Veda #57 : Chickenpox VS Cold 12:48 AM

Day 57
"Why did we get chicken pox only once, but we might encounter cold or flu several times?"

Most of you probably had chicken pox when you was a little kid. If now you see any people got chicken pox, you're free from worries of having that disease again, because you know that it won't do you any harm again. why did that happen?it's just not like flu or cod that can strike us all over and over again.

Chickenpox is caused by a virus called varicella zoster. People who get the virus often develop a rash of spots that look like blisters all over their bodies. The blisters are small and sit on an area of red skin that can be anywhere from the size of a pencil eraser to the size of a dime.

When you get sick, your white blood cells fight the harmful germs with special germ killers called antibodies. White cells manufacture antibodies for each particular sickness, so if you have chicken pox, your white blood cells make chicken pox antibodies. After you are recovered, these antibodies stay in your blood and keep killing any chicken pox viruses that get into your body. That is why you can’t get chicken pox twice. You have become immune to it. You've probably heard that chickenpox are itchy. It's true. The illness also may come along with a runny nose and cough. But the good news is that chickenpox is a common illness for kids and most people get better by just resting like you do with a cold or the flu.

It's very rare case, but actually chicken pox will do harm to you twice, if the first one was happened too mild. That's why many eldest group their kids if one of them having a chicken pox, to infect all of them. Because having chicken pox on age 20 and more is considered dangerous and deadly. Most adults who get chickenpox are immunosuppressed meaning that their immune systems aren't functioning properly.

In the same way, when you get a cold from a cold virus, your body makes antibodies to fight that particular cold virus. You can never get a cold from that particular kind of virus again. However, since there are more than 200 different kinds of viruses that can cause colds, a new cold virus can enter your body and you will not have antibodies in your blood to fight it. Then you will get another cold.

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Veda #51 : Magenta 11:05 PM

Day 51
"What is magenta color?and why did it named magenta?"

Colors play a significant role in our life. Every color has an expressive element that reflects our emotional flows, such as passion, celebration, and sorrow. In press industry, we also recognize 4 type of basic colors : Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key (black, because it is the tkey color to create the hue of each color). Tonight we're gonna talk about Magenta, a purplish-pink color. Did you know that the name Magenta was actually came from bloody history?

The Battle of Magenta was fought on June 4, 1859 during the Franco-Piedmontese war against Austria, resulting in a French victory under Louis-Napoleon against the Austrians under General Gyulai . It took place near the town of Magenta in northern Italy on June 4, 1859.

After the battle was over, the plant that provides a dye called fushina, got mixed with the red from the blood. The combination of purple fushina and the dried blood are used by French's chemist to explain the color of the dried blood of the soldiers. To memorize those event, Magenta was used to pronounce the new color.
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Veda #49 : Ambidexterity 8:42 PM

Day 49
"What is Ambidexterity?"


Often we saw people writing or doing something with their left hand primarily. But there were some peoples that could using their both hands to do the different things at the same time. This rare skill is called Ambidexterity. different than left handed person that sometimes could use their right hand, ambidextruous person could use both of their hands to do different things fluently.

Ambidexterity is the state of being equally adept in the use of both right and left appendages (such as the hands). It is one of the most famous varieties of cross-dominance. People that are born ambidextrous are extremely rare. People that are made ambidextrous are called Penwald ambidextrous; they can also stop being both-handed. The word literally means "both right handed"; in other words, you are as good with the left hand as you are with your right hand.

Although not all scientists agree on the answer, many believe that most people’s brains develop more on one side than on the other. And since the left side of your brain controls the muscles on the right side of your body, and the right side of your brain controls the muscles on the left side of your body, this would influence the muscles in your hands as well.

Therefore, if the left side of your brain is more developed, then you are right landed. If the right side of your brain is more developed, then you are left-handed. If, however, your brain is equally developed on both sides, you are ambidextrous, you can use one hand as well as the other.

In a right-handed person, the right hand is usually larger than the left because its muscles have developed more.
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Veda #47 : It's Getting Higher 10:13 PM

Day 47
"Did you know Mount Everest is getting higher each year?how is that possible?"


Mount Everest, the highest point on earth with height of 8850 metres above sea level. Note that, the latest measurement is 8850m, but let's take a quick look at earlier 1856, the Everest measurement was "only" 8839m. The latest research told that Everest is getting higher with average speed 4mm/years. how did this possible?

