Sharing What I Learned

Though I'm not a proponent of the idea of sharing what one learns, I thought it's worthwhile to share a few things before they evade my volatile memory.

Multiferroics: Imagine a magnetic material displays multiple electronic, magnetic, and structural behaviors like ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, and ferroelastic (sounds like T.Rajendar's movies where he does everything - Story, screenplay, direction, production, acting(?), singing, and more than all, do all the talking?). But such materials do exist and they are known as multiferroic materials. These materials have been identified by Science magazine as one of the areas to watch this year for breakthroughs in research. If successful, it will lead to advanced chips that combine logical and memory functions, bringing electronics and spintronics together. (Get ready to coin a new term - Electrospinnics? uh.

Spin more of it at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/318/5858/1848
http://shell.cas.usf.edu/fml/multiferroic.html

ROI: Ever wondered what it expands as? I'd been thinking it's the Rate of Interest. Geek. No! It is the Returns on Investment. It's one of the hotwords in IT and other businesses now. ROI is a measure of how effectively your business uses the capital and generates profit. So. to sound more IT and techie, use such words as ROI. You'll be respected, or at least listened to, nerd!


And there is even a formula to calculate the ROI. As a rule of thumb, 3 years is taken as the minimum period to assess ROI. Perhaps the pundits thought it's not at all a business if it can't survive three years. OK. The formula is:

net benefit year 1 / (1+discount rate) + net benefit year 2 / (1+discount rate) + net benefit year 3 / (1+discount rate)) / initial cost

To dig deeper, click http://whatis.techtarget.com/wsearchResults/1,290214,sid9,00.html?query=ROI

Tonometer? Remember the peculiar instrument the American doctor in our movies, who comes just when the hero's mom or sis has to have an eye surgery uses to test the eye? Yea, you got it right! It's the tonometer, which is used to measure the interocular pressure IOP in the eye. This instrument is extremely useful in the diagnosis of glaucoma - a condition resulting due to increased interocular pressure.

Apply some more pressure on ur eye to check this out: http://healthguide.howstuffworks.com/tonometry-dictionary.htm


Heard of 'Chewing gum effect'? Even after a lot of googling, I found it difficult and at last, I got the answer from the thread of a forum on the same topic. It's the way people strain their tounge and mouth to pronounce words - rather like talking while chewing a bubble gum! Think about our access-conscious aunties twisting their tongues and rolling their eyes while uttering Americanized slangs.

Chew more of it @ http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t9616-15.htm

And a little bit of research about the much-hyped, and much-feared-in-India Wal-Mart: http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t9616-15.htm

OK. Hope that was a useful post. Read it with a chewing gum effect, not having to use a tonometer. Definitely, your knowledge ROI should have improved. I think mine has.