Rockstars of Cricket

Another day to remember. An august gathering hosted by the High Commissioner of India for the visiting Indian cricket team in New Zealand. A pleasant dusk evening enhanced the outdoor setting.

The Indian cricket team has been visiting New Zealand again after a gap of over 5 years, and the changes have been significant. Led by a dynamic new captain, the team has found its confidence and has been performing phenomenally. In 2003-04 a tired Indian cricket team had been more or less steam-rolled in New Zealand. Not this time. It is the 'Black Caps' who are struggling to form a response.

The New Zealand media has been labelling this tour as a visit from 'Rockstars of Cricket', acknowledging the enormous following and gravitational pull of the Indian cricket scene.

Having met the Indian team in 2003-04 and now, the change in demeanour and body language is clear. The players seemed happier, more willing to mingle with others, less tired and clearly confident. Its always amazing how young some of these guys are. TV certainly makes them look 10 years older.

Here are some photos from the gathering.

The gathering, Bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad can be seen in the centre.

With Yuvraj Singh, one of the best international all-rounders and 20-20 star.

With Sachin Tendulkar, international cricket icon.

Indian High Commissioner Mr. K.P. Ernest meeting some of the team members

Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, and Gautam Gambhir

Webstock '09

This is the conference I look forward to every year. A huge amount of thought and energy by come of the most creative people in New Zealand web community goes in organizing this event. Sponsored by a plethora of companies and institutions such as Google. A typical attribute of the gathering is the rather forward looking and upbeat atmosphere which is easy to catch.

This year we have speakers include people from Apple Inc., Google, and Flickr. The forum provides a good community where they can share their insights and battle-stories and the audience understand, sympathize and learn from these.

They've finally induced me into starting a twitter micro-blogging account. I'll be putting live twitter updates when I can here, and will add further Scio-sphere blogs for some of the sessions later.

Conference website: http://www.webstock.org.nz
Flickr photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/webstock/
My Twitter: http://twitter.com/apanand

I'm a Dad!

9th December 2007, 9:29 pm. A day and date I will never forget.

My life changed forever the moment my son Antariksh was born. I've heard it said that we all fall in love with our children, and it's absolutely true. I still cannot believe how beautiful he is. One moment at a time T there are n people in the room, then at the time T+1 there are suddenly n+1 people, all of whom look absolutely happy. Simple mathematics, absolutely miraculous.

Ever since that moment, life has changed forever. All petty lazinesses, procrastinations, and selfish worries become subdued. The first concern is now my boy. The way one thinks is altered forever.

A new light enters the home and radiates happiness everywhere.

Movember

The things we do for charity. Actually, it's for fun as well. I got tempted into joining a group at work into participating in "Movember". What the heck is it? It is basically growing a Mo-ustache during the month of November and having people sponsor you. The rules are:

Once registered each Mo Bro start 1 November with a clean shaven face.
Then, for the entire month of Movember each Mo Bro must grow and groom a moustache according to these rules:
01 - You don’t talk about Movember outside of the month.
02 - Movember runs for 30 days. No more.
03 - There is to be no joining of the Mo to side burns—That’s a beard.
04 - There is to be no joining of the handlebars—That’s a goatie.
05 - A small complimentary growth under the bottom lip is allowed (aka a tickler).
06 - You must remain clean shaven apart from your Mo for the entire 30 days.

But wait, there's more..

Failure to conform to any of those rules may, at the absolute discretion of the Movember Committee result in instant blacklisting from further participation in Movember and entry to the Gala Parté. The Movember Committee accepts no responsibility for lost jobs, lost girlfriends/boyfriends, rashes to you or your partner or any other such
mishaps caused by a Movember Mo.

I used to sport a goatee during some of my college months, so it shouldn't be unknown territory. My wife also kindly granted her permission (she did seem very amused).

As you can probably tell, it's very 'serious'. I haven't shaved my upper lip region for 7 days now. I'll be keeping the progress (including photos) report at my Mo-Log. Now, calling all, of kind and generous inclination - feel free to sponsor my 'Mo', by clicking on the badge below. All proceeds go to the Prostrate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand. Thanks

More Mo Links

• Movember website
• My Mo-Log
• Movember blog on Stuff.co.nz

Lunar Eclipse in Wellington

I finally saw one. Some time ago, my brother in South America was talking to me on the phone while he was watching his first lunar eclipse. Normally non-plussed, he was very excited - "Oh my God, it has really gone blood red."

