The Amazing Success Story of Google

I have presented below the amazing success story of google. This article focuses more on straight points rather than lengthy explanations.

Let us see some quick facts & figures:

Google was named after the number “Googol” which means one followed by a hundred zeros. It is the top search engine with over fifty percent market share. It is one of the top three most visited websites. Over four thousand million searches are conducted every month on it. It has localized websites for over 150 countries. There are over 117 language options to view your Google page in. This search engine is supported by a backend of over 80,000 to 100,000 servers.

The Story Of Google, Inc:

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

The founders of Google are Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It was started in 1996-97 in Stanford University when both of them were students there. They received start-up venture capital of $100,000 in 1998 from Andy Bechtolsheim. In 1999, they received $25 Million in venture capital. This further bolstered their growth. The growth in terms of employees, search queries & revenues was always increasing. The primary focus has always been on search.

Some Major Milestones of Google:

Over 100 Million searches were being conducted daily by 2000. They started their advertising programs adwords and adsense in 2002-03. They went public in 2004 with an initial public offering in USA and raised $1.67 Billion. They formed major partnerships with NASA & AOL in 2005. The Google stock was added to S&P 500 index in 2006. The company employment crossed 10,000 employees in 2007. The graph of Google has only been going up. Let us know more about the amazing story of this company.

Major Acquisitions:

- Blogger from Pyra Labs in 2003.

- Picasa in 2004 for Photo management.

- Keyhole in 2004 – Google Earth.

- YouTube in 2006 – Online Videos.

- FeedBurner in 2006 – RSS feeds.

- DoubleClick in 2007 – Online Advertising.

Major Products & Services of Google:

- Search – text, images, videos, news, books, blogs, patents, code, etc.

- Google Maps & Google Earth.

- Latest news & financial information.

- Google Docs.

- Google Labs.

- Calendar, Groups, Google Scholar, etc.

Other Major Websites run by Google:

- YouTube.com – Online Video Sharing.

- Orkut.com – Social Networking.

- Picasa.com – Photo Sharing & Management.

- Gmail.com – Email.

- Blogger.com – Blogging.

Some Google Trivia:

It was the number one employer according to Fortune magazine in 2007. Google is now a verb in dictionaries. Google.org has committed 1% of its revenues to the betterment of society. They have also started scanning of library books to make data more accessible.

The future for Google:

They are continuously innovating and launching new products. There has been a constant increase in earnings. The growth of Internet usage boosts revenues further. They are focusing on formation of new partnerships. They have already completed acquisitions of new companies (over 50).

In Conclusion:

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. They have stuck to it till now and hope to do so in future.

Longest Bike in the World!

The bike is 31 feet 4 inches long (9 metres 57 cm). The bike is built by somebody in Russia and he did so to enter his name in the guiness book of world records which is successfully managed to do.It’s creator Oleg “Leshij” Rogov was from Tver city, a small town near Moscow city. He was a big biker fan since his childhood. One day he has got an idea to build the longest bike in the world, according to his own story “probably after he got too much  beer inside”.

Seems like it has 16 seats but I am sure if its brought to any house, they can even manage over 100 people over it easily. I am not much sure about the engine specifics or the gearbox transmission it uses. But look like a cool thin.

The saddest part of the story is that he got into accident and died this summer, still we have the photos of his creation, it would be some kind of tribute to him.

Greatest Games of All Time

Grand Theft Auto III is easily one of the greatest games of all time. It was quietly released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2 and after widespread critical acclaim and positive word of mouth, quickly became a cultural phenomenon that forever changed the world of video games. It may seem crude now, but when it was released, GTAIII offered an unprecedented level of freedom and detail, giving rise to terms like "sandbox" and "open world" to describe the entire genre of games that this one inspired. Yes, GTAIII was also violent and controversial, but it isn't the defining game of the PlayStation 2 era because of its success. Rather, it epitomizes its generation because it's an undeniably fun, well-designed, immersive, and hilarious game that broke new ground for future games to follow.

There's something satisfying about launching an all-out war on an entire city, just for the heck of it.

In what might be the most significant leap forward for any video game franchise, GTAIII took the series from a somewhat obscure top-down game of cops and robbers to a fully realized action adventure set in an expansive 3D world. Playing GTAIII for the first time, it's easy to feel intimidated by the sheer scope of the game. You play as a nameless hero who happened to catch a lucky break and avoid going to prison. After a short intro, you're thrust into the streets of Liberty City, where you can do just about anything you want.

