Nanotube chip could store data for a billion years....

Time for a terabytes, probably petabytes pen drive!

Researchers have demonstrated a form of archive memory using carbon nanotubes that can theoretically store a trillion bits of data per square inch for a billion years.

The technology could easily be incorporated into today's silicon processing systems and it could be available in the next two years, a lead researcher said.

The scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California said the new technology can potentially pack thousands of times more data into one square inch of space than today's chips.

"We've developed a new mechanism for digital memory storage that consists of a crystalline iron nanoparticle shuttle enclosed within the hollow of a multiwalled carbon nanotube," said physicist Alex Zettl, who led this research.

No more Kwai Chang Caine (Kung Fu) , Actor David Carradine found hanged in his luxury hotel room in Bangkok

Actor David Carradine, star of the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu" who also had a wide-ranging career in the movies, has been found dead in the Thai capital, Bangkok. A news report said he was found hanged in his hotel room and was believed to have committed suicide.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Michael Turner, confirmed the death of the 72-year-old actor. He said the embassy was informed by Thai authorities that Carradine died either late Wednesday or early Thursday, but he could not provide further details out of consideration for his family.

The Web site of the Thai newspaper The Nation cited unidentified police sources as saying Carradine was found Thursday hanged in his luxury hotel room.

It said Carradine was in Bangkok to shoot a movie and had been staying at the hotel since Tuesday.
The newspaper said Carradine could not be contacted after he failed to appear for a meal with the rest of the film crew on Wednesday, and that his body was found by a hotel maid at 10 a.m. Thursday morning. The name of the movie was not immediately available.

It said a preliminary police investigation found that he had hanged himself with a cord used with the room's curtains. It cited police as saying he had been dead at least 12 hours and there was no sign that he had been assaulted.

A police officer at Bangkok's Lumpini precinct station would not confirm the identity of the dead man, but said the luxury Swissotel Nai Lert Park hotel had reported that a male guest killed himself there.
Carradine was a leading member of a venerable Hollywood acting family that included his father, character actor John Carradine, and brother Keith.

In all, he appeared in more than 100 feature films with such directors as Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman and Hal Ashby. One of his prominent early film roles was as singer Woody Guthrie in Ashby's 1976 biopic "Bound for Glory."

But he was best known for his role as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin priest traveling the 1800s American frontier West in the TV series "Kung Fu," which aired in 1972-75.He reprised the role in a mid-1980s TV movie and played Caine's grandson in the 1990s syndicated series "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues."He returned to the top in recent years as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's two-part saga "Kill Bill."The character, the worldly father figure of a pack of crack assassins, was a shadowy presence in 2003's "Kill Bill — Vol. 1." In that film, one of Bill's former assassins (Uma Thurman) begins a vengeful rampage against her old associates.In "Kill Bill — Vol. 2," released in 2004, Thurman's character comes face to face again with Bill himself. The role brought Carradine a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actor.

Bill was a complete contrast to his TV character Kwai Chang Caine, the soft-spoken refugee from a Shaolin monastery, serenely spreading wisdom and battling bad guys in the Old West. He left after three seasons, saying the show had started to repeat itself.
After "Kung Fu," Carradine starred in the 1975 cult flick "Death Race 2000." He starred with Liv Ullmann in Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg" in 1977 and with his brothers in the 1980 Western "The Long Riders."But after the early 1980s, he spent two decades doing mostly low-budget films. Tarantino's films changed that. "All I've ever needed since I more or less retired from studio films a couple of decades ago ... is just to be in one," Carradine told The Associated Press in 2004.
"There isn't anything that Anthony Hopkins or Clint Eastwood or Sean Connery or any of those old guys are doing that I couldn't do," he said. "All that was ever required was somebody with Quentin's courage to take and put me in the spotlight." One thing remained a constant after "Kung Fu": Carradine's interest in Oriental herbs, exercise and philosophy. He wrote a personal memoir called "Spirit of Shaolin" and continued to make instructional videos on tai chi and other martial arts.
In the 2004 interview, Carradine talked candidly about his past boozing and narcotics use, but said he had put all that behind him and stuck to coffee and cigarettes. "I didn't like the way I looked, for one thing. You're kind of out of control emotionally when you drink that much. I was quicker to anger."