So, I had a mental note that on 28th August I must, at all costs, get out and observe the lunar eclipse which would be visible here. When the evening came, it was actually my wife who reminded me. We both went out onto our staircase to observe the sky.



The moon was glowing beautifully in the sky. The Eclipse was to have started, but we could not observe anything out of the ordinary. Then we noticed a small shadow beginning to creep up under the moon's disc.



The clumps of heavy clouds were moving quickly across the sky, and we got glimpses of the progressing eclipse through the gaps in the clouds. A strong, cold Wellington breeze was blowing, The shadow very slowly progressed from the bottom of the moon's disc to the top. As it covered more and more of the moon, the colour of the shaded region got redder. So this is what is also referred to as 'blood moon' or 'Red moon'.

I took some photos with my regular Digital Camera.









More information links

• Wikipedia Page
• NASA's page

National Library 3D Building Model for Google Earth

I'm submitting this model to Google Earth today.

Google Sketchup Model


Link to this image: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1176/962260016_9c348e09e3_o.jpg

Google Earth view


(Click on Image to Enlarge)
Link to this image: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1010/971357387_6f747e9bc0.jpg
Link to large image: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1010/971357387_fb76db9f49_o.jpg

Background

Google Earth is a very popular downloadable program for users, that allows one to 'dive in' and navigate the earth as seen from the air. Originally, this would have started out at as a GIS (Geographical Information System) that was mapping satellite photos on to the globe, but a rapid pace of innovation has introduced a lot of extra possibilites. Basically, if you can place it on a map, then it should be placed on this application. A very popular such feature layer is 3D buildings where if you navigate to any place on Google Earth, you can actually see 3D realistic models of buildings standing in their positions. The first such models were built by Google, but since has been opened up to accept user built contributions. Google released a very user-friendly application called Google Sketchup to build such models, and an online repository called 3D Warehouse to store the contributions. Google then assesses these for their suitability for inclusion.

Video of the Model

URL:
Embed:

Current status (and how to see it in Google Earth)

Right now this model has been submitted to Google's 3D warehouse. You can search for it by going to the 3D Warehouse site and searching for "National Library" or more specifically "National Library of New Zealand". If you are using Google Earth, please note that the model will not turn up by default in Google's 3D building layer until it goes through Google's approval process, but you can still see it by following the instructions here to get the Google 3D warehouse network link.

I've been doing this project in my 'spare time' at home. Now that I've finished, my wife will finally be happy to get more of my time. Not easy being married to a techie sometimes.

Also ..
just in time for the Library building's 20th Anniversary of completion (5 August 2007)!



Relevant Links

• Official Page on Google 3D Warehouse
• National Library of New Zealand Home Page
• Presentation at BarCamp, Scio-sphere post
• Where to get Google Earth
• How to view Google's 3D building layer
• How to view contributed 3D building content

BarCamp

We had BarCamp at work.

BarCamp, you say? Wikipedia begins to define it as an 'unconference', but that was where the similarity ended. Normally, a BarCamp is about Information Technology professionals getting together and sharing their knowledge in an open communicative environment. When it comes to geeks (mostly unmarried) and communications it means - Laptops, Wi-Fi, Blogs, Wikis, Coding, Sleeping Bags and so on. However in our building we have more librarians then techies.

There was basically an open schedule board, where participants could sign up to give a presentation, or be a moderator. In this case, no topic was off-topic. The schedule was to be finalised, hardly 5 minute before the event. It was planned that each session, the presenter had a few minutes to showcase his/her idea and then the audience joins into a discussion. Of course, depending on the topic there were variations.

I moderated a couple of very significant sessions, presented by a fellow techie colleague related to hotdesking with terminals and remote access to office applications. There was a lot of interest from the audience/participants in what's-in-it-for-us fashion. In my turn, I presented a unprepared session (in the spirit of the un-conference) on Google Earth and our interest there (picture below). I gave a demo in 3-dimensional modeling in Google Sketchup, attempting to show how easy it is. I also presented a few ready-made models from Google's 3D Warehouse such as the Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower. I was taken aback to notice that our CEO was also in the audience - she asked some very good questions related to importing of CAD drawings into Sketchup software. Everybody was interested in the technology and wanted to know more on how to get into this and what was required to contribute.



