Ten minutes of greenery

Sikkim has been doing its bit for Mother Earth. Numerous efforts and policies have been undertaken as a part of its ongoing "Green Mission". Plastic bags have been effectively banned for many years now. It practices organic farming and the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc is banned.

Such efforts by the Government of Sikkim has earned the CM the title of the Greenest Chief Minister and the state is now often referred to as the Green State, having successfully managed to increase the forest cover in state from 38% to 46% in few years and making "living green" as a way of life for the Sikkimese people.

Sikkim Government recently organized a unique program called "Ten minutes of greenery". This initiative called upon the entire 6 lakh population of Sikkim to plant trees for 10 minutes on July 15th starting at 10.30am anywhere within the state boundaries. A fellow blogger writes that the event was a huge success with over 6 lakh saplings being planted.

You can read more about the event here.

One hour can change the world

Its that time of the year again. March 28th from 8:30PM till 9:30PM is the Earth Hour. Be sure to turn off the lights!

A one-of-a-kind event

This piece of information is so interesting, that I had to share with you all. Two books are to be launched in Sikkim soon. What's so special about it? Well, read on and you will know!...

Here's an excerpt from the launch announcement:

It gives us great pride to announce that our two Friends at Rachna are soon to do a worldwide release of their books here at our showroom. While this certainly is the first of its kind event in Sikkim, what will make it doubly extraordinarily special is the fact that two are a father-daughter team.

Dechen P Tenzing is a 9th grader and has been working on her comic book "Wolf's Fang" for a long time. This comic, stylised in the popular manga fashion, is undoubtedly going to be the first manga comic to come out of India. The layout and design for this comic is underway in the able hands of Sokpa Productions, a design studio in Gangtok. The venture is being published by Dechen's father P.G.Tenzing.

Mr Tenzing took voluntary retirement after serving in the Indian Administrative Services for 20 years and went on a 23,000 kilometer motorbike expedition all over India. His experiences and encounters are chronicled in the book "Don't Ask Any Old Bloke For Directions". This book, published by Penguin India, is going to have a worldwide release along with Dechen's "Wolf's Fang" at Rachna Books sometime in mid March.

The launch has been scheduled for 23rd March 2009. So if you happen to be in Gangtok around that time, be sure to be a part of it. You can read more about this event @ rachnabooks.com

Link: Coverage of the event in The Telegraph, India.

Life

When I first read about Google making available the millions of photographs published in the Life magazine over the years, I was quite excited.

Long years ago, our bookshop used to sell the magazine and I remember leafing through them when I was a kid. Later on, when I was in middle school, I too had caught the "autograph" bug. We all wanted to have the "coolest" autograph or memorabilia book where our friends could write nice things about the owner of the book. I wanted to decorate my auto book with collage of pics of good looking people. So, I turned to these magazines. Our bookshop had closed by then and we had plenty of books and mags at our disposal. I cringe now, thinking of how stupid I was to have cut up such rare mags for the sake of my silly book! Brother, if you are reading this, do you think we still have some of them left? Or did I trash them all??

Anyway, like I said, I was quite excited about the latest Google antics. I have been browsing through the beautiful rare pics. And today I came across this picture.

This picture is from a collection of pictures taken in an Air India flight in 1946. I didn't know Air India even existed in the '40s!! And check out the air hostess' uniform. Its so chic! I wonder when did they change their uniform to the printed saris? Of course, I then went to Wikipedia to quench my thirst for knowledge about Air India and was pleasantly surprised to know that the airline was in fact founded in 1932! Who could have guessed? But the Wikipedia article is incomplete - no mention about air hostesses' uniforms!

Find more interesting Life pictures here.

Politics and Technology

Like many people, we too were glued to the TV on the US Presidential election night. While V actually watched the election coverage the entire time, I went missing for a while to my friend's place to watch an election movie Recount, which focuses on the 2000 election between Bush and Al Gore and the mess that was Florida.



I know CNN has been the frontier in the election coverage since past many months, going on and on, day after day, hour after hour - bringing panel of experts from all fields discussing each and every aspect of the campaign.

