General Knowledge Pt. XVIII

Written by admin on May 20th, 2011

as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve. It is one of the primary theories on peak oil and is based on the observation that the amount of oil under the ground in any region is finite, therefore the rate of discovery which initially increases quickly must reach a maximum and decline.

What language is spoken in Minsk?

Minsk has been a city of many languages over time. Initially it was Ruthenian (later developed into modern Belarusian). After 1569, Polish became the official language. Belarusian national revival increased the use of Belarusian language but after World War II (by mid 1980s), Minsk was almost exclusively Russian-speaking. Most residents now use Russian in day-to-day life. Belarusian is understood as well. Today, the most commonly used international language is English.

What is soundbite TV?

Children who are hooked to the tele- vision show an inability to concentrate in class during an indepth lesson, say some teachers. They blame it on ‘soundbite TV — the fast pace of television. Fed a diet of sound and visuals, these children display very short attention spans and struggle to focus in class. Teachers also complain that such children are also disruptive when they are denied their dose of ‘sound and vision bites’.

What is software entropy?

The tendency, over time, for software to become difficult and costly to maintain is known as software entropy. A software system that undergoes continuous change, like new functionality added to its original design, will eventually become more complex, losing its original design structure, and may even become disorganized as it grows. In theory, it may be better to redesign the software in order to support the changes rather than build on the existing programme.

Why is a sperm whale called so?

Sperm whale is a type of toothed whale (physeter catodon) with a very large head which has cavities containing spermaceti, a sperm oil. It is a white, waxy substance consisting of various esters of fatty acids used for making candles, ointments and cosmetics. It has no relation to sperm, the male gamete.

What is arachnophobia?

An abnormal and persistent fear of spiders. Sufferers of arachnophobia experience undue anxiety even though they realize that the risk of encountering a spider and being harmed by it is small or non-existent. This phobia was exploited in a 1990 movie “Arachnophobia”. The word is derived from the Greek ‘arachne’ (spider) and ‘phobos’ (fear) after the mythical Arachne, a maiden who was a skilled weaver, whom the goddess Athena turned into a spider on being challenged to a weaving contest.

What are horse latitudes and how did they get the name?

There are two sub-tropical high-pressure belts extending approximately between latitudeSfc|5 and 30 degrees to the north and south of the Equator. Horse latitudes are generally areas of high pressure marked by calm, subsiding air that gets heated during descent. It is said that Spanish sailors ferrying horses to the West Indies were usually stuck for months in these calm waters and had to throw their horses into the water to conserve drinking water for themselves. This led to the term ‘horse latitudes’.

What does ‘dumping’ mean in computer lingo?

Dumping refers to the cleaning of stored data from the core memory area of a computer into trash or somewhere else in an unorganised manner. Dumping may be done in the event of a system failure or as part of maintenance work. The reason for dumping, in most cases, is that the data has lost its value over time and occupies huge memory space. Retrieval from the dump is difficult but not impossible.

What is a flying saucer?

Many people have reported seeing unidentified flying objects, also known as UFOs, in the sky. Some of them described these objects in the shape of discs or saucers hovering overhead with a glow around them. These have been mostly interpreted as transport vehicles of aliens visiting earth, but photographs of them are now believed to be hoaxes. The first highly publicized sighting by Kenneth Arnold on June 24,1947, resulted in the creation of the term by US newspapers.

What is surface diffusion?

Surface diffusion is a general process involving the motion of adatoms (adsorbed atom lying on a crystal surface, used in surface chemistry when describing single atoms lying on surfaces and surface roughness), molecules, and atomic clusters (adparticles) at solid material surfaces. Tunnelling diffusion is a particularly interesting example of an unconventional mechanism wherein hydrogen has been shown to diffuse on clean metal surfaces via the quantum tunnelling effect.

What is a flophouse?

A flophouse is a place of cheap lodging. It’s normally an apartment where some occupants pay rent while others are unemployed and do nothing with their lives except party and abuse drugs. They generally share bathroom facilities and reside in very cramped quarters. The people who use these places are often called transients, although some people stay in them for years. They are just a step above being homeless. Quarters in flophouses are very small and may resemble office cubicles more than a regular hotel room. In the past, flophouses were called working men’s hotel and were rather dirty. Some cities that have flophouses in abundance become well known in their own right such as the Bowery in New York.

How are points in a stock exchange calculated?

Nifty is actually an index of 50, not 100, stocks. Also, sensex is calculated on free-float market cap only i.e. shares held by the public and not by promoters. But, Nifty is calculated by total market capitalisation. Hence, shares like ONGC where the promoter holding is large gets very little weight in the sensex as compared to the Nifty.

Who is a hypermiler?

Hypermilers are those who try to extract every bit of mileage from their cars by trying out various techniques like coasting when it’s possible, at times even switching off the engine, not switching on the air-conditioner, etc. The term originated in hybrid driving clubs. Some radical techniques are employed by hypermilers, which are called renegades. They use extreme techniques that may even compromise their security

What is the grettis saga?

The Grettis Saga is one of the finest Icelandic family sagas, which details the life of Grettis Asmundarson, an Icelandic warrior who became an outlaw. It was written in the 13th and early 14th century Well-born, brave but troubleprone Grettis, at 14, kills a man in a quarrel and is outlawed. He spends these years in Norway performing many brave deeds. On his return to Iceland, he saves people from the malicious ghost of Glam. The dying fiend imposes a curse on him, predicting that he will grow afraid of the dark. Grettis accidentally kills the chieftain’s son and is outlawed again. Grettis is pursued by kinsmen of men he has wronged and by other outlaws for the price on his head. At last, his enemies overwhelm him with the aid of witchcraft. His brother avenges his death. The saga’s theme can be summed up thus: good gifts and good luck are often worlds apart.

What is the windfall tax?

The windfall tax is what’s imposed on windfall gains, an abnormal increase in the profits of any organization or company in the normal course of its business due to certain circumstances. A good example would be the recent increase in the price of oil over the world. In this case, the oil exploration and production (E&P) companies will make huge gains if they sell oil to local refining companies at international prices, which are high. Such a gain is due to circumstances favouring E&P companies and not due to their cost-cutting or other efficient operations. These are windfall gains and the tax on such gains is called windfall tax.

What is unique about the hangzhou bay bridge?

Hangzhou Bay Bridge is a bridge across Hangzhou Bay off the eastern coast of China. It links the municipalities of Shanghai and Ningbo in Zhejiang province. It’s the longest trans-oceanic bridge in the world although it does not have the longest cable-stayed main span. The bridge is 36 km long with six expressway lanes in two directions. The construction started on June 8, 2003 and was completed on June 14, 2007. It is not open for public transportation but is only being used for test and evaluation purpose.

why the bucket seat in automobiles is called so?

According to some sources, the word bucket comes from the French word ‘baquet’ which means cockpit. A bucket seat is much more comfortable, especially for long journeys. Bucket seats came into use after World War II in small cars due to the lack of seating room for a third passenger on account of the presence of a floor-mounted gear handle.

what is pareto’s (80-20) rule of automation?

Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian engineer-sociologist who, in the 19th century studied the number of people in various income classes and represented his findings in diagrams. His important conclusion was that 80% of the total wealth in the world is owned by 20% of people and that 20% of wealth is owned by 80% of people. A similar pattern is observed in many other problem areas where number of causes contribute to a particular problem. In other words, 20% of the causes contribute to 80% of the problem. The specific Pareto’s (80-20) rule for automation is, however, unheard of.

what is special about the garden city of palkenberg?

The Garden

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