Everest, as part of the Himalayan Mountains, they were formed in the last few million years. After the supercontinent of Laurasia broke up millions of years ago, India moved slowly north towards Asia and then crashed into it. The seabed between the two plates (the earth's crust is divided into large areas of land called plates) was crumbled and pushed up on the northern rim of India to form mountains. These two plates of the earth's crust are still moving, so the Himalayas are being pushed up higher, and India is moving northward with it.
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Veda #36 : Ugly Handwriting 11:12 PM

Day 36
"Why do most of doctors have a terrible non-human handwriting?"


You probably have ever gone to see a doctor, or at least go to pharmacy to take the medicine that prescribed for you. Take a look, or remember what it's like to see the prescription and the doctor's handwriting. It's so ugly and most of the time, it's not readable. But amazingly, the pharmachists were able to read and gave the right medicine prescribed, complete with the dosages. Why do most of the doctors have a completely unreadable handwriting?

Okay, so before you thought that they've been teached to write badly at medical school, doctors do not have bad handwriting, they just choose to write badly. This is not a conscious decision to confuse people, but an unintentional consequence of viewing other things as more important or urgent in the moment. In this case, the patient's health and other patient's health also, and the much more important is to putting all energy into diagnosis and treatment concerns.

This bad handwriting also has something to do with medical records and doctors not wishing their patients to be able to read the entries in theirs. The other and more interesting aspect is prescriptions and the era prior to the 1960s. Before that time there were both fewer stock prepared drugs and more custom compounded medicines, often using the doctor's favored remedies. The combination of poor handwriting, Latin and abbreviations of Latin kept the patient from knowing what exactly they were taking, and trying to make their own medication (that of course, will caused something unexpected to happen if they read it and interpreted it by themselves).

But a more simple fact that actually could be put into consideration,after all the years of taking notes quickly in medical school, the handwriting got messier and messier. :p
How did the pharmacist able to read this messy handwriting?it's simple, usually at the beginning of the sentences, there were actually 2-3 letters that are correct, the rest usually concluded by the pharmacist through year and years of learning medicine.

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Veda #35 : Fortune Cookies 11:57 PM

Day 35
"How did Fortune Cookies get its name?"

Did you ever heard of fortune cookies?. A traditional chinese's snack made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and oil with a small rolled paper wrapped inside, with some quotes written on them. Although there is still some dispute about it's origin, fortune cookies have become an iconic symbol in American culture, inspiring many products. Anyway, how did the "fortune" could get inside a cookies?

The Origin
There is still some unclear definition about the origin of this cookies whether they were made from Chinese traditions or an American actually made it as snacks. Most people nowadays believe that fortune cookies were created by a Japanese man named Makoto Hagiwara in 1914 in San Francisco. Hagiwara owned what is now called the Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden, where he served tea and fortune cookies. However, many still hold to the popular belief that fortune cookies were invented by a Chinese-American named David Jung, who owned the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles. He claimed to have stuffed the cookies with passages from the Bible and handed them out to unemployed men near his bakery in 1918.

But if we track back the inspiration of this cookies, we could go far back in time. Many accounts trace the cookies’ origin back to 13th and 14th century China, which was then occupied by the Mongols. According to legend, secret plans for an uprising were hidden in moon cakes that would ordinarily have contained lotus nut paste, which was unpalatable to the Mongols. The successful uprising, planned with the help of the hidden notes, led to the formation of the Ming Dynasty. This story may be true, and later could become the first inspiration of fortune cookies.

How the Fortune Got Its Name
Actually, this cookies purposes was to encourage peoples. This was called "Fortune", traditionally, the fortunes were Confucian phrases about life. Nowadays, the fortunes inside the cookies contain just about everything from quotes to advice. In order to make this fortune come true, there were many beliefs about this.

Variations on this idea include not eating the cookie if a fortune seems unlucky, or eating the entire cookie as well as the fortune, or the idea that the entire cookie must be eaten before the fortune is read. Conversely, the fortune must be read before any of the cookie is eaten. While some people believe the fortune will not come true if it is read aloud, or read at all, other people follow rules involving how the cookie is selected—including selecting a cookie with closed eyes, passing a cookie to another person at the table, or choosing the cookie that seems to be pointing directly at you.
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Veda #32 : Double U 11:53 PM

Day 32
"Why we called letter "W" with "double u", when in facts it looks more like "double v" ?"

