iPhone blog post

This is test blog post from my phone.

Speed limits

I always thought why not restrict cars to only under 70 mph. You get a ticket if you go higher anyways and it is dangerous, so why allow the car to run at speeds over 70 mph? It's now happening in the UK. They are thinking of installing devices that will slow the car down to the allowed limit on any particular street. That is cool and been a long time coming.

Remote finders

My digital photo frames idea came true (almost, they are yet to play videos). I wish the same with this one. I wish remote controls have built-in radio-frequency finders in them. With a click of a button next to the TV, the remote starts beeping whereever it is. Phones already have them, why not do it with remotes. It will come in handy in times when the remote has suddenly gone missing! 

Hindu pooja audio

This was an interesting find. Raaga hosts audio content for Upakarma and Vinayaka Chaturthi Pooja.

Google 411

I recently found this amazing free service, Goog-411. It is like carrying google around with you everywhere. Just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411). I don't have mobile internet and use this 1-800 number to find locations while I am outside. Previously it was costing me $2/call for the regular 411 service. With a combination of Goog-411 and a GPS system, you can be sure you never get lost. You don't necessarily have to connect to the location and talk to someone. The voice detection software allows you to get the location address by selecting the detail option.

Marta!

The coolest female foot baller I have ever seen, Marta Vieira da Silva. See her goals...it's magic.

How little we have travelled

I often talk about how little we have travelled in space. The most we did (physically) is to reach the outer rings of our solar system with the Voyager spacecrafts. The spacecrafts are currently in the termination shock region of our solar system. Our Sun is one among the billions of stars in the milky way galaxy. They are billions of such galaxies in the universe. It will take quite a long time just to reach the next star let alone the next galaxy. Most of our research comes from telescopes that reach out to far reaching galaxies and get us great pictures. I find the prviate space program very interesting. I look forward to the space tourism launching next year. May be some day I will get to travel to the space. :)

Beer statistics

I was at the grocery store looking at an aisle full of beers from all over the world. And I needed to pick one. I thought it would be cool if they had an electronic display (next to aisle or at various locations similar to the Price checker) to show which beer sold the most (this year, this month, all time etc. like Youtube does). The display would be touch screen based that can be expanded to see additional information. I can then try out the top 10 sellers and end up with the one that I prefer. You can replace the beer example with any other product and see how it would be really helpful. When are we going to get Web 2.0 in the real world?

Dasavatharam and human evolution

This is a followup to my previous couple of posts. I had stumbled onto a post about the ten incarnations of Vishnu and how it relates to the human evolution. The post shows how the ten incarnations of Vishnu may relate to the various stages of the human evolution, starting with a fish, then a amphibian, and then ape etc. Here is the list:

1. Matsya Avatar (Fish) - Life started in the water.
2. Kurma Avatar (Tortoise) - Amphibious - Life moved from water to the land. (See Ichthyostega and Missing link videos).
3. Varaha Avatar (Boar) - Complete animal - Adapted to live on land.
4. Narasimha Avatar (Half ape) - Transformation from animal to ape.
5. Vamana avatar (Dwarf) - Transformation from ape to human, developed intelligence.
6. Parasurama avatar (Forest dweller) - Humans developed stone tools.
7. Rama avatar (Hunter) - Humans used superior weapons, bows and arrows, created villages.
8. Balarama avatar (Farmer) - Humans started agriculture.
9. Krishna avatar (Businessman) - Domestication of animals and development of economy.
10. Kalki avatar - Yet to arrive. He may bring the end of the world. It could be a virus.

It was interesting to put these two topics together. I have come to believe that religions use metaphors to explain complicated things. For example, Rahu and Ketu are used to represent the Lunar nodes (See Rahu and Ketu–The Invisible Planets).

Evolution and natural selection

I am starting to like the subject of biology again. I had chosen computers over it at school. Learning about evolution by natural selection has opened up my eyes in more ways than any other thing I had ever learnt. And this man, Richard Dawkins, gets all the credit for it. If you want to learn more, watch the videos on this page, The Genius of Charles Darwin: Presented by Richard Dawkins.

