MOUNT EVEREST HISTORY/FACTS:

Welcome to Mount Everest facts. In this site you will find many informative facts of Mt.Everest and a bit of history. Any facts or history bits you feel should be added, just send an e-mail as usual at the bottom of page..

Age of Everest:Everest was formed about 60 million years ago

Elevation: 29,035 (8850m)-found to be 6' higher in 1999

Name in Nepal: Sagarmatha (means: goddess of the sky)

In Tibet: Chomolungma: (means: mother goddess of the universe)

Named after: sir George Everest in 1865 ,the British surveyor-general of India. Once known as Peak 15

Location: Latitude 27° 59' N.....Longitude 86° 56' E It's summit ridge seperates Nepal and Tibet

irst Ascent: May 29,1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary, NZ and Tenzing Norgay, NP, via the South Col Route

First Solo Ascent: Aug. 20,1980, Reinhold Messner, IT, via the NE Ridge to North Face

First winter Ascent: Feb. 17,1980 -L.Cichy and K. Wielicki, POL

First Ascent by an American: May 1,1963, James Whittaker, via the South-Col
Mt. Everest rises a few milimeters each year due to geological forces

Everest Name: Sir George Everest was the first person to record the height and location of Mt. Everest, this is where Mt."Everest" got its name from(In american language)

First Ascent by a Woman: May 16,1975, Junko Tabei, JAP, via the South-Col

First Ascent by an American Woman: Sep.29,1988, Stacey Allison, Portland, OR via the South-East Ridge

First Oxygenless Ascent: May 8, 1978- Reinhold Messner, IT, and Peter Habeler, AUT, via the South-East Ridge

First woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest from both north & south sides: Cathy O'Dowd (S.A.) South May 25,1996/North '99

Fastest Ascent from South: Babu Chhiri Sherpa 34, NP-16 hours and 56 minutes (5-21-2000)

Fastest Ascent (north side): Hans Kammerlander (IT) May,24,1996, via the standard North Col Ridge Route, 16 hours 45 minutes from base camp

Youngest person: Temba Tsheri (NP) 15 on May,22,2001

Oldest Person: Sherman Bull May,25,2001 -64 yrs

First Legally Blind Person: Erik Weihenmeyer May,25,2001

Most Ascents: Eleven, 24th May 2000 Appa Sherpa became the first person to climb Everest 11 times-Ten, Ang Rita Sherpa, Babu Chiri Sherpa all ascents were oxygen-less.

Best and Worst Years on Everest: 1993, 129 summitted and eight died (a ratio of 16:1); in 1996, 98 summitted and 15 died (a ratio of 6½:1)

Highest cause cause of death: Avalanches-about a (2:1) ratio over falls

Country with most deaths on mountain: Nepal-46

Most dangerous area on mountain: Khumbu Ice Fall-19 deaths

First ski descent: Davo Karnicar (Slovenia) 10-7-2000

Last year without ascent: 1974

Last year without ascent: 1977

Corpses remaining on Everest: about 120

Longest stay on top: Babu Chiri Sherpa stayed at the summit full 21 hours and a half

Largest team: In 1975, China tackled Everest with a 410-member team.

Fastest descent: In 1988, Jean-Marc Boivin of France descended from the top in just 11 minutes, paragliding.Only climber to climb all 4 sides of Everest: Kushang Sherpa, now an instructor with Himlayan Mountaineering Institute

First person to hike from sea level to summit, no oxygen: 11th May 1990,Tim Macartney-Snape, Australian

Largest number to reach the top in one day:40, on May 10, 1993

First person to summit Everest twice: Nawang Gombu-Nepal(once with Whitaker in '63,and again two years later in '65)Gombu now works for the Himalayan mountaineering institute

The oldest woman to summit :Anna Czerwinska May 22, 2000.

Insurance

A large number of homogeneous exposure units. The vast majority of insurance policies are provided for individual members of very large classes. Automobile insurance, for example, covered about 175 million automobiles in the United States in 2004.[2] The existence of a large number of homogeneous exposure units allows insurers to benefit from the so-called “law of large numbers,” which in effect states that as the number of exposure units increases, the actual results are increasingly likely to become close to expected results. There are exceptions to this criterion. Lloyd's of London is famous for insuring the life or health of actors, actresses and sports figures. Satellite Launch insurance covers events that are infrequent. Large commercial property policies may insure exceptional properties for which there are no ‘homogeneous’ exposure units. Despite failing on this criterion, many exposures like these are generally considered to be insurable.

