Safe House Trailer

A must watch movie..
When a CIA-operated safe house is targeted by a group of bad guys, the facility's house-sitter is tasked with the dangerous job of moving the criminal.

Dream place !

Heaven on Earth !!

Where are you on the global pay scale?

If there were no rich and poor, and everyone had an equal share of the world's total pay packet, how much would they earn?

The total value of world income is closing in on $70 trillion (£43.9tn) per year, and there are seven billion people in the world, so the average income is heading towards $10,000 (£6,273) per person per year. Easy.
But not everyone has a job and some of those seven billion are children. So another question you could ask is: "What is the world's average wage?"
That is more tricky to answer, but a group of economists at the United Nations' International Labour Organization (ILO) has had a go, though they have never gone public with this information. Until now.
Let's consider the scale of the Herculean task the number crunchers at the ILO set themselves.
First, they work out the total wage bill for every country in the world. To do that they get the average salary from each office for national statistics, and multiply that amount by the number of earners in each country.

In this way, they are able to give more weight to countries which have more workers in them. The average salary in China has more influence on the world average than the average salary in New Zealand, where many fewer people live.

Once they have the total wage bill for each country, they add them all together and divide by the total number of earners in the world.
That gives you the answer - the world's average salary is $1,480 (£928) a month, which is just less than $18,000 (£11,291) a year.
But these dollars are not normal US dollars. The economists use specially adjusted exchange rates - the average salary is calculated in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) dollars. One PPP dollar is equal to $1 spent in the US.
Essentially, the PPP dollar takes into account the fact that it is cheaper to live in some countries than others. The idea is that we don't care how many actual dollars somebody is paid in, say, China, but we care about what sort of stuff those dollars can buy.

"If someone in China takes their salary of 1,500 yuan per month and they go to the bank, they will actually get $200," ILO economist Patrick Belser explains.

"But this is not what we use to compute this global average, because what is important here is what people are able to buy with these 1,500 yuan, and this is where we compare to the purchasing power of the US dollars and find that it is actually equivalent to around $400."
Another way of putting it is that the conversion to PPP dollars expresses how much it would cost you in the US to get the equivalent goods and services you can buy with your salary locally.
Let's put the world's average salary - in PPP dollars - of $1,480 a month, or almost $18,000 a year, in context:

• It is less than half the average salary of the UK and the United States, where average monthly earnings are just over $3,000 a month, or around $37,000 a year
• It is twice the average salary of Bulgaria, and the same as the average salary in Poland
• The country at the bottom of the average earnings league is Tajikistan, where the average wage is about $2,700 a year - while the country out on top is Luxembourg with average earnings of around $48,000 a year

You might think that $1,480 a month, or $18,000 a year, is quite high. It comes to $75 a day for a 20-day working month - but it's well known that more than a third of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. How can these two views of global incomes add up?
In truth, the economists at the ILO have had to rely on very patchy statistics. Data is missing for some countries - even a country as large as Nigeria, for example. And also, the economists at the ILO are only counting wage earners.
They exclude huge numbers of people who appear in the poverty statistics but not in the calculations for the average wage - pensioners, children and stay-at-home parents, for example, and even the self-employed.
The number of self-employed is huge. In developed countries about 90% of working people are paid employees, but that figure is lower in many developing countries. For example, in South Asia, where many people are self employed or independent farmers, just 25% of workers are salaried.
But calculating the world's average salary is still an exercise worth doing, according to Belser.

New traffic signals

Who works the longest hours?

Chill winds sweeping the world economy have left many people out of a job, and some of those still working have been asked to worker longer hours for the same pay. Recently the UK government urged the country to work harder, after slipping back into recession. So which countries put the most hours in?

A look at the average annual hours worked per person in selected countries puts South Korea top with a whopping 2,193 hours, followed by Chile on 2,068.
British workers clock up 1,647 hours and Germans 1,408 - putting them at the bottom of the table, above only the Netherlands.
Greek workers have had a bad press recently but, as we reported in February, they work longer hours than any other Europeans. Their average of 2,017 hours a year puts them third in the international ranking, based on figures compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
"Asian countries tend to work the longest [hours], they also have the highest proportion of workers that are working excessively long hours of more than 48 hours a week," says Jon Messenger, an ILO expert on working hours.
"Korea sticks out because it's a developed country that's working long hours," he says. "Normally it's developing countries like Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka - countries like this that are working long hours."
But working longer doesn't necessarily mean working better.
"Generally speaking, long working hours are associated with lower productivity per hour. Workers are working very long hours to achieve a minimum level of output or to achieve some minimum level of wages because frankly they're not very productive," Messenger says.

