Windows........Hilarious

Someting that I came across on a joke site. I loved it...

No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses do:

1. They replicate quickly. ... Okay, Windows does that.

2. Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so. ... Okay, Windows does that.

3. Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk. ... Okay, Windows does that too.

4. Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. ... Sigh.. Windows does that, too.

5. Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2) and the user will buy new hardware. ... Yup, Windows does that, too.

Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental differences: Viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.

So Windows is not a virus. ... It's a bug.

Abracadabra - By Ambrose Bierce

By Abracadabra we signify
An infinite number of things.
'Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?
And Whence? and Whither? -- a word whereby
The Truth (with the comfort it brings)
Is open to all who grope in night,
Crying for Wisdom's holy light.

Whether the word is a verb or a noun
Is knowledge beyond my reach.
I only know that 'tis handed down.
From sage to sage,
From age to age --
An immortal part of speech!

Of an ancient man the tale is told
That he lived to be ten centuries old,
In a cave on a mountain side.
(True, he finally died.)
The fame of his wisdom filled the land,
For his head was bald, and you'll understand
His beard was long and white
And his eyes uncommonly bright.

Philosophers gathered from far and near
To sit at his feet and hear and hear,
Though he never was heard
To utter a word
But "Abracadabra, abracadab,
Abracada, abracad,
Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!"
'Twas all he had,
'Twas all they wanted to hear, and each
Made copious notes of the mystical speech,
Which they published next --
A trickle of text
In the meadow of commentary.
Mighty big books were these,
In a number, as leaves of trees;
In learning, remarkably -- very!

He's dead,
As I said,
And the books of the sages have perished,
But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.
In Abracadabra it solemnly rings,
Like an ancient bell that forever swings.
O, I love to hear
That word make clear
Humanity's General Sense of Things.

Footie Fox

Footie fox is a winner. No more posts until the world cup is over. Until then, watch this !

The Tiger Versus the Donkey

Once upon a time an old ass
Its master thought ‘what an appetite it has!
“I have to work for all day
To give it bales of hay.
Why don’t I abandon it?
And peacefully here I sit”
And thus he left it in the forest alone.
Alone left it was to cry and moan.
Our ass was watched by a hungry tiger.
This sight made his mouth wider.
The tiger was of its fame
As the king of the jungle was its name
Its mouth watered at such a treat
For it had never tasted a donkey’s meat.
Miya! It shouted to the old one.
“Sorry I did not hear you son!!”
“Do you know everybody obeys me?”
“At my presence”, said the ass,”how can that be?”
”Let’s have a race uptil eve, Hey!
And see who wins lots of prey.
The tiger ran and caught some rabbit with distraught.
The ass lay on its back
Like an old beaten haystack.
Vultures and hawks came beside
The ass trampled and crushed them to his side.
By eve both came to see who had more.
The tiger had a dozen, but the ass had a score.
Said the ass,”You have caught animals living on land,
But my prey consists of those which hardly touch sand.
“Alas!” Said the tiger,” I fail”.
And left with its hind legs covering its tail.

Pretty Scary Huh ?

I'm obsessed with Google.

http://www.lightover.com/epic/

Should take abt 8-10 mins to watch. The audio is important.

Number Facts on Google

This is a quick one. Larry Page and Sergei Brin are so freakishly mathematic !

• When Google filed the regulatory documents for its stockmarket listing in 2004, it said that it planned to raise $2,718,281,828, which is $e billion to the nearest dollar (e=2.178).
  
• A year later, it filed again to sell another batch of shares—precisely 14,159,265, which represents the first eight digits after the decimal in the number pi (3.14159265).

Wacky Websites

0) A guide to just about anything (Like my mother)

http://www.ehow.com/

1) Hate Bush ? Here is a countdown for you ! (Disclaimer: I'm not American and I don't have any political leaning)





2) If you interested in some cultural nuances & exchange of small gifts, do check this blog. Pretty cool concept

http://gimmeyourstuff.blogspot.com/

3) In fact, I HAVE HAD bananas on toast when I was a kid, just for the heck of it. And I liked it. So do I like this site ? Yup I do !!

http://www.bananasontoast.org

4) Lifehacker: Hacked my Life !

http://www.lifehacker.com/

5) Feel a little low ? Go through this amazing site !

http://www.motivation-tools.com/

6) Dream of the stars ? Here is a desktop planetarium

http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/

5 ways to start a company (without quitting your day job)

Almost everyone stuck in a cubicle dreams of starting his own business. Here are 5 ways to use your current gig to launch a new venture.

Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0 Magazine editor-at-large

May 2, 2006: 9:38 AM EDT

(Business 2.0 Magazine) - If you're reading this, there's a good chance that you've always wanted to launch your own startup. According to our research, roughly half of all Business 2.0 readers dream of founding their own companies.

Odds are, however, that you're still working for someone else. Maybe it's because you're afraid to give up that steady paycheck. Perhaps you're simply terrified by the thought of placing yourself at the mercy of greedy investors, cutthroat competitors, and a potentially indifferent marketplace. Whatever the reason, it's clear that there's a lot of unrequited entrepreneurial longing out there.

So we set out to see if we could help. We wondered, what if cubicle-bound employees could use their current gigs to launch new ventures? Of course, starting a company while employed by another one can be tricky -- especially if you've signed agreements promising not to compete with your employer or not to hire away colleagues. Indeed, in many cases anything you invent while collecting a paycheck can be considered the boss's property. James Geshwiler, managing director of CommonAngels, a Boston investment group, warns that from a legal perspective, cubicle entrepreneurs often "tread on very sensitive ground."

Still, working for a corporation affords access to several things that are vital to a fledgling company: money, customers, market research, personnel. And it turns out that many former wage earners have successfully exploited these resources -- legally, and in some cases with the assistance of their employers -- to realize their entrepreneurial dreams. Some actually built their startups while working for someone else, while others simply tapped previous employers' people and cachet.

All of them, however, learned to look at salaried life as a springboard rather than a prison. Daniel Curran, a management consultant who lectures on entrepreneurship at UCLA, suggests, "When you come across hidden customer demands in your job, turn them into a business."

Here are five ways to get started.

1. Use Your Salary as Funding

Gregory Moore financed his big idea one paycheck at a time.

The opportunity was obvious: Gregory Moore wanted to create a company that would securely transmit patient and payment data between hospitals, doctors, clinics, and insurers. In 2000 he took the proposal to software maker TeraHealth, which then hired him to make it a reality. But TeraHealth didn't pursue the effort, so Moore began building the business on the side. He used his salary to hire a coder and spent nights and weekends filing incorporation papers and creating sales brochures. He even set up a basic office.

The Monday after he left TeraHealth in March 2001, his new company, Harbor Healthcare, was open for business. Moore booked his first revenue about a month later. TeraHealth grumbled, but Moore had records proving that he'd hatched his idea long before he joined the company.

The key, he says, is "to use your salary to invest in the startup as much as possible before jumping ship." After five years and several rounds of angel funding, he still owns a majority of the firm's equity.

2. Turn Common Complaints Into a Business Plan

Jeff Gallino and Cliff LaCoursiere decided to give customers what they really wanted.

You know that feature your customers are always asking for? If your employer won't deliver it, maybe you should.

That's what Jeff Gallino and Cliff LaCoursiere did. Back in 2001 the two worked for ThinkEngine Networks, a Boston-based telecom equipment company. Gallino handled relationships with software partners, while LaCoursiere ran sales. The two kept hearing customers ask for a way to digitally sift through recorded calls and analyze them.

Gallino and LaCoursiere brought the idea to their employer, but they received a halfhearted response. So the duo wrote a business plan during off-duty hours and left ThinkEngine Networks in 2002. They funded their new firm, CallMiner, for a year with money saved from their salaries.

Gallino wrote the first version of their software, which builds an overall picture of what's being said through speech recognition, pattern mining, and signal analysis. The product attracted angel investment and a venture round, including cash from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture fund. Today, CallMiner's applications are used by airline, energy, and cable companies to categorize call-center calls, while government agencies are evaluating the technology's ability to automate intelligence gathering.

