A juggler, driving to his next performance, is stopped by the police. “What are those machetes doing in your car?” asks the cop.
“I juggle them in my act.”
“Oh, yeah? Says the doubtful cop. “Let’s see you do it.” The juggler gets out and starts tossing and catching the knives. Another man driving by slows down to watch.
“Wow” says the passer-by. “I’m glad I quit drinking. Look at the test they’re giving now!
Source::::: joke a day.com
Natarajan
ஆலயங்களில் நடக்கும் திருவிழாக்களில் பக்தர்கள் பெருந்திரளாகக் கலந்துகொள்கிறார்கள். ஆனால் கலந்து கொள்பவர்களைப்போலப் பல மடங்கு பக்தர்கள் நேரடியாகக் கலந்துகொள்ள முடியாத வருத்தத்தில் இருப்பார்கள். அவர்களுக்கெல்லாம் அந்த நிகழ்ச்சிகளைக் கொண்டு சேர்ப்பது நேரடி வர்ணனையும் நேரலையும்தான். குரலின் மூலம் செய்யப்படும் இந்த ஆன்மிகச் சேவையைக் கடந்த 40 ஆண்டுகளாகச் செய்துவருகிறார் பாதூர் புராணம் ஸ்ரீ உ.வே. ரங்கராஜாசாரியார்.
லட்சோப லட்சம் பக்தர்களைச் சென்றடையும் சிம்மக் குரலுக்குச் சொந்தக்காரராக இருக்கும் இவர், திருமலையில் ஸ்ரீநிவாச பெருமாள் கல்யாண உற்சவத்தை நேரடி வர்ணனை செய்துவருகிறார். புராண, இதிகாசக் கதைகள், திருமலை பெருமாள் குறித்த தகவல்கள், கலைகள் குறித்த அறிவு, விழாவுக்கு வந்திருக்கும் பிரபலம் குறித்த அறிமுகம், கல்யாண நிகழ்ச்சிகளை வரிசை பிசகாமல் ஒன்றன் பின் ஒன்றாகக் கூறுதல் என்று பன்முகத் திறன் இருந்தால் மட்டுமே இத்துறையில் பரிமளிக்க முடியும். இதில் பட்டை தீட்டிய வைரமாக ஜொலிக்கிறார் இந்தப் பெரியவர்.
திருமலை பிரம்மோற்சவத்தை முதன் முதலில் தமிழ்த் தொலைக்காட்சிகளில் ஒளிபரப்பத் தொடங்கியபோது குறிப்பிட்ட நிறுவனங்கள் இவரையே அணுகின.
இவர், தொலைபேசி உபன்யாசமும் செய்கிறார். ஒவ்வொரு நாளும் காலை ஐந்தரை மணிக்கு அமெரிக்காவின் டெக்சாசில் இருந்து இவரது இல்லத்துக்குத் தொலைபேசி அழைப்பு வரும். காலை நான்கு மணிக்கே எழுந்து தயாராக இருக்கும் பாதூர் மாமா, தொலைபேசி மணி ஒலித்தவுடன், ஒலி வாங்கியை எடுத்து உபன்யாசத்தை ஆரம்பித்துவிடுவாராம். இதைத் துல்லியமாக ஒரு மணி நேரத்திற்குள் நிறைவு செய்ய வேண்டும். அதற்குப் பின்னர் சில ஆன்மிகச் சந்தேகங்களுக்கு விளக்கம் அளிக்கிறார்.
இந்நிகழ்ச்சி டெக்சாசில் மட்டுமல்லாமல் வாஷிங்டன், கலிஃபோர்னியா உள்ளிட்ட பல அமெரிக்க மாகாணங்களில் ஒளிபரப்பாகிறது. ஆன்மிகப் பணியில் இடைவிடாது ஈடுபட்டுள்ள இவருக்கு அண்மையில் திருப்பதி ராஷ்ட்ரிய சமஸ்கிருத வித்யாபீடம் மஹாமஹோபாத்யாய என்ற உயரிய விருதினை வழங்கி கெளரவித்துள்ளது.
