THIS IS US...or is it??

I remember Brian Littrell's words at the end of the Unbreakable tour

"I'd like to tell you all a secret. Though its a secret, I want you to share with ur family, friends, cousins, friends of friends. Tonight is the last show of this particular tour. And tomorrow, we'll be back in the studio, working on a brand new album with a fine young man called T-Pain"

And I was on cloud 9...just like any other BSB fan...and it was pretty obvious that they were gonna try somethin new with T-Pain around...A few months later, I saw Nick Carter's blog updated with a post that congratulated Obana on his victory...He also spoke a lot about 'Change' and he seemed to be quie optimistic about their next project...

Sometime in the month of June, i could find leaked songs on the net...and the album was officially launched in October under the name 'This is us'...



Heres a review of the album...

The first single released from the album was 'Straight through my heart'...But i should say, the boys hav once again missed out on choosing the right single...Straight through my heart is a eurodance style ballad that can only reach out to their fans...maybe they released it as their first single as their tour commences from Europe...or was it just becoz RedOne composed it?Maybe he has had a really good year... But there was surely a better option

The next single to be released was 'Bigger'...Though this was a better choice, its once again a song that only their fans can appreciate...nice rythm guitar and lyrics...but that is not nearly sufficient to rock the radios of today...And to be very frank, neither of these music videos were appealing...

Now to the album...I should say i was very disappointed because the songs 'Fallen Angel' and 'Hologram' didn't make it to the album...the former was my favourite amongst the leaked songs and hologram was a really good one of a different style and it was composed by T-Pain so it wud hav helped them gain a lot of attention...

Anyway, into the album, their new attempt seems to hav come out really good...congrats boys...
A lot of Hip hop and RnB essence dominating the tracks with a drastic change in their style of lyrics could mean a BSB evolution...though i still feel they are better off in their old style...i'll come back to that later...

We've known BSB to hav shown traces of Hihop in their early years ...songs like 'What I know now', 'Helpless', 'Bye Bye love' showcase their talent in that art which has not vanished over the years...truly good ones

'You need love' is another eurodance ballad which once again brings us some nostalgia abt their earlier works....

'THis is US'...nice guitar works...but...the song hasn't clung onto me yet...sounds fairly good at the moment

PDA...well...when did BSB start singin stuff like "My hands all over your booty"!!!

'Masquerade'-My favourite track from the album(becoz Fallen Angel wasn't released)...nice beats, an absorbing bridge, good chorus, traces of techno...wowie...

SHe's a dream....Another awesome number of a different style...lyrics stand out...

Shattered...some signs of the BSB we used to know....

Undone...a really nice and a different style track...actually, largely resembles Michael Jackson's style...is this their way of givin a tribute?



Helpless, as i said earlier, is a really good hihop/rnb number and credits to Pitbull as well


Now overall...
music...they've tried a lot of new things, quite successfully i should say...but I still wish they din do it at the cost of their original style...



lyrics...only their style of lyrics has changed...but i'm pretty convinced thet they've retained their quality...songs like bigger and what i know now clearly indicate it



then to the boys...(i know they're never gonna read this but i'll still address it to them!)

AJ...your base voice remains sexy as ever...and no complains about your voice in the higher octaves either



Nick...what an evolution from never Gone to unbreakable and now to this is us...you're wow man! possibly my fav voice next only to bryan adams...and the control you've got in switchin between your true voice and falsetto is a point wher you even beat Bryan



Howie...i thought u wer the weakling amongst the boys though i've always appreciated your contributions in the add ins...but you baffled me ths time around with your superb falsetto...incomparable!11your voice in the song shattered surely shot me down! and congrats on your new kid:)



Brian...what to say...you've been the most reliable snger right from the start when it came to control ovrer your voice...u've only improved with age



so...you'd surely feel this album could hav been titled this is not us, if you've been following them for many years now...anyway...i'll stand by them on anything new they'd like to experiment...i'm happy that this one has come out good...still wish fallen angel made it to the disc and the radios...

anyway...they were, are and will forever be the kings of teen pop!!!



KEEP THE BACKSTREET PRIDE ALIVE!!!