Definite Loss. The event that gives rise to the loss that is subject to the insured, at least in principle, take place at a known time, in a known place, and from a known cause. The classic example is death of an insured person on a life insurance policy. Fire, automobile accidents, and worker injuries may all easily meet this criterion. Other types of losses may only be definite in theory. Occupational disease, for instance, may involve prolonged exposure to injurious conditions where no specific time, place or cause is identifiable. Ideally, the time, place and cause of a loss should be clear enough that a reasonable person, with sufficient information, could objectively verify all three elements.

Accidental Loss. The event that constitutes the trigger of a claim should be fortuitous, or at least outside the control of the beneficiary of the insurance. The loss should be ‘pure,’ in the sense that it results from an event for which there is only the opportunity for cost. Events that contain speculative elements, such as ordinary business risks, are generally not considered insurable.

Large Loss. The size of the loss must be meaningful from the perspective of the insured. Insurance premiums need to cover both the expected cost of losses, plus the cost of issuing and administering the policy, adjusting losses, and supplying the capital needed to reasonably assure that the insurer will be able to pay claims. For small losses these latter costs may be several times the size of the expected cost of losses. There is little point in paying such costs unless the protection offered has real value to a buyer.

Affordable Premium. If the likelihood of an insured event is so high, or the cost of the event so large, that the resulting premium is large relative to the amount of protection offered, it is not likely that anyone will buy insurance, even if on offer. Further, as the accounting profession formally recognizes in financial accounting standards, the premium cannot be so large that there is not a reasonable chance of a significant loss to the insurer. If there is no such chance of loss, the transaction may have the form of insurance, but not the substance.

Calculable Loss:

There are two elements that must be at least estimable, if not formally calculable: the probability of loss, and the attendant cost. Probability of loss is generally an empirical exercise, while cost has more to do with the ability of a reasonable person in possession of a copy of the insurance policy and a proof of loss associated with a claim presented under that policy to make a reasonably definite and objective evaluation of the amount of the loss recoverable as a result of the claim.

Limited risk of catastrophically large losses. The essential risk is often aggregation. If the same event can cause losses to numerous policyholders of the same insurer, the ability of that insurer to issue policies becomes constrained, not by factors surrounding the individual characteristics of a given policyholder, but by the factors surrounding the sum of all policyholders so exposed. Typically, insurers prefer to limit their exposure to a loss from a single event to some small portion of their capital base, on the order of 5 percent. Where the loss can be aggregated, or an individual policy could produce exceptionally large claims, the capital constraint will restrict an insurer's appetite for additional policyholders. The classic example is earthquake insurance, where the ability of an underwriter to issue a new policy depends on the number and size of the policies that it has already underwritten. Wind insurance in hurricane zones, particularly along coast lines, is another example of this phenomenon.

How technology lifts Pixar's 'Up'

If you want to consider a difficult computational problem, try thinking of the algorithms required to animate more than 10,000 helium balloons, each with its own string, but each also interdependent on the rest, which are collectively hoisting aloft a small house.The production team at Pixar faced many new technological challenges on "Up," its tenth feature film.

That was the challenge the production team at Pixar faced when it set out to begin work on "Up," its tenth feature film, five years in the works, which hits theaters on Friday.

There was absolutely no way the team was going to hand-animate the balloons. Not with their numbers in five-figures, and especially not when you consider that within the cluster, every interaction between two balloons has a ripple effect: If one bumped another, the second would move, likely bumping a third, and so on. And every bit of this would need to be seen on screen.

In "Up," the story revolves around the main character, 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen, who, frustrated with his mundane life, ties the thousands of balloons to his house and sets off for adventures in South America. A small boy ends up marooned on board, and hilarity ensues.

The cluster of balloons is so central to the film's branding--it's called "Up," after all--that to promote the film, Pixar teamed up with two of the world's cluster ballooning experts for a nationwide tour involving a real-life flying armchair and dozens of huge, colorful balloons.

