Motivational

About NASA’s Curiosity Rover Mission @ Mars ….

NatarajanLeave a comment
John GrotzingerThe Curiosity rover mission team celebrates the landing of the car-size robot on the surface of Mars at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California on Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012.

On Aug. 5, 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover touched down on the surfaceof Mars. Its mission: To find out if Mars could have once supported life. Nearly two years later, the car-size rover’s prime mission officially came to an end on Tuesday, June 24.

That doesn’t mean Curiosity will be put out to pasture. She’ll still be doing science on Mars and returning crucial data about the atmosphere and surface of the cold, red planet.

As the main investigation comes to a close, we spoke to chief scientist John Grotzinger, who has been directing the mission from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He talked about Curiosity’s biggest discoveries and one of the darkest moments during the mission.

[A lightly edited transcript of the interview follows]

Business Insider: How are you feeling now?

John Grotzinger: We feel really great about what we’ve been able to do. We’re hopeful that NASA will continue the mission. We are in the stretch of the fastest driving that we’ve done the entire mission so far. Now we’re trying to get toward Mount Sharp. We’ve had 16 papers published and two papers in Science magazine. We met all of the goals in advance. It doesn’t feel like mission over.

CuriosityThis is the first self-portrait Curiosity took after landing on Mars. It’s a bit fuzzy, but the pictures got better as the mission progressed.

BI: The last two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, also outlived their prime mission, by many, many years. Why is the main investigation so short if you know the machines can beat these expectations and how long do you expect Curiosity to last?

JG: NASA defines a set of objectives that the spacecraft is supposed to achieve within a timeframe, which was one Mars year or a little less than two years for Curiosity. The warranty on Curiosity expires in June, but we can see Curiosity’s vital signs working really well so we expect it to keep going. Curiosity is different than past rovers because it doesn’t have solar power, it has nuclear power. The way we generate power is that the radioactive device generates heat. There’s a device called the thermocouple, which converts heat to electricity. We can monitor its lifespan. We know we are going to get another good five years. After another seven years, we are going to be generating enough power to keep vehicle going, but not too much more. In 10 years, we expect to see significant degradation.

BI: What is the Curiosity team going to do now?

JG: A lot of team is now going to transition over to the Mars 2020mission. That’s the year it’s going to launch. I’m going to stick with Curiosity and make sure we make it to the base of Mount Sharp.

BI: How do you feel attached to Curiosity besides being the lead investigator?

JG: You can’t help but become emotionally attached to these robots even though they are mechanical devices. When something happens to Curiosity we not only feel the impact of the vehicle on Mars, but also on collective collaboration here. We watch everything she does. We watch the previous Mars rover, Opportunity, as she gets older and the same thing will eventually happen to Curiosity.

BI: Can you sum up the top three discoveries of the prime mission?

JG: The number one thing would be discovering evidence of habitability, meaning that we found an ancient environment where microorganisms could have lived and reproduced. If life ever evolved on Mars, this would have been place of it.

The second would be discovering and confirming something that had been guessed at in the 1970s: Mars lost a lot of its atmosphere billions of years ago. It became the planet it is today probably around 3 billion years ago.

Mars Rover

Third, the place that we discovered that was habitable was younger than what we thought. What we though had been the “goldilocks window,” the time when the planet was habitable, was broader than what we thought before.

BI: Is there one day throughout the mission or challenge you faced that you would never want to relive again?

JG: Back in December, we had just published a series of papers that had proven the evidence of habitability early on. It even made the cover of Science. Two days later, I was alerted of pictures that showed thewheels had holes in them. The place we had landed in was very hazardous to the wheels. We got a flat on Mars. We developed a strategy to work around it and now are safely driving. But I would not want to go through that again. We had to stop driving when what we wanted to be doing was driving. We went from the greatest emotional high to the greatest emotion low in two days. It would have been nice to bask in glow of success a little longer.

Curiosity 2The red circles highlight tears in one of Curiosity’s tires.

