I just can't seem to get this song out of my head for the last few days..  It's just too good :)

   Siru Siru Uravugal Pirivugal Yen Ninaivu Kolvom
   Vara Vara Kasakuthu En Ilamaiyum hey
   Ninaithu Nadanthathu Mudinthathu En Kanavukul hmm
   Ennacho Theriyaliye...

Tafiti is a new visual search engine designed on top of Live Search and Silverlight.. I was pretty impressed. Love the stacking and sharing of searches. Not sure if the tree view is very useful though. Test drive it yourself at www.tafiti.com.  

    I couldn't just pass this up especially after I made a comment regarding this just now in a friend's blog. See the comic here. If you liked the matrix or some aspect of the concept, watch "The Thirteenth Floor". I am sure you will like it :)  Here is the trailer..

    For people who are interested in Philosophy, Physics and the Theory of Everything :). One of the universal constants in all theories is the Speed of light.  Many theories including Einstein's theory of relativity rely on the fact that the speed of light is a constant. Many laws of physics and perception break down at hyper speed travel. However, recently there have been certain theories which have claimed that the speed of light is not a constant. It is just has its current speed as we know it right now. For people interested in learning more about this.. read "Faster than the speed of light". It is a good read. 

    Some scientists have tried to prove that they had achieved speed faster than that of light as we know it.  See this article in the Daily Mail  for details. It would be really amazing if we could travel faster than the speed of light. We can finally venture into Warp speed and cross the final frontier as we know it .. Although i pretty much doubt that we could see any of this become a reality in our life time. However if you are a Trekkie like me, read "The Physics of Star Trek". Another good read about the fictional part of the Physics involved in Star Trek. 

   Is Faster than light even possible? For the geek in you.. here are some theories :).

    I was viewing a documentary called War Photographer. It is about one of the famous war photographers amidst us today James Nachtwey. We would have never realized the reality of war as described in this documentary. We are so oblivious to all these happenings. Mainstream media does not do justice these days with respect to what is going on different war fronts. Look at the following video to get an idea of what James goes through. People really interested, can borrow the DVD war photographer from the King County Library.

   Wondering what the title has to do with this post.. Well i searched for photo journalism on live search and the first link I hit is this. VII is a photo agency formed by 7 of the famous photo journalists, now contains more than 7. They publish pictorial essays of the various events they are covering in here. Most of these pictures do not appear in the mainstream media. I was particularly thrilled by this one taken by James Nachtwey on September 11, 2001.

   I have never given so much importance to war photographs although i have been intrigued by the concept ever since i saw Brad Pitt take pictures in war in Spy Game. Watching this documentary has made me appreciate a whole new dimension of war photography. It is a tough job to keep your emotions in check, avoid getting yourself killed and then let the rest of the world know what is happening at the battle front.  

   That being said, there are people who abuse war photography for their personal gain and propaganda. I came across this nice little clip on you tube which explains how people capitalize on war photographs and how people misuse the horror for their personal propaganda. Here's the clip..  

    After a big gap, here is well the bigger picture. In my last post, I said we should do everything we can to play our part to help earth. Here are more reasons as to why we should do this.

    From watching the planet earth series, it is very clear that there are a number of species of animals  nearing extinction. But there is nothing that we can do to save these immediately. Most of these species are in third world countries like India and Africa. The reason that these are becoming extinct in the first place is because the locals are killing the animals and selling tusks,hides,horns,etc. to pay for their day to day survival. One cannot go and ask these locals to stop hunting these animals because they are facing extinction. In most of these countries, there is no easy means of survival. It is unethical to ask these men and women to give up their survival in order to save some rare species of animals. One's own survival always takes precedence over everything else... which questions the very basic ethics of existence..

    The same logic extends to the problem of global warming as well. Billions are trying to earn just enough to feed their family. They do not care about the fact that the vehicles they drive does not meet the emission standards and so on. So in a manner of speaking preservation of the natural ecosphere and trying to make human civilization survive a little longer is luxury.   

