Apple Unveils new series of Macbooks | www.apple.com

Apple refreshed its notebook computer lineup Tuesday, introducing faster, greener machines and cutting the price of an entry-level model to about $1,000, all in time for the holidays.

The new computers, which Apple announced at a press event at its Cupertino headquarters, take their design cues from the lightweight Macbook Air notebook that Apple unveiled in January. Apple expected to start shipping the updated computers Tuesday and have them in its retail stores today. The computers have rounded cases like the Air’s and are made using a similar manufacturing process that helps to reduce weight and internal parts while adding rigidity.

“This is a tour de force of engineering,” company Chief Executive Steve Jobs told those attending the event.

That it may be, but some analysts questioned whether Apple’s emphasis on design over price was out of touch with the times, given the ongoing economic crisis and wide expectations of a recession. Other manufacturers have been cutting prices, and one of the fastest-growing PC segments has been the so-called netbook market, where machines often sell for as little as $300, analysts noted.

That’s a market that Apple doesn’t play in, and the company moved in a different direction from its competition. Except for its entry-level notebook — which sports an older design — Apple maintained its prices on other notebook models and even raised the price on one model.

updates will help “Apple maintain its image of . . . attention to detail and overall focus on the end-user experience,” said Bob O’Donnell, an analyst with industry research firm IDC. But, he added, “The price points are a little high.”

Wall Street analysts had speculated before the announcement that Apple might cut the price of its entry-level Macbook even further to $899. Investors Tuesday seemed disappointed that Apple chose not to go that far, analysts said. Apple’s stock closed regular trading off $6.18, or 5.6 percent, to $104.08.

At the event, Apple announced updates to its entire notebook lineup. The consumer-level Macbooks, which formerly came in a plastic shell, now will sport an aluminum enclosure, except for the $1,000 low-end model. The company is replacing the Intel chipset — but not the Intel microprocessor itself — in all its notebooks with one from Nvidia. Apple is also replacing the integrated Intel graphics chip in its Macbook notebooks with one from Nvidia that Apple says will run four to five times faster.

Additionally, Apple has removed a wide range of hazardous chemicals such as PVCs and arsenic from its new notebook computers or their manufacturing process. The notebooks have earned a gold rating from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, a service sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency to help consumers judge the environmental impact of particular products.

Apple’s computer sales have outgrown those of the broader PC industry in 14 of the past 15 fiscal quarters, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, noted at the event. The updates should help the company maintain that momentum — at least in the near term, analysts said.

Apple’s event may not have answered questions about its pricing strategy, but it did confirm without a doubt that Jobs is indeed alive and kicking. Apple’s stock plunged earlier this month on a false rumor that the iconic CEO had experienced a heart attack, one of a series of rumors or reports about Jobs’ well-being in recent months.

Jobs, whose gaunt appearance hasn’t noticeably changed in recent months, declined to take questions about the state of his health, but noted that his blood pressure is a healthy 110 over 70.

Apple”s new crop

The Mac maker updated its notebook lineup on Tuesday. Here”s a look at its new offerings:

Product-Category-Base Proce

Macbook (entry)-Consmer notebook – $999

Macbook -Consmer notebook – $1,299; $1,599

Macbook Pro (with 15.4-inch display) – Professional notebook -$1,999; $2,499

Macbook Air – Thin and light notebook – $1,799; $2,499

Base specs:

Macbook (entry)-Consmer notebook – $999 :

2.1GHz processor; 120GB hard drive;

1GB memory; Intel integrated graphics processor

Macbook -Consmer notebook – $1,299; $1,599

2.0GHz or 2.4GHz processor; 160GB or 250GB hard drive; 2GB memory; Nvidia integrated graphics processor

Macbook Air – Thin and light notebook – $1,799; $2,499

2.4GHz or 2.53GHz processor; 250GB or 320GB hard drive; 2GB or 4GB memory; Nvidia integrated and discreet graphics processors with 256MB or 512MB of video memory

Macbook Pro (with 15.4-inch display) – Professional notebook -$1,999; $2,499

1.6GHz or 1.86GHz processor; 120GB hard drive or 128GB flash drive; 2GB memory; Nvidia integrated graphics processor

What”s new

$100 price cut

Unibody aluminum case; Nvidia chipset and graphics chip; LED-backlit display; larger glass trackpad; $100 price hike on higher-end model

Unibody construction; dual graphics chips; larger glass trackpad

Larger drives; Nvidia chipset and graphics chip; mini DisplayPort connector

Whats new in Macbook (entry)

