Smooth Transition

Top 10 Airlines and Airport 2008

The rise of Asia...



Top 10 Airlines 2008
Top 10 Airports 2008

Click on the picture to zoom in.

Fixing housing mortage crisis and the economy

Read the last para below. Click the images for a bigger picture so it is easy to read the super tiny fonts.

The power of the Old FOX

Economy is very bad.
The country is fighting 2 wars.
People are losing their jobs and retirement savings.
People are tired of the last 8 years.

They want change.
Election is coming.
Obama must be leading McCain in huge numbers, like 80% to 20%.
But still, ever wondered why are the polls so close!

http://tvbythenumbers.com

FNC - FOX News Channel

Gap between Rich and Poor

The report found that the income of the richest 10% of people was, on average, nearly nine times that of the poorest 10%.

Graph showing income gap between rich and poor

But the size of the income differentials varies, with the greatest disparity in Mexico, which has a ratio of 25 to one, followed by Turkey and the US.

The most equal distribution of wealth is in the Nordic countries, including Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7681435.stm

Time to move to Nordic countries !!!

Government Spending. Good or Bad ?

In a recession economy, if consumers are not spending, if corporates are not spending, and if the government too is not spending, how will money flow in the economy?

It won't.

So why are people against government spending?
In a recession time, government should spend more, in good public projects, like infrastructure development, R&D etc resulting in new jobs.

Google 'Keynesian economics' and 'Keynesian Formula'

When the sun sets in the west, it will rise in the east.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27112481/

Obama vs McCain Campaign False/Misleading claims

1959 Opel gets over 350 mpg

...the car is efficient because it's extremely light. In fact, there's nothing inside it. One tiny plastic seat, no dashboard, no passenger seat, no back seat, no trunk. There aren't even headlights. The rear wheels have been replaced by a single, ultra-hard wheel and the drive-train is just a bicycle chain....

http://green.yahoo.com

New US Dollar Bill

WMD=Wallstreet Melt Down

We were looking for this in Baghdad !

Wall Street

"We lure you from the confines of your home WALLs and leave you on the STREET"

Root Causes and Real Permanent Long Term Solution to US Financial and Mortgage Crisis

Root Causes :
(1) Job loss
(2) Less Wages
(3) High Interest Rates(Mortgage, Credit Card & Loans)

Real Permanent Long Term Solution
(1) Create Jobs (Green Technology, Infrastructure Development, Stop/Tax Outsourcing)
(2) Increase Wages
(3) Cap on Interest Rates(Mortgage, Credit Card & Loans)

Iam no economist. But a pragmatist.
I don't like complex solutions because I can't understand it.
I like simple solutions which I understand and which will work.

How to fix housing mortgage crisis?

Give green card to all legal immigrants and even if 75% of them buy homes, that will jump start a demand in housing market and will function as a spark and ignite the housing market.

What's our world worth? Financially...

Marketwatch reminds us that the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is about $15 trillion. The GDP of all nations combined is approximately $50 trillion. The total value of all the real estate in the world is estimated at $75 trillion and the total value of all the world's stocks and bonds is about $100 trillion. But there's a $500 trillion market in derivatives!

When does life begin?

Sometime back in August when Obama and McCain were talking various issues at pastor Rev. Rick Warren forum, they both were asked, when life begins.

Obama answered that it is above his pay scale to say exactly when life begins.Means, he really doesn't know.
McCain answered life begins at conception.

In my opinion Obama gave an honest and correct answer.
McCain, on the other hand, gave a politically correct answer.

I believe that no one can really tell when life begins exactly.

Lets say, like McCain, we say life begins at conception. Then do we really know our own date of birth and place of birth?

It's not the date and place where we were delivered, but its the date and time and place where we were conceived.
Now, seriously, how many can answer that question?

All our birth certificate, and legal papers should have the date, time and place where we were conceived because that's when our life actually began and not when we were delivered.

Sounds complicated right ?
It does.

Google Chrome

Google came up with the announcement that they are coming up with a new product called Chrome, a web-browser.

Everyone is surprised.

I was telling about this to some friends of mine few years ago.
I told them not only Google's browser will just be a web-browser but lot more than that.

This is my prediction. Or this is how I would develop Chrome if I was running the project.

