A telugu poem by Prasad Komarraju on the occassion of Praveen and Sirisha's wedding anniversary

Top Public National Universities

According to USNews, Rutgers University (New Brunswick) ranked #21. Even though Rutgers is not even in top 10, I am glad to know that the University is on par with 'Texas A&M" and "Purdue". I hope Rutgers improves it's ranking in coming years.

21.
Ohio State University–Columbus
Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (IN)
Rutgers–New Brunswick (NJ)
Texas A&M Univ.–College Station
University of Iowa

Click on the title to navigate to "Top Publick National Universities"
For more on rankings Click here

Dear IBM Thinkpad fans - use 'Keyboard Customizer'

I use 'Window's key on my desktop (at work and home) all the time. I was disappointed initially because ThinkPad doesn't provide a similar key on it's keyboard. However, I recently realized that you could customize the ThinkPad's keyboard. I want everyone else to take advantage of this (hidden) feature; here is how you do it...

- Find and Click 'Access IBM' on your ThinkPad keyboard
- Click on - Manage keyboard & pointing devices
- Click on - Map keys to functions
- You can make following choice for instance to map 'Right' Alt key to 'Windows(R)' Key




- While you are at it, explore other customization options

Identify this Snake

Snake in North Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

We just saw this snake in our back yard today. Please identify the snake and its characteristics. The snake just caught a frog and was having the morning breakfast.

FTC banned person gets on NYTimes best seller list?

Surely you can recognize this guy, as I can. Many times while surfing the television late at night or early in the morning he used to show-up on the blue tube. Surely, I never stopped to listen what he was trying to sell or anything, but I never suspected that same bogus material could make him to New York Times best seller list. His book also at 15th bestseller on amazon.com

Allegedly he was involved in many scams before, and FTC banned his infomercials from airing on television.

My advice to anyone, don't buy this book and don't buy into any hoopla such as this book trying to promote.

Click on the title to navigate to the related article from Salon.com

Khipu

Khipu or Quipu - are the mysterious knots on colored cotton cords, are said to compose of some kind of short hand like code at the time of Inca Empire.

You can read more about these at New York Times article, or click on the title to navigate to wikipedia.org

Everyday we learn something new, don't we!?

Top 10 overpriced places to live in US - Forbes

According to Forbes.com following are top 10 over priced places to live in US. Out of 10, I lived in Passaic(90s) and Middlesex County, NJ (recently). Most of my friends and I would agree that these places are overpriced, but still amazingly the people are buying houses at the same high pace.

1. Seattle


2. New York City
   
3. Portland, Ore.
   
4. Chicago
   
5. San Jose, Calif.
   
6. Bergen-Passaic, N.J.
   
7. San Francisco
   
8. Middlesex, N.J.
   
9. Denver
   
10. Los Angeles

	New York City	Passaic, NJ	Middlesex, NJ
Cost of Living Rank	146	140	138
Job Growth Rank	108	102	92
Income Growth Rank	70	82	104
Housing Affordability Rank	144	130	115
Median Home Price	$435,200	$448,100	$381,400

"New York City: New Yorkers will tell you (grinning with the slightest hint of hubris) that their city should be at the top of any list of overpriced places. And they do have a lot to complain about. The local economy is doing well, and incomes are going up solidly. But cost of living and housing affordability is where New Yorkers get the bite. New York is the most expensive city in North America, according to the "2005 Cost of Living Survey" from Mercer Human Resource Consulting. And, in the first quarter of this year, inflation was at its highest rate (4.1%) since 1991, according to the city comptroller."

"Bergen-Passaic, N.J.: The Bergen-Passaic area has hit the top ten again--last year it was No. 2. This year, it scores far better on income growth, but housing and cost of living are very, very expensive. That's not that surprising--the area is full of commuters to New York City, and some local towns, such as Alpine, are among the priciest in the country. "

"Middlesex, N.J.: Most of the country has never heard of Middlesex, N.J., so how can it make the list? This wouldn't be the first time--last year it was at number five. Middlesex residents mainly take a hit on cost of living and housing affordability. Located in the center of the state, the county is home to large companies, including Merrill Lynch and Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and is one of the fastest growing in New Jersey. "

- Click on the title to navigate to original artilce at Forbes.com

I just watched the movie Azaad by Nagarjuna today. I couldn't help but notice an unhealthy trend of belittling Pakistan at every chance -- and that is putting it mildly.

