Phobias : Top 10 Bizarre.

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A lot of us have similar fears that give us the heebie-jeebies, whether we admit to facing them or not; fear of commitment, fear of getting caught with the boss's wife etc.


All of them are so common that they're more or less considered normal. But there are some other phobias, which are quite bizarre, random and unimaginable. Although, however unlikely they might be, people still suffer from them. Here is a list of the top 10 most bizarre phobias. We begin with a phobia of being stared at.

Scopophobia: Perhaps trouble-makers who start fights with "you looking at me?" have this phobia. It is a deathly fear of being looked at by others, something that we're sure isn't too easy to live with.

Symptoms of Scopophobia are individual and unique to the person coping with this phobia. Some people, may feel slightly uncomfortable, become nauseated or begin to perspire. Whereas, other people with this phobia experience anxiety or panic attacks or just won't leave home, because of the feeling that they are being stared at by someone.

Xanthophobia: This phobia is a deathly fear of the color yellow. It extends to things that are yellow in color, and in some extreme cases just the word "yellow "is enough to cause fear. Sufferers are unable to be around the color without developing deep dread and even panic attacks. Be it a daisy or a yellow rain coat.

Symptoms of Xanthophobia may include heart palpitations, dry mouth, heightened senses etc.

Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.

Symptoms include shaking, feelings of nausea and sickness, sweating, and dizziness, and heart palpitations, inability to speak and work properly, and anxiety attacks. Embarrassment is at the core of the problem, which prevents the sufferers from eating peanuts any more.

Agyrophobia: This is the fear of crossing roads, which relates to the belief that it will cause you harm. It is generally different from the fear of cars.

Agyrophobics find reasons to be terrified of roads and avoid them strongly to a point that the disorder hinders their ability to accomplish normal, everyday activities like going to a grocery store, walking through a parking lot, or even going on a vacation in which there will be a significant amount of walking.

Symptoms of agyrophobia include a feeling of dread when presented with the prospect of nearing a road, automatic or uncontrollable reactions to fear, rapid heartbeat, and trembling.

Anthophobia: People suffering from this phobia are never going to stop and smell the roses as it is a fear of flowers. They know that flowers won't hurt them but get anxious at the thought of them. Some people can even get affected by just flower parts like a petal or stem.

When in the presence of flowers, or in some cases of simply thinking about flowers, sufferers may experience feelings of panic, breathlessness, dizziness, rapid heart beat, trembling etc.

Coulrophobia: People with coulrophobia have a fear of clowns, which usually starts when they are children and clowns would come near them with their made-up faces.

It is a fear of, both, happy and sad-faced clowns, and the last place these people will go to is a circus.

Oikophobia: This phobia is one of the more miserable phobias to suffer from as it can be either a fear of the home itself or things in it, like appliances, furniture, etc. Most often, it is the fear of things inside the house.

If it is a fear of house work, then maybe all of us are victims of this phobia.

Nomophobia: Fear of being without a cell or mobile phone means that someone is afraid to be disconnected from the rest of the world.

Symptoms can be checking batteries obsessively or refusing to go anywhere that is out of cell range. These days, perhaps everyone has it to some degree as cell phones seem tied to us, but the ones with the real phobia simply cannot handle any thought of being without one. They can't bear the thought of their family, near and dear ones being totally out of reach.

Koumpounophobia: Koumpounophobia is literally a fear of buttons and normally occurs in childhood, continuing to grow as they grow old. The phobia can either refer to a fear of touching a button or seeing them grouped together. It can persist into adulthood.

Usually buttons are simply avoided, but choosing clothing (everything is zipped or tied) becomes a scary task as well.

Uranophobia is the fear of Heaven, itself, and the fear of going there. Possible reasons for getting this particular phobia have to do with fear-based religions as a child where God is made to seem like a scary being that will punish deviants.

Symptoms typically include extreme anxiety, dread and anything associated with panic such as shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, inability to articulate words or sentences, and shaking.

