Why a leap year!

One Year is Approximately Equal to 365.24219878 Days (Give or Take)

The Egyptians called it 365 and left it at that. But their calendar got out of step with the seasons, so that after around 750 years of this they were celebrating The Fourth of July in the middle of the winter! Anyway for Indians, it would have hardly mattered, cause we have little or no seasons

The Romans wised up and added the leap day every four years to get the 365.25 day Julian year. Much better, but notice that this time the year is longer than it ought to be. The small difference between this and the true length of the year caused the seasons to creep through the calendar once again, only slower and in the other direction. After about 23000 years of this, July Fourth would once again fall in mid-winter.

Fortunately things never reached that sad state. By 1582 the calendar was about ten days out of whack, so Pope Gregory XIII included the correction that's still in use today.


If the year is divisible by 100, it's not a leap year unless it is also divisible by 400.
More recently, proposals for fixes have gotten even better than that. One suggested change is to add on "if the year is also divisible by 4000, it's not a leap year."

Here's what it looks like:

Egyptian

Formula: 365
Year length: 365
Error: 0.24219878
Years to get 6 months out of whack: 754
Julian
Formula: 365 + 1/4
Year length: 365.25
Error: 0.00780122
Years to get 6 months out of whack: 23,409

Gregorian
Formula: 365 + 1/4 - 1/100 + 1/400
Year length: 365.2425
Error: 0.00030122
Years to get 6 months out of whack: 606,272

Modern?
Formula: 365 + 1/4 - 1/100 + 1/400 - 1/4000
Year length: 365.24225
Error: 0.00005122
Years to get 6 months out of whack: 3,565,426

Face is the index of the mind. Maybe that's an 'old-age'.The current though, in this internet dominant world is writing/speech is the index of a person's mind. Add any other impersonal visuals to that as well-- for this is the visual revolution era for the middle class Indian populace.

Will end this thought in a sentence. Lucid and crisp writing or speech just about reflects little or no confusion.

Here's a sample just visit my friends blog - Coffee House. His pocket off late sports a high end digicam. And he is breezing his way through Chennai's sweltering heat snapping anything that 'cool'. Though he and his blog have gone berserk with photos, must admit his selection is spot on.

In jest: Next time one sees a smart Channai chap training his camera on heat soothers, be assured that’s my friend.

Engappa Police (My father's a police)

Teeing off on an extended holiday, just flipped through childhood memoirs, and there flashed the oft used childhood phrases.

First thing, most guys spell out to their chums during the extensive introduction (could be the second or third time they 'reel' off their family background) is, my dad's a cop. About dear mothers, well during my days as a child, kids seldom lied about mom's profession. The euphoria then to lie that his father wielded the powers of a cop was unparalleled

Later this argument fizzled into I'll be a cop, which inturn (of course in a few years time) extended to 'I'll join the armed forces.' Yep a few hops later, guys usually say they will pilot planes and then the macho fantasy narrows to attainable portfolios and zeros in on a broad spectrum by the school finals. Obviously some other desires staring from an ice cream vendor, to a biz tycoon and extending upto Prime minister/President too have their days in the ensuing period.

But then I guess at the end of it, life is more complex. As if bolstering the saying "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride them' seldom do careers match his/her childhood aspirations! But after all that do we complain? The answer invariably is no.

One more thought, Whatever is up there, is from a guys perspective. What do girls dish out during the intros and what are their first career dreams?

It's election time and political party's are stepping the gas to woo voters. The highly imaginative Indian mind always throws up some novel vote gathering moments.

Here's a sample for the 2004 Indian General election round: Mobile/SMS Canvassing

This article in The Economic Times is exhaustive

Look out for this space for more such pre-election moments.

Missed an important meeting. Why? Went out for lunch with the office folk and was caught in the mire. Hurried back and tinkled the guy whom i was supposed to meet, only to hear he had just stepped out of office!

Three lessons learnt

1) Whoever you are with—be it lunch, snacks, dinner, just wild prattle, or when even on a date— learn when to say bye and step out to honour commitments

2) When it is known the crowd you are going out with will take time to run through their rituals of ........ before lunch, opt out of the gathering politely.

3) Never miss an appointment again for such frivolous reasons.

"It does not hold water." So we will kill it

Things apart

Whoever said "Every one is a publisher" count on my backing as well.

Here's a write up, where my efforts are best described considerable. Results were partial. Northerners like it, as for South, this was reminiscent of the Cavery dispute.

So here it goes on photo ink jet printers!

Ink Jet printer manufacturers are sizing up the photo printer market. Luring them is the over 1 lakh analogue studios, mini photo labs in tier II and III tourism hot spots and apparel firms.

While apparel Co’s are leaning on it for precision shades, photo labs are adopting it to add a digital imaging facet to restore photos and process digital snaps. With this, market players Epson, Hewlett Packard, and Canon are upping photo printer sales forecasts.

