A Walk in the Park

This is where I will record interesting things I happen to read from here on out. I will edit it in future to keep it updated rather than making new posts.

Mostly it will be facts, events or whatever I deem shareable.

Take note that I don't guarrantee the authenticity of whatever you may read here, I found these tad-pits interesting that is all. Verify them for yourself and don't put another's head over your neck.

• Spoiler: [/LIST] First man to pee on the Moon

  The first man to urinate on the moon was Buzz Aldrin, shortly after stepping on the lunar surface.
  
  
  “Neil took one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind; I took one small step for man and one giant leak for mankind!” says Aldrin in his autobiographical book “No Dream Is Too High.”
  
  Of course he didn’t actually pee on the moon; Aldrin took his lunar leak into a special bag in his space suit, before trying to climb the Apollo 11 lander’s ladder.
  • Spoiler: A weird case in Utah

    Bagley vs. Bagley, a case in which a woman winds up suing herself for causing the death of her husband. In Utah, the personal representative of a decedent can sue the person who caused the death for damages. Here, that person happened to be the wife, who had caused the car accident that killed her husband. Acting on behalf of her late husband's estate, she sued herself to get at potential insurance proceeds. Then, in her individual capacity as her husband's heir, she joins the litigation because she has an interest in any proceeds. So… you have Bagley #1, the personal representative, and Bagley #2, the decedent's heir, suing Bagley #3, the wife who caused her husband's death. She wound up as 3 parties in the case! Bizarre!
  • Spoiler: A new perspective to Life

    Cockroach Theory- A beautiful speech by Sundar Pichai. Cockroach Theory A beautiful speech by Sundar Pichai - an IIT-MIT Alumnus and Global Head Google Chrome: The cockroach theory for self development At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady. She started screaming out of fear. With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach. Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky. The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but it landed on another lady in the group. Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama. The waiter rushed forward to their rescue. In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter. The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt. When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant. Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior? If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed? He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos. It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the ladies. I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, but it's my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me. It's not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me. More than the problem, it's my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life. Lessons learnt from the story: I understood, I should not react in life. I should always respond. The women reacted, whereas the waiter responded. Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well thought of.
  • Spoiler: I wish to go here

    Anechoic chamber - A quite unfamiliar word right! It makes the Orfield Laboratories in South Minneapolis, United States the quietest place in the world. How quiet? 30 db, 20 db or 0 db? Guess… No, it is minus 9 decibels (-9 db). It’s 99.99% sound absorbent and holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s quietest place. It achieves its ultra-quietness by virtue of 3.3-foot-thick fiberglass acoustic wedges, double walls of insulated steel and foot-thick concrete. When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You'll start hearing your heart beat, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly. You will also start hearing the sound of blood running through your veins and arteries. Guys like Derek Muller have stayed there for an hour and have experienced these kinds of sounds. Space is like one giant anechoic chamber, so it’s crucial that astronauts are able to stay focussed. NASA uses these types of chambers for training.
  • Spoiler: Cat Piaono...It hurts!

    The katzenklavier ("cat piano") was a musical instrument made out of cats. Designed by 17th-century German scholar Athanasius Kircher, it consisted of a row of caged cats with different voice pitches, who could be "played" by a keyboardist driving nails into their tails. Ouch!
  • Spoiler: Possible solution to your Procastination!

    If you want to do a task but you don’t feel like it or you are not motivated then here’s what you should do. Count backwards from 5 to 1. Imagine yourself as a rocket, launching yourself when you reach 1. Now I know this sounds stupid but actually there is science behind this. When you count backwards from 5 to 1, your attention shifts from amygdala to Prefrontal cortex in your brain. So what happens is that your brain takes itself off from autopilot. It breaks the gap between knowledge and action. So whenever you know you have to do something but are postponing it, just count backwards from 5 to 1 and launch yourself to action without thinking anything. You will be surprised by the results.
  • Spoiler: The birth of VirginAtlantic

    How Richard Branson started Virgin Atlantic. In 1979, while on vacation with his fiancee in The British Virgin Islands, he was catching a flight to Puerto Rico which ended up cancelled. Richard decided to phone up some charter companies and chartered a plane for $2,000. After splitting the cost between the available seats, he grabbed a blackboard and wrote: VIRGIN AIRWAYS: $39 for a single flight to Puerto Rico. He walked around the airport terminal and soon filled every seat. When they arrived in Puerto Rico a passenger reportedly said: "Virgin Airways isn’t too bad – smarten up the services a little and you could be in business".
  • Spoiler: Meet the Bruce Lee of Quick Draw

    On November 12, 1945, Life Magazine ran an unusual story. It was a photographic study of an FBI agent named Jelly Bryce drawing and firing his .357 Magnum in two-fifths of a second, faster than the human eye can follow. In the pictures Bryce dropped a silver dollar from shoulder height with his right hand then drew with the same hand and shot the coin before it reached his waist.
  • Spoiler: Mess with a Windows/Mac or any OS user!

