The world shrinks in Maine

As a friend of mine from Maine pointed out, the world has really become a lot smaller. The sign points to real towns in Maine, and its famous enough for it to work for this search.

TurfWars in the Biotech era

"Watching grass grow was never so exciting", reads the last line of this interesting article on cutting edge plant biotechnology. Read about how the grass growing on your lawns in the coming years may need less water, weeding, and mowing.

Interesting factoid: Nearly 50,000 square miles of the continental US is covered by lawn, according to estimates by ecologists at NASA's Ames Research Center. Using satellite and aerial imagery, the team calculated that irrigated grass covers three times more land in the US than irrigated corn does. That makes turf the nation's most widespread irrigated crop.

Move over global warming

If you thought global warming and its consequences were frightening, wait till you hear the latest version of this old environmental story. Its called global dimming, and its consequences, in combination with global warming are frightening. All the air pollution spewing out of human consumption, has two components of concern. The first are the greenhouse gases that we have heard so much about, the second is something we often take for granted - particulates. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me explain..

Agricultural scientists over the last 10-20 years were puzzled by an observation, the sunlight we were recieving on the earth seemed to be getting less, about 10-30% less. What was even more puzzling was that the reduction seemed to be happening globally, but no-one knew why this was happening. These results were either ignored or filed away by most of the community. However, when this was combined with the observation that the water evaporation rate was decreasing all over, it meant that the decrease in sunlight was very real and had a real physical effect - as the water evaporation rate is highly dependant on the level of sunlight.

When scientists finally took notice and examined this further, they discovered that world was seeing a new phenomenon - global dimming - the sunlight falling on earth was decreasing. It was being reflected by a clouds in combination with a 3km thick band of particulate pollution in our upper atmosphere. This, as it turns out isn't too good, as decreased sunlight means changed changes in evaporation rates and heating of the surface of the earth, and consequently cloud patterns all over the globe. But, this was not all, the double whammy came in the form of its effect on the global warming and temperature on earth. Decreased sunlight through global dimming seems to have been mitigating the effects of greenhouse gases on global warming, by cutting the amount of sunlight getting through.

So the increase of 1 to 1.5 degrees C that we have seen due to global warming would have been much worse had it not been for global dimming. But thanks to decreases in particulate emissions all over the world, especially in the west due to strict emission standards, this protection (if you can call it that) will soon be gone. We may be seeing increases of 2-4 degrees C in temperature all over the world, which would be accompanied by large increases in the sea-level, and unpredictable weather over the next 20-50 years. No-one knows how bad its going to get or how quickly the temperatures are going to rise.

What really frightened me about this story is that none of the scientists that took part in this PBS-Nova special could really predict what the point of no return was, and they were sure there was one. When would the increases in the temperature on earth be too much for us to reverse?

God help all of us, and to my sons T & A, I'm so sorry.....

The real skinny on HybridCars

A New York Times article - Life in the Green Lane, has a complelling and sensible argument about what is good and bad (yes, there is such a thing) about hybrid cars. Turns out, hybrid cars are very fuel-efficient for city driving, but fare much worse on highway driving. In fact, on highway, a conventional car which is fuel efficient may be more cost-effective and better for the environment.

So how do you treat the waiter?

Ever wondered how CEOs and other top execs evaluate the people around them, well here's an interesting insight. Apparently how you treat a waiter says a lot about how you handle your inter-personal relationships, not only in the restaurant but also in the workplace.

As the article points out, we often perceive a waiter as a subordinate, maybe even a servile. So how you treat him, in what is essentially a neutral environment, says a lot. In the article, many CEOs talk about how their judgements based on the 'waiter-test' were often borne out in real life. When you think about it, it makes sense.

Exotic new species near Mt. Everest

An expedition near Mount Everest has uncovered many new exotic species, including this dangerous looking hornet/wasp whose head is about 1cm large, scary looking bu#&er. Its interesting how many new species have been discovered in the recent past, especially when you think about how omnipresent we humans are.

I had always assumed that every place there was to discover & explore had been explored, I mean this is the 21st century. The last wild places that they talk about on TV, they dont exist any more. So its surprising and nice when new species are discovered, including new mammals, which are a lot harder to miss. Recent discoveries include many new species of primates among others - a new macaque species in India, another new monkey in Africa and the newest addition from the Everest expedition.

Check out the rest of the pictures of the expedition here, including the very dangerous looking hornet which is called the "yak-killer" by the locals.

A Pisco Sour

I had my first taste of Pisco at a Chilean friend's house last night. Pisco is a really strong liquor, brewed and distilled from grapes, reminded me a bit of vodka. I had a Pisco Sour, which is probably the most common Pisco cocktail around and a great party drink to boot. Its also some of the strongest alcohol I have ever had (46% alcohol or more than 86 proof). What's more, its very smooth, so you have no idea that you will be tottering around the room, until you've had...

...a bit more than you should've

Ahem.... thats what I hear... from people... other people you know...