Tighter labour laws in developed countries, particularly in Europe, have also reduced working hours. The differences between the most developed nations are small but leave entitlement makes a difference.

Messenger says the average Briton works 150 fewer hours than an American.
"The difference is really driven by the fact that the US is the only developed country that has no legal or contractual or collective requirement to provide any minimum amount of annual leave," he says.
The UK, in contrast, is subject to the European working time directive, which requires at least four weeks of paid annual leave for every employee.
Some European countries have a higher statutory level of paid leave - 25 days in Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Sweden in 2010, according to the European Industrial Relations Observatory (Eiro). And some employers provide more paid leave than the statutory miniumum.
Paid public holidays, which come on top of that, averaged between nine and 10 in the European Union in 2010.
"The combined total of agreed annual leave and public holidays varied in the EU from 40 days in Germany and Denmark to 27 days in Romania - a difference of around 48% or 2.5 working weeks," Eiro said in a report published last year.
When comparing hours worked, however, there's one more thing which must be acknowledged.
Each country collects its own data, and their methods may be not always be perfectly comparable.

 

Identity check

Barcode everyone at birth !

 

“If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached - a barcode if you will; an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals.

It would be imprinted on everyone at birth. Point the scanner at someone and there it is.
Having such a unique barcode would have many advantages. In war soldiers could easily differentiate legitimate targets in a population from non combatants.
This could prevent mistakes in identity, mistakes that result in the deaths of innocent bystanders. Weapons systems would record the code of the use, identifying how fired which shot and leading to more accountability in the field.
Anonymity would be impossible as would mistaken identity making it easier to place responsibility accurately, not only in war but also in non-combat situations far from the war.

Facts and figures about Facebook

Facts and figures about Facebook

Facts and figures about Facebook, which priced its initial public offering:
- Facebook has more than 900 million active users. If the company were a country, it would be the third largest in the world after China (population: 1.34 billion) and India (population: 1.17 billion).
- Some 488 million people use Facebook on mobile devices. That is more than half of its members worldwide, and the reach is even bigger in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria and Japan, where mobile use is 70 to 90 percent.    (source: socialbakers.com).
- With 157 million members, the United States has the most Facebook users. Brazil recently jumped to second place with 47 million, followed by India with 45.8 million, Indonesia with 42.2 million and Mexico with 33.1 million.    (source: socialbakers.com)
- Facebook is the most popular social network in every country of the world, with the exceptions of China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam.   (source: comScore)
- In April, Facebook announced a billion-dollar deal to buy the startup behind wildly popular smartphone photo sharing application Instagram, its biggest acquisition to date. The US Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the deal.
- Facebook has minted four billionaires: Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin and Sean Parker. The 27-year-old
Zuckerberg’s net worth was estimated at $17.5 billion on the 2011 Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans.
Moskovitz had a net worth of $3.5 billion but pipped Zuckerberg for the title of world’s youngest billionaire, being eight days younger.
The Brazilian-born Saverin, who left Facebook early on after a falling-out with Zuckerberg, had a net worth of $2 billion. Parker, the Napster co-founder who briefly served as Facebook’s president, had a net worth of $2.1 billion.
- Chris Hughes, one of Facebook’s four co-founders, served as director of online organizing for Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign.
- Facebook says it had an average of 526 million daily active users in March 2012, an increase of 41 percent from a year ago. It had registered 125 billion “friend connections” as of March 31 and 3.2 billion “likes” and comments.
- More than 300 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day and more than 488 million active users access Facebook using mobile devices.
- “The Social Network,” the 2010 film about the origins of Facebook, won four Golden Globes, including for best picture and best director, but flopped at the Oscars, walking away with only awards for best adapted screenplay, original score and film editing.
- Facebook, which currently employs some 3,500 people, has announced plans to hire “thousands” more over the next year. Some studies suggest that Facebook-related firms and apps have created many more jobs and economic value.

