Live Free. Live Happy.

Here is a letter by Richard Dawkins to his daughter, when she turned ten, about evidence, belief, tradition, rationalism, authority and revelation. It is slightly long but is definitely worth reading.

Dear Juliet,

From a mail forward I had received ...

Government of India has developed an 'Online Grievance Forum' at http://pgportal.gov.in/. Can you imagine this is happening in INDIA?

The govt. wants people to use this tool to highlight the problems they faced while dealing with Government officials or departments like Passport Office, Electricity board, BSNL/MTNL, Railways etc. Many of us say that these things don't work in India.

Here is an interesting conversation between Ramu and Shamu. Shamu is apathetic towards politics and Ramu is actively involved in spreading awareness related to it. In the below chat, Ramu tries to answer some of the basic and most important queries related to elections put forth by Shamu.

Shamu: Hi Ramu, how are you?
Ramu: Hi Shamu, I'm fine. How are you?

Shamu: I'm fine. So what's up?
Ramu: Nothing much. Just looking up some information related to the 2009 elections.

1. Lorenz's Law of Mechanical Repair
   After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.
2. Anthony's Law of the Workshop
   Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.
3. Kovac's Conundrum
   When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged one.
4. Cannon's Karmic Law
   If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tyre, the next morning you will have a flat tyre.
5. O'brien's Variation Law
   

Good news for all Heroes Fans. Heroes Season 3 is going to be aired in India on Star World starting Dec 23, 2008. Be sure to catch the heroes in action!

This is actually quite a silly post and I wouldn't be writing this if not for I having a similar experience twice within a single week.

The first case was when I wanted to get a key duplicated. I visited a shop and he told me it would cost me Rs.125. I felt it was costly and tried to bargain it for Rs.80. He initially refused but as I was coming out he agreed for it. Anyway, there was another store beside it offering the same service and upon enquiring he told me that the key duplication would cost me only Rs.65.

Recently two women spoke the words in which I firmly believe.

The first was by my friend Veena. Her brother (my very close buddy) and her parents had been on the lookout for a suitable alliance for her. While she initially seemed fine with it, very soon she got very confused about the kind of life partner she was looking for. A couple of weeks back she called up her brother and told him that she would want some time for herself to know more about herself and think about what it was that she would like to have in her life partner. Needless to say, my friend (her brother) happily agreed.

For all you movie buffs out there, you might not be aware but now there are many Indian online DVD Rental companies. They offer not only free delivery but also free pick up. There are many plans to choose from. The important thing to remember about them is that not all of these companies offer top-notch service and sometimes they might caught a lot of distress with their bad support / quality.

Below is a speech given by CA M.R.Venkatesh titled "Global Imbalance - An imminent Dollar Crisis" . The interesting part is that this speech was given by the economist long back before the current financial crisis in the USA. This is a must watch for everyone as it gives insight into some of the reasons for the current state USA is in.

Any idea on how much your wallet (+mobile) could be worth (generally speaking) keeping apart the liquid cash? - 60 k (credit card) + 25 k (debit card) + 5 k (calls using mobile SIM) = Rs.80000. So if someone gets hold of it and you don't become aware of it immediately, you could be robbed upto 80 K in a single day. Here are some neat tricks on minimizing the loss due to stolen debit/credit cards: