Chanderpaul - The long lasting ...

... Duracell of all time?

During the Aus-WI series, Chanderpaul repeated his long standing ability! During his 18 hours between dismissals, he had seen 18 wickets go down at the other end!! It is an extremely rarely incident. Against India (2002) he saw 21 wickets fall, which could be the record! He had 20 wickets in 2007.

This is his fourth stint of 1000 minutes between dismissals, which is a record!!! Nasser Hussain, Sachin, Dravid, Kallis have all done it once each ...

Sangakkara had a streak of 18 wickets during his 100*, 156* knocks where he had scored over 50% of the team's score in two consecutive innings! Jacques Rudholph had a streak of 18 wickets between dismissals too.

Get the Factz right!

How well does Powerset get its Factz right?

1. A cricketer's favourite query is Is Sachin God? Factz gets it right! :-). Of course, Sourav is not far behind ;-).


2. A traditional set theory query of Is Null set a Sub set gives a Power Set response! This definitely is a conspiracy by Powerset ;-)


3. Another query "Who killed Gandhi?" ...
   Factz from Wikipedia: we found that the following kill Gandhi
   madman, Nathuram Godse, Nathu Ram Godse and assassin
   
   Nathuram Godse He said, "No one should think that Gandhi was killed by a madman".
   
   
   The results also correctly include the assassinations of Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi.
   But Nathuram Godse did not intend "madman" to be listed as an assassin of Gandhiji!

I believe that in Semantic Retrieval it is important to handle "negation". It is non-trivial but very important as it modifies the semantics. "Negation" highlights the need to use NLP technologies in improving retrieval quality and "the intent" ...

Overall I'm impressed with the results of Powerset. It does get the Factz right ...

Firefox-3 World Record effort

Are you participating in the Firefox Download Day record effort? Well, I've pledged to! 17/June is THE day. What do the astrologers say? :-)

One factor that could prevent enthusiasts from switching immediately would be the extensions! Not all extensions would've been made FF3 compatible :-(. In my case switch proxy would be an example, I'll now have to look for an alternative (foxy proxy?). The guys with too many extensions that haven't been upgraded will find it difficult!

An Elementary search on Powerset!

A search for the only liquid non-metallic element doesn't yield Bromine but liquid nonmetallic element does! "non-metallic" and "nonmetallic" are not treated the same ... Maybe it isn't elementary after all :-)

Searching for the Eight Degree Channel?

Check out the Powerset Factz for the Eight Degree Channel!
Powerset identifies that the channel actually "separates" two islands!
Wow!!

Factz from Wikipedia: we found that Eight Degree Channel separated the following

Eight Degree Channel Eight Degree Channel	separated :	Laccadive and Amindivi Islands.

Photos from the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary

In early May, I'd visited the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary (near Mysore, India). The birds are lovely and present in large numbers though many had already migrated out of the sanctuary in April. Check out the full-sized images on Zooomr or on Flickr.

Which one did you like the most? I loved the orange little egret, snowy egret, the details of the black headed ibis, and the geometry of the stork wings ... I enjoyed capturing a 10MP image of a stork in flight - it was perfect timing and I may not repeat it again! :-)

What is in Flynn's name?

Q: Daniel Flynn of New Zealand made his Test Debut on May 15. What is the significance (since the days of C.B.Fry)?


A: Flynn probably has the longest name with no vowels (beat Fry?).

Flynn is not first one with 5 consecutive consonants in the name. Notable ones with 5 consonants include: WW aRMSTRong, STRYDom, CoNYNGHam, LiLLYWHite, etc. The ODIs have seen DaLRYMPLe (6!) and Eric SzwaRCZYNSKi (7!!)


Of course, I should Ask Steven this! Ah, that reminds me that Wisden has SYCLD Berry and Steven LYNCH ...

Birds of Kannur

I've uploaded some animal and bird photos on Flickr. They are mostly from Kannur except for the elephant and gaur at the Muthanga Wildlife sanctuary.

I liked 'the call of the sparrow', 'Suspended Flying fox', 'Strolling up', and the mongoose.

I should find the names of the birds and update the photos.

Birds of Ranganathittu

Recently my friend Thej posted lovely pictures of the Birds of Ranganathittu. Ranganthittu is on my wish list of 'must visit' places now!

I requested my avid bird-watching friend Jayachandran (JC) to comment on the birds. He has identified most of them! Thanks JC and Thej. Hope our Ranganathittu trip materializes in May ...

Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 WA lens

The Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 is an interesting wide angle lens. Wide angle lenses rarely come a fixed f/2.8! The zoom range is fairly constrained due to this (unlike Canon's 10-22 or even Tokina's 12-24)

I see a couple of reviews; Ken Rockwell, Koh Kho King. I am tempted to get one to cover the wide angle range! :-)