Facebook sets richest tech IPO in motion

Facebook sets richest tech IPO in motion

 

 

 

 Facebook on Friday is to make the richest-ever share offering for a technology firm, raking in billions of dollars it could wield to dethrone Google as king of the Internet.

Facebook stock priced at $38 per share was to begin trading under the symbol “FB” on the Nasdaq, giving the world’s leading social network a dizzying value of $104 billion at its initial public offering (IPO) of stock.
Investors were keen to own pieces Facebook, which grew from a Harvard dormitory project in 2004 to an online community with more than 900 million denizens.
Facebook reportedly planned to go public hacker style with an all-night software bending bash to culminate with co-founder Mark Zuckerberg remotely ringing the Nasdaq opening bell.
Employees were to join in a “hackathon” to start late Thursday at Facebook’s offices in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park and continued until the IPO at which 421 million shares of common stock will be sold.
Facebook itself is selling 180 million and holders of previous shares are selling 241 million.
Facebook was on course to raise $16 billion with the IPO, behind only that of financial giant Visa in 2008, according to Renaissance Capital. The addition of a possible stock “over-allotment” could boost the total to some $18.4 billion.
At a market worth of $104 billion, Facebook would be among the most valuable US firms, ahead of sector giants like Amazon ($98 billion) and Cisco ($89 billion), and more than twice the value of Ford Motor Co. ($38 billion).
But it remains behind Google ($203 billion) and Apple ($495 billion).
Under the share plan, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg will hold 55.8 percent of the voting power, and some 18.4 percent of the value of Facebook. The 28-year-old controls the firm through a dual class stock structure.
Wall Street and investors around the globe have been girding for a Facebook IPO frenzy.
In the past few days, Facebook boosted the estimated price for the shares, and added to the number of shares being offered from insiders.
London bookmakers anticipated a stampede. At the betting firm Spreadex, clients have been speculating that shares could rise above $56 after their first day.
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter believed that despite the large number of shares being offered, Facebook stock price will climb quickly in trading.
“I would guess it trades a lot higher, and settles in the mid-40s (dollars),” Pachter told AFP.
Spreadex noted that among other tech IPOs, LinkedIn rose 109 percent the first day while Groupon surged 31 percent. Social game maker Zynga lost ground on its first day.
But Spreadex spokesman Andy MacKenzie said that “we have had some customers holding back based on their belief that Facebook shares may well fall in value after the furor over the initial launch has died down.”Lou Kerner, founder of The Social Internet Fund, said he expects a strong response.
“US institutional demand has been good, the retail and global demand has been overwhelming,” he said.
London-based Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers said Facebook may have a hard time living up to lofty expectations but pointed out that it is “a relatively developed company which can display ‘real’ income and profit.” There are extremely high expectations for the company’s prospects and perhaps on that basis it deserves the punchy valuation it has been given, the brokerage said in a note to clients.
But the brokers said Facebook faces challenges including how to make money from the growing base of mobile users.
The IPO’s net proceeds to the company were estimated at $6.4 billion. The rest of the cash goes to Facebook insiders and others who made early investments in the social network, and to cover the IPO costs.
The Wall Street Journal said 57 percent of shares will be from insiders, which is an unusually high percentage. Under Wall Street rules, investors have to wait six months to sell any shares not offered at the IPO.
Some analysts predicted Facebook’s stock price will jump quickly to $44 a share but the long-term outlook is less clear.
At the heart of the debate about the wisdom of owning a piece of Facebook is how much revenue it takes in.
Revenue vaulted to $1.06 billion in the quarter which ended March 31 — an improvement year-over-year, but down about six percent from the previous quarter.
According to Experian Hitwise, Facebook.com received nine percent of all US Internet visits in April 2012. It had 1.6 billion visits a week and averaged more than 229 million US visits a day for the year-to-date.

 

Weapons of Mass Distraction..

