wisdom tooth

Yesterday I got one of the wisdom teeth extracted. This brought curious questions, what is the purpose of these teeth? why is it so late? and most often pulled away due to rouge behaviour.

Searching net didn't give enough info compared to the info available about extraction. A relevant article is at ask yahoo. This talks about a nice concept of wisdom tooth pushing other teeth in order to compensate the space of any lost tooth.

Good that I am looking at these pages after the extraction :-)

java chart

I got an urge to try out a data chart in my apps. After figuring the chart lib available in my ide is not that useful, I searched for the open source stuff. Downloaded jFreeChart and went thru the bundle. Didn't know where to start. Then I came to know that the user guide should be bought. Couldn't understand the open-sourceness of this project ..

... and then moved on to jChart. First thing I checked is the user guide and if they are charging for any of the free stuff. This is decent and easy to use. Compared to jFreeChart, jFreeChart has rich features and many more chart presentation. However, for a trial attempt, jChart is sufficient .. particularly if u r not going to make any extra bucks for putting a chart in the page.

Day light saving scheme

I wish we have a better electrical switching controls. During the day time, the electrical switches connecting to the bulbs and tubes should be disabled; ie switching on will not result in a dull glow of the light against the bright sunlight. There is a high chance people forget to switch off as the light is not visible enough. So, with this new control, these unwanted lights will not be turned on. This will happen only during day time. Of course, there will be methods to by pass this blockage.

The need of such instrument came out an angel at our home. Which ever room my wife enters, the angel switches on the lights in a subconscious manner. While my wife leaves the room, you guessed it, the light remains on. While discussing this phenomena with my wife, she told about the angel. Since then I am thinking about the day light control switch to save electricity.

Body atlas

I saw this video from Discovery Health in a vcd. The title is Body Atlas - The Human Design.

Very interesting to see the functioning of our body. Each organ has a function and they interact among themselves to produce marvellous effects. The inside story at an microscopic level to macro level is a tour of its own.

Quite informative study. Would suggest folks to have a look.

Village life

GA invited us to his native home. We went in the evening and enjoyed the scenic route on the way. Had to take a cut from the busy road into a single lane road amidst of paddy field. Upon reaching near his home, GA greeted us and showed the house. His parents and brother live here. They had two water wells and grooves, fields. The atmosphere was very nice. Calm, away from the city buzz.

This is something many have in mind, particularly the city dwellers. Most want to own a farm house, spend quite hours and be close to the nature. Hardly few of us get a chance to do so. Even who does, not sure how many can enjoy to the fullest without feeling the boredom.

Thanks to GA for inviting us to a different heaven, less experienced by many of us.

The selfish Gene

Very interesting book by Richard Dawkins. The book throws a different perception about world and life. The way genetic materials behave, think, plan etc are amazing concept. The scientific findings are given in a layman format. Analogies like functioning of computers, science fiction stories etc help a lot in understanding complicate topics.

Earlier I had many doubts like the male attraction
This books clears such doubts and open our eyes on many areas. For eg, I had been in the impression that the beautiful feathers, tusks, lion's facial hairs etc are ornamental and luxury. Looks like they have purpose and also used as measuring gauge to check the animal's health. (this is comparable to the by gone practice - while searching for a bride, the groom's side ask if the girl can sing or dance. )

Many of our day to day simple acts have roots till the pre-historic animal rituals. Just to mention few of the fascinating ideas :

• limited resource enable species to slowly evolve and acquire new skills or new equipments


• why do other birds feed cuckoo's baby (at the cost of their own)


• on a general scale, why predominantly males wander off or break out of relationship?


• what is the significance of diamond ring for proposal?

Read the book Selfish Gene to get many more questions answered.

btw, the soldier anecdote is pulled from this book.

Friendly enemies

Happen to catch this anectode while reading about symbotic relations and Prisoner's Dilemma.

From a blog of British officer during one of the world wars:

I was having tea with A company when we heard a lot of shouting and went to investigate. We found our men and the Germans standing on their respective parapets. Suddenly a salvo arrived but did no damage. Naturally both sides got down and our men started swearing at the Germans, when all at once a brave German got on to his parapet and shouted out 'We are very sorry about that; we hope no one was hurt. It is not our fault, it is that damned Prussian artillery.'

Air hostess requirement

Happen to go through an advt from a leading airlines. Apart from the standards, there were few notable points.

• age between 18 to 27
• edu can be HSC & up
• status - single (that is interesting)
• min height - taller than me :-(
• no scars, tattoos etc in visible parts

Acknowledging the proposal

Prompt reply was sent to the proposal for the car:

Dear aspirant of a car,

Your project is well aimed and lists out the motive. However, the proposal lacks certain vital criteria:

• the risk factors
• pros and cons
• budget section is incomplete without sundry costs like registration and there off.
• what about maintenance?

Kindly furnish these details for your proposal to be consider for further actions.

Regards
Balaji

Disclaimer: All the above statements are expressed as per the mood of Balaji at 6.45pm on 6th Feb of 8. These and any of the unsaid statements may change as the time goes on. The receipt and reply of your proposal doesnot gaurentee acceptance of your whims and fancies. Any conflict arising out of this dealing shall be settled at The Court Of Balaji.

A strange proposal

Got an interesting requirement in the mail:

Buying a car for our family

Author: Swarna
Date: 6th Feb 2008

Background:

We have moved to Manipal where we might stay for a few years at least. As it rains continuously in Manipal from the month of June to October, commuting becomes difficult on a two-wheeler in those months. So, hereby I put forward the proposal of buying a car for our family.

Review of literature:
From their time of invention, cars have been a comfortable means of transport compared to two wheelers. Though it is also considered to be a symbol of status and luxury, it is very advantageous to own a car for the following reasons.

1. We can get protection from the fury of the weather, be it the smoldering sun, the chilling winter or a torrential rain. Weather will not be a limiting factor in our moving from place to place. This becomes important in places where the weather conditions are extreme.
2. We can escape the air-pollution in an AC car. It is important from the health point of view, since air-pollution is seemingly becoming one of the important causes for the onset and aggravation of respiratory diseases.(for Bala)
3. The better shock-absorbers in a car are less troublesome for people with spinal problems. Two-wheelers aggravate those problems esp. on bumpy roads (for Swarna)

Choosing the car:
The car we want to buy depends on why we want to buy it. Looking at our current need, i.e, we need a car to get transported during the rains, a basic model would suffice which would have an AC and a power steering.

AC is required because, when it rains, the windows have to be closed and it can get very stuffy without AC. (This comes with an addition of around 30-35000Rs upon the non-AC version)

Power- steering is required for us because it takes lot of effort to steer the car otherwise, and it can be a very tiring experience to drive without that. (This comes with an addition of around 20000Rs)

Now, the next question is, choosing the brand.

Maruti and Hyundai seem to be good in servicing and have a better re-sale value compared to the other brands. Compared to Hyundai, Maruti’s service is better, spares are easily available and cheaper. And also Maruti has some very good , pocket- friendly basic models compared to Hyundai. So, going for Maruti cars is a good choice.

The basic models available in Maruti are

1. Maruti 800
2. Maruti alto

Alto is better than M800 because

• M800 models do not have power steering
• Alto’s body is better built and offers more safety during collisions compared to M800
• Alto’s engine is better and it has 5 gears

All the above advantages and some more features come for a price difference of around 50000. So, weighing the benefits against odds, buying an Alto seems to be more sensible. (power-steering itself would cost around 20000Rs. So the better built and better engine comes for just 30000 Rs extra)

So, now going for a Maruti- Alto with AC and power steering (model LXi) seems to be the best choice.

