Today I learnt that:

1. Google launched "Quiet place project" - a place where you can pour all your thoughts or heart-ache, but no one would be able to see/agree/disagree/like or comment on it. I already installed it and it seems nice, but I can replace this with a blog, which is not available to view by others. So, let's see how this project spans out.
2. Operation Research includes the decision making process with the help of mathematical modelling. Well, as per the author of a book on this topic, operations research is not as easy as it seems because of the human factor, which can literally make the mathematical model useless.
3. Ricky Ponting is the 3rd person in the history of Test Cricket to reach 13000 Runs. He is next to Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
4. NDTV Indian of the Year award 2011 went to Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal.
5. India is now the sixth nation to have a nuclear submarine. It has bought it from Russia and named it INS Chakra. According to the news article, Russia abandoned the project long ago due to lack of funds, but India infused around $1 billion to start the project again in partnership. This is not the first time India has bought a nuclear submarine. In 1993-94, India bought it from Russia but lack of use and training led to gradual depreciation of that submarine. Also, it is said that it can outrun any Pakistani or Chinese submarine as of date.
6. Sachin Tendulkar has won the ICC Cricketer of the Year only once in his lifetime - 2010.
7. In a world survey, Prince Williams has won the award for most popular person in the world beating Barrack Obama and Steve Jobs.
8. RBI (Reserver Bank of India) has cut the CRR (Cash reserve ratio) by 0.5 basis points. This means that the Indian banks would have to keep lesser money deposited with RBI, and hence can lend more money to the customers. This would result in lesser interest rates or lesser EMI on loans. Home/Auto loan EMIs won't be affected in the short term as per RBI. The news was accepted very well among the investors, resulting in a 250 point hike in Sensex.
9. Mango is a smartphone launched by Microsoft and is based on windows 7.5
10. Online retailer giant, Amazon, is planning to enter India and set up its first base in Hyderabad.
11. Mumbai Blasts (13/7) masterminds have been arrested from Bihar. They belong to Indian Mujaheedin.

Today I learnt that:

1. I don't like Californication as much I as I did earlier.
2. Reading business articles continuously can get boring.
3. I don't like making user guides after I am done with the actual implementation and development of a particular tool.
4. Airport Authority of India is launching GAGAN (GPS aided geo-augmented navigation system), which would enable a flight to be monitored through satellites and without the use of ground based facilities such as VOR (VHF omni-directional range). The project is estimated at 800 Crore rupees. Only few other nations including US, Europe have this feature.
5. VHF is Very High frequency and it ranges from 30 MHz to 300 MHz.
6. Sodexo is slowly losing its business with respect to meal vouchers. The big retailers are no more interested in the cumbersome process of retrieving actual money for the coupons which may take up to months. However, Sodexo plans to expand more and more, adding more affiliates. Also, the tax policy restrictions say that only 50 Rs can be spent per meal for two meals/day on the meal vouchers, and hence the 2200 Rs figure for 22 days. Sodexo and Edenred are partners, and parallely trying to pursue other possible business plans and ventures in case the coupon business goes slump. It is also facing competition from the credit-card discounts and in-house customer credit system used by the local vendors to lure and retain its customers.
7. Slowly and steadily, Ex-IITians are climbing up the ladder of premier US B-Schools such as Harvard, Kelloggs, Booth etc.
8. ISB's present chairman, Adi Godrej was interviewed on live TV, on which he mentioned that he always loved Math and Science, and was always clear on pursuing his family business. He, thus, joined MIT and completed both undergrad and MBA from there. He mentioned the need of better skill-training to be provided to Indians, because he thinks that the problem is unemployability rather than unemployment.
9. iPhones are primarily (95%) manufactured outside US. Although Obama was curious about the reason, Apple executives mentioned that American plants cannot match the efficiency, skill-sets and cost-effectiveness of its Asian counterparts. Also, unlike previous American giants such as General Motors, Apple openly admits that it has no duty towards solving problems of unemployment in US and hence will not hire Americans just for the sake of it.
10. According to a news article in Economic Times, general managers are slowly becoming an endangered species. The main reason cited for this was globalization. As more and more businesses are opting for outsourcing rather than in-built solutions, the responsibilities and the roles of the managers are changing. The problems are becoming more challenging and complex due to the diversity of demographics and technologies. Integration is no more a simple task as the problem is distributed and no one in particular is held responsible for one particular task.
11. Buy-back is when a public company buys back a portion (say 1%) of its shares from its shareholders. In my opinion, it happens when the company stock is not doing well. This strategy helps in increasing the value of the stock value by reducing the supply of its stocks from the market. Presently, Reliance is planning a buy-back and it is rumored that it can amount to almost 15000 crore, the highest buy-back ever in Indian market.
12. Perl is not that hard after all. It has the same basic features of all high level languages with the added advantage that it is a CGI(Common Gateway Interface) Scripting language and is very helpful when it comes to pattern matching in text based or pattern based files. CGI is an important concept when it comes to websites as it helps in controlling the actions in a website itself i.e. how the web-pages are called when requested by the user, etc. It has a uncanny similarity with Informatica Data transformation's syntax such as the dollar sign with variables and pattern matching.
13. Kodak Eastman Company has filed for bankruptcy because it is unable to handle the debt to asset ratio any more. George Eastman was the founder of Eastman Company, and hence the name Eastman Color. The reasons cited for the failure of Kodak were pretty clear - it didn't innovate as fast as its competitors did, it always acted after its competitors, the timing of the product launches were never right towards the end and also that the strategy to enter and exit of some particular product lines was a blunder. 
14. Bariatric procedures are the ones which are performed on very obese people to get rid of the obesity by various means. It includes cutting of portions of fat, bypassing the initial part of the small intestine and using bio-staplers. Although it can be great boon for few, it can have unexpected results if the surgeon is inexperienced or the surgery goes wrong. The insurance companies are still not fully supportive of it and hence do not accept claims of such procedures. Also, there has been a steep rise in such procedures owing to increasing obesity concerns. In India, about 0.5% of people come under the category of being obese as compared to 30% in US.
15. A person named DotCom, who is apparently a computer genius and has termed himself smarter than Bill Gates, is one of the owners of Megavideo.com, which has been blocked by the US Feds. He has the most lavish mansion in New Zealand (over 20 hectares). He has a history of hacking some prominent sites of famous bank, pentagon etc. 

Today I learnt that:

1. Eating paani puri before Gym is not a good idea.
2. Spending the whole day in front of the laptop makes you feel more lazy.
3. My sister is never going to change her habit of being late for everything.
4. NASA is planning to send a probe near Sun to study the Solar flares and Solar winds. The material used to guard the probe can withstand over 2500 degree Fahrenheit.
5. Stars in the galaxy are categorized based on their luminosity and their gravitational power. Apparently the most powerful star is the one which we can't see i.e. The Black Hole
6. My hair looks good with the combination of hair and oil, and that I shouldn't use shampoo all the time.
7. The UID (Adhaar) project will work with 99.34% accuracy according to Nandan Nilekani. He says that there will always be a trade off between convenience and security.
8. Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk with roasted almonds is also very tasty and smooth. 

Hello World !

This Blog is aimed to keep track of new and interesting things that I come to know while passing through my everyday life. Since my brain is incapable of handling so much information, I guess this blog would help me keep track of it.