Tsunami or Nuclear Blast

No doubt many of us have come across an email circulated around suggesting that the December 26 2004 tsunami was not a natural disaster, but a man-made one. This email suggested that the US of A (and other partners) were responsible for causing a nuclear blast at the bottom of the ocean and that is what caused the tsunami.

I decided to google and find out if there was any information about the source of this email. After a couple of false starts, I traced the article to the this link. It seemed to be authentic and it has got a copyright notice also; the article is claimed to be authored by one Joe Vialls. The main page of the site is, of course, http://www.vialls.com/ .

As one tries to figure out what is going out on the above site, one comes across the following related links to the tsunami:

• http://www.vialls.com/subliminalsuggestion/tsunami2.html

• http://www.joevialls.net/sumatra/earthquake.html (This link has details of another earthquake in Sumatra that occurred in March 2005 and was about 8.7 on the Richter scale and still did not cause a tsunami. Conclusion by Vialls: The December one was caused by a nuclear blast.)
  

This Joe Vialls calls himself a "private investigator". It seems he resides in Australia and is a "veteran". He also asks for funds to keep the site running.

Whether the information is true or not, one can probably never verify.

On a slightly related note:
Some time ago (around 1997), I became interested in another set of articles by a person named "Bob Lazar". The site was http://www.boblazar.com/, but that site has currently nothing (just an "under construction" page). This guy claimed to have been working at Area 51, which is a highly classified zone near Las Vegas and over which no aircraft can fly. He claimed that he was taken there and he found that the US scientists were working on an anti-matter aircraft (saucer) and this was being done by colloborating with some "aliens".
He even decribed how they looked.

It was later suggested by some people that his "stories" had a lot of flaws in it and were all lies. There is more at UFO Mind, if you are interested.

Google Holiday Logos

Everyone likes those "holiday logos" that keep changing as per the holiday on the Google site. This link
contains a list of all the logos done so far. Links at the bottom of the page show the logos for the past years upto the year 1999 (2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000 and 1999).

A US-born Korean artist by the name of Dennis Hwang creates those logos as outlined in this article.

Flying in a bad dream

Joe Satriani , guitar-god, was invited to Mumbai in the May of 2005. Some articles published prior to the concert in Mumbai, introduced him as the "guru" of disciples of other guitar legends like Steve Vai and Slash (of Guns N Roses). As a result, a lot of "head-bangers" (with long hair) turned up at the concert. They were disappointed for Joe is not a "metal rocker", only a cool wizard.

An article (special presentation) on rediff.com spelt out the complete mockery Mumbai made out of Joe.

As an aside, Joe plays exclusive Ibanez guitars and has even designed the "JS" series. I always wanted to own one of these, but ended up with only a "Fender Squire Strat" (similar to the standard Strat), a handcrafted Yamaha LL-11 and a cheap Indian imitation of Gibson (called Givson).

H1D...a 22MP digital camera

An old post...just for the record (dated: 2004) [will adjust the date later]

Just when you thought that Canon was leading with a 17 megapixel digitial SLR, it turns out that Hasselblad is way ahead with its 22 megapixel camera. (It was reported that a normal film camera has a resoultion comaprable to a 30 megapixel digital camera --- so the digital world is catching up quickly with the film world). The size of each image is about 130 MB and hence, the camera has a build-in hard-disk of about 60 GB.

The price is, of course, truly Hasselbladistic with the H1D costing USD 22,000. That makes it USD 1, 000 per megapixel.

Details are here and here.

For those who are "out-of-touch" or "no touch at all" with the subject, Hasselblad's cameras were the first ones to visit the space. Most Apollo-mission photographs, including the ones of the earth from space and the landing on the moon, used Hasselblad's early cameras. Hasselblad is a Swedish company with a very unique camera design. Their cameras are usually "modular" in design and one can change just about any module (without buying a totally new camera). For example, those who owned film cameras simply need to buy a digital back and fit onto the same camera to get a digital camera.

A "normal" SLR film Hasselblad camera is supposed to cost around Rs. 600,000 (something which I could not verify). Among the very few Mumbaikars that own Hasselblad cameras are Lata Mangeshkar (owner of a gold-plated Hasselblad) and Raj Thackeray.

If you take a look at the Gallery section on the Hasselblad website or Tim Flach's photography, you know that we are not talking about people who want to photograph their aunts, uncles, pets and anything else that they can fit in the frame, but for people who photograph for a living.

