your name in English or other language ever thought abt it ?

I am living with my name with almost little less than 3 decades but never tried to know my english translated name but recently i accidentally came across what my name will be if translated to english and found it to be very much cool..

my name is manjunath ಮಂಜು (snow) + ನಾಥ (lord) which means manju is snow in english and natha is lord together snowlord :) cool na? this was my quick post this week as i am highly inactive on blog from past two months since i am tightly tied up with many things for another couple of weeks though have tons to write it in my mind could not do it because of lack of time...

and for the people who are leaving me emails about it thanks, i will try to be active in the blog again and between don't forget to tell your English transliterated name and don't shy to tell it even though its sounds funny.

Who is the most know person in the world ever ?

who is most famous and know man ever walked on the earth ? this was the question that came to my mind when i saw a article in one of the online magazine quoting that the 2009 most famous known person was president obama when i googled for this information i was surprised to see many people debating over the same matter each one of them recommending few names who they considered as most know person, but many of them had few names in common so i compiled the list of names which appeared more commonly on the net and created a poll so guys do caste your vote and say who do you think are the most known person in the world.

i always thought Michael Jackson is one of the most know person in the world but when i saw the discussion on the net then i came to know that i almost forgot few other names such as Jesus, Buddha and Mohamed you may say the latter are gods but still they are know to masses and large population if you think that i missed a person do comment it here.

carbide ripened mangoes is it lethal health hazard?

All know its the season of king of fruits (Mango), and the season is almost at the end but last year and this year was a bumber year as i ate more mangoes in these two years than in my entire life time though before i was eating only Malgova a variety of mango which has distinct taste and rich pulp but in last two years i ate most of the varieties.

But last time when we bought malgova i took a bright orange one which looked as if it was heavily ripened but when i cut the fruit and ate it to my horror it was very much sour though i have come across this kind of batch of fruits few times which looks riped from outside but still unriped from inside i thought it was always the case of fruits in some trees that never ripe well or taste sweet until i came to know the real reason behind it.

Did you know 90% of the mangoes available in indian market are artificially ripened using a chemical called carbide it is said that mangoes take atleast 2 weeks to ripe naturally but to speed up the process vendors use carbide which ripes the mangoes in just 2 - 4 days because carbide releases acetylene while reacting with air and moisture, and acetylene acts as a catalyst in ripening process.

Is carbide a health hazard? yes carbide contains arsenic and phosphorus which is very harmful for health and can cause skin rashes, affect lungs when inhaled, can cause permanent damage to eyes and some sources say that frequent exposure to it can cause skin cancer. according to vendors the main reason why they use carbide is Safe Transportation because fully or partially riped mangoes can get damaged easily than unriped ones what ever it is bottom line is its a health hazard and its illegal

so how to spot the carbide ripened mangoes? see the above clip for the answer,if you people have any other tips in spotting it do share with us

i have more Pakistani visitors to my website lately ?

It is almost 10 days i had something penned down in my blog because of some hectic schedules and some preparations and i am already feeling like i have missed something this alerts me how much i am addicted to my blog site...

recently when i tried to see that was there any affect on Alexa stats and Google analytic of my blog due to long inactivity i was amazed to see the daily visitors and traffic stats almost had the same normal curve, but i saw a interesting changes in alexa that the visitors from pakistan increased and topped the chart though i don't have anything interesting for paki people except some critic posts such as india in 2012 of Pakistani newspaper and other anti paki things.

though i don't believe in alexa stats google analytics also showed a dark green pakistan in the visitors world map indicating i had a decent amount of visitors arrived from pakistan in recent times any ways any pakis reading this post do leave a comment that confirms that they are indeed visitors from pakistan.... any way at-least from now onwards i will try to be regular on my blog.

what is mother tongue ? do you know exact definition?

recently i had a debate with one of my colleague about mother tongue though for fun i said my mother tongue is "Kannada" which is a regional language of the state where i live and settled here from 1930's almost 80 years in Bangalore even my father and me was born and bought up in Bangalore but in home i speak Telugu, but he insisted that my mother tongue is Telugu he was saying it from the perspective of my ancestral roots and origin, but i was talking in the angle of region and language which i am most used from my birth so this made me think what really mother tongue is? a "fill up the blank" that i am filling from my childhood in all the applications from my studies to job but yet still never tried to find whats the exact meaning it!

