Shilpa Shetty wins Big Brother

after the issues of racism against her and thus opened up a new avenue for Indian penetration. Why do indians keep getting involved in things happening around the world? Big, Brother, until now, was serving as a good voyeuristic distraction for teens (Go to youtube and search for Big Brother videos, you will know) and guess what, we indians came in and are going to culturally moralise the show. No more streakers, no more in-house affairs , only talks about Indian Culture and values inside the house!

The next edition of Big Brother is rumoured to bring in many actors from Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Baa Bahoo Aur Baby. Guess what, they are also going to add a pooja room inside the Big Brother house, so that the inmates can do their daily venerations to God. Of course, along with all these aunties, they are also going to put one Englishman and one American lady so that Indian Culture can be shared with them and then they can be thrown out in the name of being racist and unadaptable to other cultures.

Check out the poster of Big Brother 5, coming soon !

Ttechnorati Tags: big brother shilpa shetty Shilpa shetty wins Big brother Shilpa Shetty racism

Wordpress 2.1 Ella released

Earlier this week, Wordpress 2.1 was officially released to the blogging community. It has been codenamed "Ella", after the Jazz Vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, also known as the First Lady of Song. I use blogger for my blog. I have experimented with Wordpress though for my intranet blog on my PC. It was a good experience playing around with creating DBs, then deploying them etc. But, I am pretty much comfortable with blogger and doubt that i will make the move.

Some of the important features in this new release:

• Autosave. This is probably the most attractive feature for me, as i have suffered a lot from the lack of Auto save in Blogger numerous times.
• Tabbed Editor to switch between WYSIWYG and coding modes. The new blogger too offers a similar thing, but I have not yet decided to move to the new blogger. I prefer hand-coding the template instead.
• Spell Checking! Wasn't this there before ? I thought that this was a very basic thing for a blogging tool to have!
• Any page rather than the latest post can appear as the front page. This looks to be pretty useful as you can play around with your content much more easily.
• Flexible Blogroll, rather than depending on third party blogrolls or handmade ones.

If you want to try it , just go over to the wordpress page and download wordpress 2.1 Ella.

Technorati Tags: wordpress 2.1 new release wordpress download wordpress ella blogger auto save

Snow in Troodos

UPDATE(JAN 30th 2008): There is LOT of snow on troodos, to the extent that the sun-facing side of troodos (towards limassol) is full of snow. It is even visible from Limassol. Btw, it also snowed in limassol, something of a rarity!

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and lots of it! Nature sometimes plans things to perfection. Last week was sunny and pleasant throughout, it rained like crazy the entire day Saturday and it was a beautiful sunny day on Sunday. God is great!

Well, what happens because of this is that half of Cyprus is on Troodos! Nature had its solution for this overcrowding too. There were sections of the road to Troodos (which fall on the north side - behind the shade of the cliffs) which were almost impassable because of the frozen ice on the road. But, we had the usual bunch of smart and young Cypriot drivers with their girlfriends wanting to prove that their car could do anything and in the process providing entertainment to the onlookers as they skidded and got stuck in the snow.

Luckily, many of these treacherous stretches were between exits to the many mountain villages, so that you could always go into one of these exits and come out through another. We just wanted a place with fresh snow and lots of it. We didn't attempt to take our car to the very top i.e. Mount Olympus. We stopped at the Troodos Square and went to place which was away from the maddening crowds. We then started making a snowman. Not the usual two lumps of snow on top of each other and then naming it a snowman. We wanted to make a designer snowman complete with all the accessories. It is not often that you get so much snow in Cyprus and you have a sunny day to go along.

Well, all of us were from the software industry and any activity we do is likely to be influenced by the good or bad practices we learn at work. Rather than just start digging out the snow, we planned that we would build a snowman in two layers, with one group working on the face/top and another on the body. I was in the group building the body. The initial "agreed" plan was to make a circular bottom, but because of implementation issues, it started to resemble a cylinder and finally Vidhya changing her requirements and asking us to convert it into a rectangular base. Since our implementation methodology was, at best, haphazard, it was very easy to adapt to the change in requirements!

