Clear Sky Clock..

If you are planning for a star-party or star gazing session, then having clear sky is absolute necessity. Infact if you are planning to drive to some remote place, then you should know weather details for next 4 to 5 hrs or so...

..Clear Sky Clock is exactly what we need.. It gives you hr-by-hr details about cloud cover, transparency, darkness as well as humidity, temperature and wind conditions..



SD weather is really bad these days.. heavy cloud cover, raining, windy and too cold.. Looks like no more star-gazing sessions till next thursday.. Duhhhh !!

Memory of the Camps

I watched a documentary Memory of The Camps, aired on PBS Frontline.

Its about the time when allied forces rescued concentration camps from Nazi rule.. Its really disturbing... Press reaction says everything... "... will undoubtedly become the definitive cinematic record of the hell on earth that Hitler created" - Boston Globe

Iranian president Ahmadinejad calls Holocaust as a myth. Isn't it absurd that Iran holds a conference to validate the reality of holocaust on International Holocaust Remembrance Day only ?

.. we will never learn anything from history and if we don't then..

Some survey says 41% Britons believe that another Holocaust can happen in UK..

DON.. The Remake

"DON - The Chase Begins Again" movie dekhana mushkil hi nahi na-mumkin hey !!

The remake attempt of original Amitabh movie DON has ended up in total disaster. It is a "typical bollywood movie".

< definition > "Typical bollywood movie" implies that you can safely ignore it or if you are in "insomnia" then watching this movie guarantees 100% "hypersomnia" < / definition >

Being "Farhan Akhtar" movie, I surely had some hopes, but it seems like he is also following "copy-cat" philosophy of great "Annu Malik". Screen shots from Matrix, FaceOff, Fast & Furious are sprinkled everywhere !!

Watching Shahrukh Khan for 2hrs-45mins is a lifetime punishment. I never understood why the hell everybody compares him with Amitabh. Shahrukh's "monkey" face and overacting is just unbeatable . Amitabh can never reach to that level. I am talking abt "Angry-Young-Man" not the "White-Beard-Black-Hair-Senile".

Whoever is the "cast director" of the movie has done unbelievable job .. Karina's "Ye mera dil" dance, Priyanka's "Marshal Arts", Pawan Malhotra's "Naarang" and not but least "Shahrukh's "ddddd don" are (literally) breath taking. Boman Irani shouldn't have played villain role. He is better with his comic roles.

Same is the case with "art director". There is a shot in the movie where Jasjeet enters into Petronas Tower to meet Vardhan. When he enters the room, it seems like the room is "under-construction". .. Excuse me.. I thought that the room is in "Petronas Tower"..

I guess the only interesting thing in the movie is "tweaks to the original plot". Especially Sharukh's transition from "Don.. then Vijay.. then "So-called-Don" Vijay.. then "So-called-Vijay" Don is funny.

I just got lifetime membership of "I-Hate-Shahrukh" community on Orkut !!!

Life Is To Whistle..

"Life is what happens to you... while you are busy doing other things"

Spanish/Cuban movie "Life Is To Whistle" depicts same philosophy in very vivid manner. Three "Strangers" are passionate about "Things" (Sex/Ballet, Music/Mother's love and Social work). While trying to pursue their happiness (things), they end up sacrificing some "other important things" (Sex, Love, Love).. While busy in analyzing what choice to make, their life takes them to their "another subconscious happiness".... and all of them are happy...

The End.. No hold on.. thats not the end of the movie... In reality, though these "strangers" feel that they have found out about their "another subconscious happiness"... actually they haven't.. !!!

Totally bizarrreee... The movie is highly philosophical... I think "excessively" philosophical.., most of the screen-shots and dialogs are metaphorical.. but still has some "okay" directional streaks !!

So what ? It has received multiple awards in various film festivals.. "Best Foreign Spanish Language Film Award", "Special Jury Award"..

Any way, I guess I have to watch "another" movie now.. just to wipe out those metaphors from my brain.. just to have better sleep :) !!

Paper Clips..

Symbol represents the philosophy behind a particular act. Symbol represents objectives of specific institute or community. Once you understand the thought stream hidden behind a symbol, you will never look at that symbol the same way, you used to do before.. Symbols make us think !!

Same thing has happened to me, since I watched the documentary Paper Clips.

Paper Clips is a Holocaust project carried out by eighth graders from a small town in Tennessee. School teachers told the students abt Holocaust, Hitler and death of 6 million Jews (overall 11 million) in concentration camps. The number 6 million was somewhat difficult for students to understand, so they came up with an idea of collecting paper clips as a representative for every life lost in the concentration camp.. The reason for using the symbol "Paper clip" was because Norwegian patriots used to protest against the king by wearing paper clips. The clips were meant to denote "we are bound together".