“Photo printers is certainly the next big thing in Inkjets. This category grew by over 160% in 2003 as compared to 2002. The year ahead could turn even better with new ranges promised by vendors.” Mr. Sanjit Sinha, Head - Hardware Research Group IDC (India) said. “This, coupled with the digitisation, photo printers are set to emerge as the new face of Inkjet printers.”

Vendors add that photo segment numbers would cross 60,000 this year. A significant jump considering they sold just 10,000 in entire 2002-03, according to IDC (India). Epson and HP claim they are already crossing 2500 in monthly photo printer sales.

Further with IDC (India) estimating that inkjets are set to grow at about 18% next fiscal, compared to the 26% growth projection this financial, vendors are pinning hopes on the photo segment. Further the price drop of 10 to 25% is only expected to push these models into the market. According to IDC the market for ink jet stands at around 7.17 lakh units now.

However with the metros, that already have larger processing labs contributing only30% of total sales, firms are eyeing ‘upcountry’ markets. While they are ramping up presence in tourist spots, players are measuring the bundled option too. Epson, for example, has roped in Neoteric as their national distributor, according to G Suresh, Business Manager Epson. Neoteric which distributes allied products like Apple Computers and Kodak digicams is expected to carry Epson closer to studios. HP besides tagging photo printers to strong hardware line is banking on its nation-wide footprint.

However, the focus is shifting to multifunctional photo printers now. Epson has already launched the first variant armed with a scanner. This, according to a knitwear exporter from Tirupur is turning productive for apparel makers as colour mapping and printing is processed together.

Manufacturers are camping at studios in scenic destinations in Kerala, heritage sights in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan for now. They reason, immediate photo processing needs of tourists at these locations would ring in the coffers.

Yesterday was one learning experience. Witnessed first hand race engine/car set up, finally relating to the literature i picked up from F1 sites. Driving some 15 kms away from the city with the promoter of the potential F3 race track and 1300 cc powered race cars was in itself a experience. We yapped continuously on the tech gap between Indian and Europe racing.

Asked him why he adopted a conventional steel chasis instead of carbon composites, only to get a bemused stare in return. "Will you cough up the cost. Composite carbon tech has to be bought, and it does not come cheap" was the answer that followed. And mind you this guy has sunk in a few crore rupees into his racing initiative already.

Back to racing cars, the promoter himself the architect, engine tuner and dynamist of the car, got to work on the set up. It turned out to be the planned final run before pack up for an East Indian street race. However each car despite roaring its potential had its teethers as well.

Some, presented improved lap times each run only to end up spitting out water at the end, the reason, i learnt later, over heating. Others droned their way around romping home late by more than three seconds compared to the blazing toppers.

Mechanics and the promoter himself got down to basics and provisionally concluded on means to clean up the cars before pack up the next day.

Earlier got to see the tool room and car assembly area, though a far cry from Formula 1's swank workshops, this too was impressive, with its own engine and chasis dynos.

NS Ram woke up blinded by the sunlight. Obviously he could not take enough of it that he pushed aside the translucent drapes and pushed open the windows of his third floor apartment.

The pigeon on the far end window sill could spot his curved smile, and to Ram it's incessant humming reverberated as a jolly tone. He himself was surprised as usually the pigeon(s) blurb disturbed his morn sweeteners (read dreams)

Cheerful, as he was, he conjured the promised evening and for the first time that month made his bed, straightened up his room. Proceeding to the living/dining room whisked up the crumpled past seven day news papers up the loft in the kitchen. Changed the masala stained table cloth, set the table. In the next thirty minutes, his usually unsettled quarters presented a pristine look.

Trotting down the unwinding stairs at 10:30 Am, neighbours and others in the high rise couldn't help but notice his merry whistle, key bunch juggle and springing walk.

His bike too understood his mood and was off in a flash, work seemed too easy at office and there he was two hours early cleaning up his workspace at 6:30 PM.

Racing back home, he perpetually checked his mobile phone. Sliding his bike into the parking slot, Ram looked up to see lights in his apartment and smirked on noticing darkness. Reasoning his parents would be relaxing in the far left bedroom, hopped two steps at a time to reach his door.

Lo behold, the latch was secure, let down he kicked off his shoes, opened the door and flicked on the light still hoping to see his parents baggage. His unsullied apartment seemed to smile mockingly at him and the tube light flickered monotonously before casting a blunted fluorescence.

Down, Ram dragged his listless self to the bedroom, shut out the lights from the other houses by securing the curtains and climbed onto his wrinkle free bed and buried his face into the pillow clamouring for more darkness. The pigeons renewed their rumble, "Scat" Ram screamed and threw the heap of soiled blankets at the window.

Amidst the flutter of wings, he faintly heard the ringtone, assigned to his parents home number. Letting it ring, NS Ram tried to unwind the six months of Solitude.

After cricket, its doping in Tennis. Accused: sober but hard serving Greg Rusedski.

