Wiki- different from blog??

Found a good wiki -
http://www.pbwiki.com/?ref=Tour7

easy password protection, upload file / photos, easy to edit.

Saturn in our backyard ...

.... ok, in the telescope in our balcony.
After months of clouds, it was finally clear sky today. We had kept the telescope outside to get it cool down and were thinking about going out to see Saturn, actually thinking about not going because it was so cold. Then I went out, thinking that the direction is right, Saturn should be in the direction of our balcony and there were a couple of bright things showing. So then as the telescope was anyway outside, I just pointed it to the most Saturn-like thing and that was it!! And we could clearly see the rings from 10mm lense, though not the colours. And there were 2 bright things near it, donno if any of them was its moon. Need more studying to figure out.

Whiteout - Ken Follet

Another master piece by Ken Follet. I think he is my another favourite author. This book is full of adventure, series of unexpected things, enough to keep you hooked and turning pages. A total no-nonsense book.
Must read.
Other similar fiction by Ken Follet - Third Twin

cool new remix album

ok, it may not be really new, but i heard it for the first time. Kajra Nite by Sonu Nigam, lots of cool remixes. My favourites -
Kajra Mohabbat Wala
Hoton pe Aisi Baat

though Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas is totally messed up!!

Check it out at
http://www.raaga.com/channels/hindi/movie/V000548.html

and let me know if u get hold of it.

Winter Has Arrived in Redmond

So, winter finally arrived in Redmond with all its troubles. Today morning when I got up, the grass was all white, road was slippery and there was a thick layer of ice on my car. It took 15 min, lot of pain in fingers and the ice scratcher to get rid of it all. 10 min drive and 15 min of ice scraping!! And this is going to being a every day routine for next 3 months. Time to take out all those sweaters, coats, gloves, caps etc. etc. and layer up. Its also time to move back to California. Oh sunny San Diego !! Even windy San Francisco does not look that bad now.

Birthday Surprise

Telescope..........
This birthday was indeed a BIG surprise. I got a telescope!! A 6inch Orion XT6 beauty :) Spent one whole day assembling it, reading manuals and stuff. It reminds me so much of those wonderful nights star gazing in BITS. That telescope was of course 4 times size of this one. But excitement is still the same. And the way Urvashi and I used to bike back at full speed at 11:00 hoping the MB gates would still be open when we reach. But now I can look past that curfew :). Its a totally different story that we get 9 months of rain and extra looooooooong day light in dry season, still I am all over again excited about looking at rings of Saturn, craters of moon and galaxies.

Other highlight of the day was the mazing Chocolate cake with Chocolate icing and chocolate chips! yummiest!! Thanks to all the friends. And I ended the day with dinner at Thai Tom, which was ok, I think I am getting over its greatness now. Ethiopian next time.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Saw the movie on Friday in the theatre outside office, thinking that will see it again on a bigger screen. But the movie was somewhat of a disappointment for someone who as read, reread and heard the book. It not only deviated from the content of the book but also tried to introduce un-Hogwardly elements to make it, I donno what, more masala movie. Most disgusting was the "Rock'n'Roll" at the ball!! I could not believe it, Rock'n'Roll in Hogwards!! And the 10 minute long overly dramatized scene with the Dragon egg task, what was all that about. And they totally messed up the World Cup scene, Harry watching that man create the dark mark!! I do not remember that happen. The movie was running like a express train, fast fast and faster, but that I can understand given that the book was long and had too much content.

But of course, if you have not read the book, it would probably be enjoyable.

Harry Potter once again

there are some books and movies you cannot get enough of. So it was time for Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire once again, the movie this time. It released yesterday midnight, and I so much wanted to be there first day first show. But alas.... responsibilities of life do not allow me to be out untill 4 on a weeknight. So not first show, but I will sure be there first day. IMO, this book was a lot more action filled as the kids are growing now. Will see.....

