Time convertor

How easy to convert a pacific std time to your local time? What if you need to deal with the london time too. Adding the 'day light saving' factor will increase the fun in the conversion.

I wish we have a simple plugin (mainly attached to the email client), that would scan through the document and highlight timestamp in different time zones.

Color synchronizer

Opposite to our house is quite an interesting house. It is occupied by five mallu girls. Quite a time pass to watch them together on their terrace or strolling in the front yard with their mobile and occasionally meeting in the streets.

Apart from the mundane task of watching these college girls, I made another observation. Their dress. Not only when they are wearing, but also when they are dried up in the cloth line. The dress colors are similar on most of the days. Indicating that the girls have been wearing same color on the previous day or so. It is as thou they decide earlier on what to wear. Or it could be subconsciously the roommates synced up in some ways and picked the dress with same color shade. I would equate this concept to "menstrual cycle synchronization" when girls stay together.

Whatever it is, definitely worth doing a research on this topic. If anyone is on it, I can volunteer to provide vital data for the project.

yErTram

yErTram is a method/tool for retrieving water from well. While writing the post "Chain of thoughts", I googled for this word and failed to find a description. Even a picture was not available. So, I asked my art master to help with providing a sketch.

A huge stone path is placed upon the center of the well. It would form a narrow path for a person to walk over the well. At one side of the path is a fulcrum setup which holds a hefty wooden beam. The extreme end of the beam is tied with rocks for balancing purpose. The other end is connected to a stick with a bucket. The stick and the bucket go into the well for collecting water. The person has to hold the empty bucket, keep pulling down the stick so that the wooden beam comes down towards the well. Once the bucket reaches the water level, the bucket is filled with water and the stick is drawn upwards. During this process, the person would have to walk from the outer edge of the well towards the center (walk on the stone path) and walk back after collecting the water.

The slow child

When an animal gives birth to smaller ones, immediatly the junior would move, spot the mom and starts sucking milk. In few days, the puppies or other offspring would run around, understand the world around, pick a fight with its sibling, try to chew anything that is available. What a fast track life.

Compared to that human child is very slow. After three months of looking after it, we are very happy to hear some noise out of it. With few more months, it starts pushing itself around - making us immense proud. Another six month to stand, try to walk, play with words. Would have to wait for four to five years to reliably be on its own and cross the mid-teen to be productive and able to lead a life.
This difference between animal growth and human always puzzled me. Reading Bill Bryson's book clarified the doubt. Giving a passage from his book:

Bipedalism is a demanding and risky strategy. It means refashioning the pelvis into a full load-bearing instrument. To preserve the required strength, the birth canal in the female must be comparatively narrow. This has two very significant immediate consequences and one longer-term one. First, it means a lot of pain for any birthing mother and a greatly increased danger of fatality to mother and baby both. Moreover, to get the baby's head through such a tight space it must be born while its brain is still small - and while the baby, therefore, is still helpless. This means long-term infant care, which in turn implies solid male-female bonding.

May be the smaller brain allow us to learn the stuff after birth. Wheareas animals comes with almost pre-moulded brain and the scope for them to learn is limited. So, our hardwork in terms of taking risk and going thru immense trouble paid off well.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

As the title says, almost all corners of Science is touched upon. Right from the formation of universe, rocks, volcanoes of the earth, ancient creatures, DNA structures, and more are discussed in a laymanistic simplicity. The flow of these topics are also wonderful. Had thrown lots of light upon life of the Scientists who worked in different eras. Amazing to peek into their personal life too, like who the 19th century chemist foolishly inhaled poisones gases, the enemity between different researchers etc.
A very good read for anyone curious to know our origin, stuff we are made up of, where we are and other Scientific inquiries. The book is by Bill Bryson.

Ellu juice

While being in a village, thought of having a cool drink. While checking the availability, I was puzzled by the menu item 'ellu juice'. There was a language barrier too, and the server couldn't explain more than that ('ellu juice' is something made out of 'ellu'). Out of curiosity, I asked for the same. What I got is sesame milk juice! Never had or heard about this before. It was quite tasty.

