Wisdom Education Trust

Straight from the inspiring note of Mr APJ Abdul Kalam “If I am authorized, I will remove the word impossible”. Yes I personally like this statement very much; nothing is impossible in this world. But I think only a healthy mind with good education will help an individual in handling the some thing called impossible.

In this context let me introduce a trust that is started by my old college mates. Which they call it “The Wisdom Education Trust” or WET in short. A non-profitable trust formed by 6 guys with great vision and working towards promoting the education in rural villages. The trust is started in January 2007 and main motto of this trust is to provide money, guidance to up lift the poor & intelligent students. The motto of the service says that “Education is the most powerful weapon in the entire universe.”. This is the second year for the WET after a very enriching success the last year; where in the last year the community found 15-20 deserving students. Provided them scholarships which basically includes paying tuition fees, providing books, giving guidance etc.

Deeply motivated by the fact recently I joined the trust and the process of finding deserving students is as follows:

1. Schools authorities send some nominations of students who are smart & intelligent but very poor.

2. The student data is checked & thoroughly verified.

3. Then a final list is prepared out of them who definitely require scholarships or economical support.

4. Funds are raised from friends to meet the current year requirements.

The domain for the WET is registered and found as http://www.wet-mission.com .

Wishing good luck for WET.

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Boring evenings with out IPL

After the breath taking action for 45 days the Indian premier League (IPL) ended on Sunday 01 June and Rajasthan Royals emerged as the Winners of the tournament. As everybody knows that IPL is the cricket form of the English Premier League (EPL) and the UEFA Champions League; popular Soccer tournaments. The IPL is a very big hit in the cricketing world which brought lot of action, drama and money. A typical 20-20 game will last only for 3-3.5 hrs; which instilled non-stop and scintillating action to the game and to its enthusiasts.

I think the 20-20 version of cricket is really a great invention and it is threatening the popularity of one day format of the game. This made the first version of the IPL a big success and it left over good memories to cherish. The 20-20 will help in attracting the Europeans and Americans to the cricketing world; also help in globalizing the game.

Regarding the grand final of the tournament it was really electrifying till the last ball of the match. Each team fought to their skin and tried their level best to win. The match brought us the memory of the ICC Twenty20 world cup final between India & Pakisthan; where India emerged victorious of the world cup in the last over of the match. At one point of time I thought that the Chennai Super Kings upsets the Rajasthan Team. But Rajasthan’s winning consistency has paid off and emerged as winners of the tournament. The inspirational & legendary leg spinner Shane Warne lead the Rajasthan team; he didn’t lose his spin rhythm despite of his retirement from Cricket. And not the least the Chennai Super Kings skipper Dhoni need a special applause for his captaincy and he proved himself again as the Mr Cool & Composed of the cricketing world.

Evenings are great with IPL in full flow with atleast one match everyday and the tournament really was part of the evening plan. Anxiously waiting for next version of IPL in 2009.

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Whats wrong with emails??

I have email accounts on gmail, hotmail and yahoo. And as its well known that each of these email provides are the heavy weights when it comes to providing email services. But recently I am find each of them not good when it comes to speed/performance. I feel there is something wrong with gmail as when I send an email from my work to my gmail account; the new email is not appearing in my gmail Inbox. And it is taking lot of time to reflect in the inbox and some times few hours. The same thing happens with yahoo some times. I personally feel hotmail is little better when compared with other providers. FYI I am using a reasonably good internet connection and also at my work I got a fast internet connection.

I don’t know reason for this kind of service; is it the no of email customers or email users traffic affecting the performance.

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Yahoo! Missed Oppurtunity

Last weekend Microsoft rejected the Yahoo! merger deal and this news is very unexpected thought that atleast the two will sort out their differences on the table. Yahoo! was never really prepared to sell itself to the software company especially to Microsoft. On Monday May 5th; the Yahoo! shares are drubbing and falling sharply after the opening hours and now its trading ~24 dollars which is 4 dollars less to Fridays trading. If this situation continues for 1 more month the Yahoo! shares will surely go below $20 dollar mark which is definitely not a welcome news for Yahoo! board. Since the board tried to avoid the Microsoft takeover pill but not able to stop the downfall of the share value.

