August 2005 Archives

Enter 2006 and it will see the worlds largest aircraft dubbed 'Super Jumbo' by the media enter service. The first airline to use it in 2006 will be Singapore Airlines.

Why 2006? Is the Super Jumbo not ready yet?
Its ready! But as per official norms, the airplane will have to complete 2500 hrs of test flight before entering passenger service anywhere in the world. News is that, already Airbus has received 154 confirmed orders for the BIGgie.

The Airbus team kicked off the test flights recently.
Below are the images and press release made by Airbus after the first official test flight.
[Images and text below are excerpts from Airbus website and copyrights of Airbus]

The first A380 to take to the air landed at Blagnac international airport in Toulouse, France at 14.23 local time (12.23h GMT) after successfully completing a first flight that lasted three hours and 54 minutes.

Fernando Alonso, chief flight test engineer and vice president flight test division, said the A380’s take-off weight for the first flight, at 421 tonnes, was the greatest take-off weight of any aircraft in the world.

Related Links:
Visit the events website of A380. Post A380 e-cards to friends.
Visit the A380 user Specifications and fascinating figures website

A380 Images

A380 for Indians
If you live in India like me, then this news is for you.

India will have its own first A380 in 2010 courtesy Kingfisher Airlines. Kingfisher becomes the first Indian customer for A380. Chairman Dr. Vijay Mallya made the order in Paris air show 2005.

You would have heard about 'Amazing Amanda' if you are a regular at online news websites, or, if you lived in or around New York.

'Amazing Amanda' is a toy which has become popular of the types seen on films which show toys mimicking human intelligence..

But amanda is not a toy which has a self-learning super-computer processor or something like in films to take over humans someday. Neither is it a costly affair like Sony's robotic dog 'Aibo' or the likes of japanese robot guards.

What interested me about this doll Amanda was not that it was affordable, or looked cute, but it was the simplicity in its technique... and the feeling that I can create one like it.
Note,You would probably understand this only if you were an Electronics engineer like me (atlast something i understand becos i did that engineering thing.. )

Tech things about 'Amanda'
Radio frequency tags in Amanda's accessories(yea you got to buy these also for this feature to work..:o) - including toy food, potty and clothing - wirelessly inform the doll of what it is interacting with. For instance, if the doll asks for a spoon of peas and it is given its plastic cookie, it will gently admonish its caregiver, telling her that a cookie is not peas.

By asking a child to repeat "Amanda" several times, the doll quickly comes to recognize and store in its electronic memory that child's voice, and only that child's voice, as its "mommy." Other voices are greeted with Amanda's cautionary proclamation, "You don't sound like Mommy."

Normal things about 'Amanda'
A normal tech guy can easily think this is mimicking and simple, and that it doesn't reflect how humans do things. I accept that the human brain is a complex network and there are many ways things are processed in it which we can't mimick with technology just yet,.. but these are the basics how even a human child recognizes its mommy, by her voice, by her skin, by her body temperature, or by her looks.

Somethings about technology implementation cannot be disgraded as 'Just a mimick' and 'That's not how our brain is'. I feel, we are not far from seeing things like in the movie 'Artificial Intelligence (AI) of spielberg'.

We might get to make a species with robots.

Making the news recently was a £70,000 polished stone in front of a london hospital. The hospital sees this as an investment which will add up to its 'Welcoming and Reassuring' environment.

More than luxury, more than just an image makeover, such artistic installations are seen to produce a better feeling across people living/working in the environment.

Read this BBC Article on the news item and discussions on similar art installations.

My Opinion
Personally, I do not know whether art heals.. we are talking about sculptures and paintings here. I am one of those who don't have the patience to learn something from sculptures or paintings. I do like to stare a while at a good painting or sculpture, and feel interested on the person who did it.. I am indeed myself had and have interest in these forms of art. But I feel they can only add up to a place which is already healing, which is already welcoming and reassuring.

I anyway, do not have the same opinion about all forms of art.
If dance is a form of art, Yes, If music is a form of art, Yes! They heal. You can lose yourself and your environment with these forms of art and imagine what the music or dance is talking to you.

