Going places … but this time its real far

Well I’m penning a post after a loooooooong time !

Actually I have been rather lazy to put up anything in some time.

Looks like quite a trend is catching up with ppl wanting to go places closer home rather than fanciful outings far off. It could be a 1 day trek or some scenic spot to feast on.

In keeping with it so to say I too visited 1 beautiful place just a 4hr drive from Bangalore, Gopalaswamy Betta (betta means hill for those who know no Kannada).  This place can be visited by everyone from baby to an old man. The car can take you all the way up to the top of the hill.

This place is within the Bandipur forest reserve and really provides for an awesome 1 day trek around the region. The problem being you will be allowed into the restricted forest area only around 7am and will have to leave the area by 5:30pm. But it is worth the visit.

It is around 90km from Mysore on the Ooty route via the industrial town of Nanjangud. Travel further down on the Ooty road from Nanjangud to a small town Gundulpet and you get to a diversion to the Gopalswamy betta.

We left Bangalore around 3:45 in the morning hoping to catch as much of the sunrise as possible. We reached atop the hill at 7:45am and the sun was out. But from what I heard from the locals the sunrise is not really clearly visible; but some folks stay overnight at the town Gundulpet which is just a few km away.

This place offers a suerb view of the surrounding hills covered with clouds which seems to extend to infinity. Taste these pics.

Clouds upto the horizon ... giving the other name Himaparvata to this place

Standing at the head of the misty pool ...

There is a temple of Gopalaswamy where the deity is held very sacred by the locals and pooja is conducted everyday. The abhishekam (annointing ceremony) with everything from milk, honey, curd, banana, dry fruits, turmeric powder you name it. It was really beautiful when the deity was covered yellow with the turmeric. Was not allowed to shoot a pic here ! People were singing bhajans to Krishna.

Horizon is the limit !

The most amazing thing about the whole scene of the mist filled cloudy hill side is that this can be seen even late in the morning and into the afternoon. There are paths around the place and is really a trekker’s delight. I went with my family and didn’t trek but will definitely go there some time for a trek. A place to visit for sure.

Colours and illusions …

Lilac Chaser

Stare at the cross in the center and wait as the green dot erases all the purple dots leaving only the circling green.

Isn’t it really cool !

Explanation :

The lilac chaser illusion combines three simple, well-known effects:

When a visual event occurs briefly at one place in the visual field, and then a similar event occurs at an adjacent place in the same visual field, we perceive movement from the first place to the second. This is called apparent movement or beta movement, because no actual movement has occurred. Apparent movement is the basis of moving neon signs, film, and video. We see movement because such displays stimulate receptors (called Reichardt detectors) in our brains that encode movement.The visual events in lilac chaser initially are the disappearances of the lilac disks. The visual events then become the appearances of green afterimages (see next).

When a lilac stimulus that is presented to a particular region of the visual field for a long time (say 10 seconds or so) disappears, a green afterimage will appear. The afterimage lasts only a short time, and in this case is effaced by the reappearance of the lilac stimulus. The afterimage is a simple consequence of adaptation of the rods and cones of the retina. Color and brightness are encoded by the ratios of activities in three types of cones (and also the rods under mesopic conditions). The cones stimulated by lilac get “tired”. When the stimulus disappears, the tiredness of some of the cones means that the ratios evoked by the grey background are the same as if a green stimulus had been presented to these cones when they are fresh. Adaptation of rods and cones begins immediately when they are stimulated, so afterimages also start to grow. We normally do not notice them because we move our eyes about three times a second, so the image of a stimulus constantly falls on new, fresh, unadapted rods and cones. In lilac chaser, we keep our eyes still, so the afterimages grow and are revealed when the stimulus disappears.

When a blurry stimulus is presented to a region of the visual field away from where we are fixating, and we keep our eyes still, that stimulus will disappear even though it is still physically presented. This is called Troxler’s fading. It occurs because although our eyes move a little when we are fixating a point, away from that point (in peripheral vision) the movements are not large enough to shift the lilac disks to new neurons of the visual system. Their afterimages essentially cancel the original images, so that all one sees of the lilac disks is grey, except for the gap where the green afterimage appears.

These effects combine to yield the remarkable sight of a green spot running around in a circle on a grey background when only stationary, flashing lilac spots have been presented. Occasionally it seems as though the green afterimage has eaten up the lilac disks, this resemblance to Pac-Man accounting for the illusion’s alternative name.

Rock On

Cool music nice refreshing concept something real !

I watched the movie and was really impressed by the kind of integration of rock music with Hindi and an Indian touch to it. The story is something we can imagine happening; not just another run of the mill kind.

It speaks about a group of 4 guys who aspired to make it big on the rock music scene as college going students. They have among them a guitarist Joe (Arjun Rampal) with girl friend Debbie (Shahana Goswami), on the vocals Adi (Farhan), on the drums KD (Purab) and on the keyboard Rob (Luke). “Magik” the band wants to make it big n gets enrolled into the big music competition. Bands from everywhere around the country are vying for honours. So be it our band is making great music on the background and has a class-act vocalist. No one can stop us ! They are all jeed up at the event and rock the crowd. The music score by Shankar, Eeshan and Loy is really enjoyable. Magic gets the whole crowd behind them; the crowd sings along to their tune. The concert looks quite real n cool.

