Rice powder, Ants and Natural Disaster

Saw it in a newsgroup.. Interesting one..

Rice powder was ground to draw kolam in front of houses and common places
of worship. Ants fed on these rice powder daily. Whenever the rice powder
was not eaten by the ants, then the people knew that some natural
disturbance was going to occur. Insects/birds act as harbingers and are
aware of dangers well in advance. This way people used to use this simple
technique to escape from natural disasters.
Nowadays the rice powder (due to the cost) is replaced by limestone powder
which are not good for the ants.

- There was a program on how some animals escaped, behaved strangely during
tsunami on Discovery channel.

Harry potter and Half blood prince

After all the hype created for the Book 6, atlast I finished reading Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince. I bought it on day 1 paying Rs 640. As far as I remember this is my costiliest buy in fiction. Earlier I wanted to delay reading this book till a paper back edition comes. But then realised all the fun of reading it on day 1 will be gone and most probably all the surprise elements would be known to public by then.

As in the previous books of the series, the build up of the story is very good. Very gripping. But in last three books, Rowling always couldnt give us a very great ending after building up so well. It looks like a let down. My favourite is still the Book 4 - Goblet of Fire. But its end is also not that well.

Salient points of book 6 are:
-Gripping Storyline
-Love is in the air with all lead characters getting their partners. Love potions
-Malfoy comes up stronger than Voldemort(in line with the story)
-New concepts like Horcruxes and Love potion
-Dissappointing end but a real good plot for FINAL BOOK
-Rowling kills a very important character so trivially.

Horcruxes, introduced in book 6, will dominate the plot of last book. Very obviously, HP will be searching these four Horcruxes to kill Voldemort. So last book's plot would be like a jigsaw puzzle and treasure hunt for these Horcruxes.

As the last book will come only after two years, so ppl will have a long time to make guesses of the plot and spreading rumuors. I have already started waiting for the last book.