BI: In the first year of the mission you said something to a reporter about a discovery that Curiosity made, which got picked up by other media (including us) and somewhat blown out of proportion. What have you learned about the power of social media in this process?

JG: Social media is a wonderful thing. The overwhelming majority is so positive because the things you discover can be shared. We made the decision to return all images so people get to enjoy Mars the way they want. You do have to learn to be careful and explicit about what you mean.

BI: How soon do you think we’ll be able to put a person on Mars?

JG: The first thing we have to do is figure out how to bring rocks back. The difference between the moon and Mars is that the moon is a small body. With propulsion, it doesn’t take much energy to get off he surface. But Mars is big and it has gravity. You have to learn how to build a vehicle that can go to Mars, land successfully, and then lift off. But first we have to figure out the simple challenge of taking a 20 kilogram rock and lifting it off the surface of the planet.

BI: Do believe in programs like Mars One?

JG: In principle it’s possible.

BI: How are celebrating the end of the prime mission?

There’s going to be a big celebration on June 26. Engineers feel like they have delivered on their promise and built a vehicle that lasted a long time. Yes, there will be champagne.

Mars RoverCuriosity weighs about 1 ton and is around the size of SUV.

BI: Where is Curiosity going now?

We have 4 to 6 months of driving and are making great progress. We’re going to try to get to Mount Sharp by the end of the calendar year.

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, andLinkedIn

Source::::Business Insider AU

Natarajan

 

People Invested $1Million in App that Just Says ” Yo” !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

 

yo2

It only took 8 hours to build the app, and the only thing it does is allow you to send the word ‘Yo’ to your friends. To many, it seems like a joke. But its inventor, Or Arbel, is totally serious.

Arbel, who built the app three months ago, has quit his job and moved halfway around the world — from his native Israel to San Francisco — to work on Yo full time. He’s opening an office, hiring staff and seeking “strategic partners.” And oh yeah: He’s already raised $1 million from investors.

So is Arbel right? Is Yo, which he calls “context-based communications,” the future of messaging? Or is investor interest in Yo an unmistakable sign that we are in the midst of another internet bubble?

Yo is a very simple app. It allows you to send a push notification to anyone else with the app. All of those notifications say the same thing: “Yo.” Arbel says that “you usually understand what the Yo means based on who you get it from and when you get it.” According to Arbel, once you start using Yo “the way it affects your life is profound.” He noted that many of the reviews of Yo in the app store say things like “Yo changed my life.”

Some of these reviews, however, do seem a bit sarcastic: “Not just a means of simple but effective communication, Yo is a way of life,” one review says. “Since downloading Yo, all my relationships have improved and I’ve regrown most of my hair.”

Yo was launched in the App Store on April Fool’s Day of this year. (It was initially rejected by Apple because they thought the App wasn’t finished yet.) It took off when tech evangelist Robert Scoble called it “the stupidest but most addicting app ever.” Thus far, it has attracted over 50,000 users who have sent about 4 million Yos. It’s particularly popular among other start-ups like Kickstarter and Four Square. Once it gets into an office, Arbel says, “it goes viral.”

Why not just send the word “Yo” using an existing messaging app? Arbel says the primary benefit is efficiency. With WhatsApp, an extremely popular messaging app that allows you to send words of your choosing, it takes 11 taps to send a Yo. With the Yo app, it only takes two taps.

The comparison to WhatsApp also may point to Arbel’s larger strategy. In February, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion, even though the company’s revenue is negligible. Arbel says that anyone who uses WhatsApp will also want Yo. If Arbel can grow Yo into something a larger company believes is even 1 percent as valuable as WhatsApp, that’s still $190 million.

Some analysts believe the WhatsApp sale and the flood of venture capital seeking out the next big thing represents a new tech bubble. Hedge fund manager David Einhorn, speaking to the Los Angeles Times recently, said “[t]here is a clear consensus that we are witnessing our second tech bubble in 15 years. What is uncertain is how much further the bubble can expand, and what might pop it.”

