group kelasa

When we think about farmland, most of us would get the picture of a landlord in pure white and white traditional dress, holding an umbrella and supervising scores of workers in the field. Gone are those good old days. Now workers had migrated towards city for better job, in whatever betterment that is.

The current landlords are different. They wear dirty khaki clothes, may be bare chested and plough in the muddy field. Farm operations are labour consuming, requires lots of man power. In order to resolve the issue, the land owners team up. They form a group of about 5 and combined effort. They usually meet once in a week, put their effort in one of their land. Round robin method is attempted.

Synergy wins.

Manage your investment risks and returns

Good old book from early 90s. Concepts and topics discussed are relevant till date. The main theme of the book is to walk through different investment vehicles and study the different types of risks involved in those.

Some of investments analyzed are bonds, preferred stocks, stocks, securities, tangible assets, non marketable investments.
These investments are analyzed from risk point of view, like purchasing power risk, interest rate risk, business risk, financial risk, liquidity risk, reinvestment risk, market risk.

The dynamics of these risk, controlling means, are touched upon.

As a case study, three different motivated investments compared. Emergency fund accumulation, saving for major expense, retirement investing require totally different style of planning and process.

Very good read for anyone into investment. Would suggest to read basic materials and then read this book for risk handling.

Water tap terminologies

Construction materials provide array of options to choose. That invites lots of confusion, particularly if we don't understand the terminologies used by the manufacturers, dealers, mason etc. The following list is a jump start and not a complete one.

An aerator spreads water stream into many little droplets. This helps save water and reduce splashing.

Screw type normal water tap provides some kind of resistance to the flow at the point of tap junction. Gate valve has a vertical metal plate (perpendicular to the flow) to open the tap and hence doesn't provide restriction to the flow.

Bibcock prevents water to overflow into house or any desired point in the water piping system.
For eg, a strong valve is placed at the pipe connecting the outlet of the overhead water tank to the rest of the inlet pipe into the house. This valve can be operated while fixing the pipe or tap in the house.

pillar taps are usually found in basins and sinks. They are attached to the floor instead of fitted from the wall.

spout is an outlet part of the tap. Can be for hot or cold water.

mixer tap combines hot and cold inlet and releases a desired combination into the outlet. thermostatic mixer controls the outlet temperature.
The mixer tap requires two types of control, ie increase/decrease temperature and increase/decrease water flow. A simple way to get this is to have two knobs and control these two factors. A single lever mechanism provides a single lever to the above situation - turning the lever left to right would alter the temperature and lifting the lever outwards will increase the water flow.

Divertor helps in channelizing the water. For eg, we can turn the knob to get water in the shower or bath or to the hand shower etc.

pop up - a control on the tap opens and closes the waste, with the mechanism hidden behind the bath or basin.

Traditional tap has a head or knob which should be turned one or two+ full turns (rotations) to get full water capacity. A quarter turn tap requires to turn the knob or lever in a much less distance to get full flow. (Traditional tap uses washer mechanism, quarter turn uses ceramics). The later has many advantages.
Guess half-turn tap is similar version.

flanges - a protective metal sheet holding the tap connection away from the wall. (I am not sure about it .. couldn't get a reference on a quick search)

Baby's smile

Like all kids, Varsha kicks, cries and smiles.

Like all fathers, I feel her kicks, cries and smiles are unique and special.

Kural 35 - Righteousness

Righteous is not to yield towards jealousy, greed, anger and using harsh words.

Social equality

When we hear the word 'social equality' general thought we get is something like uplifting poor, education, land for all, healthy consumable at affordable price etc. However Indian politicians have found shorter means of achieving equality. To bring down the rich to the beggar's poverty, eradicate good education for all, etc.

The latest such measures were implemented in the railway dept. Few years back the train transactions were automated and made accessible through internet. People need not have to stand in queues, they could just click few pages and book the tickets or ask someone to click those few pages. Saved lot of time and effort; I am sure the dept would have benefited very much with the reduction of work load.
New minister took in charge. Somehow she found online utility as inequality to poor. Hence brought in many changes to the system - mainly to cause inconvenience to the online commuters. For eg, when you query for seat availability, you are put in a virtual queue for few minutes before the page gets loaded!!

