CULTURAL QA 01-2023-28 BEING A COMPILATION THERE MAY BE ERRORS
Q1 What mineral was considered precious atone point in history but is now ordinary? A1 Michael T. Lauer , Studied atCorcoran3y Aluminum. In the 1880s,aluminum was a rare metal, selling for $1.10 per ounce and used primarily forjewelry. The pyramid [atop the Washington Monument] was the largest piece ofaluminum of its day and was such a novelty that it was displayed at Tiffany'sjewelry store in New York before it was placed at the top (Ref. The WashingtonMonument Was Completed) Though common now aluminum was once quite rare.The reason was that aluminum is oxidized in nature as bauxite. Converting thebauxite to elemental aluminum requires electricity which is rather new. If youare interested in the process you can read about it here Hall–Héroult process –Wikipedia My note- At one time before stainless steel becamecommon aluminium vessels were commonly used in Kitchen. Now too for the light weight, many usealuminium vessels for emergency usage. Heating is very quick. Hindalium,a mixed metal with Aluminium is used for pressure cookers. For the light weight aeroplanesstill use aluminium for it’s body. Q2 What is the purpose of an airconditioner filter? Is it supposed to be wet? A2 Gopala Krishnan, Former AssistantGeneral Manager 1996-2004 at Department of Telecom (1966–2004)Just now Without going tomore technical details, thefilter is a preventive unit without contaminating indoor unit. The AC unit may function without filter as well as some filter fit to thearea, if original filter is damaged. I had my Samsung split AC filters damaged after 4 years and replacement filter unit wasnot available. Iprovided locally available net, till regular filter could be obtained andreplaced after three months. Q3 Why do some laptops shut down whenconnected to an AC outlet while others stay on even with the battery removed? A3 Dave Haynie, Electrical engineer andpart-time mad scientist19h If a laptop actually shuts down when plugged in, it’sbroken. Get it repaired. However, if itshuts down with no battery installed when plugged it, that can just be expectedbehavior for some laptops. Once upon a time, laptops came with power supplies thatcould completely run the laptop at peak power consumption, and perhaps evencharge the battery at the same time. In such a laptop,there was no particular reason to care if the battery were present or not. If the charging circuit didn’tfind a battery there, it simply didn’t do anything. And no, they didn’thave to be quite that old… but a few things changed. The first thing thatchanged was that, with intense pressure on the pricing oflow-end laptops, some companies started to sell them with power bricks thatcould not supply the full needs of the laptop at peak power. This hadthe unfortunate problem of making the laptop potentially slower when on ACpower than when on battery. No one wants that. So ultimately, theystarted taking a page from the smartphone. For most of their existence, the USBpower dongles sold with smartphones could not fully power the smartphone. Why?Well, USB power was originally just 2.5W peak, and it wasn’t all that hard tomake a phone draw more power when working hard. That was expanded to 7.5W when the USB Battery Chargingspecification was released, but that wasn’t enough. So all smartphones are designed to be able to run from the external powerinput and either charge the battery as needed, do nothing with the battery, or run from the batteryparalleled with external power if necessary. This is sometimes called hybrid power boost charging,as shown in the simplified schematic above. When plugged in, the power supply circuit powers thelaptop and charges the battery (this is simplified). If the batteryhas sufficient charge and there’s need for more power, the battery power can beadded to the adapter power. When there’s no adapter, the whole thing runs fromthe battery. And even withtoday’s better USB Power Delivery standard, it’s still necessary. For one, yourphone may well be able to suck up power like made from a 60W or even 100W powerdongle. But your manufacturer probably ships a cheaper one in the box, if theysupply power at all. And you want to be able to charge up on anything: yourdesktop charger, your car charger, the charger at the bar or airport, etc. So the system has to support lowcharging power, better than nothing. So the cheap modern laptop evolved to be able to use thebattery was well as the power brick paralleled