    Phantom Keystroker Attach this evil prank device to your victim's computer and it makes random mouse movements and types out odd garbage text and phrases Switches on side choose between keyboard garbage typing, caps lock-toggle, annoying mouse movements or all three Adjustment dial sets the duration between annoying "events" Works on any OS (Caps-Lock toggle does not work on the Mac. May not work on some Linux systems depending on configuration.)
  • Spoiler: Marrying a dead person legally? It's possible!

    Posthumous marriage (or necrogamy) is a marriage in which one of the participating members is deceased. It is legal in France and similar forms are practiced in Sudan and China. Since World War I, France has had hundreds of requests each year, of which many have been accepted. In recent example where a police man died in a terrorist attack in France, his gay parnter was allowed to marry him. (source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthumous_marriage)
  • Spoiler: Don't underestimate the power of Piss!

    In the ancient Roman Empire, urine was collected from public urinals and sold in the market. Those who traded in urine had to pay a tax. So who bought this priced possession you ask? People with yellow teeth. Apparently, Romans used to clean and whiten their teeth with urine[1]and it worked. Not just this, some even used urine as a mouthwash. Please don’t try it though! (source:http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...science-behind-historic-uses-of-urine-442390/)
  • Spoiler: Napoleon's little Napoleon's journey

    there's more if you are willing to read (see source:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/06/19/the-strange-journey-of-napoleons-penis/) Plus I swear I am not seeking these, they just come to me on their own. If I suffer, so do you!
  • Spoiler: Stanislav Petrov: The Man who saved The World

    September 26th, 1983 Petrov was operating the Soviet nuclear defense system when he is alerted that 6 ICBMs from US bases are heading straight towards the Soviet Union. Imagine being under that sort of pressure, knowing that nuclear missiles are headed straight towards your country. However, despite seeing the alerts, he ignored them, thinking they were a malfunction in the system. And he was right. No retaliatory strike was fired. No nuclear war broke out. Mutually Assured Destruction never occurred. It was later discovered that the alerts were indeed false alarms and nothing more than a malfunction. Read (source:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24280831) to know more of the topic.
  • Spoiler: Prison Escape is legal, Read Where...

    In Mexico, Belgium, Germany and Austria, the philosophy of the law holds that it is human nature to want to escape. In those countries, escapees who do not break any other laws are not charged for anything and no extra time is added to their sentence. However, in Mexico, officers are allowed to shoot prisoners attempting to escape and an escape is illegal if violence is used against prison personnel or property, or if prison inmates or officials aid the escape.(Sources[1]http://www.phaseloop.com/foreignprisoners/prison-mexico.html , [2]http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6714 , [3]http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909973,00.html?promoid=googlep)
  • Spoiler: How to be charming, (this weird trick press is keeping away from you)

    Lol, first whoever sees ads similar to above, say 'aye' in comments. Lulz aside, this one is genuine.Here’s a great one to “win people over”: Use their name in conversation and whenever you address them! I want to say I originally read about this technique in “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie (fantastic read, if you haven’t heard of it). Basically: A person’s name is the sweetest thing they can hear. If you consciously focus on addressing your peers by their name, you’ll probably find that you’re more likable and other people find you more charming. They probably won’t be able to put their finger on exactly why you’re more charming, but you’re charming nonetheless. I really like this one because: Its ridiculously simple. Just throw it in somewhere when you’re conversing! Feels a little awkward at first if you aren’t used to it, but quickly becomes ezpz It builds your confidence in addressing your peers
  • Spoiler: Want to be fooled? Read and Watch (video is important)