Used or new?
The next question to be addressed is to buy a new one or used one?
Disadvantages of a new car:

• The moment a new car is driven out of the show room, its value depreciates by 20% and after that whether it is used or not, its value depreciates by 10% every year

Disadvantages of a used car:

• its very difficult to assess the condition of the car properly and correctly value the car
• it is sometimes difficult to get the car of your choice as a second hand in good condition

If there are budget constraints, and the car would be used only sparingly, it is wise to go for a used car with the help of a good mechanic.

If you happen to come across the car of your choice in a good bargain, it is a really good deal (as happens to be case now with us)

So, going for an alto in good condition as second hand is indisputably the best option !

Budget:

Coming to the formidable question of budgeting the project…

A research on buying used cars says that, the car of our choice (alto LXi) in good condition, as a second hand can be bought from 1.7 lakhs to over 2 lakhs depending upon the age of the car.

So, the minimum budget requirement is 1.7 Lakhs. Considering our financial situation, we can keep the maximum to be around 2 Lakhs

Conclusion:

So, I hereby conclude by proposing that we buy a Maruti-alto LXi, preferably a second-hand in good condition, which might require a budget of between 1.7 to 2 Lakhs.

References:

http://www.carwale.com/
http://www.mouthshut.com/
http://www.autocarindia.com/

Under the starry nights

Ever enjoyed sleeping in the terrace? Recently I had the opportunity - to admire at the majestic creation roofed above us. What an wonderful things, just twinkling ignoring the minor specs like us. The weather was pleasant and the atmosphere silent. I was stark naked! Only a thin blanket separated me and the stars. (Thanks to my wife who pulled off my dhoti in order to prevent me from going outside. Who cares about dress code when we enjoy the nature)

Many questions started springing from myself. When there are so many massive stars, planets, (in fact, galaxies and galaxies of stars) laying around, why do we feel space crunch? In fact, we feel scarcity for most of the resources. May be the time and space are separating us from the ready reachability. Other reason could be the way we misuse the resources and suffer. Or the usable resource might be in scarce surrounded by void or waste resources.

Another irrelevant thought occurred while gazing the stars. The way our perspective change as we gain knowledge about certain things. In olden literature, stars are seen as ornamental - from poetic view. They talk about hero pulling out stars to prepare a necklace for the heroine. However, there is a drift in that view. Recent flim songs and the poets view stars as a place. Hero says he will place the girl in so and so star. She responds with concern of melting out due to the over heat from the stars. Science findings does influence the literature.

Well, it became too cold outside. Dropped the ego and went into the house.

Wrong house

When it comes to getting internet connection, I end up being at the wrong house. The ill luck started being in the midst of the city. Airtel couldnt give a broadband connection because the house I was was slightly away from their network of connections. Had to settle with a slow gprs connection.

Then faced a strange issue when moving to a second tier city. The area counseler was not allowing airtel connection into the ward where I moved in. This ended up with struggling with a substandard connection.

Now in a town, airtel is happy to provide connection to right side of the street and not to the left. Guess where my house is .. yeap, in the left side. Apart from the lefties and righties strangeness, they have provided a line to the house just in front of us (which is in left), but still not to our house. Guess they know me whichever part of the world I go.

Atleast I got other form of connections in earlier cases. But in the town, I am not able to get a landline too. The house in front of us has a landline, house to left and right has. The ground floor house has a connection but not us. They said they have exhausted all the connections!! Now I see them dig the street to find a new point to allot us.

an evening time into the woods

My wife said she was hungry and want to have some evening snacks. Instead of going to traditional joints, I thought of exploring the surroundings. There is a steep road going behind our house. I thought it will lead to some village. We went in that road in the bike. I road was too steep that I was worried about climbing up.

Soon it became scenic. There were many small birds, paddy field etc. We spotted a peacock too. It was a nice environment. As we proceeded, it became more and more dense with trees and cooler. The tar road became mud road. Width of the road was also reducing. At one point we thought the road had ended and we were expecting a cliff. After reaching there, we realized a small bridge connecting other side of a running stream. Quite adventurous ride to cross the narrow bridge.

After a while, we found a temple and few shops near by. Had dosa at one of those village restaurants. Very tasty compared to what we get in the town. The soft drinks were also home made and local branded. Different from our pepsi and coke.

No sooner we left the village spot, we figured the familiar malls and lodges greetings us. We were into the thick and den of the city/town. If we had reached that small restaurant through the main road from the city, we wouldn't have felt the same way as we discovered it from the wood.

The evolution

When I was a kid, I had to go often to near by "pala-sarakku kadai", literarily meaning "multi-material shop". This had the provisionary items, veggies, candies, etc. Massive wooden desk would block you from entering into the shop. All you can do is, stand in the street outside the shop (sometimes along with crowded customers) and try to grab the attention of anyone of the four person serving from inside. Once you get the attention, u shd quickly list out the items you want. The guy would vanish into the dark side of the shop. None of the ordered items will be visible to us. After awhile, he will come out carrying paper bundles. If you had exceeded certain limit in purchase, u will get brown colored free gunny bag to put the bundles. The itemized bill will be a hand scribbled list in a piece of paper. (btw, they do buy old notebooks from you, may be for the billing purpose).

Then things changed. Gunny bags were old fashioned. Paper bundles were barbaric. The in-thing is plastic wrappers and covers. Goods were pre-packed and kept in the showcase. Now the shop is called "Stores". We were allowed inside the shop. The massive desk in the previous shops were bent into a big U-shaped desks and ran in parallel to the show cases. Service folks stood in between the desk and the show case. U could point the items you want and they placed those in the desk. Finally billed with a teleprinter, goods were placed inside a shining, attractive plastic bag with their store name written big.

Today I go to shopping malls and super bazaars. I can reach the goods all by myself. Even if I move without a trolley, someone pushes one into my hand. Now I am able to compare prizes, quality and other factors before buying stuff. After collecting the things, I meet the shopping personal at the billing counter (mostly 'she', as I have option to choose the counter). Thou the things are placed inside plastic bags, they make you feel guilty to do so. Seems like it is no more cool, but cruelty against nature. You are supposed to bring your own bag or buy a bag from them - it is our good old gunny bag, this time it is white.

New home

Currently settling down at the new town. Things are bit different. It is a small town, less populated. Quite calm and nice. My home is in the suburb, not far from the town center; just two turns and within 2km reach. Been a while staying at a walkable distance from the city center :-)

There are less choices to make for various services and restaurants - that is a plus and minus. The town is highly female populated as majority of guys had gone abroad for jobs and this town has medium scale industries promising jobs for girls.

Still waiting for my luggage and articles to arrive. A local lorry strike is holding my stuff from delivery. Hope they will arrive soon in good condition.

Joy of the roadside

Other day I was walking along the street. Found a decent road side food stall. It had around 5 tables to accommodate 20 guests. The hotel was run by a north indian family. I love such joints run by families as we can expect homely food. Whatever money we give in a standard star hotels, we never can get this taste. I guess the quality control and over-hygiene consciousness kills the taste. I believe the hygiene, quality, taste, ambience (if possible), cost should be applied in moderation. Compromising something totally for other factors may not be acceptable by many.

Happen to meet some people how are too conscious about such road side hotels. More than the hygiene part, their social status block their way to enter into such places. They imagine the world is at their back and watch whatever they do (as thou the world has no other job to do). Such ego-maniacal, self centered people will realize what they have been missing when their vanity vanishes ... will they?

how do they rate a magazine article

If we have an article in the web, we can easily find the reader volume. We can attach n number of tools to the page to track the readers and know zillion of info about them. Also we have sophisticated comment section, forums and other means to share idea to know about the topic, people.

On the contrary, how do they rate a particular article in a magazine? How many had read, what age group liked it, do they expect any followup or related articles? Do they do this only based on the snail mail, phone calls they receive? I have been reading articles from childhood and never communicated to the publishers. I guess most of the readers are like me. If that is the case, how can they get a reasonable data?