3. Make Your Boss a Beta Tester

David Bookspan invented a new service that his old firm just couldn't live without.

While working as a partner in a Philadelphia law firm during the 1990s, David Bookspan figured out how to use the local courthouse's lawsuit filings to drum up new business. Bookspan realized that if he could automate his system, he'd be able to create a lead-generation service that other lawyers would gladly pay to access.

The chairman at his firm felt the effort would distract from its core legal practice, but he let Bookspan develop it on his own. "Just be completely up front," Bookspan advises anyone with similar intentions. "View your employer as your friend."

He incorporated as MarketSpan in 1996 and stayed at the law firm for another year, working nights out of his home with a partner who was a software developer to create a marketable product. Four years later, with 88 of the nation's top 100 law firms (including his old employer) signed up as customers, his company was acquired by CourtLink (itself later bought by LexisNexis) for a reported $35 million.

4. Take Advantage of Your Company's Reputation

Dan Connors turned his pedigree into seed capital.

After 11 years at LucasArts, the videogame arm of Lucasfilm, Dan Connors decided that enough was enough. Hoping to make games that emphasized episodic storytelling rather than shoot-'em-up action, Connors was heartbroken when LucasArts killed his cartoon-based project to put more resources behind the firm's Star Wars franchise. At the same time, LucasArts was downsizing, so it was easy to quit.

Connors started out with one like-minded colleague in April 2004. They called their new venture Telltale and seeded it with cash from their severance packages. Then, over the next two years, as other former colleagues left LucasArts, Connors hired 15 of them.

Thanks to their LucasArts halo, Telltale had no problem finding clients. Within nine months it landed a deal to work with Ubisoft on a game based on TV's CSI. LucasArts's reputation also made it easier to raise $1.4 million in angel funding. Says Connors, "It's hard to overestimate the door-opening power of the LucasArts name."

5. Convert Your Employer Into a Business Partner

Jeff Hilbert spun a doomed division into a successful startup.

In 2002, when Jeff Hilbert was managing the design services division of Coventor, a chip-design software company in North Carolina, his unit was slated for the chopping block. However, Hilbert noticed that he had recently been winning a lot of business from wireless chip companies, so he asked Coventor to let him spin off the unit as a stand-alone company.

The board went for it and gave the startup -- now called WiSpry -- $6 million worth of patents and other intellectual property, seven employees, several hundred thousand dollars, and an office in Irvine, Calif., all in exchange for shares in the company. Today, Hilbert is CEO of WiSpry, which is developing a special chip for cell phones that could improve battery life by 20 to 40 percent. His advice: Don't rely too much on a parent company. Sooner or later, all startups must be able to fend for themselves.

Magic Words

MAGIC WORDS: An article by one of the few good writers on Magic: Marko

Even though they are not used as much in our days as they
were used in other times, magic words are part of our
tradition. The utterance of spells, incantations and prayers
forms part of world folklore and religions. According to
mystic knowledge and various religions the Creator of the
Universe spoke and created. Words of Power or, let's say,
Sounds of Power, coming from a most powerful being, created
the universe.

Us, simple humans, have tried for as long as we have roamed
Earth to get our share of this power and thus have come with
blessings, curses, prayers, incantations, spells, and
whatnot. The bottom line is that mankind has believed the
idea that certain words, phrases... that is: sounds, have
the power to affect the normal ways of nature: to stop
storms, to bring rain, to heal, and even to kill.

Artistic magicians (that means us) of other times borrowed
some of these powerful terms or came up with new ones in
order to better represent the part one is supposed to be
representing when doing trickery, that is, the part of a
magician: a powerful person conversant with deep secrets
which allow him to subvert the accepted laws of nature.

The term "magician" itself comes from the priests of an
ancient religion: Mazdeism, the religion of Zoroaster of
Persia. According to Zoroaster there is a war raging in the
Universe between Good (light) and Evil (Darkness).
Ahura-Mazda is light; Ariman, his foe, is darkness. Of
course you recognize these concepts since they are the same
used by many religions of our time: the idea of an eternal
struggle between Good and Evil.