Most likely the word bureaucracy was coined after seeing the Indian administration. God save our country.

Kural 28

The greatness of a person can be gauged by the wisdom/books he or she leaves behind.

Puppies got a home

There is a sad and a horrific story behind these puppies. On the seventh day of their birth, a visitor came and took special interest in them. With a hood, fang and a lengthy body .. a cobra!! The mother dog tried its best to chase away, but its barking failed to drive out the snake. It stood one feet from the ground with a big hood. It was able to catch a puppy. Hearing the continuous barking, people gathered and drove away the cobra.

After that the dog family got a new home. One less puppy the family became. They are resting under a shelter. Hopefully the puppies would grow up and stand tall.

Kural 12

Second chapter is about necessity of rain, titled as "Glory to rain" aka "the rain dance".

Second kural of this chapter is a nice tongue twister, with repetitive words. Many would recite this fast but may not know the meaning. Here it goes .. The rain involves in the process of generating food for all consumers; to add to that, the rain becomes food in the form of drinking water.

btw, this site has the English translation which is most apt and clear. Instead of doing a literal word to word translation, an attempt is made to convey the original message.

Kural 6

I used to read a page from my Kural book. Trying to make it a daily habit. (I remember my grandpa used to do that). Thought I can share 1 kural out of 10 each day. It would be a random one among the 10.
The thing I like in Kural is the abundant wisdom packed in a concise format. Apart from this, we will be able to pick up a subtle message or context out of it. It would be a new dimension to look upon and enjoy. Let me try to show such cases here.

The first chapter is devoted to the god. The sixth couplet talks about virtue and abstainism. May be interpreted as a definition of god, one who has control over the senses and with pure virtue; folks who adapt god's path will have a great life.
Another way to look at this kural is, one who controls the senses and leads a virtuous life will enjoy a prolonged joyous life.

Handling washing machine outlet

The outlet of washing machine machine is supposed to be let out through the drain pipe - either loosely placed or properly fit into the drain. However, if we happen to place the machine outside the bathroom, we end up without having proper exhaust for the dirty water. We end up throwing the pipe into the near by wash basin.

One problem with this is the retractory force of water and the outlet pipe gets dislocated. The water floods the room. Tying the pipe to the tap or other object doesn't give a convenient solution. Here is an alternate way that works. Tighten a t-connection pipe at the end of the outlet (see photo).

This solves the problem as the water is split between the two ends of the T. Also the metallic T is heavy enough to hold the pipe close to the bottom of the basin sink.

The rice hunter

I dont fit well in the purchase department, but my wife thrust the task into me. I get the grocery list and need to get it home. Most tricky item is the rice. Guess the confussion comes with the wide range of choice available.

At some point of time, I was buying only red rice. Folks started complaining and demanded white rice. Next time I picked the white bag. When we opened the bag ... the red rice was smiling at our face!! I sincerly believed that white bag will have white rice. Who the hell placed red rice in white bag?

After that incident I became wiser. I make sure I buy rice in transparent bags. No more taken for a ride. This month order for rice was heavy - my mom asked for 2 bags and wife wanted 1 bag. I picked the usual set of bags. Apart from this, they wanted idli rice too. That ought to be from a different store; went there and got smaller bags of different rice.
with distribution of the parcel, then came the news .. they are not boiled rice, just the raw type. In total 20kg of rice which was not liked by any. The next surprise was with the idli rice which had the similar defect. Thus we ended up with bags of rice with different orientation.

Dear wife, I know the job allotment happened due to the shortage of man power and increase of work load with the new born. I suggest you relax your hiring policy so that I may get a suitable assistant. I will make sure that she will fit in our family :-)

social reform

another haiku passed thru me.

Let us change the society,
Remove dowry
after my son's wedding

Dont beat us; we will beat ourselves

There is a desi bashing going on in Auz. It is a hot news and many desi leaders are condemning against such barbarian act. Auzzies are branded as racists. Prominent figures, actors etc voiced in supporting Indian students in Auz. Good to know our leaders support us.