GRAVITATIONAL REDSHIFT

Hi folks....am back to blogging after a while now...thought of comin back with a bang...dunno how much of a bang this will be:)

So...the first thing you'll have to know in order to understand this concept wud be Doppler effect and its extension into light waves...

For those who are new to Doppler effect...
Whenever there is a relative motion between the source of sound and the observer, there is a change in the frequency of sound observed by the observer...
If the relative motion is such that the source and observer approach each other, there is an increase in frequency, and if the relative motion is such that they recede away from each other, there is a decrease in frequency as observed by the observer...

Now its extension into light waves...
Consider a similar case with light waves...
If the source moves towards the observer, we have an increase in frequency of light waves which we term as blue shift.
If the source moves away from the observer, we have a decrease in frequency which is what we call as red shift.
Practically, we don't feel this effect because the speed of the relative motion between the source and the observer is usually neglible compared to the velocity of light waves.

This redshift doesn't necessarily take place because of the Doppler effect.
Consider a photon travellin away from the earth's surface, or, let's say a gravity well...its path wud be similar to that taken up by a projectile which slows down as it gains altitude by transfering its kinetic energy to potential energy.
But in the case of a photon, it cannot lose energy by slowing down as they are always considered to travel at 'c' . So we have to comprehend the loss in energy as a lowering in frequency of the photon waves, in other words, redenning of photons. This is termed as gravitational redshifting.
Here too, u have the gravitational blueshifting, which occurs when a photon falls into a gravity well.

If you are one of those techy guys looking for a valid derivation to support this theory, get some book relating to quantum physics...

A legend and his legacy...a tribute to MJ

I was fast asleep on Friday mornin when a friend called me and told me MJ was dead...I asked him if it was a confirmed news but he wasn't sure...so, i went back to bed, optimistic....when i woke up again, i saw about 10 text messages waitin for me in my mobile, all conveyin the same tragic news..."Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, is dead"....Shocked I was...i switched the TV on, hoping against hope that it wasn't true but...what a beautiful letdown!

But it took a couple of hours, i should say, for the fact to sink in....then this nostalgia begins....Michael Joseph Jacskson...a journey that began as a 5 year old, the youngest and the most adorable brother of the Jackson 5... a band that could topple the likes of Beatles...u cud say amongst arguments between the best music analysts that it was the first known boyband type of band...anyway, this is possibly not the best time to argue if Jackson5 was a boyband or not....his road continued with concerts all over the world...dunno what convinced him to try his hand on acting in the late 70s..his film was a box office disaster but that was what revolutionalised his career...he met Quincy Jones who was instumental in bringing his solo career to the stage...an electric entry into the charts with 'Off the wall' followed by the record-breaking 'Thriller' with singles like Billie Jean, Beat it, Thriller virtually ruling the charts ....It was now MTV's turn to give up its policy of telcastin white singers only...another barrier broken by Michael...Then it was time to become a superstar and the Motown 25th Anniversary was the perfect stage for it as he unveiled the legendary moonwalk...then came 1984 where he moved from just another achiever to an unmatched champion when he grabbed 8 grammy awards on a single night, a record that will never be broken....and then his final tour with the jacson5 'Victory'...1987 saw the release of Bad which was, as expected, another huge hit both in terms of sales and the charts...honours started pouring in as he became 'The artist of the decade' and his first autobiography 'Moonwalk' hit the stores a year later..

Then the 90's which saw a record-breaking recording deal with sony for his 4th album Dangerous...ant this period, according to me, was what turned Michael into a legend...forget his association with the white house prior to this, but this time President George Bush personally honoured him with the "Enternainer of the decade" award...And charity, somethin which he has been doing for years went to an all new level when he formed the Heal the World Foundation...If u thought his relief measures for Africa in the mid 80s("We are the world") was an appreciable effort, this one wud be divine as he catered to the needs of children around the world...Then came the superbowl performance, which according to me is his best performance ever...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClB6hJvgvAs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCma5VvMCXg
(Those links will show you the best of his magic)

He then went on to marry Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of the legendary rockstar Elvis Presley...it lasted for just over one and a half years before they divorced on friendly terms...In the meantime Michael's career was brought out from a bit of a swing with the release of History which broke the first week sales record...Preceeded by the release of the most expensive music video ever created, scream, which featured Janet Jackson and of course a record breaking "You are not alone", the album proved to be worthy of every penny sony spent on campaigning for the album...he followed it up with the a world tour which, once again smashed several records...This was followed by the birth of his son Prince Michael Jackson and a year later his daughter Paris Katherine Michael Jackson...he released the longest music video ever made 'Ghosts' and then the album 'Blood on the Dancefloor'(This was the first MJ song that i liked)...