W

Twenty-third letter of alphabet, W, pronounciated "double u", despite the facts that it looks more like two v's standing together. Okay, in Indonesia we called it "We", but how did this "W" ended up with "double u" ?

The history itself goes all the way back to the 11th century.
After the Norman invasion of Britain, the Anglo-Saxon language was written down using Roman letters.
The Roman alphabet doesn't have a W. It doesn't have a V, either, but what looks like a V is actually their U. In Rome it was often carved as V to avoid the difficult-to-carve rounded bottom.

When the English adopted the 23 letters of the Roman alphabet a long time ago, they decided they needed a new letter to pronounce the W sound, so they made a "double U" with the Roman V, They paired together two U's (at that time, it was like "VV" that makes a W). But, they didn't call it "double U" they called it "wyn" first time, and it looked sort of like a P with a short leg, not like the W we used to know. The usage of this symbol makes it more biased and look similar with alphabet "P" that already formed before.

Then, the French came along and adopted the W again. They weren't content with that, however, and sort of made it into a combination of W and G, which is why we have words like "warranty" and "guaranty" that mean the same thing. At any rate, they re-imported W into the English language in 1066, and the English set it back to the old Roman combination.

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Veda #31 : Scrubs 8:25 PM

Day 31
"Why the doctors and nurses always using green/blue scrubs when they operate?"


Familiar with tv series House?Grey's Anatomy?or the classic ER or Scrubs?
No problem if you haven't seen one of those movies, they all telling life in hospital as medical and surgical unit at the hospital. i'm not gonna tell each synopsis of those movies, but i'll tell you about their apparel, called Scrubs. Scrubs are the shirts and trousers or gowns worn by nurses, surgeons, and other operating room personnel when "scrubbing in" for surgery. They are designed to be simple with minimal places for dirt to hide, easy to launder, and cheap to replace if damaged or stained irreparably.
Now, do you know why this scrubs always coloured green (or in some case : blue)?

Earlier history tell that usually the doctors wearing white suit, to resembles clean and hygiene, because it's vital to health, or to sick persons, they must treated with hygiene stuff. This is a basic colour's psychology on most human's mind.
But then, if we talk about scrubs, most of the doctor change their clothes to green suit, because of the simple reason : it is more comfortable and refreshing to looked at. Although it is hard to believe and lack of logical reasons, green color is very suitable for the operating doctors and nurses to help them see better, because green is the opposite of red in color's wheel.
interesting isn't it?why?
According to Psychologist, seeing green color could refresh the eyes of the surgeon who stare at red things for a long period of time, this is including the blood and internal organ of the body. Seeing red color (or any 1 color) for too long will cause the brain lose its sensitivity to those color, and made the eyes a little bit blurry. Other case mentioned that it'll triggering some color illusion on bright color.
i.e : if the surgeon stare at the red blood for too long, the eyes will become blurry and they'll see some color illusion of red when they see the white or bright background.
So, that's why they using green color to help neutralize this illusion and improve permormance when operating.

About some of the surgeon or doctor using blue?the reason is simple, red is hot color, and to help neutralize it, use the cold colors such as green or blue.
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Veda #27 : Square-ing 10:09 PM

Day 27
"Why they called the boxing arena with "boxing ring" although it was square?"

Square area, 2 men, 1 winner. You've probably known this sport, yes it's boxing. This sport is about survival of the fittest and of course strategy, to beat down the opponent before being beaten down. Talk about boxing, let's set an eye to the arena, the ring, that actually had an interesting fact. Boxing ring is often referred to by many as the only circle in the world that is square. Why don’t they just call it boxing square, boxing stage or boxing something?

The answer is that “ring” was first applied not to the boxing area but to the spectators who formed a ring around the combatants. The first boxing ring was actually round. The earliest spectacle combat sports which have resemblance to the modern day boxing were actually played on a round drawing on the ground. The purpose perhaps of drawing lines, as opposed to just freely fighting without any delimiters on the ground, is to keep the fighters in a single location. And because of that lines, the spectators formed a ring around the combatants.

The first public boxing matches took place in early 18th century England. These were bare-knuckled affairs with no time limits and no referees. Small arenas were built that featured rings demarcated by wooden barriers or heavy ropes. The winner was the last man standing.

