Large Hadron Collider

Ever wanted to know why/how our planet Earth is stuck in an orbit around the Sun? What force is holding other planets from falling off into the unknown space? How black holes are formed? How does gravity really work? And the ever famous question - how was the universe formed?

Well, we might get to know answers (at least for some of these questions) sooner than we thought. At least that's what all the scientists at CERN dream so. They built the world's largest and most expensive science experiment ever called the Large Hadron Collider, (shortly called as LHC) and successfully circulated its first beams today.

You can read more about LHC here.

Even Google celebrated the launching of this experiment by devoting a LHC logo on their home page today.



Here's a cool rap video from the CERN scientists. Informative and sticky.



Update: Found this informative link about LHC.
10 things about LHC you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

Also found this video explaining what LHC does. Thanks Avuykta.

TechCrunch50 2008 Finalists

I hope most of the software professionals around the globe who would want to build a start-up and in a way become an entrepreneur in the process would know about TechCrunch and the coverage they shower on these start-ups. It has become a cult these days in the blogosphere that TechCrunch can make-or-break a start-up. Even though they don't promote any start-ups (some start-ups do sponsor TechCrunch website), it is true that their good review can elevate a new start-up to great heights. For once, a server going down because of heavy traffic is a titillating experience.

Every year they pick the best of the lot. The 50 finalists for this year are below.

Last year's winner was Mint, a great cool website that allows you to manage your personal finances easily all-in-one-place.



Who will be this year? We will know in two more days.

Update: This year's TechCrunch50 winner is Yammer, a Twitter like messaging system aimed at internal corporate communications.

His Last Lecture

What would you lecture about when you are sure to die within a few weeks/months? An amazing person, that I came to know few months ago, gave his last lecture on "How to Achieve Your Childhood Dream". He is Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was fighting pancreatic cancer for the past two years, passed away yesterday.

You have to watch this video to know how amazing, focused and accepting he was. A truely great person, but a great loss to all of us. Even though I don't know him personally, I really feel sad that he is no more.



You can find his full last lecture here.

Thanks to Prabu for reminding me about him today.

The Greatest Silence: Rape in The Congo

Ever felt so small and helpless when there are atrocious and heart-breaking incidents happening in the other corners of the unknown world? I felt a visceral emotion today when I read about the HBO's recent documentary: "The Greatest Silence: Rape in The Congo".

It is about the brutal civil war for the past decade in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Almost 4 million people have been killed and it is claimed as the deadliest conflict since World War II. The saddest part is the invisible and silenced casualties: tens and thousands of women and girls being systematically raped and most of them killed later. There was no one to tell their story until now.

This shook me the most. "When 4 million people have died, and no one cares, we don't feel human anymore." - Jean Paul, a Congolese man.

The "enough" project works to end such genocides including "The Greatest Silence".

8 Ways To Happiness

I recently came across this interesting website called "Self Creation" that talks about how to be happy in life. Well, is that what we all want. :)

If you have some time, try skimming thru' the pages that describes the 8 Ways To Happiness from this site. In a nutshell, they are:

1) Responsibility
2) Deliberate Intent
3) Acceptance
4) Beliefs
5) Gratitude
6) This Moment
7) Honesty
8) Perspective

Accept what holds true to you and enjoy life!

Double Take

After a long time, I was able to squeeze in rather two different short movies in one single night, even when I had tons of other work to do. :)

Death at a Funeral

A pleasant funny movie. I don't want to reveal the story, but I quite enjoyed it. I fell off the couch couple of times for the few really interesting scenes. Don't forget to watch the "Special Features", it has more comedy in it.

My Kid Could Paint That

This is a thought-provoking documentary about a 4-year-old cute, shy girl named Marla Olmstead, whose abstract art works have drawn critical comparisions with great modern artist like Picasso and Pollack, and her talents have profited her more than $300,000. Along with this fame and glory, their family also had to go through mental turmoil and struggle to prove that she is the one that really paints.

Well, does she really? No one knows for sure, even though the documentary leaves us to guess. But her paintings are still popular now and are in great demand. She is 6 years old now. Only time can tell if she is a prodigy.

Don't Drink and Drive

I stumbled upon an attractive and useful ad running on Mumbai streets. Check out the ad here.

Click on the image to get a better full view of the ad.

Feminicide in Ciudad Juárez

Watched a very sad movie named Bordertown. This movie gives us a glimpse of the true story of thousands of Mexican women in a small border town called Ciudad Juárez who are raped, abused and murdered brutally. These violent deaths has been happening from 1993 and sadly it continues even today.