Read more Personal Health, Diet & Fitness stories on www.healthmeup.com

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Goodbye Roaming

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Goodbye Roaming, One-Nation & One-Number Cleared

To boost transparency and revive growth in the scandal-hit sector, the government on Thursday approved a new telecom policy that aims to ultimately abolish roaming charges, besides relaxing Internet telephony rules.

The National Telecom Policy 2012, which replaces more than a decade-old rules, was approved by the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

"The target is one nation full mobile number portability and working towards one nation free roaming," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said. Under the new policy, the government plans to remove roaming fees, allowing users to retain their numbers even if they move from one circle or zone to another.

However, consumers will have to wait for some time for this as the Department of Telecom will first work out modalities of the new scheme before it is brought into force. Consulting firm Deloitte said NTP will benefit consumers, though it may impact the operators negatively in the short term.

"Number portability is going to be boon for consumers as they would be able to retain the number even though they migrate from one telecom circle to other... abolishing roaming charges would be negative in short term for operators as they would lose roaming revenue," Deloitte Haskins & Sells Partner Hemant Joshi said.

However, in the long run, as usage would increase with no roaming charges might offset the revenue loss caused to the operators, he added. The NTP will also separate telecom licences and spectrum, against the current practice of bundling them, and will charge a market-derived price for the airwaves.

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30 Floor Hotel in 15 Days

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Up in 15 days: China firm builds 30-floor hotel in ... - Mumbai Mirror


London They’re acknowledged as a 21st century super power with super computers and a super economy that is the envy of the whole world. Now China can claim another distinction — the title of the fastest builders on the planet after putting up a 30-storey hotel in just 15 days, or 360 hours.
The Ark Hotel was built on Dongting Lake in Hunan Province by Broad Group, a Chinese construction company which specialises in sustainable architecture, the Daily Mail reported. Not a single worker was injured in construction of the hotel, and despite being built so quickly, the 183,000 square foot monster can withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake.

This was tested by the China Academy of Building Research, who claim this is five times more quake-resistant than conventional buildings. The entire material was prefabricated and sections built to specification off-site, so there was very little wastage. The whole effort was also filmed for a time-lapse video.
The builders took just 46 hours to finish the main structural components and another 90 hours to finish the building enclosure, the Mail report said. All of the structure is soundproofed and thermal-insulated. They even have air quality monitoring in every room given the pollution problem in China.

While the men didn’t work all through the night, it was often 10 pm before they packed away heir lunchboxes. China’s previous record was a smaller 15-story building constructed in just six days.

The ark hotel

All material used was prefabricated to avoid waste. Complete structure is sound proof and thermal-insulated.

Every room has air quality monitoring to deal with pollution.

China’s previous record: a 15-storey building in six days.

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Credit Card : How to Select ?

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This is yet another post from the Suggest a Topic page, and this time I am going to talk about how to select a credit card. Radhika had asked this question once quite early on as well, but I didn’t feel that I have anything really useful to say on it so never got around to writing the post.

However, searching online made me feel that in general this is an area on which not much has been written about in an Indian context. So, I thought I’d write this post and at least start off the discussion, and present you views on how I would go about searching for a credit card if I had to do it.

The first thing I did was to look at cash back credit cards in India, which give you one percent or two percent cash back every time you make a purchase, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any good cash back credit cards in India. Some of them have a high annual fee, others make you jump through too many hoops, and a lot of them have some sort of a limit on them which considerably reduce their appeal.

In the US, people with a good credit history can get a good cash back credit card which doesn’t have any annual fee and to me that’s the best kind of credit card.

Let’s see what you can look at in the absence of such a credit card.

No Annual Fee

The first thing to keep in mind is that your credit card should have no annual charges. There are a lot of good credit cards without any fee, so there is no reason for you to go and get a credit card which has an annual fee.

I believe this to be true for most people, however there will be some folks out there who feel that the benefit of a particular credit card outweighs the annual fee, and if you have such a credit card in mind then that’s fine, but if you are just looking out for a new credit card, then I’d say look for one that doesn’t have any annual fee.

No Renewal Charges

Another fee I see with some credit cards is renewal fee that has to be paid at the end of every year. So obviously this is nothing but a credit card with an annual fee, but the annual fee has been waived off for the first year.

