Learning styles are simply different approaches or ways of learning.

What are the types of learning styles?

 Visual Learners:
learn through seeing...                    .

These learners need to see the teacher's body language and facial expression to fully understand the content of a lesson. They tend to prefer sitting at the front of the classroom to avoid visual obstructions (e.g. people's heads). They may think in pictures and learn best from visual displays including: diagrams, illustrated text books, overhead transparencies, videos, flipcharts and hand-outs.  During a lecture or classroom discussion, visual learners often prefer to take detailed notes to absorb the information.

Auditory Learners:
learn through listening...

They learn best through verbal lectures, discussions, talking things through and listening to what others have to say. Auditory learners interpret the underlying meanings of speech through listening to tone of voice, pitch, speed and other nuances. Written information may have little meaning until it is heard. These learners often benefit from reading text aloud and using a tape recorder.

Tactile/Kinesthetic Learners:
learn through , moving, doing and touching...    

Tactile/Kinesthetic persons learn best through a hands-on approach, actively exploring the physical world around them. They may find it hard to sit still for long periods and may become distracted by their need for activity and exploration.

The Yomiuri Shimbun/Asia News Network
Tuesday, Oct 04, 2011

More and more riders of fixed-gear bikes -racing bicycles without brakes - are being ticketed by police for riding on public roads.

Riding a bicycle without brakes on a public road is a violation of the Road Traffic Law.

The number of cases in which police have taken action against such bicycles--known as "fixies" in the West and "piste bikes" in Japan - has also increased. "Piste" is a French word meaning race track.

Piste bikes have fixed gears directly linking the rotation of pedals to the rear wheel and are primarily used for track racing.

To stop the bikes, riders must stop the rotation of the pedals, but they can be difficult to stop quickly.

The law stipulates that bicycles on public roads must be equipped with brakes on both front and rear wheels. The Metropolitan Police Department warns that violators face up to a 50,000 yen fine.

In February last year, a 34-year-old company employee crashed his piste bike into a 69-year-old woman on a road in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo.

The woman fell, hit her head and died. The man was referred to prosecutors on suspicion of serious negligent homicide and violation of the Road Traffic Law.

In May last year, a piste bike hit a 92-year-old woman cleaning a road in Shibuya and the woman suffered a broken collar bone.

The bicycles in both cases did not have brakes. "Such accidents are caused partly because of overconfidence on the part of the riders that they have the skill to avoid collisions with pedestrians," a senior MPD officer said.

The MPD ticketed riders on bicycles with faulty brakes in only two cases in 2009, but the number jumped to 661 in 2010.

By the end of August this year, the number has already reached 614, up 238 from the same period last year, accounting for 52 percent of traffic violations by bicycle riders.

Police in other parts of the country are cracking down harder on piste bikes, with Aichi and Kumamoto prefectural police having taken action against violators for the first time in September.

On Sept. 28, Mitsunori Fukuda, 36, of the TV comedy duo Tutorial received a ticket for riding a piste bike in Tokyo.

Fukuda was stopped by police in Setagaya Ward while he was riding a sport bike with only a front wheel brake.

He explained to his production company, "I thought it was all right if one of the wheels had a brake." He added, "I'll make sure not to do it again."

Goro Murayama, 39, a curator at the Jitensha Bunka Center, which promotes bicycles in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, said an increasing number of young people have begun riding piste bikes recently after seeing them in magazines because they feel the bikes are fashionable.

Fixed-gear bikes usually cost from tens of thousands of yen up to about 300,000 yen.

Though bicycle makers have released models equipped with brakes, some buyers remove the brakes to make them look more fashionable.

In December last year, the MPD asked the Bicycle Dealers of Tokyo, an association of bicycle shop owners, to explain to customers that bikes without brakes are not allowed on public roads.

Because many piste bikes are sold on the Internet, the MPD in February asked Yahoo Japan Corp. and Rakuten Inc., which operate online shopping malls, to instruct bicycle shop operators to explain brake requirements on their Web sites.

An official of Y. International Inc., a chain of sport bicycle shops in Tokyo and the surrounding area, said, "When we sell piste bikes without brakes, we ask customers to sign affidavits that they will not ride on public roads."

