Sunglasses

What a useful piece of equipment it is. I can't believe how this same one caused so much trouble?

I wear glasses all the time and I also carry a prescription sunglass. On the penultimate day, we were outside the whole day and I was driving back with the family after a trip. Around 6:00 PM in Eastern time here in US, while driving on GSP, a heavy thunderstorm started and visibility was pretty much zero. I was literally sitting on the hood and driving the van. I could hardly see the blinkers of the car before me. It became slightly clear whenever we go under a bridge. Thats when I realized, I'm still driving the van with my sunglasses on! I asked my brother to pass on my regular glass. What a difference?

Bing

I had been trying Bing (Microsoft's new search engine) for the last couple of weeks. I must say that Microsoft finally got it right. First of all, the search returns result that are meaningful to the search term, secondly I like the fact that they store the search history on the left, thridly a preview of the link on the right.

Earlier, everytime I like to search even the microsoft site, I would have to use google to find it, now I can do that from within microsoft! On oneside it was frustrating that you have to go outside of the site you are to find what is inside and on the otherside, I was really worried about Google becoming a monopoly.

Now, we can get ready for a good fight. Hopefully, consumers win this time around.

Habeus Corpus for humanity

In a recent interview with a former child member of the LTTE, he mentioned that the biggest outcome of LTTE's growth was the killing of the political solution to Tamils' cause. That the terrorist organization is almost no-more should lead to the revival of the political process in Srilanka. No war is welcome & decent especially this one! The episode involving Natesan and Pulithevan alone warrants an independent inquiry into the incident and this gives legitimacy to the various accounts of the living conditions and the killing of scores of people living in the war zone.

I want the people (both Tamil & Sinhala) of Srilanka to live together in peace and harmony. I do support the decimation of the terrorist organization and at the same time now that the war is over, all war crimes (whatsoever committed) by the army and the militia need to be investigated and all responsible should be brought to justice.

If common sense doesn't prevail among the leadership in the conflict zone, then we can be sure that another upheavel of this level will occur in the future and that no one can live in peace. It is indeed true that India built up the terrorist organization and withdrew its support when stung by it. Now that it is no-more, there is no incentive for India to continue to support Srilanka for all its deeds. It is in the best interests of India to bring these people ( who committed war crimes) to Justice and work in establishing the equal rights to all the citizens of Srilanka.

India might have a weak personality in its leadership and Srilanka might have a strong personality in its leadership, right now. But its only a matter of time for that to change. In a nations' history 5 or 10 years is a speck.

Hope right sense prevails among the leadership involved in this conflict and a unique justifiable solution is arrived at in the near future.

Welcome to the New CM

For those who yearn for change, this is a very mild solace. Though you can't deem this as a change in leadership. Any change to the current statusquo is welcome. Unlike his other family members viz. Maaran, Kanimozhi and Azhagiri, Stalin was not thrust upon one fine day. He had been in politics for the last 30 years and now he is being projected. Unlike KK, Stalin is not an Atheist. Though you can call this hardly a change, anybody other than KK and JJ is welcome. Hope some sense prevail among the people.

Deterrent for Officials

This recent news story of the Indian Bank CMD getting sentenced for 14 years is a classic example for officials not to listen to the politicians. As great leader Kaamaraj used to say that the politicians need to listen to the officials and not the other way around. Politicians are adept in getting themselves out of the mess and even otherwise, they don't have a shame. That is not the case with officials. This should serve as a deterrent for all officials in joining the looting scheme of politicians.

Live within your means.

GPS and My experience

After much resistance, bought the Garmin nuvi 360. A friend of mine reminded that I might get free maps for a specific period of time. Thus, I set out on the quest to update my new Garmin with the latest ones. To begin with you need to register your product on their website. It was frustrating experience as Garmin's website kept crapping out four-five times and I had to retype my serial number that many time. Then one time it failed with half-saved information. I had to wait few minutes so overall, the registration process alone took 20 minutes! On top of that, you have to upgrade your OS to the latest (5.0) before you attempt to get your maps. This process took 30 minutes. Then the mother-of-all process of updating the maps took 1:45 minutes! The maps was 1.9 GB (big) and in my optimum cable connection @ 500 KBps took little more than an hour and then comes the installation.

After undergoing this pain, I wanted to see whether all this effort is worth? I live in Bridgewater, NJ and tried to find my library under the list of libraries. Before as well as after the update, it failed to list my library in the list. Even if not this library, how many roads gets created a year and how often or how far off do you go? Overall, IMHO its not worth venturing this. May be once in 5 years (you can buy a new better GPS every 5 years rather than going through this pain).

Nano - How did they do it?

Even though its not an official account of how Tata did it, its worth reading. The quintessential mantra of anyone from the developing world "Is this needed?" is the dirving force in building the Nano. If the world learnt about kaizen and kanban from the Japanese manufacturing and it is "Is this needed" is what anybody has to keep in mind in developing products for the developing world.
http://india-auto-expo.blogspot.com/2008/01/making-of-tata-nano-peoples-car-how-did.html
Hope this product is a success and people from the developing world won't ask "Is this needed?"