திருப்பதியில் குடியிருக்கும் இவரது சொந்த ஊர் உளுந்தூர்பேட்டை அருகில் உள்ள பாதூர். இவரது முன்னோர்கள் ராமாயண உபன்யாசங்கள் செய்துவந்ததால் `புராணம்` என்ற சிறப்புப் பட்டப் பெயர் தங்கள் குடும்பத்துக்கு வழங்கப்பட்டது எனத் தெரிவிக்கிறார்.
பண்டிதர்கள் நிறைந்த குடும்பத்தில் பிறந்த இவருக்கு வீட்டிலேயே குருமார்கள் அமைந்துவிட்டார்கள் என்று தன் குருவாக அமைந்த தந்தையைப் பற்றி நினைவுகூர்கிறார் ரங்கராஜாசாரியார். சென்னை பல்கலைக்கழகத்தில் வியாகரண சிரோண்மணி என்ற பட்டப் படிப்பை முடித்து திருச்சி அருகேயுள்ள திருப்பராய்துறை சுவாமி சித்பவானந்தாவின் ராமகிருஷ்ண தபோவனத்தில் சமஸ்கிருத பண்டிதராகச் வேலைக்குச் சேர்ந்தார் பாதூர். அந்தச் சமயத்தில் சித்பவானந்தர் திருவாசகத்தையும், பத்து உபநிஷத்துக்களையும் ஒப்பாய்வு செய்து எழுதப்பட்ட ஆயிரம் பக்கங்கள் கொண்ட புத்தகத்தைப் பதிப்பித்தார். அதைப் பிழைதிருத்தும் பணி இவருக்குக் கிடைத்தது.
இந்தப் பணியின் மூலம் அந்தச் சிறிய வயதிலேயே இவ்விஷயங்களில் ஆழமான அறிவு கிடைத்தது என்பதையும் மறக்காமல் பதிவுசெய்கிறார். இவர் திருவாசகத்தை முழுவதும் படித்துப் புரிந்துகொண்டது அப்போதுதான்.
“திருமலைப் பெருமாள் உற்சவத்தின்போது முன்னால் கோஷ்டியாக திவ்யப் பிரபந்தம் சொல்லிக்கொண்டு போவார்கள். சுவாமிக்குப் பின்னால் வேதம் சொல்லிக்கொண்டு போவார்கள். அப்போது இரண்டுமே எனக்குத் தெரியாது. திவ்யப் பிரபந்தம் கற்றுக்கொள்ளத் தொடங்கி 1974-லிலேயே முடித்துவிட்டேன். அது முதல் இன்று வரை சுமார் நாற்பது ஆண்டுகளாக அனைத்து உற்சவங்களுக்கும் திவ்யப் பிரபந்தம் சொல்லும் கோஷ்டியில் இருக்கிறேன்” பிரபந்தத்தின் மீது பற்று வந்த பிறகு உரைகளையும் படித்திருக்கிறார்.
ஸ்ரீவெங்கடேஸ்வரா பக்தி சேனல் தொடங்கியபொழுது தமிழ் வர்ணனைக்குப் பொறுப்பேற்கச் சொன்னார்கள். அது முதல் பெருமாளின் நித்ய கல்யாண உற்சவத்திற்கும், திருமலை மற்றும் திருச்சானூர் பிரம்மோற்சவத்திற்கும் தமிழில் நேரடி வர்ணனை சொல்லிக்கொண்டிருக்கிறார் பாதூரார்.