"You're probably witnessing the last time I will ever answer those questions," Carradine said. "Because this is a regeneration. It is a renaissance. It is the start of a new career for me.

"It's time to do nothing but look forward."

Omio - Ultimate Phone Comparison Site (Web review)

When I looked at the Omio web for the first time, I felt something wrong with the color selection for the outer background. “Sky blue” is nice, I like it as a color, but for the Omio web site, I guess its not a matching one. I’m thinking may be little bit dark color, or may be the outer color of the “MS word” window I’m using, which I guess a better choice for the Omio? Another quick thing, I guess the orange on Omio logo and sky blue is not a good match, I guess even any blue is not a matching color for orange.

OK, no fancy menu? I mean at least something bit bigger or taller than currently has in Home, Deals, and Phones…….menu? I felt no connection when I looked at it due to a short (I mean the size) menu and probably something better needs to be selected for it. If you look at the T-Mobile web site, you will understand what I’m trying to say. There should be at least one inch title section, for a better impression on viewer, which should consists of the Logo, Title menu, join, login, About page. And also may be option to show the page in a different language. Another quick thought, its better if Omio can develop their own search rather the Google custom search. This makes the site bit cheaper.

When you come to Mobile phone deals, Omio did a great job by creating sliders with information. I guess even big companies like T-Mobile, or At&T wants to see this, thumbs up, and good job Omio.

The section where the Mobile phones news, I feel its bit congest, and longer for any customer. If Omio wants to give Mobile Phones information, better choose something related. If you really want to have this in your page, a better choice is a one line news page with (may be a flash box) with rotating or flashing news. Same thing for the Latest Mobile phone reviews section, where some reviews on phones like Nokia Phones, Sony Ericsson etc is handled. If you can reduce this space, you can provide better information for your customers.

Do you really need the left panel to show that information? There is a better choice already by making it with colorful Browse by Mobile Phone Deals on the Omio index page. I feel it’s repetitive, and better use it for some other thing. I guess Omio choose it as a standard, but there is no particular need to have a left panel in your page for navigation.

As a suggestion, Omio can show more mobile phones in the index (not just 5) by removing the news and review section, and this will attract more customers, because they are here to look at mobile phones they like. If they want to hear news or reviews they will choose the Mobile phone they want to hear. Then you can start providing reviews and news on them.

The Fate of a Boy Who Tried To Escape from LTTE Clutches

This very a disturbing video. Should not be viewed by children. This video shows the barbaric acts that were done to a boy who, together with his family, tried to escape being held as a 'human shield" by the terrorists of Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The boy's legs had been chopped off by an axe, in front of his own family, as a 'punishment' for trying to escape. Mercifully, the boy had died soon. Note how a Red Cross worker is aiding.

This is only a tiny fraction of the inhuman treatment that innocent Tamil people who are being held by the LTTE for their protection are being subjected to. The Tamil diaspora in western countries paint a very different picture, just to get international support to stop the Sri Lankan armed forces from completely eliminating these psychopathic terrorists. The government of Sri Lanka is trying to help these innocent people to lreagain a life free from these terrorists. It is too bad that those in the United Nations, the "Human Rights Watch" with many other international aid organizations, and many other politicians have fallen for their blatant lies. They say that one can fool some people some of the time, but no one can fool all the people all the time. This video should speak a lot of words for those who care. The dialogs in the video are in Tamil.

Do you see the difference CANADA? We DON'T - Sri Lankans against LTTE Terrorism

"Brother" greets "Brother" in London... (Black Barack with Black Cop)

TV reporters are too busy focusing on the Queen receiving the VIP guests at Buckingham Palace. This was a "touching" Kodak moment outside Downing Street that won't be forgotten by this London cop.

Remember the cops on duty are not supposed to shake hands, but the two brothers couldn't resist the historic moment. The black cop never imagined in his wildest dream that he would usher a black American President (Barack Obama) into the British corridors of power. Nice!

