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Friday, December 7, 2012

Piano brilliance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2qdFAwv3Bs

Monday, August 20, 2012

PS: While fixing a mobile phone

The other day I was fixing some of my old mobile phones. I wanted to donate it to some one instead of having it lying around at home. Yea yea, these days mobile phones are good items to donate. So, what's my mobile phone story? Over the course of 4 years I have replaced my mobile 3 times. Curiously enough, they all had developed display related problems. So, while my number remained unchanged, my phone kept changing. In a single stroke I got all the displays fixed and before giving it out, I wanted to check if everything was working and fine.

While I was browsing through the features, I happened to look at my inbox as well. I am so glad I did that because what I found in it was a memory of my life in the last 4 years. Through sheer chance each of the phones retained a portion of the text messages I had received and sent over the years. It was fun reading through them. I saw my reflection in the past and it was nostalgic. It also felt like I was reliving those days in the moment I was reading the messages. As I scanned through the messages, I realized so many things had changed in the time.

If you happen to have an old phone, I would urge you to take a look and see if you still have some messages in it. Maybe you will find something in it that you cherished. Perhaps a funny exchange of messages with a friend, perhaps a tough situation which you got out of, perhaps a silly conversation which you can laugh over. Whatever you find in there, it will definitely rekindle your memory, a part of you which is now only an imprint in the shadows.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

It seems like my writing has become more practical and less intuitive. Atleast, that's what I feel when I look back at my earlier posts and compare them with my recent ones

Sunday, April 29, 2012

RO Purifiers and Extensive Water Wastage

An urban Indian home is more often than not likely to face extensive water shortage in the summer months. The water shortage has spawned various products and services which attempt to fill up the infrastructure gap left unfilled by the government. Potable water is now one of the key resources in short supply. The reasons are manifold and I will not delve into the cause for the shortage. My post is mainly to highlight the role of RO purifiers, a product which is likely to magnify the problem of water shortage.

RO purifiers have been in use for a long time, mainly in industrial applications and large scale water treatment systems. With the present water crisis in urban areas, water purifiers have sprung up in plenty. Each product variant claims to turn drain water into pristine potable water. And people are lapping it up to save on the cost of tanker supplied water or canned water. The problem with RO purifiers is not in the water safety or potability. It has to do with the operations and working. RO is used to separate out solid constituents and other dissolved particulates by forcing water under pressure through a micro-sieve. By using this technology, even brackish water can be made drinkable. The catch is in the details.

For every litre of potable water produced, the RO purifier dumps 3-4 litres of waste water. If you passed 4 litres of water through an RO purifier, it would produce only 1 litre of potable water. Now, this wastage is admissible if one is trying to convert brackish water into drinking water. But the water that is supplied through borewells or tankers or cans are not brackish! They are largely usable, with minimal filtration and UV. Since the RO purifiers are designed for treating even brackish water, they perform poorly in the normal household conditions.

For every one litre of water produced, the remaining 3 litres go wasted when they could have actually been used for non-drinking applications. This presents a serious concern since the final beneficiary of imposing further water shortages is the RO companies. The relevant water authority needs to take a look at this emerging phenomenon and impose measures to curb the usage of this product.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Shutting off the engine at signals

Price rice of gasoline has begun enforcing this behaviour. I turn the engine off at signals when the waiting time is more than a minute. Strangely, my mind also goes blank during these waiting times!

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Are you the kind of person who has the magnanimity to forgive a thousand wrongs but you harp on being unforgiving about one wrong in specific?

Friday, February 10, 2012

Electric Cars and Bikes - The Myth of clean energy

Of late I have come across many advertisements and articles which tout electricity powered vehicles as being environmentally friendly and clean. This information is grossly incorrect. The sight of an emission-less vehicle as compared to one which spews out noxious exhaust fumes is embedded in people's minds. This perception often makes people believe they are indeed adopting cleaner transport. But are they?

In India, close to 65% of the energy generated comes from coal based power generation. For every unit of energy consumed as electricity, 0.65 units is produced from coal, one of the dirtiest known energy sources. And by the time that energy is delivered to homes, over 30% of the energy goes wasted due to various losses. So, the energy companies end up producing more electricity and burning more coal to compensate for the losses.

By shifting to an electricity powered vehicle all one is doing is centralizing pollution and shifting the 'dirty' fumes to a remote location. But that's not all. The creation of infrastructure required to move the dirty fumes also end up polluting. So, there goes the myth of 'clean' electric vehicles.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Two Fundamental Levers

What more can I do?
How can I get better at what I am already doing?

Everything else follows.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Caffeine fixation

How could I have not thought about this earlier? :) When you have Coffee and Chocolate syrup at home the most obvious thing to do is to add the syrup to coffee!! Yes. That's exactly what I am going to do tomorrow morning (assuming that the morning does come). In the meantime I am getting curious about how the mix might taste. This experiment might just spur me on to try a few more flavored coffee variants. You might have already realized that I am a coffee addict. If you haven't.. well, you have the answer! So long...