Massive chocolate sculpture breaks Guinness World Record

 

 

California chocolatiers have broken a Guinness World Record for building the world's largest chocolate sculpture. The sculpture, crafted by employees of Qzina Specialty Foods in Irvine, California, models an ancient Mayan temple and weighs 18,239 pounds, surpassing the previous record set in Italy in 2010 by more than 7,500 pounds.
“Breaking a Guinness World Record for building the largest chocolate sculpture will be Qzina’s greatest masterpiece yet,” said Richard Foley, founder and CEO of Qzina. “We studied Mayan pyramids at great lengths to create an exact replica of the Temple of Kukulkan at Chichen Itza to honor the original chocolatiers."
Built proportionally to the ancient temple’s true size, the solid chocolate pyramid is six feet tall and its base measures 10 feet by 10 feet – exactly one-thirtieth the size. The sculpture’s base alone weighs more than 3,000 pounds.
The chocolate pyramid will be on display at Qzina Institute of Chocolate & Pastry in California, beginning June 4, 2012. The company plans to destroy the sculpture on December 21, 2012, when the Mayan calendar comes to an end. The method for destruction is yet to be determined.

Courtesy: FN

 

IPL Corruption

India cricket board suspends five 'corrupt' IPL players

 

Indian cricket officials have suspended five players pending an inquiry into corruption allegations against them.

The move came after a sting by undercover TV reporters purported to show the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricketers agreeing to bowl no-balls and spot-fix matches.
The cricketers are also heard alleging that team owners often paid them large sums of money illegally.
One of the players has said the allegations against him are false.
He said he plans to sue the India TV channel, which broadcast the footage on Monday night.
The scandal is the latest to affect cricket. Last year three top Pakistani players were found guilty of involvement in a betting scam.
The decision to suspend the five Indian players - who are all uncapped and play for a variety of teams - was taken after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) saw footage from the India TV "sting" operation.
"We have no tolerance towards any form of corruption," BCCI chief N Srinivasan said.
"We will ensure that the integrity of the game is protected. BCCI believes in the integrity of the game."
Former ICC anti-corruption chief Ravi Sawani will lead the inquiry into "the involvement of players in illegal activities or activities against the interests of the BCCI and the game", a statement said.
The fifth season of the IPL, which is considered to be the world's showcase for Twenty20 cricket, is currently under way in India.
Top Indian and international players take part, contributing to what is the world's richest cricket tournament.
But these allegations are the most serious to hit the popular tournament after IPL founder Lalit Modi was removed from all involvement in Indian cricket amid allegations of corruption and nepotism in 2010. He denied all allegations of wrongdoing.
Now will the ICC take any action as it took for Trio (Asif, Salman and Amir) ??

 

Can u compete under pressure ?

Take this test designed by team of scientists at BBC.

https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/compete/

Its bit long, and you have to go through detailed 18 levels.
But Surely its worth going through..

Amazing Library

Worlds most complex interchange

Worlds most complex interchange, California, United States.

Sleep more stay Slim !

Sleeping more than 8 hours a night may help you stay slim.

 

 

A new study has found that sleeping more than nine hours a night appears to suppress genetic factors that lead to weight gain.
In contrast, getting too little sleep seems to have the opposite effect.
Previous research has shown an association between poor sleep and obesity, but the new findings reveal a complex interaction between sleep and genetic factors linked to body weight.
Scientists made the discovery after studying 1088 pairs of identical and non-identical twins.
Twin studies help researchers unravel genetic and environmental influences. Only identical twins share the same genes, and are therefore subject to the same genetic effects, so differences between them are likely to be due to environmental factors.
''Evidence is mounting that chronically reduced sleep times are associated with obesity," they added.
Sleep may influence weight by affecting hormones, glucose metabolism and inflammation, they said.
Some studies have associated long sleep duration with heart disease, insulin resistence (a precursor to diabetes) and early death.
''We did not observe this in our sample, but our sample is much younger than those used in studies that established these adverse associations,'' the researchers noted.
The findings were published on Monday in the journal, Sleep.

 

Learn that failure is good

Each week a global thinker from the worlds of philosophy, science, psychology or the arts is given a minute to put forward a radical, inspiring or controversial idea – no matter how improbable – that they believe would change the world. 