Vidhya was in the group making the head of the snowman. Their plan was to make a circular head with a conical hat on top. I don't know how they executed this plan, but when she presented the head, the hat was missing. Not only was the hat missing, the head looked like a big hat. Magically, the snowman's head became conical in shape.

Next came the process of "accessorising" the snowman. We faced a problem which we hadn't expected before. Well, if we start to expect problems, they won't be a problem anymore, right. Since we hadn't put a risk plan in place, the going started to become tough. This is where the tough guys came in. The ice/snow had hardened so much that we could not create sockets in the ice for the accessories like the eyes, nose and the mouth. So, we tried hard to push the eyes in and in the process almost beheading the snowman. This was where the innovativeness of the team shone. Since we could not make sockets for the mouth, we added lumps of snow at either end for the stick to stick. So, that is why you feel that the snowman has two lumps of gum in his mouth :-)

Finally, it was time for the grand release party of the making of the snowman. It was production time, time to take the photographs and celebrate. Just before the first photograph was about to be taken, a critical defect appeared in the snowman and the whole system was about to crash. With the timely intervention of Gigo, the system was saved and the process of working on the first patch was started. We wanted it to be a small patch along with the main release, but it turned out to be such a huge fix, that we had to call it Service Pack 1.

So, after all the hardwork, there was fun to be had. Some photos of the release party are shown below .

Technorati Tags: troodos cyprus snow making snowman winter snow snowman

Advertising at its creative best

When actions speak louder than words ...

Racism against Shilpa Shetty in Big Brother

So says the media, so say the thousands of people who have written in to voice their opinions. I have only seen a few clips which were again and again shown on NDTV, Sky and Star News.But, i have my own opinions as to whether what happened could be called racism. Even if it were racist, it is after-all happening in a reality show, pretty much like a movie. Would someone complain if a movie had racist dialogues or had scenes of racism. It is a show which is supposed to have its melodrama to attract an audience.In fact, the producers of Big Brother would the ones most pleased with whats happening right now, because its drawing in audience, big time!Just because the people in the house don't speak rehearsed dialogues doesn't mean that they don't qualify for all the liberties awarded to movies. If there are sections offended by the show, let it be given a suitable rating.Ok, Shilpa Shetty was called "The Indian" and the "paki" by other housemates, but is it something new for Indians?Wherever we go, we are the target of racist attacks. Other way to look at is that whoever makes these racist comments are doing so, because he has an inferiority complex looking at the growth/success of a "browner" kind and hurling abuses are the only way to quench his anger.

Well, at the end of the day, Shilpa Shetty for one reason or the other is responsible for the massive increase in viewership of Big Brother and I am sure that they will try their best to keep her in and kick the rest out!

Technorati Tags: shilpa shetty big brother racism shilpa shetty big brother racism reality show uk

Abhishek Bachchan Aishwarya Rai Wedding pictures

Well, that's what people have already started searching for on google and landing on my page because of the posts on Surya Jyotika wedding pictures and the one on Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan in Varanasi.

Googlers, the fancy names for people searching on google always follow a streamlined approach to searching on the internet. This is the first time that i have found people searching for something ahead in time. C'mon people, they have just had their engagement. Give them some time. But not too much i guess, lest it go in the same direction as the case of Karisma Kapoor!

But, most googlers aren't this type. Take the example of Surya's and Jyotika's wedding. First, when news of their link-up started going around, people were searching for "Surya Jyotika romance". When their wedding finally happened, of course people were searching for all possible combinations of the keywords "surya, jyotika, wedding,marriage". Few weeks back, one person came to my site searching for "Surya Jyotika baby shower". How very systematic in the approach to searching!

Well, for those looking for Aishwarya's engagement pictures... (i apologise to the readers from countries where flickr is blocked. I had to move the pictures from my hosting provider to flickr because of the huge traffic this page was getting resulting in increasing my bandwidth!)

Some pictures from today's wedding ...

Got some pictures today from Abhishek's and Aishwarya's trip to Tirumala (Tirupati).

Also, if you want know about my experience at a Good Indian Wedding, check out my post here.

