Myths about Skydiving

People who have not tried skydiving have a lot of misconceptions or “myths” about the sport. Sad to say a lot of people are misled by these myths and tend to have wrong perceptions about the sport. Here are some of the most common skydiving myths that buzz around and the true explanations to them.

Friends And Secret Signals

Most people think that if you would be skydiving with your friends, you should have a “secret signal” with your buddy to tell that your parachute failed to open. And when this happens, you would make your way towards them and give your buddy a bear hug or hook yourself to their parachute pack thingy and then afterwards the chute would inflate just in time to save the both of you.

If this myth were true, most probably both of you would have broken arms by the end of the dive; which you would think is way better than hitting the ground in terminal velocity. Additionally, there is no known hand signal for ‘my chute failed, please let me hug you’ kind of stunt.

If you were to skydive in a group, it is a protocol that before any of you would pull their parachute, you should be a hundred and one percent sure that your air space is clear. This is done so that you wouldn’t be entangled with any of your group mates once all of you pull out your chutes. Collision is also another thing
to watch out for.

Secondly, that ‘parachute pack thing’ is actually called a ‘rig’, as to no skydiver would refer to it in that way.

The Ultimate Myth: Death

Of all the myths of skydiving, this one would be the truest, especially if you are falling at terminal velocity and suddenly you are face to face with the ground even before your parachute has slowed down your descend, then you’ll probably die. Well of course this myth would only happen if you let it. This is exactly why you have to commence a pull sequence, then deploy your main chute and make sure that it’s working
properly so that you can give yourself the chance to cutaway and get your reserve.
The Going Solo Myth

Another one would be if you’re for some impious reason, making a dive by yourself, then your last resort of surviving would be to land with as much surface area that you can get and the type of surface you’ll be landing on.

First off, you should know that it is extremely common to have a license and skydive alone. A lot of skydivers do this. In fact, if you get a license you can do this, especially if you want to see the beauty and sacredness of watching the sunset as you freefall all by yourself.

Second if ever both of your chutes fail to inflate, there is no choice but to fight for your life even if blood would fill your goggles. You can not rely on your buddies nor your surface area.

You can’t really rely on landing in water, since this is something that you wouldn’t really want, because it’s just the same as landing on cement. However, if you can, try landing on something soft and steep like a mountain side with some snow.

Formula for Healthy Living

Staying healthy requires a lot of thinking and self reflection to be successful. With a longer life expectancy of human beings as compared to pre-modern age, people have been ore vigilant to think about and create ways to even extend the lives of everyone existing. Numerous mnemonics and acronyms have been developed as well by nutritionists and scientists to help people have a guide on how to stay healthy. One
of these would be the ABC’s of staying healthy, a very simple, yet effective way of adding to the long list of patterns to keep healthy.

A Is For Abstinence

“A” stands for abstinence. Most probably many would already be thinking that this seems like the same ABC tip for responsible sex. Though the keywords used in the ABC’s of staying healthy are similar except for the last one, the ideas are completely in a different context as this would specifically target more of a person’s lifestyle in everyday living.

Abstinence should be practiced by the person in declining the things that would not make him healthy in the process. Unless it is required such as a career that would limit the choice to either quit the job or to counter the effects with good health practices, abstinence on a great level is required of the person should he wish to start staying healthy and maintain being healthy. Abstinence should be the basis of any individual to serve as a disciplinary concept. Without the discipline to know when to say no, it would prove difficult to stay away from the things that people
have learned to love.

B Is For Be Faithful

“B” stands for “Be Faithful”. Being faithful is being able to hold out and maintain focus on your objective of staying healthy. It does not mean that you totally become a no-nonsense robot who only distinguishes a black from white, but being lenient is a risky thing to inculcate. Though it is not really to bend the rules from time to time because of valid reasons, it may develop into a nasty habit of having an excuse for every single choice that should have been for staying healthy.

C Is For Calisthenics
Calisthenics or exercise is and has always been part of any healthy program designed for health conscious and health seekers alike. Calisthenics does not necessarily mean the rigorous training that one sees in advertisements and magazines. Those are for bodybuilders who would want to reshape their bodies into hard sculptured specimens of humanity. Calisthenics are simple activities which would allow one’s self to move about and permit the proper flow of blood to the different parts of the body for optimal oxygenation of the cells.

Calisthenics should be done everyday for at least thirty to forty-five minutes which includes mainly aerobic exercise. Not only does daily calisthenics improve the cardiovascular flow of the body, it also adds up to the amount of calories to be burned for the day to maintain the desired body weight and fitness level.

The ABC’s of staying healthy is a very elementary concept for anyone to grasp should they wish to seek a better health state or maintain an already good one. It is a personal choice as it is a personal endeavor. The extent of its success lies on the amount of effort that the individual puts in each letter of this simple mnemonic.

Fruit Juice

Banana Bubbles
Serves 1

1 cup chilled orange juice
1 mashed banana Garnish thin slice of orange

Blend both ingredients on high speed for 20 seconds. Serve in well-chilled glass with a slice of orange as a garnish.