    Taking a step back into an even bigger picture. The Universe is 15 Billion years old. The earth is 4 billion years old. Life's evolution on this planet has been for a mere insignificant amount of time when compared to the life of the universe. That is the reason why life is so precious.. In the bigger scheme of things, no matter what we do, our sun is going to burn out in another 5.5 billion years and our Milky way galaxy is on a collision course with our neighbour the Andromeda galaxy. Assuming life on earth does survive that long, hopefully we have discovered interstellar space travel and moved out of the galaxy. Still life as we know today might not be the exist then..

   Taking another step back, many religions do not believe in all the scientific facts that i just said. People have totally different theories about the evolution or creation of life on Planet Earth. In either case, please do everything you can to preserve the natural habitat on the planet. Selfish politicians and power hungry armies spend billions in the name of war and military enhancements. It only takes a few millions to save a species and guide people to follow steps that would preserve the natural habitat and these endangered species of animals and plants. Saving the natural habitat on the planet is for those of us enjoying a luxorious life. We should do our part..

     Humans as a species have claimed themselves as the dominant species on planet earth. We are so engrossed in day to day things that we never spend time or think about the millions of other species that make our planet one of the unique planets in the universe. We have assumed that our blue planet can withstand any amount of damage we do to it. We as a species are responsible for the virtual extinction of many species of plants and animals. We have caused the destruction of entire ecologies on this planet. Each one of these species took billions and billions of years to evolve. Upsetting the natural ecology comes at a price. Humans as a species also have to face the effects. The threat of global warming is finally upon us. We can see the changes in climate even this year. 

      The sheer number of plants and animals on our planet is mind boggling. If you can try to see a show called Planet Earth on Discovery Channel. I started to think i should get HDTV just to watch this show :). Even better if you can get to see the big picture Deep Sea 3D on IMAX. Although this is only about aquatic ecologies, its amazing to see the various animals on plants in 3D. We are but just one part of this big picture. We should play our part in preserving the balance of nature. Or else we would become responsible for our own extinction.  

 Here is a scene from Planet - Earth series.

And here is a trailer for the IMAX movie  Deep Sea 3D.

    I tried taking pictures of different places in Seattle at Night. Here are some of them. Unfortunately I had only the XTi kit lens with me when i took these pictures. I edited some of these with Adobe Lightroom. The software is pretty good to use. I like it  :) 

               Seattle SkyLine - Alki Beach                          Seattle SkyLine - Alki Beach

            Qwest Field & Docks - Alki Beach                        Seattle SkyLine - Alki Beach

     Seattle SkyLine - Alki Beach         Microsoft Bldg 42           156th Ave NE - Near Microsoft

    Seattle from Coulon Park - Lake Washington       Pier at Coulon Park - Lake Washington

       Ivar's at Coulon Park - Lake Washington          Pier at Coulon Park - Lake Washington

                 I 405 South - Near Exit 2                                 I 405 North - Near Exit 2

     Read this weird article on wired news ( Pun Intended :) ). Amazing how people from around the world participated in this.

Link to the post on Wired

    Thanks to Air India and Air India Express I learnt so many things this time during my international flight. Indian Airlines has already taught me a similar lesson in the past. Here are some things that I had learned! 

    I called up Air India and tried to confirm the tickets before my trip. I spent two hours on the phone ( Thanks to a dropped call ) and 2 agents confirmed the flight for me. No one told me that the time of my Singapore - Chennai flight was different. They confirmed even the return flight for me. How nice of them! The person at LAX who checked me in for the international flight could not issue me a boarding pass for my flight from Singapore. He said I had to go and get it in Singapore. This hadn't happened to me in the past. I had this eerie feeling that something was wrong.

    I had a 10 hour wait in Singapore. So I got myself a transit visa and went to meet some friends. Before I left the airport, I went to an Air India counter and ask them to get me a boarding pass or information regarding my flight to Chennai. The tickets said the flight is at 9.35 PM Singapore time. The Air India counter folks (they were wearing blue uniform) said, your flight has been changed as Air India Express. They said, "We don't manage the checkins for Air India Express because they are budget airlines. Please go ask the people wearing the Green Uniform". The people wearing the Green Uniform were busy checking in people for an Emirates flight. They said,"Your ticket says 9.35 PM, Please come at 7.30 PM for the checkin. We cannot help you now." 