May be they use the minimal data they get and try to extrapolate for the wider audience.

seeing blank jsf page?

My jsf apps was working fine. I had to include few html tags and guess what .. none of the pages are displayed there after. No error, no display. After debugging and net search, I figured out that the outtext after f:view is the culprit. By removing it, order was restored and citizens lived happily ever after (until they hit upon the next bug).

Dataflow through pages

What is the right way of passing info from one web page to another? When it comes to jsf+adf, things get murky. Upon googling, I stumbled into pageFlowScope. As that was what I looked for, I started using the same. However while accessing the pageFlowScope api from the java code, problems started appearing. First I faced invalid property name exception - this exception, error msg was misleading. Upon tweaking the lib, I got 404.

Now I tried downloading more libs and upgrading the ide version. That didn't help. After some more search in the net, I found processScope whose documents were exactly same as pageFlowScope. Looks like oracle took pageFlowScope code and doc, did a global search n replace to processScope. Anyway things are working after I moved to processScope.

I have a feeling that when I try to simulate GET behavior in jsf+adf, I will have one more sleepless night. Let me try that too.

A day at the bank

Yesterday I was at the bank to deposit money into an account. While entering the bank I was wondering what kind of issue I am going to face on that day - the reason is most of the time I had ended up like a fool or with a quarrel. Definitely not comfortable with the bank procedures. I thought I need to do a wire transfer as the account was in a distant city. Not able to find any suitable form, I approached the staff. He was quite friendly in guiding; that was a surprise.

After that I got a token from the vending machine hanging at the entrance. Bank has placed costly leather sofa sets in front of the counters. I was waiting for a seat to get empty and swiftly occupied it. Then came the waiting period. My token number is 150 and the running number was 48 ... oh! I did some simple maths to time the process. Out of the 3 or 4 counters, it took 30 minutes to handle 25 tokens. This includes missed tokens whose owners didn't turn up when they were called.

I had to wait for 2 hours. Since the bank was close to college, the customers were quite interesting and I was able to pass time easily. Once in a while I checked the running counter to verify my calculation. Thou there were times the tokens moved too slow, ultimately I was served in 2 hours.

This time my transaction went through without any issue. What a luck! otherwise I might have to wait another 2 hours. After coming out, I was wondering about the time spent there. Definitely the system is far better than what it used to be - that is standing in separate queues and seeing other queues moving fast. One approach could be that the customers get their tokens through phone or net. They also get to know the approx time +/- 30mins to be at the bank. This might save lots of time of customers and the workload, stress of the bank. Not sure about the technicality, feasibility and practicality.

I bought the Monk's Ferrari

The title of the book was catchy and made me to take a look inside (guess that is what author, Ravi Subramanian, expected to happen when he framed this title)

After flipping few pages and reading a chapter, I bought the book. Quite interesting thoughts. Particularly I liked the "work-life balance" topic - a different line of thinking than what is popular trend now. This ought to be interesting for anyone aspiring to climb up the career or establish a corporate empire.

Apart from that, the book is yash (yet another self-help) book. The word Ferrari is sprinkled artificially all over the book; and that was irritating. The last chapter throws some clarity for doing so.

Usually these kind of books drag us to Newyork or SFO, where we are alienated. The Ferrari story line happens at Hyderabadi roads and Mumbai buildings, and so makes us feel at home. Hope we get more books like this.

There is no connection between "Monk who sold his Ferrari" and this book, except the title and few places where author mentions about the earlier book. That was a disappointment for me. I was hoping a dramatic scene where Ravi meets Julian to negotiate the Ferrari and strikes a deal :-)

After watching the sequel of a movie, most likely we feel that the original was better. Same feeling I got with this book compared to "The monk who sold his Ferrari". (Not sure if I can compare). Said apart, this new Ferrari book is worth reading once.

mood-o-meter

Here is an observation I had while watching my mood. When I am in a bad mood, my productivity goes down. Down to the level of loosing MahJongg ! I start playing the game to distract myself from the bad events. While the titles spread in front of me, my mind distracts and wander off into the abyss. Once I loose the focus, the time ticks off. More than that, I find it difficult to match the titles. Sometimes I end up with frustration out the game. The probability of loosing the game is more in such state of mind.

If an interesting game is spoiled with such mood, think about the boring tasks like office work.

The male attraction

While watching discovery or animal planet, it is quite evident that the male species of different animals take the pain of developing skills and/or equipments to attract the female. They own tusk or facial hair or bright colored feathers etc. They have to fight against similar male counter parts who are competing for the same female.

However, there is a drastic difference in case of human beings. Seems like the roles are reversed. We see the amount of effort placed by female to groom up is considerably more than the male counter part. One reason could have been with the male female ratio. In days when war was frequent and dispute were settled over a fight, male population should have been very low, which would have lead to polygynous. In such a world, it made sense for girls to show up bright and beautiful, - not only for finding a guy but to keep him interested after finding.

The modern world is changing. The gender ratio is skewing towards the other side. In India it is very low that already we are seeing the side effects like 'buying the bride', polyandry. May be in the future, guys will get back their natural instinct of shinning up for meeting the girl.

Temple elephants

Had a thought wave about elephants at temples. Was wondering the association. Here is what I got, not sure if this is the right version. In olden days machinery were absent and only muscle power was used to accomplish most of the work. Ploughing, construction, fighting and in many areas, man used animals. Out of the domesticated animals, elephant served the most powerful role due to its jumbo size.

It also made sense to own such a beast at a common ground through common funding. This arrangement works out good for everyone because maintaining an elephant is a costly affair. The benefits out of the elephant was reaped by many.

In those days, temple took the 'common ground' role. Each town had a temple and utilized for many a tasks. Elephant also ended up in the care of the temple and the temple fund.

Other theory could be that the upper-class people required the elephant and instead of they pulling the money from their pocket, they divided the burden among all. In order to hide the dirty task, they popularized the belief that seeing/touching/hearing/smelling elephants are good omen.

Why should we marry?

Watched any action movie with 4 heros? one guy would be a married guy. Other falls in love with the village naughty girl. Third one is the comedian for the movie. The last guy is a bathelor with vigour but aimless. Now these guys join together and bash the evil empire.

The climax! One of the guy should die. That could add more masala to the already stuffy movie. Who shall be the sheap?

How about the guy with the girlfriend? He is the one brought in romantic songs and charm to the movie. Audience wont like the tragic end to him.

Then the married guy? Oh no! what will happen to the widow? We cannot reply that question in the remaining 5 mins and that would give away an incomplete movie.

The movie that kills the comedian will receive a curse. A comedian is seen as a good for nothing guy, but harming him is considered a serious affair. The blame will be placed on the hero (the guy with a gf) for not saving the comedian (who is timid and cant protect himself).

Ok, that leaves with the bachelor. Any objection? Nope. Nobody is waiting for his arrival back at his home. There is no unanswered questions if he dies.

Therefore, it is better to get married; if not atleast get couple of gfs.

Search for an orm

I had to write a small utility that will fetch data from the file system + environment and process them before depositing into a database. I thought of trying an object relational mapping tool to generate java code. That would reduce most of my work.

Avoided heavy weight tools like hibernate, toplink etc. I feel they are suited for complex, multi-tiered applications. I need a simple one.

Upon googling, I got lots of orm available for free. Had to scrutinize each of them and compare pros n cons. Few of them came close. Downloaded them and started checking them.

One worked fine for the sample they gave but failed to work against my db. Another had inadequate doc that I didnt know the step after downloading. Third expected me to write the java code and that tool will map to the db - this is not what I want.

Finally I got the tool I wanted. sql2java - available in sourceforge. Had to tweak the generated code a bit but finally got something to work. In this two days of usage, so far it is smooth.

