Troika - A Goom Bay

 

 

As part of fulfilling my vows to the nature god I had planned my third pilgrimage trip (2012) to the Agumbe rainforest to be in the company of the members of the rainforest dynasty.

2012

http://www.wow-wonderworks.blogspot.in/2013/04/troika-goom-bay.html

 

 

 

The previous pilgrimages have been chronicled here.

2011 - Rendezvous recurs http://www.wow-wonderworks.blogspot.in/2010/09/agumbe-rainforest-expedition.html

2010 - Introduced to Agumbe http://www.wow-wonderworks.blogspot.in/2011/09/agumbe-rainforest-rendezvous-recurs-ii.html

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The story of a butterfly!

 

 

Once a little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He carefully picked it up and took it home to show his mother. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and she said he could if he would take good care of it.
 
The little boy got a large jar from his mother and put plants to eat, and a stick to climb on, in the jar. Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat.
 
One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely. The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon. The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly.
 
The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through. He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.
 
At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn’t break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress!
 
The boy was so concerned he decided to help. He ran to get scissors, and then walked back (because he had learned not to run with scissors…). He snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!
 
As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly’s wings would expand.
 
            But neither happened!
 
The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
 
It never was able to fly…
 
As the boy tried to figure out what had gone wrong his mother took him to talk to a scientist from a local college. He learned that the butterfly was SUPPOSED to struggle. In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly. The boy’s good intentions hurt the butterfly.
 
 

Photographs | Source

Pelican–Drinking Water

Treachery Gadgetry

Gadgets continue to Amaze- I type this note with one hand as I use the other to scratch my head in despair, the despair and confusion being do I post this article from my mobile phone or tablet or laptop.

Lets move to few common appliances Computers, Cell Phones, Cameras.

Before I could understand each of these processors they outgrew themselves P1 - PII - PIII - PIV - Celeron - Centrino - Mobile - Core 2 Duo - i3 - i5 -i7

Before I could understand each of these cell phone operating systems they changed with every change in weather patterns Samsung OS - Java OS - Symbian - Android (and yes apple OS which I have not used extensively)

Before I could understand each of these camera configurations they changed with high ferocity VGA - SVGA - 1.1 MP - 3.1 ..... 41 MP (Nokia Mobile phone)

 

Lifecycle of few gadgets that I have owned and how their value has degraded over the years

1) My first computer HCL Busy Bee - had a 2 GB hard disk with a few MB RAM sprinkled (16 or 32 MB or possibly KB) and yes had a floppy drive. (but still NFS 2 used to work) -

Year: 1997 – 2000

Cost: 32K INR

Finally: Scrapped

2) My first cell phone - Nokia (handed over from my dad) was bought during the cell phone introduction era 1995 - a big huge brick with an antenna and fluorescent glowing buttons.

(call charges in 2001 incoming 8 RS, outgoing 16 RS | at one point it was a landline, will work only when connected to the charger | one dealer in Parrys Corner even suggested to give to kids to play with Grrrr!)

Year: 1995 – 2002

Cost: 16.5K INR

Finally: 300 INR

3) My first camera - Canon IXUS : The camera with which I completed all the cliches : shot my first clouds from the aircraft, shot every single flower in sight, shot every single drop of water that dared to drop – I was known as a terror behind the lens. That had a 200 MB card.

Year: 2000 – 2003

Cost: 11K INR

Finally: Scrapped / Trashed

4) My first Laptop - Thinkpad Laptop from IBM - The thinkpad series was an rage around 2005 but eventually that faded away. That era for me ended yesterday, sold the IBM thinkpad R51. I guess while buying the laptop I had equal interest in the carry case and might have bothered the dealer enough.

Year: 2006 – 2012

Cost: 45K INR

Finally: 2k INR

 

 

Signing off I need to get on cnet to review which gadget to buy next

 

Monish

 

Disclaimer : Yes pictures used in this blog haven’t been exposed to drugs, improper handling and rough usage and are owned by their respective owner… yeah right!!!

[Featured] IIMB Alumni Summer Magazine–June 2012

 

A photo feature of mine has appeared in the IIMB Alumni Summer Magazine–June 2012 edition. Feels great

Please do read through and share your feedback

1) The core – Photo Feature Article

2) Few more photographs have been used for other articles

3) NIRAM – details of the Photography Exhibition where I participated is also present.

