This chick dared the storm....

Darby, the first storm to hit the Hawaiian Islands last week did bring a huge down pour in Oahu although it affected Hawaii lot more. My son spoted this White Tern chick near his office at Honolulu Hale and took these pictures. The chick looks quite defiant the next morning after the storm.

White Tern also called by other names (check this please!) Angel Tern or Fairy Tern or White Fairy Tern (Gygis Alba) is common to the Hawaiin Islands and feeds on the fish at its shores. It is said, it lays a single egg on the fork in the branches without building a nest. No wonder the chicks can weather a storm! White Tern became the official bird of Honolulu in 2007.

Here is the adult bird in flight. This beautiful picture is from this source.

Bernie Sanders could not convince his supporters to support Clinton, he was booed

Bernie Sanders spoke to his supporters just before the beginning of the DNC Convention. It was a great performance by Bernie Sanders. He recalled the successes during this year and the problems facing this country. It must have been a highly charged crowd. When he asked his supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton, the crowds jeered and booed.

The crowd outside was equally vociferous to the extent that they would rather have 4 years of Trump rather than 8 years of Clinton.

Perhaps Bernie should have kept his speech short to cool down the crowd, but that did not happen. The crowd really turned angry at the mere mention of super delegates, the election format, the super pac support etc.

At least he succeeded in taking the gavel away from the DNC Chair and perhaps he has made Hillary Clinton to change her world view; to really understand the inequality that exists in this country by wearing appropriate dress addressing inequality issues; to refrain from empty rhetorics and get down to  business; and bring about most of Bernie's ideas, should she get elected, which appears to be thinning down.

Sanders' backers: it is time to join the Green Party

The Wiki Leaks revelation of plots to put down Bernie Sanders is despicable. How low can they go?
It is time for those who believed in Bernie Sanders platform to ditch democratic party and take a look at Green Party. I am sure you may not be thrilled by the other contender.

It is time to change, change in a big way.

If you are in Philadelphia tomorrow, try to visit FDR Park, the designated protest hub where you can meet Jill Stein. Look for 'Power Rally for Jill Stein for President'. In addition to listening to speakers there will also be music.

Sanders really got a rotten deal.
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/bernie-sanders-calls-wasserman-schultz-resign-wake-dnc/story?id=40824983

A pledge is all about honoring a promise

A pledge is an assurance that a promise is going to be kept. Mr. Cruz has violated the pledge he has signed making his signature meaningless. Are we going to go with politicians that break their promise?  Boo!

Donald trump appeared to be a better man than Ted Cruz by offering him a piece of the prime time during the convention knowing full well he may not endorse him.

Animal Welfare parties around the World

There is a greater awareness of people around the world  to the welfare of animals. They have strongly come out against creuelty and mistreatment of animals. The Dutch institution has been extremely active and garnering acceptance in the political system.

The two party system in USA (also un UK) makes it hard for third party to make any significant presence. Nevertheless the existing party should make stronger effort not only in the states in which it is somewhat active but also in others.

Here are some political parties that do worry about animals around the Western world:

Of course there are more in Spain, Italy, Sweden, etc.

Please watch this Euro Animal 7 video:

 http://www.animalwelfareparty.org/euro-animal-7/

Sort of disappointed with Bernie Sanders

I am not sure how he reconciles with his earlier assessment of Hilary Clinton. He is disappointing.
Anyway, the cause is bigger than the person. We should move on with the ideas and let Bernie go his way with Hilary. After his endorsement, it looks like Hilary does not care anymore what he thinks and probably he will fade away. Also just because Bernie endorsed Hilary does not mean everyone who supported Bernie should. Do what your conscience says.

For now I am looking at the Green Party and the Libertarian Party. The Human Rights Party has some good points and I would go beyond and ensure fair treatment of animals endangered or not. We should address the totality of all that makes us Human.
http://thehumanrightsparty.org/

 

This smartphone is cheaper than a beer

This Indian smartphone named Freedom 251 is ready for shipping according to some, runs Android loolipop. This is really the cheapest smartphone and I do not understand the economics anymore. Even the common accessories like USB charger; earphone etc would cost more.

The phone is made by a not so known company called Ringing Bells in India costs ₹251 with specs of Android phones that cost at least 8 times. The below video shows the phone.

Freedom 251 video on YouTube:

This company seems to be in some contention with another Indian manufacturer, ADCOM. ADCOM is part of 'Advantage Computers" which deals with lots of computers and smartphones. 

Tell European commission to desist

Global ban on ivory is the only acceptible solution that will save this species from the poachers. There cannot be any escape clauses to this. Install maximum punishment under law for poaching species in extinction. Make the law, if it is  already not there.

Right now sign this to show your support at Avvaz.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/global_ivory_ban_loc/?copy

 

 

..

Google translator does really a good job

Most of them can do well, some better, some worse. It also depends on what language you want translate from/to. The better ones can auto-detect the language and for some of them you need to specify the source and destination languages.