Genius Beatboxers……..Nathen “Flutebox” Lee & Beardyman

OK…..here’s another genius musician….. When I heard this duo for the first time, I thought what??? Are they from another world???.............Yeah…..So awesome. Can’t believe how talented these fellows. Nathan “Flutebox” Lee, and Beardyman @ Google, London. These guys blow me away…….a blast………..yeah.
These particular types of musicians are called “Beatboxers”. Here’s what Wiki says about Beatboxing.

Beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion which primarily involves the art of producing drum beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using one's mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and more. It may also involve singing, vocal imitation of turntablism, the simulation of horns, strings, and other musical instruments. Beatboxing is connected with hip hop culture although it is not limited to hip hop music

PERRYS - Great deals on new & used cars, and vans (Site Review)

When I looked at the Perrys Motor sales dealership site for the first time, I thought that something missing on the index image. May be its too small? Just a tiny image of "PERRYS" and text "Great deals on new & used cars, and vans". I guess, a larger index image with some eye catching bright color match and a custom quote will work well with the site Perrys Motor sales. A quote something like "Great deals, low rates, with trusted resource", probably animated text in the index?

Secondly, the static random image in the center of the page. I liked the way it's designed and the placement, but a flash image or animated image with all those random images into one movie like animation will really suited for this place. And also may be the image corners with some circular shape like in the search for vehicle or the find dealership options? Same thing would be better for the More hot deals option. Instead of having static deals, probably an animated pictures and information galary for deals will be a pretty good addition to the Perrys site. Also I would like to see the prices with different options, I guess may be with dollars and euros?

I liked the color match in the "Search for a vehicle" box with shaded light blue. If this can be extend to the entire page? or maybe to the other two search boxes in the Perrys main site?
I searched the site with Vauxhall dealer and Vauxhall corsa, and loved the way how the other two search options changed accordingly. This is the first time I saw a cool feature like this, great job.
I like to see following options in the index page of the PERRYS dealership site.

• An option to get a free dealer price quote. A small option box with make, model and postcode with a Get Quotes button?
• A viewer box with "Most Researched" or "Most Searched" vehicles. This could shows a list of vehicles both cars and vans with ranking 1-10
• A tool, research and Explore, probably to do a search by a price range or by category, or by features, and an option to do comparisons with different makes and models.

Another missing item in the PERRYS motor dealership site is a custom search option. Say I want to search for a "Vauxhall dealer" instead of getting into the "Search for a Vehicle" option. I guess its good to have a separate custom search box to do other types of searches within the site. May be placing a custom search in the top right corner with the banner ad?

Overall, PERRYS motor sales dealership site is a pretty good tool for consumers. But I would like to see some animated site, when comes to vehicles, rather a static site like the current one.

Happy Sinhala Hindu New Year 2009........

Eastern Inspired Living (Site Review)

With the first look at the Eastern Inspired Living, I wondered what this term “LOMBOK” is. It is in the URL, in the main LOGO and even as a link to LOMBOK news? I feel bit misleading with it, and how this term going be related with the term "Eastern Inspired Living"? If it is an abbreviated term related to the web site, I guess better to expand it somewhere so that the consumers feel it close to what the site trying to provides.

When it comes to amenities for a luxuries living, one will feel more comfortable with surrounds, with more soft and smoother background. As a consumer, I feel the index page design is more edgee , with the square faces and rectangular menu selections. Color selection is more like neutral than a vivid feeling when thinking about Eastern Living.

With the use of search term “log basket”, I tried to see how a general consumer looks up items from the web “Eastern Inspired Living”. Thumbnails are pretty much with details, but feel the size is bit larger compared to other consumer product supplier web sites. May be a reduced thumbnail size and a link to get all the results into a single page, will make the search feature a proper tool for the Eastern Inspired Living site.

Is there any option to view the search items price in other popular currency values, like American Dollars, or Euros? If the Eastern Inspired Living site is targeting international consumers, this will give kind of a feeling that the site is closer to consumers living style. As a consumer from the US market, I felt the site is far away and this will certainly affect the actual consumers who want to buy products. May be an option to convert currency values with the viewing option will certainly increase the consumer popularity of the site.

