Mona Lisa's smile interpreted

An article states that we interpret Mona Lisa's smile based on which part of the eye noticed it first! I for one, have never been able to appreciate what is it about this mundane painting of an average looking lady that draws millions to it!

Japanese cuisine

Have been in Tokyo on work for the past 2 months, and exploring Japanese cuisine as much as I can. The variety of food available in Tokyo is mind boggling! It seems like every second building in the city is a restaurant!

While it will take a very very long time to become acquainted with the unbelievable variety of food items here, I can make an attempt to showcase the most commonly (and some not at all common) eaten Japanese food.

Ramen
Wikipedia says that Ramen became popular in Japan during the Meiji period (1860s to 1910s). Which is not such a long time ago! It mostly consists of a soup that is made from chicken or pork stock and cooked for days together over a slow fire. Into the soup are added noodles and a host of other ingredients that one gets to pick and choose, like steamed pork, roasted garlic, vegetables, seafood, hard boiled eggs etc. Ground pepper can be used to spice it up. A very heartwarming, healthy and filling meal!

Sushi
But of course! The word "Japanese food" brings sushi as an instant recall to the mind! It is usually either a roll or a rectangle (or some other shape) of vinegared Japanese rice surrounded by fish(raw most of the times), vegetables and sometimes some other meat. Considered a 'cool' food to have by many in the west, many restaurants in Japan consider presentation of this food itself a form of art.


Sashimi
Thinly sliced raw meat! As simple as that. Usually the meat is that of fresh fish. But it can also include uncooked beef or horse(yes, horse!). Horse sashimi is called as Basashi and is not for the faint hearted! Usually served with soy sauce, wasabi paste and thinly sliced ginger.


Okonomiyaki
A cross between a dosa and a pancake stuffed with eggs, cabbage, noodles and all kinds of other stuff. Very hard to describe! But very good to eat!





Gyudon
Aka Beef Donburi, its a plain and simple bowl of hot Japanese rice with midly spicy beef. Cheap food and found in many street side fast food places. Incidentally, I read somewhere that beef was banned in Japan for around 1200 years, and then as recent the the late 1800s, a king revoked the ban considering it to be irrational. I wonder if the ban will ever be revoked in India?

Edamame
These are fresh soy beans boiled in salt water and served with the pods. A great snack that goes well with shochu and sake!



Wasabi
Its a green colored paste used as an accompaniment with many other dishes. Made from Japanese horseradish, this is one tongue burning, hot paste!

Tempura
Very similar to Tamilnadu's bajji, this consists of vegetables or seafood dipped in batter and fried. A good, crispy snack! Mmmmm!!!!!



Japanese cuisine is varied and takes a lot of influence from other cultures. There are many places that also serve "curry and rice". Definitely looks like an Indian influence, though Japanese curry is quite different from Indian curry. If there is such a thing called Indian "curry" since curry is a British term rather than something used in India.!

If you ever visit Japan, be bold and try out all this food! Its very unique and believe me, delicious!

Some very cool do-it-yourself gadgets

15 very cool DIY gadgets have been listed here. From a Night Vision headset to Rubik's Cube solving robot to a 3D object scanner, the DIY projects here are simply amazing!

A good friend of mine who is a Financial Business Analyst just posted this question in a mailing list -

Can anyone explain me with examples as to who is the floating ratepayer/fixed rate payer in a receiver/payer Swaption???? Have been breaking my head over it.. Please don't Google and paste.

Needless to say, I had to give an appropriate answer which my b-school Financial Management professor would have been proud of. The answer follows -

Sure!

During a Swaption session, the payer is the one who swaps money that he carries in his wallet with the product. The receiver is the person who swaps the product that he's selling for money. Now if the payer throwsthe money into the air and it floats, then he becomes a floating payer.The time duration for which the money floats in the air before gravity takes over is called as the floating rate. If the floating rate ishigher, then the payer is a floating rate payer. If the payer has some manners and keeps the money on a desk or gives it to the receiver, he becomes a fixed payer. 'Fixed rate payer' as such does not have any difference to 'Fixed payer', but the terminology is used widely in the investment banking industry in that famous street in New York whose name I cant recollect, but know that the street has a lot of walls...