But the hostile take over price of $47.5 billion is a very good quotation for Yahoo! as the search and online advertising market is on a slight downfall after an unstable economics in America and also because of a possible economic recession in 2008/2009.

Well now Microsoft will certainly look at other potential advertising companies; may be it can give a try at Facebook, Digg, CNET, Infoseek etc. But I personally prefer the Microsoft merger with Apple and Facebook which basically clears the avenue for MS to social networking and IPODS or IPHONEs or MACs.

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Know before you sip

Drinking Liquor is not considered as a holy thing. I m here just trying to differentiate different alcoholic beverages and this categorization might help in knowing the ingredients of each mixture and also the percentage of alcohol contained in each of them.

Much of the enjoyment of social drinking comes from a knowledge of the different types of alcoholic beverages available.
First here are a few common terms frequently misunderstood:

Alcohol (C2H5OH) the common ingredient of all liquor. There are many types of alcohol, but for beverages only ethyl alcohol is used. Of the several types of ethyl alcohol, those spirits distilled from grain, grapefruit and cane are the most common.

=> GRAIN NEUTRAL SPIRITS – tasteless., colorless alcohol distilled from grain
=> WINE – produced principally from the fermented juice of grapes. It can also be produced from other fruits. The alcoholic content of wine ranges from less than 14 per cent to 21 per cent.
=> BEER – Its categorized under beverages and there are basically 5 types of fermented malt beverages:
+ Lager Beer (about 3.6 % alcohol)
+ Light Beer/Dry Beer – alcohol content lighter than Lager Beer
+ Ale – Heavier & more bitter than Lager Beer (5% of alcohol)
+ Bock Beer – Constitute to about 6% of Alcohol; progressively heavier, darker, richer and sweeter than Lager beer or Ale.
=> Brandy – distilled from a fermented mash of grapes or other fruit.
=> GIN – distilled from grain, receives its flavor and aroma from juniper berries and other botanicals. Most gin are colorless.
=> RUM – distilled from the fermented juice of sugar cane, cane syrup and molasses.
=> VODKA – originally made in Russia, from potatoes; but in the United States, vodka is usually distilled from grain, primarily corn and wheat. Vodka is not aged; it is colorless and virtually tasteless and odorless.
=> Whiskey – distilled from a fermented mash of grain (usually corn, rye, barley or wheat), and then aged in oak barrels.

Warning: Drinking is injurious to your health whether its a beverage or alcohol.

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Steve Jobs motivational speech

A nice motivational speech of Steve Jobs to Stanford grads.

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Bus to Sabarimala-Cochin-Guruvayur-Kalady

Guys ,

Last weekend 20th March – 23rd March I traveled to interior Kerala. I will be blogging of the life and try to give a detailed insight of the places that I covered during this trip.

The trip started on Thursday 20th March at 2 Pm where I took a flight from Hyderabad to Cochin; southern coastal city of Kerala State (India). Landed at 5PM at Cochin International Airport which is approximately 35 mins from Cochin City.

First place on my list was Sabarimala which is ~200kms(125 miles) from Cochin. I was traveling alone this time and decided to stretch myself and try travel as many places as possible. During the journey to Pamba; I totally traveled by 5 buses from Angamali-Thrippunithura-Kottayam-Pathanamthitta-Ranni-Pamba; and there was no gap in between the bus journeys. The best part of kerala is the nature and its green all surrounding; where there are all coconut, palm trees on either side of the road. It was around 2AM by the time I reached Pamba; and its raining all the day right from Cochin to Pamba. Pamba is a small city located in northern kerala about 1650 mts altitude on the western ghats. The city name is named after the river Pamba.

I was accompanied by some localities who are also visiting sabarimala. So after an hour gap at 3:30 AM we all started to Sabarimala; which is on a hill about 1260 mts/4135 fts stretch from Pamba. Its a hilly route which has a very dense forest on both sides of the route; the whole stretch is about 6.5kms(4miles). Well never in my life I did any mountain trekking; so climbing about 7kms was really a daunting task for me that too bare footed. And it took approximately 90mins for me to reach the top of the hill. Wow what a feeling after reaching the tip of the mountain; it was really amazing experience for me for a moment I thought of being on top of the world :) .