Meditation can help your brain work more efficiently

Sitting in meditation can be challenging. You might feel anxious to get back to your busy day. Your mind wanders. Your foot falls asleep. But consider this: A regular meditation practice can make your brain work better.

Over the past few years, scientists have discovered that meditation helps the brain to process information more efficiently. One study, conducted at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, found that people who meditate capture information that others miss when presented with a series of visual cues in quick succession. The difference was most marked in longtime practitioners of vipassana meditation, but even novices who practiced just 20 minutes per day scored better than people who didn’t meditate.
Just as repeated practice of Sun Salutations builds strength and stamina, so regular meditation enhances the brain’s capacity for perception, awareness, and efficiency in processing, says Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

“Meditation has both short- and long-term benefits to brain structure and function,” he says.

Another study, conducted through Massachusetts General Hospital, found that longtime meditators have a thicker insula, the part of the brain that links the emotional center with the thinking center. Some researchers say that this finding may explain a seeming paradox: In meditators, the amygdala, the part of the brain tied to the fight-or-flight impulse, is more active than in nonmeditators. But meditators also seem to be better able to calm that response than others.

“No one has proven why yet, but the theory is that meditators are more aware of what’s happening simple in their environment and better able to control their internal psychological and physiological responses to it.


How To Do Meditation

Sit comfortably in an upright but relaxed position. Close your eyes and bring your attention to your nostrils. As you breathe notice the subtle sen-sation of cool air passing into, and warm air passing out of, your nose. Without manipulating the breath, simply notice the sensation. Maintain your attention to every breath. Staying relaxed and mentally alert, become curious about each passing one as if it were your first.

If your attention wanders, simply notice the distraction and patiently return to the sensation of the breath. Your ability to stay present deepens by consistently returning to the current moment. Do this exercise 10 minutes once or twice a day, gradually extending your sessions to 20 or 30 minutes each.

Aishwarya Rangoli

Rangoli is the art of drawing images and figures on the floor, at the doorstep of one's home. With the beautiful combination of colors, rangoli makes a magnificent piece of art. It has been a tradition in culturally rich India, to draw rangoli on festivals and other auspicious occasions, as it is considered a holy ritual. It makes a part of Diwali celebrations too. The main purpose of making rangoli at the doorstep, on Diwali, is to welcome Goddess Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth.
To draw the aiswarya kolam/rangoli step by step,please click the link below:
http://kolangal.kamalascorner.com/2009/05/kolam-no173.html


MAY GODESS LAKSHMI SHOWER YOU WITH WEALTH AND HAPPINESS.

Tips for Healthy & Great Looking Nails

Tips that will ensure your nails are groomed and in tip-top condition.
1. Cuticles: Make sure you oil them : Do this each night before you go to bed. It will make them healthier and stronger.

2. Use blue-tinged translucent polish : It will make the pink of your nails look a deeper shade of pink and the white in your nails even whiter.

3. Regular filing : Is essential and stops nails from breaking or splitting and makes them look better, so file them all to the same length.

4. Nail buffing : Do once a week. This will increase the circulation and oxygen in the nails. Do for about two minutes each session and be careful to apply firm pressure but don’t be too hard, which can damage the nail.
5. Moisturize : Have hand cream always so you can add moisture whenever your hands are feeling dry or in need of some protection.

6. Get a white nail pencil : This is great for enhancing the look of your nails. Use the pencil underneath the edges of your nails. This will enhance color and make them look fresh and clean.

7. Nourish your nails from within : If you have any of the following then you need to change your diet. Lack of vitamin A and calcium causes dryness and brittleness. Lack of protein, folic acid and vitamin C causes hang nails. White bands across the nails mean a protein deficiency. A lack of sufficient hydrochloric acid can cause splitting nails. Vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to dryness, very rounded and curved ends or darkening of nails. Zinc deficiency can cause white spots on the nails. Red skin around cuticles indicates poor metabolism of essential fatty acids. Increase the amount of calcium in your diet and also take evening primrose and an oily fish supplement to keep your nails healthy and strong.

8. Keep polish in a cool place : Don't store polish in a warm place as the polish will change consistency. Store it always somewhere cool i.e. in the refrigerator.

9. Less is more : Do not remove and reapply polish more than once or twice a week. Why?

Because it will dry out your nails. Choosing a remover with built in moisturizer will mean you don’t have to change coats too often.

10 Hand massage : Boosts circulation and encourages healthy nail growth and is the perfect way to make your hands feel wonderful.

Incorporate the above in your beauty regime and you will have healthy and great looking nails.

How to Improve Site's Google Page Ranking

Things to Do to Improve Your Site's Google Page Ranking
Content is the king. Search engines love fresh and quality content, since that's what the users want - more new things to read every day and every hour. When your site changes often - search engine crawlers come back more often as well. Of course by generating new content you raise the chance that more of your pages will be found.