I saw Hero and other movies which support the aformentioned observation. In a way, it got me thinking about patriotism etc.

What is this affinity to the country we have? Why do we have it? I realised that the patriotism is only a hop, skip, and a jump away from jingoism. Movies and propaganda are actually brainwashing and indoctrinating a hatred towards our neighbours. They are blurring the distinction between patriotism and jingoism.

It saddens me as a human being to see that a bloke in India can hate another person from Pakistan without even knowing him or her. Having different countries with different laws governing similar people is already a necessary evil; however, using mass media to encourage this separation and to erect a wall between different peoples is a downright atrocity.

Just wanted to share my thoughts on that :)

Rocky Mountain National Park

Day 1:
Arrived at Denver 10:10pm
Rented 2 full-size sedans from Alamo at Denver airport
Checked-in at Marriot Courtyard, South Lakewood, Denver

Day 2:
Denver Botanic Gardens












Downtown of Denver has beautiful gardens with many varieties of plants and flowers.

Special attraction in the gardens is the 30 varieties of lotus flowers placed in a ink filled ponds. Ink added ponds reflect the sky and the sorrounding plants making it a beautiful site to see.



















Garden of Gods -
Spectacular sandstones were shaped in various forms because of erosion. Siamese Twins, Balanced Rock, Kissing Camels and more ....
Dinner at Olive Garden
Cave of the winds - A guided tour of a cave $20/person was sold out by the time we arrived which is not far from Garden of Gods

Day 3:
Checked-out from Courtyard





Stopped at Boulder, CO on way to Estes Park









Entered Estes park in the evening and checked-in to Holiday Inn














Visited Moraine Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park

Dinner at Village Pizza
Great place, can be recommended to anyone. Nice food, plenty of choices in terms of variety of pizzas. Had food there twice in a row.







Day 4:
Left hotel room at 7:30am for Rocky Mountain National Park.






Our first stop is Bear Lake which is about 10 miles away from the east entrance of the park. Parking space there is limited, therefore we left early, other wise we had an option of taking shuttle bus.








At Bear Lake all of us joined a guided tour given by a park ranger. Park ranger was very nice and knowledgeable, explained whole lot to everyone who were following her. The tour ended with an applause.







In order to visit three lakes we hiked up, each one was 200 feet height apart. Nymph Lake, Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake .

Drove on Trail Ridge Road
Shepards Lake Tundra
Dinner at Village Pizza

Day 5:
Lilly Lake, Hollowwell Park - Beaver Dams
Saw a cayote at Moraine Lake
Souvenier shopping at RMNP Head Quarters, Indian Village (Estes Park)
Dinner: Take out from Taco Bell / Chinese Restaurant

Day 6:
Checked-out from Holiday Inn Lunch at Denver airport
Departed Denver for BWI at 1:10pm and arrived at 10:10pm (EST)

Gunpowder Falls State Park of Maryland
Did a two hour hike at this state park. It was a pleasent stroll, nothing strenous. There were lots of red berries and black berries along the trail. There were number of trails, and we went on different trails (short) that take you along the corn fields and dense forest. All and all it was pleasent experience.

Raahy Looking at the World 

Audiobooks - Part II

I think that listening to books is an acquired taste driven by necessity and convenience. There are many disadvantages to listening audiobooks. But their few advantages make them preferable in certain situations. Let's start with the disadvantages of audiobooks.

You cannot go back and forth through an audiobook the way you go through a paperbook. (Paperbook, now that's my invention. Perhaps a Lexis-Nexis search a hundred years from now will show me as the original coiner of the word in this sense. Then again, it may already have been used - considering how obvious it sounds.) iPod, for example, is especially biased towards music listeners. Even its menu says Artists, Songs, etc. There's no way that I know of using which you can change that to mean Authors and Books, for example. What's worse is that you cannot bookmark an audiobook while you are listening to it. And the books that you download from Audible.com do not come with these bookmarks either. This means that you cannot jump from, say Chapter 10 to Chapter 20. The whole of the audiobook is one amorphous chunk of bytes. You can, using the quick access feature (what is is actually called?) in iPod, jump from say a position of 20 minutes and 30 seconds to 35 minutes and 40 seconds. But, how does that help you, or anyone?

