Solar Flare in Ultraviolet

If you close your eyes and look directly at the Sun, this is what you see. In Ultraviolet.

IPL Madness

Live IPL matches are amazing fun. We were 4 rows from the pitch and I danced and shouted all night long. Here is me (carrying sign). MI lost in the end, but by then I had switched loyalties :D ... also RC had better cheerleaders.

His Majesty, Sir Kunal

I am the great, one and only, totally magnificent marvelous all round good guy. Yes, I am Sir Kunal.

The other day, I was at an office outing and rather enjoying myself, which is quite a feat. An air of tediousness is often found hanging about office outings, mainly a result of minions completely confused in the informal, yet officey environment.

But I ofcourse, had no such problems. I said what I thought and held back no words coated with uncertain sugar. I could freely speak my mind, for I am brave and unconcerned with appearances and also I had recently quit (the very same office job).

To prove my point, I walked up to one of the many vassals and called him a reproductive organ. Why? Because I could. Because that is who I am. Sir Kunal.

But the inevitable mundane conversation grew tiresome. Off I went exploring the hills and soon came to a group of giggling women at the bottom of a small, albeit vertical, cliff.

Women exist to be impressed by my awesome skillz. Thus, in a bid to perform said impressing, I challenged them to climb the cliff. This was all a part of my secret plan to get them to dare ME to climb the cliff. While wearing floaters. And slightly inebriated.

My secret plan succeeded.

"Poof," I said, with a touch of "I could do that with one hand tied behind my back". I accepted their challenge knowing that once I succeeded, they shall swoon all over me.

I took a few seconds to utter an wicked laugh to myself and wring my hands in an evil manner. Muahahahahahaha. Then to the climb.

And so I climbed. Up and up I went and before I knew it, I was 40 feet in the air. I could feel the aura of swooning-ness emanating from them chicks below. I could feel the earth and rocks in my face as I slowly turned to face the world from my awesome vantage spot. This is EPIC, I thought.

Yes, finally! I shall be king of all I survey! Off with their heads!

Alas! But unfortunately I underestimated my rivals. No doubt utterly jealous of my success, one of my competitors had hurled rocks at me from above in an effort to undermine my efforts. And the worst part is that he did triumph.

And down I fell to the ground, scraping and screaming all the way. "Crunch" was the sound I remember. Ouch. By a miracle, I had avoided becoming the Late Great Sir Kunal, but only by a miracle. Foiled by some confounded minions. How embarrassing.

The world then proceeded to go black as I was cooking up a rescue story (in which I was the hero) to tell the world, lest they accuse me of being an inept climber.

...

Cool story bro.

Internet Deaddiction Camp

Okay, I finally admit it. I'm addicted to the Internet. I'm sitting here in a not-completely-uninteresting class writing this blog, which totally and completely (redundancy required) proves my point.

Luckily, just this week, internet and video game addiction was downgraded by the psychiatric-powers-that-be (in the US) from a nicotine-type addiction to a more benign "case of lack of self-control" (like gambling).

Redditing , YouTubeing (Yes, there is an "ei" in there) and social networking (even though I don't use Facebook!) is really taking up too much of my time and in the war of the real world vs. the anonymous one, there's too much of a rush in learning about new, fascinating, amazing (though sometimes disturbing) stuff about the world.

Till about a month back, it was quite under control and I actually did work a *lot* through December and January. But now that workload's trailed off, I've transitioned from "sit in front of comp 18 hours working" to "ditto-but not working".

So, I've decided to quit, almost-cold turkey. I begin this new week with an aim to get online time under control again. Thus, all online activities, including watching videos of any kind, shall be permissible only betweek 2 AM and 6 AM.

Basically, my love for sleep and my internet addiction can fight it out and in the end, I'll have time for everything in the real world, thus making me the winnah! :D

Okay, best of luck to me. Bye now.

All Is Full of Trips

I just spoke to His Majesty, the Lord Ludi Krishna Ramkumar to found out how KP is doing. Oh wait! Do you know what happened to KP? OMG you don't know? He fell off a cliff! Really!

I ain't joking he really did fall off a cliff! I mean... who does that?? So no he is all battered and bruised and lying in bed. Apparently he can hobble now, oh it won't be soon before he can actually walk. I'm sure he's secretly enjoying all the attention that has been bestowed upon him.

But anyhow I digress. I had called Krishna. Now Krishna has this astounding ability (bordering super-power) of never being where I think he his. Drawing on my vast repertoire of previous observations, my consideration set for his whereabouts included such locations as Pune, Bombay, Germany (you may think this does not happen often, but it is so) and Manipal.

He was at none of these locations. He was instead at Nagpur. Watching a cricket TEST match no less! I mean... who does that??

Anyhow, the point I was trying to make is essentially this: I hope that in the near future I have enough money and time to randomly hop off on trips whenever I fancy (which will probably turn out to be every weekend).

One of the great side effects of this is ofcourse that when people call me, I can say stuff like "Oh yeah, I'm in Leh. How's life?"

:)

Greenpeace

I finally joined Greenpeace as a volunteer.

I think this was in the making ever since I came across my first Greenpeace activist in Hiranandani in '98 or '99. It was outside (what is now) Haiko. At that time I had no clue about climate change or whaling or whatever - I just saw a bunch of these guys had set up a little stall and were trying to get some attention.

