...shoOOonya...

   When a book is authored by the creator of CSI (which is a personal favorite of mine since 2006 when I first encountered some episodes); it doesn't take long to jump into it and devour it quickly. But once I started reading it, I realized it was not so simple. I read while I travel and I prefer to remain off-line when travelling (or when away from laptop) so I don't really use internet on my phone. This book makes you go to a website every 50 pages or so to experience the story in a different media (audio-video). This book is a new concept of DigiNovel … a multi-platform experience that moves the reader from passages in the books to videos on Level26.com … so you read the book and watch engaging videos shot in the style of a movie. This website is an interactive extension of the books series (a trilogy) and put together they form a "Digi-novel". What I find interesting is the marriage of the 2 media (text + video) to create a more engaging experience f...

My father often complains nowadays that it is not easy any longer to identify the coins just by a mere glance. You really got to look carefully and actually read the numbering and lettering on the coin, which is not exactly readable either. He often wonders why the Government of India / mint not use the coin designs from 2 decades ago. I remember the different coins that I have seen in my childhood. The different coins had different shapes and sizes which made them easily identifiable. Look at this picture here. On the contrary; today the 1, 2, 5 rupee coins are all round and shiny with similar styling. Even the 10 rupee coin is round; the saving grace being its two-tone (two-color) design which makes it stand apart from the others. I guess till the year 2000, the coins of 1, 2, 5 were still pretty identifiable with different physical features. 1 rupee coin was round, 2 rupee coin has ridges and 5 rupee coin was smaller and thicker with smaller ridges on the periphe...

  A single change can trigger a host of other changes in life and hence we should always be careful what we wish for. A decision to change one thing can change several others … in fact it might even trigger a chain reaction of changes in life. Case in point: My recent change in job. Decided it was time to switch jobs (triggered by a chance opportunity that came up). When I took the decision to change jobs; I was aware of some big changes that this decision would bring to my life. What I missed out on was the several small changes that would also be part and parcel of this change package. So let me try and list down the changes that a new job has brought in my case (a part of this list will probably be generic enough to apply to You too if you decided to take the leap). 1.   Change of Scenery – From my office in Pune with a lush green scenery around to this current office with a concrete and glass jungle around with even a factory chimney jutting out into the l...

Yet another book from Blog Adda to review and this one was a very interesting read right from page 1 primarily because it was written in first person as a biographical narration of a 'clockwork man'. 'The Clockwork Man' by William Jablonski was yet another new author I got to try thanks to BlogAdda's Book Review Program.  Strangely, wikipedia did not have an entry for William Jablonski nor for the Clockwork Man novel.   Strangely, the clockwork man is not referred to as a 'Robot' in the novel. The reason would be that robots have always been considered as 'electrical/electronic' contraptions while the mechanical man in our story is a purely mechanical 'contraption' devoid of any electronics but instead based on clock work and is designed by an expert creator of artistic clocks.   The way the clockwork man describes the things around him … the creator, his kids, his relationship with them, the way people behave and react around him (i...

I always wanted a break between two jobs but somehow it did not happen 2 years ago. It did not happen even now. So I am left with only a measly duration of 2 days … only one weekend of being unemployed ! Wish I had a longer break ... at least a week … which would have translated into 9 days. But then, I did take a weeklong vacation last month so its OK. So if you are wondering about what I did to enjoy my unemployed weekend; well … Saturday was spent recovering from sleep deprivation of past 3 days where I got something like 4, 5, 6 hours of sleep only. So Saturday was spent in sleeping. Well … that sets the pace of my unemployed weekend J Addendum: I had some high hopes of enjoying Sunday but they were pretty much literally ‘washed away’ by the torrential rains that raged across the day. The plan to go out with the entire family and spend some fun time was reduced to a restaurant visit for dinner in the evening.   I was supposed to get documents photocopied/printe...

    In the old days all great emperors always had one fool in their court (often called the Court Jester). They had many wise men, counselors, ministers and prime ministers, but always one fool .   Why?--because there are things so-called wise men will not be able to understand, that only a foolish man can understand--because the so-called wise are so foolish that their cunningness and cleverness closes their minds. A fool is simple, and was needed because many times the so-called wise would not say something because they were afraid of the emperor. A fool is not afraid of anybody else, he will speak whatsoever the consequences.   This is how fools act--simply, without thinking what the result will be. A clever man always thinks first of the result, then he acts. Thought comes first, then action. A foolish man acts; thought never comes first.   Whenever someone realizes the ultimate, he is not like your wise men. He cannot be. He may be like ...

    Remember the movie Minority Report. Keep that in mind (if you have seen it and) Consider this …   You can see future using the system and prevent the crime. You have created the system and are aware of the people who are trying to discredit it. The system represents you and anything going wrong with the system or the system getting discredited would destroy you and your ideology.   The system comes up with Your own name as a 'future murderer' and now you are in a fix. You know you have no intention of killing the man you don't even know so you are innocent. But if you claim that, then you are saying that the system is wrong. That destroys your work.   So do you go ahead and commit the murder and destroy yourself to keep the systemyou're your own name and ideology alive. OR Do you go ahead and prove the system wrong, discredit your own work and destroy yourself anyway.   Paradoxical situation … isn't it ?   ...