Photography or Photoshopy !!!

Tushal had come down from Baroda, a meet was absolutely necessary. So we decided to meet/ride over some parathas.
Where?: default for our meets: Fauzi dhaba, ~50 kms from city on Nagpur highway.
When?: 7 pm
What?: Sweet milky chaai and mouth watering aloo parathas with dahi.

So apart from the usual talk we also happened to detail a lot about cameras, lenses and photography. Well I always wanted to own a Nikon F70 35 mm SLR with an ED lens or a Minolta Dynax 7D, but right now, it’s a thing of a future, considering my bank balance which dips exponentially towards the month end and rises on the last working day of the month ;)

But I have my share of 1's and 0's camera on my phone, N6230. So I decided to see what the VGA camera (<1 MPx) was capable of. First expression, bad light, but a fairly good snap. EOD, crashed into bed.

Next morning, no work, all friends outa town for Diwali and Eid… Oh yeah, wish you a happy, safe and prosperous Diwali and Eid Mubarak :) …As I booted my comp, bulbs flashed, tubelights lit bright $) So transferred the snap to the comp and clicked my way to Photoshop. Did some fiddling around, pretty good outputs.

Towards the end of the day I realized that more than the camera and the lenses, it’s the 1s and 0s that give us the power, that edge over chemicals and film. After all this, the F70 with the other gibberish has lost its importance, so now it’s a 5 MPx with a good optical zoom, somewhere around 10-12X, >1Gb memory, image stabilization and rechargeable batteries is all I need. Still sounds a bit on the higher end ;)

Photos speak louder than words, though they consume thousand times more memory and so leaving you with a few outcomes from todays experiment.
-Smile and keep clicking.

Platinum : Gold : PETROL

The title says it all... but still there are finer aspects to this. The prices of fuel have now hit a mind blowing Rs 49.81 here in Hyderabad and an excess of Rs 51 in bangalore. I happened to notice the breakup of fuel prices in NIC some time back.

47.32 (petrol price in Bangalore in INR)=
19.64 (value at supply point) +
14.86 (excise duty + edu. cess - Central Govt.) +
11.91 (States sales tax) +
0.77 (dealer commission) +
0.14 (other charges)

Now i can understand the value at supply point but the other charges seem to make no sense to me. The biggest question to me is to where this money is going? I still am negotiating potholes (and all the other inherent aspects of Indian roads), i still am riding in badly lit roads w/o road dividers, I still am running on standard 87 octane fuel (sub standard in many other countries) …

I am beginning to wonder whether paying taxes is day light robbery.

I have always heard that problems need to be addressed at the grass root level. But here its way below that: HELL, I would say.

Royal Enfield's R&D is working.... FINALLY !!!

After the success of the Bajaj Pulsar, R.L.Ravichandran, former marketing head of Bajaj Auto has moved in as the CEO of bike maker Royal Enfield (RE). Subsequently RE announced the launch of two new variants; Bullet Electra 5S and a new variant of its cruiser ‘Thunderbird’. The new Bullet, with gearshift on the left, comes with gas-filled shock absorbers, glass wool silencer, multi-focal reflector lamps with option of disc brakes and electric start.


Ravichandran said the company would also come out with a new integrated 500 cc engine in next six months. This is most probably gonna be the AVL 500, a definite thumping bull and my next bike upgrade (plans subject to change if a better bike is in the pipeline).

Judging by the way Ravichandran and BAL launched almost 5 variants of the Pulsar in 2 years, I wouldn’t be surprised if the existing Thunderbird is upgraded in versions 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and finally version 2.

RE is also working on a completely new engine platform. Its widely spoken that this one is gonna be more sporty (the RD 350 just crossed my mind ;) The integrated engine will give the riders the advantage of efficiency, an absolute necessity owing to the steadily rising fuel prices (currently Rs 49.81 in Hyderabad)

So its good that the R&D team has atlest woken up, and I just hope that they design bikes and not just new stickers (an inherent characteristic of a few Indian bike makers… read “Hero Honda” ;)

the future is OPEN

Gone are the days of monopoly; OPEN SOURCE is in. All you have to do is to log onto the web page (which obviously will be slow if you are on IE), download the small installer, install it in a flash and live happily ever after..... story does not end here, feel bored or wanna do some fiddling, download the source code, get the compiler and an editor, all windows are broken, doors open and its a wide open world out there.

Ever since i migrated to Unix and subsequently to the flavours of Linux, life has become so easy without the need for using my microsoft leg pad (a small leg pad having the three most important keys ==> Ctrl, Alt and Delete). The first open source freeware i fell in love with is Firefox. A review called it "Best of 2003", no doubt.

FIREFOX is a free alternative web browser that is faster, safer and easier to use than Microsoft Internet Explorer. Recent security exploits make Internet Explorer unsafe. Reduce the risk of viruses, worms, spyware and other malicious software by switching to the most customizable and secure browser in the world! Enjoy features such as tabbed browsing, a popup blocker, built in search and a feed reader (RSS) to keep up with the latest news headlines.

THUNDERBIRD is the perfect companion for Firefox, featuring one of the most advanced junk mail filters available. Both Firefox and Thunderbird can be easily customized for the way you browse the web and read your e-mail.

http://www.mozilla.org/

a voice i heard on a deserted road...

