Nutty High !!

Ah..finally..it seemed like an eternity waiting for the "Draft" section to load.. you see I sometimes get these spurts of thoughts, which I wanna pen (err..blog) right-away, before I get carried away by some other random thing.

One of those moments, I guess, fingers itching to type (I thought that's something I would never say, when I put it that way) the rumblings in my head. Man, my head is throbbing after those peanuts I gobbled up; certainly couldn't let them get past that way, without the joy of chewing them thoroughly; but hell, that cost me ! My temples..ah, now I know where they are..damn. The things that you end up doing, when you walk in, no almost staggering (from hunger), grab the first thing you can find to abate those pangs. I did that exactly, you see. Found a packet of peanuts stashed away in the cupboard, ripped it open into a container and started to munch them all too quickly. Half a minute into it, before I realized my jaws ain't equipped at handling / working at the speed of an ICE. Ouch ! So I settled down to read my FB messages. We have group chats going on everywhere these days - it's like you start in one place (whatsapp) and then continue elsewhere - like facebook ! I know it get's difficult to keep track, if that's what you are thinking..but well, it doesn't matter really..ours is a fairly close-knit group of buddies from college you see, and we just talk about random things, some from the past, others stemming from jokes in the past or the likes. That's when I had this urge to capture the flow of thoughts in my head..it was as though I had to let them out at the same pace it was getting generated, unadulterated (though that's not so true, is it?, obviously I couldn't afford typos). Ok, now the question arises, as my head starts to clear up from the thick clouds of smoke generated by munching peanuts, when do I stop this non-sense. Right about now, I guess !!

Peace,

\m/ your's truly \m/

Holy Cow !

Back when I was an NRI (I hate that term; maybe I’ll come up with a more appropriate one soon), on the rare occasions when I came across something remotely ‘racist’, like for instance an American TV show featuring somebody on the road stopping to worship the holy cow et al, I used to think we Indians, like a lot other people from different cultures, are probably the most stereotyped for things that in the modern age even in India might be considered quite ridiculous. Perhaps it used to occur more frequently few decades back, but in New Age India, boy, you don’t wanna know that even first world countries will be put to shame when it comes to westernization and technology.

But well let me confess, I was wrong. Ha! But the latter part of my assurance that India is still at the forefront of technology holds true though. When I landed in Pune a year back, driving around cows (holy and the others) became a routine event on my way to and from work. And strangely enough, people who look too busy to even let a bunch of school kids cross the road, stop to worship the cow – this time the Holy one! Amusing, I found it in the beginning and some part of me sought apology from the random American director whom I had cursed earlier for being ‘racist’. But then again the cows in turn, I’m not sure whether they really know they are being treated godly or not, sure started taking all this worshipping quite seriously I assume. For, these days, they just decide to sit right in the middle of the road! And quite unperturbed people continue to ply around them.

Peace,

$ur

The New Age Zombies

1. Smartphone Users

For us, let's face it, it's all about the Battery Charge, Bq!!

I’ve said this before, briefly, in my previous write-up about the strange life of the phone battery. The golden equation of charge retention for uninterrupted power outage and misery avoidance goes something like this

14 ≤ (Bq) ≤ 17; and valid for all integer (only) multiples of this value.

Any deviation from this rule will invariably involve frantic moments with high levels of perspiration, pockets bulging with chargers, constant charge monitoring of the battery level indicator and/or the cell phone dropping dead between a call!!

Scary, I know!

Of course, there are conditions apply to this rule too. Assuming that your typical work day starts by say 8 every morning, you are taken care of at least till 10pm; for the late nighters till about 1am!! Often with new age smart phones if this rule is met, it’s more than good enough!

Battery Blues

Imagine now you get battery backup in non-integer multiples.

So when Bq < 14, you may have to put it to charge just as soon as you might be reaching home; and then if your night involves a dinner out, you gotta charge it a little at least before you hurry out and then put it back on charging before hitting the sack!

When Bq > 14, you still have some charge left in your battery when you’re about to turn in for the night, and you are bugged thinking you really don’t want to charge when your battery is still 25% full!!

So either ways, you end up having to do a lot of math if you want to get your phone’s charging cycle right, and that’s almost every day!!

Why this matters?? (are you kidding me !)

Well, to the casual user these things hardly matter, but make this a practice, and soon you’ll see that your battery charge retention has gone down.

So after being through this frustrating mental exercise the first few months of my smart-phone usage, I reduced the time spent on non-phone features – most of which drains out my battery – games, heavy internet usage etc during the peak times of the day. If I’m left

with ample charge towards my day’s end, I then liberally use my phone for gaming and 3G surfing!

