Gmail-video response-spam filter

The gmail team has started a behind the scenes video to help them imagine how an email message travels around the world.

I made a very small response with a rather glitchy video. It shows the M-velope being thrown into a filter along with other spam mail. The M-velope then emerges from the filter and moves on. may be i should have taken a print out of the Mvelope and made a real movie!!


Any way this is supposed to show the wonderful spam filtering capacity of Gmail.

Alternative to vehicle horns

We had been given an assignment to suggest methods to reduce pollution. (It was in my 10th grade) The easier (easier to write) ones such as air, water etc.. were already taken. So we ended up with sound pollution.

As Wikipedia will tell you

Roadway noise is the most widespread environmental component of noise pollution worldwide.

Among the various suggestions our group came up with, was an alternative to vehicle horns (which is a major part of roadway noise in India). Rather than using loud horns, a radio horn was to be used. The radio horn was rather simple in design. The horn emitted a signal with the exact location of the vehicle (obtained by GPS-Global Positioning System) along with the exact time with an accuracy of a Milli-second.

All the vehicles will have to carry a radio receiver which will catch these radio waves, and after comparing it with the location of the vehicle and the time , it would decide if that horn was meant for it. (A computer program or still better a IC will do it in real time) As soon as the radio set learn t that it was being honked, it would produce some kind of warning which either involved a blinking light on the dashboard or a horn of much lower magnitude to be heard only within the vehicle that received the honk.

And this became a rather controversial suggestion in the report, the main arguments against it were-

1. What about human beings and stray cattle on the road-they cant have radio receivers! we are talking about INDIA
2. The economic viability of having all this high tech stuff installed. (A legislation ought to solve this problem and the cost should come down drastically when mass produced)

We never thought of implementing it, so we never discovered its practicality. However, it would be great to see it tested.

The red whiskered bulbul eggs hatch

The red whiskered bulbul that had laid eggs in the garden has now given birth to 3 young bulbuls. The three beaks can be seen as orange colored streaks.

The parent bird keeps guard on the nest as the eggs are about to hatch. Even after the eggs hatch, the nest is protected.



The next picture shows the red whiskered bulbul bringing food for the young birds. The food is generally small insects like grass hoppers and other worms that are found in the surrounding garden.

Generally one of the bird keeps watch on the nest, but sometimes both birds fly off in search of food.







The birds have become rather accustomed to humans and are easy to photograph. The birds have grown in size within a few days. I have to wait and see when they will learn to fly and fly away.

The power of Camouflage

The use of protective coloration to ward of enemies is known as camouflaging. This is used by the modern day armies.

The technique is inspired by nature. In this picture if you look more closely, at the middle, a green circle can be seen. This is the place where a bird is sitting. You can make out the bird clearly by magnifying the image. The color is the same as the surrounding terrain of stones and earth.

I would not have spotted the bird if it were not flying or rather hopping.

Is our head strong enough?

This is a good helmet awareness advertisement. The Rhino head followed by "Unfortunately, Your head is not strong enough. Wear a helmet"

But still we argue about the merits and demerits of wearing a helmet.And since blogger team has started a Poll feature on blogger, i just added a poll to see what U think?

Its indeed wonderful that the blogger team is coming up with such useful features. It would be great if we could customise the polling feature to our hearts content, they could allow access similar to Lazybase. But again, they may have spamming concerns.

Bramhakamla or night queen in the garden

The Bramha kamala or night queen blooms at night. It is a fragrant flower that generally fades by the morning.

It was my first attempt at night photography, so i should say it is rather ok.

This time only two of these flowers bloomed in the garden. Generally the Bramhakamala is found in larger groups.

Rolls Royce at SJCE

As part of its advertising strategy the mobile store was visiting SJCE Mysore. However, we did not get a ride as was suggested when the 'Rock with the Rolls' campaign was launched.
Its not that a Rolls Royce rolls into SJCE. So the marketing ruse of the mobile store seems to have worked at least enough to be mentioned on this blog.The Rolls Royce was once the symbol of wealth, but it also makes good advertising sense.

The Dash board

The rolls royce emblem

The rear of the rolls royce with the mobile store advertisement.

With attention to detail-the wheel