Emotional blackmail

Why do some people try to get their whims and fancies satisfied through all sought of crooked ways? The height of them is kith and kin who blackmail their relatives that they will commit suicide. I see genuine suicide as a impulsive one provoked by a spark of a moment or a reaction to an event in the near past. Another type of genuineness I would accept is a person depressed over a period of time and after lot of contemplation decides to end his/her life. In both these categories, most often the thinking process is internal and people around get the news as a surprise.

On the other hand, there are people who manipulate the weakness of relatives. They threaten that they will commit suicide. This suicidal attempt is broadcasted and advertised in a major manner. Right from the district collector to the vegetable vendor, everyone knows the date, time, venue of the attempt. That is how the tv channels try to capture such events. By then, they try to encash their popularity and demand whatever they want. Usually it is a kind of domination at the home front. In order to strength their side, they 'attempt' the suicide - they take low quality tablets or choose a shallow building or mix water to kerosene. In either manner, their goal is get grab attention and control the surrounding.

These people dont have a clue on what others will go thru - during such adventurous drama or in case of successive operation. They are too selfish to think about others.

Well, in my opinion, suicide seekers should be encouraged to do so. We will be freeing up lot of resources hogged by the pessimistic stupids.

Second impressions

Happen to talk to couple of friends who are divorsed and searching for a re-marriage.
Seems like their market is slightly different than the freshers.

Here are some code of conduct in this world.

• If asked about the failure of previous marriage, invariably everyone blames their ex.
• Who initiated the divorce? Seems like you get extra point if you initiated and moved out of the marriage. So, most likely you will hear the answer that they initiated. However, if a girl says that her ex was cheating on her, then the answer would be that the man started the divorce process - this answer will create more sympathy for the girl.
• Why do you want to marry again? Here are few answers:
  • I am not for it. Just for the social pressure.
  • This time I am going to make sure I dont do the same mistakes
• During their first dating, they will check if this person shares the same negative qualities of their ex.

Slim inbox

My inbox has single digit emails! I try to maintain it below five. I keep the mails that are relevant to my immediate work. So, only two or three mails end up in this category. There are couple of todo items or to be read mails. They stay in the box.

Daily morning I receive around 30 to 40 mails (unsubscribed from unwanted lists). Before reading those mails, I will scan the titles and pick the mails which I dont have to read. That would shrink my new mail list about 15. Out of these 15 mails, 10 would be general info which I would have to scan through and delete. Some of these scanable mails are pretty nice - by reading the subject, I know that I can delete it; so I will delete and start reading, I read till the mail is visible.

The remaining 5 mails might be addressing me to influence my day work. Most of these mails ought to be digested and followed as per the guidelines. One or two might have to be preserved for reference. If I have to preserve them, I will see if I can delete mails from the previous day's stagnant mails (less than 10). Some mails ought to be retained for future requirement, and hence they deserve to be placed in a separate folder.

Having few mails make work simple. Reduces lots of unnecessary searches. If at all searches are to be done, it will be only in the trash :-)

Rotatable heater

As I installed a heater recently, all I can think is about heater. A thought came in the morning while thinking about solar heaters. Instead of fixing the base of such heater, how about allowing the base to rotate.

Think sun flower. If the base can orient itself towards the sun, the sensors will receive maximum sun rays. So, the motor in the base will be receiving feedback from the heat or light from the top layer; this feedback will determine the angle of rotation. At night time, the platform should be turned towards east.

Ya, I should have googled to find if this is already implemented. At times, it is nice to think that we are the first to think about something :-)

Setting an instant heater

After some market research, I narrow down on an instant heater. This is against the normal storage heater what we find in most of the bathrooms.

Instant heater has advantage like providing hot water at the instant instead of requiring to switch on some time before. Also, the water is heated on a need basis opposed to traditional way of heating bulk water even if the need is less.

Also, the instant stuff is very cheap compared to storage heater.
However, the disadvantage is high voltage consumption. Guess this consumption will be compensated to the less amount of heater usage on an overall calculation.

After getting the heater, I was able to assemble the set by myself. Had connected the plug to live, earth, neutral as per the guidance from an electrician. However, the fuse went off when I tried to switch it on. Then the electrician had to come to fix the fuse. Seems like the electrical socket connection in the wall was faulty. After changing the line, the heater worked smooth.

No hassle still then, we are getting hot water at will (not our will, but the EB dept's will).

upgraded the toolkit

Remember, I put my earlier toolkit for sale ... I struck a deal with GA for the same. He is interested in buying it.

Once that is in, I collected requirement details for the toolkit I want to buy. Felt a drill is needed. The drivers were not sufficient.

While shopping for the kit, I found the box with all the tools I was looking for. However the quality was not up to mark. Since I was not impressed, I moved on to buying pieces separately. With this approach, I got good quality equipments. Thou the cost escalated more than the package deal, I was happy to get what I wanted.

The truth

Are we live with a falsehood in this society? Do we pretend and suppress our true feelings, expressions? I think so. At times, I used to think why we have to pretend ourself? Why do we need to maintain a status, dignity, a pseudo-hierarchy ... How about a world without these virtual demarcations and rituals?

While thinking on the other side, that pretension is what we struggled to gain. I feel civilization itself mean to lead a life away from nature, away from being in the true form. Even now we find such ideology - a person from a village who express his/her inner feelings in public is labeled uncivilized.

May be these civilization process is what brought human to the current state.
This leads to the point that falsehood is growth or evolution. hmm .. interesting thought, need to workout further.

disparity

while catching the flight from my city, I called the local taxi guy. This is the taxi we regularly engage as he charges nominally. After dropping at the airport, he happily accepted the 100 bucks I gave.

After getting down from the flight, I moved towards the exit. A placard with my name welcomed me. The man in clean white suite was holding it. He gave a nice, warming smile and took me to a nice car. We had a good discussion about general things. At the drop point, he gave me the bill/receipt. The car agency had swiped 850 bucks from my credit card and I need to formalize it by a signature.

I dont complain about the cost or service etc. I am thinking aloud about the way corporate world function. When a corporate need to fix a solution, it has to pay heavily, right from electricity, phone bills, real estate, construction, printing etc. If such corporate has to survive in such transactions, these amount will have to paid by the customer or buyer.
Wondering what will it be if we strip down many of the pseudo-cost-escalation. We might have better efficient place with less stressful environment.

with the nature

Last weekend I relaxed in a jungle. A scenic place to go among the mountain region. The place is kind of cut of from the rest of the world, as it tucks itself within a valley well gaurded by hill ranges in all direction.

Our stay was quite comfortable in a small cottage. We went around for sight-seeing and spotted few rare animals including a young cheetah. Other common inhabitants to spot there were deer, bison, elephants, monkeys, peacock etc. The night safari was the height of all. A large tusker chased our vehicle! It was standing in the side of the road and when we tried crossing, it gave a thundering trumpet and a chase.

Since my friend spared his cottage there (for a reduced rent), the trip became cheaper.

When I left the city

I had a palacial house, married to a beautiful wife, amassing wealth. However, life was boring. Somehow things became monotonous. Events that were interesting in the past started soring out. I was contemplating about moving away from this life.

Slowly the thought precipitated. Now came the dilemma. What should do with all my luxury cars, should I distribute among friends or leave them in streets? Also, the weapons .. the glorious collection, powerful ones, that saved my life many times and helped to cross scores ... do I return to the shop or can I take selected few when I am migrating?

Will I be coming back? Should I make provision to allow me to resume back to the same status where I am?

This departure somehow reminds me about death. It is so close and comparable. I guess even before I die, I am going to worry about all these artifacts the same way I am doing now.

With such silent and painful manner, I left millions of dollars with torncity and returned to normal life.

Toolkit for sale

Power Maxx Tool set of 12 pieces model.

Very handy assorted instrument to help household activities.