Now its around 5:30 AM and coincidentally today(21th March) is the birthday of Lord Ayyappa; so the crowd was very huge than I expected. Immediately I rushed into the holy temple and it took 90 mins to complete the darshan. After a very short break I decided to come back to Pamba from hilly Sabarimala. Ufff how difficult it was walking down bare foot from hill for about 4 miles. And its hard & sharp rocks all the place and to make it even worse its raining cats & dogs very heavily. Well this time it took 120 mins for me to reach safely to Pamba; but I was totally tired. Nevertheless its been an exciting & tiring experience in my life. Thankfully there was a Bus waiting to take us to Pathanamthitta from Pamba. Now routed from Pathanamthitta-Kottayam-Thrippunithura-Ernakulam(Cochin) and total journey is 7 hours. I reached Cochin at 4:30PM and immediately rushed to a hotel named Yuvarani which is in MG Road. The hotel was really good and staff was very cooperative.

Visit to Guruvayur and Kalady:

Next day I started to Guruvayur which is approximately 150kms from Cochin and Guruvayur is famous for Krishna Temple. Guruvayur is located in south west Kerala. The temple was really great and it is one of most sophisticated temples that I have seen in south india. The art, sculptures on the walls and roof are amazing; there is also a pond in front of the temple. I took lot of photographs here and covered most of places. It took 2 hours for me to cover each of the places and after a quick lunch I did some shopping. Now I am done with my trip to Guruvayur and so started back to Angamaly(1.5 mile from Kalady) which is approximately 120kms from Guruvayur. Kalady is birth place of great Adi Shakara and Sringeri Math has constructed a muth along with a temple at the birth place. The city is very old and it still resembles the old culture. These are many good places in Kalady like Adi Shakara big Pillar, Ramakrisha Math, Kanchi Math, Adi shankara birth place temple and Sri Krishna Temple. The Adi Shankara temple is located on the banks of the river Periyar. Wow what a place it is and its absolutely silent & lonely. Well you can here your breath and there are rooms for visitors at Sringeri Muth & there is a vedic college on the banks of the river. Inside temple is really amazing and exciting; I for a while felt like walking with great Adi Shakara. Thats the greatness of the place and while starting back I purchased some books at Sringeri library.

I took a flight from Cochin to Hyderabad on 23rd March at 3PM. Herez the end of my trip to Kerala.

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Was God an Astronaut??

My uncle suggested me to read a book named ‘Chariots Of God’ written by Mr Erich Von Daniken. The book was a best seller in 1968 and there was a movie as well as a TV show made on the based of book. The book speaks about extra terrestrial life existence and also the influence of this on the human race. Daniken claimed that if intelligent extraterrestrial life exists and has entered the local Solar System in the past, then there is the possibility of finding traces of their visits on Earth, on neighboring planets, or elsewhere in space. He also supports the hypothesis that human evolution may have been manipulated through means of genetic engineering by extraterrestrial beings. This a very interesting ideology by Daniken and he composed many examples in the book to support his point.

Well I liked his thinking and I am posting few of his proofs in my blog.

Great Martian Vs Our Modern Astronauts:

Discovered by the 19th century French explorer Henri Lhote, these figures were so unusual he dubbed them Martians, explaining their contour is simple, unartistic, and with rounded heads; their only detail is the double oval at the figure’s center, which evokes the image we currently have of Martians.

Great Martians

Lhote’s round-headed denizens of the Red Planet were depicted by the primitive cave artists as wearing suits strongly reminiscent of those worn by our own astronauts on the Moon, down to the detail of the boots. Several hundred such drawings exist, scattered over many miles of desert: strange helmeted and figures with antennae, often floating in weightlessness as if the artist had been able to witness one of our modern space walks.

