Amazing Art…

I found this amazing form/ expression of art and wanted to share with you all...

This stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan. But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted.

Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colors of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.

A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants,
the colours created by using different varieties, in the village of Inakadate in Japan . The largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate , 600 miles north of Toyko, where the tradition began in 1993. The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, both on horseback, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall. More than 150,000 vistors come to Inakadate, where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals. Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers plant four different varieties of rice in late May across huge swathes of paddy fields.

Napolean on horseback can be seen from the skies, created by precision planting and months of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate

Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa , Japan . And over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs. Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year, including designs of deer dancers.

Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers. The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September. The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields. From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work. Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee.

Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.

The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention. In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art. A year later, organisers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

On the lighter side - Microsoft Windows in Punjabi?

Imagine if your computer starts working in Punjabi then what will happen???

-You will have commands like these on your computer:

Send = Sutto
Insert = Wich Paao
Attachement = Naal Laao
Edit = Sidda Karo
View = Waikhee Jaao
Forward = Aggay Sutto
Inbox = Undar Da Daak Khaana
Outbox = Baar Da Daak Khana
Trash = Mitti Paao
Recycle Bin = Koore Daan
Sent Items = Pheji Gayee Dak
Address Book = Patay Wali Kaapy
Reply = Phejan Walay Nu Jawab do
Reply All = Saareyaan Nu Jawab do
Delete = Daffa Karo
Download = Thallay Laao
Download All = Saary Cheezan Noon Thallay La ao
Properties = Jaidaad
Connect = Naal Milaao
Fonts = Likhaai
Accounts = Galla
Drafts = Chitheeyaan
Find = Labbo
Run = Pajjo
Setting = Kuri Nu Patao
Paste = Thook Naal Chipkaao
From = Phejan Walaa Banda
To = Door Betha Hoya Banda
Subject = Khaas Gall
Carbon Copy = Koelay Walee Naqal
Blind Carbon Copy = Anni Koelay Walee Naqal
Stationery = Pensal, Rubburd, Shaapnar
Folders = Thailay
High priority = Waddee Takleef

and finally Ctrl+Alt+Delete = Sara Syapa Mukao..
Enjoy it !

India’s uncouth road warriors and the Civil Disobedience…

India’s capital city – New Delhi, is trying to gear up towards hosting an international event– the common wealth games in October 2010. the fact that the city is nowhere near the target deadline that it had set for itself to gear up years ago is as much as a testament towards a culture of lack of initiative, corruption and just sheer laziness to live in better environs as much as it is attributable to the fact that this has become an accepted norm that the city will be in a permanent state of disarray and chaos.

The other major problem with the city is that a vast majority of “residents” of Delhi do no associate themselves with the city. There is no sense of belongingness and certainly no pride in being part of the city.

For someone, like me, who on an average spends (whenever in Delhi) up to 4-5 hours on the road per day, the state of the infrastructure, culture on road and the general disposition of “natives” borders towards insolence, impatience and just plain rudeness.

Recently Home Minister P. Chidambaram Tuesday told citizens of Delhi that they needed to change some of their bad habits if visitors to the Commonwealth Games next year are to have a good impression about the host city.

There are vehicles running without registration plates, some are crossing roads where they should not. People are not using over ground or underground passes and all in the name of saving a few steps of walking. I know that the weather is not very favorable at most times of the year in Delhi, but basic civic sense is a requirement and not a virtue. We should encourage people to change their mindset.

People come to Delhi. This is the capital and we cannot stop people. But if they come to Delhi, they themselves will have to adhere to the behavioral requirement. We must behave as a citizen of a big, good international city,’ Chidambaram said.

Easier said than done Mr. Minister!

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, whom I admire for all the work she has done for the city in the past decade, perhaps took the cue and said a campaign will soon be launched to make people in the national capital aware about the need for behavioral changes.

I wonder if this will make a huge impact. The most impressionable years in humans are the early childhood and we seem to have imparted a wrong message or no message at all during those years to people who come or reside in Delhi.

Some of the citizens are not amused, however. According to some newspaper reports - some people have (correctly) said that not just Delhi but the whole country needs a crash course in basic manners and politeness. some opine that the change should start from the government officers and politicians.

