My amazing world

OOB == Out Of Box

2007-06-15T13:18:00.000+08:00

Wanna stand out of crowd? Wanna be leader (in any field)? have any idea/ thought, which can grab the attention of people? Then make sure you are there in OOB conference, 2007.

oob stands for ‘Out Of Box’, and defines the new age entrepreneurs, thinkers, idea-creators and achievers. oob, is an experience! An experience which will keep you inspired; will get you thinking; and will push you to action-mode.

Today morning, i got an e-mail from the Project Director, OOB Conference. Instead of writing what he said, i prefer to paste his e-mail here. please update yourself with these changes:

"Thank you for blogging about oob™ Conference 2007. You would be happy to know that International Speakers are willing to come on board and speak at the conference. Keeping this in mind, we have postponed the Conference to the 14th and 15th of Sep (Friday - Saturday) this year. The conference will be held at the J N Tata Auditorium, IISc Campus. I would request you to make the appropriate changes to your blog page. Thanks again.

Regards,
MC PreethamProject Director - oob™ Conference
E-Mail: preetham@oobconference.com
Web: http://www.oobconference.com/"

(Inputs drawn from: http://www.oobconference.com)

Microsoft Surface: Behind-the-Scenes

2007-06-01T19:40:00.000+08:00

The software giant announced today at the D5 conference that it’s built a new touchscreen computer—a coffee table that will change the world. Go inside its top-secret development with PopularMechanics.com, then forget the keyboard and mouse: The next generation of computer interfaces will be hands-on.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE, INCLUDING HOW SURFACE WORKS...

PLUS: CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO GLENN DERENE TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE OF SURFACE ON THE POPULAR MECHANICS SHOW PODCAST...

(Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com)

Play Soccer with fingers

2006-07-22T18:44:00.000+08:00

Miranda- DON

2006-07-15T17:39:00.000+08:00


Good but funny Video..:-)

YAHOO! & MSN (MICROSOFT) have joined forces.

2006-07-14T10:56:00.000+08:00

Many third party IM applications are available which will club all your yahoo & msn messenger contacts in one. But now Yahoo & MSN have come together. Now you can use yahoo messenger for chatting with your contacts in yahoo & msn IMs.
PS: You must have new yahoo messenger with voice (Beta)

Here is what yahoo! says:

It's a great day for the world of instant messaging. Working hand-in-hand with our friends at Windows Live™ (MSN), we've connected our IM communities, making it even easier for you to stay in touch.

From the new Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, you can see when your Windows Live™ (MSN) Messenger contacts are online and send them instant messages. Keep all your friends in one place and IM with them anytime, right from Yahoo! Messenger. How cool is that?

To start sharing instant messages with your Windows Live™ (MSN) Messenger contacts, please sign out of Yahoo! Messenger and sign back in.

Then just click the Add a Contact button on your main Yahoo! Messenger window to start inviting your Windows Live Messenger friends to join the fun.

Once you click on add new friend you can see a messege popping out of drop box alerting you about new feature introduced by yahoo! Once you invite your friend who is using msn messenger, your friend will get an alert [See picture below :) ]

One more series of bomb blasts in Mumbai-India

2006-07-12T00:26:00.000+08:00

(Picture courtesy: today.reuters.com/news)
A series of 7 bomb explosions rocked Mumbai this evening around 6:00 PM (local time). All seven explosion took place in a span of 30 minutes across seven locations in western Mumbai. The blast took place during the peak hour, when many working people start going back to their homes.
Till now official claim is that around 145 people have been killed and 250 people are injured. But in reality the actual numbers always outnumber the official figures. Looking at the timing of the blast, location of the blast, I suspect around 250-300 people might have been killed.

Related stories on Mumbai blast:
Serial blasts halt Mumbai's Western Railway
90 killed in Mumbai blasts
Serial blasts rock Mumbai(Pictures)
Bombs hit trains in Mumbai, at least 135 dead

Some more related links(07/12/2006):
Eight explosions hit train network
World leaders condemn Mumbai explosions
Mumbai's spirit shines through
Picture courtesy: Times of India - Mumbaites helping each other in the hour of crises
(This picture really touch my heart. Look at the old woman's spirit. Hats off to her.)
Terrorists will be defeated: PM to countrymen

National Geographic:Stone Age Elephant Found at Ancient U.K. Hunt Site

2006-07-09T02:13:00.000+08:00

James Owen reports in National Geographic News that there is an evidence of human life UK during stone age. Here is an excerpt drawn from National Geographic site :

The 400,000-year-old remains of a massive elephant discovered near
London provide the first evidence that Stone Age humans in Britain hunted
and ate the ancient animals, scientists say.

PICTURE:Workers excavate the tusks of a prehistoric elephant found in 2004 near London, England. Researchers were able to date the site to approximately 400,000 years ago, using the teeth of voles (inset)—small rodents resembling rats—that were found near the elephant's remains.The discovery is the first evidence found in Britain of early humans having hunted and eaten ancient elephants. Photographs courtesy: Francis Wenban-Smith

The early humans butchered the elephant at the kill site and ate the meat raw, the archaeologists add. The male straight-tusked elephant—a member of the extinct species Palaeoloxodon antiquus—weighed about 9 tons (9.1 metric tons), twice as large as elephants living today.
Workers unearthed the remains in 2004 in the town of Ebbsfleet, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of London (see map of the United Kingdom), during construction of a new railway line to the Channel Tunnel.
The elephant was found on the edge of an ancient lake along with stone tools that archaeologists say were used to cut up its flesh.
The mammal was probably killed by a group of hunter-gatherers armed with wooden spears, the study team adds.
Read more details on National Geographic site .

(Excerpts are drwan from: news.nationalgeographic.com)

Discovery: Study: Baboons Talk With Hands

2006-07-07T20:59:00.000+08:00

Have you ever wondered how Baboons & chimpanzees communicate? Hahaha..read here a quite interesting report from Jennifer Viegas of Discovery News. Really very good article. I'm putting excerpts from discovery news here..

PICTURE:More Than Arm Waving

Right hand dominance in gestures among non-human primates may hint at the origins of language.

A baboon hand gesture appears to send the message "go ahead, make my day" to other baboons — suggesting that gesturing may have been a precursor to human language, according to a new study.

The findings could help to explain why humans often gesture with their hands, and particularly the right hand, when they speak.

Since the right hand is controlled by the brain’s left hemisphere, which is the source of most linguistic functions, scientists believe communication by hand likely existed in apes 30 million years ago and was a forerunner to spoken and written language among people.

PICTURE:Monkey Business
This right-handed gesture is a signal to other baboons to keep away, say researchers who studied the animals.

Researchers Adrien Meguerditchian and Jacques Vauclair studied a particular hand gesture in 60 captive baboons. The gesture consists of quick and repetitive rubbing or slapping of the hand on the ground, and is used to threaten or intimidate others.

Meguerditchian and Vauclair, who work in the Research Center of Psychology of Cognition, Language and Emotion at the University of Provence, France, told Discovery News that this motion "might be comparable in humans to the slap of ... one hand toward the palm of the other hand."

For the study, which is published in the current issue of the journal Behavioral Brain Research, the researchers observed this gesture as it occurred naturally.

They also triggered it by having a human abruptly shake his head and then glance at a baboon. Head shaking is another threatening move in the ape and monkey world, which includes all sorts of communicative gestures.

"A nonhuman primate can effectively raise an arm to ask a social partner to groom it ... give another a little slap as an invitation to play, touch furtively the hand or genitals of another to greet it, slap the ground to threaten," the researchers wrote in an e-mail to Discovery News.

Among the baboons in the test group that favored a certain hand, 78 percent were right-handed and tended to gesture with this hand. Other studies have shown that most human babies and deaf individuals also communicate with their right hands.

"There is little chance that our (primate) cousins will evolve language skills in the near future," Meguerditchian and Vauclair said.

"Monkeys and apes and their specific communication systems result from other evolutionary roads than those of humans...It is very unlikely that the natural selection for primate species will reproduce exactly the same phylogenetic path that gave linguistic skills to humans."

William Hopkins, a psychology professor at Berry College and an expert on the evolution of brain development in primates, told Discovery News, "I agree with the findings and think this is a very good and interesting paper.

In many ways the results are nearly identical to those we have previously found in chimpanzees."

He explained that both chimps and baboons seem to use right hand gestures for communication. This suggests the brain is asymmetrical when it comes to language, meaning that the left hemisphere tends to dominate.

Hopkins added, "It will be interesting to see whether the asymmetries in hand use seen in the baboon link at all to brain asymmetries as we have found in the chimpanzees."

(Excerpts drawn from: dsc.discovery.com/news)

In Depth: Long-Range Missiles Are Tough to Master

2006-07-07T20:49:00.000+08:00

Why long range missiles are touch to master? A complete story is available on Discovery channel's website. I'm putting the Excerpts from discovery, quite interesting(If you like scinence and technology :P). Here it goes ..

PICTURE: U.S. Missile Made to Defend
A ground-based Interceptor missile launches from the Ronald Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands during a test in December, 2005. In response to North Korea's movements toward testing a long-range missile, the United States moved its ground-based interceptor missile defense system from test mode to operational in June 2006.

North Korea's test fire this week of a long-range missile, the Taepodong 2, raises questions about the country's intention for launching a nuclear weapon into U.S. territory, roughly 7,200 kilometers (about 4,500 miles) away.

Defying international pressure is one thing, but developing a missile that can travel a quarter of the distance around the globe while carrying a nuclear payload is quite another.

So-called intercontinental ballistic missiles are riddled with countless and costly technological challenges that include everything from the fuel to the missile's structure; from the rockets to the payload.

To work well, the system must work flawlessly, and the failure of Taepodong 2 just 40 seconds after launch suggests that North Korea is not quite there — yet.

To date, the United States, Russia and China have some of the largest long-range missiles that, on record, can reach distances between 11,500 and 13,000 kilometers (between 7,145 and 8,077 miles).

North Korea, on the other hand, has yet to test a missile that can reach anything beyond 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), said David Wright, co-director and senior scientist in the Global Security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass.

"It's the reason that I was not at all surprised that this launch failed," said Wright, who in the 1990s focused a great deal of technical analysis on North Korea's missile technology.

A Matter of Thrust

The challenge in launching an intercontinental missile is that in order for it to go far, it needs to go fast. That's because ballistic missiles are powered early in flight and then rely on gravity to fall toward their destination. It's just like throwing a baseball: if you want to throw it long, you have to throw it hard.

To maximize the thrust and minimize the weight of fuel and fuel tanks, engineers typically design long-range missiles with two or three separate rockets. The first rocket launches the missile just beyond the upper atmosphere before breaking off and falling away.

A smaller second (and later, third) rocket automatically ignites, using less fuel in the thinner air to boost the missile to the top speed of its trajectory.

"Not only does the missile have to be robust enough to withstand the extreme temperatures experienced during blast-off and high altitude flight, it must be reliable enough to separate each stage of the booster rocket so it falls away without altering the trajectory of the missile," said Minh Luong, assistant director of International Security Studies at Yale University.

If a fuel line breaks or an O-ring cracks, the entire system can fail.

"The [Taepodong 2] didn't even get to the end of the first stage before it blew," said Owen Cote, associate director of the Security Studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Even the fuel itself could cause flaws. According to Luong and Wright, the North Koreans use liquid fuel instead of the more reliable but more chemically complex and technologically sophisticated solid fuel.

The liquid fuel, a mixture of kerosene and nitric acid, which helps it burn, makes fueling the rockets a very dangerous process.

"A spark caused by metal-to-metal contact could ignite the fuel and there would be a tremendous explosion," said Luong.

What's more, the fuel decomposes over time and the nitric acid can quickly corrode seals, seams, sensors, pumps, pipes, and other important components.

"Once you fill the missile, the clock starts ticking," said Wright.

Packing a Lightweight Punch

If the rocket manages to launch error-free and propel the missile into its trajectory, it still needs to achieve a high orbit and withstand the tremendous speed and intense heat that will rattle it upon reentry into the atmosphere.

And even if it can do all of that, a long-range ballistic missile is only as dangerous as the weapon it carries. It has taken the United States 30 years and billions of dollars of weapon development to build a nuclear bomb that weighs just a few hundred pounds, said Cote.

The Taepodong 2 would have been capable of lifting just 100 or 200 pounds.

"It's unlikely that the North Koreans are capable of producing nuclear weapons that weigh that little," said Cote.

In the near term, the country's long-range missile program doesn't appear to pose an immediate threat, at least to the United States.

But for those within short range, such as Japan, it's another story.

(Excerpts drwan from: dsc.discovery.com/news)

Taiwan Test Fires Missile, which can hit China easily..

2006-07-07T01:19:00.000+08:00

Taiwan plans to test-fire a missile capable of hitting China, alarming the island's main ally, the United States, a cable news network said on Thursday.

The Hsiung Feng III, developed by Taiwan's Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, has a range of 600 km (360 miles) and is accurate to within half a meter, the online edition of cable news network ETTV (http://www.ettoday.com) said, quoting unnamed military sources.
Read more on yahoo news.

(Excerpts drawn from: news.yahoo.com & ettoday.com)

DilBert Comic...refresh yourself.. :-)

2006-07-06T13:00:00.000+08:00

Funny pictures of Microsoft

2006-07-06T10:39:00.000+08:00

txtDrop.com ->SMS to your cell phone from your blog visitors

2006-07-06T09:36:00.000+08:00

txtDrop.com a web based text messaging company is now providing free widgets for your website, which will create a button on your website or blog. So cool haaa.. Now visitors to your website or blog can directly send SMS or text message to you free of cost.

What do you think? Is it useful? If a blog or website has hundreds of users everyday, then what would happen to the website/blog owner ;-) ?