You may want keep away from such credit cards also.

Convenience to pay off your balance

If you get a credit card from your bank then you will probably be able to link the credit card with the bank account and pay off your credit card online, and that is a big convenience. Making it easy enough on yourself to pay off the balance will ensure that you don’t miss any payments because your check reached late or you were out of town or something else like that.

Keeping no balance is an extremely good financial habit, and I’ve written about how I myself got into a bit of a credit card issue early on, and you must do everything possible to keep your credit card balance zero, and the ease of paying it off is just one factor that adds to it.

What do you spend the most on?

In the absence of a cash back credit card the next best thing to do is to look for a credit card that has no annual fee, and has good reward points in the area where you spend the most.

For instance if you are working away from your home town, and visit home say thrice a year then probably a good chunk of your credit card spending in a year is on air travel, and you should look for a credit card that has got good reward points. On the other hand if you don’t expect a lot of air travel but drive a lot then a card that helps you get rewards on petrol purchase will be beneficial to you.

Selecting a Credit Card

Given the criteria above, say you want to select a credit card now, here is an example of what you could do.

Say you have a bank account with ICICI Bank, and travel a lot. In this case go to Rupee Times Compare a Credit Card section, and select the Issuer as ICICI, Reward as Airline, Annual Fee as Zero Annual Fee, and search for your options.

In this search I got only two results, and if I don’t travel a lot by those two airlines (Kingfisher and Singapore in this case) then I will have to broaden my search by going back, and removing the issuer from the criteria.

That shows up some more options and you can see if any of them are of any interest to you or not. If you are still not satisfied then take another category and do a little more research.

Eventually you should find something that is of interest to you, and can explore that option more.

Why am I ignoring Interest Rates?

Because they are so ridiculously high.

Paying interest on a credit card should really be the last thing you do, and is the worst kind of debt because it can easily snowball into a much larger number, and is generally spent on stuff that you can easily avoid.

While it is preferable to have a lower interest rate to a higher one, you should make all attempts to have your credit card balance zero.

There is really not a lot of science behind this, and it boils down to evaluating a lot of options, and choosing one that suits you the best. I hope this post can help you give some ideas on that, and as always comments are welcome.

Oh, and since we are on the topic, Ask Mr Credit Card, who is a prominent US credit card blogger did a guest post on OneMint early this year about silly ways of using a credit card, and I highly recommend you read that post.


What is credit card interest?

Interest is a charge for providing credit. All credit card accounts have an annual percentage rate (credit card interest rate). The applicable terms and conditions describe how interest is applied on a credit card account.

The annual percentage rate differs from product to product and different rates can be applied to the different types of transactions. For instance some bank products may have a different purchase rate and cash rate, or you may receive a special rate for a balance transfer. All of this is applied to the account's monthly aggregated balance to calculate the interest charge.
Interest charged by the bank can be divided into four categories:

    Purchase interest - is interest charged on purchases such as food from the supermarket, paying bills or direct debits such as insurance premiums.
    Cash interest - is interest charged on cash transactions such as ATM withdrawals, fund transfers to another account using internet banking or telephone banking, and bills paid over the counter at the bank, or post office.
    Special interest - is interest charged on other amounts, such as a balance transfer amount from one banks credit card to another.
    Interest on interest - is interest charged on interest charges shown on a statement of account which are outstanding and generated by the three categories above. Additional interest is charged on any interest charges, which are outstanding from the last statement period.

How is credit card interest calculated?

Credit Card Interest is calculated at the end of the statement period, and then charged to your account on the last day of each statement period. The banks start by working out the average daily balance (ADB) outstanding over the statement period. This is done by calculating the ending balance at the end of each day for all the transaction types, adding up each daily ending balance then dividing this by the number of days in the statement period. The banks then calculate the daily rate, they work this out by dividing each annual percentage rate (APR) applying to your card (i.e. standard rate, cash rate or balance transfer rate) by 365, number of days in a year.

Daily Rate = APR / 365. For example 18.15% APR / 365= 0.04973% daily rate.

