Atlanta's airport

Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the busiest airport in the world, passenger-traffic wise. It handled 90 million passengers in 2008, about 25% higher than Chicago which was at #2.

That roughly translates to:
7 million passengers a month
250,000 passengers a day
10,000 passengers an hour
and 171 passengers a minute

I wanted to see how large the airport is. Here are a few satellite images (courtesy Google Maps).


There are five runways. One of the runways also passes over a road highway. Here:


The satellite image also shows aircrafts queued up for takeoff:


And a flight that's just about taking off: (Note the shadow)


Spending a few hours at the ATC tower here should be fun. :)

Of temperature and the times

I happened to step out of my office at Ahmedabad yesterday at 5.30 pm. As I stepped out, I sensed something unusual. Unusual for the time of the day.

*The bloody HEAT*

What intrigued me more than the heat, was the heat at THAT time of the day. It was 5.30 pm, for god's sake! I am someone who is used to a pleasant evening breeze at that time, so I had to prove that it was unusual. I went underground, to www.wunderground.com.



What the graph proves, is that temperature on 28th Apr 09 DID peak for Ahmedabad at around 5.30 pm. It was 43 degrees Celsius at frigging 5.30 in the evening! If one looks at other places - Chennai and Kolkata were neck and neck through the day, and cooled down post 2.30 pm (close to sea, moderate, significantly cooler evenings). Delhi did mirror Ahmedabad closely, but didn't come close to matching Ahmedabad's audacity to peak at 5.30 pm!

And I used to leave office daily at around 4 pm as opposed to earlier in the day for market visits, thinking the day's worst was over! Strange place, this is.

Er I've plotted temperature on 28th April 2009 in that graph for one more city: Amsterdam. Not that its too relevant, but well, its good to keep reminding oneself of Amsterdam, no? :)

A New Blogger

So, its official. Blogger is now Google's. I haven't been visiting blogspot lately and so came to know of this pretty late in the day. But whatever, the one question people have been asking, is "why blogger".

The following are the recent M&A's effected by Google Inc in the recent past:
(list credits: http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=64)

1) Adscape Media (Feb 2007)
2) Jotspot, Inc (Oct 2006)
3) Youtube, Inc (Oct 2006)
4) Neven Vision (Aug 2006)
5) @Last Software (Mar 2006)
6) Writely (Mar 2006)
7) Measure Map (Mar 2006)
8 to X-1) ....
X) Deja (Feb 2001)
X+1) ?

Google, is probably the most frequently typed word on the address bar of just executed browser application. And, that's what Google Inc continues to want to happen. It knows quite keenly that in order to stay at that esteemed position it needs to "offer services that are unparalleled". This would imply a scenario in which I'd rather google to find out what I did last summer rather than refer to my personal diary.

(To be continued)

A month later

Its a month since I blogged. And its no surprise. I've kind of gotten used to this no-activity-for-a-long-time (NAFALT) scenario. Almost every activity easily fits into the NAFALT zone. Except of course, work, which is precisely the cause of the existence of other NAFALTs. It's not that I haven't done anything other than work of late, the thing is I haven't sustained whatever I started. An honest attempt started in June with 'Digital Fortress'. The signs brightened with 'The Da Vinci Code'. But after that it was darkness once again. Now, a sincere me is trying to revive it again with 'Blink', but only He knows how long it would last.
Life as of now is like an empty train running at full speed. The engine is fit and fast, but the coaches are devoid of 'hulchul'. Now why are the coaches empty? Why of course, its plain and simple - this train doesn't stop at any station. How can it, if a short halt for 5 minutes can send project deadlines haywire? There is no way out.
But how long can this train run such? Won't it run into problems? Well, for the record -
= Fuel is not a problem, the engine is 'remotely' fuelled by the company itself.
= Weather is not a problem, as the train runs in an 'always-spring' shield.
= Wear and tear? Who's bothered. There are twenty five hundred new unused rakes still 'on the bench'.
Conclusion: The train has no option but to continue running, with empty coaches and NAFALT scenarios. The rants and raves would continue, and so would the train's motion. Hehe.

But remember: Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain jo makaam... woh phir nahi aate, woh phir nahi aate..
In this case: Is train journey ke safar mein guzar haathe hain jo station.............. (complete urself!)

30/11/2005

There's a new restaurant that has come up in front of my workplace. Yes, it serves food and charges you for that, but its claim to fame is something else. Most restaurants allow you to choose the food you want to consume, but here you're allowed to choose the ingredients too. To simplify, there's an aquarium thats teeming with wildlife - fish, crabs, prawns. You simply have to walk to that aquarium, pick an animal of your choice and an attendant would help you out by fishing that 'animal' out of the aquarium and transporting it to the kitchen. That very animal would be cooked and served to you. Live cooking, eh?

But the misfortune lies in the fact that I practice the highly sacred and known-only-to-a-few religion called vegetarianism.

29/11/2005

Today, while listening to an old Ilaiyaraja classic 'Poongathave Tazh Tiravai' (Nizhalgal) I couldn't help but wonder at the smoothness that was inherent in the song. The phrases seemed so interconnected. The transition from phrase to phrase (am talking of the tune, not the lyrics) is frictionless. Each phrase complements its predecessor.

In stark contrast, is the modern Harris Jayaraj's 'Aiyangaru veettu azhage' (Anniyan) . Here, it is more like individual phrases woven together. Each phrase runs at a different pace, and the output is an agglomeration of musical phrases, each of which is of a different variety.

Just for the time being, let us ignore the composer, and concentrate on the song itself.

Now, both songs are classical-inspired. The former from the ragam Mayamalavagoulai and the latter from Nattai. True, Mayamalavagoulai being a melakartha ragam with all 7 swarams, any song based on it will have a flowing touch, whereas, Nattai has jumping notes. But, the actual difference here is not the ragam, but the layam (rhythm). Poongathave proceeds in the usual 16 beat cycle - each phrase has a fixed rhythmic count. Aiyangaru proceeds unevenly - Its first phrase has more than 16 beats (ateeta eduppu), while its second phrase (beginning 'Un poal azhagi" has in fact less than 16 beats (anahata eduppu)! This lends a lot to each phrase being distinct. In fact, the whole song has a cosmopolitan touch to it.

If you want variety, look to music!

21/11/2005

Painful day... especially after what happened yesterday.. The dreams are fading away.. It seems the almighty hasn't chosen for me the path which I want to choose... But I guess its time for some serious retrospection... What I want in life and where I wish to be..

All said and done, it was a marvellous experience.... The challenges it posed and the frustration and agony it caused... Whew.. 'Just like that'! :-)

Anyway, as I said, its time to move on.. at the same time look back and learn from the stupid mistakes.... Will keep working hard for a couple of months, and then review the situation.. whether I need to keep moving towards Jeddah or move left towards Madagascar.