Some of my favourite life hacks!

Here they are:

Do add in comments if you have any favourite hacks, and I'll put them up here!

How to reach Aravalli Biodiversity Park in Vasant Vihar

The route is very simple, however we made the mistake of trying to follow the GPS route shown by Google Maps, and that was our undoing.

We ended up inside a very crowded part of Delhi with a tiny motorable road hemmed in by small shops and closely packed single-room homes, with water buckets, wares, furniture and children spilling over into the path of our car. Hence I thought I should make it easier for you.

I am taking out the crazy up and down, zig-zag, and u-turning we did for 45 minutes while following the GPS directions.

How to reach Aravalli Biodiversity Park, Vasant Vihar:

We approached the Aravalli Biodiversity Park from the Ring Road. First we took a turn at Bhikaji Cama Place towards Safdarjung Enclave/DLTA Courts/IIT. We went down that road till we reached the T-point under the flyover. There we took a right to get on to the Outer Ring Road.

We left the first left and looked for the main road into Vasant Vihar that leads straight to Modern School along the Poorvi Marg.

You will pass this marketplace on your left just before the turning.

This is the sign-board you see the moment you take the right turn.

Why aren’t there cheap mass produced credit card machines for transacting safely on the Internet?

I am expecting a scathing answer from someone who knows about all this.

*cringe*

However, until I get it I am going to keep asking this simple question. Why aren’t there cheap mass produced credit card machines on which you swipe any one of your credit or debit cards safely, and buy anything you wish to from the Internet? No one needs to know your card details, your pin, you don’t need to type in anything on a website.

Chances of fraud are eliminated as you yourself are swiping the machine.

And you will only need to buy one machine for all of your online purchases. In fact, you may need just one personal credit card machine for your entire life. After all these machines are built for high frequency use over long periods of time, and most people will only use them a few times a week.

One obvious reason may be the cost of technology to connect a personal credit card machine to the payment system of a particular website. However, from my limited understanding of credit card machines, they basically connect over a telephone line to a particular credit card network/bank/financial institution. Which means that every website can have a specific number displayed, where a buyer needs to dial in through his credit card machine, to make a payment.

Sounds so simple, yet there is a major catch somewhere (I have a feeling that it will be an embarrassingly simple answer, as I have always been slightly ‘all things financial’ challenged).

If you have reached here, I am sure you have some theories or better still you have a concrete answer to my question. Please be kind enough to post it in the comments.

An enormous admirable effort, if only it could be tweaked a bit!

This is an ad for a spray that relieves throat irritation.

The concept is fab, the twist of ‘weak si goli’ (a play of words on the Hindi television ad about the ‘Vicks ki goli’ – translation is ‘the Vicks lozenge’, with ‘weak si goli’ translating to a ‘weak lozenge’) is awesome but I felt that somehow the message got a little lost in the craft.

The part where the gothic opera heightens the effects of the ‘goli’ should have been brought down a couple of notches. It creates a very potent audio burr that takes away from what comes afterwards. The punch line and the greater effectiveness of Lary Spray gets weakened. And a voice over that is indistinct further adds to this. They are saying ‘weak si goli’ so they should say it loud and clear, not half-heartedly hidden away.

This is such a lovely effort, if only it could be tweaked a little bit. The over-dramatization of the effects of the cough lozenge brought down a few notches, the voice over made clearer and the product demo given a teeny weeny bit more space. Of course, as always, this is just my opinion and I could be totally wrong :)

I have become an enormous fan of enormous, the ad agency that made the ad, though!

What will the final perfect social network be?

The internet is getting faster, we are sharing better, the mobile space is helping us share better. We can stay connected every moment of our lives. The means of staying connected and sharing is getting better and faster.

We started with phone calls, then emails, SMS texts, photographs, then videos, live video chatting through the web and mobile devices, we have iPad facetime, Google glass is here, we can even send smells across mobile phones now, holographic images will soon start getting projected by mobile devices.

It’s all getting better and faster and more real. So where will it end? What will happen when social media, sharing and connecting achieve technological perfection.

Will we achieve ultra-human connectivity? Social connectivity that is going to be much better than the real thing. We won’t need to do anything to connect and share, just let our brains work. We will live connected and share perfectly without needing to actually get our delicate hands soiled.

Dude, where’s my soul?

Every new generation that comes along is getting more materialistic. As a natural consequence, the world is becoming a colder place.

The bonfires of kind people are getting further and further apart. Not because people are not kind and good anymore, but because kindness and goodness seem to be old fashioned (#kindness needs to trend on twitter). Well, kindness may go out of fashion, materialism may go out of fashion, the internet may go out of fashion, but dudes, the soul will stay.

In this whole shebang of digital, connected, gizmo, smart, apps, brands et al, we are all forgetting our souls, those invisible unknowable entities that speak through our conscience. The young have to remember that they are not here just to make money and buy things, they are here to live happy fulfilling lives (and there’s no real happiness if your soul ain’t happy).