The new millenium didn't dawn bright for him as he got involved in a duel with Sony Music, when he accused the chairman to be a racist...this led to a serious rift between the two parties and his album was not promoted upto the mark...but then, he was Invincible...the album ruled the charts against all odds...but it was a clear sign of a downfall in his career...He was father once again with the birth of Prince Michael II...Then came the worst part of his life- arrested on child molestation charges and later gettin acquitted...a dishonest doccumentary of his life...the Julien's auction where he had to part with his lovely Neverland Ranch...repeated disputes with sponsors, gettin ripped of every penny by the court....everything that a legend did not deserve....but it was time to bounce back as he announced his comeback tour "This is it" where 50 concerts sold out in a few minutes...but that show wud not go on....'Cardiac arrest', as doctors call it, took Michael away from us, once and for all...affirmed to be result of overdose of painkillers...but i don't think it was the painkiller that killed our MJ, it was the pain...the least that the world cud give to a man who taught them what love is...

If I wer to give u a list of all records he has broken and all awards he has recieved, I'd be lying to u...coz i dont think its humanly possible to get a comprehensive list of his achievements as a musician, though a it was a human who achieved them...but there is one laurel which stands out to me...Michael Jackson holds the record for maximum charity among celebrities...now doesn't that show his love for the world?...well it doesn't...u gotta know the man to know his love...i dont care what the court thinks but I'm sure MJ was surely innocent in every case he appeared...and he'd probably be the last man on earth to abuse a child...we did see some of his sponsors, who had earlier registered cases against him, admit shamelessly that they were lying, soon after his death...Michael's soul wud forgive them as it was the embodiment of all goodness the world ever knew...

"I've been in the entertainment industry since I was six-years-old... As Charles Dickens says, "It's been the best of times, the worst of times." But I would not change my career... While some have made deliberate attempts to hurt me, I take it in stride because I have a loving family, a strong faith and wonderful friends and fans who have, and continue, to support me."
-MJ

"There wasn't nothing strange about your dad, it was strange what your dad had to deal with"
-Al Sharpton to Michael's kids on his funeral

RIP Jacko.

If today was your last day!

Guess we've been into too much of science lately..so...thought of postin somethin light..and as i sat thinkin, i was listenin to Nickelback's new album Dark Horse...and this song was amazing 'If today was your last day'...so i thought of askin people what they'd do on their last day...actually i made it the world's last day to make it more interesting....i gotta tell u some of them were truly unexpected...some too crazy, some too stupid...like i heard two ppl tellin me they'll be killin specific ppl...y wud one do that if the entire world is gonna die 2moro?...anyway...here are the replies...

Arvind: Steal the only Lamborghini in town and go for a ride

Gowtham Chakrawarthy: Play PS2 all day

Gowtham: Meet bill gates and study atlest one class at IIT(this is to be decent, not the actual desire)

Raguram:Watch NDTV all day to see the world covered on the last day

Preethi:Live the day completely for myself(still haven't said how)

Viswa: Learn Kadhal konjum song on guitar and play it to friends and family, go for movies, hang out, surf in the net, sleep well....and attend Prasanna and Nag's tuitions, learn carboxylic acids and then electrostatics...wait for tomorrow's ending

Neeraja:call up people who hv got hard feeling against me n apologize, go to a hilly chilly place, hav loads of ice creams, contact siddarth mallya(I wonder why)

A.Vignesh:i wud talk 2 all my friends...............wish 2 go wit dem all d places i had visited before

Fathima:Just roam around with friends all day

Manikandan: Go and murder Prasanna and Thiruselvam

Ramya: Spend time with parents, eat and sleep...