I'm shocked and angry towards those sick animals who murder these innocent women (most of them are as young as 15 years old), the careless and completely corrupt Mexican government, and the big corporations (both American and Mexican companies using NAFTA) who benefit from the maquiladoras (assembly plants), where most (or all) of these women work.

I can't imagine what these women would have gone thru'. I wish that the Mexican government takes these feminicide cases more seriously and put the real culprits behind bars.

Left vs Right Brain

How do the left and right brain hemispheres work isolated and in harmony on a human being?

Get an insight experience of her own from an neuroanatomist.

I saw this video after I read "A Whole New World" by Daniel Pink, who says why the right-brainers will rule the future. Interesting similarities.

Dropping Knowledge

My sister stumbled upon an interesting website few months ago, and urged me to take a look at it. I did and was impressed. It is a website that encourages social change by linking the voices of individuals and organizations. It is a great initiative.

URL: www.droppingknowledge.org

If you have any questions or any answers, this is a great starting place to make a change.

Check out the Copyleft notice, a small blow to Copyright!

10 ways our Earth could end

Stephen Petranek talks about the 10 most likely ways that our Earth could end. Interesting and fascinating! Check it out.

"Lost Boys" of Sudan

I saw this great documentary called God Grew Tired Of Us over the weekend. It is about the "Lost Boys" of Sudan.

This made me thinking about how we take certain things (like the freedom, food, water, shelter, clothing and many more...) for granted in our country. We certainly cannot say the same about these young lost boys from Sudan.

I was really moved by this movie.

Excerpts from the website about the film:

Winner of both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, “God Grew Tired Of Us” explores the indomitable spirit of three “Lost Boys” from the Sudan who leave their homeland, triumph over seemingly insurmountable adversities and move to America, where they build active and fulfilling new lives but remain deeply committed to helping the friends and family they have left behind.

Orphaned by a tumultuous civil war and traveling barefoot across the sub-Saharan desert, John Bul Dau, Daniel Abol Pach and Panther Blor were among the 25,000 “Lost Boys” (ages 3 to 13) who fled villages, formed surrogate families and sought refuge from famine, disease, wild animals and attacks from rebel soldiers.

Named by a journalist after Peter Pan’s posse of orphans who protected and provided for each other, the “Lost Boys” traveled together for five years and against all odds crossed into the UN’s refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya. A journey’s end for some, it was only the beginning for John, Daniel and Panther, who along with 3800 other young survivors, were selected to re-settle in the United States.

From the trans-Atlantic flights that take them to America - an eye-opening experience for young men who had never been on an airplane - to a supermarket visit in Pittsburgh where they encounter an endless bounty of food, to the painstaking efforts that each one makes to find family members back in Africa, the cameras observe three resilient young men in a complex and confusing western world.

However, John, Daniel and Panther are able to make a home wherever they find themselves and, in the process, illuminate all that has been gained and much that has been lost in the continuing immigrant experience of coming to America.

From their first visit to the Kakuma refugee camp in July 2001, Christopher Quinn, Tommy Walker and their small crew began to gather testimony about the hardships of crossing the desert on foot and the dangers of life in a refugee camp.

Two weeks later, they were boarding a plane with many other joyful but nervous young men who had been selected by the International Rescue Committee to be relocated in America. As the plane took off and the filmmakers watched the happy yet apprehensive faces around them, they discovered that their story was only beginning.

During the next four years, Quinn, Walker and their colleagues made weeklong visits to the three young men every other month, rotating their visits between Syracuse, New York and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where their three subjects had settled.
“I wanted to make sure that this was more than a ‘fish out of water’ story... I knew there was much more to be said,” says Quinn.

“This story was about coming into a new world and, despite the fact the it was daunting and crazy and upside down, I was thinking that once they got their footing, they would turn their attentions back to helping their friends and family in Africa. Which is exactly what happened.”

New Portals

Very interesting article on TechCrunch. Check it out, even if it is few months old. ;)

New Portals - Yahoo, Google, Facebook

New Year 2008

I wanted to recap all that happened in the past year, but was so much having fun at Lake Tahoe and Reno, I completely forgot. :)

I and my pals were trying to figure out what we did for new year's for the past several years and most of my friends (including me) could only remember 5-6 years, while the other years just faded away into mystery. Reason I think is that either we are getting old (?) or many new memories are being written fast (information overload)! :)

Anyways, wishing you all a very happy new year. As one of my friend said "may all your fantasies come true this year!".

