Hope and a Little Sugar Movie Review

Cast: Mahima Choudhary, Anupam Kher, Suhasini Mulay, Vikram Chatwal, Amit Sial, Ranjit Choudhary

Direction: Tanuja Chandra

Production: Scott Pardo

Tanuja Chandra returns this weekend with Hope and a little sugar after a hiatus since her last flick- Zindagi Rocks! Unlike her previous venture, ‘Hope’ marks her first English language film.

Set in New York in the weeks before and after 9/11, Hope and a little sugar is a poignant tale of love set against the forces of hate and intolerance centers on the romance between an aspiring Muslim photographer and a young Sikh woman.

Bike messenger, Ali Siddiqui (AMIT SIAL, debutant) meets the beautiful but married Saloni (MAHIMA CHAUDHRY,) a charismatic mithaai shop owner who encourages Ali’s photography and becomes his muse. Despite Ali’s secret and largely unrequited crush on Saloni, he develops a close friendship with her and her husband Harry (VIKRAM CHATWAL). But when tragedy strikes with the terrorist attacks on Sept 11, 2001, her father-in-law, a retired army Colonel (ANUPAM KHER), devastated by grief and anger, directs his longstanding animosity towards Muslims at Ali, as the young man’s affection for Saloni grows increasingly evident. Although the Colonel’s wife (SUHASINI MULAY) bravely tries to pacify her husband, the Colonel, unable to accept life’s pain, threatens to bring everything to a violent end.

To start off with, ‘Hope and a little sugar’ isn’t your usual 9/11 film with terrorist bashing or so. ‘Hope’ is more of an emotional drama that really gets you involved into the lives of the family members undergoing the trauma of losing a loved one.

Tanuja Chandra has executed really well as both the writer as well as director of the film. The story and screenplay may seem a little slow paced but the drama and intensity of events keeps you glued. If one expects the typical bollywood meets Hollywood crossover Hinglish flick, ‘Hope’ isn’t meant for them. No harm in calling ‘Hope’ a crossover film but don’t expected those cliché ‘naach-gaana’ and that entire goody goody boy meets girl stuff.

‘Hope’ also comes with its share of drawbacks especially in terms of the justification of events. The romance between Mahima and Amit Sial germinates just too quickly after the death of her husband, without any apt justification. There lacks a certain sense of believability in the manner in which Mahima is totally mesmerized by seeing her photos on Amit’s apartment wall and the events that follow in the midst of an angry father-in-law Kher.

Nevertheless, the performances of the film draw you away from such minor glitches. Mahima Chaudhry does extremely well and gives the true so called international look to the film. She emotes well and in fact, since Pardes maybe the audiences have never seen Mahima enact so well.

Amit Sial does really well for a debutant expressing the trauma of a broken past with excellence.

Suhasini Mulay is just so apt. There couldn’t have been a better mom expressing herself in the midst of a crisis between convincing her husband of their son’s death and on the other hand leaving the rest to the almighty.

The finest performance comes from Anupam Kher as the Sikh dad. The possessiveness, the love and care expressed for his son is just fabulous. Kher explodes in various scenes expressing his anger and helplessness at the same time. Don’t mind the F’s and B’s, but the sequence in the bar where he blames the Muslims and another sequence where he explodes at Amit Sial are simply terrific. If you thought that was all from the angry father, just watch him burst to tears and cry out in pain of losing his beloved. The film truly belongs to him.

No scope for Vikram Chatwal and the music of the film is minimal and acts as a background theme. Cinematography and editing are ok.

On the whole, ‘Hope and a little sugar’ is a simple, sweet film which was screened two years ago at the international film festival at Goa and had a good response. The film has been a little delayed seeing its release in India yet leaves as impact in terms of its high volt performances.

The intention of Hope And A Little Sugar is good. But the execution of its subject leaves much to be desired.

Rating: 3 stars on 5

'Karzzzz’ 65% complete

The ride to be an actor with a good box record will get smooth for Himesh Reshammiya if his new film turns out to be a great success.

‘Karzzzz’ the next film of this composer, singer and actor directed by Sathish Kaushik and produced by T-Series is 65% complete. The movie is the entry vehicle for Shweta Kumar to Bollywood.

The completed portions of the film have been shot in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Himesh himself has given the music for the film and the lyrics are by Sameer.

Hemal Kothari is the editor. Dialogues are by Siraj Ahmed. Choreography is handled by Piyush Panchal. Sound designer is Jagmohan Anand.

Urmila Matondkar, Raj Babbar and Danny Denzongpa are some of the other actors in the fillm.

For those who love Himesh without the facial hair, there is good news. Himesh has gone for a look sans his trademark beard for some portions of the film.

Well, Himesh, we hope that your image change will not go in vain and our best wishes towards your upcoming movie.