During the last tech bubble, in 2000, the Nasdaq Index — which features many technology stocks — lost nearly 80 percent of its value and “Silicon Valley saw 200,000 jobs evaporate overnight.” In the first quarter of 2014 “venture capitalists invested $9.5 billion in 951 U.S. companies,” a level not seen since the last bust.

Many people within the tech industry, however, remain bullish. The internet is much more mature than at the turn of the century, the smartphone plays a central role in modern life, and people much more willing to spend money to enhance their online experience.

So how do you convince investors that there is money to be made in the Yo-delivery business? Arbel is working on developing an API that will allow him to “partner with brands.” In our Yo-enhanced future you would get Yos from “things that interest you.” When the Gap has a sale, for example, it would send you a Yo. When your friend’s plane lands, Delta will send you a Yo. Arbel is particularly excited about the prospect of getting a Yo into Starbucks. When your order is ready, Starbucks could send you a Yo.

“Shouting your name is old fashioned,” he says.

The first $1 million has come from group of investors associated with Moshe Hogeg, the CEO a social network similar to Instagram, Mobli, where Arbel worked for two years. (He initially created the app at the request of Hogeg, who wanted an easy want to tell his personal assistant he needed to talk to her.) Arbel said he’d like to raise some more money from “strategic partners.”

One thing that Arbel won’t be doing is adding more features. He believes that simplicity is the key to its success. (There are some hidden features, or “Easter eggs,” in the app. You can double tap someone’s name to send a “YoYo.” And adding a plus sign between usernames sends Yos to a group.) The simplicity also provides some benefits to users. Unlike most other messaging apps, Yo doesn’t collect any personal information from users. In comparison to photo messaging apps like SnapChat, it’s hard for kids to get into trouble using Yo. You cannot sext on it.

“We do have some users who don’t get it and think it’s a joke,” Arbel admits. He thinks that even if users initially download the app because they think its funny, they’ll keep using it because it will “change their everyday life.” He describes the perception of Yo as a joke as a “problem we need to solve.”

The larger problem is whether an economy built on seven-figure investments in Apps like Yo is sustainable. If Arbel can convince sophisticated investors that Yo already merits a $1 million investment, maybe he is onto something. Or maybe the potential of Yo is not in the product itself, but on the ability in a frenzied marketplace to quickly flip Yo to another company for a profit and move onto the next app. It was too many of those kinds of transactions — divorced from revenue or value of the consumer — that caused the entire system to crash at the turn of the century.

Where does Yo fit into this equation? We’ll need to wait and see. Until then, Arbel has been waiting for a Yo when this piece gets published.

Source:::: thinkprogress.org

Natarajan

” These Ducklings Never Giveup…” !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

Little Ducklings Encounter the Stairs…
These little ducklings are trying to follow their mother, who very easily climbed these stairs. But for her puny offsprings, these stairs are huge, and hard to climb. However, they never give up rejoining their mother, and that is what makes the end of this video so great.

 

 

Source::::You Tube and  ba-ba mail site

Natarajan

“நீங்கள் ஆணையிட்டால் ….” ” நடக்கட்டும் …நடக்கட்டும் …” !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

 

1956 – ஜனவரி

இரண்டு இளைஞர்கள் – ஆங்கிலக் கல்வியுடன் நாட்டியக் கலையையும், கர்நாடக இசையையும் கசடறக் கற்றவர்கள். ஒருவர் பரத நாட்டியத்திலும், மற்றவர் கர்நாடக இசையிலும் நல்ல தேர்ச்சி பெற்றிருந்தனர். பல்கலைக்கழக மேற்படிப்பு படித்து முடித்ததும், படிப்புக்கேற்ற வேலை கிடைக்கும் வரை, சென்னையிலிருக்கும் தங்கள் நாட்டியக் கலா நிலையத்தில் தங்கி இருந்தனர். அங்கு பாடங்கள் நடத்துவதில் உதவியாக இருந்துகொண்டு, எதிர்காலத்தைக் குறித்த கவலையுடன், நாட்களை நடனமும் கர்நாடக இசையும் பயில்வதிலும், கற்றுக் கொடுப்பதிலும் கழித்துக் கொண்டிருந்தனர்.