With search keyword lamp shades and laundry baskets, I found that the index showing the different lighting options bit confusing. Whenever particular sub category under the term Lighting is selected, the keyword background is highlighted with a grey color bar, which I felt more like a separation title than a selection among other sub titles.

Overall, “Eastern Inspired Living” web site provides an interesting consumer appliance sales portal and, with a bit of vivid touch on the interface and some developments based on the stated options, it will be a great place for people who looks for things out of ordinary.

No Reservation ( Anthony Bourdain ) - Sri Lanka

I like this episode of No Reservation, at my lovely home, Sri Lanka. We used to watch the travel channel lot, Bizarre Foods by Andrew Zimmenrn and No Reservation specially. Throughout this episode, I felt that something is missing, especially they showed the congested city of Colombo, tightened security, Burger community, Tsunami hit southern village???? I didn’t see any Sinhalese home? No Buddhist temple? No visit to beautiful up country, Kandy and Nuwaraeliya. No visit to great city of Anuradhapura, and Seegiriya??? No visit to “helmalu” paddy fields? ………………OK at least they showed we got pretty good food, and we are totally different from India…………and we don’t speak hindi…….
This is a quote from his final conclusion about Sri Lanka
“ This could be such a beautiful place if one could wonder freely from top to bottom of this country, it’s so amazing people were you seeing, they are lovely. The food after all my troubles earlier on what felt like the verge of death? Finally would able to actually enjoy it, a revelation. So distinct from Indian, so different from what I’d expected. And I guess and I hope when it all opens up, Sri Lankans settle their problems one way or the other, this will again be a place that a whole world will fall in love with”

……I totally agreed Anthony Bourdain………….cheers………..

I'm on Texas State CS department research spotlight - First South Asian graduate student on main page............

I'm humbly proud of myself getting into the CS department main page research spotlight. My heartiest thanks goes to my lovely wife Nim for her encouragements and my supervisor Dr. Komogortsev for writing and posting my achievements to the web, and writing a superb recommendation letter for the grant proposal. Also, Dr Denise from the Department of Physical Therapy for her help on editing (specially trimming it to 500 words, the most difficult part) and recommending my proposal for the Sigma Xi award. Finally Texas State CS department web team for posting it with most appropriate picture of me...thanks everbody..............

Here's the link for the CS department web site: http://www.cs.txstate.edu/
Read more about my achievements here at my personal web: Web Maze

Sigma Xi research grant award: I got it yehhhh....

Recently I won the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society Grant in aid research grant for my proposal on "Human Oculomotor Plant Modeling: Is there a significant change or deficit in oculomotor function of mTBI patients compared to normal vision in healthy subjects? ". This is the first time a student from the Texas State CS department won this prestige and competitive research award.

The Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research (GIAR) program has been providing undergraduate and graduate students with valuable educational experiences for more than 80 years. By encouraging close working relationships between students and faculty, the program promotes scientific excellence and achievement through hands-on learning.

The program awards grants of up to $1,000 to students from all areas of the sciences and engineering. Designated funds from the National Academy of Sciences allow for grants of up to $5,000 for astronomy research and $2,500 for vision related research. Students use the funding to pay for travel expenses to and from a research site, or for purchase of non-standard laboratory equipment necessary to complete a specific research project.

A quote from Bowling Green State University Sigma Xi grant recipients page.

"These students show particular promise in their research careers," said Dr. Paul Moore, a professor of biological sciences at BGSU. "This grant is a stamp of approval that they are doing good research," he added, noting that "the list of excellent scientists who got their start with Sigma Xi grants includes Nobel Prize winners and some of the top scientists over the past century."

The Grants-In-Aid of Research program is the oldest of its kind, providing undergraduate and graduate students with educational experiences since 1922. The program promotes scientific excellence through hands-on learning and close working relationships between students and faculty. "

If Obama was born in Sri Lanka?