In the wild

Got the possession of the farm. On the first day evening, I moved in with my wife. The sun was setting slowly and so we were settling down. The electrical work ought to be worked out. Hence we had to pour kerosene in the newly bought kerosene lamp and lit it before the sunset. With the lights up, we found a clean spot (as clean as possible) for making our bed. It was inside a small room. We closed the window so that creatures from outside dont join us. As we didnt have anything to do around 6.30pm, we had our dinner. It was a nice candle light dinner, tasted like bread with jam. We promised to have lots of singing, playing jokes and talking everything under the sun (beyond as well). After talking about everything, at 7.30pm we felt sleepy. After putting off the lights, the room was pitch dark. It was so dark that closing the eyes or opening them didnt matter. Once in a while my wife switched on the torch and scanned the walls, roof to check any unwanted visitors.

Insurance policy and the functionings

ok, after chasing for the real Insurance policy benefitors , I found a clue. When we have some work to be done and we reach out a government employee or a distant relative or anyone, they help us out of the request. After that, they start with, "sir, my wife is a policy agent, why dont you buy an insurance policy". It is quite difficult to out right refuse the offer as we just got a free service through them. We will have to find an escape route like saying that we got policy previous month or so.

Anyway, I think these kind of social pressures are making the policy industry to thrive. And obviously the immediate benefitors are the agents.

The old bachelor

A friend of mine is in his late thirties. Had been going through all channels to find a life partner. Still no luck in settling with someone. The initial criteria were too many and beyond market supply. His family fancied getting a girl half his age and from a rich background. Slowly they kept relaxing their requirements. The recent one relaxed is the origin of the desired family. Earlier condition was to choose someone from the same community and also their family should have originated from the same town as theirs. The origination has been dropped for now.

I used to wonder why they are finding it difficult in the bride hunt, in spite of dropping many criteria. May be the rate at which they drop particular criteria is very slow compared to the brides moving out of the market for that age group. Wish he access the situation properly and moves fast.

Thunder, wind and rain

It was a quite afternoon, calm and bright. All of a sudden heavy wind was flowing in the area. Followed were thunder, lighting and rain. The rain was thrashing around with fury and wind fueled the beatings. It was a dramatic scene to watch from the balcony. It was as though waves of water was cleansing the landscape.

Chain of thoughts

When my wife was about to enter the house, I thought of playing a childish prank - to hold the door tightly from inside that she will be puzzled with the door not opening in spite of unlocking. When such thought came in, suddenly something flashed from my young age. Of someone holding my bicycle from behind and I was surprised that my pedaling was vain. Now I tried recollecting the face of that person. Oh, I remembered. I used to go to a public garden at early morning. In those days, gents went to different gardens on a daily basis. That were our bath points. We had well in the center of the garden. Drawing water from well require good muscle and stamina. Bigger men can do themselves and fill their tub with water they need. A boy like me would have to depend on a gardener. He would fill the tub, which would need 3 buckets of drawings from the well. For a day, I will have to give 10paise, on a monthly basis to was decided to be Rs 2.

Ok, that is the man who found be on the road, someday and held my bicycle.
Interesting to note the thoughts we keep jumping from somewhere to anywhere. To think about the money value, the good old social life style, the equipments we used, etc etc.

Oh, I didn't trick my wife by jamming the door; partially got lost in my own world and other partial was due to the insight into after effects when my wife successfully opens the doors and find me the culprit.

Green peas masala

Couple of days before, we finally made up of our mind to prepare green peas masala at home. Here are the steps we followed.

• Peel and chop onions, small one are tastier. I assume the onion amount should be as much as the vegetable we add.
• Fry onion in oil. Make it to golden yellow.
• Add ginger garlic paste, garam masala, pepper or chilli powder. Keep stirring.
• With the brownish paste in the pan, add green peas.
  Let the peas be fried in oil first.
• For richness, grind some cashews in water. Add this paste to the peas mixture. Add some more water.
• Instead of cashew paste, tomato or coconut milk will also be good. None of the above is also an alternate option.
• With added water, close the pan for few minutues. Make sure all ingridents mix up well.
• Serve hot with chappathi or parota or dosa or lemon rice etc.
  