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Update 1: If you want to many more photos of abhishek and aishwarya as a couple and also the photo of their rumoured-to-be new house, check out my latest post at this link.
Update 2: Today is their wedding! Leave a comment with your wishes to the couple and also leave your blog link. I shall create a separate post with all the wishes and will also place a link to your blog against your wishes. Convey your wishes and also get a free link!

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Technorati Tags: Abhishek bachchan wedding Aishwarya rai wedding abhishek aishwarya engagement

The making of the Kholu during Navratri

Finally, the Kholu video is ready. Though I am fairly proficient with Video Capture and editing, it was a monumental task for me to make the video fit enough to be uploaded on youtube. Even now, the quality is pretty bad and the screen size has reduced a lot. I did a lot of research on how to upload videos to youtube but didn't get anything worthwhile.

This is what i did. I captured the video through my Sony Handycam, then transferred to my laptop in DV-AVI ( I always use DV-AVI because it provides the most details for editing), then did lot of editing. Youtube prefers a DivX codec AVI. So, i installed DivX and then tried to export the DivX format from Adobe Premiere, but youtube wouldn't accept it. Last resort, i exported it in plain AVI mode and then uploaded to youtube. But, I am not satisfied with the end result.
Anyway, enjoy the making of the Kholu video. About the video: I took this when we had the kholu during the navaratri festival. You might prefer muting the volume, as i have kept the original volume while speeding up the video. I felt that it complemented the video, but you might not like the screeches! Check out the photos of the final Kholu here.

Technorati Tags: kholu navratri indian festival video editing

The new Apple iphone, phone-ipod-internet device

You can also make calls, it seems! I have had a Nokia 3330 for the past 6 years and if there is a time that i should change my phone, then it is now and this is the phone I should go for. Apart from all the technology behind the phone, it is the "coolness" factor which will be the iphone's biggest draw.

Scrolling through the album covers in the ipod widescreen phone, the amazing "zoom" touchscreen technology on the iphoto mode (you have to see this zoom option in action to believe its coolness!), the sleekness of the whole "apparatus", it just blows your mind away. This is bound to be the release of the year 2007, cool enough to be used by 007. Mr.Bond, this is for you!

Check out the presentation of the features of the new iphone on the apple site.

Also check out the live demo of many of the features including the "cool" zoom thing in the youtube video below.

Meanwhile, there is the news of Cisco suing apple over the use of the iphone trademark. Cisco had got the iphone trademark when it acquired InfoGear, a small company developing internet related products. In fact, Cisco has been using this iphone name for its Voice over IP phones for over a year. Apple has challenged this saying that Apple is the first company to use this name for a cellphone!

Technorati Tags: apple iphone apple ipod iphone zoom photo cisco sues apple iphone trademark

BBC Mastermind host Magnus Magnusson has died

The first host of the very popular BBC Mastermind Quiz series Mastermind has died a few days back. He had coined the phrase "I've started so I'll finish" and finally he has finished, at the age of 77. He had been hosting this quiz for almost 25 years on the BBC.

The quiz along with its famous Black Chair, the spotlight on the participant and the eerie music developed a cult following even amongst non-quizzers. India too had its own version of Mastermind hosted by Siddhartha Basu, regarded as probably the doyen of television quizzing in India. The Indian version was aired from 1998 until 2002. I had attempted the preliminary round of 2001 (the written prelims) and was way off the qualifying mark. But, the standard of the written preliminary round was exemplary, with people realising the answers to many of the questions the minute they walk out of the room!

I remember this quiz show very well. In the early days of my software engg career in Bangalore, i and my roommates used to have our own internal competition for every edition of this quiz. I personally didn't admire the specialised section, which i felt was more about mugging up many trivia associated with the area. Some specialised areas included novels of an author and trivia in them, which i thought was not good enough material to be quizzed on. All you had to do was to give an author whose books you had read quite a number of times and you practically knew everything in the books.

Whatever be its shortcomings, the Mastermind Quiz was extremely entertaining and i could sometimes, just by watching, feel the tension that the participants on the Black Chair would have felt.