 

Google Drive – PDF View

 

Online Magazine Viewer – Flip Mode

Open publication

 

Links that can be used to access / read / download the PDF

http://issuu.com/iimb/docs/iimb_alumni_magazine_summer_2012/35

http://www.iimbaa.org/IIMBAA/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=226&Itemid=55

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5tFapIDbb_geW0teVljOVQ4WnM 

http://www.iimbaa.org/IIMBAA/Magazine/IIMB_Alumni_Magzine_Summer_12.pdf

Monish

What Happens in 60 Seconds?

Gone in 60 seconds….

My application - a Sabre Product does about 1000 Transactions per minute during peak, ain't I proud?

Picture Courtesy - ET Newspaper

Project Make Kindle Fire Work

Project Make Kindle Fire Work

 

Kindle Fire with its awesome display, great processor, super form factor, light weight and above all a 200 $ price tag makes a worthy buy.

While it works out of the box in the US, it needs several hacks to work outside the US.

Configuring the tablet to install apps from the android market need little more than an amazon account and the tablet itself.

 

 

1) Create an Amazon account and provide a US Address.

2) Next even for free apps it needs the 1 click setting to be setup with a US credit card. Google for Paypal Test Credit Cards and add that value.

Check if you are able to use the market to download apps.

IF NOT

3) Go to WIFI advanced settings and enable international channels.

For some at this point it should start working

IF NOT

4) Go to settings and enable the install from untrusted sources.

5) Open the Silk browser and search for Astro App and you will find an link, download and click install, Astro Explorer should install correctly. [If this doesn't install or work you might have to download Amazon Market Place and install the cracked version]

6) Now after the App is installed, you can continue to search for Apps example search for Angry Birds Apk Download and you will get the APK file. Either download via a link or via an email  or via a USB cable. Locate the APK via Astro Explorer and install the same.

7) For Kindle free books, download the .mobi files from http://freekindlebooks.org/ and http://www.gutenberg.org/ and copy to the books folder under the root folder.

8) Now restart the phone and you will be able to see the e books under the doc menu and the books will render with the kindle player which is installed.

9) For magazine subscriptions such as Readers Digest Zinio app is highly suggested.

10) Another tip - flash needs to be turned on the silk browser, it is switched off by default.

So what did Amazon get wrong, well to start off, they decided not a include a few dollars worth component known as the MIC due to which none of the VOIP apps work today. Workaround all new VOIP apps might support the mic on headphones. Shameful. No cable to connect the tablet to a computer.

Overall a superb device.

 

Any other tips please share your comments.

Exhibition & Sale @ IIMB

Calendar 2012

2012 has ended, it has been a great year, managed to get some cool sightings and photographs on the herpetology front, my first tiger sighting at 8 – 10 feet away from me, a big getty sale and the new year promises a lot. A collection of my best photographs from 2011 have made it into a calendar for 2012. If you want to buy a copy at printing cost please drop me a mail or a tweet or call me.

 

Calendar 2012

 

 

Wish you a Happy & Prosperous New Year 2012

 

Cheers,

Monish

New Year 2012

 

 

The story of the Christmas Plum Cake & the XMas Tree

One of the last few posts of 2011.

 

The story of the Christmas Plum Cake & the XMas Tree. The Christmas Plum Cake is a.k.a Christmas Rum Cake as I love it overflowing with rum, something on the lines of the liquor filled chocolates.

A Photo Essay on the making of a Christmas Plum Cake and the XMas Tree.

 

Few sample photographs here – the entire story / photo essay here -

http://www.wow-wonderworks.blogspot.com/2011/12/story-of-christmas-plum-cake-xmas-tree.html

 

 

 

The entire story / photo essay here -

http://www.wow-wonderworks.blogspot.com/2011/12/story-of-christmas-plum-cake-xmas-tree.html

Bangalore Ration Card Online Registration

Bangalore government has launched the online registration (subject to verification and approval later) for ration cards, it was launched today (my guess).

 

If you have a ration card, it will help

Ø To obtain a LPG gas connection from the government vendors.

Ø As a Address proof

 

Process

1) Go to http://ahara.kar.nic.in/ and click on the ‘Click here to apply for new ration card’

2) A 3-4 page form opens up, try filling it up using IE, even if you choose English some fields are in Kannada, use the translate to English feature in Chrome.

3) Some drop downs in Kannada don’t get translated even after using the Chrome feature, for them use http://translate.google.com/ and finally submit it and you can save the acknowledgement that gets generated at the end.

Let’s get the early mover advantage.

Hope it helps.

Monish

 

 

ps: Copyright of the pictures belong to the respective owners / websites