Worlds Most Poisonous Venomous Deadliest Snake

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No doubt, snakes are deadliest, poisonous, toxic, yet are the most beautiful creation of mother nature. Snakes as always are wonderful species of our eco system. As like other wild creatures, their existence too is indeed important to maintain nature's ecological balance. Snakes never attack humans willingly else they get aggressive only when are disturbed, hurt or mishandled. Its their natural wild instinct of self-defense that force any poisonous snake to strike. In fact as much as we fear snakes they too fear humans and other bigger species. Poisonous Snake bite is always a worst hazardous accident. Lack of proper medical treatment on time can cause a major physical damage to an injured, may even prove fatal. A good knowledge, smartest approach and scientific understanding of poisonous snakes can help us clarify many misconceptions about these wonderful wild species.

Deadliest Snakes Rankings are based on an aggregate study and comparison of individual snake's toxicity (LD50 Tests), its personality, body size, recorded human deaths, max capacity to inject venom (volume), type of venom, symptoms of bite, victims' medical studies, new research information, etc. Following outcome is an outcome of a global survey.

Snake's Record: Inland Taipan is not world's most toxic venomous snake else rightly saying it is terrestrial world's most toxic land snake on earth. Neither it is Beaked Sea Snake (Enhydrina schistosa). Snake which is 100 times more venomous than Taipan, Beaked Sea Snake or any other snake on earth is Hydrophis Belcheri.

Record's Disagreement: Some snake enthusiasts and herpetologists may not agree with above sentence and would either name Beaked Sea Snake (Enhydrina schistosa) or the Inland Taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus) as having most toxic venom than Belcheri.

Record's Agreement: But present situation is changing, more recent studies and better results of improving experiments have suggested and compelled majority of scientific world to accept 'Hydrophis Belcheri' as the real contender No.1. Even literary world seems to be in agreement with this as many recent encyclopedias says it's 'Hydrophis Belcheri". Finally majority always wins and recent researches and new data seems to be in favour of Belcheri, so whether you agree or not, Belcher's Sea Snake remains the most venomous snake on planet earth.

Worlds Most Poisonous Venomous Deadliest Snake

Nokia Vertu -The Ultimate Luxury Phone

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The one good thing about the prices of cell phone models is that they always go down some time after launch.

That's the way of price cycles in the gizmo world -- most of the time.

But how costly can they get? Well, very, very, very would be an understatement.

Vertu, the super luxurious line from the eponymous Nokia firm, can cost a bomb. Its top end model costs the same as an average flat in a Mumbai suburb -- Rs 17.22 lakh (Rs 1.72 million).

So why is it so costly? Is it made of diamonds? Well, almost.

The brainchild of Frank Nuovo, a design guru at Nokia, the Vertu range comes in stainless steel, gold, white gold and platinum. It is sheathed in the same leather used in Rolls Royces, and the face is scratch-proof sapphire.

Ruby-embedded keypad ensure precise dialling pressure. Vertu offers two ranges in India -- Signature and Ascent. The Ascent range starts at Rs 242,000, while the Signature range can put you back by anything between Rs 371,000 and Rs 17.22 lakh.

Signature line's internal design features more than 400 mechanical parts, while the Ascent phones comprise over 150 parts. Each key on the phone sits on two jewelled bearings.

And it's not just the phone, stupid. Vertu, the company, offers its customers a concierge facility. It's something like an exclusive membership. The facility provides a Vertu owner real-time assistance for any problems related to his handset -- abroad, the concierge also gets you cinema tickets among many other things at the touch of a bejewelled button. Technologically, Vertu is no thingamajig.

The dual band does the basic functions of receiving and making calls and sending SMSes. Though it can also receive fax messages, it is not MMS compatible nor GPRS/WAP compatible -- for now. This is because Vertu is banking only on proven technology.

So who's buying? A lot of moneybag industrialists and Bollywood personalities, though officials at the Regent Store, which sells the phones in India through its Mumbai and Delhi outlets, play coy when it comes to naming or numbering clients.

Abhishekh Bachchan is rumoured to have a piece, as do pop divas Madonna and Mariah Carey. The bootilicious Jennifer Lopez is said to own three.

But never mind, ye lesser mortals, don't lose heart. There are still some snazzy doohickeys to be had.

The new Nokia 9500 Communicator is worth the Rs 41,300 you would pay for it. It offers high-capacity built-in memory -- 80 MB, plus a multimedia card slot for even more storage space.