Best wishes Jemima Pauline on your B'day

On your birthday,

I wish for you the fulfillment

of all your fondest dreams.

I hope that for every candle

on your cake

you get a wonderful surprise.

I wish for you that

whatever you want most in life,

it comes to you,

just the way you imagined it,

or better.

I hope you get as much pleasure

from our friendship as I do.

I wish we were good friends,

so I could have known you

from the beginning.

I look forward to

enjoying our friendship

for some of your birthdays.

I'm so glad you were born,

because you brighten my life

and fill it with joy.

Happy Birthday Jam..!

Happy birthday to you... May Allah shower blessings on you… Many More Happy Returns of the Day Jam...

With Love & Regards Haseem

Orkut

Orkut is a social networking service which is run by Google and named after its creator, an employee of Google - Orkut Büyükkökten. The service states that it was designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Since October 2006, Orkut has permitted users to create accounts without an invitation. Orkut is the most visited website in Brazil and 2nd most visited site in India. The initial target market for orkut was the United States, but the majority of its users are in India and Brazil. In fact, as of March 24^th 2008, 67.5% of the traffic comes from Brazil, followed by India with 15.4%.

Orkut Büyükkökten

History

Orkut was launched in January 2004 by search company Google, as the brainchild of Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish software engineer, who developed it as an independent project while working at Google. In late June 2004, Affinity Engines filed suit against Google, claiming that Orkut Büyükkökten and Google based Orkut on inCircle code.

Originally, its membership was by invitation. By April 2008, Orkut's user base numbered at around 120 million, next only to MySpace.

Features

A user first creates a "Profile", in which the user provides "Social", "Professional" and "Personal" details. Users can upload photos into their Orkut profile with a caption. Users can also add videos to their profile from either YouTube or Google Videos with the additional option of creating either restricted or un-restricted polls for polling a community of users.

Scrapbook

"Scrapping" is popular among the Orkut community as a form of offline and online communication. In December 2007, the ability to pop up alerts immediately when a scrap is received was added, adding instant messaging-like capabilities to Orkut.

Communities

Another feature of Orkut is "Communities". Anyone with an Orkut account can create a community on anything. One can post topics, inform users about an event, ask them questions or just play games. There are more than one million communities on Orkut with topics ranging from pizza to pasta. The first five communities on Orkut were started within 24 hrs of the site's launch. There were a total of 47,092,584 communities on Orkut as per March 24, 2008 4:25PM IST (+5:30 GMT). With the recent addition of the search topic feature in the communities, some Orkut communities become the de facto source for the website links to movies, e-books etc.

Other miscellaneous features

Users have options to rate their friends in the order of "Best Friends", "Good Friends", "Friends", "Acquaintances" and "Haven't met”. They can also make a new group to join friends according to their wishes. Further, each member can become fans of any of the friends in their list and can also evaluate whether their friend is "Trustworthy", "Cool", "Sexy" on a scale of 1 to 3 (marked by icons) and is aggregated in terms of a percentage. Unlike Facebook, where a member can view profile details of people only on their network, Orkut allows anyone to visit anyone's profile, unless a potential visitor is on your "Ignore List". Importantly, each member can also customize their profile preferences and can restrict information that appears on their profile from their friends and/or others (not on the friends list). The highlight feature is where any member can add any other member on Orkut to his/her "Crush List" and both of them will be informed only when both parties have added each other to their "Crush List".

When a user logs in, they see the people in their friends list in the order of their logging in to the site, the first person being the latest one to do so. Orkut's competitors are other social networking sites including MySpace and Facebook. Ning is a more direct competitor, as they allow creation of Social Networks which are similar to Orkut's communities.

There is a birthday reminder on the homepage of each user, which shows upcoming birthdays of that user's network friends.

Orkut Redesign

On Friday, August 24, 2007, Orkut announced a redesign. The new UI contains round corners and soft colors including small logotype at upper left corner. The redesign has been announced on the official Orkut Blog.

By Thursday, August 30, 2007, most users on Orkut could see changes on their profile pages as per the new redesign. On the 31st, Orkut announced its new features including improvements to the way you view your friends, 9 rather than 8 of your friends displayed on your homepage and profile page and basic links to your friends' content right under their profile picture as you browse through their different pages. It also announced the initial release of Orkut in 5 new languages: Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu. Profile editing can take place by clicking the settings button under your profile photo (or alternatively, click the blue settings link at the top of any page).

On September 4, 2007, Orkut announced another new feature. You can now see an "Updates from your friends" box on the homepage, where you'll get real-time updates when your friends make changes to their profiles, photos and videos. Moreover, in case you want to keep some things on your profile private, Orkut has added an easy opt-out button on the settings page.

On November 8, 2007, Orkut greeted its Indian users Happy Diwali in a very special way, by allowing them to change their Orkut look to a Diwali-flavored reddish theme.

On April Fools' Day, April 1, 2008, Orkut temporarily changed its name on its webpage to yogurt, apparently as a prank.

Orkut Applications

On 16th April 2008 orkut applications are live in INDIA. started out with 18 applications and the count is growing up. Only with minor restriction's like 25 apps only in a profile. Some apps don't work as expected on FF3. best of the apps so far includes iRead, iLike and flixter

Criticism

Flooders and fake profiles

As with any online social networking community, a number of fake and cloned profiles exist on Orkut. Due to the large number of users, and the deactivation of the jail system, the profiles were often left unremoved or, when removed, recreated easily. These profiles are normally created to troll, to spam, to flood or just for fun. It isn't hard to find users owning more than one profile, with some stating they own hundreds. Also, many of the users use these profiles to steal art that has previously posted online and deem it their own.

In 2005 invisible profiles, communities and topics started to appear in Orkut. This could be achieved by using HTML escaping codes and 1x1 pixel photos to fool the engine behind the site.

Indians on Orkut in 3^rd Position

In August 2005 a freeware program made in Delphi called Floodtudo ("tudo" in Portuguese means "everything" - this was developed by a Brazilian) specifically for flooding Orkut. It quickly spread through the users and was easily downloadable (the most common Floodtudo versions were 1.2, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.2). As this program was massively used by thousands of spammers, a big spam wave struck Orkut in September and October 2005. However, changes implemented by the developers in November made this program non-functional.

As the flooding of Orkut was becoming out of control, the developers implemented some features in order to stop this. These features included not allowing two or more verbatim topics or scrapbook entries to be submitted, forcing the user to wait before posting another topic or scrapbook entry, and the usage of captchas, whenever a scrap entry is hyperlinked. They gave more rights to community moderators as well, so that users can be banned outright instead of relying on the developers to remove them, and now community moderators are able to mass-delete topics selectively in forum as well.

Hate groups

There has recently been controversy revolving around the use of Orkut by various hate groups. Virulent racists and religious fanatics allegedly have a solid following there. Several hate communities focused on racism, Nazism and white supremacy have been deleted due to guideline violation. However, the number of these communities and profiles has not stopped growing because they can be very easily created and it is hard for Orkut to check them.

In 2005, various cases of racism were brought to police attention and reported on in the Brazilian media. In 2006, a judicial measure was opened by the Brazil federal justice denouncing a 20-year-old student accused of racism against those of African ancestry and spreading defamatory content on Orkut. Brazilian Federal Justice subpoenaed Google on March 2006 to explain the crimes that had occurred in Orkut.

Anti-religion, anti-national, and anti-ethnic hate groups have also been spotted. Recently an Indian court has issued notices to Google on some of the groups. The Mumbai Police are seeking a ban on Orkut post objections raised by political groups. Groups denigrating various political leaders and celebrities have also emerged. Also in a reported case of 2005, racist groups have been reported. They were anti-Tamil groups. No names have been revealed yet.

State Censorship

Orkut was very popular in Iran, but the website is now blocked by the government. According to official reports, this is due to national security issues, and Islamic ethical issues about dating and match making. To get around this block, sites such as orkutproxy.com (now defunct) were made for Iranian users. Other websites such as Yahoo! Groups and Google Groups have communities dedicated to receiving updates on the newest location of Iran's Orkut proxy. Though it was once possible to bypass governmental blockage of Orkut, the site has closed its HTTPS pages on all anonymous proxies. Now it is almost impossible for ordinary users to visit this site inside Iran. Many other sites have been published in Iran since Orkut's blockage, using the same social-networking model - examples include MyPardis, Cloob and Bahaneh. Of course, these websites run a high risk of being blocked as well, so they have their own censorship policies to meet Iran's unwritten regulations and rules of filtering.

Orkut’s growth in India

In August 2006, United Arab Emirates followed the footsteps of Iran in blocking the site. This block was subsequently removed in October 2006. On July 3, 2007, Gulf News revisited the issue, publishing complaints from members of the public against Orkut communities like "Dubai Sex", and officially bringing the complaints to the attention of the state telecom monopoly Etisalat. The ensuing moral panic resulted in a renewed ban of the site by Etisalat by July 4, 2007, still in effect despite Google's promise to negotiate the ban with the UAE. Saudi Arabia is another country that has blocked access to Orkut, while Bahrain's information ministry is also under pressure to follow suit.

Security and safety

Hacking accounts and communities with XSS

In 2005 dozens of communities' ownership was hacked by a Computer Security expert known as Shamsher Terror to demonstrate the undiscovered security vulnerabilities. A similar feat was performed by a Brazilian hacker called Vinícius K-Max , using a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability. Eventually, various phishing sites were developed with the intent of stealing other people's accounts and communities.

