Mozilla's Prism: A new face to web

Last week, I ended up with installing the Prism. A result of Mozilla Lab : attempt of incorporating the web into the desktop applications.
Ultimately, the Life without internet is going to be harder. With this application/extension the web applications are going to be pulled into your desktop as an icon and it is just an object in your desktop.
I am using Gmail and Yahoo mail through it , for now. and look forward for some more in days to come.
I like its Clean and neat appearance . No back and other awkward buttons!
I would highly recommend it.

Below is some speculations by experts:

A Rainbow of Possibilities
With Prism, PC users will be able to add their favorite Web applications to their desktop, so that when a user clicks on an icon, the Web app will run in its own window. The Web applications are accessible with Control Tab, Command Tab and Expose key functions, just like any other desktop application. Users can also continue to access the applications from any Web browser when they are away from the computer.
"Prism isn't a new platform," Mozilla stated. "It's simply the Web platform integrated into the desktop experience."
That means Web developers will not have to write code specifically for their applications to function with Prism. If you have program which runs in a "modern standards-compliant Web browser", it will run in Prism, Mozilla Labs said. Built on Firefox, it supports HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), JavaScript, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and Canvas, as well as other rich Internet technologies. A Windows version is currently being tested; early editions for the Mac and Linux are in the pipeline.
It is the open source brother to Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), an application that converts Web-based technologies into desktop applications.


Please visit the following link for more:
http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/10/prism/

Install it:
http://starkravingfinkle.org/projects/webrunner/prism-0.8-win32.exe

Vote For the world Challenge!

LIMBS FROM LEFTOVERS
Mend - NEPAL
http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/limbs.php
There's little in the way of formal support for disabled people in Nepal. Ganga Rayamajh's story is typical. Having lost both her legs as a baby, she had no option but to crawl to school, as her family could not afford to buy expensive imported prosthetics. But at the age of 17, thanks to New Zealand charity MEND, Ganga was finally fitted with artificial legs. Since then she has striven to improve the lives of other disabled people through local charity ASHA. In 2004, ASHA and MEND set out to develop a range of artificial limbs, tools and other mobility devices that would be within the price range of even the poorest Nepalese. They came up with an innovative cost-cutting solution – to use everyday wastes as their raw materials. Moulds for artificial legs, for example, are cast from aluminium cans, while the legs themselves are made, in part, from recycled plastics.

and

COOKING WITHOUT GAS
Foundation for Sustainable Technologies (FoST) - NEPAL
http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/cooking.php
In 1995, Sanu Kaji Shrestha ran out of cooking gas. So too did nearly everyone else in Kathmandu, as a countrywide shortage set in. Demand was so great Sanu had to take three days off work to queue up for more fuel. This first-hand experience of his country's dependence on external energy supplies set Sanu thinking. He began to look into sustainable energy technologies for the domestic market, researching existing designs and adapting them for the Nepalese market. In 2001 he retired from his day job to concentrate on bringing low-cost, high-efficiency energy technologies to Nepal's rural and urban poor. Measures developed to date include simple yet ingenious solar cookers and briquette presses to make smokeless fuel from waste materials.

vOTE FOR nepali project!

The voting is at:
http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/

Bus Diaries

Its a Friday.
The students are gathered to go to downtown. To drink. The bus stop is already full with students. They are already excited.
The bus has arrived. I don't know whether it was late or I was impatience. May be Relativity at work!
I have to go to downtown. I live near it. They have to go to downtown. There are bars and clubs.After being fully loaded, the bus moves. I am lucky that I got a seat. I am tired. I can not be the hanging monkey at this time.

They are talking loud. One of their friend is sitting on the other side of the bus and I am trapped in between!

I am tired. I just want to sit and close my eyes.
I want to take a deep breath and relax. I want to go to my room.

Its little chill tonight.
My poor laptop is inside my back pack and is sitting on my lap. I can sense that it is still hot.

