Buckle up

In Bangalore implementation of Seat belt rule has hit farcical low. Posse of policemen pounce on unsuspecting four wheeler drivers at busy roads and intersections in the city as a part of implementation, whereas, in the various highways connecting Bangalore to other cities, enforcement of the rule is next to nothing.

The question is, is the rule being implemented to ensure the safety of passengers or for the police men to make money?

Ripples; or rather the lack of it

This is how I wanted to exit, like an Olympic grade diver slicing into the water without not so much of a ripple. A smart guy would've concentrated on the quality of the dive, whereas an idiot like me concentrated on not making ripples.

When we lose big time, we can console ourselves claiming its a learning experience blah, blah... When we lose because you trusted the wrong person, what is the learning? Never to trust anyone?

Laser Assisted Automatic Braking

Laser assisted braking sensors on the front windscreen

I am amazed how little information is available in internet on the new jargon 'Laser assisted automatic braking' introduced by Volvo in their new car models like S60, S80 and XC60. It makes me wonder whether this just a marketing jargon.

However, coming from a brand like 'Volvo' it doesn't sound logical they would use some jargon without the technological backup. In fact, googling on the term found just one satisfactory description which says "Lasers mounted in key points on the car read how far you are away from an object. If you get to close they apply the brakes automatically to stop the car. Its basically to stop you backing into fences or other cars when your reversing."

The picture above shows the laser assisted braking sensors on the front windscreen of a Volvo model which lends credence to the description of laser assisted braking in the above paragraph.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mechanical Turk is an online market place that automatically pairs tasks that are simple (yet too hard for a computer to do) with people who want to do them for money (often just a few cents).

The tasks are available to be executed and it is available in units of HIT(Human Intelligent Task). As a Mechanical Turk Worker, you can search and browse for HITs and click on the ones that interest you. After you accept the HIT, follow the instructions to execute the task and get paid paid through your Amazon Payments Account once the Requester approves the work.

Mechanical Turk Requesters are the ones who offer HITs. Data cleanup, categorization, content creation & moderation, feedbacks are a few of the common categories of tasks on offer. Registering to be a Requester provides the job providers access to an on-demand scalable work force who are flexible and provide high quality cost-effective results within minutes. And the payment needs to be released only if you're satisfied with the results.

At this point of time, the web portal claims to have more than 4.5 lakhs of HITs on offer.

Arsenal and Honda

Arsenal and Honda SIEL, though worlds apart in their chosen domain have lot of similarities in their current predicament. The first one is a top football club in English Premier league whereas the latter is the Indian arm of the renowned automobile manufacturing company, Honda, from Japan.

Arsenal looked totally left out in the last summer at the end of the transfer window. The coach cum manager, Arsene Wenger had bet big on upcoming talent than established players making Arsenal look like a bunch of inexperienced Amateurs.

In case of Honda, they were riding high in the Indian market around a year back with its City touted as the best petrol sedan. Honda never believed in discounts neither dilution of value of their cars. Irrespective of those, they were in such a fine position that buyers used to hoard any offering from Honda. But the steep hike in petrol prices put paid to their free run. With no diesel vehicle in their portfolio, Honda cars sale dipped.

Sticking to their years old method and being inflexible are widely regarded as the reason for both the company's current downward spiral. The EPL giants are still sticking to their method of spending little for new buys and Honda is persisting with the portfolio filled with petrol vehicles.

It will be huge relief for their fans and well wishers to see these trail blazing companies halt their decline and succeed.