மார்கழி மாதம் முழுவதும் திருப்பாவை உபன்யாசம் செய்வதுண்டு. நாற்பது ஆண்டுகளாக இது தொடர்கிறது. “காலையில் ஒரு கோவில் என்றால் மாலை நான்கு மணிக்கு மற்றொரு கோவில், மீண்டும் மாலை ஆறு மணிக்கு வேறு ஒரு கோவில் என்ற வகையில் மார்கழி மாதத்தில் ஒரு நாளுக்கு மூன்று முறை கூட திருப்பாவை உபன்யாசம் செய்வதுண்டு” என்கிறார் பாதூரார்.
ராமானுஜர் போல இவரும் திருமலையே பெருமாள் என்று எண்ணுவதால் திருமலையில் செருப்பே அணிவதில்லை என்பது குறிப்பிடத்தக்கது.
Photo Credit: Ron Almog
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When sunlight and raindrops combine to make a rainbow, they can make a whole circle of light in the sky. But it’s a very rare sight. Sky conditions have to be just right for this, and even if they are, the bottom part of a full-circle rainbow is usually blocked by your horizon. And so we see rainbows not as circles but as arcs in our sky.
Gallery: Rainbows around the world
Double rainbow in Alaska. The shadow of the photographer’s head on the bottom marks the centre of the rainbow circle. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
When you see a rainbow, notice the height of the sun. It helps determine how much of an arc you’ll see. The lower the sun, the higher the top of the rainbow. But if you could get up high enough, you’d see that some rainbows continue below the horizon seen from closer to sea-level. Mountain climbers sometimes see more of a full-circle rainbow, though even a high mountain isn’t high enough to show you the whole circle.
Pilots do sometimes report seeing genuine full-circle rainbows. They’d be tough to see out the small windows we passengers look through, but pilots have a much better view from up front.
By the way, we searched for images of full-circle rainbows. But most of the ones we found weren’t really rainbows. They were either halos around the sun – or airplane glories. If you know of a photo of a bonafide full-circle rainbow, please comment below and provide a link! Many thanks.
What’s NOT a rainbow? Hear from a master of sky optics
Bottom line: Can you ever see a full-circle rainbow in the sky? Yes, but they’re most often seen by pilots, who have a good view of the sky from the wide front windows of a plane.
What makes a halo around the sun or moon?
Source::: earth sky news site
Natarajan
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 mi/gal.”
Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement: “Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?”
Not only that, but….
Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too.
You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought “Car95” or “CarNT”. But, then you would have to buy more seats.
Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.
The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.
New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
The airbag system would say “are you sure?” before going off.
If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
Source::::joke a day.com
Natarajan
Tel Aviv will introduce a network of sky-high cars by 2016, BBC reports. If successful, the prototype will become the basis for a larger, commercial transit system.
The 500-meter loop of hovercraft rail is a collaboration between Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and California-based company skyTran. It will be constructed on IAI’s Tel Aviv campus.
skyTran Cityscape renderingThe system will include computer-controlled, two-person hover cars gliding along elevated railways through magnetic levitation (maglev) technology.
According to The Telegraph, this will be the most substantial trial of skyTran to date. And although the cars in the test will only go 43 miles per hour, they are capable of “much higher speeds.”
Inside the carSilicon Valley-based skyTran’s mission is to “transport passengers in a safe, green, and economical manner,” intending to “revolutionise public transportation and, with it, urban and suburban commuting.”
Individual tickets for the Tel Aviv system will be about $5 per rider, which locals and visitors can book through their smartphones.
skyTran above traffic renderingIf the prototype succeeds, skyTran says the network be implemented throughout 125 miles of urban and suburban landscape of central Israel.
They plan to build more routes in France, India, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Source::: Business insider Select AU
Natarajan
The 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.
This 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.
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.
The 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.
Curiosity 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.
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Source::::Business Insider AU
Natarajan
Google just unveiled Android Auto at its annual developers conference in San Francisco.
With cars compatible with Android Auto, you simply connect your Android phone to your car, and your car’s screen will display a modified version of Android with simplified features that are easy to use at-a-glance.
You can use Android Auto to play music from your phone, send and receive text messages, and use other applications like Google Maps.
