A friend of mine, Clifford M, is from Kerala, India. On a recent trip there, he found an interesting area in a rubber plantation full of what looks like previously molten metal. If you can identify this object with certainity, then please contact me.

When snow falls, how it looks like depends on complex weather conditions. Often, we are treated to a spectacular show, when lots of it accumulate on tree branches. Such an occurance happened on February 16, 2005. Here are the pictures.

Today was one of the most dangerous day ever I have seen in Canada. Overnight, there was a lot of freezing rain. Since it was a normal school and work day, I had to go out and drop both daughters to school.I briefly explained freezing rain in another article. Freezing rain can also make for a spectacular nature show when trees are covered with shiny ice.This was not one of these days. First, the car slipped in the drive way when backing out of the garage.

Although the common stereotype of Canadian winters is that they are really cold, and really snowy, there is a lot of variation within one winter. A week or two can make a lot of a difference. This article demonstrates how winter, just two weeks apart, can be so different. It also shows that many aspects of winter can be fun too.

A few weeks back, someone on Drupal.org posted asking for help did not know how to apply the patches against the themes in order to get Jeremy's KernelTrap.org excellent banner module working.I responded to them by offering to email them the patched theme. Since then, several people asked for the same thing. Therefore, I am posting here the patched theme files for pushbutton and bluemarine themes on Drupal 4.5.0, in case anyone else asks for them.

I wrote and contributed the stock module,which provides stock quotes from a web form, as well as a portfolio feature for registered site users, where they can save their favorite stock symbols. It uses Yahoo! Finance for getting the quotes.

I wrote and contributed the feedback module, which is basically something I needed, and did not find -- at the time -- in the Drupal contributed modules list. It allows people visiting my sites to send me an email without revealing my email address, thus protecting from SPAM, and privacy.In June 2005, feedback was #15 in the top 20 downloaded Drupal projects, which includes modules and themes. In effect, it was  #8 in the top 10 modules. 

I wrote and contributed the Drupal site menumodule, which provides a site map of the content on the web site,grouped by category. It also provides a navigation menu on the side bar.

Considering the recent spat of extremely low temperatures, even by Southern Ontario's standards, why not support Global Warming?If you consider that some climate prediction studies say that temperatures could rise by as much as 11C, this is good news for Canadians!We should start by pressuring the government to reject the Kyoto agreement, and lobby other countries to do the same.

January 21, 2005 is the coldest day that I have seen in almost 5 years in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.