The purpose of the ring became very clear. It was used as the starting point of the match where the two wrestlers met at the beginning of the round. Since the boxings eventually became a sport, the using of wooden barriers considered dangerous for the fighters, so square shaped boxing areas were introduced only in the year 1838 by the Pugilistic Society. It constructed with four posts mounted on all four corners of the structure, and each side of the boxing ring are four ropes arranged in parallel and attached to the boxing posts using a technique called turn buckle, to ensure the safety.
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Veda #26 : Men Are Right, Women Are Left 11:02 PM

Day 26
Today's Fact : "Why are buttons sewn on the left side of women's clothing and on the right side of men's?"


Most of you probably don't know about this one, or even didn't care about this fact. Buttons have been used since ancient times to fasten or decorate clothing. But do you actually know that the button sewn on men's clothes are on the right side, but on women's clothes, its inverted?Amazingly, there were actually an explanation about this one.

In the 1200s, when fitted clothes took the place of loose robes tied by string or fastened by pins, buttons became popular. At that time, both men and women had buttons sewn on the left side of their garments, the same side as women do today. Then, during the Middle Ages, a change occurred. Men needed to unbutton their coats quickly to draw their swords, which hung on their left side. Since the sword was drawn with the right hand, it took a great deal of time for that same right hand to first undo the buttons. Therefore, men's buttons were changed to the right side so that a swordsman could use his left hand to unbutton his coat and immediately draw his sword with his right hand.

see those?can you spot the difference?

There's actually another theory, according to Metali Goswami of De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde, this particular fashion has its roots in the Victorian era, at a time when buttons were expensive and mostly worn by wealthy people. Women also had servants to dress them. Given that most people are right-handed, their buttons were placed on the servant's right, which is the wearer's left side. Men, on the other hand, dressed themselves so their buttons were placed on their right side. Those who could not afford servants copied the style of the wealthy, and women's buttons have remained on the left since.
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Veda #24 : That Wasn't Me 10:30 PM

Day 24
Question by : Me - "Why do other people hear our voices differently than we do?"


We have probably all had this experience or feeling. We listen to our own voices through tape recorder or through voice notes, and we insist that the voices on the tape doesn't sound at all like our voice, but other people's voice sound reasonably accurate.
Why did this happens?

Speech begins at the larynx, where the vibration emanates. Part of the vibration is conducted through the air, which it was what your friends (and those recorder) hear when you speak. another part of the vibration is directed through the fluids and solids of our heads. Our inner and middle ears are parts of cavern hollowed out by bone, the hardest bone of the skull. The inner ear contain fluids, the middle ear contains air, and the two press against each other. The larynx is also surrounded by soft tissue full of liquids. Sounds transmits differently throught the air than through the solid and liquids. That's why when we hear our own voice through recorder, we could hear all tonal differences.

When we speak, we are not hearing our voices through the ears, but also through internal hearing, the voice sounded inside our head, literally. And our brain said that the voices that we heard over the recorder is recognized but sounded like a pale imitation.
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Veda #23 : Sneeze It! 11:44 PM

Day 23
Question by : Me - "why can't we open our eyes whenever we sneeze?"

It really cold tonight, rain all day long, and i just sneeze several minutes ago. Darn it was very good and relieving... . But some facts stated that you can't sneeze with your eyes open, and some said that if you forced to open your eyes whenever you sneeze, your eyes will pop out because of the strong reaction from sneezing. is that true?

Sneezing in your body's way of getting rid of an irritation in your nose. Your nose is a sensitive organ,so all sorts of things might irratate it.
Sneezing is a reflex and so is closing our eyes. We have no control over whether or not we close our eyes when we sneeze. Some people don’t have reflex, so when they sneeze then their eyes won’t close. Some people try to close their eyes so when they sneeze their eyes won’t pop out. Your eyes don’t really pop out.

So why did we close our eyes?according to research, Sneezing is our body reaction to prevent bacteria entering our body, so whenever we sneeze, our body reflex shutting our eyesto prevent germs and bacterias entering through our eyes. As we may know, a sneeze is a kind of bodywide reflex in which a LOT of muscles contract, not just in the nose and throat but also the entire face, those in the diaphragm, the abdomen, thighs, back, which is why some people with stress incontinence may urinate slightly when they sneeze
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Veda #22 : A Man Who Doesn't Exist 9:30 PM

Day 22
Question by : Me - "Who is John Doe?"

(Not) John Doe

A question pop on my mind lately, just because i'm seeing too much crime tv series. Often at the murder scene, the victim has been murdered, and his identity simply taken by the killer. Whenever the victim goes to the autopsy room, he was reffered as John Doe. Even in the court, to ensure the safety of the survived victim, he often reffered as that name. The question is simple : who is this John Doe?and why did they called John Doe?

The History
The name "John Doe" is used as a placeholder name in a legal action, case or discussion for a male party, whose true identity is unknown or must be withheld for legal reasons. The name is also used to refer to a male corpse or hospital patient whose identity is unknown.

"John Doe" dates from the reign of England's King Edward III (1312-1377). A famous legal document from this period labels a landowner "John Doe," who leases land to a "Richard Roe," who then claims the land as his own and kicks out John.
Actually, the names don't have any particular relevance, other than the fact that a doe is a female deer, while a roe is a smaller species of deer. But the debate became a history of legal theory, and the name "John Doe" in particular gained wide currency in both the legal world and general usage as a generic stand-in for any unnamed person.

The Usage
In the US or Canada, the name John Doe is used for a defendant or victim in a legal matters or for a person whose identity is unknown or is intended to be anonymous. Male corpses whose identity is unknown are also known by the name John Doe. A female who is not known is referred to as Jane Doe. A child whose identity is unknown is referred to as Precious Doe or Baby Doe. Additional people in the same family may be called James Doe, Judy Doe, and so on.

According to The Oxford English Dictionary states that John Doe is "the name given to the fictitious lessee of the plaintiff, in the (now obsolete) mixed action of ejectment, the fictitious defendant being called Richard Roe".
But practically, to made it more simpe and avoid mistakes during the trial, the first victim usually called John Doe, and the second victim called Richard Roe if there is no blood relation.

By extension from the law usage, John Doe is often used in computer software needing a default or example first and last name for a form.

The Common Story
So you have read the explanation and history about this John Doe and its origin, but sometimes people who knows this matter usually reffered John Doe more simple : John was the common first name in US, and Doe was the common surname. I don't know it that's true. Let's keep it as it is.
And this is my version, i think John Doe and Richard Roe really never exist, because it's simple : i can't find the picture of those gentlemen.
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Veda #20 : Tomato is a fruit (technically, not officially) 11:22 PM

Day 20
"Tomato is a fruit, this is why"


Most of you probably know this classic question, "What is tomato?is it a fruit or a vegetable?". And probably you also knew the answer that most people think of it as a vegetable. This misnomer could be because tomatoes are so easy to grow in the vegetable garden or because they are a favorite salad recipe item. In the grocery store, we generally understand a fruit to be a natural plant product that is sweet, and a vegetable to be a natural plant product that is not sweet. In this standard definition, apples, strawberries, grapes and bananas are all fruits, while green beans, tomatoes, squash and potatoes are all vegetables.
The fact?tomato technically is a fruit.

Okay, most of you maybe also know it...but do you know why it is technically a fruit?

According to The Encyclopedia Britannica, it sums it up like this:
Fruit - in its strict botanical sense, the fleshy or dry ripened ovary of a plant, enclosing the seed or seeds. Thus, apricots, bananas, and grapes, as well as bean pods, corn grains, tomatoes, cucumbers, and (in their shells) acorns and almonds, are all technically fruits.
This definition of fruit is very broad, and encompasses almost everything that contains seeds. So that's mean, tomato is a FRUIT


BUT
Tomato officially is a vegetable!
here's the story : Back in 1893, US decided there were tariffs placed on tomatoes imported from the West Indies because they were considered a vegetable, and imported vegetables were subject to tariffs. The case originated on February 4, 1887 when the Nix Family sued Edward L. Hedden, tax collector of the port of New York to recover back duties collected on their tomatoes.

Webster's Dictionary was consulted, along with Worcester's Dictionary and the Imperial Dictionary for the definitions of "fruit" and "vegetable." The passages from the dictionaries defined "fruit" as the seed of plants, or that part of plants which contains the seed, and especially the juicy, pulpy products of certain plants, covering and containing the seed.

This case was brought to the highest US Supreme Court at that time, and the court stated that :
"Botanically, tomatoes are considered a fruit of the vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in common language of people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not like fruits generally, as dessert."
and the result officially labeled tomatoes as VEGETABLE

confuse?for me, tomato is a fruit :p how about you?
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Veda #19 : Itchy Itchy Mosquito 10:44 PM

Day 19
Question by : ? - "Why do we feel itch and need to scratch our skin whenever mosquito bite us?"