In December 2007, hundreds of thousands of user’s accounts were affected, using another XSS vulnerability and a worm developed by another Brazilian hacker. A user's account was affected when the user simply read a particular scrap containing an embed which caused the user to automatically become a part of a community on the site, without approval. The affected user's account was then used to send this scrap to everyone present in the user's friend list thereby creating a sort of a huge wave. This vulnerability was eventually fixed within a few hours after being reported.

MW.Orc worm

On June 19, 2006 FaceTime Security Labs' security researchers Christopher Boyd and Wayne Porter discovered a worm, dubbed MW.Orc.

The worm steals users' banking details, usernames and passwords by propagating through Orkut. The attack was triggered as users launched an executable file disguised as a JPEG file. The initial executable file that causes the infection installs two additional files on the user's computer. These files then e-mail banking details and passwords to the worm's anonymous creator when infected users click on the "My Computer" icon.

The infection spreads automatically by posting a URL in another user's Orkut Scrapbook, a guestbook where visitors can leave comments visible on the user's page. This link lures visitors with a message in Portuguese, falsely claiming to offer additional photos. The message text that carries an infection link can vary from case to case.

In addition to stealing personal information, the malware can also enable a remote user to control the PC and make it part of a botnet, a network of infected PCs. The botnet in this case uses an infected PC's bandwidth to distribute large, pirated movie files, potentially slowing down an end-user's connection speed.

The initial executable file (Minhasfotos.exe) creates two additional files when activated, winlogon_.jpg and wzip32.exe (located in the System32 Folder). When the user clicks the "My Computer" icon, a mail is sent containing their personal data. In addition, they may be added to an XDCC Botnet (used for file sharing), and the infection link may be sent to other users that they know in the Orkut network. The infection can be spread manually, but also has the ability to send "back dated" infection links to people in the "friends list" of the infected user.

According to statements made by Google, as noted in Facetime's Greynets Blog, the company had implemented a temporary fix for the dangerous worm.

Discussing about some bugs on social network Orkut & a community providing some exploits.

While browsing on a social network Orkut I came through a community on orkut named Bugs on Orkut which provides some crucial exploits on the social network Orkut by the author Mayank Sood from Dehradun India. The details are as follows -:

The author of this community is a Hacker named Mayank Sood From India Dehradun. He has provided some exploits for this social network through which by just merely using his scripts you can have some nice exploits on orkut. His community link is Cmm=989872 named Bugs on Orkut which users can check by going on the network Orkut. Do not provide any crucial information on social network that leads to exploits by hackers. Help to keep social network clean & beautiful. Further investigation sources claim that the community owner Mayank sood himself claims that he does not steal any user data or information he just works on some bugs present on the social network. The owner of the community has been awarded ethical hacking certificate & was once invited by Google Orkut to Brazil but he declined for some reasons that are not known. (as per information provided november 2006)

HTTPS Not Obvious

In and around April 17, 2007 users began reporting that secure (https) access to the Orkut login server was no longer available. This led some users to cancel their accounts, fearing potential abuse of their Orkut and related Google accounts, such as Gmail.

In fact, Google had changed the main login page to http delivery to improve efficiency, but the actual login remained secure using https in an iframe. This information had not been well-published by Google, and did not give the users the reassurance of seeing the "secure connection" padlock in the browser. On July 17, 2007, a revised login page, which is delivered via https, addressed these issues.

Session Management and Authentication Issues

On June 22, 2007 Susam Pal and Vipul Agarwal published a security advisory on Orkut vulnerabilities related to authentication issues. The vulnerablities are considered very dangerous in cybercafes, or in the case of man-in-the-middle attack as they can lead to session hijacking and misuse of legitimate accounts. The vulnerabilities are not known to be fixed yet and therefore pose threat to the Orkut users.

A week later, on June 29, 2007 Susam Pal published another security advisory which described how the Orkut authentication issue can be exploited to hijack Google and Gmail sessions and misuse the compromised account of a legitimate user under certain conditions.

Joseph Hick performed an experiment on the basis of the advisories published by Susam Pal, to find out how long a session remains alive even after a user logs out. [14] His experiment confirmed that the sessions remain alive for 14 days after the user has logged out. It implies that a hijacked session can be used for 14 days by the hijacker because logging out does not kill the session.

W32/KutWormer

On December 19, 2007, a worm written in Javascript started to cause havoc. Created by a Brazilian user, it automatically made the user join the virus related community and infect all friends' scrapbooks with copies of itself.

