Friday, 7 April 2017

Some Random Facts_6

1.       Hot water will turn into ice faster than cold water.
2.       The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.
3.       The sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter in the English language.
4.       The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
5.       Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
6.       You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
7.       It is impossible to lick your elbow.
8.       The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
9.       People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond.
10.   It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
11.   The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
12.   “Rhythm” is the longest English word without a vowel.
13.   If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
14.   Ants never sleep.
15.   “I Am” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
16.   Coca-Cola was originally green.
17.   The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
18.   When the moon is directly overhead, you will weigh slightly less.
19.   Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from the blowing desert sand.
20.   There are only two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: “abstemious” and “facetious.”
21.   The name of all the continents, end with the same letter that they start with.
22.   There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
23.   TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
24.   Minus 40 degrees Celsius is exactly the same as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
25.   Chocolate can kill dogs, as it contains theobromine, which affects their heart and nervous system.

Wednesday, 5 April 2017

The Rockefeller Foundation Cassava Innovation Challenge

Last year the Rockefeller foundation launched a global challenge offering $1m to the winner of an innovation that can prolong Nigeria's cassava shelf life.

In my mind, I thought that would be easy, no country in the world grows and eats more cassava than Nigeria; so I am pretty sure a Nigerian would win this competition- No be to create a way make cassava no spoil for a few days before processing - in short, the title of the challenge mentioned Nigeria.

To my surprise, yesterday Rockefeller Foundation announced a United Kingdom institution as a winner. Yes, the University of Greenwich's Natural Resources Institute won $500,000 for coming up with the best method of preserving Nigeria's Cassava.

This made me wonder. What are our institutions doing? OAU, ABU, FutMinna, YabaTech, UniLag etc? What is our ministry of science and technology doing? Still figuring out how to make pencils while other countries are innovating solutions for your domestic products??? Shame! The sad occurrence in this cassava challenge relates to nearly every sector in Nigeria's economy.

·         We sleep while other nations innovate.
·         We gossip politics; other nations participate.
·         We alienate ourselves from governance and socio -economic development while other nations practice inclusive governance.
·         Our competition lies in the grandest of weddings while other nations dwell in the greatest of inventions.
·         We pride in the cost of our imported auto luxuries while Ajaokuta lays moribund... worse still is our being ignorant of the fact that the past 10 years, Rolls Royce has gotten  some alloys from Kogi State's illegal mines.

Do we blame our colonial masters again? Freedom was fought for by our national heroes, we simply enjoy the chains around our necks hence we gladly place them back, and in different forms.

Wake up Nigeria! Your candle is fast burning out!!

Read about the Rockefeller cassava challenge here https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/cassavachallenge/

Tuesday, 4 April 2017

Never Judge A Book By Its Cover

When an old lady handed her cheque to a bank teller and said, “I would like to withdraw $500.00.”
The female teller told her, “For withdrawals less than $5,000, please use the ATM.” The old lady then asked, “Why?” The teller irritably told her, “These are rules. Please leave if there is no other matter. There is a queue behind you.” She then returned the cheque to the old lady. But the old lady humbly received the cheque from her, remained silent, and after a while returned the cheque to the teller and said, “Please help me withdraw all the money I have.”  The teller was astonished when she checked the account balance. She nodded her head, leaned down and said to the old lady, “My apologies Granny, you have $3.5 billion in your account and our bank does not have so much cash currently. Could you make an appointment and come again tomorrow?"

The old lady then asked, “How much am I able to withdraw now?” And the teller told her, “Any amount up to $300,000.” So the old lady then told the teller that she wanted to withdraw ₹300,000 from her account. The teller did so quickly and handed it to the old lady respectfully. The old lady kept $500 in her bag and asked the teller to deposit the balance of $299,500 back into her account. And the teller was dumbfounded.

Lesson: While rules are inflexible, humans can be flexible when the situation so requires. We should not treat people based on their looks or how they are dressed. Rather, we should treat everyone with respect. And never be too quick to judge a book by its cover.

Monday, 3 April 2017

The Exhibition Of Ignorance

The other day while at the dentist, and waiting at reception, a pastor came in and sat by my side. After a while, he looked at me familiarly and said, “Pardon me, sir! But you look familiar. Where do you worship?” And I shot back, “Worship?” He then explained, “I mean what church, do you attend?” And I replied, “Oh, that! I don’t attend anymore.” And when he asked, “Why don’t you attend church anymore?” I responded, “It’s simple! It is either they don’t know what they are doing/talking about, or I’m too daft to understand.” He looked at me quizzically, then requested, “May you permit me to tell you about God, His son Jesus, heaven and hell, and life after death?”

