Friday, September 18, 2009

Another moron in this world

The world is full of morons and idiots and some of these characters sometime prove, why there needs to be capital punishment in this world.
A 27-year-old man has been arrested for throwing his newborn baby girl into a river in Durg district of Chhattisgarh, police said on Friday.

"Premjeet Deshmukh confessed that he tossed his week-old girl into Shivnath river as he was expecting a baby boy. He was arrested late on Thursday," superintendent of police (Durg) Dipanshu Kabra said.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

What is wrong with BSNL

I have always wondered that with the largest network reach, probably cheapest tariffs and probably one of the most happening brand ambassador, why is BSNL not prospering like other cellular providers. I finally found my answer.
I recently felt the need for an additional mobile connection with a GPRS plan attached and because of some recommendations, I decided to take a BSNL plan. So as usual, I went to their website which mentioned that I need to go to a CSC (customer service center). I found which one was nearest to my address and went there. As usual I carried sufficient cash, cheque book, credit card, address proof, identity proof.
I reached the office and looked for the person "responsible for mobile". BSNL Madam showed up after half and hour after a pan and chai. Here is how my conversation with him went.
  • Me: I need a new mobile connection.
  • BM: Do you have a BSNL land line connection?
  • Me: No, I don't have but my wife has
  • BM: The lady will have to come
  • Me: But I have address proof.
  • BM: No.
So I decided that I will come back with my wife and take the connection. I went home started looking for BSNL bill, found that the landline bill has not come for last two months, I never noticed it because I pay it online so except for address proof I don't need the phone. So I went to BSNL office once again and same BSNL Madam was there.
  • Me: I need a new mobile connection
  • BM: Do you have BSNL landline
  • Me: I have but the bill has not come for last two months, I can tell you the phone number
  • No: Come with the bill
I went back again, and one of those days, I found a two months old BSNL bill. I thought now I can go and get the connection.
  • Me: I need BSNL connection, I have filled the form, my wife has  signed
  • BM: The lady will have to come here
I thought she seems in good mood, so I asked my wife to come immediately. She took 45 minutes to arrive while I whiled away my time chatting to the BSNL security guard.
  • BM: Show me the original identity proof, she never asked this before but fortunately it was there so we showed.
  • BM: Do you have BSNL land line.
  • Me: Yes, I have already told you 4 times
  • BM: Where is it, I need a copy
  • Me: It is attached to the form
BM looks at it and then declares, I don't where it this address you will have to go to this address's CSC. I said why did not you tell me this 45 mins back when I came and you told me that my wife has to be here for the connection.
  • BM: We don't work like that
  • Me: What do you mean
  • BM: We go one by one
  • Me: Atleast, can you tell me where is the CSC I need to go to
  • BM: I don't know
  • Me: How can I find out
  • BM: I don't know
At this time, I realized that I was being too optimistic. This was not going to happen anyway. I tore off the form and dropped in in a dustbin.

Whenever I have asked my friends who work for BSNL the reasons of poor performance of BSNL, they have always blamed the government regulations related to tender etc and because of that they can't order equipment on time. I think they are wrong. The reason BSNL is not performing well is because of its employees who still live in the times when you had to beg to a SDO(T) or AE for a telephone connection and if is satisfied with your growling, he may give you one.
India might have been liberalized but the citizens of India have still not been liberalized from BSNL. I don't think the mindset can be changed.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

End game for Renault F1 circus

So finally Renault has decided to not contest race fixing charges related to last year's Singapore GP.  Piquet had alleged that he was asked to crash his car so that Alonso can win the race.

Both Managing Director, Flavio Briatore and its Executive Director of Engineering, Pat Symonds, have left the team.

Sad to see it end this way.

Google logos or an impending announcement

Google has been showing flying saucers and extra terrestrial logos whole of September. On September 5, Google changed the logo to a flying saucer dragging away the O in google followed by a tweet ".12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19" which means "All your O are belong to us".

Now google has changed the logo to a logo of crop circles being drawn by a flying saucer.  This was followed by a tweet "51.327629, -0.5616088" which seems to be a set of coordinates pointing to Horsell in Surrey, England which was the town that was the center of initial invasion in H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds.

What makes it really interesting is the fact that Well's birthday is September 21 and because of that there is a buzz that Google is going to make some announcement on that day. Is it going to Chrome OS or availability of Wave, Something to do with Android or something different. Let's wait and see.

Friday, September 11, 2009

F1, Renault and cheating

Renault always seem to have a knack of getting into shady situations as far as their F1 team is concerned. Last year they were in the thick of Mclaren, Ferrari issue this year the Piquet has caused the stir by claiming that he was asked to crash so that team mate alonso can win the race.
After the meeting with Mr Symonds and Mr Briatore, Mr Symonds took me aside to a quiet corner and, using a map, pointed me to the exact corner of the track where I should crash. This corner was selected because the specific location of the track did not have any cranes that would allow a damaged car to be swiftly lifted off the track, nor did it have any side entrances to the track, which would allow a Safety Marshall to quickly move the damaged car away from the track. Therefore, it was felt that a crash in this specific position would be nearly certain to cause an obstruction on the track which would thus necessitate the deployment of a safety car in order for the track to be cleared and ensure the safe continuation of the race.

It does seem like the word of one person against another but the statement is too graphic to be just discarded. Also the other rumours that the engineering chief of Renault gave evasive replies further points to the fact that something is wrong.
56-year-old Symonds, whose team tenure dates back to its Toleman days in the early 80s, admitted that in a pre-race meeting with Piquet in Singapore, the Brazilian driver made the suggestion of a deliberate crash.

But when asked if he knew Piquet was still planning to crash on lap 14 when the race began, Symonds declined to answer.

When probed about Piquet's claim that, no longer in boss Flavio Briatore's presence, he showed the driver on a layout map on which corner he should crash, Symonds again said he did not want to answer.

He also gave a similar answer when the FIA interviewer asked about Piquet's claim that the crash site was selected due to the lack of recovery cranes.

The additional leaked information on Thursday also showed that Fernando Alonso was brought in for his pitstop before the Piquet crash two laps early, with more than 8kg of fuel left in his tank.

The Spanish driver's race engineer was at the time concerned about the change of strategy, to which radio evidence shows Symonds replied: "No, no, it's going to be alright."

That's what is interesting about F1, even when they don't race, it is better than a hollywood thriller.