Random picture
Posted: May 9, 2007 Filed under: Let the picture speak 3 Comments »
When in Nepal, I was a typical “कुवाको भ्यगुता”. If you pull out my trips to Dhulikhel (that too because of my college), I barely have traveled. Few religious destinations and few college tours saved me from embarrassment of staying all my life within the ‘Ring Road’. I did go to Tansen for my job later.
When I first (my only time) went to southern plains of Nepal, I was shocked not to see any hills around. Now in US (places I have lived so far), I have to be content with flat lands. In my recent trip to San Antonio Texas I was fortunate enough to see some foot hills; boy, how happy I was. I and my friends drove through one of the hills; the meandering roads gave me impression of driving through Sanga. Though it was not an affluent settlement (in that hill), houses there were prime examples of bioengineering.
Picture: Residents mail box at entrance to the hill (Click the picture to enlarge).
Testing Google
Posted: May 8, 2007 Filed under: News/information and opinion 1 Comment »There is no doubt that I am a great fan of Google. When it first started as a search engine it was a blessing for me, it helped me complete many of my reports and presentations. Searching scientific literatures for your Thesis or any other projects/presentation was very hard in country like Nepal, but thanks to Google I could access many of those. I often used Google Scholar to scan peer reviewed articles, although most of the sites that Google Scholar routed required registration and/or fee, I could at least get abstracts from those journals.
Then came the Gmail, it came in the time when I had a whim of having as many email accounts, from different providers, as I could. I don’t know why but most of my friends of that generation also adhered to that. Among all those email accounts only couple survived and Gmail is one of them. Maybe it has to do with its size limit to start with, but later I found it very user friendly; and with Gmail account I could get access to other applications provided by the ever growing Google Empire.
I loved Picasa, free software from Google that manages pictures in my desktop. With Picasa web album I could share my pictures with my parents back home. Earlier I used Yahoo Photos or Winkflash, but I found Picasa supreme of all. I also used Picasa to upload pictures in web.
Google Earth was my favorite time killing machine; I used to fly from my hub to all Seven Wonders of the World. Google Earth helped me show my home in Kathmandu to my colleagues at work. Though for Kathmandu they don’t have crisp resolution, it was still good enough to identify my house. Since I also work with Geographic Information System (GIS), I and my supervisor had an animated discussion about using KML and KMZ file from Google Earth for presentation, instead of maps produced from ArcGIS. It was brought up to discussion because of it’s simplicity over the complex nature of ESRI or ERDAS Imagine Software (only for simple manipulation, Google Earth is still no match for intensive GIS work).
Few months ago I started using Google Blogger, mostly for documenting my random thoughts; I had no idea that in such a short time I would be exposed to so many viewers. Thanks to Google Blogger, I also made few friends in blogging community. And most important of all, each and everyday I am further enhancing my penmanship and creativity.
I know there is still a lot that I need to explore what Google has to offers, but isn’t it overwhelming that you get all those services under one roof for free. In my path of exploration I now want to try Google Adsense. Adsense matches advertisement on your site based on its content and you get paid for all the clicks you get. When going through pages of different Bloggers I saw tons of Google Ads, so curiosity got better of me. I read through Adsense Terms and Condition and wondered how effective will be Google ads on the pages of all those Bloggers and how much they can make.
So, I decided to add Adsense to my site and strictly stick to Google policy and see how effective this program is. I am curious what kind of ads will appear in my site (as it says based on the site content) and how much revenue it will generate. I signed up for it few hours ago and it seems that it will take at least a week before I will get answers/ads. Although my motive is primarily on checking its efficiency, I won’t mind few extra bucks. 
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Leader’s watch "Lage Raho Munna Bhai"
Posted: May 6, 2007 Filed under: About movies 5 Comments »Overcoming my blood demons I gave blood again, twice in my life now. But, since this was the first time I gave blood in US, I had to spare 15 minutes answering their questions before I could give blood. American Red Cross has a protocol, listing the names of different countries (which included certain restrictions); one can only be eligible for donation if they pass those restrictions. For Nepal, there is restriction for people who recently (less than a year) been to Nepal outside of Kathmandu in high elevations. I don’t know why that is.
Friday, I saw Spiderman 3, movie was good if you appreciate the effects, but may be as my hair starts turning gray I have lost appetite for those kinds of movies. Today I watched ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai’, I enjoyed that more than Spiderman. It’s simple comedy that instigates the values of ‘Mahatma Gandhi’. Even me, who am not an Indian found that movie very inspiring.
After watching Munna Bhai I came up with an idea, why not make a big Nepali serial showcasing the life of martyrs, beginning from Sukra Raj Shastri to the recent one who died in Kalanki (that amplified the Jan Andolan II movement). It’s pretty shame that I don’t even know his name. I feel it’s utterly unfair that they are given a generalized respect once a year by few corrupted leaders. I believe disseminating the life of those martyrs, one by one, in screen will give more justice to them than just a common garland in ‘Sahid Gate’. It will also pay tribute to their families and keep Nepalese in their toes, reminding what martyrs did for us and stop some burglars (so called Neta’s and bureaucrats) from looting the country.
I don’t know if I am being impatient or peace/developing process takes this long. From my eyes, a layman view, I can clearly see all the “peoples” leaders engaged in ensuring the publicity/power of their parties rather than peace process. I won’t say they are not working, I simply feel they have made people’s aspiration secondary to their power hunger. I am strong advocate of establishing a public domain where each MP’s and Ministers have to publish their monthly report of what they have done each month, and equally strong structure of verifying their published reports. They are salaried from tax payer’s money, which aren’t free so we deserve to know. I know all Nepalese are way far from accessing the internet (perhaps start a paper bulletin), but at least it’s a start. Does anyone recall any leaders because they did something good? I don’t think so, if yes then they are just handful. We only know leaders like Khum Bahadur et al, because of their infamous deeds. I assume that with a public website documenting their work we can judge them by their good deeds (if they do any).
Sometimes I even feel why am I wasting my brain on these stuff, does anyone have slightest of confidence that they would change, I don’t think so. But I feel that’s the least I could do. I have very small circle of people that read my blog, but maybe we all contributing slightly from our part can create some resonance.
At this moment I wish all the leaders in Nepal at least watch “Lage Raho Munna Bhai”.
Marriages and wives
Posted: May 3, 2007 Filed under: Others 3 Comments »One of my friend forwarded me an email, and the content published hereafter is from that email. No offense to anybody, please read it with lil’ sense of humor. 
I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry.
That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste. David Bissonette
When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. Sacha Guitry
After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can’t face each other, but still they stay together. Hemant Joshi
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher. Socrates
Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them. Dumas
The great question… which I have not been able to answer… is, “What does a woman want? Sigmund Freud
Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays. Henny Youngman
Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming
1. Whenever you’re wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you’re right, shut up. Nash
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met. Rodney Dangerfield
A good wife always forgives her husband when she’s wrong. Milton Berle
A man inserted an ‘ad’ in the classifieds: “Wife wanted”. Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: “You can have mine.” Anonymous