Base price: $999

What”s new: $100 price cut 

Whats new in Macbook 

Base price: $1,299, $1,599

What”s new: Unibody aluminum case, Nvidia chipset and graphics chip, LED-backlit display, larger glass trackpad, $100 price increase on higher-end model

Whats new in Macbook Pro 

(with 15.4-inch display)

$1,999, $2,499

Unibody construction, dual graphics chips, larger glass trackpad

Whats new in Macbook Air

$1,799, $2,499

Larger drives, Nvidia chipset and graphics chip, mini DisplayPort connector

Google Chrome Comic | Web Slideshow | Download

Google’s new Chrome browser is an interesting entry into the revitalized “browser wars.” Given Google’s Apps and Gears, the browser has essentially become the “OS” that contains them, so it makes perfect sense that Google would want to extend into that area to give it more control, and provide custom functionality that could not be accomplished with other browsers that it does not control.

But what is also interesting is how Google chose to describe some of its capabilities and intentions to the world: with comics.

WATCH THE COMIC ONLINE

The comics form has a number of benefits, the most obvious being that it does a better job of explaining technical features of Chrome better than a dry spec sheet would have.
For example, what if Google had said this in a features section of a page describing Chrome: “Multi-process rendering engine eliminates browser hangs due to single-threaded JavaScript executions.”
I would have thought, “Gee, that sounds great, but I don’t really know what it means.” Well, the comics form allows the company to explain that in a non-intimidating way. It’s still not exactly lay-person speak. (It is more geared toward journalists and bloggers who will be more familiar with the jargon than the general public.) But many more people will now understand what’s going on under the hood and, more importantly, the resulting benefits.

WATCH THE COMIC ONLINE

A nice side benefit for Google is that because the team of people who worked on it are brought to life through the comic (rather than stultified by press-release lingo), it humanizes Google at a time when it is starting to get a bit of a big-bad-wolf-Microsoft reputation due to its size and clout. By focusing on the individuals, it takes the mega corporation out of the picture (literally and figuratively).

The comic itself was created by well-known online comics artist Scott McCloud, after doing many interviews with Google engineers. It’s a great example of using someone outside the nitty-gritty of the product development process, with a knack for story-telling, to craft the narrative of the product. Too many good products fall by the wayside because not enough attention has been paid to the narrative–in other words, telling the value proposition in a way that the audience can relate to.

DOWNLOAD THIS GOOGLE CHROME COMIC FOR FREE

Google Lively

Google’s Chrome

Google Turns 10

How to search on Google

Internet knows what you will do next

Download : The True Story of the Internet

Google Chrome | Google Inc’s new Browser | Review | Download

Google Inc.’s new Web browser, called Chrome, does much of what a browser needs to do these days: It presents a sleek appearance, groups pages into easy-to-manage “tabs” and offers several ways for people to control their Internet privacy settings.

Yet my initial tests reveal that this “beta,” or preliminary release, falls short of Google’s goals, and is outdone in an important measure by the latest version of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer.

Chrome is a challenge to Microsoft’s browser, used by about three-quarters of Web surfers. But it could equally be called a challenge to Microsoft’s Office software suite, because what Google really wants to do is to make the browser a stable and flexible platform that can do practically everything we want to do with a computer, from word processing and e-mail to photo editing.

To strengthen that effort, Chrome was designed to improve on the way other browsers handle JavaScript, one of the technologies used to make Web pages more interactive and more like desktop software applications. Google’s online word processing and spreadsheet programs use this technology, but it’s also very widely deployed on Web pages to do less sophisticated things, like drop-down menus.

At first blush, Google’s focus on JavaScript makes sense. JavaScript can eat up computer processor power, and if poorly used by a Web site, can bring down the browser. One of the things Chrome promises is that if one browser tab crashes, it won’t take down the whole program.

Chrome also has some cosmetic differences from Internet Explorer and Firefox, like putting the tabs at the very top of the window. That’s a nice move, but it’s the browser’s performance that really matters to me. And this is where Chrome’s attention to JavaScript might miss the point.

At work, I often have 40 or 50 tabs open in Firefox, grouped in different windows depending on which topic they pertain to. Frequently, Firefox would slow down all the other applications on my computer, then seize up completely.

At first I thought JavaScript was to blame, and blocked it from running. But that made many sites unusable, and it didn’t help: The browser still froze.

It turns out the culprit is not JavaScript but another technology used to make Web pages more interactive: Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash plug-in. It’s the program-within-a-program that plays YouTube videos and those annoying “splash” pages that some sites employ to dazzle you with animations before letting you do anything useful on the site.