This week, Neil Sjoberg, a youth worker and golf course manager from London suggests introducing a new subject at school called learning to lose.
"For most of us in the working world, failure is a normal part of everyday life. Developing the skills to cope with failure is the key to personal success throughout life. But teachers at schools make pupils feel equally talented, because this makes them popular with the parents and pupils.
"Schools avoid regular testing and rote learning. Some don’t spilt up year groups according to academic ability and give prizes to every child at sports day. Pupils therefore leave school vulnerable with a false sense of achievement, and they are frustrated and angry when they do not immediately succeed in the real working world.
"So my solution is to introduce a compulsory “learning to lose” subject for all children, with a failure exam that they have to pass. Children would be told what their ranking is against the national average and then write about where they think they did worst.
"Children need to be taught that failure is frequent and normal, it is not the end of the world and we should all help this by a cultural shift in admitting that we failed. Only by learning to lose can we achieve success." 

IS it a idea that we can really work on it ? well I think rather teaching students "how to Lose" we should teach them "How to win after u lose". That is all we want in our lives to learn from our mistakes and move ahead to make the glory. 

 

ICC World Twenty20 2012 - groups and fixtures

 

 

 

 

 

 

GROUP STAGE

Group A: England, India, Afghanistan

Group B: Australia, West Indies, Ireland

Group C: Sri Lanka, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Group D: Pakistan, New Zealand, Bangladesh September 18 Sri Lanka v Zimbabwe, Hambantota (1500 BST) 19 Australia v Ireland, Colombo (RPS) (1100 BST) 19 India v Afghanistan, Colombo (RPS) (1500 BST) 20 South Africa v Zimbabwe, Hambantota (1500 BST) 21 New Zealand v Bangladesh, Pallekele (1100 BST) 21 England v Afghanistan, Colombo (RPS) (1500 BST) 22 Sri Lanka v South Africa, Hambantota (1100 BST) 22 Australia v West Indies, Colombo (RPS) (1500 BST) 23 Pakistan v New Zealand, Pallekele (1100 BST) 23 England v India, Colombo (RPS) (1500 BST) 24 West Indies v Ireland, Colombo (RPS) (1500 BST) 25 Pakistan v Bangladesh, Pallekele (1500 BST) SUPER EIGHT STAGE Group 1: A1, B2, C1, D2 Group 2: A2, B1, C2, D1 27 C1 v D2, Pallekele (1100 BST) 27 A1 v B2, Pallekele (1500 BST) 28 D1 v C2, Colombo (RPS) (1100 BST) 28 B1 v A2, Colombo (RPS) (1500 BST) 29 A1 v D2, Pallekele (1100 BST) 29 C1 v B2, Pallekele (1500 BST) 30 B1 v C2, Colombo (RPS) (1100 BST) 30 D1 v A2, Colombo (RPS) (1500 BST) October 1 B2 v D2, Pallekele (1100 BST) 1 A1 v C1, Pallekele (1500 BST) 2 B1 v D1, Colombo (RPS) (1100 BST) 2 A2 v C2, Colombo (RPS) (1500 BST)   SEMI-FINALS 4 Group 1 winners v Group 2 runners-up, Colombo (RPS) (1430 BST) 5 Group 2 winners v Group 1 runners-up, Colombo (RPS) (1430 BST) FINAL 7 Final, Colombo (RPS) (1430 BST)

World`s Biggest Buildings..

The Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza, Egypt

Like many new extreme forms of architecture, Giza’s planned Grand Egyptian Museum was the outcome of a competition. The $550 million museum is slated to open in 2013, despite Egypt’s political turmoil. The 210-acre project, a mile from the Giza Pyramids, will include a main structure made with translucent alabaster and a large atrium for ancient Egyptian artefacts and statues like the 3,200-year-old Ramesses II.

Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

 This mega–clock tower broke several world records when it opened in 2011. For now, it’s the tallest clock tower in the world, the tallest hotel in the world (the Fairmont Makkah Clock Royal Tower) and the world’s largest clock face — visible from 16 miles away and topped by a golden crescent minaret whose massive loudspeakers emit prayer calls to a distance of four miles

Burj Khalifa, Dubai, UAE 

The hymenocallis flower may have inspired the design team at Chicago’s Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, but the Burj Khalifa has an aggressive look, seeming to pierce the sky like a crystal weapon. The tower’s flashiest occupants are the 160-room Armani Hotel and an extra 144 Armani Residences. It may not cling to its status as world’s tallest building for long; Mecca’s Kingdom Tower is scheduled to complete construction in 2016.

