Kryptos

In the language of Cryptography, Cipher is a secret or disguised way of writing. It can also be considered as a code, developed by its creator.

Kryptos is a sculpture made by an American artist, Jim Sanborn on the grounds of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia, USA. It was dedicated in the year 1990 and had 4 encrypted messages. Cryptoanalysts around the world have delved into it and only 3 of the messages have been solved so far. The 4th one is yet to be solved, till date, and has already become one of the famous unsolved codes in the world, to reckon with.

Jim had confirmed that should he die before the 4th message is deciphered, the answer would be there with someone, safe, to affirm the solution.

Plastics Numerals - What Do They Say

Seldom can you find a place on this planet, where you would be hardly distant from Plastics. It would be ideal to say that plastics have become a part and parcel of our daily chores of life. But the thing which had always intrigued me was the numeral which would be written below a plastic bottle.

It stands out that these numbers indeed have a numeral significance and has been there to showcase the quality of plastic and whether they are relatively safer or needs to be avoided at all costs.

Have a glance at each of the numeral and what they really say about the plastic you are holding in your hands :

NO : 1 [POLYETHYLENE TEREPHTHALATE (PET OR PETE)]
Verdict : AVOID re-using them

NO : 2 [High density polyethylene (HDPE)]
Verdict : Relatively Safe

NO : 3 [Polyvinyl chloride (V or Vinyl or PVC)]
Verdict : AVOID re-using them

NO : 4 [Low density polyethylene (LDPE)]
Verdict : Relatively Safe

NO : 5 [Polypropylene (PP)]
Verdict : Relatively Safe

NO : 6 [Polystyrene (PS)]
Verdict : Relatively Safe

NO : 7 [Other (O) - all other plastics]
Verdict : AVOID re-using them

In the end, however, no plastics can be said to be safe for-ever.

English Language Trivia - Part 2

“Forty” is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order.

SWIMS & NOON are words that can be flipped backwards and upside down and be spelled the same way! It is an example of an Ambigram which is a word, art form or other symbolic representation whose elements retain meaning when viewed or interpreted from a different direction, perspective, or orientation.

The only letter that doesn't appear on the Periodic Table is the letter 'J'. The periodic table is a tabular arrangement of the chemical elements, ordered by their atomic number (number of protons), electron configurations, and recurring chemical properties.

The most used letter in the English alphabet is 'E', and 'Q' is the least used. The letter E is over 56 times more common than Q in forming individual English words.

Typographical symbols such as '@#*&', that are used to replace swear words are called 'Grawlix'. It is a sequence of typographical symbols used to represent a non-specific, profane word or phrase.

'Q' is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the 50 American states.

English Language Trivia - Part 1

As per Guiness World Records, the English word with the most meanings is the verb 'set', with 430 senses listed in the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989. The word commands the longest entry in the dictionary at 60,000 words, or 326,000 characters.

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"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence. It is unpunctuated and uses 3 distinct readings of the word "buffalo" :

1) City of Buffalo, New York, United States
2) The noun buffalo (American bison), an animal
3) The verb "buffalo" meaning to outwit, confuse, deceive, intimidate or baffle.

Now read the below sentence, keeping the above words in mind :
The buffalo from Buffalo who are buffaloed by buffalo from Buffalo, buffalo (verb) other buffalo from Buffalo.

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The sentence " Are you as bored as I am? " can be read backwards and still make sense.

Longest English word without any vowel is "twyndyllyngs", which means "twins"

The division sign "÷" is technically called an Obelus.

Troubleshoot 1 -- Skype Connectivity Issue

While launching Skype, I suddenly came across this message, which was quite surprising :
"Sorry,we couldn't connect to Skype. Please check your internet connection and try again"

Going by the look of it,I thought there must be a problem with the internet connection but then
when I confirmed that there was nothing wrong with connectivity, then I was intrigued.

Finally, after Googling for some time, I came across this simple troubleshooting method :

1. Go to Control Panel of your system.
2. Click on Internet Options link. An Internet Properties popup would appear.
3. Click on Advanced menu tab.
4. Click on Restore advanced settings button. And click OK.
5. Launch your Skype instance again.

And Voila !!! You are ready to launch your Skype instance and talk or chat to your near and dear ones.

Challenger Deep - Oblivion Expedition

Our world is full of surprises and eye popping or brain tickling facts and figures are quite galore everywhere around us. I had always been intrigued by one quite famous general knowledge factoid about the deepest part of the world's oceans. It is called Mariana Trench and is located in the Western Pacific Ocean. It has been named Mariana because of its proximity to Mariana Islands.

The Mariana Trench is said to be about 2550 kms long and has a width of only 69 kms. However, the lowest recorded depth point recorded here is at 10.994 kms below the surface and is named as Challenger Deep.

We can compare the distance by many comparison factors. It is said that if we can somehow put the Mount Everest inside it, we would still have some good half a mile empty space. Also, it is said that the pressure of any material thing reaching this deepest point would be like sustaining the pressure of being squeezed from all sides by around 50 jumbo jets.

Challenger Deep got its name from the British survey ship Challenger II which pinpointed the location first. On January 23, 1960, US Navy sent a submersible, called Trieste, to touch down the deepest part with 2 people on it, Don Walsh (a US Navy Lieutenant) and Jacques Piccard (son of the boat's designer).

The whole descent took around 4 hours 47 minutes at a speed of 3 feet/sec. After passing 30000 feet, one of the outer window panes cracked which shook the whole boat. However, there was another inner protective layer of window pane which was still intact. The two men decided to descend further and spent almost 20 minutes in the ocean floor. The temperature in the cabin was recorded as 7º C at the lowest point.

The two men further recorded that they could view fishes swimming beside the submersible which brought forth the theory that there are aquatic life which could withstand and survive immense pressure at such depths of oceans. The ascent took 3 hours 15 min.

Excel Tips And Tricks - Transpose And Worksheet Navigation Shortcut

Most of our job profiles require us to use Excel features in the most comprehensive ways which would give us meaningful yet effective results as soon as possible.

I had many such situations which required me to find out the easiest and the most effective ways to do our tasks in Excel 2007. I would be henceforth giving a step by step approach for few such features :

Requirement : How to change columns cell values into row cell values ? (It is called transpose)

How to Do ?

Select the full range of column cell values.

 

Right click and select Copy menu option.

Place the focus on any blank cell where you want the range of cell values to be pasted in the form of row cell values.

Right click and choose “Paste Special” menu option. In the Paste Special dialog box that appears, select the checkbox, Transpose, and click on OK button.

Note that the column cell values has been pasted into row cell values

Requirement : To traverse through the Excel worksheets tabs via Keyboard shortcut key ?

How to do ?

Most of us would use the mouse for traversing through the Excel Worksheets tabs. Keep focus on any of the Excel worksheet cell and then use the following keyboard shortcuts :

Ctrl + PageUp (Key) - Move left of the Excel Worksheets tabs from the current active worksheet
Ctrl + PageDown (Key) - Move right of the Excel Worksheets tabs from the current active worksheet