You can steal a car and simply cruise through town to check out the sights. Or, you can hop in an ambulance and try your hand at being a paramedic. If that doesn't suit your fancy, you can get behind the wheel of a police car and hunt down criminals to deliver your own brand of vigilante justice. And of course, you can always visit any of the dozens of intriguing story characters to take on special missions and earn some serious loot.

This looks like a lovely evening for a stroll through the park…

The size of the game's world and the freedom it gave you to explore are the most immediate and striking aspects of GTAIII, but it's more than just a huge maze of streets for you to run around in. Liberty City was so well designed and detailed that it felt remarkably lifelike. Pedestrians strolled down the street muttering to one another; newspapers blew in the wind; gangsters patrolled and protected their territories; hookers propositioned johns on street corners; and through it all, the sun continued to rise and set on the comfortable chaos of life in the big city.

Subsequent GTA games would expand the scope of the playable world to encompass multiple cities and miles of virtual space between, but Liberty City from GTAIII felt just right. It was by no means small; the game had three huge districts and hundreds of miles of roads to explore. The different districts were perfectly distinct--for instance, the hilly suburbs of Shoreside Vale offered a completely different experience from the seedy red-light district on Portland Island.

In addition to the superbly crafted world and top-notch gameplay, Grand Theft Auto III had a fantastic sense of humor. Everything from the dialogue and characters to the radio stations and billboards was infused with a satirical wit that was funny without feeling overplayed--a remarkable feat for a game that easily lasted 100 hours or more. Whether you were laughing out loud at the ridiculous Smokey and the Bandit-like antics of angry police officers or chuckling at the goofy Lazlow as he rambled on about nothing in particular on his talk radio show, there was always humor to be found among the mayhem in Grand Theft Auto III.

Who is this guy?

Of course, GTAIII generated plenty of controversy when it was first released. After all, a game that lets you pick up a hooker, have sex with her, and then rob and murder her is going to raise a few eyebrows. What you have to understand about the game is that it's not the senseless violence and mature themes that made it fun--violent games have existed for years. What made Grand Theft Auto III fun was the way it was so cleverly designed to keep you entertained despite a relative lack of structure. Essentially, GTAIII gave you the freedom to entertain yourself, which in this case proved much more effective than holding your hand and dragging you through a rigidly organized series of challenges. Grand Theft Auto III defied all expectations of what a video game must be and delivered a gameplay experience unlike any other. And for that, it's without a doubt one of the greatest games of all time.

The fastest car in the world!

The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 is a rear mid-engined grand touring car. The Super Sport version is the fastest road-legal car in the world, with a top speed of 431.07 km/h (267.85 mph).[4] The original version has a top speed of 408.00 km/h (253.52 mph).Buggati is a great car but it also need a lot of money for a person to buy it and after that you have to take care of it! Its really comfortable and if you are going on about 400 km/h than it feels like you are going about 120 km/h! which is really good for a car!

15 story building build in just six days!

This is a 15-Story hotel in china which was built in just six days completely.It's pretty amazing that they completed it in this short time.And it looks wonderful and beautiful! They have did it as they created the parts before and than just fixed them at the time.

Smallest Money Counter

So much cash stashed at home that fingers get tired while counting! Who wouldn’t want to live that life! The truth is that small business and maybe some households do have that kind of money, and the big counting machines currently available are inconvenient. So the solution lies in a compact Counting Ring, a simplified money counting machine. It packs in features like LED Display & Power Switch, Sheet-Separating Veins, Battery Slot and Infrared Ray Scanning. Slip it on the thumb and you’re set. My only worry would be a bundle of soiled and crumpled notes, however overall for a majority of cash-stash, this should do. 

Monster Rabbits

There are many stories about "Monster Rabbits",some of them are below for you!

First Story:

        

The man says "Here is my monster rabbits, mommy monster, daddy monster,and me breaking my back holding this big monster buck rabbit.They are gentle giants, monster rabbits is the name my neighborslike to call them. The doe is called Snookie, and the buck is called Tank, of course."

Second Story:

This man has been showing off his gigantic rabbit named Herman.