So these students started writing to various celebrities, authors, politicians etc and they received responses in terms of paper clips.. When students started counting these paper clips one by one, they began to understand the enormity of holocaust. Initially the project was focused for students, but over the period it absorbed the whole community. In fact the news about the project reached all over the world. People started contributing to project by sending "a paper clip" as representative for their closer ones, who died in concentration camp..

Few concentration camp survivors visited this school to spend some time with these students and share their memories. It gave whole new insight into the "Cold", "Calculated", "Extermination" of Jews by Nazis in concentration camps.

Overall, students received 24 million paper clips. As a memorial, the school hosted 11 million paper clips in a railcar, which was being used during WW-II to carry Jews/prisoners to concentration camp.

Initially the project started with an objective of "Understanding Holocaust", but finally it turned out to be a project of "Love, Humanity and Freedom".

A Paper Clip.. A Symbol.. !!

Welcome Home SRE-1..

Following up with my previous blog entry. About Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) module, which was launched by ISRO 11 days back.

Today SRE-1 is returned home.. in excellent condition.. Hurray !!

When SRE-1 was directed for re-entry, it was traveling with lightening speed. According to ISRO press release, "The capsule made its re-entry at 09:37 am at an altitude of 100 km with a velocity of 8 km/sec (29,000 km per hour)". "By the time SRE-1 descended to an altitude of 5 km, aerodynamic breaking had considerably reduced its velocity to 101 m/sec (363 km per hour). Pilot and drogue parachute deployments helped in further reducing its velocity to 47 m/sec (about 170 km per hour). The main parachute was deployed at about 2 km altitude and finally, SRE-1 splashed down in the Bay of Bengal with a velocity of 12 m/sec (about 43 km per hour) at 09:46 am."

I believe it takes hell lot of design efforts to build a re-entry capsule that can sustain against the warp speed and intense heat being generated because of earth's atmosphere... In fact just out of curiosity, I looked into the numbers for Apollo 11 mission space capsule, called "Columbia" which carried 3 astronauts. According to NASA, "Columbia entered the atmosphere at a speed of 40,000 kilometers per hour (25,000 miles per hour), its exterior reached a temperature of 2,760° C (5,000° F)."

.. Hshhh... Unbelievable.. Those astronauts survived at these extreme conditions..

.. Hats off to Apollo mission !!

Lets see how ISRO plans for their first manned lunar mission in 2018 !!

Zoop In..

My blog is blessed with a "Fameter".. A meter that judges how famous you are... really? .. do you see those stars on the upper right corner of the blog... No ??? hey.. check your eyesight.. or simply allow java scripts in your browser... Okay.. so now can you see those twinkling stars on right hand side.. thats the one I am talking about.. (I know.. I know.. they are not twinkling)

So please bless my blog by clicking on the 5th star...and make me famous... I can find it easily where u r clicking.. so beware.. of me :) !!

Any way.. the real story is... my buddy has a startup dream and just wrote a "Fameter".. Its still in alpha testing.. so help him by visiting my blog again & again :) and clicking on Fameter.. (don't forget the 5th star :))

< advt >

So do you want to be famous ? .. in one click ??
... Tadaa.. Install Fameter !!

< /advt >

- Kau

Comet McNaught

Comet McNaught is in the sky these days.. brightest one to naked eyes since last 30 years. Its becoming more and more brighter.. Its traveling so close to sun that most of its material is evaporating.. increasing its luminosity..

In northern hemisphere, (USA/India) it was visible till Jan 14th.. I watched it couple of times.. It was awesome site.. I have watched Shoemaker-Levy, Hyakutake and Hale-Bop before.. but McNaught is the best one for me... My father used to tell me stories from his childhood about some comet and about its tail.. He doesn't remember the name.. I believe it must be Ikeya-Seki .. any way.. now I also have stories about comet McNaught to tell him about and I have already bored him a lot on the phone :)

Now, McNaught has finished orbiting behind the sun and again visible from southern hemisphere.. and it is at its best... its just fabulous.. Its tail is going in a curvature.. leaving dust streaks behind.. kind of showing its circular orbit around the sun.. infact now its extravagant..

I have seen pictures of various comets.. but none was like this one.. Pictures from southern hemisphere are pouring on spaceweather. Also take a look at the pictures taken by original discoverer Rob McNaught. .. Just beautiful !!

Checkout this video taken by sun watching spacecrafts SOHO and STEREO

Goshh.. I should have been on southern side... I am really missing this !!

Photo credit: R. H. McNaught, Siding Spring Observatory

PSLV-C7 Launch..

Another step towards.. India Rising !!

PSLV-C7 is launched successfully today at 9:23am IST. It carried 4 satellites at the same time and put them in orbit. Quite an achievement in itself !! Considering last year's failure of GSLV, we are surely back on track.

The best part of this mission is Space Recovery Experiment module (SRE-1). This is India's first attempt in developing space re-entry vehicle/capsule. After some micro-gravity expriements, SRE-1 re-entry will be carried out in 3 weeks. Success of SRE-1 will be a huge step for India towards our moon mission Chandrayan in '08.

