Personalities of Facebook Users.

If you have a profile on facebook, how do you use it ? Over a period of time I have observed various personalities and I have classified them as below. Which one are you ?

1)  Audience Users:: 

They do not like to post any personal pictures or write about anything on facebook. There would be minimum number of posts on their page and rarely somebody would write on their page. But this shy user does really like to login into the profile and check the activities while they prefer to have a minimum friend list.

2)  Spammers ::

They tend to re-post anything on internet that they find amusing.There is not much of their personal that is hidden. Their latest games, cars or vacations are all public.The sole reason Facebook makes apps on all mobile phones/ tablets is because of them. They have the capability to make a video viral.

3) Sophisticated Users::

These guys are content creators. They like to try new stuff and post their experiences/ reviews on them. Their posts will get comments particularly from some of the other sophisticated users. Sometimes you might not understand their post at all cause it was not meant for the general public but only for this group of sophisticated users.

4) Pics Savy Users::

They hate words and language. For them, pics are proof of happiness. They might have more than 100 pics uploaded. When people comment on their pics, it motivates them to upload more. And it is quite obvious that they look pretty or handsome and uploading more pics is a sign of their confidence.

5) Anonymous Pics Uploader::

I don't know how to explain these guys. But they like to upload pics on a particular topic that they are passionate about like cats, cars and technology. But the interesting thing is none of the pics will contain their own snap. They want to be unknown from the world but still wanna show what are they upto.

Indian Biscuits

Whenever I am traveling to India, I ask my family if they need anything from US. Nowadays they say "We get everything in India, tell us what you don't get in US and we will get it for you". I say "Biscuits".

Somehow the biscuits are not at all popular in the US markets. Rather oreos, crackers and cookies are quite popular here. Few days ago I was talking to my fiance who is in India and she reminded me of some nice biscuits which I had during my time in India. Some of our favorites were Little Hearts, Jim Jam, Hide and Seek. Not only that Biscotti is said to have been a favourite of Christopher Columbus who discovered America!

I think one of the reasons why the biscuit segment is doing so well is because of companies like Parle. I remember Parle had only one product called the Parle G. But later as time passed by they made Monaco which was really something unique as this biscuit unlike others is quite light but still comes packed with lot of taste. By this time Britannia had bourbon which also gained popularity. But Britannia's product were little expensive. Parle too a stance and created few more products like krackjack but also tried to make a bourbon alternative which was a bit cheaper called the hide and seek. Hide and Seek gained a lot of popularity. Over the time there was a isle fully dedicated for biscuits only. They were available in all flavors, shapes and sizes. The creativity of making the biscuits and advertising them was at a peak. 

Today Parle's market share in the biscuit segment might have have reduced to 42% but its because of this company that we find such a big variety of products.

Baghban

My dad really loves to watch this movie "Baghban". He must have seen this movie more than 10 times, I believe. And over the time I have also started to enjoy this movie. From the entertainment perspective, this was something different. Here the story is completely home brewed with no action scenes and silly drama. Something created for the mature audiences and something that we can relate to.

There are movies which Aamir makes where he tries to inspire the youth of India. But there are Baghban type of movies which give a perspective of life. Baghban literally means gardner. The movie is about Raj Malhotra. Raj believes in planting a tree for the future and investing his fortune on them. By nurturing it, he hopes to bask in its shade when he grows old. So Raj and his wife Pooja dedicate their live savings for their four sons upbringing. As a result their sons now live a prosperous life. But when Raj retires, life suddenly changes. None of the four sons come forward to take responsibilities of their parents. This leads Raj to depend on kindness of strangers. The vital question raised in this movie is within our Indian society is the young generation reliable enough to give support to the Old Gardner and his wife ?

Motoactv review

Almost 5 weeks were left for the half marathon and I decided to order my Motoactv 8GB, a fitness tracking device. The reason I had got the device was to track my performance over time and keep myself motivated.

In comparison to other products out there, Motoactv had much superior features. Some of the unbeatable features were automatic performance upload via wifi, inbuilt android os, color display, different skins for watch, and software updates, MP3 music player and FM radio. The only thing I was worried about was the battery performance.

I must have received the device just a few days before my b'day, it came with a set of sweat proof headphones but I had to order strap separately. I was really impressed with the design of the watch and the strap. The device was sturdy and strong but still light weight.

The main selling point of the device was the smart MP3 player which learns to map the performance with the music .And with that it creates playlists to motivate the most. And the device also featured tracking heart beats. But to me these sounded like gimmicks. I was just interested in keeping track of some basic data like speed and time elapsed. After my first run I could summarize that,  basic things like speed and time are very well recorded with the GPS location. But the problem comes when the music is playing in the background cause the battery life just reduces to half. After that experience I decided to never play the music again.