There are many other things I would prioritize in the 'Best Art Forms' list if I was asked to prepare one, rather than painting and sculpting.

I consider taking care of animals, an art, gardening aesthetically with consideration for both the plants and the people living in the environs is an art, cooking a fulfilling dish for yourself or someone is an art...Servicing your customer, taking care of patients, carrying out a proper funeral, organizing a marriage, living around with people, friends, family members with their differences .. is an art...doing social work to your hearts content is an art, and so on.

You should have a good environment already to put a painting to talk.

You should have a time-relative ambience and clean environs to put a sculpture representing a specific time .. to talk.

Paintings and Sculptures are good art forms... but, they are very gradually being used only in context of adding beauty, modernization, and more so as luxury art forms.

This news item got me excited. Such simple, easy tricks to make you energy efficient should get communicated to the world faster.

As read on MetaEfficient.com

An off-grid experimenter in Australia, Tom Chalko, has retrofitted a chest freezer to create a fridge that uses only 100 watt-hours (0.1 kWh) per day! Why a chest freezer? Tom points out that vertical door refrigerators are inherently inefficient. As soon as you open a vertical fridge door the cold air escapes, simply because it is heavier than the warmer air in the room. When you open a chest freezer, the cool air stays inside, just because it’s heavy. Any leak or wear in a vertical door seal causes significant loss of efficiency.

Tom took a standard chest freezer (a Vestfrost SE255), added a $40 external thermostat, then wired the freezer to turn off when the desired temperature was reached. The thermostat runs on 2 AAA batteries which last for months. The freezer runs for about 90 seconds per hour and then shuts down completely, making it not only very efficient but very quiet.

If you would like the technical details, Read detailed project article from this build-it-solar pdf link

If you know the game of 'Chess', probably you should have imagined yourself playing and learning great chess, and trying your game with players from around the world.

Have you tried playing chess online with a total stranger or very often with players from different countries?

My place for online chess is 'worldchessnetwork.com'
All you have to do is,
Register free on the website,
Download an application,
and, Play.

The download application will enable you to connect as a registered user to the website, find players who are also connected, and challenge them for a game. You win, you gain points...You lose, you lose points. By default, a new registrant is given around 1500 points to allow him play. All games are timed.

There are also subscribed players, who get free merchandise from the network, and probably purchase gifts with points, or things like that.. you can check them on the website (worldchessnetwork.com)

Also, the good thing about worldchessnetwork is, they organize tournaments, and if you are not playing, you could still use the application and watch a game being played. To invite competitiveness, the network also has 20 min, 5 min, and 1 min games.

You might like the experience of playing online chess on this network, since its anonymous especially for learners who shy the feeling of losing to a friend or foe.

Why am I promoting this website? I have played on this as a free registrant... for about 4 years, and its very organized gaming environment. I have had great games, those i won or lost, but i definitely had opportunities to learn chess by playing or watching games and tournaments.
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Did you know?
Chess was first formulated and played in India. How else did you think the idea of elephants, horses used in battle field came into the game.

This doesn't mean India controls or owns the game. The game as it is today is a result of various changes, standards, and playing styles being implemented into the game by various Chess Federations around the world.

The India version of it in the beginnings didn't have a few pieces that are there in today's chess, and, the moves, the goals of the game where also little different. Of course, it wasn't called Chess then.

If you wanted to learn / research about the origins of chess, you should start probably from the great Indian epic 'Mahabharatha', because that's the first book of proof where many of us have known that chess was played in India very long ago...and that it was played putting huge wealth, assets, and sometimes even whole armies and countries ruled by kings as challenge bait.

There are stories of rulers capturing armies, territories, assets and sometimes even the queen of another ruler by winning a game. It never was played by people lesser than the order of the kings, and was never played informally because the game pointed that only when stakes are high it can be played.
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Related Links:
World Chess Federation
worldchessnetwork.com

Chess Kids Academy online
How to play chess

The Mahabharata
Stories for Children from Mahabharata

Its the 59th anniversary of indian independence tomorrow. India attained independence slightly past midnight of 14th August 1947.. very early hours of 15th August.

