At the Park I

These shots were taken at the local park


The picures were taken on a Sony K 790i with Twilight Portrait Mode,




Just shifted to the new place few days ago more when i go there again

Vanilla Ice Cream that puzzled General Motors!!!!

E-Mail forward and also HERE

Never underestimate your Clients’ Complaint, no matter how funny it might seem! This is an interesting real story that happened between the customer of General Motors and its Customer-Care Executive. Please read on…..

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:

‘This is the second time I have written to you & I don’t blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of Ice-Cream for dessert after dinner each night, but the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we’ve eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have & I drive down to the store to get it. It’s also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem…..

You see, every time I buy a vanilla ice-cream, when I start back from the store my car won’t start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I’m serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds “What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?”‘

The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an Engineer to check it out anyway. The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn’t start. The Engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, they got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man’s car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: He jotted down all sorts of data: time of day, type of gas uses, time to drive back and forth etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to check out the flavor.

Now, the question for the Engineer was why the car wouldn’t start when it took less time. Eureka - Time was now the problem - not the vanilla ice cream!!!! The engineer quickly came up with the answer: “vapor lock”. It was happening every night; but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.

Even crazy looking problems are sometimes real and all problems seem to be simple only when we find the solution, with cool thinking.

Review of Sony Ericsson K790i

Idea for the upgrade:

I was a satisfied owner of a SEK750i – very pleased with the performance of my instrument. It had a good 2 mega pixel Auto Focus camera that did AF with optics, rather than purely on a digital level. It had pretty decent talk and standby time. The music capabilities were fair enough for a casual listener like me, and had thrown in some de-facto PIM capabilities like the Calendar, Alarm, Notes. On the connectivity front as well it faired decently. It had the Bluetooth, IR, USB connections apart from support for GPRS.

Well basically it had everything that I wanted. But then I had to change. I have this compulsive urge of trading my phone for a new one every once in a while. This time therefore I went for an upgrade rather than a new model altogether. The choice was obviously the (not so) New SE K790i since it succeeded the K750i from SE.

The First Look
The first five things I noticed when I took the phone in my hands were:

• It seemed slightly lighter than the K750i, though in size it was larger than the K750i, may be because I was so exited.
• It had a matt finish on the back of the phone body, and it too had a camera sliding cover which, on sliding would activate the camera.
• It had a slightly changed key layout with an instant internet key thrown in.
• It had a larger screen and the Menu seemed similar to K750i.
• The words cyber-shot were mentioned prominently on the phone at the back camera sliding cover and under the screen.

Now let us go into the details
Price

The K790i set me back by Rs. 16,500 from the grey marker without bill. The going rate for a new K750i is around Rs. 9,800. I had to go to the grey market as I had to barter the old phone for part of the price. My old phone went for Rs. 6,300 (it had a 1GB memory, I bought for Rs.1,200 which now costs Rs. 600). I bought a 1GB M2 memory for the new phone for Rs. 1,300. SE K790i uses a new M2 format memory that is similar to miniSD in size.

Body

The K790i (105 x 47 x 22 mm) is a larger phone compared to the K750i (100 x 46 x 20.5 mm). K790i (115gm) is also slightly heavier than the K750i (99gm) however if one would look at the ratio of size to weight K790i would seem lighter as I though initially.

K790i seemed a slightly less sturdy than the K750i. It had matt-finish plastic on the back that looked delicate than that of K750i which has a sturdy plastic cover. If you tap on the plastics of the phone you can listen to the hollowness inside, the K750i was on the other hand was a solid brick.

Looks

In this part of the world most of the phones do get greasy a bit due to the moisture in the atmosphere. The back has a matt-finish that would not let any grease apparently visible. It has a slide-down camera sporting black color and a Xenon Flash over it. There is a Speaker Phone at the back as well. On the left you will find a music button and a M2

K790i has a curvy line on the back of the phone with Aluminum finish; it is the median between the front and the back. Front of the phone has a brushed steel finish, but the large screen overshadows everything else. There are two buttons for use with the camera on both sides of the ear phone on the front. The screen is surrounded by mirror finish border. The number keys look very tiny; anyone with large fingers would find it very difficult to SMS. There is an extra instant internet button creating a balanced grid of menu buttons.

