Happy New year 2007

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Birding in Cyprus - The Pink Flamingos

Cyprus is supposed to be a very good destination for bird watching, i.e the kind where people spend hours together to see a bird few inches long. I became an avid bird watcher only after my interest in photography developed. Well, i am not the kind who appreciates the fact that a particular bird species is rare or not. But, as long as i am able to get a good photograph of it, I am happy. I can vouch for the fact that a photograph of a "wild" bird definitely gives more satisfaction than one taken at the zoo.

Cyprus is probably most famous for the thousands of migratory flamingos which visit the larnaca and the akrotiri salt lakes every year. They come to cyprus just as winter starts, leave as it starts to rain and return in Spring. Thousands of them making a pink blanket over the lake is a sight beyond words. They are much closer at the larnaca salt lake, but since this is almost next door to the airport, the moment you take out a camera, a cop comes over and starts questioning you on everything ranging from the kind of camera to your religious inclinations. I have been "caught" like this quite a few times in larnaca, but the cops are usually very friendly and once they are convinced of your true intentions request you not to photograph there.

At Akrotiri, you either have to walk a lot or be stupid enough to take your vehicle close to the lake and then call rescue line. I find this place fascinating for watching birds. Apart from the flamingos, the approach to lady's mile from the new port has many small pools where you can find hundreds of ducks and sea gulls (I assume these are so, I am not an ornithologist!). There are two ways to approach the lake to watch the flamingos. One is to park anywhere on the lady's mile beach (closer to the end of the beach near the start of the akrotiri base) and walk north. After a walk of a few hundred metres, you should be close to the lake. The place can be pretty slushy and it would help if you had rubber boots. I would recommend at least a 200 mm lens if you intend to get decent photographs. Another approach would be to take the road from Limassol towards akrotiri and as you near akrotiri, you would see the Fassouri plantations on the left. Actually, it is more like a mini-forest, with dense growth and small forest tracks in between. Ordinary cars can go on these roads. Always try to proceed towards the right(south). At a point your cannot go any further, start walking in the same direction. This side is much closer to the flamingos and you also can see other big birds, but there are lot of insects and it can get pretty nasty towards the evenings.

Last weekend, i went to the pools close to the lady's mile beach to photographs some "ordinary" birds like ducks and gulls. I was surprised to find three flamingos in that pool. They are not often found in these pools. I took shots and then went back home to get my rubber boots and waded into the pools to get closer shots. Some of the photographs are below. All of them are grainy, as i had increased the ISO to 1600 the previous night and forgot to reset it!

Below are some of the photos of birds taken at the small pools on the side of the road on the way to lady's mile beach.

Last year, i and two other friends went to the akrotiri lake from the side of the phassouri plantations. We had to wade through lot of slush and mud and tall grass to reach the lake. Thankfully, i was properly "footed" for the occassion. Some of the photos from that trip. We didn't manage to get very good photos, as my lens is not so good at the longer end as it is the cheaper non-ED version of the Nikkor 70-300mm and it becomes really soft at the 300 mm end. Or, maybe i am doing something wrong :-). Btw, it is not me in the photographs below!

Technorati Tags: migratory birds flamingo seagull duck akrotiri ladys mile beach cyprus larnaca

I am the TIME person of the year 2006

When i visited the Time Person of the Year page, i was surprised to find that i had got the honour of being the Time person of the year 2006 :-)

In fact, you are also the TIME person of the year, so is the person sitting in the next cubicle at work or in the browsing center, uploading videos of his college parties to youtube or sharing the photos of his pet Burmese python with the world.

It is you, who, the first thing in the morning, visits Digg.com or technorati to find out the hottest and the happening events. It is you, who uploads 100 blurred photographs you have taken with your first digital camera onto yahoo and sends the link to thousands of people on mailing groups having absolutely nothing to do with photography. It is you, who videotapes a song from the just-released-in-the-theatre movie using your mobile phone and uploads it to metacafe or google-video for the world to enjoy.

My version of the TIME person of the year presentation appearing on the original page.

Congratulations.

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A cold but merry Christmas

It was a chilly Christmas here in Cyprus. There were traces of snow in troodos, but far away from being ski-able. This is the fourth year in a row where we haven't had snow in the mountains for Christmas. All the round-abouts and the city centre were well lit up here in Limassol. We went late in the night to the downtown area to take some photographs of the Christmas decorations made there. Shall upload them as soon as they are transferred.

The above picture was made in Photoshop courtesy the free actions of Panos FX. They have got some cool actions for photoshop and many of the good ones are free too.

