Wednesday, July 26, 2006

All work and no play......

This sounds familiar
.....the ability of not being able to totally get away from work
.....the compulsion of checking mails even when on vacation
....the curiosity to know what is happening at the work place even when you are at home....

Read more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/25/AR2006072500543.html

Do we ever take "real" breaks ??

Cell phones to keep predators at bay

Interesting article.

Girls, you ought to read this.

Guys - does it work??

http://xtraedition.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1801677.cms

Monday, July 24, 2006

How many can you find?

I got this one sometime back. Pretty interesting.....

This picture has names of 100 Hollywood movies hidden in it. We need to use the pictorial clues to find out the movie names?

Wanna try? (Click on the photo to enlarge)

Thanks Karthi for sharing this...

Internet news vs print news

Since most of us these days rely on the internet for news, here is an interesting take by Robert Cringley on how we miss out on a lot of info, bcoz of the growing preference of internet news over print news.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060720.html

You can read more about Robert Cringley here :
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/about/

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

The changing face of Indian Railways

I recently visited the Majestic railway station to see off a friend and was pleasantly surpised to note a few changes at the railway station.

To start with, the parking ticket provided in the car parking area of the railway station was a smart card. Difficult to beleive, isn't it? I had heard of smart cards being provided in the car parking area at Bangalore airport, but never did imagine it at a railway station.

The second thing which took me by surprise was the AC waiting room. You must pay a visit there if possible to actaully beleive your eyes. There were good quality black leather sofas in the AC waiting room for passengers to sit. The place was quite aesthically done up, with one wall sporting a textured finish in bright yellow color. The floor had new gleaming absolutely clean tiles. There was a quite creative tourism map of Karnataka on the wall, not the usual atlas map. Another frame had the lyrics of the famous rail song, sung by and picturised on Ashok Kumarin his youth ("Rail gaadi chuk chuk chuk chuk"). The blinds on the windows were multi-colored, giving the room a bright cheerful look. The pay-and-use bathroom in the waiting area was clean and without any stench. In short, the place was comparable or better than a Business Class waiting lounge in any airport in India.

Maybe I have gone overboard with the description of the place. But the point is it really did take me by surprise!!!

Needless to say, the Railway Minister is doing a great job!!! It is very difficult for people to be able to praise his work because of his past, but he has proved he can be a good at minister when he decides to. He has introduced lots of changes in the way things used to happen, which resulted a decent profit for the railways last year. Some of the changes which helped railways profit are :
- Upgradation to higher class in case of available seats
- Strict checks to ensure genuine VIP bookings(for freedom fighters and senior citizens)

There is still a long way to go...but its good to see that the improvements have slowly started trickling in. However, One thing which needs to be taken care of is the security aspect in the trains, esp after yesterday's blasts in Mumbai.