sweating under bangalore and chennai heat read this article -http://www.deccanherald.com/content/243238/reaching-stars.html where it says: extreme conditions of nature are also friendly to humans, if tapped wisely! liked it immensely
Friday, April 20, 2012
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
the power of life
during a visit to srirangapatna sometime back, i had seen an astonishing sight. On closer inspection, I was able to appreciate the power of life.. do see the pics below..
tree on first floor has roots in the ground floor walls and ceiling and go below..
Monday, May 10, 2010
Good old days
My son wanted to meet his 'mama' on the occasion of the mama's homecoming from a trek in Ladakh.. and i had the whole saturday evening to myself..
Went on my bike this time to Gandhi Bazaar after a long long time..Oh! the delight of a two-stroke motorcycle! kick start is as easy as electric start and acceleration is better than any other vehicle... :)
amidst the traffic - there is hardly place for even two-wheelers to squeeze through - (one should just ban cars on the thoroughfare - rather build that underpass - build a multistoreyed parking lot - maybe under the ground!) there are two shops that you must visit..
one of course is Ankita bookstore.. this is a gem of a bookstore.. famous for being a kannada book publisher.. in case you are interested in some serious literature in the vernacular this is the place to come to... they also stock a lot of books on philosophy, music, and many other genres!
another place, which one might easily miss, is Nataraj stores - opposite vidhyarthi bhavan.. This is the place which has been catering to the oil needs for many decades of basavangudi for many decades now.. they sell cold-pressed oils - gingelly, groundnut, etc.. Cold pressed oil is the rage these days among the organo-conscious (even though the preference might be for cold pressed olive oil).. However, cold-pressed groundnut oil used to be the staple oil for us south indians.. so i brought half a liter - which the proprietor's son poured into a plastic cover and heat-sealed. In the old days it used to be the steel oil container which i would carry in one hand and bicycle through to our old home in Basavangudi..
last, but not the least, was taking back home congress kadalekaibeeja... spicy roasted peanut halves, from srinivasa bakery on DVG road!!!
What a day!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Life! Interrupted
This morning there was an article on how to conserve battery life for the innumerable, increasingly complex devices that are being increasingly used - don't run processes like bluetooth, wireless, etc. when not required, don't keep USB devices plugged in when not required, hibernate rather than frequent shut-down/start-up, etc.
For big swathes of day, had left my mobile at home yesterday while going out.. and felt so free... Maybe these tools also draw our psychic energy... Leaving them behind allows us to be undistracted in what we are doing..
Are there other things that we carry on our bodies, in our minds that we have to discard - keep away, so that we can be free and light? This is for our introspection...
The weather this morning was nice, cool crisp and fresh.. Had gone out for a short walk for buying some lemons.. sans the mobile in my pocket of course.. enjoyed the whole experience.. i wonder whether this is the happiness that Sankara describes as " Kaupeenavanthah Khalu bhaghyavanthah".
For big swathes of day, had left my mobile at home yesterday while going out.. and felt so free... Maybe these tools also draw our psychic energy... Leaving them behind allows us to be undistracted in what we are doing..
Are there other things that we carry on our bodies, in our minds that we have to discard - keep away, so that we can be free and light? This is for our introspection...
The weather this morning was nice, cool crisp and fresh.. Had gone out for a short walk for buying some lemons.. sans the mobile in my pocket of course.. enjoyed the whole experience.. i wonder whether this is the happiness that Sankara describes as " Kaupeenavanthah Khalu bhaghyavanthah".
Saturday, July 12, 2008
modern marvels
saw this wonderful program on the History channel couple of weeks back.. where they brought to us the renewable energy modern marvels..
1) solar tower: thousands of mirror track the sun's movement and reflect the light on to a reasonably small area up high on a very tall cylindrical tower. the small area can get heated up to more than 1000 deg C .. there are copper pipes running just below the surface carrying water.. and the steam so generated pushes a turbine to generate power.. good neough to give power for a city block's lighting needs or so.. i thought that was very nice
2) solar wind energy: this is a bit audacious, i thought.. but someone in australia is making a big bet on it.. the basic idea is a huge inverted funnel placed in a desert like area. the base of the funnel being spread over a few miles circumference, gently sloping towards the central stem.. the stem goes up a few kilometers (when built it will dwarf the largest towers in the world by a distance)... the hot air dying to go up the funnel (hot air has only one way to go... up the funnel, that's how the base is designed.. i think hermetically sealed or something) pushes a few wind turbines and generates electricity.. there is a restaurant up at the top of the funnel stem, of course, which also will generate revenue for the project....
3) car that runs on compressed air cylinders. instead of spark plug igniting fuel and creating bursts.. a timer releases compressed air into the cylinder and pushes the piston... our own tatas has also got this technology licensed and is to produce these cars by 2010, i read.