 Skipark 360, Stockholm

 A lack of high mountain peaks won’t stop Swedes from skiing close to home. C F Møller began designs for an architectural ski resort powered by geothermal, solar, wind and hydropower, which when it opens in 2015 will make it the world’s biggest indoor ski resort — and the greenest. A 700m-long downhill slope and a drop of 525ft meet the requirements for hosting the World Cup.

Ever heard of White nights ?

Yes you can experience white nights in Russia..

Although the phenomenon known as the "White Nights" is not unique to St Petersburg, in no other northern city have they received such poetic and literary acclaim. What could be more romantic than a walk along the banks of the city's rivers and canals in almost broad daylight, no matter what the time of day? No other major European city can rival this experience nor the atmosphere on the streets of St. Petersburg during the summer months - lively, friendly, romantic and bustling with people throughout the night as well as the day!
From late May to early July the nights are bright in St Petersburg, with the brightest period, the White Nights, normally lasting from June 11^th to July 2^nd. The White Nights (Beliye Nochi) are a curious phenomenon caused by St. Petersburg's very northerly geographical location - at 59 degrees 57' North (roughly on the same latitude as Oslo, Norway, the southern tip of Greenland and Seward, Alaska). St. Petersburg is the world's most northern city with a population over 1 million, and its stands at such a high latitude that the sun does not descend below the horizon enough for the sky to grow dark. In fact night becomes curiously indistinguishable from day, so much so that the authorities never need to turn the city's streetlights on!

This image below is taken at 11pm local time. can you just believe that ?

Why do we believe in luck?

Is there such a thing as a lucky person or a lucky streak? And does belief in good and bad luck play a part in whether we are prepared to take chances.

Report by Megan Lane. Courtesy:BBC

I won a pair of cinema tickets recently. Then a free haircut. While sceptical about luck, I couldn't help but wonder if it might run in threes.
The next day, I had a third stroke of luck. A mugging. Was it bad luck that I had my bag snatched? Or good luck that I was unhurt?
Neither. It was a chance event. When weighing the risks of walking down an unfamiliar street, feeling lucky didn't come into it (much). Subconsciously, I balanced the time of day - early evening - and the presence of street lighting against the area being unexpectedly isolated.

"Luck is a really interesting aspect of risk and chance," says Cambridge University psychologist Dr Mike Aitken, co-creator of BBC Lab UK's new Big Risk Test, which explores the type of person likely to be a risk-taker or risk-averse.

"We can all remember days when good things happened to us, and days when less-good things happened, and we attribute the difference to a lucky day and an unlucky day. You could argue that luck exists in that sense."
But some people believe luck influences external events - that if they buy a lottery ticket on their lucky day, they'll be more likely to win.
"That's a much harder belief to justify, because there's no way the day you buy your lottery ticket can influence the likelihood that you're going to win," says Aitken.
"Research has suggested that people who think of themselves as lucky actually are lucky, because they are more willing to take advantage of opportunities."

The BBC's risk test aims to find out whether belief in luck affects how we perceive the risks of day to day life.

In part, it draws on the BIGL - belief in good luck - scale developed in 1997 by two Canadian psychologists. This does what it says on the tin, measuring the extent to which a person believes in luck. Some think luck influences events in their favour; others think luck is random and unreliable.
The Canadian study that led to the BIGL scale debunked ideas that belief in luck was related to a person's self-esteem and general life satisfaction.
But those who believe they are inherently lucky tend to be of an optimistic bent, and get more optimistic about the likelihood of future success after a seemingly lucky event - a "lucky break" makes them more confident and optimistic.
Feeling lucky Believing that one's success is down, at least in part, to good luck leads to attempts to control it.
Athletes and gamblers often carry out superstitious rituals in the middle of a winning streak, such as wearing the same lucky shirt, or eating the same lucky meal. Because then they might keep on winning.

There are two approaches to deciding whether to take a chance and leave the outcome to luck, whether it's placing a bet, hang-gliding or even deciding whether to take an umbrella in case it rains - head v gut.
"There's risk as analysis, where you work out the odds of [winning] the lottery," says test co-creator David Spiegelhalter, professor for the understanding of risk at University of Cambridge.
"Then there's risk as feeling, which can be influenced by you feeling 'this is a good day for me, I'm going to take this risk, do this bold thing'."
Perhaps that's why I didn't turn back and instead took what looked like a shortcut down a lonely road - I was feeling lucky. Maybe I should have crossed my fingers. Or was there a black cat that crossed my path?

