Life in the Outer Space

Robert was once again late to the work today. He went up to his cubicle just like the way he did all these seven years careless and lazy, forcefully pulling himself up close to his monitor.
His job was simple, all he had to do daily was to come to the top tower of the space research center and look out for any clue of life from the outer space. The research center had launched different self powered and propelled satellites which radiates signals in search of life in the outer space. Robert had to make sure these different satellites work in sync with their target rates and then had to mine the abundant data that devices transmits back.

But the problem really was, these satellites and the data mining systems were so damn awesome that they never used to err on their job.Simply put satellites were always up to the task and didn't need much of Robert's intervention.Sophisticated computer programs written to manage data mining were so clever that, with their machine learning  abilities they used do to all the data analysis and reduce Robert's work to taking mere printouts at the end.


Initially Robert used to love all this setup. He was happy to be around these clever machines. But now he had started to hate these machines as he felt they were making him less and less relevant in the entire eco system.

 He walked to collect the daily printout. As he glanced on it, he couldn't help himself noticing a tiny dark circle which was indeed a deviation from the normal mundane printouts. He stared at the computer machines which were also seem to have noticed this change and were working at their full speed trying to solve the mystery around the circle.


 After all he had worked seven years in research wing and he knew something is making this day interesting unlike others. He knew circle of that dense, if it is not for a technical glitch in these computers must be an indicator of some sort of life. He felt a sudden rush of  fluridnie all over his body and the minutes later he was staring into first signs of planet housing Life out in the space in those computer screens.

 Robert decided to try out sending a  message to this new planet and sent "Azzcsx ajhsaad sa" and to which he also got a reply as
 "This is NASA from Planet Earth. Its nice to finally meet our neighbors :)". 

Robert had no clue what the message meant but he certainly liked ":)" part of it.
After all, Robert was not a human being to understand that ":)" actually stands for smiley and hell in his planet there was nothing like Smiling.

A College Love story

It was certainly not the brightest of the days. Moisture was still in the air. It seemed Sun was reluctant to come out, just like the small kids that day who didn't want to get up and go to school.
However Vijay was already en-route to the bus-stand for the only bus that gets him to "Sirsi" and to his GAS college. (Also called Govt Arts and Science college)

He was carefully making his way amidst the muddy stagnant waters along the street, courtesy of heavy rains last night. As he joined the line of people waiting, he heard that bus will be running late due to its punctured tyre. He cursed his fate for it being a Monday. Monday First class will be taken by Principal and missing his class means a great deal of problems later. As Principal had veto power in the attendance issues, everyone preferred to be a "nice boy" by at least attending his classes and were casual about others. He was sure he will miss the class and was frustrated because he couldn't do anything about it.


When Vijay made it to the college he could see that there was something unusual about Principal's class today. Instead of him being inside the class teaching, he seemed to be outside talking to "Rekha" who was sobbing with her teary eyes while the rest of the class inside was silent. He knew "Rekha" must have been "caught" for something and it should be damn serious or else Principal will never be sacrificing his class.

Vijay always loved to see Rekha. In the class, before the prayer bell, in between the class and also during the first break. In fact he wished he could see her all the time, everywhere and anywhere. Some of his friends knew his secret crush for her and in many occasions had teased him out loud calling him "VijayRekha, VijayRekha" to which he had not put up any resistance.
Few of these "VijayRekha" cries had also fallen on to Rekha's ears but she remained silent. Somehow her silence had amused Vijay.

With Principal next to her, Vijay somewhat made a fair enough eye contact with Rekha keeping in mind that he should not fall on  Princi's radar eyes. It was not like he had never seen her eyes before, but today they seemed to be saying something. Something she wanted to communicate very clearly. It was strange to him considering they never had any real conversation before.

After a brief "lecture" to Rekha, Principal went out to staff room while the bell rang for the first break. Rekha moved inside the class and joined her bench mates, while Vijay's friends came out looking for him. Friends took Vijay out and told him that Principal today while dictating few points  had seen Rekha's notes which had various "Love  Hearts"  in between name "Vijay Rekha".

He didn't know how to react to it. He didn't expect it and had never thought something could turnout this fast. He couldn't comprehend the situation fully and part of him never really believed it.
 
One of Vijay's wiser friend told him to talk to her in person otherwise this whole thing of getting caught might damage Rekha's feelings for him. Bell rang again, asking students to commence. Vijay with his friends started walking to the class and as he neared the classroom, he saw Rekha this time talking to "Vijay of A section" and in a minute understood that "VijayRekha" that she had written was meant for "A section Vijay" and not to him. He was quick to comprehend this time while his friends were still figuring out what the hell just had happened.

Banda Teregalu

ಬಂದ ತೆರೆಗಳಿಗೆ
ನೆಂದ ಕಾಲ್ಗಳಿಗೆ
ಸೋಕಿ ಹೋದ ಗಾಳಿಗೆ
ಕೇಳು ಹಾಯ್ದು ಹೋದ ದೋಣಿಗೆ

ನಿನ್ನ ಕಂಗಳಲಿ
ಕಂಡ ಬೆಳಕೀಗೆ
ಕರಗಿ ಹೋಯ್ತು ಜೀವ
ಅದು ಮೊದಲ ಮಧುರ  ಭಾವ

ದೂರದಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾರೋ ಕೂಗಿ
ಹೇಳಿದಂತೆ ಇವಳೇ ನಿನ್ನ ಬದುಕು
ನಿನಗೂ ಹೀಗೆ ಅನಿಸಬಹುದೇ
ಸುಪ್ತ ಸ್ವಪ್ನಗಳ ಬೆದುಕು

Latitude and Longitude representations

 As most of us know latitude and longitude help us notate a place uniquely on earth.