Flash is a tremendous resource hog in Firefox, eating up processor time to the point where there is nothing left for other programs. It does this even if you’re not actively doing anything. Merely having a YouTube page open on your screen will suck power from your computer’s central processing unit, or CPU. This is outrageous behavior for a browser. It’s my CPU and I want it back.

Luckily, there’s a small add-on program for Firefox that lets the user prevent Flash files from running automatically when a page loads, and it turns Firefox into a stable, efficient browser.

What does this mean on Chrome? Well, it has the same problem. It lets sites running Flash take over your computer’s resources. It doesn’t hog the CPU quite as bad as with Firefox, but in a way, it’s more serious, because unlike with Firefox, there’s no way to stop Flash from running. Chrome’s controls are quite bare-bones, perhaps because it’s still in “beta.”

On the plus side, Chrome allows you to diagnose problems with runaway plug-ins easily, because it tells you exactly which pages are consuming which resources. Had I been able to do this with Firefox, it would have saved me from months of browser troubles.

So which one comes out smelling like roses? The beta of Internet Explorer 8, released just last week.

When playing a YouTube video, Firefox 3 took up 95 percent of the CPU time on a three-year old laptop running Windows XP.

Chrome came in at 60 percent — still too much. Especially since Google owns YouTube! You’d think it could make its browser work well with that site in particular.

Internet Explorer barely broke a sweat, taking up just a few percent.

When I told each browser to load eight pages, some of which were heavy with Flash and graphics, Firefox took 17 seconds and ended with a continuous CPU load of 50 percent. That means it took up half of my available processing power, even if I wasn’t looking at any of the pages.

Chrome loaded them the fastest, at 12 seconds, and ended with a CPU load of about 40 percent.

Internet Explorer 8 took 13 seconds to load, but ended with no CPU load at all.

So while Chrome’s performance is a little better than that of Firefox, in practical terms, it is far less useful, because it lacks the broad array of third-party add-ons programs like Flashblock that make Firefox so customizable. With time, it might catch up, but in the meantime, I’d recommend giving the new Internet Explorer a spin.

HCL unveils Triple Core-Powered Desktops PCs

The new triple core based processor will provide gamers and media enthusiasts with exceptional performance.

HCL Infosystems has unveiled its Infiniti Orbital K Series range of desktops based on Triple Core AMD Phenom X3 8000 processor, providing gamers and digital media enthusiasts with exceptional performance.

The AMD processors are designed specially to integrate three computational cores on a single die of silicon, thereby improving application performance, the company said in a statement.

“HCL’s new desktops based on AMD’s Triple-Core processor will be an asset delivering significant enhancements in gaming and high-definition experiences for our consumers,” HCL Infosystems Executive Vice President George Paul said.

HCL Infiniti Orbital K Series desktops will be available through HCL’s wide distribution network including its Digilife stores across India.

These desktops equipped with AMD Tri Core Phenom processors will provide the ultimate visual experience with amazing HD video and gaming resolutions, as well as high-speed disk and network interfaces.

This model is positioned for advanced multitasking, critical business productivity, modeling, serious gaming and visually stunning digital media and entertainment, the company claimed.

“HCL is the first company in India to introduce computers based on the AMD Phenom processors (Quad Core and Triple Core) and AMD 780G chipsets taking them way ahead of competition in launching latest technology,” AMD India OEM Sales General Manager Gautam Mukherjee said.

The new desktop will offer an improved customer experience and unparalleled performance for a wide variety of demanding applications and we are proud to partner with them to bring this triple core processor to the Indian market, Mukherjee added.

The AMD Phenom processor offers true multi-core design with features of an integrated memory controller, accelerating performance for productivity, content creation, entertainment and gaming, HCL said in the statement.

In addition, this next-generation architecture includes AMD’s Balanced Smart Cache for rapid access to memory, with a shared L3 cache for leading-edge performance on multi-threaded software.

DOWNLOAD : The True Story Of Internet

Who would think that the history of the Internet could actually be interesting? Well, it is, and the Science Channel is running a series called Download: The True Story of the Internet this week. Told by John Heileman, this series of hour long shows about the real people and events that have made the Internet possible, is fascinating.

Here are the basic episode summaries:

• Browser Wars:  This episode is about the early days of the Internet, the rise and fall of Netscape, Microsoft’s entrance into the Browser Wars and the antics it used to acquire dominance.
• Search focuses on the evolution of the search engines as we know them today – Google, Excite and Yahoo – and the players in their amazing growth.
• Bubble (summary from the Science Channel): In an astonishing journalistic coup, the founders of the Amazon and Ebay, Jeff Bezos and Pierre Omidyar, tell the story of how their business grew from nothing to dominate the global economy and profoundly change the way we live our lives.
• People Power (summary from the Science Channel): This is the story of how the internet has changed society and how a new breed of entrepreneurs are shaping our digital futures. It all started with Napster; a way of swapping music that was dreamt up by the teenaged Shawn Fanning.

