2012 in passing…

2012 was a mix bag. Mostly sad with many (good) people passing. Many precious lives cut short.

Many world-changing-events happened, but some heart & faith wrecking actions hit us closer to home (it actually could be the Biggest Tragedy of 2012 in India or The Humankind).

Only thing is that its outcome may have a profound effect on the times to come.

For the other parts of the world, Google has it’s own news.

I for one hope that the humanity works out its internals first rather concentrate on getting achievements on the outer..

Humanity needs to be more humane now more than ever. As someone mentioned it quite aptly, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. And in these changing times, it seems that power comes easier but no one wants any responsibility. We as the current generation have this as our responsibility.

Always remember: No sacrifice should ever go in vain, or we will surely run out of heroes one day. Never forget.

Peace.

2012 in Science–The best in scientific break-through and achievements.

 

Everything happened in 2012.

The world not ending was a personal disappointment though (Dam’n you NASA!, better luck next time). Wikipedia gives us many forthcoming calendar dates to mark though. (Happy Happy!)

Ahh! Scientific achievements! Some discussed them in journals and some good Sci-fi movies imagined them correctly, but 2012 is almost gone, and many weird stuff is now real.

io9 covers it here in The Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs of 2012 and WIRED has its Top Scientific Discoveries of 2012.

Technorati Tags: 2012,2013 science,breakthroughs,higgs,DNA,mars,wired,io9,Sci-fi,NASA,end of world

True Awesomeness…taking off to space and beyond…from your own backyard!

Ladies and gentlemen, pure awesomeness has arrived.And it aims for the stars!

Copenhagen Suborbitals is an open source outer space project in Denmark. These two self supporting scientists or should I say entrepreneurs, Kristian von Bengston and Peter Madsen head the Copenhagen Suborbitals.

They, with the help of about 20-plus specialist helpers onboard are in the process of creating the first locally (read homemade) and plan to take this *manned* spacecraft into the orbit.

Doing it is one thing when you are funded by the government, but doing it in the backyard (although  not technically) but on a miserly budget of a few hundred thousands dollars is but ballsy!

Hit the below link for checking out their idea and progress.

Homemade spacecraft!

Just purely, awesomely wow…!

Addendum: Check out this link for photos and test launch details! Wow!

Technorati Tags: spacecraft,homemade,awesome,manned denmark

Listen up guys, sitting here and writing this for you…is killing me a little…so please read it standing up!

(above image courtesy the MedicalBillingandCoding.org)

Exercising in itself is a virtue for health. Everybody knows that, no matter how lazy!

But sitting down, is what actually makes all our exercise earned bonus points just go back to zero.

Contrary to popular belief, in-spite of an active lifestyle, you cannot reverse the negative aspects of sitting!

As per this elaborate article on The New York Times, sitting jobs actually lead to a heart disease, obesity, diabetes, certain cancers and early death, independently of whether you exercise regularly.

Sitting impacts your health in more ways than you know. Present day research has proof that sitting alters our natural body functions, actively leads to obesity, heart related disorders, and is a 100% contributor to decreasing both our health as well as lifespan.

So do yourself (and me) a favour, stand-up, move and herd around, every 20 minutes. Go for that tea-break now, but for God sakes, no fag breaks! As it is now known that Even light smoking may double your risk of sudden death.

Refer the (excellent) links below for further reference -

• The The New York Times article referenced above.
• Sitting and Standing at Work – Discusses the perils of over-sitting and standing.
• An excellent info-graphic at MedicalBillingandCoding.org (from which the above thumbnail is taken) will surely be an eye-opener for my chair loving brethren.
• The OSHA factsheet (PDF) which is useful for anyone who has a sedentary (sitting) job.

Technorati Tags: sitting,killing,move,stand,exercise,obesity,sedentary,lifestyle

Awesomely charged up! Learn all about Batteries!

“Batteries: The Absolute Definitive Guide” is a fresh and charged-up article on the author Andrew Tarantola's insight in the Battery world!

Very well done and thoroughly researched too, if I may add!

One word of advice though, charge your TABs Mobiles and iBoxes before you start reading up ; it’s a looong one!

For the more technically inclined, may I refer you to the excellent Batteryuniversity.com!

Technorati Tags: Battery,comparison,Gizmodo

Do you have Slow loading Windows 7 folders? If yes, then try this!

 

Does your Windows 7 (or 8) box suffer from Slow loading folders?

And, do these folders contain content like Word documents, MP3 files, or maybe loads of pictures/photos etc.?

If yes, then try this solution -

• Right Click that suffering folder;
• Click properties;
• Select the Customize tab (commonly, the last tab) in the properties window;
• Change the ‘Optimize this folder for:’ option to General Items.
• Select the ‘Also apply…’ checkbox to have the same folder properties applied recursively;

• Click OK.

• Done!

Try checking that folder for sluggish opening in explorer. Should be gone now…

The Cause: Windows 7 (and maybe Windows 8 too) uses something called ‘smart folder optimization’ which changes folder customization as per the contents of those folders, there-by applying certain content friendly settings in the process.

An example would be optimizing a photo-filled folder for thumbnails WRT the view settings.

Follow-up – A Caveat to the above solution is that sometimes, if you try to do any modifications or changes in the folder contents, the settings may be lost, as the optimizations may be re-applied.

This can be set permanently via a registry edit.

WARNING: If you are not familiar with the registry or its purpose and functions, do not mess with it! Any acts of stupidity WRT the Windows registry can and will lead to the entire computer not booting up at all!

 

With that out of the way, fire-up regedit.exe (Via windows start-menu –> run –> regedit.exe)

Navigate to the location -

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell\

Now, in the side right panel -

1. Right click;
2. Choose ‘New’ –> String Value as "FolderType";
3. Double click and set the Data as "NotSpecified";
4. Re-start your explorer / Windows OS.

Now every folder (new and old) will be optimized for type as ‘General’. Problem solved!
NOTE: Although I haven’t tried this on Windows 8 as of yet, but it *should* work! YMMV though!

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Windows 8,slow folder,optimization,registry hacks