General question tonight, maybe some of you've already know the answer to this question.
Mosquito is like a little annoying robot, they can sense us humans. With their antenna, mosquitoes can sense carbon dioxide and lactic acid up to 100 feet away. They can also detect chemicals in sweat. Since people and animals give off lots of carbon dioxide and these other chemicals, it makes it easy for mosquitoes to find us. Whenever a mosquito bite us, it'll left behind the itchy feeling to us, and suddenly we need to scratch it. why would that happen?why suddenly we feel itch?and do we really need to scratch it or not?

So to be clear, the mosquito that usually bite us is the female one. They do this because they use blood as a source of protein. Without a protein snack, a female mosquito cannot lay eggs. So when the mosquito lands, her first thing to do is to stick her long, thin sting into your skin like a needle. She injects a fluid that keeps your blood from coagulating (thickening). Then she sucks up a drop of blood, about five microliters, and stores it in her abdomen. Once she is full, she flies away to lay her eggs.

People probably wouldn't mind this so much, it's not a lot of blood from their body, but there are two problems with mosquitoes. First, diseases. When the mosquito injects this fluid, germs and parasites can enter your body. You could get malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever or West Nile encephalitis. And each of these can be fatal!
The second problem is, the fluid the mosquito injects does not belong in your body. Your immune system makes the area swell so that it can clean out the fluid, that unfortunately "disturb" our skin nerves. The whole clean up process is what makes your skin itch after the bite. So, it's not the mosquito that makes us itch, but our immune system basically.


And do we really need to scratch the itchy part?if it was caused by mosquito, go ahead, don't scratch it too hard though.
but if your skin feel any itch without any mosquitos bite, then don't. Because this itch indicating there is some abnormalities on our skin nerve, scratching it only make it worse because the allergies gonna be spreading, and make your skin wounded.
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Veda #18 : Up, Up, And Away 10:47 PM

Day 18
Question by : Me - "Could hanging on a helium balloon could make you fly?and how many balloons to make that happen?"


Okay, so first, congratulation to "Up" for being the Best Animated Feature Film on Golden Globe Award...yaaay.
For you who don't know what was Up about, it was a movie about a husband/grandfather, who lived alone because of his wive was dead, before accomplishing their dream to go to Angel Falls waterfalls. The grieving husband suddenly had this "insane" idea, to fly his house to Angel Falls, with only using a bunch of helium balloons.
It sounds so cartoonish and full of imagination, but let's take it a lil bit serious this time. If somebody wanted to fly with a helium baloons, how many baloons would it take to make somebody float?. Let's assume this person's weight is around 50 kg.

Now, let's explain about this helium baloon and it's basic principles.
A helium balloon works on the same basic principle as an air bubble in water. A bubble rises in water because it is lighter than the water around it. The water pressure pushes the lightweight bubble upward. Now, let's consider the air is the water, and helium baloon is the bubble. With a helium balloon, what you have is a "bubble" of helium rising in an ocean of air. Helium has a lifting force of about one gram per liter. That happens because helium atoms weigh less than the oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the air.

If one liter of helium can lift about a gram, and if you weigh 50 kg, let's assume there are 1000 grams in a kilogram, then you are going to need about 50,000 liters of helium to lift yourself off the ground. So the question becomes, "How many balloons does it take to hold 50,000 liters of helium?"
If you buy a balloon, it is normally about 30 cm in diameter. A balloon like that holds about 14-15 liters of helium. let's assume it 15, therefore one baloon could lift 15 grams or so if you assume that the balloon and the string don't weigh anything.

standard helium baloon that we used as measurement...

Let's calculate now.
the body's weight = 50 kg
amount of helium needed to lift = 50,000 litres
amount of helium in one baloon = 15 litres
therefore, to lift a person with 50 kg weight, it would need about : 50,000 / 15 = 3,333 balloons
Let's assume you're gonna need 3,500 baloons to add some more to compensate for the weight of the 3,333 balloons and all their strings.
So, GOOD LUCK!

up, up, and away!!

