A night at my estate

Its been more than a decade since i had chance to stay at my estate for a night.  Got the chance for tat this month, when a me and my friend planned for a trip to estate. Decided to make the most of it .  Started with a trekking , a swin in a river , a night walk in search of some bears and yes a very hearty meal after everything outing  .  So was the climate, Just perfect .

Time-Lapse Videos of Massive Change on Earth

Found this article on wired

Literally show how we are playing with our planet without thinking about its consequenses

Urbanization of Dubai
Nothing says environmental exploitation like building your own palm tree-shaped archipelago. Dubai, of the United Arab Emirates, has dredged sand from the sea floor to build hundreds of artificial islands along its coast, hoping to attract wealthy tourists. Many projects have been put on hold since the global credit crunch hit the region.

Sucking Out the Aral Sea
In the 1960s, central Asia’s Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world. As a result of irrigation and damming, it had shriveled to 10 percent of its original size (marked by the thin black line) by 2007. It is now three separate, highly salinic, lakes.

Clearing the Amazon
Over the past three decades, the state of Rondônia in western Brazil cleared almost 35 percent of its rainforest. According to NASA’s website, the pattern of deforestation is common in the Amazon. People build roads, then clear some of the land for small farms. After a few years, the land erodes and becomes depleted. The farmers, suffering from low crop yields, convert the land for cattle, then clear more forest for crops, and so on until large cattle holders buy the land.

Post-War Clean-Up of Mesopotamia’s Wetlands
Sometimes, change is a good thing. The marshes of Mesopotamia had been drained and decimated by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. When his regime ended in 2003, Iraqis began reclaiming the marshes. This shows the reflooding of the marshlands and regrowth of vegetation. But serious concerns remain: the water used for reflooding may not be sustainable as the population recovers and expands its agricultural efforts, and the region may have already suffered an irreversible loss of species diversity.

Drought in Utah
Southern Utah’s Lake Powell was once teeming with boaters, fishers and vacationers. But from 2000 to 2005 its water level dropped from 20 million to 8 million acre-feet, due to severe drought. Water levels have rebounded a bit, but are expected to plummet to levels even lower than those of 2005 during the next serious drought.

Best Online Photo personalised gift site

Past few days , was searching for some good online site to print all my photos at less least cost.  Only few sites are available in india for this.

Zoomin

This site follows web2.0 standards . Has a neat and clean layout.

• Has Support for Picasa and Flickr
• Lowest print at 2.95 for a 6 x 4
• Photo can also be uploaded directly via web
• Payment Via Debit card
• Print available on Glossy Matte and metallic papers
• Gift option available

• No Credit for first time sign on
• Requires to enter Debit card details including CCV and address before contuning

Some Stuff provided by them are

photomug

calendar

greeting card

tshirt

collage

zoomini book(5 sizes)

photo print(8 sizes)

canavas prints (7 sizes)

PicSquare

I prefer picsquare coz of many options for gifts to choose from

• Support for Picasa and Flickr
• Free credit on first registration
• Gift option available
• Photos can also be uploaded even via web
• Payment can be done via net banking or via ur tataindicom account(if u are a tata customer)
• Couriers are delivered via DTDC or Overnite express
• Very fast processing of 2 r 3 days usually

• Photo paper quality too bad

Snapfish

This site is too costly , too cumbersome to use

• Has no support for flickr or picasa
• Provides Credit points for first time registration
• Uploading photos from computer requires a standalone app to be downloaded