Palash Basak's Blog

Background Someday in early 2008, I was traveling in an SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) from Dhaka to Moulavi Bazar (in Bangladesh) for a field visit. One of my colleagues, who was a Geophysicist, was also accompanying me in the trip. It was about 7-8 hours journey and we were talking most of the times. Discussion topics were diverse and one of the topics was alternative energy. At that point of time oil price was in its pick, probably about 150 US$ per barrel. All of the windows of the car were closed as because the AC was on. However, for some reason, the driver opened an window while the car was moving at about 80 km per hour. So, a huge blow of fresh air entered in to the car and splashed in to my face. Suddenly I realized that our car is generating huge amount of friction with the air! In other words, if I was out of the car and sitting or standing somewhere in the same spot of the road, I might not feel that much of air speed. But while the car was moving at a certain speed it wa...

Few days back my wife taught our daughter, who is about 25 months old by now, that “PET” (a Bangla word) in English is “ belly ”. Today my wife questioned our daughter again to understand whether she can still remember the English term for “PET”. Unfortunately my daughter forgot the exact English word but she replied promptly that it is “SHAPLA”! (Probably because, she was taught earlier that the English term for “SHAPLA” is “ lilly ”!) What a correlation!

APA (stands for American Psychologocal Association) is one of the most commonly used to cite references, particularly in social sciences. A comprehensive APA formatting and style guide could be found in the following link. APA Formatting and Style Guide The guide has been published by Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). In this guide I have found good examples of the general format of APA research papers, in text citations, endnotes/footnotes and the reference page. This guide has been revised according to the 6th edition of the APA manual. To learn more about APA style you can visit it's website at http://www.apastyle.org/

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS Finally Google is going to through the biggest challenge to Microsoft! Yes, Google is introducing a new Operating System (OS) which will be available at free of cost! Although we have to wait about a year from now for it. As promised, the OS will be speedy, simple and secure! Follow the above link for details about announcement.

vYew - the name is quite unusual (sounds line view) but this is a cool site which provides live web conferencing service at free of cost! Although, you can’t have more than 20 collaborators at a time with the free subscription. I have found this site quite interesting and useful. You can watch an introductory video of the service in YouTube… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGXDG8q51vI&feature=related To learn more about the service and registration process, visit its website … http://vyew.com/

I got questions from some of my friends about GPS. Then I thought it would be good to share some information about my own GPS to all of you. I have a Garmin handheld GPS which I have been using for about four years. I found it quite useful during my personal and official trips in home and abroad. During my trip in Durham, UK, the GPS helped me to find out my hotel (a small cottage) in a very windy, cold and dark night. The area was basically out side the main town and less densely populated. Without the help of my GPS it would be very difficult for me to find the place at that night! For those who are not familiar with the term - GPS stands for Global Positioning System. GPS can help you to understand your location anywhere in the world using signal from number of satellites. Now a days GPS is being used for variety of purposes, including personal and vehicle navigation, mapping, fishing, trekking, etc. Garmin is the pioneer in handheld GPS. The model I have got is eTrex Legend HC...

One of my friends once asked me about how to download video from YouTube. At that point, I didn't know the answer. But I have learnt it recently and thought it would be good to share that with you! To download a video from YouTube , what you have to do is to visit the following website. Then select "Download Videos" option, put the link of the YouTube Video, choose an output format. You will also need to provide your email address. A link of the converted will be delivered to your email address and you can then download the file! http://www.zamzar.com/ Hope it will work for you!