12th graders, 36.4 percent reported using marijuana at least once in the past year, up from 31.5 percent 5 years ago. This accompanies a decrease in the number of 12th graders who perceive that smoking marijuana is harmful. For example, only 22.7 percent of high school seniors saw great risk in smoking marijuana occasionally, compared to 25.9 percent 5 years ago.
Of course, we know the risks: marijuana can affect memory, judgment, and perception, and it can harm a teen’s developing brain.
Prescription Drug Abuse Remains Steady
Prescription drug abuse hasn’t changed much since 2010. Abuse of the opioid painkiller Vicodin and the nonmedical use of Adderall and Ritalin, stimulants meant to treat ADHD, remained about the same as last year. Also, the abuse of the opioid painkiller OxyContin remained steady for the past 5 years across all 3 grades surveyed.
To drive this trend downward, NIDA recently launched PEERx, a prescription drug abuse awareness campaign that gives teens science-based information about the harmful effects of prescription drug abuse on the brain and body.
When teens understand the health risks of abusing drugs, they do it less. So, tell us, how would you convince your peers that marijuana use and prescription drug abuse are harmful?
These estimates come from the Monitoring the Future Study's national surveys of approximately 47,000 students in about 400 secondary schools each year. The survey was conducted in classrooms earlier this year. View all of the 2011 data.

HOW $ vs INR is DECIDED

Theorotically supply and demand fixes the value of dollar. In the market if dollars are more and rupees are less automaticaly dollar goes down.
But in practical since last five to six years Indian governament involves in setting dollar value. let us take an example of  January 18th of 2008, India has 285 billion dollars as forex. Means India has 285 billions of US dollars of foreign currency in current account, which it can use to import goods. As on today India is the 4th largest foreign currency holder in the world. Out of this 285 about 65% are US dollars.
Now if India wants to increase its rupee value it can bring all US dollar holdings in the market to exhange with other currencies. If so US dollar falls suddenly to may be 20 Rs. If dollar falls India can make more money with its exports. But in real India or any other country dont want to do this. Because if dollar falls down. India will get less money for its forex holdings of 285 billion dollars. In addition in future it cannot export any goods to US as US dollar is so cheap indians cannot sell goods so cheap for export. ( no one is intersted to sell their products for half rate) And call centres cannot pay salaries to their employers, so India has to stop call centres and this is loss of job and export. Like wise Indian softwear companies cannot export goods to US for so cheap rate. So the result will be India will go for slow down. Stops booming. People lose jobs. So India want to keep dollar value wel in position so that Indians can export goods to US. Now US dollar is falling with respect to euro.
But this manupulated things cannot last forever. One day reality comes to surface, Because now India is loosing money by fixing its Rs with dollar. Because oil price is going high indians has to buy raw materials in the world for more money and sell them for less. This does't work for long time.
Now US is going for recession because if its increased imports and decreased exports which created 9 trillion dollars of foreign debt. Along with US India will also enter in recession as Indian economy is now depending on US. Whole world is entering in recession. But for India its a short term recession but for US it may take decades to come up. On that time nobody knows who will be super power.

KNOW THE GIF

GIFs have flashed across many a webpage, flickered within millions of MySpace profiles and glittered among innumerable Tumblrs. You've spotted them in animated advertising, email signatures, web forums and social avatars. Indeed, if I had to repurpose the acronym for "GIF" it would be "Great Internet Fun."
In fact, "GIF" stands for "graphics interchange format," a mature name for an image format just coming of age in the digital space (the GIF turned 25 this year). Specifically, Steve Wilhite of Compuserve debuted the GIF in June 1987. The GIF improved on black and white image transfers with 256 colors, while still retaining a compressed format that slow modems could load easily. Using the Graphics Control Extension (GCE), the GIF achieved animation via timed delays.
However, in its infancy the GIF met controversy. Allegedly unbeknownst to Compuserve at the time, the compression technique was patented in 1985 by Unisys. The two companies engaged in a copyright disagreement that carried into 1994, whereupon Unisys announced it would allow commercial properties to license the format for a small fee. In response to the disagreement, many developers vowed to boycott the GIF, preferring the new PNG format (1996), a single-image, patent-free alternative to the GIF.
But the GIF would not be stymied. Early World Wide Web users adopted the GIF when designing their webpages — and for a variety of reasons. Some introduced these animated placeholders while constructing their web properties, in the form of blinking construction signs and spinning hard hats. Others preferred a flashy banner at the top of their pages — we remember flames, prowling dinosaurs and rolling eyeballs. (Reads kind of like a horror movie, don't it?)

These days, people are less concerned with grammar and more fascinated by the GIF itself. The file format has become a default brand of web humor, alongside impact-font memes and viral YouTube videos