Southee pins England to ground ~ McCullum thrashes them out !!!

At home on leave and watching WC, over 7.1, Chris Woakes to McCullum, bottom edges a low full toss on to his stumps.  Waits for the Umpire to check whether it could be a ‘waist high’ no ball; no it isn’t …. McCullum walks, England players are not exactly jubilant – and the match is almost over !

Don’t be surprised – some mad hitting just over McCullum walks back after scoring 77 off just 25 – 8 fours and 7 sixers – strike rate of 308 and yet he may not be the Man of the Match !!!!

There has already been some good contests – though this one at Wellington is  only the 9th match.  Some brave performances by minnows already ! that includes an upset, which Ireland do not want to be termed so. "The World Cup itself, the premium event, without exception should be played between teams that are evenly matched and competitive." So said the ICC chief executive David Richardson in the lead-up to this tournament. It was his way of justifying the decision to trim the World Cup from 14 teams back to 10 at the next event in England in 2019. No more Associates, no more one-sided thrashings, no more boring, meaningless pool matches. That was the ICC's theory.

Yesterday, UAE playing  their first ODI against a Full Member nation in nearly seven years, went close to a win.  A few fielding mistakes crept in, in a few loose balls, just the odd nervy moment. Williams, in his 71st ODI, steered Zimbabwe to victory. UAE, in their 19th as a team, fell short.

We have seen some great bowling performances that include McGrath, Bichel and Winston Davis – 7 for.   Winston Davis’s 7-51 came against Australia at Headlingley.  Today Tim Southee rocked England with 7/33.  He snared Bell out,  had Mooen Ali, then Taylor, Jos Butler, Chris Woakes,  Chris Broad and then Finn to finish with a 7 wicket haul.

Tim Southee  burst upon the international scene in great style when still only 19. Handed his Test debut against England in Napier, Southee responded with 5 for 55 before smashing 77 off 40 balls in the second innings with nine sixes to hint at a bright all-round future- and still England won that match in Mar 2008 by 121 runs. He bettered that performance with 7 for 64 against India in Bangalore in 2012.

So going to be  an excellent win by New Zealand – another 12 runs needed actually and Crowd booed as there is supper break – 12 required of 41 overs, should they not have completed before breaking  !!

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

20^th Feb 2015 @ 10.30 am

ODC ~ Boeing 747 transported by road along British motorway

Marine Cargo Insurance is all about insuring cargo in transit from place to place and specific emphasis is on the way the goods are carried, handled, moved, the mode, packing, stowage and other aspects.  Containers by their standardisation eased space and brought in a revolution.  Yet there could always be cargo much bigger than the regular size, not suitable for container, would not fit inside vehicles, would extrude and are disproportionate in size.  As you travel on road and happen to see a big cargo on a truck, the first thought is to slightly get out of the way !

Over Dimensional Consignment (ODC) is a shipment system that is normally bigger than standard container in length, breadth and height. It requires special arrangement to properly place/stow such cargo on the vehicle which generally would be low bed mullti-axle trailers.  ODC could consist of Bridge sections,  beams), Transformers, heavy machineries, Boilers, Gas turbines, Storage tanks, Heavy structure,  Windmill components (Blades, tower) and sometimes vehicles, train coaches, boats and more.

It requires some expertise and lot of careful planning to transport such ODC.  When the value is very high, they would conduct pre-transportation survey to observe overhead wires, narrow lanes, bridges and like to check whether the ODC could comfortably traverse the path without hassle.  Logistics offers multiple challenge to the handlers, and for Insurers it poses newer challenges – of trying to understand the risk exposure.   Though there may not be identical definitions, in someways Overdrawn cargo is defined based on weight and dimension. “In dimension terms, anything above 40 feet length, with 8.25 feet height, and 8.25 feet width would be considered OD cargo.  

Insurers do not have standard definition on what they consider as ‘ODC’ but when declared so, would impose specific warranties and restrictions in carriage.  A well identified cargo, methodically transported with route survey being done is a better risk for the Insurers.  The details of the transportation arrangement and the contracted terms of carriage would be of help. 

Here is an interesting cargo movement – that of two giant Jumbo Jet fuselages of decommissioned Boeing 747  transported along Britain's motorways as reported in MailOnline.   The report says that the aircraft, weighing 60-tonnes and measuring 22 feet wide, 16ft 3ins high and 137ft long, caused traffic chaos.   The newsitem states that the front section and cockpit of the 'Queen of the Skies' made its way from Cotswold Airport in Kemble, Gloucestershire, down the A419 dual carriageway between Cirencester and Swindon.  The disused plane will eventually be put back together on a site in Staffordshire to provide a studio for interior design university students.

Here are photos of lorry transporting  decommissioned Boeing 747 jumbo jet crawling along the A419 near Swindon causing congestion on the roads.  It was transported with a police escort.   The aircraft left the Cotswold Airport at headed  north to Cirencester, then south east heading north up the M5 through Gloucestershire. A spokesman for Wiltshire police is quoted as saying -  'Due to the size of these transporters they will be slow moving and will have the potential to create congestion.

The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport aircraft, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. Its iconic 'hump' upper deck along the forward part of the aircraft make it among the world's most recognizable aircraft. First flown commercially in 1970, the 747 held the passenger capacity record for 37 years. The 747 is to be replaced by the Boeing Y3 (part of the Boeing Yellowstone Project) in the future.

Interesting indeed !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

19^th Feb 2015.

the cryptic Protonmail ...... at Switzerland !

You have the brush with technology everyday ~  right from the morning till one hits bed, one dabbles with gadgets and most require login IDs and passwords.  Some want communication to be encrypted and gets bowled over by beautiful terminology.  There would be terms of remote server, encrypted message,  'hard-core predicate', 'trapdoor function', '  'impossible differential cryptanalysis'- and  'zero knowledge' !