This show is starting in India on Discovery Channel from 8 September,2008 at  21:00 PM.

Don’t miss it.

Apple iPhone to be priced @ Rs.31,000 in India | Unlock iPhone

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who had promised at Worldwide Developer’s Conference on June 10 while unveiling 3G iPhone that it would be made available at $199(8Gb), is no more to be true in India. Now Indian consumers, who have been waiting based on Jobs’ promise have to pay Rs. 31,000 for 8 Gb and 16 Gb for Rs.36100.

The pricing is made available to the customers who have already made their booking on July 25. One of the Vodafone message says, “Your wait is about to end! iPhone 3G arrives on August 22. 8Gb model is for Rs. 31,000 and 16 Gb for Rs.36100.”

Earlier, the Bharthi Airtel operators said that they would make iPhone available in India at Rs.20,000, they are further breaking their promises. Both Vodafone and Airtel will be launching the iPhone on August 22 and industry experts say bookings and pre-launch interest suggest that they would be able to sell over 100,000 phones in the next 12 months. Companies like Vodafone, which opened bookings for the phones in July, have already received booking requests of over 10,000 phones.

Apple Iphone is one of the most expected gadget to be launched in india

Unlocked Apple Iphones are available in Indian at many places though by illegal means.But Iphone price in india is too high with major shops .

Where to buy Iphone in INDIA :

Best way to get hold of an Iphone in India is to ask someone to bring it from USA .
You can get a 4 GB Model for around 12000(or even less upto 10000).RS in this case aND AN 8 GB Model for 16,000.RS
But you have to unlock such phone by using third party softwares available .

Unlocking Apple Iphone in India:

Unlocking an Iphone is not so difficult.Many easy methods are there which can found by googling.

Hackers across the country are working overtime to find ways to unlock the SIM cards that will come with Apple’s iPhone once it is launched at the stroke of midnight on August 22. Since the SIM-locked iPhone will be sold by Airtel and Vodafone Essar, non-Airtel /Vodafone GSM subscribers won’t be able to use it unless codes are available to break the SIM lock.

While Airtel and Vodafone Essar executives aren’t ruling out the likelihood of the much-hyped phone being hacked within days of its India launch, the companies were unwilling to comment on the safeguards that have been put in place to keep hackers at bay.

However, a brand new way to unlock the phone is now available, in case the hacking software doesn’t work. A mobile phone expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, told ET: “If your iPhone is loaded with 04.02.13_G, the 1.1.2 firmware (read: the latest version), it cannot be unlocked with any software. A Turbo SIM card, available for upwards of Rs 1,500, does what a hacking software cannot do even for the latest version of iPhone. The manufacturers are claiming it will not get locked again—an issue that plagued earlier hacking methods.”

The Turbo SIM may not be available in India immediately , but one can always order it online or even do a Google to unravel ways to use the card to unlock the iPhone. Airtel and Vodafone officials remain unfazed. “SIM lock-related issues will have obviously been addressed by Apple.

The phe-nomenon isn’t new as codes to break the iPhone SIM locks have evolved in global markets where the phone has been launched. One cannot rule out such a phenomenon in India. But since the iPhone is being offered at a full-blown price in India, all network-related issues will have been factored in,” said a top Airtel executive.

Officials at Vodafone said: “We are launching the 3G iPhone in two variants—8 GB and 16GB. The operating system is proprietary of Apple and we cannot share any further details.” While both Vodafone and Airtel execs remain tightlipped on the actual operating system/version that will power the iPhone in India, ET has learnt the phone may be launched with the latest iPhone 2.0 software update.

If you are not an Airtel or Vodafone Essar user but are still keen to use the phone, you first need to find out the version of your iPhone. To find out the firmware (version ), open the emergency call menu on the iPhone and type *3001#12345#*, suggests a software spe-cialist .

Detailed instructions are available online, but the process basically involves copying the information from your SIM onto a Turbo SIM, and then switching your SIM for your carrier SIM. This al-lows the Turbo SIM to piggyback on your carrier SIM, and report-edly gives the phone full calling, SMS and EDGE capabilities. For older versions of the software, a quick search on Google will throw up a number of ways to unlock the SIM. Such software is freely avail-able on the internet.

