Mars Viewing

Just saw the red planet through my 4.5" telescope and 10mm eye piece. Unlike it was advertised on several web sites, no, it doesn't get as big as moon when looking through modest telescope. Infect there's barely any difference when I'd looked at it through same scope in last couple of years. So I just went in to some number crunching using fact sheet at Nasa's web site, and it seems that Mars should look (at best) 30% more brighter and around 40% bigger then I'd seen couple of years ago. Now the catch is that when looking through telescope with above spec (which is pretty beyond modest 70mm stuff), Mars would normally look like a bright tiny disk. So 40% increase would make that tiny disk little bigger - but still a tiny. To make it look as big as Moon you would need increment of 1000% or more and that's not going to achievable just by Mars coming closer - it's possible only though much much bigger scopes. So my conclusion is that news sites and emails that kept circulating were pretty misleading to public. Though the good part is that lots of people suddenly got interested in astronomy. Infect one of my friend was so hopeful that he has put a $100 bet with me on whether Mars would look as big as moon on 27th August with bare naked eyes! So I'm not entirely dissopointed with this hoax, at least someone would get some money :).

Cool Albums Of The Season

Here's some from shopping list of past few months:

[Artist - Album]

Linkin Park - Meteora
Evanescence - Fallen
Audioslave - Audioslave
Macy Gray - On How Life Is
Barenaked Ladies - Rock Spectacle
4 Strings - Take me away (into the night)

Evanescence's Fallen is probably the best thing came out this year. Audioslave is raw, hard and grungy. How Macy Gray came in to my list? I don't know... I'd written bad things about Meteora previously but when you are in real need for extreme screaming, lots of hatred and hard hard hard stuff these guys seems to fit the bill.

Anders Hejlsberg

Just watched MSDN TV's new episode on Managed Code. The topic is pretty trivial for me but what's exciting is to see one person talking and seating there. I remember my years as a rebellious programmer when followers were few and swimming opposite the popular currents wasn't easy. In all-Unix all-C++ organization I'd heavily pushed for tools and style I believed in - even if it meant taking over entire responsibility and work load on me. All those tools that I chose, used and appreciated for the vision it embedded, looked separate pieces of great ideas which just seem to happen to came on my way... until there was one day when I read a magazine article and came to know there was really only one person behind all of those and all these years: Anders Hejlsberg. Those separate pieces of vision now seems to make a complete picture and so you can imagine how I would have stand in awe of him. As far as world of programming is concerned, Anders is my hero.

When I Fall

In this world of the Greater Being, I feel like I'm at play... like a little kid. With all my sense of wonder and curiosity... walking on my knees to get close, see and feel everything that has been put around me... and smile for all those good things that I find. And when I'm just moving around, there are moments when things are not the way I would have wanted... sometime when I would have really wanted. Some of the worst moments of my life constitutes of those when the people I'd admired I see falling apart and I can't do anything about it... when someone you cared is dieing and you can do nothing about it... Those moments... when I just want to look up in the sky and pretend that I don't exist... trying to convince myself that it's ok... I feel like I'm betrayed with anger bursting out every inch of my body... But then when I'm all low and down, there's always something that happens... like someone struck the new string on the guitar that I'd never heard before... wiping out all my doubts with just that one stroke of note. So I look around to find the one but I can't see. But I know she was there smiling at me... like I'm a little kid... someone is sure playing with me.

Your Yahoo Group Membership

Due to recent changes, your membership might have been messed up in Yahoo groups that I maintain. If you got unsubscribed and not getting any emails, please use following links to correct it:

Group: shital
Group: MyTechList

Language Of Flowers

I found a little booklet today titled "The Secret Language Of Flowers" by Rachel Ibarra explaining nicely what each flower means when you give it to someone. I've to confess, I'm not good at it and so have to depend on the lady at the check-out counter to make sure I don't buy flowers for my boss which would mean "secret love" on her birthday :). I can't find this book on Amazon or B&N so you have to go to your nearest grocery store such as Pathmark to get it. Alternatively there's this nice web page for this but without pictures chances of screw up is high!

Astronomy Events This Month

Mars is going to be the closest to Earth in recorded human history so far. You can go out at midnight and look in the South and the big blob of orangish yellow light (which you might mistake as air plane) is Mars. Even on the rainy nights you can see it lurking behind the cloud - it's that bright. Infect it's brighter then anything after Sun and Moon! Even in a modest telescope you can see it's big bright surface magnified as large as Moon. More info is in this newsletter.

Next Perseid meteor shower peaks on Aug 13, 2003. I'd spotted couple of shooting stars last week in just about two hours of time span and thought I was lucky! Well, this was the scientific reason behind it, actually.

T3 On DLP and Matrix II On IMAX

When I saw Terminator for the first time few years back, it had struck me like a lightening. Though most people considered it just another action flick, it was one of very few movies which I guess could change lives and sets the directions. And so to the date, it's still my #1 favorite movie. I thought there won't be Terminator 3. When I heard about it, seen previews and learned that director is not James Cameron, my prediction for it was to be a soulless sure flop. Well, I was wrong and right. It is flop and it's sure not as influential as the original. But it's still totally worth watching. It's probably the best action film I've seen so far. The car chase sequences are anything that you would have seen on the big screen (The car chase in Matrix II now looks like kids play). So it has become one of few movies that I've went out to see it twice. If it's available in your area, choose the theater with Digital Projection (DLP) for fine DVD-like details on big screen. If you live in NJ, Loews Jersey Gardens Theaters is the place to go.

Next, Matrix Reloaded is released on monster screens of IMAX. This is remastered edition rather then real IMAX movie but it's fun to watch those special effects on 8 story screen :).