1 Million Facebook Likes: The Celebrations

It’s interesting to think about what a million Facebook fans might really mean to a brand, of course, that will change from brand to brand in itself, but it’s great to see the “Million Fan Thankyou” trend emerging of late, and to give you an example, here are two videos. The first from Heineken, who sent out a hug team in Amsterdam the day they reached the big one million. Meanwhile, Porsche created a specific car covered in everyone of the million Facebook Fans…

Bar Inside a Tree in Africa

A bar inside the trunk of a Baobab tree has tourists flocking from far and wide just to drink a cold brew in the amazing tavern. It was fashioned inside a massive 72 foot (22 meters) high tree in a garden in Limpopo, South Africa, for thirsty locals.

The amazing Big Baobab Pub, complete with a phone and dartboard, hollowed into a tree.

Grown in the grounds of Sunland Farm, the tree trunk is so wide it takes 40 adults with outstretched arms to encircle its 155 foot (48 meters) circumference. The trunk is hollow, but its walls are still up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) thick.

The tree has its own cellar, with natural ventilation to keep the beer cold.

Carbon-dating has determined the ancient tree to be about 6,000 years old. “This tree is likely to be older than the Giza Pyramids of Egypt.” said Heather van Heerden, owner of Sunland Farm.

“It is phenomenal to have such a magnificent tree in your back garden. It is possibly the biggest living thing on earth.” she adds.

More than 7,000 visitors come from all over the world to see the grandiose Baobab every year and have a drink in its pub, which has 13 foot (4 meter) high ceilings and comfortably seats up to 15 people.

“One year we had a party and squashed 54 people inside, but I wouldn’t recommend that.” said Mrs. van Heerden.

She and her husband Doug came up with the brainchild to set a bar up inside when they found a natural hollow in the Baobabb shortly after they bought the farm in the late 1980’s.

“When Baobabs are more than 1,000 years old, they hollow naturally.” said Mrs. van Heerden.

The pub has surprisingly plenty of space for customers to sit.

While clearing out the hollow centre of the tree trunk, the van Heerdens found historical evidence of Bushmen — indigenous people of the Kalahari desert — who may have once lived in the tree, and artifacts belonging to the Voortrekkers, the Dutch pioneers who travelled through South Africa in the mid-1800’s.

“We found the remains of a Bushmen bed made from rocks, possibly in the 1700’s.” says van Heerden. “We could also gather that a Voortrekker once lived here who repaired ox wagons for the Great Trek because we found tools and wagon pieces.”

The Bushmen of the Kalahari have long had a unique relationship with the peculiar looking tree, which stands leafless for the better part of the year, with its branches resembling a mass of roots pointing upwards to the sky.

How Companies Got their Name

Mercedes:
This was actually financier's daughter's name

Adobe:
This came from the name of the riverAdobe Creek that ran behind the house of founder John Warnock

Apple Computers:
It was the favourite fruit of founder Steve Jobbs. He was three months late for filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 o'clock that day

CISCO:
It is not an acronym as popularly believed. It is short for San Francisco .

Compaq:
This name was formed by using COMp, for computer and PAQ to denote a small integral object

Corel:
The name was derived from the founder's name Dr. Michael Cowpland. It stands for COwpland Research Laboratory.

Google:
The name started as a joke boasting about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol',a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders - Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Pagepresented their project to an angel investor; they received a cheque made out to 'Google'.

Hotmail:
Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters"html" - the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective uppercasing

Hewlett Packard :
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Intel:
Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company ' Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.

Lotus (Notes) :
Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana' . Kapor used to be a teacher of transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Microsoft:
Coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.

Motorola:
Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.

Sony:
It originated from the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.

SUN:
Founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym forStanford University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim built a microcomputer;Vinod Khosla recruited him and Scott McNealy to manufacture computers based on it, and Bill Joy to develop a UNIX-based OS for the computer.

Apache:
It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon.. The result was 'A PAtCHy' server --thus, the name Apache Jakarta (project from Apache):A project constituted by SUN and Apache to create a web server handling servlets and JSPs. Jakarta was name of the conference room at SUN where most of the meetings between SUN and Apache took place.

C:
Dennis Ritchie improved on the B programming language and called it 'New B'.He later called it C. Earlier B was created by Ken Thompson as a revision of the Bon programming language (named after his wife Bonnie).

C++:
Bjarne Stroustrup called his new language 'C with Classes' and then 'newC'. Because of which the original C began to be called 'old C' which was considered insulting to the C community. At this time Rick Mascittisuggested the name C++ as a successor to C.

