Blog Archives
25 Everyday Things You Never Knew Had Names
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1. Tittle
The dot over an ‘i’ or ‘j.’
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2. Lunule
The white, crescent shaped part at the top of a nail.
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3. Crepuscular Rays
Rays of sunlight coming from a certain point in the sky. Also known as “God’s rays.”
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4. Ferrule
The metal part on a pencil.
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5. Gynecomastia
Man-boobs.
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6. Muntin
The strip separating window panes.
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7. Morton’s Toe
When your second toe is bigger than your big toe.
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8. Arms Akimbo
Exactly what it looks like. Hands on your hips.
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9. Desire Path
A path created by natural means, simply because it is the “shortest or most easily navigated” way.
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10. Semantic Satiation
What happens when you say a word for so long that it loses its meaning. Limit limit limit limit limit limit limit limit limit.
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11. Skeuomorph
“A design feature copied from a similar artifact in another material, even when not functionally necessary.” For example, rivets on jeans, copper color on pennies, the shutter sound on a digital camera, and the pointless handle above.
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12. Brannock Device
What is used to measure your feet at the shoe store.
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13. Paresthesia
The pins and needles feeling you get when part of your body falls asleep. Bonus! This is known as obdormition.
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14. Phosphenes
The lights you see when you close your eyes and press your hands to them.
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15. Armscye
The armhole in most clothing.
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16. Wamble
Stomach rumble.
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17. Feat
A dangling piece of curly hair.
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18. Peen
The side opposite the hammer’s striking side.
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19. Rectal Tenesmus
The feeling of incomplete defecation. We’ve all been there.
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20. Dysania
The state of finding it hard to get out of the bed in the morning.
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21. Mondegreen
Misheard lyrics.
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22. Petrichor
The it smells outside after rain.
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23. Philtrum
The groove located just below the nose and above the middle of the lips.
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24. Purlicue
The space between the thumb and the forefingers.
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25. Aglet
The plastic coating on a shoelace.
How to Speed up Your Internet Connection
The internet is one of the greatest technological inventions of the computer age. It provides us with unimaginable amounts of data and information on every subject that exists not to mention the endless hours of entertainment and ability to communicate with others all around the world. The internet is a truly remarkable creation that we would struggle to live without now that we have sampled life with it.
Of course, like most good things in life, the internet is not without its problems and one of those problems that plague many people is the speed of the internet and the slow internet connections. A slow internet connection means that you are sat frustrated in front of your computer screen as you wait for webpages to load. While this may only be a couple of seconds it can seem like a lifetime and seriously lower your internet user experience. If you happen to be trying to stream a movie or involved in online gaming a slow internet connection can be disastrous.
Thankfully a slow internet connection does not have to be the end of the world and there are a few simple things that you can try to speed up your internet connection. This article will share a few of those tricks with you in the hope that it will help you troubleshoot a slow internet connection.
Get in Touch With You Internet Provider.
If you are suffering from a slow internet connection it may be worth your while to get in touch with your internet service provider. There may be a problem with the line that they can fix and it is always worth checking to make sure they are providing the service that you are paying for. They also might be able to offer you a faster internet connection for only a slight increase in your payments.
Use the Best Web Browser for Your Needs.
When it comes to browsing the internet you are not limited to having to use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. There are several web browsers that are available to you and each of them will enhance your internet experience in a different way. Most people swear by the Google Chrome web browser so it is well worth giving it a try especially if the specification of your computer’s hardware is limited. The Google Chrome web browser is less RAM hungry as web browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox.
Check Your Router.
You are probably not aware but, just like your computer; your internet router can crash or freeze. If you notice that your internet connection is running really slow or even failing to load certain pages turn your internet router off for a few minutes then turn it back on to see if this helps speed up your internet connection.
Use a Wired Connection.
While a wireless internet connection is convenient and means that you can move around with ease using the internet anywhere in range of your router it is not without problems. The wireless signal from your internet router can often suffer from interference which will slow it down. Wireless internet is always slower than a wired connection.
Try using a wired Ethernet connection to use the internet and you will most definitely notice an increase in the speed of your internet connection especially if you are a heavy internet user who enjoys downloading large files and streaming various media over the internet.
Upgrade Your Router.
Like everything else in life relating to technology routers are no different. If you bought your internet router a number of years ago it might well be time to invest in a new one. Internet routers don’t need replacing as often as other computer related hardware but as the speed of the internet increases you may find that your router is unable to deal with increasing connection speeds.
Check Your Internet Security.
If you are using a wireless internet router then make sure you have security measures in place to avoid unauthorised access. It is not uncommon to find that someone, even a neighbour, is piggybacking off your internet connection. If someone is using your internet connection without your knowledge then it will slow the connection down. Make sure that you use an encrypted connection and change the network key on a regular basis. Ideally you should use WPA encryption methods and at the very least use WEP encryption. Be advised that WEP encryption can easily be hacked by anyone with only a little computer knowledge using freely available tools from the internet.
Limit The Number of Computers Using Your Connection.
Nowadays it is increasingly common for there to be more than one computer in the household. In fact it is not uncommon for a household to contain a computer for each person living there so if you happen to be a family of four then you are looking at four computers all which could be trying to access the internet at the same time. When you have several computers using one internet connection things can get a little congested and inevitably your connection speed will slow down. If you notice the speed of your internet connection slow down to unbearable levels then try to limit the number of people in your household using the internet at any one time.
10 Ways the World Will Probably End
There is no shortage to theories about the end of the world and how it will come about in fact there are many people who believe that the world will end this year (2012). For some bizarre reason the human race is fasiated with the various theories about the end of the world and this is why Hollywood spends so much money on big blockbuster movies which show such events.