• Bought : one month back
• Condition : hardly used; as good as new
• selling price: Rs 425 (slightly negotiable)
• Reason of selling: Upgrading to higher end toolbox

Here is the list of items available.

• torchlight


• electrical tester


• hammer


• plier


• measurement tape


• adjustable spanner


• adjustable plier


• Thread seal tape


• Flat screw driver


• Star screw driver


• knife


• Tool kit box

More sale
Also, the following set of drivers are available for Rs 100.
Four handle of various size; each one can fit a star or flat type driver. So, we have 8 drivers for Rs 100.

Using large numbers

The numbering system has reached trillions and centillion (which is 10^303).
In India we dont follow millions & billions, instead we go for lakhs and crores. However, we are for left behind without words for larger numbers. Already politicians had crossed thousand crore scams and more. It is time to coin words.

Instead of inventing new words, we can go through the Ancient words and see if they can be re-used, just like lakhs and crores.

Here are the words from Ancient India.
10 ^ 0      eAkam
10 ^ 1      dasha
10 ^ 2      shatham
10 ^ 3      sahasram
10 ^ 4      ayutham
10 ^ 5      laksham
10 ^ 6      niyutham
10 ^ 7      koti           <- this is the crore stuff
10 ^ 8      arbudham
10 ^ 9      vrundham
10 ^ 10     karva
10 ^ 11     nikarva
10 ^ 12     shanga           <- trillion
10 ^ 13     pathrama
10 ^ 14     sAgara
10 ^ 15     anthyam        <- quadrillion
10 ^ 16     mathyam
10 ^ 17     parArdham

These numeric words are preserved in a sanskrit poem.

story of tata broadband

The slogan I would suggest for tata broadband internet connection is, "works smooth; cancel registration upon failure".

I had observed the above functioning for the past couple of months. When there is a problem, there is limited response. The customer care reps are clueless. Repeated call to them are futile. Tickets raised go wasted.

At times, even raising tickets are blocked!! I get either busy tone or continuous ringing. Whereas in normal circumstances, the call should be directed to an automatic phone menu. I doubt that the customer care "switches off" their receiving mode when there are lots of complain.

Anyway, I got an alternate connection to the tata guys. Let us see how they both function. Hope they dont sync up to fail.

Book: The Circle of Innovation

Happen to pick this book written by Tom Peters. It is quite interesting.

Many useful tips on thinking in the direction towards new dimension, unfolds our thoughts for a better way of living. Very nice way of illustrating the danger of clinching to old ideas and the benefit of taking risk into new arena.

Thou the book is more than 10 years old, the ideas are still fresh for these days.

More than the above, the unusual fonts, random pictures, etc etc made the book easy to read.

GA's marriage reception

GA invited us for his reception. We all planned to attend around 7pm. As per the plan, KS to pick me. He reached 40 mins after the agreed meeting time. Still then I was standing at a busy junction and admiring the natural resources of the city. KS asked me the venue and I was stareing blank. I thought he will be knowing. By then LN called for the venue. We asked him to check with RN. Seems like RN came to know about the reception only after LN called.

I came up with the idea of dialing GA's mobile. I was sure that someone else wil b holding the phone while GA is busy at the stage. My guess was correct. GA's brother answered the phone and gave us the direction.

That saved the day for all of our unplanned, unorganized friends!

airtel saga

Still the airtel is behind me with their greedy tongue. Here is what happened before.

There was no response from the company inspite of 8 emails. Phone calls were answered without any conclusions. Their standard response was that someone from the concerned dept will be calling me. Needless to say, that never occured.

After consulting with a lawyer friend, I drafted a 'professional' letter. Sent it through courier. In two days I got an acknowledgement .. at last! However the message was the usual one. Seems like the concerned dept will contact me in two days; that was four days ago.

Anyway, let me wait for one more month to see if they are making any move.

Mahjongg

I had increased the phase of playing Mahjongg game from Moraff. Quite addictive one. The idea is simple. A collection of tiles are piled up in the screen. Each titles have colorful images and symbols. We have to click the titles having the same image. Few rules for clicking a tiles like - tiles have to in the corner and no other tile should be above this one. Aim of the game is to clear all the tiles from the board.

After repetitive playing, it occurred to me that I was able to get the images I was looking for and I am able to get only those I was looking. Thou few tiles might be in prominent position, which were clickabe, I seldom located them. I read this idea elsewhere in a management book saying, we will get what we look for and hence we ought to set our goals clearly.

Insurance policy benefitors

I do have this opinion about life insurance: why do I need it? If I die, why should I worry about the current kith and kin? (my wife also shares similar idea). Only when we think at the family level, it starts making sense. We feel uncomfortable to think about our family in a financial difficulty in the absence of the bread winner. That is exactly the emotional blackmailing weapon used by the insurance agents.

I used to think why the government, (atleast the Indian govt) is encouraging insurance. They give lots of tax rebate and other benefits. May be it will be a headache for govt when the income of a family is totally cut (ie, when a single person is the sole person earning in the family). If such insurances are not encouraged, govt will have to take the headache of providing plans for widows and kids.

Tool kit

My long time goal was met last weekend. I got a tool kit for house use. The kit has trivial things like screw drivers, pliers, hammer etc placed in a neat box. Quite handy set of instrument, got the power by holding it.

It is a magic tool kit box - just in a day, many of the nitty-griddy problems at home vanished. I was able to split the phone line into two, assemble a book shelf, fix the cot. May be I worked on them with initial enthu, let us see how things go.

Dodging airtel

Inspite of repeated request to cancel the number, airtel sent the monthly bill (for the month I didn't use the number and surrendered the same). I didnt want to waste time in going behind them to revert it. I have automatic payment of airtel bills through my bank account. I tried to stop that but the bank ppl insisted on getting a letter from airtel for closure.

I emptied the bank account and waited for the fun. During the monthly bill cycle, airtel tried to take money from my account. It was fun watching the disappointment in its face. However, the bank has placed a penalty of Rs 200 since the account was empty when the automatic service tried to retrieve money.

Now I am in the process of closing the bank account as I no longer need it. Let us see what airtel is upto.

Romance

This posting is continuation of the title Human Fantasies.

Olden
In all parts of the world, people had their local version of erotica and other pornographic materials. Based on movies, we get an impression that there were special villas for the big shots which had erotic paintings and statues. The Indian version of erotica or the sex guide, Kamasutra, rules till date. Most of the temples of India which are 1000+ years old have nude images and sculpture with sexual positions (hmmm .. are these possible to do? I dare not to try).

Modern
Do you know what drives the internet boom? Porno. Any new technology is put to test by applying on the porno sites. Even better, the porno sites drives the technology by demanding new features. World wide these sites have a good customer base. It would be interesting to find if there were any contribution by porno movies in improving the technology behind flim industry,vcr, dvd etc.

Dont assume that I am totally corrupt and hence I am stating the above. I rarely go to those sites.


If you could think any more fantasies, please place them in the comments.

Good service

The wireless mouse had some issue. It didnt function. I tried replacing the batteries. That didnt help, moreover the keyboard also stopped working. Different combinations of pressing those reset/sync up buttons failed to bring them live.

Monday morning I called up the person running Krishna Computer Care, the place where I bought the computer and accessories. He told he is busy today and he can send technician the next day. As it is not a pressing issue, I agreed for it.

The surprise came in by afternoon. Technicians arrived inspite of rain, and fixed the keyboard problem.

It was very nice of them and I felt happy.

Lousy airtel

Pathetic service from airtel - that is the simple way of summarizing their service.

4th June 7 is the date when I raised a request to close a mobile number. They acknowledged and after few days a lady called and suggested that I can retain the account by transferring to a new number in different city. She went on trying for that and each day I call she would promise at the end of the day things will be fixed.