After searching on net for a while i came to know that MT has no predefined meaning and terminology is used in different way in different countries in some countries mother's language is considered as mother tongue, in some countries language most used to or native language is considered as mother tongue, in some part of africa respective tribal language is considered as mother language even though all of them reside in same region and in india ancestral origin or roots of family language(ethnicity) is considered as mother tongue even though he don't know to speak the language for example my friends mother tongue is konkani but he don't know to speak or even understand the language weird isn't it.

Have your ever thought of what MT is? or just was filling up the blank like me? so do you agree with the Indian definition of mother tongue or shud it be changed and between what if your mothers mother tongue is different and fathers mother tongue is different what would you choose then :) just penn in u r comments.

how does human body produce heat ?

and what is the mechanism or chemical reaction (metabolism) involved and how much heat the human body produces this is the questions that flashed in my brain with the recent drop in temperature in Bangalore and when i felt body heat of my little nephew when i held him in my arms, then thought of googling to find the answers and googling helped me to find all my answers but could not able to fully understand the process and medical jargons :) ... so below are few things which i understood and sharing with you, if any medical pro reading correct me if i have understood it in a wrong way...

so how body produces heat?
interestingly i came across a thread started by a person who put across the same question in discussion form and found a convincing answer given by R. James Swanson, med faculty of old dominion university, by putting it in laymen terms below is the process what i understood :-

--> Food we eat is physically and chemically broken-down into smaller particles until absorbed by the walls of intestine as individual molecules

--> Then These Molecules are absorbed by blood and are distributed throughout the body and taken up by cells that need :
(1) carbohydrate molecules for the energy ,
(2) amino acid molecules for building proteins, or
(3) lipid molecules (fat) for building membranes, certain of the hormones and other things or just store this concentrated form of potential energy in form of fats

--> carbohydrate will be absorbed as glucose or another closely related monosaccharide molecule

--> Chemical reaction or metabolism converts glucose to Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP),ATP is like the fuel or wood to produce heat

--> Now this ATP can be used by any cell for reaction that require energy in an easily usable form.

--> Now answering to the point CELLS produces heat while "burning" the glucose and while using ATP just like a fuel.

Now who controls or limits the amount of heat produced in the body?
Now we know that cells produces heat using ATP a molecule produced by a metabolism of Glucose and oxygen and this generation of heat or thermal process is controlled by a hormone from thyroid gland, the basal metabolic rate (BMR) is a term used to refer to a overall metabolism process of human body and this keep the temperature of human body approximately at 37 degree centigrade throughout our life, body temperature at or above 40 °C (104 °F) is considered as life threatening and is a medical emergency, so guys had you ever had same question in your mind?

Why India not in (FIFA) International Soccer world cup ?

why india not playing football world cup? This is the question came to my mind when i Recently came across interesting information about the recent search trends released by Google that India ranks 3rd among top 10 countries in volume to search on google about soccer and fifa world cup and other two countries are south Africa and Indonesia and coming to india Karnataka tops first in the chart followed by Maharashtra at second place and Tamil Nadu in third...

Interestingly in a country like india where the only sport is cricket and where the next world cup is 2011 cricket world cup i was amazed to see the search trends released by google that there are actually loads of people who are indeed interested in other sports than mighty "CRICKET" but they are still tons of other people who actually don't know what fifa is or it is taking place this year and many people did not came to know till april until several media and institutions branded the event..