The bank then multiplies the ADB by the daily rate. Finally, this number is then multiplied by the number of days in the statement period.
When is interest charged?

If interest is charged on your account it will be debited on the last day of your statement period. The first and the last day of each statement period is shown on your monthly credit card account statement.
What is an interest free period?

This is a feature of some credit cards which provides the opportunity to avoid paying interest on purchase transactions, by paying the account in full by the specified payment due date each month.

If your card has an interest free period, no interest will be charged on a purchase if:

    You pay the full closing balance by the payment due date for the statement on which the purchase is listed, and
    You have paid the closing balance of the previous statement by its payment due date.
    The maximum interest free period for a low rate Visa Card is 55 days. 30 days being the length of a normal statement period, and then 25 extra days between the last day of the statement period and the payment due date in which to pay the account in full to avoid purchase interest.
    If you did not pay the closing balance on your previous statement in full by the payment due date, your current statement will include interest charges for the outstanding balance, as well as any new transactions made since the closing date on that statement.

What if you don't pay the full closing balance by the due date every month?

If you have a credit card with an interest free period, you will be charged interest on purchases and cash transactions for that statement period, as well as on any new transactions made since the end of that period. This will continue to happen on future statement periods until your closing balance is fully paid in full on or before the due date of the latest statement.

If you don't have a credit card with an interest free period, interest is calculated daily on all transactions regardless of whether you pay the entire closing balance by the due date. Interest charges are debited to your account on the closing date of each statement period.
What if I pay the entire closing balance a few days after the due date?

If you have a credit card with an interest free period and you haven't paid the entire closing balance by the due date, you will lose the interest free benefit for that period. You will also be charged a late payment fee.
Before you apply for Credit Card

Before you apply for credit card, please check our site and compare credit card interest rates.
 

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Courts Cannot Round Off Marks

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Courts Cannot Round Off Marks Even by 0.29% : Supreme Court


NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has ruled that the judiciary cannot round off a candidate's marks to make her eligible for admission to higher studies.
Frowning upon a 0.29% upward rounding off done by Karnataka High Court to allow a student to get admitted to a PG course, a bench of Justices AK Patnaik and Ranjana P Desai on Thursday said, "The division bench of the HC erred in holding that the single judge was right in rounding off 54.71% to 55% so as to make the student eligible for admission to PG course. Such rounding off is impermissible."

It added, "When eligibility criteria is prescribed in a qualifying examination, it must be strictly adhered to. Any dilution or tampering with it will work injustice on other candidates."

The eligibility criteria prescribed for securing admission to the PG course was 55% aggregate marks. The student, who secured 54.71%, approached the Indian Nursing Council requesting issuance of a certificate of eligibility to her by rounding off her aggregate marks to 55%.

The council said 0.50% would normally be rounded off to the next digit and suggested her to request the institute to which she wanted to get admitted to in a PG course. But the institute refused to admit her on the ground that she did not have 55% aggregate marks.

Without disturbing her career as she has been admitted into the institute on the basis of the HC order, the apex court bench said, "No provision of any statute or any rule framed thereunder has been shown to us which permits rounding off of eligibility criteria prescribed for qualifying examination for admission to PG course in MSc (Nursing)."
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POSITIVE LIVING.

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Become a LOVING & POSITIVE Person


Aug 22, 2012, 12.00AM IST TNN ~ Anwesha Mittra.

Despite believing to have a positive outlook, we invariably weigh the cons first, consider several times before sparing a compliment, and broadcast only the odds when someone counts on us for advice. What's more, we prefer needless sarcasm for humour, manage a wry smile when something is genuinely funny, and believe deep down that the glass is actually half empty.

We live in denial of our inherent negativity for the most part, and often wonder why the world around is so mean and reckless. At work, we never fail telling our juniors how meeting deadlines can be a tough proposition, and not to think too 'out of the box' to impress the boss. In short, we never tire telling all concerned how tough things can be! Unlike dogs we may not be born eternal optimists, but positivity is something that can be imbibed even if a tad forcibly; such as by trying to tweak our sense of humour, the way we react to a given situation, by being more pleasant and believing others too have a mind, and by smiling each time somebody says 'thank you'.

