Space Galacticos

SpaceShipTwo of Virgin Galactic ; Nautilus of Bigelow Aerospace

Even though the technology has been around for ages, Space tourism is finally taking off(sorry for the sad pun). It promises to be the next big thing. The Space race is almost a throwback to the US-Soviet Moon Wars but with space for everyone and more!

Probably the largest entrant in this race is Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. It aims to send 50,000 civilians on a thrill ride more than 62 miles (100 km) up into space--to escape gravity and ogle our small fragile planet at a mere $200,000 or 90lakhs. The sale of tickets for the first 100 passengers who will be known as the 'Founders'(i'd prefer the name Galacticos after the Real Madrid stars!) is already closed, with a lone Indian in the list.

Another aspiring albeit a secretive entrant is Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com . His space tourism company, Blue Origin, is based on a Texas ranch. It’s developing a rocket ship called the New Shepard. A flight on the vehicle would last just a few minutes and allow a brief period of weightlessness.

Branson and his peers are confining themselves to suborbital travel for now: blastoff, a few minutes of zero gravity at the edge of space, then back again. The technology to make this type of trip has been around for decades, though the NewSpacers are working to make the trip exponentially cheaper, better, and faster.

The most ambitious project of them all is Robert Bigelow's hotel in space concept. Similar to the International Space Station but much larger, Bigelow’s project uses a cast-off NASA system of inflatable pods.

It would be interesting to watch this race. One thing for sure, in twenty years time it would fairly commonplace to travel to space.

Top 10 Best Presentations Ever

I got this link from squidoo.com . Has some excellent stuff!

Top 10 Best Presentations Ever.

I haven't seen all of them yet, and some of them are long, really long.But they are definitely worth a watch.

Worth a special mention is the Seth Godin one and the Macintosh.

"Technology doesn't win, but it sure gives you a chance at marketing."

Bottom Heavy

It was shocking to see India play the way they did against Bangladesh. They were outplayed in every department and have only themselves to blame.

I think we've got our batting order completely wrong.Sachin is our best opening bat and Yuvraj Singh our best middle order player.The batting order should revolve around them rather than they being fitted into it.

We are putting our best batsmen down the order aka pakistan. Thus by the time Sachin, Yuvraj and Dhoni(argubly india's 3 best attacking batsmen) came we were already under the pump. Ganguly was awful when the bowling was good and the the ball was moving around(why are we even suprised) but played better against the spinners and as for Sehwag the less said the better.

So my batting order would be Tendulkar,Uttapa,Ganguly,Yuvraj,Dravid and Dhoni

As for the bowling, I don't get why Agarkar is given so much importance. With Munaf in the team, there was absolutely no reason for him to open the bowling. Also i'd rather have Sree Santh in my team than Agarkar.

On a lighter note, with Pakistan out of the world cup and India on the brink of elimination, the estimated viewing audience may come down by a mere 1.5 Billion people. Perhaps India should be given a wildcard in the super 8's for the sponsor's sake.

Identity 2.0

A dynamic introduction on Identity 2.0 and how the concept of digital identity is evolving.

This is an even better video on web 2.0. and is a must watch.

Back to the Future

"Big Brother is watching you" - 1984

I don't necessarily agree with the video(Swagat... thnx), but it is an interesting take nonetheless.

After seeing it,I remembered 1984 by George Orwell and the problems he highlighted. As the web becomes ubiquitous, we may well moving towards those problems rather than away from it.

Perhaps a Microsoft dominated world isn't so bad. For one thing a Google dominated one would be far more dangerous.

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. "– George Orwell 1984

Mangy Dog, Scurvy Jackal and Moulting Vulture!

This has to be one of the best curses, you will ever hear. I must have read it at least a hundred times, but it still cracks me up.

Taken from Land of Black Gold - Tintin .
The Emir is infuriated when his son is kidnapped and he receives a ransom note. He then responds in this hilarious fashion.

Surely you're joking, Mr. Fletcher

With the world cup around the corner, the media is abuzz with some ridiculous statements.

Among the more ridiculous ones I have come across was from Duncan Fletcher, the English Coach. According to him England's biggest enemy at the World Cup could be their own self-confidence, and that they would have to guard against complacency.
Self Confidence... Complacency... These POMS never seem to learn. They have lost all but 4 matches in the last 6 months, and they already talking about being over confident.

Fletcher also called Monty "a second spinner" who will have to displace a seamer if he is to play.
Second Spinner!!! Guess who is England's No.1 spinner according to him?....
Dalrymple! With an amazing bowling average of 42 and a best of two wickets in an innings.
Thank God Giles is not in the squad. Poor Monty would have been relegated to the 3rd spot.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

I had read the text of this fantastic speech a while back at a friend's blog. Just came across the video.

Now this is what you call a graduation speech!

Is someone from college listening?

Pandora's Box of Music

A friend(Namisha!...thnx) recently recommended this site http://www.pandora.com/
It has always been a pain to search for new types of music, especially the type your friends don't really hear.

Was pleasantly surprised by this site. Not only does it recommend the songs to you, but also streams it instantly. So you can check for yourself if you like the song or not.Thus the pain of hunting for it, downloading it only to realise that you can't stand the song does not exist.

Over time it gets better and better as you use it and I guess it can almost function as a personal DJ.

It actually gave me a decent recommendation for a song similar to some obscure lounge track, "Smokebelch II" by "Sabres of Paradise" , I had once heard. And it turned out to be pretty good.

Chaos!

It has been disappointing to see the way Nike has marketed Cricket in general, but this is the first really good advertisement from Nike on Indian Cricket. Nike has a country specific website for even the Philippines but does'nt have one for India.

In the ad, they have captured the essence of Indian Cricket perfectly which is CHAOS!

Indian Cricket is pure chaos, right from the BCCI down to gully cricket.

Recently we had the Chairman of Selectors, Vengsarkar saying that Sehwag was in the team because the captain Dravid had insisted upon his selection. How Convenient! If the plan backfires, which is very likely, he's already deflected the blame on Dravid. If it succeeds he's ensured that he will get credit for "listening" to the views of the team management. Vengsarkar is among the most respected of Indian cricketers' and if he can issue such statements to save his skin, who can blame a board secretary from saying some rubbish.

A while before that there was confusion regarding the team kits and Pathan's fitness, and before that issues regarding the "flexibility" of the team, and before that the famous Ganguly-Chappel spat, and before that on Dalmiya's Money Laundering and before that .... well the list is endless.

Coming back to the ad, I love the song and the exclamations' . Another excellent detail Nike has captured is the competitiveness between the players. Also at any given point there are 3-4 people trying to bat or bowl!Watch cricket in any small field or gully and you will see or hear pretty much the same.

And I wont be surprised if they have an extension to the ad, where SreeSanth is the one that actually gets on to the bus to bowl, and does his famous Mallu break dance.

Hello World

This is the obligatory "Hello World" post.
For all the nOObs out there ...

Hello World is the traditional way of testing new programs in computer science. Its probably the two most annoying/gratifying words for a programmer.

For more on the "Hello World" Philosophy check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_world