Overall, the event generated a lot of involvement, buzz and energy - above normal levels. I enjoyed playing the roles of organising team member, moderator and presenter.There's a plan to follow up with a similar and longer event in a month or so.

Armageddon 2007 in Wellington

OK, my hand's been force-ed. I had been lazying around not putting up the pics from the Armageddon 2007 event in Wellington. But thanks to my pal Monty's initiative, I better get around to it. There are always more than one side to a story.

'Armageddon' is held every year in Wellington, it's a showcase of art, technologies, media and of course toys and collectibles related to the imaginative worlds formed in human minds. This is the first time I visited one of these. We got to meet Billy Dee Williams, the actor who played Lando Calrissian in Star Wars. He was pretty nice - smiled and shook hands.

 

We also got to meet with the actor John Rhys Davies - he played Gimli in Lord of the Rings. I told him I'm a big fan, and the big man winked back, while putting sugar into his coffee.

 

Most of the cast of Pan's Labyrinth was also present, but we had no idea who was who.

There were stalls showcasing the gadgetry that goes into making the costumes - rubber masks, clothes and props. There were lines of computers with enthusiasts trying out the latest computer games. Sony was showcasing its latest Playstation 3 gaming console. There was a team from Massey University Institute of Technology and Engineering demonstrating a robot that can play a ball game on a board. I chatted with the project Professor, and he said that they sometimes have teams of robots playing each other. The robots were controlled by a remote computer, rather than being autonomous devices. An overhead camera mapped the board and the position of the robot and relayed that to the controller.




There were also plenty of vendors selling computer games, board games, DVDs. I completed my collection of Matrix movies, by picking up a DVD of the first movie. There were plenty of characters from the movies walking around, there were competitions happening on stage involving re-enactments of favorite scenes.

The New Zealand Army was in here too. They were letting people try out their training simulations. These looked like games but responded much more sluggishly, probably more realistically. All wars should remain that way - games inside machines - and not spill out messily into the real world.

I had really come to take a look at the graphic artists and their work. Comic art has a lot of influence on contemporary culture. Look at all the latest movies such as 300.

In the end, I just felt a couple of decades younger, and let myself go into the fun atmosphere. There's a slideshow of more pictures below, none of which are to be take seriously, of course. ;)



Monty's take on things:
Photos
Comic

Summer Fiesta in Wellington

This has been a very busy summer in Wellington, in terms of events we've attended.

On 10th February we had the X-Air games in the morning and the Petone Fiesta in the evening. On 17th February, Petone Fair with the parallel Gypsey Fair carrying on till 18th. I may write about these later, but last weekend, it was the Cuba Street Carnival in central wellington.

A very large crowd including suburbians, converged in central Wellington. There was plenty of fun to go around. With professional performers displaying their skills at various points along the streets. Food vendors sold snacks, roaster nuts, corn, even spanish paella.

Our favourite among the performers were the Pan Pipes group. They seemed to be native South Americans and calling their group, 'The Cherokee spirit' or 'Los Incas' depends where you check. They performed amazing, soul-stirring music on pan pipes of every shape. I never realised that pan pipe instruments were capable of such a range. It sounds so much better live.



Among the other street performers, there was also an acrobatic hulahoop group, the regular juggler, a Charlie Chaplin impersonator (the one who charged our camera), a juggling unicyclist and many others.

There were several stages on various points with music bands programs. The adventurous also took their chances with the thrill rides.

Then at 9:15pm, we had the carnival parade. The pictures and video's below will describe it all.

Pictures:



All the photos can also be viewed at here.

Videos:
(Note: if the window below says "Want to see more video's from this playlist? Click here", then refresh the page and choose the next video to play.)



All the videos can be viewed at here.

Fire in the Sky

Since the beginning of November I'd been waiting for an opportunity to clear my stash of Chinese firecrackers, but nooooo - the thick woolly clouds stayed overhead and the city was washed out. Finally the blue sky peered out this Friday, and I got the go-ahead.

A bright starry night and Petone beach was deserted except for some joggers and idlers. All five of us trotted out on the beach in the night, and proceeded to have some firecracking FUN. It's not necessary describe it further than the pictures shown below...

(click to see larger image)

  

  

See more photos here