PS: THIS SERVICE IS AVAILABLE ONLY IN USA & CANADA (very bad....What about people in other countries )

Nano soccer pitch etched onto glass

2006-07-05T20:51:00.000+08:00

A German scientist has used nanotechnology to create what he believes is the world's smallest soccer pitch.

Dr Stefan Trellenkamp, from the University of Kaiserslautern, made the pitch by using an electron beam to engrave lines onto a tiny piece of acrylic glass.

The pitch measures 500 by 380 nanometres and can only be seen through an electron microscope.

"I am really, really proud," the nanotechnology researcher says.

"The only problem is that I really don't know what to do with it. I can't put it on show as no one can see it," he says. "I guess it'll just stay in my drawer for the time being."

Trellenkamp says it took him a whole day to etch the pitch, which is so small that 20,000 of them could fit onto the tip of a human hair.

(Excerpts are drawn from:/www.abc.net.au)

Monkey teasing Dog

2006-07-05T15:13:00.000+08:00

Face/Off

2006-07-05T10:42:00.000+08:00

Who has forgotten this Nicholas Cage & John Travolta starrer, hollywood blockbuste released in 1997. It's one of the best action movies of hollywood. Well why i'm mentioning about this movie now? Yup there is reason behind it. The major scene of this movie is a medical technique, using which a FBI agent undercovers to take the physical appearence of major criminal (That's what the movie title also indicates).

Well now the French doctors have comeup with something similar to it. The Lancet, one of the prestigious journal, has reported it.

Here are excerpts drawn from ABC Online:

Face transplant details made public
The world's first partial face transplant, carried out by French doctors last November, has been acclaimed by the medical establishment as a historic achievement, although major risks remain unresolved.

Controversy had swirled around the pioneering operation carried out by a team led by Professor Bernard Devauchelle in Amiens, northern France, with critics suggesting it was fraught with surgical and psychological peril.

But, in a sign that the exploit has been accepted by the core of the medical community, Devauchelle provides a detailed account of the transplant procedure in the prestigious, peer-reviewed journal The Lancet.

He also says that the patient's state, at the four-month mark, was fine.

"The technical feasibility of the procedure has been clearly demonstrated, with no surgical complication," says Devauchelle, whose paper is published online.

"The functional result will be assessed in the future, but this graft can already be deemed successful with respect to appearance, sensitivity, and acceptance by the patient."

The patient, Isabelle Dinoire, 38, lost her nose, lips and right cheek after she was savaged by a dog.

On 27 November, a triangular-shaped part of the face of a 46-year-old woman, who was declared brain dead after suffering a severe stroke, was grafted on to Dinoire's face.

Thinking of rejection

Microsurgery was used to suture arteries, veins and motor nerves, and Dinoire was given immunosuppressant drugs aimed at thwarting rejecting of the transplanted organ.

She was also given two grafts of bone marrow, four days and 11 days after the transplant, to help produce white blood cells to fight off infection, a frequent consequence of taking immunosuppressors.

Bone-marrow transplants are themselves risky, sometimes causing life-threatening complications.

One of the surgeons who took part was Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard, who carried out the world's hand-forearm transplant.

Two analyses of the operation, also published online by The Lancet, pay tribute to Devauchelle's work.

But they also raise questions over the longer term.

German facial surgeon Dr Patrick Warnke of the University of Kiel hailed the operation as "a new milestone".

But he warned, "failure of the [immunosuppressant] regimen chosen could prove devastating, with the possible loss of the transplanted face at any time".

In addition, heavy use of these drugs also boosts the risk of cancer, meaning that a woman who before the operation was otherwise healthy despite her major handicap "is now at great risk", he says.

The ethics of transplants

Dr Edgardo Carosella of the St Louis Hospital in Paris and Thomas Pradeu of Sorbonne University says the ethical dilemma of a face transplant remain unresolved.

In the case of the first hand transplant, the recipient, New Zealander Clint Hallam began to view the organ as alien, stopped taking immunosuppressant drugs and eventually begged, successfully, for the hand to be amputated.

"Every graft of a visible organ leads to an identity split, the consequences of which can be very serious if the recipient does not succeed in psychologically accepting the organ and in rebuilding its social expression in everyday life," say Carosella and Pradeu.

These and other issues are being mulled by UK medical watchdogs as they vet an application by London surgeons to carry out the world's first full-face transplant.

(Excerpts drawn from: http://www.abc.net.au)

Bad Luck..

2006-07-04T23:00:00.000+08:00

Really this is what is known as Badluck.. :-)

Optical illusion (?)

2006-07-04T17:39:00.001+08:00

Windows 98 & Windows Millenium will be executed..

2006-07-04T15:53:00.000+08:00

From 11th July 2006 microsoft will stop support for Windows 98, Windows 98 second edition, Windows Me.
Excerpts from Microsoft :

End of support for Windows 98 and Windows Me
July 11, 2006 will bring a close to Extended Support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me as part of the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy. Microsoft will retire public and technical support, including security updates, by this date.
Existing support documents and content, however, will continue to be available through the Microsoft Support Product Solution Center Web site. This Web site will continue to host a wealth of previous How-to, Troubleshooting, and Configuration content for anyone who may need self-service.
Microsoft is retiring support for these products because they are outdated and can expose customers to security risks. We recommend that customers who are still running Windows 98 or Windows Me upgrade to a newer, more secure Microsoft operating system, such as Windows XP, as soon as possible.
Customers who upgrade to Windows XP report improved security, richer functionality, and increased productivity.

For more info go here, here and here :) ..

The Hindu - On the plains of Cambodia

2006-07-03T23:15:00.000+08:00

Picture: ANGKOR WAT TEMPLE ( A World Heritage Site )

It is an incredible sight to see the temples on the plains of Cambodia. These 100 or so temples were built when Hindu kings reigned over a period of time from the 9th to 13th century. These magnificent temples were constructed out of stones, which were reserved for the gods while the people dwelt in houses made of wood and mud.

Of great beauty

Some of the bas-reliefs depicted on the temple walls show various Hindu mythological legends such as the samudramanathana which was supposed to bring out the nectar of eternal life by churning the ocean using vasuki, the serpent king. On one side were the devatas and the other side the asuras.

The most important temple complex is near the town of Siem Reap. The Angkor Wat, built in the 12th century A.D., has been declared a World Heritage Site. The visitor is struck by the grand design of the temple with its five soaring towers and intricate terraces on whose walls bas-relief depicts legends, warriors, battle scenes and ordinary Khmer life.

The temple was built during the reign of Suryavaraman II and was dedicated to Lord Vishnu whose idol adorned the sanctum. However, with the advent of Buddhism, the idol of Buddha replaced Vishnu. The temple was meant as a funerary temple though no royal was buried within its precinct.

Another important temple in this region is The Bayon built during the reign of Jayavaraman VII, Kher's greatest builder, which is a Buddhist complex with the giant faces of Avalaokiteswara adorning the temple towers to scare away would be intruders. The Bapuhon is a small but magnificent temple whose pyramidal structure represents Mount Meru of Hindu mythology. Ta Prohm is a complex temple structure, which has been kept as it was discovered with many huge cottonwood trees taking root right in the temple posing a serious danger to the structure.

King Jayavarman VII dedicated the temple to the royal mother. In the height of its glory, it has been recorded that 20,000 men were required to maintain the temple.

A study of these ancient Hindu/Buddhist temples gives the visitor first hand information about the architectural skills of the ancient Khmers.

Moreover, the bas-relief shows the life of Khmers during the period 9th and 13the century A.D. These people have left an indelible footprint on the architectural wonders of the world.

(Excerpts are drwn from:thehindu.com)

FEELINGS

2006-07-03T16:08:00.000+08:00

I feel the pain of a hundred souls,
Shut in on themselves by fear,
I feel the pain they dig like the moles,
Lest it should come out to the air.
Scared they are of their own feelings,
Trapped from the past in their care,
If only they could stand and cry,
They would no longer be shy.

SOUND OF MY HEART

2006-07-03T14:37:00.000+08:00

Listen the sound of my heart, oh! sweetheart,

taking your love on 'love bullock cart'.

Just departed, long way to go,

you don't know I love you so.

In this journey, will you be with me,

and love me, all the way to thee.

Whenever you touch me, my heart pounds,

your one touch, fills all the wounds.

Piano of my heart, start playing song,

the moment you and I sing along.

Oh, sweetheart, for me, don't have hate,

the strings of this piano are very delicate.

They will break, if you'll stop singing,

And the days of my life will start ringing.

(Excerpts drawn from: esnips.com/web/Sam-stuff)

Livin la vida loca - Ricky Martin

2006-07-03T09:35:00.000+08:00

One of the Ricky Martin hits.... I like it..

Wow.....

2006-07-02T00:03:00.000+08:00

See this TGV commercial..you'll definately say..WOW :-)

Real Pain... My Blog is Broken

2006-07-01T21:47:00.000+08:00

Sorry guys..
Somehow unexpectedly some code in my blog page is broken.
Working on to fix this problem. I hope i'll do it as soon as possible.
God bless me..

Tea time comics..enjoy!!!

2006-06-30T17:18:00.000+08:00

Google Checkout

2006-06-30T10:09:00.000+08:00

Google has luanched one more service Google CheckOut, a online shopping portal.
According to Google, Google checkout is faster, secure and more convinient. Here are some snapshots from Google checkout..
a) Search for participating stores across the web
b) Check out in a matter of seconds

3) Keep your credit card number and email address confidential
d) Track all your orders and shipping in one place

e) A few places to shop
Allready few web stores are associated with this new service of google. Some of them are..
Levi's , Timberland , Buy.com , StarbucksStore , Dockers , Jockey , Aeropostale , BlueFly , Dick's Sporting Goods , RitzCamera , Zales , eCost etc...

A short video tour of Google Checkout

(Excerpts drawn from: www.googl.com, www.checkout.google.com)

Rama Sethu or Adam's Bridge

2006-06-29T15:05:00.000+08:00

This is one of very interesting and curious subject for anybody who knows about Indian Mythology & puaranas. The space images taken by NASA shows a mysterious( I believe for the people who know about Indian mythology it's not mystery) bridge between India and Srilanka, Which is mentioned in Ramayana (one of the two great epics of India).
NASA named this bridge as Adam's bridge(I donno why, NASA linked this bridge to Adam)

I would like to share some of the material which i came across & which i feel is logical(PS:My personal thought... no offence to anybody).

Shanti writes in here blog:

Correlations between Hindu Cosmology, Sea Level Curves and African -Asian Hominid Dating
By Malcolm P.R. Light

A sea level variation curve from about 8 million years ago to the present day (Late Miocene to Recent - Eberli, 2000) is compared in Figure 1 to the time of construction of Adam�s Bridge between southern India and Sri Lanka, Hindu cosmological dates and African Asian chronological data. There are a number of clear correlations between the Hindu cosmology, the sea level curve and the geochronological data.

Each of the Yuga cycles (Das 2004) appears to correspond to a major cycle in sea level change. The Satya/Kriti Yuga is preceded by a long period of rising sea level in the Late Miocene but sea level began to fall sharply during this Yuga reaching a minimum of -80 metres below mean sea level around 2.7 million years ago (Figure 1 Eberli, 2000). During the Late Miocene, early arboreal apemen, Sahelanthropus tchadensis (Toumai), Orrorin tugenesis and Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba lived in the extensive thick forests in Africa (Brunet et al. 2002; Wood, 2002; Pickford 2001; Aiello and Collard, 2001; Haile Selassie 2001; Senut et al 2001; White et al. 1994; Wood; 1994). The following Treta Yuga represents a period of rising sea levels during which Hindu cosmology said there was increased rainfall and the formation of new rivers (Das 2004). The Dvapura Yuga is a period of falling sea level, followed by a rise at the beginning of the Kali Yuga (Das 2004, Eberli 2000).

At the start of the Satya/Kriti Yuga, 4.3 million years ago (Das 2004) there was a general period of falling sea level (Eberli 2000) and major climate change in Africa during which the vegetation began to alter from thick forest inhabited by 4.4 million year old arboreal Ardipithecus ramidus ramidus to dry woodland and gallery forest inhabited by the 4.2 million year old Austrolopithecus anamensis (Leakey et al. 1995; White et al, 1994). By the end of the Satya/Kriti Yuga some 2.7 million years ago (Das 2004), sea level had reached its lowest level some 80 metres below the present sea level and the woodlands were still in habited by Austrolpithecines (Figure 1 Eberli 2000; Leakey and Lewin 1979; Gowlett 1984).

The start of the Treta Yuga (2.6 million years ago) when man began to pursue knowledge (Das 2004) corresponds exactly with the time the first tools appeared in Africa. These tools were made by the newly evolved upright hominids, Homo habilis and later Homo erectus (Foley 2003; Leakey and Lewin, 1979) who now inhabited the harsher savanna consistent with the description of the conditions in the Treta Yuga (Das 2004). Homo erectus began to migrate out of Africa because of increasing aridity in the rift savanna between 2 and 1.8 million years ago into Asia (Leakey, 1994; Leakey and Lewin 1979; Templeton, 2002) and India (Joseph 2004).

Hanuman, the monkey God in the Ramanyana (Joseph 2004), must have been Homo erectus and this hominid species would certainly have seemed ape-like to modern day man. They were the ancestors of Pekin man in China (Wolpoff and Caspari 1977), the 1.6 million year old Homo erectus in Java and probably the 18 thousand year old hobbits recently found on Flores island (Stringer, 2004; Dalton, 2004). Adam�s bridge appears to have been constructed between southern India and Sri Lanka 1.8 and 1.6 million years ago in the Treta Yuga during a period of sharp sea level fall to some 60 metres below the present sea level (Figure 2; Eberli 2000).

