Marathon

Today almost a mini-marathon run is completed. 4 days, from friday to monday, four team members including me, day-in-and-out, spent in office. And now every body is again pulling up the socks for the real game to happen on December 31st.  :-)

Online Reading resources

Good resources for online reading, forward this to friends who are interested in reading.
On-Line Libraries

The Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/
The Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/
Internet Sacred Text Archive http://www.sacred-texts.com/
Books on Line http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
Spirit Site: Spiritual Writings http://www.spiritsite.com/writing/index.htm
Thinking Allowed Transcript Library http://www.intuition.org/idxtran.htm
WWW Virtual Library http://vlib.org/Home.html
World-Wide Web Virtual Library: http://celtic.stanford.edu/vlib/Overview2.html

source BLOOTICS

Road SafeT

I witnessed an accident in the busy morning hours of Saturday.  A bike smashed on to a WagonR.  Both the car and the bike were at speeds above normal in the Banashankari residential area.  That was a cross junction and both of them blowed horn and just went on in their way.  The bike guy was able to apply the brakes at the very last moment which had prevented a major accident.  But still he could not manage to stop his bike hitting the side of the car and the bike handle-bar got twisted and a dent made on the side of the car.  All this happened in a fraction of second.  If the bike guy hadnot applied the brakes, he would have been hit on the side by the front of the car which would have caused a major damage to both him and the bike.  Lucky he was!!  You would have got surprised, from where did I get this detailed information :  I was riding the bike.

 

 

Hosur - Krishnagiri Highway

New Resolution

I had started this year with a resolution that I should maintain a blog, which I am doing currently atleast there exists a blog in my name. But of late I felt that, there had been nothing being contributed consistently from my side. So I am not going to wait for another new year to take a new resolution. Right today, I take this resolution to publish atleast one post(may it be scrap who cares) everyweek. The problem being, before posting there is too much of editing that I am doing. See, till here, I had almost done around 10 to 15 editing, too much of backspaces being hit. I feel there should be no backspace key in the keyboard. One may feel that things get complicated when there is no backspace - what to do if you type something wrong? My opinion is that if there is no backspace key, time will be saved as no one will commit spelling /sentence errors because getting it corrected will be a hell. Only if there are options, the problems arise. When there is a way to do something wrong, we always tend to, but most of the time we should analyse our thoughts, words and actions to avoid getting trapped by them. If you have time to procrastinate something, you do it 90 % of the time. I do not know anybody else, but that's what my mind tells me to do. I have to be extremely watchful in those times.

Ok, started with something and gone somewhere else. What did I start with? Resolution. Fine, one post a week seems to be possible definitely. Let me see how I am keeping up to it. But again the question comes to me, what to write every week? Let me look out for the answer everyweek.

Bannerughatta

This is from Bannerughatta Biological Park, here in Bangalore. I took my cousin and niece there. Here in Bangalore, people have a general belief that BG road is very bad. But it is not the case. At least now, the BMP has been taking steps to rennovate / relay many of the road in Bangalore city, the recent ones I encountered with are Convent Road and Museum Road. The BG Zoological park is exactly 20 km from the Brigade Road Rex theatre. They have a Grand Safari there costing Rs 110 on holidays and 85 on weekdays. One thing to note here is that the Grand Safari does not cover Elephant Safari, for which you need to go for a separate safari. Safari lasts for 50 min and if you are lucky, the tigers and lions will come and kiss your van and go. Otherwise they will be like students in a boring history class. I had a chance to shoot some one or two snaps in my RAZR. More than the safari, the zoo is maintained very good. They have installed something called info-park which is an
automatic info machine (similar to Railway Info system) where you can browse through different species of birds, reptiles and animals and get information about them. It takes around 2 hours to go around and see the zoo.