Chrome, will be more than just a browser. It will be a mini-OS.
It will have pretty much all the capabilities of an operating system and few basic applications all in-built.

So for an ordinary computer user, who just uses the computer for, just say,

browsing,
chatting,
emailing,
sharing pictures, videos,
webcam,
text editing,
e.t.c

they will not need an OS like Windows, or OS X, orLinux.

Chrome will evolve to be a mini-OS.

I will be designing Chrome in such a way that in future, ordinary users who use computers for basic functions like listed above, will only need to buy a LCD monitor(or even use TVs) and a keyboard and of course an Internet connection. They will be able to use a USB flash drive loaded with Chrome and plug-in the USB in the keyboard and start browsing/chatting/emailing e.t.c

Google Search bug

I found a bug in google search. There are no 'O' s in 'Google'.

Sarah Palin - McCain's VP choice

McCain has chosen Sarah Palin as his VP.

I wonder if the move is to get the women votes, mainly Hillary Clinton supporters and feminists.
Many Clinton supporters who wanted to see a women in the ticket was disappointed when Obama chose Biden as his VP.
Sarah Palin may give them a chance to see a women in the ticket.

But what if it backfires for the hardcore Clinton supporters?

By electing McCain they will make history that Sarah Palin is the first women VP. And who knows maybe making way for the first women President in the future (2012, 2016) and deny Hillary that fame.

Barack Obama and 8

The Chinese consider 8 as a lucky number. That we all know.

How about this.

Barack Obama was born on the 8th month of 1961 (year adds to 8 too).
He entered Harvard Law School in 88.
He is running for office in the year 08.
Hillary Clinton officially declared support at DNC on 08/26/08 (day adds to 8)
He got officially nominated for president on the 8th month, August.
If he becomes president he will be the 44 th president (adds to 8).

By Numerology the name 'Barack Obama' adds to 8

What else I wonder!

How often does this happen?
3 crashes in one day and making the CNN home page.
And this just after few days of a huge crash in Spain.
Lots of crashes these days!!!

Earthquakes and causes

"This great earth, Ananda, is established upon liquid, the liquid upon the atmosphere, and the atmosphere upon space. And when, Ananda, mighty atmospheric disturbances take place, the liquid is agitated. And with the agitation of the liquid, tremors of the earth arise. This is the first reason, the first cause for the arising of mighty earthquakes."

-Buddha,
Maha-parinibbana Sutta 3:14

"Nasa scientists have said they could be on the verge of a breakthrough in their efforts to forecast earthquakes.

Researchers say they have found a close link between electrical disturbances on the edge of our atmosphere and impending quakes on the ground below. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7435324.stm

What the hell is top secret?

IB report sees Cong, allies slide in early polls, key with BSP

In the event of a midterm Lok Sabha poll, the Congress will not gain seats, says a top secret Intelligence Bureau report prepared for the prime minister's eyes only.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/01polls.htm

What the hell is Top Secret, for the eyes of prime minister only. Its out in Rediff, you dumbos. Half the world now knows it.

I made Sushi

So after cooking many Indian Cuisines, I wanted to try something very different.
So, inspired by my buddy Dave, who already tried and succeeded, I decided to try Sushi for myself.

I went to World Market and Tan A Plaza and got the necessary kit to make the Sushi.
I purchased a recipe book Sushi, by Ryuichi Yoshii, even though the recipe is quite simple and could be downloaded from the Internet.

And I tried Sushi using Tilapia, and a custom recipe of my own, deriving from the traditional Japanese recipe, and to my surprise, it came out pretty descent :)

The Sushi didn't come out in perfect round shape, but hey, Iam trying this for the first time :)

Attached are the pictures of the Sushi I made. Click to see the enlarged version.

Recycling

Often when I do some cleaning (yeah right...) in my apartment I see so many wires, cables, power cords, used cells and electronics accessories, I used to wonder if there was a place to recycle it instead of trash it.

I came across this website, which provides locations where they can be recycled in the United States.

http://www.mygreenelectronics.org/

Movie again

Last evening Jo and I went to the movie 'War'.

Devon Aoki was hot.

Also the next Batman movie trailer is out. Christian Bale has become one of my all time favorite movie actor.

The Dark Knight

A website I designed...