I also had some really nice empanada's, I only mention this as they looked just like the kadabu's my Ajji makes, except they had eggs & meat in them... Shiva Shivaa

The SBI Strike

This is the headlines that a prominent news channel is running - SBI strike hits corporates, commoners.

So WTF were they thinking? That customers who expect service from a bank that is keeping ALL THEIR money, would be happy with a long bank strike and support the employees. The employees may think that they have the bank by the balls, but its really the customers who have the employees and the bank by the balls. I know this is less of an issue with govt banks, as even if all private citizens bank elsewhere, the govt will continue to, if only to justify the very existance of the banks (If you dont know what I mean, please walk into a CBI branch and you will catch on pretty quickly).

Its my money and I can take my business where I want it. If I were an SBI customer, I would be wondering why I had an SBI account, and why I didnt open an account at a private bank? Why I had to wait for 6 days to withdraw money or do any other bank transaction? What striking employees dont realize is that episodes like this leave vivid memories. When you get screwed over like this, you dont forget. If I were a customer with SBI, I would not only open a bank account at a newer private bank, but I would certainly move a lot of my money there, maybe even close that old account with SBI once I'm comfortable with my new bank.

And then people, especially govt employees wonder why companies are being privatized... this is exactly why. And whats probably worse about this sordid episode is that this is the largest and probably the best performing public-sector bank in the country.

So let me also say something I should have said earlier, I understand that employees have legitimate problems and are often getting the short-shrift from companies, and that labour laws are required to protect employees, but there are better ways. A one-day strike would have sent a enough strong message, better still have a rotating strike at different branches on different days across the city, so that even for that one-day that there is a strike, customers are not left in the lurch.

Anyways, thats my little rant for the day. I have always hated the poor service at most public sector banks, and stuff like this really makes my blood boil. So I had sound off, no PSU employee will prbably ever read this, and if by some improbability they do, they may still not care enough to get it, but at least I feel better now that I have sounded off.

After all this is what blogs are for right? :) :)

Now, cars that drive themselves...

Last sunday, I watched one of the most interesting races I have ever seen. The Great Robot Race | PBS was a race for self-driven cars (no driver, no remote operation either) across a 130 mile course of unpaved road in the Mohave desert in Nevada. Once the cars leave the starting line, there is no human interevention at all, they have to negotiate turns, bad roads, obstacles and find their way to the endpoint themselves. All this for a grand prize of $2 million from DARPA, the American advanced research & development agency, which is a part of their department of defence (DoD).

This was the second year for the race, last year no vehicle completed the race and only one got as far as 7-miles from the start. Compare that with 5 vehicles completing the course this year. You really have to watch the program to see how remarkable all this is. What was also interesting was the different approaches different teams took in order to solve the same problem.

So what are the potential applications for technology like this? Well, DARPA wanted to develop this technology to replace drivers in hostile areas like Iraq & Afghanistan, as army drivers there are specially vulnerable to attacks. But the potential is probably endless, at the very least you could replace bus-drivers for most long-distance traffic, replace cab-drivers and eventually all drivers.

You can watch the whole program online at PBS and read a lot more about driverless cars here.

My first robot :)

I bought a new vacuum cleaner a few days ago.

So what??

Well, I'll tell you what... it vacuums by itself :) , its the Roomba from iRobot. As a kid reading science-fiction stories, I always wondered if I would ever see one or could hope to use a robot in my lifetime. But I would have never thought of a lowly vacuum cleaner as my first robot.

What makes the roomba really cool is this - set it down in the middle of a room and press the clean button, and you're done. It zips around the room cleaning dirt, cleans along the wall, avoids obstacles, even cleans around them, and if it finds more dirt at one spot, it stops and cleans harder at the spot. It really works really well, way better than the conventional vacuum cleaner I was using until then. While it's more expensive than a regular vacuum cleaner - if you buy a new one (I got my factory-refurb at about half price at Amazon), its really worth it, especially if you are an OCD / clean freak who loves vacuuming often.

But most of all, its the cool factor. Its a robot, a little helper that zips about and does something for you... makes your life easier, how cool is that!!

Worse computer viruses & worms

This Worm Is Nasty, Brutish, And Sneaky, this was the loud title of a recent article on the new generation of computer viruses and worms that are being released. The threat is very real, here's an excerpt if you dont have the time to read the real thing:

But the real shock came when Pickett decided to test another bug by infecting his own PC with it. Out slithered a program that promptly installed itself deep inside his computer. There it became virtually immune to detection from the basic antivirus software that scans for dangerous code. The bug -- known as a "Trojan," which in turn was hidden inside a "rootkit" -- was designed to activate whenever a Web surfer typed in a user name or password for bank accounts or Web sites for dating, social networking, or e-mail. Pickett went to a bank site and entered fictitious log-in information. Right before his eyes, those data were sent streaming back to Russia, joining the IDs of thousands of real victims. His reaction: "absolute horror."


This business-week article highlights just how real the threat is. So if you run Windows, please install a good firewall and a good anti-virus software, and scan your computer for viruses regularly. Not being tech-savvy is no longer an excuse. This is especially important if you do any financial or confidential transactions online.