The worm is spreading through Orkut’s recently introduced tool that allows users to write messages that contain HTML code. The ability to add Flash/Javascript content to Orkut scraps was only recently introduced.[16][17] on March 3 2008 W32/Scrapkut.worm was found.The worm attempts to spread itself by sending orkut users scraps that contains the link to the worm itself.Aliases Downloader.Banload.ONK (GRISoft) TR/Dldr.Orkut.A (Avira) Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Banload.auf (IKARUS) Trojan.DL.Win32.Banload.dzm (Rising) W32.Scrapkut (Symantec)

Legal Issues

Brazil

On August 22, 2006, Brazilian Federal Judge José Marcos Lunardelli ordered Google to release Orkut user’s information of a list of about two dozen Brazilian nationals, believed to be using Orkut to sell drugs and involved in child pornography by September 28. The judge ordered Google to pay $23,000 per day in fines until the information is turned over to the Brazilian government. The information the government is requesting would also be used to identify individuals that are spreading child pornography and hate speech, according to the Brazilian government. As of September 27, 2006 Google has stated that they will not release the information, on the grounds that the requested information is on Google servers in the U.S. and not Google servers in Brazil, and is therefore not subject to Brazilian laws.

India

Of late, the number of Indians on Orkut has been increasing rapidly. On October 10, 2006, the Bombay High Court's Aurangabad bench served a notice on Google for allowing a hate campaign against India. This referred to a community on Orkut called 'We Hate India', which initially carried a picture of an Indian flag being burned and some anti-India content.

The High Court order was issued in response to a public-interest petition filed by an Aurangabad advocate. Google had six weeks to respond. Even before the petition was filed, many Orkut users had noticed this community and were mailing or otherwise messaging their contacts on Orkut to report the community as bogus to Google, which could result in its removal. The community continues to exist and had spawned several 'We hate those who hate India' communities.

Prior to the 60th Independence Day of India, orkut's main page was revamped. The section which usually displayed a collage of photos of various people, showed a stylized orkut logo. The word orkut was written in the Devanagiri script and was colored in the Indian national colours. Clicking on the logo redirects to a post by the orkut India Product Manager, Manu Rekhi, on the orkut internal blog. There has also been some media outcry against Orkut after a couple of youngsters were apparently lured by fake profiles on the site and later murdered.

On November 23, Bombay High Court asked the state government to file its reply in connection with a petition demanding a ban on social networking site, Orkut, for hosting an anti-Shivaji Web community.

Recently, the Pune rural police cracked a rave party filled with narcotics. The accused have been charged under anti-narcotic laws, the (Indian) Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropics Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS). Besides the NDPS, according to some media reports, the police were deliberating on the issue of charging the accused under the (Indian) Information Technology Act, 2000 perhaps because Orkut was believed to be one of the modes of communication for these kinds of drug abuses.

The Cyber police in India have entered into an agreement with Orkut to have a facility to catch and prosecute those misusing Orkut since the complaints is in a rising stage.

Snow

Snow is a type of precipitation in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure.

Snowflakes

Snow forms when water vapor condenses directly into ice crystals, usually in a cloud. Floating cloud particles (ice nucleators, often of biological origin) are needed in order for snowflakes to form at temperatures above -40C. 85% of these nuclei are airborne bacteria, with dust particles making up the rest. The ice crystals which form around the ice nucleators typically have a diameter of several milimetres and usually have six lines of symmetry. A snowflake is an aggregate of such ice crystals and may be several centimeters large. The term "snowflake" is also used below for the symmetrical ice crystals themselves. The individual ice crystals are clear but because of the amount of light the individual crystals reflect snowflakes appear white in color unless contaminated by impurities.Trees covered by Snow

Geometry

Large, well formed snowflakes are relatively flat and have six approximately identical arms, so that the snowflake nearly has the same 6-fold dihedral symmetry as a regular hexagon or hexagram. This symmetry arises from the hexagonal crystal structure of ordinary ice. However, the exact shape of the snowflake is determined by the temperature and humidity at which it forms. Rarely, at a temperature of around −2 °C (28 °F), snowflakes can form in threefold symmetry - triangular snowflakes. Snowflakes are not perfectly symmetrical however. The most common snowflakes are visibly irregular, although near-perfect snowflakes may be more common in pictures because they are more visually appealing.

Snowflakes can come in many different forms, including columns, needles, bricks and plates (with and without "dendrites" - the "arms" of some snowflakes). These different forms arise out of different temperatures and water saturation - among other conditions. Six petaled ice flowers grow in air between 0 °C (32 °F) and −3 °C (27 °F). The vapor droplets solidify around a dust particle. Between temperatures of −1 °C (30 °F) and −3 °C (27 °F), the snowflake will be in the form of a dendrite or a plate or the six petaled ice flowers. As temperatures get colder, between −5 °C (23 °F) and −10 °C (14 °F), the crystals will form in needles or hollow columns or prisms. When the temperature becomes even colder from −10 °C (14 °F) to −22 °C (−8 °F) the ice flowers are formed again, and at temperatures below −22 °C (−8 °F), the vapors will turn into prisms again. If a crystal has started forming at around −5 °C (23 °F), and is then exposed to warmer or colder temperatures, a capped column may be formed which consists of a column-like design capped with a dendrite or plate-like design on each end of the column. At even colder temperatures, the snowflake design returns to the more common dendrite and plate. At temperatures approaching −20 °C (−4 °F), sectored plates are formed which appears as a dendrite, with each dendrite appearing flattened, like the design of a snowflake plate.