Colored Labels in Gmail

I always wanted my emails to be easily labeled, but not go thru' the folder hell. I extensively use Gmail and I wished for a long time to [easily identify] labeled emails instead of just starring them.

Well, my wish came true yesterday when Gmail added "colored labels" feature. Check it out. It looks nice and easy to use. But going thru' old emails (without using gmail filters) to label them is really a PITA.

Web 2.0 Bubble?

Another bubble? Found a very interesting and catchy video about this. Enjoy!

Idea Not Implemented

How many times you have thought of an idea and few months or years later you have seen almost the same idea get implemented (developed by someone else somewhere)?

Well, I'm seeing one right now. Few years back (somewhere in Jan-Feb of 2004), me and my friends SG and KM were juggling some thoughts on how to track bills & expenses between friends, as we were (and still are) spending money (lots of them) on food, shopping, movies etc together. Since we were staying separate, tracking all of these expenses were really a pain and moreover fighting with Excel to do this was even more frustrating. We decided to pull our programming hat and write a small application to accomplish this. Well, we are still writing one... :)

Meanwhile, a few smart programmers (who actually implement their idea) did a great job in tracking these expenses via an online application called BillMonk. Check out their website and it is awesome! I and my friends are regular users of BillMonk now.

I wish we had forced ourselves hard enough to transform that idea into an application.

Well, there is always another idea!

Earthquake

Today, late evening, I was taking a quick nap (lucky heh?). I woke up suddenly as my bed jolted and I felt as if my bedroom walls were closing in on me. For a second, I thought it was dream, but after few seconds, came to my senses and realized that it was an earthquake. Holyshit.

My second earthquake experience in US. Today's earthquake started at 8:00 pm with 5.6 magnitude and had its epiecenter at Alum Rock, California (15 miles from my place). It lasted for about 6-9 seconds.

Me and my roommate immediately rushed out of my apartment. We saw lot of people outside running. I tried calling some of my friends, but the network was either busy or completely cut-off. Sigh ;)

Anyways, there is nothing to worry about, no reported damage so far in the nearby area, other than few things falling off from the shelves. We will know the full damage tomorrow morning.

One of a kind experience! Another thing that you have to deal with living in the bay area. ;)

Technology Entertainment Design

I just saw "The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED" movie. Excellent! An insight into TED (Technology Entertainment Design), an annual event where an eclectic group of brilliant minds exchange bold and exciting ideas for the future.

I was amazed and thrilled to see so many useful ideas that would really help a lot of people around the globe. I'm ready to make a small change from my part!

Managing your Money

I've always wondered where most (hmm.. actually all) of the money from my paycheck vanishes. It looks like I'm getting paid, paying bills, debts, & loans - all virtually, expect for few times when I take some cash out to play poker and dine, I don't see much cash.

Do we ever get to see the money in real that we make in a month, like the old days? I remember my dad setting aside a monthly budget in all cash. Oh.. that smell of the new currency notes.. I simply love it. With most of the population catching up on plastic cards (as if that money on those cards were free), it might not be too late to see currencies world-wide in a museum. ;)

When coming to managing this hard earned money, there are very few softwares out there that does this job, not perfect though, but just enough to get by and give us a peek preview of what/where/how we play with our money. Quicken and Bank of America's (BOFA) Portfolio Management are the two that readily pop up on my mind. I have used Quicken before and I'm using BOFA regularly.

Recently, a new kid showed up in this block, named Mint. They call themselves the refreshing money management software. Well, I was fortunate enough to know about this startup thru' TechCrunch blog and I was one of the early beta testers. They won the TechCrunch40 $50,000 award.

They seemed to have nailed the application to give you the right personalization tool to manage and save money (for real!) for users who have no or limited computer knowledge, while excelling in giving a tool for computer geeks like me. I love their interface and their name (and their punch line - refreshing money management -- how true!). I don't want to give a lengthy lecture about what/how they do.. just skim thru' their website and you'll know what I'm taking about.

With identify theft hitting all year highs, most of us may not trust a third party software and give us our financial passwords (and thus our freedom) to them. But, hey, what's life without risk, I've given mine and its good to know that I'm doing more shopping recently, more than I thought of. I also came to know that I could save approximately $35 every month if I opt to make my own coffee instead of gobbling lot of Caramel Macchiatos from Starbucks. Now I know where my money is vanishing!! :)