But believing in luck can serve a useful function. psychologists say.
It may help us coping with chance events, such as being involved in an accident, a mugging or natural disaster, as it can help people feel more optimistic when circumstances are beyond their control.
Maybe I should have bought a lottery ticket that day after all...

How many people can u expect in single pool ?

 

How many people can you expect in one pool ?? Here is beyond your imagination..

This pool is in China..

How big is space? Amazing...

Big questions demand big answers. 

Be Warned ! Its very Big..

 

 

Check out this link and you will discover what it all is..

http://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/space_infographic

In fact, it is so large that it was not able to squeeze it all on to one image in Photoshop. Instead, had to create several sections and stitch them together for you.
Printed out, the graphic spans 27 pages of A4 paper.
But even at this size it is only managed to get to the edge of our Solar System – known as the heliosphere.
Yet even within this relatively small corner of space, there is a lot packed in there.
What is the most distant man-made object? What is the farthest travelled by a human being? What is the farthest travelled by a piece of Lego? And perhaps most importantly – how long would these journeys take if you were a passenger on the Starship Enterprise?
Scroll (and scroll... and scroll) through our monster graphic to explore our cosmic neighbourhood.

Coutesy: BBC Future.. 

Landscape or faces ?

Landscape or Faces !!

Pencil colors or Gate ?

Do we all see the same colours?

Green? Blue? Purple? What do you see?

Are the colours you see the same as the ones I see? Future's resident psychologist has a moment of doubt and wonders if science can help ease his worries. 
Imagine the two of us, arm in arm, looking at a sunset, where the horizon is fretted with golden fire and the deep blue night encroaches from the opposite side of the sky. "What beautiful colours", I say, and you agree.
And then, in the space of the following silence, I am struck by a worry. I can point at the sky and say it is blue, and you will concur. But are you really seeing that blue the way I am seeing it? Perhaps you have just learnt to call what you see "blue", but in actual experience you are seeing nothing like the vivid, rich, blue I see. You are an imposter, calling my blue by the same name as yours, but not really seeing it the way I do. Or, even worse, perhaps I am the one seeing a pale imitation blue, while you see a blue that is infinitely richer and more splendid than mine.
Now I admit that this worry lies in the realm of philosophy, not neuroscience. You might even ask me why I am worrying about this when we could be enjoying the glorious sunset. But when you think about it, it is not clear that I could ever have direct access to what it is like to be you, and you could never have direct access to what it is like to be me, or someone else, or something else, such as a bat. My worry seems more plausible when you consider colour blindness, which affects around 8% of men and half of one percent of women. Many people do not even realise they are colour blind. They live among the colour-seeing, getting by on the fact that there is usually some other difference between things of different colours that they can use to tell them apart, such as differences in shade or texture.
How green is my valley?
Our colour vision starts with the sensors in the back of the eye that turn light information into electrical signals in the brain – neuroscientists call them photoreceptors. We have a number of different kinds of these, and most people have three different photoreceptors for coloured light. These are sensitive to blues, greens and reds respectively, and the information is combined to allow us to perceive the full range of colours. Most colour blind men have a weakness in the photoreceptors for green, so they lose a corresponding sensitivity to the shades of green that this variety helps to distinguish.
At the other end of the scale, some people have a particularly heightened sensitivity to colour. Scientists call these people tetrachromats, meaning “four colours”, after the four – rather than three – colour photoreceptors they possess. Birds and reptiles are tetrachromatic, and this is what allows them to see into the infrared and ultraviolet spectra. Human tetrachromats cannot see beyond the normal visible light spectrum, but instead have an extra photoreceptor that is most sensitive to colour in the scale between red and green, making them more sensitive to all colours within the normal human range. To these individuals, it is the rest of us who are colour blind, as while most of us would be unable to easily distinguish an exact shade of summer-grass-green from Spanish-lime-green, to a tetrachromat it would seem obvious.
So yes, as we share this sunset, perhaps I am seeing something you cannot see, or you are seeing something I cannot see. If our colour vision is wired differently, the information going in could be more or less the same between us. But as you tell me this, with the sun sinking slowly below the horizon, you can sense that it has not really helped with my true worry. I am worried – and perhaps you are too – that although we both have the same machinery in our eyes and we are both able to see the green of the trees, the red of the sun and the blue of the sky, that when I say "blue", it creates an inner experience that differs from yours when you say "blue".