Well, to get back on track, Zoroastrian priests were called
"mag" or "magi" and accounts of the miracles they performed
spread through the ancient world with the result that the
words "mag" and "magi" came to be applied to anyone doing
anything of a marvellous nature... for example: tricks. Thus
the words transform into Magic, Magia, Magie, Magician,
Magicien, Mago, etc. directly from the ancient Persian
language via the Latin of the Roman Empire.

However, the use of the word Magic meaning the art we
practice, is rather new. In ancient Roman times the guys who
performed tricks were called "acetabularii" because the main
trick in those times was the still well-known Cups and Balls
which they performed with the same metal cups used in the
market by the vinegar vendors. These cups were called:
"acetabulum." Remember vinegar is mainly acetic acid...
that's were we get the word "acetic" from. (By the way, in
Spanish vinegar is "vinagre" which means "spoiled wine"
which is exactly what vinegar is!)

In the English language, the kind of magic we perform was
called for a long time simply "juggling" and according to
Reginald Scot:

"The true art ... of juggling consisteth in legierdemaine."
Legierdemaine, which has an undeniable french origin means
"nimbleness of hand."

In Spanish we have "juegos de manos" which means "play of
the hands." The use of the French term in England might be
due to French magicians of the time travelling there since
circa 1250, French king Louis IX expelled from France all
tumblers and magicians, accusing them of perverting customs.

The term "conjurer" was latter used in England to identify a
magician and it means "someone who conjures," a conjuration
being a magic spell... so we are back at words again.

The most famous of magic words must surely be Abracadabra.
It apparently has a religious meaning. Myths from the lower
regions of the Northern Hemisphere around and near the
mediterranean have had a lot of influence in History and
human culture due to the fact that in antiquity the majority
of people of the world lived in this area. That's why myths
from futher up North aren't as influential and South of the
Equator there is very little land and thus, very little
population for their myths to be that important.

Well, the sacred myths in the most populated areas of
antiquity were mostly of a solar character. It is not that
these civilizations worshiped the sun as God but rather,
that they saw in the sun the visible manifestation of God,
which, when one thinks a little bit, seems perfectly
logical. The sun, or rather, the sun's passage through the
zodiac as the year unfolds gave rise to many ancient
religions many of which involved some kind of Man-God who is
born on Earth, usually from a virgin mother or conceived
through divine intervention and then he walks the Earth
teaching, healing and predicting everlasting life.

These myths vary, of course, having evolved along hundreds
and even thousands of years, but they have many points in
common, one of them being the death and resurrection of the
Man-God, in the same manner as the sun "dies" on the
Northern Hemisphere on December 22 when you get the shortest
day of the year (and the longest night... remember: darkness
equals evil). The sun is then apparently still, "dead,"
until December 25 when it begins to apparently raise by
1/10th its circunference, thus beginning on this day its
"re-birth" for a new yearly cycle.

If all the above sounds familiar it is because these things
were common knowledge in ancient and not so ancient times
and a lot of it was absorbed by the cult of Jesus of Galilee
whom theologians of the nascent faith identified with the
character of the KRST or Christ of other ancient religions,
notably the Egyptian cult.

All the above is not said here with any intent to polemize
or discuss anybody's faith of beliefs. I have just stated
some historical facts that are out there for anybody to
check out. I just needed to tell you a little bit of this in
order to explain the probable origin of "Abracadabra".

Among the ancients the sun, and thus the Man-God, was
usually symbolized by the figure and nature of the
constellation through which it, the sun, passed at the
vernal or spring equinox. In our own times the sun has
crossed the equator at the Spring equinox in the
constellation of Pisces (so the fish symbol to represent the
figure of Jesus-Christ adopted very early in Christianity
when these ideas were still fresh and in use). For the 2,160
years before that it crossed through the constellation of
Aries (the Ram) and Man-God figures were symbolized by
goats, sheep and sheperds. Prior to that the vernal equinox
was in the sign of Taurus (the Bull). That's why a little
more than 4,000 years B.C. Man-God figures were symbolized
by bulls and one such was Apis, the sacred bull of the
Egyptians.

