Finally Apple decided to go greener !!

Ah so here goes the good news. Apple has declared a phase out of the worst chemicals in its product range, Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) by 2008.

Greenpeace force Apple to take such an action. I am a great fan of apple product but regret to see the e-waste mountains in Asian countries. I guess Indian Market should be one the target markets for products like IPod and MacBook and Steve has to realise this.

Steve said "Today is the first time we have openly discussed our plans to become a greener Apple. It will not be the last." So cheers.

Here it goes ... !

At last it started ... yes RAIN :) Yesterday it was rain in Bangalore and its my first. I guess the first rain of the season. With first rain, I remember two completely different school of talks. Old man's talk( I heard it from my mom) says that first rain is good for skin disease and it has the capability to cure more or less all the skin disease. According to their findings there is a layer in sky which get cleared with first rain and that layer has some composition, good for health. Whereas the second school of science say never avail first rain because it contains all dust and insects. Their findings say with first rain all dust and insects in air get removed.

There are very few concept where our mythology(the true one, not fake one) intersect with science. Whatever be it is ... first rain is always beautiful and more if you waited for it :)

This is how it works ...

Sometime things inspire to move forward. Last weekend Ankur told me to see one news in paper. It was all about a child who lost his one leg in an accident just before a cricket match. Artificial legs cost something around 1.2 lakhs. Via Newspaper Hospital request ppl to come forward and make some donation. With Ankur, I went to hospital, we did what we can ! Just praying things go fine with this little chap. And next day we got this good news, they were able to manage the amount.

Though things are not easy for this little boy, but he has to make it. We never get what we want but still we live a happy life, this is how it works.

Make it possible for 3rd eye !

Yesterday Ankur invited me to read his blog. A blog on "Blind Programmers and Users". Before reading, I depicted a different meaning of Blind Programmer, i thought its someone who codes blindly :). But its something else. It gives a different domain to think how blind people (can)use computer or rather our application. Can they use it ? Can they interpret it into their 3rd eye ? Can they play with some of the computer apps ?

No idea at all ! I never thought for it before and so i decided to spend some of my time to search what applications are developed for them. Some of the software's even I can think of like creating sound pattern with Morse code.

Searching on google, i came across a very nice and i will say a very simple software " Desktop Icon Reader". What this software do is that it attach a song file to every icon on desktop and even giving you the facility to record that sound file, so that you can give it a logical meaning. Mouse movement just play that sound. Nicely written by a 26 yr guy(better to say a computer scientist :) ).

See the baseline is very clear, computer screen is not going to provide something like "touch and feel". So we have to constrain application in the range of listening and speaking. Something we can simulate on listening like this Icon Reader and some other we can simulate on speaking like text generator via sound.

I was thinking of an application where i can provide them the facility to read a web page. Really no idea how to do but I guess languages like JS gives me the facility to read string over mouse by some API's like onMouseMove or onMouseClick and then if we are able to convert that string into a voice form! I guess it should be better fit in a browser property rather than a 3rd party application because the browser code has much more control on web page content. Also, we have one constraint, we can store a finite set of voice corresponding to every word. So, its the browser responsibility to convert a normal web page into a blind-friendly web page where we have a finite(mean to say less) number of words. Don't know how to handle names and all.

Any suggestions :)

11 players, half a billion coach

India is out of the World Cup(news channels are using a sophisticated word "virtually out"). Performance of the team is not very good, but not as bad as covered by most of our News channel. If you put any news channel you will definite heard some words like "Janta ke adalat", "Future of indian team","who is the new captain" and all rubbish.

The problem is old, as said by my friend, in India there are 11 players and half a billion coach. That's true !! Everyone is ready to pass their expert comments... I guess even I :). And most of us like cricketers not cricket(I am not in this list :D).

Hope things will go fine .

You always get things to laugh

I am not anti-Internet Explorer user, but most of time I love to use Mozilla. It gives me the facility to restore the session and so perfect for my "hanging" system. Look at the message on the home page of Mozilla(so funny).