I designed a website for Uma aunty, who is an excellent dancer, so are their daughters Ranjini and Sarini.

http://www.umaettigi.com

Movies, Movies & more Movies...

Ok...lets see what all movies I have seen recently.

Rush Hour 3, The Invasion, Superbad.

Iam not going to write anything about these movies, Iam too tired. Go see yourselves.

Media War - Sun TV versus Kalaignar TV

Now that DMK has started its own television channel, Kalaignar TV, what will Sun TV do?

I never used to watch political news in Sun TV as I know for a fact that it will be biased towards DMK and against any other party which is in the opposite camp.
There is no denying that.

Now that DMK is on its own, it will be interesting to watch how Sun responds.

I was watching Sun TV 8.00pm News last night, one of the reports was on Jayalalitha giving some land to each of 174 party volunteers from Virudhunagar district for participating in agitations announced by the party and courting arrest recently.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/070827/54/6jz96.html

The report also mentioned that Jaya condemned the party leaders for causing some inconvenience to public and they were asked to explain their actions.

Going by the nature of the report, it looked like Sun was portraying Jaya in a good light. hehe.

Welcome to politics :)

Move away 'Google', Brand 'God' is the new 'Google'

Gold-coated temple near Vellore

Vatican airline takes to the skies

What's India Watching ?

or better

How's India killing time !

http://www.indiantelevision.com/tvr/

Go Sun TV Go.
Make more people watch Mega Serials like Kolangal and Arasi.

May the Men Cook for Themselves and the Family.

Tattva - Understanding the Rituals and Traditions

I started a new website "Tattva" (http://tattva.planetvimal.com/)

Please make use of it.

I went to the movie 'The Bourne Ultimatum' Saturday. I thought the movie was awesome. Very good thriller right from the beginning. I wish I had read the books before as some of my friends said that that books were even more elaborate.

For all fans who like spy thrillers, The Bourne series is a must watch.

Image Courtesy : Yahoo Movies

Rescue Dawn

Last evening I went to see the movie 'Rescue Dawn' starring Christian Bale.
I loved the movie.
I am a big fan of Christian Bale.

He is an excellent actor. He puts so much hard work into acting.

Take some of his movies for example.
He acted in a picture called 'The Machinist'.
He was so lean; actually skin and bones.
See the picture and you will understand what Iam talking about.
This was in year 2004.


The next year, in 2005, he acted in 'Batman Begins'. See the picture from that movie. He built his body.



In this movie 'Rescue Dawn' he makes a similar transformation.
Form this...


To this...



Image Courtesy : Yahoo Movies

Hula

Hula.

This is the project that I've been working on for a while now and keeping me extremely busy.

http://hula.planetvimal.com/

Iam currently busy with the post production work.
I hope to complete them soon.
That's the logo. Yep, I designed the logo ;)

Proposed Chennai airport

http://www.hindu.com/2007/05/23/stories/2007052307200100.htm

Global Warming - "Wakeup you skeptics"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6676775.stm

Hundreds of Hindus in Nepal are flocking to see a statue of a deity which is said to be "sweating".

At least now, the skeptics should start doing something about global warming.

Analyzing 2007 +2 results in TN

I just analyzed the +2 results that came in TN.

The list contains the cities from where the Top 3 scorers from each subject came from and the count of Top 3 scores they made.

Interestingly...many of the toppers came from small towns and villages and not big cities where they have 'excellent' schools with 'super-awesome' coaching/tuition facilities hehehe.

I have a feeling that Chennai, Coimbatore students are involving in lots of extra-curricular activities than curricular activities :)

Tamil Wikipedia

http://ta.wikipedia.org

Cricket, ICC and BCCI

Gone are the days where commercials were shown between cricket.
Now, cricket is shown between commercials.

I was visiting India when the World Cup was going on.
I was watching Sony.
How many commercials!
Oh Gosh.

As soon as the ball released from the bowler's hand they cut to commercials. And when they come back the first ball of next over is almost over. I got a doubt whether Sony was doing the viewers a 'Great' favor by showing cricket in between their commercials.

But after my India vacation I came back to US and was watching the same World Cup here in Dish.
What a way to watch.
Hardly any commercials.
No interruption of the match or commentary.

I understand I paid $200 for this World Cup and its free in India.
So showing commercials is a necessity in India. But there is a limit to that.