So that means you’ll be able to see traffic updates, navigation, etc. in your car. And since Android Auto is fully voice-enabled, you’ll never have to take your hands off the steering wheel.
Android Auto will be available later this year. Already, over 40 car makers like Acura, Ford, Audi, and Chevrolet will have Android Auto. The first cars with Android Auto will be available at the end of this year.
Google will soon release an Android Auto SDK so that developers can build additional audio and messaging apps for your car.
Here’s how it works.
YouTube
Once it’s connected, you’ll be able to tap a button and speak commands for navigation, search, and messaging.
Since Android Auto is fully voice-enabled, you can navigate without ever needing to take your hands off the steering wheel. And it’s all powered by your Android phone, so applications you update through Google Play will update in the car, as well.
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Source::::Business Insider Au
Here’s a satellite view of the 12 Brazilian cities hosting World Cup games.
Hey World Cup addicts … Where are all those cities we’re hearing about?
This satellite view of Brazil at night shows the 12 cities hosting World Cup games this summer: Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Manaus, Fortaleza, Cuiabá, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Natal, Recife, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo.
Brazil is big, by the way. It’s the largest country in South America and the fifth largest in the world by area (8.5 million square kilometers). Brazil stretches more than 4,000 kilometers (2500 miles) from north to south and from east to west.
Source:::: earth sky news site
Natarajan
On June 5, astronauts aboard ISS used a beam of laser light to send an HD video to researchers waiting below.
Anyone who remembers dialup internet can sympathize with the plight of NASA mission controllers. Waiting for images to arrive from deep space, slowly downloading line by line, can be a little like the World Wide Web of the 1990s. Patience is required.
A laser on the International Space Station (ISS) could change all that. On June 5, 2014, the ISS passed over the Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood, California, and beamed an HD video to researchers waiting below. Unlike normal data transmissions, which are encoded in radio waves, this one came to Earth on a beam of light. Matt Abrahamson, who manages the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said:
It was incredible to see this magnificent beam of light arriving from our tiny payload on the space station.
Better known as OPALS, the experimental laser device was launched to the space station onboard a Space-X Dragon spacecraft in the spring of 2014. Its goal is to explore the possibility of high-bandwidth space communications using light instead of radio waves. If successful, researchers say OPALS would be like an upgrade from dial-up to DSL, achieving data rates 10 to 1,000 times higher than current space communications.
So far so good.
The entire transmission on June 5 lasted 148 seconds and achieved a maximum data rate of 50 megabits per second. It took OPALS 3.5 seconds to transmit a single copy of the video message, which would have taken more than 10 minutes using traditional downlink methods. The message was sent multiple times during the transmission. Abrahamson said:
The video is an homage to the first output of any standard computer program: ‘Hello, World.’
Because the space station whips around Earth at 17,500 mph, laser-tagging a telescope on the fast-moving ground below can be tricky. To accomplish the precision tag-up, a laser at the ground station illuminated the station. OPALS responded by sending its own 2.5 watt encoded laser signal right back in the same direction, carrying the HD video. During the 148-second transmission, OPALS maintained pointing to the ground station within 0.01 degrees while tracking at speeds up to 1 degree per second. Abrahamson commented:
NASA missions collect an enormous amount of data out in space. Laser communications is a faster alternative for getting those data to the ground.
With this demonstration, we’re paving the way for the future of communications to and from space.
Bottom line: On June 5, astronauts aboard ISS used a beam of laser light to send an HD video to researchers waiting below. The experimental laser device aboard ISS is known asOPALS. Its goal is to explore the possibility of high-bandwidth space communications using light instead of radio waves.
Source::::earth sky news site
Natarajan
Born July of this year, little pandas Mei Lun and Mei Huan are the first panda twins to ever survive birth in the US. Watch the first 100 days of their lives as they go from pink and tiny to black, white and beautiful.
Source::::You Tube and ba-ba mail site
Natarajan
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