Java:
Originally called Oak by creator James Gosling, from the tree that stood outside his window, the programming team had to look for a substitute as there was no other language with the same name. Java was selected from a list of suggestions. It came from the name of the coffee that the programmers drank.

LG:
Combination of two popular Korean brands Lucky and Goldstar.

Linux:
Linus Torvalds originally used the Minix OS on his system which here placed by his OS. Hence the working name was Linux (Linus' Minix). He thought the name to be too egotistical and planned to name it Freax(free+ freak + x).His friend Ari Lemmke encouraged Linus to upload it to a network so it could be easily downloaded. Ari gave Linus a directory called linux on his FTP server, as he did not like the name Freax.(Linus' parents named him after two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling) .

Mozilla:
When Marc Andreesen, founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace Mosaic (also developed by him), it was named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) .The marketing guys didn't like the name however and it was  re-christened Netscape Navigator.

Red Hat:
Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. He lost it and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone!

SAP:
"Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formed by 4 ex-IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applicatio ns/Projects' group of IBM.

SCO (UNIX):
From Santa Cruz Operation. The company's office was in Santa Cruz .

UNIX:
When Bell Labs pulled out of MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing System), which was originally a joint Bell/GE/MIT project, KenThompson and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs wrote a simpler version of the OS.They needed the OS to run the game Space War which was compiled underMULTICS. It was called UNICS - UNIplexed operating and Computing System by Brian Kernighan. It was later shortened to UNIX.

Xerox:
The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry' (asit was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer' means dry.

Yahoo!:
The word was invented by Jonathan Swiftand used in his book 'Gulliver's Travels' . It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang andDavid Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.

3M:
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company started off by mining the material corundum used to make sandpaper.

The Ball Of the Millennium

Well , this is truly the ball of the Millennium nothing can beat this

Connecting Facebook’s Dots

Victoria's Secret!!!

Best Son ever a Dad Could Have

Legendary Lungi

Just as the national bird of Kerala is Mosquito, her national dress is 'Lungi'. Pronounced as 'Lu' as in loo and 'ngi ' as in 'mongey', a lungi can be identified by its floral or window-curtain pattern. 'Mundu' is the white variation of lungi and is worn on special occasions like hartal or bandh days, weddings and Onam.  

Lungi is simple and 'down to earth' like the mallu wearing it. Lungi is the beginning and the end of evolution in its category. Wearing something on the top half of your body is optional when you are wearing a lungi. Lungi is a strategic dress. It's like a one-size-fits- all bottoms for Keralites. The technique of wearing a lungi/mundu is passed on from generation to generation through word of mouth like the British Constitution. If you think it is an easy task wearing it, just try it once! It requires techniques like breath control and yoga that is a notch higher than sudarshan kriya of AOL. A lungi/mundu when perfectly worn won't come off even in a quake of 8 on the richter scale. A lungi is not attached to the waist using duct tape, staple, rope or velcro. It's a bit of mallu magic whose formula is a closely guarded secret like the Coca Cola chemicals.  

A lungi can be worn 'Full Mast' or 'Half Mast' like a national flag. A 'Full Mast' lungi is when you are showing respect to an elderly or the dead. Wearing it at full mast has lots of disadvantages. A major disadvantage is when a dog runs after you. When you are wearing alungi/mundu at full mast, the advantage is mainly for the female onlookers who are spared the ordeal of swooning at the sight of hairy legs. Wearing a lungi 'Half Mast' is when you wear it exposing yourself like those C grade movie starlets. A mallu can play cricket, football or simbly run when the lungi is worn at half mast. A mallu can even climb a coconut tree wearing lungi in half mast. "It's not good manners, especially for ladies from decent families, to look up at a mallu  climbing a coconut tree"- Confucius (or is it Abdul Kalam?)


Most mallus do the traditional dance kudiyattam. Kudi means drinking alcohol and yattam, spelled as aattam, means random movement of the male body. Note that 'y' is silent. When you are drinking, you drink, there is no 'y'. Any alcohol related "festival" can be enjoyed to the maximum when you are topless with lungi and a towel tied around the head. "Half mast lungi makes it easy to dance and shake legs" says Candelaria Amaranto, a Salsa teacher from Spain after watching 'kudiyaattam' . The 'Lungi Wearing Mallu Union' [LUWMU, pronounced LOVE MU], an NGO which works towards the 'upliftment' of the lungi, strongly disapprove of the GenNext tendency of wearing Bermudas under the lungi. Bermudas under the lungi is a conspiracy by the CIA. It's a disgrace to see a person wearing bermuda with corporate logos under his lungi. What they don't know is how much these corporates are limiting their freedom of movement and expression. 