Menu

Enough talk on the looks, lets talk about the menu structure of the phone. At first look I thought the menu is exactly same as that of SE K750i, however later found out some differences in both. SE K790i has a set dark looking themes preinstalled in it that compliments the overall black hue of the phone. The main menu is same as SE K750i however underneath it you will start discovering new things. Let me list them here:

• The key left to the earphone starts picture view and the left one will being the grid view of the pictures.
• Internet Section starts with the Google Search box. It seems Google is to be found everywhere.
• Entertainment section sports a new Video Player it supersedes the Music Player that used to do the job. The phone comes preinstalled with some mute videos – the purpose of which I could not understand.
• 2 new games other than the Tennis Game from Sega. The other 2 games are on golf and photography.
• A new RSS reader in the Messaging section – I have not tried it yet so will not be able to comment on it.
• Music Player has been revamped. Main window starts with 4 options - Now Playing, Artists, Tracks and Playlists. Artists and Tracks section get automatically updated with the ID3 tags from the mp3 files.
• File Manager is also got revamped. Now you find 3 tabs one each for the memory stick and internal memory and one overall.
• Thoughtfully the Camera album – the place where all the camera pictures and videos are stored has been made as separate folder – earlier it was buried inside the Pictures and Videos folders respectively.
• Videos folder gives a Live Thumbnail view of the videos that start playing the preview when the file is selected.
• The light in the organizer is missing now. The Xenon Flash does not allow it to be used for long duration as a torch light as earlier flash used to.
• There are 5 configurable Alarms in the new phone, which is a boon for people like me who oversleep every day.

Camera

SE K790i is all about the camera. It was the first phone from the Sony Ericsson to sport the Cyber-shot branding of Sony. It has a 3 mega pixel Auto Focus camera, and a true Flash to compliment it. The phone has 8 in all buttons dedicated to the camera – including a couple of new tiny buttons near the speaker.

The camera has a dedicated button on the right side panel. Apart from that the volume buttons can be used for zoom/pan in the camera mode. The Zoom can be used Numeric 3 and 6 buttons on the keypad.

The camera sports 8 custom modes

• Auto
• Twilight Landscape
• Twilight Portrait
• Landscape
• Portrait
• Beach/Snow
• Sport
• & Document

All these can be easily accessed from the right side button near the speaker when camera is on. Further the there are 4 Shoot modes as well. Apart from Normal and Video the camera/phone also sports a BestPic and Panorama. BestPic is the mode in which the camera takes a series of shots and one has to choose the best one of them. The shoot modes can easily be accessed from the Left Button near the speaker.

Camera can shoot in VGA, 1 MP, 2 MP and 3MP and these can be changed conveniently with the Numeric 1 on the keypad. The Focus length can be Macro, Infinity or Auto focus. These settings can be controlled from the Numeric 4 on the keypad. There is a digital image stabilization that can be activated from the Numeric 7 on the keypad. The flash got Auto Flash mode, the Red Eye Reduction and No Flash modes. As per my experience the Red-worked fairly well but then it is just a phone. They can be accessed from the Numeric * key on the keypad.

At the Restaurant - Hyderabad House - Banjara Hills

Hyderabad House is the Hyderabadi chain of Restaurants specializing Hyderabadi Cusine. This was the first place where I ate when I first came to Hyderabad in 2001, and still love to eat there.

Chicken Biriyani and Thums up are the best combination.

The Banjara Hills restaurant was decorated sometime back which is evident from the looks of it - it looks a bit wornout. Over the years the prices for the food there has increased substantially. Earlier it was affordable for me to have lunch everyday, but now a days it pinches a bit.

Food as I said is totally Hyderabadi and they know what they are cooking, and food tastes very good.

Monica's Pups 2007 Summer Edition

Alone is Dull





Two's a company

Three's a crowd.

Now! that's Some Crowd. Count how many are there...!

The experiment with everything. But they got only one machine... Their mouth. so they test with their mouth only.

Gotta go to sleep

Sleeping

What are you looking at me like that?

Mom loves them a lot.

Interesting observation.

Poking their noses on to something.

A Train Journey

I recently went to see my parents. I took these pictures at the Vizag Station. The hills in the back ground had nice fog on them and they looked inviting.

Earlier when I used to travel in the train there used to be just 2-3 stations in between where there was mobile phone connection. However now a days the telephone connection has improved a lot and one can find the mobile being up almost the entire journey.