SETC - KSRTC

Last week I went to Coimbatore from Salem. We had an appointment at 12:30 pm. By the time we finished our breakfast in Saravana Bhavan - opp to MGR Central Bus Stand (the new name of Salem New Bus Stand) and reached the platform, there were two buses ready, one dabba SETC bus and a comparitively very good condition Salem Corporation bus. The SETC bus was actually destined to Ernakulam, so we thought that it would go faster, so we got into that bus. But hopeless it was. Pick-up was too poor. When it slows down, it takes almost 30 to 45 seconds to reach back its original speed. Before that something else will come infront or it happened that most
of the time, our bus followed some other vehicle in the front. Boss, you need a good pick up to overtake. One more important thing to observe here is that, almost till Avinashi, there were only 10 people in the bus including the driver and conductor. By the time it reached Avinashi, the Salem corporation bus had overtaken us. It always happens, as someone said, whenever there is 50-50 chance of choosing something right, in 90% of the cases you will choose the wrong one. While coming back, while boarding, I asked "Eppo bus eduppinga?". The driver without turning back, "apparam edhukku start panni vachirukkom?" replied. The drivers/conductors always get tensed when you ask "When will the bus reach the destination?"

Ok I deviated from the point. Coming back.... The SETC buses are far inferior quality when compared to KSRTC, their Karnataka counterparts. It is hightime that the SETC Authorities think of some rennovation/innovation in their administration.

As you sow, so shall you reap

By reading this article, just do not get into a conclusion that I am against Pakistan. It is not true. But I am not a supporter of Pakistan too. Ok, there have been many discussions about the "alleged" ball tampering by Pakistan, followed by imbroglios created by "The Father of Controversies" Darrel Hair. Though the decision he had taken on the Match was totally unfair, we shall leave him, we shall just get onto the Pakistani cricket. Pakistan Cricket players might seem to have been playing a decent and fair cricket these days, but they are always known for their skills in ball-tampering. Probably during those times, they managed to escape scot-free, though everyone knew that they had been involved in cheating. But now, no one knows what had happened and the Pakistanis are punished. The moral of the story "Somewhere down the line, you need to pay for each of your act". But no one knows what is there waiting for Darrel Hair?

Jaipur

This is the photo I took in Jaipur. Albert Hall Museum. I never believed that my Moto RAZR could take a photo of this quality. I set the camera in cloudy mode played around with exposure and took this snap. But still I am of the opinion the Moto RAZR's camera quality is much inferior to that of the Nokia. Resolution is not the only thing one should look for while getting a camera (or a camera enabled phone). The best option is look around for the features avaiable with various models directly before deciding one.

Blogging spree

Today, I am really on a blogging spree, already 3 blogs posted. I often feel that I should write something which is worthy of reading, but I think I am doing the exactly opposite. What anyone who reads this will feel? Some three or four lines are already gone and still there is nothing useful to read. But till how long can I keep the reader guessing what I am about to say in this post? Not for so much of time. If I want to say something I have to start saying it within the next 2 or 3 lines. Otherwise I am sure that the reader will definitely run away by clicking the nearest possible link. Ok coming to the topic... yes blogging spree. It really feels good(at least for the blogger) that whatever he writes there is someone who spends his time in reading it. I think this is what Newton said in his third law, "to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". sorry again deviated from the topic. Ok ok, come back... blogging spree. In a old tamil cinema, Nagesh and one other person goes for an interview. The interviewer asks to the other person "What do you know?" He answers, "Sir I know car driving". To Nagesh he asks "What do you know?", he replies. "Sir I know that he knows car driving". This came to my mind when I saw some blogs where there are links to the original producer. Ok back to square one, blogging spree... I now wonder with what idea I started creating this post.

Interview Retelecast

I read the interview of Karan Thapar with Arjun Singh, Minister HRD in IBNlive, last monday. It is like watching Shankar's Mudhalvan. Karan Thapar was providing up-to-date updated statistics published by various government organisations supporting his side which is against the reservation policy. Arjun Singh was really in a troubled situation. For most of the questions he was totally blank, had no answers at all. Good that he didnot ask "Can I leave this question in choice?"