A strip of land must have been exposed between India and Sri Lanka as the sea level approached its lowest level, between 1.8 and 1.6 million years ago. Because Homo erectus had already reached southern India before that time he must have tried to get across to Sri Lanka when the land began to be exposed at low tide during this period of sea level fall, around 1.75 million years ago (Joseph 2004). The driving force for his migration was probably population pressure within the southern Indian forest which caused food shortage. The exposed region between southern India and Sri Lanka must have been a treacherous path with many quicksands and shallow lakes. It seems logical that after several of his company were lost during periods of rising tide, Homo erectus could have started to construct a causeway by throwing trees and other vegetation onto the loose sand and and covering them with rocks. Homo erectus must have built the floating bridge on the quicksands that is so elegantly described in Sage Valkimi�s account of the �Ramanyana �(Joseph 2004). Nala son of Vishvakarma (architect of the demigods) constructed a causeway - magnificent with its wonderful paved floor - like unto a line traced on the waves�(Joseph 2004).

The Adam�s Bridge causeway must have been a major engineering feat for its thin trace is still so clearly visible on the present day satellite images (Joseph 2004). It has resisted the relentless erosion of the sea for almost 2 million years and it attests to the great engineering skills of the ancient Indian people. It is the earliest and largest carbon-fibre reinforced civil engineering structure known to man and should be protected as a world heritage site. A shallow seismic survey could be used to detect the strong reflection acoustic signal of lignite formed from decayed wood in the framework of the causeway and this will guide later drilling programs where the actual structure of the causeway could be investigated.

In addition to the above correlations, one Brahma day (4.32 billion years)(Das 2004) is close to the value for the age of the Earth (4.6 billion years)(Lide 1994). One cycle of our Universe from Big Bang to Big Crunch assuming a Universe age around 15 billion years is 30 billion years almost identical to 1/100 of a Brahma year (31.1 billion years)(Das 2004). One Brahma year is 3.11 trillion years (Das 2004). Note the length of a Yuga cycle (and the start of the Satya/Kriti Yuga) at 4.3 million years is 1/1000 of a Brahma day (Das 2004).

God will smile down upon us and grant these happy wishes

2006-06-28T16:31:00.000+08:00

To this day I am unable to figure
what I did right to deserve you,
you, my life, my soul, my all,
and I, your smile, your heartbeat,your love.
The world around us oblivious to our joys
and we, lost in each other's eyes
in each other's embrace
in the words we share
in the love we cherish ever so deeply.
So let us pray with whole of our existance,
that God will smile down upon us and grant
these happy wishes,
For without them we are incomplete and lost
and with them we are the richest of them all.

You are my inspiration,
you are my reason for existing
in this harsh, cruel world,
You are the colors that fill my life's canvas
and now i can be selfish and keep you with me,
for you are mine to keep and cherish
till the mountains turn to ashes
and the seas turn into clouds and perish,
there is a world beyond this one,
there is another lifetime to live and love,
but without you there is no point in living
this time or any eternity even.
(Excerpts drawn from: esnips.com/web/SarzsPoems)

I'll Love You For Ever

2006-06-28T14:27:00.000+08:00

His Love.....

2006-06-27T23:31:00.000+08:00

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER

2006-06-26T14:43:00.000+08:00

Erma Bombeck wrote this excellent and truely touching poem, when she came to know that she's dying becaus of cancer.
The poem goes like this:

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner." There would have been more "I love you's." More "I'm sorry's."

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute . . . look at it and really see it . . . live it . . . and never give it back.

Stop sweating the small stuff.

Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.

Instead, let's cherish the relationships we have with those who love us.

And think about what we have been blessed with. And what we are doing each day to promote ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally as well as spiritually.

Life is too short to let it pass you by. We only have one shot at this and then it’s gone.

I hope you all have a blessed day.

isn't it meaningfull and nice? yup it is .. :)
Live life's each and every moment... Once the moment is gone is gone.. it won't come back..
God bless you all..

Where the Hell is Matt?

2006-06-23T14:54:00.000+08:00

Gandhi - Framestore Ad

2006-06-19T10:03:00.000+08:00

"What if a great man of the last century – Gandhi,
say – had, had access to the communications networks of our age when he made one of his most important speeches?

The result is 'Telecom Italia Gandhi', an astonishing 60-second spot that has just started airing in Italy. The producers went straight to the A-List for their director, bringing Spike Lee on board to helm it. Such an ambitious project with such a high-profile director needed the very best in VFX support, and Framestore CFC were delighted to fill that role.

ABC Science: Scientists catch the early bird

2006-06-18T22:37:00.000+08:00

I read a quite interesting report published in ABC Science magazine , its about the existance of amphibious bird about 100 million years ago.. Here i'm putting excerts from the ABC science magazine.. you can read.. (if you are interested:-) ) ..

Reconstruction of the ancient amphibious bird Gansus yumenensis - the most advanced Early Cretaceous bird yet discovered (Image: Mark A. Klingler/CMNH)

Spectacular 100-million-year-old fossils, complete with three-dimensional bones, feathers and foot webbing, suggest living birds evolved from waterfowl, say researchers.

Dr Peter Dodson, professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and team report in today's issue of the journal Science on five partial skeletons found 2,000 km west of Beijing, China.

Called Gansus yumenensis, the pigeon-sized bird probably resembled a tern or a loon (web-footed fish-eating birds), the researchers say.

It would have been an accomplished flyer and diver and could well be one of the ancestors of modern birds.

"Gansus is very close to a modern bird and helps fill in the big gap between clearly non-modern birds and the explosion of early birds that marked the Cretaceous period, the final era of the Dinosaur Age," says Dodson.

He says Gansus is the oldest example of the nearly modern birds that branched off the trunk of the family tree that began with the famous proto-bird Archaeopteryx, which provided evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

"Every bird living today, from ostriches ... to bald eagles, probably evolved from a Gansus-like ancestor," says team member Dr Matthew Lamanna of Carnegie Natural History Museum in Pittsburgh.

Rich fossil bed

The fossils were found in an exceptionally rich fossil bed in China's Gansu Province, in a poor farming area near Changma, by an expedition led by team member Dr Hai-lu You of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences.

In the Cretaceous period, 100 million years ago, it would have been a lake, surrounded by lush plant life, filled with crocodiles and fish, and with dinosaurs and early mammals prowling on land.
A nearly complete fossil skeleton of Gansus yumenensis - dark brown feathers are preserved associated with both wings (Image: Hai-lu You/CAGS)

Now the lake bed survives as layers of rock.

"You can walk up to a rock and peel off sheet after sheet like paper until you get to a fossil," says team member Dr Jerald Harris of Dixie State College of Utah.

The five skeletons found were 115 million and 105 million years old.

While none of them included a skull, the wings, legs and webbed feet of the specimens closely resemble those of living loons and diving ducks, with a few exceptions, the researchers say.

The birds had not yet evolved the hollow, air-filled bones that make modern birds to light and nimble, and it still had tiny claws at the end of its wings that probably would have made it slightly clumsy in flight, says Harris.

"It appears that the early ancestors of modern birds lived lifestyles that today we would stereotype as being duck-like, heron-like, stork-like, loon-like."

He says Gansus likely behaved much like its modern relatives, probably eating fish, insects and the occasional plant.

"We won't have a definitive dietary answer until we find a skull," whose teeth and jaws would reveal its feeding habits, says Harris.

(Excerpts drawn from: http://www.abc.net.au)

Al Qaeda planned N.Y. subway attack

2006-06-18T22:06:00.000+08:00

Two months had passed since 9/11, and at the highest levels of government, officials were worrying about a second wave of attacks. CIA Director George Tenet was briefing Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in the White House Situation Room on the agency's latest concern: intelligence reports suggesting that Osama bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had met with a radical Pakistani nuclear scientist around a campfire in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Absorbing the possibility that al-Qaeda was trying to acquire a nuclear weapon, Cheney remarked that America had to deal with a new type of threat—what he called a "low-probability, high-impact event"—and the U.S. had to do it "in a way we haven't yet defined," writes author Ron Suskind in his new book, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11. And then Cheney defined it: "If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response." Suskind writes, "So, now spoken, it stood: a standard of action that would frame events and responses from the Administration for years to come."

Target of Terror: Passengers wait for their train on a New York City subway platform last week

In the following excerpt, Suskind describes the government's reaction to information about a different WMD threat: hydrogen cyanide gas. As in the rest of the book, he illuminates the constant interplay and occasional tension between the "invisibles," the men and women in the intelligence and uniformed services actually fighting the war on terrorism, and the "notables," high-level officials who "tell us that everything will be fine, or that we should be very afraid, or both." Suskind, who won the Pulitzer Prize as a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, wrote the 2004 best seller The Price of Loyalty, an inside look at the Bush Administration. In The One Percent Doctrine, Suskind finds that the notables and the invisibles have at least one thing in common: a "profound sense of urgency." Time's exclusive excerpt: Read here. It's complete 7 page detailed report published in TIME magazine.

One more addition to this story..
Just read a related story on BBC..
Al-Qaeda 'planned US cyanide hit'

(Excerpts drawn from: time.com, news.bbc.co.uk and cnn.com, )

Fairytale - 光良-童话

2006-06-17T15:13:00.000+08:00

A romantic chinese music video Tong Hua (Fairytale) - Guang Lang

The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments

2006-06-15T15:33:00.000+08:00

What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? It's amazing and completely insane.

The first part of this video demonstrates a simple geyser, and the second part shows just how extreme it can get. Over one hundred jets of soda fly into the air in less than three minutes.

It's a hysterical and spectacular mint-powered version of the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, brought to you by the mad scientists at EepyBird.com.

(Excerpts drawn from: EepyBird.com)

Cheeky Monkey

2006-06-15T13:55:00.000+08:00

How PooR(ich) we are...

2006-06-14T21:13:00.000+08:00

Today i got one forwarded e-mail from one of my friends. This is very simple & small story, but yet very close to real life.

The story goes like this:

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country(village) with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.
They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.
On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"
"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.
"Oh yeah," said the son.

"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.
The son answered: "I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

The boy's father was speechless.
Then his son added, "Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are."
Isn't perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have. Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends! Refresh your perspective and appreciation.
"Life is too short and friends are too few."

Vikash Dhorasoo

2006-06-14T12:58:00.000+08:00

Wikipidea records about him as below:
"Vikash Dhorasoo (born October 10, 1973 in Harfleur) is a French football midfielder, who currently plays for Paris Saint-Germain in France Ligue 1. He is a member of French Team for 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

Vikash, who is of Mauritius-Indian descent, was born and grew up in Normandy. He belongs to Telugu community, his ancestors having migrated to Mauritius from the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He started his professional career with Le Havre Athletic Club, where he quickly excelled. After five years playing for Le Harve (1993-1998) he became a promising midfielder and then played for Lyon (1998-2001 and 2002-2004), Bordeaux (2001-2002) and AC Milan in (2004-2005). He won twice the French Ligue 1 title with Olympique Lyonnais (2003 & 2004).

Vikash Dhorasoo has played in French national team for the first time in 1999 but his appearances have been limited due to tough competition in midfield with players such as Zinedine Zidane or Patrick Vieira.

In 2006 He scored and give the Coupe de France (French Cup) to Paris Saint-Germain over fierce rivals Olympique de Marseille."

(Excerpts drawn from: wikipedia.org, uk.sports.yahoo.com)

Discovery Channel - Body Shape Changes with the Seasons

2006-06-14T12:36:00.000+08:00

Spring Brings Curves
When researchers examined testosterone levels and body shape across seasons, they found that women appear shapelier, and men appear manlier, in spring. The changes correspond to lower testosterone levels.

Body Shape Changes with the Seasons:<b/> Seasonal changes cause fat to shift locations in our body, thus altering the shape of our figures at certain times of the year, according to a new study.
The study suggests women look more curvaceous in winter and spring. Men, explained Van Anders, look manlier during spring since waist and hip size becomes more uniform and less feminine." We hope you'll stop by Discovery.com ... and that you'll enjoy the feature that your friend chose for you!.........
Read more here.

(Excerpts drawn from: http://dsc.discovery.com)

Water Power.... Water Fuel

2006-06-14T11:06:00.000+08:00

Water Power... Water Fuel

Watch Video Clip

Missed Goals or Shots

2006-06-13T13:33:00.000+08:00

TheHindu: Discovering the king

2006-06-09T14:00:00.000+08:00

Excerpts Drawn from The Hindu (One of the India's leading daily)

Cut into the Thebes mountains in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor in Egypt, the cavernous tomb of the Boy King was filled with priceless artefacts.

THE GOLDEN MASK: A likeness of the king Tutankhamun.

......."With mounting excitement, Howard Carter, an English archaeologist, financed by Lord Carnarvon, opened the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. The first mortal who laid eyes on Tutu's tomb treasures was amazed by the grand and intricate design of the objects found within. It took years to sort out and catalogue the over 3,500 objects. The cavernous tomb was cut into the Thebes Mountains in what is known as the Valley of the Kings, near the town of Luxor, Egypt.".......

Curse of the mummy

....." The Egyptians mummified the bodies of kings and commoners and placed them in tombs filled with all the necessities of life. To protect the deceased in the afterlife and to prevent robbers or political enemies from desecrating the burials, the tombs were hidden in out-of-the-way places and a curse was invoked against violators

The belief in the mummy's curse was rekindled when Lord Carnarvon, died five months after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. He died of blood poisoning following a mosquito bite that became infected." .....
To read complete story click here.
(Excerpts are drawn from: www.thehindu.com)

One more vidoe on FootBall..ofcourse it's Soccer season now :)

2006-06-09T12:28:00.000+08:00

Nike Portugal Vs. Brazil Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldinho, Figo, Cristiano R

Nike commercial...Ronaldo, Ronaldhino, Roberto Carlos, Adriano, Brazil Airport

2006-06-08T23:56:00.000+08:00

Beer Can Soccer ~~ Antarctica beer commercial

2006-06-08T11:29:00.000+08:00

Some more free utilities, tools, guides ..... etc...