Still, I do a lot of math, and I don’t deny it does get difficult at times. But I’m slowly getting used it – most of it now comes to me as though it’s all hard wired into my system – am now one of those new age zombies \m/ !

Peace,

$ur

Nokia's Leap with Lumia

About 6 months back or so, I had blogged about how Nokia has been trying to keep it's loyal clientele happy with teeny weeny offerings such as the customizable apps for Symbian based Nokia smartphones !

I myself thought Nokia was almost out of the game when the Droids and iPhones were so much more intuitive and feature rich, while Nokia was still making phones on it's age old Symbian OS with updates that failed to capture anybody's attention. But then came the Lumia ! Bham !

Firstly, the Metro interface of the OS, then the awe inspiring form factor and the Nokia True Black screen resolution/clarity, Lumia is just mind blowing ! Bringing in a lot of innovation, and thankfully  with an interface that even a Droid or iOS will drool over, Mr. Jobs himself would have been pleased to see this one !

I'm certainly not a person who buys the hottest thing on the market just because everyone's after it. But the first chance I got to check out this Baby - Lumia 800, whoa, it really made my eyes ogle.

So off I started with my research.

Sure, there were some minor software bugs reported, being the first generation of it's kind. But overall, the experience I felt was worth owning ! Then on, I tried to find reasons why it would suite my needs :P lol. Well not exactly, but I did read on a lot of different forums that most of the glitches were minor and fixes for poor battery life and tethering were just around the corner.

The thing I've realized about the battery life that seems most important is whether it will give you enough to get you through your entire day - 8 am to 11 pm or no more than 15 hrs. (A post will be dedicated for this one !!) and I managed to get a pretty accurate estimate that the Lumia will not fail my expectations !

Next what I loved was the social networking integration in the OS. Further, the MS Office productivity suite and the ever growing app store gave me a strong impetus to zero in on Lumia. Given a choice, I would have opted for the newer of the Lumias, the 900. But it was more expensive and available only in the US with the Verizon bundle. Basically, this one has a bigger screen, a faster processor and a better battery (though the processor will drain out more, giving it only a slight edge). But importantly, the newer one might be the first of the Lumias to support the Windows Apollo / 8 OS. But alas, this wasn't an option, so I settled for the Lumia 800.

But, I must add I certainly hadn't settled for anything less ! Pure indulgence is what you get with this smartphone ! Be it web browsing, Xbox gaming, Office suite use, scheduling and RSVP'ing events, social networking or navigation in some of the most interior of places, I'm thoroughly happy with my decision. It puts out a decent 12-15 hours of charge on heavy usage and close to a day on moderate usage. 

I feel Nokia has really stepped up their ante in the Smartphone arena with the launch of Lumia following their collaboration with Microsoft. I'm still hoping though, that Nokia realizes sooner than later, what Apple's success factor has been with it's iPhone - providing iOS upgrades across all the models. If Nokia can somehow manage to pull this one off by making Lumia 710 or at least 800 upgradeable to Win 8, that'll be a huge bonus in terms of customer base retention !!

More to follow..

$ur

Curb the Krokodil !

Few days back, I stumbled across something really disturbing, or more distressing perhaps, given the plight of a once great nation that had mostly just great examples of almost everything to look up to - Russia. 

When I refer to Russia as a great country, that produced many bright and successful engineers, scientists, sportspersons etc., I'm referring to all the Soviet nations in general, largely because most people associate Russia more with USSR than any other country (though not meant to offend the other nations).

Anyways, so it was shocking to me when I found out about this street drug called 'Krokodil' that's taking the toll of millions in Russia. Krokodil or desomorphine, most lucrative to and used by people living in the lower strata of the society, is mostly home cooked off headache tablets and the likes easily purchased at the Chemist without a prescription. So what's drawing more and more people to use it? Well, it's supposed to be about 8 times stronger than Heroin and about 1/10th the price!! And also because it's a home preparation and not a drug that's sold in the market per say, it's even more accessible !!

This drug however is highly toxic and very difficult to wean one off, leaving addicts only about 2 years of life expectancy. It literally eats through the flesh of the addict until it falls off. The few pictures I managed to find were pretty ghastly and stomach turning !

Russia has fallen prey to this epidemic and the nation doesn't seem to be taking enough measures to curb the widespread and ever increasing usage. Some say the its country's indifferent attitude towards junkies' treatment. But then there is also a financial motive for the pharmaceutical industry which is probably benefitting the most from the sudden hike in sales of codeine based tablets.

Report says more and more such forms of drugs are hitting the Russian streets making drug addiction a serious concern and factor of deaths in Russia.

It was really sad to learn all this; and come to think, most people outside of Russia are totally unawares to this situation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/krokodil-the-drug-that-eats-junkies-2300787.html

Click the link enclosed to read more in detail !

Peace,

$ur