Will india ever qualify for the FIFA world cup ? this is the question that bugs me when ever i see a football match while skipping the tv channel and i know all the football fans out there are cribbing about the pathetic condition of football in the country i have many friends who are diehard soccer patriots of countries like spain, portugal and brazil.

recently i came across a statement made by indian football coach Bob Houghton that india must strive to host FIFA world cup 2022 if the country wants to lift the profile of the game just like united states did after 1994, when asked when will india play the fifa world cup he quotes "I don't know when India will play in the World Cup" but with the current given infrastructure india will never make it to the world cup...

so what do you guys think will india ever qualify for fifa world cup, dont we have potential players or cricket continues to be the only sport in india ?

why people vomit in bus journey or while traveling ?

this was the question came to my mind when i saw a person on other bus puked( vomiting) through window, recently i been to my friends marriage in chittoor(a small town in south india) though this is the second time bus journey in my life for such a long distance i never felt like puking in the bus in the whole trip this time, funnily i heard a little conversation of mother and child about this subject in back seat, child: "mom why that person is vomiting" : Mother: "because that person does not like the smell of diesel" was that answer rite? pretty good for a child of 4 years! though vomiting in the bus terminals is common sightings every where... so what is the real reason behind this puking thing?

After googling for a while i came across many factors why people vomit during journey but three was most common in many cases the points are in the relevancy.

1. 80% of the time vomitting happens due to simple factor called "Motion Sickness" also called travel sickness is a condition in which a disagreement exists between visually perceived movement and the vestibular system's sense of movement. because of this body fails to adapt the changes in equilibrium due to which people vomit and this mostly happens to people while traveling in Ghat section where the route is curvy and steep.

2. Other reason is in rare cases people might have allergies to smoke, change in environment, or reflux to diesel fumes this may tends to cause nausea or vomitting sensation.

3. And in few scenarios eating lot of junk and oily foods during journey may contribute to this factor.

and between i also puked once in my first bus journey while traveling in the ghats of kerala while going to munnar and weirdly almost 50% of the people in the bus vomited from small kids to elderly persons, so have you guys ever puked then leave your experience.

Fresh blood vs old hands concept in IT companies

if we want to get good salary package in IT company the only way is to switch the companies every 1 or 2 years this is the mantra that is going on in IT for a long time, this is because managers are willing to pay more for a new experienced person from outside the company than the same amount of experienced person inside the company... it looks like the managements are following a hiring strategy what is know as "fresh blood vs old hands" concept that says a new person with same experience can contribute more than the person with same level of experience already in the company though this might not be true in all cases.

I was for long being in the conception that working for longer period of time would look good in the resume and also its a kind of loyalty to pay back to the company but some times i feel i making a mistake and still left puzzled as i can see some of my colleagues and friends who hopped more than twice with the same experience as mine is getting twice the pay...

and recently i understood no matter how hard we work we will not get a decent raise until we switch the company a mantra which becomes a must for ever IT professional though i am still puzzled some times i strongly feel it is imminent let see how it goes :) and one question remains does switching jobs frequently is only way to get paid more?

Man playing god creating synthetic life form

craig venter creates a synthetic life form this was the head lines recently i saw in one of the the online news portal guardian and it is said that it took 10 years 20 scientists and an estimated $40 m to achieve such a incredible break through, scientists created organism that would have never existed before some thing like "life engineering" opening a new branch in scientific world is the man playing god?

but one thing that shocked me more was what would be the consequence of this curious invention to the mankind what if this falls in the wrong hands with power, greed, hatred it can be use of wrong and unethical purposes and who knows what can go wrong with these new life form could it lead to a new disease? some kind of mutilation with other kind of existing life forms possibilities and questions are endless so as usual for every invention there will always be a criticism!

but what would be the useful side of this discovery like the cons it has a huge list of pros from organ harvesting, new kind of medicine to fight existing diseases such as cancer and aids to human cloning and miracle agents cleaning our atmosphere according to venter the possibilities are unlimited and presently his research is merely the "tip if the iceberg" so my question at the end what could be hidden beneath the tip of the berg disaster or ultimate salvation for many problems?