So dude, ask yourself every once in a while, hey where’s my soul?

I WAS SOOOO WRONG (see highlighted text in this post) - Uruguay’s ‘Arvind Kejriwal’, President José Mujica, has been running the country since 2010. When will India’s Arvind Kejriwal run the country?

Uruguayan President José Mujica, seen in this photograph at the swearing in ceremony of his finance minister, gives away 90% of his $12,000 salary to charitable organisations that help poor people and small entrepreneurs. He has declined to live in the opulent presidential palace or use its staff, and instead lives in a small one-bedroom apartment and drives an old Beetle. He's often called ‘the world's poorest president’.

He cares deeply about economic inequality and even as the president of a major nation, he is making tremendous efforts to lead by example. He has been consistently winning praise from his countrymen and the world for his reform efforts, and has taken bold political decisions like legalising marijuana.

Mujica can be compared to India’s Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party, WAS I WRONG - ARVIND KEJRIWAL IS ATROCIOUS AND PATHETIC - and Mujica has been successfully running the country for three years and is going strong.

Mujica is 78, Arvind Kejriwal is 45. Am I being over optimistic in thinking that if Uruguay can do it, so can India? PHEW WAS I WRONG - GOD SAVE US FROM ARVIND KEJRIWAL!

687 traits of highly successful people - the ultimate list!

687 unique and overlapping traits of successful people in lists of 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 20, 25, 27 and 30.

Just click on the screenshots to go to the complete list page. Here are all 687 of them, go ahead and start being highly successful this new year, after reading them all:

10-traits-extremely-successful-people

richard-st-john-8-traits-of-successful-people 

13 Characteristics of Successful People.pdf

the-5-traits-of-wildly-successful-people

revealing-the-secret-traits-of-enduring-champions

Guess how many of China's over 3000 TV stations aren't run by the Chinese Government?

The answer is zero.

Every single TV station in China is run by the state and is allowed to only telecast pre-approved and sanitized programmes, films and content.

To give you an idea about what is censored, they have recently asked episodes of  a long-running children's cartoon called 'Pleasant Goat and the Big Big Wolf' to be censored because of violence.

Freedom of speech and seems to be so severely curbed for the Chinese people. One the one hand it is becoming an economic superpower and on the other hand it is inside an impregnable shell that does not allow the Chinese people truly integrate with the rest of the world.

Time for some change I feel. When it will happen, can only be answered by Mr. Wen!

And you thought a good youtube video that goes viral is just a piece of creative laxation!

Without getting into too much blah blah about creative angst etc. etc. let’s just get down to the facts.

A youtube video about a new product by an unknown company went viral and has resulted in, as per their own website, this:

BIG POO NEWS

Our new YouTube video has constipated our shipping system. In one week traffic on our website increased over 13,000% Holy crap, right! We are working day and night, but please give us up to 2 weeks to get your PooPourri shipment out the door. Make sure to order now to get in line!

Thanks,

The Poo Crew

Yes that is right, a 13,000% increase and such incredible sales that they cannot ever hope to keep up.

The video could have been anything, a classic demo video showing comparison between products, a film showing people delighted by the new aromas replacing the bad ones, using a powerful 30% off offer as the selling point, but…. they chose a route that was completely different and unconventional and in a way radical.

I am sure you want to have a look at it. Here it is:

Happy poo pourrieing!

Vital new business meeting etiquette - #1 You can be late for a meeting by one attosecond, but DEFINITELY CANNOT be late by one yottasecond!

Free images collection

An attosecond is one quintillionth of a second or 0.000000000000000001 seconds.

A yottasecond is 32 quadrillion years or 32,000,000,000,000,000 years.

Try imagining both these units of time. How many attoseconds did it take you to imagine it? Or better still how many yottaseconds did it take you?

And the next time you don’t want to attend a business meeting, just tell them that you might be late by a yottasecond. You would have told them the truth and you won’t have to attend the meeting, at least in this lifetime!

Other tea brands help you to fall ill a lot, but this tea helps you to fall ill less!

This ad is well meaning, and in all probability you will understand that it is selling a tea that stops you from falling ill, but it could very well sound like an ad for a tea that helps you fall ill less, compared to other tea brands that make you fall ill a lot more.

The reason may be that the client wanted the word ‘proven’ in the headline, and also 'India's only' and wanted to say it in a roundabout way.

However their attempt looks clumsy, people might start associating it with falling ill – India’s only tea proven to help you fall ill less often!

As always these are only my views and I may be totally wrong J

The US Govt. shutdown simplified

The most radical members of the Republican Party (Grand Old Party/GOP) decided that since they do not have the votes to achieve their aims and policies, they should use their power to shut down the US Govt. as a way of forcing the Obama Govt. (Democratic Party) to fulfill their demands.