Technorati Tags: BBC Mastermind quiz Magnus Magnusson Siddhartha Basu Mastermind india quiz BBC

The facts behind Saddam's hanging

Slowly, but surely, many facts about what happened in the days prior to Saddam's hanging are being uncovered by the world media. Tapped phone calls reveal that Saddam and other accused undergoing the trial had many rounds of discussions with someone in an African country. There were also some speculations that Al-Qaeda was making these international phone calls to destinations faraway from USA in the hope that USA might send some of its troops to each of these places thus leaving only George Bush in the mainland USA to defend the country.

Sources say that there were extensive debates between the Iraqi Regime, George Bush, Tony Blair, Sasha Baron Cohen(Borat) and Al-Qaeda's spokesperson as to the way Saddam should be dealt with. Borat was always put in the conference call to act as a mediator as he had had extensive cultural learnings in the USA to make benefit other countries. Al-Qaeda expressed a keen interest in this, as they felt that Osama Bin Laden would also have to go through the same process when he is captured and put on trial just before the November 2008 American elections.

Weeks before the mid-term elections, the Iraqi regime had called on George Bush to find out what had to be done with Saddam Hussein, as his food bill was proving to be too expensive for the Iraqi government. Bush said, "Hang on for some more time, I am busy as it is just before the mid-term elections". Unfortunately, there was no translator available and the little English that the Iraqis knew, they understood it as "Hang him some time before the mid-term elections".

So, the Iraqis announced to the world that they were hanging Saddam. The media started collecting the reactions from around the world. One very famous news channel called NDTV started talking to people around India and the very first person they spoke to was the chairperson of the National Muslim league. This guy would have, under normal circumstances, blabbered something about the ruling Congress Party being responsible for the mess in Iraq etc. But, our smart NDTV reporter asked him, "As a devout Muslim, what is your opinion about this?". This triggered a response of the day being a festival day for Muslims and the like. Then, the reporter goes to the head of the Indian Christian Front and asks him "Do you think Saddam is a direct descendant of Adam and the US is trying to project him as a Muslim?". That guy replies,

The news is so bad,

that it makes me very sad.

A person called Saddam,

whose ancestor was Addam (rhyme it here please)

is being hung,

in a country far-flung!

Bush took extreme precautions to prevent a Fahrenheit 911 kind of video happening again with Saddam's hanging, but an amateur videomaker who wanted to make a movie like "The Blair witch project" started shooting the hanging of Saddam and released the video "The Hangman project".
Technorati Tags: saddam hussein hanging video iraq NDTV USA elections

Is it love or is it war ?

More of flamingo watching happened this weekend. It will continue in the coming weekends too until i get "the" perfect photograph capable of being used as my desktop wallpaper. I am far (literally far away from the flamingos) from such a photograph as of now!

This weekend, we noticed the flamingos going at each other with their beaks. This happened quite often between pairs of flamingos, always between a pink one and a white one. I dunno whether this is a courtship or a fight for a dominance of the dirty waters!

There were hundreds of seagulls too in the area. They were making trips from one pond to another and to the restaurant by the sea where they got free morsels of bread.

We saw two other birds too, but they were flying quite far and i couldn't get good enough photographs to identify them.

So, at the end of an adventurous three hours during which, our car was almost stuck in the slush two or three times, the car skidded for almost 4 to 5 metres sideways and the car ended up in tall grass (would like to call it drifting as they do it in the car rallies) and water got into the exhaust and my car was making sounds like a scooter, we managed to safely reach home after a good birding session and a really dirty car!

Technorati Tags: cyprus birding flamingo ladys mile akrotiri cyprus salt lake cyprus bird watching cyprus

Sehwag is the worst Indian opener

so says gooogle ...

Check out Gooogie for more such revealing facts.

Technorati Tags: indian cricket team virendar sehwag gooogie googie

Sister category for Photofriday

I am submitting this photo for the weekly photofriday contest. The category for this week is "Sister". I took this photo at Vidhya's uncle's place in Trichy when we had been there during our last vacation to India in June 2006. They are family friends of Vidhya's uncle. The sisters loved posing for the camera and this is one of the very few shots where i managed to get them without performing any antics.