There's no quick replay. Meaning there's no easy way if I just wanted to listen to the last 15 seconds of what I'd just heard once again. If I were reading a paperbook, on the other hand, I can simply move my eye a few paragraphs up, or move to the previous page.

Listening to an audiobook can sometimes feel like slooow death. Most of us can read much faster than we can listen. Since clarity is one of the most important characteristics of an audiobook, the books are read quite slowly. Certain books are read too slow in my opinion, but in most cases they are read slow because that's the limitation imposed by the medium itself.

Certain books are simply not suited to be audiobooks. How do you describe a picture in audio? Or how can follow a reasonably complex mathematical equation in audio?

Finally, there's no substitute for the sheer physicalness of a paperbook in our minds. Perhaps a generation or two from now, people will be so used to "reading" books via digital media that it's taken for granted. But, ours is a generation is still dominated by paper. Current technology doesn't even come close to replacing the experience of an inexpensive, handy paperbook.

In the next part, I will talk about the advantages of audiobooks.

Audiobooks - Part I

My wife presented me within an iPod for our wedding anniversary in 2004. At first, I thought I would listen to some music, but when I found a co-commuter to NYC listening to audiobooks, I was hooked to the idea. I listened to books-on-tape a few years ago when I used to have a long commute by car, and I enjoyed them. So, I started looking around for digitized audio books online.

The only viable option I found was Audible.com. I found most selections offered by Audible to be quite expensive - in the $20-30 range. So, I'd decided to take the monthly subscription plan they were offered: it's $21.95/month, and you could purchase up to two audiobooks per month under this plan regardless of their prices.

The most important thing to remember regarding these subscriptions is that if you don't use it, you lost it. Meaning, if you don't buy any books for this month, then those credits aren't carried forward to the next month. The first time this happened to me, I complained to them, and they credited me back once - and said that they would do this only once.

In my next post I will talk about some of the pros and cons of listening to audiobooks.

Movie Review:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
My personal rating: 6/10
If you have watched the original "Willy Wonka & the Choloate Factory", like me you may not like it any better. However, unlike many of the remake movies, this one is not a bad one to watch. I like Jhonny Depp, he managed to meet the expectations. Disappointed by the choice of reusing one 'umpa lumpa' for all the umpa lumpas.

Raghubir Goyal - Momentum Killer

I finally found out the name of the Indian reporter whom I always find in Whitehouse press briefings. Through NPR (National Public Radio), I came to know that his name is Raghubir Goyal and he works for 'India Globe'. He has been covering Whitehouse press briefings for past 15 years.

He is been in the news lately because Whitehouse press secretary, Scott McClellan, is using Goyal as 'Momentum Killer'. Goyal is well known for asking questions about Pakistan and India when ever he is called upon no matter what the current political situation in America may be. While Goyal asks a rambling question about India and Pakistan, CNN, Fox and other media outlets break away from live coverage, giving the press secretary a breather.

It's my opinion that Raghubir Goyal needs to be replaced. We need a better-articulated Indian reporter representing South Asia. Hope 'India Globe' is reading my blog.

Here is the WashingtonPost's artilce on 'Goyal the Foil'

US Politics -

Daily Show: Celebrity Interview - Bernard Goldberg Must Watch

A few random ramblings from Raahy's keyboard..

This is my first blog post ever. I have always been a consumer of the Internet information, but seldom contributed anything worthwhile myself. I have been planning to rectify this situation for quite a while now, and I hope that this post is a first step in the right direction - even if it doesn't have anything useful in it :)

This weekend, Sirisha and I hiked at Patapsco Valley State Park. This is first hike for Sirisha in U.S.

Gopalasami by VirinchiPriya (in telugu script)

Jonthan Alter vs Fox

The link below is for an article about Newsweek reporter Jonathan Alter's controversy about his satirical article.
More and more people are using Huffingtonpost.com or similar blog sites to fight back powerful rightwing dominated media.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/jon-alter/rx-for-what-ailes-you_2555.html

Looks like huffingtonpost is doing really good. This is my first visit to the site after much publicized opening of it a month or so ago. Arianna Huffington, according to wikipedia "... describes herself as a "former right-winger who has evolved into a compassionate and progressive populist."

--
Praveen
Live and let live in peace!