In my recent experiment, I tried to translate a few lines from a receipt in Czech. Google did definitely better than Bing or Babylon. Babylon cannot auto-detect. Here are the results which is easy for you to rate them.

Bing

Some correct and for some no clue. The online tool should correctly recognize end of line.

Google

Perfect score!

Babylon

OK but does not recognize end of line

Is America racially divided?

This appears to be trending topic and I have been listening to lots of news especially after the recent incidents. In fact this morning, I watched Fareed Zakaria's GPS with curiosity to get some new insight.

It is no news that USA is racially divided despite what is being assumed. It is not just America, most of the world has one problem or the other, divided for one reason or the other. It is the nature of the human beings. Here is just a simple, random list and you get the picture.

African Americans/ White Americans -USA
English Speakers/ French Speakers -Canada
Hindus / Muslims - India
Muslims / Christians - India
Hindus / Christians - India
Haves / Have-nots -World wide
Europe / England -Immigrants
Ireland / England
Anti gun / Gun
pro-life/pro-abortion

The arguments and comments made by Angela Rye ( CNN Political Commentator and NPR Political Analyst) today on Fareed's program  really appealed to me as perhaps the best reason for this racial divide in the USA. It goes back to days of slavery. It goes back to the time when whole lot of people got uprooted and found themselves in a position from which they could not get up and walk away easily. It took a long, long time before one of their own kind become the most powerful person in USA.

Some countries, small in geographical extent, with a mostly monolithic racial content, like Japan or Korea may have lesser feelings of division on the basis of race, but they have other reasons to feel divided.

Similar situations have arisen in other countries. How do you walk away from a system imposed by the caste system over centuries?  True, in the past 60 years or so, various measures have been taken to improve and bring up the backward people to move up (Education and Job opportunities). Still it is not sufficient.

What is the remedy?

The remedy is true and continuous integration (remove all forms of 'everyday racism) and not bask in a 'melting pot' rhetoric that politicians throw sometimes.

Is it possible to achieve true integration? Easier said then done. Each and every American man, woman and child should feel it in their heart to say no to covert racism that is more rampant and more hurting than anything else.

Looks like education is one area where integration can start. I also heard that there are places in the south which are still segregated.
Why?
After all this time?

Colloborate better using Office 2016

Office 365 is a product continuously upgrading its features even as Microsoft continues to buy companies. The Microsoft products OneDrive and SharePoint are central to the collaboration features of Office 365. This feature appears after the April 2016 upgrade and allows you to collaborate in real time and do more with your documents.

Another Microsoft recent acquisition (Skype for Business) is also integrated with the Office 2016 so that you can directly access Skype from your Word document.

All these new features are accessed via The Ribbon according to information on Office site as shown here:

Share_000

In the Word 2016 document upgraded to the recent version, I do not see a separate toolbar as in the above.

However, I do have the Share control on the Word document as shown here.

Share_00

When I click this link, the following is displayed. As I mentioned earlier, either OneDrive or SharePoint should be available. If you have a Microsoft account, you can have OneDrive and that is what I have here. I will save it to the OneDrive with a name (TestCollaboration) and click Save.

Share_01

This action brings up a window asking you to invite people with whom you want to share with as shown. Notice you started the ball rolling and you are the owner.

Share_02

When you click to open (notice a small icon that looks like a book) the contacts list gets opened as shown.

Share_03

It is private so I have just made it unreadable.
You can choose a name or names with whom you want to collaborate with and they get added to the Share window as shown.

Share_04

When you click Share button the following will be displayed.

Share_05

In this window if you click on the icon of the Owner or the other user more collaborative features open up as shown.

Share_06

Instant messaging, Skype calling, emailing and every other form of collaboration is now open to you.

Visit to Budapest, Vienna, Prague and Salzburg

This is just a test. This may be removed and then replaced with better documentation. Looks like some of the videos need editing as well.

Visit to Szentendre.




Here are some videos

  

Are you comfortable with this 'extremly careless' person as your next President?

It does not make sense that this person in such an important position responsible for the safety of this nation could make such a mistake. Anyone, even 10, 15 years earlier to this incident, if he or she had made this mistake in a private company he/she would have been immediately fired. Period.

How come this is being overlooked in this case? This is extremely troubling for an voter such as myself.

It is regrettable that this happened in President Obama's watch.

Watch this video playlist (27 videos):

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/07/05/hillary-clinton-fbi-email-investigation-origwx-bw.cnn/video/playlists/hillary-clinton-emails/

Picturesque town of Hungary- Szentendre

This picturesque town of Szentendre on the bank of Danube in Hungary is not too far from Budapest. It is easy to reach there by bus.It is truly picturesque as you see in the pictures and if you are into painting you may like to visit. It has a rich history of migration and interaction with Romans and Turks.

We visited this town during our recent trip to Europe and spent a delightful hour there on the way from Budapest to Vienna.  It was 10ish and the weather was perfect. The cobbled stones; the quaint churches and the numerous gift and sovenir shops on either side of the main street left a lasting impression.

The photos, only couple shown here speaks for themselves as to the picturequeness of this little town.