இவ்விருவரில் ஒரு இளைஞர் வேதவித்தகரின் மகன். சிறுவயதிலிருந்தே மஹாபெரியவர் மீது மரியாதையும் பக்தியும் நிறைந்த குடும்பத்தைச் சேர்ந்தவர்.

ஒரு நாள் காலை, “புறப்படு; நாம் இருவரும் காஞ்சிபுரம் சென்று மஹாபெரியவரைத் தரிசித்து வருவோம். அவருக்குப் பாடலில் உள்ள அளவுக்கு ஆடலில் அவ்வளவு விருப்பம் உண்டா என்று எனக்குத் தெரியாது. இருந்தாலும், நீ நடனமாடுவதற்கேற்ற வேஷ்டியும் மேலாடையும் எடுத்து வா…. அவர் அருளிருந்தால், அவர் முன் நீ ஆடும் பாக்யம் உனக்குக் கிடைக்கும். நீ ஆடுவதற்கு நான் பாடும் பாக்யமும் எனக்குக் கிடைக்கும்” என்றார்.

இருவரும் பேருந்தில் காஞ்சியை அடைந்தனர். மஹாபெரியவர் அப்போது ஓரிக்கையில் இருப்பதாகத் தெரிந்து, ஓரிக்கை அடைந்தனர். அங்கு மஹாபெரியவர் ஒரு சிறு சிவன் கோவில் திண்ணையில் அமர்ந்திருந்தார். அந்தச் சிறிய இடத்தில் அவரைக் காண, அருள் பெற பக்தர்கள் கூடியிருந்தனர்.

நம் இளைஞர்கள் இருவரும் மஹாபெரியவரை நெருங்கி, வணங்கி எழுந்தனர். மஹாபெரியவர் அன்று மெளனம் கடைப்பிடிக்கிறார் என்று அறிந்தனர். வெகு சில சைகைகள் மூலமாக மிக முக்யமானவைகளை மட்டும் மற்றவருக்குத் தெரிவிக்கும் விதமான மெளனத்தில் இருந்தார்.

கர்நாடக இசையில் தேர்ச்சி பெற்ற நம் இளைஞர், மஹா பெரியவரிடம் நெருங்கி, “என் நண்பன் பரதநாட்டியம் கற்றிருக்கிறார். தங்கள் முன்னிலையில் ஆட வேண்டுமென்று விருப்பம்… நீங்கள் ஆணையிட்டால்….” என்று சொல்லி முடிக்கு முன்னாக, பெரியவர், “நடக்கட்டும்” என்பதற்கான சைகையைச் செய்ய, நம் இளைஞருக்கு ஒரே மகிழ்ச்சி. தன் நண்பனிடம் வந்து, “சீக்கிரம் நடனமாடுவதற்கேற்ப உடைமாற்றி வா… பெரியவர் ஆக்ஞை தந்துள்ளார்” என்று மகிழ்ச்சியுடன் தெரிவித்தார். நாட்டியத்தில் தேர்ச்சி பெற்ற இரண்டாவது இளைஞர், அப்பொழுது தயாராகவே இருந்தார்.

ஒருவர் பாட, மற்றவர், “நடனம் ஆடினார்” என்ற பாடலுக்கு ஆடத் தொடங்கினார்.

