Prasanna's posterous

Data Card No: 9380801560 - Surrender

Every time I see any advert of reliance, I feel like laughing like a beast. Such a funny piece you guys are. You guys service are just awesome!

Wonder how your product could not even match .001% of your advert?? There are 100000 ways to earn money. Even sometimes stealing someone's money can be treated as a way to live. But, cheaters like you!! chance less.

Just surrender my datacard. I am just going to break it into pieces and throw it out..

Already I lost 1300 Rs. Do you guys expect me to pay the first month bill for the service I hadn't utilized??? If you say so, I will give you guys that money just as  I give it to a beggar who can't do anything for himself.

Never frustrated or blogged for anything like this.

Just go to hell.

Regards,
Prasanna

Waiting to see Endhiran..

Waiting to see Endhiran! Yes, in addition to the usual expectations from the film, it is Writer Sujatha's last movie (story writing). Though Shankar and Balakumaran continued the story writing after Sujatha's demise, I expect Sujatha's sci-fi touch would be more in the dialogues. 

I think there would be some scenes in the movie will visualize the books Yen inya endhira and Meendum jeno. Couple of concepts like robot getting human traits, showing a human who only has an 3d-image but not having a physical body or soul and directed with robotic technology. Loved both the books. Sure Sujatha's way of writing is the best as far as sci-fi is concerned. He had written both the books in 1980s, the time even before the Terminator 1 got released. 

Such a great man he was! He is an ideal example of best story teller.

    
Writer_sujatha
            
220px-endhiran_poster_july_201

First blog post from mobile!

The post you reading now is my first post from mobile. I just sent a mail to post@posterous.com which will create a post with the mail content. Okay cool. After that it will tweet the link in my twitter and also post the same in my blog. Its pretty cool to do all these with the simplest mobile i am having!

Bored about metabloging and tweeting. Yeah me too. Let me tell some thoughts about this kinda connection.

"We can do more with what we having."

Also the same thing can be done in some other smarter way than this.

Huh! Finally i bloged something after a long time (meta again!)

Effortless

Once Buddha was walking from one town to another town with a few of his
followers. This was in the initial days. While they
were traveling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped
there and Buddha told one of his disciples, "I am thirsty. Do
get me some water from that lake there.

The disciple walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that
right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As
a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. The
disciple thought, "How can I give this muddy water to Buddha
to drink!"

So he came back and told Buddha, "The water in there is very muddy. I
don't thinkit is fit to drink." After about half an hour, again Buddha
asked the same disciple to go back to the lake and get him some water to
drink. The disciple obediently went back to the lake.
This time too he found that the lake was muddy. He returned and informed
Buddha about the same. After sometime,again Buddha asked the same disciple
to go back.

The disciple reached the lake to find the lake absolutely clean
and clear with pure water in it. The mud had settled down and
the water above it looked fit to be had. So he collected some
water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.

Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and
said," See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be.... and the
mud settled down on its own - and you got clear water.

Your mind is also like that! When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it
a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don't have to put in
any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless.

"What did Buddha emphasize here? He said, "It is effortless." Having
'Peace of Mind' is not a strenuous job; it is an effortless process!

KEEP SMILING......................... ....not because of something, but
inspite of everything.

Sleep deprivation - worth reading!


Ranjan Das Passed Away on Wednesday, 21-October-2009

http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/1628/ranjan-das-passed-away 

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SAP India CEO Ranjan Das Dies After Gym Workout

http://www.indiatvnews.com/main/newsdetails.php?id=277&mod=1&smod= 

Ranjan Das, CEO and MD of SAP Indian subcontinent

died after a massive cardiac arrest in Mumbai on Wednesday.

One of the youngest CEOs, he was 42

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Carried : Wednesday, 11-November-2009
What killed Ranjan Das and Lessons for Corporate India

http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/general-discussions/3198-lack-sleep-cardiac-problems.html 

A month ago, many of us heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das from Bandra, Mumbai. Ranjan, just 42 years of age, was the CEO of SAP-Indian Subcontinent, the youngest CEO of an MNC in India . He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. It was common to see him run on Bandra's Carter Road . Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife and two very young kids.

It was certainly a wake-up call for corporate India . However, it was even more disastrous for runners amongst us. Since Ranjan was an avid marathoner ( in Feb 09, he ran Chennai Marathon at the same time some of us were running Pondicherry Marathon 180 km away ), the question came as to why an exceptionally active, athletic person succumb to heart attack at 42 years of age.

Was it the stress?

A couple of you called me asking about the reasons. While Ranjan had mentioned that he faced a lot of stress, that is a common element in most of our lives. We used to think that by being fit, one can conquer the bad effects of stress. So I doubted if the cause was stress.

The Real Reason

However, everyone missed out a small line in the reports that Ranjan used to make do with 4-5 hours of sleep. This is an earlier interview of Ranjan on NDTV in the program 'Boss' Day Out': Boss' Day Out: Ranjan Das of SAP India<http://connect.in.com/ranjan-das/play-video-boss-day-out-ranjan-das-of-sap-india-229111-807ecfcf1ad966036c289b3ba6c376f2530d7484.html>.

Here he himself admits that he would love to get more sleep ( and that he was not proud of his ability to manage without sleep, contrary to what others extolled ).

The Evidence

Last week, I was working with a well-known cardiologist on the subject of 'Heart Disease caused by Lack of Sleep'. While I cannot share the video nor the slides because of confidentiality reasons, I have distilled the key points below in the hope it will save some of our lives.