How to Efficiently Utilize Space in a Small Apartment or independent house ?

or put it this way ideal home vs big house? recently one of my friend invited for his house warming ceremony though this is one of their many houses in the city and he said it cost him more than 2 crore INR to build i was astonished and was puzzled why people spend such a huge amount of their fortune on the home when they are little less than 5 members living.

and recently i came across this interesting video just opposite to my friends case where this person who is architect living in china efficiently utilizing the space in small apartment showing the world on how not to waste the space.

so are you using your space better?

should anonymous comments be allowed or blocked ?

i currently blocked all the anonymous comments on my site though this was not the case before for past 3 years my blog was open for anons to comment and comments was always positive but recently i got the first shitty crappy comments from an anonymous coward who i think was just visiting my blog to leave his BS behind with cruelty and hatred i really not able to figure it out who is this fukcin, friggin, as**le and airhead was, i really like to warn him that i will not stand for this shit anymore.

and now i came to conclusion that making the anonymous comments block help prevent from link spammers and i believe that it is not much of an inconvenience to legitimate visitors and if some one has something to say which is not offensive then why hide behind their statement?

what ever it is the anonymous coward stopped trolling my site once the anonymous comments was blocked and if he still likes to say something let him tell to me directly not hiding and shivering in the corner.

How true is nadi astrology or is it fake and hoax ?

also called agastya muni shastra a unique astrology which requires finger print or thumb impression then the nadi reader searches a huge repository of leaves(ancient Indian palm leaves) based on the finger print because finger print is unique for each person and it is next to impossible to replicate, and for each thumb impression there are likely to be around 5 to 6 bundles and each bundle consist of 50 to 100 leaves and one particular leaf might be that of the individual and it is a laborious task in finding it and the leaf is often searched by nadi reader reading the contents of the each leaf by asking it in the form of question until finding the 100% match it is said that a leaf contains the details of father name, mother name and many other information to know more about how the leaf is matched click here and It is said that nadi astrology is written by agastya sage 4000 years ago.

being skeptical and atheist i rarely believe in these kinda things but recently after hearing experience of nadi shastra from my cousins, relatives and many others curiosity forced me to give a try i took a appointment by nadi reader which was available only on(today) Thursday 10.30 am i reached exactly at the time, first they took my thumb impression of right hand (for ladies it is left hand) then the nadi reader went inside a room and bought the stack of ancient palm leaves then he started to read the palm leaves one by one telling about some information written in palm leaves about father name, mother name, job type etc until all the information matched and finally match was found in 10 or 11th leaf, now after finding the leaf they said it takes a full week to draft out entire horoscope based on the old palm leaves and given me a appointment for next Saturday so until then i am in the waiting mode.

though i was amazed to see that he was able to tell my mother name, father name and some of the other things just by single letter from me i am still in the confusion whether it is the trick of elaborate guess work what ever it is let me wait till the next week and hope my 50$ (2500 INR) consultation fees wont go waste.

and between if any one of you have experienced nadi astrology and know more about it do comment here and i am planning to come up with a new post about my nadi astrology experience after completion of my nadi astrology session next week end.

Youtube recommended for you, is google spying or just a great feature ?

recently i started seeing youtube recommended videos on the you-tube homepage though i never looked at those videos as i always just use youtube video search bar to search the videos, but today when i saw those recommended videos i was amazed to see all the videos were interest of my subject for a moment i was shocked how the hell youtube matched all the videos according to my interests that to with 100% match?

though most of the time i use youtube to listen trance numbers, friends forwarded links but majority of the time i search for videos about UFO,conspiracy theories, occult, alternative science and other mystery related stuff and i personally don't care because i believe google will not be evil at-least in india and i do not use internet for anything that is seriously secretive that needed to be spyed, internet is my second home just to have fun for sometime.

and coming to the youtube new recommendation feature i think its just a small automated process to suggest videos based on user search which is extracted and based from youtube search cookies in the browser what ever it is what do you guys think about this new feature did the recommendation matched your taste?

world broadband speed ranking list where our country stands?

ask anyone who browse internet what is the important thing for browsing experience? the answer would definitely be "internet speed", it was the early days in 2000 when i was using dial-up to browse the internet 5 - 10kbps speed was something great to us anything more than that was a bumper offer i still remember i used to wait 1 - 2 hrs to download a 10mb mp3 file and it was in 2005 i got my first BSNL broadband connection i was really amazed by the speed at which websites was opening because now i could browse 5 to 10 times the speed than dial-up connection with speed something in between 30 - 60kbps though this speed was very much enough to browse the web pages i started to feel the limitation and shortcomings of it from early 2007 with the popularity of youtube and other video streaming sites because to see a decent 5 - 10 minutes video clip there was 10's of pauses in between...