அந்தச் சிறிய இடத்தில், பெரியவர் உட்கார்ந்திருந்த இடம் போக, மற்ற பக்தர்கள் அமர்ந்திருந்த இடமும் போக, மீதமுள்ள மிகச் சிறிய இடத்தில், நடராஜரின் மேல் அமைந்திருந்த அந்தப் பாடலுக்கு, “குதித்த மெட்டு” என்றழைக்கப்படும் ஜதியுடன் ஆடல் ஆரம்பித்தது. இந்த ஜதியுடன் காலைத் தூக்கி நடராஜர் அபிநயம் பிடிக்கவும், அவரது, கால்விரல்கள் மஹாபெரியவருக்கு மிக அருகில் வரவேண்டியதாயிற்று.

அருகிலிருந்த மற்ற பக்தர்கள், “நிறுத்து, நிறுத்து, அபசாரம், அபசாரம்” என்று கூவ, மஹா பெரியவரோ, தன் திருக்கைகளில் ஒன்றால், மற்ற பக்தர்களை நோக்கி “நிறுத்துங்கள்” என்பதாகவும், நம் இளைஞரைப் பார்த்து, “ஆடுவதைத் தொடரலாம்” என்பதாகவும் ஒரே நேரத்தில் அபிநயம் செய்தார்.

இளைஞர் ஆட, மற்றவர் பாட, அற்புதமான நடனம் பெரியவர் முன் அரங்கேறியது.

இருவரும் மஹாபெரியவரிடம் ஆசிபெற்று சென்னை வந்து சேர்ந்தனர்.

நடனமாடிய இளைஞர், பனாரஸ் ஹிந்து பல்கலைக்கழகம் மற்றும் பரோடா எம்.எஸ்.பல்கலைக்கழகத்திலும் பணிபுரிந்து, 1992 ஆம் வருடம் பணி நிறைவு Head of the Faculty of Performing Arts of M.S. University, Baroda பெற்றார்.

அவருக்கு 1993 வருடம் சங்கீத நாடக அகாடமி விருதும், 2008 ஆம் வருடம் காளிதாஸ் ஸம்மான் எனப்படும் விருதும், 2011 ஆம் வருடம் பத்ம பூஷன் விருதும் கிடைத்தன..

கடந்த 60 ஆண்டுகளாகப் பல உலக மேடைகளிலும் தான் ஆடியதும், விருதுகள் பெற்றதும், தனது 80ஆவது வயதிலும், பரதநாட்யம் ஆடுவதும், அந்த ஒரு மதியம் மஹாபெரியவர் “தொடர்ந்து ஆடு” என்று உத்தரவு அளித்ததின் விளைவே என்று மிக அடக்கத்துடன் கூறும் அந்த இளைஞர் பத்மபூஷன் ஸி.வி.சந்த்ரசேகர் அவர்களே.

ஜய ஜய சங்கர! ஹர ஹர சங்கர!!

Read more: http://periva.proboards.com/

Natarajan

Message For the Day…” Peace and Love are Intimately Related…”

NatarajanLeave a comment

If you are established in peace, you will find that Love arises from it. Peace and love are intimately related. Many pretend as if they love all. Their actions represent how dramatic one can get in the field of love. This is not true love. True love finds fulfilment only when it is with peace. Once you develop true love, Non-violence will naturally manifest from within and you will not hurt or harm anyone. Love is present everywhere, in every being in this world. Love is beyond a specific name, form or action. Love is God, Live in Love. This is taught to you by Educare. The process of education inculcates desire, hatred, jealousy, lust, greed and avarice, which are worldly traits or behavioural tendencies. Educare on the other hand, consists of adherence to Truth, Non-Violence, Love, Peace and Righteousness – qualities that are present within you.