I can see that one of my friend is also in the same bus. I had seen her before entering the bus. She was smoking and talking on the phone. We have seen each other for last 14 months, only in the bus. Sometime more frequent and sometime less frequent. We are bus friends. We talk. "How are you?" "Good" ; "The weather is good today": "Yes, I know". Thats all! i know her mood: she wants to talk tonight, either on phone or with her bus friend. She is in mood to talk. I can not ignore her. After she is done with her phone, we do exchange smile.
With the pull of the string, I realize that its her stop. She lives three block up than my apartment. Do you want to walk?
She wants me to walk with her. But, why should I walk three blocks?
I nod.
She walks away.
I watch her get out of the bus and cross the zebra stripes.

The bus moves. I close my eyes. Pretending that I am relaxing.
I can not keep my eyes closed because my stop has arrived. I don't have energy to pull the stop chord of the bus. I wish somebody would pull it down. Nobody! I need to do it by myself!
I think, one day we will have a small chips on our thumbnail and we will be able to command the bus operator to stop it; just by thinking that I want to stop right here!
Tomorrow, I have to go to a friend's birth day party. Its a dish party, I have to cook something this evening. I am a bad cook!

(This is supposed to be the second part of my previous one: Talk to me! and is still messy.)

Laws of Nature?

It all started with the assumption that we are weaker. Actually we are. In many cases, we loose the moments. Not everything is under our control. But what keeps us alive is the fact that we do not give up! It is natural. If it is natural, and supposedly conducted by someone more powerful than us. We call him the super human or, may be , god (?)
So, we started searching for him. Oh my god! he is so so powerful that despite our so much effort, he can remain hidden.
We looked for him everywhere. Where have we not looked for him?
It remains to be the most searched substance in this universe. He can not, thus be made up of matter like we are made up of. Hmm ... , that makes sense. He governs all the "laws" which no one can defy. Even not Mother earth, sun moon, and galaxies. But we are little naughty. We want to read his mind. We want to know why he created us and why is he playing with so many stuffs around us. We also want to question him whether he wanted some intelligent beings like us who can ultimately ask questions to him.
With all these questions in mind, We started studying Nature. We started exploring it. And (unfortunately?) we called it Physics!
Now we are half concious from a dark and deep state of knowledge and have started asking whether or not our starting point was wrong!
May be the laws of Physics are not the ultimate laws nature! We derived all the laws on the basis of our observations and our inferences. So, the laws of Physics are actually laws of inference.
And the laws can be different!
Laws of Nature is something different!
In this respect we the physicists are most agnostic people on earth. We are honest. We are the one who can speak truth (truth?). We are proud to be Physicists.
God Bless us!
(smile)

Highly inspired by the talk of Prof. Caticha (http://www.arxiv.org/abs/0710.1071)
and
Prof. Knuth's Online Cortex: http://www.huginn.com/knuth/blog/2007/10/11/information-physics/

Optical illusion

Is she rotating clockwise or anticlockwise?
I see different rotations:
When I am watching the video, I see clockwise rotation (i.e. the rotation from right to left); when I am reading, I can sense the rotation in anticlockwise direction.

Update Oct 19th 2007:
Watch carefully!

which part of your brain is more active?
If the lady appears to be spinning clockwise, its right part which is more active.
If the lady appears to be spinning anticlockwise, the left part is more active.
I am not convinced with these statements. However, agree that it is optical illusion.
Quoted from :
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/
THE Right Brain vs Left Brain test ... do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?
Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise (?) though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

Happy Bijaya Dashami! : Copy and paste

Dashain is our great Festival. In this festival we exchange the greetings and wish our best to all friends. Take blessings from seniors and wish good to juniors.
It is good to hear some good words. I do not know how the listening gives so much pleasure. But we get happy. See, how amazing our sense are incorporated! We see, we hear, we imagine and we feel and get happy (may be in different order of stimulation, sometimes).
Festivals are greatly welcomed because they provide a taste of satisfaction to our mind.
In these occasions, some of the friends produce and reproduce very nice words for the happy Bijaya Dashami (and similarly to other occasion too).
What we do is we find some nice words sent to our inbox by some other friend, and copy and paste it!

