Sunday 17 July 2011

INTERESTING FACTS - 3

1. 80% of all pictures on the internet are of naked women

2. Another name for a Microsoft Windows tutorial is 'Crash Course'!

3. Bill Gates' house was designed using a Macintosh computer.

4. By the year 2012 there will be approximately 17 billion devices connected to the Internet.

5. Domain names are being registered at a rate of more than one million names every month.

6. E-mail has been around longer than the World Wide Web.

7. For every 'normal' webpage, there are five porn pages.

8. In the 1980s, an IBM computer wasn't considered 100 percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft Flight Simulator*.

9. MySpace reports over 110 million registered users. Were it a country, it would be the tenth largest, just behind Mexico.

10. One of every 8 married couples in the US last year met online.

11. The average 21 year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games, has exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages and has spent 10,000 hours on the mobile phone.

12. The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute, less than half the normal rate of 20.

13. The first banner advertising was used in 1994.

14. The first computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.

15. The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com.

0 16. The world's first computer, called the Z1, was invented by Konrad Zuse in 1936. His next invention, the Z2 was finished in 1939 and was the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer.

17. There are approximately 1,319,872,109 people on the Internet.

18. There are approximately 1.06 billion instant messaging accounts worldwide.

19. While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users.


Sunday 10 July 2011

sinkholes

Types of Naturally Occurring Sinkholes

Sinkholes look dramatic when you're peering down into one, but it's below the surface where the real action takes place. A sinkhole's identity centers on the gaps, crevices, cavities and voids that lie under the overburden, or the soil above the bedrock. As these gaps develop, expand and merge, soil from the overburden starts filling the void.
In the case of the sinkhole suddenly opening to swallow a car that we just mentioned, it formed because the overburden was no longer stable enough to hold itself up. This common type of sinkhole is known as a collapse orcover-collapse sinkhole. Although these sinkholes can appear suddenly, the erosion that makes them happen has likely been taking place for weeks or years before, underground and out of view. So let's head underground.
The top layer of a cover-collapse sinkhole is usually a soft overburden, made of soil with a lot of clay in it. Over time, a small cavern forms underneath that soil. Opportunistic sediment takes advantage of the newly free real estate and starts spilling into the cavern -- a process known as spalling. As spalling continues, the underground cavern fills with more sediment, hollowing out the space under the overburden. Eventually, the overburden becomes so thin that it suddenly collapses into the cavern below (this is the "cover collapse"), creating a sinkhole. In some cases, the cover can support its own weight but crumbles when additional weight, whether from a hapless person or car, passes over it.
With cover-subsidence sinkholes, water permeates the soft overburden. An example of this type of terrain is an overburden made up of up to 100 feet (30 meters) of sand with a small amount of clay below before yielding to soft limestone. As limestone dissolves and leaves a void, sediment from the overburden seeps in, creating a bowl-like impression in the Earth. These sinkholes, often only a few feet across and deep, are smaller than many others because after reaching a certain size, sand and sediment pour into the hole . This inflow of sediment can block the outflow of water by stopping up the cracks and passages that connect the sinkhole to underground conduits. Many of these sinkholes then become ponds, as the water has nowhere to drain. They also don't produce the spectacular kind of cave-in associated with a cover-collapse sinkhole.
dissolution or solution sinkhole is essentially a deep impression in the ground. These sinkholes usually have a thin overburden (if any), which washes away or is eroded. The now-exposed rock then progressively dissolves when it touches acidic water. The bare area hollows out, forming a shallow basin. Water often pools on the surface of a dissolution sinkhole, creating a sort of pond that compounds the erosion of rock below. Also, like in other types of sinkholes, objects and other material can get stuck in the fractures where water would normally flow out. Unlike a cover-subsidence sinkhole, there is no overburden or covering sediment to spall into the sinkhole or cover the eroding rock.
Human activity produces some of the worst sinkholes. We'll take a look at them .

Sinkholes Caused by Humans

Sinkhole in Los Angeles
A broken water main collapsed part of the street in Los Angeles in December 2002. Sinkholes caused by water eroding the foundation of streets are a big problem in Los Angeles.
In urban settings in particular, sinkholes may owe their development to human activity as much as anything else. In some cases, sinkholes appear because of the combination of industrial activity or development, soft limestone bedrock and less than 200 feet (61 meters) of overburden . The following human actions can also cause sinkholes:
  • Drilling and vibrations
  • Mining
  • Changes in weight
  • Lots of foot or vehicle traffic
  • Heavy increase in water flow, formation of a pond or body of water, or broken pipes, among other things
Sinkholes may also form in places where water flows regularly, such as a storm drain, or when water sources are diverted or cut off, especially by pumping out groundwater. A broken pipe can contribute to sinkhole development by flooding and weakening the soil, but it can also provide an outlet for the dirt and rock that's supposed to surround pipes. After enough material falls into pipes and is transported away, the surrounding earth becomes destabilized, contributing to sinkhole formation, sewage or water spills, or other disasters.
Again with the Fertilizer!
In Berezniki, Russia, a giant sinkhole first appeared in 1986, apparently when a potash mine was flooded. The sinkhole now measures 656 feet (200 meters) deep, 262 feet (80 meters) long and 131 feet (40 meters) wide -- and growing. The sinkhole threatens the region's massive potash industry. Potash is an important ingredient in many fertilizers.
One­ of the worst human-caused sinkholes occurred in 1994 in Polk Cou­nty, located in Central Florida. First, some background: 30 percent of the world's phosphate comes from Florida and often ends up as an ingredient in fertilizer. That booming phosphate industry comes with tons of mildly radioactive waste known as phosphogypsum. Florida mining companies arrange phosphogypsum into massive stacks that can cover hundreds of acres and weigh millions of tons. Other phosphogypsum disposal methods, including recycl­ing it for use in construction or artificial reefs, have yet to take off because of debate over whether the material is too radioactive to reuse. Almost a billion tons of the stuff is stacked in Central Florida . All that weight pressing down on the soft, sinkhole-riddled Florida terrain can lead to disaster.
So it was in 1994, when one of these stacks collapsed into a 150-foot (46-meter) deep sinkhole. Millions of tons of phosphogypsum entered the sinkhole and polluted the state's water supply. The cleanup cost millions and cast a light on both the problem of sinkholes and the need to find uses for the millions of tons of byproduct waste produced by the state's phosphate industry.
We've talked about how sinkholes form and some of the basic hazards involved. But what other problems can they cause? We'll explore that subject with  more details.

More Problems Caused by Sinkholes

Sinkholes aren't always a grave danger. Sometimes, depending on their size, they're just an inconvenience. It's their sudden or deceptively large appearance that makes sinkholes dangerous, both to human safety and to buildings and infrastructure. Construction projects frequently have to contend with the specter of sinkholes brought on by broken pipes or careless drilling. These geologic cavities can be expensive to repair, voracious in their appetite to swallow homes and cars, and toxic in their ability to contaminate groundwater supplies by sucking up debris or sewage.
Guatemala City sinkhole
Aerial view of the huge hole in Guatemala City after the sewage system collapsed. If you look at the surrounding buildings, you can see how big that scary sinkhole is.
Flooding looms as a particular concern when it comes to sinkholes. We already discussed how flooding contributes to sinkhole development, but sinkholes can also factor in to the flooding of a surrounding area in several ways. If the outlet that connects a sinkhole to a conduit or water supply, such as an underground stream, becomes filled with trash and debris, water has nowhere to flow. The basin or sinkhole then fills with water, causing flooding. Sinkhole flooding can also occur simply because water enters a sinkhole more quickly than it can drain through a conduit or other outlet. The last flooding scenario happens when an overflowing river is connected to a sinkhole via underground streams and conduits. Water flowing through the sinkhole would normally drain into the river. But because the river is already flooded, flow reversal takes place and excess water shoots back into the sinkhole, filling it with water and potentially flooding the surrounding area.
Sinkholes can appear suddenly and with great violence, and they're something that any city planner or engineer must keep in mind. One notable, tragic case of this type occurred in Guatemala's capital, Guatemala City. Early in the morning on Feb. 23, 2007, a 330-foot (101-meter) deep sinkhole appeared almost instantly, killing at least three people and devouring homes in a packed urban area. The ground shook and a terrible smell wafted from the ruptured sewer lines that, along with rain, were thought to have caused the disaster. Although the catastrophe occurred suddenly, residents reported hearing and feeling the ground shaking about a month before the sinkhole appeared . The government had plans to send a robotic camera system to investigate, but it didn't act in time.

Detecting and Dealing with Sinkholes

Karst landscape
We have some bad news for you if your house is located in a landscape like this.
Sometimes we don't need a government agent to confirm that a sinkhole honeycombs the area. Rather, it's obvious from the gaping hole in the ground. But other times, sinkholes may be difficult to detect -- for example, if they're still covered with a thin overburden that has yet to collapse into the void below. Property damage, especially around the foundation, may be a subtle sign that something is wrong. In addition, if vegetation is dying unexpectedly, a sinkhole may have disrupted underlying streams that usually feed the plants. Other signs to look for include polluted or muddied well water, formation of new ponds and trees, or sign posts that appear to be slumping over.
    Some people use sinkholes as makeshift trash cans when, in fact, anything thrown in them may end up in the local water supply. In many communities, this practice, in addition to being harmful to the environment, is illegal.
    Is Three a Crowd?
    When several sinkholes come together to form a larger basin or hole, the new formation is known as a poljen.
    If your house suffers damage from a sinkhole, it may be covered by homeowner insurance. Sinkholes generally should be fenced off or otherwise marked. The Southwest Florida Water Management District recommends filling them in with sand, though many homeowners turn to professional contractors . If they sit on public property, city officials need to be contacted. A severe sinkhole found on public or private land may have to be repaired with concrete or require earthmoving equipment to stymie erosion.
    The United States can't afford to ignore sinkholes. The country's aging sewer and water systems have experts worried that deadly sinkholes like Guatemala City's could develop . Their worries, no doubt, are founded on the fact that many essential infrastructure improvements across the country have been neglected. Pipes, bridges and the like that were intended to last 50 or so years are approaching or have passed their intended shelf life . For example, you may remember the disastrous Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis that occurred on Aug. 1, 2007, and killed 13 people. Authorities later attributed the bridge collapse to faulty design and the gradual addition of more weight, such as concrete lane dividers, without upgrading the bridge's support systems.
    We already discussed the large sinkholes in Polk County, Fla., Guatemala City and Berez­niki, Russia. On the next page, we'll look at some other unusual sinkholes from around the world.

    Unusual and Stunning Sinkholes

    Perhaps no sinkhole is more distinctive than the Qattara Depression. The massive sinkhole is more like a large basin, stretching across a wide swath of Egypt. It's considered the largest naturally forming sinkhole on Earth: . The depression is "only" 436 feet (133 meters) deep, but it's also 75 miles (120 kilometers) wide and 50 miles (80 kilometers) long. The depression's difficult terrain made it an important defensive border for the British army during World War II, and now it's considered a tourist attraction. Various schemes have been conceived to harness the Qattara Depression for energy production. One possibility calls for filling it with water and then using the basin's low elevation and water evaporation as part of a hydro-solar project.
    Sarisarinama sinkhole in Bolivar, Venezuela
    Aerial view of a Sarisarinama sinkhole in Bolivar, Venezuela. If you tumble in there, will you reach the lost world?
    Like the Qattara Depression, sinkholes can be beautiful and relatively harmless, though frequently the difference between stunning and disastrous is a matter of location. Venezuela is known for itsSarisarinama sinkholes: basins 1,000 feet (305 meters) wide and at least that deep that are practically perfect circles. These sinkholes are made more distinctive by where they appear; they lie on top of high mesas in the country's tepui region. Tepuis are incredibly isolated areas filled with lush forests and waterfalls. Sarisarinama sinkholes were first discovered in 1974, high up on flat-topped tepui mountains, and have been described as part of a "lost world". These sinkholes have been treasure troves for scientists, who remain fascinated by the unique plant and animal species found nowhere else but in some Sarisarinama sinkholes. The sinkholes and the tepuis have also attracted numerous explorers throughout the centuries, some lured by the challenge of their remote setting, others following rumors of massive gold nuggets washing up in streams on top of tepuis.
    An Ancient Name
    The name "cenote" derives from a Mayan word meaning "abysmal and deep".
    If you've ever seen the "Planet Earth" documentary series, then you're probably familiar with cenotes, water-filled sinkholes connected to underwater caves and streams. Cenotes often form gorgeous swimming spots and feature underwater caves, waterfalls and other intriguing formations. The Bimmah Sinkhole in the Middle Eastern nation of Oman is similar. This sinkhole attracts many tourists to its shimmering, translucent blue-green water. Similarly, Mount Gambier in southern Australia is known for its picturesque water-filled sinkholes and volcanic craters. Some of these sinkholes contain well-manicured, terraced gardens.
    One of the world's centers of sinkhole activity is the Dead Sea, the salty body of water sandwiched between Israel and Jordan. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the planet (1,371 feet or 417 meters below sea level) and an important tourist and historical site, as well as part of a migratory route for hundreds of millions of birds. The water level of the Dead Sea has been dropping yearly because of work by the mineral extraction industry and diversion of water from the Jordan River, which feeds the sea, for use in watering crops and providing drinking water.
    The newly uncovered areas of the Dead Sea have become riddled with sinkholes. Evaporating freshwater pools are breaking down salt deposits, creating "holes" and destabilizing the ground, leading to sinkholes. Various remedies have been proposed, including multibillion-dollar canals connecting the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean or Red seas. One scientist has theorized that a point of equilibrium will inevitably be reached, as the sea will become too salty to further evaporate . But by then, the Dead Sea will be about one-third of its early 21st century size, and in the meantime, resorts around the sea have struggled with receding waters and the unstable, sinkhole-laden earth left behind.

