Avial

I started learning about this organization called Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, LLS ( http://www.lls.org/ ). They are a pioneer organization in enabling cutting edge cancer research. LLS has directly collaborated with researchers in premier institutes like John Hopkins University in funding and guiding the direction of cancer research. For instance, a big break-through known as T-cell immunotherapy (training the patients immune system to kill cancer cells specifically) is an outcome of LLS' vision and funding. The end to cancer is near. Through LLS, we need to focus our efforts, funds and time efficiently to make it happen sooner. In a mission to help this organization, I have pledge to raise $3000. To spread awareness, I am getting out of my comfort zone and training a Marathon race in San Diego. Please make a donation in support of my efforts to accelerate the cures for cancer. You can contribute directly online at this webpage:  http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/rnr

Woke up this morning with these questions: What are the real world problems today? Which one am I trying to solve?  I can think of a few problems * Energy Crisis * Food, Water and Shelter (there are many without these)  * Animosity arising out of cultural differences * Eradication of multiple diseases * Education Please do contribute to my list. I believe that I am solving the Energy Crisis, indirectly, by making energy efficient electronics  . Would love to do something more obvious. Karthik

I am sure that many of you already know what an Arduino is. For those who are unfamiliar with an Arduino, it is an open source hardware project. It empowers electronics hobbyists to build awesome projects without having to waste too much time on the dirty work. For more accurate description, I strongly urge you to read:  http://arduino.cc/ If you are looking for a more powerful piece of hardware, you should be getting a raspberry pi:  http://www.raspberrypi.org/  Its a $50 CPU; you could connect external mouse, key board and monitor to have a bare-bones computer. Using an arduino, one can read data of sensors easily. For instance, temperature could be read out of an temperature sensor IC. Based on the type of the sensor IC, the value of the temperature is either analog (as in LM35), in which case we could use the pins A0-A5 to directly read the output of the sensor, or if we use a sensor like TC74A0 we could use the I2C protocol to read the temperature out of the memory of the IC.

I have always found gardening to be a pleasurable activity. During the summer holidays (school days), my sister and I visited my grandparents. Watering plants used to one of the evening routines. Over a few summers, we have seen beautiful flowers, tender okras (ladies finger), coconut trees grow tall, banana plants spread uncontrollably, etc. But my simple contribution then was to water the plants. Hobby Revisited In the last one year, I have revived interest in gardening. My friend Ketan gave me "money plant", mint and basil. Money plant has not yet fetched me any money: I am still a Phd student trying to graduate as soon as I can. But the plant is growing well and is awaiting to be re-potted. The mint plant died in the winter despite my best efforts. Yes, I did take a lot of efforts to keep it alive. I talked to the plant everyday motivated by J.C. Bose's suggestion. Even placed a light bulb closed to the plant: (1) Light for photosynthesis. (2) Heat to keep it warm

Click here to view this photo book larger Turn your favorite photos into a photo book at Shutterfly.com .

Google has come up with an interesting social networking platform - Google+. It has some nice features, pleasant look and most importantly an intuitive interface. Will it be a Facebook killer? Here is my take on it. Circles  Google has gone one step ahead of Facebook in creating an online society. As in reality, some friends are closer than the others even on the web. It is desirable to share photos or status updates with only certain group of friends instead of everyone. Circles in Google+ allows one to do this by way of organizing friends. While Facebook also has a way to organize friends, I don't find it as intuitive as Circles; probably circles is marketed while its counterpart's utility is not. Hangout For me, if anything can recreate the feeling of society, then its got to be the concept of get together for a conversation. Hangout is designed to do this precisely. If you are chatting with people in a circle, the others in that circle are invited to come hang out. Ha