It can work with office documents not just email with attachments and memos, but presentations and excel sheets (MS Office 97 onwards) too. With Nokia PC Suite and OMA Data Synchronization, you can easily exchange data between your Nokia 9500 Communicator and a compatible PC.

The stylish Sony P910i, priced at Rs 39,995 is a mobile phone, PDA and digital camera with video functions. It has a fully featured keyboard on the back of the flip and a touch screen.

The recently launched SonyEriccson S700i comes with a 1.3 megapixels integrated CCD camera. At Rs 32,995, the phone can store photos, video clips and any other data with the memory stick duo available with the phone kit. The company claims that data can also be transferred to other Sony memory stick-compatible products.

Then of course, there's the industrial-looking BlackBerrys. The 7230 and 7730 models are available through Airtel, priced between Rs 29,990 and Rs 32,990, respectively. They offer email, SMS, Internet browser and organiser applications. They operate on 900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS wireless networks, and allow international roaming.

Motorola has also unleashed the Moto Razr V3 smart phone, which comes for about Rs 38,000. It, too, is the whole deal and then some, such as a novel, chemically etched keypad. The company has also taken the wraps off the Mpx200, which boasts of web access with its pocket Internet Explorer.

One can download music, video clips from the net and transfer files from the PC to the phone in a, well, flash. It costs Rs 24,000. Priced on a par is the Nokia 6670, with its 8 MB internal dynamic memory. It takes pictures with an integrated 1 megapixel camera, and even records 10-minute video clips with audio.

More than just video playback , it's the piece's 'Movie Director' function that's a killer -- it allows one to combine video clips, add music or change styles. It is Bluetooth2 compatible and has a USB port. And yes, the phone can also browse the Internet.

So which is the cheapest among the costliest?

Perhaps the Samsung D410. For Rs 22,600, you get a slider handset with a VGA camera that rotates 180 degrees and facilitates text inputs in English, Hindi, Tamil and Marathi, plus many more.
Of course, this is not an exhaustive list and there are innumerable other models that exist within these price ranges with many abilities. But the point is, if you have a thick wad ready to buy a handset, you have to start somewhere, right?

Nokia Vertu -The Ultimate Luxury Phone

How about a conizza?

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Pizza Corner India, part of Global Franchisee Architects (GFA), has announced the launch of another innovative product. Conizza, pizza in a cone.

The product is a revolutionary delicacy to hit the pizza market in Asia for the first time. Conizza, z pizza in a cone is portable, crisp, stylish, fast and drip free and fits in the palm. The cone is made out of carefully hand stretched fresh pizza dough and filled with a choice of toppings blended in melting mozzarella cheese kept piping hot till it reaches your hand.

Veg and non-veg
Conizza comes in three vegetarian and three non-vegetarian varieties. The vegetarian version has spicy veggie conizza, paneertikka conizza. Non-vegetarian options include chicken sausage, chicken tikka and kheema conizza.

Anoop Sequeira, Chief Executive Officer, Pizza Corner India, told reporters on Thursday that by the end of this year, GFA was expected to reach over 100 outlets, including 15 Coffee world and 80 Pizza Corner outlets.



Four brands
The GFA presently franchised four strategic brands - Pizza Corner, Coffee World, New York Deli and The Cream & Fudge Factory. Pizza Corner had set up dine-in restaurants, delivery and express outlets.

Mr.Anoop said presently Pizza Corner had presence in 47 locations across the country. He said the company owned 27 while the rest were franchisees.

How about a conizza?

Building a Better 'Bot: Behind the Scenes With the Transformers

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To create the robotic stars of "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," computer animators not only had to design and detail the machines they envisioned, but they also had to dramatize how those Transformers changed from robots into vehicles and back again, a complex process done by hand. The human cast didn't exactly have it easy, either -- they had to act out scenes with costars who don't actually exist.

Giant alien robots don't actually exist. So the dozens featured in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" had to be built from the ground up.

That effort took hundreds of artists, thousands of hours and even caused one computer to explode.

"We lost some machinery," visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar said with a smile. "The thing just kind of gave up."

A high-tech blockbuster, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is practically two movies in one. There's the live-action element, which took director Michael Bay and his cast to Egypt, Jordan and New Mexico. Then there's the animated aspect, encompassing all the robots, which were built by artists at Industrial Light & Magic and Bay's visual effects company, Digital Domain.

Computers, and the artists operating them, worked countless hours to craft battle scenes between the giant 'bots, bring menacing Megatron to life and show the ancient pyramids being dismantled by the gargantuan Devastator.