but one thing annoyed me very much is my offshore colleagues always used to say they were able to download 4gigs of file in just 3 to 4 hours where in india for us to download same file it takes almost 1 or 2 days flat this made me search what is the speed of internet offered worldwide when compared to india and got a interesting information in speedtest.net portal and it is said that the test result was taken with connections used in colleges and corporations below is the list of countries and their broadband speed really below list makes you head spin...

Top Countries Ranked by download Speed

1	Republic of Korea	22.05 Mb/s
2	Aland Islands	18.90 Mb/s
3	Latvia	18.83 Mb/s
4	Japan	17.50 Mb/s
5	Romania	16.49 Mb/s
6	Lithuania	16.23 Mb/s
7	Andorra	15.11 Mb/s
8	Sweden	15.10 Mb/s
9	Netherlands	14.70 Mb/s
10	Bulgaria	14.67 Mb/s
11	Republic of Moldova	13.27 Mb/s
12	Hong Kong	12.02 Mb/s
13	Portugal	11.63 Mb/s
14	Slovakia	10.59 Mb/s
125	India	1.50 Mb/s

Top Countries Ranked by upload Speed

1	Lithuania	10.43 Mb/s
2	Japan	8.79 Mb/s
3	Aland Islands	8.03 Mb/s
4	Latvia	7.84 Mb/s
5	Bulgaria	6.74 Mb/s
6	Hong Kong	6.26 Mb/s
7	Romania	6.08 Mb/s
8	Andorra	6.03 Mb/s
9	Sweden	5.65 Mb/s
10	Slovenia	5.54 Mb/s
11	Russian Federation	5.02 Mb/s
12	Ukraine	3.85 Mb/s
13	Republic of Moldova	3.81 Mb/s
14	Netherlands	3.53 Mb/s
86	India	0.54Mb/

this shows our country stands 125th place in download speed and 86th place in upload speed being one of the leading IT hub of the world we are still way behind in IT infrastructure but now a days i am seeing various ISP's coming up with good speed offerings with more than 3MBps at reasonable costs let the competition continue and user get benefited from it and between what do you guys think are we still in middle-ages in broadband era compared to developed countries why do you think our ISP's are still behind in the race?

feeling like electric shock when touching metal objects?

recently one of my friend said he had a feeling or sensation of electric current zapping him whenever he touched any object or metallic surface though he was bit tensed about this phenomena i was really at ease because i too had experienced this few years back and i was aware that it was something that not needed to worry about...

i think its around early 2002 like always i parked the car inside and when i touched the car door to open i was terrified to see a small spark and a sensation of medium electric shock even before i touched the door i was stunned for a moment thinking whether there was any short circuit in the car and after a bit of courage i touched the car door for second time without any shock and i forget and thought incident as the mere illusion, but next day i encountered the same incident i could see a clear flash of spark between the metal surface of the door and my hand then i though it is something serious to look upon and then when i consulted my car electrician he found a wire dangling in the car dynamo after fixing it and replacing with a new voltage regulator in dynamo the problem was gone!

So why did i and my friend feel the shock?
simple! the faulty dynamo some how made to build up static electric charges in my body through the ignition key and steering and there was no way to discharge it as the floor of the car will be insulated by carpet and this build up of charge appears as high voltage and we sense the electric shock when ever we touch metal or grounded objects... it is said that upto 15,000 volts have been recorded and its common to have the static charge experience up till 5000 volts in people less than it people does not feel the sensation of electro static shock...

and coming to my friends case we were able to round up the culprit it was his computer cabinet which was below the monitor next to his feet and the missing ground wire in the wall socket that led to acummulate the static charge in his body and he used to feel mild electric shocks when he used to touch other metallic objects or ground.