But centuries march by and astrological eras change and a
new symbol becomes attached to the sun. Sampson Arnold
Mackey, in his book "Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients"
says the following in regards to Abracadabra:

"(....) the slow progressive disappearance of the Bull is
most happily commemorated in the vanishing series of letters
(....) For ABRACADABRA is The Bull, the only Bull. The
ancient sentence split into its component parts stands thus:
Ab'r-achad-ab'ra, i. e., Ab'r, the Bull; achad, the only,
&c.--Achad is one of the names of the Sun, given him in
consequence of his Shining ALONE,--he is the ONLY Star to be
seen when he is seen--the remaining ab'ra, makes the whole
to be, The Bull, the only Bull; while the repetition of the
name omitting a letter, till all is gone, is the most
simple, yet the most satisfactory method that could have
been devised to preserve the memory of the fact (....) This
word (Abracadabra) disappears in eleven decreasing
stages...."

                       abracadabra
                       abracadabr
                       abracadab
                       abracada
                       abracad
                       abraca
                       abrac
                       abra
                       abr
                       ab
                       a

The above sequence arranged in the form of a triangle was an
ancient charm. It is clear from Mackey's explanation that
our most common magic word was originally a praise to God or
Man-God when he was simbolically represented by a bull in
those ancient times before astrological ages changed and he
came to be represented by sheep and an astrological age
later by fish.

Another very common magic words, at least for English
speaking magicians are Hocus Pocus. It seems they also have
a religious origin but whereas Abracadabra is a praise to a
vanishing symbol of God, Hocus Pocus is, according to one
source, a corruption of the Consecration of the Roman
Catholic Mass in Latin; in other words, a mockery. The words
mocked seem to be: "hoc est corpus meum" which means: "this
is my body," the Latin equivalent of the words spoken by
Jesus, according to Gospel, when he offered bread to his
disciples during the Last Supper.

Another probable origin of the term might be that there
existed a magician named Hocos Pocos, Hocas Pocas, or Hocus
Pocus and his name was taken later as magic words by
populace and magicians alike. However this theory doesn't
eliminate the previous one, because the said magician might
have come to be called Hocus Pocus because he used those
words and then they might be a mockery of the Roman Catholic
ritual as stated before. I have seen this very same
phenomenom happen here in Panama: a very popular kid show
magician here who uses the magic words "Sacarina Bombay" and
even though his stage name is Leo Zardoz, nobody calls him
that. Instead they know him as, you guessed it: Sacarina
Bombay.

Other magic words include "Gali-Gali" which, I have read
somewhere, is a call for chicken to "come and get it" when
they feed them in the Arabian nations of North Africa, where
Gali-Gali is also a name for magicians there. Why a chicken
call? Because Gali-Galis perform the Cups and Balls using
baby chicks and some other tricks using the same creatures,
like splitting one into two and producing them from the
clothing of a male spectator. There have been some famous
Gali-Galis. One performed in the US mid-20th century. I met
another one in Barcelona in the 80's. Here is another
instance of the magic words becoming the name of the
magician or, in this case, magicians.

The Great Dante used the magic words "Sim Sala Bim" taken,
it seems, from a Danish drinking song. I don't know if he
was the first one to use them as magic words but he
certainly was not the last one. The German magician Kalanag
used them too. The idea is using some strange sounding words
to trigger the magical event.

Sigfrid and Roy coined a new one a few years before the
premature end of their performing career: Sarmoti, which I
understand is some kind of acronim of which I can only
figure out the first three letters: Sar, meaning "Sigfrid
and Roy," no doubt, but I don't know what the rest might
mean. If anybody knows the rest I will be most grateful for
the information.

Professor Hoffmann has in one of his books the following
beauty:

               Aldeboronticofosficoformico

I learned it while still a teen from a small Robert-Harbin
book in which he taught the way to learn it: split it into
three separate words like:

             Aldeborontico Fosfico  Formico

and it is easy to learn! I use this one a lot for comic
effect. The other magic word I use is "aguli guli" repeated
thrice. It has a comic sound to it, at least in Spanish. It
is a variation of Gali-Gali, of course.

