Giant robat :)

Foot ball

Levis commercial

:)

Guatemala Sinkhole Created by Humans, Not Nature

30-story-deep chasm not a true sinkhole, but a "piping feature."

The sinkhole appeared Sunday in downtown Guatemala City, swallowing a three-story building

Human activity, not nature, was the likely cause of the gaping sinkhole that opened up in the streets of Guatemala City on Sunday, a geologist says.
A burst sewer pipe or storm drain probably hollowed out the underground cavity that allowed the chasm to form, according to Sam Bonis, a geologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, who is currently living in Guatemala City (map).
The Guatemala City sinkhole, estimated to be 60 feet (18 meters) wide and 300 feet (100 meters) deep, appears to have been triggered by the deluge from tropical storm Agatha.
But the cavity formed in the first place because the city—and its underground infrastructure—were built in a region where the first few hundred meters of ground are mostly made up of a material called pumice fill, deposited during past volcanic eruptions.
"Lots of times, volcanic pumice originates as a flow [of loose, gravel-like particles], and because of the heat and the weight, it becomes welded into solid rock," Bonis said.
"In Guatemala City [the pumice is] unconsolidated, it's loose," he said. "It hasn't been hardened into a rock yet, so it's easily eroded, especially by swift running water."
In general, the zoning regulations and building codes in Guatemala City are poor, Bonis said, and the few regulations that exist are often ignored. That means leaking pipes could have gone unfixed long enough to create the right conditions for the sinkhole. (Related pictures: "How Humans Can Trigger Earthquakes.")
In fact, Bonis thinks calling the Guatemala City chasm a sinkhole is a misnomer—a true sinkhole is an entirely natural phenomenon. There is no scientific term for what happened in Guatemala, he said, adding that he recommends the pit be dubbed a piping feature.
Guatemala Sinkhole Not a Sinkhole
Natural sinkholes generally form when heavy, water-saturated soil causes the roof of an underground limestone cavity to collapse, or when water widens a natural fracture in limestone bedrock.
But there is no limestone beneath the section of Guatemala City where the new sinkhole appeared, at least not at the depth at which the hole formed, Bonis said.
"There may be limestone thousands of meters beneath the city, but not hundreds of meters," he said.
Instead, nature likely sped up a process set in motion by human actions. (Related: "'Mud Volcano' in Indonesia Caused by Gas Exploration, Study Says.")
Recent eruptions of several volcanoes in Guatemala covered the city in a fresh layer of volcanic ash. If this material got into the city's pipes and drains, it may have clogged the passageways, making ruptures more likely, Bonis said.
Heavy rains from tropical storm Agatha may also have overloaded underground sewage or drainage pipes, leading to a growing cavity that eventually collapsed, Bonis speculated.
The geologist added that the new sinkhole shares remarkable similarities with a sinkhole that formed in Guatemala City in 2007.
"Both of these things occurred in the same general part of town. They look the same," he said. "It's more than a coincidence, especially if they trace" any faulty pipes associated with the 2010 sinkhole to pipes near the 2007 sinkhole.





Guatemala City Sewer Inspections a Must
The danger should not have been news to officials in Guatemala City, noted Bonis, who used to work for the Guatemalan government's national geology institute.
As part of a volunteer team that investigated the 2007 sinkhole, Bonis co-authored a report warning the Guatemalan government that similar holes will very likely keep appearing unless action is taken to inspect the city's sewer system for weaknesses. (Watch video of sewer divers in Mexico City.)
The government never replied, Bonis said—possibly due to a lack of funds.
"There's a minimum of regulation, because that's money that the government doesn't have," he said.
But, he added, "there's got to be ways of inspecting the sewer system. ... These are things that have to be done."

Harrassment at workplace

Recently i had seen a case which, to the extent i was told, involved harassment of a woman at work place. She was finally crying hard, requesting the CEO to detain him. The guy was fired immediately. The girl resigned fearing the humiliation.

I donot want to talk about the correctness of the judgment/ neither am interested in taking any sides in thiscase, however i feel the way the issue is handled should be made better. I dont think the company can do anything other than what it has done. I have un-happy feelings about the situation and am not sure how to react to it.

let me start it this way.. so finally what has happened? the company lost a developer & a lead. The guy & girl are suddenly on roads; both in unhappy moods. the girl, i suppose wouldn't ever comeout for a new job! The guys family is at stake!

Generally when a case like sexual harassment comes up the women communities try to make a lot of fuss of it. They actually behave as if.. " give me the guy and i will tear him into pieces.... Such a fellow should be shot in public.... punishment to him should be so severe that nobody else should ever even be able to imagine doing such athing again..." Now what are they trying to do? See the thing that made him bad is: parastree vyamoham (craving for a woman) and so lets try to correct only this part. In my view.. the ideal soln would be to finally treat things so that they still continue working the same way they did all these days... and he not harassing her. I m not sure how to achieve this.. or even if this is possible at all !!!