There are, broadly, two possible explanations for the symmetry of snowflakes. First, there could be communication or information transfer between the arms, such that growth in each arm affects the growth in each other arm. Surface tension or phonons are among the ways that such communication could occur. The other explanation, which appears to be the prevalent view, is that the arms of a snowflake grow independently in an environment that is believed to be rapidly varying in temperature, humidity and other atmospheric conditions. This environment is believed to be relatively spatially homogeneous on the scale of a single flake, leading to the arms growing to a high level of visual similarity by responding in identical ways to identical conditions, much in the same way that unrelated trees respond to environmental changes by growing near-identical sets of tree rings. The difference in the environment in scales larger than a snowflake leads to the observed lack of correlation between the shapes of different snowflakes. The sixfold symmetry happens because of the basic hexagonal crystalline structure from which the snowflake grows. The exact reason for the threefold symmetry of triangular snowflakes is still a mystery although trigonal symmetry is a subsymmetry of hexagonal.

There is a widely held belief that no two snowflakes are alike. Strictly speaking, it is extremely unlikely for any two macroscopic objects in the universe to contain an identical molecular structure; but there is, nonetheless, no known scientific laws that prevent it. In a more pragmatic sense, it's more likely—albeit not much more—those two snowflakes are virtually identical if their environments were similar enough, either because they grew very near one another, or simply by chance. The American Meteorological Society has reported that matching snow crystals were discovered in Wisconsin in 1988 by Nancy Knight of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The crystals were not flakes in the usual sense but rather hollow hexagonal prisms.

Snow on the ground

Snow remains on the ground until it melts or sublimes. In colder climates this results in snow lying on the ground all winter; when the snow does not all melt in the summer it becomes glaciers.

This is often called snowpack, especially when it does persist a long time. The deepest snowpacks occur in mountainous regions. It is influenced by temperature and wind events which determine melting, accumulation and wind erosion.

The water equivalent of the snow is the thickness of a layer of water having the same content. For example, if the snow covering a given area has a water equivalent of 50 centimeters (20 in), then it will melt into a pool of water 50 centimeters (20 in) deep covering the same area. This is a much more useful measurement to hydrologists than snow depth, as the density of cool freshly fallen snow widely varies. New snow commonly has a density of between 5% and 15% of water. Snow that falls in maritime climates is usually denser than snow that falls in mid-continent locations because of the higher average temperatures over oceans than over land masses. Cloud temperatures and physical processes in the cloud affect the shape of individual snow crystals. Highly branched or dendritic crystals tend to have more space between the arms of ice that form the snow flake and this snow will therefore have a lower density, often referred to as "dry" snow. Conditions that create columnar or platelike crystals will have much less air space within the crystal and will therefore be more dense and feel "wetter".

First snow of winter

Once the snow is on the ground, it will settle under its own weight (largely due to differential evaporation) until its density is approximately 30% of water. Increases in density above this initial compression occur primarily melting and refreezing, caused by temperatures above freezing or by direct solar radiation. By late spring, snow densities typically reach a maximum of 50% of water.

Spring snow melt is a major source of water supply to areas in temperate zones near mountains that catch and hold winter snow, especially those with a prolonged dry summer. In such places, water equivalent is of great interest to water managers wishing to predict spring runoff and the water supply of cities downstream. Measurements are made manually at marked locations known as snow courses, and remotely using special scales called snow pillows.

Many rivers originating in mountainous or high-latitude regions have a significant portion of their flow from snowmelt. This often makes the river's flow highly seasonal resulting in periodic flooding. In contrast, if much of the melt is from glaciated or nearly glaciated areas, the melt continues through the warm season, mitigating that effect.

Energy balance

The energy balance of the snowpack is dictated by several heat exchange processes. The snowpack absorbs solar shortwave radiation that is partially blocked by cloud cover and reflected by snow surface. A longwave heat exchange takes place between the snowpack and its surrounding environment that includes overlaying air mass, tree cover and clouds. Convective (sensible) heat exchange between the snowpack and the overlaying air mass is governed by the temperature gradient and wind speed. Moisture exchange between the snowpack and the overlaying air mass is accompanied with latent heat transfer that is influenced by vapor pressure gradient and air wind. Rain on snow could induce significant heat input to the snowpack. A generally insignificant conductive heat exchange takes place between the snowpack and the underlying ground. That is the reason there is a small temperature rise after or before the snowfall.