Laying Out Blueprints

It all started with a few sketches. Before any work on the film began, before the script was even written, Bay hired a team of artists to draw the robot characters he saw in his head.

"The fun thing about Transformers is it's anything your mind can imagine," he said.

Those images were given to the writers as inspiration, and later to the visual effects creators, who used them as blueprints for the film's biggest characters, said Farrar, a 28-year veteran of ILM.

"It's not unlike a building, where you've got to have a good blueprint and you spend a long time on the foundation," he said. "Then all the sudden, boop, the building goes up."

Invisible Co-Stars

Of course, it's not quite that simple. First, artists transform each of Bay's 2-D drawings into 3-D digital images. They note the size specifics of each character (for example, Megatron's feet are 15 feet long and seven feet wide) and how they might look behind various lenses.

Before shooting begins, though, Bay and his crew choreograph where the cameras will be, where robots will be, where the actors will be and how they'll all interact with each other. Everything is pre-planned, Farrar said.

Because when filming starts, and star Shia LaBeouf runs through a forest to escape a robot fistfight, he's actually alone.

"There's nothing there," the actor said in an interview. "This time we didn't even have dudes reading lines back. There's literally nothing."

All that's there, Farrar said, are window-washing poles stretched up to 30 feet high. The actors talk to the poles and must react as though giant robots are responding.

"The actors do have to sell it," he said. "It would be a hoot to show what the sequence looks like with the actors talking back and forth but with nothing there other than a couple of sticks and poles."

Maybe on the DVD, he joked.

Hand-Crafted Robotics

Meanwhile, artists spend about 12 weeks building each digital robot, then another 12 to 15 weeks rigging up the skeletal structures that hold all the parts together. Next comes the paint and texture. Chrome or brushed aluminum? Copper or glass?

"It's just the same as you building things in the garage by hand, only it's in the computer," Farrar said. "It's no different. All the tasks are the same, and the same disciplines apply."

Once the live-action shots are complete, robot animation begins. All those detailed transformations, which dramatize how the toy Transformers really work, are meticulously built by hand. It can take weeks to design a transformation seen for just seconds on screen.

After animation comes lighting, which lends even more realism to the robots. Then comes the compositor, "the finish carpenter of the whole process," who adds dust, debris, missiles and other details, Farrar said.

More than 350 ILM artists worked on the movie, he said, and they developed new technology to add realism to the robots' design and emotions.

The company said it would take a home computer 16,000 years to replicate their work.

Building a Better 'Bot: Behind the Scenes With the Transformers

Michael Jackson merchandising deal to go before judge

[postlink]https://popularpics.blogspot.com/2009/08/michael-jackson-merchandising-deal-to.html[/postlink]The King of Pop will have a posthumous presence through phone apps and talking teddies if a merchandising deal is approved

If the deal is approved then a Michael Jackson talking teddy could soon be yours.

Michael Jackson will live on in the form of cuddly toys and Xbox add-ons if a new merchandising deal goes through.

Less than two months after his death, Jackson estate administrators have submitted contracts to a probate judge that, if approved, would see the King of Pop's image used in a massive range of toys and trinkets.

Last year, $14m (£8.2m) of the $55m (£32.4m) generated by Elvis Presley's estate came from merchandise, and it is predicted that Jackson's likeness will generate even bigger business. To that end, Jackson's estate, concert promoter AEG Live and Bravado – Universal Music Group's retailing arm – are close to a deal that would see Bravado receive worldwide merchandise rights.

If successful, products ranging from trading cards, T-shirts, calendars and lighters to talking teddies could be on sale in stores before the end of the year. Jackson may even have a posthumous digital presence, with talk of phone apps, Xbox themes, video games and even digital tattoos for "avatars" in alternate reality games like Second Life.

Meanwhile, ticketholders for the O2 residency that never was could still be able to buy official concert T-shirts, with promoters AEG Live retaining rights to sell merchandise related to the cancelled shows. There is also a proposed feature-length movie based on rehearsal footage for Jackson's This Is It shows, with Columbia Pictures paying $60m (£35m) for the rights, according to the contract filed at the Los Angeles Superior Court.

A judge will hear the Jackson merchandise proposals on Monday.

Michael Jackson merchandising deal to go before judge

Is Bush still relevant?

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President Barack Obama may “own” the economy now — but he’s not ready to let anyone forget who left it to him.

