Some Random Thoughts

It has been more than a year since I started blogging. If you look at the earlier posts, you can see that this blog was created as I was getting bored after my college had finished, and I had nothing much to do for some time. Then, once I started working, gradually I got busy (this was in Nov 06). New place, new friends, new responsibilities.... Now, as I am almost about to complete a year as a working professional, I am trying to recollect how the past year has been for me. In a word - "GREAT"!!!! :)

The biggest problem I have in life is that I just cannot sit idle. I need something to do, something to keep myself busy all the time, maybe work, or maybe some time-consuming pass-time... Things were fine initially, with training and all for the first few months. I was excited.... Then, we got out of our training, and a few months of no work. Fortunately, I was one of the lucky few to be allocated in a project in March, and thats when I really got busy (but, I still manage to post some random article on my blog at that time, something related to the excitement of watching 300 the movie etc etc).

In April, we had a short trip to Goa. It was fun, but it turned out to be a too short visit. I remembered some of the places from my previous visit to Goa (that was way back in 1990, i think). And, I managed to click loads of photos.

I got shifted to a new project in June, and had the opportunity to work with a new team. The work was great, and I had a chance to learn about so many new things, was given new responsibilities.

I got a 30GB iPod video 5th generation (late 2006 model) from the U.S. As, I had mentioned somewhere in my previous post, I always wished to own an iPod. Now, I have one. I bought it in July. I was aware that Apple is going to release the new versions of iPods in Sept, but I didn't mind buying the 5th generation model. Even now, after I have read the reviews of the new classic and the touch , I don't regret buying that. :). I have my whole music collection (worth 16GB of songs) with me in my pocket... What else do I want??? It has now become a faithful companion....

So, here I am, as always, sitting idle on a Saturday morning, wondering what to do next.... BTW, here are some pics I had taken some time back, and I thought of posting them on my blog......

This photo was taken from my hostel room way back in college. I loved the way the photo captures the approaching rains.....

This one was taken on our trip to Sinhgarh fort in Jan 2006. I love taking photos of the setting sun
This one was taken on the Surya Kiran airshow in Suratgarh AirForce Station in Sept 06. I loved the red-planes-on-the-blue-background contrast.
This one was taken on my trip to Goa (I told you, I love taking photos of the setting sun)

Fireworks on display at Corenthian Club, Pune (you can check the video in my previous post)
This photo was taken at dusk. I had disabled flash, and had kept the shutter speed to around 8 sec to get the effect of daylight (just check out the yellow street-lamp visible in the photo)

Fireworks At Display

It had been a long time since I had made this video, and edited it. Recently I created an Youtube account, and decided to upload this video today... This shot was taken on our company's annual day celebrations earlier this year at the Corenthian Club, Pune. And surprisingly, the video turned out to be pretty clear. The sound was not at all clear, considering there was a show going on the stage, and people were shouting and screaming, so decided to add some sort of music instead. The soundtrack is Yanni's "In Your Eyes" (Album: If I Could Tell You).

Just for sharing, I thought of posting it on my blog too.... I am a bit too busy these days to post anything worth on my blog. Hope you like it... Do comment on the video, either here or directly on YouTube.

Dimension is here

Yesterday, I got an opppurtunity to try out the latest offering by the Opera browser team - the "Opera Mini Dimension"(beta)... For those who have no idea about Opera Mini, it is a J2ME based mobile browser, which can be installed on any Java enabled phone, and can be used to access the Internet, provided you have subscribed for GPRS with your service provider. I have been using Opera Mini for around 2 years by now, since its advent, and it has change the way people access net through their cell phones.

Back to Dimension.... It was last month when I heard that the Opera team is coming up with there next version (ver4) of their popular browser, and I registered for their beta distribution.... The wait was long, really long :( - over a month!!!! But, the wait was finally over yesterday, when I got my hands on the new Dimension... Despite a few bugs, which almost every beta product has, it was quite "revolutionary"...