2006-06-07T13:07:00.000+08:00

I was browsing something on the internet. I found some good links and resources, so again sharing with you all. I hope it'll be usefull to atleast one person :-) .

Free Partitioning Software - Copy, Create, Move, Resize, Convert, Undelete Partitions

Free Antivirus Software

Free Encrypted Email, Free Encrypted Chat

Free Personal Firewalls

Free Programming Libraries, Components and Source code

Free Online Programming Tutorials/ Frequently Recommended Programming Books

Free Emulators and Virtual Machines (Virtualizers)

Free Pearl and CGI Scripts

Free PHP Scripts

Free Web MAster Resources

Here are some websites list which will provide you online storage/ sharing of files

Streamload
fileXoom - 2 GB space. Allow all file types.
Free File Hosting - 150 MB file size limit.
RapidSharing - 200MB per file, unmetered downloads, fast and reliable.
Verzend.be - 1 GB - Unlimited Downloads, Unlimited uploads, Unlimited Bandwith and 100% free of charge!!
mysharefile.com - 150 MB is maximum file size limit.
EZ-Files - Free file hosting with 50 MB limit.
SaveFile - File size limit is 60 MB. After uploading you'll be given link, that others can use to download the file(unlimited times).

ABC Science Online: Why 666 is a devil of a day

2006-06-06T23:06:00.000+08:00

Today one of my friend asked me, "what date is today?". I said, "it's 6th June". Then my friend said, " you know today is devil's day & it's very bad day". I told my friend, " do not worry, it's just belief of few christians & some other peoples as well". "Everyday is good. It all depends on how live your day", I said. I was just reading ABC Science Online and found an article on 666.. So thought of sharing with all.
Excerpts from ABC Science Online:

Today is the sixth day of the sixth month of the year 2006. Boil it down and you've got 666, the number of the beast according to the Bible's book of Revelation, which prophecies the end of the world.

"...The mythology of 666 goes back to chapter 13 in Revelation, the apocalyptic final book of the New Testament, which states "Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast ... his number is six hundred threescore and six"...."

"...Macquarie University's Professor Max Coltheart, an Australian cognitive neuropsychologist, says being superstitious about 666 doesn't necessarily add up to a delusion...."

"...."If you believe something that people around you don't believe in, and there's no evidence for it, that's a good working definition of delusion," he says.

"If it's in the Bible someone might call that evidence."

Six is the first perfect number (Image: iStockphoto)
Associate professor of anthropology Phillips Stevens of the University at Buffalo in New York, says fears of 666 are actually based on a misinterpretation of the Bible.

He says the beast referred to in chapter 13 isn't Satan but several entities.

"Biblical scholars have pointed out there are several beasts in chapter 13 and elsewhere, and they all refer variously to Rome, Roman emperors and Roman cults of God and emperor worship," he says.

"John of Patmos ... was writing to other persecuted Christians in code."..."

Perfect numbers

Six also has significance because it is the first perfect number, says Bigelow.

Perfect numbers, which are rare, are the sum of their factors, for example, 6 = 1 + 2 + 3 and it can be divided by one, two and three.

The next perfect numbers are 28 (1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14), 496 and 8128.

The last time the 666 combination occurred was in 1666, the year of the Great Fire of London.

However, it also marked the year in which Sir Isaac Newton published his Law of Gravity, leading it to be dubbed the Annus mirabilis.

Wanna read it completely? click here.

(Excerpts drawn from: www.abc.net.au)

TheHindu: Ancient landfall ~~ Where did the Pallava ships go from Mamallapuram?

2006-06-06T22:39:00.000+08:00

This article was published in "The Hindu" on 6th June,2006 is really quite interesting for the people who wish to know history and historical events. This article speaks about the links between 'Kedah' an oldest state in Malasia and Tamils (people of 'Tamil Nadu' a state in Republic of India).
I put here excerpts from The Hindu Magazine :
"......On a trip to Malaysia, we drove into the green Bujang Valley in Kedah, the oldest State in Malaysia. And we learnt that it is recognised as the oldest State because foreign sailors set up an ancient trading settlement there in the Fifth Century A.D. These "foreign sailors" were Tamils, subjects of the Pallavas. But the Bujang Valley had been mentioned in a Tamil poem, "Pattanopolai", as far back as the Second or Third Century A.D. There, the Bujang Valley is called Kalagan, which philologists claim eventually gave rise to the modern-day Kedah......."

PAST GLORY: The foundations of a Hindu temple (below) and the view from Gunung Jerai. PHOTOS: HUGH AND COLLEEN GANTZER

"..........Trading colonies seldom restrict themselves to trade for long and this also occurred in the Tamil settlement in Kadaram. As happened centuries later with the East India Company's trading station in Madras, the Pallava colonists decided to expand their activities. In the middle of the Sixth Century A.D., new waves of colonials from the Pallava Empire asserted themselves and engineered the break-up of the neighbouring Hindu state of Funan in Cambodia. Funan had, at that time, been in existence since the First Century A.D. The expatriate Pallavas must have been a formidable force to shatter such a long-established kingdom whose monarch had a significantly Pallava name: Rudravarman. Clearly, the fact that the people of Kadaram and those of Funan shared a common religion, culture and, possibly, a language, did not deter the Pallavas from widening their sphere of influence; to Funan's great misfortune...............''

Read complete story here.
(Exceprts drawn from: www.thehindu.com)

Cartoons of the Week from TIME magazine

2006-06-02T15:56:00.000+08:00

Cartoons of the Week May 21-27 published in TIME magazine.

TIME Photo Essay | The Congo's Hidden Killers

2006-06-02T15:39:00.000+08:00

The Congo's Hidden Killers

Photographer James Nachtwey
shows how the health crises created
by the war in Congo can kill long
shooting stops.

Photographs by
James Nachtwey/ VII for TIME

Click the following to access the sent link:

TIME Photo Essay \| The Congo's Hidden Killers*

*This article can also be accessed if you
copy and paste the entire
address below into your web browser.
http://www.time.com/time/photoessays
/2006/congo_audio/?promoid=rss_top

Now YAHOO in battle mood with "yourtube" & "Google Video"

2006-06-01T16:27:00.000+08:00

Today morning Yahoo launched it's Video service like other popular video stoaring and sharing websites like www.youtube.com & Google video.
This is how it looks :) .

You can embedd the yahoo video in your website/blog, like youtube. It seems to be promising. Hope to see lots of good stuff on yahoo too, like youtube & google. I personally so far liked youtube pretty much. Let's see what yahoo has to offer.

Now here i'm putting this video.. see it.. :-)

Windows Media Photo ~OR~ JPEG ?

2006-05-30T15:45:00.000+08:00

Microsoft has come up with it's own new still image format called Windows Media Photo. The file extension for a Windows Media Photo file is WDP.

According to their Windows Media Photo specification document Windows Media Photo offers image quality comparable to JPEG-2000 with computational and memory performance more closely comparable to JPEG. Windows Media Photo delivers a lossy compressed image of better perceptive quality than JPEG at less than half the file size. The same compression algorithm can also deliver mathematically lossless compressed images that are typically 2.5 times smaller than the original uncompressed data.
The use of new algorithms are also claimed to reduce the visibility of 'objectionable spatial artifacts' (those mosquito JPEG artifacts). Windows Media Photo supports a wide range of image formats including both fixed and floating point numerical representations , various color spaces, metadata and even transparency. This new format will be supported in Windows Vista when it arrives and will be made available for Windows XP, there has been no word yet of support for the format in any hardware devices.

For more information on Windows Media Photo, click here or else on the windows image above.

(Excerpts drawn from: microsoft.com)

Nervous Tic Motion - by Andrew Bird

2006-05-30T15:25:00.000+08:00

Chicago singer/songwriter/violinist Andrew Bird's stage performance video. He has distinctive style of his own mixing gypsy, folk and rock elements into his music/album. I like this tune & melody.

"The Da Vinci Code" - A fiction or fact?

2006-05-29T14:49:00.000+08:00

Once again (Last time i had posted about it on May, 22nd 2006) , I'm posting about The Da Vinci Code on my blog. Last week-end i saw the movie and i got the soft copy of "The Da Vinci Code" novel written by "Dan Brown" . I found this novel is much more interesting than the movie. "The Da Vinci Code" is a novel which is tells about the conspiracy hatched by the catholic church to cover up the true story of Jesus.

Excerpt from the "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown

........"This code," Sophie explained in rapid French, "is simplistic to the point of absurdity. Jacques Saunière must have known we would see through it immediately." She pulled a scrap of paper from her sweater pocket and handed it to Fache. "Here is the decryption."
Fache looked at the card.

                    1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21

"This is it?" he snapped. "All you did was put the numbers in increasing order!"
Sophie actually had the nerve to give a satisfied smile. "Exactly."
Fache's tone lowered to a guttural rumble. "Agent Neveu, I have no idea where the hell you're going with this, but I suggest you get there fast." He shot an anxious glance at Langdon, who stood nearby with the phone pressed to his ear, apparently still listening to his phone message from the U.S. Embassy. From Langdon's ashen expression, Fache sensed the news was bad.
"Captain," Sophie said, her tone dangerously defiant, "the sequence of numbers you have in your hand happens to be one of the most famous mathematical progressions in history."........

............"Bewildered, Langdon looked at the image. The close-up photo revealed the glowing message on the parquet floor. The final line hit Langdon like a kick in the gut.

                    13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5
             O, Draconian devil!
              Oh, lame saint!

P.S. Find Robert Langdon" ...........

............."Langdon looked up at Sophie, locking eyes with her now. "Your grandfather's meaning was right in front of us all along, and he left us more than enough clues to see it."
Without another word, Langdon pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and rearranged the letters in each line.

                 O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!

was a perfect anagram of...

                   Leonardo da Vinci! The Mona Lisa!

"...........

......"Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today's troubled world, and yet the Church had a deceitful and violent history. Their brutal crusade to "reeducate" the pagan and feminine-worshipping religions spanned three centuries, employing methods as inspired as they were horrific.
The Catholic Inquisition published the book that arguably could be called the most blood-soaked publication in human history. Malleus Maleficarum—or The Witches' Hammer—indoctrinated the world to "the dangers of freethinking women" and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, and destroy them. Those deemed "witches" by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women "suspiciously attuned to the natural world." Midwives also were killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease the pain of childbirth—a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God's rightful punishment for Eve's partaking of the Apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. During three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women".......

......."Sophie read the words.

         Many have made a trade of delusions
      and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude.
     —LEONARDO DA VINCI

"Here's another," Teabing said, pointing to a different quote.

        Blinding ignorance does mislead us.
     O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!
     —LEONARDO DA VINCI

Sophie felt a little chill. "Da Vinci is talking about the Bible?" ".......

............"Teabing cleared his throat and declared, "The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.""...........

..........."Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the most enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen. As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus toppled kings, inspired millions, and founded new philosophies. As a descendant of the lines of King Solomon and King David, Jesus possessed a rightful claim to the throne of the King of the Jews."..........

...............""The twist is this," Teabing said, talking faster now. "Because Constantine upgraded Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke.
From this sprang the most profound moment in Christian history." Teabing paused, eyeing Sophie. "Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.""...........

..........""some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi. In addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms. Of course, the Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of misinformation, tried very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls. And why wouldn't they? The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda—to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base."".........

............Sophie moved closer to the image. The woman to Jesus' right was young and pious-looking, with a demure face, beautiful red hair, and hands folded quietly. This is the woman who singlehandedly could crumble the Church?

"Who is she?" Sophie asked.

"That, my dear," Teabing replied, "is Mary Magdalene."

Sophie turned. "The prostitute?"

Teabing drew a short breath, as if the word had injured him personally. "Magdalene was no such thing. That unfortunate misconception is the legacy of a smear campaign launched by the early Church. The Church needed to defame Mary Magdalene in order to cover up her dangerous secret—her role as the Holy Grail. .............

.........."Teabing clarified, "the early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore, any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus' life had to be omitted from the Bible. Unfortunately for the early editors, one particularly troubling earthly theme kept recurring in the gospels. Mary Magdalene." He paused. "More specifically, her marriage to Jesus Christ.""..........

.........."Because Jesus was a Jew," Langdon said, taking over while Teabing searched for his book, "and the social decorum during that time virtually forbid a Jewish man to be unmarried. According to Jewish custom, celibacy was condemned, and the obligation for a Jewish father was to find a suitable wife for his son. If Jesus were not married, at least one of the Bible's gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His unnatural state of bachelorhood."...........

.........."The Gospel of Philip is always a good place to start." Sophie read the passage:

        And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene.
      Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used
      to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples
      were offended by it and expressed disapproval.
      They said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?"

The words surprised Sophie, and yet they hardly seemed conclusive. "It says nothing of marriage."...........

............"My dear child, it was not Mary Magdalene's royal blood that concerned the Church so much as it was her consorting with Christ, who also had royal blood. As you know, the Book of Matthew tells us that Jesus was of the House of David. A descendant of King Solomon—King of the Jews. By marrying into the powerful House of Benjamin, Jesus fused two royal bloodlines, creating a potent political union with the potential of making a legitimate claim to the throne and restoring the line of kings as it was under Solomon."...........

Interesting isn't it? Read it, i hope you'll love it.

(Excerpts drawn from:"The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown)

Turmeric -- A wonder medicinal spice

2006-05-26T11:21:00.000+08:00

Turmeric is the dried rhizome of a herbaceous plant, besides imparting a yellow colour and a characteristic flavor to food, it has a long history of use in Indian Ayurvedic medicines. It is the most popular spice as a beauty aid. The spice is sometimes called 'Indian Saffron', as its shares the deep yellow orange color of the saffron.

A member of ginger family, the root of the turmeric plant in its dried form is used as spice. It’s mildly aromatic with a pungent bittersweet flavor. Turmeric is used as a condiment, textile and culinary dye.