HOW TO UNLOCK Apple iPhone:

Here is the updated QuickPwn for Windows, wrapped by Poorlad’s GUI. It contains new bundles for 2.0.2 and added support for version 2.0 devices which means you can QuickPwn and jailbreak the device if it is running 2.0, 2.0.1 or 2.0.2.
Remember this is still beta software, so usual rules apply, no complaints ifanything goes wrong and use the tool at at your own risk!

DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE

NB: Using QuickPwn does not update the firmware itself, this tool is designed to ‘Pwn’ (the ability to install future custom non-Apple firmwares) , ‘Jailbreak’ and install Installer or Cydia on a given device. If your device is running 2.0.1 and you QuickPwn it, it’ll still be running 2.0.1, although it will now be Pwned and Jailbroken, similarly if your device is running 2.0.2 and you QuickPwn it, it will then be running 2.0.2 but the device will now be Pwned and Jailbroken. It will also activate (not unlock) devices that are being used outside of their intended territories and cannot be activated using iTunes.

If you want to update to 2.0.2 then use the normal iTunes update to get to 2.0.2 and then use QuickPwn to Pwn, Jailbreak and Activate, remember that the 2.0.2 update includes a baseband update for the 3G iPhone, so depending what your long term intentions are for the phone, update wisely, of course in the upcoming PwnageTool application you’ll be able to create a custom ipsw without the baseband update enabled.

Again, no updates with regard to the unlocking of the 3G iPhone.

(NOTE : I havent tried any of these myself so try at your ow risk! )

DOWNLOAD HELP VIDEO

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Bill Bryson’s top 10 Science Quotes

1. It isn’t easy to become a fossil

“It isn’t easy to become a fossil… Only about one bone in a billion, it is thought, becomes fossilized. If that is so, it means that the complete fossil legacy of all the Americans alive today – that’s 270 million people with 206 bones each – will only be about 50 bones, one-quarter of a complete skeleton. That’s not to say, of course, that any of these bones will ever actually be found. Bearing in mind that they can be buried anywhere within an area of slighly over 9.3 million square kilometres, little of which will ever be turned over, much less examined, it would be something of a miracle if they ever were”

2. There is more life under the Earth than on top of it

“We now know that there are a lot of microbes living deep within the Earth… Some scientist now think that there could be as 100 trillion tons of bacteria living beneath our feet in what are known as subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystems… Thomas Gold of Cornell has estimated that if you took all the bacteria out of the Earth’s interior and dumped it on the surface, it would cover the planet to a depth of five feet. If the estimates are correct, there could be more life under the Earth than on top of it.”

3. The most striking thing about our atmosphere

“The most striking thing about our atmosphere is that there isn’t very much of it. It extends upward for about 120 miles, which might seem reasonably bounteous when viewed from ground level, but if you shrank the Earth to the size of a standard desktop globe it would only be about the thickness of a couple of coats of varnish”

4. Men will never reach the edge of the solar system

“Pluto may be the last object marked on schoolroom charts but the solar system doesn’t end there. In fact, it isn’t even close to ending there. We won’t get to the solar system’s edge until we have passed through the Oort cloud, a vast celestial realm of drifting comets… Far from marking the outer edge of the solar system, as those schoolroom maps so cavalierly imply, Pluto is barely one 50,000th of the way. Of course we have no prospect of such a journey. Based on what we know now and can reasonably imagine, there is absolutely no prospect that any human being will ever visit the edge of our own solar system — ever. It is just too far”.

5. There is no point trying to hide from your bacteria

“There is no point trying to hide from your bacteria, for they are on you and around you always, in numbers you can’t conceive of. If you are in good health and averagely diligent about your hygiene, you will have a herd of about one trillion bacteria grazing on your fleshy plains – about one hundred thousand of them on every square centimetre of skin. And those are just the bacteria that inhabit your skin… Every human body consists of about ten quadrillion cells, but it is host to about a hundred quadrillion bacterial cells. They are, in short, a big part of us. From the bacteria’s point of view, of course, we are a rather small part of them… This is their planet, and we are only on it because they allow us to be”.

6. There is nothing we can do about asteroids

“Oh, probably none,” said Anderson breezily. “It wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye until it warmed up, and that wouldn’t happen until it hit the atmosphere, which would be about one second before it hit the Earth. You’re talking about something moving many tens of times faster than the fastest bullet. Unless it had been seen by someone with a telescope, and that’s by no means a certainty, it would take us completely by surprise.”