    What should you not buy in bulk?

    Specific Items You Shouldn't Buy In Bulk

    almonds
    Nuts have a high oil content and will go rancid in just a few months.
    These bulk items might seem like good investments at the time, but won't add up to as much long-term value as you would think.
    • Nuts: You might think that nuts could sit in the pantry for months and even years at a time without going bad. But nuts are actually very high in oil. And although those oils make nuts a healthy source of unsaturated fats, they also mean that nuts will go rancid within four months (six months if they are in their shells)  .
    • Brown rice: Like nuts, brown rice has high oil content because, unlike white rice, brown rice still has the germ attached. That's what makes it brown and generally healthier than its white counterpart, but also more perishable. Don't buy more brown rice than you can use in about six months .
    • Cooking oil: If nuts and brown rice spoil quickly because of their high oil content, you can bet that pure oil will go bad quickly for the same reason. Cooking oil goes bad within one to three months of being opened. So, gallon jugs of oil may be a good investment if you plan to do a lot of deep frying, but otherwise, stay away.
    • Spices: Little jars of spices can be expensive, while large tubs can be dirt cheap by comparison. But those bulk spices are really only worth buying for restaurants or food service professionals. Because spices lose their flavor over time, you'll have to refresh them in about six months.
    • Bleach: Bleach loses potency in only about six months, so most households probably won't use more than the typical gallon before its cleaning power is gone .
    • Bread: Unless you have a huge family, or you're carbo loading for a big marathon, you're making more of an investment in mold than in cheap lunches.
    • Candy: Even if you find deals on candy and other snack foods in bulk, having so many on hand can increase the temptation to overeat.



    Sunday 3 July 2011

    10 Craziest Facts About The Human Body


    #1 Your Hand Can Have A Mind On Its Own

    Remember Devon Sawa’s character in 1999’s ‘Idle Hands’, a comedy / horror movie about a teen whose hand becomes possessed and goes on a killing spree?
    Apparently this movie has some truth in it. The ‘idle hand’ which referred to as the ‘Alien Hand Syndrome’ is an unusual neurological disorder in which the sufferer’s hand seems to take on a mind of its own. This is due to the damage in the medial motor frontal region of the brain and often occurs after a brain surgery, a stroke or an infection of the brain.
    The sufferer has no control over the movements of the ‘alien hand’ nor will they have any conscience idea on what that hand is doing. The person suffering from this condition can often feel disconnected with their hand, and feel as if it was not part of their body.
    When the suffer is unaware the alien hand can sometime act out complex movements like unbuttoning clothing, using tools or even tearing pieces of clothing. There are no know treatments or cure for ‘Alien Hand Syndrome’ however the best solution is to give this alien hand an object it can play with to keep it distracted from doing anything harmful to the sufferer.



    #2 You Could Remove A Large Part of Your Internal Organs and Survive

    While the human body may appear fragile, your body is stronger than you could possibly imagine. It is possible for you to survive even after the removal of the spleen, the stomach, one kidney, one lung, 75% of the liver, 80% of the intestines, and almost every organ from the pelvic and groin area.


    #3 The Strong Contraction of Your Heart Creates Enough Pressure To Squirt Blood As Far As 30 Feet

    #4 You Can Still Have An Erection After Death
    (sorry couldn’t find a picture)

    This is a death erection, which often being referred to as ‘angel lust’. It is a post-mortem erection that occurs when a male individual dies vertically or face-downside and as long as the body remains in this position, the effect will not subside.
    How It Could Possibly Happen?
    When a man is still alive, the heart pumps blood evenly around the body. When he dies, this mechanism stops and the blood acts by the force of gravity. As with any mass, the blood will settle at the lowest point of the body and cause swelling. So if a man dies vertically, the blood will settle in the legs and collect at the feet.
    The pressure will cause the blood vessels and tissues in the feet to swell up to accommodate as much blood as possible. As blood collects, it will fill up to the torso and the blood will attempt to move to a lower position due to gravity, which is the penis (the legs are full by now). The blood causes the penis, consisting of erectile tissue, to fill with blood and expand.


    #5 Heart Attacks Are More Likely To Happen On Monday

    A 10-year study in Scotland found that 20% of people die of a heart attack on Monday’s compare to any other day of the week. The study suggests that the ‘Monday peak’ could be a result of massive drinking during the weekend and work related stress; you know the ‘Monday blues.’


    #6 Three Hundred Million Cells Die In Your Body Every Minute
    It does sounds like a lot but this is actually less than 0.0001% of the amount of cells being replaced in your body every day. (about 10-50 trillion cells are being replace in your body every day)


    #7 Babies Have More Bones Than You Do

    When a baby is born, they have 300 bones in their body. When they reach adulthood they are left with only 206 bones. This is because the smaller bones eventually join together to form stronger single bones.
    #8 Your Hair Is Almost Indestructible

    Apart from having it burnt, human hair decays at such a slow rate that it is almost impossible to get rid of. Do you remember those documentaries about Egypt, the pyramids and Mummies on Discovery Channel? Well the mummies are left with no flesh, practically nothing but bones and yes… hair. It might look fragile but hair cannot be destroyed by cold, change of climate, water, or other natural forces and it is resistant to many kinds of acids and corrosive chemicals.


    #9 You Can Survive Without Food But Not Without Sleep

    You need sleep as much as you need food. Many people neglect the importance of having enough sleep without knowing that humans can actually survive longer without food than without sleep. With water alone, an average person could survive a month to two without food (that also varies from an individual’s body fat and other factors).
    But a few sleepless nights will cause the person to start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes. The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep is 264 hours. Randy Gardner at the end of which the experiment did not stumble or hallucinate but scientist has said that any more sleepless nights than that is dangerous.


    #10 You Have A Philtrum

    The indentation in the middle of the area between the nose and the upper lip is called the philtrum. While scientists are yet to figure out the specific purpose of this indentation serves besides allowing humans to express a much larger range of lip motions, the ancient Greeks thought it to be one of the most arousing places on the body.

    Top 5 Most Dangerous Roads in the World


    1: North Yungas Road, Coroico to La Paz, Bolivia

    road
    A van descends past a series of crosses marking the site of fatal accidents on the most dangerous road in the world -- Old Yungas.
    Most of the travel journalists who've written cautionary lists of the world's worst roads seem to agree that the North Yungas Road, a 40-mile (64.3- kilometer) long stretch of hell in Bolivia is the planet's ultimate nightmare for motorists. In 1995, the Inter-American Development Bank singled out the "Road of Death," as it is sometimes called, as the most dangerous route in the world.
    It's not hard to figure out why. Built by Paraguayan prisoners of war in the 1930s, North Yungas mostly is a single, winding 10-foot (3-meter) wide lane carved out of the side of a mountain. Worse yet, on the way from Coroico to La Paz, the elevation drops sharply, from 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) to just more than 1,000 feet (304.8 meters). Addtraffic -- including plenty of big, ungainly trucks and buses rolling downhill at frightening speeds and taking curves on two wheels -- and you've got a heart-stopping surprise waiting around every bend. The one saving grace is that local custom grants uphill traffic the right of way .

    2: Guoliang Tunnel, Taihang Mountains, China

    In 1972, inhabitants of a remote mountain village performed one of the most miraculous feats in road-building history: They chiseled a tunnel three-quarters of a mile through a mountain for easier access to the outside world. Here, "easier" means easier than tiptoeing along a rocky footpath worn into the face of the mountain, which is what they had to do before they built the tunnel.
    But the new passageway, whose name translates to "road that does not tolerate any mistakes," is only marginally less hair-raising. The tunnel's 15-foot (4.5-meters) high ceiling and 12-foot (3.5-meter) wide roadbed would be forbiddingly dark and claustrophobic had the builders not also carved periodic openings in the tunnel walls. 

    3: Halsema Highway, Baguio to Bontoc, Philippines

    road
    It looks safe enough, but watch out for the rock slides.
    One of the most scenic and also most hazardous stretches of road on the planet was built in the 1930s by a man named Euseibus Julius Halsema, a civil engineer from Ohio who moved to the Philippines shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Halsema eventually rose to become mayor and chief engineer for the city of Baguio, which was then a remote village with a few thousand inhabitants.
    Halsema hoped to spur Baguio's growth by building a route called the Mountain Trail to Bontoc, the capital of Mountain Province . The 93-mile (149.6-kilometer) long highway snakes along the slopes of the Cordillera Central mountain range through an area filled with volcanic rock formations.
    These formations were fractured by a 7.8 earthquake in 1990 and subsequently have been further destabilized by erosion from typhoons. As a result, motorists are menaced not only by the continual threat of rock slides, but also by gaping, 40-foot (12-meter) deep erosion scars on the roadside . To make things even worse, sections are sometimes shrouded in mist that makes visibility dicey.

    4: M56 Kolyma Federal Highway, Magadan to Yakutsk, Russian Federation

    road
    This road is actually safer in the winter when it's frozen than in the summer when it's muddy.
    This 1,200-mile (1,931-kilometer) long route is known in Russia as the "Road of Bones." It was built between the 1930s and the early 1950s by thousands of prisoners from Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's Kolyma Gulag, who were deliberately overworked, starved to death and then buried beneath the route .
    Never a dependable road surface, over the decades it has fallen into a worse state of disrepair, with vast unpaved, rut-laden stretches . The Kolyma passes through some of the coldest inhabited places on Earth, with winter temperatures that drop to minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56 degrees Celsius). At times, the road is frozen solid. But bizarrely, it's easier to travel the road when it's frozen in the winter than when it's a treacherous sea of mud in the summer . To make matters worse, local officials warn that bandits have been known to attack unwary travelers .

    5: Trans-Sahara Highway, Algiers, Algeria to Lagos, Nigeria

    desert
    You don't want to run out of gas on a desert highway.
    Building a network of highways across Africa to promote much-needed economic development sounds like a fantastic idea. And being able to cross the Mediterranean via ferry from Europe, then drive from Algiers to Lagos would be great . And, maybe someday, when the Trans-Sahara Highway is completed, that'll be doable.
    But for the time being, traveling on the 2,800-mile (4,506-kilometer) long, partially completed route remains a daunting task. Daytime temperatures are scorching, and fuel and water are in scarce supply along much of the route, so you'd better hope the needle doesn't touch "E" and that your radiator doesn't blow . And even the newly paved portions of the road often disappear under immense drifts of sand that block the route for days at a time .

    Saturday 2 July 2011

    extreme tourism

    1. Dive to the Wreck of the Titanic


    The History of the RMS Titanic
    • The RMS Titanic was built in 1912 and was the largest moving object made by humans at the time.
    • The name, Titanic, comes from the Titans of Greek mythology.
    • RMS stands for Royal Mail Steamer, which means that the Titanic could legally transport British mail.
    • On April 14th, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and began to sink. By the early hours of the 15th, the ship was gone, taking 1,500 people along with it.
    • It wasn't until Sept. 1, 1985, that the wreck was found at a depth of 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) in the Atlantic Ocean.