Then I smiled and said, “Sure but before you do, may I ask you a question?” And when he said to go ahead, I asked, “A cow, a horse and a goat all eat the same grass stuff, yes? Yet a goat excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps! Why do you suppose that is so?” The pastor visibly surprised by my question, replied, “Hmmm, I have no idea.” So I said, “You see what I mean! Do you really feel qualified to discuss what you have heard of God, His son Jesus, heaven and hell, or life after death? I mean, do you really feel qualified to discuss what you have heard from people who were not even part of their happenings, when you don’t even know shit that is here?”

Sunday, 2 April 2017

How To Save The Airlines

Just the other day, I heard someone say, “If you really want to save the Airlines, you should dump all the male flight attendants. No one wanted them in the first place. Then replace all the female flight attendants with good-looking strippers! What the hell, they don't even serve food anymore, so what's the loss? The strippers would at least triple the alcohol sales and get a 'party atmosphere' going in the cabin. And, of course, every businessman and bored husbands would start flying again, hoping to see some nice naked women.”

And when his friend asked for the economic sense, he continued, “Because of the tips, female flight attendants wouldn't need a salary, thus saving even more money. I suspect tips would be so good that we could charge the women for working the plane and have them kick back 20% of the tips, including lap dances and 'special services.' And Muslims would be afraid to get on the planes for fear of seeing naked women. Hijackings would come to a screeching halt, and the airline industry would see record revenues. This is definitely a win-win situation if we handle it right, a golden opportunity to turn a liability into an asset.”

All That You Will Ever Need

As I lay down there and musing, a phone rang in my head and when I picked it, a voice said, “Hello!” So I responded, “Yes!” And the voice said, “It’s me.” And when I quarried, “And who is it’s me? Since when has it’s me, become a name and a means of identification?” The voice said, “I’m your constant companion, and I can be your greatest helper or your heaviest burden. I can lift you up to stardom or drag you down to failure. I am at your command. Turn your tasks over to me, and I shall perform them, quickly and perfectly.”

And when I said, “That’s interesting!” The voice continued, “Half of the tasks that you do you might just as well turn over to me and I will do them quickly and correctly. I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done. After a few lessons, I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great people and the regret of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.”

And calmly I asked, “So tell me! Are you a Robot?” And the voice replied, “No! I am not a machine. but I will work with all its precision plus the intelligence of a person. Now you may run me for profit or you may run me for ruin. It makes no difference to me. All you have to do is to take me, train me, be firm with me and I will lay the world at your feet. I am all that you will ever need, and my name is, Mr. Habit.”

Saturday, 1 April 2017

Some Additional Random Facts

1.       Oral sex was illegal in Singapore until 2007.

2.       Each year, Google receives more than two million job applications from around the world.

3.       Donald Trump was the most Googled person of 2016 in 88 countries, including Mexico, Spain, South Africa and New Zealand.

4.       In 2014, individual Americans gave US$258 billion to charity —more than twice the amount given by corporations and foundations combined.

5.       A NY man spent almost 5 months in prison in 2014, unaware that his bail was US$2.

6.       After Barack Obama visited Kenya in 2015, two women named their sons Air Force One.

7.       Converse shoes, is a Nike Company since 2003.

8.       18 years after Vietnamese man Ma Van Nhat had surgery for injuries sustained in a car crash, doctors found surgical scissors in his abdomen.

9.       On a QWERTY keyboard a typist's fingers cover 20 miles a day; on a Dvorak keyboard it's only one mile.

10.   The longest human nipple hair was 17 cm (6.6 in) long.

11.   You can die instantly after being struck by a dropping coconut.

12.   Ernest Hemingway received 36 shock treatments for depression, some of which impaired his memory so badly that he couldn't remember his name.

13.   Englishman Ken Edwards ate 36 Madagascan cockroaches in one minute in 2001.

14.   According to a Pew study, 56% of Americans think the use of atomic bombs in Japan in 1945 was justified, down from 63% in 1991.

15.   Before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Saddam Hussein had turned over the day-to-day running of the Iraqi government to his aides and was spending most of his time writing a novel.

16.   One-armed tennis player Hans Redl played at Wimbledon from 1947 to 1956. He served by tossing the ball up with his racket.