These things clearly show that the game of cricket is now mostly under the control of big sponsors.

BCCI - Board of Cricket Controversy in India
BCCI - Board of Cricket Commercials in India
ICC - International Commercial Council

Sachin Tendulkar's coach at school, Ramakant Achrekar, used to place a one-rupee coin on the stumps as bails and used to challenge the net bowlers that if they got Tendulkar out, they could keep the coin. Needless to say, not many succeeded.

If he does same thing today... he will go bankrupt.

Nothing Changes

Buddha said "Everything Changes".

Apparently during the times of Buddha there was no BCCI.

"At his press conference soon after picking the 30 probables for the World Cup, Vengsarkar was asked why no legspinner had been included. "Can you name one legspinner?" Vengsarkar snapped back to the journalist."


Not much chance of change

What the heck?

If the journalist has to give names, what in the world is Vengaya Sarkar's, sorry Vengsarkar's job is!!!

Like i said already here in worldcup blog, nothing much will change.

Cricket World Cup 2007 & Fantasy Team

Created a new blog for worldcup and also bought a Fantasy Team.

http://worldcupinwindies.blogspot.com

Tony Jaa - Jackie Chan, the next generation

Last night I saw the movie Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior. I saw the movie for Tony Jaa. I heard about his stunts from someone I know and decided to check it out myself.

Waw.
This guy was amazing.

He is like the next Jackie Chan. His stunts were authentic and no strings attached (literally).

For any Jackie Chan fans and Martial arts fans, Tony Jaa movies are a must to see.

I have his second movie The Protector in my Netflix Q. Hopefully I can see it next week.

Women cannot be punished for adultery

http://www.rediff.com/

"The section provides expressly that the wife shall not be punishable even as an abettor based on the reasoning that the wife, who is involved in an illicit relationship with another man, is a victim and not the author of the crime."

What kinda logic is that!

hmmm...so much for equal rights for men and women.

In Saturn's Shadow - Saturn and Earth - By JPL, NASA's Cassini

"With giant Saturn hanging in the blackness and sheltering Cassini from the sun's blinding glare, the spacecraft viewed the rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world.

This marvelous panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly three hours on Sept. 15, 2006."

Can you spot our earth?

You might want to click the image to see in its original size and see how small our earth is!

And how small and insignificant are we within our own Solar System !!!

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2314

Courtesy : JPL, CIT, NASA

My blog got Snap ped ;)

Yes...You can see a preview of the website links in my blog, by just placing your mouse over the links.

My blog's 2-D code - Semacode & Shotcode

Apocalypto and Blood Diamond

Last Friday my friends and I went to Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. I thought the movie was very well directed. It was a thriller from the beginning till the end. The story is about a man and his family's survival from human sacrifice in the ancient Mayan civilization. It has nothing to do with the end of Mayan calendar in the year 2012. I thought it must have something to do with that, but no.

The heroine was a very pretty girl. She looked like an Indian girl. But Mel Gibson in Jay Leno's Tonight show, mentioned that she was a local girl. Nevertheless she was very pretty and her kid son was also so cute.

This movie is definitely not for the faint hearted.
There are scenes where people are killed alive and their beating hearts ripped out and offered as sacrifice :)
Yes, that's right. Beating heart.
And also, their heads chopped and rolled from the top of the Mayan Pyramid all in the name of sacrificing to satisfy some Gods.


Fast forwarding to last night...
Went to the movie Blood Diamond with my 'Movie Gang' again . hehe. I thought this movie was an awesome movie.
Leonardo DiCaprio's acting was very good.
Djimon Hounsou looked handsome too.

The story is about how poor Africans are made to kill each other while the west loots their natural resource, Diamond.

Maybe girls will stop being crazy about diamonds after seeing the movie.

Wait...Am I crazy or what!!!
No... I don't think girls will stop being crazy about Diamonds :)


Images : Courtesy Yahoo.com

VVS Laxman - India's new Defense Minister

India tour of South Africa
Tour Match: Rest of South Africa v Indians at Potchefstroom, Dec 7-10, 2006

Day -2

VVS Laxman 31 runs / 103 balls.
He scored 4- 4's.

So technically he scored 15 runs / 99 balls.