The mighty bunny weighs a massive 7.7kg or 17 lbs, and his ears are a lengthy 21cm - almost as long as most pet rabbits are tall. And he is almost 1m tall.

The German Giant is even big for his breed, which usually tip the scales at around 6kg.

Herman lives in a specially built solid oak hutch and chomps his way through just over 2kg of food a day. His owner says his favorite snack is lettuce.

The giant bunny, who lives in Berlin with owner Hans Wagner, also takes a vitamin supplement to keep him healthy, and munches through a bale of hay a week.

Bred big he says:

"Herman could be the world's biggest rabbit, but Guinness World Records have stopped accepting entries because of fears people were over-feeding their pets."

German Giants do not exist in the wild, and have been developed by breeders.

They can live for as long as 12 years.

Third Story:

German rabbit breeder Karl Szmolinsky presents his giant male breeding rabbit 'Robert' in Eberswalde, eastern Germany, February 2006. This monster rabbit is about 24 pounds.

In a tale reminiscent of the last Wallace and Gromit movie, furious villagers in northeast England have hired armed guards to protect their beloved communal vegetable gardens from a suspected monster rabbit. (AFP/File/Michael Urban)

These photos were obviously taken to make this pet rabbit look even more like a monster rabbit.

This rabbit picture was taken in this manner to make the rabbit look even larger. And yes, this is a truly big pet rabbit.

 Tags: Monster Rabbits,Largest rabbits,huge cute rabbits,huge rabbits,rabbits,biggest rabbits,largest rabbits,biggest rabbits in the world.

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Facebook in the year 2005

This is the facebook profile picture in year 2005 and this is much different from today's facebook profile.And at that time it was only open for University Students and all the features were basic and it was known as "The Facebook" at that time! As it was created for students to stay connected with one another after they will leave for another place to complete their studies!And with the time it got better and better ,and today its the most famous site and biggest social network at the time it challenged its competitor "My Space" .But its unique and its Billionaire Owner Mark is the Youngest Billionaire ,only due to Facebook! Facebook also founded their Advertsing system by which people can advertise and ads will show on peoples with same interest as the Ad have selected and you can choose age,sex,location and other interests of people who will view your ad! So that system become popular and Facebook is earning from it.And it is found that most people don't click on Facebook ads,i mean mostly! and i am also one of them who never ever clicked on their ad.Whatever but it still the Most Famous Social Network and the wealthiest one and getting profit too.

Amazing New Species in the World!

Spectacular species previously unknown to the outside world are being discovered in the Amazon rainforest at a rate of one every three days, environment group WWF said in a report published Tuesday.

An anaconda as long as a limousine, a giant catfish that eats monkeys, a blue fanged spider and poisoned dart frogs are among the 1,220 animals and plants to have been found from 1999 to 2009, according to the study.

The report was released on the sidelines of a United Nations summit in Japan that is being held to try to stem the mass extinction of species around the world, and the WWF said it highlighted why protecting the Amazon was so vital. "This report clearly shows the incredible, amazing diversity of life in the Amazon," Francisco Ruiz, head of WWF's Living Amazon Initiative, told reporters at the launch.

"(But) this incredible region is under pressure because of the human presence. The landscape is being very quickly transformed."

Logging and clearing for agriculture uses such as cattle farming and palm oil plantations have led to 17 percent of the Amazon -- an area twice the size of Spain -- being destroyed over the past 50 years, according to the WWF.

The WWF compiled the findings reported by scientists over the 10-year period to highlight the extent of biodiversity loss that may be occurring without humans even knowing while the Amazon is being cleared.

"It serves as a reminder of how much we still have to learn about this unique region, and what we could lose if we don't change the way we think about development," Ruiz said.

One of the most amazing discoveries was a four-metre (13-foot) anaconda in the flood plains of Bolivia's Pando province in 2002.

It was the first new anaconda species identified since 1936, and became only the fourth known type of that reptile, according to the WWF.

There were a total of 55 reptile species discovered, with others including two members of Elapidae -- the most venomous snake family in the world that includes cobras and taipans.

A kaleidoscope of different coloured frogs were also found, including 24 of the famed poison dart variety and one that was translucent.

Among the 257 types of fish discovered in the rivers and lakes of the Amazon was a "goliath" catfish.