A mallu wears lungi round the year, all weather, all season. A mallu celebrates winter by wearing a colourful lungi with a floral pattern. Lungi provides good ventilation and brings down the heat between legs. A mallu is scared of global warming more than anyone else in the world. A lungi/mundu can be worn any time of the day/night. It doubles as blanket at night. It also doubles up as a swing, swimwear, sleepingbag, parachute, facemask while entering/exiting toddy shops, shopping basket and water filter while fishing in ponds and rivers. It also has recreational uses like in 'Lungi/mundu pulling', a pastime in households having more than one male member. Lungi pulling competitions are held outside toddyshops all over Kerala during Onam and Vishu. 

When these lungis are decommissioned from service, they become table cloths.  


Credits :- Original Uploader

College Days - Dedicated to all my fellow ACPIANS and SIESCOMITES

Hey Guys,

Thought this would be the apt time to share this video. With not more than 3 months remaining in the college life...All I want to do is enjoy my College Days..and I bet so are my other friends tooo

Dedicated to all ACPIANS who all are already missing their College Days and to my fellow SIESCOMITES who will be missing them in a few months

THE HUMAN CAMERA

I was just spellbound how could Stephen Whiltshire do this ...Much more than Photographic memory

{Exclusive} The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Official Trailer

Finally, the much awaited Chronicles of Narnia is here :)...Have a sneak peek ..Enjoy..Lemme know your views

"Women Want More" reveals an interesting survey done A.C Nielsen

Thanks to :- www.yahoo.com (Pssst.. I copy pasted it :D)

The pillow talk of new millennium couples in the 2010 INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex survey tells an unprecedented story of women's arousal being thwarted and of romance gone sour. Call it the Eat Pray Love moment in the life of the modern Indian woman. Just as the lead character, Elizabeth Gilbert (Julia Roberts in the film) was asked by her Balinese healer to "pray for sex", the survey finds Indian women meditating intently on the prayer beads of fulfilling and wholesome sex.

Shatter those stereotypes that tell you women are not as interested in sex as men are. Overturn the idea that women favour a romantic encounter - a walk in the rain, a bouquet of roses - while men prefer to fall into bed. Check out the intricacies of the new woman's erotic litany: sex is crucial, say 70 per cent of women. No wonder, they are eager to make their sexual lives more exciting, with new situations (67 per cent) and positions (20 per cent), new types of foreplay (24 per cent), and sex anytime, anywhere. Pleasure is paramount, their own and that of their partners' (57 per cent). But that quest for hardcore sexuality is squashing intimacy and romance faster than bedbugs.

There she is, fragrant on bath salts, waiting for him to look up and notice her in her lacy camisole. And there he is, sprawled on the bed, flipping channels languidly, spoilt for choice between cricket and pole dancing on the telly. He finally looks up, yawns and reaches out for her. She looks disgusted and hisses at him, "Undress yourself." And she is not alone. Between 2003, when INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex survey first focused on "What Women Want" and now, the percentage of women not interested in "undressing" their partners as a preferred mode of foreplay has petered down from 16 per cent to 8 per cent.

Buried deep in this survey is another story: the growing happiness gap between men and women. While women show rising levels of dissatisfaction, men are full of buzz about their current sex life. Many more men than women are having weekly sex. They are more happy with foreplay than women. And more open about their own pleasures. Unlike women, an overwhelming percentage of men say their partners are "sensitive toward their sexual needs". While women don't seem to be too happy with the "sexual involvement of partners", men are.

Twice as many men have sexual fantasies and they are three times more likely to share those. Not just that. They are more contented with life in general than women - much more satisfied with their jobs and just as happy as women with their health, social, family and financial lives. About a 100 years back, Sigmund Freud had famously confessed that the one great question he could never answer was: "What does a woman want?" Today's Indian men do not seem interested in asking that question, as yet. "Women's sexuality is much more complex than men's ," says clinical psychologist therapist Shelja Sen of Delhi. "A lot of it is triggered by emotional, intellectual and relationship-based factors rather than the simple physical response required by a man. The brain is the crucial sexual organ in a woman."

That mind-body route to sexuality takes strange forms. Dr Neena Malhotra sees a host of patients walking through the doors of the infertility clinic at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, who have surprisingly low coital frequency. "They are not just weighed down by erratic work hours and stress, they also don't know that a fulfilling sex life needs a boost," she says. "They roam around the shopping malls, watch TV till midnight and then there is not much time for sex." The survey tells the same story. Between 2003 and 2010, there has been a 5 per cent drop among women having sex more than once a week.

