Top 15 Most Spoken Languages in the World

Here's the list of top 15 most spoken languages in the world according to rank.
1. Mandarin Chinese
2. English
3. Spanish
4. Hindi
5. Portuguese
6. Russian
7. French
8. Bengali
9. Malay / Indonesian
10.German
11.Japanese
12.Italian
13.Persian
14.Panjabi
15.Urdu

Amazing Google

Mga katropa, I want to share with you the facts about Google. Google is not only a simple search engine, it has so many features that we can use in our everyday life. Let's find out:

1. Meanings of any word in an instant.
Now you do not have to carry a dictionary or install a dictionary software just for the purpose of finding out a meaning of a word. With the wealth of information in Google’s hands, its a piece of cake to find out the meaning of the word. Just use the define: keyword. The meaning would of course be displayed but also a set of other links which might have an alternative definition are also given out with the link to read more about it.

define:beureaucracy

You would argue here that, a dicitionary gives out more information than this. But what about words that don’t actually fall within the vocabulary. Suppose you want to know what SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is then you would have no choice. Google Search comes to your rescue in this case,

Abbreviations - define: SOA
Jargons - define: Web 2.0
SMS language - define: LOL

2. Calculate with your browser.
Every OS has a calculator inbuilt but when the browser is the thing which is constantly open whey bother to open up a calculator. Open Google and straight away type your mathematical expression. You can go all the way from basic arithmetic to trigonometrical expressions. This is simply amazing stuff accomplished by Google.
26 * 9000
sin(90) / cos (90)

3. Compare your currency with others.
Now that the dollar is declining, the rest of the world must be busy trying to check the impact of the dollar on their currencies. But first of all one must know how much a particular currency amounts to when cashed in another currency. Google’s inbuilt currency converter just does this.
1 USD in INR
1 EUR in INR

4. Keep track of the stocks.
With the booming stock market it is very important to track the stocks on a day to day basis. Putting a stock ticker in the search box is the most obvious thing you would think of. But it is not always you would remember the stock ticker, you should add the keyword “stocks:” to the company name.
The best part of the obtained result is that it provides a chart which shows the trend in the company’s stock along with important statistics.
stocks: INFY
Note: Currently the results are restricted to the companies listed in the US stock markets.

5. Different Types of Files at your will.
How many times would you have asked for materials (PDF, PPT, DOC) for a particular topic from a friend? Its almost everyday that we might have the necessity to ask them either for knowledge, preparing a presentation, white-paper or for case studies. Such times it mostly difficult to look out what to exactly search for because most of the times you don’t know about the topic at hand. But this petty keyword unleashes its lethal power at such occasions.
Let’s say I want to implement a case study on SOA which means I have to read a lot of information for SOA. So I just have to find materials which might have already been uploaded on the web in the form of PDF’s, DOC’s or PPT’s. These materials can be easily obtained by doing a search for:
PDF - service oriented architecture filetype:pdf
PPT - service oriented architecture filetype:ppt
DOC - service oriented architecture filetype:doc

6. Scholarly Search.
If you want some authenticity of the materials then it would be better to find the materials from educational institutes or universities. For this use the Google scholar search. But suppose you don’t like to switch to Google scholar search you can add the same query with an additional parameter to the normal Google search box,
service oriented architecture filetype:pdf site:edu

7. Find the time of any location.
Many of us might be probably working for client which are based at different locations. And communication has to be carried out frequently carried out in such cases. But before a communication you have to know which time zone the location is falling into otherwise you would be causing a disturbance.
I have seen people installing time zone software for showing the time of the location they would be calling to. But with Google at your hands you don’t have to install any software. It would be just simple to use a query for finding the current time such as,

time new york

psst….look closely the time on the little clock graphic. It also shows the perfect time!


8. Weather at your fingertips
I had been to GOA for a Christmas vacation in the last week of December. But I made a mistake of not finding out the temperature of GOA before leaving. Had I known that it is hot even in the winter I would not have made the mistake of carrying additional luggage consisting of blankets and jackets.
If you are thinking to visit a place it is useful to know what the temperature of the place is before hand, it can make efficient packing. Google helps you here too. Just use this query without asking anybody or waiting for the news to make a weather report. I wish I had thought of this!
goa weather


(Tambayan ng Tropa : Where I Shared Info, Tips and Ideas)

Why is a hotdog called a hotdog?

Why is a hotdog called a hotdog?