Begging in Mumbai

This old (2004) article in the Mid-Day confirms my thoughts. The beggar mentioned in the article earns upto Rs. 1000 per day, has a flat in Virar which he has rented out, has a bank account and has a plot of land in Solapur.

If you consider that the income is non-taxable, it is also very lucrative. Of course, the guy has to put in a lot of hardships (standing out in the hot sun or rain), apart from having a "beggar" tag attached.

Sometime ago I had noticed that these people seemed to have some kind of a hierarchical setup and were quite organized. It seemed to me that the traffic signals (probably the most valued spot for beggars) were assigned to appropriate people. In the morning, I would see a group of beggars arriving in rickshaw and one of them (a female) seemed to be assigning people to the "spots" where each would beg. Later, the female beggar would drive away to another spot.

Another aticle in the not so recent past stated that beggars "gift" begging "spots" as dowry for their daughter's marriages to the groom beggar.

Old Post : One gem of an experience

An old post...just for the record (dated: 29-June-2004) [will adjust the date later]

On the occasion of Aashada Ekadashi 2004, there was a concert of Marathi Abhangs (called "Santvaani"). It was held yesterday (29th June 2004) at Shanmukhananda Hall and was house-full (to the extent that some people were made to sit on plastic chairs in the aisles). It was not only well-attended, but also well-compered.

Panditji sang a total of 9 devotional songs (abhangs) (7 Marathi + 1 Kannada + 1 Hindi) for a concert that started at about 7:20 p.m. and went on till about 11 p.m.

Compering was by Jayantrao Salgaonkar (of Kalnirnay fame) and was filled with anecdotes and humorous jabs (needless to say, it was pro-Maharashtra).

All in all, a concert worth remembering and full paisa wasool.

Songs that were performed:

1. Jai Jai Ram Krishna Hari
2. Roop Pahata Lochani
3. Pandhari Nivaasa Sakhya Panduranga
4. Maazhe Maher Pandhari
5. Indraayani Kaathi
6. Soubhagya Lakshmi (Kannada)
7. Kanhoba Tuzhi Ghondahali Zaali
8. Teertha Vitthal, Kshetra Vitthal
9. Jo Hari Ko Bhaje (Hindi)

Rhymes of crimes

Nursery rhymes have remained the same ever since I learnt them 30 years ago. In India, this is probably one of the many things inherited from the British education system. Over the past few years, I wondered if some of these rhymes propogated cruelty to animals/people. Some examples:

• "Piggy on the Railway line" - there's an incident of a pig being run over by a train and then the driver shows his apathy towards the incident by saying "I don't care"
  
• "Ding Dong Bell" - some guy called "Little Tommy Thin" tries to drown a cat by dropping it into a well
  
• "Goosey Goosey Gander" - a goose catches an old man and throws him down the stairs ("Caught him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs"
  
• "Sing a song of six pence" - some 24 blackbirds get baked in a pie ("Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie")

There might be many others as well. Some other material that could be a cause for objection include calling black people as "niggers" and ridicule of physically-challenged human beings.

Reading of the things that get banned or changed in the United States of America, these rhymes would certainly have been "banned" from the kids' books. Wonder why no one has thought of it in India until now.

SPCA and / or Maneka Gandhi, please take note.

Been there, done that, got caught

This weekend I went to Panvel, saw a nice diesel loco (ERS shed), photographed it from close quarters, got caught by security.
I had to wriggle my way out.

End result = Deletion of photographs from the camera.

When I reached Panvel (PNVL), I saw a WDM2A hauled long-distance train on one of the platforms. I was quite excited with the prospect of photographing it and hurried to reach the loco.

It turned out to be the late-running TVC-NZM (Trivandrum-Hazrat Nizamuddin) express headed by a ERS (Ernakulam) WDM2A loco.

I got reasonably good shots of the loco.
It was probably over enthusiasm to shoot the logo in the front of the loco that got me nailed (a very funny logo for a loco shed - a boat with a sail ---- compare that to the "deer in flight" logo of the Erode (ED) shed).

The security (probably RPF or GRP) said something about taking me to see the "officer", etc. I noticed he had a batch with a "Marathi-sounding" name and started to converse in Marathi. Of course, the first thing he asked me was whether I was a Maharashtrian and which was my native place. (This is a very common dialogue that one hears when conversing with Marathi-speaking people "Tumcha gaon kutla aahe").

After pleading and deleting the photos, he just took down my name and some identification from the company Icard (the only identity I had) and then let me off.

Unlucky enough for me and my entire trip a big waste.