As a resident, and although this goes against political correctness, I have to fully agree. And it nowhere more evident than on the roads. The “Delhi culture” and I may be venturing into a political minefield by saying this, reflects upon our actions on the road. Not following the lane discipline, parking 6 feet away from where we want to shop (to avoid walking) and frequently blaring horns to ensure that everybody is aware that our vehicles have it, no matter how disturbing it might be to openly break rules of the road or even mere civility – all are characteristic of the denizens of this area called the NCR.

There is so much evidence of this basic lack of courtesy and manners. The other day, I was in CP with my wife, trying to obtain a seat for a couple in a popular restaurant serving south Indian cuisine. Like polite and cultured couple, we were waiting for our turn, when much to our chagrin, a south Indian family of four rushed past everyone and secured a table which had just been vacated! Everyone who was waiting was surprised and angered by this blatant display of lack of manners. Some of the foreign tourists who were standing in the queue got the wrong impression that this is perhaps the right way to doing things in India or more specifically Delhi and started rushing past everyone into the hotel floor – hunting for tables for themselves. The south Indian family who had just secured a table was grinning as if they had just won an Olympic medal. We left, much in disgust, from the restaurant and headed towards another one in the outer circle – reflecting upon how these rude denizens turn very polite and urbane the moment they step outside India. Perhaps the fines or the fear of a new country turns them “docile”. The fact remains, basic civic sense and a sense of what is proper is singularly lacking in most of the Indians. True, the whole country needs a course in basic manners.


This is the kind of civil disobedience which, I am sure, Gandhi never subscribed to.

Civil disobedience, by the way, is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government, or of an occupying power, without resorting to physical violence. It is one of the primary tactics of nonviolent resistance. In its most nonviolent form (in India, known as ahimsa or Satyagraha) it could be said that it is compassion in the form of respectful disagreement.

The American author Henry David Thoreau pioneered the modern theory behind this practice in his 1849 essay Civil Disobedience, originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government". The driving idea behind the essay was that of self-reliance, and also how one is in morally good standing as long as one can "get off another man's back"; so one does not necessarily have to physically fight the government, but one must not support it or have it support one (if one is against it). This essay has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican-American War.

The intentions and in some cases actions of these “humans” is anything but non-violent. I admire homo-sapiens ability to follow through a good idea to the extreme no matter how much it hurts. Civil disobedience taken to extreme – with every man for himself and the rest be damned.

I use the term very carefully since to be called “people or human”, one has to qualify as at least as evolved as one of the primitive homo sapiens tribe and sometimes I really wonder if these so called “people or humans” are evolved at all. For some have managed to bypass the evolutionary stages and regressed into half-baboon and half-chimpanzee states (no offence to these species and I hope PETA and similar organizations do not take offense to this)

Most of the people in Delhi are indeed disobedient of the laws of the land and amongst the youngsters and a certain profile of people it is considered as an identity symbol. To be able to flout rules is considered as a form of bravery or style statement. Perhaps I am too mild, but I fail to see the connection between machismo and the ability to jump a red light or travel in the opposite lane when the traffic is stuck in the right one.

Delhiites will be given lessons in civic sense and etiquettes ahead of the Commonwealth Games here next year. The Delhi government is preparing to act on Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s advice to the citizens in the capital. The campaign to impart civic sense will be launched in two phases and culminate two months before the start of the Games in October 2010.

We do not react to the pollution of the Yamuna, the dumping of garbage, the scrawling on ancient monuments and the disrespect of women. It is high time to change and think of this city which is very dear to all of us,’ said Dikshit in a statement.

I certainly hope that this campaign succeeds at least for 10% of the population of Delhi. I am reminded of my own blog entry on the bad habits of Delhi - 15 Traffic Rules that Delhi Lives By...

In my next entry, I will be writing about the state of infrastructure in Delhi…

Water on Moon!

So it’s finally confirmed!

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.

Forget that tired old image of the moon as an entirely dry locale, devoid of any moisture. A recent set of discoveries have found that not only is there water on Earth's sole satellite — but the water is everywhere

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The Moon is in synchronous rotation, which means it rotates about its axis in about the same time it takes to orbit the Earth. This result in it keeping nearly the same face turned towards the Earth at all times. The Moon used to rotate at a faster rate, but early in its history, its rotation slowed and became locked in this orientation as a result of frictional effects associated with tidal deformations caused by the Earth.