    Starting at Newfoundland, if you head roughly 400 miles (600 kilometers) south, you'll find yourself in the middle of nowhere, floating on the Atlantic Ocean. The surface, however, is not what brought you to this point -- you're here to see what lies well beneath the waves and wind above. About 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) below you is the wreck of one of the most famous ships ever to have sailed the seas, the RMS Titanic. From the Russian research ship Akademik Keldyshe, you'll board one of two submersibles capable of withstanding the pressure of diving deep into the ocean. The MIR I and II will ensure you a safe and comfortable ride to the bottom of the ocean, where you'll be one of only a handful of non-scientists to view the wreck of the Titanic . Just remember to keep your hands and feet inside the vessel!

    2. Heli-skiing

    Heli-skiing helicopter
    Heli-skiing takes adventure to new heights -- instead of a ski lift, a helicopter takes you to the highest peaks.
    The problem with ski lifts is that they can only take you so high up the mountain. In order to ski the best slopes on the most powdery of powder, you may want to give heli-skiing a go. Some of the best spots to try this experience can be found in Alaska, British Columbia and Italy, and most heli-skiing will provide you with transport to some of the highest peaks in the area. Once on the top, you'll disembark from the helicopter with your guide and follow him or her down to the pick-up spot. You will be skiing at an altitude of anywhere between 6,500 feet (1,900 meters) and 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). In addition to air-lifting you to your skiing destination, most companies will allow you to rent equipment and offer the option to pay for a package deal that will include your room and board, or opt for a pay-by-the-run deal where you pay for each lift to the top separately.

    3. Space Travel


    The Four Types of Space Travel
    • Lunar Mission: This is the most extreme of the extreme. You'll circle the moon and see the Earth rise from the far side of the moon.
    • Orbital Spaceflight: While in orbit of the Earth, you'll spend 12 days in space, walking around and circling earth every 90 minutes.
    • Suborbital Spaceflight: You'll simply pop into space about 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the planet, but you won't actually orbit the Earth. A suborbital flight will be somewhat shorter than an orbital one.
    • Zero Gravity Flights: This is the most practical and realistic of all the flights. In a Boeing 727, you'll fly in giant arcs through the sky, experiencing brief periods of simulated weightlessness along the way.
    If you're hoping your vacation will be a chance to get away from it all, perhaps your best bet is in the infinity of space. With the market and interest growing rapidly and large scale investors getting involved, the reality of space tourism is growing ever closer. And why not? It's a chance to free yourself from the grips of Earth's gravity and feel the weightlessness of space as you circle your home planet hundreds of miles above its surface.
    At the moment, your options are limited in respect to actual space travel. There are several major companies that are in the process of building ships, such as Virgin Galactic's reusable launch vehicle (RLV), which will take tourists on a suborbital flight. Companies are also looking into public ships that will allow for longer flights deep into space. That being said, your best bet for the weightless feeling will be to check out a zero gravity flight.

    4. Sandboarding


    Sand boarder coming down hill
    If you want to go beyond water skiing and snowboarding, consider sandboarding for your next adventure.
    If waterskiing is too wet for you or snowboarding is too cold, look no farther than the hills of the increasingly popular sand dune parks throughout the world. Sandboarding has a long history, stretching back to the ancient Egyptians skiing down dunes on bits of pottery, but it has only just recently come back into vogue as a new generation discovers the thrill of the sport . Sandboarding can include everything from simply hopping on a board and sliding down a dune to setting up courses with jumps to increase the thrill.
    You don't even need a desert to sandboard, as parks have sprung up all around the world in places like Oregon, Brazil and Peru. These are often privately owned parks that will provide you not only with the heaps of sand, but also with the proper equipment needed to traverse the dunes. If you're looking for a more authentic experience, head on over to South Africa, where you'll find a multitude of natural dunes to hurtle down.

    5. Gorilla Safari


    Gorilla in Africa
    A gorilla safari will get you up-close-and-personal with some of the world's most fascinating animals.
    Venturing into Uganda's Impenetrable Forest will surely get your heart rate up. Inside the shadowed deep, you'll embark on a gorilla safari that will give you the chance to see Africa's mountain gorillas up close. First, you'll join a group in Uganda's coastal town of Entebbe to catch a plane to Kibale Forest National Park. For the next 11 days, you'll hike, trek and ride around Uganda's forests and plains while watching chimpanzees, gorillas, elephants and lions in their natural environment. You'll have the chance to ride across the lake-dotted savannahs in four-wheel-drive vehicles and track gorillas on foot up to altitudes of 8,500 feet (2.6 kilometers) in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. While on the trip, you'll have a chance to stay in everything from the national parks' lodges to a tent camp in Bwindi. All the while, you'll be as close as possible to the "gentle giants" that you have come so far to see.




    what would happen to my social networkiing account after my death?

    Facebook After Death

    Facebook login page

    Facebook instituted a policy a few years ago regarding how to handle the profiles of deceased individuals. Family members could choose one of two options: close the account -- Facebook will delete an account permanently upon the family's request -- or converting the account into a memorial profile. Facebook's policy states the company will never release login information to anyone other than the account holder, even after death.
    Before making any changes, Facebook requires proof that the user has died. First, someone must use an online form to report the user's demise. Within that form is a space to include a link to an obituary or news report confirming the death. Facebook employees then review the user's profile to verify there has been no recent activity. Only then will the company begin the conversion process.
    A profile undergoes several changes when switching into a memorial. Facebook removes sensitive information from the profile. This includes contact information and addresses. The company also removes status updates to protect the privacy of the deceased user.
    Facebook changes the profile settings so that only friends can find the profile and post information to the user's wall. This lets other members visit the profile and use it as a place of grieving and healing while preventing digital vandalism from trolls. Searches for the deceased user on Facebook's search engine will not list the memorial page.
    The company will also deactivate the user's login information. This prevents anyone from guessing the user's password and logging in to cause mischief.
    If no one contacts Facebook to alert the company of the user's passing, his or her profile will remain active indefinitely. Facebook doesn't delete inactive accounts without notification. Depending upon the user's privacy settings, people will still be able to search and visit the profile and leave comments.
    Not every site has established a policy for dealing with death. Some will obey whatever the family wishes as long as the company receives proof of the user's passing. A few won't take any action without a copy of a death certificate. Other companies won't make any changes at all. But as the issue pops up, more online social networks are adopting rules to handle the situation.
    Next, we'll look at a few things you can do to make it easier for your family to handle your online presence after you die.


    Preparing Your Online Life for Death

    What can you do to help your family or friends manage your online presence after you die? Depending on your level of activity online, you may have dozens of different accounts. And some sites may not have policies in place to deal with your account after your death.
    One thing you can do is designate someone to be in charge of your online accounts after you die. You'll need to create a list of your user names and passwords and put it in a safe place. A few companies will store that information for you, usually for a fee.
    One of those companies is Legacy Locker. The company offers three plans. You can create a free account and store up to three assets (e.g., login information), designate one beneficiary to retrieve those assets should you pass away and write a Legacy Letter. Legacy Letters are messages the company will deliver to designated recipients after verifying that you've died.
    Or you can set up a paid account. For $29.99 a year, members can store an unlimited number of assets and designate as many beneficiaries as they like. There is no limit on the number of Legacy Letters they can create. They can also use an online document backup system and upload videos to the site for others to watch after they pass on. For a one-time fee of $299.99, members can create an account that will remain active without the need for yearly payments.
    Besides Legacy Locker, here are other companies that will store information for you and release it to designated individuals upon proof of your death. And while online services offer convenience, they may not be as secure as you would like. After all, you're storing all of your login information with one service. If a hacker should get access to the company's files, he or she would be able to access all of your login information you've stored. That might include everything from social networking profiles to online bank accounts.
    You don't have to rely on a third party if you prefer to maintain your own list of login information. In fact, there are several ways to encrypt your data, and you could give the decryption key to people you trust. You could also designate an executor to your online property in your will.
    So, what to do with a dead user's information remains a tricky subject. Most social networking sites allow users to post comments and messages to each other, but who owns that data? Is it the recipient, the sender or the company? If you've left a message for someone and they pass away, can you retrieve it? These are questions most sites have yet to address.
    Even though companies are beginning to acknowledge the problem of what to do with your data once you die, most of the responsibility falls to you and your family. It's not a lot of fun to think about but a little consideration could save your loved ones from experiencing hours of frustration on top of their grief.

    Sunday 17 July 2011

    INTERESTING FACTS - 3

    1. 80% of all pictures on the internet are of naked women

    2. Another name for a Microsoft Windows tutorial is 'Crash Course'!

    3. Bill Gates' house was designed using a Macintosh computer.

    4. By the year 2012 there will be approximately 17 billion devices connected to the Internet.

    5. Domain names are being registered at a rate of more than one million names every month.

    6. E-mail has been around longer than the World Wide Web.

    7. For every 'normal' webpage, there are five porn pages.

    8. In the 1980s, an IBM computer wasn't considered 100 percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft Flight Simulator*.

    9. MySpace reports over 110 million registered users. Were it a country, it would be the tenth largest, just behind Mexico.

    10. One of every 8 married couples in the US last year met online.

    11. The average 21 year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games, has exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages and has spent 10,000 hours on the mobile phone.

    12. The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute, less than half the normal rate of 20.

    13. The first banner advertising was used in 1994.

    14. The first computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.

    15. The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com.

    0 16. The world's first computer, called the Z1, was invented by Konrad Zuse in 1936. His next invention, the Z2 was finished in 1939 and was the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer.

    17. There are approximately 1,319,872,109 people on the Internet.

    18. There are approximately 1.06 billion instant messaging accounts worldwide.

    19. While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users.


    Sunday 10 July 2011

    sinkholes

    Types of Naturally Occurring Sinkholes

    Sinkholes look dramatic when you're peering down into one, but it's below the surface where the real action takes place. A sinkhole's identity centers on the gaps, crevices, cavities and voids that lie under the overburden, or the soil above the bedrock. As these gaps develop, expand and merge, soil from the overburden starts filling the void.
    In the case of the sinkhole suddenly opening to swallow a car that we just mentioned, it formed because the overburden was no longer stable enough to hold itself up. This common type of sinkhole is known as a collapse orcover-collapse sinkhole. Although these sinkholes can appear suddenly, the erosion that makes them happen has likely been taking place for weeks or years before, underground and out of view. So let's head underground.
    The top layer of a cover-collapse sinkhole is usually a soft overburden, made of soil with a lot of clay in it. Over time, a small cavern forms underneath that soil. Opportunistic sediment takes advantage of the newly free real estate and starts spilling into the cavern -- a process known as spalling. As spalling continues, the underground cavern fills with more sediment, hollowing out the space under the overburden. Eventually, the overburden becomes so thin that it suddenly collapses into the cavern below (this is the "cover collapse"), creating a sinkhole. In some cases, the cover can support its own weight but crumbles when additional weight, whether from a hapless person or car, passes over it.
    With cover-subsidence sinkholes, water permeates the soft overburden. An example of this type of terrain is an overburden made up of up to 100 feet (30 meters) of sand with a small amount of clay below before yielding to soft limestone. As limestone dissolves and leaves a void, sediment from the overburden seeps in, creating a bowl-like impression in the Earth. These sinkholes, often only a few feet across and deep, are smaller than many others because after reaching a certain size, sand and sediment pour into the hole . This inflow of sediment can block the outflow of water by stopping up the cracks and passages that connect the sinkhole to underground conduits. Many of these sinkholes then become ponds, as the water has nowhere to drain. They also don't produce the spectacular kind of cave-in associated with a cover-collapse sinkhole.
    dissolution or solution sinkhole is essentially a deep impression in the ground. These sinkholes usually have a thin overburden (if any), which washes away or is eroded. The now-exposed rock then progressively dissolves when it touches acidic water. The bare area hollows out, forming a shallow basin. Water often pools on the surface of a dissolution sinkhole, creating a sort of pond that compounds the erosion of rock below. Also, like in other types of sinkholes, objects and other material can get stuck in the fractures where water would normally flow out. Unlike a cover-subsidence sinkhole, there is no overburden or covering sediment to spall into the sinkhole or cover the eroding rock.
    Human activity produces some of the worst sinkholes. We'll take a look at them .