One of them found in Venezuela measured nearly 1.5 metres long and weighed 32 kilogrammes (over 70 pounds).

Although the "goliath" catfish normally exists on a diet of other fish, some of them have been caught with parts of monkeys in their stomachs, according to the WWF.

Another extraordinary species of catfish that was discovered in the Brazilian state of Rondonia was extremely small, blind and red.

Villagers found the fish when they accidentally trapped them in buckets after hauling up water from a well.

At least 500 spiders were also discovered, including one that was completely brown except for a pair of almost fluorescent blue fangs.

Thirty-nine new mammals were also found, including a pink river dolphin, seven types of monkey and two porcupines.

Among the 637 new plant species discovered were sunflowers, ivy, lilies, a variety of pineapple and a custard apple.

The Amazon is home to at least 40,000 plant species, and the WWF described the scale of diversity in some areas as "mind boggling".

It said 1,000 plant species were documented in one hectare (2.5 acres) of lowland rainforest in Ecuador, while 3,000 were found in a 24-hectare region of the Colombian section of the Amazon.

As part of efforts to save the Amazon, the Brazilian government has worked with the WWF, the World Bank and other groups to establish protected areas of rainforest covering 32 million hectares over the past six years.

The WWF said the protection efforts, in which foreign governments and organisations provide some of the finance to help run the projects, should serve as a model for the world in how to save rainforests.

“Rotating Snake” Illusion

First the orig­i­nal “Ro­tat­ing Snake” <http://​www.​ritsumei.​ac.​jp/​~ak­i­taoka/rotsnake.​gif> by Akiyoshi Ki­taoka, mod­i­fied just a lit­tle:

Back­ground – In the image above the strong (and beau­ti­ful) ro­ta­tion of the “wheels” oc­curs in re­la­tion to eye move­ments. On steady fix­a­tion the ef­fect van­ishes. For an ex­plana­tory hy­poth­e­sis, view the an­i­ma­tion on the right. You ma y wish to press the ‘Stop’ but­ton after a while … it gets on one’s nerves ;-). See also Backus & Oruc 2004 for their ex­pla­na­tion. What to ob­serve Even when fix­at­ing steadily, il­lu­sory mo­tion oc­curs on ap­pear­ance/ dis­ap­pear­ance Il­lu­sion does not de­pend on colour Ro­ta­tion di­rec­tion de­pends on the po­lar­ity of the lu­mi­nance steps (I arranged these to evoke a “gear­box ef­fect” here, by mir­ror­ing the im­ages ap­pro­pri­ately) Strength of il­lu­sion de­pends strongly on back­ground lu­mi­nance. The back­ground lu­mi­nance slowly ramps from 0% to 100% au­to­mat­i­cally, or you can use the slider. The il­lu­sion­ary ro­ta­tion is strongest for 50% gray (exact value will de­pend on your mon­i­tor ‘gamma’). Com­ment As Ki­taoka & Ashida (2003) de­scribe, asym­met­ric lu­mi­nance steps are re­quired. Pre­sum­ably ap­pear­ance of these trig­gers mo­tion de­tec­tors (as in the an­i­ma­tion on the right). I as­sume that the ac­tual mech­a­nism is quite sim­i­lar to the “Ro­tat­ing Spokes” il­lu­sion, where asym­met­ric lu­mi­nance steps occur as well. Gre­gory & Heard (1983) were the first to de­scribe that asym­met­ric lu­mi­nance steps cause il­lu­sory move­ment. A “Stress Test”? – No! Re­peat­edly, I was sent such pic­tures with the as­ser­tion that they com­prise a stress test (and some of the peo­ple send­ing me this were deeply wor­ried). And I just found a web page en­ti­tled “test on­line the level of stress” (I will not link to it) which con­tains these state­ments “For a nor­mal per­son, they should all move at a slow pace, barely ro­tat­ing. The slower the pic­tures ro­tate, the bet­ter your abil­ity of han­dling stress: Al­legedly, crim­i­nals see stress test im­ages mov­ing and spin­ning around madly, while se­niors and chil­dren see them still…” This is utter BS!   Don’t get alarmed.   For one, the ef­fect de­pends on eye move­ments, and these are known to dif­fer markedly be­tween sub­jects with­out re­lat­ing clearly to psy­cho­log­i­cal traits. Fur­ther, a few peo­ple do not see it at all (could be around 5%, among them a very renowned vi­sion sci­en­tist), in spite of ap­pro­pri­ate eye move­ments. There are no ac­tual data show­ing re­la­tions to stress (or age), so don't dis­tress your­self when you see it ro­tat­ing strongly or not at all. Sources Gre­gory RL, Heard PF (1983) Vi­sual dis­so­ci­a­tions of move­ment, po­si­tion, and stereo depth: Some phe­nom­e­nal phe­nom­ena. Quar­terly Jour­nal of Ex­per­i­men­tal Psy­chol­ogy 35A:217–237 [PDF] Ki­taoka A, Ashida H (2003) Phe­nom­e­nal char­ac­ter­is­tics of the pe­riph­eral drift il­lu­sion. VI­SION 15:261–262 Backus & Oruc 2004 VSS pre­sen­ta­tion ab­stract + back­ground ma­te­r­ial [seems no longer avail­able] Con­way BR, Ki­taoka A, Yaz­dan­bakhsh A, Pack CC, & Liv­ing­stone MS (2005) Neural basis for a pow­er­ful sta­tic mo­tion il­lu­sion. J Neu­rosci 25:5651–5656 Backus & Oruc (2005) Il­lu­sory mo­tion from change over time in the re­sponse to con­trast and lu­mi­nance. Jour­nal of Vi­sion 5:1055–1069