As things didnt move any further, I gave up there. Now they had started sending bills for the time when I didnt use the connection.

Phone calls and mails to them are of no use. Planning to dump the bill and see what they come up with. Will keep sending them mails and keep them as evidence of correspondence from my side.

Most beautiful

This posting is continuation of the title Human Fantasies.

Olden
"Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the most beautiful, fairest girl in the world?" The quest to find beauty is time immemorial. Guys had different tastes. Girls tried everything possible to meet the requirement placed by the guys.
In ancient China composed a poem with a line describing the feet of a girl so small to a particular flower. For thousands of years, that became a standard. From childhood the feet of the girls are crushed to miniature size just to make sure that they are upto the beauty standard. The western world has a dynamic interest and quite seasonal. There are times when busty babes are the rage and so the girls enlarge their bosom with some kind of silicon stuff; something like the stress ball we keep at office to squeeze. At other times, flat chest, tom boyish girls are preferred. I dont know if there are operations for this. (my wife, dont ask me how I know these. You will be disappointed to know that these are not of practical knowledge, but stuff I had read).


Modern
If a garage is not suitable for any useful purpose, it is rented out for a beauty parlour. I always wanted to see what is inside. But the board with Aishwarya says only women and kids are allowed.


Alright, after meeting the most beautiful, what else but - romance!!

whizz kid

happened to interact with a smart kid, around 10 yr old. Thou he is visiting from gulf country, he didnt have those 'nri look'. He was quite casual and enjoyed his stay; and even liked the sambar, papad etc.

The kid was flaring with questions and they were quite thought provoking. The current country where he is, he is been placed in a school based on Indian syllabus. With such background, he is trying to understand the education system, why people need to study, which subject will be easy, how to find if a subject wil be easy for me or not ...

Hope our education system will not ruin the thinking of such kids.

sudoku in real life

Just came a thought in the early morning. That was about sudoku. Many times I had wondered if there is any utility out of playing this game. It strike at me about the usage. Yes, I feel that sudoku has resemblance of resource allocation algorithm.

For example, let us take a college department. There will be batches of students, courses and staff. We need to prepare a time table that would allot staff for different classes. Constraints like staff skill set to handle courses, or unavailability of staff/rooms for a specific time.

What is to do with sudoku? I see the same kind of allocation, conflict resolution, meeting criteria etc.

The same kind of problem is addressed at different places like industries, traffic regulation, loan sanction process, etc etc

getting into a schedule

What is running in my mind is to bit more organize my day to day activity. Wanted to do things on time, like monthly payments, project deadlines, etc.

I am doing a minuscule amount of exercise. That too not very regular. Wanted to improve the quality and quantity. Reading pattern is slightly ok, but can be done better.

Also thinking about social activities like study group, satsang, volunteer group etc. Will try to do in small manner, one at a time.

Job satisfaction

My wife is going through rough times at her work space. She is trying to balance different factors and get a suitable environment to strive.

If job satisfaction is the thing most of us look for, what is it made of? How do we get that stuff?

Had gone through couple of books in this subject and they talk about being independent, able to align what is expected out of you with what you like doing, and many other similar stuff.

This is quite interesting topic as when an employee feels positive about the env, it will boost the productivity.

sudoku without a pen

While coming in the train, the person in front of me was reading a newspaper. The last sheet facing me had sudoku. I started filling the squares .. mentally :-) Guess I need to increase my sudoku speed so that I can complete it before the person turns the page.

This seems to indicate my sudoku addiction is on the raise. The next one is still more interesting.

I stayed in a hotel and got a complimentary newspaper in the morning. Nothing more cruel than leaving a sudoku puzzle to a sudoku addict, who doesn't have a pen!! I didn't want to leave the room as some may raise objection for nudity in the corridor.

I turned my creativity switch. Went around the room to find something which can mark in the paper. I got the tv remote and tried to create impression of those numbers in the paper. Nope, that didn't work; they should make better remote buttons.

Then I was going through my wife's suitcase. Seriously I opened to look for a pen. Found her beauty enhancement/replacement kit. While digging thru it, got the cute little lipstick. At last got what I wanted. It was writing in an amazing manner. Necessity is the mother of invention.

This puzzle is the sexiest puzzle I had solved.

Murphy kicks in again

In my last post, I mentioned that I couldn't test the ups usage as power cut was not seen after installing it. Today there was a total power shutdown and I couldn't test the ups as usual. I thought of finding a internet cafe where I can work with my laptop. Murphy came in here. I couldn't find a cafe even riding for 20 mins. Spotted one in the other part of the city. Luckily this cafe had power and he allowed me to use the laptop with his network.

Let me get a generator and see what Murphy is up to.

Murphy's law on electricity

Last week there were many power shutdown. It was difficult to work and more important to play games. So, got a ups as a backup power.

After setting the ups, did not get a power failure so far. Didn't even test the functioning of ups!

wireless keyboard

May be I am in the pre-historic world and got this gadget just now. I bought this on a need basis; earlier I made the laptop usage easier by accessing it through a desktop.

Now that I am using only the laptop, I felt the need for a keyboard. Today I got it and getting the benefit. Lots of comfort compared to the laptop keyboard, mouse. Wish I got this earlier.

The new place

Settling in another city takes lots of effort. To get things done and almost at the same time is stressful. As basic necessesities are brought into the house, now I am able to relax and enjoy. This change is good.

Something interesting about the people here. Observed this with many customer service people, not sure if it is something generic to the city. These people dont know how to refuse something. Whatever demand you place, they will accept the work and timeline. Later they find it difficult to get it done. Also, they are surprised when I followup with them on time.

Being from the metro, I used to negotiate the timeline with the service people and come to a reasonable time and load. Here I need to understand the protocol of request/work.

Semi-farewell

Today friends took me to a restaurant. As I am leaving the city and going to work from remote, they were giving a remembrance farewell. Thou the food and service was not good in the hotel, still I enjoyed being there because it was something for me. Quite nice moments to be with them and talking to them. Will be missing their company.

To think about it, these blog postings started due to their company and conversation, as the name of the blog reflects. Let me dedicate today's blog to their friendship.

Thank you guys!! for pumping up my happiness level when I was in the worst part of my life. Thanks for all the support and guidance you folks gave with your knowledge or without knowing. Thanks for everything.

The Move

Last week I shifted my belongings to another city. Quite hectic. Had fever, headache. Then a night travel in a truck. Luckily had a break in my in-law's house. After the break, had some more travel in the day time. Since we were travelling towards south west in the morning, the sun didn't bother us.

My wife choose this house for rent. Lovely house. Quite spacious and well planned. Thou the garden space is not very wide, it had enough plants and trees to cool the environment.

With complete rest, I came back to normal.

Started doing required stuff like advance payment, gas connections etc. Network connection seems to be troublesome, hopefully we will get one in three days.

A different life style compared to the busy metro. Change is good.

Girls, girls and girls everywhere

This posting is continuation of the title Human Fantasies.


Olden
I had read about fantasy stories in my childhood about a youth from a village, who is driven away from the family. He travels far and wide, just to meet girls of different place, different status and all with unmatching beauty. One common thing among the wild girl in the jungle, merchant's daughter and even the queen is that they all obsessively fall in love once they see him and in some cases when they hear about him.

Modern
Scientist have invented babe attracting magnet. Powdered form of this magnet is an important ingrediant in utilities like body spray, home theatre system, bike, shaving set, underwear etc. Good news is that this magnet powder is used in all gadgets used by man. Not so good news is that it is quite costly (understandable). Being a tight fist with respect to money, I have never tried any of these products which use the powder. However, I am sure that they work; if else how are these companies making such a profit so that they can advertise in every tv showtime and everywhere in the city? Anyway, I am waiting for them to announce a free trial or a heavily discounted sale. Once they do, I am planning to stock my homeful with these products. Already I had prepared a list of girls on the way to my office and in the office against whom I need to use. Yeah, I will be going to the malls on saturday evening.

