It's Tough!

Am I having very less time to write in my blog? Well, actually not. I should accept I'm in India.So, where is the difficulty for me with my blog entries? Is?? They are all 'are's. Complaints from my frustrations:)

• Slow... internet. Parallel telephone lines at house. So, can spare very less time early morning or late night. Otherwise, the phone line becomes dead. A download speed of 2Kbps:(
  
• The other case is, the system is still Win 98!
  
• Well, why not browsing centers? Speed is comparatively ok but still Win 98. Crashes badly. Not able to handle Yahoo Messenger & browser windows at the same time. Gmail doesn't work. Yahoo mail complaints. Is it just IE? No, latest Firefox is equally bad. Blue screen every 5 minutes

I just saw that the almost release Vista candidate is out. No way I can get a hold of it soon I guess. Hope, I come out of this transtition state soon...

Travel... Out of States

If at all you are thinking about travel to say India from USA, now is the time. I mean, just at the end of summer, when actually people travel towards USA, passengers going out of USA sure get cheaper deals and "free" seats rather, berths:)

So, when I happened to do such a travel couple of days back, it was quite enjoyable. The flight from LAX bound outside USA, is like 50% full which means that many passengers do get 2-3 seats for their comfortable sleep:) The business class section of the flight happened to be so empty that some of the aged economy class passengers were given multiple seats, I mean 3-4 seats for them to stretch their legs and rest.

At one end, though this can be beneficial for the customers, I just keep questioning how come the airlines are actually making profits? No wonder, they are all lined up for bankruptcy:). I mean, I also happened to travel in a domestic flight AirBus 330 inside India and it so happened that I should say only 50 seats were filled out of like 250+.

Well, though the actual travel is smooth, the hassles around the same - the security checks & clearance before starting, no carry on luggages, no toothpaste, deos, hair gels etc, requirement of carrying only a transparent polythene bag with passport & ticket only and atlast, the safe arrival of the luggage at the end of the journey - are still points of concern for travel...

Did 'He' Drink?

Well, I happened to check out the latest editions of Hindustan Times and some other English dailies in India. And there were colorful pictures in some of them with related stories on how the statue of Shirdi Sai Baba and statues of other Gods in Mumbai actually started drinking milk!!??

Man! Is this possible? A statue when "Spoon-fed" drinks milk! I feel like, people take such things to heights of beliefs and they also make sure the news spread just like forest fire to the near by community. Ofcourse, if I had also been around, I would have walked into the temple just to peek on how a statue suddenly, on one fine day starts drinking milk!

On similar lines, is it 1995 when actually all "Lord Ganesha" statues in Tamil Nadu started drinking milk? Till now, I haven't witnessed these events but I do wonder, is the explanation of capillary/surface tension, factful? Or do we have a new explanation for this new story?

The New Sun System!

So, the discussion started with whether Pluto is supposed to be a planet! Then, the physicists & astronomers not only accepted Pluto but also defined some new planets.

Well right at this moment, I guess our Solar System is kind of getting redefined! Pluto is still the ninth planet and its moon (till now!!) Charon got the new status called planet - It is supposed to be called 'Double Planet' with Pluto. The already available '10th Planet' Xena is in. The 'dwarf planet' Ceres inbetween Mars & Jupiter is also in! So, the count is like 12...

Now, having defined the planets astronomers started grouping them. The nine fellas from Mercury to Neptune will be 'Classical Planets' and the remaining three which actually take like more than 200 years to come around the sun, will be 'Plutons'... Well, Pluton has a different definition in geology! And now the geologists are contesting the name:)

Anyways, what does this new solar system mean to us? May be some school text book changes, some new set of toys & probably some changes at the planetariums... Is that it?

Lost Connexion!

When there is really a big hype about internet and Web 2.0 and accessing everything over the internet, even your files, documents, codes & spreadsheets, I really don't understand how Boeing lost its interest in the same.

