Phoenix lander may have uncovered ice on Mars! From Foxnews…

TUCSON, Ariz. — Sharp new images received Saturday from the Phoenix lander largely convinced scientists that the spacecraft’s thrusters had uncovered a large patch of ice just below the Martian surface, team members said.

That bodes well for the mission’s main goal of digging for ice that can be tested for evidence of organic compounds that are the chemical building blocks of life.

More here…

I just finished watching Oliver Hirschbiegel’s outstanding film ‘Downfall‘ which is based on last 12 days of Adolf Hitler’s life in the bunker where he killed himself, narrated through the eyes of Traudl Junge, his secretary. The film portrays the human side of the ‘Third Reich’ (which created much controversy), and the events surrounding the death of some of the key supporters of Hitler.

However, apart from the outstanding narrative, the film had some superb techniques that helped recreate the drama and intensity of a war-torn nation with minimal depiction of battle sequences.

Claustrophobic setting: through complete lack of natural light, extreme use of ‘white’ light, contrast and shadows, it creates a feeling of suffocating claustrophobia in the viewer’s mind. The long shots go only as far as a section of a bunker would allow, and the camera shake that follows shells dropping overground (almost like an earthquake), create an atmosphere of captivity, where every single and rare outdoor shot almost comes as a relief. Seen through the POV of the characters, the bunker is safe, and the outside dangerous (due to constant shells dropping from an invisible aggressor). Yet, the moment a character steps outside the bunker door, it gives a fleeting sense of relief from the oppressive interiors, but one that can only last a few seconds due to the constant danger of sudden death from a bullet or a shell.
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The Three Gorges is a scenic area on the Yangtze river, between cities Chongqing and Yichang. The historic river came into wider attention due to controversy surrounding the dam that has been built on it.

After escaping the bandits in the bus in Huaihai, and soaking in the outstanding old-town riverside scenery of Fenghuang, we managed to find ourselves in a train heading for Chongqing, hoping to catch a part of the cruise.

We arrived at 3 in the morning, and realized that it was the beginning of a nightmare. To cut a long painful story short, we basically ended up being massively harrassed by touts, spent nearly 3 hours roaming around with our backpacks just trying to figure out a place to sleep. In a land where you don’t speak the language, cannot read road signs, and everyone around you has a vested interest in you and is lying about nearly everything, and you don’t have a map…. how do you navigate? There is one and only one way…

Anyhow, we did manage to find a place (although lot more expensive than we needed), and eventually managed to get ourselves on a boat through the Yangtze. Will post a video soon.

Three Gorges dwarfs you. You stand and watch the giant mist covered cliffs, awestruck, and wonder how bandits and pirates must have ruled the land surrounding it. You weave stories in your head about the deserted towns and temples you pass.

The dam itself is an engineering marvel of our times. It was built ahead of schedule in 2006, a remarkable feat considering the sheer scale of the project. For it to be completed, millions of inhabitants living on Yangtzes shores had to be relocated. The dam is poised to provide for 1/10th of energy needs of the country.

Yet, many fear that a slight damage to the dam, and millions of lives would be washed away. It is China, the land of superlatives, and nothing is subtle in its scope.

Yangshuo. A cluster of villages in the middle of outstanding karst scenery, right on the shores of Li River, and full with caves, limestone peaks, and foggy cloudy weather that adds to it. Biking through the muddy village roads purged me of all the sins of liquid and smoke consumption committed in the last few weeks.

Yesterday was a chinese holiday, and masses of professionals and uni students from Guangzhou had descended for a day out. We were drinking in a chinese bar, downing beers and listening to a young chinese band sing love songs, and watching this one giant group of early-21s play a game of dice.

We tried to get one of them to explain the game — not much success there, but in the process, we found out that they were a good old ICQ (QQ in China) community who were meeting face-to-face for the first time. They didn’t know each other’s names, backgrounds, nothing. All they knew was their code number. I had always heard of such meetups, but never witnessed one. Nice.

In China right now — Guanzhong to be specific.

This place is crazy. So, after traveling out of Hong Kong (which was
really a gaint chinatown slapped on top of a New York + San Fran +
London aesthetics), we reached mainland china today, to this city. It is apparently one of China’s fastest growing cities —
so we expected the experience to be similar to Hong Kong.

This place is completely bonkers — not a single person speaks
english… not a single real sign in english (apart from some road signs). On top of tht, I gots
fever right after eating at McD (found nothing veggie anywhere else) today
morning. So navigating through the city with a massive backpack, body
ache and trying to get somewhere with gestures and maps. You can
imagine.

We go to the train station —- it was a madness of people that only
Kolkata or Mumbai comes close to…. we dared not enter. On top of that, it was raining, so all the crowd from the street had also come into the station for shelter. So much so
that it was difficult to STEP somewhere lest you crush a human.

Took us bloody 5 hours — but finally found a hotel and managed to
book bus tickets… and finally got some fever medicine (which is all
in chinese… so I don’t know what the fuck it contains). And I call myself a honed traveler.

Now here’s the icing on the cake —–  after eating dinner at a
veggie monastery cum restaurant, we are walking back — and I see a
giant hall full of computers through a window, with game visuals running on every single monitor (this is at 10 pm)  —– we are like, what
the hell. I come in, it happens to be a NETBAR (internet cum bar) —
nearly 100 young early-twenties are sitting here, some drunk and/or smoking… either
playing a MMORPG, or watching films on some chinese website. I am
going to try and sneak a pic of this place before leaving.

This place is mad. No one smiles or laughs (which my grandfather
already warned me about) except the teens —- I barely managed to get
through immigration… they stopped me right before entering
mainland…. I think they thought ‘wht the fuck is an Indian doing
here… GOTTA be something weird. They let me go when they saw Poorva
was an american (hahahaha).

More tomorrow —- actually feeling better after (whatever) medicine
and food. I need to make sense of this place….! Tomorrow we head
further interior….

Interesting. via TechCrunch – Silicon Valley Could Use A Downturn Right About Now

“When I look back at the pictures from those early events, I remember good times, and no one was talking about twenty million dollar venture rounds or selling out for a cool $1.65 billion. Companies like Meebo and Sphere literally launched in my living room in front of a couple of hundred genuinely interested people.

I left Silicon Valley at the peak of the insanity last time around, and I was pleasantly surprised when I returned in 2005 to see so much goodwill and community surrounding innovation. Now, it’s just like the old days again, and Silicon Valley is no longer any fun. In fact, it’s turned downright nasty. It may be time for some of us to leave for a while and watch the craziness from the outside again. In a few years, things will be beautiful again. The big money will be slumbering away, and the marketing departments will be a distant memory. We can focus, once again, on the technology. And the burgers and beer.