In 1987, Frankfurt, Germany celebrated the 500th birthday of the frankfurter, the hot dog sausage. Although, the people of Vienna (Wien), Austria will point out that their wiener sausages are proof of origin for the hot dog. (By the way, ham, being pork meat, is found in hotdogs.) According to Douglas B. Smith in his book "Every wonder why?" the hotdog was given its name by a cartoonist.
A butcher from Frankfurt who owned a dachshund named the long frankfurter sausage a "dachshund sausage," the dachshund being a slim dog with a long body. ("Dachshund" is German for "badger dog." They were originally bred for hunting badgers.) German immigrants introduced the dachshund sausage (and Hamburg meat) to the United States. In 1871, German butcher Charles Feltman opened the first "hotdog" stand in Coney Island, selling 3,684 dachshund sausages, most wrapped in a milk bread roll, during his first year in business.
In the meantime, frankfurters - and wieners - were sold as hot food by sausage sellers. In 1901, New York Times cartoonist T.A. Dargan noticed that one sausage seller used bread buns to handle the hot sausages after he burnt his fingers and decided to illustrate the incident. He wasn't sure of the spelling of dachshund and simply called it "hot dog."
EatingRecipes for placing meat between slices of bread date back to Roman times. However, that was for steak, not minced meat. Thus, the steak burger is older than the hamburger!
Sausage is one of the oldest forms of processed food, having been mentioned in Homer's Odyssey in the 9th century BC.
The tongue is a muscle with glands, sensory cells, and fatty tissue that helps to moisten food with saliva. You cannot taste food unless it is mixed with saliva. For instance, if salt is placed on a dry tongue, the taste buds will not be able to identify it. As soon as saliva is added, the salt dissolves and the taste sensation takes place.
There are 4 basic tastes. The salt and sweet taste buds are at the tip of the tongue, bitter at the base, and sour along the sides.

(Tambayan ng Tropa : Where I Shared Info, Tips and Ideas)

Tricks for Simple Math Using Finger Calculation

(Tambayan ng Tropa : Where I Shared Info, Tips and Ideas)

Why is a hamburger called a hamburger although it contains no ham?

Why is a hamburger called a hamburger although it contains no ham?

During a trip to Asia in the early 1800s, a German merchant - it is said - noticed that the nomadic Tartars softened their meat by keeping it under their saddles. The motion of the horse pounded the meat to bits. The Tartars would then scrape it together and season it for eating. The idea of pounded beef found its way back to the merchant's home town of Hamburg where cooks broiled the meat and referred to it as it as Hamburg meat.

German immigrants introduced the recipe to the US. The term "hamburger" is believed to have appeared in 1834 on the menu from Delmonico's restaurant in New York but there is no surviving recipe for the meal. The first mention in print of "Hamburg steak" was made in 1884 in the Boston Evening Journal.

The honor of producing the first proper hamburger goes to Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin, USA. In 1885 Nagreen introduced the American hamburger at the Outgamie County Fair in Seymour. (Seymour is recognised as the hamburger capital of the world.)
However, there is another claim to that throne. There is an account of Frank and Charles Menches who, also in 1885, went to the Hamburg, New York county fair to prepare their famous pork sausage sandwiches. But since the local meat market was out of pork sausage, they used ground beef instead. Alas, another hamburger.

The first account of serving ground meat patties on buns - taking on the look of the hamburger as we know it today - took place in 1904 at the St. Louis World Fair. But it was many years later, in 1921, that an enterprising cook from Wichita, Kansas, Walt Anderson, introduced the concept of the hamburger restaurant. He convinced financier Billy Ingram to invest $700 to create The White Castle hamburger chain. It was an instant success. The rest of the history, we might say, belongs to McDonald's.

And, no, a hamburger does not have any ham in it. Well, it's not supposed to. Hamburger meat usually is made of 70-80% beef and fat and spices.

(Tambayan ng Tropa : A Blog Where My Friends Can Get Informations, Tips and Ideas)

