Why does an egg burst when cooked in microwave oven?

I think you'd have already guessed it. :) I did it too. Turns out a lot of other people before me have experienced the same Kaboom!! in their microwave oven on some morning or other while boiling eggs for breakfast. I guess it was my turn to learn that lesson that day.

Due to pure laziness or lack of attentiveness I put 2 eggs in the microwave this morning set it to cook on high for 15 mins and went on to read the news on Google while finishing my cereal.

Seven mins later I turned back to a loud bursting noise in the microwave.The damn machine was off, I opened the door and shit! there was warm gooey egg slush all over the place. I quickly grabbed the kitchen towel and sucked it all up.

Once I was back from office I sat down to find out why the hell it happened? As you'd guess I looked for answers on the net. And yes someone had already asked the question so here goes the answer:

"Microwaves transfer heat to water molecules. In this case the water molecules are in the egg, enclosed in the shell. when the water boils - which it does - it creates steam inside the egg shell, and that builds up a great deal of pressure, until, **SPLAT**"

Now I also remembered that it had happened to one of my friends Luqman not so long ago and he had told me about it.But then again I am that kind of a person who has to burn his hand to learn that fire is hot.

But all you people can learn from my experience or better still go ahead try it yourself it works. :)

3 Oscar Nominations for Rehman and 10 for Slumdog

After becoming the first Indian to win the Golden Globe, Melody maestro A R Rahman added yet another feat to his long list of startling achievements over the years, a triple Oscar nomination in two categories, an unprecedented exploit for any Indian.
Rehman nicknamed 'Mozart of Madras', has enthralled audience in the country and abroad with his heartwarming symphonies for years; finally got his due recognition on the international stage with his composition in the British movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' by Danny Boyle. Slumdog Millionaire is leading the pack with 10 nominations, including a directing spot for Danny Boyle and two of the three song slots.

Rehman, bagged nominations in the Best Original Score and Best Original Song categories for two of his compositions -- 'Jai Ho' and 'O Saya'.
I hope Rehman wins the OSCAR for all his three nominations. I have my fingers crossed till Feb 22nd 09.

UPDATE :

I guess my crossing paid really big. Rehman won 2 Oscars. Hurrray!!

Watch Barack Obama's Inagural Speech Live

Hi Friends you can watch Barack Obamas Inagural Speech live on my blog on 20st January.

Watch out for this !!

New Fav Icon for Google

If you have online recently I bet you have noticed the catchy,color full and lowercase 'g' fav icon of the Google site.

As per the official Google blog post this and a complete set of new Logo's and icons are part of Google's new branding strategy for newer platforms like iPhone.

If you ask me i liked the old one with the capital G much better. Then again i am not Google CEO. If they have decided to change it after 8.5 years they must be having good reasons to do so.

If you like the new logo on the other hand and would like to see it in your Firefox search box also then here's how you can do it.

Golden Globe to Rehman

Bollywood music director A.R. Rahman Monday became the first Indian to win the Golden Globe Award, for best original musical score in Danny Boyle's movie 'Slumdog Millionaire'. The honour bestowed on the maestro has brought much cheer to the Indian film industry.

Rahman won the prestigious award for his musical score in the song 'Jai Ho', for which Gulzar penned the lyrics. The song is a typical Rahman number and the composer stuck to his signature style while composing it. The song was rendered by Sukhwinder Singh a Rehman regular.

Three cheers for Rehman! Hip Hip Hurray :)

Get Windows 7 Free

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer today announced that Windows 7 the long awaited sequel to Microsoft's somewhat crappy previous windows release Vista will be available FREE as a public BETA release on Friday 9th Jan 2009.

Though Windows 7 beta has been available through the Bit Torrent from the next day it was unveiled but if you were waiting for a more genuine copy of the OS to try your hands on this is your lucky chance. Grab a copy and take it for a Spin !!

MS goes on to claim that Windows 7 has sub 30 second boot time.Cool!!.

If you are thinking of giving it a try here is what you would need to run Windows 7:
A 1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit),
1GB of main memory,
16GB of available disk space,
support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface), and a DVD-R/W drive.

Go ahead have fun!!

The Satyam Debacle

Early morning today B Ramalinga Raju — the founder of Satyam Computers, one of India’s largest IT companies — dropped a bombshell when he sent a five-page letter to the 2 stock exchanges confessing to one of the biggest frauds ever seen.

He as part of his confession letter revealed that Satyam had NO BALANCE SHEET and was cooking up the numbers to fool the share holders and independent directors since several quarters.

The markets reacted quickly to this news and Satyam's share[BSE:SATCOM] was down almost 75% at the end of days trading.The NYSE even stopped trading for the Satyam Computer ADR.

Raju is a well connected man in India. It would be interesting to see if law catches up with him. Even if he escapes in India, what about the SEC the federal agency that oversees the exchange of securities to protect investors in US? However US also is not free of corporate scandals. Enron, the recent Madoff $50B scandal are best examples for this. Will the US lawyers RUSH on behalf of Satyam shareholders to sue Raju?

This leavs us with many daunting questions about corporate governance in India and trasparancy in corporate audits.
How did the auditor sign the balance sheet?
Will that audit firm Price Waterhouse in India be asked to shut?
Is this a sign or a sample case, how (are) the highly honoured audit firms are working in India?
How did the World Council for Corporate Governance named the company winner as recently as in Sept 2008?!!

The word 'Satyam' in many Indian languages means 'Truth'. Unfortunately that is the name of this company where every corporate act was false.

It all started when Mr Raju Chairman of Satyam Computers decided to buy out ‘Maytas’ which is his son’s ailing infrastructure company.

With this move, Raju destroyed the image of India as an attractive investment destination and notion of corporate governance. Initial reports say that Ramalinga Raju may face criminal proceeding and 10 year jail term. The finance ministry has swung into action on the Satyam issue. It has asked stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and Ministry of corporate affairs to give a report on the issue.Market regulator SEBI on Wednesday, Jan 7 said it would take all steps under the law for which it has started discussions with government and bourses.

"We are in touch with Ministry of Corporate Affairs... we are also in discussion with them as to what steps need to be taken from the perspective of power they have under the law and SEBI has under the law," SEBI Chairman C B Bhave said. The National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) may look at banning Satyam Computer Services from its membership. "The entire incident came AS a shock to us. Also, this kind of a fiasco is an unprecedented one in the history of Nasscom.We are looking into the matter on what steps can be taken. Considering the magnitude and implications of the incident, we can even look at banning the company from Nasscom," said Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman of Nasscom.


Latest reports even suggest Raju has fled to Dubai to avoid getting arrested!!

If we look at the big picture here , its going to impact every body from Other IT biggies like Infosys,TCS and Wipro to the Auditing firms like Price Waterhouse..the most hit would be the poor employees and share holders of Satyam.My heart goes out for all my friends who either hold Satyam shares or are employees.