Hey!
Your copy of Mozilla is more than four weeks old. Unless you are using the latest milestone build, bug reports get rapidly less useful the older your copy is.

So if you're not running the latest milestone, we could use your help testing either that or the latest nightly build. (Be warned that nightly builds are development software,and there is no guarantee that they won't fry your processor, insult your mother, or cause you to break out in a nasty rash.)

Congratulations!
You've downloaded (or compiled) a copy of Mozilla. This means that you've volunteered to become part of the Mozilla testing community. (If that doesn't sound like something you meant to do, you might be better off with one of our stable releases.)

I can't stop my laugh !! Can you ?

Back to the creatures ...

Is that not cool ?



And so this !

What you say ?

This is the photo taken by my brother. Looking cool, right :)

Madhubani painting - depict nature !

It was a chat going on at 11.30 night with my office team members. Since the team is dominated with Bihari people in number, often the discussion comes on Bihar and it goes through a cycle of corruption, Laloo. So what's good ?

I don't have too much. But there is something which is related to me, my earth, to my birth-my village. My village is next to Madhubani. Most of us heard the name Madhubani, the literal meaning is forests of honey(madhu-bani) because of its great painting, often called Mithila painting. Mithila is our native language, though i speak less but its the sweetest i ever heard. Mithila painting is one of the splendid paintings ever done in the history of human culture.



Wiki page is telling me, this style of painting originated at the time of the Ramayana, when King Janak commissioned artists to do paintings at the time of marriage of his daughter, Sita, to Hindu God Lord Ram.

And here goes the worst part... We are selling Mithila painting in 20-30 Rs to some local Bihari broker. He in turns sell it to some big brokers into 3000-4000 Rs and finally it is imported to US and other nations costs in lakhs.
Just checking the cost of one simple painting in $$$$'s

Waiting for next visit to my village, I will also make a collection of them :)

My blog cost $$$$$$$$$$

Any one interested in buying my blog :).

My blog is worth $2,258.16.
How much is your blog worth?

My Last Trip !

From last couple of weeks, didn't get anything to blog about. By the way, Holi week we had a trip of Belur. Its a nice place and the temple is one of the finest examples of Hoysala architecture.

Enjoy with some of the Sculpture @ http://picasaweb.google.com/vaibhav.kumar/Fine_Arts

Else nothing great to say about the trip.

Give me something good !!

Ah, again I need to move my home management system(ghar_ka_hisab). In morning, we are updating our expenses in thinkfree excel sheet(thinkfree.com) and got a critical bug. This bug seems to be in logic part because its not calculating the expenses properly.
(http://www.thinkfree.com/fileview.tfo?method=callFileView&
filemasterno=678659&filekey=lj0jjrlbw0 , The total should be equal and difference should be 0.)

I used to use openoffice for Home Management expenses, but now my system become older and can leave me anytime,so we decided to move on network.Before using thinkfree, I have started using Google spreadsheet, but that was completely a bad product implemented(not designed) by Google. After looking at Abhishek's blog and a great trust shown by Ankur, we decided to move on to ThinkFree. But :(, I am searching for the next, which can handle by complex calculations >>> ANY IDEA !

Diversity in Unity !!!

Baand is over in Karnataka. As covered by Times of India, it was a complete baand. Complete in the sense, all flights get canceled, nothing on the road, all shops shutter down. I never see a baand effective like this. As I am a Bihari and baand is a common thing in Bihar, it touches people's life but it never hinders it. Here it seems, its not hindering, its stopping people's life.

I never had state cohesion and may be this is the reason I am in Bangalore. But its regret to see that local people force you to think it's not your state,never matter it may be your country. Ankur best says" It's not looking Unity in diversity, its looking Diversity in Unity".

Never Ending Debates ….