  

Handling old laptop battery

If I disconnect the power from my laptop, the laptop shuts abruptly in 5 to 10 seconds. Looks like the battery is gone. However, I suspect some kind of firmware involvement also in this problem. When windows desktop is put under some prompt, then the laptop doesn't die even after removing the plug. So, if I wanted to move the laptop around while still working, I click on shutdown and leave the shutdown prompt as it is. After shifting, I cancel the prompt. So for this method helped in retaining for power for 15 minutes. Let to try beyond.

Ideal expense writer

We tried maintaining personal expense using different tools and techniques. Started with a fancy spreadsheet, then a website, moved on to traditional paper book, a pocket sized one etc. Nope, none helped us to stay on track. After couple of days, laziness pulled us away from these equipments.

While thinking about an ideal expense maintainer, here is what I wish to have. A box kept inside the house, close to the entrance. I can drop any receipt of different shape and texture. The box equipped with ocr will grab those pieces of papers, analyze them and find the expense to be entered. A calculator size panel in the side of the box would beep out the number it found. I can alter the number within 15 seconds, or else that number will be entered in a registered. The receipt will be filled neatly inside the box.

Blue toothed box will sync up with my computer on a daily basis. QED.

catalyst

The purchase did happen, along with some kind of drama which happens in these kind of deals. At one stage, the seller and the buyer slightly withdrew from the interest of making the transaction happen. When the two parties were about retire, the middlemen swung into action. They rescued the spirit. Brought in required parameters and convinced the parties to move ahead. Quite interesting experience. Till the last moment we didn't know if we will be buying!

To buy or not to buy

A purchaser's dilemma. Particularly when the stake is high and the buy is ornamental. Many comments, speculations to digest from different walks of people. Is the price high? Are clean hands involved in the deal? How much to rely on the seller? Will the ROI be satisfactory, whatever may be the expected returns be?

Guess we will have to keep moving with timely decision. Just enjoy the positive effects and correct any mistakes.

first last Vs last, first names

Most occasions we use the format, first name last name. There are few places, particularly while writing, that the structure last name, first name is adapted. In good old days, most often the last name reflected the occupation of the person. We see many family names with Baker, Clerk, Smith etc. So, while entering names in the record, last name sorted list would list out folks as per the jobs they work on. That would be easy for some one to keep track of the records and call the right set of folks for duty.
Not sure about the above theory. This occurred at me while using the address book in my mobile. I try to store the occupation of the person first before his/her name, eg Elec Sekar, Taxi Gopal, Law Ganesh, CA Manikam etc.

Back to yoga

After almost an year, I am restarted yoga practice. It is quite difficult and muscle flexibility ought to be regained. Quite good to do and body feels light.

Reflected on the reason for dropping out of a regular practice. Guess it is lack of concentration while doing alone. Mind gets drifted away into its own world of thoughts. Getting back to exercise, that too in the early hours of the day, is difficult. I used to convince myself that if I had some company for yoga or I joined any yoga institute, then I would be able to do better.

This time I had decided to keep doing on my own and focus on the task at hand.

Tactics of the leaves

While watering the plants, a cool insight of the plants came upon. The leaves starts from the stem and raises up in a slanting manner. They form v shaped pattern through out the stem. Having a flat structure, instead of v shape, might be more efficient to capture sun light. The advantage of v shape showed up while watering the plant. Water falling on the leaves rushed towards the stem and finally close to the root. Had it been a flat arrangement, water from the leaves might have splashed away from the root to the ground instead of towards the stem.

May be the plants have to form a strategic positioning for maximizing sunlight as well as rain water.

Freedom to mind

While going through the strange world, I got a light all of a sudden. What a freedom and relief we get once we are out of an issue. The issue may be minor, but we feel our mind relaxed and calm.

The problems and issues we face need not be a real challenge. They can be just a lack of knowledge about that particular system or situation. If we put some effort to understand the functionality of the system and behaviour, we may be through the difficult moments.