Benefits of Turmeric

Purifies the blood
Aids in digestion of protein.
It’s an antidote against poison.
Promotes proper metabolism in the body, correcting both, excess and deficiencies.
It is used for fever, stomach upset, infection, arthritis, dysentery, jaundice and other liver problems.
Turmeric paste prevents and cures pigmentation, maintains pH factor and makes skin glowing.
Indians put the spice on their Band-Aids as a disinfectant & sprinkle the powder on wounds to help them heal faster.
It’s also used to treat chest congestion, menstrual discomforts and many more ailments.
Considered a cleansing herb for the whole body, it gives energy and grants prosperity.
Many People in India (also in Nepal, Bhutan & some other East Asian countries) gargle with turmeric when they have laryngitis and rub it on the skin to cure cuts and psoriasis.
They swallow it to treat bronchitis and chronic diseases such as diabetes.
Indian brides and grooms apply turmeric and milk to their skin before marriage, to look more beautiful.
This is used as one of the important ingredient spices in Indian foods and curries for flavor, colour and preserve.
Turmeric also has potent antioxidant properties and may even lower cholesterol.
It is widely believed that it helps in curing many diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, arthritis and various cancers.

Some Links related to turmeric:
Turmeric
Benefits of Turmeric
Turmeric Tea
Turmeric trauma for cancer
Turmeric an Indian discovery, says US patent office
From the spice rack to the lab counter

(Excerpts drawn from: financianexpress.com, ebook.idotbiz.com,vegetarian.about.com,webindia123.com,magicvalley.com,indiaparenting.com,indiatogether.org)

FC ==> FreeCommander

2006-05-24T11:07:00.000+08:00

freeCommander is an easy-to-use alternative to the standard windows file manager. The program helps you with daily work in Windows. Here you can find all the necessary functions to manage your data stock. You can take freeCommander anywhere - just copy the installation directory on a CD, USB-Stick or even a floppy disk - and you can even work with this program on a foreign computer.

Main features in freeCommander:

Dual-panel technology - horizontal and vertical
Optional tree view for each panel
Built in file viewer to view files in hex, binary, text or image format
File viewer inside archives too
Built in archive handling: ZIP (read, write), CAB (read, write), RAR (read)
Nested archive handling
Easy access to system folders, control panel, desktop and start menu
Copy, move, delete, rename files and folders
Wipe files
Create and verify MD5 checksums
File splitting
File properties and context menu
Calculation of folder size
Folder comparison / synchronization
Modification of file date and attributes
Folder / program favorites
File searching (inside archive too)
File filters for display
DOS command line
Multiple language support

For More Details click here.
I just downloaded it and it's really koooool..
Wanna Download :) .
(Excerpts drawn from: www.freecommander.com)

TIME: Outsourcing Your Heart

2006-05-23T12:49:00.000+08:00

Elective surgery in India? Medical tourism is booming, and U.S. companies trying to contain health-care costs are starting to take notice.

(Picture:Technicians draw blood samples, for testing, from Wayne Steinard in his room at the Max Devki Devi Heart & Vascular Institute prior to his angiography. Wayne Steinard, a US citizen, has come to India for medical treatment of a heart condition.)

Whiplash was just the first agony that Kevin Miller, 45, suffered in a car accident last July. The second was sticker shock. The self-employed and uninsured chiropractor from Eunice, La., learned that it would cost $90,000 to get the herniated disk in his neck repaired. So, over the objections of his doctors, he turned to the Internet and made an appointment with Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, the marble-floored mecca of the medical trade that--with its liveried bellhops, fountains and restaurants--resembles a grand hotel more than a clinic. There a U.S.-trained surgeon fixed Miller's injured disk for less than $10,000. "I wouldn't hesitate to come back for another procedure," says Miller, who was recovering last week at the Westin Grande in Bangkok.
As word has spread about the high-quality care and cut-rate surgery available in such countries as India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, a growing stream of uninsured and underinsured Americans are boarding planes not for the typical face-lift or tummy tuck but for discount hip replacements and sophisticated heart surgeries. Bumrungrad alone, according to CEO Curtis Schroeder, saw its stream of American patients climb to 55,000 last year, a 30% rise. Three-quarters of them flew in from the U.S.; 83% came for noncosmetic treatments. Meanwhile, India's trade in international patients is increasing at the same rate.
The calculus behind this interest isn't complicated. Many major employers in the U.S. are self-insured, which means they pick up the tab for much of their employees' medical care. That's why three major corporations that collectively cover 240,000 lives asked Dr. Arnold Milstein, national healthcare "thought leader" at the consultancy Mercer Health & Benefits, to assess the best places to outsource elective surgeries. Procedures in Thailand and Malaysia, he found, cost only 20% to 25% as much as comparable ones in the U.S.; top-notch Indian hospitals sell such services at an even steeper discount.

Mini-med plans are increasingly popular with contract and hourly workers, who are more likely than most other workers to be uninsured. But these plans are controversial because the buyers often think they cover more than they actually do. UGP's plans at best cap reimbursement for surgery at $3,000 and hospital stays at $1,000 a day. That would barely cover an afternoon in a U.S. hospital. But in Thailand, says Jonathan Edelheit, UGP's vice president of sales and marketing, a heart bypass that would cost its U.S. customers $56,000 could be had for $8,000.

Companies with traditional plans are also taking the initiative. Blue Ridge Paper, which makes the DairyPak brand of packaging, was carved out of the forest-products firm Champion International when its employees bought a few factories that were scheduled to close. But health-care costs are hurting the company. So a Blue Ridge team plans to visit hospitals in India to assess their quality of care. If it gives the green light, Blue Ridge will begin promoting the option to its 2,000 workers.

Employees who opt for India would get to take along a family member, says Darrell Douglas, vice president of human resources, and the whole experience, including a recuperative stay at a hotel, would be covered. IndUShealth, a medical tourism start-up in Raleigh, N.C., will make all arrangements and coordinate care between U.S. and Indian providers. The sweetener: the company will share with these intrepid employees up to 25% of savings garnered from the outsourcing.

Wayne Steinard, 59, a general contractor from Winter Haven, Fla., is one of those U.S. patients "who fall through the cracks" of the health-care system, as he says. Steinard landed in New Delhi last week with his daughter Beth Keigans to get a clogged artery cleared and a stent installed. Steinard, too rich for Medicaid and too poor for insurance, certainly didn't have the $60,000 he would have had to pay back home. So he contacted PlanetHospital, a Malibu, Calif., medical-tourism agency, and learned he could get it done for about a tenth as much at Max Healthcare's Devki Devi Heart & Vascular Institute.

Things have not gone as Steinard expected. When surgeon Pradeep Chandra scanned Steinard's angiogram last week, he found the artery 90% blocked. "A stent is out of the question," he told Keigans. "Your father is going to need a double bypass, and he needs it immediately." The blood drained from Keigans' face. While she loved their plush hospital suite and the staff had been superb, this was all happening too far from home. Steinard, though, was blunt about his choices. It's either this, he said, or a fatal heart attack back home. The surgery last week was successful; the hospital's bill: $6,650.

"I'm not sure I'd ever want to come back to Delhi," says Keigans, "but I'll be telling everyone I know to come here if they need surgery. It's not just the price. They've made everything so easy for us."

Time.com has complete story. Read it completely on its website.

(Source: time.com)

Why do IT projects fail?

2006-05-23T10:13:00.000+08:00

Why do IT projects fail? I found this good article on economictimes website.

How to Drink More Water Everyday

2006-05-22T12:58:00.000+08:00

There are a variety of reasons to drink plenty of water each day. Adequate water intake prevents dehydration, cleans out the body, and promotes healing processes. Substituting water for beverages high in calories can also help control weight. Follow the steps below to make sure you're getting enough of this most basic necessity.

Steps:

Determine how much water you need. You've probably heard the "8 X 8" rule--drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day--but the amount of water a person needs varies depending on his or her weight and activity level. A better way to determine your recommended water intake is to divide your weight (in pounds) by two. The resulting number is the number of ounces of water you need each day. For example, if you weigh 150 lbs., strive to drink 75 ounces of water daily. Metric people should divide their weight in kilos by 30 - so somebody weighing 70kg is going to need 2.3 litres per day.
Measure your daily intake of water. Do this for a few days. If you find that you're drinking less than the recommended quantity, try some of the following tips.
Make it a habit to drink a sip of water between every bite while you're eating, but make sure this doesn't upset your stomach. If it does, reduce your fluid intake during meals to a level that you're physically comfortable with.
Carry water with you everywhere you go in a bottle or other container. Before long, you'll find yourself reaching for it without a second thought.
Keep a glass or cup of water next to you whenever you'll be sitting down for a long time, such as when you're at your desk at work. Drink from it regularly as you're working.
Try wearing a digital watch that beeps at the beginning of each hour. Use that as a reminder to pour yourself a glass of water. Vow to drink that water before the next beep. If you drink only one small (6 ounce) cup per hour, you'll have consumed 48 ounces by the end of an 8-hour workday.
Get a water purification system. Purified water tastes very good and may help make drinking water more appealing to you. Be aware, though, that as you grow accustomed to purified water, you may find that tap water leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Tips:

Except in very rare cases, it is not necessary to buy expensive bottled water. Companies that sell water have a financial interest in convincing you that tap water is undesirable. However, if you choose to drink tap water, please be aware of the pollutants and additional chemicals that exist in many tap water sources. Some studies have linked the long-term accumulation of these chemicals in your body to chronic health problems. A simple water filtration system or boiling of the water will help reduce these risks.
Instead of that Coke, try a glass of water. It may not be as tasty, but it's a lot better for you than drinking almost ten teaspoons of white sugar. It's also considerably cheaper, especially if you drink tap water.
If you really can't stand the taste of your water, try adding a tiny bit of fruit juice or a squeeze of lemon or lime--just enough to slightly change the taste. Refrigerating your water may also help make it more palatable.
For a feeling of accomplishment, fill two 32-ounce water bottles (or one big 64-ounce bottle, as in the full "8x8" amount) in the morning and make sure you have consumed the contents of both by the end of the day.
The body needs to burn calories to maintain itself at its critical operating temperature of 98.6 degrees. If you drink eight to ten glasses of ice-cold water everyday, the body will burn excess calories in order to raise the temperature to 98.6! If you drink eight glasses--64 ounces--of ice-cold water every day, your body will have to burn about 70 calories per day to warm that water to body temperature. To lose 1 pound, you need to burn around 3,500 calories
Drinking a full glass of water first thing in the morning helps wake the body up. So kick-start your day with water!
Water helps you look good. By flushing out toxins and impurities, water can make your skin clearer, smoother and younger looking.
Drinking water helps you control hunger. Drink a large glass of ice water just before meals. The cold causes your stomach to shrink somewhat, which will make you feel full more rapidly.
Whether drinking tap or bottled water, do some research on the source. In some places, such as Philadelphia, the tap water actually contains the same electrolytes that are in Gatorade. On the other hand it's also possible that your bottled water may be from a different source than its name suggests. If the bottle says 'Municipal Water Supply' or something to that effect, then the company has simply bottled tap water, and you're probably wasting your money.
If you find out you have lead plumbing, and water is abundant in your area, let the water run for about thirty seconds before filling your glass. This can reduce the amount of lead--and the bad taste that accompanies it--in the water you drink. If you live in an area with a shortage of water, however, this is probably not a good option.
To convert the units of measurement in this article to metric units, you can use Google Calculator
Some people believe that you should drink water only 20 minutes before a meal, not during or immediately after eating. The theory is that your digestive juices need to remain undiluted in order to properly break down your food for proper nutrient uptake.
Every time you walk past a water fountain, take a sip or two.
Gradually increase your daily intake of water by starting with, for example, 1L. Keep a 1L bottle of water in the fridge and aim to have it finished by the end of the day. Increase this amount every day.
Aim to finish a glass of water with every meal.
Vow to drink only water for a month. Once your body becomes accustomed to it, it will be hard not to drink enough water. Also, by the end of the month water starts to taste delicious...no lie!
To get the needed 8 oz. glasses of water, say 8, put 8 hair ties or rubber bands on your right hand to represent each glass of water you need. When you drink one of the glasses, switch one rubber band to your left hand. Your goal is to get 8 hair ties on your left hand before the day is up!
If you don't like the taste of water try hot water. It's a different taste and it feels good on your throat!
Try drinking cold water out of a glass instead of a plastic or paper cup. The glass will retain the cold better than other materials and will keep your water crisp and fresh-tasting longer.

Warnings:

Increasing your water intake may cause you to have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. To avoid this, you may want to stop drinking water a few hours before bedtime.
While adequate water is essential to health, it is possible to drink too much water or any other beverage, and there has been considerable scientific debate surrounding how much water a person really needs per day. Drinking excessive amounts of water can cause serious health problems for some people.
People with some heart conditions, high blood pressure or swelling of the lower legs (edema) need to avoid excess water. If you have a history of kidney problems, especially if you have had a transplant, consult your doctor before increasing your fluid intakes.
You shouldn't drink too much water while eating as it waters down your stomach acid and can cause digestion problems.
If you live in a place with a lot of heat (e.g., the desert), you will have to drink extra water.

(Excerpts drawn from : www.wikihow.com)

The Evolution of Dance

2006-05-22T10:21:00.000+08:00

Comedian Mr.Judson Laipply dances to clips of music from the 60's to the 2000's :-) .

An Inconvenient Woman

2006-05-22T00:44:00.000+08:00

She witnessed the resurrection, then vanished, leaving popes and painters and now 'The Da Vinci Code' to tell her story. In search of the real Mary Magdalene.

