Etcetera

How Things Work

Blimps
Blimps are the latest addition to sporting events in India. The IPL contests featured blimps; the Commonwealth Games is getting a similar showpiece equipped with cameras and lights. So, how do these fish objects fly?

Very simply, the blimp is a large balloon filled with helium. Helium is lighter than air and therefore the blimp goes up. That's the easy part. But how does it manoeuvre in the air? And how does it come down?

The helium fills the body of the airship, also referred to as the envelope. Huge pouches of air inside the envelope, called ballonets, help maintain internal pressure. Wings and propellers are installed which help the balloon navigate in a particular direction. Gradually valving off the helium lets the blimp come down as it gets heavier.

How safe are blimps? Earlier, airships (a different kind of blimp) were filled with hydrogen, which is combustible. The famous Hindenburg tragedy of 1937 underlined just how unsafe hydrogen is.

The most famous blimp in the world, the Goodyear, flies at an average altitude of 1,000-1,500 feet, even though a blimp can go as high as 5,000 feet.

Quirky

A Tale of Two Publicities
Last fortnight, beachgoers along the coast of the Sea of Azov in Russia were appalled to see a donkey flying on the horizon. This was no vodkainduced hallucination but the promotional strategy of a paragliding business owner, who thought of this as a nice ruse to get some attention for the thrills he peddled. And attention he got.

As the hapless beast of burden (strapped to a paraglider) brayed, children on the beach squealed in horror and almost everybody with a handycam hit the record button. The resulting bizarre visuals were flashed on TV channels across the world. Last heard, the donkey and its owner were absconding, with Russian authorities slapping charges of animal cruelty.

Meanwhile, in India, condom maker Durex released an online game last fortnight to commemorate the World Population Day. On this sombre occasion, the company released a game called 'put a cap on it' that allows players to click on waves of smiling, virtual spermatozoa and 'cap' them with multicoloured condoms. One just hopes that the players of the game don protection in the real world as well.

Just Wondering

Private Reservations
"The UPA government is very sensitive to the issue of affirmative action, including reservations in the private sector. It will immediately initiate a national dialogue." Thus spake the freshly-elected UPA government in its manifesto listing the common minimum programme of its first innings, in May 2004.

Six years later, the 'national dialogue' it promised is still on and tends to get shriller, whenever elections are round the corner. Back in 2004, much of India Inc. ignored this declaration as yet another attempt at rabble rousing. Two years later, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for a voluntary caste quota to be put in place by Indian businesses, bodies like CII and FICCI were quick to put out papers and suggestions on better ways of implementing affirmative action.

There was even talk of companies across the board outlining their affirmative action in their annual reports and balance sheets. Last heard, the government is in the process of setting up an inter-ministerial group to look into the matter. Guess the dialogue is set to get louder and shriller.

Snoot Corner

Costliest Coffee
Those who have seen the Jack Nicholson-Morgan Freeman flick The Bucket List do not bother to read on. For the rest, here's a quick intro to the world's most expensive coffee — Kopi Luwak. Sold at $300-$700 or around Rs 13,800-Rs 32,200 a pound, the coffee bean is processed rather unusually.

The coffee beans for Kopi Luwak are native to the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and Indonesia. The coffee berries are eaten by an Asian Palm Civet, a cat-sized furry mammal. Beans defecated by the civet are then collected, washed, sundried, roasted and processed into an aromatic, less bitter brew. Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee.

Luwak is the name for the civet. Incidentally, the animal is also found in Kerala, where it's called Mara-patti. Another brew fast gaining popularity is Kopi Muncak, made from beans in the dung of barking beer found throughout Southeast Asia.