Treat me good, I’ll treat you better.
Treat me bad, I’ll treat you worse.

Yours faithfully,
Your VEHICLE.

Now back to the main q?

What do i blog? :))

My next phone upgrade: Choice No.1

The Nokia N91 is in..... With the N91 in my hand i can stand up the mast of the biggest ship and shout out "I'm the king of the World" and yet be able to click a snap of the most beautiful lady on the bottom-most deck of the ship ;)

Operating System:
Symbian OS 9.1

Developer Platform:
Series 60 3rd Edition

Java Technology:
Web Services API (JSR-172)
Security and Trust Services API (JSR-177)
Location API (JSR-179)
SIP API (JSR-180)
Wireless Messaging API (JSR-205)
Scalable 2D Vector Graphics API (JSR-226)
Advanced Multimedia Supplements (JSR-234)
Bluetooth API (JSR-82)
CLDC 1.1
Wireless Messaging API (JSR-120)
Mobile Media API (JSR-135)
Mobile 3D Graphics API (JSR-184)
JTWI (JSR-185)
FileConnection and PIM API (JSR-75)
MIDP 2.0
Nokia UI API

Browser:
HTML over TCP/IP
WAP 2.0
XHTML over TCP/IP

Sound Formats:
AAC+
eAAC+
M4A
MIDI tones (poly 64)
WMA
AAC
AMR (NB-AMR)
MIDI tones (poly 64)
MP3
RealAudio
True Tones (WB-AMR)
WAV

Band Functionality:
GSM 1800
GSM 1900
GSM 900
WCDMA 2100


Screen Display:
Color Depth: 18 bit
Resolution: 176 x 208


Memory:
Unlimited Heap size
Shared Memory for Storage: 29 MB
Unlimited Jar size

Local Connectivity:
Bluetooth
USB
WLAN

Video Support:
3GPP formats (H.263)
MPEG-4
RealVideo

Network Data Support:
HSCSD
WCDMA
CSD
EGPRS
GPRS

Extra Features:
2 megapixel camera with 20x digital zoom
4GB HDD
Music player
USB Mass Storage
Instant Messaging
IMAP4 email
POP3 email
PoC
Presence
RealOne player
SMTP email
Stereo FM radio
SyncML
Themes


need anything more ?
Not for now at least ;)

Weekend Get-away: Kuntala Falls

It was Thursday (7th july), ride planning day ;) initial plan was to ride somewhere towards warangal. After taking much needed words of wisdom from GR (scientist at National Geological Research Center and fellow biker) plans shifted more northbound. Kuntala falls, Saturday, ~320 kms from Hyd on Nagpur Highway. Went early to bed to prepare for the 4 am wake up. Saturday, 4:30 am: Clueless as to why it was raining this hard, after Friday’s pleasant weather. Calls flew in and out and finally decided to care a damm about the rain and take off on my Black Hooligan (Pulsar 180 classic). Man!!! This is the first time I took off on a two wheeler in a downpour of this magnitude. Was immediately welcome by trucks splashing water off the road, which was under a foot of water. Didn’t seem very encouraging. Took a 5 minute break at an ATM. Set off to meet Pravin (P 180 DTSi) near QP, Begumpet. Pravin was cladded in all leathers, my pair of leathers was safely packed in my backpack and I was in my raincoat. We reached Runway 9 at around 8 am, still raining cats and dogs. By this time I was fully wet, neck to toe, thanks to the helmet, it kept my head dry.

So solly (Black Karizma) comes in, soon followed by GR (Royal Enfield 350 Machismo). We decided to go forward with the trip and so did we. Rode some 50 kms (rain is implicit), breakfast at Fauzi Dhaba, on the Nagpur Highway (aloo paratha and sweet milky chaai). The shelter was very welcoming and cozy, so we guys had a pretty long (45 minute) breakfast. Reluctantly took off. From there onwards there was no one stopping us. Steady 80 kmph in moderate rain and 60 kmps when the rain was almost pushing us off the bike. My rain coat was of no use and so switched to my leather gear, which was kept me dry for around an hour :). By this time all of us except GR who was in his waterproof and thermal ride gear were dripping wet.

Rode 200 kms to reach the fort (see pics), a 15 minute break there and proceed towards Kuntala falls (APs Tallest falls). Awesome, plush greenery all the way, finally led us to an uninhibited and unexplored natural falls. The sight was truly awesome. Stripped off the wet clothes let em dry on the rocks and changed to dry clothes to get wet again in the water falls ;). We could spare just an hour in the falls as it was raining and the ride back would be much slower because there would be atleast 200 kms of night riding. We planned to skip lunch and cover maximum distance when the natural light was on. Butt break for late lunch after fueling at Reliance Petrobunk at around 6:30 pm. Again it was Aloo Paratha, Egg Burgy, Dahi and Chaai (kinda becoming standard ride meal). Thereafter it was continuous riding, solly having the brightest 55/55v Headlamps took the lead, all of us trailing with his tail lamp as reference, kinda target fixation :).Finally made it back to fauzi dhaba at 9 pm. Dispersed in our own ways from there.

A good and wet way to spend a weekend.


PICS: http://vinay.rides.fotopic.net/

My first post

hmmm...... now what do i write in :))

:: WHAT DO I BLOG ::