The Jarawas

The Jarawas are an adivasi tribal community of the Andaman Islands whose existence is still reliant on hunting, fishing and gathering practises that have remained almost unchanged for thousands of years. The Jarawas are believed to be one of the oldest surviving isolated Stone Age tribals in the world, who live a nomadic life and having encountered the outside world only in 1974.

Today, their number is predicted to be at around 300, with clans of about 40-50 Jarawas living and moving together as a unit in and around the dense tropical rain forests of these islands. Today, the territories that the Jarawas inhabit in these rain-forests are rapidly getting reduced, as settlers from mainland India started inhabiting these islands, encroaching into the forests and reducing the Jarawas into a territorial reserve of about 700 sq km.

The encroachment of Jarawa’s land by outside settlers has put the Jarawas at a high risk state, as these islanders have no immunity to diseases and germs which most of the outside settlers bring with them. The encroachment into their territory would also affect the hunting and gathering patterns of these tribals as many animal species are reducing in number as a result of illegal poaching activities. This disturbance in the Jarawas existence in nature would also greatly affect their survival chances, leaving them vulnerable to human expansive growth.

The Jarawas exposure to the rest of humanity over the pass decade have made them dependent on outside humans as a source for food. In many cases, the Jarawas are being exploited by plantation owners as cheap labour and as such are making them lose out on their traditional way of life, getting them sucked into a capitalist mode of production, which would surely eat away their culture, practises and their traditional knowledge that have been passed on for thousands of years.

The biggest concern regarding the Jarawas and other isolated communities such as this, is that the degradation and destruction of forests would not only risk the survival of the Jarawas but also put the entire forest at risk. This is because communities such as the Jarawas have lived in these forests for thousands of years and play a major role in the preservation and maintenance of the eco-system in these forests and have cultivated a culture and practise that is conducive for the longevity of these forests.

The government of India has policies regarding the Jarawas, which on paper is probably one of the best in the world with regard to the preservation and safeguarding of such isolated communities. But fraudulent and corrupt practices of state officials leave the Jarawas at the mercy of human expansive mentality. And which may very well lead to the demise of one of the world’s oldest surviving communities in human history if not checked soon.

The Bisnois

The Bisnois are a tribal community, presently spread over the western parts of Rajasthan and parts of Haryana and Punjab. The Bisnois derive their name from the 29 principles laid down by their spiritual father, Guru Jambeshwarji, who initiated this environmental-friendly religion in 1542 AD. The basic philosophy of the Bishnoi religion is that, all living things (including animals) have a right to survive and share resources.

The Bisnois are a present day example of a community which lives in harmony with its environment, with a nature centered co-existence motivated in preserving the Bio-diversity of its environment. Their villages are marked by the presence of trees and other vegetation, and herds of antelopes roaming freely near their homes. Their fields are ploughed with simple ploughs using bullocks or camels, thus limiting the damage caused to their fragile desert eco-system to a minimum. The Bisnois live an efficient life, storing rainwater in underground tanks and using cow-dung flakes for their cooking.

The Bisnois’ have a religious affinity of the Khejiri tree, with one of their most famous preservation efforts being the story of Amrita Devi, and 366 other Bisnois who sacrificed their lives in order to save the Khejiri trees from being chopped down for construction purpose by the then King of Jodhpur over two centuries ago. In recent times, they are known for their association with the Chipko movement, to protests the felling of trees in the Himalayan forests of Uttar Pradesh.

In our present day world, small rural communities like the Bisnois that live for the conservation and sustenance of their environment are hard to come by. Although the principles that the Bisnois live by promotes the longevity of all species, it is neither practical nor feasible for the entire world to adopt such a lifestyle. This is because we humans have already crossed the threshold for a sustainable and stable environment, and are now threatening the existence of many other species of both plants and animals for our own survival.

The dominance of man and his hunger for power and other resources is a recipe that will lead to dire consequences for all living species on Earth. Hopefully with improving technology and increasing environmental awareness among the public as well as the governing institutions, we can hope to reduce or mitigate the costs of our past endeavours, and hope that the future generations will still have a well balanced and a functional eco-system to live in.