A normal person might wonder what to do after attracting so many girls in the city and doubt his potential. Worry no more. The Science is here again for our rescue. Viagra!!

Ok fine, the scientist have invented this essential vitality. Will it be readily available to all? Ah! what are social service organizations for? There are set of teams pledged to put the tablet in each and every person around the world. They even squeeze them through email. None can miss these tablets.


The beauty is also important.

Who is the fastest?

This posting is continuation of the title Human Fantasies.


Olden
Passion for transportation is an obsession, mainly with the guys. Cart race, rowing boat race, horse riding, buying the best horse, building beautiful chariot, were few manner in which ancient people spent their time. They valued and cared a lot for these.


Modern
The thumb rule for picking toys when we visit families with kids: barbie for girl child, car for the boy. This works well in most of the cases. Few parents dont like this idea as they may not like to bring in such discrimination. However, I feel it is something in born - ie the preference of barbie or car. Anyway, obsession is quite evident with the youngsters and adults when they talk about their bike or car. Thou our road and traffic restrict the speed to 20 kmph, we still flash our money to get the bike which can reach 120 kmph in 10 secs.

The only non-living being I own which raises to a quasi-living being is my bike. At times I pat it if I drive too long or if I am late than promised time.

You may rush for girls.

How to cut a cake

Read this book recently. Amazing to know how mathematician sees the world. For most of the problems around, we can explain in a scientific way. For eg, the book talks about tangled phone cards. The reasoning behind tangling cords are interesting.

There are many interesting views to learn. There is a chapter on security, that is - how to authenticate oneself without revealing much to the party which is questioning. As the techno-systems becomes complex and social structures adapt to technology, such issues will be popping up. A correct balance between security measures and personal space ought to be achieved.

As the book title goes, there are two chapters devoted to sharing cake among n number of competitors. The solutions suggested are practical and would satisfy all the participants. It is relevant at global scale as water sharing bloodshed is just around the corner.

Author, Ian Stewart, had written advanced mathematical concept with layman-istic simplicity and with a lighter vein. Happy reading.

Panguni Pongal

My native town is Virudhunagar in Tamilnadu. Last month the town celebrated the festival 'Panguni Pongal'. Panguni is the last month of Tamil calendar. This festival is conducted to express gratitude to the town's main deity, Mariamman. Mariamman translates to Goddess of Rain. (btw, adjacent to this temple, there is a bigger temple for Veyiluganthamman, Goddess of sunlight).

During the three day festival, people carry fire pots (see pics) from home and deposit in a big furnace available in the temple. It is very exciting to watch so many people carrying such pots. The drum beat, blown pipe music, crackers etc add vibe to these processions.

Last day is really interesting as the majestic temple car is pulled around the town.

Lot of people gathering at the same place itself is a good experience to go through.

Insurance game

Last week my wife went through a minor surgery. Prior to that, we asked the hospital to apply for expense claims from the insurance company of our membership. Hospital requested for 25k. Insurance company approved 12k for the particular surgery.

The hospital refused to use that claim as that would be setting a sample for future claims. Hence they suggested us to go for cash payment. (For cash payment they charge 10k). We had to go for that option due to lack of time to hunt another hospital.

Wondering if there was an alternate way to handle this situation.

Different lunch

We all visited RS at his house. He is doing fine. VY ordered food from Nandini and we all had a good time around the table. Also, munched some snacks before the arraival of food, as it took sometime.

RS narrated his tale about the accident. Good thing is the fracture is minor and RS will be back into office in two weeks.

Get well soon, RS.

Dream comes true

Couple of months back MsAD had a strange dream. She saw RS met with an accident and placed in ICU. Immediately after waking up, she wanted to tell RS in the middle of the night. Later she shared the dream with us and we had a good laughing at it.

Now the dream turned out to be true!! RS bike was hit by an auto and RS has a fracture in his collar bone. Hope it is a minor problem and he will be back to normal soon.

Beware of MsAD and her dreams.

Others started sharing their dream experiences. MS gets dreams based on tv shows. VY has dreams on a regular basis. He feels dreamless sleep as disturbing.

How does hiv spread?

There was an interesting conversation about hiv stuff. Many questions about the virus where raised. How does the virus transmit? If malaria can spread through musquito, why cant hiv? How come people affect by hiv do not show any symtom for years?

Seems like in recent years doctors are able to eradicate hiv from the womb. Amazing.

Dead lizard

Morning I found a lizard dead in my bathroom. Since that lizard was small and young, it still lingers in my mind. What could be the cause of the death? Do they have heart attack or stroke? Did it see some frightening enemy? Could it be a suicide? If so, what could be the reason?

May be it couldn't tolerate the smell of the bathroom. I had to clear it off before it starts smelling the room.

Same story

Today I went with my wife to USKB restaurant. A couple sat next to our table. Happen to snoop their heated argument.

Guy to his gf: "These days you have increased ur quarrelling frequency. You are fighting a lot. I feel better if u shout at me. Instead you are stop talking and that is paining more. We wasted yesterday like that."

hmm .. same story everywhere.

Doctor's job

RN, VY, my wife and myself went to Mast Kalandhar restarant today. Later my friend, NN, joined us. The ambiance was good and food ok.

As my wife completed her medical studies recently, discussion went towards medicine, practices and ethics etc.

Quite interesting discussion.

house renting criteria

My wife and myself will be looking for a rental house in few weeks, we started discussing the type of house we want. As my friend, LN, is an expert in house hunt, we sought his help. LN was kind enough to send us the list of items to check while finding house.

Placing the criteria here for netizen to benefit.



Visit the house more than once before deciding if you wanna move to the house. Talk to the neighbours casually.

External Factors

1. Close to work place or in a area from where there is good connectivity, transportation
2. House shd be located in a good environment (surroundings) Shd be close to the market, shops but not right in between them
3. No water problem and water logging in the area
4. Underground drainage preferred
5. Security - it will be good if there are street lights and one such is just before the house.
6. Good if the house has trees (esp. neem tree)

Internal Factors

1. Type of ceiling - Bombay ceiling is easy to maintain
2. Flooring of the house - avoid marble if you have elders @ home.
3. Elevation of house from road - slight elevation will be good
4. Direction of house facing - good if the house is North or East facing
5. Floor in which house is present - Ground floor, 1st floor - anything is ok if only young people are gonna reside in the house.
6. Cross Ventilation
7. ventilation in kitchen and bath
8. Sun light (at least in the morning)
9. Hall shd be big enuf to place TV, Sofa set
10. It will be good if the house has a veranda (for keeping shoes and other stuff)
11. Bedroom shd be big enuf to have a 6-6(ft) cot. And it shd have extra space for moving around.
12. Kitchen shd be big enuf to keep utensils, grinder,mixie,coffee maker,micro wave. Kitchen slab, sink shd be at correct height and shd be big enuf to dump utensils. If you have gas cylinder there shd be space to keep it.
13. Bathroom, latrine shd have ventilation and shd be spacious You shd get water in bathroom, latrine (24hrs)
14. Bathroom shd be big enuf to wash clothes otherwise there shd be separate space to wash clothes.
15. Nice if there is both Indian and western latrine. One should be common. It will be good to have the latrine inside the house and away from living space.
16. Need to have space for Washing machine near bathroom to drain water
17. Nice to have balcony. Washing machine and other stuff can be kept there. (check security if you have a balcony)
18. Security - Better if the house has got grill doors.
19. It will be good if the house has a store room
20. Nice if the house has closed shelves
21. Internal electric wiring
22. Inbuilt fuse system to prevent overloading, proper earthing
23. Provision to keep bero, refrigerator, dining table, computer, television
24. will be good if the hose has closed lofts
25. There shd be enuf points in the house to connect electronic/ electric devices.
26. Ceiling height of Bathroom needs to be high enuf to accommodate geyser
27. Good to have mirror + wash basin
28. wash basin close to dinning hall
29. Separate meter for our part of the house. Nice to have a separate meter for water consumption
30. Space for hanging clothes ( balcony where you get sunlight will be good otherwise there shd be a terrace or other space)
31. Shd have provision to hang clothes inside the house (in rainy days you can't hang clothes outside)
32. Maintenance charges
33. Sheltered Two/ Four wheeler parking preferable
34. Ask about painting the house
35. Other furniture's, fixtures, fittings(fan, light)
36. Nice to have separate pooja, study/dining room
37. 24hrs Water supply ( Overhead tank, Corporation water, Well, Bore well )
38. You shd have access to the motor switch
39. Some houses will have cracks in the ceiling. This will give you a tough time in rainy days.
40. Facility to fit AC.
    

