ApnaCircle's Spam-o-Maina

Long ago I read a review on some blog that Sabeer Bhatia started a Linked-In clone for India called ApnaCircle. Since I know Linked-In's popularity in the US, I got excited of Apnacircle's prospects here in India and joined it.

Whenever I join or register on a new website I don't give out my primary email address. However, noting the fact that this venture was started off by Sabeer I thought that the website will be pretty professional and would respect people's privacy and follow stringent anti-spam policies. So, I registered over there with my primary email address.

After joining in I noticed that there were not so many people out there on the website and decided to give it some time to mature and market itself. With Linked-In's backdrop behind my head I was pretty sure that this venture would go somewhere because this was one untapped market. The need for personal social networking was filled by Orkut so what remained was professional social networking. Thats where I though ApnaCircle will fit in.

All said and done within a month I started getting emails from folks on ApnaCircle who were interesting in Dating! let alone professional networking! The women who sent out dating invitations often had Russian names like Svetlana and Maria. This was pretty surprising to me. The admins at ApnaCircle seemed not to notice this at all.

Later after another couple of months I got invitation from ApnaCircle itself for checking out their new news section which also focused on local news by the city you lived in !

I thought ApnaCircle was started for Professional Social Networking ! What the hell happened to that? They've gone into news and spam dating invites ! Crap ....I've now signed out of that shit good for nothing social network. I've also insructed GMail to categorize ApnaCircle mails as SPAM!

I think Sabeer really doesn't have any talent to start and run online businesses at all. With Hotmail I guess he fell at the right place at the right time and got lucky. All this later ventures like Arzoo, The online office thing and this ApnaCircle have gone to the dumps.

Conclusion: The Professional Social Netoworking space in India is still open and is up for grabs for anybody who has moolah for advertising.

Cold water baths

Today sadly I announce that I have succumbed to the prevailing conditions at my place. Let me explain.

Our house has a perpetual water problem. We get water only 2 hours in a day in the mornings. Later part of the day is essentially dry.

Taking a bath in winter generally demands for warm water. We have 2 geysers installed. Sadly due to the lack of water none is used :( . We now use gas for heating up the water and then have a bath.

We do have a reserve water tank. However, for the water to flow with some force the water tank needs to be at least 15 feet above the roof of the house. 15 feet and above ensures good flow. Our tank is just around 5-6 feet overhead which renders it useless for passing it to the geyser and expecting hot water out of it. We live in a flat. Taking the tank up 15 feet is just not possible.

To add to the woes I am a staunch environment conservationist and do not like heating up the water on gas which is very energy inefficient. I finally found out a way to end up these worries by switching to taking a cold water bath. No energy requirements and no need for waking up early in the morning to take a bath. Cold water bath is the way to go.

Guyana - We Indian's don't seem to care

A month ago I saw this girl on a dating site. She claimed in her profile that she was an Guyanese East Indian. Her profile looked right. Photos looked good. So I thought why not contact her and see whether she is interested in me.

Pretty quickly she responded back and gave her phone number. I called her and we started to talk on the phone. By now, I've gotten pretty good at charming women on the phone at least. She expressed a desire to meet somewhere in Midtown Manhattan for lunch. Within the next couple of days we decided a time and went out for lunch.

The girl was pretty interesting to talk but not really my type. Nevertheless, its always fun to hold a conversation with an absolute stranger and we talked for about an hour or so. She told me that she was born and brought up in Guyana. A country in South America east of Venezuela. She also mentioned that 53% of population of Guyana is East Indian. This was unbelievably shocking to me. I am the kinda guy whose pretty much read all history there is to India ever written anywhere. Well, more or less. I was really curious to know the history behind this and started off reading about Guyana over Wikipedia.

As the story goes, Indentured Labor traveled with the British for construction and farming from India to Guyana and another country called Suriname. These people are their descendants. Slowly and gradually the population of East Indians out there has grown to a little over than 50%. In Suriname its around 70-80%. We practically run the governments out there. The president of Guyana is a guy called Bharat Jagdeo. Wow, just imagine....

I knew this kinda story with Mauritious, Trinidad and Tobago and West Indies, but South America ? No way ...

I just wish the Indian Govt establishes ties with these far and forgotten countries and gets them some attention in mainstream Indian media. It will be also great if history books taught in the school would cover this aspect of Indian history rather than just giving us an overdose of Shivaji and that fucked up asshole Gandhi.

Austrailian Policits with Respect to India is such a sham

A month ago I read an article that Oz won't sell Uraniam to India since India hasn't signed the NPT. This was for 1 reason. Ozzy politicians would pee in their pants if the US figures out that their ally's trying to sell nuke fuel to India. You see, Uncle Sam overshadows.