Effects on human society

• Activity: Substantial snowfall can disrupt public infrastructure and services, slowing human activity even in regions that are accustomed to such weather. Air and ground transport may be greatly inhibited or shut down entirely. Populations living in snow-prone areas have developed various ways to travel across the snow, such as skis, snowshoes, and sleds pulled by horses, dogs, or other animals. Basic infrastructures such as electricity, telephone lines, and gas supply can also fail. The combined effects can lead to a "snow day" on which gatherings such as school, work, or church are officially canceled. In areas that normally have very little or no snow, a snow day may occur when there is only light accumulation or even the threat of snowfall, since those areas are ill-prepared to handle any amount of snow.
• Agriculture: Snowfall can be beneficial to agriculture by serving as a thermal insulator, conserving the heat of the Earth and protecting crops from subfreezing weather. Some agricultural areas depend on an accumulation of snow during winter that will melt gradually in spring, providing water for crop growth.
• Conservation: In areas near mountains, people have harvested snow and stored it as layers of ice covered by straw or sawdust in icehouses. This allowed the ice to be used in summer for refrigeration or medical uses.
• Damage: A mudslide, flash flood, or avalanche can occur when excessive snow has accumulated on a mountain and there is a sudden change of temperature. Large amounts of snow that accumulate on top of man-made structures can lead to structural failure.

Section of an icehouse

Records

The highest seasonal total snowfall ever measured was at Mount Baker Ski Area, outside of the town Bellingham, Washington in the United States during the 1998–1999 season. Mount Baker received 1,140 inches (29 m) of snow, thus surpassing the previous record holder, Mount Rainier, Washington, which during the 1971–1972 season received 1,122 in. (28.5 m) of snow. Guinness World Records list the world’s largest snowflakes as those of January 1887 at Fort Keogh, Montana;. allegedly one measured 15 inches (38 cm) wide.

Recreation

• Many winter sports, such as skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling and snowshoeing depend on snow. Where snow is scarce but the temperature is low enough, snow cannons may be used to produce an adequate amount for such sports.
• Children can play on a sled or ride in a sleigh.
• Snow can be sculptured into snowmen, used to trace the motion of a person's body (snow angels), or formed into snowballs for throwing or for having snowball fights.
• Snow can be used to build defensive snow forts for outdoor games such as Capture the flag.
• The world's biggest snowcastle, the SnowCastle of Kemi, is built in Kemi, Finland every winter.
• Since 1928 Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan has held an annual Winter Carnival in mid-February, during which a large Snow Sculpture Contest takes place between various clubs, fraternities, and organizations in the community and the university. Each year there is a central theme, and prizes are awarded based on creativity.

Types of snow

Falling Snow

Blizzard

A long-lasting snow storm with intense snowfall and usually high winds. Particularly severe storms can create whiteout conditions where visibility is reduced to less than 1 m.

Columns

A class of snow flakes that is shaped like a six sided column. One of the 4 classes of snow flakes.

Dendrites

A class of snow flakes that has 6 points, making it somewhat star shaped. The classic snow flake shape. One of the 4 classes of snow flakes.

Flurry

A period of light snow with usually little accumulation with occasional moderate snowfall.

Freezing rain

Super cooled rain that freezes on impact with a sufficiently cold surface. This can cover trees in a uniform layer of very clear, shiny ice – a beautiful phenomenon, though excessive accumulation can break tree limbs and utility lines, causing utility failures and possible property damage.

Graupel

Precipitation formed when freezing fog condenses on a snowflake, forming a ball of rime ice. Also known as snow pellets.

Ground blizzard

Occurs when a strong wind drives already fallen snow to create drifts and whiteouts.

Hail

Many-layered ice balls, ranging from "pea" sized (0.25 in, 6 mm) to "golf ball" sized (1.75 in, 43 mm), to, in rare cases, "softball" sized or greater (­>4.25 in, 108 mm).

Hailstorm

A storm of hail. If the hail is sufficiently large, it can cause damage to cars or even people.

Lake effect snow

Produced when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, picking up water vapor which freezes and is deposited on the lake's shores.

Needles

A class of snow flakes that are acicular in shape (their length is much longer than their diameter, like a needle). One of the 4 classes of snow flakes.

Rimed snow

Snow flakes that are partially or completely coated in tiny frozen water droplets called rime. Rime forms on a snow flake when it passes through a super-cooled cloud. One of the 4 classes of snow flakes.