It boils down to the Republican Party threatening to cause untold problems for the US economy and its people just to get their way.

In the entire shutdown drama the Obama Govt. is asking for nothing.

The Republican Party is asking for shutting down the healthcare of Americans (Obamacare) and several other budgetary demands besides, which cannot be achieved under normal circumstances.


This is what I have gathered from various online sources, if I have missed something or am not correct on some aspect, please feel free to add a comment, and I will make a change in the post.

The huge Twenty Four Seven Convenience Store ad that you can’t see!

Many clients feel that if they have paid for space in a newspaper or on a website, they have to use each and every bit of it fully and completely. And what better way to use the space than to make your logo big, bigger and biggest.

This Twenty Four Seven Convenience Store ad that I saw today in the newspaper made its logo so large and filled its ad with so many things that you don’t actually see it, unless you really focus on it and make an effort. They filled it with big illustrations, loads of information, bright colours and everything that they could pack into the space that they had bought, so that you ended up with a piece of communication that, well couldn't be seen.

The only thing that I noticed when I saw the ad first was this alien like illustration of a man owl in festival clothes. But then after seeing it a few times (because I was so intrigued by its absurdity) I realised that they are a man owl and woman owl because the logo of Twenty Four Seven is an owl.

Then I also noticed that they had written about their ‘Operational stores’ signifying that several of the stores are non-operational… who would like to go to such stores!!

So if you want to make a high impact ad that your viewers won’t actually be able to see, make one just like this one.

Please note that all this is just my opinion and I may be totally wrong J

US shutdown after 17 years - SHOCKING! Indian parliament loses 42% time in pandemonium – NORMAL!

The Lok Sabha, the august gathering of India’s elected leaders and parliamentarians, which discusses and passes bills and amendments, spends most of its time in pandemonium and adjournments. The speaker of the House Meira Kumar, a relatively gentle lady, spends most of her time pleading to the honourable parliamentarians to ‘please sit down… please sit down’, ‘please quiet down… please quiet down’, ‘your turn will come… your turn will come’, ‘sit down… sit down… sit down’.

Many people watch the Lok Sabha live telecast as it is more entertaining than the most popular television serials.

And please note this is not an opinion, here is an article from a leading Indian daily the Indian express that has all the ‘normal’ numbers of how much time the Indian Parliament actually spends in doing productive work. You will be shocked!

Read it here - Parliament disruptions and more disruptions...

Hencedes Benz or Mercedes Henz?

It notched four and a half million youtube views in a couple of days (may have gone up by the time you read this). Its a commercial for Mercedes Benz. Watch it below... now!

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How a spray helps you see a naked girl.

Ok, let me say this right away, I haven’t really ‘discovered’ this banner ad, it was there amongst several web banners in a post called '50 Incredibly Creative Online Banner Ads' on a website called digitalsynopsis.com
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What I liked about this particular web banner is 1. The naked girl and 2. The incredibly strong product/benefit demo.

Click on the image of the web banner below, to see it in action!!

The golden ratio that is seen in corporate logos and in nature.

It’s called the golden ratio and also the divine ratio, and its discovery lies thousands of years back when Brahmagupta described the series made by adding one number to the next, to form the next number and so on.

To explain, we start with 0 then 1, then (0+1)=1, then (1+1) 2, then (1+2)=3,  then (2+3)=5, then (3+5)=8, then (8+5)=13 and so on.

This same series was introduced to the Western world by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci as the Fibonacci series – 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34…

Then the German physicist and psychologist Gustav Theodor Fechner proposed that the ratio between the numbers of this series defines the balance in nature. Which means that the ratios 5/3, 8/5, 13/8 and so on defines the balance of nature, which comes to 1.618

This then is the signature of God in nature and a ratio that has also been used in designing everything from logos to architectural marvels – 1.618 !

Some logos that use the golden ratio are:

Logo images courtesy graphicart-news.com

And here is a beautiful film that shows how the golden ratio operates in nature:

It is a captivating ratio, and I will certainly try and find it in beautiful things around me.

Is Supertech looking London talking Tokyo?

Saw the Supertech logo on a huge hoarding near Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, and felt that something wasn’t right.

A little later I figured it out. It was because the logo of Supertech was directly inspired by the Superman logo. However the baseline was talking about something that has no association with the qualities that Superman or any superhero stands for.

The line with the logo says ‘Yours for life’.

How does Superman or a superhero connect with ‘Yours for life’?

It doesn't and that’s why I was feeling a disconnect. What do you think the baseline should say?

Where will Syria's chemical warfare stop?

What if every Government which feels threatened decides to use chemical weapons against those who oppose it.

This is the simple question that is being discussed now by the nations of the world. France, UK and USA want to take action against Syria for using chemical weapons. If you want a quick update on what is happening take a look at this short video on the current state of affairs by clicking here or by copying and pasting this url - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23863012 to your address bar.