This is hilarious, got this email from a chain letter, and see how funny it is. Yep. This is the reality of our government or better to say who ever governs the government get the power. See the Rajapaksha Regime, Younger brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksha Secretary of Defense, Elder brother Basil Rajapaksha MP and a Senior advisor for the president, and the power behind the throne, middle brother Mahinda Rajapaksha President/Defense and Finance Minister, Another brother Chamal Rajapasksha MP and Minister of Port and Aviation, brother in law chairman of the Sri Lankan Airline. This is only some of popular guys, but how many are there hidden?

The Da Vinci Code - second round

Today I watched the extended version of the “Da Vinci Code” movie by Ron Howard (I guess this is the second time, first when it released in 2006, a camera copy – too dark and wobbly, and now a crystal clear DVD rip with subtitles and extended clips thanks to torrents). When watching movies in a PC, its hard to stop yourself by dragging the mouse to forward scenes that we don’t wanna spent time, right? Whatever the movie I guess. But there are some limited number of films I watched for entirety, “National Treasurer”, and this movie “Da Vinci Code” are on the top of the lists. May be I go more with films kinda sci-fi, treasure hunting or detective/adventure stories like “Pirates of the Caribbean”, or “The count of Monte Cristo”.

The USA, TNT television is telecasting the movie again, it started on Friday, and I couldn’t finished watching it to the end. And its scheduled to repeat again tonight at about 7pm. Problem with watching a movie in a TV is you are reluctantly interrupted by advertisements and its really annoying specially if the movie is one you wanna watch so badly. So I turned to my good old friend torrent to do the downloading.

I don’t know how true the story is but whatever the way, it’s nicely done. Specially the scene where “Sophie”, the last descendent of the Jesus Christ, un-reveal the truth of her life, you feels like something stuck on your mouth or wanna cry loud, yehh I bet you felt the same when watching the movie. What I can’t believe is how the person who wrote this book imagined and related all this history to a legendary story like this, and it’s fascinating how each puzzle works and fit each other (even they are imaginations of someone). Same thing in “American Treasurer”, it’s so nice how they stick all those bits and pieces of history into a work of art. I’m impressed.

May be this I want to do someday, craft a book like this, a fiction like Arthur C. Clarks “2001” or something like “King Solomon's Mines”. Something rim to a truth, definitely not something like “Indiana Jones movies”. I liked the first one or two Indy movies but absolutely not this new one “Indiana Jones and the kingdom of Crystal Skull”, no way……..though I like the Indy PC games.

Driver License and Identification Certificate to Non-Citizens New Rule : State of Texas, USA (Bad news for international Students at Texas)

In July 2008, the Texas Department of Public Safety proposed a new administrative rule, Subchapter K, SPECIAL PROVISIONS FOR NON-CITIZENS, 37 TAC §15.171, concerning the issuance of driver licenses and identification certificates to non-citizens. This administrative rule recently became effective and implementation will beginning October 1, 2008.

This rule states:

§15.171. Issuance of Driver Licenses and Identification Certificates to Non-citizens.

(a) An applicant who is not a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States must present valid documentation issued by the United States Department of Justice, United States Department of State, United States Department of Homeland Security, United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, or any successor agency of the aforementioned that shows lawful temporary admission to the United States.
(1) An applicant whose lawful admission period is more than six months but less than the full term of a driver license or identification certificate will be issued a driver license or identification certificate with a status date displayed that coincides with the expiration of the applicant's lawful admission period in the United States.
(2) If the lawful admission period in the United States indicated on the document presented by the applicant expires in less than six months from the date of application, no driver license or identification certificate may be issued.
(3) If the document presented by the applicant to demonstrate lawful temporary admission indicates an indefinite expiration date, the driver license or identification certificate will be issued with a status date displayed of one year from the date of application.
(b) In the event the applicant's status is updated or extended, the applicant must present valid documentation of such status change or extension to obtain a duplicate driver license or identification certificate with an updated status date.
(c) The driver license or identification certificate will be cancelled if within 45 days from the status date the applicant is unable to present valid documentation showing a status change or extension of admission period.