7. We are energy

“You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average-sized adult you will contain within your modest frame no less than 7 x 10^18 joules of potential energy — enough to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point. We’re just not very good at taking it out. Even a uranium bomb –the most energetic thing we have produced yet- releases less than 1 percent of the energy it could release if only we were more cunning”.

8. Atom’s nucleus

“Neutrons and protons occupy the atom’s nucleus. The nucleus of an atom is tiny — only one-millionth of a billionth of the full volume of the atom — but fantastically dense, since it contains virtually all the atom’s mass. As Cropper has put it, if an atom were expanded to the size of a cathedral, the nucleus would be only about the size of a fly — but a fly many times heavier than the cathedral”.

9. The center of the Earth

“The distance from the surface of Earth to the center is 3,959 miles, which isn’t so very far. It has been calculated that if you sunk a well to the center and dropped a brick into it, it would take only forty-five minutes for it to hit the bottom… Our own attempts to penetrate toward the middle have been modest indeed. One or two South African gold mines reach to a depth of two miles, but most mines on Earth go no more than about a quarter of a mile beneath the surface. If the planet were an apple, we wouldn’t yet have broken through the skin”.

10. Is there life out there?

“Still, statistically the probability that there are other thinking beings out there is good… Under Drake’s equation you divide the number of stars in a selected portion of the universe by the number of stars that are likely to have planetary systems; divide that by the number of planetary systems that could theoretically support life; divide that by the number on which life, having arisen, advances to a state of intelligence; and so on. At each such division, the number shrinks colossally—yet even with the most conservative inputs the number of advanced civilizations just in the Milky Way always works out to be somewhere in the millions”.

A Beautiful Mind ! !

This book draws very sharp divisions between movies that are about a life, based on a life, or in this case, inspired by a life. Whether you have scene the movie or even the trailer, once you read this book it become immediately apparent Dr. Nash’s life would not fit into any single film. To a degree this is simply an instance of practicality, for the work this man and his peers did, is intelligible to a small handful of people. Even while reading the book, unless your math skills are somewhat extraordinary, the lexicon of pure math will be completely new, and the concepts these men and women developed are fascinating, however they are almost unimaginably complex.

To those who have read material that may have touched on Game Theory, The Prisoner’s Dilemma, and The Mobius Band, the book will allow for moments when the inquisitive can participate. In most cases the concepts are mind bending, and in some cases they could not even be verbalized by some of the brilliant minds that Dr. Nash worked amongst. Ms. Sylvia Nasar does an excellent job of explaining why Dr. Nash was so different from his peers, and how he approached complex issues in fundamentally different manners than others.

The remarkable story is of this brilliant man who was considered one of the greatest thinkers of his time who fell gradually, though fairly quickly, into a mental state that caused his family to commit him more than once. The decades he spent living under the most bizarre and destructive delusions, his moments of clarity, and then his highly unusual recovery makes for an incredible tale. This is one of those stories that had it been written as fiction, it would not have been taken seriously.

The other parts of the book were very revealing as they pertained to Dr. Nash and his peers at Princeton, MIT, and elsewhere. The fields they work in are intensely competitive, however when he began his decline, and then continued to have false starts at normality, for the most part he was not abandoned. The author touches on why his peers may have felt the need to help a man who routinely demonstrated the most hurtful personal behavior to anyone he came in contact with. There were exceptions, but they are very few in number, and not for the people you might suppose. All of these great minds share at least one commonality, and that is their ability to think at extremely high levels that few can even imagine. Many of these people seem to constantly fear the loss of whatever unique gifts they have. They also tend to be people that have been marginalized until they find their place in the academic world, for what they think of, and the eccentricities they often have, single them out for ridicule not praise.

A very readable biography, a profession that is understood by few.

“A Beautiful Mind ” is one my favorite book and movie.. Its very inspiring and real pleasure to mind. (Sir)Dr. John Nash (the protagonist ) is a Nobel Prize Winner for Economics in 1995 and a great mathematician .The book is an account of his life,his struggle with Schizophrenia for 37 years and recovery. The author Sylvia Nasar has writing style tht u will feel like experiencing the book rather than just reading.
One thing more ,I have a thing for Nobel Prize winners, I have read Gitanjali , Surely you are Joking Mr. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman , Argumentatice Indian by Amartya Sen, The Double By Jose Saramago so no surprise i like this book so much.

Four Weddings and A Funeral ! ! !

 

Just few hours ago i saw this movie and liked these lines … The context is a very good friend of Matthew has died and he is speaking on his funeral.

