measuring earth?

Have you ever wondered how large our world is? One of the earliest attempts to measure the circumference of the Earth was made by Eratosthenes, a Greek mathematician, about 2,300 years ago. The Earth is obviously too large for anyone to measure using a measuring tape or piece of string. So how does one measure the circumference?

Eratosthenes did this by determining the angle to the sun from two different places. Then, he measured the distance between the two places. Using these measurements, and his advanced knowledge of geometry and mathematics, he estimated that the distance around the globe was between 28,000 and 29,000 miles (45,000 to 47,000 km).

That was awfully close to the correct value of about 24,860 miles (40,008) km.

Islamic scholars discovered the manuscript in which Eratosthenes had described

his experiment and they preserved it.

I like koikala

Being a film critic, I can recall about 350 films from recent memory, films I’ve seen in the past few years. But there are always films that make you nostalgic. Films such as Avargal or Agni Natchatram.

A few years ago, an interesting thing happened. I had to do a brief feature on Kamal Hassan for Vijay TV about his movies. I told him all his best movies seemed to come from the second half of his career. He didn’t get irritated and patiently asked me: “Have you seen Kokila?” It was a Kannada movie. He said: “I think I’ve done a good job as far as the acting in concerned.”

There was no DVD available anywhere. He caught up with the producer and got hold of a DVD. It was the first movie by Balu Mahendra. When I saw the movie, I was stunned. It was such a beautiful movie, up there in the league of Truffaut and his The 400 Blows. You can see the genius in the first movie. Director Balu Mahendra had arrived. Kamal must have been 23 years old. What a great actor Kamal was going to become in the future, you could see in Kokila. It was very unfortunate that he was just made to wear huge bell-bottoms and do song and dance at that time. But Balu Mahendra persisted and made Kokila.

It was a surprise experience for me to see Kokila. I am mentioning this movie because I think it is time we start preserving our old movies. Youngsters of today should be given an opportunity to see Kokila.

December Boys-Review

In December Boys , daniel radcliff takes a holiday from harry potter to play another orphan. Too bad his destination is coming of age tale so treacly it doesnt tug ur heart strings, it attempts to glue them to ur ribs. As maps one of four boys who share a december bday and hospita;ity of of a catholic orphanage in the australian outback. The inevitable tragedy strikes in the form of death, abandoned and a clay footed hero , its emotional heft is diluted by the screenplay mired in fantasy. as cartwheeling nuns frolic on the sands and the visions of virgin mary glow beneath the waves , the movie congeals into a soggy,symbolic mess

Nano car a flop:

Nano was the talk for some time. People where so very sure that it is the people’s car and it would be a sure success. The point is that people are not buying cars for the sake of transportation these days but for status and so this car would not be of great use because this is a tiny little car which resembles a soap box. So the clientele would be the students who have joined their undergraduate or some old men who would find it difficult to maneuver big cars.

Unfortunately these two sections of people are so meager. With the increasing rates of petrol and diesel. It is hard for them to make their sale.

Global warming:

Whatever awareness program people conduct it doesn’t matter this is increasing day by day and with this current rates it would become impossible to stop it. Scientist have proved that if we r not going to control the global warming then the summers would be even hotter and the winters would be even colder. Time would come where we will not be able to handle both. Not only this it would also affect the sea level because the ice in the poles would get melted away and low lying planes like Indonesia, Philippines , Sumatra would get drowned one day. There is a hoax that the world would end in 2010.

Apple Air laptop:

Apple have now introduced a laptop names “air” . This is supposed to be the thinnest laptop. The gadget looks so very kewl and catchy with its sleek features. Its performance is so very live that there is no latency. Everything about the laptop is good but it comes with a heavy price as always. The disadvantage about this laptop is that it is so very slim and sleek that it is very hard to handle it. We cant be even a little harder to it and gaming is something impossible in it.

This laptop may be useful for girls who just tries to show off and for those who can handle them with soft fingers.

Tough book:

Tough book is not so good. Though there are many factors like dust, water and break resistant its performance and the clarity of the screen is not so good. It may be useful for

All those who work in mine field or somewhere like that but still it is too slow. For gadget freaks this would not be a better option. Tough book needs to prepare itself in the aspects of looks, style and extensibility.

Cast away:

One of the best films which I have seen. It was so very inspiring and thrilling. The best part is when u put urself in his position. The film is all about a guy who flies somewhere to deliver courier. The flight got crashed in mid air and everyone die except him. He reaches a small island and tries to save himself from death. He reinvents everything what the ape did long ago and tries to make his living. In the mean while he made several attempts to save himself and all were worthless. He then invented a small boat with which he went till the mid sea. A crew member in a ship found him and they took him to the land.

Try this out urself if at all u get a chance.

Chris angels mind freak:

This guy is awesome. He is doing some absolute crazy stuffs. I though that david blane is the best magician in united states but this guy makes it even more worse and cranky. He reads brain and he is hypnotizing a whole group of pass Byers by giving them a piece of paper and once they read it they become hypnotized. The best thing is that he hypnotized a whole restaurant with just a snap of his hand. Recently I saw his tricks and it was min blowing. He went through a solid bullet proof federal van which carries money and even the sheriffs were not able to find out how he did it. This guy is super awesome. Try to check out his program in star world on all Thursdays at 10pm.

ASH Dumps robo

Bad luck for rajinikanth again. ASH has dumped robo too. It seems that the director shanker have asked for a 2 year call sheet. This is bothering ash and her family. It seems that ASH wants to be a mother when she turns 35. amithab is also keen over this. Amithab and his wife do not want them to delay anymore and so ash who is going to turn 35 this year is expected to become a mother soon.

Ash is in a total hurry of finishing all her projects so that she could get into her family way. Director shankar is now on a hunt for the next big thing. He would soon find an actress as good as ASH for his dream project.