Some issues in our country are always open for discussion because in short term(2-3 years) it will not get a result(maybe my short term is small):

1. Indo-Pak Relationship
2. Sachin's Batting
3. Performance of Indian Cricket Team
4. Kavari Water Dispute.
5. ............................
6. ............................
7. ............................

and I start finding such issues, believe me the list in long :). Some topics which are in my control, I stopped talking!

What about Technology !!

What you say about Technology? Everyone makes their own definition. According to me "Implementation of Knowledge is Technology" and it should not be bounded with Science.

Few days back we were going to Mangalore. Arguing something with Autowala, I told Ankur "Think if this autowala has a touch screen and a GPS with a small application. This application tells our current position and provides a navigation option from which we can tell the final destination. Also, It go ahead and show the shortest path between our "Point of Interest" and also calculate the meter-charge(of course there should be something additional for traffic and all). No fraud, No route-tension, no money issue :).

Long Life !

Rarely it happens that electronic devices have long life, but sometime it happens. I remember one of my watches, now I have given it to my dad(this is called reverse tradition :D), in which the battery is running from last 6-7 years. Difficult to believe but yes, its true. I am just wondering, will these type of devices also go in the list of defective device :).

I love to have electronic gadgets here and their with me. Sometimes it happen that one gadget can do more than what it should and can be seen as a replacement of others. Like Nokia N70 can be used in place of a iPOD, a camera and a phone off course. Ya true, but it can never fulfill the charm of those individuals, having a camera in hand and iPOD earphones provide a different range of feeling. Is not so ?

Once again cheers for Team India(I love to say Team India, rather than Indian Team) :D ... Hu ha India :)

wEEkEnD

Again a weekend with some nice movies. Saturday started with Blood Diamond. Story of a farmer, a smuggler and a priceless diamond. I can’t rate the actor or actress. All (Leonardo, Djimon, Jennifer) are on absolute scale of 10 out of 10. I can rate the movie, yep , 4 + .

After a series of bollywood crap movies, I don't have any more faith and money to go and see it in hall. But after a long time, people admired "Guru" so we(me and Ankur) decided to have it on my computer. Yes a pretty good movie with strong dialogues and some good performances. Abhishek is fine followed by Muthun da and Ash. Once again the best part goes with Mani Ratnam “paakata nahi hai”

Yes forget to share a good news, Dada did it :D

Simple Meaning

Some simple meaning of simple words which we uses in a complex way:

Work: The occupation for which you are paid

Life: The period between birth and the present time :)

Happy: Satisfied

Death: A final state;absence of life

Dependent: A person who relies on another person for support (this definition surprised me why only on other person, why not other thing)

Love: A score of zero in tennis or squash :D

Family: A social unit living together(father ?? , mother ??, son ?? )

Team: Two or more draft animals that work together to pull a vehicle(that is the best team)

Lets go to Mac'D

Last week Ankur surprised me with something. It was all about a movie "Super Size Me".Super Size Me is a 2004 documentary film, directed by, produced by and written by Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. He did a experiment on McDonald's Fast Foods. 30 days continuously he kept on eating McDonald's Food and the result was ....... see from your eyes :)

Before launching this experiment, Spurlock, age 33, was healthy and slim, with a body weight of 185.5 lb (84.1 kg). (Spurlock is 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall.) After thirty days, he gained 24.5 lb (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, and his Body Mass Index raised from 23.2 (within the 'healthy' range of 19-25) to 27 ('overweight'). He also experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and nearly catastrophic liver damage. It took Spurlock fourteen months to lose the weight he gained.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me)

After reading this, we became more enthusiastic to see some of the videos. We came across 2 deadly videos. One was his experiment on McDonald's Burgers and French Fries. Some hidden truth that we must know:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDhMfl0WdBU (4 min)


and other on the school children, I can say a test on their IQ :) (A shocking one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtDMVZ4EaA0 (1 min)


Just see the two videos and tell me when we are going McDonald's next time :D

2 years of Blogging ...

Hey here it goes my 2 years of blogging. I am loving it :)