Excitement about sex life has shrunk by 10 per cent among women, satisfaction after sex has come down by 11 per cent. Significantly, the focus on "own pleasure" is riding a steady upward curve. At the root of this pleasure quest could be the post-modern woman's desire to take charge of her own destiny. And, as matrimonial sites point out, it starts early. Courtships in arranged marriages these days find city girls asking some tough questions to their would-bes, as reported by a 2009 partner preference study by Bharat Matrimony: from "how close do you want to live to your parents?" to "do you expect me to stop working once we have children?" And, of course, the inevitable: "What's your idea of spending alone time?" "Compatibility is emerging as the primary evaluation criteria," says Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO, Bharat Matrimony. "This is one area where we see the most dramatic changes."

There is, obviously, a paradox at work. Those demands for companionate autonomy seem to take a serious beating once the mundaneness of everyday life kicks in (to 42 per cent men and women "quality time at home" constitutes a "perfect romantic day"). No wonder, the imagined world of romance leads to disenchantment and forced reconciliation of reality with fantasy.

To begin with, fewer women find their partners "romantic" than men (51:66 per cent). While 71 per cent of men share their sexual fantasies with partners, just 12 per cent women find men enthusiastic about theirs. To top it all, women don't seem to be "talking" to men to communicate their needs: those willing to discuss disappointing sex has dropped by 8 per cent between 2003 and 2010. But in a new turn, women seem keen to "tell" their partners that extra-marital liberties on their part would be promptly reciprocated.

"Why can't a woman be more like a man?" mused Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. Today's Indian woman would have made him happy. Her new assertion for sexual fulfillment and dissatisfaction with the status quo tell the new story of femininity. As filmmaker Aparna Sen says: "I like today's woman. I like her spirit of independence, of her effort to control her own destiny. She might be confused and sometimes impatient with relationships, but she is brave." The plot and characters in the battle of the sexes are shifting. Let's wait for romance and enchantment to return to the bedroom.

RajnKanthi's Top Ten Jokes

How can my blog be complete without Rajni, as a result while browsing I stumbled upon "Top Ten Rajnikanth's Jokes" in Yahoo , and guess I couldn't resist sharing it with you :)

Here it goes

1. Rajinikanth doesn’t wear a watch. He decides what time it is.
2. Rajinikanth has already been to Mars, that’s why there are no signs of life there.
3. Rajinikanth killed the dead sea.
4. If you spell ‘Rajanikant’ wrong on Google it doesn’t say, “Did you mean Rajinikanth?” It simply replies, “Run while you still have the chance.”
5. Rajinikanth can play the violin with a piano
6. Rajnikanth once wrote a cheque, the bank bounced!
7. Micheal Jordan to Rajini: I can spin a ball on my finger for over two hours. Can you?
   Rajni: Rascala; how do you think the earth spins!?
8. Rajinikanth once ordered a plate of idli in McDonald’s, and got it.
9. If Rajnikant was born 100 years earlier, British would have fought to get independence from India.
10. When Rajnikant logs on to facebook.com, facebook updates its status message!
11. Rajni once killed 20 men just by saying "BANG"
12. Rajinikanth knows Victoria’s secret.
13. Rajinikanth can divide by zero.
14. Rajinikanth has counted to infinity, twice.
15. When Rajinikanth gives you the finger, he's telling you how many seconds you have left to live.

P.S:- Since it was Rajni,they couldn't list just 10 hence the additional five :)

Cheers!!!

Exams Stressful ?? Naaah Not always..

23rd Nov...hmm was waiting for this day from a long time.The only reason being for this being end of exams.It all began on 15th Nov.
Never thought I would enjoy giving exams..Well no, Don't start making faces....What I meant was I had fun studying ..Its always fun to study in a group and this time was no different.
Thanks to my super cool friends never felt the stress behind it.Sleeping at 3 am and waking up @ 5.30 am  then lazing till 7am was a routine.
Right after the exams each day, rushing to home and sleeping for 2 hrs ..Aaaaah will surely miss it ..The fact that I spent 7 days with my friends in their home is something to cherish.
Laughing like hell, at midnight and then at the next moment, being dead serious about studies next moment is some transitions we had constantly throughout this week, day in and day out.
Sometimes or should I say every time ,we even had the audacity to play NFS just hours before the exams and yet, come with a smile from the Exam hall.
Watever being said, I am surely gonna miss these days especially these EXAM days not for the knowledge I gained ,but for the fun I had or all my friends   ( Subu,Shannon,Ojas, Rohit) had.

