I'm Back...

6 unbelievable days.

Highlights -
Sitting on top of coconuts in a lorry
Coming second
Winning money
Seeing how generous people can be
Riding in a truck
Wondering about luck
Imitating people
Connecting but not connecting
Living with dirty water
Doing non non-confrontational things
Keeping a train waiting
Listening to the truth being distorted
Having 4 cops jump on and asking some of the group to get out
Laughingggggggg like a mad person (whilst sitting next to a mad person - yes Sumita I am talking about you :p)
360 Degree Integration
Realizing how non-competitive I am
Realizing that some people aren't as nice as you think they are

Will write in more details about some of these later.


TBC

Out of town for 5 days

Since I didn't have time before, I am writing this post after I am back in town.

Went to Goa for our company offsite training. This was the fourth off-site training I have attended (even got a small appreciation for this being my fourth as there are only 2 people who have attended all four offsites).

Wasn't too happy with Goa as the destination. I still think we could have had it closer to Mumbai and everyone would have been better off as they wouldn't have had to travel 10 - 12 hours by train.

Learned a lot of things. Will be sharing more stuff later on as and when I get the time.

Tragic...

It so sad that we don't realize the consequences of our actions.


From LiveScience.com

Warming is also forcing some mountain plant species to adapt by moving to higher altitudes as it kills them in their traditional ranges. In Southern California, for example, warming temperatures and longer dry spells have killed thousands of tree and plants, while pushing their habitats an average of 213 feet up the Santa Rosa Mountains over the past 30 years, according to a new study detailed in the Aug. 11 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Previous studies have also catalogued the ways that climate change is knocking the nature out of whack: birds are migrating earlier in the season; reptiles and amphibians are also heading for the hills to reach cooler climes; and the timing of plant blooms is shifting as the Earth heats up.

Whole article at - Plants and Animals Move as Climate Warms

Pretty Funny...

http://yahoorezinr.com/

I love Google...

And I am not saying this because we got free Google sweatshirts, Pen Drives and Pens.

I love the AdWords platform. It's the most brilliant things every. I know we crib and we bitch but seriously it makes PPC advertising such a breeze.

And it's brilliant not only because it's easy to use and efficient to advertise but it's also complex in the sense that they have thought of nearly everything.

And they just keep scaling the system. Adding to it. Modifying it. Plugging into it. Google will not have a competitor when it comes to advertising platform at least for the next couple of years (I would have said decade or so but things changes fast on the internet).

Don't know why they such at their SNS - Orkut use to be the big thing but that was only till people got more options.

Their mail client totally rocks (though I hate how you can't have folders in gmail). As does their chat client. As does nearly everything they do whether it's google docs, google earth, analytics, website optimizer, adsense, froogle. The list goes on.

Tired

Long day....

No Boys...

Only men.





So obviously there is a story here right...

My uncle after a lot of eyes rolling said you should put up 'no boys' as your nick (he couldn't believe that 'lucky boy' and 'khuda jaane' were both song titles I had put up as my nick and couldn't believe I would leave them just like that [I could have put it as 'lucky boy song' or music sign followed by 'lucky boy' or 'lucky boy-bachna ae haseeno', etc] so people are curious as to what I am talking about). I said fine (knowing that lots of people will ask me what 'no boys'). And immediately my sis jumps in and says 'no boys, only men'. And I am like wow that was very creative and very fast. I guess it's the topic hehe. Anyway I liked her line so here it is.

Sorry I will always stay the 'boring person' I am.

Kite Power?

I love the idea of renewable energy. Not only because it is clean and (can be) abundant but there is huge potential for it to be cheap too. Interesting article I came across on Live Science. It talks about using kites instead of traditional wind turbines to generate electricity.

Read on if you are interested. Making a few sections bold for those who are partly interested.

Source - LiveScience.com

Tie one end of a string to a piece of fabric and you have a kite; but tie the other end to a generator and you have a source of electricity.