But at getting attention they failed. Miserably. One lady infact mistook "Greenpeace" for "green peas" and inquired about it, only to turn away in a huff when she realized her mistake.

At that time, my schooldays, I didn't get pocket money or anything. I remember taking 100 bucks from mom to buy something big, and with that purpose I was in Hiranandani.

So here I was, looking at these youngish activists, probably college students somewhere. I kinda just felt bad that everyone was ignoring them and that's what prompted me to go and see what they were pushing.

They gave me a few pamphlets and told me long stories about Greenpeace, about Rainbow Warrior and their efforts to stop whaling. That's when I recalled a Discovery Channel show about them and all the stuff they did. (I used to be an avid watcher of the Discovery Channel. Back then it was really great!)

At that time, I thought what they did was really gutsy and a little stupid. But I agreed with the message. As I went off, I felt a little sad that no one here seemed to care about any of this stuff.

I ended up making a Rs. 50 contribution towards Greenpeace. Rs. 50 is like nothing, but back then I could buy a Frankie outside school for Rs. 10, and I got that Rs. 10 from my parents only once or twice a week!

So that was it - a little kid makes a tiny contribution. It was surely forgotten moments later.

Now to be honest, I don't support all the messages that greenpeace puts across. I also think that invading nuclear facilities is not right, infact it is downright stupid.

But there are 2 issues where I think Greenpeace makes perfect sense – climate change and defending the oceans by protecting marine reserves. They may be sensationalist, but they are doing something.

For too long, I didn't join because of the differences in thought. But now that I think about it, that was stupid. I have now joined because there is enough in common.

Lets be frank – unless we enact change now, the world is going over the brink. The Earth will survive well enough, but we will not. Closer to home, India is projected to be one of the hardest hit countries by this.

Now I know you're gonna say "climategate" and "scandal" and "only a theory" and all that bullshit. Get a life. Some researchers may have cut corners, but that does not mean all of science is wrong. To me, it shows that some organization somewhere (supposedly funded by Exxon according to some sources) paid good money and organized the resources to hack into research organizations, and proceeded to scan emails and release the ones that seemed controversial.

Indeed, if there was cutting of corners by researchers, I'm glad that someone revealed it. All it means is that we need to take the raw data and re-examine it.

Anyhow, I ramble on for too long. Bottomline, we all need to get involved.

tl;dr I joined Greenpeace. I don't agree completely with what they say, nevertheless I will volunteer for events in India. You should sign up too.

Science. It works, bitches.

I saw this (pic, see it!) on the internets (on Reddit infact) yesterday. My first reaction was - it's not possible. It's just not. It had to be glued or something.

But curiosity happens. I spent an hour with a paper and pencil trying to work out the physics behind it. At 6 AM, i had finally constructed my own version of it (using only a stick and my pocket-knife). Here it is:

Doesn't it seem impossible? The rod sticks out with no apparent support to hold it up! The only torque is downwards! How is it staying there? But there is no glue or anything. It is simply mechanics.

(Original concept by PhilixBefore. Free body diagram by omicron8.)

Harishchandragad – The First Trek

Harishchandragad. The very very first trek we did. Certainly it was one of the more difficult treks I've done (perhaps only Kulang was more rigorous), it was not particularly green either. And we were lost and sans-water "almost-dead" too. But if this trek had not been so amazing, so much fun, then I would never have gone on those hundreds of other ones.

Now I wonder if I would ever have got to know Krishna and KP so well, and Ankoor Das at all, had we not gone on this trek.

Junta. (L to R):

Jerome, PD, Me, Das, (who is that?), KP, Krishna (photographer)

Ummmmm... Yeah. We're lost.

Konkankada. What an Insane drop!

Ah Waters! We have waters again!

The valley as we crossed hills

KP's bullock cart. :)

It would have been so cool to write down those "Trek Diaries" we always said we would but never got around to doing. Maybe I should do it for real this time.

Happy 4th Birthday, Dear Blog

I'm simply amazed that this blog has not died. I started it so long ago, back in my third year in IIT. Blogging was just becoming a fad back then and I had decided to give it a try. So did a lot of other people, almost everyone I know.

As the fad passed, the internets was littered with dead blogs, and many phoenixy ones as well. Luckily, this one survived. Over 4 years, I've written a little more than 200 posts - approximately 1 a week.

For me, this blog is a very special. It's one of those few hobbies or pastimes or whatever that I have kept alive for any length of time. Over these four years it really has become a sort of diary, a place where I can return to see what I thought and felt over the years.

There was a point when I almost abandoned it. Around December 2006 to April 2007 I wrote not a single post. I was bored. I didn't feel like posting. It's not like I had anything substantial to say anyway.

Luckily I discovered Maya, Vue and Apophysis in April 2007, and mediocre CG artwork drove the next many post-lets. That and shady cribbu posts. I am very cribbu. I remember they wrote that in my valfi as well.

Now, I post once in a while. A sort of whenever type of thing. I'm quite sure that this blog won't perish now. It's passed that point. I'm happy for that.

Wow, it's really been 4 years.

Happy Birthday, dear Blog. And a big Thank You to all those who still read it... I wonder how many still do...

Naneghat

Krishna, KP and I had trekked to Naneghat sometime this August.