Oz has no fucking say in what their country should and should not do. US dictates it. Shame. Utter shame.

Today I read on Rediff again that those shitty Ozzy politicians have reverted back their decision and are now ready to sell fuel to India. Condition: Lame Ozzy good-for-nothing "nuclear inspectors" would inspect where the Uraniam sold by them is being utilized and ensure that its only in civilian nuclear installations and not military ones.

hahaha... Like we're gonna tell them out loud when we will siphon off the Uraniam to military installations!

I can't believe it that politicians actually believe that if a treaty is signed it will be followed religiously. Especially when it deals with nuclear stuff.

If Ozzy politicians can be such lamers Indian politicians can be even more lamer and siphon the cakes quickly to nuclear installations! hahaha...

Lame Ozzies. Shame Ozzies.

Good idea to control Environmental Pollution

Just thought of a good idea to control environmental pollution.

The supermarkets are full with various types of fruit juices and concentrates. All of these mostly come in Plastic bottles. Instead of buying these Plastic bottle filled juices why not buy paper based packs which have fruit juices as well. Paper is bio-degradable where as Plastic takes 300 years to bio-degrade.

Save our mother earth.

Osho Thought

Be life-affirmative. Life is synonymous with God.
You can drop the word God — life is God. Live with reverence, with great respect...gratitude. You have not earned the life, it has been a sheer gift from the beyond. Feel thankful and prayerful, and take as many bites of it as possible and chew well and digest well.

-- I love this guy. He is the only Idol I could ever see up to. The ONLY!

Top 22 worst named places in the world!

22. Cockburn, Western Australia
Although this name is often pronounced "Coburn" by those who stand to lose from its awfulness, who actually reads that when they see this word? Oh, how it burns.

21. Twatt, Orkney, Shetland Islands, Scotland
The Shetland Islands, pronounced "Shitland Islands" if you have an accent like mine, make up a happy little area north of Scotland where it's too cold for trees to grow. I am related to approximately half the population of the Shetland Islands, share a last name with a quarter of them, and can probably trace my ancestry back to Twatt if I try hard enough. The pride!

20. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu, New Zealand
Locals call this hill in Hawke's Bay "Taumata" because... Well. Just because.

19. Muff, Ireland
We here at Drivl love puerile humour. They have a town called Muff. Har har har.

18. Looneyville, Texas, United States
Little Looneyville was named for storekeeper John Looney in the early 1870s. But who gives a shit. This is a hilarious name for a town in the state that brought us Dallas, the Bush Twins and Waco. How awkward must that be when you go to college? "Hey guys, my name's Sue and I'm from Looneyville!"

17. Titty Hill, Sussex, England
Falling squarely into the extensive Stupid Place Names From England category, Titty Hill is probably located just north of...

16. Thong, Kent, England
Which actually is south-east of...

15. Gravesend, Kent, England
Oh, come on, England. Graves End? What a nasty, depressing little name. You could have at least gone all the way with this one and called it Corpse Feet.

14. Wetwang, Yorkshire... yep! England again!
Okay, so I'll cut England some slack. It's an old country. You know, if the United States is Google, then England is IBM. Their country is older than fucking dirt. They can't be blamed for having names that sound funny in 2007. But this is kind of ridiculous. Wetwang? I'm surprised they don't have towns called Squishy Vagina or Infected Scrotum.

13. Spread Eagle, Wisconsin
If I were mayor of Spread Eagle, I'd be making diplomatic advances towards the city leaders over in Wetwang to form a Sister-City relationship. Or maybe more of a Platonic-Friends-City relationship. After that, we'd just take thing slow and see what happened.

12. Bald Knob, Arkansas, United States
Well, I guess it's better than Hairy Knob. I assume England already has that one covered.

11. Cockup, Cumbria, England
Cumbria is a county in the very north-west of England. What the backwoods of Alabama are to America is what Cumbria is to Britain. They talk funny up there. Thus, it isn't thoroughly surprising that they have a town called Cockup. What do you call someone from this place? A Cockupper? Cockupeleite? Cockuppian? Cockupican? I suppose it's mildly better than Wetwangger.

10. Whiskey Dick Mountain, Washington State, United States
As hard as America tries, it can't compete with Britain's high standards. This was a good effort, though. Well done, Washington.

9. Hookersville, West Virginia
Undoubtedly named before "hooker" meant "prostitute who picks men up on street corners," Hookersville combines two crimes of place-naming. One, a dirty sounding adjective (they couldn't have chosen "Pleasant"? "Sunny"? "Happy"?) And two, they added "ville" to the end of the town's name. Affixing "ville" to the end of a town's name is like dressing your silly little dog in a cardigan and letting him carry his leash around in his mouth. It just makes the poor animal look fucking stupid.