Blade XT3 electric motorcyle

Accelerating from 0-30 mph in 4 seconds, reaching a top speed of 45mph, all with a simple twist of the wrist – no clutch, no gears and NO-NOISE ! The XT range of bikes have a runtime of up to 3 hours . . . that’s similar to the runtime you’d get from a tank full of petrol on a conventional MX bike. Re-charging the XT will take approx 60 minutes from a domestic power supply – Then you’re good to go. Anywhere!

Stay, the movie

Stay(2005) is directed by Marc foster, starring Ewan Mcgregor, Naomi Watts, and Ryan Gosling. You can watch the trailer by clicking the image to your right.
Stay is a story of a psychologist (Ewan McGregor) trying to unravel the twisted trauma of a suicidal young man (Ryan Gosling). All the while trying to convince him that life is worth living. Stay is a mystery wrapped in a dream-like enigma.    

Right from the start, Stay demands our attention. You are compelled to take in every visual clue given, to try and make sense of it all. This is because you get the feeling that something isn’t right, the visual pieces do not add up. The transitions from one shot to the other are swift and transient, a visual magic so beautifully executed by the director Mark Foster.

If you pay close attention to the movie, you’ll probably feel like you’ve seen a character before; there are also a few instances where you see doubles or multiples of the same person, all this seems odd at first, but there are many ways to interpret this phenomenon. Another odd thing you notice about the movie is that the characters do not evolve, in a sense they feel unreal or non human. As they are bounded by the specific roles they are given to play.

Enter Henry’s Mind…

My take on the movie is that it is entirely based on Henry’s Stream of consciousness. All the characters that surround him in the last scene are given a role by Henry. They are the manifestations of various aspects of Henry’s character. Beth, who was the first person at the site of the accident, franticly kept repeating these lines, “I didn’t move him, I know you’re not supposed to move them”.

Her erratic behaviour probably led Henry to give her the role of a troubled psychiatrist whom he was supposed to meet at the start of the movie but couldn’t and instead met Dr. Sam who was filling in for Dr. Beth. Dr. Sam coincidentally was the first person to come to Henry’s aid at the accident scene.  Now, this is me taking the liberty to stray with my interpretation and imagination. From what I can tell, Henry probably entered into this dream when he heard Dr. Sam tell Nurse Lila that the others in the car didn’t make it. So that’s probably why he struggles with the decision to live or die after having killed the people he loved.

In case you were wondering, “Why is Sam’s trousers too short?” well the reason could be because when Henry first sees Sam,(that is in the last scene; in his dying moments) he sees him from that particularly low angle distorting his perspective of Sam’s pants and jacket. Many shots of the movie have that awkward low tilted shot, giving us more of Henry’s perspective. You’ll also notice how some of the same actors keep appearing with different roles, which are somehow connected with what they do or say in Henry’s dying moments, like the old man instructing the lifting of the piano, who later opens the door to Henry’s apartment or the old man who mutters, “he’s not gonna make it” and the mom and the kid with the balloon. You’ll also see many doubles and triples, easily noticed in the scene where the students exit the lecture hall; in a way indicating how limited Henry’s mind is in recreating multiple unique characters for his story.

Another thing one notices is that you often hear sounds in the background totally unrelated to events happening in the movie, such as the sound of cars screeching, or muffled voices, and traffic – those are instances where real world events leak into Henry’s dream, probably the reasons why he insists to Laila and Dr.Sam that he keeps hearing voices.

And what’s with the endless spiralling staircases? I believe that this is the most obvious visual clue telling us that whatever is happening in the movie is being played out in a dream like fashion; of dreams being within dreams, as one struggles to wake up from one only to end up in another dream. This thought of mine was reinforced by the particular scene which seemed to play, repeat, the scene where Athena, Henry’s girlfriend is re-enacting a scene from hamlet, taking on the role of Ophelia (who is doomed to die), but who would rather be in Hamlet’s shoes (debating death, as Henry is). HAMLET: “O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams…” lots of speculations but it does add up.

The entire movie might also have some deep philosophical connotations of which I am no expert at interpreting, but something I thought I’d mention, so maybe someone could pick up on that and spin the movie differently. Maybe someone more familiar with Buddhism, and the world being an illusion and all that… and link why Sam’s fortune cookie says, “Your troubles will cease and fortune will smile upon you.”

I understand my review is really sketchy, as it was hurried  but this movie is really hard to structure, so take what you get from the movie and you’re most welcome to leave me some feedback. 