Note: Yep. This is really really bad rule for internatioal students, because, they have the status as d/o, that is for duration of stay. This is for indefinite expiration date, and due to this rule, students with D/O needs to renew their driver license or state ID once a year (with a renew fee). No rule or law for those f****** ilegal mexicans. They can drive, they can hit and run they can work..........all this shit is for legal international studnts with legal visa status.....Shame on you Texas.......................If they can grant duration at least for 2-3years (Consider minimum degree period for MS 2years, and Bachlars 4years, Phd 5years). Or else, they can grant it for the duration of the visa expiration date!!!!!I'm glad that I got my license long before this rule, and glad they are not gonna do anything for those people. So, hope they are not gonna impose this rule when we are ready to renew our Drivers License??????

Launching the new personal web site: Web Maze

Finally I’m done with my new personal web site. Name, “Web Maze”, and I’m damn proud it. Yehhh.After number of initiatives, and different designs, this looks better, I guess. Just finished the final touch-up with a Guest book, php server support from the CS department. I used to upload all my previous web stuff into Texas State web server, but find out they have no support for the server side scripting. But our CS department web server is fully functional with mysql and php plus, remote login to the server, what else to expect ha?

For a long time, I was thinking about doing something like this, with all my stuff, research, academia, personal into one place and have a professional looking web site. Yeh….finally I’m there.

Check out the web : Web Maze

Hurricane Ike – Hope this will stay away the 150miles as expected?????

Yep. First experience with a hurricane like this. As I learnt, the closest we can expect this going to be from our location is about 150miles. I mean the center of the Hurricane Ike. Today, (September 11th) it’s about 700 miles away from San Marcos, TX, at the Gulf of Mexico. And the land fall from the coastal area of Texas going be Friday or Saturday morning, probably Freeport, TX.

I’m just wondering, how big this going to be? Hopefully not bigger than the 150miles of radius, right? Our college web states that for the moment, all classes are on time and no changes, but they are on continue monitoring with the situation, due the fact that the circumstances can change at any time.
This Saturday 7am, the Hurricane Ike center will be 40miles away from Houston, TX. Hope things won’t be so ugly like Hurricane Katrina.

Here’s a nice web site to check the current situation and the path of the Hurricane Ike. U can click on each predicted center position and get the distance from it to other locations. Nice work.
http://www.stormpulse.com/

"Google Chrome" web browser- Awesome

I just installed the new Google web browser "Chrome". Its awesome, page loading is super fast. Some problems are there working with sinhala fonts, thats fine this is just beta right folks?

I like the interface pretty much and its quite simple design, i guess that may be the reason for fast performance.

We'll see how the things moving.........

Update: I kinda settled with Opera :)

What Hurts the Most - Boyce Avenue (another different view)

Another song from my wife’s favorite picks, end up in my most wanted list. “What hurts the most”, a country song, with that breathtaking violin part, I feel pretty much close with country songs now, I guess this is because of my bond with acoustics (just a wild guess). It was bit confusing because there are two official versions one from a band called Rascal Flatts, then Cascada. So, I tried the help of Wiki to see who’s original was this, But I wanted to share with you a different version of the song, with a different band someone not popular but extremely extremely fantastic how they are playing this specific song. The band called Boyce Avenue. I think my liking is different, same thing happened when I picked the Hallelujah song, it’s how you feel the song in yourself. I don’t care who played the song first, but I follow what I feel most. I guess my wife Nim too agreed with that……………………

Here are some quotes from Wikipedia.

"What Hurts the Most" is a country music song written by Jeffrey Steele and Steve Robson. It was originally recorded by American country music singer Mark Wills on his 2003 album And the Crowd Goes Wild. It was to be released as a single, but he was dropped from his label before the song could be released. In 2006, country music trio Rascal Flatts released the song as a single for their album Me and My Gang, and it became their fifth number-one single on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. In 2006, country music trio Rascal Flatts released the song as a single for their album Me and My Gang, and it became their fifth number-one single on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.

Boyce Avenue >>>>


Cascada >>>>



Rascal Flatts >>>>