:))

:)

Finetuning Eclipse

I have to handle very huge projects (abt 100MB of code base or more) and oftern i see eclipse pausing/ hanging.. which is  very irritating. Explored a little how to fix it and the soln is as follows.

Open eclipse.ini file. This will be adjacent to the eclipse.exe in the eclipse dump.
Add the below entries:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.201.R35x_v20090715.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.0.200.v20090519
-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
384m
-vmargs
-Xms768m
-Xmx768m
-XX:PermSize=256m
-XX:MaxPermSize=256m
-XX:+UseParallelGC
-Dsun.lang.ClassLoader.allowArraySyntax=true

An EMAil i got this morning.. not sure how far its true.. but if at all its true..  then hats off to TATA.

A. The Tata Gesture

1. All category of employees including those who had completed even 1 day as casuals were treated on duty during the time the hotel was closed.

2. Relief and assistance to all those who were injured and killed

3. The relief and assistance was extended to all those who died at the railway station, surroundings including the “Pav- Bha ji” vendor and the pan shop owners.

4. During the time the hotel was closed, the salaries were sent by money order.

5. A psychiatric cell was established in collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences to counsel those who needed such help.

6. The thoughts and anxieties going on people’s mind was constantly tracked and where needed psychological help provided.

7. Employee outreach centers were opened where all help, food, water, sanitation, first aid and counseling was provided. 1600 employees were covered by this facility.

8. Every employee was assigned to one mentor and it was that person’s responsibility to act as a “single window” clearance for any help that the person required.

9. Ratan Tata personally visited the families of all the 80 employees who in some manner – either through injury or getting killed – were affected.

10. The dependents of the employees were flown from outside Mumbai to Mumbai and taken care off in terms of ensuring mental assurance and peace. They were all accommodated in Hotel President for 3 weeks.

11. Ratan Tata himself asked the families and dependents – as to what they wanted him to do.

12. In a record time of 20 days, a new trust was created by the Tatas for the purpose of relief of employees.

13. Whatg is unique is that even the other people, the railway employees, the police staff, the pedestrians who had nothing to do with Tatas were covered by compensation. Each one of them was provided subsistence allowance of Rs. 10K per month for all these people for 6 months.

14. A 4 year old granddaughter of a vendor got 4 bullets in her and only one was removed in the Government hospital. She was taken to Bombay hospital and several lacs were spent by the Tatas on her to fully recover her.

15. New hand carts were provided to several vendors who lost their carts.

16. Tata will take responsibility of life education of 46 children of the victims of the terror.

17. This was the most trying period in the life of the organisation. Senior managers including Ratan Tata were visiting funeral to funeral over the 3 days that were most horrible.

18. The settlement for every deceased member ranged from Rs. 36 to 85 lacs [One lakh rupees tranlates to approx 2200 US $ ] in addition to the following benefits:

a. Full last salary for life for the family and dependents;

b. Complete responsibility of education of children and dependents – anywhere in the world.

c. Full Medical facility for the whole family and dependents for rest of their life.

d. All loans and advances were waived off – irrespective of the amount.

e. Counselor for life for each person

B. Epilogue

1. How was such passion created among the employees? How and why did they behave the way they did?

2. The organisation is clear that it is not something that someone can take credit for. It is not some training and development that created such behaviour. If someone suggests that – everyone laughs

3. It has to do with the DNA of the organisation, with the way Tata culture exists and above all with the situation that prevailed that time. The organisation has always been telling that customers and guests are #1 priority

4. The hotel business was started by Jamshedji Tata when he was insulted in one of the British hotels and not allowed to stay there.

5. He created several institutions which later became icons of progress, culture and modernity. IISc is one such institute. He was told by the rulers that time that he can acquire land for IISc to the extent he could fence the same. He could afford fencing only 400 acres.

6. When the HR function hesitatingly made a very rich proposal to Ratan – he said – do you think we are doing enough?

7. The whole approach was that the organisation would spend several hundred crore in re-building the property – why not spend equally on the employees who gave their life?

This is NOT COVRED BY Any NEWS CHANNELS

Like JOKERS RUNNING AAJTAK, ZEE NEWS , IBN These People Busy SHOWING DOGS CATS and Dalits and covers all BUL SHIT .

The Giant Oil Rig Explosion of The Gulf of Mexico.

If you watch the news from time to time, then you know that an oil drilling platform has just recently exploded 50 miles off the Louisiana coasts. 126 workers were aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig when it blew up. 100 workers made it to the supply boats but 11 are still missing, 17 were injured, four of them critically.




They still don’t know for sure what is at the source of the incident, the investigation is still going on.



These pictures are very impressive, look at the size of the flames and how big the smoke cloud is! A lot of work for the fireboats and coast guards and a lot of pain and sadness for the families directly concerned by the accident…