State of Fear - Michael Chrichton

After a long time I read a book which presents concepts, ideas, which can actually be discussed and I am dying to discuss it!!
Spent the whole weekend reading "State of Fear" by Michael Chrichton, whole day, nothing else. Its quite a interesting book, it started with about being some environmental issues, and huge scale conspiracies and now is drifting towards influence of media on public opinions and stuff, and ended with random ideas by author about how we should 'manage' nature. Of course I have huge problems with the 'manage' concept.
The theme of this book is global warming and other effects of industrialization on global climate. Its a typical thriller by author, measuring up to Jurassic Park. There is also a element of suspense, very well written. Story line is great and proceeds at the exact pace to keep you involved in the book.

The author mentions really interesting facts about effect of media on people in developed worlds. He introduced PLM syndrome (or something) - Politics, Legal and Media. He said that these three things combined create a State of Fear in which most people of developed countries live. The media can create a picture of catastrophe from any smallest of events, and it paints such scary pictures, urging people to be prepared, to be careful, to be scared!! He also mentions the role of legal and politics in continuing that state. I totally agree with that, I can clearly see the difference while watching local news, every news story is amazing, everything is something to be scared of, something to be prepared for. Its these type of stories that keep people's attention and keeps the media profiting.

Towards the end he also throws in lots interesting ideas about what we should do for environment, the ideas I do not agree with. He does not seem to believe in conservation of nature, but in managing the nature. He says that natural balance is all non-sense, and you cannot just leave nature alone and let it recover from any damage that we have done. Though in the beginning he also presented examples on how human beings end up destroying nature by trying to manage it. But later he proposes to create a 'test environemnt', where we can experiment and learn what is the best way to manage nature, something that I totally do not understand.

Its a must must read.

quoting Michael Chrichton cont...

well, I thought that I would get the time to share what Michael Chrichton had to day in the book, but nope, I had to return the book and anyway I don't know if copying anything from the book would be copyright violation. I guess its not, but in this country, you can never be sure !@!

So anyway, I will just write the book summary at http://bookreviewsbyus.blogspot.com

One concept that he talked about, which I found so true was PLM syndrome (or something) - Politics, Legal and Media. He said that these three things combined create a State of Fear in which most people of developed countries live. The media can create a picture of catastropy from any smallest of events, and it paints such scary pictures, urging people to be prepared, to be careful, to be scared!! He also mentions the role of legal and politics in continuing that state, which I have sort of forgotten already.
And he also presents some interesting ideas about what we should do for environment, the ideas I do not agree with. He does not seem to believe in conservation of nature, but in managing the nature, though in the same book earlier he has presented lot of arguments about how we cannot manage nature, as we cannot fully understand it. But later he proposes to create a 'test environemnt', where we can experiment and learn what is the best way to manage nature!! Talk about million year plan :o

More later ........

quoting Michael Chrichton

This is one of the best and IMO most accurate paragraph I found in his book State of Fear. Unfortunately as the book is not online, I will have to type the whole thing out.....
coming up......

aaiye, aapka intzaar tha!!

That is how you can greet people on yahoo! messenger now and in a sexy voice and look too.
During our saturday monopoly session I discovered that Yahoo! has come up with a bunch of funny audibles in Hindi. The standard messenger audibles have some of them, when you go to more audibles - international - India, ( or something like that). To get all of them, you have to install the messenger from www.yahoo.co.in, its a pain with yahoo trying to change all your settings, but its definately worth the trouble.

Year 2084

A friend sent me this sometime back

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/10/10/opinion/1010opart.html

pretty impressive, humm!!