Cheers Guys & Hope we can do it one last time in Sem 4 , though this time it will have to be my ROOM :))

Benny Lava....Hillarious is the WORD!!!

Amazing video ... Some regional song...with subtitles..which is not the actual translation of the song but how it sounds ...Just look how funny it is..to see what it means in English

Sheela ki Jawaani -- Is this truly the Item song of the year???

Awaiting you comments :)

Communication Gap

An Indian man named “Parthu” made a speech a while ago about his adventures trying to communicate with Americans shortly after coming to the United States. The English language can indeed be really confusing.

$8 million worth I phone 4 ..Is it worth it??

Stuart Hughes, the British jeweler known for his expensive remakes of popular gadgets, is at it again, this time with a diamond-clad iPhone 4 with a price tag of 5 million pounds, or roughly $8 million.
The handmade bezel contains approximately 500 individual flawless diamonds that total more than 100 carats; there’s 53 additional diamonds in the back, and the main navigation button is made of platinum, holding a single cut 7.4 carat pink diamond. If you know diamonds, all of this probably means something to you; to us, it just sounds really, really expensive.
Only two of these will ever be made, so don’t worry: if you buy one, the chances of bumping into someone who has the exact same phone at a party are quite slim

Source:- www.mashable.com 

Facebook values more than ebay, Dell

We know how important Facebook has become to our lives today.Be in touch with hundreds of friends at one click.Nothing like it.

In Feb 2009, Facebook, was valued at $3.7 billion. Now with more than 500 million users The Financial Times announced it as a $33 billion company.

Being just a private company, it surpasses many iconic brands like , some given below

• eBay: $32 billion
• Costco: $27.5 billion
• Research in Motion: $26 billion
• Dell: $23.8 billion
• Starbucks: $19.2 billion
• Yahoo: $19.1 billion
• Staples: $14.8 billion
• Intuit: $14.3 billion
• Adobe: $14 billion

 All I could say is " I Like it"

Source:- www.mashable.com

Ganesha Calling!!!

Well what can you call it luck , fate or whatever, but on Saturday 18th Sept, when i went with my friends Vivek,Shreejith,Rajkiran ( My Bro),Ajit,Vikrant and Ashish to get the blessings of LalBaugcha Raja ( King of a place called "Lalbaug" in Mumbai, i.e the idol of Lord Ganesha installed there) i had to return with a sorry face because of the Kms and Kms of beeline formed by his devotees.

The crowd seen there was unimaginable.How can you imagine thousands of people on the road blocking the traffic?? Insane aint it??..Well that was the scene in Lalbaug that day and I felt that I wont be graced by his darshan.And 7 of us, had to walk all the way from Lalbaug to Mumbai C.S.T a good 10-15 Kms at 1.00 am with sheer disappointment.


Reaching home @ 5 am on Sunday morning completely exhausted all I could think of was a "Good Morning" sleep. We became a laughing stock for many of our friends back home. We gave up the hope of going back there at least for this year..And I was literally praying for some miracle to happen.Considering it being 9th day and with only 3 more days to go in the festival i stood a bleak chance of making it.

Sunday, 19th Sept went by with no real hope and just keeping a tab of my assignments.Boring day for me even though it was a holiday.

Come Monday morning, I woke up with all new hope and texted one of my Best friends in college Shashank, of any chance of getting the darshan of the Lord.And as luck would have it , He was getting ready to go to Lalbaug instantly I made my mind to bunk my college and go with him.But as they say you need to wade through the obstacles to get to him, So I had to give a quick presentation @ college to get to him , Thanks to my professors I was free by 1 pm and then I rushed to reach Lalbaug and i made it by 2.00 there.

The beeline was looking small and we were hopeful of making it this time. And at that moment, as we were praying, Shashank was reminded of this Brother in Law who was the security in charge over there. He rang him up and asked if its possible to get the Darshan. So hopeful he was , he got a wide smile on his face and his BIL said a YES!!!!!!

Next 60 min till 3.15 went in waiting for his BIL, Once he came in it was like a super fast express.Making his way through the beelines he took us near the Lord.And I was shocked in 10 min we were there. I never expected it to be so fast.It was like Ganesha called me and I was there in front of him.Me, Shashank and Mitesh who also gave us company were all shocked and elated.

We prayed and prayed and prayed to our heart's content and then made our way out.

So satisfied, honored and privileged we were that we couldn't contain our happiness and started calling our dear ones to inform this news.

After that and roaming around for some more time , I started heading back home and with a feeling that made me believe that " All u need is a calling, and rest is taken care of"

Thats it guys, Cya Cheers!!!

Ganpati Bapaa Maurya