it can be noted that static electric can be due to many reasons rubbing of your body on the seat or carpet, faulty circuit or many other reasons if you want to know what potential danger can static electric can pose see the below clip

there are tons of videos explaining what is static electric current and weird and funny experiments on you-tube and between if you have experienced the static electric funda anywhere in your life do share your experience with us.

cotton candy machines on indian streets: childhood memories

recently when i was googling for something i accidentally came across a pic which for a moment made me nostalgic of my early childhood days in 1980's in those days summer holidays something we did not want to miss and we were on the street playing all day long enjoying all the eatable that passed by the road from ice cream candies to fresh spun cotton candies and totapuri(Magnifera indica a unripe mango) eaten with salt and redchilli powder etc etc, though until then i forgot about the cotton candy which i had eaten a decade back but last week when i tried to spot all the cotton candy vendors near the mall and other places which used to be i was surprised to see they are gone in midst of urbanization :( cotton candy machines which was common in Bangalore streets and shopping malls is now only at few places below is the pic of the cotton candy vendor looked when we were young!

did you got the doubt how they spun the cotton candy on that portable stall without any motor or current in old days? well i remember he was using his legs to spin the cotton candy machine to rotate the drum in high speed just like manual sewing machine...

but after googling about the cotton candy i was surprised to know that my assumption of cotton candy as modern day invention was wrong and has the history which dates back to 1400's where European chefs were spinning extravagant dessert out of sugars though those days the cotton candy strands were much thicker like a blown glass because the granulated sugar was invented after the world war2 which is the major secret ingredient behind the cotton candy what ever it is the above pic took me to my childhood days and thought of sharing with you guys, and between when did you last ate your cotton candy do comment if you are bangalorean the places where we can get this old delicacy.

traffic signal Anomalies and confusion to walk or not to walk ?

last night after attending the friends party in noble house Chinese restaurant near my office while heading back to home we saw a weird anomaly in pedestrian traffic light signal immediately my Colleague clicked it with his 3.2 mp camera from his mobile phone for a moment we were confused whether to walk or not to walk because the signal showed both red and green signals at a time and few people there said its a regular thing from long time in that traffic pole and most people always confuse with it, below is the picture of the pedestrian signal which was in tristate ;)

though i guess its a problem with the traffic signal if you think it has some special meaning or its some traffic rule newly introduced ;) and my other question is do people still follow pedestrian signals in india any more? please comment.

will bots replace google, call centers and other information mechanisms?

i recently came across a website where a bot is said to interactively answer all your queries though at the beginning i though it is just another automated pre programmed bot which reply answers correlating from its vast database but i was amazed to see its answering and intelligence after spending few minutes with it really i can say it has the intelligence to certain extent, whats more it is said that the AI(clever bot) is improving day by day by interacting with real people what ever it is to know the real interactiveness of the cleverbot visit the website here

see the below video which shows the potential of cleverbot replacing the un-interactive present communication system of today's

guys did you visited the cleverbot portal and had a chat and came across interesting thing if so do share with us here and between the bots learn from real people and some times the very rarely chat result may be inappropriate.

my Pepsi Youngistan ka WOW Challenge can ranbir do that?

well with recent youngistaan ka wow challenge contest sponsored by Pepsi in association with indiblogger many bloggers started posting wacky ideas on how they want to challenge ranbir so imagining my self in the place of sanjay dutt as the game master i came up with a really wacky idea to challenge ranbir, though this is the idea that came from the post i long blogged i think this is one of the best and wacky challenge that ranbir can face with the condition that ranbir does not use dupes ;) o k now lets start the game

let me remind you the important contest condition

-->Blogger with the most votes wins the IndiBlogger of the Month prize.
--> Only valid comments originating from people with a blog/website/any social media profile (Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc.) will be counted. Anonymous comments will be ignored.

So guys please don't comment as anon :)

Question: If you were the Game Master, what challenge would you like to throw to Ranbir?

My Challenge: As i said before the idea is from my post which i long blogged almost a year and half back i will ask ranbir to drink full 2liters bottle of Pepsi and spit it back completely to the bottle like the person in the below video does the video is just for you and ranbir reference ;)



so guys what do you think can ranbir do it if so please tell us what makes you think he can do it if not tell us why he cannot do it.