Sudhan: Play a hell lot of cricket and eat a hell lot more

Suhas: Beg the Indian government for a day's class at ISB

Arun Kumar: pray to god for a peaceful death

Gautham ('Nadal' as on orkut): Eat the dish i like, propose to the girl i luv and kill the ppl i hate

Kaarteeshwaran: try to stop 2moro's ending! If i find thats not possible, spend the time wid my luved ones

Siva Shankar: Rob our correspondent(...yeah, he's rich)



Hey...if u r readin this right now pls send in ur reply to this question as a comment so that i ca add it too...let the world know ur deepest desire!...make sure u add ur name...anyway...guess i should add the lyrics of the song which are awesome!...do spend some time to read through it fully....

"If Today Was Your Last Day"

My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each day's a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind
And try to take the path less traveled by
That first step you take is the longest stride

If today was your last day
And tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have?
If today was your last day

Against the grain should be a way of life
What's worth the prize is always worth the fight
Every second counts 'cause there's no second try
So live like you'll never live it twice
Don't take the free ride in your own life

If today was your last day
And tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have?
Would you call old friends you never see?
Reminisce old memories
Would you forgive your enemies?
Would you find that one you're dreamin' of?
Swear up and down to God above
That you finally fall in love
If today was your last day

If today was your last day
Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart?
You know it's never too late to shoot for the stars
Regardless of who you are
So do whatever it takes
'Cause you can't rewind a moment in this life
Let nothin' stand in your way
Cause the hands of time are never on your side

If today was your last day
And tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?

Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have?
Would you call old friends you never see?
Reminisce old memories
Would you forgive your enemies?
Would you find that one you're dreamin' of?
Swear up and down to God above
That you finally fall in love
If today was your last day

And finally, i wudn't be doin justice if i ended this post without my own reply...so here it goes..

Mahesh: Try to book tickets to the last bsb concert ever...get there even if tickets are not available...and if there's no concert, i'll go and try to meet each of them...and on the way, i'll be doin everything this song just told u..and try to be 18 till I die!

Belief Bias:The coke myths

A long day at work, a game of cricket, a movie, a dinner or just a long walk ...the best thing to have by your side would be a tin of coke or pepsi...

But every time we sip it, we see thousands of people waitin to tell us that its injurious to our health...for a miliion reasons...anything they can cook up before u ask why...

These people have an unmistakable knack of misunderstanding things, fooling themselves and workin at their level best to fool others too...

Lets first try to crack one big myth that widespread in the Indian community...its not a myth though...it is true...but the way it is explained to ignorant people by 'experienced and knowledgeable ' persons is utter crap...

"A tooth dissolves in a bottle of coke in (each guy chooses his own span of time) 2 days"

And yea...it has been tried and tested and proved beyond doubt...but why does that happen?..an 'experienced' researcher(who might not even be one) comes on TV and tells u "It contains some toxic chemicals that are capable of dissolving the hardest part of your body....so be careful"

That would be enough to convince the unsuspecting society, makin sure the company runs out of business in no time...hardly any of them would have thought about people who drink a coke everyday and live healthy...No one would wanna know what 'toxic chemicals' the guy is talkin about...the word is just too convincing by itself...

Then a team starts to crack the myth...find the true reason....out of rational thinking...sixth grade chemistrty rather...try to recollect the first of the facts u learnt in chemistry...about acids...
"ALL ACIDS ARE CORROSIVE"
Ring any bells?
The cool drinks we consume are acidic...so naturally corrosive..and sure a tooth wud dissolve in it as it would in a glass of lemonade(a stronger acid...proved) or even a bowl of curd(lactic acid)... The acids produced by our digestive track are far far stronger than lemonade or coke but that's what does our digestion...but why did such researches never reach people?

Here comes the concept of belief bias...
People will tend to accept any and all conclusions that fit in with their systems of belief, without challenge or any deep consideration of what they are actually agreeing with.
People will tend to reject assertions that do not fit in with their belief systems, even though these statements may be perfectly logical and arguably possible.

Coke is too new for the third-world...metal tins had never been a part of their dinner table, a hundred years back...and they don't wanna change their ways....thats why people tested tooth in coke and pepsi but not in lemonade...even if u try to explain it to them, they are not gonna agree...

So if lemonade and curd are perfectly harmless, so is coke...c'mon a huge proportion of out daily diet is acidic in one way or the other..