     So I went to visit my friends and came back to the airport at 7.15 PM. My Air India Express flight was leaving at 7.30 PM. The check-in counter was already closed and no one was available to answer any questions. Thanks to a person in blue uniform who was doing check-ins for some other airline I got the location to the Air India airlines office at the airport. I went there to ask them if they could endorse my ticket so that I can take the next Indian Airlines flight that was leaving around 9.00 PM. They already closed the office and a person working there who was leaving home told me that I need to go to Singapore City office the next day to get my tickets moved to the flight which was leaving the next day. He said there is nothing else they can do. He also told me that it was Saturday and the office was working half day. I was shocked! What would have happened If I was a day late? At least I was glad that he told me that piece of information. I thanked him for their excellent service and walked out of there. I was so furious at myself. Earlier the same day, I lost my PDA cell phone in a cab. My day just got better.

    I called back my friend's parents for help. They let me stay with them for the night and helped me go to the Air India office in Singapore the next day to confirm the tickets. Thanks to their guidance I had no trouble taking the Mass Transit or the Bus around. The public transport system in Singapore is awesome. I was totally impressed. My friend's parents also helped me lodge complaints with the Cab offices to find my lost cell phone and I got to eat tasty home cooked food in the middle of all this crisis. I am eternally grateful to them for all the help. I still wonder what I would have done if they had not been there :) 

    The Airline office could not issue me a new ticket. Because Air India Headquarters in Mumbai was closed. It is Saturday. Why am I not surprised. They asked me to go to the airport at 4.30 PM and check-in. So I did and now the people in the Green Uniform were doing the check-ins. Air India officially transitioned their flight to Air India Express. But during check-ins, only people holding the Air India Express tickets were allowed to check-in. People holding Air India tickets were put on standby. Alas, around 6.30 PM they issued me a ticket and I went to the gate. I was lucky as another friend was traveling by the flight that day and I felt better after telling him all this :)

1) Avoid any Indian airline!

        Avoid Air India, Indian Airlines or Air India Express in anyway. The people working in these offices think that it is your privilege to fly in their flight and do not care whatsoever about your plight if you miss a flight. On the positive side, if you are flying in Air India, you are allowed each checked-in baggage to weigh 70lbs instead of the 50 lbs on many other airlines. Not sure if the connecting flights in the US let you check-in these bags.

2) Confirm your Schedule!

        Make sure that you explicitly ask them every flight leg's time and flight code when you confirm your tickets.

3) Ask the Right people!

       Check with the transition desk or someone who works for the airline before you get to Immigration. In South East Asia at least, the airline check-in counter staff work for contract and dont have much information about these change in flights and other details. They generally get instructions for about 30 minutes before checkin for a flight starts and follow the general check-in process.

4) Travel Lite! 

      In case you haven't been to India recently. Indian Airport security has tight restrictions on your carry-on luggage. You are allowed only 1 carry on item including laptop. All other countries let you carry 1 carry on bag and 1 personal item like laptop,camera,etc. I had to return one carry on bag to my parents who came to send me off. One of my friends had to carry a document folder and a laptop bag. He needed his documents for immigration. They would not let him carry a second bag.

    This post is already too big. I will save the United Airlines flight plight for another day. I will shortly post some pictures that I took around in Singapore.Thanks to these exciting incidents I did not feel like going around Singapore at that time at all. I was worried if something else could go wrong ( and something did! ). I've saved going around Singapore for another visit :).

     S.Vigneshwaran is my junior from Anna University, Chennai, India. He is suffering from Acute Myeloid Leukemia. He has to have a Bone Marrow Transplant or a Cord blood Transplant in order to recover from the disease. Unfortunately for him we were not able to find a blood-relative matching donor in India. Hospitals in India do not perform a Bone Marrow Transplant from a non related person. Even so we could not find a good match from any one in India. The alternate treatment option that Doctors have suggested is Cord Blood Transplant. 