    Sinkholes Caused by Humans

    Sinkhole in Los Angeles
    A broken water main collapsed part of the street in Los Angeles in December 2002. Sinkholes caused by water eroding the foundation of streets are a big problem in Los Angeles.
    In urban settings in particular, sinkholes may owe their development to human activity as much as anything else. In some cases, sinkholes appear because of the combination of industrial activity or development, soft limestone bedrock and less than 200 feet (61 meters) of overburden . The following human actions can also cause sinkholes:
    • Drilling and vibrations
    • Mining
    • Changes in weight
    • Lots of foot or vehicle traffic
    • Heavy increase in water flow, formation of a pond or body of water, or broken pipes, among other things
    Sinkholes may also form in places where water flows regularly, such as a storm drain, or when water sources are diverted or cut off, especially by pumping out groundwater. A broken pipe can contribute to sinkhole development by flooding and weakening the soil, but it can also provide an outlet for the dirt and rock that's supposed to surround pipes. After enough material falls into pipes and is transported away, the surrounding earth becomes destabilized, contributing to sinkhole formation, sewage or water spills, or other disasters.
    Again with the Fertilizer!
    In Berezniki, Russia, a giant sinkhole first appeared in 1986, apparently when a potash mine was flooded. The sinkhole now measures 656 feet (200 meters) deep, 262 feet (80 meters) long and 131 feet (40 meters) wide -- and growing. The sinkhole threatens the region's massive potash industry. Potash is an important ingredient in many fertilizers.
    One­ of the worst human-caused sinkholes occurred in 1994 in Polk Cou­nty, located in Central Florida. First, some background: 30 percent of the world's phosphate comes from Florida and often ends up as an ingredient in fertilizer. That booming phosphate industry comes with tons of mildly radioactive waste known as phosphogypsum. Florida mining companies arrange phosphogypsum into massive stacks that can cover hundreds of acres and weigh millions of tons. Other phosphogypsum disposal methods, including recycl­ing it for use in construction or artificial reefs, have yet to take off because of debate over whether the material is too radioactive to reuse. Almost a billion tons of the stuff is stacked in Central Florida . All that weight pressing down on the soft, sinkhole-riddled Florida terrain can lead to disaster.
    So it was in 1994, when one of these stacks collapsed into a 150-foot (46-meter) deep sinkhole. Millions of tons of phosphogypsum entered the sinkhole and polluted the state's water supply. The cleanup cost millions and cast a light on both the problem of sinkholes and the need to find uses for the millions of tons of byproduct waste produced by the state's phosphate industry.
    We've talked about how sinkholes form and some of the basic hazards involved. But what other problems can they cause? We'll explore that subject with  more details.

    More Problems Caused by Sinkholes

    Sinkholes aren't always a grave danger. Sometimes, depending on their size, they're just an inconvenience. It's their sudden or deceptively large appearance that makes sinkholes dangerous, both to human safety and to buildings and infrastructure. Construction projects frequently have to contend with the specter of sinkholes brought on by broken pipes or careless drilling. These geologic cavities can be expensive to repair, voracious in their appetite to swallow homes and cars, and toxic in their ability to contaminate groundwater supplies by sucking up debris or sewage.
    Guatemala City sinkhole
    Aerial view of the huge hole in Guatemala City after the sewage system collapsed. If you look at the surrounding buildings, you can see how big that scary sinkhole is.
    Flooding looms as a particular concern when it comes to sinkholes. We already discussed how flooding contributes to sinkhole development, but sinkholes can also factor in to the flooding of a surrounding area in several ways. If the outlet that connects a sinkhole to a conduit or water supply, such as an underground stream, becomes filled with trash and debris, water has nowhere to flow. The basin or sinkhole then fills with water, causing flooding. Sinkhole flooding can also occur simply because water enters a sinkhole more quickly than it can drain through a conduit or other outlet. The last flooding scenario happens when an overflowing river is connected to a sinkhole via underground streams and conduits. Water flowing through the sinkhole would normally drain into the river. But because the river is already flooded, flow reversal takes place and excess water shoots back into the sinkhole, filling it with water and potentially flooding the surrounding area.
    Sinkholes can appear suddenly and with great violence, and they're something that any city planner or engineer must keep in mind. One notable, tragic case of this type occurred in Guatemala's capital, Guatemala City. Early in the morning on Feb. 23, 2007, a 330-foot (101-meter) deep sinkhole appeared almost instantly, killing at least three people and devouring homes in a packed urban area. The ground shook and a terrible smell wafted from the ruptured sewer lines that, along with rain, were thought to have caused the disaster. Although the catastrophe occurred suddenly, residents reported hearing and feeling the ground shaking about a month before the sinkhole appeared . The government had plans to send a robotic camera system to investigate, but it didn't act in time.

    Detecting and Dealing with Sinkholes

    Karst landscape
    We have some bad news for you if your house is located in a landscape like this.
    Sometimes we don't need a government agent to confirm that a sinkhole honeycombs the area. Rather, it's obvious from the gaping hole in the ground. But other times, sinkholes may be difficult to detect -- for example, if they're still covered with a thin overburden that has yet to collapse into the void below. Property damage, especially around the foundation, may be a subtle sign that something is wrong. In addition, if vegetation is dying unexpectedly, a sinkhole may have disrupted underlying streams that usually feed the plants. Other signs to look for include polluted or muddied well water, formation of new ponds and trees, or sign posts that appear to be slumping over.
      Some people use sinkholes as makeshift trash cans when, in fact, anything thrown in them may end up in the local water supply. In many communities, this practice, in addition to being harmful to the environment, is illegal.
      Is Three a Crowd?
      When several sinkholes come together to form a larger basin or hole, the new formation is known as a poljen.
      If your house suffers damage from a sinkhole, it may be covered by homeowner insurance. Sinkholes generally should be fenced off or otherwise marked. The Southwest Florida Water Management District recommends filling them in with sand, though many homeowners turn to professional contractors . If they sit on public property, city officials need to be contacted. A severe sinkhole found on public or private land may have to be repaired with concrete or require earthmoving equipment to stymie erosion.
      The United States can't afford to ignore sinkholes. The country's aging sewer and water systems have experts worried that deadly sinkholes like Guatemala City's could develop . Their worries, no doubt, are founded on the fact that many essential infrastructure improvements across the country have been neglected. Pipes, bridges and the like that were intended to last 50 or so years are approaching or have passed their intended shelf life . For example, you may remember the disastrous Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis that occurred on Aug. 1, 2007, and killed 13 people. Authorities later attributed the bridge collapse to faulty design and the gradual addition of more weight, such as concrete lane dividers, without upgrading the bridge's support systems.
      We already discussed the large sinkholes in Polk County, Fla., Guatemala City and Berez­niki, Russia. On the next page, we'll look at some other unusual sinkholes from around the world.

      Unusual and Stunning Sinkholes

      Perhaps no sinkhole is more distinctive than the Qattara Depression. The massive sinkhole is more like a large basin, stretching across a wide swath of Egypt. It's considered the largest naturally forming sinkhole on Earth: . The depression is "only" 436 feet (133 meters) deep, but it's also 75 miles (120 kilometers) wide and 50 miles (80 kilometers) long. The depression's difficult terrain made it an important defensive border for the British army during World War II, and now it's considered a tourist attraction. Various schemes have been conceived to harness the Qattara Depression for energy production. One possibility calls for filling it with water and then using the basin's low elevation and water evaporation as part of a hydro-solar project.
      Sarisarinama sinkhole in Bolivar, Venezuela
      Aerial view of a Sarisarinama sinkhole in Bolivar, Venezuela. If you tumble in there, will you reach the lost world?
      Like the Qattara Depression, sinkholes can be beautiful and relatively harmless, though frequently the difference between stunning and disastrous is a matter of location. Venezuela is known for itsSarisarinama sinkholes: basins 1,000 feet (305 meters) wide and at least that deep that are practically perfect circles. These sinkholes are made more distinctive by where they appear; they lie on top of high mesas in the country's tepui region. Tepuis are incredibly isolated areas filled with lush forests and waterfalls. Sarisarinama sinkholes were first discovered in 1974, high up on flat-topped tepui mountains, and have been described as part of a "lost world". These sinkholes have been treasure troves for scientists, who remain fascinated by the unique plant and animal species found nowhere else but in some Sarisarinama sinkholes. The sinkholes and the tepuis have also attracted numerous explorers throughout the centuries, some lured by the challenge of their remote setting, others following rumors of massive gold nuggets washing up in streams on top of tepuis.
      An Ancient Name
      The name "cenote" derives from a Mayan word meaning "abysmal and deep".
      If you've ever seen the "Planet Earth" documentary series, then you're probably familiar with cenotes, water-filled sinkholes connected to underwater caves and streams. Cenotes often form gorgeous swimming spots and feature underwater caves, waterfalls and other intriguing formations. The Bimmah Sinkhole in the Middle Eastern nation of Oman is similar. This sinkhole attracts many tourists to its shimmering, translucent blue-green water. Similarly, Mount Gambier in southern Australia is known for its picturesque water-filled sinkholes and volcanic craters. Some of these sinkholes contain well-manicured, terraced gardens.
      One of the world's centers of sinkhole activity is the Dead Sea, the salty body of water sandwiched between Israel and Jordan. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the planet (1,371 feet or 417 meters below sea level) and an important tourist and historical site, as well as part of a migratory route for hundreds of millions of birds. The water level of the Dead Sea has been dropping yearly because of work by the mineral extraction industry and diversion of water from the Jordan River, which feeds the sea, for use in watering crops and providing drinking water.
      The newly uncovered areas of the Dead Sea have become riddled with sinkholes. Evaporating freshwater pools are breaking down salt deposits, creating "holes" and destabilizing the ground, leading to sinkholes. Various remedies have been proposed, including multibillion-dollar canals connecting the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean or Red seas. One scientist has theorized that a point of equilibrium will inevitably be reached, as the sea will become too salty to further evaporate . But by then, the Dead Sea will be about one-third of its early 21st century size, and in the meantime, resorts around the sea have struggled with receding waters and the unstable, sinkhole-laden earth left behind.

      What should you not buy in bulk?

      Specific Items You Shouldn't Buy In Bulk

      almonds
      Nuts have a high oil content and will go rancid in just a few months.
      These bulk items might seem like good investments at the time, but won't add up to as much long-term value as you would think.
      • Nuts: You might think that nuts could sit in the pantry for months and even years at a time without going bad. But nuts are actually very high in oil. And although those oils make nuts a healthy source of unsaturated fats, they also mean that nuts will go rancid within four months (six months if they are in their shells)  .
      • Brown rice: Like nuts, brown rice has high oil content because, unlike white rice, brown rice still has the germ attached. That's what makes it brown and generally healthier than its white counterpart, but also more perishable. Don't buy more brown rice than you can use in about six months .
      • Cooking oil: If nuts and brown rice spoil quickly because of their high oil content, you can bet that pure oil will go bad quickly for the same reason. Cooking oil goes bad within one to three months of being opened. So, gallon jugs of oil may be a good investment if you plan to do a lot of deep frying, but otherwise, stay away.
      • Spices: Little jars of spices can be expensive, while large tubs can be dirt cheap by comparison. But those bulk spices are really only worth buying for restaurants or food service professionals. Because spices lose their flavor over time, you'll have to refresh them in about six months.
      • Bleach: Bleach loses potency in only about six months, so most households probably won't use more than the typical gallon before its cleaning power is gone .
      • Bread: Unless you have a huge family, or you're carbo loading for a big marathon, you're making more of an investment in mold than in cheap lunches.
      • Candy: Even if you find deals on candy and other snack foods in bulk, having so many on hand can increase the temptation to overeat.



      Sunday 3 July 2011

      10 Craziest Facts About The Human Body


      #1 Your Hand Can Have A Mind On Its Own

      Remember Devon Sawa’s character in 1999’s ‘Idle Hands’, a comedy / horror movie about a teen whose hand becomes possessed and goes on a killing spree?
      Apparently this movie has some truth in it. The ‘idle hand’ which referred to as the ‘Alien Hand Syndrome’ is an unusual neurological disorder in which the sufferer’s hand seems to take on a mind of its own. This is due to the damage in the medial motor frontal region of the brain and often occurs after a brain surgery, a stroke or an infection of the brain.
      The sufferer has no control over the movements of the ‘alien hand’ nor will they have any conscience idea on what that hand is doing. The person suffering from this condition can often feel disconnected with their hand, and feel as if it was not part of their body.
      When the suffer is unaware the alien hand can sometime act out complex movements like unbuttoning clothing, using tools or even tearing pieces of clothing. There are no know treatments or cure for ‘Alien Hand Syndrome’ however the best solution is to give this alien hand an object it can play with to keep it distracted from doing anything harmful to the sufferer.