The winners are announced. There’s no suprise here : Magic it is, making it to the contract to make an album. There’s masala to add : the producer of the album wants one Bollywood style wedding song in the album and will have no contract otherwise. They agree to the contract after some argument. The making of the video begins and all attention is devoted to lead-singer Adi (Aditya) by the director. This doesn’t go well with the other band members whose egos are rising. Joe just hates the way the whole video shoot for the album is going and can take it no more. He refuses to start on the shoot after a break on the call of the director. The director sneers at him and tells him to get on or get lost. Joe pounces on the director and the end of the video.

Years have passed. Joe is married to Debbie and they have a son Andrew. Joe has no job, is struggling to find his feet in the music industry; Debbie runs the family fish business to make ends meet. Aditya is married to Sakshi (Prachi Desai) and lives the life of an investment banker. He knows nothing but his work; hardly the best way to lead life for Sakshi. She is really trying to make their relationship work making all the stuff as a devoted housewife. One day while cleaning up the store she finds Adi’s pictures n books from his Magik days which she didn’t know about earlier.

From here on its over to Magik again. Sakshi understands that Adi misses his music and tries to bring him back to it. She meets KD by chance at his jewellery store. With Adi’s Bday approaching she plans a suprise and gets KD and Rob to make it to the party. Joe is still pissed with Adi but he is restrained by Debbie from going even though he softened. Anyways so starts the reunion.

Joe too meets up with the others n Adi who initially doesn’t accept that he still loves his music tows the line too. “Magik” practices n competes again at the Channel [V] competition. Music is simply entertaining all through the movie.

Is definetly a must watch !

Just imagine ! no only imagine

Njoy another of Green’s

The other day at office we were on our way to the cafeteria for lunch. We took the elevator on the 5th floor. Slowly, the elevator descended to the 4th floor. There was a little jerk and the elevator stopped just short of the floor level. Some of our colleagues got in. Green said Ah! Why is this happening; somebody mentioned overloading which didn’t impress Green. He had ideas not of the ordinary : there is some Hysterisis in the control element ! Ram said “What if the elevator crashed ?” Green went Ummm … Ummm…. Ram’s reply sent Green himself into a tizzy. Ram said : Just imagine ! Do not tell me anything I only told you to imagine !

The Dancing Lily

Strolling in the park,
A white beauty saw I;
Its hue unparalleled;
Emanating radiance, shining out
Banishing even the glow of the moon
Into a shadow. Behold,
Honey suckling music,coyly
Creeped up my ears. Standing
Tall, strongly on greeny legs
Moving in tiny rippling movements
As if expressing, peace
Engulfing the hearts of all,around.
Golden sparks blew the sky azure,
Then, this multifaceted being,
Braving the world like
A Tiger ,spread out its
Fine claws. Be it
Dawn or dusk,
This dancing Lily,
Fills your heart with calm and peace.

In inimitable Laloo style

Live in parliament ! The railway budget of the Indian Government …. Njoy J

Dolphin play at sea

Watch for a tiny dolphin do a jump into the sea

It was truly breathtaking to watch this with my eyes.

On Parallel bars

Watch the video … competition at its best

Food for thought … Coffee or Oil whats costlier ?

There’s nothing like coffee to start one’s day or to keep off sleep, but 1 cup of coffee could burn a hole bigger than what crude oil can do.

The analysis is as follows : a cup of Barista Coffee costs Rs57 so a barrel of it works out to Rs 22,230. This is almost four times the price of one barrel of crude oil .

A barrel is approximately 117 litres. Now, taking crude at $140 per barrel and one dollar at Rs 40 it comes to Rs 5,680.

And how much does a barrel of Kingfisher beer cost? Well, it works out to Rs 10,179.

Not sure if we really look at it this way when we have a coffee !!!

I also think so ….

Here we go I am introducing a real character with a comic strip name Green.

There were training sessions organised for a large group of ppl. These sessions were weekly Thursday sessions.
One Thursday was a May 1st holiday. So, the organiser sent out a mail asking ppl when it would be convinient to reschedule that particular session, whether the May2 Friday was fine.
Now, this was the ensuing mail train which culminated in Green coming on top.

X does a reply-all to mail : Both Thursday and Friday are not good options as I will be on leave.
Y replies : Yes, the session should probably be cancelled for this week.
organiser’s reply : All, please do not do a reply-all to the mail. Send your reply directing it to me only.
Z does another reply-all : I think everybody will be off on Friday too, so thats not a good option.
Bang comes another reply!!!
frustrated organiser pleads everyone not to do a reply-all again and clutter the mail boxes.
At around the same time Y does a reply-all : Please do not do a reply all.

Enters our hero, not wanting to miss the fun or something !!

Green : Reply-all : I also think so (in reply to Y’s mail)