to run if necessary.This in fact made it even easier to toss a crappy power brick in the box. Andin modern times, perhaps they’re using a USB Type-C jack for power. That’scapable of 100W power, more than any cheap laptop would have included even backin the day. But it might just come with a 20W supply that can’t ever power itall the way, just like your smartphone. So such a powermanagement system will refuse to run without the battery. And that’s a goodthing 99.97% of the time, unless you’re weird about opening up your laptop on aregular basis and nicking the battery. The fact it can, like a smartphone, runfrom external power and battery at the same time means that you can use a widevariety of power sources to charge it back up, at least if you’re not runSpider-Man Remastered or something while trying to charge. My note- Most Laptops work on AC power, withoutbattery also. Original laptops had no standby battery. Some laptops nowadaysfunction only with standby battery only. Earlier batteries were easy to remove.Present day, batteries can be removed by technician only from the Laptop. If held up occurs, after 15-20 minutes they somehow release. Even task manager does notappear after pressing control+alt+ del. Not only withordinary laptops costing around 35000-00 rupees, even the sophisticated onescosting above One Lakh. Q4 Which other country's culture is mostsimilar to the Culture of India? A4 Aam, Indian living in the Netherlands Updated3y The Dutch culture! Not the regular dutch, butSurinamese-Dutch culture. A community whosepresence is unknown to most of the Indians, despite their unending love towardsIndian culture! Let’s take a look at how a random wedding looks like inSurinamese-dutch culture. Yup, they aren’tIndians, they are Dutch!No, their parents aren’t Indians, they are Dutch!No,their grandparents aren’t Indians, they are Surinamese. So, where is Suriname? It’s in South America, in theCaribbean. No, their greatgrandparents are also not Indians. They are Surinamese. Go back sixgenerations and they are from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, India! Let’s have a lookat the tale of Colonialism that resulted in a culture that is an amalgamationof Indian, Caribbean and Dutch cultures. The story of a community who travelled from India to theNetherlands over generations! Age of Colonialism During the age ofColonialism, slavery was abolished in the Dutch colony of Suriname. In 1870 the Dutchgovernment signed a treaty with United Kingdom to recruit contract workers fromthe British empire. Indians fromthe states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and around were transported to Suriname from1873 onwards by the British Raj in the name of indentured labour. The povertystricken labourers were given a glorified image of Suriname. It was called “SriRam Tapu”, meaning the island where Sri Ram lived. The first ship,Lalla Rookh carried Indians to Surinamese capital of Paramaribo under terribleconditions. A total of 35,000 Indians were shipped to work on cocoa,sugarcane and cotton plantations in Suriname. Indian andCaribbean culture got blended there; they grew in number. Independence In 1975 Suriname gained independence from the Kingdom ofNetherlands. Citizens were provided an option to migrate to the Netherlands orstay in Suriname. Suriname was underracial tension between Creole Surinamese and Asian Surinamese. NeighbouringGuyana had race riots. Indo Surinamese people sold everything to pay for the“magic ticket” to a better life and began to migrate to the Netherlands. Migration continuedas the economic condition in Suriname turned worse under the military rule. They saved money and brought their family members one byone to the Netherlands. TheIndo-Surinamese culture began to blend in with the Dutch culture. The community isnow 160,000 in number. Surinamese-Dutch culture They speaka special dialect of Bhojpuri with a Caribbean influence. They fluentlyspeak Dutch and got blended with the Dutch values. Many of the new generation fluently speakHindi! The feeling when a Dutch speaks betterHindi than you! It’s a weird feeling you know! I've been there! They celebrate Indian festivals.Here is Holi celebration in Den Haag. They enjoy Caribbean music and watch Bollywood movies. They really adoreShahrukh Khan! Some of mySurinamese Dutch friends have travelled to India as well. A friend of mine wants to marry anIndian! She travels to India more than me!. They keep thetraditions alive. My friend sent me a picture from a ceremony at her home.They cook and eat Indian food:roti, Dal, butter paneer etc. Their marriage rituals are a mix of NorthIndian and Caribbean style.They are well informed aboutIndia and it's culture! Far more than I am, which was surprising!I often tellthem this “You know that you are more of an Indian than me right?”