"You have a movie that's about a house that flies, which is a pretty far-fetched idea," said Steve May, the supervising technical director on "Up." "We all know, from kids' parties, how a bunch of balloons behave, so if we could animate balloons in a realistic way, the believability that the house could fly would sell"

Virgin rolls out new pricing plan

Virgin Media is planning to reconfigure its monthly mobile pricing plans.
The company said that it would be offering a pair of new mobile voice and data packages for mobile users. The 18 month pricing plans will cost ₤18 and ₤25 respectively.
Advertisement

The ₤18 plan will offer users the option of unlimited data or text messages, while the ₤25 plan will offer unlimited data and text messages.
Customers who are using Virgin Media's other services (land-line, broadband or television) will also be offered the incentive of free calls within the Virgin mobile network.
The company hopes that the offers will undercut competing carriers, particularly in the higher-end market. Virgin notes that the ₤18 plan is ₤2 cheaper per month than competing plans.
"We’re offering consumers outstanding value and much greater choice, with hundreds of minutes, countless texts and endless web browsing included in their monthly package," said Graeme Oxby, managing director of Virgin Media's mobile branch.
"Mobile from Virgin Media offers a compelling alternative to more expensive, long term contracts and we’re bringing all the benefits of the UK’s leading entertainment and communications company right into the customers’ pocket."
Appealing to customers pocketbooks in has been a popular strategy for Virgin in the midst of the economic crisis. Earlier this year the company dropped its lowest-priced plan to £8.50, and in April the company's US branch unveiled a plan which allows customers to miss up to three payments if they become unemployed.

How currency exchange (FOREX) market works

I bet you are well aware of the existent of Forex trading nowadays. Forex market exists wherever one currency is traded for another. Forex, or Foreign Exchange Market, is generally works as an international currency exchange market. Investors and speculators are allowed to trade currencies from all around the world thru Forex trading.

Forex is a very unique type of trading where traders are buying and selling 'money' in the same time. The trades are done in pairs, such as Euro/JPY, USD/CHF, and CAD/USD. It is the world largest trading market where an average of $1.9 trillion trades is done on a daily basis. The turnover rates in FOREX are nearly 30 times larger than the total volume of equity trades in United States.

Despite its large volume of trades done daily, Forex is relative new to the publics nonetheless. It is only made available to publics in year 1998 where big sized inter-bank units are sliced into smaller pieces and offered to individual traders like you and me. Before that, Forex is a game only for banks, multi national cooperation, and big currency dealers. Only those with large business size and strong financial background were permitted to trade foreign currencies.

Foreign Currency and Currency Exchange Rates

You must express the amounts you report on your U.S. tax return in U.S. dollars. If you receive all or part of your income or pay some or all of your expenses in foreign currency, you must translate the foreign currency into U.S. dollars. How you do this depends on your functional currency. Your functional currency generally is the U.S. dollar unless you are required to use the currency of a foreign country.
You must make all federal income tax determinations in your functional currency. The U.S. dollar is the functional currency for all taxpayers except some qualified business units (QBUs). A QBU is a separate and clearly identified unit of a trade or business that maintains separate books and records.
Even if you have a QBU, your functional currency is the dollar if any of the following apply.

• You conduct the business in dollars.
• The principal place of business is located in the United States.
• You choose to or are required to use the dollar as your functional currency.
• The business books and records are not kept in the currency of the economic environment in which a significant part of the business activities is conducted.

Swine Flu

The 2009 outbreak of Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 is an epidemic of a new strain of influenza virus identified in April 2009, commonly referred to as "swine flu." It is thought to be a mutation ("reassortment") of four known strains of influenza A virus subtype H1N1: one endemic in humans, one endemic in birds, and two endemic in pigs (swine).[70] The source of the outbreak in humans is still unknown, but cases were first discovered in the U.S. and soon after in Mexico, which had a surge of cases, many of them fatal. As a result, the U.N.'s World Health Organization (WHO), along with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), expressed concern that this could become a worldwide flu pandemic, with WHO raising its alert level to "Phase 5" out of the six maximum, indicating that a pandemic was "imminent."

According to the CDC, it is not yet clear how serious this new virus actually is compared with other influenza viruses, although on May 26th they stated that new cases in the U.S. have probably peaked, and most cases throughout the world have so far been mild relative to "seasonal flus." But because this is a new virus, most people will not have immunity to it, and illness may eventually become more severe and widespread in different demographic and population groups as a result. The H1N1 flu mainly spreads in the same way that regular "seasonal influenza" spreads, which is through the air from coughs and sneezes or touching those infected. It cannot be transmitted from eating cooked pork or by being in close contact with pigs.