.. the distance travelled by the compressed air car per cylinder was quite good.. don't remember the numbers though.
there is also a gasoline/compressed air hybrid.. which i thought will be a killer
why i put this post was - there is so much information which is useful/valuable/interesting out there... one tends to get overwhelmed at the thought of ingesting all this.. so the best thing to do is to keep sharing so that we don;t need to be there at the right time/right place all of us at the same time :)
1) solar tower: thousands of mirror track the sun's movement and reflect the light on to a reasonably small area up high on a very tall cylindrical tower. the small area can get heated up to more than 1000 deg C .. there are copper pipes running just below the surface carrying water.. and the steam so generated pushes a turbine to generate power.. good neough to give power for a city block's lighting needs or so.. i thought that was very nice
2) solar wind energy: this is a bit audacious, i thought.. but someone in australia is making a big bet on it.. the basic idea is a huge inverted funnel placed in a desert like area. the base of the funnel being spread over a few miles circumference, gently sloping towards the central stem.. the stem goes up a few kilometers (when built it will dwarf the largest towers in the world by a distance)... the hot air dying to go up the funnel (hot air has only one way to go... up the funnel, that's how the base is designed.. i think hermetically sealed or something) pushes a few wind turbines and generates electricity.. there is a restaurant up at the top of the funnel stem, of course, which also will generate revenue for the project....
3) car that runs on compressed air cylinders. instead of spark plug igniting fuel and creating bursts.. a timer releases compressed air into the cylinder and pushes the piston... our own tatas has also got this technology licensed and is to produce these cars by 2010, i read.
.. the distance travelled by the compressed air car per cylinder was quite good.. don't remember the numbers though.
there is also a gasoline/compressed air hybrid.. which i thought will be a killer
why i put this post was - there is so much information which is useful/valuable/interesting out there... one tends to get overwhelmed at the thought of ingesting all this.. so the best thing to do is to keep sharing so that we don;t need to be there at the right time/right place all of us at the same time :)
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
recent reading: zero quality assurance, getting things done
i have been trying to read Shigeo Shingo's epochal book 'Zero Quality Assurance' for the last few weeks. not much progress - and Shingo is not to blame for that, i am getting crushed by the urgent and not giving enough time for the important!
the thing that hits you right in the face is the amount of clarity this guy's thinking has.. i hv always believed (and so says Eliyahu Goldratt in one of his books) that the best argument is one where the listener responds saying this is so common-sense, and also has an @aha, so that is the explanation" feel to it.. the same thing i felt when i was reading Shingo.
key thoughts from whatever i have covered of the book till now:
1. in quality assurance, assurance is the deity and statistical methods is the temple.. but we forget the deity and are over-awed by the temple. statistics is glamourous.. but is not needed. if you can do 100% in-process inspection, SQC is not needed.. and with 100% inspection and poka-yoke (mistake proofing) zero defects is possible - and has been achieved (he gives examples of a mitsubhishi or matsushita plant where this was achieved)
2. work has 2 perspective - that of operations (functional organisation) and that of process (or product flow). often the operations view dominates, because that is very visible day to day. but we should give more focus to the product view - if improvements are to be effective (this is the global vs local optima and throughput focus that Goldratt too tries to bring in his Goal and theory of constraints).
3. all operations can be classified as either Work itself, wait, transportation or inspection. and work itself can be classified as 'set up for work' and work itself. ( i thought he has not added 'rework' as a category of work too). and he says that all else other than work itself (excluding set up) is a non-value add... this, i have been using in our value stream mapping exercises extensively.. we never had an objective framework for judging whether an element value adds or not and i found this classification extremely useful..
more soon!
cheers, suresh
the thing that hits you right in the face is the amount of clarity this guy's thinking has.. i hv always believed (and so says Eliyahu Goldratt in one of his books) that the best argument is one where the listener responds saying this is so common-sense, and also has an @aha, so that is the explanation" feel to it.. the same thing i felt when i was reading Shingo.
key thoughts from whatever i have covered of the book till now:
1. in quality assurance, assurance is the deity and statistical methods is the temple.. but we forget the deity and are over-awed by the temple. statistics is glamourous.. but is not needed. if you can do 100% in-process inspection, SQC is not needed.. and with 100% inspection and poka-yoke (mistake proofing) zero defects is possible - and has been achieved (he gives examples of a mitsubhishi or matsushita plant where this was achieved)
2. work has 2 perspective - that of operations (functional organisation) and that of process (or product flow). often the operations view dominates, because that is very visible day to day. but we should give more focus to the product view - if improvements are to be effective (this is the global vs local optima and throughput focus that Goldratt too tries to bring in his Goal and theory of constraints).
3. all operations can be classified as either Work itself, wait, transportation or inspection. and work itself can be classified as 'set up for work' and work itself. ( i thought he has not added 'rework' as a category of work too). and he says that all else other than work itself (excluding set up) is a non-value add... this, i have been using in our value stream mapping exercises extensively.. we never had an objective framework for judging whether an element value adds or not and i found this classification extremely useful..
more soon!
cheers, suresh
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