After so many days

Huh, after so many days, I have published a post in my blog. Always I thought of posting something and will see that what I wanted to say would already have been said by somebody else in some other blog. Of course there are several other matters in the world to discuss about. Ok, let me see, how I progress from now on, I mean in creating the posts often.

Mensa Results

Ha, finally after postponing for 2 or 3 times, the Mensa Bangalore results are out. Check out: http://www.mensabangalore.org/results.html. Rather the results, the test was acturally more interesting. The test was held sometime in mid-Feb. About 1 and half hours and 5 or 6 sections and the section timing were like 2.5 min, 3 min etc. Mostly it contained logical reasoning, finding the odd-figure out, missing the sequence kind of questions. More logical and visualisation oriented. Feeling happy about joining the Mensa society.

Mensa is actually a community with people of varied talents and interests. Seems like there are people in Mensa from various fields, various social backgrounds, various beliefs. The Mensa Chapters are all around the world. The membership is valid worldwide once you are above 98th percentile in the test conducted by any recognised chapter of Mensa. For more info, http://www.mensa.org

Mr. Kicha

Today I made a point to complete the hilarious novel "Mr. Kicha" written by Crazy Mohan in the 1990's. I came with a forward from Sujatha, "If this doesnot make you to laugh, then you can only be characterized by a 3 letter word in your previous janma". I am wondering what that 3 letter word could be. The immediate word that came to my mind was musudu. Still I am figuring out what it is. Ok leave it, about the book, it is about the adventures of an Ara-loosu and his muzhu-loosu paati of Triplicane. The book must have been good at that point, but since my expectation from Crazy at this point of time is more, the book written by him decade ago somewhat didnot actually tickle my sense of humour to the extent I expected. But as a whole it is very good short book comprised of some 16 short stories about Mr. Kicha. But most of them are self-proclaimed buruda from Kicha himself like playing in WorldCup Cricket, piloting a flight etc. But still Crazy makes the flow to be very humerous. Especially I liked his Cricket and piloting adventures. His paati can be compared to todays' Paravai muniamma. The book is nominally priced, Rs 50, by Kizhakku Pathippagam

What a Race!

Today was the first time that I happened to see the F1 race almost completely. Todays F1 was in Melbourne. As this was the first time and I donot have any favourite racer on my mind, the result didnot matter for me. But the course of the action was too good. I was amazed at the speed at which they race on, the concepts and strategies of pit-stops, the time taken at pit-stops(roughly about 9 seconds) for fuel, changing tyres etc., There were dramatic sequences all through that 1 and half hour starting from Schumacher's crash agaist the wall, leading-Webber out of the race in the middle, then, a similar crash by Montoyo and the most dramatic of all - Button out of the race, just 50 meters to reach the chequered flag. Really really a cinematic race today. The F1 courtesy by Rajesh.

Are you a honest Tax payer

This is the question to be asked by every citizen of India. The corruption starts right from our thinking to evade the taxes, may it be income tax, or service tax or sales tax or customs duty or whatever. Just hit upon this very good article by Pradeep.

Nermai

Beyond Tomorrow

There is a special show about the innovations in various fields which is aired on Discovery Channel, from 20th to 24th Feb 2006 everyday at 8:00 pm, and then on from every Friday at 8:00 pm. Today I just happened to see the program. It showed some 5 or 6 innovations from some robots to improving the fertility in Cheetahs, among which a detailed review about the Airbus A380 and the company z-corparation were good. I am amazed at its gigantic structure and also its manufacturing process. It said that about 850 passengers could be seated if all were economic classes. That's really really a very huge number. And the thrust it generates for the pick-up is equivalent to that of 2000 cars. Not only that, they also showed the interiors which are well decorated, luxurious, has space for conferance, entertainment and much more. The other one was a thought-breaking innovation. PRINTING 3D. I mean, structuring 3D products out from a machine, just like how you get a paper out of the photocopier or a printer. Just check out this link http://www.zcorp.com/. It means just you can send any product instantly over the net. Just send it's 3d scanned image and the zcorp 3D printer is there for you to "print" it instantaneously(ofcourse, you should not take "instantaneous" in its literal meaning)