    India does not have the concept of medical insurance as widely followed as it is here in the US. Public health care is good for the most part except for high end operations like this. These are performed only in a selected few hospitals and people have to pay for it. A lot of people who came to know of Vigneshwaran's condition have contributed to the amount that we have collected so far. I would like to thank them for their generous contribution. Unfortunately the amount that we have collected so far is no where close to the final amount required for performing the operation abroad.

   I have below a letter from Vigneshwaran's brother requesting for help. One can only imagine the amount of suffering he and his family members are going through at this stage. I kindly request you to contact me (sudhagar_t at hotmail dot com) if you are willing to help Vigneshwaran in any way. Either by way of monetary donations or by way of medical help, we are very grateful to you for any help that you can offer. Please do help spread the word by posting this in other blogs if you can.

 I Raja Rajajeswaran who is working for iSOFT R&D in India, my brother S Vigneshwaran (just 20 year old) doing his BTech Information Technology from College of Engineering – Anna University, guindy- Chennai  is battling against acute myeloid leukemia. He has been hospitalized for a painful transplanting treatment. This treatment is a condition whereby a bone marrow from a donor, which is almost similar to the composition of that present in the affected person's body is injected and is allowed to regenerate. But the problem is that it's always very difficult to get a matching bone marrow. The closest possibilities are siblings, if any, and the parents. We  had our respective bone marrows tested and it turned out to be unfit for transplantation as HLA didn't match. We have also sent applications to various bone marrow banks and waiting for a matching bone marrow. But unfortunately, none of the hospitals in India are allowed to receive the Bone Marrows from outside and they don’t have such facilities to perform unrelated Bone Marrow Transplantation. So the treatment had to be stopped for want of a matching unrelated bone marrow.

At this juncture the doctors have suggested an alternative treatment called 'Cord blood transplant' or ‘unrelated matched bone marrow transplant’. Unfortunately this treatment is not available in Indian hospitals whereas hospitals in the USA, the UK, Singapore and Australia have been performing them. Among all the locations Singapore is the most economical. Yet, the expenditure is estimated around Rs. 67 lac (approx $150,000) excluding Procurement of Unrelated Donor Stem cells that will cost around $30,000.

  My family has been doing every bit to generate as much funds possible through personal means, it is still below the requirement stated above. We have around $85,0000. We have sold out all our properties and many of IT friends helped us to generate this huge amount, but still we are half the way in the amount stated above. I humbly request you to consider my plight. My brother is a outstanding student doing his BTECH from one of the TOP universities in INDIA (College of Engineering – Anna University, guindy in Chennai is ranked 5^th best among the top engineering colleges in India).

Regards,

Rajarajeswaran Shanmugam

    My interest in astronomy started a few years ago, when I was in SanDiego. SanDiego has a pleasant weather and clear skies for most part of the year. However the light pollution in SanDiego makes it inconvenient for stargazing. A lot of regional astronomy associations are fighting to reduce the effect of light pollution from city lights. If you are installing new patio lighting or are responsible for installing street lights in your neighbourhood please install lights which cause less or no light pollution. You can read about the effects of light pollution and how to prevent it from DarkSky. Try to observe the night sky on a clear night from your backyard or neighbourhood park and then do the same when you go camping some time to a nearby national forest. You will then realize how much of the night sky we are missing because of the city lights.

   I did get myself a table top scope in SanDiego. Just to see how serious i get into Astronomy before i spend a large sum of money on a big scope. Definitely felt how bad the scope was in a few days. However we were astonished to see Jupiter and the jovian moons from the small scope. I even took a small video of the moon using a modified webcam. Now finally after a long wait, I went and bought myself a used scope from Astromart. I got this scope from a person in Kansas. I waited impatiently for a week to get the scope. The telescope brought with it Seattle's gloomy weather. Didn't get a chance for too many observing sessions since. Hopefully i get to take some nice pictures and post them in this blog..