The proton is a subatomic particle, symbol p or p+, with a positive electric charge  and mass slightly less than that of a neutron. Protons and neutrons, each with mass approximately one atomic mass unit, are collectively referred to as "nucleons".  The Large Hadron Collider is being brought back to life, ready for Run II of the “world’s greatest physics experiment. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had shut down for two years to upgrade following the discovery of the Higgs boson.

Dan Brown’s ‘Digital Fortress’ published in 1988  was a real techno-thriller…… The story was about the theme of government surveillance of electronically stored information on the private lives of citizens, and the possible civil liberties and ethical implications using such technology.  In the beautiful World of innumerable IDs and multiple PWs, one may not desire to have a new e-mail account – yet there could be compelling reasons for what is known as ‘freedom of expression’ ….

ProtonMail was founded in summer 2013 by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) scientists  Andy Yen, the systems administrator and a Harvard and CalTech trained physicist; Jason Stockman, the front-end developer who previously worked for Epson, 3M, Versace and the International Red Cross; and back-end developer Wei Sun, an MIT-trained physicist who built the software for AMS Collaboration.  While the founders are centered in the U.S., ProtonMail is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, due to the country’s privacy laws.

To its makers, privacy is a fundamental human right that must be protected at any cost. The advent of the internet has now made all of us more vulnerable to mass surveillance than at any other point in human history. The disappearance of online privacy is a very dangerous trend as in many ways privacy and freedom go hand in hand.  ProtonMail uses breakthrough web technologies and proven cryptographic algorithms to protect your privacy. Because of its end-to-end encryption,  the data is already encrypted by the time it reaches its servers. Even its administrators have no access to the messages, and since they  cannot decrypt them,  the messages cannot be shared with third parties.  The servers are in  Switzerland outside US and EU jurisdiction so all user data is protected by strict Swiss privacy laws.

It is claimed that ProtonMail is completely free and works on smartphones and tablets as well. Because of end-to-end encryption, all data is already encrypted by the time it reaches the ProtonMail servers – so there would be no targetted ads. The service received initial funding through a crowdfunding campaign, and will be sustained long-term by multi-tiered pricing, although the default account setup is free.

Unlike host of other mails, one requires two passwords –  first to authenticate the User and the second to decrypt access to one’s mail box.  The Mailbox Password is not stored even on ProtonMail’s servers and hence if lost, there is no way, you get access to your mails – there would be no ‘forgot password option’ !!!  The encryption is a technology known as ‘Zero-knowledge proof’, a concept from cryptography, an interactive method for one party to prove to another that a (usually mathematical) statement is true, without revealing anything other than the veracity of the statement. If proving the statement requires knowledge of some secret information on the part of the prover, the definition implies that the verifier will not be able to prove the statement in turn to anyone else, since the verifier does not possess the secret information.

Proton mail also includes a message expiration feature: messages can optionally self-destruct from the ProtonMail system after a period of time.

              ProtonMail is in beta right now, and one can open an account only with an invite ~ there are perhaps so many waiting to join the ‘encrypted way’ – are you on the queue ?

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

18^th Feb 2o15.   

the indecent, inhumane killing of a worker by a rich boss !

Rich and famous are often portrayed as violent and inhumane ! 

Recently,  IANS and other papers reported that the actor Salman Khan did not possess a driving license when his car met with an accident in 2002, an officer at Regional Transport Office (RTO) on Monday (February 16) informed the Sessions court hearing the hit-and-run case.  It was stated that the witness produced the records of the actor’s driving license before the court when he was examined by Public Prosecutor Pradeep Gharat.    Khan's car had rammed into a roadside shop in suburban Bandra, killing one person and injuring four people, who were sleeping on the pavement, on the night of 28^th  Sept  2002.  For years, his lawyers have argued that Mr Khan was not driving the car.

Away from this in a chilling instance, Daily Mail reports of an Indian millionaire charged with murder after 'crushing security guard with his Hummer because he was too slow to open the gates on his driveway' in India.

According to the report,  Tobacco tycoon Mohammed Nisham has been accused of killing a security guard because he was too slow opening the gates to his apartment complex in the Indian state of Kerala.  Mohammed Nisham is accused of chasing the guard with his SUV inside an apartment complex last month, squeezing him against a wall before beating him with an iron rod. He was reportedly angry over a delay in opening the gate after returning home late one night two weeks ago. The 50-year-old guard, K Chandrabose, died later,  after being in hospital on life-support in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Doctors treating Chandrabose said 'his heart had not been functioning properly following the impact of the internal injuries,' according to the Press Trust of India news agency. Nisham was in custody in a jail near the town of Thrissur where he lives, police official  is quoted as saying.  He has had several police cases filed against him, including one for allowing his nine-year-old son to drive a Ferrari on a public road in 2013. He was granted bail on some cases and was ordered to pay fines for others.

India's economic boom has created a class of super-rich, whose excesses are frequently in the news. When he was charged with allowing his son to drive the Ferrari F430, police records showed he owned 18 high-end cars worth an estimated $4m (£2.6m), including a Bentley and a Lamborghini. He let his son take the wheel of the £127,000 supercar on his birthday - with nobody else in the vehicle except for his six-year-old brother. The boy drove it for several hundred metres along a road - all filmed by his proud family, who then uploaded the footage to YouTube.

Kerala Police registered a case against Nisham for uploading a video of an illegal act, sending out a wrong message to the world and allowing a child to drive a vehicle.  The ways of rich and famous are often …………………… and this is a seriously inhumane act indeed ..sad.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

18^th Feb 2015.