As per Boeing, they don't really foresee a big market for the inflight Internet broadband service and hence, they have decided to pull off their respective project called Connexion! Man! That is like solid 6 years of investment and will really be fruitful if it would have gone through. Though, they see this as good for the company from long term perspective, I would say this is just in benefit of short term gain against that of their competitor Airbus. Bad move!!

I mean, people will be more than happy to spend some entire international flight with computer and internet browsing for some cheap hourly rates and that sure, would make a big business for any airlines who are more than willing to invest on the same. Aren't we seeing a big difference the hotel chains which give internet service are making ?

I just hope, Lufthansa would atleast continue their internet facility implementation in their jets...

Are They Lost?

So seriously, have NASA lost the original set of tapes which actually contain the remarkable event of Apollo 11's moon landing in 1969? Well, that's what NASA website have shown the info as! Quoting...

Despite the challenges of the search, NASA does not consider the tapes to be lost.

Well, they have atleast left out with something though:)

First-generation copies of the converted video from Apollo 11 as well as other first-generation copies and some original versions of the converted video for the Apollo 12 through Apollo 17 flights are still in NASA Johnson Space Center's Informational Resources Directorate's video vault in Houston.

Well, looks like the search has been going on for 18 months as of now, and still they feel it as simply to do with the logistics and labelling of the boxes??!!

I mean, as anyone else I'm also kind of looking forward to this (supposed to be) "high-quality" version of this event compared to the actual controversial relay pictures & videos shown to the public then. By the way, the videos that were seen in TV were of poor quality because obviously the stored data had like 10 frames per second of data and the TV asks for like 60 frames per second...

But, how can they lose these tapes? Is this yet another setback story for a governmental agency?

Why Hate?

Here is one information I came to know today. There is one community in Orkut called We Hate India! And the main display picture for this community is a burning Indian flag!

"The sole purpose of this community isn't meant to offend india...its against all those people who are against Pakistan...its about having a group of people who have enemity for india just coz of its oppressive & hostile approach..."
-- Community Description

Why to add more fuel to the fire??!!

Funny...Failure!

Here is what you need to do....

1. Go to Google. (Let me provide the link too)
2. Type in Failure.
3. And... the first link is to George W.Bush!:)

Thanks to J!

Crushed... & Suppressed!

Vegetarians on alert! Not only vegetarians, there is something everyone of us should know before we consume some processed food.

Let's consider the Yoplait Yogurt from General Mills - Especially the pink colored Starwberry flavor! The pink color is termed as artificial coloring but at the backend it seems the color is obtained from an extract called Cochineal - To be more specific they are obtained from crushing female cochineal beetles and their eggs!

"And it's not just yogurt. The bugs are also used to give red coloring to Hershey Good & Plenty candies, Tropicana grapefruit juice, and other common foods."
--BusinessWeek

At one end, is it required to make the product attractive by using artificial color? Even so, is crushing bugs the only option for that reason? If so, shouldn't the customer be warned about it in the product label itself - Well, they need not type it out as 'crushed bug' in their content list but atleast they can type it out like 'Cochineal Beetle Extract' or like 'WARNING: This product has beetle extract'!!

Wish FDA & food activists act on this issue and find a solution quick enough!

M Tech Kid!

I should accept that this kiddo, Chandrasekar has got brains - Otherwise, there is no way he gets admitted for M.Tech in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and that too at the age of 15! And the guy's history states the facts...

• Complete schooling at 12 years (with some double promotions)
• Microsoft Certified System Engineer at 10
• Cisco certified Network Associate
• 99.32% at the IIT Entrance Aptitude Test

Good, great, excellent...

But, aren't all these a bit too much for that kid? Well, I kind of see this kid as a big time geek & researcher with not much of a normal fun filled life in his future! If it is so - wishfully, someone should make him understand soon that life asks more than just studies & knowledge!

Salute!

Happy Independence Day

Vande Matharam

Sensational Oldie...

Yet another news from YouTube and this time, it is not about any cool video or some sensitive one either! The latest sensation in that video site is Peter or nick named geriatric1927 - An 78 year oldie from England!

