31 October, 2004

Time Travel

Today we will calculate time difference between Pune and Kolkata using longitude information. We will also try to calculate the approximate distance based on longitude and lattitude.


LattitudeLongitude
Kolkata22 30' N88 20' E
Pune18 34' N73 58' E



Difference in the Longitude = 88 20 E - 73 58 E = 14 22' ~= 14.37 degrees.

1 degree of Longitude = 4 Minutes (of your wristwatch)
14.37 d = 14.37 * 4 = 57.48 Minutes

Conclusion I am 1 Hr ahead in time :-) In Kolkata it gets dark at 5.30 PM.

Nows lets try distance d between Pune and Kolkata.

1 degree of Longitude = 111 Kms on equator.

The line joining Pune to Kolkata is no equator, so we have consider lattitude. We will take the average of lattitudes at two places i.e. 20.

d = 111 * cos(20) * 14.37 (Kms)
= 104.3 * 14.37 (Kms)
= 1498.87 (Kms)

The train ticket shows distance as 2020 Kms which makes sense because 'd' is straight line distance.

30 October, 2004

Durga Puja

Durga Puja

Here in Kolkata Durga Puja festival was celebrated during 20-22 October.

Durga idols, decorations, pandals (marquee), social gatherings, music, dance, people wearing newly bought saries and kurtas, crowded jewelry shops, lights, sweets, colors, artists entertaining people with their art, it was awesome.

Till I own a digital camera I have to point you to outside source for photos.

Artists from Orissa

My search for social gatherings lead me to Eastern Zonal Cultural Center. Drama (with music) displaying fight between goddess Durga and daemon was performed. Dance of goddess Durga's Lion was fun to watch, imitation the movements of a lion. In the climax goddess Durga kills the daemon (Idols in the pandals depict this moment).
In next show Boys dressed like girls perform a danceform involving acrobatics.

Manipuri Dancers

"Since the creation of the universe from the dark, man (human being) is the only one gifted with 'rational thought process', using which he has become superior species."

"But as it is gifted, it suffers from a negative instincts like lust, obsession, greed, hate, arrogrance, jealousy"

Dancers perform to describe stories involving some of negative aspects and consequences.
I really like the part where dancers describe people of kalinga and its defeat to Emperor Ashoka.

After the show, I met one of the dancers and took her autograph. I also bought a wooden flute from local artists, he taught me to play sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni-sa.

My Employer

SkyTech Solutions



Saltlake City Map

TODO: Add a svg map of salk lake here.

27 September, 2004

Pune Festival 2004





I attended musical nite by Shankar Mahadevan, great music, awesome crowd. Near the end, he invites children to stage for dance, imagine 50-60 chirdren dancing to popolar tracks.

21 September, 2004

Secunderabad

I was in Secunderabad on 17th for an interview.
Next day did some sight-seeing, got copy of Channel 6 September issue, visited Birla Mandir and Museum.
Lake Hussain Sagar is beutiful.

04 July, 2004

Pencil Drawing Of A Girl


A Beutiful Girl

Saw a nice photo in local newspaper, and thought of drawing her picture in my math notebook.
May be I should take some drawing classes, I like to draw with pencil.

27 June, 2004

Feynman

"What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character" by Richard P Feynman

Luckily found the book in a book-shop. More anecdotes. Challenger experiences are must read for engineers and managers.

25 May, 2004

Fish Fingers

Mr.Monsoon seems to be arrived in Bangalore. Sunny days after heavy rain are pleasant.

We had dinner at 'The Rice Bowl'. The food is really great. We had fish fingers, prawn and chinese noodles.

Picked up collected fiction by Ruskin Bond. Reminds me of short stories by Anton Chekov.

Robert Love's book is a pleasant read.

Processor is doing one of the following things at any given time
- Process context
- User space program
- Process less interrupt handling

But when scheduler runs? Who preempts a process?
Got to dig some more.

16 May, 2004

Its Raining

Afterall I did not have to wait for The Monsoon. Its raining heavily in here in Pune. Its more like a thunderstorm, its wet everywhere, roads are flooded with water (they forgot to the sanitation part of roads). Power has vanished so that people like me are made to come out of their home and blog :)

I am re-thinking my plans to greet Monsoon in Trivandrum in June.

19 April, 2004

Mangalore Is Beutiful A Place

I spent couple of days in Mangalore and I liked it a
lot. Located on wester coast of Karnataka, city has
areas like Lady Hill, Blue Berry Hill, Lighting House
Hill, get the idea.

Its temples, churches are divine.

I had some work at technology park.
http://www.stpmgl.soft.net/index.html

------
Books : Chasing the Monsoon By Alex Frater

On its 3rd chapter, great travelogue .

------

Monalisa Smile, 50FirstDates, Fun movies , a biased
Drew and Julia Fan :-)

05 April, 2004

Technology Parks In India

Department of IT is doing good work. Technology parks provide basic facilities for s/w development and services companies.

STPI Pune
STPI Bangalore
STPI Mangalore
STPI 1
STPI 2

01 February, 2004

IMTEX and Free Internet Access

I am at IMTEX, Mumbai.
I just visited 1/5 of stalls and my feet are hurting.
Its a huge exibition, with mind blowing crowd.

Absolutely amazing machine tools from Indian
companies, many of them in collaboration with German,
US, and Japanese companies.

I never had an idea than Indian companies are in
manufacturing of different types machines tools.
Lot of electronics components are from US/Japanese
companies though. (example: Siemens control boards on
CNCs).

Surely there got to be some truth in this slashdot
story:

India Becoming a Major Hub for Western Job Seekers

Last thing I expeted here was free (gratis) internet
access at decent bandwindth. :-)