      #2 You Could Remove A Large Part of Your Internal Organs and Survive

      While the human body may appear fragile, your body is stronger than you could possibly imagine. It is possible for you to survive even after the removal of the spleen, the stomach, one kidney, one lung, 75% of the liver, 80% of the intestines, and almost every organ from the pelvic and groin area.


      #3 The Strong Contraction of Your Heart Creates Enough Pressure To Squirt Blood As Far As 30 Feet

      #4 You Can Still Have An Erection After Death
      (sorry couldn’t find a picture)

      This is a death erection, which often being referred to as ‘angel lust’. It is a post-mortem erection that occurs when a male individual dies vertically or face-downside and as long as the body remains in this position, the effect will not subside.
      How It Could Possibly Happen?
      When a man is still alive, the heart pumps blood evenly around the body. When he dies, this mechanism stops and the blood acts by the force of gravity. As with any mass, the blood will settle at the lowest point of the body and cause swelling. So if a man dies vertically, the blood will settle in the legs and collect at the feet.
      The pressure will cause the blood vessels and tissues in the feet to swell up to accommodate as much blood as possible. As blood collects, it will fill up to the torso and the blood will attempt to move to a lower position due to gravity, which is the penis (the legs are full by now). The blood causes the penis, consisting of erectile tissue, to fill with blood and expand.


      #5 Heart Attacks Are More Likely To Happen On Monday

      A 10-year study in Scotland found that 20% of people die of a heart attack on Monday’s compare to any other day of the week. The study suggests that the ‘Monday peak’ could be a result of massive drinking during the weekend and work related stress; you know the ‘Monday blues.’


      #6 Three Hundred Million Cells Die In Your Body Every Minute
      It does sounds like a lot but this is actually less than 0.0001% of the amount of cells being replaced in your body every day. (about 10-50 trillion cells are being replace in your body every day)


      #7 Babies Have More Bones Than You Do

      When a baby is born, they have 300 bones in their body. When they reach adulthood they are left with only 206 bones. This is because the smaller bones eventually join together to form stronger single bones.
      #8 Your Hair Is Almost Indestructible

      Apart from having it burnt, human hair decays at such a slow rate that it is almost impossible to get rid of. Do you remember those documentaries about Egypt, the pyramids and Mummies on Discovery Channel? Well the mummies are left with no flesh, practically nothing but bones and yes… hair. It might look fragile but hair cannot be destroyed by cold, change of climate, water, or other natural forces and it is resistant to many kinds of acids and corrosive chemicals.


      #9 You Can Survive Without Food But Not Without Sleep

      You need sleep as much as you need food. Many people neglect the importance of having enough sleep without knowing that humans can actually survive longer without food than without sleep. With water alone, an average person could survive a month to two without food (that also varies from an individual’s body fat and other factors).
      But a few sleepless nights will cause the person to start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes. The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep is 264 hours. Randy Gardner at the end of which the experiment did not stumble or hallucinate but scientist has said that any more sleepless nights than that is dangerous.


      #10 You Have A Philtrum

      The indentation in the middle of the area between the nose and the upper lip is called the philtrum. While scientists are yet to figure out the specific purpose of this indentation serves besides allowing humans to express a much larger range of lip motions, the ancient Greeks thought it to be one of the most arousing places on the body.

      Top 5 Most Dangerous Roads in the World


      1: North Yungas Road, Coroico to La Paz, Bolivia

      road
      A van descends past a series of crosses marking the site of fatal accidents on the most dangerous road in the world -- Old Yungas.
      Most of the travel journalists who've written cautionary lists of the world's worst roads seem to agree that the North Yungas Road, a 40-mile (64.3- kilometer) long stretch of hell in Bolivia is the planet's ultimate nightmare for motorists. In 1995, the Inter-American Development Bank singled out the "Road of Death," as it is sometimes called, as the most dangerous route in the world.
      It's not hard to figure out why. Built by Paraguayan prisoners of war in the 1930s, North Yungas mostly is a single, winding 10-foot (3-meter) wide lane carved out of the side of a mountain. Worse yet, on the way from Coroico to La Paz, the elevation drops sharply, from 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) to just more than 1,000 feet (304.8 meters). Addtraffic -- including plenty of big, ungainly trucks and buses rolling downhill at frightening speeds and taking curves on two wheels -- and you've got a heart-stopping surprise waiting around every bend. The one saving grace is that local custom grants uphill traffic the right of way .

      2: Guoliang Tunnel, Taihang Mountains, China

      In 1972, inhabitants of a remote mountain village performed one of the most miraculous feats in road-building history: They chiseled a tunnel three-quarters of a mile through a mountain for easier access to the outside world. Here, "easier" means easier than tiptoeing along a rocky footpath worn into the face of the mountain, which is what they had to do before they built the tunnel.
      But the new passageway, whose name translates to "road that does not tolerate any mistakes," is only marginally less hair-raising. The tunnel's 15-foot (4.5-meters) high ceiling and 12-foot (3.5-meter) wide roadbed would be forbiddingly dark and claustrophobic had the builders not also carved periodic openings in the tunnel walls. 

      3: Halsema Highway, Baguio to Bontoc, Philippines

      road
      It looks safe enough, but watch out for the rock slides.
      One of the most scenic and also most hazardous stretches of road on the planet was built in the 1930s by a man named Euseibus Julius Halsema, a civil engineer from Ohio who moved to the Philippines shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Halsema eventually rose to become mayor and chief engineer for the city of Baguio, which was then a remote village with a few thousand inhabitants.
      Halsema hoped to spur Baguio's growth by building a route called the Mountain Trail to Bontoc, the capital of Mountain Province . The 93-mile (149.6-kilometer) long highway snakes along the slopes of the Cordillera Central mountain range through an area filled with volcanic rock formations.
      These formations were fractured by a 7.8 earthquake in 1990 and subsequently have been further destabilized by erosion from typhoons. As a result, motorists are menaced not only by the continual threat of rock slides, but also by gaping, 40-foot (12-meter) deep erosion scars on the roadside . To make things even worse, sections are sometimes shrouded in mist that makes visibility dicey.

      4: M56 Kolyma Federal Highway, Magadan to Yakutsk, Russian Federation

      road
      This road is actually safer in the winter when it's frozen than in the summer when it's muddy.
      This 1,200-mile (1,931-kilometer) long route is known in Russia as the "Road of Bones." It was built between the 1930s and the early 1950s by thousands of prisoners from Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's Kolyma Gulag, who were deliberately overworked, starved to death and then buried beneath the route .
      Never a dependable road surface, over the decades it has fallen into a worse state of disrepair, with vast unpaved, rut-laden stretches . The Kolyma passes through some of the coldest inhabited places on Earth, with winter temperatures that drop to minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56 degrees Celsius). At times, the road is frozen solid. But bizarrely, it's easier to travel the road when it's frozen in the winter than when it's a treacherous sea of mud in the summer . To make matters worse, local officials warn that bandits have been known to attack unwary travelers .

      5: Trans-Sahara Highway, Algiers, Algeria to Lagos, Nigeria

      desert
      You don't want to run out of gas on a desert highway.
      Building a network of highways across Africa to promote much-needed economic development sounds like a fantastic idea. And being able to cross the Mediterranean via ferry from Europe, then drive from Algiers to Lagos would be great . And, maybe someday, when the Trans-Sahara Highway is completed, that'll be doable.
      But for the time being, traveling on the 2,800-mile (4,506-kilometer) long, partially completed route remains a daunting task. Daytime temperatures are scorching, and fuel and water are in scarce supply along much of the route, so you'd better hope the needle doesn't touch "E" and that your radiator doesn't blow . And even the newly paved portions of the road often disappear under immense drifts of sand that block the route for days at a time .

      Saturday 2 July 2011

      extreme tourism

      1. Dive to the Wreck of the Titanic


      The History of the RMS Titanic
      • The RMS Titanic was built in 1912 and was the largest moving object made by humans at the time.
      • The name, Titanic, comes from the Titans of Greek mythology.
      • RMS stands for Royal Mail Steamer, which means that the Titanic could legally transport British mail.
      • On April 14th, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and began to sink. By the early hours of the 15th, the ship was gone, taking 1,500 people along with it.
      • It wasn't until Sept. 1, 1985, that the wreck was found at a depth of 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) in the Atlantic Ocean.

      Starting at Newfoundland, if you head roughly 400 miles (600 kilometers) south, you'll find yourself in the middle of nowhere, floating on the Atlantic Ocean. The surface, however, is not what brought you to this point -- you're here to see what lies well beneath the waves and wind above. About 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) below you is the wreck of one of the most famous ships ever to have sailed the seas, the RMS Titanic. From the Russian research ship Akademik Keldyshe, you'll board one of two submersibles capable of withstanding the pressure of diving deep into the ocean. The MIR I and II will ensure you a safe and comfortable ride to the bottom of the ocean, where you'll be one of only a handful of non-scientists to view the wreck of the Titanic . Just remember to keep your hands and feet inside the vessel!

      2. Heli-skiing

      Heli-skiing helicopter
      Heli-skiing takes adventure to new heights -- instead of a ski lift, a helicopter takes you to the highest peaks.
      The problem with ski lifts is that they can only take you so high up the mountain. In order to ski the best slopes on the most powdery of powder, you may want to give heli-skiing a go. Some of the best spots to try this experience can be found in Alaska, British Columbia and Italy, and most heli-skiing will provide you with transport to some of the highest peaks in the area. Once on the top, you'll disembark from the helicopter with your guide and follow him or her down to the pick-up spot. You will be skiing at an altitude of anywhere between 6,500 feet (1,900 meters) and 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). In addition to air-lifting you to your skiing destination, most companies will allow you to rent equipment and offer the option to pay for a package deal that will include your room and board, or opt for a pay-by-the-run deal where you pay for each lift to the top separately.

      3. Space Travel


      The Four Types of Space Travel
      • Lunar Mission: This is the most extreme of the extreme. You'll circle the moon and see the Earth rise from the far side of the moon.
      • Orbital Spaceflight: While in orbit of the Earth, you'll spend 12 days in space, walking around and circling earth every 90 minutes.
      • Suborbital Spaceflight: You'll simply pop into space about 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the planet, but you won't actually orbit the Earth. A suborbital flight will be somewhat shorter than an orbital one.
      • Zero Gravity Flights: This is the most practical and realistic of all the flights. In a Boeing 727, you'll fly in giant arcs through the sky, experiencing brief periods of simulated weightlessness along the way.
      If you're hoping your vacation will be a chance to get away from it all, perhaps your best bet is in the infinity of space. With the market and interest growing rapidly and large scale investors getting involved, the reality of space tourism is growing ever closer. And why not? It's a chance to free yourself from the grips of Earth's gravity and feel the weightlessness of space as you circle your home planet hundreds of miles above its surface.
      At the moment, your options are limited in respect to actual space travel. There are several major companies that are in the process of building ships, such as Virgin Galactic's reusable launch vehicle (RLV), which will take tourists on a suborbital flight. Companies are also looking into public ships that will allow for longer flights deep into space. That being said, your best bet for the weightless feeling will be to check out a zero gravity flight.

      4. Sandboarding


      Sand boarder coming down hill
      If you want to go beyond water skiing and snowboarding, consider sandboarding for your next adventure.
      If waterskiing is too wet for you or snowboarding is too cold, look no farther than the hills of the increasingly popular sand dune parks throughout the world. Sandboarding has a long history, stretching back to the ancient Egyptians skiing down dunes on bits of pottery, but it has only just recently come back into vogue as a new generation discovers the thrill of the sport . Sandboarding can include everything from simply hopping on a board and sliding down a dune to setting up courses with jumps to increase the thrill.
      You don't even need a desert to sandboard, as parks have sprung up all around the world in places like Oregon, Brazil and Peru. These are often privately owned parks that will provide you not only with the heaps of sand, but also with the proper equipment needed to traverse the dunes. If you're looking for a more authentic experience, head on over to South Africa, where you'll find a multitude of natural dunes to hurtle down.