Just watch this video -

That is supposed to be the first video by Peter and it has been watched like 850,000 times after it got uploaded on 5th August! And now, there are like 14,000 subscribers for his page!

Don't you think, it is tough to understand people's mind set?:)

Homeland MS Patch...

I'm just wondering, what made this patch alone a special difference compared to all those other patches?

Hmm... Microsoft announced yet another set of monthly security updates & patches. And one of them made a difference. Because, the Department Of Homeland Security, took one step more (for the first time) and made an announcement... Basically, it asked Windows users to apply the patch.

So, what made the difference? On first thoughts, may be one of DHS' servers is already being exploited because of the specific buffer overrun vulnerability... Hmm, scary though!

Third Eye...

Well, well... The Israel Lebanon crisis will ofcourse get all different perspectives and view points. We as common citizens do try to make a "picture" out of what the reporters give as a 'story' to us.

Here is Aish.Com giving some details on how news reports are actually 'making up" stories and images about the demolitions in Lebanon and hence, increasing the world's pressure on Israel. Check it out! Thansk to Biju...

Likewise, yet another video from Aish, giving an eye for actually what US sees.

I'm not sure if Reuters or Aish is correct. But I do wish as anyone else that I get some true facts!

Sky Shooting...

Have you been in a snowy place? Especially have you driven in snow strom kind of snow fall? It is so good to drive around in snowfall, because we don't need to worry about skidding tyres (which actually happens after snowfall) and the other best thing is, the all those snow flakes especially seem to appear from one single spot ahead of us in the road. Really a great sight which gives a great soothing feeling!

Hmm.... Tonight's & early hours of tomorrow's celestial fireworks of 'Shooting Stars' is a much anticipated one! And here are some of the interesting details surrounding the watch of those fireworks.

And it seems the same optical illusion concept like that of the snow one works for these meteor showers too - The Perseids which are actually part the tail of the dusty Swift-Turtle comet, seems to fly out of the Perseus constellation!

People are ofcourse expected to be awake the whole night and try to get a glimpse of this great fireworks at the early hours of morrow. And it is simple enough. These dust particles are comet's left over after it has passed across the sun. So, as the earth rotates while revolving around the sun, the people who are about to see the sun (early dawn hours) should be able to see more dust particles!

Well, here is another vision concept -

"And shooting stars are best seen from out of the corner of your eye due to the way that the eye's most light-sensitive nerve cells are arranged away from the central focal point of the retina."
--Independent

I don't know if I'll be watching these "showers" tonight, but sure, this reminds me of some sweet memories when I used to wait at open terrace all night long with friends & watch such meteor sparks!:)

Biassed?

Yet another time, George Galloway MP stood against the policies of US & UK in the Israel Lebanon crisis. Have you seen this heated discussion?

Do you think he is biassed? May be, may be not!

Bean Drink Race...

They still amaze me... Howard Schultz & his Star Bucks business! 3 to 5 bucks per coffee and people go behind them - That sure is a great business out of nothing:) It ain't that simple and obviously we just can't stand & watch these guys being the leader forever.

I have never been aware of illy - the coffee bean fella - I guess, because they are more Italian and they really are not at the front end... till now. Probably, I may have tasted the coffee made out of their beans because it seems one of the biggest coffee chains in India do sell their coffee made out of illy beans!

And, now they are crossing the barriers of grinding machines and entering the front end, serving the customers directly... Espressemente - That is the shop we are bound to see in our corners in the near future! May be they may take some time to establish in US, but sure the initiatives are on the go with illy Galleria!

So, wanna peak into one of Espressementes on how they may look? Businessweek shows off! Another Star Bucks on the making??!!

Caution...

I know I haven't been writing as frequent as I used to do. "God! Need some time off to relax from this busy schedule!"

