World Heart Day 2016

World Heart Day 2016

World Oceans Day 2016: Healthy Oceans, Healthy Planet

8th June is each year World Ocean Day. It is a United-Nations-recognised day of ocean celebration and action. This year's theme is Healthy oceans, healthy planet. This includes the promotion to prevent plastic pollution.

World Oceans Day, held every June 8th, is the United Nations-recognized day of ocean celebration and action. People all over our blue planet organize celebrations – which can be a huge event in your community, a special announcement, or anything in between – to support action to protect the ocean.

This year, under the theme of Healthy oceans, healthy planet, we’re promoting prevention of plastic pollution.

The World Oceans Day is coordinated by The Ocean Project, working in partnership with the World Ocean Network, Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and many other partners in its network of 2,000 organizations.

Thousand events in 2015
The world celebrated "Healthy oceans, healthy planet" in the first year of a two-year theme for World Oceans Day. Nearly 1,000 events were held at aquariums, zoos, museums, recreational centers, youth clubs, schools, businesses, and countless individuals marked the day by doing something to keep our ocean healthy.

Thousands took The Better Bag Challenge for World Oceans Day – promising to use reusable bags rather than disposable plastic bags for a year to help address the problem of marine debris.

Take action
Explore the website of World Oceans Day — developed as a free resource for everyone around the world to use — and learn how you can organize an event for World Oceans Day, mark the day in a special way, or just take action for the ocean on your own in June and throughout the year.

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More information
World Oceans Day
www.worldoceansday.org

9 Ways to be productive

9 Ways to be productive.
How many of us are following this?

Did You Know?

@Healthy Society

Alexa Rankings – What is it And is it Important?

Alexa Rankings – What is it And is it Important? 
by Brin Wilson

People love sticking numbers on things – usually in order to compare and contrast them with similar things. Websites are no exception: after all, what webmaster wouldn’t want to compare and contrast his or her website with that of a competitor? One of the most well-known metrics aimed at allowing people to do exactly this is the infamous Alexa Rank – why infamous? Because historically heaps of people tend not to trust it as an accurate indicator of what it is supposed to be a measure of, namely: ‘how a website is doing relative to all other sites on the web over the past three months’ (quoted directly from Alexa’s official website)* – which is itself a bit of a dubious definition: I mean ‘how a website is doing’… What does that mean?! Right, enough of an intro, let’s get stuck in…

A little history

Founded in 1996, Alexa is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com (acquired by Amazon in 1999) that specializes in providing commercial web traffic data gathered via various toolbars and web browser extensions. Some of Alexa’s most notable previous activities include providing a database that served as the basis for the creation of the Wayback Machine and the creation of various search facilities (now largely discontinued). However, the thing they’re probably best known for is, of course, their ‘Alexa Rank’ – a metric that ranks websites in order of popularity or ‘how [well] a website is doing’ over the last 3 months.

How are Alexa Ranks measured?

According to the official Alexa website’s Our Data page, the rank is calculated using a ‘combination’ of the estimated average daily unique visitors to the site and the estimated number of pageviews on the site over the past 3 months – with the site with the highest combination of unique visitors and pageviews being ranked as #1. The data is collected from a subset of internet users using one of 25,000 browser extensions for either Google Chrome, Firefox, and/or Internet Explorer. An algorithm then ‘corrects’ for various potential biases and attempts to compensate for visitors who might not be in Alexa’s measurement panel (a factor it historically hasn’t always tried to accommodate for) and normalizes the data based on the geographical location of visitors.

How can I view a website’s Alexa Rank?

At least this part is straightforward: simply go to the official Alexa website, type in your full domain name and hit return! What’s more, scrolling down the results page reveals no end of other interesting metrics, such as Bounce Rate, Daily Pageviews per Visitor, Daily Time on Site and the Percentage of visits from Search, as well as various Demographics, a list of sites that link and even page speed/load times! All of which should probably be taken with a pinch of salt…

What does the Alexa Rank mean?

The general consensus seems to be a reluctant admittance by most (certainly not all) that there does indeed appear to be a very general – rough – correlation (seemingly with a LOT of outlying data points) between a site’s Alexa Rank and traffic for well-established websites that receive over and above a certain level of traffic: i.e. for relatively popular sites with Alexa Ranks of less than somewhere in the region of about 50,000 to 100,000 – to their credit, Alexa does actually state on their website that ‘traffic rankings of 100,000 and above should be regarded as [very?] rough estimates‘ and that conversely ‘the closer a site gets to #1, the more accurate traffic rankings become‘. Anything higher than this 100,000 waypoint and everyone I’ve ever spoken to on the subject (I hangout in somewhat geeky circles) seems to pretty much laugh it off as a metric that can, nine times out of ten, be almost completely ignored.

Why don’t people tend to trust it?

It seems that a lot of people/webmasters with access to reliable web analytics data (the most popular being provided by Google Analytics of course) for more than one website often report seeing web-traffic trends and statistics that appear to be completely out of line with the corresponding Alexa Rank for each site. Unfortunately, you’ve only got to Google something like ‘Is Alexa Rank Accurate?’ to find such reports – not good! Although, in all fairness, quite a few of these reports are for websites with quite high Alexa Ranks – i.e. often way in excess of the 100,000 mark.