      5. Gorilla Safari


      Gorilla in Africa
      A gorilla safari will get you up-close-and-personal with some of the world's most fascinating animals.
      Venturing into Uganda's Impenetrable Forest will surely get your heart rate up. Inside the shadowed deep, you'll embark on a gorilla safari that will give you the chance to see Africa's mountain gorillas up close. First, you'll join a group in Uganda's coastal town of Entebbe to catch a plane to Kibale Forest National Park. For the next 11 days, you'll hike, trek and ride around Uganda's forests and plains while watching chimpanzees, gorillas, elephants and lions in their natural environment. You'll have the chance to ride across the lake-dotted savannahs in four-wheel-drive vehicles and track gorillas on foot up to altitudes of 8,500 feet (2.6 kilometers) in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. While on the trip, you'll have a chance to stay in everything from the national parks' lodges to a tent camp in Bwindi. All the while, you'll be as close as possible to the "gentle giants" that you have come so far to see.




      what would happen to my social networkiing account after my death?

      Facebook After Death

      Facebook login page

      Facebook instituted a policy a few years ago regarding how to handle the profiles of deceased individuals. Family members could choose one of two options: close the account -- Facebook will delete an account permanently upon the family's request -- or converting the account into a memorial profile. Facebook's policy states the company will never release login information to anyone other than the account holder, even after death.
      Before making any changes, Facebook requires proof that the user has died. First, someone must use an online form to report the user's demise. Within that form is a space to include a link to an obituary or news report confirming the death. Facebook employees then review the user's profile to verify there has been no recent activity. Only then will the company begin the conversion process.
      A profile undergoes several changes when switching into a memorial. Facebook removes sensitive information from the profile. This includes contact information and addresses. The company also removes status updates to protect the privacy of the deceased user.
      Facebook changes the profile settings so that only friends can find the profile and post information to the user's wall. This lets other members visit the profile and use it as a place of grieving and healing while preventing digital vandalism from trolls. Searches for the deceased user on Facebook's search engine will not list the memorial page.
      The company will also deactivate the user's login information. This prevents anyone from guessing the user's password and logging in to cause mischief.
      If no one contacts Facebook to alert the company of the user's passing, his or her profile will remain active indefinitely. Facebook doesn't delete inactive accounts without notification. Depending upon the user's privacy settings, people will still be able to search and visit the profile and leave comments.
      Not every site has established a policy for dealing with death. Some will obey whatever the family wishes as long as the company receives proof of the user's passing. A few won't take any action without a copy of a death certificate. Other companies won't make any changes at all. But as the issue pops up, more online social networks are adopting rules to handle the situation.
      Next, we'll look at a few things you can do to make it easier for your family to handle your online presence after you die.


      Preparing Your Online Life for Death

      What can you do to help your family or friends manage your online presence after you die? Depending on your level of activity online, you may have dozens of different accounts. And some sites may not have policies in place to deal with your account after your death.
      One thing you can do is designate someone to be in charge of your online accounts after you die. You'll need to create a list of your user names and passwords and put it in a safe place. A few companies will store that information for you, usually for a fee.
      One of those companies is Legacy Locker. The company offers three plans. You can create a free account and store up to three assets (e.g., login information), designate one beneficiary to retrieve those assets should you pass away and write a Legacy Letter. Legacy Letters are messages the company will deliver to designated recipients after verifying that you've died.
      Or you can set up a paid account. For $29.99 a year, members can store an unlimited number of assets and designate as many beneficiaries as they like. There is no limit on the number of Legacy Letters they can create. They can also use an online document backup system and upload videos to the site for others to watch after they pass on. For a one-time fee of $299.99, members can create an account that will remain active without the need for yearly payments.
      Besides Legacy Locker, here are other companies that will store information for you and release it to designated individuals upon proof of your death. And while online services offer convenience, they may not be as secure as you would like. After all, you're storing all of your login information with one service. If a hacker should get access to the company's files, he or she would be able to access all of your login information you've stored. That might include everything from social networking profiles to online bank accounts.
      You don't have to rely on a third party if you prefer to maintain your own list of login information. In fact, there are several ways to encrypt your data, and you could give the decryption key to people you trust. You could also designate an executor to your online property in your will.
      So, what to do with a dead user's information remains a tricky subject. Most social networking sites allow users to post comments and messages to each other, but who owns that data? Is it the recipient, the sender or the company? If you've left a message for someone and they pass away, can you retrieve it? These are questions most sites have yet to address.
      Even though companies are beginning to acknowledge the problem of what to do with your data once you die, most of the responsibility falls to you and your family. It's not a lot of fun to think about but a little consideration could save your loved ones from experiencing hours of frustration on top of their grief.

      INTERESTING FACTS - 3

      1. 80% of all pictures on the internet are of naked women

      2. Another name for a Microsoft Windows tutorial is 'Crash Course'!

      3. Bill Gates' house was designed using a Macintosh computer.

      4. By the year 2012 there will be approximately 17 billion devices connected to the Internet.

      5. Domain names are being registered at a rate of more than one million names every month.

      6. E-mail has been around longer than the World Wide Web.

      7. For every 'normal' webpage, there are five porn pages.

      8. In the 1980s, an IBM computer wasn't considered 100 percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft Flight Simulator*.

      9. MySpace reports over 110 million registered users. Were it a country, it would be the tenth largest, just behind Mexico.

      10. One of every 8 married couples in the US last year met online.

      11. The average 21 year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games, has exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages and has spent 10,000 hours on the mobile phone.

      12. The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute, less than half the normal rate of 20.

      13. The first banner advertising was used in 1994.

      14. The first computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.

      15. The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com.

      0 16. The world's first computer, called the Z1, was invented by Konrad Zuse in 1936. His next invention, the Z2 was finished in 1939 and was the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer.

      17. There are approximately 1,319,872,109 people on the Internet.

      18. There are approximately 1.06 billion instant messaging accounts worldwide.

      19. While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users.


      sinkholes

      Types of Naturally Occurring Sinkholes

      Sinkholes look dramatic when you're peering down into one, but it's below the surface where the real action takes place. A sinkhole's identity centers on the gaps, crevices, cavities and voids that lie under the overburden, or the soil above the bedrock. As these gaps develop, expand and merge, soil from the overburden starts filling the void.
      In the case of the sinkhole suddenly opening to swallow a car that we just mentioned, it formed because the overburden was no longer stable enough to hold itself up. This common type of sinkhole is known as a collapse orcover-collapse sinkhole. Although these sinkholes can appear suddenly, the erosion that makes them happen has likely been taking place for weeks or years before, underground and out of view. So let's head underground.
      The top layer of a cover-collapse sinkhole is usually a soft overburden, made of soil with a lot of clay in it. Over time, a small cavern forms underneath that soil. Opportunistic sediment takes advantage of the newly free real estate and starts spilling into the cavern -- a process known as spalling. As spalling continues, the underground cavern fills with more sediment, hollowing out the space under the overburden. Eventually, the overburden becomes so thin that it suddenly collapses into the cavern below (this is the "cover collapse"), creating a sinkhole. In some cases, the cover can support its own weight but crumbles when additional weight, whether from a hapless person or car, passes over it.
      With cover-subsidence sinkholes, water permeates the soft overburden. An example of this type of terrain is an overburden made up of up to 100 feet (30 meters) of sand with a small amount of clay below before yielding to soft limestone. As limestone dissolves and leaves a void, sediment from the overburden seeps in, creating a bowl-like impression in the Earth. These sinkholes, often only a few feet across and deep, are smaller than many others because after reaching a certain size, sand and sediment pour into the hole . This inflow of sediment can block the outflow of water by stopping up the cracks and passages that connect the sinkhole to underground conduits. Many of these sinkholes then become ponds, as the water has nowhere to drain. They also don't produce the spectacular kind of cave-in associated with a cover-collapse sinkhole.
      dissolution or solution sinkhole is essentially a deep impression in the ground. These sinkholes usually have a thin overburden (if any), which washes away or is eroded. The now-exposed rock then progressively dissolves when it touches acidic water. The bare area hollows out, forming a shallow basin. Water often pools on the surface of a dissolution sinkhole, creating a sort of pond that compounds the erosion of rock below. Also, like in other types of sinkholes, objects and other material can get stuck in the fractures where water would normally flow out. Unlike a cover-subsidence sinkhole, there is no overburden or covering sediment to spall into the sinkhole or cover the eroding rock.
      Human activity produces some of the worst sinkholes. We'll take a look at them .

      Sinkholes Caused by Humans

      Sinkhole in Los Angeles
      A broken water main collapsed part of the street in Los Angeles in December 2002. Sinkholes caused by water eroding the foundation of streets are a big problem in Los Angeles.
      In urban settings in particular, sinkholes may owe their development to human activity as much as anything else. In some cases, sinkholes appear because of the combination of industrial activity or development, soft limestone bedrock and less than 200 feet (61 meters) of overburden . The following human actions can also cause sinkholes:
      • Drilling and vibrations
      • Mining
      • Changes in weight
      • Lots of foot or vehicle traffic
      • Heavy increase in water flow, formation of a pond or body of water, or broken pipes, among other things
      Sinkholes may also form in places where water flows regularly, such as a storm drain, or when water sources are diverted or cut off, especially by pumping out groundwater. A broken pipe can contribute to sinkhole development by flooding and weakening the soil, but it can also provide an outlet for the dirt and rock that's supposed to surround pipes. After enough material falls into pipes and is transported away, the surrounding earth becomes destabilized, contributing to sinkhole formation, sewage or water spills, or other disasters.
      Again with the Fertilizer!
      In Berezniki, Russia, a giant sinkhole first appeared in 1986, apparently when a potash mine was flooded. The sinkhole now measures 656 feet (200 meters) deep, 262 feet (80 meters) long and 131 feet (40 meters) wide -- and growing. The sinkhole threatens the region's massive potash industry. Potash is an important ingredient in many fertilizers.
      One­ of the worst human-caused sinkholes occurred in 1994 in Polk Cou­nty, located in Central Florida. First, some background: 30 percent of the world's phosphate comes from Florida and often ends up as an ingredient in fertilizer. That booming phosphate industry comes with tons of mildly radioactive waste known as phosphogypsum. Florida mining companies arrange phosphogypsum into massive stacks that can cover hundreds of acres and weigh millions of tons. Other phosphogypsum disposal methods, including recycl­ing it for use in construction or artificial reefs, have yet to take off because of debate over whether the material is too radioactive to reuse. Almost a billion tons of the stuff is stacked in Central Florida . All that weight pressing down on the soft, sinkhole-riddled Florida terrain can lead to disaster.
      So it was in 1994, when one of these stacks collapsed into a 150-foot (46-meter) deep sinkhole. Millions of tons of phosphogypsum entered the sinkhole and polluted the state's water supply. The cleanup cost millions and cast a light on both the problem of sinkholes and the need to find uses for the millions of tons of byproduct waste produced by the state's phosphate industry.
      We've talked about how sinkholes form and some of the basic hazards involved. But what other problems can they cause? We'll explore that subject with  more details.

      More Problems Caused by Sinkholes

      Sinkholes aren't always a grave danger. Sometimes, depending on their size, they're just an inconvenience. It's their sudden or deceptively large appearance that makes sinkholes dangerous, both to human safety and to buildings and infrastructure. Construction projects frequently have to contend with the specter of sinkholes brought on by broken pipes or careless drilling. These geologic cavities can be expensive to repair, voracious in their appetite to swallow homes and cars, and toxic in their ability to contaminate groundwater supplies by sucking up debris or sewage.
      Guatemala City sinkhole
      Aerial view of the huge hole in Guatemala City after the sewage system collapsed. If you look at the surrounding buildings, you can see how big that scary sinkhole is.
      Flooding looms as a particular concern when it comes to sinkholes. We already discussed how flooding contributes to sinkhole development, but sinkholes can also factor in to the flooding of a surrounding area in several ways. If the outlet that connects a sinkhole to a conduit or water supply, such as an underground stream, becomes filled with trash and debris, water has nowhere to flow. The basin or sinkhole then fills with water, causing flooding. Sinkhole flooding can also occur simply because water enters a sinkhole more quickly than it can drain through a conduit or other outlet. The last flooding scenario happens when an overflowing river is connected to a sinkhole via underground streams and conduits. Water flowing through the sinkhole would normally drain into the river. But because the river is already flooded, flow reversal takes place and excess water shoots back into the sinkhole, filling it with water and potentially flooding the surrounding area.
      Sinkholes can appear suddenly and with great violence, and they're something that any city planner or engineer must keep in mind. One notable, tragic case of this type occurred in Guatemala's capital, Guatemala City. Early in the morning on Feb. 23, 2007, a 330-foot (101-meter) deep sinkhole appeared almost instantly, killing at least three people and devouring homes in a packed urban area. The ground shook and a terrible smell wafted from the ruptured sewer lines that, along with rain, were thought to have caused the disaster. Although the catastrophe occurred suddenly, residents reported hearing and feeling the ground shaking about a month before the sinkhole appeared . The government had plans to send a robotic camera system to investigate, but it didn't act in time.

