The Ramar Setu is described in MSN Encarta as a group of islands connecting the Indian subcontinent and the Island of Sri Lanka.

The Ramar Setu has recently become a subject of argument and debate. Ships transporting cargo between the East Coast and the West Coast have to go around the island of Sri Lanka in the present day scenario. The Goverment of India apparently wanted to create a shorter route for these ships and make way by clearing this island cluster and deepening the straits.

The primary reason this is of interest to me is that this is a beautiful structure at least from the satellite imagery on google maps, only the Gods, so to speak have the imagination to build some thing of this scale and beauty.

Here are some reasons why this is interesting to me,

- Shipping as a mode of transportation is under-developed/under-utilized in India, Railways is the big kahuna for cargo transportation in this continent. This is only empirical, you can post some numbers in the comments section if you want to. This project will be a boost for shipping.

- The Indian sub continent has a vast coast line. Universities specialising in Marine Biology and Marine biologists are as rare as Indian olympic athletes in a country of over a billion people. Do you have a friend who went to university and studied marine biology? Probably not.

Marine biology and the beautiful tropical waters of this area may get some attention, at least one hopes that they will.

- The Archaeological Society of India (poor suckers -I pity them – I wonder what they think/say to each other every day they walk into work.). They may have to do some real work and “dig” up some convincing evidence.

- The party in power (DMK) that desperately wants to build this canal and dredge the straits, was born out of a social revolution movement and was based on the ethos of an “individual’s self respect”, “power of reasoning”. In essence , these were advocates of the “power of reasoning” over superstitions and blind faith. If your question to them is, Was ramar sethu built by Rama a mythological character in the Indian epic Ramayana and God to many present day faithful devotees? You pretty much have your answer.

Above all this is a classic Faith vs Science debate. Strangely and in a funny way, these kinds of debates rarely happen in India. This is a one of a kind.

If you were googling for Ramar Sethu and ended up seeing this video you have probably noticed the many flaws in the arguments and argument construction.

Ironically, this guy calls himself a scientist and proposes to protect the ramar setu as a monument of ancient heritage, funny.

As for me, I am content answering more trivial questions like who built the San Francisco Golden Gate bridge or the Brooklyn Bridge.

Vanakkam! until next time…

Now that Rafa Nadal is out of the US Open 2007, Is there anyone to challenge Roger Federer ?

Yes. The world #3 Novak Djokovic.

Here’s my prediction. If (see the big If on the title) Novak Djokovic makes it to the final for a showdown with Roger Federer then Djokovic will win.

Why?

Djokovic has,
super high consistency, a syrupy consistency that’s like cream.
moves very well on the court.
power packed shots.
above all he doesn’t loose his nerves or get intimidated.

Remember he has already beaten Federer this year in the US Open Master’s series, earlier this summer.

Well, what do you think? Leave your comments.

About four years back I started to take up the game of tennis a little bit more seriously. I was primarily playing on outdoor courts during the summer months with friends during that time.

When I started to look around for a more serious place to play tennis I couldn’t find a central place to get all the information that I wanted. So, I gathered most of the information about playing tennis in the Minneapolis/St Paul, MN area through my colleagues, friends and now tennis partners. My trusted friend google was not of much help here.

Here are a few tips that can be helpful to newcomers to tennis in the twin cities area, please feel free to share your own tips in the comments section of this post or via mail .

Where to play tennis in the twin cities [minneapolis/st paul] area?

My first choice is the Read-Sweatt Family Tennis Center formerly the Nicollet Tennis center. The seasonal leagues scheduled well, the indoor courts are well maintained, well lit and keeps you warm during the minnesota winter, parking is free and there are some great tennis pros to offer you tennis lessons at a reasonable price. I like this place.

If you are a member of Lifetime Fitness you can also take advantage of their tennis courts , indoor as well as outdoor during the warmer summer months, at St Louis Park and Bloomington.

Baseline Tennis Center, University of Minnesota. I have never played here but I have watched my friends play at the indoor courts. This is where the U of MN tennis team practices and the USTA league games are played here in the weekends.

Where to take beginner tennis lessons in the twin cities?

If you are an absolute beginner and you do not have a tennis partner, I suggest that you schedule a series of Group Lessons at least twice a week depending on how fast you want to improve the game and how much time/money you can afford. You can also take the private lessons if you can afford them. RSFTC is my favorite place for these lessons.

How to keep playing regularly?

Join a league. Most places offer league programs that let you play matches with other players rated at your own skill level. I like the leagues at RSFTC. Before you join a league, you have to get rated at a rating clinic conducted by RSFTC for a small fee.

Where to go for good tennis racquet/gear/equipment in the twin cities?

There are atleast a couple of tennis shops in the twin cities area. The one that I am familiar with is Michael Lynne’s Tennis Shop in St Louis Park. RSFTC also has its own little tennis shop. Both places have loaner racquets that you can try out before buying. Let me know if you know of other great tennis shops in the twin cities area, I am sure there are many others.

Where to go for stringing your racquets?

You can typically get your racquet strung at the place you buy it. Both Michael Lynne’s and RSFTC string the racquet for you, if you buy the strings from them. Or they can do it for you for a small fee if you have the strings.

I guess this should atleast get you started.

But there are probably many other questions that you have about playing tennis in the twin cities area. Please feel free to leave your questions/comments, I’ll try to answer them as best as I can or possibly someone will have a chance to see your question and answer it for you.

Good Luck and have fun playing tennis!

There is a great amount of media coverage about this bridge collapse but the pictures in this post present another view of the disaster.

Here are some pictures taken by some of my friends who live in the cedar avenue/riverside neighborhood.

I was on my way home driving the opposite way (west), from work when I heard about this disaster on the radio.

This disaster like any other sad event raises many questions, the question on my mind though is how newer technologies can be used to warn and prevent one off disasters and rare incidents like these, where invaluable human lives are lost?

Once again Google is right but unfortunately has to fight old bureaucratic companies, to do the right thing. It’s an open fact that Cisco and ATT have been in bed for a long time.

What this Red Herring story writer does not get is not only press time from Google (funny, a story published on the web with no timestamp, just a date ) but the fact that companies like ATT have indeed stymied innovation.

Case in point, well the internet, which was developed by government research funding to connect networks like ATT and MCI that did not talk to each other, very well, huh!

Executives at large telcos don’t care about innovations or changes and they rarely have passion for new technologies. But they do passionately pursue their bonus checks,options and benefits package, nothing wrong with that except that in order to do so they have to kill competition and maintain status quo, often times ruthlessly and by ANY means necessary.

An open access spectrum means a cell phone user can use any phone (device) on any wireless carrier. Have you ever wondered why you can’t use the same phone on a T-Mobile network and a Verizon network? The technology to use mobile phones, devices on any network is available but its a way of the phone companies to tie us down to their network.

If you ever get a chance to talk about open access, say yes to it … trust me that will open up the real competition and give us more cool stuff like the internet and bring us out of the dark ages.

I wanted to add some color to my room. Well, I am not much of a colors person and I am not an interior designer either! So I downloaded Seashore on my MacBook and created this picture.

I want to blow this up into a larger picture, frame it a hang it on my living room wall .

Do you think its worth it? Let me know what you think by adding your comments below.

St Louis Park, MN now has wireless broadband internet access, well almost.

Two weeks back they installed the wireless poles in my area, see the one closest to my house on the 16th street/Zarthan Ave intersection.

I called the 365×24x7 support line this morning only to be told that the service will not be available until mid-August

Another minor annoyance that I found out was that the professional installation was “mandatory”, the FAQ page says otherwise,

” Is There a Mandatory Professional Installation?

No. Professional installation is optional for all service levels. Most subscribers are able to install the gateway and start using ParkWiFi by following installation instructions provided when they receive the gateway. ”

Another 3 weeks does not seem too long a wait and I hope that its worth the wait !

Update: 29th November 2007 10:08 CST

It’s almost December 2007 and still no sign of a working city wide WiFi network. I guess I will have to wait for the yet to be announced Google & Co nationwide broadband service or may be a community based broadband network even.

I like this camera. I bought this camera a couple of weeks back ( last week of June 2007 ) from Walmart.com in preparation for my trip to the East Coast with my mom. A picture is worth a thousand words so take a look at the pictures here.

A short summary of what I liked and what I did not like about the Norcent DC-1020,

Likes

Dislikes

Tip: Get the starter bundle and the energizer battery charger from walmart its a good deal if you can get your hands on it.

Here is a quick run down of seven things (gems) that I liked about Sivaji – The Boss

- Classic Rajini ( saarukku tea bajji kondu vaada dai, Kaun Hai? Boss-da Kenai! )

- Shankar nuff said just pick his movie and you are sure to be entertained and inspired. [ some of the masterpieces he has created on the silver screen include Gentleman, Kaadhalan, Indian, Mudhalvan, Anniyan and of course Sivaji -The Boss]

- Art Direction for the song sequences, There are songs that you fast forward or shy and look the other way but if you take your eyes off the songs in this movie or even bat an eyelid you will miss a great experience. So enjoy the songs and feast on the elaborate sets, Hello Broadway are you taking notice!

- Music AR Rahman, I didn’t get the music at first. The lyrics were not helping either but the numbers slowly grew on me and I love all of the songs except the sad version of “Sahana/Sahara”.

- Costume, Doing costume for Rajini is a challenge and the costume designers have lived up to that challenge. The song “Style” features some amazing clothes on Rajini and Shreya the heroine. Of course the first song ballelakka features the signature Shankar style painted caricatures, dolls vaguely resembling traditional dance costumes and a dance crew whose faces you never see, running around the green country side.

What do you think?

- Camera (stunt scenes) Shankar introduced the The cool Bullet Time filming technique popularized by the Matrix in an earlier film. I loved the use of this technique in the stunt scenes. Of course, none other than Rajni would have looked as cool in those stunt scenes. Am I using cool a lot?

- Post Production

We all wanted to see a younger Rajini thanks to Prasad Labs, this was made possible through their patient digital enhancements.

If you are not a Rajini fan or if you are not even from the sub-continent you will still enjoy this world classic. You should run to the local Indian video store and ask for Sivaji -The Boss (tell them The Boss sent you there)

Overall the Boss Rules! I give seven stars (*******) for the superstar !

Do you want an iPhone? Do you hate standing in lines?

Well it looks like you can check the availability of the iPhone online. If you are lucky and you find a green status ball you can make a quick run to the apple store near you to pick up your iPhone.

The idea seems simple but actually making store inventory available online is a nice feature. I like it and yes thank you apple!

Update
The online inventory check that I was so proud of, does not seem to work. I have checked this at different times of the day but sorry there are no green balls of goodness!

July 27 2007