The real kicker though, seems to be two-fold: 1) Alexa aren’t able to gather their data from everybody (they obviously simply don’t have access to everybody’s browsing habits) – they can only gather data from a subset of a few million users via certain browser extensions (as previously mentioned) – something common sense suggests will almost certainly skew the data right from the get-go (since the average user presumably arguably isn’t likely to have installed any such browser extensions) and 2) rather than address such concerns head on and be completely open about exactly how this particular problem is accounted for, i.e. by being more open about exactly how the underlying data is collected and used to calculate the rank, Alexa seem to (as far as my admittedly somewhat limited research goes) be less than 100% transparent on the matter, simply stating that Alexa Rank ‘is calculated using a combination of the estimated average daily unique visitors to the site and the estimated number of pageviews on the site over the past 3 months’. Hmmmm….

Are Alexa Ranks important?

For most site owners, ‘how a website is doing’ is of course very important, however, when assessing your own website my advice would be to simply stick with Google Analytics data rather than to go attributing any significant meaning to your site’s Alexa Rank. When looking at competitor’s sites however, by all means take a quick peek at their Alexa Rank for a very rough idea of how popular their website is relative to yours (assuming the same kinds of people visit both sites – thereby hopefully minimizing some of the biases brought about by the significantly-less-than-perfect way in which Alexa gather their data); however I definitely wouldn’t go thinking a particular website gets more traffic than another merely on the basis that its Alexa Rank happens to be only a few thousand lower – and if the website you’re interested in happens to have a rank of anything even near the aforementioned 100,000 mark, it’s probably best not to go attributing any significant meaning to comparing Alexa Ranks at all!

Conclusion

I personally hope that Alexa continues to work towards really getting this particular metric up to scratch… because it sure would be nice to stick a number on each and every website that would allow us to compare and contrast them all with a decent level of accuracy! Unfortunately, it would appear that they’ve still got quite a long way to go in order to regain the industry’s faith in the matter!

*http://www.alexa.com/help/traffic-learn-more

What do you think? Have you noticed Alexa Ranks becoming more accurate as they decrease? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much faith do you generally place in the accuracy of a site’s Alexa Rank?

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You are Special if you have those Two Special Holes

Believe it or not, you can spot a healthy body by only looking at one point. But of course, rarely anyone knows that, so people, despite their size, have no idea how to find out how healthy they are.

Well, there is one certain way to find out whether a body is truly healthy or not, and you would have never guessed what it is.

We have all noticed the two parallel holes on the bottom of our back. Has anyone wondered what they mean? First, not many people know, but they have a name, they are called Venus holes (or Venus dimples)

Of course, this is when you’re found in women. When they’re found in men, they are called Apollo holes. Their exact location is where the pelvis is being connected by the two bones.

And only people with predispositions of ligaments with an appropriate size can brag with the fact that they have them. This is all a matter of genetics, so one cannot simply decide to have them or not to have them.

And do you have any idea what they stand for? They are a sign of a healthy body. They are also a sign of proper circulation and a maintained health.

Furthermore, they are also a sign that a person can easily achieve an orgasm. One thing you have to know is that the Venus or Apollo holes are created in a place where there are no muscles, so it is basically impossible to create them if they are not there.

There are no exercises powerfull enough to create these holes. The only way these holes may become visible is if you exercise plenty, and exercise every single part of the body.

When the body loses the fat, these two holes may appear. Thus the previous fact that the holes are a sign of a good, healthy and a properly functioning

Unbelievable Science - All The Colors The Sun Puts Out That You Can't See !!

This video of the sun based on data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, shows the wide range of wavelengths -- invisible to the naked eye -- that the telescope can view.
via DIGG

English is tough stuff - English pronunciation test

English pronunciation test

While most of you non-native speakers of English speak English quite well, there is always room for improvement (of course, the same could be said for every person for any subject, but that is another matter). To that end, I'd like to offer you a poem. Once you've learned to correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

If you find it tough going, do not despair, you are not alone: Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

English is tough stuff

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

(Apparently excerpted from The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité.)

You won't believe these... Amazing Trivia

The longest word in the English language, with all of the letters in alphabetical order is "Almost".

Mel Blanc, voice artist speaking Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.

DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) is the strongest psychedelic on the planet, this chemical naturally occurs in the human brain and spine.

If you dig a hole straight through the earth and fell through it, the time it would take for you to reach the other side is 42 minutes.

The highest mountain in Denmark is only 568 ft (173 m).

After the Revolutionary War it became illegal to speak English in Virginia. You could only speak American.

In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word!

Chicago has the largest cookie factory, where Nabisco made over 4.6 billion "Oreo" cookies in 1997.

The flea can jump 350 times its body length.

In China, September 20 is "Love Your Teeth Day."

It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is shake and the 46th word from the last word is spear.