Over the coming weeks I got new software updates to improve battery life. But the most creative feature that I liked was the final performance data presentation. Here is the data recorded during my half marathon: http://bit.ly/IRvAoN

Zen and the art of Corolla maintenance PART 1

After putting off the regular 5K mile service for a long time, I had finally decided to get it done. I expected it to be a regular affair. An hour max in the lobby, browsing the internet until I get my car and run off to the job. But almost after an hour later, Felix (the guy handling my car) came and sat besides me. He looked quite serious. I knew something was wrong. I did not hear a word what he said but just looked at the final figure on the sheet he had in his hand... It was $560.00 I just choked.

I was in shock for a while. He had come to ask me, if I was fine with the estimate. I had the option to reject his services and take my car somewhere else but where would I go ?. I did not have time. I looked over the sheet. They were quite serious, alignment needed, uneven usage of brake pads, water pump leaking, tires getting worn out unevenly, etc. I tried to eliminate something which was not important but everything was important. I told Felix, "Yes, Go ahead" feeling like I was not prepared for this.


Since I was still in the lobby I just waited and browsed. And somehow I just came across the words "Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance ". clicked on it. It is a book written by Robert Pirsig. The title seemed interesting and fortunately I found the online version of the book. Completely Free. Its available here http://design.caltech.edu/Misc/pirsig.html. Honestly I haven't read the whole book. But going through first few chapters I grasped a few concepts that the author is trying to express.

It was something related to what I had just experienced. In the book, the Narrator describes two personalities, one who is looking for quality in life by exploring every tiny detail. And the other who chooses to live a romantic life like a zen without worrying about too much details. The plot laid out in the book was that few motor-cyclists go for a long ride from Minnesota to California. And on the way they experience technical problems with their motor-cycles. Every rider had a different way of accepting the challenge. John, one of the characters decides to remain aloof from the technicality of the issue rather he just hopes a mechanic would take care of the trouble. On the other hand Phaedrus hates professional mechanics. He would even hate to give his bike to a mechanic. He preferred to diagnose and repair the bike himself. On occasions he even helps John with his bike. Phradeus was the one looking for quality in life and everything.


Pirsig goes on to support Phradeus's way of life where searching for quality in life should be the ultimate goal. Rather seeking help from a heartless mechanic, Pharedeus looks after his motor-cycle himself and by doing that he finds inner peace. I don't know how the book ends but I am eager to find out. But until then I know, I am like John who gets frustrated with the car issues and I need to embrace Phradeus's way of life.

Some of the pathetic scenes in Avengers !

Overall Avengers did not have the magic recipe. I did not feel like it was worth so much buzz. This blog has spoiler alert. If you haven't watched the movie and are eager to watch it. Please don't read any further.

      Some of the scenes that I hated the most.

1. Creating a flying stealth aircraft carrier. This concept seems to be completely flawed. If this was supposed to be a base for the Shield then they could have used a simple aircraft carrier. And flying the whole thing in the air seemed completely useless as finally they did not even use it in a real warfare.
2. The scene where the avengers fight with each other. This scene made me feel like the moment when I don't have anything to write on my examination papers but I still want to fill up the sheet.
3. The scene where Thor and his brother Loki fight. Can somebody tell Marvel Comics that Thor's character is very depressing ?. And when the two brothers squabble it's not a cinematic experience. It's loony toons fighting.

     Some positive things

     1. Robert Downey Jr is great as usual. Very natural actor and nice funny scenes.

     2. Captain America becomes a leader in this movie which is good.

   

Lunch Time Explorers !

We have this huge forest behind our work place. And we always wonder what could be out there. Honestly I am not big on exploring. But it was Nagarjun's idea to go and explore. We selected a spot to enter the forest. It had rained recently and the soil was soft. But luckily there were enough stones on that downhill path we chose. So we had enough traction to go down and climb up again.

Our first discovery was this stone cave, a very small one. We went past it and cut through some bushes and made our way into a clear area. There we saw decaying cacti and other plants which had almost decayed. We had to return to work but we still pushed ourselves a little ahead. We thought we might just discover something new. A few feet ahead we were at a dead end. There was this Big Steep Valley and we had to stop there. There was no going ahead.

Few days later we brought Bharat with us and showed him the route we had found. We came to the same spot and stopped. But this time Nagarjun had spotted a passage to go down the valley which was not steep but gradual. We decided to try it out next time. As of now we had a team of three explorers. And just a few days back we convinced Kunal to join us. So now with a bunch of 4, we tried out the gradual passage downwards. We started going down and on the left hand side there was this Huge Stone Cave that we could not miss. We decided to go explore it. We cut through the bushes and reached the cave. It was beautiful, on one side was this cave and on the other side was this another deep valley.

Sometimes I feel like would I able to go on such lunch time adventures if I were in California or North Virginia ?