Matthew: Gareth used to prefer funerals to weddings. He said it was easier to get enthusiastic about a ceremony one had an outside chance of eventually being involved in. In order to prepare this speech, I rang a few people, to get a general picture of how Gareth was regarded by those who met him. Fat seems to be a word people most connected with him. Terribly rude also rang a lot of bells. So very fat and very rude seems to have been a stranger’s viewpoint. On the other hand, some of you have been kind enough to ring me to tell me that you loved him, which I know he’d be thrilled to hear. You remember his fabulous hospitality… his strange experimental cooking. The recipe for “Duck à la Banana” fortunately goes with him to his grave. Most of all, you tell me of his enormous capacity for joy. When joyful, when joyful for highly vocal drunkenness. But joyful is how I hope you’ll remember him. Not stuck in a box in a church. Pick your favorite of his waistcoats and remember him that way. The most splendid, replete, big-hearted, weak-hearted as it turned out, and jolly bugger most of us ever met. As for me, you may ask how I’ll remember him, what I thought of him. Unfortunately there I run out of words. Perhaps you will forgive me if I turn from my own feelings to the words of another splendid bugger:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let the aero-planes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message: He Is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West.
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: Put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

This has become one of the most touching poem i ever read!!

First India v/s England one day match of 28 March,06

Hi friends,

I am back again and this time with the exciting description of my journey to  ‘FEROZ SHAH KOTLA CRICKET STADIUM ‘, Delhi to see England v/s India first one day match on 28 March-2006.I know its more thana year now but still better late than never!

I also had a company in this adventure (as I call it). His name is Shashank Singh from Mirzapur in U.P. We arranged tickets with the help of our friend named Amit Singh who is also from Mirzapur. In fact we were trying for the student concession ticket worth rupees 200 only but due to our bad luck or because of the DU students’ careful attitude we lost that. And as a result we bought special ticket which cost us Rs.1000 .Initially we were about 20 friends who were going to match but we reduced to just two of us after the tickets of Rs.200 were finished.

In the evening I got the tickets in hand. One special thing about this event is that at the same time a cricket series was going on in my college also. So you can say that there was an aura of cricket in the atmosphere of the college. That also contributed to our decision of going to match. It was my first ever experience of watching live cricket. According to me that was the main reason behind me watching this match. Let me tell you I am not a cricket-crazy fan but a thing that sets the millions of hearts across this large country throbbing has at least something special and I wanted to feel that thing.

I return to my adventure again. On 27 March, I returned to my hostel at 10:30 pm after buying a computer for one of my friend. I went to Shashank’s room to discuss about the schedule for tomorrow. Just then an idea clicked my mind. Lakshya (my best friend) lives in Delhi and it will be convenient for us to go to his home in the night only. As it would have been difficult for us to start for Delhi in the morning at 4:30am, moreover we were not sure about the convense also and also the routes in Delhi were changed to facilitate the traffic for the cricket match. So I and Shashank had a bath and set off for the journey at about 11:00 pm in the night. We went to the 5th km stone and then to Hapur crossing on foot and waited for the bus but got none for next half an hour. Then we tried for a lift. After a struggle of 15 minutes we got a semi truck which gave us the lift up to Mohan Nagar. When we got off the truck we noticed that the truck belonged to OMX Logistics Ltd. This has an office in front of our college campus.

We reached Mohan Nagar at 12 ‘o’ clock. In the way we received calls from Lakshya who was worried about arrival. From MohanNagar we took a Tempo (Vikram) to Anand Vihar. The climate on that night was something special. It was cool but not cold, it was night but not too dark. The breeze was chilling and the excitement in our hearts was in complete rhythm with the outer atmosphere. There was a fear in our heart – What if India lost the match or what if we could not reach in time? Thinking all this, we reached Anand Vihar at 12:30pm. At Anand Vihar I rang up my friends and had some tea at the tea stall. Shashank had some bread butter also as we were going to Lakshya’s home at a very odd hour. We booked an auto to Shahdara for Rs.40. It took about 45 minutes to reach Shahdara. In the mean time we received calls from Lakshya who inquired about our location.

At last at about 1:15 am we reached Shahdara- Golchakkar.

We entered MIG flat colony from the main gate. I had never gone to Lakshya’s home through the main gate. So we were quite puzzled. And kept roaming inside the colony for half an hour we made 3 complete rounds of the colony. And at last when Lakshya told us the way on mobile we finally reached his home. He was very happy to find us. He had already arranged for our sleeping but we were not in the mood to sleep so we chatted for an hour about our journey (which was actually to start) till then. Then we watched the South Africa v/s England Australia match in which 432 runs were made, chased and achieved!! After that we slept setting alarm for the 4:30am of the 28 march, Tuesday.