Once you have the content generated, here is what you can do to have your site found more often by new visitors:

Use Google Sitemaps to see how Google sees your site, when it was last updated, whether you have any problems on your site, etc. You also want to provide a sitemap for your visitors.



Get involved in communities relevant to the content of your site. Visit their forums and mailing lists, and help other people by answering their questions, posting links to your site if they contain information relevant to your replies. Usually you are allowed to have a signature, where you can link to your site. However be aware that more and more sites implement a new link attribute rel="nofollow", which tells Google (MSN, Yahoo and other sites) to not count those links to your site's ranking credit. This is to avoid comment spam. You can find the details here: Official Google Blog: Preventing comment spam.


The head section of the document should include meta entries for keywords and description. Though it's been said that the keywords meta entry has little or no weight with Google, but is still useful with other search engines. Also make sure that the title of the document includes the most important keywords and phrases, as Google gives a heavy weight to those. The keywords need to be included in the H1 and H2 header entries, and also once in bold, once in italic and if possible in the URL.


Spell check your content. Google doesn't like when misspelled words are used, as it tries to auto-correct search words. Some sites use misspelled words to get more traffic to their site. e.g., "hign paying keywords" instead of "high paying keywords" It's been said that sites containing valid XHTML are favored by the search engines. But it should at least use valid HTML.


One other thing to make sure is that your site is readable by non-graphical browsers, such as Links and Lynx. Blind users use those to browse the Internet and search engines favor sites that are useful to more people. In fact search engines see your site as text, so things like javascript, DHTML and Flash may make it hard for the search engine to crawl your site.


Publish articles on other sites relevant to your expertise. Make sure that those articles link back to your site. I'm somewhat weary about submitting my articles to other sites, since then I end up with a duplication problem and a chance that a search engine would penalise duplicated content sites. Hopefully it somehow knows where the content has appeared in first place. But I don't want to take chances. So may be submitting unique articles which don't appear on my site is a much safer strategy. Sometimes your site competes with many other sites for the same keywords. Rather than optimising all of your site for the same keywords, try to find less competitive keywords and optimise some of your pages for those keywords. There are both commercial and free programs to help you do that. Learn from your competitors. Go to Google and search for the competing keywords, go to the first few sites with high page rank and analyse those sites, see what they have done differently than your site. Granted the site might be just very popular and linked from many other sites, but more often than not reading through the source code of the site can tip you off how to do better. You can find out which sites link to that site by searching Google for link:yoursite.com and you may want to try to get your site listed on those sites. Since it's not enough to have a high ranking for your front page (Google gives different page ranks to different pages), once your site is established you should try to get other sites to link to other sections of your site as well. For example if you have a big site and you can identify segments which are different from each, try to raise a page rank for the sub-directories corresponding to those sections.


Have each page linking to several other pages on your site (crosslinking). That should be especially helpful for balancing the page ranking across different pages of your site, and of course it should help your visitors to find related content on your site. Try to include a few outbound links to high quality sites in every document. That indicates a quality connection between your document and others sites that Google already considers to be quality sites. When linking to those sites, try to include the important keywords in those links. Analyse your log files and see who refers to you the most. Try to find more similar sites. The referral information also reveals the keywords used to find your site. Often you find new keywords that you haven't thought of when targeting your site. By using those newly discovered keywords you can create more content that targets the unexpected traffic even better.

Why Colour of Sky is Blue

Reason for Sky Blue

The blue color of the sky is due to Rayleigh scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange and yellow light is affected by the air.

However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.

As you look closer to the horizon, the sky appears much paler in color. To reach you, the scattered blue light must pass through more air. Some of it gets scattered away again in other directions. Less blue light reaches your eyes. The color of the sky near the horizon appears paler or white.

Symptoms of Depression

If anyone have experienced five or more of the below depression symptoms during the two week period--especially a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure are among your major symptoms--this could be indicative of an episode of depression. The symptoms should not be accounted for by illness, drugs of abuse or prescription medications.

1. Depressed Mood A person may report feeling "sad" or "empty" or may cry frequently. Children and adolescents may exhibit irritability.

2. Decreased Interest or Pleasure A person may show markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, daily activities.

3. Weight Changes Significant changes in weight when not attempting to gain or lose (a gain or loss of 5% or more in a month) may be indicative of depression. In children, this may also present as a failure to make expected weight gains.

4. Sleep Disturbances Insomnia or sleeping too much may be a symptom of depression.

5. Psychomotor Agitation or Retardation The person may be observed to be either agitated and restless or physically slowed down in their movements.

6. Fatigue Deep fatigue or a loss of energy is a symptom of depression.

7. Feelings of Worthlessness or Guilt A depressed person may feel that they have no value or they may feel inappropriately guilty about things they have no control over.

8. "Brain Fog" A depressed person may have a diminished ability to think, concentrate or make decisions.

9. Thoughts of Death A depressed person may have recurring thoughts of death, especially thoughts of suicide, with or without a specific plan.