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Veda #17 : Punctuation 11:34 PM

Day 17
Question by : none - "history of punctuation"

Little bit interesting tonight, we're gonna learn about the history and name of punctuation and symbols. Not the whole symbol though, but several symbols that have their story. Last post was about keyboard layout, now why don't we describe the symbols.
okay here goes

1. Question mark (?)
this symbol came from latin word "Questio", indicating a question, so at first time, people have to write questio after the question. To save some spaces and times in writing, they abbreviated it from Questio to "qo" with the letter "q" above the "o". And because the increasing on writing speed, it transform like the question mark we know now.

2. Exclamation mark (!)
Just like the question mark, this was made by stacking two letters. This symbol came from latin word "io", means "happy call" or "shout of happines". At first, they put an "i" above the "o" and gradually become like what we use now.

3. Equal mark (=)
Founded by an English mathematician, Rober Recorde, on 1557, with this thought "I'll use this usual mark, a pair of twin lines, because there aren't two things can be more equal than this two lines". So he often use it to equaling a comparison on his formula. The first equal mark made by Recorde was 5 times longer than the one we know.

4. Ampersand (&)
This mark came from Latin word "Et" means "and". This was founded by Marcus Tullius Tiro, first century writer from Rome. The name "Ampersand" was given 17 centuries later. At earlier 1800s, the scholar learn this symbol as the 27th letter after "Z", but they haven't found the name yet. So they often said it ABC, until Z, and then they said "and per se, and", gradually became "ampersand".

5. Cross mark / Octothorp (#)
This symbol has quite an unique name, "Thorpe" from old Normandic language means "farm land". This was first used in map-making to symbolize the village that surrounded by eight farm. According to Latin language, 8 is called "Octa" and farm is called "Thorpe", that's why they called this symbol an "Octothorp".

6. Dollar mark ($)
US government published their own currency at 1794, and at that time they still used an old world currency "Peso" or "Spanish dollar". The first America's 1 dollar coin was exactly the same with Spanish's Peso, both weight and value, so they use the same abbreviation : "Ps" - Not Photoshop. Gradually, they write the letter "p" above the "s", and then, the round circle on "P" is ignored, and leave behind the letter "S" with a vertical line.

7. At mark (@)
Ray Tomilson, an engineer whom first invented this symbol confess that he didn't think long enough why he did use this symbol to send the very first email between two computers. He randomly pick the "@" symbol because it was similar with the letter "A" in the first letter of "address".
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Veda #16 : QWERTY 10:01 PM

Day 16
Question by : none - "Why our present keyboard have this random arrangement?"

Take a look to your keyboard, everyday you use it, and some of you maybe use it on your phone. Now let's take a detailed look, and imagine it for a while, why they had this "random" arrangement. Why didn't sort it from A,B,C,D to Z?
This is maybe an interesting and "out-of-the-box" invention. We should know that every invention ever made was meant to made human's life easier. But unfortunately, this QWERTY arrangement was meant to harden it, and in contrary, this particular arrangement of letters on a keyboard is the near-universal standard for the entire English-speaking world.

The History
To understand how it get it's arrangement, we should travel back to the early invention of computer, the great-grandmother, Typewriter. The first practical typewriter was patented in the United States in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes. His machine was known as the type-writer. It had a movable carriage, a lever for turning paper from line to line, and a keyboard on which the letters were arranged in alphabetical order (A-Z). But Sholes had a problem. Sholes' original prototypes had a problem with the bars colliding with each other and jamming. So the story goes that he arranged the keys with the most common letters in hard to reach spots, to slow typists down and try to avoid this problem.

Sholes' early prototype of QWERTY layout

QWERTY's effect reducing those annoying clashes, was determined to speed up typing rather than slow it down. Sholes then went to Remington, the arms manufacturer, to have their machines mass-produced. In 1874 Remington & Sons manufactured the first commercial typewriter, called the Remington Number 1. This typewriter used the "QWERTY" keyboard. The name "QWERTY" for our typewriter keyboard comes from the first six letters in the top alphabet row.

The Keyboard's Development
Like an old proverb said, "nobody perfect", this QWERTY layout wasn't the perfect one, in fact it wasn't the effective one. By the time goes, many researchers and typist trying to find more effective way of typing. One of the considered contender of this QWERTY layout was DVORAK layout, invented by Dr. August Dvorak at 1940.