टिका होस् निधार मा,जमरI होस् कान मI,सुख होस् परिवार मI, शान्ती होस् देश मा ,दसैं मI खुशी को बास होस् सत्रु को नाश होस्,सुन चन्दी को रास होस्,हात मi 21 पती को तास होस्, पुरा होस् मनोकामना,यही छ विजय दशमी २०६४ को शुभकामना!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Suppose you get the same message nearly three times per day. From different people. What do you imagine?
Happy Bijaya Dashami! : Copy and paste
:D

Lets try some creativity!

May goddess Durga bless you with some creativity in this Dashain festival.(Don't take it personally, I am saying to myself!)

On The Proposed Carbon Trading System: Roger Pink

I’d like to thank Nabin for providing me another opportunity to write in his blog.

The other day it was announced that Al Gore, along with the United Nations Climate Control Panel, won the Nobel Peace Prize for their combined efforts to raise international awareness of climate change caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. I commend this choice for the award because the sooner we acknowledge that the problem exists, and that it is not in fact a natural phenomenon, then the sooner we can start taking measures to address the problem

So that raises the question of what measures should be taken to address global warming. A popular choice is a carbon trading system, which I believe, though good intentioned, will ultimately produce little beneficial results while lulling the public into a false belief that the problem of global warming is being addressed. To explain what I mean, let’s first consider some numbers.

Roughly 28 billion tonnes (metric) of Carbon Dioxide were released into the atmosphere by man-made processes. Within two years the worldwide CO2 emmissions are expected to reach 30 billion tonnes, with China, the U.S., and Europe combined responsible for over 50% of those emissions. Natural processes emit and absorb roughly ten times (200 billion tonnes) that amount of carbon during the carbon cycle which includes respiration, decomposition, absorption and emission from oceans, etc. Often critics of man-made global warming will argue that since man-made emissions are less than 10% than emissions due to natural processes, and that the current warming trend couldn’t thus be caused by man. This argument fails to realize however that natural emissions were in equilibrium with natural absorption in the carbon cycle before man-made contributions began, which means that the 28 billion tonnes is not in addition to that which is released by nature but in fact a perturbation to the natural equilibrium position.

In that light, a 10% perturbation to equilibrium is in fact a massive effect on the natural equilibrium. Nature of course will try to adjust as can be seen by the slight increase in the pH of the oceans as more CO2 is absorbed as well as a “greening effect” where fauna actually become denser per square mile. Unfortunately man is fighting that equilibrium response by systematic deforestation (Brazil, Ukraine, Canada, US, etc). Also, the warming temperatures are slowly extending the temperate regions, significantly increasing the land in which plant life can grow, but at the same time releasing CO2 that has been locked up in frozen tundra and glaciers for thousands of. Additionally, as highly reflective ice recedes leaving more absorptive (blacker) ground in its wake, more power from the Sun is converted to into infrared radiation which can be captured by the CO2. To put it simply and bluntly, the very speed at which temperature levels are rising, coupled with human deforestation is severely limiting the Earths natural equilibrium response. This can be seen by 20% CO2 content increase in the atmosphere over the last 50 years (315 ppm to 380 ppm).

The carbon trading system proposes creating a market where carbon credits (papers permitting X amount of emissions) are exchanged towards a global goal of reducing carbon emissions by half in the next 50 years or so. Of course they draw pretty graphs that show global temperature increase tapering off at different slopes depending upon the rate of the reduction of carbon emissions over the next 50 years. These graphs are a joke because they basically assume little or no change in the natural carbon emissions and absorptions after a dramatic climate shift. The reality is that such a trading system will not reduce atmospheric carbon levels (which is causing the warming), but in fact slow the rate at which they are increasing. In other words, if the entire world cooperates and agrees to a carbon trading system, and there is no corruption or fraud, then in 2050 the carbon dioxide content of air will be 450ppm instead of 500ppm as compared to the 380ppm of today. Not exactly a solution is it?