Video of PSLV-C7 launch is available here .

Photos of the launch are available here.

Video of 4 satellites being mounted is available here.

Feels good today !!

photo credit: ISRO

Resolutions..

"New Year Resolution". This is surely an interesting business. Everybody comes up with some new resolutions every year. It doesn't matter if you have really achieved your last year's resolutions or not. Nobody verifies. But so what.. its utmost important to come up with some new ones.. :-D

Infact how long these resolutions survive is another aspect. While talking with my colleagues, somebody said "My new year resolution is to have a fish tank". The moment we started talking about "Fish fry" & "Fish curry", the resolution ended up in trash.
As Pu La says, "Ganapati ani Sankalpa sarkhech !! Kunacha Ganapati deed diwasacha asto, Kunacha paach diwasacha, Baghu ya amacha kiti diwas tikatoy te"

Overall the strategy is
- Setup an (un)achievable goal
- Start working towards your goal
- Soon you will realize that "achievable" goal is really under "unachievable" category. Rectify it and work towards it.
- Loopback last step for whole year.
- At the end of the year, you will get "something" done (??).. doesn't matter what was your original goal.

Hmmm sounds similar to software engineering :-) !!

Here is an interesting article by Pu La about new year resolutions..

So what are my '07 resolutions?

- Start a blog ... Tadaa.. Goal achieved !!
- Keep writing a blog.. Uhhh ohh !!
- Instead of "Standing Outside The Fire", try to get into it... Ya.. this is a mysterious resolution.. I will let you know at the end of the year :) .. Its as secretive as 007 !!

- Kau

The First One..

Though this is not my first blog entry, still I am marking it as "The First One"... (Technically, A. B. C. D. was the first entry.. but that falls under beta testing category of the blogger. Fyi, actually test didn't pass .. leckage of 3.. )

hmmm.. so what am I gonna write in the "first blog entry" ? It should be something "great".. something to remember by.. something people will find great.. hmmm

Actually I really don't know why I have decided to start writing a blog. .. Infact I just don't understand why people write their blogs.. Most of the "writers (so called)" want to share their thoughts with "public".. Everybody wants to share their opinion about some "xyz" issue.. who the hell wants to know what are your "abc" thoughts on "xyz" issue.. There are hell lot of intellectual folks (surely..) whose thoughts are interesting to read about than yours... so why yours.. I guess everybody considers themselves as "intellectual", "writer" and want to push their thoughts on others..

But any way.. if you are posting some articles, or some links from an "intellectual", then its good... btw, I am not talking about "so called" intellectual otherwise it might turn into a deadlock according to my "Push-Thoughts-To-Irritate aka PT2I" theory as i explained above.. any way.. or if you are writing about your personal things :) ahaaa then thats interesting to read about !!

I guess you are getting the feeling that I am rude, senseless, sadistic with corrupt brain bla bla... .. "Knock Knock".. "Whos there" "Its Eric... Nah Nahna Na Na" !!

Any way.. where was I .. why am I writing this blog ?..

Probably because I got inspired by somebody who is writing interesting blogs about her personal life which I find interesting... So I am writing one so that she can read mine.. Nahhhhh Or probably, "people" are interested in peeping into my personal life and I am just satisfying their devilish mentality.. hmmm thats possible. Or probably, somebody told me to get into "new year resolution" business and one of the resolution is "write a blog".... that sounds reasonable.. Or probably, I am thinking about "writing" for a long time, but wasn't able to get a good name for my blog.. hmmmm cut the crap.. Or probably, I just want to come out of my "pvt ltd" shell and interact more with public.. ( Oh no.. another "PT2I" author !! ) Or probably, I just want to jot down some mysterious thoughts out of my "black hole" brain and really want to verify they are abnormal.. Naaahhhhhh

But any way... reasoning doesn't matter.. Only thing that matters is "Black Hole" is finally born ... Excellent... after a long time..

Now the main problem is what am I going to write about on this blog...

Probably things which I like about.. like music, astronomy, literature, tech-geeky stuff, hollywood stuff.. Or probably things which people like about.. like my thoughts on cricket or politics or something of that sort.. you got the point.. right ?

Or probably some crap, like this blog entry.. Are you still with me? I am surprised that I have wrote so much crap in so less time and people are still reading this... I told you .. Human mentality of peeping into other people's life.. I guess thats why "blogging" works..

Any way,

Happy Blogging !! Let the new year bring more "interesting" blogs in your life !!

- Eric

A. B. C. D.

Testing.. 1 .. 2 .. 4..
..Is this blog leaking.. where the hell is 3 ?? (sounds familiar hmm..)

Don't blame me if you see any bizarre thoughts on this blog.. Its not me.. Its the "blogger" acting weird..

- Eric