Sleet

In Britain, rain mixed with snow; Some Americans also refer to this as sleet, while others refer to sleet as ice pellets formed when snowflakes pass through a layer of warm air, partially or completely thaw, then refreeze upon passing through sufficiently cold air during further descent.

Snow squall

A brief, very intense snowstorm.

Snow storm

A long storm of relatively heavy snow.

Thundersnow

A thunderstorm which produces snow as the primary form of precipitation.

Wintry mix

Precipitation consisting of both snow and rain.

Snow on the ground

Snow covering the Weather Station

Artificial snow

Snow can be also manufactured using snow cannons, which actually create tiny granules more like soft hail (this is sometimes called "grits" by those in the southern U.S. for its likeness to the texture of the food). In recent years, snow cannons have been produced that create more natural-looking snow, but these machines are prohibitively expensive.

Blowing snow

Snow on ground that is being moved around by wind. See ground blizzard.

Chopped powder

Powder snow that has been cut up by previous skiers.

Corn

Coarse, granular wet snow. Most commonly used by skiers describing good spring snow. Corn is the result of diurnal cycle of melting and refreezing.

Cornice

An overhanging formation of windblown snow. Important in skiing and alpine climbing because the overhang can be unstable and hard to see from the leeward side.

Crud

This covers varieties of snow that all but advanced skiers find impassable. Subtypes are (a) windblown powder with irregularly shaped crust patches and ridges, (b) heavy tracked spring snow re-frozen to leave a deeply rutted surface strewn with loose blocks, (c) a deep layer of heavy snow saturated by rain (although this may go by another term). Crud is negotiated with a even weighting along the length of the skis, and smooth radius turns started, if necessary, with a pop or jump. When an advanced skier falls over on crud, it is probably because it is 'heavy crud', q.v.

Crust

A layer of snow on the surface of the snowpack that is stronger than the snow below, which may be powder snow. Depending on their thickness and resulting strength, crusts can be termed "supportable," meaning that they will support the weight of a human, "breakable," meaning that they will not, or "zipper," meaning that a skier can break and ski through the crust. Crusts often result from partial melting of the snow surface by direct sunlight or warm air followed by re-freezing.

Depth Hoar

Faceted snow crystals, usually poorly or completely unbonded (unsintered) to adjacent crystals, creating a weak zone in the snowpack. Depth hoar forms from metamorphism of the snowpack in response to a large temperature gradient between the warmer ground beneath the snowpack and the surface. The relatively high porosity (percentage of air space), relatively warm temperature (usually near freezing point), and unbonded weak snow in this layer can allow various organisms to live in it.

Finger Drift

A narrow snow drift(1-3 feet in width) crossing a roadway. Several finger drifts in succession resemble the fingers of a hand.

Ice

Densely packed material formed from snow that doesn't contain air bubbles. Depending on the snow accumulation rate, the air temperature, and the weight of the snow in the upper layers, it can take snow a few hours or a few decades to form into ice.

Firn

Snow which has been lying for at least a year but which has not yet consolidated into glacier ice. It is granular.

Packed Powder

The most common snow cover on ski slopes, consisting of powder snow that has lain on the ground long enough to become compressed, but is still loose.

Packing snow

Snow that is at or near the melting point, so that it can easily be packed into snowballs and hurled at other people or objects. This is perfect for snow fights and other winter fun, such as making a snowman, or a snow fort.

Penitentes

Tall blades of snow found at high altitudes.

Pillow Drift

A snow drift crossing a roadway and usually 10-15 feet in width and 1-3 three feet in depth.

Powder

Freshly fallen, uncompacted snow. The density and moisture content of powder snow can vary widely; snowfall in coastal regions and areas with higher humidity is usually heavier than a similar depth of snowfall in an arid or continental region. Light, dry (low moisture content, typically 4 - 7% water content) powder snow is prized by skiers and snowboarders. It is often found in the Rocky Mountains of North America and in Niseko, Japan.

Slush

Snow which partially melts upon reaching the ground, to the point that it accumulates in puddles of partially-frozen water.

Snirt

Snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots that have been plowed.

Snowdrift

Large piles of snow which occur near walls and curbs, as the wind tends to push the snow up toward the vertical surfaces.

Surface Hoar

Faceted, corn-flake shaped snow crystals that are a type of frost that forms on the surface of the snow pack on cold, clear, calm nights. Subsequent snow fall can bury layers of surface hoar encorporating them into the snowpack where they can form a weak layer. Sometimes referred to as hoar frost.

Watermelon snow

A reddish/pink colored snow that smells like watermelons, and is caused by a red colored green algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis.

Wind slab

A layer of relatively stiff, hard snow formed by deposition of wind blown snow on the leeward side of a ridge or other sheltered area. Wind slabs can form over weaker, softer freshly fallen powder snow creating an avalanche hazard on steep slopes.