Some Excerpts:

* Short sleep duration ( <5 or 5-6 hours ) increased risk for high BP by 350% to 500% compared to those who slept longer than 6 hours per night. Paper published in 2009.. As you know, high BP kills.

* Young people ( 25-49 years of age ) are twice as likely to get high BP if they sleep less. Paper published in 2006.

* Individuals who slept less than 5 hours a night had a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. Paper published in 1999.

* Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!!

* Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Paper published in 2004.

* Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease. Sleeping for <=6 hours per night leads to 18% increase in heart disease. Paper published in 2006.

Ideal Sleep

For lack of space, I cannot explain here the ideal sleep architecture. But in brief, sleep is composed of two stages: REM ( Rapid Eye Movement ) and non-REM. The former helps in mental consolidation while the latter helps in physical repair and rebuilding. During the night, you alternate between REM and non-REM stages 4-5 times.

The earlier part of sleep is mostly non-REM. During that period, your pituitary gland releases growth hormones that repair your body. The latter part of sleep is more and more REM type.

For you to be mentally alert during the day, the latter part of sleep is more important. No wonder when you wake up with an alarm clock after 5-6 hours of sleep, you are mentally irritable throughout the day (lack of REM sleep). And if you have slept for less than 5 hours, your body is in a complete physical mess ( lack of non-REM sleep ), you are tired throughout the day, moving like a zombie and your immunity is way down ( I've been there, done that ).

Finally, as long-distance runners, you need an hour of extra sleep to repair the running related damage.

If you want to know if you are getting adequate sleep, take Epworth Sleepiness Test below..

Interpretation: Score of 0-9 is considered normal while 10 and above abnormal. Many a times, I have clocked 21 out the maximum possible 24, the only saving grace being the last situation, since I don't like to drive ( maybe, I should ask my driver to answer that line ).

In conclusion:

Barring stress control, Ranjan Das did everything right: eating proper food, exercising ( marathoning! ), maintaining proper weight. But he missed getting proper and adequate sleep, minimum 7 hours. In my opinion, that killed him.
If you are not getting enough sleep ( 7 hours ), you are playing with fire, even if you have low stress.

I always took pride in my ability to work 50 hours at a stretch whenever the situation warranted. But I was so spooked after seeing the scientific evidence last week that since Saturday night, I ensure I do not even set the alarm clock under 7 hours. Now, that is a nice excuse to get some more sleep.

Unfortunately, Ranjan Das is not alone when it comes to missing sleep. Many of us are doing exactly the same, perhaps out of ignorance. Please forward this mail/article to as many of your colleagues/friends as possible, especially those who might be short-changing their sleep. 

Google Goggles: Take Photos of Things Around You to Search for Them

via Google Blogoscoped by Philipp Lenssen on 12/8/09

Google launched Goggles, an Android phones application which lets you snap a photo somewhere, to then get more information about the contents of the photo. (“Reverse image search” engines like TinEye.com turn out to be very useful at certain times.) Some supported use cases for this, according to Google, are:

  • Snapping a pic of a landmark, like the Golden Gate Bridge, and then seeing the web results for that query “Golden Gate Bridge” (like a pointer to Wikipedia’s entry on the subject)
  • Photographing the cover of a book to then preview the book at Google Books, look for its prices at Google Product Search, or check the web results for this title (e.g. its Amazon page)
  • Taking a photo of the name and address printed on a business card, to then find the contact details be broken into their structural parts like email, phone number and so on, ready to be added to your address book
  • Taking a photo of an artwork to find out the name of its painter
  • Dynamically getting location places when you point the camera towards restaurants, cafes and bars on a street
  • Taking a picture of a wine label get more info about the wine
  • Taking a picture of a logo to find out more about the company behind it

I haven’t got an Android phone (yet*), but Mathias Schindler wrote in to tell me this app is “the best thing since sliced bread”. Pd comments that “not only is one feeding of the database, one is also adding to it.. Big advantage to Google!” Mathias adds:

I “goggled” a couple of Van Gogh paintings, all were recognized. In one case, instead of the painting a book with that cover was recognized, with the original painting as alternative. The ISBN bar code of a German book didn’t work, several Wikipedia pictures worked. It’s also very interesting that the quality of a snapshot of the computer screen was sufficient to return reasonable results. The business card scan worked very well.

Hebrew text recognition at the moment didn’t work at all, other non-Latin character sets I didn’t yet try. No doubt about it, the currently missing next step for Google would be to translate recognized texts, too. The technology is already available at Google after all.

If we continue that thought, then we end up with a user interface that could run even smoother than now. No more changing between camera and result, but, for instance, the embedding of the translation of a sign right into the camera picture, at the appropriate place. If Google’s product videos showing the augmented reality examples are to be believed – I didn’t try that part out yet – then this is already partially possible.

Is this a killer app, e.g. a piece of software that on its own can convince people to buy a specific phone/ OS/ hardware? Have you tried it, and if so, what are your thoughts?

[Thanks Pd, BizAbh, Mathias, Luka and Mbegin! Left-hand image CC-licensed by Brewbooks, other images taken from Google’s product video.]

*It might be nice for those of us without an Android phone to have this as normal web app too. Is Google trying to get more Android phones sold, or are they afraid to scale this app for all web users, or don’t they think it’s useful in a desktop browser... or what could be the reason for a mobile app only release for now?

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Goggles: Take Photos of Things Around ... | Comments]


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