Actually, the younger one, the one on the left is a mini-celebrity, having appeared in many movies and serials. Her biggest banner until now has been the appearance in the Tamil Movie Anniyan (starring Vikram) where she was the heroine Sadha's sister in one of the songs.

Technorati Tags: photofriday Photo Contest anniyan vikram sadha tamil movie sister

Origin of some English words

Many English words have their origin in Indian languages. Probably because the English found themselves to be deficient in expressing many ideas and borrowed the words from the languages of the countries they went to.

Some of the common words of Hindi origin are bungalow, caravan, juggernaut (from Lord Jagannath in Puri, Orissa) , Raja and the most famous of them all (responsible for making hundreds of ordinary people millionaires in the US of A) yoga. There are even words, very famous ones at that, which have originated from Tamil like curry, Mulligatawny (Don't ever get fooled by the presence of Mulligatawny soup on the menu, it is just Plain Rasam!), Catamaran and Coolie.

Few days back, I was watching the movie Umrao Jaan, the new one starring Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. Contrary to the reviews of the various movie channels, the movie was pretty ok and watchable. The plot happens in and around Lucknow. Though i can understand Hindi pretty well, i had to rewind and switch on the sub-titles at many places to understand the dialect spoken which, i assume, had lot of Urdu in it.

When the English reached these parts of India, they must have been amused by the local language and would definitely have been inspired to borrow words and phrases. One such interesting word, which featured in the movie a lot was "Ammi". This word was used by Ameeran to refer to her mother. The English fell in love with this word and wanted it to take it back to Britain with them.

But, they had a problem. A minor variation of it, Amy, was a common name in Britain. So, they couldn't take back the word as such. So, they had to innovate. One smart English officer called Lt. Ayma Moron suggested that they use this word in Britain for the same meaning i.e mother, but they add a letter in the front and change the word a bit. So, a group of them got together and started trying out the various combinations. After breaking their heads a lot, they decided on using the letter M and to "anglicize" the word "ammi" as "mummy".

There you go, all you lucknow people, feel proud that the word mummy has its origins in your very own ammi!

Technorati Tags: aishwarya Rai ash Abhishek bachchan Umrao Jaan Lucknow Ameeran origin of word

Best of 2006 category for Photofriday

Click on the picture for a higher resolution picture.

I took this picture from the top of a moving bus. It was late evening, when there was just enough light to make this picture possible. It was a open-top double-decker bus belonging to the "London-by-night" tour. If you are visiting London, I would strongly recommend you to do this tour on your first evening, because it would familiarise you with all the sights of central London.
When we turned onto the road from a side street, I noticed that we would be passing under this tree. I quickly increased the ISO to 1600 and put the camera to Shutter Priority at 1/20s. By trial and error, i have found out that 1/20s usually works at dusk. The light on the tree was from a street light.