Many magicians don't use any magic words at all and it seems
magic words will finally go the way the magic wand went,
that is, they will be relegated to the dusty place where we
keep relics of the past, but I continue to use them as a
connection to the tradition of magic which makes me feel I
have bonds of brotherhood with the magicians, conjurers,
jugglers, acetabularii, that extend back in time for
centuries or maybe millenia.

Bengaluru

Quick Facts on Bangalore's Vehicles
And here is the status of congestions on major roads in bangalore..


We badly need the Bengaluru Metro !!!!
Here is a prelim map..Click to see the pic on actual size

How to download Videos from Video Sites

One of my latest fads is to go through videos on video sites. I personally rate google videos as the best. However, there are categories
a) Google: Look at my previous post. That is the kind of brilliant stuff Google Churns out
b) You tube: This site has some of the most hilariously funny desi videos. Example, wanna see Namma Captain and T.R in Action ? Check out these links !
Captain Rocks !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J6Zxu3HLjg
Watch Captain fight the bad guys. Watch out for the shades !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8UWaHROLC0
This one captures Captain at his best. Watch as he is being tortured "brutually" after being captured. Watch out for the expressions :-) This one is a winner
Even Better: T. R. Fight scene:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=o4t87odQvxY&search=TR
God ! Does he manage to talk while fighting !!!!
c) ifilm.com - Not really seen that many videos, but it is recommended to be one of the best

So how do you download videos from these sites ? (They only allow you to watch them on the site)
http://feelingtea.com/decode/google/

9/11: The real story

An amazing video on Google that shows the "real story" behind 9/11. A bit lengthy (1hr 20 mins) but worth watching.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848&pl=true

BPO For Dummies

Taken from Wikipedia, which in turn quotes PWC as the source

Global BPO Market by Industry
Information Technology 43%
Financial Services 17%
Communication (Telecom) 16%
Consumer Goods/ Services 15%
Manufacturing 9%

Global BPO Market by Geography
United States 59%
Europe 27%
Asia-Pacific (incl. Japan) 9%
Rest of the World 5%

Size of Global Outsourcing Market
2000 USD$ 119 Billion
2005 USD$ 234 Billion
2008 (est.) USD$ 310 Billion

Size and Growth of BPO in India
Year Size (US$ Bn) Growth Rate
2003 2.8 59%
2004 3.9 45.3%
2005 5.7 44.4%

Currently the Indian BPO Industry employs in excess of 245,100 people and another 94,500 jobs are expected to be added during the current financial year (2005-2006)

Call Center Employee cost
USA US$ 19,000 annually
Australia US$ 17,000 annually
Philippines US$ 9,050 annually
India US$ 7,500 annually

A Window into Microsoft's Battle

Excellent Article.

A Layman's guide to the latest happenings on the Microsoft's EU Antitrust Case

Read more at www.businessweek.com/gl...

Software Reviews

1) Trillian Basic 3.1 (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/)
Rating - Thumbs Up

-This has got all the features of Y! and MSN messenger including audio and video chat

-Single window interface for all messengers

-Excellent user manual

1) Internet Explorer 7.0 (Beta 2 version, Released on March 20th 06')

(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/ie7betaredirect.mspx)

Rating - Thumbs Down

Copy cats ! - They lifted tabbed browsing from Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox.

Copy cats ! -They lifted side bar search from Firefox

Copy cats ! -They lifted add-ins/extensions concept from Firefox

It loads faster than IE 6.x, apart - nothing special

1) MW Snap (www.mirekw.com)

Rating - Thumbs Up

-The best Screenshott software ever !

-Single .exe file. No set up required

-Single select-click/copy/print/save option for fastest screenshots

1) Foxit Reader (www.foxitsoftware.com)

Rating - So-So

-Adobe Reader isn't your only option for viewing PDF files

- I love single .exe files without setup !

-No stupid piugins that load on the Adobe startup screen for an eternity. Takes a few seconds to spring up !

-Why dosen't the damn thing allow me to edit PDF files without putting u a stupid "eval" watermark on it !

1) CCleaner (www.ccleaner.com)

Rating - Thumbs up

-Well, my only comment - My PC became much faster after I ran this !!

