WiMax in Socorro

I think that California Street (the main road in the city) is equipped with WiMax. I did my laundry today at the Spincity Laundromat and was able to browse. Karen, a fellow PhD student, was using Internet at Socorro Springs on Saturday. Looks like it is being sponsored by some bank (First State Bank?). This is a good news for this small school town.

Indian Student Association at NMT

We had the first INdian Student Association(INSA) meeting for the fall semester in Workman 101. It was a fresher welcome party. There was pizza and soda. The new students were very happy with the help they received from INSA community. But, it was a long meeting. There was a brainstorming session about the events and talents to be exhibited at the Indo-Chinese Cultural Meet, which is planned for the second week of September. I hope the participants and volunteers have time for that. I never have time for those kind of events because of my poor time management. The meeting finally ended with Gaurav singing some songs (Hindi and English) for the audience.

Milestone!

Indian thief goes to jail, reaches a milestone - Sify.com

I just can't believe someone reporting this as a headline.

Tax Free Food Items

I just realized that I should update under this topic. I liked no tax on certain 'Food Items' in the state of New Mexico.
Culligan Water and creamer are covered under this. :)

Quote from a Scientist

Look deep, deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. — Albert Einstein

I have always been a fan of quotes from scientists. Got this one from paperquote.

Swans

Pictures of Swans near the pond behind Macey Center

Plant

I found this plant below the bridge between Jones and Jones Annex. I don't know the name of the plant though. I took the picture because it appeared beautiful after the rain yesterday afternoon. But, I dont know if it is reflected in the picture.

Passport Photo

The following tips may help you when you are in a rush for a passport size picture (2’ x 2’), especially if you are living in a place like Socorro, where there is only photo studio and the turn-around time is usually around a week. When I was looking for a person who could take a picture in town, no one pointed me to Wal-Mart. Most of us don’t know that we can use the services of the KODAK Picture kiosk in Wal-Mart photo center. It is really cheap ($0.28 for 6 copies) and we can get the prints within a minute. It helps owning a digital camera or you can borrow one from your friends.
1. Take a picture with a nice smooth background that contrasts your dress. Please make sure that you don’t use a rugged background. I feel that the walls in our school and my home are coarse. One can notice the gradients.
2. Hanging a plain cloth in the background helps to make the background soft and smooth.
3. Using a photo editing software, you can choose the part of picture that you want in the passport photo ID. The KODAK Picture kiosk also has an image editing tool for this purpose. For better quality make sure that the resolution of the picture is at least 300 dpi. (most of the software use a default of 72 dpi). Also, try to save the file as a tiff file.
4. Choose ‘picture id’ option in the KODAK Picture Kiosk. It is all user-friendly after that. You will get your passport picture id in minutes.


I followed the above steps 2 weeks ago. Then, I sent those pictures for visa application and got it approved.

FCC - Do Not Call Registry

I received this information in my T-Mobile statement today:

Commercial telemarketers may not call you if your number is on the registry. Register your number at www.donotcall.gov or by calling 1-888-382-1222.

School starts

The school starts from today. Yesterday was registration day.

Crossandra undulaefolia

Kanakambaram (Crossandra undulaefolia) flowering


I added some quotes to the sidebar of this blog. Some of the best quotes that I had read for the past one week.

Sunset

Yesterday's sunset.



This is a picture of the east mountains during sunset


Today's quote from paperquote is apt.

The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a temple of majesty, yet no man regards it. — Thomas Traherne

Afternoon Pictures

These pictures were taken yesterday. It was raining on the other side of the mountains.

Trooper

I was on california street while driving to farmer's market in the morning. It was a two lane road on each direction. I was behind a state police's car. A car driving on the the other lane adjacent to the trooper was trying to change lane. I guess the trooper's car was on a blind spot for the driver of the other car. It almost came into the trooper's car. The cop had to apply brakes and move away to avoid an accident. A few 'minutes' later, as expected, the trooper turned on his lights and pulled them over. I had a look at the driver of that car. It was an elderly couple. Now, I had so many unanswered questions in my mind. Why didn't the trooper honk when the car was about to change lane? Why did it take so much time to pull them over? Was he scanning their license plates? Or did he see that they were old couple and pulled them over?