      Detecting and Dealing with Sinkholes

      Karst landscape
      We have some bad news for you if your house is located in a landscape like this.
      Sometimes we don't need a government agent to confirm that a sinkhole honeycombs the area. Rather, it's obvious from the gaping hole in the ground. But other times, sinkholes may be difficult to detect -- for example, if they're still covered with a thin overburden that has yet to collapse into the void below. Property damage, especially around the foundation, may be a subtle sign that something is wrong. In addition, if vegetation is dying unexpectedly, a sinkhole may have disrupted underlying streams that usually feed the plants. Other signs to look for include polluted or muddied well water, formation of new ponds and trees, or sign posts that appear to be slumping over.
        Some people use sinkholes as makeshift trash cans when, in fact, anything thrown in them may end up in the local water supply. In many communities, this practice, in addition to being harmful to the environment, is illegal.
        Is Three a Crowd?
        When several sinkholes come together to form a larger basin or hole, the new formation is known as a poljen.
        If your house suffers damage from a sinkhole, it may be covered by homeowner insurance. Sinkholes generally should be fenced off or otherwise marked. The Southwest Florida Water Management District recommends filling them in with sand, though many homeowners turn to professional contractors . If they sit on public property, city officials need to be contacted. A severe sinkhole found on public or private land may have to be repaired with concrete or require earthmoving equipment to stymie erosion.
        The United States can't afford to ignore sinkholes. The country's aging sewer and water systems have experts worried that deadly sinkholes like Guatemala City's could develop . Their worries, no doubt, are founded on the fact that many essential infrastructure improvements across the country have been neglected. Pipes, bridges and the like that were intended to last 50 or so years are approaching or have passed their intended shelf life . For example, you may remember the disastrous Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis that occurred on Aug. 1, 2007, and killed 13 people. Authorities later attributed the bridge collapse to faulty design and the gradual addition of more weight, such as concrete lane dividers, without upgrading the bridge's support systems.
        We already discussed the large sinkholes in Polk County, Fla., Guatemala City and Berez­niki, Russia. On the next page, we'll look at some other unusual sinkholes from around the world.

        Unusual and Stunning Sinkholes

        Perhaps no sinkhole is more distinctive than the Qattara Depression. The massive sinkhole is more like a large basin, stretching across a wide swath of Egypt. It's considered the largest naturally forming sinkhole on Earth: . The depression is "only" 436 feet (133 meters) deep, but it's also 75 miles (120 kilometers) wide and 50 miles (80 kilometers) long. The depression's difficult terrain made it an important defensive border for the British army during World War II, and now it's considered a tourist attraction. Various schemes have been conceived to harness the Qattara Depression for energy production. One possibility calls for filling it with water and then using the basin's low elevation and water evaporation as part of a hydro-solar project.
        Sarisarinama sinkhole in Bolivar, Venezuela
        Aerial view of a Sarisarinama sinkhole in Bolivar, Venezuela. If you tumble in there, will you reach the lost world?
        Like the Qattara Depression, sinkholes can be beautiful and relatively harmless, though frequently the difference between stunning and disastrous is a matter of location. Venezuela is known for itsSarisarinama sinkholes: basins 1,000 feet (305 meters) wide and at least that deep that are practically perfect circles. These sinkholes are made more distinctive by where they appear; they lie on top of high mesas in the country's tepui region. Tepuis are incredibly isolated areas filled with lush forests and waterfalls. Sarisarinama sinkholes were first discovered in 1974, high up on flat-topped tepui mountains, and have been described as part of a "lost world". These sinkholes have been treasure troves for scientists, who remain fascinated by the unique plant and animal species found nowhere else but in some Sarisarinama sinkholes. The sinkholes and the tepuis have also attracted numerous explorers throughout the centuries, some lured by the challenge of their remote setting, others following rumors of massive gold nuggets washing up in streams on top of tepuis.
        An Ancient Name
        The name "cenote" derives from a Mayan word meaning "abysmal and deep".
        If you've ever seen the "Planet Earth" documentary series, then you're probably familiar with cenotes, water-filled sinkholes connected to underwater caves and streams. Cenotes often form gorgeous swimming spots and feature underwater caves, waterfalls and other intriguing formations. The Bimmah Sinkhole in the Middle Eastern nation of Oman is similar. This sinkhole attracts many tourists to its shimmering, translucent blue-green water. Similarly, Mount Gambier in southern Australia is known for its picturesque water-filled sinkholes and volcanic craters. Some of these sinkholes contain well-manicured, terraced gardens.
        One of the world's centers of sinkhole activity is the Dead Sea, the salty body of water sandwiched between Israel and Jordan. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the planet (1,371 feet or 417 meters below sea level) and an important tourist and historical site, as well as part of a migratory route for hundreds of millions of birds. The water level of the Dead Sea has been dropping yearly because of work by the mineral extraction industry and diversion of water from the Jordan River, which feeds the sea, for use in watering crops and providing drinking water.
        The newly uncovered areas of the Dead Sea have become riddled with sinkholes. Evaporating freshwater pools are breaking down salt deposits, creating "holes" and destabilizing the ground, leading to sinkholes. Various remedies have been proposed, including multibillion-dollar canals connecting the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean or Red seas. One scientist has theorized that a point of equilibrium will inevitably be reached, as the sea will become too salty to further evaporate . But by then, the Dead Sea will be about one-third of its early 21st century size, and in the meantime, resorts around the sea have struggled with receding waters and the unstable, sinkhole-laden earth left behind.

        What should you not buy in bulk?

        Specific Items You Shouldn't Buy In Bulk

        almonds
        Nuts have a high oil content and will go rancid in just a few months.
        These bulk items might seem like good investments at the time, but won't add up to as much long-term value as you would think.
        • Nuts: You might think that nuts could sit in the pantry for months and even years at a time without going bad. But nuts are actually very high in oil. And although those oils make nuts a healthy source of unsaturated fats, they also mean that nuts will go rancid within four months (six months if they are in their shells)  .
        • Brown rice: Like nuts, brown rice has high oil content because, unlike white rice, brown rice still has the germ attached. That's what makes it brown and generally healthier than its white counterpart, but also more perishable. Don't buy more brown rice than you can use in about six months .
        • Cooking oil: If nuts and brown rice spoil quickly because of their high oil content, you can bet that pure oil will go bad quickly for the same reason. Cooking oil goes bad within one to three months of being opened. So, gallon jugs of oil may be a good investment if you plan to do a lot of deep frying, but otherwise, stay away.
        • Spices: Little jars of spices can be expensive, while large tubs can be dirt cheap by comparison. But those bulk spices are really only worth buying for restaurants or food service professionals. Because spices lose their flavor over time, you'll have to refresh them in about six months.
        • Bleach: Bleach loses potency in only about six months, so most households probably won't use more than the typical gallon before its cleaning power is gone .
        • Bread: Unless you have a huge family, or you're carbo loading for a big marathon, you're making more of an investment in mold than in cheap lunches.
        • Candy: Even if you find deals on candy and other snack foods in bulk, having so many on hand can increase the temptation to overeat.



        10 Craziest Facts About The Human Body


        #1 Your Hand Can Have A Mind On Its Own

        Remember Devon Sawa’s character in 1999’s ‘Idle Hands’, a comedy / horror movie about a teen whose hand becomes possessed and goes on a killing spree?
        Apparently this movie has some truth in it. The ‘idle hand’ which referred to as the ‘Alien Hand Syndrome’ is an unusual neurological disorder in which the sufferer’s hand seems to take on a mind of its own. This is due to the damage in the medial motor frontal region of the brain and often occurs after a brain surgery, a stroke or an infection of the brain.
        The sufferer has no control over the movements of the ‘alien hand’ nor will they have any conscience idea on what that hand is doing. The person suffering from this condition can often feel disconnected with their hand, and feel as if it was not part of their body.
        When the suffer is unaware the alien hand can sometime act out complex movements like unbuttoning clothing, using tools or even tearing pieces of clothing. There are no know treatments or cure for ‘Alien Hand Syndrome’ however the best solution is to give this alien hand an object it can play with to keep it distracted from doing anything harmful to the sufferer.



        #2 You Could Remove A Large Part of Your Internal Organs and Survive

        While the human body may appear fragile, your body is stronger than you could possibly imagine. It is possible for you to survive even after the removal of the spleen, the stomach, one kidney, one lung, 75% of the liver, 80% of the intestines, and almost every organ from the pelvic and groin area.


        #3 The Strong Contraction of Your Heart Creates Enough Pressure To Squirt Blood As Far As 30 Feet

        #4 You Can Still Have An Erection After Death
        (sorry couldn’t find a picture)

        This is a death erection, which often being referred to as ‘angel lust’. It is a post-mortem erection that occurs when a male individual dies vertically or face-downside and as long as the body remains in this position, the effect will not subside.
        How It Could Possibly Happen?
        When a man is still alive, the heart pumps blood evenly around the body. When he dies, this mechanism stops and the blood acts by the force of gravity. As with any mass, the blood will settle at the lowest point of the body and cause swelling. So if a man dies vertically, the blood will settle in the legs and collect at the feet.
        The pressure will cause the blood vessels and tissues in the feet to swell up to accommodate as much blood as possible. As blood collects, it will fill up to the torso and the blood will attempt to move to a lower position due to gravity, which is the penis (the legs are full by now). The blood causes the penis, consisting of erectile tissue, to fill with blood and expand.


        #5 Heart Attacks Are More Likely To Happen On Monday

        A 10-year study in Scotland found that 20% of people die of a heart attack on Monday’s compare to any other day of the week. The study suggests that the ‘Monday peak’ could be a result of massive drinking during the weekend and work related stress; you know the ‘Monday blues.’


        #6 Three Hundred Million Cells Die In Your Body Every Minute
        It does sounds like a lot but this is actually less than 0.0001% of the amount of cells being replaced in your body every day. (about 10-50 trillion cells are being replace in your body every day)


        #7 Babies Have More Bones Than You Do

        When a baby is born, they have 300 bones in their body. When they reach adulthood they are left with only 206 bones. This is because the smaller bones eventually join together to form stronger single bones.
        #8 Your Hair Is Almost Indestructible

        Apart from having it burnt, human hair decays at such a slow rate that it is almost impossible to get rid of. Do you remember those documentaries about Egypt, the pyramids and Mummies on Discovery Channel? Well the mummies are left with no flesh, practically nothing but bones and yes… hair. It might look fragile but hair cannot be destroyed by cold, change of climate, water, or other natural forces and it is resistant to many kinds of acids and corrosive chemicals.


        #9 You Can Survive Without Food But Not Without Sleep

        You need sleep as much as you need food. Many people neglect the importance of having enough sleep without knowing that humans can actually survive longer without food than without sleep. With water alone, an average person could survive a month to two without food (that also varies from an individual’s body fat and other factors).
        But a few sleepless nights will cause the person to start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes. The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep is 264 hours. Randy Gardner at the end of which the experiment did not stumble or hallucinate but scientist has said that any more sleepless nights than that is dangerous.


        #10 You Have A Philtrum

        The indentation in the middle of the area between the nose and the upper lip is called the philtrum. While scientists are yet to figure out the specific purpose of this indentation serves besides allowing humans to express a much larger range of lip motions, the ancient Greeks thought it to be one of the most arousing places on the body.

        Top 5 Most Dangerous Roads in the World


        1: North Yungas Road, Coroico to La Paz, Bolivia

        road
        A van descends past a series of crosses marking the site of fatal accidents on the most dangerous road in the world -- Old Yungas.
        Most of the travel journalists who've written cautionary lists of the world's worst roads seem to agree that the North Yungas Road, a 40-mile (64.3- kilometer) long stretch of hell in Bolivia is the planet's ultimate nightmare for motorists. In 1995, the Inter-American Development Bank singled out the "Road of Death," as it is sometimes called, as the most dangerous route in the world.
        It's not hard to figure out why. Built by Paraguayan prisoners of war in the 1930s, North Yungas mostly is a single, winding 10-foot (3-meter) wide lane carved out of the side of a mountain. Worse yet, on the way from Coroico to La Paz, the elevation drops sharply, from 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) to just more than 1,000 feet (304.8 meters). Addtraffic -- including plenty of big, ungainly trucks and buses rolling downhill at frightening speeds and taking curves on two wheels -- and you've got a heart-stopping surprise waiting around every bend. The one saving grace is that local custom grants uphill traffic the right of way .