Concept of Time in Hinduism

I am posting after a long break. I stumbled onto this post, Hindu Concept of the Beginning and End of Universe, that has a informative video by Carl Sagan. Many Hindus believe Brahma is immortal and is part of the Trinity (with Vishnu and Shiva). But there is an alternate view that Brahma lives for 100 years, gets destroyed and created again by Vishnu to create a new universe. This is fascinating stuff since no other religion has such a far reaching measurement of time as Hinduism does.

Indian Idol 3?

I watched Karunya and Monali Thakur sing at a TASC function in Los Angles last year. Until then I was not aware of a Indian version of the Idol. I checked out the Indian Idol website and was hooked. I was looking forward to following the next season.

So, I wanted to find out when the next season of Indian Idol starts? The official website has no information about it. I expected them to have some information about auditions on their home-page. Nothing. The site has not been updated since the Idol 2 ended. Many have been desperately looking for audition information for Idol 3. I am hoping someone will know.

Chennai street maps on Google

I learnt this from Teakada. Finally a street level map of Chennai and it is pretty cool. I hope we will get directions soon.

From rags to riches

I found this story interesting, The inspiring rags-to-riches tale of Sarathbabu.

Roller coster ride

When I heard this story on NPR this morning, it stuck me hard. I quote, Leroy Sievers, "And no one else, as much as they want to, as much as they may need to, no one else can really ride along with you. They can watch; they can be supportive. But when you're up there on top of the ride, looking down on that huge drop in front of you, you're the only one in the car". I lost my mother due to cancer earlier this year. I fully understood what he meant.

I recently learnt that a 2 year old named Nirali is going through the same ordeal. It is a lot of suffering for a little one to go through. I hope she finds a match soon. I have heard younger ones have a greater chance to fight it...I just hope that it is true in her case.

Tea is good for you

I just found out that drinking tea is healthy. That is good news to me. I had quit coffee sometime ago. I am drinking around three cups of tea a day.

Jill Carroll tells her story

I stumbled across this link while reading Yahoo News! She was held captive for 82 days in Iraq.

Few things (family tree, backup et al)

I have a few things to write about. So here goes:

1. Tribalpages: I have setup my family tree here. You can check out a sample family tree of the British royal family. After I added photos to each person, the views got really interesting. It acts like a address book too. I suggest you give it a try.

2. External hard-disk: I once heard on Leo Laporte's radio show, the importance on having a backup solution at home. I recently got to implement one at home. My digital videos and pictures collection absolutely needed it. The question was "What if my system crashes and I lose everything?". The company built external hard-disk solutions have smaller hard disks and high prices. I had a friend of mine suggest how I can build one myself (Thanks Suresh). I went to Micro Center and got a internal IDE hard drive for a cost of $120 ($60 mail-in rebate). I then bought a hard disk drive casing for $25. For a final cost $85, I had a 200GB external hard disk solution. Setting up the casing was pretty easy, just put in the hard disk and connect the cables. It works like a USB flash drive. You get a new drive letter and it is simple copy and paste operation to backup the files.

3. Name search: If someone knows your name, wants to find out where you are and what you are up to, what do they do? I was thinking, they would do a Google search. But Google search results are random and not a ideal way to do this. If you don't have a online presence (homepage etc), you will never show up. The next option is to use a website that has tons of members. Yahoo is one such. I have now updated my profile so that I show up on a search like that on members.yahoo.com. There is a check box on the profile that has to be checked so that it shows up on a search like this. Now the question is, who is going to bother search for me? :)

4. Free postal service to India: Free online postal service is one that provides a e-mail to paper post service to reach people in India without e-mail access. Alcacrity housing in Chennai once had a service like this. Now that site is down. I went searching and found a list of websites providing this service. Indianservice is one that stood-out in the list. Has anyone tried it?

5. Yahoo Answers and Ask: If you have not check these yet, you should. Ask has an XML feed.

6. Definitions: Did you know Google can be used as a online-dictionary?

Getting paid for writing on Wikipedia

Companies are starting to see value in having presence on Wikipedia. Now someone has started a business based on it. MyWikiBiz.com gets paid helping companies setup their articles on Wikipedia. Here is one of the company's contributions. Now that's a novel idea.

Israel and Palestine

The Israel-Lebonan war is all over the news these days. I have a particular interest in Middle east history, Israel in particular. Ever wonder how Israel ended up in the middle of bunch of Arab states. BBC News has a detailed history of the conflict and a portal on Middle east crisis. BBC remains my primary source of news online. And NPR on the radio.