Doping results actually rebounded in tennis circle, but the gentleman's game that it is, Greg was allowed to compete at the Australian Open immediately and no player minced any wrong word about him.

The latest on the issue though, according to the BBC is

Greg Rusedski can expect to face a two-year ban when the outcome of the hearing into his positive drugs test is revealed, according to reports.
The British number two will learn his fate next week after Monday's hearing in Montreal

The Times said, that Rusedski's camp was pessimistic about whether they convinced the tribunal of his innocence.

Rusedski on his part quipped "I'm confident - all I can do now is sit tight".

Other officials and retired players have said, a sentence could mean a life ban. But then Tennis and more so the British Tennis can fare better with the British No 2 acing his way through tennis courts.

Two similar news items. What is disturbing though, is these are emanating out of the "developed" part of the world.

'My job's gone, should I become a male hooker'

'Virginity auctioned for $20,000'

Journalism does add value!

Forecasting future wars

The ultimate example of the aphorism "Hindsight is 20:20" may be war.

Every armchair policy analyst who's ever read the front page of the New York Times knows, just knows, that those in power should have seen the latest crisis coming, whatever or wherever it may be.

But can you really predict grave conflicts simply by reading the newspaper? It may indeed be possible, but only if you can track many newspapers over time.

A Research Project by Devika Subramanian, professor of Computer Science at Rice University, Scours News Coverage for Patterns of Conflict. The module is true to computing norms based on patterns and looks to evict human biases in reporting.

An extract from a piece on this project depicts,

The program relies on dynamic Bayesian networks to extract events pertaining to interactions between countries from news reports (i.e., who did what to whom and when).

The computer learns the significance of certain words and phrases and calculates from their occurrence the probability that a news story is relevant.

It follows the "-10" and "+10" conflict/cooperation weighting familiar to political scientists for rating the severity of events. The computer is trained on a small collection of stories marked by a human as being relevant or not.

But then the one unanticipated challenge, according to the researcher, was the number of war metaphors that generously sprout out in sports reports!

F1 legend and defending champ Michael Schumacher fears it most, Mclaren's Kimi Raikkonen is pinning hopes on this car (Mclaren MP 4-19) to knot championship victory and emulate the flying finn Mika Hakkinen.

However, out to snatch victory is the very radical BMW Williams (pic 1) and the quintessential Prancing horse Ferrari




Ask me, what my bet is:Mclaren Mclaren Mclaren!

For people who wonder what focus my blogs will assume. Here it is: Economic and Business ideals that tickle my curiosity, sports confined to Tennis and Formula 1 and may be specks of cricket( after all am an Indian), garnished with traces of politics.(maybe) To corroborate the notion every man is a politician. But then politics isn't any specialisation either, after all none other than Napoleon Bonaparte voiced "In politics stupidity is not a handicap."

No dirt, remove Rajiv stain:High Court.

Almost 18 years after surfacing, Rs 64 crore Bofors Scandal, which set a precedent for scams in India, fades away into the horizon.



These faces (read accused) along with the late Rajiv can afford a booming roar

A record of sorts for a non -Congress Govt in India. BJP's NDA alliance tabled its seventh consecutive Union budget and second interim budget on February 3.

However that's just for the record, in 1997, when BJP first tried forming the government and even later in 1998/9 when it cemented its place in the treasury benches, it was perceived to be a party with a difference.

Sadly, Jas (short for Finance Minister Jaswant Singh) election year interim budget only reiterates, BJP is just another a party. The budget speech was populist to the core.

While relaxing credit terms for farmers, power sector sops may augur well if norms are adhered to(?), what causes nausea is Jas cowing down to woo the most under productive class-- government employees ata babus! Jas has taken 50% dearness allowance and tagged it along with the basic pay. Result, added cost of about Rs 1500 crore to the exchequer and worse still if states follow suit another Rs 8000 crore gone with the wind. That's not all, the damage will linger on for years as the babu brigade hops into retirement, only to encash bloated pension cheques.

A colleague remarked, "Come on, to sustain 'The feel good factor' one needs a vision not populism. President Kalam you heard that?

But then maybe Jas or NDA partners read John Milton's On his Blindness and were mesmerised by the verse " They also serve who only stand and wait"

'India Shining' is the ruling NDA's poll plank. For the record it just gets better. Right from my fav Tennis, Leander Paes partners the ever young legend Martina Navaratilova at the Australian open after spending the last few months in hospital and yet reaches the final. Next is the praise on the Indian Cricket team, long jumper Anju Bobby George. Capping the crown in the Global Indian take over, be it business, International financial bodies. The list continues

Adding another feather to bedecked Indian head gear is this news item

From Kollywood (Accepted Parlance for Tamil Filmdom) to Hollywood India Today (February 9 2004) issue's eyecatcher column freezes that 'The Score' Ryan Johnson was impressed by Tamil encounter movie 'Kaakha Kaakha' and offered to lean on it to shoot a film on Chechen Rebels. The latest, script for the Hollywood version is being spruced up.