Amazing Facts & Trivia

• A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body.
• A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.
• A rat can last longer without water than a camel can.
• About 10% of the world's population is left-handed.
• A typical bed usually houses over 6 billion dust mites.
• A person afflicted with hexadectylism has six fingers or six toes on one or both hands and feet
• A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.
• A zebra is white with black stripes.
• Porpoises and dolphins communicate with each other by squeaking, growling, moaning, and whistling. Porpoises and dolphins are mammals. There are about 40 species or kinds of porpoises and dolphins. Most porpoises and dolphins navigate by using "echolocation". The largest member of the dolphin family is called an orca or killer whale.
• The hippopotamus gives birth under water and nurses its young in the river as well, though the young hippos do come up periodically for air.
• A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime
• How the wind blows. As the sun warms the earth’s surface, the atmosphere warms too. Some parts of the earth receive direct rays from the sun all year and are always warm. Other places receive indirect rays, so the climate is colder. Warm air, which weighs less than cool air, rises. Then cool air moves in and replaces the rising warm air. This movement of air is what makes the wind blow.
• Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
• Why do we might feel warmer wearing a dark-colored jacket than a light-colored one? . Dark colors absorb light energy. Light colors and white reflect light energy. When light shines on your dark jacket, the jacket fabric absorbs light energy. The absorbed light energy causes electrons in the atoms of the jacket to vibrate. This activity releases heat energy, which makes the jacket—and you—warmer. That's why we like to wear more dark colors in winter and more light colors in summer.
• While sleeping, one man in eight snores, and one in ten grinds his teeth.
• At 188 decibels, the whistle of the blue whale is the loudest sound produced by any animal.
• A flute made of bone is the oldest playable musical instrument in the world. It’s a flute carved from a bird’s wing bone more than 9,000 years ago. The flute was discovered with other flutes at an ancient burial site in China.
• The fastest dog, the greyhound, can reach speeds of upto 41.7 miles per hour. The breed was known to exist in ancient Egypt 6,000 years ago
• Glue dates back to prehistoric times. Artists once mixed colorings with raw eggs, dried blood, and plant juices to make sticky paints for cave murals. Later, ancient Egyptians and other people learned to make stronger glues by boiling animal bones and hides. Today companies make glues using synthetic substances.
• A cat sees about six times better than a human at night because of the tapetum lucidum , a layer of extra reflecting cells which absorb light.
• A cat uses whiskers to determine if a space is too small to squeeze through. The whiskers act as antennae, helping the animal to judge the precise width of any passage.
• A cat will clean itself with paw and tongue after a dangerous experience or when it has fought with another cat. This is an attempt by the animal to soothe its nerves by doing something natural and instinctive.
• The grizzly bear can run as fast as the average horse!!
• The female lion does more than 90% of the hunting while the male simply prefers to rest. !!
• A jellyfish is 95 percent water!
• At birth, a panda is smaller than a mouse and weighs about four ounces.
• Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
• You blink over 10,000,000 times a year!
• Of all the words in the English language, the word ' set ' has the most definitions!
• The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth!-
• Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right or left handed... or is that paws?!
• A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
• A cat's jaws cannot move sideways.
• More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
• Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language
• The vocabulary of the average person consists of 5,000 to 6,000 words.
• No word in the English language rhymes with "month".
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• The average person walks the equivalent of twice around the world in a lifetime.
• All polar bears are left handed.
• Ants don't sleep.

(Tambayan ng Tropa : A Blog Where My Friends Can Get Informations, Tips and Ideas)

10 Amazing Online Tool To Learn About Outer Space

Everyone from kids to teachers to adults who want to reach for the stars encounters problems. Telescopes are expensive and complex to operate. Observatories can be difficult to access. Information can be loaded with jargon. But with the help of the internet, these problems can be a thing of the past. Below are the most 10 amazing resources, sites, and free tools to help everyone learn about outer space.

General Space Sites

Ranging from the experts at the top of the game to amateurs, these sites have loads of information on outer space, exploration, technology, and much more.
1. NASA: A leader in space travel and technology, visitors can view everything from photos to celestial maps and get the latest information on missions and discoveries. You can even get interviews with the astronauts and mission leaders.
2. National Geographic: With options to explore the solar system and universe, this site is a must visit. You can also get a comprehensive history of space missions, as well as what is planned for the future.
3. HubbleSite: Now entering its nineteenth year, the Hubble remains one of the most prominent names in space technology. Get an array of images, research discoveries, and even a constellation guide for stargazers.
4. Chandra X-ray Observatory: X-rays are created and sent all throughout space, and this satellite captures them. You can get an array of interesting information on the satellite itself, as well as its mission.
5. Heavens Above: This site has an array of classic space exploration imagery from the 19th century. You can also get contemporary images as well.
6. Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy: Phil dedicates his site to debunking astronomy misinformation. Get the straight answers on errors in movies, television, the news, and more.
7. Astronomy Picture of the Day: Each day a different image or photograph of the universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. With pictures beginning in June of 1995, there is no shortage to the space information you can learn.
8. NASA Image Exchange: NIX allows visitors to view any of the thousands of photographs taken by NASA. Search by keyword or subjects such as aeronautics, space flights, and solar system.
9. WikiSky: Get an image of just about every major space object known to man. Popular images include the two tails of comet Lulin, Valentine’s day, and Big Bada Bum in Centaurus A.
10. Russian Space Web: Get information on the MIR Space Station, including how it was built, its many space modules, and even stories on close calls. There is also other space related information on this site.

Space knows no boundaries and is being mirrored by the eruption of excellent space and astronomy related websites. Make sure to utilize these 10 sites whether teaching about outer space or learning it yourself.