Hope you liked the definition. Perhaps a google cut-paste might have been better?

I'm not sure if my friend's customers would have appreciated this kind of explanation during a consultation session, but hey, it doesn't cost much to churn out free information, right? :-)

Bottomlines force new loyalties

The political parties in Tamilnadu always rely on their own TV channels and newspapers to convey their absolutely non-neutral viewpoints to the audience. DMK and Sun TV/Dinakaran used to be like carrots and peas (or parotta and salna). However, these days it seems that Dinakaran and Sun TV have started to increase their coverage of Amma, finding no more support from the DMK. Has the face of politics in TN started to change?

Banker wearing 'For Hire' sign

This USA Today news item shows an unemployed financial engineer standing with a 'For Hire' sign. Is the US economy really entering depression?

Moving skyscraper planned in Dubai

A skyscraper has been planned in Dubai. So what, you might ask. It so happens that the tower design is made up of 80 pre-fabricated apartments which will spin independently of one another! This means that the building will look different each time one of the floors decide to go for a spin! Read more in this BBC News article...

Fun facts about Rajnikanth!

Received a forward from a friend of mine on things that only Rajnikanth can do! Here they are -

- Rajanikanth makes onions cry
- Rajanikanth can delete the Recycle Bin.
- Ghosts are actually caused by Rajanikanth killing people faster than Death can process them.
- Rajanikanth can build a snowman..... out of rain.
- Rajanikanth can strangle you with a cordless phone.
- Rajanikanth can drown a fish.
- When Rajanikanth enters a room, he doesn't turn the lights on............ he turns the dark off.
- When Rajanikanth looks in a mirror the mirror shatters, because not even glass is stupid enough to get in between Rajanikanth and Rajanikanth.
- Brett Favre can throw a football over 50 yards. Rajanikanth can throw Brett Favre even further.
- The last digit of pi is Rajanikanth. He is the end of all things.
- Rajanikanth does not know where you live, but he knows where you will die.
- Bullets dodge Rajanikanth.
- A handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Rajanikanth and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
- Rajanikanth' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd, no one fools Rajanikanth.
- If you spell Rajanikanth wrong on Google it doesn't say, "Did you mean Rajanikanth?" It simply replies, "Run while you still have the chance."
- Rajanikanth can do a wheelie on a unicycle.
- Once a cobra bit Rajanikanth' leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
- When Rajanikanth gives you the finger, he's telling you how many seconds you have left to live. - Rajanikanth can kill two stones with one bird.
- Rajanikanth was once on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and was the first to spin. The next 29 minutes of the show consisted of everyone standing around awkwardly, waiting for the wheel to stop.
- Leading hand sanitizers claim they can kill 99.9 percent of germs. Rajanikanth can kill 100 percent of whatever he wants.
- There is no such thing as global warming. Rajanikanth was cold, so he turned the sun up.
- Rajanikanth can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. At night.
- Rajanikanth has a deep and abiding respect for human life unless it gets in his way.
- It takes Rajanikanth 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.
- Rajanikanth once shot down a fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, "Bang!"
- In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Rajanikanth could use to kill you, including the room itself.
- Behind every successful man, there is a woman. Behind every dead man, there is Rajanikanth. - Rajanikanth destroyed the periodic table, because Rajanikanth only recognizes the element of surprise.
- Rajanikanth got his drivers license at the age of 16 Seconds.
- With the rising cost of gasoline, Rajanikanth is beginning to worry about his drinking habit.
- The square root of Rajanikanth is pain. Do not try to square Rajanikanth, the result is death.
- When you say "no one's perfect", Rajanikanth takes this as a personal insult.
:-)

Holographic mobile handsets

Holographic mobile handsets capable of projecting, capturing and sending 3D images have been developed by .... Infosys! Wait a minute! I didn't even know until now that Infy was into making mobile handsets! Need to check the veracity of this article published on ZDNet....

WiCamp at Wipro, Chennai on June 13th

This Friday the 13th doesn't seem to be that unlucky of a day! 'Cos a WiCamp (pronounced We-Camp) will be held at Wipro Technologies, OMR, Sholinganallur, Chennai.