So, what to write? - May be F1, or Mel Gibson's DUI or Jaswant's PMO Mole controversy or Castro's illness or Landis' doping or the new sensation in coffee bean business illy & Espressemente... & in came a story from Google! Quite handy & useful:)

These guys are making everything in that text box page user friendly:). The new improvement being warning the user about the page they are about to visit if the page hosts some malicious wares like Spy, Ad etc. Well, as per the statistic, it seems every search result leads to like 5% of malicious page contents. Till now I haven't run into that warning but sure, in case I run into them, I would dare to continue forward - A Value Addition worth every penny of it.

And the statistic also reads that it seems 64% of results for the search string 'Free Screensaver' lead to malicious contents & page! Hmmm... Aren't people satisfied with the variety in WebShots?

Being 'Online' More...

Have you visited MySpace lately? Well, there are ofcourse many new features in it, including this 'MySpaceIM'! My feeling is like 'Ohh! Yet another chat client & instant messenger'!

Well, actually speaking, my curiosity did increase because MySpace is a socializing site and so, if we need to chat in MySpace webpage it should be something like 'GMail with Chat Enabled'! So, with more research ended up in Meebo! You would have already seen this chat client here in this blog page:)

Yes! This is yet another means of making everything available online in internet like Google's spreadsheet & word! Another concept of Web2.0 :)(a bit hyped up though). Meebo, sure is going to help me make myself available online and interact 'live' with my friends & blogmates but... I'm still wondering why I need to keep a browser window open for that purpose!

Ofcourse, I don't need to download & install another software.

A quick trial with my "widget" displayed here wasn't successful! I mean, my first set of impressions are not that great with it. Because, even when I was online at Meebo, I wasn't shown online here in my blog "widget"... Well, there is an answer for that.

Update: We're trying to fix a few things over here, so if you're having trouble using your widget we're on it!

At this point, I'll keep my fingers X'ed and wait for this "widget" to function a bit more efficiently
and then try our some available features. Still quizzed, if I really need one more besides MSN, Yahoo, GTalk, AOL...

Sharing But No Sharing!

So, the Kazaa guys are putting an end to their lawsuit! And there is no more music file sharing servers... Well, kind of!

But, the emerging trend now a days is a different kind of sharing - Videos! And ofcourse, YouTube & Google Videos are the best examples of what I'm talking about. Now YouTube is facing the legals, for allowing people to post copyright videos in their site. Not only that, the ads against the videos are also becoming an issue!

This YouTube & video sharing concenpt is sure a run away success and hence, people just want to do the ground checks beforehand to settle things ahead! For me, I do feel YouTube is protected very well in this regard because, it doesn't take the ownership of the video -

"You shall be solely responsible for your own User Submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. In connection with User Submissions, you affirm, represent, and/or warrant that: (i) you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize YouTube to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in ..."
- YouTube's Terms of Use

And if needed, the video can still be removed. And the ads are not against user's videos but are against the search terms and so I think, they still are in good shape...

So, here is one such copyright video which the owners (Fritz Grobe & Stephen Voltz) don't want to be in YouTube. (-- BusinessWeek)

And here is the other one (I guess) which has started the legal battle from Robert Tur!

In Comes A Third Party...

Let's put the previous topic on roll. Not from WalMart's perspective but from China & WalMart's influence over the area! A related news article reads,

"A few days ago 11,000 factory workers employed by a Metron toy manufacturing plant in Dongguan, Guangdong, with sales to US companies like Disney, McDonald’s, Mattel and Hasbro, went on strike. Many of them threw stones and clashed with police—riot vehicles were sent in to control the situation and dozens of workers were arrested."
-- AsiaNews

The reason behind being, exploiting laborers with low pay and inhuman working conditions! And WalMart have always been on the similar kind of talk for long time - Why just in Asian countries, but in Americas too where the regular complaints are that the employees work without proper lunch timings and with improper health insurance benefits.

What has changed now is, a section of WalMart's employees in China are part of a Union! All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), a government backed trade union has come into terms with the retailer to make their employees part of their union! Is it good for WalMart or for any foreign-funded company? If things work productive enough, this is sure good in terms of humanitarian basis.

At the same time, is WalMart hinting employees in Americas & Canada to get into Union too? BTW, what happened to the labor charges of the China's iPod factory?