My spiritual master or Guru(as we call them in India..) H.H. Sri Sri Ravishankar (I call Him Guruji..) recently wrote an article was published in various parts in many newspapers around the country... however not one newspaper published it in its entirety... probably because it also talks about the gimmicks played by the media as a part of their publicity stunts.... I don't like to edit anything Guruji says :) so here it is, complete and unabridged, at Bawa's blog... please follow the link below... makes a very interesting read!! :-)
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
NASA's Phoenix Spacecraft Lands At Martian Arctic Site
May 25, 2008 -- NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed in the northern polar region of Mars today to begin three months of examining a site chosen for its likelihood of having frozen water within reach of the lander's robotic arm.
Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53:44 p.m. Eastern Time) confirmed the Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. The signals took that long to travel from Mars to Earth at the speed of light..
Phoenix is a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The scientists conducting the mission will use instruments aboard the Phoenix lander to search for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water there. The multi-agency program is headed by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, under the direction of NASA. The program is a partnership of universities in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and the aerospace industry.
Phoenix launched on August 4, 2007, and landed at 23:38 Orbiter UTC on May 25, 2008 in Mars' water-ice-rich northern polar region of Vastitas Borealis at 68.2°N 234.3°W. It will now use its robotic arm to dig into the arctic terrain. Phoenix is the sixth successful Mars lander and the first since Viking 1 & 2 in 1976 to use powered descent.
During its 422-million-mile flight from Earth to Mars after launching on Aug. 4, 2007, Phoenix relied on electricity from solar panels during the spacecraft's cruise stage. The cruise stage was jettisoned seven minutes before the lander, encased in a protective shell, entered the Martian atmosphere. Batteries will provide electricity until the lander's own pair of solar arrays spread open.
Another critical deployment will be the first use of the 7.7-foot-long robotic arm on Phoenix, which will not be attempted for at least two days. Researchers will use the arm during future weeks to get samples of soil and ice into laboratory instruments on the lander deck.
Phoenix uses hardware from a spacecraft built for a 2001 launch that was canceled in response to the loss of a similar Mars spacecraft during a 1999 landing attempt. Researchers who proposed the Phoenix mission in 2002 saw the unused spacecraft as a resource for pursuing a new science opportunity. Earlier in 2002, Mars Odyssey discovered that plentiful water ice lies just beneath the surface throughout much of high-latitude Mars. NASA chose the Phoenix proposal over 24 other proposals to become the first endeavor in the Mars Scout program of competitively selected missions.
Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53:44 p.m. Eastern Time) confirmed the Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. The signals took that long to travel from Mars to Earth at the speed of light..
Phoenix is a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The scientists conducting the mission will use instruments aboard the Phoenix lander to search for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water there. The multi-agency program is headed by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, under the direction of NASA. The program is a partnership of universities in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and the aerospace industry.
Phoenix launched on August 4, 2007, and landed at 23:38 Orbiter UTC on May 25, 2008 in Mars' water-ice-rich northern polar region of Vastitas Borealis at 68.2°N 234.3°W. It will now use its robotic arm to dig into the arctic terrain. Phoenix is the sixth successful Mars lander and the first since Viking 1 & 2 in 1976 to use powered descent.
During its 422-million-mile flight from Earth to Mars after launching on Aug. 4, 2007, Phoenix relied on electricity from solar panels during the spacecraft's cruise stage. The cruise stage was jettisoned seven minutes before the lander, encased in a protective shell, entered the Martian atmosphere. Batteries will provide electricity until the lander's own pair of solar arrays spread open.
Another critical deployment will be the first use of the 7.7-foot-long robotic arm on Phoenix, which will not be attempted for at least two days. Researchers will use the arm during future weeks to get samples of soil and ice into laboratory instruments on the lander deck.
Phoenix uses hardware from a spacecraft built for a 2001 launch that was canceled in response to the loss of a similar Mars spacecraft during a 1999 landing attempt. Researchers who proposed the Phoenix mission in 2002 saw the unused spacecraft as a resource for pursuing a new science opportunity. Earlier in 2002, Mars Odyssey discovered that plentiful water ice lies just beneath the surface throughout much of high-latitude Mars. NASA chose the Phoenix proposal over 24 other proposals to become the first endeavor in the Mars Scout program of competitively selected missions.
Rock strewn surface imaged by Mars Pathfinder
Cryoturbation polygons due to the Martian permafrost.