Comparation between DVORAK and QWERTY (red lettered)

The QWERTY keyboard is very different from the DVORAK keyboard layout. The DVORAK keyboard layout tries to minimize the distance traveled by the fingers. It also tries to make the typist alternate hands on consecutive letters as often as possible. DVORAK's home row uses all five vowels and the five most common consonants: AOEUIDHTNS. With the vowels on one side and consonants on the other, a rough typing rhythm would be established as each hand would tend to alternate. With the DVORAK keyboard, a typist can type about 400 of the English language's most common words without ever leaving the home row, while QWERTY is 100. The home row letters on DVORAK do a total of 70% of the work. On QWERTY they do only 32%.

The comparation of effectiveness

the ideal number is 50-50, however, the closest one to 50 considered more effective

However, the DVORAK keyboard is no more efficient than QWERTY. An independent study in 1956 showed that QWERTY typists and DVORAK typists had about the same rate of speed, and continued studies don't show a clear winner between the two (to see the table of effectiveness, see the diagram above). This may explain why QWERTY is still the standard. Besides, many people and typist already familiar with this QWERTY layout, making it harder for them to adapt again. Just a matter of habit, i think.

The Other Development
Maybe this is a little bit different from QWERTY layout, but this one definitely made by it's layout. These layouts below are considered as a standard for it's own country. Some examples are : QWERTZ, used in Hungaria, Germany, Switzerland ; AZERTY, used in French and Belgium ; QZERTY ; and many more including Dvorak for left hand, for right hand, and for both hands.

AZERTY layout

QWERTZ layout

Hebrew layout

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Veda #15 : Crosswords Puzzle 11:26 PM

Day 15
Question by : None - "Who was the inventor of crosswords puzzle?"


Most of you probably knew this classic word game, yes, crossword puzzle. A crossword puzzle is a game of words where the player is given a hint and the number of letters. The player then fills in a grid of boxes by finding the right words. Today crosswords are among the most popular word games in history. There are people who make answering crossword puzzles a daily habit, or just a way to spend some boring time.

Arthur Wynne, the father of crossword puzzle

This game was invented by Liverpool journalist, Arthur Wynne. Once upon a time, Arthur remembering the childhood game he used to play when he was a kid. This game was called "Magic Square", based from Pompeii game where the player have to arrange the word horizontally and vertically, until it form a square. Like this example :
ROTAS
OPERA
TENET
AREPO
SATOR
It is unusual because it can be read in any direction. At later game, he try to make a new creation by expanding the words, and more complex shape than only a square, and then he added more "key question" to reveal the answers.

Arthur Wynne's crossword puzzle was initially called word-cross and was diamond shaped. The name later switched to cross-word and then crossword. It was first published at December 21, 1913 at the pages of the Sunday New York World. It is very different from the current puzzles, since there were no black squares. The New York World was the only newspaper back then which started publishing crossword puzzles, and it was a huge success.

The first crossword puzzle published

The first book of crossword puzzles appeared in 1924, published by Simon and Schuster. This odd-looking book with a pencil attached to it, was an instant hit and crossword puzzles became the craze of 1924. Up until now, this game is still a major favorite for word game, and it developed into many kinds, such as Sudoku - crossword based, but instead of letters, they used numbers.

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Veda #13 : Brr It's Cold...Wait, I Have To Pee 8:59 PM

Day 13
Question by : Me...me...mee - "Why do i have to pee more often when it's cold outside?"

Okay, simple question today, but probably most of you forget this one or even don't know. Hi-school science actually. It was raining all day long today at my place. Simple math : Rain + Air Conditioner = I HAVE to pee!. So that's how the question ran across my mind today. Let's see...with the last time i took a leak before made this post, i've counted 9 times i have to "jog" from my desk to the toilet.
Why did this always happen on the cold day?

Here's the explanation
When the weather is hot,our body system tries to keep our body cool by evaporating the water along with unwanted things through the skin in the form of SWEAT. Think of it this way: sweat contains urea, water and mineral salt, whilst urine contains the same thing as they both are related to the excretory system in our body.

So, during hotter/warmer weather and at high temperatures we tend to urinate less cause we are already sweating most of everything out. Skin helps the kidney by sharing its work of cleaning the body in hot weather conditions. In cold conditions,there is no perspiration, as the skin does produce sweat and the kidney has to bear the entire burden and hence we urinate frequently. This is the main reason for this condition.

Fact for you today : Females typically feel a need to urinate more than males because of their (usually) smaller bladders.
answered my question my most of female more often go to the toilet...

how about you?how many times do you go to toilet today? (ga pentiing...ga pentiing...ga usah dijawab...)

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