Shalin Jain's little red couch

Flash Wallpaper released

Flash wallpaper is now live!

Long Live Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Great leader and a great poet!

I have been inspired time and again by Atalji's poems. My Fav: Kadam Milakar Chalana Hoga..

I salute him and hope to see him write lot more in the years to come. Long live Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Election Update: NDA has lost elections and I wonder if India would ever see a great prime minister like Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

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Heights of technology in Automobile Industry

I started following up F1 only since last 8-10 months. While I am still not fanatic about the sport it was amazing reading some facts about F1. This was a forward I recieved from my friend. Read on - it will simply amaze you!

Here are some interesting facts about Formula 1

01. An F1 car is made up of 80,000 components, if it were assembled
99.9% correctly, it would still start the race with 80 things wrong!

02. Formula 1 cars have over a kilometre of cable, linked to about 100
sensors and actuators which monitor and control many parts of the car.

03. An F1 car can go from 0 to 160 kph AND back to 0 in FOUR seconds
!!!!!!!

04. F1 car engines last only for about 2 hours of racing mostly before
blowing up on the other hand we expect our engines to last us for a
decent 20yrs on an average and they quite faithfully DO....thats the
extent to which the engines r pushed to perform...

05. When an F1 driver hits the brakes on his car he experiences
retardation or deceleration comparable to a regular car driving
through a BRICK wall at 300kmph !!!

06. An average F1 driver looses about 4kgs of weight after just one
race due to the prolonged exposure to high G forces and temperatures
for little over an hour (Yeah thats right!!!)

07. At 550kg a F1 car is less than half the weight of a Mini.

08. In an F1 car the engine typically revs upto 18000 rpm,(the piston
travelling up and down 300 times a second!!) wheres cars like the
palio, maruti 800,indica rev only upto 6000 rpm at max. Thats 3 times
slower.

09. The brake discs in an F1 car have an operating temperature of
approx 1000 degees Centigrade and they attain that temp while braking
before almost every turn...that is why they r not made of steel but of carbon fibre
which is much more harder and resistant to wear and tear and most of all has
a higher melting point.

10. If a water hose were to blow off, the complete cooling system
would empty in just over a second.

11. Gear cogs or ratios are used only for one race, and are replaced
regularly to prevent failure, as they are subjected to very high
degrees of stress.

12. The fit in the cockpit is so tight that the steering wheel must be
removed for the driver to get in or out of the car. A small latch
behind the wheel releases it from the column. Levers or paddles for
changing gear are located on the back of the wheel. So no gearstick! The clutch levers
are also on the steering wheel, located below the gear paddles.

13. To give you an idea of just how important aerodynamic design and
added downforce can be, small planes can take off at slower speeds
than F1 cars travel on the track.

14. Without aerodynamic downforce, high-performance racing cars have
sufficient power to produce wheel spin and loss of control at 160 kph.
They usually race at over 300 kph.

15. The amount of aerodynamic downforce produced by the front and rear
wings and the car underbody is amazing. Once the car is travelling
over 160 kph, an F1 car can generate enough downforce to equal it's own weight. That
means it could actually hold itself to the CEILING of a tunnel and drive
UPSIDE down!

16. In a street course race like the monaco grand prix, the downforce
provides enough suction to lift manhole covers. Before the race all of
the manhole covers on the streets have to be welded down to prevent
this from happening!

17. The refuelers used in F1 can supply 12 litres of fuel per second.
This means it would take just 4 seconds to fill the tank of an average
50 litre family car.They use the same refueling rigs used on US military
helicopters today.

18. TOP F1 pit crews can refuel and change tyres in around 3 seconds.

19. Race car tyres don't have air in them like normal car tyres. Most
racing tyres have nitrogen in the tyres because nitrogen has a more
consistent pressure compared to normal air. Air typically contains varying
amounts of water vapour in it, which affects its expansion and contraction as a
function of temperature, making the tyre pressure unpredictable.

20. During the race the tyres lose weight! Each tyre loses about 0.5
kg in weight due to wear.

21. Normal tyres last 60 000 - 100 000 km. Racing tyres are designed
to last 90 - 120 km (That's Khandala and back).

22. A dry-weather F1 tyre reaches peak operating performance (best
grip) when tread temperature is between 900C and 1200C.(Water boils boils at
100C remember) At top speed, F1 tyres rotate 50 times a second.

Sikkim - forever ours!

I had recently learnt from my friend Preetam that China had never recognized Sikkim as part of India. It treated it as an independent country. He also explained how pragmatic chinese government is when it comes to acquiring back their so called lost terretories. They played smart with HK. They let Britain rule and develop it and finally chucked them out when it seemed most profitable. It puts me to great relief that sikkim is no more a disputed territory. It's one of the most exciting place in India. I hope to get there soon to explore more of it. Truly India's pride.

Read more about this news here.

Exit polls - Helps NDA

My response to Sandesh's post.

Exit polls are indeed helping NDA. It is proved that higher voter turn-out benefits NDA (shown with figures on NDTV). So I think the exit polls would induce BJP supporters to go out and cast their vote. Besides, exit polls have great scope for error.

A similar trend was seen in the Assembly elections held in December. Congress doesn't have master minds like Pramod Mahajan! :)

Indian elections and google ad words

Election to me is big marketing and publicity excercise (except for bihar - it's more of muscle there) carried out by political parties.

And this applies to the entire world. This election parties were busy coming up with yet another novel idea to market themselves. They are doing everything I could think of but I guess I am not as smart as they are. Would you believe if I said - Congress uses google adwords for marketing? Well you better do.. check out this ... this screenshot was taken on a google ad which showed up on one of my blog entry.

Anyways, do cast your vote. I hope to see Atalji back in power!

Flash Wallpaper Beta Released

I am glad to announce that we have released beta version of Flash Wallpaper.

What is Flash Wallpaper all about?
Flash Wallpaper allows you to turn any flash movie into a wallpaper. It helps you create an installer to making it hassle free to distribute a flash wallpaper.

How is it different or similar to Screenswift?
Screenswift allows you to convert a flash movie into a screensaver while this would put the flash as your wallpaper. Both create installer to make it distributable.

Participate in Beta Testing:
Everyone is welcome to download the beta. It would be really appreciated if you could provide us with your feedback, report bugs or provide enhancement ideas. Click here to begin downloading Tenmiles Flash Wallpaper.

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