As yet there is no vaccine available to prevent infection although companies are in the planning stages for having one available later this year. But there is concern that the virus could mutate again over the coming months, leading to a new and potentially more dangerous flu outbreak later in the year, and a vaccine that will be less effective in preventing its spread. Health officials in the U.S. point out that the "horrific" 1918 flu epidemic, which killed 20 million people in the United States alone, was preceded by a mild "herald" wave of cases in the spring.

As of May 26, the virus had spread to more than 46 countries; however, over 80% of reported deaths have taken place in Mexico. This has led to speculation that Mexico may have been in the midst of an unrecognized epidemic for many months prior to the current outbreak. According to the CDC, the fact that the flu's infection activity is now monitored more closely may help explain why more flu cases than normal are being recorded in Mexico, the United States and other countries. About half of all influenza

CAR model

My Other Car is a Bright Green City

Today's cars are costly, dangerous and an ecological nightmare. What if the solution to the problems they create, though, has more to do with where we live than what we drive?

This is a rough draft of a long essay about why I believe building compact communities should be one of America's highest environmental priorities, and why, in fact, our obsession with building greener cars may be obscuring some fundamental aspects of the problem and some of the benefits of using land-use change as a primary sustainability solution.

It's very rough in some places. But I'd like to put it out there as an opportunity for discussion, and hopefully all you smart folks can help me make it better. So, what do you think about this issue and how can I improve this piece?

Recently, I gave a talk at the IDSA conference, and, as it happened, my talk followed a presentation from the folks at Tesla, sharing the design process of their electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster.

Since I was there to talk about sustainability, and was talking to a big room full of designers, I tried to lay out how serious our environmental predicament has become, and how much we'll need to change if we want to steer clear of ecological catastrophe. Along the way, I shared a few of the reasons why I thought the Roadster, though undoubtedly cool, went nowhere near far enough to be called sustainable.

The response surprised me. After my talk, scores of people approached me or emailed me to ask, in generally polite tones, what the hell I was talking about? How could a car that gets 135 mpg-equivalent not be a major harbinger of sustainability?

Because the answer to the problem of the American car is not under the hood, and we're not going to find a bright green future by looking there.

The U.S. economy, as currently configured, is destroying the planet. We are responsible for the lion's share of a great many global problems, including being both the largest historical carbon polluter and the leading source of global emissions today

In addition, for the several billion people in the developing world who are rapidly climbing out of poverty, our lifestyles are the measure of prosperity. If they replicate the American way of life several billion more times, our goose is cooked. The natural systems on which we depend cannot survive the tidal wave of pollution and ecosystem degradation it would take to enrich billions of people using current technologies, designs and lifestyle choices. And we're not going to talk people out of pursuing a more affluent life: it's insane to think that we can talk them out of pursuing affluence while we waste our way to wealth. If we're serious about saving the planet, we need to help them create better alternatives.

The single best way we can do that is to lead by example. By embracing our own models of sustainably prosperous living, we would do two things: we'd help change the cultural messaging about what prosperity really means, and we'd create some (perhaps many) of technologies and designs other countries will need to invent their own models. More importantly, we'd show that we're taking responsibility for the massive burden we're already placing on the planet, and show that we're again willing to show leadership on global issues. That alone might lead to reinvigorated global negotiations on a whole host of key problems.

So we need a one-planet America and we need it quickly. People hold differing views about what one-planet and quickly mean, but as we better grasp the nature of our predicament, it seems more and more likely that if we want to unveil our model in time for other countries to follow suit, we need to be living it by 2030, and if we take seriously the voices I find most credible on issues of climate change, ecosystem services and the like, that new model needs to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 80-90%, drop our raw materials flows by a comparable amount, preserve ecosystem functions across broad swathes of the landscape and dramatically decrease the volume of toxic chemicals finding their way into our soil, air and water.

Lots of argument can (and will be) had about all of these goals. No one really knows for sure yet. But I am increasingly confident that these are in the right ball-park and may even prove to be moderate to conservative targets.