Putting together the Airbus A380

A Behind the scenes look:

With the Airbus A380 scheduled to enter service at the end of this year, it won't be long before travelers will have a close look at the biggest passenger plane ever built. But the finished aircraft is only part of the A380 story. Equally fascinating are the logistics of building this double-decker behemoth. Climb aboard and take a peek

A Big, Big Nose Job

Workers inspect the nose section of an A380 under construction at St. Nazaire, on France's Atlantic coast. Sections of the fuselage are built at this factory, then shipped by sea, river, and highway for final assembly in Toulouse.

Flying Beluga

In Stade, Germany, an A380 tailfin is loaded onto a transport plane. The plane, nicknamed the Beluga because of its bulbous profile, can accommodate the 24.1-meter-high tailfin, which is longer than the wing of a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320. But other A380 parts are too big and have to be shipped by land or sea.

Winging It

An A380 wing under construction at an Airbus factory in Broughton, North Wales. A new factory had to be built to accommodate the 46-meter-long wing, which is taller than a nine-story building.

What's "Megaplane" in Welsh?

A ferry carries an A380 wing down the River Dee from the Broughton wing factory. What's that AFON DYFRDWY painted on the side of the boat -- a serial number? No, it's Welsh for "River Dee."

Wings Over Water

With a pair of A380 wings stowed in its hold, a ferry steams toward the mouth of the Garonne River in France, enroute from Wales. The oceangoing ferry, christened the Ville de Bordeaux, was custom-built for Airbus at a Chinese shipyard.

Historic Passage

A barge carrying an A380 wing passes under the 19th-century Pont de Pierre on the Garonne River in Bordeaux, France. The pilings of the historic bridge were reinforced to guard against collisions with barges carrying pieces of the megaplane.

Wide Load Ahead

Custom-built flatbed trucks ferry A380 parts from Bordeaux to Toulouse. Airbus and the French government split the cost of widening and straightening this highway, which is closed to traffic several nights a month so the convoys can pass.

Touchdown

Sixteen Football Fields could fit inside the A380 assembly plant in Toulouse. Five test aircraft have already been built here, and construction is under way on A380s to be delivered by the end of this year to Singapore Airlines, the first customer.

Roll 'em In

Workers help roll a chunk of A380 fuselage into place at the Toulouse assembly plant. Note the three levels inside the fuselage: Two passenger decks, with a cargo hold at the bottom.

Snap 'em Together

O.K., it's a little harder than putting together a Lego toy, but with the wings and fuselage built elsewhere, final assembly in Toulouse takes surprisingly little time. Airbus says it expects to build four A380s per month after production ramps up next year.

Roll 'em Out

A finished A380, one of five test aircraft, being towed onto a runway at Toulouse. It will be flown to another Airbus facility in Hamburg, Germany, for painting and interior outfitting.

Paint Job

Workers in Hamburg paint the exterior of an A380. What will the megaplane's interior look like? That's a secret, closely guarded by Airbus and the carriers that will start flying the plane next year

Takeoff!

An A380 heads skyward at the Asian Aerospace air show in Singapore in February. The plane, though painted with the livery of launch customer Singapore Airlines, is actually one of several test models

Trademarks, Not Patents

Came across a very well written article on Apple's intelligent usage of trademarks to gain competitive advantage. Also, I learnt a new term called value transference.

Here is the link to the aricle
http://www.core77.com/reactor/12.05_ipod_trademark.asp

A fake heir

This e-mail (which dropped into my inbox this morning) was too hilarious for me to ignore.....

Dear friend,

I am Barrister Dean Hargreaves, a solicitor at law and attorney to the late Mr. Mark Michelle, a national of France who was formerly a contractor to the shell petroleum development company (SPDC) in Saudi Arabia. On the 6th of June 2004,he and his wife with their two children were involved in a ghastly-fatal auto crash during the summer vacation. Since then, I have made countless enquiries with his country's embassy to locate his immediate or extended families to no avail. The deceased passed away leaving in my possession a copy of his will stating his two late children as the direct beneficiaries or a relative as next of kin in their absence.

