ISO 9001:2000. Yes that's right. This post is certified with the ISO 9001:2000 Certification

BLAM. Stamp of awesome.(Source:http://www.gelec.co.uk)

Hello and welcome to the mecca of totally useless knowledge. Of course being totally useless is a subjective term and hence this information would be useful to you at some point or another. Then again, it has been proven contantly that the information contained within this blog is not very relevant to the real world DESPITE all of it being very real.

Today, we shall explore the intricacies. Of the ISO 9001 certification. Ever seen something similar to the logo on the left on any of your items before? E.g. a bread wrapper or even your handphone box? Chances are you might have. But then again, who really cares about it right?


Lets shed light on this mysterious logo.

1. The ISO or International Organization for Standardization is some gigantic organisation that sets standards for companies and their products to follow

2. The ISO 9001:2000 certification was created by them based on their research for companies to follow to assure some form at quality benchmark

Basically, what I am trying to say is that, a group of people decided to make plenty of surveys regarding services and quality and compiled a huge list of 'guidelines'. Of course like all rational business people, they would want to make money off it and hence they started this business of certification. Of course I would be very willing to give you all the details but my fingers refuse to type out the 20 page long list of guidelines regarding the ISO 9001:2000 certification so blame them. You can read it here though.

A fun fact. Wikipedia was purportedly the first encyclodpaedia to ever have an article about the ISO certification. For some reason it lead to an argument as to which encyclopaedia, Britanicca or Wikipedia, was more relevant a few years ago. And wikipedia being the easily vandalised encyclopaedia as it is didn't really help its cause. Despite this it still manged to become even bigger than Britannica ever was. If it were a badly drawn comic it would looks something like this.

Arr be squashing them brits.

Alright that is about as much nonsense I can take for now. That said have you ever wondered who gave anyone the right to set standards? Nobody asked the ISO to be formed yet there they are setting standards and at the same time indirectly undermining those companies who aren't certified by them. Even wikipedia is a perfectly good source of information. The articles can be written from the child to the guy who is a Professor and a doctor and does a Phd in his spare time. Of course, this is not to say that Wikipedia can be 100% accurate. Then again what makes Britannica so special? Are the articles in there written by overly qualified people too? Or is someone with very good cross referencing skills taking stuff off the internet and dumping it into a very well versed encyclopedia. Isn't it true that complicated language makes someone sound intelligent?

Personally, I feel that standardization is the one of the inhibitoons of innovation. Standardization gives the impression that one must 'live up to' anothers expectation before he can actually go about their own ideas. Ask yourself this? Do you like being pushed around and being told what to do? Without standardization There would be those with the highly excellent companies that stand out like some skyscraper in the middle of a slum and those that just fall flat to the ground because whoever runs it stinks at doing so. But the difference is, both can learn on their own. There is no guidelines telling them what to do and how to run a company. How to build this and how to do that.  People think differently and have different ways of solving an issue.

However, I also feel that humans are natuarally lazy people. We the inhabitants of the earth, would grow fat and lazy and die early without any standardization. Let me give you a scenario. There are two cavemen, Ugga and Bob, about to fight each other. Ugga is lazy. Bob is innovative. Bob finds a rock on the floor and picks it up. What would happen to Ugga if he doesn't pick up a rock too? A nice concussion thats what. I'll leave you to wrap your head around that analogy.

One paragraph in a picture.

As for now, you have been enlightened. Hope you enjoyed this extra long post which was certified by ISO (I Say Only) 9001 certification program. =D

Ruthenium. The chemical romance.

Just call her Ru.

Hello everyone! Welcome once again to the temple of knowledge that practically no one cares about. Have you noticed the big fat red 3D awesome box to the right of this post with the atomic number and the molecular mass And the chemical symbol of Ruthenium? More importantly, have you ever even heard of this element?

For at least 4 years of our lives, most of use have seen a periodic table with a whole lot of elements. Some of you might even be able to quote certain elements from the periodic table such as Iron(Fe), Helium(He) and even Unununbium(UuB). By the way, if you could quote Unununbium, there is something very very wrong with you.

But then, in all these four years have we ever seen this poor but extremely useful element? Here are some “fun” facts about Ruthenium.

1. It was a very rare element. It was found 3 times and ‘lost’ 2 times.

2. It is one of the six rarest elements on earth.

Ruthenium-106(an isotope) is used to treat some forms of eye cancer. The main element of ruthenium is commercially used to make alloys with expensive metals such as platinum. Ruthenium makes the alloyed metal hard, and resistant to rusting (almost 100 times more resistant) and ionisation (basically means corrosion but in a more complex manner). It is also used as electrical contacts and for creation of some jewellery and medical instruments.

Of course I am sure you are already bored by all that info on Ruthenium. You would be all like “What the heck just am I reading this for?”. Or better yet you skipped to this paragraph. But really, do you ever wonder why there is so much information in the world which is not being used? This isn’t even limited to just chemistry. Even some words in the dictionary like the word “Aglet” just lies there redundant because most people haven’t even seen or heard that word before. Yet I kid you not, EVERYONE has seen an aglet before.

Personally I feel that although having this much information lying around in the world is a good thing, efforts should be taken to actually highlight these random pieces of useful information. The education system of today focuses way to much on the ‘essential’ knowledge often leaving the other ‘not very relevant’ to be slowly forgotten. Much like the dusty old book on the shelf of the rich man which is there to show he is ‘smart’ when in fact it has never been opened.

1000 poor books sitting on the wall.
(Original: www.missionvictoria.com)

Oh well whatever it is, you have now been enlightened. Thanks for reading. All hail information no one cares about. =D