What happens when the inter-state violence takes place in the country? Maharastrians thrash Biharis, Kannadiagas beat-up Tamils, Assamese punch out the Hindi-speaking crowd. Hardly we hear anything from the leaders. They silently watch the local violence. They dont see any racism here, in fact .. from their perspective everything is normal in the inland.

Information handling

My wife was telling that I will resume blogging only after our kid is born. Seems to be true, as I feel like blogging after ShreeVarsha is born.

Most folks call friends and relative during that moment to share the news. I controlled the urge. Thou my wife asked me to inform my relatives, I didnt. Somehow I didnt get an answer to 'why we need to tell everyone immediately? why not after two days?'

Before we go further in this discussion, let me list out the advantage of delayed broadcasting. I didnt get any in call on that day; also I sparsely used my phone. I was able to focus on the tasks I had to do at the hospital. More than anything, I had lots of precious moments with the baby.

ps: After two days, when I relaxed myself, I called everyone in my contact list to share the news. Most of the people were just happy and didnt mind the delay. Very few questioned why I didnt inform them at the earliest.

80 year old house

Could be more than that. (Localites claim that major renovation took place 80yrs back, house might have been constructed in the end of 19th century). The house is located in our farm. Compact one with required space for a couple to stay. The house looks rich thou the roof is tiled.

The wood work are unique and antique. The doors and windows are crafted carefully. The door is 'inserted' into the door frame rather than sticking out like modern day one. The keys are stylish and awesome.

The Main attraction is the entrance. There are three! For a house of such size, three doors seem to be a lot. Apart from the main entrance, there are two in the side. Opening all the doors give a nice ambiance.

Job you dont like

Let us say, you work for a company. As part of the job, you are asked to withdraw money from the bank. You collected the money in a suitcase and on the way back to your company. Now, all of a sudden, you got an enlightenment. You understood that you are working for a wrong company or a wrong cause!! You decide to quit.

Question here is, what do you do with the suitcase? Option 1: go back to the bank and deposit money to the company's account. Option 2: reach ur company, hand over the money to your manager and resign officially. Option 3: What if you decide to quit immediately upon enlightenment? How about leaving the suitcase on the middle of the road and going to your home?

The last option is what my wife did. She doesnt know what is wrong about that option.

Green sapling in drought condition

Just wondering what long term effect will inadequate resource on a young plant result into. Will the tree grow tough and strong against any environmental fluctuations or the tree will be weak and powerless on external factors? Guess there might be few more details and factors influencing the above case. For example, how much resource constrain is placed on the sapling? Is it about to die? What is the benchmark to compare against or in other words, what is the right tree growing conditions?

Would be interesting if there is a study in this line.

Morning walk

Today I thought of going out for a stroll. Didn't want to go for the long route, instead walked into near by area. That is the place I had been many times. It is a road winding down in the hilly area into a bunch of houses and a temple. Usually we go to the temple and return back. Never seen anything further. This morning I found that the road was cleared further after the temple. There was a road.

Walking through the road, I found many more houses that side, which were out of sight earlier. Further I went into the woods. Saw a group of peacocks, some six of them. Quiet a near sighting. While watching the peacocks, someone else was standing by and watching. It was a mongoose! When I saw it ran away.

A thrilling way to start the day.

the perception

While going through tough times, it helps a lot to have a positive mind set. If we bury ourself with all sort of negativity energies like anger, depression, repeated thought pattern, emotional break-down, worries etc, we are doing more harm to our mind and complicating the situation.

Instead, a positive frame of mind pushes us out of the situation fast. Winning or losing the situation depends on the strategy and many other factors. But having the right attitude acts as a shield to protect ourself from negatives. It helps to come over from sore heart and recover fast to normality.

Any more thoughts?

strange experience

How would you feel when you have to ask a favor from a person you lost touch for a long years? And that person in the foregone years, had expected something from you and you had refused at that time. That becomes tricky.

