Last of the Jews in Cochin

I had no plan of doing anything wonderful today other than to enjoy the magnificient view that FORT KOCHI offered.We visited the oldest Synagogue(a jewish church) in Kerala.It was simply great.

Jew Street

Synagogue-Jewish Church

Her name.. Reema Salem..one of the last jews in Kerala

But all our plans changed when my friend Dhruv Nambiar put forward his wish of visiting the last jews of Jew Town(It was only then i came to know that the number of jews in Cochin were depleting).Well,we were all a bit reluctant to meet them after we heard from the local people that they were rude and didn't like anyone meeting them.But it was my friend Jackson Thomas who took the first step.He stood outside their door for some time which seem'd like ages to me.Then some one came out asking.."What do you want?".We expressed our interest.He went inside and came out with an old lady.She was a very fair........a jew,indeed.I first had a small doubt about the language we had to adopt to converse with her.......english perhaps.But my doubt melted away when i heard her speak pure malayalam..........much better than me!!!She spoke about her ancestors who came all the way from Israel and about her sons and daughters who are now settled in Canada.Her attitude towards us was so contradictory to what the local people said.She was so happy in her 80s......even allowed us to take a photograph with her which she used to refuse even journalists.

End of a day-Fort Kochi Beach 

Todays trip really was extremely refreshing........

Electronic Skin Tattooing!!!!!

I couldn't believe when I first read it........I woke up early and read the newspaper that which was unusual ofcourse.I couldn't help noticing the "Fact of the Day" coloumn. It was about  Electronic Skin. Then i thought........that surely is a wonderful innovation.I browsed the internet for the topic and voila.....it was der..."ELECTRONIC SKIN TATTOOING".It would be cool if people could tattoo something that would read their heart rate,brain waves,temperature.The tattoo is supposed to be temporary and can be removed.

So, there is a flexible electronic circuit which moves with the skin and stay in place without any adhesive. The existing semiconductor technology is used to imprint integrated circuits onto a thin, flexible silicon film that can be applied directly on the skin. The wireless electronic tattoo is a 50-nanometer-thick silicon membrane which is highly flexible and does not required any irritating adhesive gel or tape.

The ultra-flexible patches were made via transfer printing (or “inking and printing”), in which the chips are assembled on two silicon layers and then transferred onto the elastomer polymer base material, which is designed to conform to the skin.

I saw this video on youtube which shows how this stuff works......

This thing is huge possibility in biomedical field as you thought.But it is not really clear that how easily this device can be used to track,spy and monitor peoples activity.This surely can have a lot of controversial issues in fields apart from medical.

Independent India

I was woken up by my seniors today at my hostel,"Come quick.It'll start soon".Well then I remembered......Yes today was the day.....the day which is being celebrated every year in order to remember that glorious day when Britishers gave up all hope of keeping India under its control.

                           The flag is being hoisted! I felt a wave of patriotism within me.To be honest the same feeling comes only twice in a year,one during the independence day and other ,republic day and more often when you see a bollywood patriotic movie.

                       

                          This photo was taken by my friend Jishnu V Nair and he commented on the photo,"Technology isn't reaching its peak due to corruption" .It took a few seconds for me to click that  what he meant by technology was the electric tower.On the second thought I really felt that our largely ignorant and reticent population needs to wake up and take charge. We invariably choose compromise over collaboration when it comes to countering community problems.  No wonder, whether sport, medicine, commerce or academics, our success emanates largely from exceptional individual brilliance, not strong-willed team work.  Whatever our field, whichever the profession, larger issues like matters like civic sense and national pride remain the same. As the tri-colour unfurls in its full splendor on the 15th day of this August, let’s introspect on to how we can together make a positive difference for the nation - whether through Eco-friendly practices, energy-efficient measures, community service participation, financial contribution, fighting corruption or cost-effective innovation.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!

Linux Ubuntu-An amateur Introduction

Let me put it this way.....A young guy was fed with ordinary cornflakes his entire lyf telling him wat he ate  was the best available.But one day he came across some flavoured ones and decided to try it out.The second he tried out the new flavours,the taste of the flavours he never experienced in his entire lyf gave him a kind of ecstacy.....yes, the same kind of ecstacy which i am experiencing now while using the ubuntu version of linux.
                          During my intial days of relationship with computer,i have never come across any other operating system other than windows.In fact i did not even know wat an operating system was.I got used to windows very fast.it started with windows98 where i learned the basics of the system.Later it was windows XP.Did not even dare to use vista after all kinds of negative reviews circling around me.But i really wanted to try out Vista because it attracted with me  new kind of style & accent.But i thought i would stick on with XP.
                      It was this period when i was introduced to Linux.Linux was beautiful,perfect fit. OK.....let me get it straight......Microsoft windows is a very ugly girl who is dressed up in a gorgeous fitting while linux is a beautiful girl who is simple in dressing and fashion.
                Plus points of windows were negligibly small when compared with that of linux.The style that attracted me to vista,the workability of XP and the capability of Windows 7 were all in linux there at the same time.
                   While comparing windows and linux each other lots of peoples have one thing in mind that linux is more secure against viruses.This could be the one from many reasons that linux is widely being used on servers but if we think about why linux is secure against viruses than windows,we will have lots of reasons in mind.WEll a few could be

1) User Privileges.

In linux no user is given administrative Privileges rather than root therefore linux doesn’t allow a normal user to write any system file.Only root user can install software and can edit system file so if you need to install any software or need to edit any configuration file you will have use su – command.

2) No Executables.

Like windows linux doesn’t support .exe files. Most of the viruses in windows are being spread with .exe files what happens you just double click on .exe file and virus,trojan or malware easily integrate itself with windows.

3) No Registry.

Registry is another place where viruses put their information so what happens even if you delete files infected with virus.It rewrites its information from registry and it is also too difficult to find where virus hides its information in registry.Linux uses configuration files rather than registry so another big hole for viruses is closed and as i mentioned in point 1 that linux doesn’t allow any normal user to edit system files.

4) No Internet Explorer (IE)

Internet Explorer (IE) which is installed in windows by default is another big hole for virus.It has been proved by many times by research that IE is has lots of vulnerabilities.Linux has Mozilla firefox browser installed by default which is the most secure browser and blocks most of viruses and trojans and doesn’t allow any website to install any software without your permission.

5) Linux is not so common like windows.

Although developers of linux has improved it a lot and has also worked to make it user friendly but still linux is unsuccessful to capture most of the desktop users.Most of the viruses are made for desktop users rather than servers because servers are monitored by system administrators and have security softwares,Hardware firewalls and much more to protect them against viruses.Because linux is not common like windows number of viruses created for linux is also minimum.

I really recommend u guys to use linux ubuntu as ur operating system.

LED Cube

Being just a beginner in the world of electronics is not such a gr8 thing!

But for a beginner such a project would be a dream come true.When i found this stuff on the net i thought it would be gr8  for me & my group to present such a wonderful lighting system for our  
techfest{EXCEL 2011}.Being a biomedical enthusiast and the design of the cube being a bit complicated we dropped the projects.but i surely would like to share it with u guys.In my personal opinion this cube right there in ur screen could be the future of 3-D imaging.Go ahead and try working it out!!!

"How to make an 8x8x8 LED Cube"

Biomedical Engineer Rated As Best Career in 2011 by U.S. News & World Report

Biomedical Engineer Rated As Best Career in 2011 by U.S. News & World Report