But on Election Night, I was bowled over by CNN - not by their extensive coverage or detailed analysis, but by the technology they have used. The "Magic Wall" in the CNN studio is a piece of technology art - a huge multi touch screen on which Wolf Blitzer and the rest where swiping maps just by a flick of a finger. Just by a touch they could pull our charts and numbers. And it was so smooth and slick.

But the best part of it all was when they went all sci-fi and Star War-sy by beaming up a hologram image of a reporter who was located remotely, right into their studio! My! That was impressive to say the least. They even managed to beam in Will.i.am!

Learn more in cnn.com about the Magic Wall and the Hologram.

Miracle on Lakshmi Puja

If this is not miracle, then what is?

All over the world today, people are celebrating Lakshmi Puja, worshiping Lakshmi - the Goddess of Wealth and look, the market's doing better after a long downward spell.


Happy Diwali to all of you. May the blessings be with you, now and forever!!

My top iPhone Apps

Its been almost 4 months since I got my favorite toy, the iPhone. V calls me an iPhone addict coz I am always doing something on it. And with the load of applications available, I thought I would list my favorite ones. The best part is that all these applications are free!

AOL Radio: Its an Internet radio. What's cool about this is that I can access not only my local radio stations but local stations of other cities as well. It also has two Indian radio stations (both from NRI radio) but they mostly play Telegu/Tamil songs :(

Facebook: With the recent upgrades, the Facebook iPhone application has certainly gained the spot of being my favorite. It includes a whole lot of features which makes it a good replacement for the full fledged web version. Wish Orkut too comes up with one coz browsing Orkut via the in-built Safari explorer can be a bit tedious.

FlyCast: This is another Internet radio applications with radio stations categorized by genre/hits/era. They too have wide variety of stations including one Bollywood station. Infact I am listening to it right now and they are playing Suraj Hua Maddham from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham.

Fring and Palringo: Fring is an instant chat client on which I can set up not only my Yahoo, MSN and Gtalk account, but also the Skype account. The most awesomest feature is that I can call my contacts through it - no talk time used! Palringo is a similar client where you can set up your regular chat accounts. You can not talk directly using this, but one cool feature in this is that you can send voice message and pictures to the other person. The picture can be from a saved one or taken directly using the iPhone camera.

Google (Mobile and Maps): The Google iPhone search includes Google Suggest which is very useful and accurate. Now, if there's an argument among my friends, its just a matter of few clicks to in/validate one's claims. The map application has a built-in GPS which has helped us a lot at times when we go exploring and (in)conveniently forgotten the GPS back home.

Midomi and Shazam: I had once written a post on Midomi. Both these applications listens to the song currently playing in your vicinity (you can sing or hum to it too) and it will find that songs in its huge database and tells you which song is playing, who is the artist, etc. It even provides you a link to iTunes store for you to buy the song. I have tried it a few times with Hindi songs, and they have that too in their database!

Now Playing: For a group of movie buffs, this handy application helps us find the show times and reviews of movies running at our nearby theatre. V found this very useful when he was staying in NYC for a few days with a friend and there within a few blocks you can find lotsa small theatres that show movies normally not played everywhere else. He ended watching some nice French movie.

Pandora: This is an iPhone application of the popular Pandora music service. Those of you who are unaware of Pandora should definitely check it out. Once you register (its free!) you choose a song to play and it will automatically create a playlist of similar songs. As you play songs from the playlist, you can mark it as whether you like it or not and it picks up future songs based on your choice. The more you play songs, the songs played will be more to your liking. And you can create multiple playlists.

Save Benjis: This application, as the name suggests, help you save money. (Benji stands for Benjamin Franklin whose picture is on all US$ 100 notes). All you need to do is enter the product name or bar code and it will list stores selling at products and the its price on each of them. We find this tool very useful like recently we was checking out this nice Corelle dinner set in Target and we entered the bar code and lo! found out it was cheaper in Amazon and they had more variety too!

Stanza: Stanza is an e-book reader. Its database includes a wide selection of books. I am currently reading Jane Austen's "Persuasion" which I somehow missed reading earlier. Downloading an e-book takes a few seconds and the font size is easy to read.

You Tube: What more can one ask for when one can watch a video on-the-go? Imagine getting to watch Rock On!! videos in the car on our way back from the theatre right after watching the movie! I have troubled my friends in recent road trips by playing them "Jimmy Jimmy Aaja" songs from Disco Dancer and by M.I.A. I think they liked the Bappi Lahri version better :)

Alright...so the above are my favorite useful applications. Now below are few of my favorite games.