After going through such interactions, I feel how we view situation when we are at giving end and how we see things while asking or receiving. It is strange.

If god was a banker

Very few books fall in the category read-through-in-the-night. This book made it. I thought of reading couple of chapter before sleep, but ended up reading the whole book in the night. The story line was so catchy that there was no break point to leave the book down. Great book!!(Note to self: Never ride bike after a night out; couldn't open eyes while riding)

The book narrates the corporate world and the power struggle in it. Each chapter takes a twist+turn and carries a suspense till the last page. We feel sorry for Swami at many instances. Real life business practises are narrated when required. Adequate eroticity sprinkle to turn the heat on.

As with the recent book, the author, Ravi Subramanian, made his story run through Marina beach and Nariman point - which makes the Indian readers at home.

Few points that didn't vibe well in the book:

• Lack of Stability in characterization. All folks in the play are quite clear, except Sundeep. He swings between extreme intelligent, aggressive guy to a total stupid. Many a time he does senseless deeds and foolish decisions out of greed. All of a sudden, indication about his intelligence, skills of past or present are highlighted - as thou to compensate the black image furnished in earlier chapters. Then again it goes down and starts showing a foolish Sundeep. Not sure if this see-saw effect was intentional by the author.
• Too many names to remember. Most of the chapters introduces a new character. Some of them dont last over a para or two. Too many such names made me to skip all names and it was difficult to keep track of who is who.
• Flimsy ending. The last few pages were far from reality. An ex-employee, Aditya, being invited (he was flown from Mumbai to NY) to go through a sensitive case. Also Tedd & management confronting Sundeep and then giving options for his exist.As I haven't climbed any corporate ladder, I cannot confirm if these are feasible or not.

Overall, if you like a story line on money, power, sex .. this is a good book to read.

Magical eraser feasible

Looks like Science is in the right path towards human imagination. Whatever we could think about, technology pounce on that and makes it possible.

The selective memory erasure I blogged about is feasible, it seems.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22187/

Freakonomics

I wanted to read this book for a long time and happened to buy this recently. Real life scenarios are narrated in puzzle like manner and the answers surprise us. To apply our scientific mind on trivial matters produces interesting results. For example, to study the business dealers' business or a sumo wrestlers' life style etc are nicely covered in this book.

For a long time I was suspicious about the manner society names their children. Example, a name Ramalakshmi Ammal seems to be from a far gone era. May be a catchy name at that time. Many of the upper society folks named their daughters, later on the lower sector started using that name. Upper society had to move to a new set of hype names, say Lakshmi or something.

Freakonomics explains the naming trend and many other topics. Good read.

Barbers change

Heard about latest SRK movie? It was named 'Billu Barber'. The barbers' association demanded the name be changed on the context that the word 'barber' is derogatory. They prefer to be addressed as hair stylist or hair dressers. (Not sure what they call their association).

The word 'barber' seem to have gone through a phase of euphemism. It is going out. The word got enough negativity that it got to be pulled off. Another classic word in Indian context is about addressing the SC/ST community. Olden day nomenclature went with 'Sudras'. That is a big no no. Gandhian era gave a name as 'Harijan', to mean god's people. These days people get offended with harijan. Preferable word today is 'dalits'.

I guess there is nothing wrong in words. It is the context and meaning we fix the words. Many neutral words gather negativity and slowly the neutrality usage drops out. Only negative context associates with the word. After a while, we start looking for a new word to mean the old thing.

It is highly probable that the word 'style' becomes negative charged because of these barbers, oh sorry .. the hair stylists.

The Transport office saga continues

The officer asked me to come and collect the letter for the followup from City A. However the concerned officer was not in the office when I went there. That was a lucky thing to happen, as they skipped the letter part. Now they dont need the letter from city A!! I had to carry the paper from one building to another. There was a small record verification in the other building. Not sure how they managed to store info in a slim register. After few signatures, rubber stamps there, I came back to first building. Submitted the documents. I have to go there in 15 days to see if things are done. I cant check the status through phone or through agents. My physical presence is wanted.

Hopefully I dont have to go there further on.

