STS-116
When:- Dec 8 2006
Time:- 8:47 PM EST
Where:- Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida
What:- Launch of Space Shuttle "Discovery"
The launch which was scheduled to be on Thursday has been postponed to Saturday due to bad weather the earlier day.
This is the 33rd launch for Discovery as reported by NASA. The crew includes William A. Oefelein, pilot; Joan E. Higginbotham, mission specialist, Mark L. Polansky, commander, astronauts Robert L. Curbeam, Nicholas J.M. Patrick, Sunita L. Williams and the European Space Agency's Christer Fuglesang, all mission specialists. Following on the footsteps of Kalpana Chawla is 41 year old Sunita, who's an American born Indian, married to Mr. Michael Williams.

A space mission is not an easy taskto do, the crew has been undergoing tremendous pressure and training including, final dress rehearsal for the past few days. They get a hands-on experience in how to react in case of emergency, prepare themselves for emergency landing, training for the additional gravitational force they'll experience on-board. Seems like a whole lot of fun right? Well, it involves much dedication and most importantly determination, the process of achieving one of the most respectable accomplishments; the completion of the International Space Station. NASA has reported this as the most complex and hardest missions.

Coke-Mentos Eruption- An Experiment to do!!!

I happened to read this from a forward sent to me by a friend, "Don't take Coke and Mentos together". I thought here's another of those hoax messages and did a Google search like I always do... and lo-aho, its true indeed!!!!

Aim of the experiment: - Creating an exploding geyser from soda.

Materials for Experiment: - A 2 Litre Diet Coke Bottle and a pack of Mentos.

Reacting Agents :- (Assumed) CO2 gas, caffeine, potassium benzoate, aspartame (commonly known under the brand name of equal, its an artificial sweetener) of the coke and glucose syrup, dextrin (a carbohydrate formed by the hydrolysis of starch), coconut oil, gelatin and gum arabic (also known as gum acacia, a natural food stabilizer found from acacia tree) found in mentos.

Procedure: - Choose some outdoor place where there's enough space for you to run away. Take the whole packet of mentos, drop into the diet coke bottle, shake well, and run away... There's an instant geyser like effect seen.

Properties: - A common backyard experiment nowadays and popularized by Eepybird, who do it for entertainment on a big scale.

This is claimed to be a physical reaction than a chemical one. Now to start with what happens before the mentos is dropped? Water usually resists the expansion of bubbles in soda. It takes a lot of energy to break that bond/mesh formed by water molecule around each bubble for the existing bubble to expand or for two bubbles to combine into a big one.
A mentos candy has soft chalky structure and the reaction is on account of its physical structure. When the candy is dissolved in the soda, the gum arabic and the gelatin reacts with the soda and reduces it surface tension. This breaks the water-mesh to release the bubbles and form new ones. As the reaction progresses, more and more bubbles and formed similarly which gives rise to this "geyser effect" or the "explosion". Mentos candy has numerous microscopic pores and depressions on its surface which forms a site for nucleation to take place. The physical structure of the mentos is an important factor since the experiment did not provide similar effects when a soft, plain and wax coated candy was used for the same experiment.

Conclusion: - The experiment is a result of the nucleation sites which form on the mentos candy and contributes to the formation of a large number of bubbles breaking the surface tension of water.

NOT RECOMMENDED TO BE TRIED WITHOUT ADULT SUPERVISION; ONE WHO KNOWS SCIENCE REALLY WELL... ;)

Why do friends forward emails?

Today I got a forwarded email from a friend of mine. Talking about forwards, I hate those good luck and bad luck ones. I am not bothered about all these things, nor do I believe in bad luck affecting my very existence; but how do I react people send me chain messages saying that "if you don't forward it to 5 or 10 people within the next 2 minutes, you will have bad luck for the rest of your life", or that "Microsoft/ Bill gates has just announced the most dangerous virus released till now" or recently "Orkut/ Yahoo is going to delete the address if you do not forward this mail"; not to mention using God's pictures and other rare photos to pass on this information?

I don't want to offend people, but I get to irritated seeing such junk mails filling my inbox, that once I wrote a very rude mail to my friends through 'Orkut messages'; got many responses to that too. But there are some of my "dear" friends who do not seem to get a clue even after seeing such mails from me, I can plead, beg, order, shout, what else? When nothing works, endure it. Just keep deleting such mails, hoax messages and chain messages, everything deserves to be in the trash box of my email, or even permanent deletion.