Aurora Feint: This is one of the coolest games available for free. Though initially it felt like Tetris and Bejeweled but as I played on I realised its more of a fantasy RPG game with crystals to collect and levels to gain and hidden powers to unleash. Great music and great graphics!

Dizzy Bee Free: This is a cute game with cuter graphics. The aim of the game is to help a buzzing bee save his friends from evil monsters. The free version has few levels and we had so much fun playing this game that we are thinking of buying the full version which is modestly priced at just $2.99.

Labyrinth Lite Edition: This game makes most use of the iPhone accelerometer. You tilt the iPhone to guide a steel ball from one end of a maze to the other without dropping it in the many holes along the maze. Slick graphics - the maze looks like its made in a wooden box and when you roll the ball, it makes sounds that actually feel like the real thing! Neato!!

Sol Free Solitaire: Out of the many free solitaire card games available this one's my favorite since it has neat graphics and games like Klondike and Spider. My favorite is its Demon game which is quite tough to break. I play this trying to up my overall score but mostly end up lowering it even more. :(

Space Monkey: Another cute game I recently discovered. According to the info, its free only for a short while. Like Wall-e, this cute monkey is left in space to collect trash. The more trash you collect, the more levels you cross. I have played only a few levels till now and now I have to play a yo-yo with one hand while collecting trash with my other hand and feet. Hours of senseless entertainment! :) This app is free only for a limited time, so get one soon!

Tap Tap Revenge: This is the iPhone version of the famous Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero in which instead of dancing or playing the guitar, you just tap the beats. If you get tired of the default songs provided, you can download more songs and whats more they even have a challenge mode where two players can compete and find out who's the best tapper!

Apart from the above mentioned games, there are many more free classic games like Sudoku, Pegs, Hangman and other board and word games. The list can be endless.

Apple App Store: And last but not the least. The Apple App Store has tons of apps, most of them free and they are adding new ones everyday. Their very own iPhone application is a great way to browse through these apps, and check out their ratings and reviews and download them right there. Their Top 25 list makes it easy to find apps, that are popular and it is by using this feature that I knew about most of the above apps, hence this app itself makes it to my favorite list.

Check out my new license plate!

Ain't that cool?

My new iToy

Months of waiting, 3 stores, 1 Starbucks coffee, 1 free bottle of water (courtesy: Apple) and 5 hours later, I finally own it !!

One hour can change the world

Tomorrow, Saturday 29th March at 8:00 pm local time, is the Earth Hour which is an international event organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Households and businesses around the world are encouraged to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour on the evening to promote electricity conservation and thus make a statement about climate change.

Read more about this event here.

Family time

I recently came across this new networking site, Geni.com and I am hooked!

What's so special about this site is that unlike other networking sites with focuses on friends or colleagues, this one focuses on family.

You can create your family tree and invite your family members who can help expand the tree. It is 'n' dimensional and can really grow! But even though the tree can grow humongously, it is so wonderfully maintained that you will not be overwhelmed by it.

Its not even been a week since I started my family tree and already it has over 300 members. Through the tree I now can easily remember my cousin's wife's name or remember their kids birthdays! Not only that, I got back in touch with a distant cousin whom I knew when I was a kid. Another good use me and V got out of it is that it is now easier to understand each other's family and the new relationships that we will both be getting into.

Well, like I said, I am hooked. Why don't you try it out too?
www.geni.com

Colors & V in The Simpsons

Ta ra ta ta ra ra... remember the familiar The Simpsons music?
Check this out.... Yeah, thats us!!

So, are we really in The Simpsons?? Well...not really. But the movie's website does have this cool feature where you can create your own Simpsons avatar. So, how do we look?

Minus 30

Folks,

Here's something on my hometown. CNN-IBN does this show called Minus 30 which focuses on the youth of India. Recently they went on a trip to the North East and this video below shows a slice of Gangtok. The piece on Gangtok starts at 56 secs on the video clock. Enjoy!

In case you cannot access the video, here's a direct URL for the same:

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/43822/on-the-other-side-of-northeast.html

क्या बात है!