Searching at RTO

After buying an other state vehicle, we started the vehicle transferring ritual. City A (which in other state) had to issue no objection and other artifacts. After going through many to and fro transaction, we are almost in the final stage. The last task is to apply for a vehicle number change.

I took all required documents and originals. The officer went through the papers and told that he would have to look for the acknowledgement card from City A office. He was going through a bundle of postcards. Then another. I couldnt compare his search with the database queries and indexing techniques. After failing to find, he shifted his focus on one or two office files. I was hoping that we wouldnt have to dig through the pile of sacks that were tied up.

Since he couldnt get that postcard, he is going to write a letter to City A office. I am suppose to follow up with that office to get this acknowledgement.

This office was quite a big one to hold lots and lots of files, bags, and more files. I am sure they have not heard about the words like work flow model, computers, paper-less office etc.

How sprinkler works?

For those who are interested to know the working mechanism of a water spraying sprinkler. You might have seen this in the gardens where these sprinklers keep rotating and water plants in its surrounding.

The last pic has the close-up shot. There is a central axis holding the apparatus (the axis is protruding in the top as a small white pyramid). Two nozzles are provided to throw out water. (The nozzles have bolts and the main nozzle can be seen with the inscription '27'). Above the nozzle is a strange spoon like structure; this lever is attached to the axis and allowed to rotate around the axis. The lever is bound by a spring.

Ok, let us check them in action. Water flows with considerable pressure from the bottom of the tube and comes out through the nozzles. The main nozzle, which is the bigger one, does the important task. While pumping out the water, water splashes on the edge of the lever. As per the design, the water force makes the lever move away in anti-clock direction. Due to the coiled spring, the lever is pushed back its original position. When the lever comes back, it hits the frame of the nozzle .. making the nozzle structure to move clock wise. This completes one particular angular motion. Again the water is sprayed on the lever, again the lever winds back and springs forward .. this continues to make the sprinkler rotate.

It is amazing to see it in action.

bug in minesweeper

Found an interesting bug. After I completed the game, the clock was still ticking. The scoreboard had gone to -1 instead of 0. Somehow the counter had gone wrong.




Do I qualify for a game tester? :-)

Eleven minutes

This book is about how an innocent girl morphs into a prostitute. The author, Paulo Coelho, explores about the world of the prostitutes, how makes them keeps going, the dreams they carry etc. Through the lead, Maria, we come to know about the customers she has. In spite of being in high post, earning good or well to do status, men have the fear of failure and fragile inside.

We had read about love and sex in many books before. Here is yet another view.

(Not sure how many google searches will be wrongly directed to this blog due to those two famous and looked out words)

Retreat

The revenge of the nomad
Chapter 3. Retreat

Ramraj slowly healed out of the trauma. Took months for him to move around. All emotional feelings had died away from him. He became analytical and view his life from different perspective. He realized someone with muscle power is going to dominate. At the same time, he can sharpen his intellect to overcome the physical forces.

With that in mind, he schemed a master plan. As a first step, he wanted to eliminate Mr Rao's right hand, Das. Das is the brain of Mr Rao. Rao consults him for all activities and executes his task thru Das.

Ramraj started to observe Das's routine. Instead of trying to bring down Das by himself, Ramraj was passing the information to Rao's arch-rival. Weak moments of Das were studied and on a chosen day, men surrounded Das to hack him down.

The arch-rival, Mr Valliesh, was happy to hear about this. As per his estimate, Mr Rao would soon fall apart from his business empire.

Mr Rao was also analyzing the events. He happen to know that Ramraj had helped Valliesh.

Ramraj expecting trouble, travelled to a far place.

End of chapter 3 out of 7.

To be continued.

Magical eraser

What if our brain memory is erasable. If we can opt for selective cleansing. For example, all my experience of being in a beach are removed. Now my visit to a beach would be very fresh and new. The first time experience in a beach would be relived. That would be awesome.

People may use it to clear off their traumatic experiences. That is a double edged sword, with advantage and disadvantage. The issue is to loose such experience and being vulnerable to go through again.