A Balancing act

From 3 months now (Dec/Jan/Feb) I have been receiving many emails about colleagues and friends being proud fathers of Babies(not exactly spam :) ).
Of this Dec to mid jan was without a doubt about baby girls being born. And from mid-Jan to Feb itz about the Baby Boys being born.
Nature has its own way of balancing the male/female ratio. Then again its just my observation (probably just Me).

China is urging couples to get one baby per family only. Thus chinese having boy or gal preferences may have it tough. But @ the end of it all a Nature's balancing act is in progress :) which restores parity. Talking of population control, china is realising the importance of controlling its burgeoning population. India on the other hand may need to worry as the population scales maybe bring forth problems unseen before. Wonder what the Government can do about it at all rather than spreading word. Unlike china where it can force the populace into following the rules.

~P.

Pug Marks of a Leader : SAMSUNG

Most Products in the Market fall into 2 categories

1. Use and Throw

2. Re-usable

One case in study for the re-usable products is Printers. Printers are re-usable after changing the Cartridges which are central to the Printers functioning. Printer Companies basically survive on this piece of InkMachine called Cartridge. Cartridge sales keep revenues from Printers going. Thus After-Sales is a bigger Behemoth than the product itself. Companies which neglect this aspect have a touch chance to survive in the market. All products have bugs, due to which After-Sales Service assumes that much more importance. Significant revenues are made in this stream.

Coming to our Samsung Phones, recently we have come up with standard connectors for Phone/charging/headset across phone models. So users can upgrade handsets without changing the accessories which remain standard. This is a very good move from the Samsung stable which leaves the backdoor open. The user can upgrade phones once in two years and still remain comfortable with the new hardware. After Sales Revenue is what constitutes a major chunk of revenue for big Majors like HP and Dell.But I guess brand building and Sales assume more importance than the after sales @ Samsung.

Personally I am Bigtime happy about my Samsung Mobile :) itz a MOTO Razor clone from the Samsung stable and is a whole lot better than MOTORAZOR. Itz a 3G phone and has better power consumption than RAZR. UI is amazing. Itz sold in the Italian Market and called Tuscani.

~P

Kursk : The ill-fated Russian Submarine.

All that remains of the Kursk is a nuclear Coffin @ the Ocean bed.

Death of the Idiot Box

Well I was blog-shying for sometime now. My health was on the downside. It still is for that matter. Anyways...

In the 21st century, I do not see Television as a source of Trashed entertainment and don;t think it qualifies to be called an Idiot Box. With some channels (like below) TV viewing is a continous intellectual harvest of sorts

• History Channel
• Discovery
• Travel & Living
• National Geographic
  

Today I was feeling very listless and in my confused state i turned to the TV. { I believe most of us do the same and TV is meant to lighten the spirits }

But the moment I was on National Geographic channel my heart missed a beat. The program which was on air was about the Kursk Submarine disaster. While the whole episode had me hanging on the edge of our sofa, at the end of it I was shaken and stirred completely. Kursk was a Russian Nuclear Cruise missile Submarine.

The Program was aptly titled "Splits seconds away from Disaster".
It shows how some faulty soldering in one of the Torpedoes caused a major catastrophe Russians can never forget in their History or lifetime. Until that time I was of opinion that some American Torpedoe had hit the Russian Sub. 110 Russian Navy Officers perished in what could have been a Blot on the Face of the earth.

The program shows how a brave Russian navy officer on board the KURSK had averted the mishap into turning into a Major Nuclear Blast and Catastrophe. He powered ON the 2 Nuclear Reactors safety mechanisms which averted the engufing of the Nuke Reactors. Hats off to this guy bcoz from all accounts it appears that Sailors had a split second for this. and They still saved Humanity from the Dangers of a Nuclear Blast and a Radio active ocean.

Surely another Chernobyl was in the making.

I would advice the reader to watch this episode again if possible. So that I will not divulge the details here. After this I wud never call my Samsung Plano TV an idiot box ;-)

Some Kursk Info : Barents Sea, 12 August 2000:

1. It is believed that fuel leaking from a torpedo ignited, causing fire and a devastating explosion in the Kursk's forward sections

2. Russian rescue subs tried and failed to open escape hatches. Further rescue attempts abandoned after Norwegian divers finally managed to open a hatch, and found the boat totally flooded

3. It was later discovered that some 23 sailors survived in compartment 9 at the stern for several hours after the explosion.

{Please don't attach any pun or irony to the blog heading and the latter part of the blog. I respect all the Brave Russian Navy officers who laid their Life in the line of duty}

~P

If ( I_Love_SOmeone) everyday = Valentine_Day;

Someone asked Me . .. what are you doing today ?? (Valentine day)

N I said ... :)

If i love someone, everyday wud happen to be a valentine day!

(readers might cry 'grapes are sour'

I would say sour as red wine ;-) )



Chill Maadi
~P.