. Appearance Judging by the looks, it’s easy to confuse a SurinameseDutch to an Indian. The moment they start speakingEnglish, you get to realize the European accent! This is LucianoNarsingh, a Dutch football player. He is of Indian Telugu and Creole descentfrom Suriname. Miss India Hollandcompetition for Dutch women of Indian origin. Of course, it doesn't have abikini round! Notice the Indian attire in the beauty pageant? So, that was theSurinamese Dutch, still embracing Indian culture, more than a century afterbeing out of India! The community who had a long history from India to theNetherlands via Suriname, crossing continents, under the hands of colonialmasters. The cultural rootstill stays after generations. I thought thatIndians should know about their community and recognise their love towardsIndian culture!Thanks for reading! —Aam (കണാരൻ) My note- Avery informative post. Q5 What are some amazing facts aboutairplanes? A5 Atharva Dave. Lives in Mumbai,Maharashtra, India Updated 2y 1.When a planelands at night, cabin crews will dim the interior lights because in the unlikely event that the planelanding goes badly and passengers need to evacuate, their eyes will already beadjusted to the darkness. 2.Only 5% of the world’s population hadever been on an airplane till 2013 which drastically increased to approx. 20percent in 2020. 3.A Boeing 747 ismade up of six million parts which are made to be all controlled by a fewpilots sitting up front with switches and buttons under their fingertips. 4.It is the rule that pilots must be fed thesame multi-course meal given to those in the first and business class whilstthe co-pilots are encouraged to eat different entrees to guard against cases offood poisoning. 5.Those white lines that planes leave in the sky aresimply trails of condensation, hence their technical name of “contrails.”Plane engines release water vapor as part of the combustion process. When thathot water vapor is pumped out of the exhaust and hits the cooler air of theupper atmosphere, it creates those puffy white lines in the sky. It’s basicallythe same reaction as when you see your breath when it’s cold outside. 6.Environment inside an airplane actually alters the wayfood and drink tastes—sweet items tasted less sweet,while salty flavors were heightened. The dry recycled air inside the planecabin doesn’t help either as low humidity can further dull taste and smellmaking everything in a plane seem bland. 7.Plane doors can't actually open in mid-flight. 8.Australian airline Qantas has never hada fatal accident involving one of its commercial aircrafts. 9.The fastestcommercial plane flew at twice the speed of sound. It was the Concorde, thatregularly flew over the Atlantic, and was decommissioned after an accidentinvolving Concorde, in France. 10.Long-haul flights have secret bedroomsand a bathroom for flight attendants. 11.Living in an airplane flight path couldharm your heart. Means closer to the airport. Individualsexposed to noise above 60 decibels on a regular basis—like the sound of anairplane overhead—had a 30 percent greater risk of dying from a heart attack than thosetypically exposed to noise levels under 45 decibels. 12.Research showsthat the first 3 minutes after takeoff and the final 8 minutes before landingare when 80% of plane crashes happen. 13.About 1 in 5 people have some form of fearof flying, or “aviophobia.” 14.If you sit atthe back of an airplane, your odds of surviving a crash are 40% higher. 15. What that tiny hole in the airplanewindow does is to regulate cabin pressure. Most airplane windows are madeup of three panels of acrylic. The exterior window works as you wouldexpect—keeping the elements out and maintaining cabin pressure. 16.Airplanes are designed to withstand lightning strikes. References-Top 10interesting facts about aviation - BAA Training My note- Informative answer. All the above QA are from Quora website on 27-01- 2023. Quora answers need not be 100% correct answers . Compiled and posted by R. Gopala krishnan on 28-01-2023 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/668600403.350303.1674869038533%40mail.yahoo.com.