A labeled look at NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander.Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Fédération Internationale de Football Association
A bit of G.K. for football lovers who might happen to read my blog...The Fédération Internationale de Football Association was founded in Paris on the same date as today in 1904.
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football), commonly known by its acronym, FIFA (usually pronounced /fifə/ or /fifæ/), is the international governing body of association football. Its headquarters are in Zürich, Switzerland, and its current president is Joseph Blatter. FIFA is responsible for the organization and governance of football's major international tournaments, most notably the FIFA World Cup, held since 1930. FIFA has 208 member associations, which is 16 more than the United Nations and 3 more than the International Olympic Committee.
ps: Courtesy again to Wikipedia for telling me about the significance of today's date in history!!!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The "Discovery" of India - May 20th, 1498
I just happened to figure out that India today was "discovered" by the western world...
Portuguese Vasco da Gama(pictured) arrived at Caliut(Now Kozhikode), India, opening up trade with the Far East... directly by sea.
Portuguese Vasco da Gama(pictured) arrived at Caliut(Now Kozhikode), India, opening up trade with the Far East... directly by sea.
Actually, India has long had trade links with the entire world... The turks had closed the sea route which passed through Constantinople and the west was left looking for an alternative... So they "sponsored" da Gama for his exploratory voyage... Something they continue to do even today... Just carefully consider the "war on terror" (These are entirely my views, if anybody has a problem with it, they may stop reading it right away!!)
Gama's voyage was successful in reaching India. This permitted the Portuguese to trade with the Far East directly by sea, thus challenging older trading networks of mixed land and sea routes, such as the Spice trade routes that utilized the Persian Gulf and Red Sea and caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean. The Republic of Venice had gained control over much of the trade routes between Europe and Asia. Portugal hoped to use the route pioneered by Gama to break the Venetian trading monopoly.
However, Gama's achievements were somewhat dimmed by his failure to bring any trade goods of interest to the nations of India. Moreover, the sea route was fraught with its own perils - his fleet went more than three months without seeing land and he lost majority of his sailor-crew, by the time the two of his four ships, returned to Portugal in 1499. Nevertheless, Gama's initial journey opened direct sea route to Asia that in time helped bring about an era of European domination through sea power and commerce that lasted several hundred years, as well as 450 years of Portuguese colonialism in India, Asia, and Africa.
HAIL INDIA!!!!
ps: Full credit to wikipedia for giving me most of the info I needed to create a good-looking post in 7 minutes.... Long live open-source..... Down-Down Plagiarism!!!! ;)
Coincidentally, on the same date in 1873, The Levi Struass & Co. (remember that denim brand??) got a patent for using copper rivets that we see on every denim trouser's pockets.....
Coincidentally, on the same date in 1873, The Levi Struass & Co. (remember that denim brand??) got a patent for using copper rivets that we see on every denim trouser's pockets.....
Monday, May 19, 2008
The Rajnikant Shot!!! ;)
I found this picture somewhere on the internet when my curiosity led me to find out some details of a gun mentioned in a book written by two British mercenaries....
Shown above is a spent bullet cartridge through which a sniper round has punched its way clean(sniper rifles are high precision rifles sometimes also known as "telescopic rifles")...
I was initially amazed by the marksmanship of the shooter - given that even the fattest bullets in the world are only a few millimeters in radius...
Then I saw a similarity between this shot and one by Rajnikant, a popular movie star in Tamil movies and a small-time actor of the yore in Hindi movies. The guy is known for his weird, funny antics on screen(like shooting his cigarette in order to light it - with complete success!!) which only the South Indians seem to be able to believe... For Rajnikant it is "just-another-shot" - He must've shot hundreds of bullets like the one above..........
ps: Moral of the post - "Don't dare mistake me for a complete goody-goody just because I 'm smiling all the time..." B-)
Shown above is a spent bullet cartridge through which a sniper round has punched its way clean(sniper rifles are high precision rifles sometimes also known as "telescopic rifles")...
I was initially amazed by the marksmanship of the shooter - given that even the fattest bullets in the world are only a few millimeters in radius...
Then I saw a similarity between this shot and one by Rajnikant, a popular movie star in Tamil movies and a small-time actor of the yore in Hindi movies. The guy is known for his weird, funny antics on screen(like shooting his cigarette in order to light it - with complete success!!) which only the South Indians seem to be able to believe... For Rajnikant it is "just-another-shot" - He must've shot hundreds of bullets like the one above..........
ps: Moral of the post - "Don't dare mistake me for a complete goody-goody just because I 'm smiling all the time..." B-)
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