iTelescope

Prasad: I know quite a few avid writers in my friend circle who are lazy enough to run their own blog. I am going to keep the stage open at prasadgupte.com for sharing their wisdom, and to benefit them from provoked skill-set retrospection & motivation to start writing more. What’s a better start than to have one of the sweetest women in my life write on Women’s Day? Over to you Aru!

It’s the centennial anniversary of  International Women’s day and though it would be just another day down here, a lot of changed already and improving each year. The battle of sexes is never-ending, but women today are much more ambitious, open to challenges and reaching new heights.  And all this, thanks to the empowerment struggle by ‘us’ & the support extended by men; they are not so cruel after all, they just get insecure sometimes

Although I don’t much happening in town, I’m expecting fun at the ‘Lavasa Women’s Day Drive’ on the eve of women’s day. With a long drive, live performances, makeovers & lots of goodies, it’s going to be one hell of an experience! I really wish I could join them, may be next year. As we struggle to create awareness by airing ‘Balika Vadhu’ as prime-time entertainment (fiction is thankfully better uglier reality prevalent in some parts of our society), the world elsewhere has seen several interesting initiatives (continue reading…)

This weekend has been quite different. With Valentine’s day falling on a Sunday, it should have been something for my heart, but instead it was great for my stomach. I had been eating out all the time. The food forced me too take long walks to make place for another meal, and I used it to compile 5 new foodie reviews at Burrp. Do check them out! By the way, did you know that I have a dedicated RSS feed for my food reviews? If not, please do subscribe through your favorite reader!

• Sabkuchh Food Plaza, Malad (W): ‘Great paneer!!! Average chaat‘ [3/5]
• Tangerine Restaurant, Andheri (E): ‘Nice place for buffet!‘ [4/5]
• Chakra, Andheri (E): ‘My favorite place around Marol/Sakinaka‘ [4/5]
• Wazwaan, Andheri (E): ‘Misled by Burrp; Silly/Cheap place‘ [2/5]
• Garden Court Restaurant, Malad (W): ‘Great ambience; Good prepartion; OK service’ [4/5]

Wishing fellow Indians a happy Republic day! Just checked out the new version of Mile Sur Mera Tumhara today: 2 x 8 min videos… huh! And not that exciting! Check out the new ‘Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’: Part 1 | Part 2. Some immediate comments:

• All pure instrumental portions are fantastic: Rahman, Anousha Shankar, tabla, Sivamani, Jazz, …
• Great focus on renewable energy: Solar water heaters and aggregators in the background a couple of times
• S-E-L (Shankar-Eshan-Loy) are great towards the end of their part
• The old-age home (supposedly) & Kashmir parts are very sweet
• Old is Gold: Original music has been tampered too much. Preferred the older Punjabi & Bengali parts (Is Shaan saying send me ‘SMS’?)
• There seems to be no one besides movie stars in this…
• Amitabh Bachchan has been made to sound wierd; he should’ve only been asked to read out the lines
• A bit of over-acting from actors down-under
• No Value Add: The Lux couple, Sonu Nigam, Shahid, Ranbir (in pajamas), Karan Johar
• Salman, Deepika short of clothes
• First 14 mins were great, and then SRK arrives with his silly hand gestures  as if he’s going to jerk of the whole world by closing his fist Just compare it to Aamir’s part
• Thanks for paying homage to the military at the end

Notable comments from elsewhere:

• why to ruin the good memories with bad bollywood experimentation. It is like comparing SHOLAY with RGV KI AAG
• This “SUR” has become “BESUR” because of bollywood
• Seriously, half of the people in this video didn’t deserve to be there

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I never spent more than 2 mins on making my coffee: 1 minute to mix coffee, sugar & milk and another to heat it in the microwave. But then I came across a great way of making coffee - by spending 10 mins. Not that I suddenly have more time, but once in a while its good to take interest in something that makes you feel so good. Especially when you want to spend some time talking to your honey

This is how you make it...

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Wish you all & your families a very happy & prosperous new year. It has been quite a lazy start to my new year, nonetheless I’m lovin it (am I using this too often? McDonalds gonna sue me :D) What else would you expect when the new year starts with a long weekend?

I personally don’t keep new year resolutions; they perish as winter sets out While I was setting some targets for me to achieve this year, a few other things came to my mind which we, as Indians, should all look forward to. (continue reading…)

The turn-out this beyond all expectation. Apart from myself, Joe, Pranay, Rohan & Vivian, 5 others: Richard Menezes, Akshath Poojary, Jijo Mohan, Naved and Pranab Patel (towards the end) joined. Apart from Jijo & Naved, we were all in the same class in ninth grade.

Local Direct Dial (LDD) is an operator-enabled service that helps you save on your mobile phone bill when you call an international visitor in your country. Such a person, often called an inbound roamer, can be dialled locally, instead of having to make an overseas IDD call. The only known country where this feature is currently available is Singapore. (continue reading…)

Code obfuscation is the technique used to make source code elusive. Advantages of doing this are protecting intellectual property, reducing security exposure, size reduction or minification and library linking (to avoid DLL Hell). It is also considered a form of security. Types of obfuscations include simple keyword substitution, use or non-use of whitespace to create artistic effects, clever self-generating or heavily compressed programs, and programs that are valid and operate similarly in multiple programming languages. (continue reading…)

Jaffa Cake is a popular (& controversial type) of cake in Great Britain. McVitie’s (United Biscuits) is a notable brand selling Jaffa Cakes. It is controversial in the sense of its classification: it is produced as a cake and becomes hard like a (chocolate-covered) biscuit when stale. Incidentally, the former is exempt from VAT while the latter is charged at 15%. This story is about how McVitie’s proved that their product was a cake and never paid VAT.

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Farmshoring refers to a specific variety of outsourcing where, apart from services being sourced outside of the contracting company, they are outsourced from urban to rural locations. Governments, especially in the US, offer incentives for shifting employment from offshore to rural communities. It is conceptually similar to onshoring (also referred to as domestic outsourcing). (continue reading…)