Silencing by Motion

What to see

On the right, there is a ro­tat­ing ring con­sist­ing of many coloured discs; best fix­ate the cen­tral cross. No­tice any­thing spe­cial? Well, the ring changes ro­ta­tion di­rec­tion, we all can eas­ily agree on that.

What to do

Press the ‘stop’ but­ton. Un­sur­pris­ingly, the ring re­frains from ro­tat­ing. Now it be­comes ob­vi­ous that all the small disks change their colour; going through rain­bow so to speak.

Start­ing the ring ro­ta­tion now and look­ing closely re­veals that the colour change hap­pens all the time, but it is barely not­i­ca­ble dur­ing ro­ta­tion. This can be demon­strated by press­ing the ‘hue–/hue+’ but­ton dur­ing ro­ta­tion; this has nearly no ef­fect dur­ing ring ro­ta­tion.

In­stead of the ring you can also se­lect to ro­tate a pin­wheel in the back­ground with sim­i­lar ef­fect. So it is not rel­e­vant that the small disks them­selves move to im­pare de­tec­tion of the hue change.

Com­ments

This ef­fect was pub­lished early in 2011 by Jor­dan W. Su­chow and George A. Al­varez from Har­vard Uni­ver­sity. It sub­se­quently won, de­servedly, the “Best Il­lu­sion of the Year Con­test”.

In the paper by Su­chow and Al­varaz and their 2011-VSS poster, not only in­ter­est­ing vari­ants but also sev­eral con­crete mech­a­nisms are dis­cussed and tested, which I need not go into here. An in­tu­itive ex­pla­na­tion: pro­cess­ing global mo­tion pre­sents an over­load, which im­pairs cod­ing of the local de­tails. This is a re­ally new ef­fect, and I think it may be re­lated to “mo­tion blind­ness”.

Sources

Su­chow JW, Al­varez GA (2011) Mo­tion Si­lences Aware­ness of Vi­sual Change. Cur­rent Bi­ol­ogy 21:1–5.
That pro­vides links to demon­stra­tion movies with a num­ber of in­ter­est­ing vari­ants.
You can find them also at their demon­stra­tion page.

Burr D (2011) Vi­sual Per­cep­tion: More Than Meets the Eye. Curr Biol 21:R159–R161 (thought­ful ed­i­to­r­ial)

I am thank­ful to Jor­dan for grace­fully al­low­ing me to pre­sent this demon­stra­tion, closely mod­eled after their pub­li­ca­tion.

Motion Induced Blindness

What to see

On the right you see a rotating array of blue crosses and 3 yellow dots. Now fixate on the centre (watch the flashing red/green spot). Note that the yellow spots disappear once in a while: singly, in pairs or all three simultaneously, right?

In reality, the 3 yellow spots are continuously present, honest! This is captively called “motion induced blindness” or MIB.