Some features I noticed were:

+ It is possible to get the complete web page as a whole on the mobile screen, and we can zoom in to a particular page.

+ While in zoomed in state, it is possible to do both horizontal as well as vertical scrolling :)

+ When I am tired of the horizontal scrolling, I can directly switch to "fit to width" mode (the classic Opera mini mode), and continue browsing

Some features were missing in this beta version, which I know that they will include in the final release version :

- No RSS feeds

- The server fails to remember the logged in user after some time, so you need to re-login at regular interval

- Was expecting some kind of Flash support, but its missing here too

- Photo blogging is not supported in this version

- Landscape mode of browsing is still missing...

Inspite of all the shortcomings, it was a commendable effort by the dev team to come up with so many interesting features in the new version. Who would not like to have internet access on the move??? :)

Here I am, on a Sunday morning

It has been such a long time I posted anything on my blog, forget about looking at it..... What can I do?? Just couldn't find time :(

Today, as I got up a bit early (its a Sunday, for God's sake), and as I had nothing interesting to do, I wondered, why not update my blog a bit.... I was surprised to see that blogger is out of its beta stage, and even more surprised (though I many of my friends knew that I had predicted it) when I read about Bangladesh scoring a victory over our beloved "men in blue"!!!!

Going to watch 300 today, excited about it - I was dying to watch the movie, after watching the trailer last year (even though I don't like violent movies at all, I am sure I ll be loving this movie). And back to office tomorrow (had to go to office on Saturday too, damn it).

Aahh.... I just remembered, a long while back, I had posted an article about reviews of gadgets etc..... FYI, I now am a proud owner of Nokia 5300 Xpress Music, and, believe me, it rocks!!!! :D

Thats all for now.... Hopefully, I ll keep posting something or the other frequently.... (By the way, again FYI, I am in love with Google's Picasaweb.... do check out the link : www.picasaweb.google.com , it simply rocks too).

The August Mars Hoax

Recently, I received this mail, like many others... This is what it contained:

The Red Planet is about to be spectacular! This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again. The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m. By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. That's pretty convenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share this with your children and grandchildren. NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN.

Got a bit curious about what I just read... I mean, how can anyone be able to see Mars as big as the moon??? It will be catastrophic, if the event ever took place. So, searched about it in the internet, and came to know some interesting facts..... This so called spectacular event has been nicknamed as the "August Mars Hoax".

The main thing to be noticed from the mail that the sender forgot to mention the year in which the event is going to occur!!! So, thats what started all the confusions and the rumours. Here are a few snippets I got from various sites.... Some of them are from various NASA articles (check out science.nasa.gov), so these articles are fairly authentic..... So read on, and know the facts.

Mars did make an extraordinarily close approach to Earth several years ago, culminating on 27 August 2003, when the red planet came within 35 million miles (or 56 million kilometers) of Earth, its nearest approach to us in almost 60,000 years. At that time, Mars appeared approximately 6 times larger and 85 times brighter in the sky than it ordinarily does.

Although Mars' proximity to Earth in August 2003 (referred to as a perihelic opposition) was a rare occurrence, the red planet comes almost as near to us every 15 to 17 years. To the unaided observer, Mars' appearance in August 2003 wasn't significantly larger or brighter than it is during those much more common intervals of closeness.

Mars had another close encounter with Earth in in 2005, but that occurrence took place in October (not August), and the red planet appeared about 20% smaller than it did during similar circumstances in 2003.

Earth and Mars are converging for a close encounter this year on October 30th at 0319 Universal Time. Distance: 69 million kilometers. To the unaided eye, Mars will look like a bright red star, a pinprick of light, certainly not as wide as the full Moon.

Disappointed? Don't be. If Mars did come close enough to rival the Moon, its gravity would alter Earth's orbit and raise terrible tides.


Painted green by a flashlight, astronomer Dennis Mammana of California points out Mars to onlookers on Aug. 26, 2003, the last time Mars was so close to Earth. Photo credit: Thad V'Soske.