More details at http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/WiCampChennai

Birthday gifts by political leaders

An article in NDTV states that hotel owners in Tamilnadu have decided to reduce prices of food sold in their hotels to the common man as a birthday gift to Mr. Karunanidhi, the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu! Good for us! Here are more suggestions for gifts that us common folks can recommend to celebrate the birthday of many other celebrities!

1) For T. Rajendar's birthday - all hair saloons to offer a free shave and haircut
2) For Captain's birthday - all optical shops will give out free red coloured contact lenses
3) For Kamalhassan's birthday - all products sold will be in multiples of 10, but you can pay for just one item
4) For Ajith's birthday - all parotta stalls to give 'thala kari' free
5) For Vijay's birthday - firecracker shops in Sivakasi to give out free 'kuruvi vedis'.

Feel free to add more to the list!

Indian doctor's stem cell therapy makes Australian man better

Certain forms of Stem Cell Therapy is banned in several western nations, but is allowed in several Asian countries like India, Singapore and South Korea.

A recent NYT article has Cynthia Fox, the author of "Cell of Cells" stating "Asian religions worry less than Western religions that biotechnology is about 'playing God'". Rapid strides have, therefore, been made in stem cell therapy in many Asian nations, and the latest to benefit from this is Perry Cross, an Australian man who was left quadriplegic by a rugby game reportedly started showing significant progress following three months of treatment in India. This is what Fox News has to say about it.

Hopefully, the richer western nations will start looking at such forms of therapy as less of an intrusion into religious beliefs, and more of a way to make this world a better place to live in.

IBM goes the Social Media Way!

IBM seems to have embraced Web 2.0 features in the workplace. From using 'Dogear' - a community tagging system like Del.icio.us, 'Blue Twit' - their version of Twitter and 'Beehive' - based on Facebook, IBM seems to be experimenting with ways to have their 400,000 or so employees bond with each other, and hopes that this will foster better knowledge sharing and lead to innovation. Read more on it here....

6 Questions Unanswered by Science or Religion

Being the sceptic that I am, my mind refuses to accept simplistic answers to the complex questions that plague people (or atleast some people)! Here are six questions that I wonder will be answered in my lifetime.

1. What was there before the universe was formed (either by the Big Bang or by the entity known as God), and what will be there if the universe as we know it comes to an end?
2. What happens after a human or animal dies? (Well, the animal usually becomes an ingredient at McDonald's or Ponnusamy, but you know what I mean)!
3. Do ghosts, spirits, ghouls etc. exist?
4. Why do placebos work on some people? Is the power of belief so strong that it defies logic?
5. Is there intelligent life in outer space?
6. Why do Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton behave the way they do?

If you have the answers, let me know!

Limerick News - Phoenix Lander

There was a vessel named Phoenix Lander
That NASA built as an ice and life finder
In Mars it landed quite safely
The scientific world cheered happily
Images of ice the probe plans to render.

NASA's Phoenix Lander spacecraft had a picture perfect landing in the planet Mars. The craft plans to search for signs of ice and life in the planet. Read more on this....

Top 25 blogs as rated by TIME magazine

TIME magazine has come up with a list of top 25 blogs. Some of the usual suspects like the Huffington Post and Boing Boing are part of the list, but do check as there are other good offbeat ones as well.

The parrot who helped itself!

One day, a parrot called Yosuke Nakamura flew out of its cage and got lost. Unlike most other birds, guess what this parrot did to return to its owner....

Google's Friend Connect

Google's coming up with a service called Friend Connect that lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. Their website says "Visitors bring along friends from social networks like Facebook, orkut, and others to interact on your site." Sounds pretty interesting!
Wonder if this will lead us to witness a spurt in personal website development activity!

Limerick News - Hillary

There was a lady in the US named Hillary
Who paid her campaign team hefty salary
To win her a superdelegate
They campaigned until very late
But she lost to Obama in many a Primary.

Balaji is back with a bang! Watch the 3 deliveries that's made IPL history!


Courtesy: YouTube