        2: Guoliang Tunnel, Taihang Mountains, China

        In 1972, inhabitants of a remote mountain village performed one of the most miraculous feats in road-building history: They chiseled a tunnel three-quarters of a mile through a mountain for easier access to the outside world. Here, "easier" means easier than tiptoeing along a rocky footpath worn into the face of the mountain, which is what they had to do before they built the tunnel.
        But the new passageway, whose name translates to "road that does not tolerate any mistakes," is only marginally less hair-raising. The tunnel's 15-foot (4.5-meters) high ceiling and 12-foot (3.5-meter) wide roadbed would be forbiddingly dark and claustrophobic had the builders not also carved periodic openings in the tunnel walls. 

        3: Halsema Highway, Baguio to Bontoc, Philippines

        road
        It looks safe enough, but watch out for the rock slides.
        One of the most scenic and also most hazardous stretches of road on the planet was built in the 1930s by a man named Euseibus Julius Halsema, a civil engineer from Ohio who moved to the Philippines shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Halsema eventually rose to become mayor and chief engineer for the city of Baguio, which was then a remote village with a few thousand inhabitants.
        Halsema hoped to spur Baguio's growth by building a route called the Mountain Trail to Bontoc, the capital of Mountain Province . The 93-mile (149.6-kilometer) long highway snakes along the slopes of the Cordillera Central mountain range through an area filled with volcanic rock formations.
        These formations were fractured by a 7.8 earthquake in 1990 and subsequently have been further destabilized by erosion from typhoons. As a result, motorists are menaced not only by the continual threat of rock slides, but also by gaping, 40-foot (12-meter) deep erosion scars on the roadside . To make things even worse, sections are sometimes shrouded in mist that makes visibility dicey.

        4: M56 Kolyma Federal Highway, Magadan to Yakutsk, Russian Federation

        road
        This road is actually safer in the winter when it's frozen than in the summer when it's muddy.
        This 1,200-mile (1,931-kilometer) long route is known in Russia as the "Road of Bones." It was built between the 1930s and the early 1950s by thousands of prisoners from Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's Kolyma Gulag, who were deliberately overworked, starved to death and then buried beneath the route .
        Never a dependable road surface, over the decades it has fallen into a worse state of disrepair, with vast unpaved, rut-laden stretches . The Kolyma passes through some of the coldest inhabited places on Earth, with winter temperatures that drop to minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56 degrees Celsius). At times, the road is frozen solid. But bizarrely, it's easier to travel the road when it's frozen in the winter than when it's a treacherous sea of mud in the summer . To make matters worse, local officials warn that bandits have been known to attack unwary travelers .

        5: Trans-Sahara Highway, Algiers, Algeria to Lagos, Nigeria

        desert
        You don't want to run out of gas on a desert highway.
        Building a network of highways across Africa to promote much-needed economic development sounds like a fantastic idea. And being able to cross the Mediterranean via ferry from Europe, then drive from Algiers to Lagos would be great . And, maybe someday, when the Trans-Sahara Highway is completed, that'll be doable.
        But for the time being, traveling on the 2,800-mile (4,506-kilometer) long, partially completed route remains a daunting task. Daytime temperatures are scorching, and fuel and water are in scarce supply along much of the route, so you'd better hope the needle doesn't touch "E" and that your radiator doesn't blow . And even the newly paved portions of the road often disappear under immense drifts of sand that block the route for days at a time .

        extreme tourism

        1. Dive to the Wreck of the Titanic


        The History of the RMS Titanic
        • The RMS Titanic was built in 1912 and was the largest moving object made by humans at the time.
        • The name, Titanic, comes from the Titans of Greek mythology.
        • RMS stands for Royal Mail Steamer, which means that the Titanic could legally transport British mail.
        • On April 14th, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and began to sink. By the early hours of the 15th, the ship was gone, taking 1,500 people along with it.
        • It wasn't until Sept. 1, 1985, that the wreck was found at a depth of 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) in the Atlantic Ocean.

        Starting at Newfoundland, if you head roughly 400 miles (600 kilometers) south, you'll find yourself in the middle of nowhere, floating on the Atlantic Ocean. The surface, however, is not what brought you to this point -- you're here to see what lies well beneath the waves and wind above. About 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) below you is the wreck of one of the most famous ships ever to have sailed the seas, the RMS Titanic. From the Russian research ship Akademik Keldyshe, you'll board one of two submersibles capable of withstanding the pressure of diving deep into the ocean. The MIR I and II will ensure you a safe and comfortable ride to the bottom of the ocean, where you'll be one of only a handful of non-scientists to view the wreck of the Titanic . Just remember to keep your hands and feet inside the vessel!

        2. Heli-skiing

        Heli-skiing helicopter
        Heli-skiing takes adventure to new heights -- instead of a ski lift, a helicopter takes you to the highest peaks.
        The problem with ski lifts is that they can only take you so high up the mountain. In order to ski the best slopes on the most powdery of powder, you may want to give heli-skiing a go. Some of the best spots to try this experience can be found in Alaska, British Columbia and Italy, and most heli-skiing will provide you with transport to some of the highest peaks in the area. Once on the top, you'll disembark from the helicopter with your guide and follow him or her down to the pick-up spot. You will be skiing at an altitude of anywhere between 6,500 feet (1,900 meters) and 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). In addition to air-lifting you to your skiing destination, most companies will allow you to rent equipment and offer the option to pay for a package deal that will include your room and board, or opt for a pay-by-the-run deal where you pay for each lift to the top separately.

        3. Space Travel


        The Four Types of Space Travel
        • Lunar Mission: This is the most extreme of the extreme. You'll circle the moon and see the Earth rise from the far side of the moon.
        • Orbital Spaceflight: While in orbit of the Earth, you'll spend 12 days in space, walking around and circling earth every 90 minutes.
        • Suborbital Spaceflight: You'll simply pop into space about 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the planet, but you won't actually orbit the Earth. A suborbital flight will be somewhat shorter than an orbital one.
        • Zero Gravity Flights: This is the most practical and realistic of all the flights. In a Boeing 727, you'll fly in giant arcs through the sky, experiencing brief periods of simulated weightlessness along the way.
        If you're hoping your vacation will be a chance to get away from it all, perhaps your best bet is in the infinity of space. With the market and interest growing rapidly and large scale investors getting involved, the reality of space tourism is growing ever closer. And why not? It's a chance to free yourself from the grips of Earth's gravity and feel the weightlessness of space as you circle your home planet hundreds of miles above its surface.
        At the moment, your options are limited in respect to actual space travel. There are several major companies that are in the process of building ships, such as Virgin Galactic's reusable launch vehicle (RLV), which will take tourists on a suborbital flight. Companies are also looking into public ships that will allow for longer flights deep into space. That being said, your best bet for the weightless feeling will be to check out a zero gravity flight.

        4. Sandboarding


        Sand boarder coming down hill
        If you want to go beyond water skiing and snowboarding, consider sandboarding for your next adventure.
        If waterskiing is too wet for you or snowboarding is too cold, look no farther than the hills of the increasingly popular sand dune parks throughout the world. Sandboarding has a long history, stretching back to the ancient Egyptians skiing down dunes on bits of pottery, but it has only just recently come back into vogue as a new generation discovers the thrill of the sport . Sandboarding can include everything from simply hopping on a board and sliding down a dune to setting up courses with jumps to increase the thrill.
        You don't even need a desert to sandboard, as parks have sprung up all around the world in places like Oregon, Brazil and Peru. These are often privately owned parks that will provide you not only with the heaps of sand, but also with the proper equipment needed to traverse the dunes. If you're looking for a more authentic experience, head on over to South Africa, where you'll find a multitude of natural dunes to hurtle down.

        5. Gorilla Safari


        Gorilla in Africa
        A gorilla safari will get you up-close-and-personal with some of the world's most fascinating animals.
        Venturing into Uganda's Impenetrable Forest will surely get your heart rate up. Inside the shadowed deep, you'll embark on a gorilla safari that will give you the chance to see Africa's mountain gorillas up close. First, you'll join a group in Uganda's coastal town of Entebbe to catch a plane to Kibale Forest National Park. For the next 11 days, you'll hike, trek and ride around Uganda's forests and plains while watching chimpanzees, gorillas, elephants and lions in their natural environment. You'll have the chance to ride across the lake-dotted savannahs in four-wheel-drive vehicles and track gorillas on foot up to altitudes of 8,500 feet (2.6 kilometers) in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. While on the trip, you'll have a chance to stay in everything from the national parks' lodges to a tent camp in Bwindi. All the while, you'll be as close as possible to the "gentle giants" that you have come so far to see.




        what would happen to my social networkiing account after my death?

        Facebook After Death

        Facebook login page

        Facebook instituted a policy a few years ago regarding how to handle the profiles of deceased individuals. Family members could choose one of two options: close the account -- Facebook will delete an account permanently upon the family's request -- or converting the account into a memorial profile. Facebook's policy states the company will never release login information to anyone other than the account holder, even after death.
        Before making any changes, Facebook requires proof that the user has died. First, someone must use an online form to report the user's demise. Within that form is a space to include a link to an obituary or news report confirming the death. Facebook employees then review the user's profile to verify there has been no recent activity. Only then will the company begin the conversion process.
        A profile undergoes several changes when switching into a memorial. Facebook removes sensitive information from the profile. This includes contact information and addresses. The company also removes status updates to protect the privacy of the deceased user.
        Facebook changes the profile settings so that only friends can find the profile and post information to the user's wall. This lets other members visit the profile and use it as a place of grieving and healing while preventing digital vandalism from trolls. Searches for the deceased user on Facebook's search engine will not list the memorial page.
        The company will also deactivate the user's login information. This prevents anyone from guessing the user's password and logging in to cause mischief.
        If no one contacts Facebook to alert the company of the user's passing, his or her profile will remain active indefinitely. Facebook doesn't delete inactive accounts without notification. Depending upon the user's privacy settings, people will still be able to search and visit the profile and leave comments.
        Not every site has established a policy for dealing with death. Some will obey whatever the family wishes as long as the company receives proof of the user's passing. A few won't take any action without a copy of a death certificate. Other companies won't make any changes at all. But as the issue pops up, more online social networks are adopting rules to handle the situation.
        Next, we'll look at a few things you can do to make it easier for your family to handle your online presence after you die.


        Preparing Your Online Life for Death

        What can you do to help your family or friends manage your online presence after you die? Depending on your level of activity online, you may have dozens of different accounts. And some sites may not have policies in place to deal with your account after your death.
        One thing you can do is designate someone to be in charge of your online accounts after you die. You'll need to create a list of your user names and passwords and put it in a safe place. A few companies will store that information for you, usually for a fee.
        One of those companies is Legacy Locker. The company offers three plans. You can create a free account and store up to three assets (e.g., login information), designate one beneficiary to retrieve those assets should you pass away and write a Legacy Letter. Legacy Letters are messages the company will deliver to designated recipients after verifying that you've died.
        Or you can set up a paid account. For $29.99 a year, members can store an unlimited number of assets and designate as many beneficiaries as they like. There is no limit on the number of Legacy Letters they can create. They can also use an online document backup system and upload videos to the site for others to watch after they pass on. For a one-time fee of $299.99, members can create an account that will remain active without the need for yearly payments.
        Besides Legacy Locker, here are other companies that will store information for you and release it to designated individuals upon proof of your death. And while online services offer convenience, they may not be as secure as you would like. After all, you're storing all of your login information with one service. If a hacker should get access to the company's files, he or she would be able to access all of your login information you've stored. That might include everything from social networking profiles to online bank accounts.
        You don't have to rely on a third party if you prefer to maintain your own list of login information. In fact, there are several ways to encrypt your data, and you could give the decryption key to people you trust. You could also designate an executor to your online property in your will.
        So, what to do with a dead user's information remains a tricky subject. Most social networking sites allow users to post comments and messages to each other, but who owns that data? Is it the recipient, the sender or the company? If you've left a message for someone and they pass away, can you retrieve it? These are questions most sites have yet to address.
        Even though companies are beginning to acknowledge the problem of what to do with your data once you die, most of the responsibility falls to you and your family. It's not a lot of fun to think about but a little consideration could save your loved ones from experiencing hours of frustration on top of their grief.