Lounge Piranha : Striking the Chords right !

Or I meant to say that they strike the right Chord in you!
As i listened to this new band Lounge Piranha. The songs appear to be a new genre altogather.
No its not Fusion. Its just plain simple creative genius which is churning out some cool music these dayz.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=131473277
http://www.myspace.com/loungepiranhamusic

First thoughts on listening to them, Wow :) thatz cool n Neat aint it ?
MeThinks Vocals are cool, Strumming effort is superb.
This is the kind of music u can listen to any time of the day to soothe the Nerves. Well couldn't catch the lyrics with streaming playing a spoilsport. I guess these guyz are going to give al lthe big bands a run for their name n fame. I mean Gangamma;s gig and Thermal and a Quarter are some good bands which seem comparable to Lounge Piranha.
Me Looking forward to more of such new age Piranhic music :) rather than listen to the old bands performing stale gigs @ rock shows and concerts thru out Bangalore!
(Ironically) Ebb seems to be their top creation till date.

~P.

-\/\/\/ Brain vs Brawn /\/\/\-

Interesting anecdote from George Bernard Shaw.

Brain vs Brawn

The celebrated dancer Isadora Duncan once wrote to George Bernard Shaw declaring that, given the principles of eugenics, they should have a child together.
"Think of it!" she enthused. "With my body and your brains, what a wonder it would be."
"Yes," Shaw replied. "But what if it had my body and your brains?"

LIFE :__A ghastly perspective__

I am a person with modest means and living(don't laugh now!!). I do nurture a slightly neurotic obsession for the Surreal. That being the case I could not but check my enthusiasm for the SCARY HOUSE, when we friends went to Garuda Mall last Saturday.
There is a new amusement house which has opened up next to the Movie Hall INOX.Itz named the "SCARY HOUSE" and it sure appears scary initially though. We Four friends in all decided to take the plunge ;-). We paid the 40 bucks per head charge and entered the door. We met the first actor who was dressed as a Ghoul He did try to be scary for sometime, But we were not amused by it :( .

Seeing the utter darkness which stared at us in our face, Santosh my friend lost it.He could not take it any more and went straight out of the door we had come from.
This left Suresh myself and Vinoo. All 3 qualify as Severely Brain damaged Ghosts in broad daylight ;-).Our argument was " lets see who scares whom :) ". So we decided to go ahead and check out the SCARY HOUSE inmates.
I as usual led the charge. And as was expected the element of Scariness was made up of some props which displayed skulls and ghostly figures hung on the wall. The catch was some props actually are actors and try to scare the Hell out of us.

We persisted with all the Ghosts(actors rather) and came to the middle of this house. Here we decided to play a toughie on the SCARY HOUSE inmates. We planned to lie low in some corner not watched by the inmates and when any one comes out to check us out. We would scare the living daylights outta him!!! ALAS,...that was not to be...one such ghost had seen us plot it :-). He switched on the lights and called our bluff.We then hurriedly moved onto the second last room. Here there was what appeared to be a statue of a bed ridden ghost.
As we passed by it, the Ghost hurriedly started moving towards Suresh and Vinoo. Both were shell shocked and zapped. They immediately rushed to me to hold me and pave the way out as I was leading them. I had by then figured out the door and moved to the last room.
Here I was to face the NightMare! :). the Last room had one ghostly figure scaring me as I was leading the team. He had bones in his hand and waved at me.By reflex or say a Knee-jerk reaction I went all out to hit him :-(. One other person by then switched on the Lights and asked us not to hit him and leave the place.I returned to my senses{ did I ? ;-) }.
I realised what a blunder I would have made had i hit the person.

All the while I had this in mind that this act was just to amuse us but still somehow i slipped up and was on the verge of losing my self-control.

If you see the above episode in a different light, you would see that the society has made some Lives easier by making others difficult.

For instance the ghost actors might be paid some compensation daily to scare the shit out of blokes for sheer fun.But what do they lose in the process?

MeThinks

• They have to sit in a corner of a Dark room all day! , Imagine that withour comforts of working in a well lit Cubicle and frequent coffee haunts to the cafeteria.
• Salary hike at a appointed time every year.
• We get Gifts and Goodies year round.
• We are safe in our Software Factories (if i may say so ) Sometimes they might be at the receiving due to the stupidity of some fellas like me.
  
• Overall I see that the Fun Element has a very depressing tone to it in the SCARY HOUSE.Some might say "Lifes like that". All i can say is "Lucky Me" hoping the inmates of SCARY HOUSE earn a decent buck for all that they Forego to let some people have a good Weekend.
  
  A Stirred but not Shaken prasanna signing off!
  ~P

[QOTM] Money Money!!

“We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people.”

Daniel Webster, speech in the Senate, 1833

With Appraisal season (@work) and Election season (in some parts of India) folks bear this naked truth in mind :-)

~P