After several unsuccessful attempts to locate the deceased’s next of Kin, I have decided to
contact you with this partnership proposal to assist in repatriating a huge amount of money before it is confiscated/declared unserviceable by the bank where the deposit is lodged. The deceased has a deposit currently valued at $21 million US dollars and the bank has issued me a
notice to provide the next beneficiary or next of kin before the end of the fiscal year (2006).

Since I haven't had any luck in locating the next beneficiary of the deceased’s will in the past two years, I therefore seek your consent to present you as the next of kin /will beneficiary to the deceased, so the deposit presently valued at $21 million US dollars would be paid into your account for further disbursements.40% to you, 50% to me and 10% for bank transfers and
overhead costs. I have in my possession every legitimate and backing document as handed over from the deceased for every process of the transaction.

Furthermore you have every reason to carefully ascertain the integrity of this proposal, as I require your utmost cooperation, confidentiality and trust. I guarantee that this transaction would be executed with 100% legitimacy and without the slightest breach of the law. You could get in touch by email deangreaves2458@aim.com as I am presently in Ireland furnishing me with the following details.

(1.) Your full name
(2.) Your telephone and fax numbers
(3.) Your contact address

Your urgent response would be highly appreciated as I await your response in earnest.

Best regards,
Barrister Dean Hargreaves

Online Grievance System in India

I've personally never tried using these systems, do cannot vouch for their effctivness, but I think it is way forward in outlook, and the Indian government must be appreciated for their efforts to maintain an online greivance system.

Here are some I found out last week.

http://darpg-grievance.nic.in/

When I visited this site, I saw that I was the 67,000th person to have visited this site. So either this is new or not many ppl have tried this.

Closely linked to this site is the website of the Indian Citizen's charter that explains citizens of their mandate. Check it out. Very informative.

Couple of sites especially for ppl who get bogged by calls from Multinational Banks who thrust credit cards into unsuspecting pockets and burn a hole through them

http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/PublicationReportDetails.aspx?fromdate=06/28/05&SecId=21&SubSecId=0
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=19942457

I was informed there is also a greivance forum but couls not manage to find it on google (let me know if you know)

mp3 Tickets over an iPod ?!

http://www.ingenico.com/fdisplay/viewNews.asp?id=302

Ingenico's research teams have developed the world's first-ever terminal accepting a payment on an iPod®(1) . This pioneering invention, using i5100 technology, was demonstrated at the Cartes 2005 exhibition held November 15-17, 2006 and aroused significant interest. While this demonstration may not be a sign of what the future holds, it certainly proves Ingenico's ability to innovate for the benefit of its current and future customers.

Consumer habits have changed dramatically since the introduction of digital portable technology, such as MP3 players. Today, millions of Internet users routinely download entire music collections on to their music players, the most popular of which is Apple's iPod.

One of the most popular and exciting iPod accessories is Griffin’s iTrip FM transmitter. iTrip is a technically simple yet ingeniously useful module that, when plugged to the iPod, transmits music via the FM band. Drivers can play music stored on an iPod through their car's FM radio.
Ingenico’s i5100 terminal integrates with Atlantic Radio System’s FM data extraction module, allowing it to communicate with the iPod via the FM band while enabling users to pay for goods using their MP3 player.

At this past Cartes exhibition, Ingenico demonstrated how, in a hypothetical future, travellers could book plane tickets and receive them via MP3 format by e-mail. He or she would then just need to store the MP3 receipt on an iPod before going to the airport. When preparing to board, the traveller would simply play the MP3 ticket on the iPod to send all ticket information securely and in real time to the boarding gate. Ticket information might include passport, itinerary and price data as well as pre-encoded biometric features for passenger verification at the gate. The same intuitive, user friendly payment system can also be used for gift vouchers, tickets and virtually all other forms of prepaid transaction.
(1) iPOD® is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
(2) iTrip is a registered trademark of Griffin Technology, Inc.

About Atlantic Radio System
Atlantic Radio System was created in 2001. The company develops and sells innovative radio solutions (FM, RDS, DARC…) that allow all audiences to get real-time and broadcasted information, anywhere in France , without any need for a costly connection.