Water harvesting - Govt role!

Low full tosses, great catches and ...

Like the rest of India, I woke up on Saturday with an angry feeling after the humiliating loss to Aussies in the T20 world cup. It was a big one sided match and we lost miserably.

But that did not deter me from playing my weekend quota of cricket.

 

With more friends turning up for the matches, we decided on a 8 per side, 9 over match. Mr Y did some pathetic selection and the opposite team was loaded with batsmen. The first match was tragedy of sorts for us in Y's team. The ball was whacked all over the place. Mr R looked inspired by the Aussie openers blitzkrieg the previous night. He took the team total to 90+ including 18 from an over of Mr M. Though the chase began on a positive note, the tasking was too daunting for us. We eventually lost the game by 30+ runs.

 

We started the batting first in the 2nd match. End of over 1 and openers were back in pavilion. Within no time we were 8 for 4 in 4 overs. Then the opposition captain, Mr A decided to give the ball to his part time bowlers. Wides from the bowlers and some good batting from the last pair, took the total to 30+. This was like Aussies getting a target of 80 against Ireland in a 50 over game. The match result was a given for both teams. Without any struggle Mr A's team was cruising towards the target. Mr A sportingly rotated his batsmen, so that everybody gets a chance to bat. 7 runs to go with 5 wickets in hand and plenty of overs. Sun had started to remind us that it was summer. Then Y asked M to bowl (remember the same M who was thrashed for 18 in an over).

 

Everybody thought that the game would end in this over

Ball 1 - Low full toss - Phat came the bat - Ball was in air for a long long time. Mr Y puts down a sitter in long on. Drop number 1. Batsmen take 2 runs.

Ball 2 - Another low full toss - Phat came the bat - Ball was in air for a long long time. Mr AG takes it comfortably. Great catch number 1. Gone.

The rest of the over went without any notable event...The match had not ended.

 

Mr Y bowled (to be honest - threw) the next 6 balls and took the important wicket of Mr R.

So then what had to end by last over was dragged to the next over.

 

2 runs to win and 2 wickets in hand.

Mr M to bowl. Fielders close in.

 

Ball 1 - Yet another low full toss - Batsman whips it to short mid-on. Mr MVN jumps up, tosses the ball and takes the catch on 2nd attempt. Great catch number 2.

 

2 to win with 1 wicket in hand.

 

Ball 2 - Over pitched. Batsman edges. Keeper drops the sharp chance. Drop number 2. Batsmen take a single.

 

Match tied. 1 to win with 1 wicket in hand.

 

Ball 3 - Again a low full toss. Batsman defends it. Straight to fielder. No run.

Ball 4 - Oh...Again a low full toss. Again batsman whips it hard. Mr MKB (B stands for Bheem!) takes a blinder. One handed catch at silly mid-on. Great catch number 3.

Then the usual things happened - celebrations, dull faces discussing on how they threw the match etc etc.

 

So Saturday morning was the tale "Low full tosses, great catches, dropped catches and a Tied match"

    

Financial hub of Bangalore

Let me start with a question...Which area of Bangalore has the most number of financial institutions?

Most of you would say MG Road.

Some of you would say KG Road.

Probably you are correct...

But how many thought that it COULD be Banashankari 3rd stage.

Yes, MG road (& surrounding area) has lots of mutual fund houses, banks and insurance offices. Same is true with KG road area (Gandhinagar). There are a whole lot of public sector banks on this road.

Shift the focus from these areas to the 2.5 km stretch of Ring road from Hosakerehalli to DG petrol bunk (Chennamma circle). The area called Banashankari 3rd stage.

This piece of road has 13 banks and around 7 financial institutions. I am amazed by these numbers.

All these institutions are bang on this road. If you do take some adjacent roads the number of banks increases.

I hear somebody telling - The number of institutions alone won't qualify to be a financial hub...The amount of business they make, does.

I do agree...but numbers do not lie.

   

Karnataka in National News

The year 2010 has not started well for Karnataka.

My state has been in prime time news of most national channels. You think its good. No, Its in news for all the wrong reasons.

 

• The turmoil in the present BJP govt made headlines. The govt was about to fall with lot of dung flying around. Karnataka politics had hit an all time low.
• Our ex-PM used very foul language against the present CM of Karnataka. Yes, it was caught on camera. It kicked off a debate on the kind of language that politicians use.
• Then came the tragic fire in one of Bangalore's commercial buildings. 7 people tragically died. Good amount of hue and cry resulted in. Debates on the fire safety measures in buildings started, which is good.
• IPL brought some cheers with Bangalore team doing reasonably well. But the happiness was hit by bomb blasts. There were some bomb blasts on the eve of a match which resulted in semis moving out of namma Bangalore. Security in Karnataka became a concern.
• Karnataka based swami was caught in the act. His ashram near Bangalore was raided. Dirty videos splashed news media and internet sites. I should agree that this did not create a big dent in Karnataka's image.
• The Tharoor gate opened the Reddy gate also. Illegal mining by Karnataka ministers was the debate in Parliament. Karnataka was again in bad light.
• Now its Halappa. The ex-minister is embroiled in a rape case. Videos, audios make the news sensational. Karnataka's politicians are going from bad to worse.

 

Smaller stories like Belgaum issue, the Hogenekkal issue, power crisis in the state etc always take some slot in the bulletins.

 

Luckily we still have some competition to share space in the "bad news section". Telangana, Lalit Modi, Soren and Mayawati share stage with Karnataka.

My first story

This was my first story. Written at the age of 10 perhaps! Words are not the same, but the concept is.

There was a lion in a jungle. Every night, he entered the nearby village and attacked the sheep and cattle of the villagers. Each day the villagers lost one of their dear ones. It was not possible for the villagers to fight the huge lion. The villagers called for a panchayat and discussed the issue. Many ideas were discussed to stop the lion. None seemed to be a solution. A young boy came up with a suggestion. The villagers agreed to implement the solution.

They cut a sheep. Kept the dead sheep at the entrance of the village. They put large amount of raw cotton on the dead meat. 

The lion came in the night and tried to eat the meat. The threads of cotton got stuck in the teeth of the lion. The lion could not chew. It abandoned the meat and never again came back to the village.

MJ singing a Bollywood number?

Requirement -

Application which can put in a different singer's voice to any given song.

Example - Want to check how would Micheal Jackson sound on bollywood hit song "zindagi ek safar.."

First of all is this already possible?

On a parallel note, let me admit that, i know very less about the applications in the sound processing space.

1. With the application, separate the human sound from the music of a song.

2. Analyze the extracted human sound - Frequency and intensity and whatever that is needed - Lets call it "Variations".

3. From this we get the voice of the singer and the "variations" he has produced in this song -  Kishore Kumar in this case.

4. Do similar operation one of Micheal Jackson's song.

5. We now have 2 distinct voices.

6. Modify MJ's voice to the "variations" that is extracted.

7. Mix this with the original song music (got in step 1).

We have MJ singing Kishore's hit "Zindagi ek safar..."

Imagine the impact - We need not pay any singer any money (unless you need a really fresh voice).