While positivity is a state of mind, the answer lies in our perspective. Clinical psychologist and lifestyle advisor Dr S.K Sharma shares his ideas on how to be a positive person everyday.

Have the desire: First thing first, to become a positive person one must have a strong desire to be positive. And the desire will come only if you are convinced that becoming a positive person will enhance the quality of life. Positivity is like an aura, and you know you are a positive person when people start trusting you, random people become polite with you, colleagues at work start patronising you, and you start building rapport easily.

Be realistic: Do not try to become a saint. Becoming a positive person does not mean you can never have any negative emotion or encounter any negative situation. It is the overall attitude that matters. Don't get bogged down by failure, and disappointed when your expectations are not met. Mentally, you should always be calculating a way out of difficult situations come what may.

Experiment: Be a keen observer. Use everyday life incidents to see how you can manage them in a more positive manner. These will serve as perfect instances to turn your outlook more positive. For starters, contemplate how you could have better handled a situation by being less hostile and more indulgent. Come up with five ways that could have saved the day, and learn to take things at face value sometimes. Remember, your ability to trust the other person also reflects your genuineness.

Speech and body language: Try and make positive words a part of your daily lingo, and work on your body language in way that you come across as friendly and approachable. Look amused when something is amusing, laugh when something is funny, congratulate when someone's bought something new, and give others a chance to narrate their side of the story. Never think you are the only interesting, knowing one around.

Company: One way to becoming positive is to seek positive company as both positivity and negativity are infectious. If the people you spend most of your time with are grumpy or have a pessimistic standpoint, you'll find yourself mirroring the same emotions before a different set of people inadvertently. In order to inculcate positivity it is imperative that your friend circle is a positive, energetic, and a happy bunch. You'll find yourself carrying the same positivity everywhere you go.

Activities: Do not remain idle and brood. Take up positive activities with others or in isolation. Share a joke, narrate a pleasant incident, take part in sporting activities, go for a run in the evening after work, have healthy sex, and you'll find yourself bubbling with positive energy.

Take it easy: Everyday life is bound to give you shocks. Be prepared to minimise impact and shrug it off. For instance, you may get too hassled everyday while driving to work or trying to park your car. When you accept the fact that certain things cannot be changed, you'll be more at ease with yourself and those around too.

Learn yoga: Says yoga teacher and nutritionist, Abhilasha Kale, "Do pranayam everyday as it lets you focus and meditate. Not only does it secrete happy hormones but also creates a sense of awareness within you." With the help of yogic asanas you control your breathing, and by way of it, control your mind from wandering. Every time you do yoga, you feel a surge of positive energy through your body that calms your nerves, soothes your mind, elevates your mood, and not to mention enhances your level of tolerance.

Maintain a diary: Instead of recounting all events of the day, filter out only the positive ones and make a note of them. It could be anything trivial from your bus arriving on time, your mom cooking a delicious breakfast, to remembering to pay the bills on time. When we look for positivity in the little things that make our lives worthwhile, we leave no room for negativity. "Try consciously practising this for 10 days, and at the end of day ten when you read your diary back you'll only have memories of all the good things that happened to you," she asserts.

Say 'thank you': Thank god, thank your parents, friends, and thank yourself for all the hard work you did, for everything you achieved. Says Abhilasha, "Saying thank you frequently makes you humble, and a humble person is seldom cynical."

Try these methods, and you'll be surprised when others notice the change in you.
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Personal Cloud

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Use Your PC as a Personal Cloud

Filled up the space on your mobile phone or tablet? As long as you have working internet on both ends, you can access your home computer's hard drive from anywhere.

To do this, you need to set up remote access to your computer — simpler than it sounds. A small server application needs to be installed on your home computer. LogMeIn (www.logmein.com) provides free server software for Windows and MAC OS X.

Once the server is running, you simply need to log in to your account (free registration required) using a web browser on any computer or phone/tablet. You can then remotely control your home system to run programs or transfer files to and from it.