Interest in Investments

As the financial year is coming to end, like any other tax-payer, I too got interested or atleast made to get interested in the investments. Recently only I realised that there are a hundreds of schemes moving arount in the market in the name of tax-savings. All are new financial jargons. They say something like SIP, ULIP, ELSS, NSC, PPF so much and more. There a dozens of different investment categories and in each of those another dozens of companies promoting dozenes of different schemes under each category. You will be really confused whether to take a Mutual Fund, invest in Provident Fund or put your money safe in the Post office savings certificate or take up an additional insurance, but will never come up with a single answer. These are in some sense comparable to the cell-phone schemes. Too many operators, too many options. Similarly, here these people call themselves as AMCs(Asset Management Companies). Again, there is still possiblity if you invest in Shares, MFs and so, you can end up like making paper-ships out of your hard-earned 1000 rupee note and see it happily gliding through the river. But that is only the pessimistic view about it. You can even get a TITANIC ship with the same 1000 rupee note. But again, you cannot assure the safety of the TITANIC too.

Wanna travel back in Tamil Calendar?

One very good tamil site, especially for the tamil history lovers. http://www.varalaaru.com. This is a monthly online magazine presently featuring sections like history-oriented fiction, ancient architectural styles, periodic traveller-essays about different places around the world, "Ilakkiachuvai" - essays under various thought-provoking topics with reference to ancient tamil literature. There are other good sections too but my little knowledge doesnot know in all those what is being written. The fiction is written by Gokul, he also handles the "Ilakkiachuvai" too. Both of them seems to be very good.

OMNIGLOT

While roaming over google, I just got into this interesting site. http://www.omniglot.com. It has scripts of about 150 writing systems of the world. The site claims that most of the sanskrit and other indian languages are derived from "Brahmi" script. But the present day indian scripts seems to have no relation with the Brahmi script. Easily one can use this site to learn literally any language's alphabets. Also this site features a puzzle section, in which some half-written or bewildering inscriptions on stones and objects are presented for viewers to decipher it.

Sentimental touch by Ganguly

http://www.hindu.com/2006/01/22/stories/2006012205161700.htm

On seeing this picture in today's Hindu, I felt like seeing a high sentimental Indi-film. It seems that he clearly missed out an opportunity at Lahore when he allegedly refused the opening. Then there is no gain in crying over the spoilt milk. Probably, he could take up on each and every opportunity in the team and if not selected, get some good runs and form in the domestic cricket before making an appeal for selection into the Team India. He was a great cricketer and taken India to new heights and desevers a grand farewell like Steve Waught got. He can plan things accordingly and now everything is in Ganguly's hands, getting a farewell or get-last card.

Flute Start-up

In the list of New year resolutions, "Learning Carnatic Music" also figures as an important bullet. As a postive step towards that is the Flute class, introduced by my friends Rajesh and Jaggy who are also working in another software company. Still my flute is like chennai water-tap only. Only air is coming out, no music by any way. It looks like playing from Sa to Ni and Ni to Sa itself is a great maestro achievement. The flute music by the way is too good to ears only when the master plays it. The caller tune in my mobile was Anbae Sivam. Immediately after hearing it for the first time, our Master Mr. Venkatesh played it in his flute with great ease. Amazed! Ok, hoping to get to some good tunes with the flute in days to come.

New Year Resolution

This is a part of my new year resolution. To maintain a blog. I had created this one sometime back in March 2005 but have never come back to it. I just thought that I am getting so much good from the internet, from so many face-unknown persons, but what am I giving back to them. So I shall share some of my thoughts here. Might be useful sometimes or might be totally crap many other times. You have full freedom to cut out the nonsense in my writings, feel free to add your comments.