Future Bourne sequels sans Matt Damon?

Matt Damon told a room full of press at the Cannes Film Festival that he would not be returning for a fourth Jason Bourne film. Here is an account of some of the conversation thanks to Variety.

So the question now becomes, will the Jason Borne series move on without Damon? The James Bond series did that and is working out just fine. But in many senses, this is different since Bourne’s story is a continuation while Bond’s film’s are more episodic than anything else. Could the series continue with a new actor at the helm? And if so, who?

Man captures Loch Ness Monster on Video!

An amateur scientist has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland’s most mysterious lake.

Sightingings have become a well known phenonmena in Loch Ness, a deep fresh water in the Scottish Highlands, whose deepest point sinks down to over 700 feet.

The description of these sightings are often accompanied by hoax videos and photos of the monster, resembling Plesiosaur, a long-necked aquatic reptile that became extinct during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event.

For those of you interested in sighting this creature, the Loch Ness tourism welcomes you to come sit on the shore of Loch Ness, just after midnight, alone… and pour yourself some of the finest pure highland malt scotch with a few ice cubes for added niceness, and then you just might see this mysterious beast.

Head first with html, css and xhtml.

Head first with html, css and xhtml is a book for people like me who can never quite finish a book we start. Here’s the secret, its got just enough humour to keep you flipping through each page. And yes , it  is probably the brain friendliest web design book available in the market.

You begin your journey through the book by  learning some structural Html, and designing a website for an imaginary company called starbuzz coffee.

The book is never boring, and I doubt you’d find another teach yourself book that’s got as much color as this. You even have puzzles, crosswords, answered questions and other exercises at the end of every chapter to engage your brain to work out whatever knowledge you’ve just gained.

As you progress through the book, you’ll learn to make necessary changes to your websites making them web compliant, and graphically presentable. A very intuitive book that teaches you correct practices. And if you are a newbie to web design you should have no regrets buying this book.

Note: If you’d like to sample the book before buying here’s a link to a free chapter off the book headfirstCh8

Incubus, Dig music video premiere!

Incubus’ video for dig of their album lightgrenades is up on their site Enjoyincubus. Not too long ago there was an idigincubus contest, where anyone across the U.S could submit their video for the band’s lastest single. Incubus then picked the top contenders for the official song video. So we voted for what we thought was best. From what I can tell, Incubus picked a video which they thought was best and made a few transitional changes to the video. Check it out

Speed up Windows XP

Eliminate programs that run at start-up
Stopping programs from running at start-up is especially daunting because there is no single place you can go to halt them all. Some run because they’re in the Startup folder, others because they’re part of logon scripts, others because of Registry settings, and so on. But with a little bit of perseverance, you should be able to keep them from running.

1. Start by cleaning out your Startup folder. Find it in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, where username is your Windows logon name. Delete the shortcuts of any programs you don’t want to run on start-up. As with any shortcuts, when you delete them, you’re deleting only the shortcut, not the program itself. (You can also clear out the start-up items by going to Start > Programs > Startup, then right-clicking items you want to remove.)
2. Next, clean out your Scheduled Tasks folder. Go to C:\Windows\Tasks, and delete the shortcuts of any programs that you don’t want to run automatically on a schedule.

Note: You can bypass all the programs in your Startup folder on an as-needed basis. To stop XP from loading any programs in the Startup folder, hold down the Shift key during bootup. No programs in the Startup folder will run, but the items will still remain there so that they will start up as they would normally the next time you boot.

Using the system configuration utility
Taking the previous steps will stop the obvious programs from running at start-up, but it won’t kill them all. The best tool for disabling hidden programs that run on start-up is the System Configuration Utility. To run it, type msconfig at a command prompt, and press Enter. (If that doesn’t work, first do a search for msconfig.exe; when you find the file, double-click it.)

1. To stop a program from running at start-up, go to the Startup tab in this utility, and uncheck the box next to the program. It can sometimes be difficult to understand what programs are listed on the Startup tab. Some, such as America Online, are clearly labeled. But often, you’ll see a phrase or collection of letters, such as fs20. That’s the name of the running file–such as fs20.exe, which is Free Surfer mk II, an excellent free pop-up killer.
2. To get more information about a listing, expand the width of the Command column near the top of the Startup tab. Expand it enough and you’ll see the start-up command that the program issues, including its location, such as C:\Program Files\Free Surfer\fs20.exe. The directory location should be another hint to help you know the name of the program.
3. When stopping programs from running at start-up, it’s best to stop them one at a time rather than in groups. You want to make sure that you’re not causing any system problems by stopping them. So stop one, then restart your PC. If it runs fine, then stop another and restart. Continue doing this until you’ve cleared all the programs you don’t want to run automatically.