Rakshabandan-2005

I received the DVDs and picture CDs of my sister's engagement, wedding and reception. I also received a Rakhi from her. Tomorrow is Rakshabandan.

This is the Rakhi that I received:

Used and New

My old coffee brand

My new coffee brand

My old Maggi Sauce

Replaced by a new Maggi Ketchup

Albuquerque Trip

Picture of a mountain in Albuquerque at dusk:


Picture of M-mountain at noon.

Jasmine Flower:

Is flying safe anymore?

Too many plane crashes due to mechanical failure. This is dreadful. Are the maintenance control procedures in place? Or was there a genuine mechanical failure?

Jet with 152 passengers crashes in Venezuela

Brass water containers

My friends wanted to know the significance of using a brass water jug. More information on that at Copper Development Centre. A more technical news report can be found in Brass jugs polish off disease, news at Nature.com.

This is the one that I have in my home.

Shadow on the mountain

The thick dark clouds threatened to bring rain
But, all they could do was cast a shadow on M-mountain
In that process it created a beautiful scene
And the weather was cool, pleasant, and serene

Back to School, Cat, and Dog

High schools and middle schools reopened after the summer vacation. Monica, department secretary, was very excited about this as her kids were going to school today.

There is a lot of cloud cover today. No sight of rain yet.
This is Greeshika, Dr. Kornienko's cat.



Is this a stray dog? I saw it on Los Pueblos apartment property. This dog found itself a comfortable place to take an afternoon nap.

Do you know any Phony Genius?

I was reading the article Talking to the Solitary Genius by Victor Skowronski in Computer, August 2005, page 96. Though the article's main goal was to provide tips for improving communications between managers and the geniuses working under them, I liked the different traits that the author mentions to identify 'phony' geniuses.

Phony geniuses do not like to talk about their work. If they have to talk they speak in vague generalities and use jargon and buzzwords generously. They use verbiage because they think people do not pay attention to what they say and speculate that listeners will be impressed by the amount of words used to express rather than the quality.

Now, can you identify phony geniuses in your everyday life?

Blogrolling

The windows of my car were rolled down during rain. So, the seats got drenched a little. Have to air it out tomorrow morning when the sun shines.

I enrolled in Blogrolling. The very good feature in here is that I know when my fellow bloggers, listed in the roster, update their blog.

Today's Quote

Real joy comes not from ease of riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile. — Wilfred T. Grenfell

More pictures

Today is relatively cool so far. I forgot to post 2 more pictures that I took yesterday.

The rain water in the front lawn.

Cloud covering the peak of the M-mountain.

Hill Climbing Algorithm

One more reason for M-mountain being so apt for New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Click on the M-mountain below and take a closer look. Is this an illustration of the famous hill-climbing algorithm in Artificial Intelligence?

Now, look at this mound just across the M-mountain.

Is it Winter?

A hot tea on a cold summer evening. Yes, it was cold in the evening. Must have been due to the rain-bearing clouds. It stopped raining at 4:00pm.

Thunderstorms

It was the same as yesterday only more thunders.

Swanky Terminal at Mumbai airport

I have been to this airport 2 months ago during transit to my city. It was definitely not as classy as Chennai airport.

Smell of Rain

I came home at 8:30pm. It seemed like the smell of rain. It was a gentle breeze. I opened all the windows in my apartment. I could smell the rain as I was sitting on the couch. It was nice when it was breeze. But, it became scary when the gentle breeze turned into fiendish wind. The windows started shattering. The light posts outside were shaking. The trash is strewn all over in the front lawn. Now, I had to close the windows. And that is the end of the smell of rain.

Rain in the afternoon

We just had a sudden downpour in Socorro. I had trouble taking pictures of rain drops. The first three pictures show this problem. Then, I removed the automatic picture mode in the camera and used settings like soft and cloudy landscape. That was the result of the last 2 pictures.

The first three pictures are from the side-entrance of Speare (near my office)

The following pictures are taken from the front entrance of Speare.