Whenever I get a forward (depending on my free-time available) I do a google search to see if there's any website which has information about this. If its a hoax, I get some link to 'urban legends'; am not sure of the website, but it just takes a minute in google. The funniest part is that these forwards would have changed in name and form, new virus names, often more powerful curses for not forwarding... So I suggest that my dear friends please take a minute (it takes less time than to enter all your friends' email addresses) before forwarding to people and think about the time you are wasting, yours and others. Obviously if its something really important, would it not come in cnn or bbc or atleast local paper headlines. I don't know whether its just me, or do others also get irritated sometimes seeing their inboxes with junk forwards, the first thing in the morning? And, would even friendship get affected because of these annoying mails? Something to think about...

I am still the same...

I have an exam tomorrow, its a take home test.... people not familiar with the education system in the US would be wondering what it would be.

I am from India, where I spent 22 years of my life... out of which 16-18 years was spent in education.... Well starting from my pre kindergarten to my Bachelors in Engg... I never had a take home test or open book test or any of that sort. Back in India it was the regular type of straight forward test, a closed book one where you had to memorise your classwork and write for your exam. Obviously we would be given a couple of days for preparation as "study leave" of which the first few days would be spent thinking that "Oh whats the big need to start early, I am good and sure I can make it up for this lost time.." Then there would be days gazing at the syllabus (oh for our undergrad we had a fixed syllabus to be followed thoroughout the University, unless the University decides to revise it) as to where to start studying... Then there would be days where I would be, "Oh my god!!! I really have to start studying now, or else my life will be screwed..." Then one fine day, I would be in the exam hall, not even realising how time had gone by so fast, and I sit there wishing I had studied a little more... Ok enuf said about those. God Willingly, I completed that with much difficulty and successfully (Yes I did it successfully) and here I am "an aspiring student in the United States of America for my Masters in Civil Engineering, MSCE", the usual stuff, writing GRE, TOEFL, preparing for the SOP and Recos, and finally in my 3rd semester of my MS, yada yada yada....

Oh where did I start this blog? My exam; well, the professor had given us 15 days to complete. It does not mean that if it is 15 days, I need to keep preparing for the exam for all those 15 days, its just that tomorrow I have to turn it in, and he had given us enough time to complete it. Now its just less than 36 hours and I better get started, I am still confident that it just needs a couple of hours as I have done some research, collecting information over the internet and reading about the topic, but the most difficult part is putting it as a 2-page report. Oops its getting late and I am a bit tensed. Even though the exam pattern is different, I am still the same, a last minute study girl...

Rules for Happiness

From a very sweet forward, its really meaningful and cute. Isn't it?

Monday Blues ... :-(

I am sure everyone would have felt that, at some point of their life one monday or the other... Why does this happen always? Why does the "weekend" go by so fast? As I am writing this, am feeling this and very sad about it too. Trying to think what I was doing this weekend, well, woke up late on saturday, (I am a person who believes that you shouldnt wake up early in the morning on saturdays whatever it is....) and by the time I was done with my breakfast+ lunch combined brunch, it was time to go out. Btw saturday is my 'mall' day, I would like to go on all saturdays to the mall, but something or the other comes up and I may not be able to go always as I wish. But yesterday, I got "time" to go, did a mega shopping; regular stuff, clothes, loved the jean jacket I got... Its fall season now and I have to refresh my wardrobe. Thats about the shopping... Then I went to the temple for a while, yes to pray and get some piece of mind, and to meet people too ;-) The day was almost over there.

Then comes sunday, I start the day thinking that its monday the next day. Today I had guests for lunch, oh that cooking and cleaning, and entertaining them... I think even they got bored at some point, or they just had to leave as it was getting late for them. I try to be a good host, just that sometimes I am short of topic to talk to people, it depends on my mood at that time obviously. Then evening comes, and the best part of the weekend, the long walk in a lake park very near to my house. I simply love the place, except that these days the park gets closed earlier than usual as it gets dark sooner. Oh why does even winter have to come, why cant it be sunny as Florida is supposed to be. Hmmm I think all good things have to come to an end sometime or the other, but the best part about seasons, it'll come back next year, almost the same time.... Yippeee !!!!!!!!!!

Same thing as 'Monday Morning Blues" even if its monday tomorrow, another weekend will come and I look forward to enjoy then. I look forward to a weekend where I'll get enough time to shop, enough time to sleep and enjoy nature in "Lettuce Lake Park". Afterall its my life and its worth it.... :-)

Google's aquisition of Youtube !!!
Internet search engine king- Google has once again proved that its the best through the aquisition of Youtube, the king of video-sharing for a neat $1.65 Billion. The most popular video sharing website has combined with Google, the search engine pioneers with expertise to organize world information to be made available to users. Youtube continues to retain its identity to complement Google's business through video-sharing. According to Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google "Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers." As reported in Google press release.

