It is a universal truth that burning of coal is one of the major causes of global warming, acid rain and other toxins in the air. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, about 3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) is released into the atmosphere - by a typical coal plant in an year. It may sound oxymoronic if one talks about using coal and going green. Well, why not? Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS in short, seems to be the technological answer to this oxymoron!? The US 2008 elections are red hot right now, and many who’ve voted for Obama or McCain are keeping their fingers crossed.

Today’s theme - Architecture, society, travel

India today, in the eyes of foreigners, is the land of the poor, uneven roads, strewn with garbage, poor infrastructure, and so on.

If there is one place in India that could exemplify the grandeur of India in the ancient times, it should be Hampi. How India transcended from such glory to what it is now is a long story, which happened during the British rule, and currently out of scope for this blog post.

Take a look at the picture. What made the architects think of building such a lone structure perched atop a rock that looks like a boulder?

Today, I have been browsing through the pages of my photo album on Webshots, and found this casual photo. I clicked this photo while traveling by Prague’s beautiful and serenely calm metro rail system. I don’t know why I framed this pic from such a strange angle, but I was quick enough to press the shutter button without switching ON the flash - when people were getting ready to alight from the train.

Looking at the picture, ‘m still thinking as to why the train was not fully loaded. The EXIF information of the picture says that it was taken at 6:10 PM, and that ’twas a Friday! Gosh! Imagine the scene in a metro rail in India at 6:10 PM, and..

If there is one game that people all over the world knows that India plays, it should be ‘Cricket’. Though being a British game, circket and India are synonymous - many, over here, eat and sleep cricket. In my office, I can see most of my colleagues glued to their laptops and desktops, constantly refreshing (inspite of having ‘auto-refresh’ feature) the Rediff cricket live score page. You go to a tea shop, there you see an old FM radio connected to obscenely big speakers playing cricket commentary. Even if the tea shop owner doesn’t like cricket, he urged to tune into cricket news - customers’ popular demand. When I opened today’s newspaper, the headlines screamed “Anand is World Champion”..

On my way to the Horsetooth Reservoir at Fort Collins, Colorado, I stumbled into an antique shop with an intent to get a souvenir. I was looking around the shop and came face-to-face with this horseback rider.

The picture speaks for itself! Upon inquiry, I came to know that this Pony Express was indeed an express mail service between 1860 and 1861. Though it was in vogue only for a short time, it became the forerunner of express delivery mail technologies, and the logo is still in use by the United States Postal Service.

I’m a shutterbug !!

Starting today, I will be posting a picture from one of the photo-sharing websites, and write a few words about why I like in the picture. I will try to associate the pic to the following themes:

* Society - the people, city, culture, etc
* Technology - ranging from the oldest to the newest, disruptive, gawky, funny, disruptive, etc.
You can also suggest/send in your pics, and a few words about the picture.

Well, this can be considered more of a rant (or a rant-laundry-list) than a creative post..but I believe many fellowmen concerned about the future of this country would second my thoughts..

1. Government servants - Respect your office and portfolio, allow your subordinates to do their duty and keep a check on them. Money isn’t everything, think about your future generations.
2. Revise the pay package for the people in secret services and the police.
3. Stricter laws against corruption - corruption may not be eradicated, nevertheless, can be made to stay at the top-most levels. Corruption starting from the bottom-most levels up to the top is not a..

So much hate… Whenever I see bomb blasts and terror attacks, and eventually when these attacks are linked to a religion, I always wanted to write something about this. World over, atheists are related to being either the communists or negative thinkers. I pity those ignorant, though educated, souls that cannot do a simple reasoning of who is who or what is what. Communism was written, since the days of Plato, to scientifically manage the society. Communism may have failed in many ways (people always talk about the Russian failure, but they seldom comment on the success of China..

Well, what should I say? This topic was not even in the remotest corner of my brain when I logged on to the dashboard of http://www.ubiquitense.com. Usually, once I log on to my site, I’m confronted with various topics that I must write about, but end up choosing a topic that would be easier to finish before 11:30 PM (ahem! that’s when I go to bed). Sometimes, my brain is just too dry to think of a topic that I could write about. Today, I was caught in the middle of the aforementioned scenarios; and finally, I thought of writing about our corporate culture that is prevalent today. Some topics that are covered here:

Identifying yourself among others in the corporate jungle, Team chart: Who are you connected with?

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic” - Arthur C. Clarke. True, isn’t it? I’ve always marvelled at technologies such as the television (TV), computers, cellular phones, portable music gadgets, CD, DVD, Blue-ray, and so on, the list is endless. But never have I wondered about what happens to them, or where they go, when they become kaputt and obsolete. I came across a scientific journal on e-waste where it was mentioned that more than 45 million tonnes of electronic gadgets are discarded worldwide, well, eventually piling…