    Two groups of people dribbling and passing a basketball among themselves. Three players wore white shirts; three wore black. The watchers were asked to count the number of passes by the players in white shirts. About halfway through the exercise, a person wearing a gorilla suit walked into the ball-passing scene, beat its chest while facing the camera, then walked out. 50 percent of the people counting passes failed to notice the gorilla. It is an excellent example of attention bias, a phenomenon in which the brain ignores information that is not relevant to its current task. People can only experience the invisible gorilla illusion once. After you know to look for a gorilla, you never miss it again. Now you will subconsciously look out for the monkey. But wait! watch the video for the trick. People who know to look for a gorilla are definitely more likely to spot the gorilla, but the gorilla is not truly unexpected. These same expert viewers will fail to notice other unexpected events even more than viewers who are unfamiliar with the task. This is brilliantly potrayed in Simons’s latest demonstration, called the monkey business illusion. Now, watch the video -
  • Spoiler: General Motors and Vanilla Ice cream

    This is a weird but true Never underestimate your Clients’ Complaint, no matter how funny it might seem! This is a real story that happened between the customer of General Motors and its Customer-Care Executive. Please read on A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors: This is the second time I have written you, and I don’t blame you for not answering me, because I kind of sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of ice cream for dessert after dinner each night. But the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we’ve eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It’s also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem. You see, every time I buy vanilla ice cream, when I start back from the store my car won’t start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I’m serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds: ‘What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?'” The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an engineer to check it out anyway. The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn’t start. The engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, the man got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start. Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man’s car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: he jotted down all sorts of data, time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth, etc. In a short time, he had a clue: The man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to find the flavor and get checked out. Now the question for the engineer was why the car wouldn’t start when it took less time. Once time became the problem — not the vanilla ice cream — the engineer quickly came up with the answer: vapor lock. It was happening every night, but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate. Moral of the story: Even crazy looking problems are sometimes real and all problems seem to be simple only when we find the solution, with cool thinking. (Source:http://www.marketcalls.in/fun/vanilla-ice-cream-that-puzzled-general-motors-amazing.html)
  • Spoiler: How to keep people with excessive pride happy? Read the story!

    A man married a beautiful girl. He loved her very much.
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    [*]One day she developed a skin disease. Slowly she started to lose her beauty. It so happened that one day her husband left for a tour.
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    [*]While returning he met with an accident and lost his eyesight. However their married life continued as usual. But as days passed she lost her beauty gradually.
    [*]
    
    [*]Blind husband did not know this and there was not any difference in their married life.
    [*]
    
    [*]He continued to love her and she also loved him very much. One day she died. Her death brought him great sorrow.
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    [*]He finished all her last rites and wanted to leave that town. A man from behind called and said, now how will you be able to walk all alone? All these days your wife used to help you. He replied, I am not blind.
    [*]I was acting, because if she knew l could see her ugliness it would have pained her more than her disease. So I pretended to be blind. She was a very good wife. I only wanted to keep her happy.
  • Spoiler: Casino Trick

    According to a study conducted in 2010 by neuroscientist Reza Habib, they discovered that in the brain chemistry of a pathological gambler, "near misses" actually caused the same brain activity as if they had won. But to a nonpathological gambler, a "near miss" was what it actually was, a loss. Knowing this, gambling companies artificially increase the number of "near misses" to make pathological gamblers feel like they are winning, and therefore keep playing. According to a state lottery consultant, “Adding a near miss to a lottery is like pouring jet fuel on a fire ... You want to know why sales have exploded? Every other scratch-off ticket is designed to make you feel like you almost won.”(Sources[1]http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1901/jeab.2010.93-313/full , [2]http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/08...ode=as2&linkId=J6SQ6BRBAVVXZSML&tag=iamasp-20)
  • Spoiler: Interesting Dialogues in History?

    Philip II of Macedon(Father of Alexander the Great), who after invading southern Greece and receiving the submission of other key city-states, sent a message to Sparta:
    [*]You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city.
    [*]The Spartans replied with a single word:
    [*]IF
    [*]Needless to say both Philip II and Alexander chose to leave Sparta alone.
    [*]When Leonidas, king of Sparta,(try to pronounce without spitting like Gerard Butler in the movie 300) was in charge of guarding the narrow mountain pass at Thermopylae with allied Greeks in order to delay the invading Persian army, Xerxes offered to spare his men if they gave up their arms. Leonidas replied"Come and take them".
    [*] The Phrase was adopted as the motto of the Greek 1st Army Corps.
    [*]Michael Collins (16 October 1890 – 22 August 1922) was a soldier and politician who was a leading figure in the struggle for, and achievement of Irish independence in the early 20th century.
    [*]
    
    [*]Michael Collins arrives at the ceremony to take down the British flag.British officer: You're seven minutes late, Mr. Collins.
    [*]Michael Collins: You've kept us waiting 700 years. You can have your seven minutes.
  • Spoiler: Nikola Tesla on why he never married