What to do

You can change the speed (preset to 12 rotations per minute). Disappearance persists down to surprisingly slow speeds.

You can adjust the size (preset to 5 pixels). Disappearance persists up to surprisingly large sizes.

You change the colour of the rotating crosses, the dots and the background. The dots disappear into whatever colour the background has.

The ‘reset’ button at the top restores the standard settings.

Comment

Steady fixation favours disappearance, blinks or gaze shifts induce reappearance. All in all reminiscent of the Troxler effect, but stronger and more resistant to residual eye movements.

In Feb 2008, John from Phoenix posed an intriguing question in the guestbook: If several people observe together, do the yellow dots disappearence disappear at the same time for everyone (synchronised)? I remember I briefly considered this years ago and rejected the hypothesis of synchronised perception as esoteric. I also informally tested this, and it did not occur. I still believe that the disappearence is an individual phenomenon, and thus not synchronised, but this should be formally tested with careful methodology. Should be an interesting experiment! Anyone?

There is no consensus as to the explanation in vision literature yet. I personally think that motion is not necessary, any (temporal) change in the image will suffice. [Note added 2008-03-07: see now Wallis & Arnold, 2008.] A more recent paper from that group (2009) sugggests a link of MIB to “motion blur / motion streak” suppression. If so, MIB would be illusion subserving a useful purpose in everyday vision. This also holds for a different explanatory approach by New & Scholl (2008) who conclude that “rather than being a failure of visual processing, MIB may be a functional product of the visual system’s attempt to separate distal stimuli from artifacts of damage to the visual system itself.”

A simple version of explanation: If you fixate steadily, all structures are imaged on their same retinal location. This leads to local adaptation on the retina (the Troxler effect, often incorrectly addressed as “fatigue”). By adding additional temporal modulation (here the rotation), effectively the background noise is increased. Thus the Troxler disappearence is more pronouned and/or happens faster.

Sources

Bonneh, Cooperman & Sagi (2001) Motion-induced blindness in normal observers. Nature 411:798–801

Wallis TSA & Arnold DH (2008) Motion-induced blindness is not tuned to retinal speed. JOV 8:11, 1–7

Wallis TSA & Arnold DH (2009) Motion-induced blindness and motion streak suppression. Current Biology 19:325–329 [website]

New JJ, Scholl BJ (2008) “Perceptual Scotomas” A functional account of motion-induced blindness. Psychological Science 19(7):653–659

Stepping feet” Motion Illusion

What to observe

Observe the movement of blue and yellow “feet”. The feet seem to step alternately, like tiny feet going tip-tap-tip-tap… This is more pronounced if you do not look directly on the feet, but between them. In reality their movement is always parallel. I find this phenomenon particularly cute.

What to do

With ‘grating±’ you can toggle grating visibility. Without the grating, it is obvious that the feet are not stepping out of phase. ‘contrast±’ dims the grating, helping to appreciate that the feet are always moving completely in parallel. The value stepper at the bottom controls speed.

The stepper above the speed stepper sets the number of bars per foot. This is preset to 4, the effect occurs also at all other even values. For odd values, e.g. 5, the motion also becomes odd: instead of stepping alternately, the feet seem to move like worms, extending and shortening. [This option added 2012.]

The sliders at top and bottom control the luminance of their respective foot. When you make the yellow foot brighter than the light bars of the grating, it does not lag behind any more. When you make it very dark, it moves together with the blue foot. The sliders (added 2010) allow you to experiment with the explanations below, I still prefer the “level 2” explanantion.

There are more buttons with (hopefully) obvious functions.

Comments

Stuart Anstis first demonstrated this illusion in 2003.

Level-1-explanation:

Press the “Color±” button. Now it becomes obvious that the edges of the light ‘foot’ merge with the light bars, and are only visible when they traverse the dark bars. So half of the time there really is no motion cue, and perception goes into default, i.e. no motion. For the dark foot the same holds, only at alternate times.

With reduced contrast of the grating (button “Contrast±”) isoluminance of edges and grating is no longer present, so the effect disappears.

The “worm-like” movement for an odd number of bars per foot is automatically explained as well.

Level-2-explanation:

Level-1-explanation plus: The edge information is only contained in colour, and the (magnocellular) motion system cannot see it.

