The U.S. Constitution Test

This version of the Test is currently in use by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Questions are followed with Answers:

1. What are the colors of our flag?
2. How many stars are there on our flag?
3. What color are the stars on our flag?
4. What do the stars on the flag mean?
5. How many stripes are there on the flag?
6. What color are the stripes?
7. What do the stripes on the flag mean?
8. How many states are there in the Union?
9. Why do we celebrate the Fourth of July?
10. What is the date of Independence day?

What is LifeSaver bottle?

Image via Wikipedia

The Lifesaver bottle is a portable water purification device. Designed by Michael Pritchard, the bottle filters out objects larger than 15 nanometres. The bottle is used by people hit by disasters to create safe drinking water or while camping. It is also used by impoverished people around the world to make safe drinking water.

Development

After the 2004 Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina disaster in the U.S., Michael Pritchard, a water-treatment expert in Ipswich, England began to develop the Lifesaver bottle after hearing the idea from Dr. Zackary Kepes and Austin Castellano. Pritchard presented a prototype of the Lifesaver at 2007′s DSEi London, where the product was named “Best Technological Development”.Pritchard’s entire stock of 1,000 bottles sold out within four hours of the presentation.

Speaking at TED in 2009, Pritchard estimated that by utilising the Lifesaver bottle reaching the Millennium Development Goals of halving the number of people without drinking water will cost $8 billion; while $20 billion would provide drinking water for everyone on Earth.

What is a Paradox?

 

 

A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition. The term is also used for an apparent contradiction that actually expresses a non-dual truth such as two true sentences which put together seem incompatible as both being true . Typically however, quoted paradoxical statements do not imply a real contradiction and the puzzling results can be rectified by demonstrating that one or more of the premises themselves are not really true, a play on words, faulty and/or cannot all be true together. But many paradoxes, such as Curry’s paradox, do not yet have universally accepted resolutions. The word paradox is often used interchangeably with contradiction. Literary and other artistic uses of paradoxes imply no contradiction and may be used to describe situations that are ironic. Sometimes the term paradox is used for situations that are merely surprising.

What is Logic?

Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science.It examines general forms which arguments may take, which forms are valid, and which are fallacies. In philosophy, the study of logic figures in most major areas: epistemology, ethics, metaphysics. In mathematics, it is the study of valid inferences within some formal language.

[WIKIPEDIA]

The Tesseract

(Visualization of a higher dimensional object)

The tesseract is a four dimensional cube. It has 16 edge points v=(a,b,c,d), with a,b,c,d either equal to +1 or -1. Two points are connected, if their distance is 2. Given a projection P(x,y,z,w)=(x,y,z) from four dimensional space to three dimensional space, we can visualize the cube as an object in familar space. The effect of a linear transformation like a rotation   | 1 0 0 0 | R(t) = | 0 1 0 0 | | 0 0 cos(t) sin(t) | | 0 0 -sin(t) cos(t) | in 4d space can be visualized in 3D by viewing the points v(t) = P R(t) v in R3.

How to Lucid Dream?

Image via Wikipedia

Lucid dreaming is being aware of the fact that you are dreaming. This awareness can range from very faint recognition of the fact (which is often too brief and nebulous to be considered truly lucid) to something as momentous as a broadening of awareness beyond what has ever been experienced even in waking life. What a dreamer does with lucidity reflects personal tendencies and levels of skill attained usually through experience and practice. Although a lucid dreamer can influence the dream’s structure, characters, course, etc., it is not a given that a lucid dream is about what the dreamer wants it to be about. Seasoned lucid dreamers who are more often lucid than not will continue to encounter psychological and developmental challenges in the dreamscape. The agreeable and the distressing, the easy and difficult, beautiful and horrifying, are all occasioned much as they are in regular dreaming. But whereas a regular dream is filled with the convoluted subtleties of the subconscious mind enumerating its issues before a largely unconscious dreamer, a lucid dreamer has the opportunity to consciously explore at any level.

Kaprekar’s constant : 6174

Image via Wikipedia

6174 is known as Kaprekar’s constant after the Indian mathematician D. R. Kaprekar. This number is notable for the following property:

1. Take any four-digit number, using at least two different digits. (Leading zeros are allowed.)
2. Arrange the digits in ascending and then in descending order to get two four-digit numbers, adding leading zeros if necessary.
3. Subtract the smaller number from the bigger number.
4. Go back to step 2.

The above process, known as Kaprekar’s routine, will always reach 6174 in at most 7 iterations.Once 6174 is reached, the process will continue yielding 7641 – 1467 = 6174.

Why Should I Care About HTTPS on Facebook (or Other Web Sites)?

HTTPS is a significantly more secure version of HTTP, which is the protocol you generally use to load up your webpages (whether you’re aware of it or not). HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, so HTTPS stands for the same thing but with Secure on the end of it. This is because, as Wikipedia will tell you, HTTPS is “a combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with the SSL/TLS protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server.”

25 Beautifully Illustrated Thought-Provoking Questions

A question that makes you think is worth asking…

At the cusp of a new day, week, month, or year, most of us take a little time to reflect on our lives by looking back over the past and ahead into the future.  We ponder the successes, failures and standout events that are slowly scripting our life’s story.  This process of self reflection helps us maintain a conscious awareness of where we’ve been and where we intend to go.  It is pertinent to the organization and preservation of our dreams, goals and desires.

If you would like to maximize the benefits of self reflection, This site, Thought Questions, is for you.  A new illustrated thought question is posted daily.  We recommend that you read and reread these questions regularly when you have some quiet time to think.  After all, reflection is the key to progression.

Remember, these questions have no right or wrong answers.  Because asking the right questions is the answer.

What exactly is wmpnetwk.exe And is it Working?

If you’ve been looking through Task Manager you’ve likely seen a process running called wmpnetwk.exe.  This executable isn’t a virus, in fact, it is made by Microsoft and is automatically there on most operating systems.  However, this process is taking up precious system resources, so for those of us who don’t need it, why not shut it down?  Let’s take a closer look and examine wmpnetwk.exe so you can decide if you need it or if it’s just a waste of resources.

What exactly is wmpnetwk.exe?

When Microsoft introduced Windows Media Player 10, they also introduced network media sharing.  The process then lingered on and is included with Windows Media Center as well.  This feature includes sharing videos and music to your Xbox 360, other computers, and some mobile devices.  But, none of the network sharing will work without something to host it.  This where wmpnetwk.exe comes in, it literally is the service that “shares Windows Media Player libraries to other networked players sand media devices using Universal Plug and Play.”  The only downside is that the process runs 24/7 regardless of if you are actually using it, and in doing so uses up a chunk of system resources.