Alarms are most punctual things in this world— It’s their virtue as well as vice. We got up at 5 am. We had a bath quickly and dressed up for the match. I had the cap (Abhinav’s IBM cap) and had bread and tea. We are extremely grateful to Lakshya’s mom who took the pains to make us breakfast at that time of the morning. This breakfast was going to be a great help during the whole day.

We stepped out of Lakshya’s home to find the most pleasant morning of my life. It was a very beautiful day and the good thing was that it was going to be better. Lakshya told us the way and dropped us at the Shahdara bus stand. Without him this journey would have been quite difficult. We got in the bus and had our seats. After 45 minutes journey we reached Dilli Gate. From there we could see the stadium and feel the heat of the breaths of millions of lungs.

We went to the queue which was already about a kilometer long and stood there. There we came to know that we had missed a very important thing. We had our mobiles with us and it was not allowed to take mobiles inside. So we left the queue and went to search for the place to keep our cell phones.

First we went to a petrol pump but we were refused, then to a temple but no success. However from the temple we came to know about the tea stall where we can keep our mobiles. So we went to the tea stall and gave our mobiles to the shopkeeper trusting him completely.

When we returned from the tea stall, the queue has already commenced and now we were about 2 km away from the main gate no 7.There was a foreigner standing before us and behind was a family. The line crawled slowly. But at once there was some energy and the queue broke, people crossed the iron railing and jumped to the nearby line. The reason was the time. It had already been 9am and we were standing outside so people lost patience. We reached the main gate within 10 minutes and stopped for the security check.  However it was just a formality. We went into the gate. Now we could clearly hear the noise of people. I came to know that there were 70000 people in this stadium of maximum capacity of 48000.

I entered the stadium building and climbed to the second floor quickly so that we could find seats but as obvious we got no seats so we sat on the cement stairs. Those stairs were quite better than the seats because they were closer to the ground and also now we had no tension of loosing our seats. We settled and at last were happy that we reached there on time with quite ease. The match started. The crowd waved off its seats and shaked the whole stadium with the noise of ‘INDIA INDIA INDIA’. Indian team came for batting first. In the very first over there were two boundaries that made the whole stadium jump, with joy. It was Sehwag this time. But very soon Sehwag was out. I will not go into further details of the match as you can find that everywhere else too. In all India made 203 runs from 50 overs with Harbhajan as the highest scorer. There were two sixes too. One of them was from Harbhajan. Very honestly I would say that Indian batting was not to my expectations. I was a bit disappointed. This is the difference that can be felt just in the stadium not on any television set because all these players look to be heroes on T.V. but on the ground they are just any other player who can do mistakes and take wrong decisions. On the ground you become a part of the desire – a common desire of 70000 people and you rise and fall in emotions with all of them. The rhythm generated at one boundary and excitement surpasses anything else. Moreover there was one more feeling in our hearts – we were expecting for some miracle to happen so that this match becomes a memorable one. In the break people were silent. Some were praying and some disappointed.

We had some lunch in the break and returned to our seats. The Indian team came to ground and scattered all over the field. First over was taken by Irfan Pathan .First two balls went virgin. Then on the third he took the first wicket of England and the stadium waved with joy. People started beating chairs and shouting like mad. The crowd stood up to encourage. And on the next ball one more wicket. And now that was enough for the crowd to handle. All the men, women and children were shouting at the loudest of their tones and marking their presence in that aura of joy. After that England maintained its run rate with boundaries .Peterson and Flintoff were taking England to victory. But just then Harbhajan came into action. This spinner took 5 wickets. The entire stadium filled with rhythmic chords of ‘BHAJJI BHAJJI’ and ‘JO BOLE SO NIHAL – SASTRIYA AKAAL’.

Now there was a huge pressure on England, Yuvraj bowled very well and also took one wicket. The equations of the match were reversed the match that before the lunch was in England’s favor turned out to be in India’s favor. This match had everything that we wanted or had expected. At last on the ball of Irfan Pathan, England lost its last wicket and India became victorious. The miracle had happened and we all were happy, embracing each other with winning smile. Harbhajan was declared the man of the match and got a motor cycle which he and Dhoni drove in the stadium.

We came out of the stadium, took our mobiles and had a cup of tea. Then we sat in a DTC bus which took us to Anand Vihar. We were exhausted and hungry so we went to Sector 10 in Ghaziabad had our stomachs full and returned to hostel with the stories of India’s victory and our’s too!!

This was the end of my first ever live cricket match which was certainly excellent and memorable. It had everything which one can expect.

Regards-

Tarun Kumar Jaiswal