Indians at Olympics 2008

It is great to see the fantastic appreciation and attention the Indian media is laying out to Indians doing well at Olympics. It surprises me to see how Indians run after the "India Shinning" idea behind everything. Be it an Idea Cellular Advertisement or the Olympics. People consider Bindra;s successes as their own and try to find happiness in it. This is not a bad thing but that happiness ends their and it does not help the India;s dream of an olympic sport nation evena bit.
A population of 1.1 Billion produces 1 medal winner at each Olympics with an exception in 1962 I think when they bagged a gold in Hockey and Bronze in Boxing or wrestling. What are we rejoicing at? When Phelps alone bags 8 golds - that s a billionth of our population. Food for thought here.
My aim is not the negativity in the idea of India doing well at 2008 Beijing but how is that rejoicing or happiness leading us to?
Neither does the media nor SAI recognize the efforts of Mittal Foundation and make efforts for further corporate sponsorships. Its a shame for a 60 year old sports ministry to produce 45 participants in the olympics from a population of over a billion.

We dream of Delhi 2020 and things like that. Still short of preperations at Commonwealth Delhi 2010. Roads, traffic, people are in chaos with no vision of the games in general. We saw taxi drivers in China being taught English, Chinese factories being shut around Beijing, and a city not an Olympic village come into being. This is far from a reality in Delhi.

Now is the time to stop thinking and also act, stop reading this Blog and do something about it. HE HE HE.

Shashank

F1

'F1' is not only just 'F1' F1 car is made up of 80,000 components, if it were assembled 99.9% correctly, it would still start the race with 80 things wrong! When an F1 driver hits the brakes on his car he experiences retardation or deceleration comparable to a regular car driving through a BRICK wall at 300kmph!!!

F1 car can go from 0 to 160 kph AND back to 0 in FOUR seconds!!!!!!!

F1 car engines last only for about 2 hours of racing mostly before blowing up on the other hand we expect our engines to last us for a decent 20yrs on an average and they quite faithfully DO....that's the extent to which the engines r pushed to perform...

An average F1 driver looses about 4kgs of weight after just one race due to the prolonged exposure to high G forces and temperatures for little over an hour (Yeah that's right!!!)

At 550kg a F1 car is less than half the weight of a Mini.

To give you an idea of just how important aerodynamic design and added down force can be, small planes can take off at slower speeds than F1 cars travel on the track.

Without aerodynamic down force, high-performance racing cars have sufficient power to produce wheel spin and loss of control at 160 kph. They usually race at over 300 kph.

In a street course race like the Monaco grand prix, the down force provides enough suction to lift manhole covers. Before the race all of the manhole covers on the streets have to be welded down to prevent this from happening!

The refuelers used in F1 can supply 12 liters of fuel per second. This means it would take just 4 seconds to fill the tank of an average 50 liter family car.. They use the same refueling rigs used on US military helicopters today.

TOP F1 pit crews can refuel and change tyres in around 3 seconds. It took me 8 sec to read above point à During the race the tyres lose weight! Each tyre loses about 0.5 kg in weight due to wear.

Normal tyres last 60 000 - 100 000 km. Racing tyres are designed to last 90 - 120 km. Ã A dry-weather F1 tyre reaches peak operating performance (best grip) when tread temperature is between 900C and 1200C.(Water boils boils at 100C remember) At top speed, F1 tyres rotate 50 times a second.
And that's not Magic.... Its only the Power of Human Imagination.... dSourceID:NT0001001E

Beauty of Math!

Below is a series which exhibits some symmetry and looks interesting

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111

9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

Brilliant, isn't it?

And look at this symmetry:

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111=12345678987654321

Enjoy this!

Mobile Repair Culture

On the last night of my most recent trip to Delhi I spent an evening trying to understand India's informal mobile phone repair culture by visiting Karol Bagh Market. Throw in the noise, heat and smells of Delhi and you already have a rich consumer experience.

As in Nehru Place, Delhi many of the mobile phone shops and street kiosks offer mobile phone repair service. Many of these guys can strip and rebuild a mobile phone in minutes. How do these kind of services affect the mobile phone user experience? What happens when everyone has affordable access to these kind of services?

Side-note: a lot of the hyperbole surrounding western hacker culture makes me smile compared to what these guys are doing day in day out.