The Moon is the only celestial body on which human beings (home sapiens) have made a manned landing. While the erstwhile Soviet Union's Luna programme was the first to reach the Moon with unmanned spacecraft, the NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned missions to date, beginning with the first manned lunar mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned lunar landings between 1969 and 1972 – the first being Apollo 11 in 1969. Human exploration of the Moon temporarily ceased with the conclusion of the Apollo program, although a few robotic landers and orbiters have been sent to the Moon since that time. The U.S. has committed to return to the Moon by 2018 and I am not much impressed by the conspiracy theories indicating that the Americans never landed on moon in the first place and all these manned spaceflights have been nothing but utter hogwash…

According to Wikipedia…

The continuous bombardment of the Moon by comets and meteoroids has most likely added small amounts of water to the lunar surface. If so, sunlight would split much of this water into its constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen, both of which would ordinarily escape into space over time, because of the Moon's weak gravity. However, because of the slightness of the axial tilt of the Moon's spin axis to the ecliptic plane—only 1.5°—some deep craters near the poles never receive direct light from the Sun and are thus in permanent shadow. Water molecules that ended up in these craters could be stable for long periods of time.

Clementine has mapped craters at the lunar south pole that are shadowed in this way, and computer simulations suggest that up to 14,000 km² might be in permanent shadow. Results from the Clementine mission bistatic radar experiment are consistent with small, frozen pockets of water close to the surface, and data from the Lunar Prospector neutron spectrometer indicate that anomalously high concentrations of hydrogen are present in the upper meter of the regolith near the Polar Regions. Estimates for the total quantity of water ice are close to one cubic kilometer.

Water ice can be mined and then split into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms by means of nuclear generators or electric power stations equipped with solar panels. The presence of usable quantities of water on the Moon is an important factor in rendering lunar habitation cost-effective, since transporting water from Earth would be prohibitively expensive. However, recent observations made with the Arecibo planetary radar suggest that some of the near-polar Clementine radar data that were previously interpreted as being indicative of water ice might instead be a result of rocks ejected from young impact craters. The question of how much water there is on the Moon has not been resolved conclusively.

Three papers appearing in the upcoming issue of Science Express outline the discovery of pervasive water found clinging to the surface of the moon. Infrared spectroscope measurements from three different space probes have detected absorptions that indicate the presence of water or hydroxyl (which is, itself, a strong indicator for the presence of water) on the lunar surface, with one model suggesting water makes up a few tenths of a percent by weight in the optical surface. This water is apparently clinging to the moon's surface, rather than being absorbed by dust.

India's own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on board the country's maiden lunar craft had discovered water on the moon, a finding confirmed by US space agency NASA's probe that was also aboard Chandrayaan-1.

India's first moon mission has achieved a historic first by discovering water on the lunar surface. This is being hailed not only as a landmark breakthrough in space science but also as a vindication of the mission itself, since the two year project got terminated after just 10 months.

Predictably - India's first lunar mission had made a "path-breaking and real discovery" by establishing the presence of water on the moon, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman Nair said. While expressing pride in the achievement, Nair added: "But the water is not in the form of sea or lake or puddle or drops. It is embedded on the surface in minerals and rocks.” Scientists confirming the presence of water on the moon are doing so on the basis of scientific findings that have been arrived at after a rigorous process of deduction and analysis and not by actually finding lakes, pools or puddles of water that we're familiar with on earth. It's hardly a vast lake, and it won't yet support that lunar agricultural colony you've been dreaming of, but it's far more water than scientists ever expected to find on the moon, and it could prove a valuable resource to future lunar visitors.

The researchers have also found that the concentration of water is higher toward the poles, lending credence to the theory that larger deposits of water exist near the poles, and researchers note that it's possible we'll continue to find wetter lunar regions in the future.

So where did all this water come from? Although meteors or comets may have periodically brought water to the moon, the prevailing theory among the three papers is that solar winds have carried hydrogen to the moon's surface, where it has bonded with the oxygen in the moon's own dust and produced water.