Another alternative to remotely access your files is to purchase a network-connected hard drive like the Buffalo CloudStation (Rs16,000 onwards).

The CloudStation comes in various storage capacities and connects to your internet router/modem using Ethernet. Once you set it up (an easy wizard is provided), you can view, stream or download files from it using a web browser.

Access Data Using Your Phone

If you prefer a dedicated way of accessing your content on your mobile/tablet device instead of using a web browser, there are various free apps available for the popular smartphone platforms.

Like the browser method, these apps require that a server software be installed on your home PC for accessing files remotely. Tonido, a free app for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry works great over Wi-Fi as well as 3G. Head to www.tonido.com to download the desktop server software for Windows, MAC OS X or Linux.

Once you link the app to your computer at home, you could be anywhere in the world and can stream music directly to your phone, access and download files from your computer and upload photos/videos taken from the phone back home. The app has a custom server address that makes setting it up super-easy.

Another app, Polkast converts your computer into your personal cloud for free. The Polkast server software (www.polkast.com) lets you choose which folders to share. Plus, there is no limit on file transfers to and from the PC, which makes it great for transferring large files.

Stream Music From Your PC

Although apps like Tonido offer audio and video streaming to your remote mobile device, lack of on-the-fly transcoding (file conversion) can lead to long wait times depending on your connection. If audio streaming is your main priority, use the free Subsonic app (iOS, Android).

You can get the desktop software for Windows, Mac or Linux at www.subsonic.org. It takes some time to get started since you need to first create an account and set up the folders to be shared. You also need to provide a custom name for a 'webserver' that the app on your phone/tablet connects to.

Once done, you could be anywhere in the world — as long as you have a working internet connection, the app will display all the music files from your computer. You can also create playlists and it works with most audio formats. It also supports video streaming, which, needless to say, works best over a Wi-Fi connection.

Supercharge Your Dropbox

Dropbox can be more than just online file storage. With some nifty add-ons, you can use your Dropbox storage for multiple things. For instance, if you have your stored on Dropbox, you can access them (and stream them) using DropTunes.

Visit www.droptun.es and sign in with your Dropbox account — you'll get access to all your files from within a web browser and you can play them without transferring them. You could also get the DropTunes iOS app to stream the files to your iPhone or iPad — which solves the problem of limited space on the iDevice too.

With Dropbox, you can also automate easy or boring tasks like file conversions or transfers. The Dropbox Automator from Wappwolf lets you do all this and more. Head to http://wappwolf.com/dropboxautomator — you will need to grant permission to your Dropbox account (either one or all folders inside your Dropbox storage).

Then you need to create an 'action' — for instance, convert to PDF. Once you place a file inside that folder (from your computer or mobile device), the Automator will instantly convert it into a PDF and store it in the same folder. There are numerous actions available for many common tasks.

Get All the Storage You Need by Creating Your Own Cloud

With faster internet connections, digital storage need not be confined to your local device. That's the idea behind cloud storage -keeping your data and multimedia files in one place and accessing them from wherever you go.

Imagine a scenario where you have limited storage on your workplace computer. You could simply access all your files from your home computer, without the need to install any software on the office computer (where software installation may be disallowed or frowned upon).

Your mobile device, which has limited local storage, could use your home PCs huge hard drive as a repository. Or you could use conventional cloud storage solutions like Dropbox to stream music and photos. Whatever you need done, there's a 'cloud' way to do it.

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Number System

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PREFIX & SUFFIX

Prefix	Symbol	Factor
Yotta	Y	1024
Zetta	Z	1021
Exa	E	1018
Peta	P	1015
Tera	T	1012
Giga	G	109
Mega	M	106
Kilo	k	103
Hecto	h	102
Deca	da	101
Meter / Gram / Litre / Volts / Amps / Ohms / Rs. …… And So On ……
Deci	d	10-1
Centi	c	10-2
Milli	m	10-3
Micro	mu	10-6
Nano	n	10-9
Pico	p	10-12
Femto	f	10-15
Atto	a	10-18
Zepto	z	10-21
Yocto	y	10-24

Amazing Acrobatic