Irish tone

A lovely Irish tune from the Corrs.



This is also the 100 th post on this blog. enjoy the music.

Tourist Scams- A wonderful list

An amazing list of tourist scams. Click here.

I have been caught in one so far. You can use Honk kong dollars in Macau and I was buying m&m's from a store in Macau. I gave a 50 Hong Kong dollar note and among the change returned, was a 20 MOP (Macauan currency) which i thought was 20 Hong Kong dollars.

Some simple rules that i can think of .

1. Trust no one.
2. Do not take help from strangers, if you can help it.
3. Stay off side alley's
4. Donot fall for the mysterious blond or brunette who seems to like you.
5. Keep your wallet safe. Wear a jeans with a tight front pocket or walk with your hands in the pocket at crowded places.

6. Verify the price of goods before buying/consuming it.
7. Count the currency at the counter so that fraudent claims are harder to make.

Other comments from readers
1. If you are in a bad neighborhood put up a face and make it look like you are a psychotic ruthless maniac yourself.

Another one hard to beat is this

I have only heard of this happening in Spain on the Costa del Sol, but it could happen anywhere. This scam depends on you paying a restaurant/bar bill in cash, usually with a €50 note. The waiter will take your payment, then return shortly after, apologetically telling you that the note is a fake and that you need to pay again. He will return the "fake" bill to you, and any change you're due. Of course, you gave him a REAL note, he gave you a FAKE note, and you gave him a second real note, so you paid €100 for a €50 meal. What I do now is write unobtrusively on all large notes I get, so I can challenge them if it happens to me.

That solution actually doesn't work. The waiter can hide the actual note and then produce a fake note.

Two posted solutions are interesting.

1. Stand up and make a scene. If it is a reputed restaurant, the manager will make sure that you that you will not be further harassed. It depends on the place, at some places it may not be a very good idea.

2. Pay in smaller denominations. This is by far the best solution I can see.

Happy touring!

Bottom 100 movies

Who knew imdb.com had a bottom 100 ranked movie list. check it out and stay away from them :)
Bottom 100, click here

Corr's

I have been listening to a lot of Corr's lately. Always has been an old time favorite.November is gone and December is here to give me company :-)

Vegetable Art

At a Microsoft event in Chennai

Sweet November

Things that i hoped wouldn't work didn't work and those which i hoped would work, worked :-) There is a mild whiff of cold in the air at nights. The rains have brought the temperature down and hopefully it stays that way. Another year is coming to an end. A little busier December with the work i need to complete on time. I don't know where i would be next January. I don't know what the future holds for me but it makes sense.

Aqua

Lounge-Snack bar

Down memory lane- A trip to Delhi

January 2008-To Delhi Monochrome


Balloon Vendor-Near India Gate




Indian Habitat Center

Bicycles in the rain this year

Happy Diwali

Parabola


Flower,light and the rain


Flower and the rain

Stock market madness

Image courtesy : imageshack.us
original location:
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5927/sharemarketcj9.png

The makeup detector

I usually didn't take much/any notice of makeup that people wear until once i went to meet an acquaintance near their hostel. This person was waiting outside the hostel gate. I arrived on time and began carefully looking around for the acquaintance, only in vain. Eventually, this person walks to me and says 'hi'. It was only then i realized that the person had worn no make up at all. It then made me realize, how a 'make up' can result in a 'make over'. Nevertheless, from that day on, i was keen on trying to detect how much make up a person really wears.
Initially i noticed that many folks wearing make up had a different skin tone at the back of their neck with respect to their face. The funny thing is that the mirror will only reflect the face and not the back part of the neck and its easy to forget the contrast. The same applies for hands and feet. All you need is to compare it with the face. This makes it easy to detect the variations and is probably a good way of getting a real idea of the actual tone of the skin.

Naturally folks get smarter and touch up the neck,hand and (maybe even?) feet and makes it nearly impossible to compare. However, all is not lost. We have optics to the rescue :-) It has been found that when light falls on a translucent object (like the skin), it actually goes into the skin and reflects back making the skin appear smoother while make up actually causes light to reflect directly making the skin loose its translucence.

A good approximation of the face with and without makeup is visible in this article on page 54, Fig 32. Other than the skin tone, the difference in the shadows under the nose is clearly visible.

Infact, I came to know about this during a talk on computation cameras at a symposium. I guess i am able to put to good use some of the info :-)

Chasing a Dream

"There is no telling how many miles you have to run when you are chasing a dream!"

Penguin

What does the penguin do when the Arctic ice is gone? It chills out listening to music at our lab.

Icecream

They make jolly good ice cream.

Yelagiri Hills

Its a small quiet hill station near Vellore.

Hot Chocoloate

I love hot chocolate.

A trip to Delhi

Qutb Minar


Alai Minar

Another study pic

Writing Gibberish :-)