There are basically three ways in which one can represent Latitude and Longitude.

1. In Degrees 
       The way Google,yahoo,Facebook API's Use.
           Ex: +40.7486, -77.8786

2. Degree Minutes and Seconds.

           Ex: 40` 44' 55''N,
3. Degree Minutes.
           Ex: 40`44',


In the First  Degrees notation + indicates it as North (for Latitude) or East ( for Longitude).
and - indicates that it is either at South (for Latitude) orWest (for Longitude)

Lets take a quick look at conversion from Format 1 to Format 2 and vice-versa.

From Format 1 to Format 2


1.  Lets convert this 40.7486 to Degree-Minuute- Seconds Format

         40.7486 degree => 40 Degree +0.7486 Degree.

                                         As we know that 1 Degree = 60 Minutes it becomes 

                                   =>  40 Degree+0.7486*60 Minutes
                                    => 40 Degree+ 44.916 Minutes                    (Resembles our Format 3)

                                          As we also know that 1 Minute = 60 Seconds it becomes

                                    =>  40 Degree+44 Minutes+0.916 *60 Seconds
                                     => 40 Degree+44 Minute+   54.96Sceonds

                                    =>40`44'55''

From Format 2 to Format1

         40`44'55"      => 40 Degree +44 Minutes+55 Seconds.

                                         As we know that 1 Minute = 60 Seconds it becomes 

                                   =>  40 Degree+44 Minutes+55/60 Minutes
                                    => 40 Degree+ 44.916Minutes                    (Resembles our Format 3)

                                          As we also know that 1 Minute = 60 Degree

                                    =>  40 Degree+44.916/60                                      => 40 Degree+0.7486 Degree
                                    =>40.7486

At First Sight

I  know i made those jokes,
one's that no one cared about.
but i saw you smiling
and it triggered a thought.
 
Was it for the Joke,
was it for someone else ?
or is it just the way u r
with the twinkling eyes.

I know i wanted to talk to you.
talk to the spark in you,
but i haven't made any moves before
is this the right start? not for sure.

Let me get this straight,
i don't believe  in "at first sight".
but just like in the movie of last night,
today it all seems right.

He didnt know he could Kill

It was more than six months since he was in Bangalore. As like any other software engineer he had rented a house near his office sharing it with his cousin. They were still trying to understand the people and the place. They were in love with Bangalore for its weather and the people. Even though he was annoyed with few Auto drivers here, he knew the people in overall were friendly and co-operative.

His house owner was a real gentle man, never bothered him asking for the rent even when it is 10th the month.It was always he who use to go to his home upstairs and pay the rent. By now he was a friend with his Owner's daughter who were twins in their first standard.

Over all everything was fine in his bachelor life until that day. He was home little early than usual and to his horror he knew something was not right about the place. The neatly arranged Newspaper stand seemed to have been disturbed. There was a water bottle with its water all over the floor. He phoned his cousin who was also equally surprised to hear that.

It continued to happen for a week. Every day back from his office he use to find things misplaced. It was either his Deo on the floor or the water bottle. News papers were always a piece of interest to this external intruder.He spoke to his house owner about this intruder, who seemed to come when they are out for work.
Intruder had not picked anything important like money or the laptop. He was interestingly behind these silly things like water bottle, News paper cuttings etc. House owner suggested to trap him red handed.

A Plan started making rounds in the his head to catch this stealthy guy.

On Saturday when his PM fortunately didn’t call him work, he decided it to be the day to get the intruder.He and his cousin locking the door as if they were leaving to office waited until the rumbling sound started growing louder from inside. They knew it was the time. He didn’t want to waste any second. He knew the best strategy to attack your enemy is to take him by surprise. More over he had cousin next to him making the contest two against one. There was no reason not to barge in. He opened the door and for the first time saw his enemy straight in the eye. His cousin handed him a wooden bar and there it was. He hit the enemy on the head and split second later it was all over.

First time in his life he had killed a Mouse. For some reason his heart was heavy after the killing. His cousin however was happy to get rid of this Mouse. Later in the evening he spent more time than usual in temple but he was low all day. Somehow the next day he pulled himself up and then on it was business as usual.

Google Dictionary : Continued

Whenever i am looking for list of words and their meanings Google dictionary was the place i used to go for.Google dictionary was simple and elegant unlike other hazy dictionary sites around.
It also use to give real world sentences containing the the word from sources like e-paper,blog or website.
Along with synonym lists, Translation of the word was also easy with Google dictionary.

I know many of my friends who had taken exams like GRE have used Google Dictionary as their major reference.

However on August 5, 2011 Google Dictionary was discontinued as a separate service, although similar results have been incorporated into the Google search sidebar. However, this has resulted a controversy by users over the way which Google shut down the service with, for example, Google had never made any warnings and notifications before decided to discontinue the service. Moreover, the "Starred Words" feature was unavailable at the same time without any projections for users to backup their starred words. Many users have showed their disagreements and complaints on the precipitant discontinuance of the service on Google's Help Forum

A Google Product Manager explained the closure on a Google Support Forum:

“Google Dictionary was recently integrated into Google Web Search. Simply search for “define X” where X is the word you want to look up. Clicking on the “more” link (or on the toolbelt “Dictionary” link on the left) will give you practically the same experience that was available on dictionary.google.com.

We’re working hard to make the dictionary experience even better on google.com so it will be easier for our users to get the dictionary experience without the need to go to a separate property.”

As i mentioned initially, this would be difficult for a user looking for the meaning of a list of words.
I wrote a simple html that gives you what use to be Google dictionaries Search page.
 This allows you to continue using Google dictionary without worrying about things happening around it.
Check here!