Technorati tags: christmas snow troodos cyprus photoshop actions Panos FX Merry Christmas

Rajini goes for a new look - The Mottai look

It seems that the "superstar" Rajini shaved his head for some scenes in Sivaji. The tonsured look makes him look like a don. The beard, it seems, resembles the Baasha look, though I vaguely remember him with the same beard in Baasha.

Many scenes were shot in Pune, in fact, in the same building where amdocs is. The name of the building was changed to Sivaji University. Many of my colleagues in amdocs, Pune had an opportunity to meet many members of the cast including director shankar and manivannan. Unfortunately, none of the photos with rajini in them have come out clearly. All the clear photos i have are photos of amdocs employees with manivannan, shankar and few other prominent cast members.

Update: Many pictures of Rajini from the movei Sivaji have been released and can be viewed here and here. Go here for the complete transcript of director Shankar's interview to SUN TV.

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The November 100 Rupee Quiz - Answers

The November 100 Rupee Quiz has finished. 26 respondents to this edition of the quiz. The winner is Puneeth with a score of 28.5. Coming a close second is Abhishek R with 28 points. You can see the answers of the November 100 Rupee Quiz here. You can see the answers of the previous editions of the quiz here. The next 100 Rupee Quiz will be uploaded on Jan 1st 2007.

Sreesanth rules and so does Rajini

in the google searches leading to my site. Sreesant must have become a hero in the span of just one ball. Of course he bowled well, but history would remember his bollywood-style or rather south-indian style dance demonstration to Andre Nell. Thanks to Mottai Boss, a fellow blogger whom i had linked to from my site, a search for Rajini Mottai brings up my post about Rajini on the front page. Strange are the ways that search engines see your pages, but as long as they search and create wonderful keyword combinations, I have nothing to complain about. If you came here looking for a photo of mottai rajini, then look at the photo posted in this post.

Technorati Tags: sreesanth dance Rajini mottai google search

Sreesanth breaks into a break dance

after hitting Andre Nell for a six. Shanthakumaran Sreesanth should have been in the movies with his jhatkas and matkas! Sreesanth, well known for his self-motivating actions he performs on the way back to his run-up, created a name for himself in cricket history to become the first cricket player to perform a fully choreographed dance sequence on the pitch. No wonder, he was given the Man of the Match award for India's first ever test victory on South-African soil.

Watch the uncanny similarity in the footwork between Prabhu Deva and Sreesanth.

Watch the youtube video of the Sreesanth Dance.

Technorati Tags: Shanthakumaran Sreesanth India cricket South Africa Andre Nell Man of the match test victory

Bringing Quiz Archives back to life

Back in the early 2000s, there used to be hundreds of small dot-coms vying with each other for space on the internet. Many of them lured people with events and competitions with big prizes. One of the them was ticklewit.com, which had a daily event comprising of a quiz, a puzzle and a crossword. The quizzes were pretty decent, mastermind style, mostly comprising of one-word answers. When i was working in Tektronix, a group of us were regular "ticklewitters", maintaining a steady side-income through this site.

Ticklewit gave its prizes in the form of fabmart gift vouchers and thanks to it, i am a gold member at fabmart. I used to order all kinds of crazy things from fabmart, just because i had lot of vouchers with me, even to the extent of ordering "one tropicana juice" with the delivery time set at 7 AM, so that it could be used as a wake-up call for us!

As with scores of dot-coms, ticklewit started going down in 2001. First, they reduced the quantum of prizes and one fine day, all the prizes were gone and so was the site. But, I had diligently collected the answers of all the daily quizzes and have now uploaded them on a separate page.

So, here you have, hundreds of mastermind type questions on the ticklewit quiz page. I have also uploaded more than 1500 questions from other sites which were offering regular quizzes, but are now offline. Check the other pages:

Business Quiz Sports Quiz Movies Quiz Music Quiz General Quiz(1) General Quiz(2) General Quiz(3) General Quiz(4) General Quiz(5) General Quiz(6) General Quiz(7) General Quiz(8) General Quiz(9) General Quiz(10) General Quiz(11) General Quiz(12)

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Croc around the clock

Last weekend was full of crocodiles on Animal Planet, with it being the "Croc around the clock" weekend. Animal Planet is the most watched channel at my place i.e at the times when Vidhya is away from the television, as she has a morbid dislike of reptiles. I don't understand why she doesn't like watching a pride of lions tear apart a gazelle or crocs attacking wilderbeests. All they are doing is having their lunch, pretty much like the cookery shows we have on other channels.