To start with Youtube, it was founded by three people Chad Hurley, one of its co-founders, the CEO and other two co-founders Steven Chen, CTO, and Jawed Karim, Advisor. They started it as a decent site where people could enjoy hassle-free sharing of videos, and uploading. It could be anything like personal home videos, or movie clippings or songs or news. The domain was registered in February 2005, and they started their broadcast by November. So, how did they become so popular in such a short time? Initially, they were advertising, "You could win an iPod nano or 100 iTunes or even an MP3 Speaker-bag! Share your experience with the world and show off your creative skills for a chance win!" All you have to do was to sign in to youtube and create your user id and password, which is a free registration, Wouldn't people start sharing their videos for a cool chance of winning a $250 iPod Nano? News Corp has myspace and even yahoo has video clips but why does everyone still login to youtube everytime they want to see a video? It is easy to use, that if you know how to browse and send an email, you can upload your video at the click of a button. YouTube's servers convert your video to a standardized format, but you don't need to know what that format is. All you have to do then is to send out the URL to your friend or relative, and your video appears, that too without the disturbing popups. You need not download any application of player to watch videos if you want to watch videos. Its that simple...

Now to move on, what is the deal of Myspace with Google? Google and MySpace.com are already in collaboration over online advertisement on the social networking portal. Google recently signed up a $900 million ad deal with MySpace for video advertisement. Through this, Myspace users can search for their groups and friends using Google. Ross Levinsohn, President of Fox Interactive Media said, "This deal is the next step in our evolution as a significant interactive player. Forming a strategic partnership with one of the most innovative companies in the world to expand our business together, monetize our platforms effectively and leverage our combined scale will provide substantial growth for our businesses."Is Myspace thinking of negotiations with Google for a deal as their competitors Youtube is already part of Google? Thats one question that only time will tell.

In this context, a piece of news, Microsoft is planning to launch Youtube rival, "Soapbox" already in the testing phase and hoped to be released within six months. Is there any future for this, lets wait and see...

My First iPod :)

On October 23, 2001, Apple announced its launch of the world's smart new mp3 player, the "iPod". The player would be a stainless steel one, about the size of a deck of cards, having a 5GB hard drive which can store upto 10,000 songs and capable of playing for 10 hours with its lithium battery, capable of synchronizing with Mac OS. Apple hoped this as a new gift for the holiday season.
But, what was the price of this whole new wonderful digital device? Well, it came for $399, just 1 short of 400 dollars. This created mixed reactions among the general public, the analysts and the journalists, mainly for the high pricetag attached with this. Some people even thought that this could be another reason for convincing people to buy a Mac instead of a PC, as reported in CNET news. iPod was launched in 2001 November. The question was whether iPod was really introduced as a means to promote Apple Macs as initially the iPods were compatible only with Macs. That still wouldn't be a sufficient reason to buy Apple Macs, even though initially discounts were offered for the combined purchase of a Mac and an iPod. If the Apple corporation wanted to make more profit, then a windows compatible version of the iPod would tempt to eager fans to still go for it. Apple then decided to make the iPod compatible with a PC also, with the uncertainity whether people would still buy it despite its high price.
iPod has risen to such a success that today it has sold almost 25 million iPods (the number is not sure however). So what is the success behind the sales? iPod has become a synonym for mp3 players in spite of the fact that Dell and Creative Labs are coming up with similar players at a cheaper more affordable rate. It is seen as a fashion accessory among the youth especially young professionals and college students. One reason is that the range of products are vast, with the iTunes, which allows official downloading of songs, @0.99 cents per song, the price seemingly less for high quality music. iTunes have about 1 million songs available with them. Recently they have launched iPod U 2 and iPod photo which are exciting for sincere iPod fans who are ready to upgrade their products. iTunes has sold more than 1 million songs in spite of the competition faced from MSN music, Napster and Realplayer music.
iPod has succeeded where Mac failed, the key reason for Macs being very expensive, a price range between $1000 and $ 3000. iPod on the other hand can be seen as an affordable luxury, with sleek design and stlye compared to other range of portable mp3 players. iPod is definitely here to stay in the market for sometime.
Ask me why I personally prefer iPod, or rather consider it a necessity to have one of my own, because iPod is a such a creative product in itself, producing sound of highest quality, its unique operating feature, the rotating keypad and of course simply because nothing else can be an iPod. I feel so proud owning this precious piece of electronics, my iPod nano.