Each time you uncheck a box and restart your PC, you’ll get a warning that you’ve used the System Configuration Utility to disable a program from starting automatically. If you don’t want to see that warning, disable it by checking the box in the dialog itself.

After you’ve used the system configuration utility to identify programs that run on start-up, you may want to try disabling them from with the programs themselves. So run each program that starts automatically, and see if you can find a setting that allows you to prevent it from running on start-up.

Speed up shutdown times

It’s not only start-up that you’d like to speed up; you can also make sure that your system shuts down faster. If shutting down XP takes what seems to be an inordinate amount of time, here are a couple of steps you can take to speed up the shutdown process:

1. Don’t have XP clear your paging file at shutdown. For security reasons, you can have XP clear your paging file (pagefile.sys) of its contents whenever you shut down. Your paging file is used to store temporary files and data, but when your system shuts down, information stays in the file. Some people prefer to have the paging file cleared at shutdown because sensitive information such as unencrypted passwords sometimes ends up in the file. However, clearing the paging file can slow shutdown times significantly, so if extreme security isn’t a high priority, you might not want to clear it. To shut down XP without clearing your paging file, run the Registry Editor (click Start > Run, then type regedit in the Run box) and go to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
2. Change the value of ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0. Close the Registry, and restart your computer. Whenever you turn off XP from now on, the paging file won’t be cleared, and you should be able to shut down more quickly.

Note: Please be careful when editing the Registry; you can do a lot of damage here. Don’t change or delete anything unless you know exactly what it is.

Disable services that run at start-up
Constantly running in the background of XP are services–processes that help the operating system run or that provide support to applications. Many of these services launch automatically at start-up. While you need many of them, some are not required, and they can slow down your system when they run in the background.
You can disable services at start-up by using the system configuration utility, similar to the way that you halt programs from running at start-up, except that you use the Services tab instead of the Startup tab. But the system configuration utility doesn’t necessarily list every service that launches on start-up. A bigger problem is that disabling services is more of shot in the dark than disabling programs. When you disable a program, you can get a sense of what the program does. But when you disable a service through the system configuration utility, there’s often no way to know what it does.

1. A better way of disabling services at start-up is via the Services computer-management console. Run it by typing services.msc at the command prompt. The Services computer-management console includes a description of all services so that you can know ahead of time whether a particular service is one you want to turn off. It also lets you pause the service so that you can test your machine and see whether that service is needed.
2. After you run the console, click the Extended tab. This view will show you a description of each service in the left pane when you highlight the service. The Startup Type column shows you which services launch on start-up–any with Automatic in that field. Click that column to sort together all the services that automatically launch on start-up. Then highlight each of those services and read the descriptions.
3. When you find a service you want to disable, right-click it and choose Properties. In the Properties dialog box that appears, choose Manual from the Startup Type drop-down list. The service won’t start automatically from now on, but you can start it manually via the console. If you want the service disabled so that it can’t be run, choose Disabled. To test the results, turn off any services that you don’t want to run by clicking Stop The Service in the left pane, or by right-clicking the service and choosing Stop.

Here is a list of some common services you might want to stop from running at start-up. 

Service	What it does
Portable Media Serial Number	Retrieves the serial number of a portable music player attached to your PC.
Task Scheduler	Schedules unattended tasks to be run. If you don’t schedule any unattended tasks, turn it off.
Uninterruptible Power Supply	Manages an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) connected to your PC.
Automatic Updates	Automatically checks for Windows updates. (You can check manually by going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/.)
Telnet (service available on XP Pro only)	Allows a remote user to log in to your computer and run programs. (This will not be found on all versions of XP Pro.)
Wireless Zero Configuration Service	Automatically configures a Wi-Fi (802.11) network card. Disable this only if you’re not using a Wi-Fi network card.

Hope u find this as useful as I did, courtesy cnet insider’s secrect.