Although it can only turn a generator during part of its flight, a kite can reach the strong winds at high altitude with less fuss than a traditional wind turbine.

"The main reason to go to kites is that wind turbines require a lot of material," said Moritz Diehl from the Catholic University (K.U.) of Leuven, Belgium. "By saving on parts, kites can be more economical."

Diehl thinks the cost of electricity from kites could be a quarter of what it is from wind turbines.

Trading torque for tension

One factor in making use of the wind is knowing that its force becomes stronger the faster an object moves relative to it.

For this reason, the tips of a wind turbine — which typically move 8 to 10 times faster than the wind speed — experience the most force. This strong tip-force creates a torque that turns the turbine's electric generator.

"The rest of the construction [the inner part of the rotor and the tower] is just there to support the tips," Diehl told LiveScience.

A kite can capture the same wind force without needing the costly support structure. This is because it transmits the force not through a torque but through the tension in the kite line.

However, like a turbine's tip, more force can be had if the kite is moving quickly relative to the wind. Diehl and his colleagues have modeled power-generating kites and shown that it is possible to steer them in a kind of figure-8 pattern that increases the force by a factor of 100 more than remaining still.

Pumping

The researchers have also shown that the optimum way to unfurl the kite line is at one-third the speed of the wind. This allows electricity to be generated from the turning spool, while keeping the kite at a fairly constant altitude of around 1300 feet (400 meters).

Of course, this can only work for a short time before the line runs out and the kite needs to be reeled back in. Diehl realized a few years ago that the amount of energy expended during reeling-in could be reduced by angling the kite's nose down.

By continuously "pumping" the kite out and in, out and in, Diehl's group has shown that 5 megawatts of power — typical of modern wind turbines — can be generated from a 500-square-meter kite (5400-square-foot) with a line 1.3 kilometers (0.8 miles) long.

In each pumping cycle, there would be 16 seconds of power generation while unfurling and 4 seconds of down-time while reeling-in.

Besides having lower material costs than traditional wind turbines, Diehl said that kites can reach higher altitudes where the wind is stronger and more constant.

Changing tacks

There are other ideas on how to generate energy from kites.

One group at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has proposed stringing a large number of kites along a circular line that would extend 6 miles (10 kilometers) into the sky. The whole system would turn like a waterwheel, as the kites would change tilt to go up or come down. Called the Laddermill, it could generate 100 megawatts of electricity, the researchers estimate.

An Italian company called Kite Gen has a similar idea, but with the "wheel" laid flat on the ground. The design calls for several kites attached to a kilometer-wide spinning carousel. The tilt of each kite could be controlled so that it only pulls on the carousel at specific points in the rotation.

For now, though, both the Delft group and the Kite Gen engineers have prototypes based on Diehl's pumping that can generate a few kilowatts of electricity.

Diehl also suspects Makani Power, which received $10 million last year from Google, is developing a similar sort of kite technology in relative secrecy.

It is also worth noting that kites are being used to tow cargo ships. In two demonstrations this year, Germany-based SkySails has shown that its kites can reduce fuel usage by 20 percent.

Blowing in the wind

Despite being "a fascinating and exciting idea," many technological hurdles remain for power-generating kites, said Manfred Morari, head of the Automatic Control Laboratory at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

For one, the kites are inherently unstable. Researchers are developing automatic controls that can use data from sensors on the kite to correct for wind changes that blow the kite off course.

Another problem is scaling up systems so that they can be commercially viable.

"The kites must become bigger and bigger," said Bernhard Hoffschmidt of the Solar-Institute Jülich at Aachen University in Germany. "This will probably create problems on materials and life time."

Still, Hoffschmidt thinks that simple kite systems could be ideal for difficult locations, such as offshore.

"One of the major problems for offshore wind parks today is the needed time of excellent weather to install the units," Hoffschmidt said. Kites, on the other hand, could be installed on anchored buoys, "which can easily be installed and de-installed with a lower environment impact."

CCD definitely

When it comes to coffee, I would choose CCD (Cafe Coffee Day) over Barista (even though I have had limited drinks at both places).