The Chariots as Vimanas

All creational myths speak of Gods and Goddesses who came to Earth in some sort of magical scenario – or riding in chariots of fire – and creating a race called Humans. These gods flew in space ships and were therefore looked upon as ancient astronauts.
Records of the belief systems of ancient astronauts coming to Earth can be found on Rock Art — Ancient Egyptian clay tablets and cylinder seals, and also in the Bible.

aeroplane1.jpgAeroplane sketches

Ancient Maps of Topkapi Palace:

At the beginning of the 18th century ancient maps are found in Topkapi Palace, Ankara, Turkey. When these maps has been transferred to the modern globe a stunning and sensational discovery has been discovered. These maps not only reproduced the outlines of the continents but also showed the topography of the interiors. Mountain ranges, mountain peaks, islands, rivers and plateaus were drawn in with extreme accuracy. Important points to note from Topkapi Maps:
Unquestionably our forefathers did not draw these maps.
These original maps should have been aerial photographs taken from a very great height.Yet there is no doubt that the maps must have been made with the most modern technical aid — from the air. Whoever made them must have been able to fly and also to take photographs!

Ancient architectural splendors:

The very ancient rock sculptures amazes us with their great design, precision and alignment.
The pyramid is one of them and an exploratory trip by a robot in 1993 into the pyramid has discovered a 65 meter-long shaft at the end of which was a door with two metal hinges. So question arises:
Who were the architects?
Who are the engineers?
To raise around 2.5 million stone blocks within 20 years, an average of 416 blocks a day had to be cut, transported and placed in the right positions. That means over a period of 12 hours, one block every two minutes.

Gizah Pyramid

Temple Scrulpture

Unexplored Nazca:

Peru is associated with the Inca Civilization.

Inka Civilization Political Map

Nazca Parallel Lines

These lines are spread over the arid plain and stretch for many kilometers with almost no deviation in the straight line sections. The lines can best be seen from the air which, suggests they may have been designed by an airborn civilization.
According to Daniken –
The Nazca Lines are a real engima. No one has proof who built them or why.
Since their discovery, the Nazca Lines have inspired fantastic explanations from ancient gods, a landing strip for returning aliens.
It does symbolizes that the people of Inca say “Gods !! Land here! Everything has been prepared as you ordered”.

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The Saint – movie trailer

I like this movie and it has lots of twists & turns. Val Kilmer is really amazing in the movie.

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Microsoft Yahoo Merger

There is lot of speculation and news on Microsoft take over of Yahoo!!.

But how this deal will matter to Yahoo, MS or Google in terms of their position in online advertising business.

Yahoo! By looking at Yahoo’s recent bid rejection press release; Yahoo is trying to avoid the deal rather than having a close look at the takeover offer from MS. The counter bid that Yahoo proposed is not realistic for MS and the takeover now costs close to $52 billion. One thing is for sure that it would be a win-win situation for MS and Yahoo if merger happens. Yahoo might be having over 500 million user base; but how good it is using the user base in terms of online advertising. According to Forbe’s the online advertising business is estimated at $45 billion dollars for 2007 and it is expected to grow to $75 billions by 2010. So where is Yahoo placed in terms of holding the major share of online advertising revenues; definitely far behind Google.

Microsoft! The biggest disappointment of Yahoo’s recent rejection is Microsoft. MS needs company with huge user base and great brand name and Yahoo perfectly fits in MS’s wish list. I guess if merger fructifies the combined MS-Yahoo is going to give a very stiff competition to Google in online advertising space. With Windows+Office+IE+Yahoo+MSN+Messenger’s a wonderfully dream combination for MS to rule PC and internet space. But the business merger is never so easy; as there are lots of redundant business running on each sides. It is going to be a great challenge for both of them to design a solution by not majorily affecting or sacrificing each of their core strengths.
Then where should Microsoft go from here I guess may be it can have a look at e-bay, amazon, Apple(very expensive one) ; well how about Nokia the very best way for MS to get into mobile space. Afterall Windows+IE+Office+Mac+Ipod+e-bay is also an extremely deadly combination.

Google: Well the winner of the whole show is Google and things really worked out very well. Google convinced and gathered good support by its argument that “closedness of internet & technology if MS takes over Yahoo!”.

But one question really bothers me is that: Is MS really the bad boy of the openness and the internet??

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