Happy hunting.

Longevity

This posting is continuation of the title Human Fantasies.

Olden
As many wanted to live longer, younger and healthier, quack doctors sprout all around the world. Wealthy people were willing pay heft money for elixir. Looks like many had died by consuming toxic medicines.

Modern
Knowledge about disease and medical techniques had helped man to postpone death. The average lifespan had increased drastically. Further improvement might take human to greater age and living.

The next stop-over is at driving freaks.

Everything for me

This posting is continuation of the title Human Fantasies.


Olden
Conquering land, search for secret treasure, digging out gold, alchemist, black orchid, voyage for new land etc etc are few of the technique we followed to amass wealth. There were great warriors determined to conquer the entire world. They marched through half the globe. They all got a six by three or ended up into ash, as per their culture.

Modern
The business venture, acquisition, crazy stock and the bust, etc seems to be modern day manner of wealth aggrandising.

The next topic is on longevity.

Happy husbands - when wives are away

VY hosted the lunch as it is his birthday today. We went to Royale Comforts. Food is ok.

These days MsAD (should I say MsKD?) is showing lot of interest in understanding the complex relationship between husband and wife. MS showed a brilliant glow while telling us that his wife will be joining him after 2 months. Thou he didn't want to show the smile in an explicit manner, we were able to get ecstasy he was in :-)
MsAD observed this and out of curiosity questioned MS on his state of mind and what he was up to etc.

Married guys shared their experience and how they tackle situation at home.

Later I was wondering what is that brings that happiness. Is it the relief out of monotonous activities and voice? Or is it an eagerness to live through the all-free bachelor life for a short time? Or to enjoy the personal space of loneliness, till the need of wife arises?
May be a combination of all this with a pinch of a factor called male madness.

Miniature pets

Other day I was thinking about bonzai plants.  If it is feasible to grow a big tree on a small scale, will it be able to do the same with animals?Imagine playing with an elephant, which is on your table top.  
Or a Kangaroo that is tall upto your knee.


With genetically engineering progressing, these things should come to reality in near future.

The question is: do we want it?  If we think about the negative aspect, when it is possible to minimize, it will be possible to enlarge too.  A group aiming to create roits in a city, can unleash megasize elephants into the  city.

My daddy is bigger than yours

This posting is continuation of the title Human Fantasies.

Let us see the way people were showing off their powers.

Olden
When one clan started using stones as weapons, the other groups had to withdraw from the battle. They had to go back, do some R&D and invent something like bow, arrow or spears. One these people got an upper hand. Other people got a defensive shield and also swords. I guess this is inbuilt nature of any species. We see that the conflicts in jungle and ocean are resolved by power. Once human started inventing equipment for fighting, the race for better tools began and improved the warfare. Mere possession of superior tools gave the owners protection and dominance over others.

Modern
Interesting twist in the modern story is to blame others that they have powerful equip and kill them. (I dont understand this part completely. Is it legal for some bully to say, "I can have any number of weapons with me, but you should not")


The next is about money.

Human Fantasies

Ever wondered what kind of fantasies we carry? I do think in different domains and try to find few. Prominent ones I could think about are girls, wealth, youth etc. Fantasies differ from person to person. Also, the priority of these likings vary too.

I am planning to explore the fantasies carried by human civilization, right from the animal age to our modern days. Let us see what is driving us to do whatever we do and aspire.

Let us start with power struggle.

Bojug

Java User Group started functioning in Bangalore. The first meeting happened today at Sun Microsystems buildings. Thanks to Sun for allowing the team to conduct the event in their premise and providing facilities to the group.

It was nice to meet different people from different background experience.
The meeting was very friendly and healthy; quite informative too. Two technical sessions were conducted. One on Netbeans IDE usage, module development and the next about Java db. Very well prepared presentation and audience were interested to know more.

People have an idea about doing something useful in terms of project implementation. That would be great thing to happen. We will have a open source development community right at our doorstep (or in our backyard, whichever one wants to see and feel comfortable). With such dynamism, we will have innovation happening among us and technologies shaping here. I feel that is one area India needs to jump in. This meet seems to be a good start.

Looking forward to more jugging.

Guiding the students

While browsing through orkut, I found lakshya. This is an interesting social service activity put up by few people. Lakshya aims at raising the thinking capacity of the student so that they will be able to shape up their career and life.

I had registered with them. Planning to answer questions raised in my message board. So, if you are a student or a fresher, feel free drop by the site and post a quey.

Simplified tax

Discussion started when MS mentioned about the medical allowance and travel allowance. Various policies and practices pertaining to tax system came into perspective. I feel we should have a simple taxing system. A standard percentage of income to be deducted; maybe a slab on different income range is fine.

The current system of providing allowance for medical, travel, insurance, donation, etc etc provides loophole for people to misuse. A simplified taxing would free up people from these calculation and crookedness.

PG had a good counter argument about genuine people needing such provisions and benefits, and the difficulty of government to aid them in some other means.

Since I am not an expert in these domains, I couldn't provide more points; but feel that something can be done to simplify.

Lesson from sudoku

After playing for two or three weeks on a continuous basis, I checked the sudoku addiction relief web pages. Invariably they had a sample sudoku matrix and I started playing there :-)

Now it is more than 3 months and I am still playing the game with more interest. Best completion is in 7.51 mins at evil level. The sudoku site showed that I am one among 12% in the world to solve it so fast.

Here are my philosophical insights upon playing the game.

• Seldom you will get the numbers you want. There will be something missing. You will have to struggle to get the required things.
• Thou at times I felt I got a buggy puzzle, never that was proved. We might get difficult situation in life and feel that entire life is a total mistake or a failure. We just need the patience to put the pieces together to get the beautiful picture.
• Practice makes us perfect
• Successful completion gives great satisfaction

Beautiful road

I happened to travel to Vellore in the weekend. The road is really enjoyable from krishnagiri to Vellore and beyond. Visually it is pleasing as they had planted flower plants and maintaining too. The colors are varying and soothing. Good feast to the otherwise dry and blunt landscape.

Hats off to NHAI department who are constructing roads and also maintaining these shrubs. Good to see such positive things happening around. Hope these initiatives are sustained forever and also wish this will be practiced across the country.

I had sent a note of appreciation to that dept contacts.

Graph using flash

I had to gather data in the server side and display the result as a graph. Was hunting for good way to generate bar chart, pie chart etc. Thought of using flash in a way to get a decent presentation and also learning the tech :-)

Upon analyzing, maani.us seem to be close to what I want. Thou it is a freeware, the licensing part has a catch so that people who dont read may end up paying for them. The interesting part is that we cannot insert this graph display in some other flash screen. Hence, you will have a graph isolated from the rest of ur apps.

In order to overcome this limitation, I glued this flash graph into my pages with js, iframe and some patience.

Now my site looks decent.