Technorati Tags: london big ben night photography high ISO shutter priority

A visit to the Limassol Zoo in Cyprus

The Limassol Zoo is located right on the seafront inside the municipal gardens. If you have never been to a zoo in your life, then this is a great place to visit. Otherwise, give it a miss. On the contrary, if you have an hour to spend and didn't know what to do, you could as well spend it in the zoo rather than getting burnt sitting on the beachside.
Cyprus is one of the hottest tourist destinations in Europe and it is a shame that there is no proper zoo in this country. Yes, i agree that the sun and the beaches are what that bring people here, but an full fledged amusement park (not just water parks) and a zoo would go a long way in attracting the complete family to vacation here. This is a very small zoo, just 1.5 acres in area and it would take less than an hour to see all the exhibits in this zoo. I had been here more than 5 years back and i remember seeing a lion there. Even the official municipal garden website mentions about 9 lions being born in the zoo, but i didn't see any when i went there yesterday or maybe they were all sleeping inside their dens away from public view for the 2 hours i was there.
I had been wanted to go to the zoo again for a long time now, primarily for taking photographs and yesterday, i got the opportunity as Vidhya had some girls-only party to attend at her friend's place. The entry fee for this zoo is a paltry 80 cents, approx 2 USD. Don't expect big enclosures for the animals. Almost all of them barring the moufflons, camels and zebras are kept in cages. The last zoo i had been to was more than 4 years back in Thailand not considering the trip to what was called as a zoo in Al-Ain close to Dubai.
I spent a lot of time photographing birds and trying out different shots. The Indian Bengal Tiger was HUGE, but the cage was not very conducive for photography. The Cyprus Mouflon was majestic and i don't know when i am going to get an opportunity to photograph one in the wild. The moufflon is supposed to be a very shy creature living in the dense mountains of the troodos/pafos region in Cyprus. I have been lucky enough to see one in the wild, but it was too quick for me to capture on photo. There are supposed to be around 3000 wild mouflons. This is another jeep trip to the mountains i have been planning for a long time now.
Some of the photos i took at the limassol zoo are below. Almost all of them are grainy, as i had forgotten to switch back the ISO from 1600 when i had taken photos of the moon the night before and this is not the first time such a thing is happening!

Time for an artistic snap. In the snap below, you can see the cage in the eyes of the tiger!

There was also a science centre/museum at the zoo where they had lot of stuffed birds and animals. Played around with manual focus and different exposures to get some photographs.

Technorati Tags: birds animals cyprus zoo limassol zoo bird photography

Flamingoes in flight

Taken near the Lady's mile beach in Limassol. If you want to see more flamingo photos, check out this post.

Saddam Hussein hanged in Iraq

No, he was not hung. Only objects are hung, people are hanged. Whether he was hanged or hung, the fact is that Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq. I was sure that this would have dangerous repercussions and i was right. This execution should not have happened.

DNA analysis could have proved Michael Jackson to be actually black, but i wouldn't have believed it. The paparazzi could have taken the photo of the century with Paris Hilton arriving at a party fully dressed, but that is a matter to be covered up and wouldn't interest me. Madonna could have adopted a white baby, so that she could create her own "United colors of benetton" ads, but this would have led the world to believe that her husband guy is a gay, so such a news could not be true. Even if the BJP in India went on a hunger strike because the congress government didn't do enough to protect the state from a BJP MLA who kidnapped and killed innocent people, i wouldn't have bothered about it. If salman khan makes another trip to the court with his trademark "I am innocent and god fearing" cap on his head, i would have dismissed it as yet another stunt. But Saddam should not have been executed.

Even if saddam was executed, "they" should have done it in secrecy and not released the photos and videos of the execution. Even if they had released the videos, NDTV should not have shown it on TV. I knew that such an act would result in calamity, to an unimaginable extent. But, NDTV did the unthinkable and showed the videos. Even if NDTV had decided to show the "news", they should have done it sometime in the afternoon or evening. But, they telecast it in the morning and that too, just as i woke up that day. This was wrong!

So, NDTV showed photos and videos of his execution early in the morning just after i had kept the milk for boiling for my morning cup of coffee. This was wrong. And, the ardent news follower that i am, i was busy watching NDTV while the temperature on the stove increased to such an extent that the milk boiled and flowed all over the electric stove. At the end of it, on a beautiful morning, i had to listen to lessons from Vidhya on the art of boiling milk!

Saddam should not have been executed !

Technorati Tags: saddam hussein hanging video iraq NDTV

Earning Money from google ads through adsense

Another month has gone by after implementing good adsense on my blog and the news can't get any better. I started off with adsense in November and i had posted my huge earnings from adsense for that month.

This month, the increase in earnings has been phenomenal. I have earned 236,023.47 ROL (Romanian Lei). The figure 236,023.47 is indeed huge. I expected to break the million barrier this month, but did not. Although a quarter of a million is something i can't complain about. For those not from the european continent (eg: americans) who do not know about the existence of a country called Romania, the figure above transtaltes to 9.27 USD. Its almost a 500% jump from the 1.6 USD last month.

I thank the TIME person of the year.

Technorati Tags: google adsense earning making money google ads TIME person of the year