(picture: 'The Life of the Virgin,' a 15th century painting, depicts Mary Magdalene, right, weeping below Jesus' bound body)

She was with him to the end, and beyond. As Jesus hangs in agony on the cross, his life ebbing, Mary Magdalene is there, beside his mother, Mary, watching. The Passion has been tumultuous and frightening, and crucifixion is slow, but still she stays. Finally the hour comes. "It is finished," Jesus says, and bows his head. His body is bound in linen, carried to a garden, buried in a tomb. .........

.........."Do not touch me," Jesus says, distancing himself from her, "for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Her words to the disciples are simple and few, yet transform the world: "I have seen the Lord." ........

Jonathan Darman (of Newsweek) writes in detail. Read it on msnbc website.

If you are intersted more on this story/history(PS: i donno what exactly is truth, no offence to anybody), you can read "The Faces of Mary Magdalene"

(Excerpts drawn from msnbc.msn.com)

Flash: 10 ways, "information"

2006-05-22T00:28:00.000+08:00

I came across this cool stuff while browsing.

wow.. it's really good.. just check it :)
Flash: 10 ways, "information"

Nintendo Wii E3 Video 01

2006-05-19T16:28:00.000+08:00

SKYPE OUT is free for Canada and US

2006-05-19T15:01:00.000+08:00

Yes!!!
Skype out is now free for Canada and US.
You can make calls to any landline and mobile phones in Canada & US free of cost. :)

If you’re in the US or Canada, you can use SkypeOut to call any landline or mobile number in both the USA and Canada for free.

But If you’re in the US or Canada and calling any other country, OR if you’re in any other country and calling landline or mobile numbers in the US or Canada, the standard SkypeOut rates apply.

Skype-to-Skype calls continue to be globally free, so no changes there.

PS: Both the caller and the number called must be in either the US or Canada.

Creative Tea commercial

2006-05-18T19:02:00.000+08:00

The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-17T18:23:00.000+08:00

The Da Vinci Code, it's really sending waves across the world. Is it really controversial? what it has really?

The Da Vinci Code Mystery Revealed!
Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code brims with mysteries: Did Jesus have a girlfriend? And did they have a daughter, whose descendants live today? Is the Priory of Sion an ancient covenant whose Grand Masters, including Leonardo Da Vinci and Isaac Newton, have sworn to protect this royal blood line? Is Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic sect Brown paints in such lurid colors, really that awful? Can a fictional thriller that is nothing more or less than (as one Biblical scholar called it) “a great plane read” be taken seriously as an ecclesiastical exposé?

But no mystery, at least among film critics, is greater than this one: When are we gonna see the movie?

The Hollywood version of Brown’s blockbuster has a solid pedigree: director Ron Howard, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and star Tom Hanks, all Oscar winners. Any movie with that celebrated a roster usually demands early exposure to the upper-middle media: Vanity Fair, perhaps, or one of the major newsmagazines. But not even the undercover nerds at Ain’t It Cool News got a peek. (AICN’s big scoop, a year or so ago, was that the role of Silas, the murderous albino, might go to ... Jim Carrey! Paul Bettany got it.)

PS: read complete story on Time Magazine's online edition.

DavinciFacts
See the Trailer of the movie below.

Links related to The Da Vinci Code,
The Official Site
Da Vinci Code author in lawsuit
Bishops want to withhold release
Ban Da Vinci Code: Muslims
Should Da Vinci Code be banned?
Coverage

One more addition( 18th May,2006 )
'Da Vinci Code': The Mystery of the Missing Screenings

(Excerpts drwn from www.rediff.com, www.time.blogs.com, www.time.com, www.nytimes.com, www.youtube.com, www.sonypictures.com, www.davincifacts.com)

Islam - a religion of peace?

2006-05-17T18:15:00.000+08:00

SAND ART ---- Really AMAZING!!!

2006-05-17T17:47:00.000+08:00

IBN News: Indian girl is Editor-in-Chief at 16

2006-05-14T20:40:00.000+08:00

A teenage Indian student has been named Editor-in-Chief of the online edition of Tattler, the newspaper brought out by the Bethesda Chevy Chase High School (BCC) in Bethesda Maryland.

Srimathi Sridhar, a junior at BCC, one of the top ranking high schools in Montgomery County, Maryland in the United States, was a staff writer for the school newspaper.

The Next American Idol

2006-05-11T16:23:00.000+08:00

Gizmodo Recommendation: Computer Desk-Bed

2006-05-08T18:15:00.000+08:00

For city dwellers tight on space and students in dorms, the Computer Bed combines a computer desk with a bed. A stylish wooden desk by that folds down to reveal a hidden twin sized bed.

Although the bed is useful and practical, it doesn’t look very sturdy. Even with the new “metal bed frame” and “wooden slate foundation”, a well-fed fellow would probably be too much for the joints and come collapsing down all his equipment.

Available now for $2079.

The Computer Bed [Euro FlyingBeds via Sagags]

Read it on Gizmodo.com

Gizmodo Recommendation: Shocking Lie Detector

2006-05-08T18:10:00.000+08:00

Mike says: Hide this Shocking Lie Detector from your wife, or the next time she asks you where you were until 2am, that âI was working late Honeyâ is going to cost you all the feeling in your fingers.

As she feeds you some easy calibration questionsâwhat are our childrenâs namesâyouâll be wishing this device didnât strap your hand tightly to prevent any last second fidgets. Good luck gentlemen.

Read it on Gizmodo.com

''LOVE'' IS GREAT !!!

2006-05-08T10:57:00.000+08:00

Discovery Channel - Study: Royal Executions Followed Pattern

2006-05-07T22:22:00.000+08:00

"A study of British royal executions has determined that the killings followed consistent patterns that correspond to Charles Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory. The study helps to explain why so many British royals killed family members, particularly over a 200-year period called The Cousins' Wars that spanned the 14th to the 16th centuries." Read the complete story on Discovery channel website .

(Excerpts drwn from Discovery.com)

A look at how young people in Iran feel about their hardline president.

2006-05-07T01:41:00.000+08:00

A look at how young people in Iran feel about their hardline president. check out this video on the Current TV website.

US Immigration

2006-05-07T01:25:00.000+08:00

The immigration debate blows up when the Pilgrims protest limitations to their rights in America.

Missed the State of the Union? Supernews to the rescue. Here's Current TV's animated recap of the president's rad new agenda.

At a White House press conference, an eyewitness to The Hunting Accident steps forward.

Illegal Immigrants

BBC E-mail: Russian racism 'out of control'

2006-05-05T12:56:00.000+08:00

The report into violent racism shows that at least 28 people were killed and 366 were assaulted in 2005.
The Amnesty report, entitled "Russian Federation: Violent racism out of control", includes examples of police and prosecutors routinely classifying murders and serious assaults by skinhead extremists as lesser crimes of "hooliganism"

Cases highlighted in the Amnesty report include the killing of nine-year-old Tajik girl Khursheda Sultonov.

Another victim was Vu Anh Tuan, a 20-year-old Vietnamese student, stabbed to death in October 2004 by a gang of 18 skinheads near a metro station in St Petersburg.

** Russian racism 'out of control' **
Racist killings in Russia are "out of control", says a report by human rights watchdog Amnesty International.

** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail

** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions.

India Ad - British Airways

2006-05-03T20:41:00.000+08:00

know about MS Windows OS

2006-05-02T12:44:00.000+08:00

DO you know about this?

Will Windows work continuously for more than 49.7 days?

Here is a bit of information, which may surprise you all. Windows crashes
automatically if you don't switch off the machine for 49.7 Days. Microsoft
accepts this. Do you know why?

In Windows the Virtual Machine Manager (here after referred as VMM) is
responsible for creation, execution, monitoring and termination of virtual
machines. This VMM, which is a 32 bit, protected mode operating system
entity, provides a number of system services at chip level. One of these
services is "Get_System_Time". This particular service loads the EAX
register with the time in milliseconds since Windows started on that
machine. This service is accurate to 1 ms. EAX is a 32 bit register in Intel
386 Processor onwards.

So the maximum number of milliseconds it can hold is
(232)-1 = 4294967295 milliseconds = 4294967.295 seconds = 71582.79 minutes =
1193 hours = 49.7 days.
So after 49.7 days the EAX resets to zero. Most of the Drivers use this Time
Service to keep track of the Timeout of various services they provide. So
after 49.7 days the drivers cannot use the Get_System_Time function of VMM
and they crash taking the OS along with.

Vande Mataram

2006-05-01T10:36:00.000+08:00

National Song of India - Vande Mataram. An Inspiring video of - sung by Lata Mangeshkar, in beautiful voice.

Vande Mataram at Second in The Worlds top Ten -BBC

Mp3 of the original Vande Mataram from the Movie Anand Math

The song was composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1876.

"Vande Mataram" was the national cry for freedom from British oppression during the freedom movement. Large rallies, fermenting initially in West Bengal, in the major metropolis of Calcutta (Kolkata), would work themselves up into a patriotic fever by shouting the slogan "Vande Mataram," or "Hail to the Mother(land)!" The British, fearful of the potential danger of an incited Indian populace, at one point banned the utterance of the motto in public forums and jailed many freedom fighters for disobeying the proscription. To this day, "Vande Mataram" is seen as a national mantra describing the love of patriots for the country of India.

The following is a translation of the song by Sri Aurobindo:

Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
bright with orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Green fields waving Mother of might,
Mother free.

Glory of moonlight dreams,
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.

Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands
When the sword flesh out in the seventy million hands
And seventy million voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and stored,
To thee I call Mother and Lord!
Though who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foeman drove
Back from plain and Sea
And shook herself free.

Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou art heart, our soul, our breath
Though art love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
Thine the strength that nervs the arm,
Thine the beauty, thine the charm.
Every image made divine
In our temples is but thine.

Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,
With her hands that strike and her
swords of sheen,
Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned,
And the Muse a hundred-toned,
Pure and perfect without peer,
Mother lend thine ear,
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleems,
Dark of hue O candid-fair

In thy soul, with jewelled hair
And thy glorious smile divine,
Loveliest of all earthly lands,
Showering wealth from well-stored hands!
Mother, mother mine!
Mother sweet, I bow to thee,
Mother great and free!

Google SketchUp -- 3D for Everyone

2006-04-28T22:44:00.000+08:00

Google SketchUp (free) is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program whose few simple tools enable you to create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects – even space ships. You can add details, textures and glass to your models, design with dimensional accuracy, and place your finished models in Google Earth, share them with others by posting them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies. Google SketchUp (free) is a great way to discover if 3D modeling is right for you.

The software comes with a plug-in for Google Earth, so that 3D items created with SketchUp are picked-up by the service that typically provides satellite views of geographical locations. In addition, Google has also released 3D Warehouse, which is the online storage for work created in SketchUp. The service enables users to search and share 3D models.

(Click on the above picture to download it)

Developed for the conceptual stages of design, SketchUp is powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software. We think of it as the pencil of digital design. This award-winning software combines a simple, yet robust tool-set that streamlines and simplifies 3D design inside your computer. SketchUp is being used by anyone with the desire to....Dream, Design and Communicate in 3D.

SketchUp is a simple but powerful tool for quickly and easily creating, viewing and modifying your 3D ideas.

		Click on a shape and push or pull it to create your desired 3D geometry.
		Experiment with color and texture directly on your model.
		Real-time shadow casting lets you see exactly where the sun falls as you model.
		Select from thousands of pre-drawn components to save time drawing.

You need SketchUp Pro if you want to:

		Print and export raster images at higher-than-screen resolution.
		Access to the following 3D export formats: DWG, DXF, 3DS, OBJ, XSI, VRML and FBX.
		Export animations and walkthroughs as MOV (Mac) or AVI (Windows) files.
		Use the Sandbox Tools (for organic modeling of terrain, etc) and the Film & Stage Tools (for pre-viz work).
		Have access to free email tech support for two years from purchase.

(Click on the picture to buy it)

Pakistan's Jihad Culture

2006-04-28T12:58:00.000+08:00

Jessica Stern has written on Jihad. It's really an eye opener to the western countries (Especially United States Of America). Otherwise one day Pakistan will definately become pain in the butts of America as Afganistan (No offence).

Here are the excerpts from Jessica Stern's writings:

Pakistan's Jihad Culture

By Jessica Stern

Foreign Affairs (November/December 2000)

FREE AGENTS

This spring the U.S. State Department reported that South Asia has replaced the Middle East as the leading locus of terrorism in the world. Although much has been written about religious militants in the Middle East and Afghanistan, little is known in the West about those in Pakistan -- perhaps because they operate mainly in Kashmir and, for now at least, do not threaten security outside South Asia. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, calls them "freedom fighters" and admonishes the West not to confuse jihad with terrorism. Musharraf is right about the distinction -- the jihad doctrine delineates acceptable war behavior and explicitly outlaws terrorism -- but he is wrong about the militant groups' activities. Both sides of the war in Kashmir -- the Indian army and the Pakistani "mujahideen" -- are targeting and killing thousands of civilians, violating both the Islamic "just war" tradition and international law.

Pakistan has two reasons to support the so-called mujahideen. First, the Pakistani military is determined to pay India back for allegedly fomenting separatism in what was once East Pakistan and in 1971 became Bangladesh. Second, India dwarfs Pakistan in population, economic strength, and military might. In 1998 India spent about two percent of its $469 billion GDP on defense, including an active armed force of more than 1.1 million personnel. In the same year, Pakistan spent about five percent of its $61 billion GDP on defense, yielding an active armed force only half the size of India's. The U.S. government estimates that India has 400,000 troops in Indian-held Kashmir -- a force more than two-thirds as large as Pakistan's entire active army. The Pakistani government thus supports the irregulars as a relatively cheap way to keep Indian forces tied down.

What does such support entail? It includes, at a minimum, assisting the militants' passage into Indian-held Kashmir. This much Pakistani officials will admit, at least privately. The U.S. government believes that Pakistan also funds, trains, and equips the irregulars. Meanwhile, the Indian government claims that Pakistan uses them as an unofficial guerrilla force to carry out "dirty tricks," murders, and terrorism in India. Pakistan, in turn, accuses India's intelligence service of committing terrorism and killing hundreds of civilians in Pakistan.