Not that I am trying to spoil anyone’s days when I point out this small fact but the end of the world and the end of the human race is actually a certainty which will 100% happen. It is not just a story that Hollywood likes to throw around to make big bucks. There is no maybe about it. The world and the human race will end the only thing we do not know is how it will end.
Here we look at 10 ways the Earth will Probably end.
Mayan Apocalypse.
There are plenty of people who claim that the theory of a Mayan apocalypse is nothing more than fantasy but there are also plenty of people who actually believe that the world will indeed end on 21 December 2012. The Mayan texts say nothing about how the apocalypse will come but the Mayan are well known to be very clever mathematicians who have accurately predicted and described a wide variety of major world events. The Mayan also believe that the flow of time is cyclical and not linear. If this is correct then we may not experience the end of the world but we might experience a reset of time as we know it. I’m not sure how that will work but we might not have very long to find out.
Asteroid Impact.
An asteroid impact has been the bad guy in an endless number of Hollywood blockbusters but the truth is we might not be able to rely on Bruce Willis to save us. Our planet has experienced countless asteroid impacts in its lifetime and it is widely assumed that an asteroid impact was behind the annihilation of the dinosaurs. The harsh truth is at some point in the future the Earth will be hit by another huge asteroid that will wipe out life on this fragile planet. It is just a matter of when it will hit. It is estimated that there is a 1/700,000 per lifetime chance of an asteroid hitting us. That might seem a long shot but those odds are very real indeed.
Ice Age.
The Earth has experienced at least one ice age that everyone is familiar with. If the climate of our planet continues to alter itself, for whatever reason, we could be heading for big trouble. If we enter another ice age life as we know it would change in a heartbeat. There is little chance of a severe enough change coming to the worlds climate in our life time but give it a generation or two then you may well be looking at a totally different scenario.
Nuclear War.
I am sure there are a few of you out there who are reading this who will laugh the idea of nuclear war off and think it is pretty far fetched. If you do think a nuclear war is highly unlikely just take a look at the news as new countries such as Iran continue their interest and pursuit of developing there very own nuclear weapon. This could spell big trouble for us if the powers that be decide that they cannot agree and a nuclear war would be 100% brutal and uncompromising destroying everyone and everything that got in its path. Not only that the aftermath would be a nuclear winter which would block out the sun for years to come spelling even more disaster for us humans as our plants and food sources begin to die off.
Biotech Disaster.
Genetic engineering is a big thing these days and with each day that passes we are closer to taking the science of genetic engineering one step further than just our food. Just focusing on our food alone, the more we experiment with the genetic engineering of our food the greater the chance of something going wrong. It is still unclear the effects of eating genetically modified foods has on our bodies so there is still a chance that some form of mutation could spread on to us. This is the sort of thing you see during a zombie apocalypse.
Alien Invasion.
When you think about the sheer size of the universe it becomes mind boggling and rather difficult to believe that the Earth is the only planet to exist with life on it. If an alien race happens to stumble upon us one way or another we could be in some pretty big trouble. Most people seem to have the idea that if a more advanced race of aliens made contact with us they would be friendly but one thing history has told us is that is pretty unlikely. Just take a look at what happened to the native american people and the aborigine people in Australia. This is what would most likely happen to us especially if the alien race came to harvest our planet of its many natural resources.
Robot Revolution.
The idea of machines taking over is far from just science fiction. Computers are getting smarter, quicker and cleverer at an alarming rate. It is only a matter of time before we have artificially intelligent machines that are capable of reproducing themselves without human help and that could be a problem in itself. It just takes one of these super computer machines to ask what is going on and why is it taking orders from humans and decide that it does not want to put up with that any more. Once that happens we are screwed.
Mass Insanity.
Because of the marvelous advancements in the field of medicine we are living longer and longer with each generation. The problem with this is that the human mind is not designed to last this long. This is why the suicide rate is through the roof for those aged over 65 and that problem is only going to get worse as we begin to live even longer. Just imagine how bad things will get as we all start to live over 100 years.
Rouge Black Holes.
It is estimated that there could be at least 10 million black holes in the Milky Way galaxy alone. That is an awful lot of black holes which just so happen to orbit around the galaxy gobbling up anything, including light, that happens to get in its way. You would not even want to begin to imagine the trouble we would be in if a rogue black hole happened to be on the same path as, not just our planet, but our solar system. We would be sucked in and crushed in a millisecond. Not even Bruce Willis could save us from this one.
Super Volcanoes.
We all know about volcanoes and understand they can be really destructive on a huge scale. It is estimated that there are around 500 active volcanoes on the Earth. It is also estimated (notice we say estimated as the real number is unknown) that there are 3 super volcanoes in the United States alone. There are also super volcanoes in Lake Toba in Indonesia, Taupo in New Zealand, and Aira Caldera in Japan. These super volcanoes are all capable of erupting and if they did erupt the eruption would blast out of the Earth over an area of 240 cubic miles (1000 cubic kilometers). That is 1000′s of times bigger than any other normal volcanic eruption. Yellowstone park in the USA is a super volcano and if that was to erupt it would be disastrous as it is capable of throwing 2000 million tonnes of sulphuric acid into the air. If you managed to survive the eruption you probably would not survive the aftermath as the planet would experience a nuclear winter scenario as the suns light would be blocked out by the rock and ash which would be spewed out. The sun could be blocked out for years which would spell the end for life on Earth.
[via – buzzfeed]
janbein 