How does a lightning strike feel?

I personally don't know, but maybe this user from Flickr can answer that one for you. Here's her video -

Free song from Coldplay.com

Coldplay is giving away another free song. This one is called "Death will never conquer". It's free of cost, so go get it.

Looking under the hood of Google search

Amit Singhal of Google has a very interesting post explaining "Technologies behind Google ranking" over at the Official Google Blog.

It's quite eye opening about the myriad things that happen to make every Google search operation happen. Here's an excerpt -

"Synonyms are the foundation of our query understanding work. This is one of the hardest problems we are solving at Google. Though sometimes obvious to humans, it is an unsolved problem in automatic language processing. As a user, I don't want to think too much about what words I should use in my queries. Often I don't even know what the right words are. This is where our synonyms system comes into action. Our synonyms system can do sophisticated query modifications, e.g., it knows that the word 'Dr' in the query [Dr Zhivago] stands for Doctor whereas in [Rodeo Dr] it means Drive. A user looking for [back bumper repair] gets results about rear bumper repair. For [Ramstein ab], we automatically look for Ramstein Air Base; for the query query [b&b ab] we search for Bed and Breakfasts in Alberta, Canada. We have developed this level of query understanding for almost one hundred different languages, which is what I am truly proud of."

House of cards - Radiohead's new video

So, Radiohead has a new video out and it's making waves because it doesn't use any cameras in the regular sense. Instead it uses some kind of 3-D scanner technology which uses lasers to create 3-D imagery.



That in itself would be pretty cool but they worked with Google (I don't know how Google does it but they get involved in all these neat things) to share a lot of the "making of" information. There's a web-based 3-D Viewer available that you can use to manipulate the video. Because its just data, you can see it at any angle. Very very cool! Check it out.

Hooray for Jay-Z

The man has a sense of humour. After widely reported disparaging remarks from Noel Gallagher about the hip-hop artiste headlining at Glastonbury this year, Jay-Z got back in his own classy way.

First, he included Noel G's comments in the video played before starting his set



And then he proceed to sing Oasis' Wonderwall! :)



LOL!

Also, he gave a stellar performance as well.

Good stuff!

Anjali's Birthday visit to Monterey Bay Aquarium

Click to Play

We took Anjali on her first visit to an aquarium for her birthday. As you can see, she had a bit of fun. We enjoyed it as well.

Anjali did not take much interest in the Sea Otters and Penguins but was very interested in the fishes, the kids play area and the touch pools. She really digs the huge whale model they have hanging from the ceiling.

Another chance to show off the ability to import from the Panasonic Camcorder. Nice picture don't you think? :)

Happy First Birthday to Anjali!

Totally lovin' the ride
Originally uploaded by Jillako

Can you believe that our little angel is already one! At this age, there are no demands for birthday gifts and party, she's so happy whenever we spend time with her! So that's what we're doing today (and what we did Tuesday, when this was taken). It's a family day off. Hope to have pictures of Anjali on her birthday gift (a trike) soon enough.

The $25 iPhone

Now that the iPhone 3G has been announced at $199, Craigslist is chock full of early adopters trying to sell their iPhone to raise cash for a 3G purchase. There are also the folks who passed on the original iPhone looking to pick used units for a song. This guy takes the cake for his asking price though.



Nice try, dude, nice try!

Honeybees, ducks, chicken and dogs

Actually there were goslings and a cow too. I've listed some of the fine animals and birds that Anjali enjoyed the company of today.

We took her along on a field trip with the Santa Clara Beekeepers Guild. I've gotten very interested of late with keeping a bee hive. We certainly have the space and we'd love the honey and the bees seem nice enough.

At one point I was standing near about 10 hives, with the beekeeper handling a frame full of bees from one of the hives. The bees started buzzing around quite a bit and it was a bit unnerving, but everyone seemed pretty calm and wore no protective gear and so I kept my nerves. This particular beekeeper had a lot of bees and though it was interesting to see his operation, we'll probably learn more from some other folks there that had smaller setups. We brought a quart of local honey home with us! :)
I hope the parents will start their own hive in Kutrallam!

Would've loved to take pictures but it appears that the Pentax SLR is broken! :( It is still under warranty and I hope to have it fixed soon!