8. Hell, Michigan, United States
The people in this town at least seem to have a good sense of humour about their home's unfortunate name. Although, I'm sure there's some midwestern idiots in Hell who get all offended and defensive when the town shows up on lists like this. I'm looking forward to reading their insightful emails and comments.

7. Toad Suck, Arkansas, United States
So that's what they do down in the big AR.

6. Middelfart, Denmark
I guess it's not so funny to them, but how do we know that "Seattle" doesn't mean "Big Fat Stinking Turd" in Danish? That's right, we don't. And it probably does.

5. Horneytown, North Carolina, United States
Its proximity to Hookersville, West Virginia is no coincidence. I also assume that, like Hookersville, the naming of Horneytown took place before "horney" meant "aching for a hot piece of ass" with an extra "e". But I'm starting to wonder why, pride and tradition aside, the townspeople in these little places never saw it fit to change their homes' names? Do they enjoy being ridiculed by the entire English-speaking world?

4. Shitterton, Dorset, England
I wonder if they bleep out the first part of Shitterton's name if it's mentioned on TV in America?

3. Disappointment, Kentucky, United States
Le sigh. Never mind. You live in a small town in Kentucky. At least it was appropriately named.

2. Fucking, Austria
The idiots who live in Fucking, Austria had a vote in 2004 to determine whether or not they should change the town's name, and you know what they did? They voted against it, preferring instead to put up with international ridicule, numerous stolen road-signs and horrific Google results.

But the hands-down winner, again from New Zealand is:

1. Whakapapa
Why is this the worst place name in the world? In Maori, the native language of New Zealand, the "wh" sound is pronounced "f". Say it aloud in your office and see what happens.

Another fantastic usability innovation

I don't know why but I've been stumbling upon amazing usability innovations lately. Here is another one. Every stair has been converted into a drawer as well.

This is fantastic use of space. Imagine. This will reduce the clutter for those extra cabinets to store all the bedsheets, shoes, stuff which you don't use regularly and what not.

Some Australian guy designed it and is selling it in Aus as well !

Fantastic innovation I must say.

Its summer and I can come late in office

During the winter months when I come in the office I generally wear a hard leather jacket. I am one of those who is awake will 1-30 am in the night and just cant make it on time in the office the next day. When I come late, people are already there in the office and have removed and hung their cloaks on their seats. When I come in late, I am the only person with the jacket and hence its immediately clear to everybody that I've come late. Too Bad.

Summer comes and things change. We no longer need to wear those jackets. A simple shirt and pant is good enough as an office attire. So when I walk in late, folks generally end up thinking that I had gone for getting some water or may be I'm coming in from the canteen after having my breakfast. This gives an added boost to come late.

Wow. I love it.

Coolest idea I've seen in a while !

I've pulled this from another blog I'm copy pasting it here.

Begin->

Sometimes I’m amazed at the creativity of some people who earn a good living filling needs that anyone could do. I was at a gathering today when I struck up a conversation with a man who described his job as a “commute helper.”

“OK, what exactly is a commute helper?” I asked

“I help people have a smooth and quick commute,” he replied.

“How do you do that?” I asked

“I sit in their car, ” he said with a smile.

This is what happened. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the commutes in certain sections are absolutely horrendous. This guy was sitting in a traffic jam one morning watching all the people in the carpool lane drive by while he was moving at snail’s pace. He decided that he needed to get someone else in his car so that he could get to work in a timely manner using the carpool lane, and at first thought that his only option was to start a carpool.

As he thought about it more, however, he thought that he (as in himself and his body) was actually a valuable commodity and he could sell himself and that is exactly what he did. He walked to the freeway entrance and held up a sign that said,

“Traffic is bad. Spend 2 hours or pay me $10 and get there in 20 minutes”

He said the first day he was picked up within 15 minutes. When he got dropped off, he walked to the other side, held up his sign and got paid to go back the other way too. On a typical day he makes 2 to 3 round trips during the morning commute rush hour and 3 - 5 round trips during the evening rush hour. If there is an accident and traffic is really slow, his price doubles. He clears $100 - $300 a day sitting in a car so others can get to work and home faster!

I just had to laugh when I heard his explanation and how brilliantly simple it was.

<- End

This is the most innovative idea to make a buck I've seen in some while. I generally blog stuff that I find interesting. This is one more.

The text has been pulled from

http://www.pfadvice.com/2006/06/21/creative-job-commute-helper