There use to be a time I use to dislike CCD coffee till we started hanging out at JATC and I found the Iced Eskimo (which became a staple at CCD).

Today I had a cappuccino at CCD and couldn't help but compare it to the cappuccino I had at Barista just 2 days ago. Day and night difference. I found the CCD cappuccino way better. It was milder, frothier and lighter.

Next time if I have to choose between meeting at a CCD and a Barista (all things, except coffee, being the same), I'll choose a CCD.

Lucky boy...

Naah don't worry. I am talking about a song .

Enjoy 'lucky boy' from 'bachna ae haseeno'.

[Some how I feel that songs from Bachna Ae Haseeno just grows on you]

Video quality sucks but I don't really care cause it's not the video I like as much as the music.

Happy Independence Day...

Well if you know me, you know I am not big on 'days' - especially I don't like things like Women's Day and Valentine Day etc.

But there are certain days which have a lot of importance because, if for nothing else, they at least make us think about something specific for a while. Independence Day is a day like that (for me).

August 15th is important for me because it reminds me of the Partition. It makes me think of my family that was born and brought up in what is not Pakistan. It makes me think of obviously my luck at not having to flee my house, not having to live in refugee camps, not having to start a new life. But that was thing that some of my family members and their friends went thought. From riches to rags. From having houses as big as palaces, to living in tents. It was a tough time for a lot of people from my community.

While the whole freedom struggle is important to remember. While it is necessary to pay tribute to those who died for this county etc I think when something happens to you personally it has more of an impact. All our freedom fights are just names we (people of my generation) read about in our history books. We will never understand them, their life, their motives, their ideals. It's not wrong cause we obviously didn't live during those times. We might take our freedom for granted but we do that with everything. So for me Independence Day isn't about getting freedom or patriotism or any of that. Independence Day is about the Partition. It has always been (since I thought about the whole thing) and it always will be.


To Be Continued.

Khuda Jaane...

The song can really grow on you :)

I hate confrontations

I do.

I try and see that thing don't get to a point where parties have to 'sit down and talk'.

Why have igo issues man? I always feel that people who have igo issues are people who in their minds don't know their worth. Then I re-think and tell myself I am wrong. That I let things go not because I don't have igo issues but mainly because I have this 'let it go...who cares' attitude. I am not indifferent all the time but I do think that everyone has a right to get angry and everyone does feel frustrated, and everyone will have outbursts, and some people at some point in time will attack you. It's life. Shit happens. You just got to work things out.

I am straying. I hate confrontations and I always try and avoid them. I don't like the idea of yelling at someone (especially someone below me or younger than me). The only people who do hear me scream are my direct family. And that also because I think family forgives and forgets easily and fast enough. I do wish that I had more patience at home, at least half of what I had at work but I guess there is alway a difference in the way you communicate depending on who you are communicating with.

Anyway that's about it....

http://www.unkno.com/toplist/

The link is the 'toplist' of useless knowledge.

Some of the more interesting bits of 'useless knowledge' (I personally think that there is stuff that IS useless knowledge. I am not of the mindset that all knowledge is good and help etc etc etc. It may or it may not. With limited time I think all people need to know only what is most important to them to begin with and can go on to less important things etc. Anyway since this topic was not the intention of the post I am doing a bad job at it so I'll stop. None of the below is technically useless is cause you can either start conversations with the same or look cool for knowing crazy stuff).


- The word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

- An adult giraffe's kick is so powerful that it can decapitate a lion.

- The brain continues sending electrical wave signals for 37 hours after death

- There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess.

- American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by taking out an olive from First Class salads.


I wish the site had better usability so that it was easier to find more 'useless knowledge'.

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2008/07/nineteen-tips-f.html

Some things don't change.

Check out - http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2008/07/nineteen-tips-f.html. It about 'Nineteen tips for cheering yourself up -- from two hundred years ago.'

Really funny how some things stay the same no matter what century you are in while so much else changes so quickly.