Crop factor and Depth of Field!

For a change, this crop factor isn't about birds or photography itself; am just seeding a thought :-). Hope you enjoy the pictures though ;-)

I'd the privilege of attending the Vilanatti celebration at the Khammana village in Wayanad/Kerala. Rice was transplanted as part of the village festival.

Plough, Yoke, Hoe ...


Preparation afoot ...



Of the 100,000 varieties of rice, there was a snapshot of ~20 of them here. The focus was on improving the quality of the native rice varities through good seed selection. To get a critical mass of seeds, produced from the farms themselves, it could be a 2-year process.


Rice varieties and the Rice Sprouts

The seed companies are a real threat to the farming practice. They would patent varieties of rice, seeds and control farming in India. It is a huge market. The large companies just need to control the seeds :-). It is important that GM seeds don't become the only variety allowed to be planted in India. The control of seeds should remain with the farmer.


The seedlings are ready for transplanting ...


Transport before Transplanting!



Even the MLA had come over ... the minister unfortunately couldn't :-(
A sound reception


Getting down to the action ...



Experts and the First-timers ...




The Speech Acts ...; Usha Chechi has the minister speaking online; The release of The Bio-diversity Registry of Khammana

Usha Chechi is from Thanal. Thanal is a Public Interest Research, Advocacy, Education and Action Trust with the mission "Gather for all beings". I liked her fire, belief, concern, ...


Ramettan with friends; The Chieftain in a pleasant mood.

Ramettan, the tribal farmer, speaks science and panchayat politics! He believes that it is an important mix to ensure progress of the village and the community!! The Kurichiya community fought with Pazhassi Raja against the British.


In perspective ...

Beauty at every level; A field of view; Dragon flies can help handle pests ...


My photoblog would be incomplete without the picture of a bird ;-)
Flora or Fauna?

This bird is woven using a coconut leaf :-)

Hope you think about the farmers when you head out for lunch :-)

Insignificant test career and Stumped!

Of what use is a Test career with zero runs, zero wickets, and zero catches? This has featured in Cricinfo's Ask Steven recent columns. Patrick Kidd in his Times column mentions that only TASekhar has a 2-Test career.

One of those who qualifies for this 0,0,0 career, Rajindernath, actually has no catches but 4 stumpings :-). Some interesting ones that can stump you ...

PWSherwell   20  16
TAWard       19  13
PKSen        20  11
AH Jarvis     9   9
EFS Tylecote  5   5
Rajindernath  0   4

No stumping list is complete without Bert Oldfield (78, 52).
And there's Anju with 51 stumpings and 30 catches in her ODI career :-)

Pulp Fiction

I'd been to Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary with family on 25/Jan/2008. It was a fun trip and the kids enjoyed it. I was hoping to get some good photos of the birds but wasn't as successful.

As we returned to the parking lot, I noticed some little bird activity in a tree. A little bird (flowerpecker?) was trying to pick a fruit. I knelt down with my 300mm lens and went trigger happy. The picture quality is average but I'm happy that I was able to capture this behaviour of the bird, the whole sequence.

View my Pulp Fiction.

Stump the Bearded Wonder ...

Bill Frindall is no more. I always enjoyed reading his 'Stump the Bearded Wonder' column.

We will miss his knowledge and the humor that he brought to the seemingly dry subject of scoring/statistics.

Great win for Test Cricket!

India, England, and Test Cricket won the first Test at Chennai.

England had the upper hand for a good part of the Test.  387 is a good target but when Sehwag gets going there isn't much that can be done!  Sachin played a winning knock, Gambhir, Yuvraj contributed a good deal too.

Strauss joins an elite list of Herbert Sutcliffe, George Headley, Vijay Hazare, Clyde Walcott, Sunil Gavaskar, Andy Flower, and Brian Lara with two centuries in a losing cause!

Photos from the India-Aus first test at Bangalore

I've (finally!) uploaded pictures from the first India vs Australia Test match (9-Oct-2008).

Hope you like watching Sachin, Ponting, Ishant, and some unorthodox shots!

Thank you, England

We are grateful to the English Cricket Team for agreeing to play the Tests in India. It is a very courageous decision and India appreciates the cricketers for being united during the tough decision making process.

I hope that the does very well. You've won already!

Speech is Silver!

Recently I discovered that "Speech is Silver"!

Speech == Argument

Silver == Argentum

Speech is a mumble-jumble of Silver ...
QED

Statistics, where does it lie?

Consider that a team has lost 5 wickets, where is the final score likely to lie? The last 5 wickets are likely to add only ~113 runs (110-116) irrespective of the starting scores (e.g. 300/5, 400/5, 500/5, 600/5). Strange but true ...

Charles Davis, on Cricinfo's It Figures, does a fine statistical analysis of the likely final score for an unfinished innings!

Which would be a bigger final score, SL's 952/6d or WI's 790/3d? SL might've reached 1028 vs WI's 996!! WI's chances of exceeding 1028 is 24% ...

Can this technique be applied to 'not out' innings as well? We could possibly determine Sachin's final score for 248* but it would be tricky for 400*, I guess. Would the averages be affected drastically?

Who says that cricket is just aggression? In this case, it is regression ...

Our country ...

During a recent chat with friends, a few statements were heard ...

"We, in the US ..."
"India is my country ..."

I chimed in: "Malaysia is .my country" ;-)