Level-3-explanation:

The effect still persists when there is a slight contrast between foot and grating (can be achieved with the sliders). Anstis (2004) attributes this to slowing down of motion under conditions of reduced contrast (Thompson 1982), and goes much deeper into the subject.

Level-2007-explanation:

Just when I thought this illusion can be easily understood, there appears this complicated paper Howe et al. (2007), seemingly disproving my above thoughts and suggesting a very intricate explanation. Recently, I included this paper in a seminar and we tried to follow its evidence and reasoning, and couldn't. In consequence, my favoured explanation regresses to levels 1+2 above.

Sources

The demonstration above was inspired by Stuart’s version. Thanks to Wolfgang Wesemann for first drawing my attention to this phenomenon, and Wolfgang Beyer for bright ideas.

Anstis SM (2003) Moving objects appear to slow down at low contrasts. Neural Netw 16:933–938

Anstis SM (2004) Factors affecting footsteps: contrast can change the apparent speed, amplitude and direction of motion. Vision Res 44:2171–2178

Thompson P (1982) Perceived rate of movement depends on contrast. Vision Res 22:377–380

Howe PDL, Thompson PG, Anstis SM, Sagreiya H, Livingstone MJ (2006) Explaining the footsteps, belly dancer, Wenceslas, and kickback illusions. Journal of Vision 6, 1396–1405

Taj Mahal -An Eternal Love Story

Indus Valley Facts at a Glance

Indus Valley Facts at a Glance

The state which has accounted for highest number of Harappan sites after independence :Gujarat Three Harappan sites that have yielded three stages of Harappan Civilization (Pre-Harappan, Harappan and post-Harappan : Rojde, Desalpur and Surkotada ) Most commonly engraved animal on Harappan seals : Humpless bull or unicorn Site which have yielded evidence of a pre-Harappan settlement: Kot-Diji, Kalibangan and Harappa Major Harappan cities that acted as ports :Lothal, Balakot, Suktagendor and Allahdin (Pakistan) The Harappan city with most impressive drainage system : Mohenjo-daro The geometric shape of the region covered by the Indus civilisation : Triangle Wheeler said: Indus Valley is the colony of Sumerians Lions have not been found anywhere in Harappa. Mother goddess was not worshipped at Rangpur. A Kushana period Stupa has been found from Mohenjo-daro

Evidence of cultivation of peas. Till has been traced from Harappa, paddy from Lothal Harappans had trade relations with Mesopotamians around 2300 BC. Largest Harappan site in India is situated in Haryana Rakhigarhi, second largest is Dholavira in Gujarat. Dimension of Brick-length 11 inches, width -5.5 inches, depth -2.75 inches, ratio 4 2:1 Harappan wheels were axeless Mohenjo-daro had 10.5 mt wide road. In Harappa, perhaps because of river Ravi the Granery is outside the fort. In the Lothal Port, there was a dockyard which is 216 meters in length and 37 meters in breadth Sukotada is the only Indus site where remains of a horse have actually been found. Terracoota seals found at Mehargarh were the earliest precussors of Harappan seals. Wider road of Harappa was 30 foot. Most common materials used for the Harappan stone sculpture : Limestone and steatite Time span of the Harappan civilization as fixed on the basis of radio-carbon dating: 2300 BC - 1750 BC.

Interesting Facts About India

• The name 'India' is derived from the River Indus, the valleys around which were the home of the early settlers. The Aryan worshippers referred to the river Indus as the Sindhu.
• The Persian invaders converted it into Hindu. The name 'Hindustan' combines Sindhu and Hindu and thus refers to the land of the Hindus
• Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies, which originated in India.
• The world's highest cricket ground is in Chail, Himachal Pradesh. Built in 1893 after leveling a hilltop, this cricket pitch is 2444 meters above sea level
• Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to mankind. The Father of Medicine, Charaka,consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago.
• India exports software to 90 countries.
• Jainism and Buddhism were founded in India in 600 B.C. and 500 B.C. respectively.
• Islam is India's and the world's second largest religion.
• Jews and Christians have lived continuously in India since 200 B.C. and 52 A.D. respectively
• Sikhism originated in the Holy city of Amritsar in Punjab. Famous for housing the Golden Temple, the city was founded in 1577.