Pakistan now faces a typical principal-agent problem: the interests of Pakistan (the principal) and those of the militant groups (the agent) are not fully aligned. Although the irregulars may serve Pakistan's interests in Kashmir when they target the Indian army, they also kill civilians and perform terrorism in violation of international norms and law. These crimes damage Pakistan's already fragile international reputation. Finally, and most important for Pakistanis, the militant groups that Pakistan supports and the Sunni sectarian killers that Pakistan claims it wants to wipe out overlap significantly. By facilitating the activities of the irregulars in Kashmir, the Pakistani government is inadvertently promoting internal sectarianism, supporting international terrorists, weakening the prospect for peace in Kashmir, damaging Pakistan's international image, spreading a narrow and violent version of Islam throughout the region, and increasing tensions with India -- all against the interests of Pakistan as a whole.

PAKISTAN, TALIBAN-STYLE?

The war between India and Pakistan over the fate of Kashmir is as old as both states. When Pakistan was formally created in 1947, the rulers of Muslim-majority states that had existed within British India were given the option of joining India or Pakistan. The Hindu monarch of the predominantly Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir chose India, prompted partly by a tribal rebellion in the state. Pakistan responded by sending in troops. The resultant fighting ended with a 1949 cease-fire, but the Pakistani government continued covertly to support volunteer guerrilla fighters in Kashmir. Islamabad argued then, as it does now, that it could not control the volunteers, who as individuals were not bound by the cease-fire agreement. (On the other hand, Maulana Abul A'la Maududi, the late founder of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, argued that as individuals, these "mujahideen" could not legitimately declare jihad, either.)

Pakistani officials admit to having tried repeatedly to foment separatism in Kashmir in the decades following the 1948 cease-fire. These attempts were largely unsuccessful; when separatist violence broke out in the late 1980s, the movement was largely indigenous. For their part, Indian officials admit their own culpability in creating an intolerable situation in the region. They ignored Kashmir's significant economic troubles, rampant corruption, and rigged elections, and they intervened in Kashmiri politics in ways that contradicted India's own constitution. As American scholar Sumit Ganguly explains, the rigged 1987 state-assembly elections were the final straw in a series of insults, igniting, by 1989, widespread violent opposition. By 1992, Pakistani nationals and other graduates of the Afghan war were joining the fight in Kashmir.

What began as an indigenous, secular movement for independence has become an increasingly Islamist crusade to bring all of Kashmir under Pakistani control. Pakistan-based Islamist groups (along with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, a Kashmir-based group created by Jamaat-e-Islami and partly funded by Pakistan) are now significantly more important than the secular Kashmir-based ones. The Indian government estimates that about 40 percent of the militants in Kashmir today are Pakistani or Afghan, and some 80 percent are teenagers. Although the exact size of the movement is unknown, the Indian government estimates that 3,000 to 4,000 "mujahideen" are in Kashmir at any given time.

Whatever their exact numbers, these Pakistani militant groups -- among them, Lashkar-i-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen -- pose a long-term danger to international security, regional stability, and especially Pakistan itself. Although their current agenda is limited to "liberating" Kashmir, which they believe was annexed by India illegally, their next objective is to turn Pakistan into a truly Islamic state. Islamabad supports these volunteers as a cheap way to keep India off balance. In the process, however, it is creating a monster that threatens to devour Pakistani society.

SCHOOLS OF HATE

In Pakistan, as in many developing countries, education is not mandatory. The World Bank estimates that only 40 percent of Pakistanis are literate, and many rural areas lack public schools. Islamic religious schools -- madrasahs -- on the other hand, are located all over the country and provide not only free education, but also free food, housing, and clothing. In the poor areas of southern Punjab, madrasahs funded by the Sunni sectarian political party Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) reportedly even pay parents for sending them their children.

In the 1980s, Pakistani dictator General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq promoted the madrasahs as a way to garner the religious parties' support for his rule and to recruit troops for the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. At the time, many madrasahs were financed by the zakat (the Islamic tithe collected by the state), giving the government at least a modicum of control. But now, more and more religious schools are funded privately -- by wealthy Pakistani industrialists at home or abroad, by private and government-funded nongovernmental organizations in the Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, and by Iran. Without state supervision, these madrasahs are free to preach a narrow and violent version of Islam.

Most madrasahs offer only religious instruction, ignoring math, science, and other secular subjects important for functioning in modern society. As Maududi warned in his 1960 book, First Principles of the Islamic State, "those who choose the theological branch of learning generally keep themselves utterly ignorant of [secular subjects, thereby remaining] incapable of giving any lead to the people regarding modern political problems."

Even worse, some extremist madrasahs preach jihad without understanding the concept: They equate jihad -- which most Islamic scholars interpret as the striving for justice (and principally an inner striving to purify the self) -- with guerrilla warfare. These schools encourage their graduates, who often cannot find work because of their lack of practical education, to fulfill their "spiritual obligations" by fighting against Hindus in Kashmir or against Muslims of other sects in Pakistan. Pakistani officials estimate that 10 to 15 percent of the country's tens of thousands of madrasahs espouse such extremist ideologies.

Pakistan's interior minister Moinuddin Haider, for one, recognizes these problems. "The brand of Islam they are teaching is not good for Pakistan," he says. "Some, in the garb of religious training, are busy fanning sectarian violence, poisoning people's minds." In June, Haider announced a reform plan that would require all madrasahs to register with the government, expand their curricula, disclose their financial resources, seek permission for admitting foreign students, and stop sending students to militant training camps.

This is not the first time the Pakistani government has announced such plans. And Haider's reforms so far seem to have failed, whether because of the regime's negligence or the madrasahs' refusal to be regulated, or both. Only about 4,350 of the estimated 40,000 to 50,000 madrasahs in Pakistan have registered with the government. Some are still sending students to training camps despite parents' instructions not to do so. Moreover, some chancellors are unwilling to expand their curricula, arguing that madrasahs are older than Pakistan itself -- having been "designed 1,200 years ago in Iraq," according to the chancellor of the Khudamudeen madrasah. The chancellor of Darul Uloom Haqqania objects to what he calls the government's attempt to "destroy the spirit of the madrasahs under the cover of broadening their curriculum."

Mujibur Rehman Inqalabi, the SSP's second in command, told me that Haider's reform plan is "against Islam" and complains that where states have taken control of madrasahs, such as in Jordan and Egypt, "the engine of jihad is extinguished." America is right, he said: "Madrasahs are the supply line for jihad."

JIHAD INTERNATIONAL, INC.

If madrasahs supply the labor for "jihad," then wealthy Pakistanis and Arabs around the world supply the capital. On Eid-ul-Azha, the second most important Muslim holiday of the year, anyone who can afford to sacrifices an animal and gives the hide to charity. Pakistani militant groups solicit such hide donations, which they describe as a significant source of funding for their activities in Kashmir.

Most of the militant groups' funding, however, comes in the form of anonymous donations sent directly to their bank accounts. Lashkar-i-Taiba ("Army of the Pure"), a rapidly growing Ahle Hadith (Wahhabi) group, raises funds on the Internet. Lashkar and its parent organization, Markaz ad-Da'wa Wal Irshad (Center for Islamic Invitation and Guidance), have raised so much money, mostly from sympathetic Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, that they are reportedly planning to open their own bank.

Individual "mujahideen" also benefit financially from this generous funding. They are in this for the loot, explains Ahmed Rashid, a prominent Pakistani journalist. One mid-level manager of Lashkar told me he earns 15,000 rupees a month -- more than seven times what the average Pakistani makes, according to the World Bank. Top leaders of militant groups earn much more; one leader took me to see his mansion, which was staffed by servants and filled with expensive furniture. Operatives receive smaller salaries but win bonuses for successful missions. Such earnings are particularly attractive in a country with a 40 percent official poverty rate, according to Pakistani government statistics.

The United States and Saudi Arabia funneled some $3.5 billion into Afghanistan and Pakistan during the Afghan war, according to Milt Bearden, CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989. "Jihad," along with guns and drugs, became the most important business in the region. The business of "jihad" -- what the late scholar Eqbal Ahmad dubbed "Jihad International, Inc." -- continues to attract foreign investors, mostly wealthy Arabs in the Persian Gulf region and members of the Pakistani diaspora. (As World Bank economist Paul Collier observes, diaspora populations often prolong ethnic and religious conflicts by contributing not only capital but also extremist rhetoric, since the fervor of the locals is undoubtedly held in check by the prospect of losing their own sons.)

As the so-called jihad movement continues to acquire its own financial momentum, it will become increasingly difficult for Pakistan to shut down, if and when it tries. As long as "Jihad International, Inc." is profitable, those with financial interests in the war will work to prolong it. And the longer the war in Kashmir lasts, the more entrenched these interests will become.

ADDICTED TO JIHAD

As some irregulars are financially dependent on what they consider jihad, others are spiritually and psychologically so. Many irregulars who fought in Afghanistan are now fighting in Kashmir and are likely to continue looking for new "jihads" to fight -- even against Pakistan itself. Khalil, who has been a "mujahid" for 19 years and can no longer imagine another life, told me, "A person addicted to heroin can get off it if he really tries, but a mujahid cannot leave the jihad. I am spiritually addicted to jihad." Another Harkat operative told me,

We won't stop -- even if India gave us Kashmir. ... We'll [also] bring jihad here. There is already a movement here to make Pakistan a pure Islamic state. Many preach Islam, but most of them don't know what it means. We want to see a Taliban-style regime here.

Aspirations like these are common among the irregulars I have interviewed over the last couple of years.

The "jihad" movement is also developing a spiritual momentum linked to its financial one. Madrasahs often teach their students that jihad -- or, in the extremist schools, terrorism under the guise of jihad -- is a spiritual duty. Whereas wealthy Pakistanis would rather donate their money than their sons to the cause, families in poor, rural areas are likely to send their sons to "jihad" under the belief that doing so is the only way to fulfill this spiritual duty. One mother whose son recently died fighting in Kashmir told me she would be happy if her six remaining sons were martyred. "They will help me in the next life, which is the real life," she said.

When a boy becomes a martyr, thousands of people attend his funeral. Poor families become celebrities. Everyone treats them with more respect after they lose a son, a martyr's father said. "And when there is a martyr in the village, it encourages more children to join the jihad. It raises the spirit of the entire village," he continued. In poor families with large numbers of children, a mother can assume that some of her children will die of disease if not in war. This apparently makes it easier to donate a son to what she feels is a just and holy cause.

Many of these families receive financial assistance from the militant groups. The Shuhda-e-Islam Foundation, founded in 1995 by Jamaat-e-Islami, claims to have dispensed 13 million rupees to the families of martyrs. It also claims to provide financial support to some 364 families by paying off loans, setting them up in businesses, or helping them with housing. Moreover, the foundation provides emotional and spiritual support by constantly reminding the families that they did the right thing by donating their children to assist their Muslim brethren in Kashmir. Both Lashkar-i-Taiba and Harkat have also established charitable organizations that reward the families of martyrs -- a practice common to gangs in inner-city Los Angeles and terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and Hamas. Although these foundations provide a service to families in need, they also perpetuate a culture of violence.

BAD BOYS

The comparison to gangs and terrorist groups is particularly apt because the irregulars often hire criminals to do their dirty work -- and sometimes turn to petty or organized crime themselves. Criminals are typically hired to "drop" weapons and explosives or to carry out extreme acts of violence that a typical irregular is reluctant or unable to perform. For example, members of the Dubai-based crime ring that bombed the Bombay stock exchange in March 1993 later confessed that they had been in Islamabad the previous month, where Pakistani irregulars had allegedly trained them to throw hand grenades and fire Kalashnikov assault rifles. Law-enforcement authorities noted that the operatives' passports contained no Pakistani stamps, suggesting the complicity of the Pakistani government.

Criminals joining supposed jihad movements tend to be less committed to the group's purported goals and more committed to violence for its own sake -- or for the money. When criminals join private armies, therefore, the political and moral constraints that often inhibit mass-casualty, random attacks are likely to break down. Criminal involvement in the movement also worsens the principal-agent problem for Pakistan: pure mercenaries are even harder to control than individuals whose goals are at least partly aligned with those of the state.

EXPORTING HOLY WAR

Exacerbating the principal-agent problem, Pakistani militant groups are now exporting their version of jihad all over the world. The Khudamudeen madrasah, according to its chancellor, is training students from Burma, Nepal, Chechnya, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Yemen, Mongolia, and Kuwait. Out of the 700 students at the madrasah, 127 are foreigners. Nearly half the student body at Darul Uloom Haqqania, the madrasah that created the Taliban, is from Afghanistan. It also trains students from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia, and Turkey, and is currently expanding its capacity to house foreign students from 100 to 500, its chancellor said. A Chechen student at the school told me his goal when he returned home was to fight Russians. And according to the U.S. State Department, Pakistani groups and individuals also help finance and train the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a terrorist organization that aims to overthrow secular governments in Central Asia.

Many of the militant groups associated with radical madrasahs regularly proclaim their plans to bring "jihad" to India proper as well as to the West, which they believe is run by Jews. Lashkar-i-Taiba has announced its plans to "plant Islamic flags in Delhi, Tel Aviv, and Washington." One of Lashkar's Web sites includes a list of purported Jews working for the Clinton administration, including director of presidential personnel Robert Nash (an African American from Arkansas) and CIA director George Tenet (a Greek American). The group also accuses Israel of assisting India in Kashmir. Asked for a list of his favorite books, a leader of Harkat recommended the history of Hitler, who he said understood that "Jews and peace are incompatible." Several militant groups boast pictures of burning American flags on their calendars and posters.