Monopoly

Yesterday was another night of monopoly.

b'day surprises

So how do u surprise a person on her/his b'day when the person knows what is the usual thing you do and you are intent on doing the usual thing. In our case, b'day cake at mid-night and dinner party next day. And what is this thing about cutting cake at mid-night!! Not everyone is born at mid-night, and cutting cake at 12 is same as cutting it at any other time. If you want to cut it at exact time a person become 1 year older (or should we say more experienced as we no more want to get older), should we not be cutting the cake at exact time the person was born?
And now the surprises, well, lets say efforts to give surprises... Are they worth all the effort of hush-hush, breaking into homes etc. etc. So yesterday we almost decided not to even attempt any surprises, as Ravi puts it -
"<"ravi">"
In order to uncomplicate the ubiquitous philosophical uncertainties that a birthday boy/girl goes thru about old age, married/unmarried life, prospective career moves, bosses and advisors and team leads, allgorhythms, saturday nite dandiya, nirvana, the universe and everything...it was en masse believed that one less uncertainty (read surprise) in life would be healthy! Opponents to the above-mentioned theory please stand up!
"<"/ravi">"

PS: I donno how to escape html tags

Angels and Deamons - Dan Brown

Another of the typical Dan Brown novels. A thrilling adventure in middle of unknown facts about christanity. The story line is good, there is not a mystery per say as Da Vinci Code, but unknown adventures in each page. It starts somewhat slow as usual, when the professor is explaining same things again and again about the long lost cult Illuminati. But it gets faster once we have past the beginning and things start moving at great speed. Its hard to put down the book when we reach the core of the plot. I spent the whole sunday just sitting and reading, convincing myself that I am too sick to do anything else. The real thrilling story actually ends 100 pages before end of the book. The last 100 pages were a great disappointment to me, its just a endless drag of same statements repeated infinite number of times, some small things happening in vatican after everything is over. Though author has not failed to hide still more surprises in those pages, but the content around those small surprises gets too boring. I would say a must read, but if you are short of time, you will not miss by skipping though the last 100 pages.

Horrors of Diet Coke

Today I was in my office, happily drinking away cold diet coke after lunch, keeping the sleep away and concentrating hard on work. It was at that moment that it struck me that diet coke is a artificial thing. Its artificially made, artificially sweetened and then filled with CO2!! So, I went to the net to find out what's up. And there it was the truth about diet coke and most of the artificially sweetened products - Aspartame. Yup, that's your culprit. Its the sweetner of diet coke and it works my stimulating your brain to think that what you are drinking is sweet!! Can you believe it, stimuating the brain directly!! Its like taking drugs, its not sweet, you just 'think' that its sweet. No wonder it makes you feel good about everything else too. Talk about artificial life. So that's the end of diet coke for me.

All BITS photos are up now

(and they are on yahoo ;))
BITS2005
BITS Library

And here is another blog which has more photos from BITS.
http://www.bitstrip2005.blogspot.com/

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams

Just finished another book by Douglas Adams, something about Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Its hard to remember the title itself. And as expected the book is as absurd as HHGG, but atleast in the first reading it does not seem to contain the humour that HHGG had. Its more full of absurdity. Dirk, the detective character has wierd habits like not opening his fridge ever!! Its something to do with different Gods and what they do. I did not get the story line at all. Guess will need to read it a second time to understand anything. Skipped the last few pages, it was just too much nonsense.

BBQ at Golden Garden

As summer is drawing to an end we seem to be trying to make the best of it. Yesterday we had another BBQ at Golden Garden Park. This one sponsored by STP cyclists. Had lot of fun. Food was usual BBQ burgers, chips, coke. Then we started playing ultimate frisbee, but the game was interrupted by a injury. After that we just hung out and then started the bon fire. It was nice sitting by the fire. After making an attempt at trying to play the story building game, we settled on Dumb Shreds. I had ofcourse played it after a long long time, I guess after school. And it was fun. Our team of Sree, Ravi, Vaibhav, myself and well, I forgot the name, totally dominated the other team. We came up with movies like 'Bhuvansham'.... or I think that was the name. Though I very much got stuck at 'Hedalgo', not being able to think of 'hide'. But anyway that's game, the experts guessed it anyway.