 

Sathya Sai Baba

Message For the Day…” Mind is Like Water and it Needs to be Diverted Towards Higher Realms…”

NatarajanLeave a comment

Mind is present inside the body amidst the five sheaths (Pancha Koshas). The five sheaths are gross body sheath (Annamaya Kosha), Pranamaya Kosha (pertaining to the life force), Manomaya Kosha (mind sheath), Vijnanamaya Kosha (intellect sheath), and Anandamaya Kosha (Bliss sheath). Above the mind sheath is Prana (life force) and below it is discrimination power. Both of these are related to Fire. Mind is related to Water. The Moon is the presiding deity for the Mind. Hence coolness is its nature. Because of the presence of life force above and discrimination power below, the Mind melts and gets transformed into water. Water’s nature is to flow towards a lower level. It does not have the nature of flowing upwards. Hence the mind always wanders around the sensory and worldly pleasures. It cannot voyage towards the pure and higher stages. To divert the mind towards higher realms, spirituality is of utmost necessity.

Sathya Sai Baba

” Retirement is the Never Ending Coffee Beak …” !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

The Retirement Q&A!

Retirement can be a wonderful thing. It sure is a huge change in one’s life, moving from office to home, from keeping hours to keeping yourself busy and having fun. Indeed, retirement has many secrets, which is why it was important for me to ask some ‘hard’ questions about this phase of life.

Question: How many days in a week?
Answer: 6 Saturdays, 1 Sunday

Question: When is a retiree’s bedtime?
Answer: Two hours after he falls asleep on the couch.

Question: How many retirees to change a light bulb?
Answer: Only one, but it might take all day.

Retirement is wonderful. It’s doing nothing
without worrying about getting caught at it
Gene Perret

Question: What’s the biggest gripe of retirees?
Answer: There is not enough time to get everything done.

Question: Why don’t retirees mind being called Seniors?
Answer: The term comes with a 10% discount.

Question: Among retirees, what is considered formal attire?
Answer: Tied shoes.

Question: Why do retirees count pennies?
Answer: They are the only ones who have the time.

‘There’s one thing I always wanted to do before I quit…retire!’
Groucho Marx

Question:
What is the common term for someone who enjoys work and refuses to retire?
Answer: Idiot

Question: Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement, attic or garage?
Answer: They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult kids will want to store stuff there.

Question: What do retirees call a long lunch?
Answer: Lunch.

I have never liked working.
To me a job is an invasion of privacy
Danny McGorty

Question: What is the best way to describe retirement?
Answer: The never ending Coffee Break.

Question: What’s the biggest advantage of going back to school as a retiree?
Answer: If you cut classes, no one calls your parents.

Question: Why does a retiree often say he doesn’t miss work, but misses the people he used to work with?
Answer: He is too polite to tell the whole truth.

Question: What do you do all week?
Answer: Monday through Friday, nothing; Saturday & Sunday, I rest.

I enjoy waking up and not having to go to work.
So I do it three or four times a day.
Gene Perret

Source:::: ba-ba mail site

Natarajan

Message For the Day…” Righteousness is Reflection of Truth … “

NatarajanLeave a comment

Truth is not merely describing what you have seen, expressing as is what you have heard or sharing honestly what you have experienced. Truth is beyond all this. It is a deep inner feeling and it must come from within. Truth must originate from your heart. Truth is permanent; it does not change with the passage of time. When you rely on Truth (Satya), Righteousness (Dharma) arises out of it. It is Truth that teaches how one should conduct oneself and perform one’s duties. Righteousness is a reflection of Truth. You will experience peace when Sathya and Dharma co-exist. This is indeed peace, Shanti. It is foolishness to think that Peace exists elsewhere and is separate from you. If you separate truth and righteousness, you will find only pieces, on the other hand if you blend them you will experience Peace always

Sathya Sai Baba

An Amazing Video ….Rescue of a Cute Little Squirrel !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

 

 

While sailing on Somerset Reservoir in Vermont with his son, a man spotted a young squirrel trying to swim across the lake. The distance from one side to the other was about 3/4 of a mile and the squirrel was right in the middle of the lake. After trying to get him to climb aboard without success, the man decided to jump into the water to save the little guy.

I just love this video! It’s so heartwarming to see people helping even the smallest of creatures.

Source: LiftlineRedcoat …YOU TUBE & VIRAL NOVA TRENDING SITE

Natarajan