Remembering the day, it also reminds of Pakistan and India being partitioned as two countries just the day before, with majority of the muslim population in India moving out to the new Pakistan. And hence pakistan's independence on 14th August. (Two countries which have all the ingredients of being considered 'One' are considering each other enemies..rather than neighbours.. ironic isn't it.)

The day of Indian Independence should be remembered as a day when Indians got their right to democracy and the right to their motherland -their everything.

I pray that, more and more Indians understand that why the day is celebrated. Independence is relished only to remind us of our responsibility towards our country, to remind our deeds towards bringing up this nation with all the positive strengths showing up highly prominent than our weaknesses. And that we should strive to live up to the expectations we Indians committed to ourself on this day of Independence 58 years ago.

Let there be something missing in India, be it cleanliness or attitude or committment towards societal responsibilities or whatever, let we Indians put the past behind us and strive to nourish the future in some way. Let us protect our DNA of being diversified in religion, in language, and other things.. and still be 'One' united force in attitude towards the nation. Lets protect and fulfill our societal / national interests, other than our individual and family interests.

Cinematically put,

Let there be light.. may the force be with us.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY.

[No, I don't feel like I made a speech, I stressed every word while I typed that to push it deep into my inner self. I am happy being an Indian.]

Space ... Why are we going there? What's up there so promising?

These questions should be there on anybody's mind these days.

Recently you should heard of the space shuttle missions...and all the news about its 'thank-god' successful landing, its past failure which killed all on-board, its problems that are still lingering.

Beyond all that, America still wants to put the space project back on seat. Why? Actually, its not just america that wants this space programme to continue.. the whole world is interested in it. We all in a way are wishing things to continue... on any space exploration programme for that matter.

Why? Becuase, We are thinking about survival beyond earth. Not that earth has problems and its going to burst.

Survival or finding aliens are actually only the last reasons for space exploration.

The core reasons for space exploration are,
To find more Natural Resources,
To support Growth. Growth needs space.

In a recent interview to an Indian magazine 'The Hindu', the President of India expressed these as a vision for future space research. The President, APJ Abdul Kalam has earlier been a scientist with Indian space research organization, successfully managing one of india's first rockets in space.

President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam

Natural Resources..
The way we humans are consuming earth's natural resources, we will.. in another 100 or so years have huge shortages of various natural resources... and it may become like a couple of resources would be extinct from earth (at least the more pure form natural resources). In such a state, with advanced high speed space transport vehicles, and with adequate, tested knowledge of other planets and ingredients of outer space, we will be in a position to meet resource demands by transporting resources from other planets, or, we also may be able to move some manufacturing / extraction / refining / some machinery to these planets, and regularly bring back to earth processed material/resources. The possibilities are many.

Growth needs space..
Growth needs more resources, be it human resources or natural resources these resources need more space to use... to grow. It may look vague today, but with the kind of growth we are looking at in the future... in various fields, we will need more space to support growth. May be we would think about estabilishing a human settlement on some planet in outer space in controlled environs to study that planet, its resources, its environment, its surrounding planets, and how these can be put to use for mankind (Obviously, we can't run space missions from Earth all the time to go, study and come back.. we have to put shop there).

And hence all this exploration and space exercises.
Given all the above visions for the future, exploration of Transportation possibilities transport to space, research on outer space and the planets around earth are becoming more and more important. If we are not doing this slowly and steadily today, future generations wouldn't be able to do it when they have to. And that way, its also about survival.

Why only Americans or Russians have to spend all that money!
Simply because they have the money to spend for the distant future.

And think of establishing yourself first in a planet and settling up there marking your free real-estate.

Its about invasion and after that transporting all the natural wealth that's available to your kitty (Something similar to transporting Oil from Iraq... atleast in outer space may be people don't have to kill anybody to absorb a natural resource).