My appetite for action on animal planet was more than sated over the weekend with dozens of the "late and great" Steve Irwin's shows and lots of action from the crocs in the Nile and the Amazon.

Not one of the shows showed a tame croc. There was a show with a guy (also from Australia like Steve) explaining about the psychology of crocs and how easy it would be to manage them if one understood their behaviour. He did some pretty crazy stunts with the crocs, all the while explaining the rationale behind the actions. But, none were even close to what i saw in the Crocodile farm in Pattaya in Thailand. In the croc show, one guy puts his head inside the mouth of the croc! He carries the croc around on his shoulder and then orders it around. The croc didn't look drugged as it displayed its jaws' power by snapping at stuff and then suddenly turned gentle when he put his head inside its mouth.

At the end of the show, you could even have your photo taken with the croc, not with the croc at a fair distance, but with you sitting on the croc! After deliberating a lot, i found the guts to go ahead and get the photograph taken. Vidhya was not even remotely interested in doing so. Finally, after seeing that i was having fun with the croc, she decided to join in. Check out more such photos of "animal encounters" in the Thailand Photo Gallery.

Technorati Tags: crocodile Animal Planet Pattaya Thailand Steve Irwin

Wanna get fresh?

I have submitted this photo for the weekly Photofriday contest. The theme for this week is "Fresh". This was taken at the Kykkos Monastery, the richest and the most famous monastery in Cyprus.

Technorati Tags: Cyprus Fresh Photo Photography Photofriday Kykkos Monastery Photo+Contest

A new concept in Search Engines

If you have heard that "getting personal" is the motto behind some companies who deal with customers and really doubted its meaning, then look at this company. This company took the meaning literally. Check out the new kid on the block, a new search engine chacha.com.

When you search for anything on this site, you can choose the "Search with Guide" option and you will be transferred to a page which looks like a chatroom. Here, a guide, a real person, a human, not a robot, comes to chat and help you with the search.

According to chacha.com,

ChaCha is a great new search engine that recently launched with an interesting new feature - Search with a Live Guide. ChaCha instantly connects you with a live person with knowledge in your search topic. You can also choose instant search results on ChaCha and receive the best results that have been hand-picked by thousands of ChaCha guides.When your query is submitted it is sent to a Guide who is knowledgeable in the topic you're searching. By searching with a Guide your query is sent to a real person who is skilled at finding information on the internet and knowledgeable on the subject at hand so that you get the few exact results you want, not the millions of results you don't.

I didn't believe this at first. Imagine someone's work is just to look at what people are searching for and then help them in getting better results. But, it was true. I went ahead and chose this option. One person called Tricia came on the chat and helped me to search for "quizzing blogs". I was very satisfied with the search because the first link Tricia returned was my quizzing blogs page :-). You can rate the guides at the end of the session and of course Tricia received 5 stars!

If you want to use how people have been playing with this search engine (I feel sorry for the guides), check out the digg page on chacha.com.

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How to take photographs of Fireworks

I have added another article in the Photography Tips and Tricks section. This time, it is about taking good photographs of fireworks. This article mentions all the things you need to get in place to get a good photograph. If your current photographs are like the one on the left, i hope that the article helps you to move to a photograph like the one on the right. Check out the article on how to take good photographs of fireworks displays.

Technorati Tags: good photography Photography tips tricks fireworks photograph Night photography

Sourav Ganguly: Back with a vengeance

Ganguly gets to tea unscathed! This is what the cricinfo live commentary of the match between Rest of South Africa and India says.

SC Ganguly (lhb) 74 129 11 0 57.36 striker

Welcome back Ganguly !

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The Ashes of Cricket

are ironically, saving the face of Test Cricket!

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Cricket is a stupid game, a waste of time

I had never showed interest in watching football or soccer matches before. I only used to play football i.e. I used to employ the tactic of kicking the ball hard in the direction of my goal, wherever i was on the field. This made me a good footballer in school, because in school, all the 20 players (other than the goal keepers) were approximately 2.7 metres away from the place the ball was on the field. So, my tactic worked in freeing the ball from dangerous tackles. So, when i used to watch matches on TV, I was amazed at the incompetence shown by the players. I was shocked at their play and commented at their lack of "power" in kicking the ball a long way. So, i stopped watching football on TV.
Well, all this was until the recent world cup. Amdocs decided to show the matches on big screen. No, this was not what attracted me to watch the matches. All the matches were preceded by quiz and bingo events with good prizes. It is a different fact that i didn't win any. But, i ended up watching the matches though.
Then, I started comparing football with my passion, cricket. I began to realise how inferior cricket was, in comparison to this great game. If there were to be a definition of cricket, it would be something like this...