However, according to Mylswamy Annadurai, Chandrayaan-1 project director, the water molecules came from the Moon surface — a major revelation made possible by the Indian mission. This dispels the age-old belief and the current thinking that only other planetary bodies can be the source of water molecules on the Moon. According to ISRO scientists, this mission has changed the thinking. The new theory is that the water molecules are not from an outside source, but are being generated then and there. This is now being analyzed.

According to a space.com article - There are potentially two types of water on the moon: that brought from outside sources, such as water-bearing comets striking the surface, or that that originates on the moon.

It is really one of those moments in human history which can prove as a turning point. Finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel.

The clutter in our lives

As sat quietly in my living room this afternoon, the thought occurred to me - Why would anyone want to carry around needless burdens? That's what clutter is. It drains one's energy, slows one's progress, and eats away at our limited time and space. Left unabated, it spreads all over one's life becoming emotional, mental, and physical clutter.

Have you gone through several iterations of de-cluttering, only to feel like you really didn’t make much progress? The likely reason for this is that our lives are filled with clutter, rather than us just having a few areas of clutter.

Our lives tend to accumulate clutter in every corner – on our desks, in our drawers, on our shelves at home, in our closets, in our computers, even in the activities that we do and our relationships!

We start out in life unfulfilled, with nothing, and we start acquiring stuff. At some point, we peak (the top of the curve) when we have enough. That’s the magic thing that we’re always looking for: enough.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the endowment effect.

The endowment effect (also known as divestiture aversion) is a hypothesis that people value a good or service more once their property right to it has been established. In other words, people place a higher value on objects they own than objects that they do not. In one experiment, people demanded a higher price for a coffee mug that had been given to them but put a lower price on one they did not yet own. The endowment effect was described as inconsistent with standard economic theory which asserts that a person's willingness to pay (WTP) for a good should be equal to their willingness to accept (WTA) compensation to be deprived of the good.

The effect was first theorized by Richard Thaler. It is a specific form, linked to ownership, of status quo bias. Although it differs from loss aversion, a prospect theory concept, those two biases reinforce each other in cases when the asset price has fallen compared to the owner's buying price. This bias has also a few similarities with commitment and attachment.

Loss aversion, by the way, was first proposed as an explanation for the endowment effect - the fact that people place a higher value on a good that they own than on an identical good that they do not own - by Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1990). Loss aversion and the endowment effect lead to a violation of the Coase theorem - that "the allocation of resources will be independent of the assignment of property rights when costless trades are possible"

Sigh… here I go again, getting too deep into the technicalities of what and why we clutter our lives with stuff we don’t often need or need to hang on to… we start acquiring from the day we are able to and that age is pretty low for humans…

But, of course we don’t stop acquiring. We enter the zone when we begin having more than enough, and therefore begin accumulating clutter. And most of us accumulate it all of our lives. The sad thing is, we don’t just have more stuff than we need, and we now have stuff we don’t need that demands our attention in some way: we have to maintain it, fix it, continue to make payments on it, store it,

So we start becoming less fulfilled instead of more so.

I can give numerous examples, but the most relevant one seems to be the thousands of books, some going back to my college days of over 10 years ago which I still hoard or my wife’s jewelry: enough to start a store. Closets full of clothes I haven’t worn in a long while, and so on.

Clutter is usually thought of as things we acquire or accumulate. And, when you stop and think about, the clutter goes beyond purchases: we also clutter our lives with activities that are of no real value to us – like watching serials which serve no practical purpose except to pass the time. I guess, most of us end up doing it unconsciously. The things we don't do, but should do, clutter our mind with apprehension and stress. Unwritten letters, unpaid bills, unanswered phone calls, and unattended tasks and obligations take their toll on our lives. They create a slow energy drain and are as distracting as an endless humming in our head. We can free ourselves from such needless headaches by taking the time to do whatever needs to be done. We can't do everything, but we should do the essentials

So, what do we do? We can do some de-cluttering. It seems to me, though, that what we most need to work on is our constant desire to fill our lives with more “stuff,” be that unnecessary purchases or activities that are of no value. I only suggest it as something we should be aware of and work on to the extent that we can on avoiding it or getting out of the trap that we lay for ourselves.

I don’t have any advice for you on how to do that, at least not at this time, but I did come across a good article by Chuck Gallozzi – and while there is no mystical answer to anything there, it does offer some practical advice!