Indian Railway Facts

Following are the some of the important Indian Railway Facts

• The total distance covered by the 14,300 trains on the Indian Railways everyday, equals three & half times the distance to moon
• The first train on Indian soil ran between Bombay and Thane on the 16th of April 1853
• IR has about 63,028 route kms. of track
• IR employs about 1.55 million people
• It carries over 13 million passengers & 1.3 million tones of freight everyday
• It runs about 14,300 trains daily
• IR has about 7,000 railway stations
• The longest platform in the world is at Kharagpur and is 2,733 ft. in length
• Nehru Setu on Sone River is the longest Railway bridge
• 42 Railway companies operated in the country before independence
• Electric Locomotives are manufactured at Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Chittaranjan
• Coaches are manufactured at ICF/Chennai, RCF/Kapurthala and BEML/Bangaluru
• The national Rail Museum at New Delhi was set-up in 1977
• People Employed in Indian Railway are about 1.6 million
• Stations across State Lines are Navapur (Maharashtra and Gujarat) and Bhawani Mandi (Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan)
• Classes of travel on Indian Railway: Ist AC, 2nd AC, 3rd AC, AC Chair Car IInd sleeper & IInd ordinary
• Railway Station with all the Three Gauges is Siliguri Railway Station

First/Longest/Oldest in Indian Railways

First Passenger Train Ran On	16th April 1853 (between Bombay to Thane)
First Railway Bridge	Dapoorie Viaduct on the Mumbai-Thane route
First Rail Tunnel	Parsik Tunnel
First Ghats Covered by the Rail lines	Thal and Bhore Ghats
First Underground Railway	Calcutta METRO
First Computerized Reservation System started in	New Delhi (1986)
First Electric Train ran on	3rd Feb' 1925 (between Bombay VT and Kurla)
Toilets on Trains were introduced in	1891 (1st Class) & 1907 (lower classes)
Shortest Station Name	Ib (Orissa)
Longest Station Name	Sri Venkatanarasimharajuvariapeta (Tamil Nadu)
Busiest Railway Station	Lucknow (64 trains everyday)
Longest Run (Time)	Himsagar Express (3751 km in 74 hrs and 55 min)
Shortest Run	Route between Nagpur to Ajni (3km)
Longest Run for Daily Train	Kerala Express (3054 km in 42.5 hrs)
Longest Non-Stop Run (Distance)	Trivandrum Rajdhani (528 km in 6.5 hrs)
Longest Railway Platform in the World	Kharagpur (2,733 ft in length)
Longest Railway Bridge	Nehru Setu on Sone River (10044ft in length)
Longest Tunnel	Karbude On Konkan Railway between Monkey hill & Khandala (6.5 km)
Oldest Preserved Locomotive	Fairy Queen (1855), still in working order
Indian Railway's Fastest Train	Bhopal-Shatabdi (runs at a speed up to 140 Km/ph)
Train with Maximum Number of Halts	Howrah-Amritsar Express (115 halts)

Amazing Facts About India

• India is the world's largest, oldest, continuous civilization.
• India is the world's Largest democracy.
• India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.
• India invented the number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
• When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians establishedHarappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilization)
• There are 300,000 active mosques in India , more than in any other country, including the Muslim world
• Sanskrit is the mother of all the European Languages . Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software - a report in Forbes magzine July 1987.
• Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India.
• India is one of the few countries in the world, which gain independence without violence.
• India has the second largest pool of Scientist and Engineers in the World.
• India is the largest English speaking nation in the world.
• India is the only country other than US and Japan, to have built a super computer indeigenously.
• India has the largest number of Post Offices in the world
• The largest employer in the world is the Indian Railways , employing over a million people
• India was one of the richest countries till the time of British rule in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus, attracted by India's wealth, had come looking for a sea route to India when he discovered America by mistake.
• The Baily Bridge is the highest bridge in the world. It is located in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. It was built by the Indian Army in August 1982
• The Vishnu Temple in the city of Tirupathi built in the 10th century, is the world's largest religious pilgrimage destination. Larger than either Rome or Mecca, an average of 30,000 visitors donate $6 million (US) to the temple everyday.
• Varanasi, also known as Benaras, was called "the Ancient City" when Lord Buddha visited it in 500 B.C., and is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today.
• Martial Arts were first created in India, and later spread to Asia by Buddhist missionaries.
• Yoga has its origins in India and has existed for over 5,000 years.