"You have two sides, one out on the field and one in . Each man that's in the side that's in, goes out and when he's out, he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When both sides have been in and out including the not outs, that's the end of the game!"

Well, the game of cricket is as confusing as is its definition. The rules are worse. Try describing a googly or a leg break to someone new to cricket. They would definitely be worried about breaking their leg. Compared to this, understanding the offside rule in football is a walk in the park! Why should anyone playing a game want to bowl a maiden over, or score a duck?

The inventor of the game would have definitely been booked under the eve-teasing act for creating "positions" like square legs, short legs and long legs. Try to explain as to why you need a third man when there are already eleven out in the field?
George Bernard Shaw once said,

"Cricket is a game played by 22 fools and watched by 22,000 fools"

For once, i totally agree with him. Cricket is a game which is totally against the concept of sport. Sport should above all, give exercise to the players. How does cricket justify this in terms of the time spent? Cricket is a game in which only two players out of eleven play, while the others can choose to play cards or even sleep, and two players of the other team (the bowler and the wicket-keeper) sweat it out while the others keep trying their luck in the field. How are we to account for this colossal waste of time, not to mention the huge sums of money spent on it, in the name of playing a game?
Talking abt skill levels, imagine the wonderful game of baseball , where so much skill is required to hit the ball within a particular sector, whereas in cricket , u can hit it anywhere in the 360 degree radius, C'mon u don't need skill to hit it anywhere u want.
The even stranger thing about this game is the longer version, test cricket. I am sure that Test cricket must have been invented by a man, whose wife would have commented , "The longer the better" and he immediately created test cricket. But , the poor man , in his hurry , forgot to listen completely to his wife who had said " The longer the better and of course with a proper climax" imagine watching a long and boring test match and at the end of 5 days , the two captains shake hands and walk off! No victor, no loser, C'mon where is the thrill, ecstasy?Nothing ! Test cricket is the perfect example describing the word anti-climax !
Cricket is definitely not a brave mans game. You have a thigh guard, an arm guard and so many other guards, virtually to cover every inch of your body, whereas in baseball, when batting, they have to stand on a home plate, without the luxury of a facemask, pads on their ribs, padded gloves, or pads on their legs, all protections available to a cricketer. Now that is a mans game, definitely not cricket.
Do you know why Adolf Hitler banned cricket in Germany?. Once He was watching a match that went on and on. He kept asking when it would be over, and someone told him it would continue the next day for the entire day and well into the evening. He said, 'By the time this stupid game is over, I could have conquered three countries.' "
In the so-called gentleman's game of cricket, the players throw the ball in the air after a catch, shout and scream after a run out or for an lbw decision, and deliberately intimidate and sledge the opposition players. This is definitely not the characteristics of a gentleman's game. Nowadays cricket is more a war of words rather than skill. Even players from countries who cannot speak few sentences in English, are perfect in pronouncing all the 4 letter words in English. Look at what the English have taught the world !
cricketers are stupid people This quote by india's former captain Saurav Ganguly would show that

"Nobody is a born captain. Most of the time I have gone on instinct".

Not only the cricketers are stupid , but there are even stupid followers of the game who attempt suicide when their teams loses a game
So, dear ladies and gentleman, never ever try to follow this game. Stay away from it, make good use of your time rather than wasting your time following or playing cricket. I wonder why I wasted so much time writing about this stupid game. I could have rather spent time swatting flies instead.
The views expressed above are from the thoughts of a ghost which took over my body while i was engrossed in refreshing the scores of a closely fought division 4 match happening in England.

Technorati Tags: cricket sport sourav ganguly football soccer George Bernard Shaw

Earning Money Through Google Adsense

It's been a month since i started putting Google Ads through AdSense on my site. So, i thought i shall announce to the world the huge sum of money i have earned in one month. To be exact, I have earned 16,505.77 Indonesian Rupees in the past one month. I chose this currency, because i felt embarrased to say that i have earned 1.8 USD in one month. The first figure looked impressive!

Well, i didn't expect to earn millions through Google Adsense. Also, during late october my site's PR (Page Rank) dropped from 5 to 3, probably because my site was down for almost 3 weeks when i was moving hosts.

Keep reading, soon I expect to reach the magical 100,000 mark, this time in Romanian Leis!!!

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