Supporters and defenders of George W. Bush have been waiting for the shot clock to run out on Bush’s critics since before the 43rd president left office; a headline on a Washington Times opinion piece in December trumpeted, somewhat over-optimistically, “Only 26 days left for Bush bashing.” But with six months in the Oval Office behind him and Congress off for its milestone summer recess, Obama shows no sign of letting the prior administration or its advocates off the hook.

At a recent town hall in Raleigh, N.C., Obama ripped his detractors thusly: “You hand me a $1.3 trillion bill, and then you’re complaining six months later because we haven’t paid it all back.” And last weekend, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers flooded the TV talk shows with reminders that they had “inherited” a $1.3 trillion deficit and an economy “in free fall.”

“The battle for the history is always an essential part of winning the future,” says Republican strategist John Feehery. “From that perspective, I think that is what Obama is trying to do.”

To those who contend that the administration’s regular references to the provenance of its woes is nothing more than a blame game, Democratic strategist Phil Singer replies that the president would have to engage in advanced yoga not to refer to the policies of his home’s prior resident.

“Obama has to talk about it, because it helps explain the agenda that he’s advancing every day,” Singer says. “The legacy of the Bush administration is driving the agenda of the Obama administration.”

If that’s the case, then the task for Team Obama is to walk the line between explaining and complaining, says former Democratic National Committee Communications Director Karen Finney. She agrees that the administration has to put its efforts in perspective, but she notes that it also must be cautious, particularly while people are still suffering from the effects of the economic crisis and unlikely to have much sympathy for anything perceived as whining from the top.

“I think it is very fair to make that point, but I think you have to do a way that acknowledges people’s pain and frustration,” she says. “It is a delicate balance, and I think that’s why it has to be done in a very pragmatic way and not in a way that sounds like an excuse.”

And indeed, lately most administration references to the previous management have been carefully calibrated to convey the message that Obama is taking responsibility for the economy without being responsible for it. Officials don’t speak of “having” problems but of having “inherited” them — and always in the context of what they are doing to try to solve them. And although he alludes to Bush and his impact often, the president has mentioned his predecessor by name only a handful of times in his prepared remarks since taking office.

Democratic candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia have been less circumspect. As POLITICO reported last month, both N.J. Gov. Jon Corzine and Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds kicked off their candidacies with broadsides against Bush — a strategy that, if effective, will likely encourage other Democrats to follow suit.

Which leaves those who have long chafed at Bush bashing to ask: How much longer can it possibly last?

With respect to Obama, at least, reasonable minds may disagree.

It’s already over, says Feehery — at least in terms of its effectiveness: “My own personal opinion is that six months is an eternity in politics, and it’s never about what happened six months ago — it’s about what’s happening right now.”

It might last another month or two, but that’s it, opines Republican strategist Ed Rollins: “I think you may have a little bit more time, but certainly by September, October, that story’s not going to fly. It’ll be Obama’s war in Afghanistan, Obama’s economy,” he says. “Whether it’s legitimate or not, that’s the way it works.”

The public is already holding Obama responsible, says Democratic strategist Douglas Schoen, who stamps a fall sell-by date on the tactic. “When asked the question, 'Who’s more to blame?' the American people say, ‘Bush is more to blame than Obama — but we’re looking to Obama for solutions.’” Schoen says the strategy may still be useful now, but it won’t be indefinitely: “Do I think they can get through the midterms with that? No, I don’t.”

Not so fast, counters Democratic pollster Paul Maslin; it all depends on what happens between now and then.

“If, next year, as we head into the midterm elections, the economy really starts to turn around, then he’s got a story line that begins with 'We inherited this' that works for him, and there’s no reason why he couldn’t take it all the way through the midterms and even through reelection.”

Or perhaps even longer. Muses Maslin: “Ronald Reagan ran against Washington pretty much the whole eight years, and he was in D.C. the whole time, as the head of our government.”

On the flip side, notes Singer, the political risk to the president is relatively low. “One of the ironies about the Obama administration is, for all of the accusations that it’s all rhetoric and talk, a lot of its success will be determined on nuts and bolts metrics,” he says. “If the economy is stagnant in 2012, people aren’t going to be saying, ‘I’m not going to vote for the president because he only wants to bash Bush.’ They’re going to say, ‘I’m not voting for the president because the economy is stagnant.’”

The main caveat, says Maslin, is that even if the president can safely continue to score points off the previous administration, he should be aware that the buzzer on Bush himself has sounded.

“I’m a partisan Democrat, but even I don’t want to kick him anymore,” he says.

Is Bush still relevant?