But maybe 450ppm isn’t so bad right? I mean, here we are at 380ppm and Earth isn’t so bad. If only it were that simple. CO2 levels haven’t exceeded 300ppm in the last 500,000 years. We are talking about being roughly 25% beyond the peak right now. That means more heat than ever in the past half million years is being captured by the Earths surface atmosphere. So where is it all going? The excess heat is being absorbed by the oceans. You see, water has a heat capacity that is 4 times larger than land, and since most of the Earth’s surface is water (70%), it tends to soak up all this extra heat, slowly increasing in temperature. If you think of CO2 levels as a force and the velocity as increasing global temperatures and natural absorption processes as a form of friction resisting this increase in temperatures, then the heat capacity of the oceans is like a big heavy mass that takes a lot of force to move. So although the Earth doesn’t seem to be changing much in temperature, a massive inertia is building that will be hard to reverse. With such an inertia, a small reduction in the increase in CO2 levels will be meaningless. Drastic action must be taken in order to slow temperature increases in any meaningful way.

What needs to happen, and what no one wants to hear, is that we need an immediate elimination of greenhouse emissions along with the elimination of deforestation. Only then will the climbing global temperatures start to taper off like they do in those nice graphs the carbon trading system people like to show. Is that practical? Perhaps if we had a way to generate energy cheaply that didn’t emit CO2, but seeing as we have nothing like that at this time, I suggest you all get used to the warming weather, its here to stay. The carbon trading system is only a placebo, we’ll feel good for a while, but it won’t actually be doing anything.

**************************************************
Roger Pink is {my friend :) } a Ph.D. student at the Department of Physics, University at Albany, State University of New York.
He is associated with the cr4 and has been regular blogger there since early 2005: http://cr4.globalspec.com/blog/browse/6/Roger-s-Equations
His previous entry is here

[Wikipedia] October 12: Intelligent design

Intelligent design is the claim that "certain features of the universe
and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not
an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a modern form
of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God,
modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer.
Its primary proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery
Institute, believe the designer to be God. Intelligent design's
advocates claim it is a scientific theory, and seek to fundamentally
redefine science to accept supernatural explanations. The unequivocal
consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is
not science. "Intelligent design" originated in response to a 1987
United States Supreme Court ruling involving separation of church and
state. The intelligent design movement culminated in the 2005 case
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in which U.S. District Judge
John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that
it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious,
antecedents", and concluded that the school district's promotion of it
therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution.

Read the rest of this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design

_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:

1492:
Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Caribbean, believing he
had reached East Asia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus)

1915:
A German firing squad executed British nurse Edith Cavell for
helping Allied soldiers to escape occupied Belgium.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Cavell)

1928:
An iron lung medical ventilator, designed by Philip Drinker and
colleagues at Children's Hospital, Boston, was used for the first time
in the treatment of polio victims.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/iron_lung)

1984:
The Provisional Irish Republican Army failed in its attempt to
assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and most of her
cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_hotel_bombing)

2002:
A series of bombs exploded in Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 people
and injuring a further 209.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Bali_bombings)

_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:

jaded: Worn out, wearied, or lacking enthusiasm; exhausted.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jaded)

_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:

Everything abstract is ultimately part of the concrete. Everything
inanimate finally serves the living. That is why every activity
dealing in abstraction stands in ultimate service to a living whole.
-- Edith Stein
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edith_Stein)

Talk to me!

The bus was supposed to come at 9:10. It has been more than twenty minutes. I have been waiting for the bus. It is late again. As the time passes, more people gather around the bus stop. They all are like me. They wait for bus. They want to go to their room. Individually, they are much different from me. Some of them have plugged ipod into their ears and some of them are just watching the floor. As I look around, I find that many of them are busy with mobile phone. Some of them are yelling, some of them are in very romantic mode. one of them is crying. I don't understand Spanish, but one of the girl is really angry over the phone. However, She is saying the abusive words in English! Wow! I can understand that. I think if we say something very loudly, specially abuse someone in English, we may get some peace in mind. (What a way to clean up the mind!)   
I should not listen the conversation. I am not listening anything.  But, what the heck? She is really talking so loud. Do she really want everybody to listen?
Everyone is looking to her in a while. She looks angry and she does not care. She is in her own universe.
Some people talk so soft that , even when I am sitting next to him/her in the bus, I can hardly hear. In most of the case, when people are waiting for the public transportation, they talk. They talk over the phone and they do whatever they can. Everyone is confined into the unique universe. s/he and the phone. They pretend that they are flying. They smile, laugh, cry and do everything legal that can be done on the phone.
By the way, how much loud should we be talking over the phone? (without polluting the environment.)
Oh, the bus has arrived. I gotta go. Everyone has already lined up/ kinda piled up to get into the bus.