Haruka Takachiho, 59, a writer who is also an avid fan of bicycles, said, "Professional bicycle racers who know the most about piste bikes say it's impossible to ride them on public roads without brakes."

"Though some young people ride piste bikes without brakes to be fashionable, they may cause very serious accidents. It's unforgivable to think anything goes as long as it looks fashionable," he said.

Optical Illusion

According to a statement just issued by Apple's Board of Directors, company co-founder and longtime CEO Steve Jobs has passed away.

Apple has also put up the following website in memory. They're asking for "thoughts, memories, and condolences" to be shared by way of this email address: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

It was only a little over a month ago that Jobs stepped down as CEO saying at the time, "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come."

Jobs remained Chairman of the Board at the company, as well as director and an Apple employee. He recommended that company COO Tim Cook take his place as CEO. Yesterday, Cook gave his first keynote address as CEO, unveiling the new iPhone 4S.

While that device had been the focal point of Apple's website for the past 24 hours, Apple.com is now simply dedicated to Jobs, using a famous picture of him that will also grace the cover of his upcoming biography by Walter Isaacson due out next month.

Jobs had battled cancer, and in 2004 had an operation related to the disease. In recent years, illness had forced him to step back from his role as CEO of Apple on separate occasions. He also had a liver transplant in 2009 during one of those medical leaves.

But after each battle, he came back and continued his amazing work at Apple. In 2007, he unveiled the iPhone. In 2010, the iPad. His last appearance on stage was at Apple's 2011 WWDC event in San Francisco. There, he laid the groundwork for Apple's latest innovations including iOS 5, OS X Lion, and iCloud.

Steve Jobs was 56 years old.

Everybody knows it and uses it almost everyday. But how did Google got its name?

Google derived its name from the word "googol", a term coined by then nine-year-old Milton Sirotta, nephew of the American mathematician Edward Kasner. The story goes, Kasner had asked his nephew to invent a name for a very large number - ten to the power of one hundred (the numeral one followed by 100 zeros), and Milton called it a googol. The term was later made popular and in Kasner's book, Mathematics and the Imagination, which he co-authored with James Newman. Later, another mathematician invented the term "googolplex" which represents ten to the power of a googol - a substantially larger number

Did you know that Google got its name through a typo?  In 1997 what we now know as Google was called Backrub. After some brainstorming, they decided to change the name to Googol but when they registered the domain they typed Google!

As Google is now the world's most popular search engine, its association with a number so vast is appropriate. According to www.google.com, "Google's use of the term [Google] reflects the company's mission to organize the immense, seemingly infinite amount of information available on the web."  In fact, this mission itself grows increasingly large daily, as the Internet continues to grow exponentially throughout the world.

And did you now that there was a cartoon character called "Barney Google" created by Billy DeBeck in 1919? Maybe people at Google got the idea from it.

Yahoo got its name through the acronym “Yet another hierarchal officious oracle”

And last but not least, Bing! Although there’s no confirmation from Microsoft on this, many people believe that Bing is an acronym also: Because It’s Not Google

Next time you do the shopping and carry home the things in a  plastic carry bag, think and realise that you are  contributing your share to a deadly plastic pollution whose ill effects are  irreversible and capable of reaching out to many generations  to come. Plastic is one of the major toxic pollutants of our time. Being composed of  toxic chemicals and most importantly a non biodegradable  substance, plastic pollutes earth and leads to air pollution and water pollution. There is no safe way to  dispose plastic waste.

The name transistor comes from the word 'trans' of transmitter and the word 'sistor' of resistor.  The transistor is a three terminal, solid state electronic device. In a three terminal device we can control electric current or voltage between two of the terminals by applying an electric current or voltage to the third terminal. This three terminal character of the transistor is what allows us to make an amplifier for electrical signals, like the one in our radio. With the three-terminal transistor we can also make an electric switch, which can be controlled by another electrical switch. By cascading these switches (switches that control switches that control switches, etc.) we can build up very complicated logic circuits.

These logic circuits can be built very compact on a silicon chip with 1,000,000 transistors per square centimeter. We can turn them on and off very rapidly by switching every 0.000000001 seconds. Such logic chips are at the heart of your personal computer and many other gadgets you use today.