BBC Future.

Ireland’s unusual places to stay

Ireland’s colourful history has led to a rich tapestry of architectural styles, with Norman castles and neo-classical mansions sitting side by side with cosy farmhouses and contemporary wonders. All around the island, these interesting, charming accommodations are packed with character -- and characters! So in the spirit of turning your Ireland trip into a real journey, here are some of the most memorable places to stay along the way.

Cullintra House, Inistiogue, County Kilkenny
The Cullintra House, a cosy, 19th-century home in the Kilkenny heritage village of Inistiogue, offers a warm welcome – but you will soon discover you are not the house’s most important guest. Here cats are king, and the owner’s feline friends quite literally have the run of the place. You will find cat memorabilia galore and little furries in the bedrooms, in the dining room where guests eat communally and rambling the gorgeous grounds, like they – quite rightly – own the place.
Grouse Lodge, Roesmount, County Westmeath
Grouse Lodge, the rambling stone farmhouse and beautiful outbuildings that act as a residential recording studio for Irish and visiting bands, became Michael Jackson’s secret hideout for six weeks in 2006. REM, Shirley Bassey, Manic Street Preachers and Sinead O’Connor have all recorded in this reasonably-priced midlands village property, complete with an indoor heated pool, jacuzzi, nine double bedrooms and an on-site organic chef. Come for the rock ‘n’ roll stories, retold in the small hours at the on-site pub.
Number 25 Eustace Street, Dublin
You could easily pass Number 25 Eustace Street in Dublin’s cobbled Temple Bar area without realising the treasure that lies within. The 18th-century merchant’s house sleeps seven, was carefully restored using authentic materials and furnishings, and is available to rent on a nightly basis. Climb the creaky stairs to the drawing room where you can play the Bechstein boudoir piano, or lounge in the rolltop free-standing bath and imagine what life was like as a Georgian city slicker.
The Schoolhouse, Annaghmore, County Sligo
This atmospheric little schoolhouse, built in the 1860s on the wooded banks of the Owenmore river, now sleeps four but was once the schoolroom and two-bedroom house of the schoolmaster. It still has the original school fireplace, chalk boards and coat hooks, and legend has it that the last owner buried all of his money in a tin on the school grounds.
Number 31, Leeson Close, Dublin
Little has changed since the days when every visiting celebrity from Henry Kissinger to Ted Kennedy dropped in to Number 31’s sunken lounge for a martini. Iconic Irish architect Sam Stephenson’s 1960s home and party pad has kilim rugs, a big open fire, mirrored cocktail bar and floor-to-ceiling windows that look onto an inner Japanese garden, all evoking the heady decade that once made this discreet guesthouse a magnet for Dublin’s glitterati.
Gyreum, Castlebaldwin, County Sligo
If you want to reinvigorate your soul and get back to nature, it does not get much more earthy than a trip to Gyreum, a wind- and solar-powered eco retreat in a colossal yurt-like timber temple with a living wildflower roof, sunk into the hills of Sligo. Many come for its Pilgrim’s Progress six-county walking tour that culminates in a full moon-lit hot tub soak, but either way, it is an inspirational space to take part in a range of creative and eco-centred events. Built on a ley line, stay in one of Gyreum’s inner tents, break bread at the great communal table and absorb some of Mother Earth’s free energy.
Inisturkbeg, Clew Bay, County Mayo
If you cannot afford your own island, why not stay on someone else’s? Inisturkbeg is a luxury island retreat in the extraordinary setting of Clew Bay in County Mayo, overlooking the ancient Croagh Patrick mountain. Inisturkbeg offers five island “cottages”, with an infinity pool, gym and spa, access to a private chef and butler, and use of the retreat’s horses or catamaran for a scenic spin round the tiny ancient island.
Courtesy: BBC Future

World as we know !! :)