Then....the recent buzz....COKE + MENTOS= DEATH!

Now, doesn't that sound stupid?
The image u see here is exactly what happens when u drop a couple of mentos candies into a bottle of diet coke...The shower rises to about 6 feet i guess...quite a strange thing to happen...and surely somethin u wouldn't let happen inside your digestive track...but to say that it wud lead to death without anyone actually tryin it real time? And i gues the explanation as per those most learned people in our society would have sounded somethin like "This just goes on to show how damn toxic coke is...see! a 6 foot shower! What more proof does one want?"

I'm sure u'd bet the guy had no idea why it happened...

But there were people who cracked this one too...they call themselves "The Mythbusters" and rightly so...they explain it to be the result of a phenomenon called 'nucleation'

See...if u look at a mentos candy closely(or maybe through a magnifying glass) u wud be able to see that its surface is actually not smooth...its surface contains millions of microscopic pits, which we call here as the 'nucleation sites'...Now..I'm sure u'd be aware of the fact that coke contains dissolved carbondioxide...In each of these pits or nucleation sites, a carbondioxide molecule can change into gas(bubble)...and naturally as they are formed, they escape to the surface...since the surfae of mentos is so pitted, millions of bubbles are formed in a fraction of a second...as the candy sinks down to the bottom of the bottle, all those bubbles(millions of them) tend to rise up and the force causes some of the liquid to rise along with them...as a result...u see somethin like the picture above...

If u dropped a couple of a particular variety of flavoured mentos into coke, u wud find that this shower thing doesn't happen...this is because the flavoured version of the candy has a waxy coating that is smooth and nullifies the possibilities of nucleation sites...

When u have actually eaten(not swallowed) a mentos candy, the nucleation sites(the pits on its surface) get distorted...so if u drink coke after that, nothing will happen because only microscopic pits can enable the liberation of a dissolved carbondioxide molecule...

So the next time u sip a tin of coke or pepsi, i suggest u enjoy the moment rather than thinkin of its possible unpleasant outcomes...coz there'll be none...break the belief bias...

The 80:20 rule

twenty20 is full of life and drama...as i type this post, curtains are being drawn on this year's edition of the IPL...anyway what I'm gonna say is quite different...commonly referred to as the 80:20 rule...

This is another theory...more of a practical thing...given by Parato(hope i got the name right...am really bad with them..)

Anyway the rule is quite simple and is best understood through examples...

Take any two related entities in life and this rule will hold good...

Lets take students and courses...
80% of the students opt for only 20% of the courses...

Now...income-expenditure
80% of our income is spent on only 20% of our expenditures(food, shelter)

Say...elections-contestants
80% of the people vote for only 20% of the contestants(or parties)

80% of our time is spent on just 20% of our activities

80% of e-mail users prefer only 20% of websites( say yahoo, google)

.........

Hope u've got it...keep comin up with entities and apply this rule...it has worked out well for everything I've tried so far...

Feel that this is too ordinary? Well i don't...think this one rings some bells in our head that have rusted over the years....

LIVIN ON ENTROPY

Well here's a scientific theory on entropy and life which was given by (forgot his name) and explained to me by my friend....I'll try to explain it to u...I swear tiz an awesome theory

If u are not quite used to the term entropy, one may define it as "The degree of disorder or randomness of the molecules of a system"

So lets come to a human body...When we live, our entropy is less as our body is quite rigid...when we die and decay entropy increases enormously as our body gets decomposed(randomness increases)..

Even when we live, in our younger days our entropy is less and it increases as we age(loosening of the skin and stuff like that)

Take food now...it has less entropy before we consume it(remains intact) and its entropy increases with digestion(it gets broken up)

Now, the second law of thermodynamics...
"All spontaneous processes proceed in a direction that leads to an increase in entropy "

So life(less entropy) proceeds towards death(more entropy)...(hope u can relate it)

But how do we prolong our life?

We consume food and increase its entropy thereby conserving our entropy (as an increase in entropy is inevitable..its natural, spontaneous)

So this theory lays it out that all living beings, in order to conserve their entropy, increase the entropy of their surroundings and the more they do it, the longer they live.