I discovered that each of the station name board also mention the Height from the Mean Sea Level. For example this Ichapur station is about 16.7 mt above Mean Sea Level. This I believe is a British time trend which has been continued as the height details are missing on the newly painted name boards.

While returning I came to know about some more interesting facts; like the L/C board means that there is a Level Crossing down the way and W/L means the train driver is required to blow whistle since there would be a crossing down the line.

I also came across the Indian Railways Fan Club (IRFCA) website. If you are interested in railways in India this is the place to go.

World Cup 2007 - India Exit

Super 8 system was incidentally was brought into the World Cup because ICC wanted to give the Minnows a chance to play in the big tournament and also give the biggies a chance to have some warm-up practice during the tournament. Minnows were supposed to loose all their group matches and go home before the Biggies start playing in the Super8. But as it turns out, these Minnows are pain in... - you know where! In the last World Cup, Kenya went on to play in the Semifinals. This year too, Ireland and Bangala Desh will play nearly 6 more matches in the Super8 and give ample practice and help the biggies some chance to break all the previous records, that India made in their match against Bermuda, in an attempt to keep our chances alive.

Since we have done it (rather did nothing); i.e. get out of the World Cup competition even before it constructively started; some heads must roll and here is my list:

1. Get rid of Dravid as Captain, he is a good player but he is not a leader. Ganguly should be brought back into the team. Dravid simply does not have the aggression that Ganguly's got.
2. Get rid of the coach. Greg Chappel was hired to see us though the Word Cup. Well! he seemed to be in a hurry. He did all the experiments he wanted, like giving commando training from the Army. At that time I wondered why the commando training, but now I know. It was to help the players when they are back after disappointing the nation.
3. The Selection committee should be scrapped and a new one brought in. It was their duty to select the team that would bring the world cup home. Not to have a dramatic exit from it.

Let's accept it, we are not a sporting county anyway. The '83 cricket world cup was a fluke. It happened because the Indian team was a bunch of cricket crazy people who were passionate about the game and played for sake of the game. They had nothing to loose but they played to win. But unfortunately our current team do not play to win the games, they play so that others will loose. Our current team is buried under their great records, that they are scared to do anything wrong and take risks.

I am disappointed with the result, but having said that, I kind of anticipated India loosing with Sri Lanka anyway. Bygones are bygones lets hope for 2011.

Rocket Science and Horse's Ass!

Source: Engineering Subject Centre

The US standard railway gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? Roman war chariots first made the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels and wagons. Since the chariots were made for, or by Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever.

So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder which horse's rear came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war-horses.

And now, the twist to the story… There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds.

When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. Thiokol makes the SRBs at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses behinds. So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a Horse's ass!

Should stray dogs be killed?

Question: What are these dogs doing around us?
Answer: We humans domesticated them because we wanted them to help us in hunting, later on when the civilizations developed and Humans started to cultivate and no more required the dogs then simply dumped them. But dogs were after all man's best friend. They did not dump us and started living around the human settlements, living on what ever we throw out as garbage.

They effectively clean more than half of the garbage that we Humans produce. If dogs weren't there you can't even imagine what would the cities would be like.

The case in point in B'lore is about the contents of garbage. The dogs were eating meat thrown on the road side. Since it is meat which even makes men become devils (that is why many religions ban eating meat); you can't really blame the poor old dog.

Question: The Population of Human beings is not growing...it is exploding..shouldn't they be killed.
Answer: Well killing is not the answer, is it?

Nandigram Fiasco...Some thoughts

What ever happening in Nandigram is an Irony of shorts. Left has been traditionally first to strike down any sort of Industrialization any where in India, calling it anti-poor. Now when trying to do their bit and they are facing the ire of their people.

Why can't they come to a place where they get the land willingly by the people? - Because the Industrialists want the land dirt cheap and the govt is always there to do their bit to oust the poor people from their farm lands and act as a mediator or dalal.

Industrialization has to happen and it has to happen with the consent of the people living where the Industry is coming up. The people who get displace due to and Industrial project are also an important stake holders it. These are the only ones who got only to loose anything from the project, hence they should be properly compensated.

Nandigram has been a flash point where it seemed that both the public and the administration has been rogue. The public of Nandigram have never bothered to come to the discussion tables and from the beginning tried to resists the project; probably never bothering to know what they are going to gain out of it. The administration also been slipshod in their approach, when thy first issued notification to acquire the land without consulting the public affected by the project.