INTERNAL JIHAD

The "jihad" against the West may be rhetorical (at least for now), but the ten-year-old sectarian war between Pakistan's Shi'a and Sunni is real and deadly. The Tehrik-e-Jafariya-e-Pakistan (TJP) was formed to protect the interests of Pakistan's Shi'a Muslims, who felt discriminated against by Zia's implementation of Sunni laws governing the inheritance and collection of zakat. Iran helped fund the TJP, probably in hopes of using it as a vehicle for an Iranian-style revolution in Pakistan. Five years later, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, a Jamaat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) cleric, established the SSP to offset the TJP and to promote the interests of Sunni Muslims. The SSP was funded by both Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Since then, violent gangs have formed on both sides.

After Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni sectarian gang, attempted to assassinate then Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif in early 1999, Sharif proposed to expand the special military courts that try terrorist crimes from Karachi to the rest of the country. Pakistan's Supreme Court later deemed the special courts unconstitutional. Musharraf has continued Sharif's attempt to rein in the terrorist groups by implementing, among other things, a "deweaponization" plan to reduce the availability of guns to sectarian gangs and criminals.

The problem for Musharraf is that it is difficult to promote the "jihad" in Kashmir and the Taliban in Afghanistan without inadvertently promoting sectarianism in Pakistan. The movements share madrasahs, camps, bureaucracies, and operatives. The JUI, the SSP's founding party, also helped create both the Taliban and Harkat. Deobandi madrasahs issue anti-Shi'a fatwas (edicts), and boys trained to fight in Kashmir are also trained to call Shi'a kafirs (infidels). Jaesh-e-Mohammad, an offshoot of Harkat and the newest Pakistani militant group in Kashmir, reportedly used SSP personnel during a fundraising drive in early 2000. And the SSP's Inqalabi, who was recently released after four years in jail for his alleged involvement in sectarian killings, told me that whenever "one of our youngsters wants to do jihad," they join up with the Taliban, Harkat, or Jaesh-e-Mohammad -- all Deobandi groups that he claims are "close" to the SSP.

Sectarian clashes have killed or injured thousands of Pakistanis since 1990. As the American scholar Vali Nasr explains, the largely theological differences between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims have been transformed into full-fledged political conflict, with broad ramifications for law and order, social cohesion, and government authority. The impotent Pakistani government has essentially allowed Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi'a Iran to fight a proxy war on Pakistani soil, with devastating consequences for the Pakistani people.

WHITHER PAKISTAN?

Pakistan is a weak state, and government policies are making it weaker still. Its disastrous economy, exacerbated by a series of corrupt leaders, is at the root of many of its problems. Yet despite its poverty, Pakistan is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on weapons instead of schools and public health. Ironically, the government's "cost-saving" measures are even more troubling. In trying to save money in the short run by using irregulars in Kashmir and relying on madrasahs to educate its youth, Pakistan is pursuing a path that is likely to be disastrous in the long run, allowing a culture of violence to take root.

The United States has asked Pakistan to crack down on the militant groups and to close certain madrasahs, but America must do more than just scold. After all, the United States, along with Saudi Arabia, helped create the first international "jihad" to fight the Soviet Union during the Afghan war. "Does America expect us to send in the troops and shut the madrasahs down?" one official asks. "Jihad is a mindset. It developed over many years during the Afghan war. You can't change a mindset in 24 hours."

The most important contribution the United States can make, then, is to help strengthen Pakistan's secular education system. Because so much international aid to Pakistan has been diverted through corruption, both public and private assistance should come in the form of relatively nonfungible goods and services: books, buildings, teachers, and training, rather than money. Urdu-speaking teachers from around the world should be sent to Pakistan to help. And educational exchanges among students, scholars, journalists, and military officials should be encouraged and facilitated. Helping Pakistan educate its youth will not only cut off the culture of violence by reducing ignorance and poverty, it will also promote long-term economic development.

Moreover, assisting Pakistan will make the world a safer place. As observers frequently note, conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir is one of the most likely routes to nuclear war in the world today. The Pakistani militants' continued incursions into Indian-held Kashmir escalate the conflict, greatly increasing the risk of nuclear war between the two countries.

Although the United States can help, Pakistan must make its own changes. It must stamp out corruption, strengthen democratic institutions, and make education a much higher priority. But none of this can happen if Pakistan continues to devote an estimated 30 percent of its national budget to defense.

Most important, Pakistan must recognize the militant groups for what they are: dangerous gangs whose resources and reach continue to grow, threatening to destabilize the entire region. Pakistan's continued support of religious militant groups suggests that it does not recognize its own susceptibility to the culture of violence it has helped create. It should think again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jessica Stern is a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

YAHOO!! GO - A new service from yahoo.com

2006-04-28T11:17:00.000+08:00

Now, your life goes where you go

Yahoo launched Yahoo Go couple of days ago, a DVR and general Microsoft Media Center competitor based on the recently acquired Meedio technology.

Introducing Yahoo! Go – a new suite of products and services for your PC, mobile phone and even your TV.

Yahoo! Go allows you to access the information and content that is important to you on whatever device you choose.

So wherever you go, your photos, your music, your email, – your life – is right there with you. Ready to go.

Click on the following pictures to know more details, features available with this new YAHOO services.

(Excerpts drawn from: go.connect.yahoo.com)

Vegetables Fight Global Warming

2006-04-28T10:38:00.000+08:00

It turns out there's something anyone can do right now to make a big impact on global warming, says one climate researcher: Eat more veggies.

Emit Less CO2 in Production

A new study of how much greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere by the production of food shows that the difference between a meat-based and plant-based diet amounts to the same as driving an SUV versus a small sedan.

The calculations are based on data and a basic ecological concept that have been around for decades, but no one had actually done the math.

"It's just never been done," said climate researcher Gidon Eshel of the University of Chicago. "The data is simply there to mine."

The ecological concept has been taught in biology classes for decades: As energy moves up a food web — from plants to grazing animals to predators — only about 10 percent survives each step. In other words, 100 calories worth of beef patty require about 1,000 calories of grain which, in turn, require 10,000 calories of sunlight.

So if you choose to cut out the middleman (the cow) and get your 100 calories directly from the grain, you only have to grow one-tenth as much grain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Huh.. So be vegiterian.... support vegiterianism.... say bye bye to meat. Be healthy, live healthy, accept vegiteriannism & save your globe :-).

(Source: Discovery Channel)

Discovery Channel - Secret Mafia Notes Reveal New 'Godfather'!

2006-04-28T10:31:00.000+08:00

Bernardo Provenzano, the now jailed "boss of bosses" of the Sicilian Mafia, appointed his Godfather successor before his arrest, the Italian daily La Stampa reported on Tuesday.

Provenzano's heir was Matteo Messina Denaro, according to a close investigation into hundreds of pizzini � notes written on little pieces of paper � found in Provenzano's hideout just a few miles from his Sicilian hometown of Corleone. "The investiture can be found in one of the pizzini written a few weeks before Provenzano's arrest," La Stampa wrote.

On the run for 13 years, he is known as the "playboy boss" for his love for girlfriends, gold watches, and fast cars.

The Caesar Code:
At least one coded note, written in January 2001 by Angelo Provenzano, had a strong resemblance to what's known as Caesar cipher, an encryption scheme used by Julius Caesar to protect important military messages.

While the classic Caesar cipher moves everything three letters later (A becomes D, B becomes E, etc.), the "Provenzano code" assigned a number to each letter by simply increasing by 3 the value given to the 21 letters of the Italian alphabet listed in order. " We hope you'll stop by Discovery.com ... and that you'll enjoy the feature that your friend chose for you!

(Excerpts drawn from: www.discovery.com)

True communist face of China -- and atrocities on Falun Gong practitioners

2006-04-27T23:25:00.000+08:00

The Real Story of Jiang Zemin
Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party
Quitting the CCP
Organ Harvesting in China's Labor Camps

Listen to Nine Commentaries

Sign a declaration denouncing the Communist Party

Mask of the Ninja

2006-04-27T23:06:00.000+08:00

A Chinese agent must fend off a group of dangerous ninjas in order to save the free world.

Time Magazine: Cartoons :)

2006-04-27T18:10:00.000+08:00

Today saw some more cartoons. Just enjoy.

(Excerpts drawn from: www.time.com)

Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

2006-04-27T16:06:00.000+08:00

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

I have read Wings of Fire, a biography of Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, the eleventh President of India more than a year before. It's really very inspirational biography of a great mind & proud son of Mother India.

"The unexamined life is not worth living," said Socrates more than two millenia ago. Here, we have in print, a well-examined life of one of the icons of the post-colonial technological renaissance of the country.

Excerpt from the book WINGS OF FIRE by Dr. APJ ABDULKALAM

I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way oflife on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others.

That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence.It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and built on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.

My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling, our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self reliant and self assured. Isn't this right?

I have third vision. The India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him, and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material.I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life. I see four milestones in my career:

ONE : Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of a Scientist.

TWO : After my ISRO years, i joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994.

THREE : The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it. That we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very light material called carbon-carbon.

FOUR : One day an orthopaedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three Kgs. each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300 gram calipers and took them to the orthopaedic center. The children didn't believe their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss!

Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassedto recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why? We are the second largest producer of wheat in the world. We are the second largest producers of rice. We are the first in milk production. We are number one in Remote sensing satellites. Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed with the bad news and failures and disasters.

I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was his inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments,deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news. In India we only read about death, sickness,terrorism, crime. Why are we so negative?

Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with Foreign things? we want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported? Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is:

She replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, for you, we will have to built this developed India. You must proclaim.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.

A sincere tribute to Mother India

2006-04-27T15:39:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Manan Singhi for making it.

Incredible India

2006-04-27T14:58:00.000+08:00

Central part of India

Pepsi fined; condom in bottle -- Rediff.com

2006-04-26T23:51:00.000+08:00

Soft drink giant Pepsi has been ordered to pay over Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) compensation by a Delhi consumer court after a man found a condom inside a sealed bottle of the company.

"This case is an eye-opener for others who are engaged in manufacturing soft drinks and are required to maintain the prescribed standards of purity in public interest during the course of their business activities," Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum (North) comprising president K K Chopra and members R K Prabhakar and Neeru Mittal said.

Rediff.com has reported this news.

So think twice before drinking pepsi.. you may also get Condom :)

BBC E-mail: Israel satellite 'to spy on Iran'

2006-04-26T21:22:00.000+08:00

"Israel has launched a satellite that officials say will enhance its ability to spy on Iran's nuclear programme."

The satellite, reportedly capable of taking clear photographs of objects on the ground as small as 70cm (2ft), was sent into space from eastern Russia.

sraeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said on Monday that Tehran's nuclear programme posed the biggest threat to Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.

** Israel satellite 'to spy on Iran' **
Israel sends into space a satellite that officials say will enhance its ability to spy on Iran's nuclear programme.

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Mermaid melody and Tokyo mew mew

2006-04-26T13:32:00.000+08:00

mermaid melody and Tokyo mew mew. Cute and romantic you'll love it.

Lucy and Floppy Ears and Asthama :)

2006-04-26T13:19:00.000+08:00

An ad to raise awareness of the seriousness of Asthma among children and also some irresponsible elders :-) . (No offence)

Rediff.com: Promoting jehadis has hurt Pakistan

2006-04-26T09:31:00.000+08:00

Pakistan has damaged itself by promoting jehadi groups under the 'tutelage' of Islamic parties to wage a separatist war in Kashmir, which ended up inflicting far bigger wounds on the country than it had on India, a leading daily in Islamabad said on Tuesday.

"And many objective observers actually say that Pakistan has damaged the Kashmir cause by not controlling the men and that it became ideologically subservient to the groups created mostly under the tutelage of the religious parties in Pakistan," the daily said.

"The conclusion in many studies is that a mishandling of the Kashmir cause has damaged Pakistan instead of the other way around," it said.

"Pakistan put everything at stake in 1990 when the insurgency in Kashmir started. It diverted a stream of mujahideen volunteers from a successful Afghan war to Kashmir and by the mid-1990s had created a situation in Kashmir that made the world wake up and take note of the Kashmir issue," the daily said.

"But the irony is that the Pakistani 'support' that Salahuddin thinks is now gone was sabotaged by the evolving nature of the 'struggle' itself and what the international community came to think of it," the Daily Times pointed out.

"The real damage Pakistan suffered was in the social consequences of the Kashmir jihad... The militias deployed by Pakistan in this privatised war penetrated Pakistani society and clashed with state sovereignty.

"Their pockets full of money and their armouries full of the latest weapons, the jihadi organisations took over entire cities in Pakistan and literally ran the administration there, killing at will people who opposed them," it said.

"Religion has been so exploited at the behest of the Kashmir cause that even the state has lost the ability to see right from wrong; and the entire strategic underpinning of jihad has fallen apart after it turned sectarian, and faith started eating its own children," the daily said.

"What has come to the fore in recent days is the real antipathy of this leadership towards the hard-line religious militias, which have sought to change Kashmiri society coercively and have resultantly diverted international support to India," it added.

Read full coverage on rediff.com

(Excerpts drawn from: www.rediff.com)

NYTimes.com: Raising the Bar at Samsung

2006-04-26T09:06:00.000+08:00

This page was sent to you by: Mike

Message from sender:
Thirty-seven years ago, 36 employees began assembling electric fans in a small workshop in this city, just south of Seoul. That company was Samsung Electronics, and it is now the world's largest and most profitable consumer electronics company. Its 123,000 employees make a range of products as diverse as cellphones and flat-panel televisions, washing machines and vacuum cleaners. Samsung Electronics offers a wide range of appliances and digital devices. A refrigerator with a tablet PC.

TECHNOLOGY | April 25, 2006
Raising the Bar at Samsung
By MARTIN FACKLER
Starting 37 years ago with a few dozen employees assembling electric fans in a small workshop, Samsung is now the world's largest consumer electronics company.

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