Volunteer in Komen Brest Cancer Foundation Race for the cure.

I had never woke up as early as 5:10 in the morning (unless when I had to stay awake whole night to do assignments) after coming to USA. This morning, the alarms were set and I was mentally prepared to get out of my bed at 5. I was going for volunteering! I had to walk all the way to the Empire State Building, Downtown, Albany.  Because buses do not run that early on saturdays; I walked. It took me nearly 45 minutes: Nearly 2 miles.
I was thinking that I was among the few volunteers, but was amazed to see many many volunteers. Wow! All active and working. I helped a little bit. Katey has been doing such a great job to manage the job for all the volunteers. It was about 11 when I returned to my apartment.
Volunteering is nice, it gives me some kinda satisfaction. One of them asked me why I was there, because other two guys were the son of the Brest cancer survivors. I was there just inspired by their works and after listening the local FM.
I know, If I google the key word: Brest cancer, I can find too many links.
I would like to thank the Organizers for organizing such a great program.
http://www.albanyraceforthecure.com/
http://www.breastcancer.org/
My videos:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2359507009475342294&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5604434711299506676&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2332089824658141504&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3000121440176005335&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1560329170088953387&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9111286696728943351&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-587943335518365676&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7073893235916992579&hl=en
My pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nabinkm/Race07
(I got only a few, I hope that I will be able to volunteer next year too.)

Confess and Evolve!

We all have our own standard. Our own scale. We create our own hypothesis on our own biased-ness. That's why we have friends, foe and the world is so so different! We can agree and we can disagree.
There is variety.
This evening I came across such situation. I know he was drunk but people speak when they drink. It is very strange liquid. Liquid that de-solves everything!

My friend! thank you very much for showing me my dark part. I always had that but was trying hard to hide it. If it is still visible to you, it means it is visible to others also.
how many people in the world are able to say what you see? Not many. I have been trying hard to tell such things, tried really hard.Without success. Today, I am little bit jealous to learn that you have reached above me! and you have always been above my mental level. I was pretending that I could tell the truth. Even half of the truth! But, wow! you can tell everything!
I bow in front of you.
No matter whatever i tried, but some thing is inherent. Something is basic human nature. That s/he will be living throughout the life. I have been evolving in my own time scale. and have always been thankful to such environment which made me change. People, in general don't tend to change. I had written in my diary that I am not one of the kind like dinoceros. I am not going to be extinct. I will fight to the last breath and will survive!. For now, I am fighting with myself. It's 1:37 AM and still can not forget that today must have been one of the best day. It hurts a little, but truth is the truth. I have been living with my own inconsistent scale factors. i will re graduate my scale, for sure and will stretch my skins little bit so that the dark part will not be visible to that much. If god gives me free will, I would like to change my level of inconsistency.
let me see!

Social Dynamics

In America, people keep moving ...  keep changing the habitats. Be it rent or whatever, they love moving. They change the job and keep changing it. Everything is dynamic. The pace of such movements generate some kind of momentum in life and some kind of compulsion that every one can not end up being dependent. The symbol of struggle at any age and the spirit of competition.
In Nepal. moving meant a lot of mental tortures. Many become psychologically attached to the surroundings. I thought that was because of the fact that we love everything we own, we use and or we see.
May be that can be identified with a kind of greed that we tend to think that the whole world belongs to us. Hmm, may be not a greed, but it is something that sounds peculiar and unfamiliar. When we become familiar, we just tend to cling on that. May be, in the other way, we love not to change. We just tend to freeze and want the simple and periodic continuation of whatever we have in our hand and or in our surroundings. In the context of Nepal it seems natural too because nobody knows the future and what one is going to get if s/he let the things go. I think the situation makes a big difference. No one want to loose and wants to be happy with whatever s/he has at the moment! Hence the social dynamics is not progressive. It is struck! It is jammed and had been there for long time. I mean relatively there for long time. Lacks a new movement!
In America,
everything is dynamic. The one who remains without sense of dynamics, s/he is left out!
So America keeps moving.