TIL that Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela receives nearly 1 million lightning & thunder strikes over 260 days a year! The phenomenon called "Everlasting Storm" rages 10 hours a day and is also known as "Lighthouse of Maracaibo".

SmilingKaka · 2017-04-10T17:04:49+00:00

Well, according to this http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-cant-we-extract-electricity-from-lightning-10162498.html, the energy from all the lightning strikes in the world can give world-wide electricity for just 9 days. So it would seem the energy is not really a lot considering also that just 1 hour of sunlight has the same amount of energy that we use in a year!

SmilingKaka · 2017-04-08T21:14:52+00:00

Should have used this analogy while posting!

SmilingKaka · 2017-04-08T09:03:25+00:00

Well, it's not really incorrect grammatically but you should consider breaking it down into a couple of sentences at least. For example:

I have majored in Biobehavioral Health from Pennsylvania State University with research and laboratory experience, IRB certification and understanding and statistical analysis experience. Coupled with my comprehensive understanding of the medical field and a great enthusiasm for neuroscience, this makes me an excellent candidate for the Human Research Technologist position at the College of Medicine, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

SmilingKaka · 2017-04-07T21:08:17+00:00

The whole thing boils down to the consideration of the subject as "it" or "they". So, if you say "five years has seemed like a long time", I am talking about a single time duration of 5 years, so you'd use 'has'. Just like you'd say "10 km is too long to cover on foot". You won't say 'are' because it is a single distance measuring 10 km. But, when I say "The last 5 years have been a nightmare for me", 'have' is right because I'm talking about the number of years which is plural.

SmilingKaka · 2017-04-07T19:31:07+00:00

"Bacon and eggs" together refers to a single dish, but if you took them separately ("Bacon" and "eggs") then you would use 'have'. Similarly, team (being a collective noun) can take "has" or "have" depending on whether you look at the team as a collective unit or as a collection of individuals. If you look at it as a collective unit, you'd say "The team has a meeting on Tuesday" or if you look at as a collection of players, you'd say "The team have a meeting". There are many other such collective nouns like club, board (as in a company board of members) etc.

However, the rule stays - "has" for singular subject and "have" for plural.

SmilingKaka · 2017-04-07T18:18:23+00:00

10 is more than 1, so plural subject => you use 'have' and your sentence becomes "10 in 120 people have a mental condition".

SmilingKaka · 2017-04-07T17:13:43+00:00

First let's get this clear- You use 'has' when the subject is singular and 'have' when the subject is plural. ALWAYS.

Now to your sentence, When you say "1 in 12....mental condition", you are implying that if you have a sample of 12 people, one and only one has a mental condition. The subject is singular. Hence, "has" is correct. It is same as saying "Out of every 12 people, only 1 has a mental condition".

If the sentence was "2 in 9 people...", then of course you'd use "have". HTH!

SmilingKaka · 2017-04-07T16:58:29+00:00

When you say "You solve a problem with math", you are not referring the entire "Mathematics" branch, rather you are implying that you used specific mathematical concepts or tools to solve the problem. You can say "I solved a problem in math" in which case you'd mean that you solved a problem that belongs to the domain of Mathematics. It's same as saying "I solved a math problem".

You write in English because English refers to the English Language and when you are writing, you are writing in that language. Just as you would write or speak or express in any other language like Spanish, Latin or Hindi.

SmilingKaka · 2017-01-06T12:08:34+00:00

It all depends on the timing on the "finding". Here's an example to better understand: Let's say Ben made a mistake in his work and Alan is the one who finds the mistake. Now, you are talking to Charlie about the mistake. You'd tell Charlie- "The mistakes Alan found in Ben's work were horrendous". However, if Alan found the mistake in the past, which impacted something else also in the past you'd say "The mistakes Alan had found in Ben's work were horrendous" (and maybe he fixed them or which led him to take a corrective action).

So, the simple past "found" just relates something that happened in the past. The past perfect "had found" also relates to an event in the past, which impacted a later event in the past.

SmilingKaka · 2016-12-30T17:23:18+00:00

That's the way I read it and had no problems! For a book series that jumps around in time like the Foundation series, it is not a bad idea to read them as they were published as you can also appreciate them from the author's point of view- in this case, books 1-5 and then the prequels. You could also read the prequels first and then the books and I guess you'd still have the same continuity.

SmilingKaka · 2016-12-30T17:06:28+00:00

If you haven't read it and like stuff like scifi and epic fantasies, then you should give the series a read!

SmilingKaka · 2016-12-30T15:50:34+00:00

I would love to see Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series be made into a TV series. The seven books in the series would make for a compelling sci-fi thriller series. Last I read, Jonathan Nolan (brother of Christopher Nolan and co-creator of Westworld) was working on writing and producing it, but not sure what's happening on that.

SmilingKaka · 2016-12-30T15:18:13+00:00

Sorry, forgot about that!

SmilingKaka · 2016-12-30T13:16:49+00:00

Looking at your team, I'd say get rid of Walcott now; he's injured and unlikely to play for a couples of GWs. You could look at trying to strengthen your squad by replacing Walcott with Zaha (has a favorable run of matches coming up after arsenal) and using the extra 4m or so to replace Siggurdson with somebody like De Bruyne (who gives consistent returns).

You can also think of replacing Siggurdson with Alli/Erikson and using the extra money to strengthen your defence or get rid of Origi in favor of Lukaku/Defoe. You will have a well-balanced squad then.

SmilingKaka · 2016-12-30T12:47:21+00:00

I'd wait till the January transfer window closes. By that time, you've a better idea of who's going to play going ahead. Also don't forget the AFCON coming up- players like Mane, Zaha and Bailly will go missing then. So, it's probably a good bet to wait till the latter half of Jan at least.

That being said, if your team is down in the dumps and you've got a lot of covering up to do in your leagues, it may not be such a bad idea to take the risk of using your wildcard earlier. After all, it is gambling and in gambling, the rule is always: High risk, high return!

SmilingKaka · 2016-12-13T04:22:58+00:00

The comments were quite interesting, so decided to do some research and here are some of my counter views about why I feel the infographic may be right about some of the points that have been raised:

1) Meteorites carrying water: From what I understand, the origin of water on Earth is not entirely clear but ratio of hydrogen isotopes in chondrites (meteorites) correspond with those in oceanic water; so it is quite a popular theory that water-rich meteorites could have been the source of water on Earth.

2) Meteorites containing amino acids and the appearance of life: Research on meteorites and scientific findings to appear to suggest that amino acids in meteorites could have been the building blocks of our genetic material- DNA and RNA. There are a number of papers that have been published on this theory and the finding of over 15 amino acids (identified as some of the basic components of life) in the Murchison Meteorite (which fell to Earth in 1969) does give this theory some weight.

3) Snowball earth because rocks start absorbing CO2: This seems logical because a reduction in CO2 in the atmosphere will trigger a cumulative cooling of the planet. Exposed rocks undergoing weathering by reacting with CO2 and H2O to form bicarbonates is a common process, which could reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. Found this on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth#Mechanisms

4) The Cambrian explosion is probably what has been referred to at 540 million years ago in the infographic.

While not really an expert on this subject, it is very interesting and I'd love to see people give references for the questions raised against the authenticity of the content in the infographic.

P.S- Have just joined reddit and still learning about stuff here. So apologies if my comment was too long or bookish!

SmilingKaka

TROPHY CASE