December 7, 2009

Phone Cam 365

In this competitive world, its good to know what your peers are up to. Since I am blogging, I am curious about what other bloggers do. I love to visit various blogs and found some really cool ones. That's when I came up with an idea to start a new section on my blog, where I could review (or rather talk about) other blogs. I labeled it 'Blog Eye' (For other labels on my blog posts, check out the label section on the right side).

Most of the blogs that I visited were dedicated to photography (either professional or casual). One of those was 'Phone Cam 365'. It was simple, straightforward and impressive. The rules listed are as follows:
1. Post one, and only one, photo every day.
2. The same phone camera must be used for all shots.

So everyday (7 days/week), they post a photo taken from the same phone camera (simple huh?). The title of the post is always the date and the labels/location add details about the photo (straightforward...). When u look at the photo shots, some really have the professional touch... can't believe it was taken from a phone camera (impressive!)

Well, this is the address to the blog,
http://phonecam365.blogspot.com

and my personal favorites are
Remains of a train (2009-12-04)
Up (2009-12-01)
Recycled cycle (2009-07-29)
Reflection (2009-03-30)
Twilight zone (2009-10-19)
Splash (2009-08-10)

Saving the best for the last, you can also find the location of the photos posted on the blog, thanks to Google Maps.

November 23, 2009

Doomsday 2012

2012 has become a fad now. Everyone wants to make money out of it. From the websites, television programs to the recently released movie - all target the same message: stop planning for future and start living for today! So what is really going to happen on December 21st, 2012?

Well the Mayan (Long Count) calendar ends at that date. So what? Lets reset it! Well that's what we do for Georgian calendar. After Dec 31st, we go back to Jan 1st. But if u ponder a bit more, the long count calendar takes the format 0.0.0.0.0 more precisely,

Baktun.Katun.Tun.Uinal.Kin

where,
Kin, Tun and Katun ranges from 0 to 19
Uinal ranges from 0 to 17
Baktun ranges from 0 to 12

so if :
0.0.0.0.1 - 1 Kin = 1 day
0.0.0.1.0 - 1 Uinal = 20 Kins = 20 days
0.0.1.0.0 - 1 Tun = 18 Uinals = 360 days (20*18)
0.1.0.0.0 - 1 Katun = 20 Tuns = 7200 days (20*18*20)
1.0.0.0.0 - 1 Baktun = 20 Katuns = 144000 days (20*18*20*20) --- I should definitely thank all my Math teachers at this time!

As per modern day calculations, the Mayan calendar date 0.0.0.0.0 is considered as August 11, 3114 BC (Gregorian). So 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, followed by the start of the fourteenth Baktun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012. But according to the Mayan Long Count Calendar, the Baktun ranges only from 0 to 12, so 13.0.0.0.0 will be the end of the old OR beginning of the new OR whatever! Time and time again, its good to realize that ignorance is bliss!

Apart from the Mayan calendar, there are quite a number of predictions about the doomsday:
1) Galactic alignment and Black hole alignment
2) Mysterious Planet X (Nibiru) entering our solar system (we have a visitor!)
3) Geomagnetic reversal (I especially like this, because when this happens, our compass would point to Antarctica!)
4) Polar shift (This is equally amazing, since Earth would start rotating on the opposite side)

Having said all this, are we really reaching the end of the world? How do I know? Lets witness it ourselves. Be optimistic and I do believe nothing catastrophic is going to happen in 2012. There is even a Facebook page 'Shut up, The World Won't End in 2012' with more than 2 million fans. Again, what is the fun in knowing the future?

May 28, 2009

Time Capsule

Time capsule is a snapshot of information pertaining to a specific time. It is a way of communication with the future generation. The dinosaur fossils are a good example of an unintentional (natural) time capsule, without which, we wouldn't even know the existence of those huge species. Only intentional (man made) time capsules are going to be discussed here and they are a wide range. From creating a physical object (like an artifact) and burying it into the earth, to injecting digital information into the space, humans are constantly thinking of new ways. Let me share with you, what I think is the most complex and simple form of intentional (artificial) time capsules.

COMPLEX:
Where else to store the data, than within ourselves. Yup! Researchers have discovered a system to encode digital information within a DNA. The human genome has approximately 750 megabytes of data (You can easily fit in your iPod!). But only 3% of the DNA goes into composing the 22,000 genes that make us what we are. The remaining 97% leaves more than enough space to encode information in a DNA. In future, we may store every person's life information (and the other data that he wants to store) in his own DNA and find techniques to preserve the information from mutation. After a million years, when humans are mutated to super humans, one can still decode the information from the DNA and witness a life and world existed in 2009! Seems scary now, but you would never know, it might be possible in a century or two.

SIMPLE:
Now to a more simplistic, imaginable and a realistic time capsule. Don't search for it anywhere, you are looking at it. Yes, it is the blog. Blogs are the easy way to capture the imagination, feeling and expression of millions of people around the world. They act as a time capsule for anyone and everyone. At present they are used for mining and in future they could be archived for reference. May be, I would find it strange/funny/interesting to read my blog, ten years from now. That is the simplest form of time capsule, just a few clicks away.