आप लोग सोच रहे होंगे कि मैं अचानक हिंदी में कैसे ब्लोग करने लगी।
एक तोह मेरी हिंदी इतनी अच्छी नही है, ऊपर से हिंदी में टाईप करना मेरे लिए तोह almost नामुमकिन है!

But guess again! I typed the above in ENGLISH and Blogger automatically transliterated it to हिंदी script! How cool is that?! I don't even need to know my spellings :)

Read more about this great new feature here.

I should now be able to type in Nepali as well. Lemme try -
म त अब नेपाली मा पनि ब्लोग गर्न सक्छू !! यिप्पी!! :D

- कलर्स

Where the menu is an appetizer

I had to share this with you guys! I am a big foodie, I might not cook a lot, but I do enjoy trying out new cuisines in different restaurants. I just came across this article on cnet.com and was simply blown away by the chef's unique methods of cooking - creating a whole new technology in food!

Homaro Cantu is a Chicago based chef who uses tools like the ink-jet printer and Class 4 laser (normally found in an operating room or a welding shop) to create delicacies which look too good to be eaten!

Check out this link to see the innovative techniques he uses to cook food.

One of his dream is creating edible ads, where consumers can simply rip off and eat the advertizement in a magazine and get the taste of it!

What really intrigued me about him is that he is one of those few who have actually managed to dethrone chef Masaharu Morimoto in Iron Chef America. Iron Chef America is a popular action packed one hour show in Food Network where chefs from all over US challenge one of the four Iron Chefs. Among them, I consider Masaharu Morimoto to be one of the finest and I have never seen him lose to anyone, expect to one other Iron Chef Bobby Flay in the original Japanese Iron Chef show.

Find out more about Homaro Cantu and his technology here.

Now that's what I call innovation!

Startup company Emotiv Systems have developed a unique and very innovative technology that can connect human brain signals to computer hardware and software.

They have come up with something called as the Emotiv Development Kit which is basically comprised of three detection toolkits as explained below. These toolkits interact with their neuro technology based headset called Project Epoc to capture various brain signals and transfer them as electric signals that can be interpreted as different activities.

Expressiv: The first toolkit Expressiv identifies facial expressions, such as blink, smile, wink etc that will provide for more realistic virtual chatting.
Affectiv: The second toolkit Affectiv detects a user's emotional state such as frustration, anger, excitement etc which would be great for role-playing games. Another interesting use would be to unconsciously rate music in iTunes or videos in YouTube or likes.
Cognitiv: The third toolkit Cognitiv which sounds the most interesting of all, will allow users to manipulate virtual objects using mind control. It supports actions, such as lift, drop, rotate, push, pull, etc.

These kits are currently in alpha phase, so it still has a long way to go before it is ready for consumers like us. But it has certainly brought out an innovation that has a bright future.

You can get some more information here

Which Vista is right for you?

:)

What's my song?

How many times have you found yourself humming a tune or singing a song but to your frsutration dont remember the title of the song? How often I have tried to google the lyrics trying to search for the song but with not such a great result.

Well, we now have Midomi to rescue. This innovative search site allows you to sing/hum a tune and it will search for the song for you! How cool is that!!!

Can't wait to get home and try it out!!

Update: I tried this out and it works pretty good. It did return songs to the tunes (or mis-tunes :P) that I hummed. And yeah, when I sang a Hindi song (which I knew was 'based' on an English tune), it did return the English song. Now you can how which songs inspires our Bollywood songs!

Clothes with a secret

I was watching one episode of CSI:NY when I came to know about this website www.edoclaundry.com.

The whole concept of edoclaundry is pretty cool. This guy designs a series of t-shirts which has code hidden in the graphic. (scramble the letters 'edoc' and you get 'code' - hence the name). Once you have figured out the hidden code, you need to go to the website and enter the code. There's a series of t-shirts and you need to figure out the codes in all and eventually in the end, u apparantly get to know the deep dark secret behind edoclaundry.

Pretty innovative way to sell t-shirts, dont you think? And quite a pricey way to entertain one self!

One Web Day!

Today is the very first OneWebDay! Celebrate your online life by marking this special day. If you need some guidelines on how to celebrate this day, click here