Hello & Goodbye

This is quite a smart advertising campaign – including snippets of new books at places (queue up tickets, running late SMS, widgets, place mats and sticker lines) where people have time to read – Book Promos help people kill time

Did you know that the Funny bone isn’t quite a bone? Rather, it is a nerve – ulnar nerve – that is not protected by any muscles or bone and is connected to your little finger and the adjacent half of the ring finger (it is the nerve that tells your brain about the feelings in these two fingers and controls some of the movements of your hands). You get a tingling sensation when the nerve hits against the long bone (the bone that starts at your elbow and ends at your shoulder) – “humerus”. While it does no harm to the nerve, the sensation is really queer and weird

I am not learned, while I may be suitably qualified with my Bachelor I am not learned. I admit that I am ignorant when it comes to general knowledge so in an attempt to beef up my pea-brain, I’ve started the randomfact series. I reckoned you should learn with me too and why not, since para-phrasing is really a good way of committing the new found knowledge to memory.

Oh well, based on the few posts I’ve made (as well as a newly created page), I guess this is as random as random gets.

How the Magna Doodle Works

I am sure most of us have played with a Magna Doodle (see below for picture) but have you wondered how it works?

Apparently, it works due to a combination of a thickened liquid (liquid suspension) that is infused with small magnetic particles. The thickened liquid holds the particles so that it does not sink due to gravity but yet allows the particles to move when in contact with the pen (that is equipped with a magnetic tip). The eraser that swipes the board actually moves the particles to one side but when the pen is used, the magnet on the pen pulls the tiny particles away from the back side to the front side, forming a line.

The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia. There isn’t any scientific reason or logical reason why there is such a fear but the main gist of it is that historically, bad things have been known to happen on Fridays – the disappearance of ships, wars starting on Fridays etc, especially so if the 13th day falls on a Friday. A rather interesting contributor to this myth/belief is that the British used to hold capital punishments on Fridays and that there are 13th steps to the noose. Well, I guess with its reputation, it could be said that there is a self-fulfilling prophecy in place each time Friday the 13th comes along and that’s how this superstitution prevails even till today.