The Sexologist

The Sexologist

A man boards a flight from Delhi to Mumbai and takes his seat. As he settles in, he glances up and sees a gorgeous woman boarding the plane.He soon realizes she's heading straight towards his seat and eventually, lo and behold, she takes the seat right next to his.Eager to strike up a conversation, he asks "Business trip or vacation?" She turns, smiles, and says, "Business. I'm going to the annual Sexologists Convention."

He swallows hard. Here is the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen, sitting next to him, and she's a sexologist!
Struggling to contain his excitement and maintain his composure, he calmly asks, "What's your business role at this convention?"
"Lecturer," she says, "I use my experience to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality."
"Really?" he says, swallowing hard. "What m-m-m-myths are those?"
"Well," she explains, "One popular myth is that African men are the best endowed when, in fact, it's the Tamilian who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is that Frenchmen are the best lovers, whereas actually it is the Bengali. However, we have found that the best potential lover in all categories is the Sardar."

Suddenly, the woman becomes a little uncomfortable and blushes. "I'm sorry," she says, "I shouldn't be discussing this with you. I don't even know your name!"

"Venkatraman!" the man blurts out. "Venkatraman Mukherjee! But all my friends call me Joginder Singh!"

{An email forward}

Swine flu ( H1N1 flu )- some facts

Swine flu ( H1N1 flu )- some facts

“I agree with you that swine flu awareness is needed, but there is no need to be panicky and join the publicity propaganda carried out by media and others which acts as a vehicle to spread misconception than to spread scientific information.

These are few facts about swine flu when discussed with the leading epidemiologists.

1. Swine flu, that is H1N1 flu is not new, first detected in 1987
2. Infective stage of flue is 5 days, 1 day before and 4 days after onset of symptoms
3. The best way to prevent it spreading is asking patient having symptoms of flu like fever cough and running nose to take rest at home for 4 days so he does not transmit it
4. Masks are of limited value if any, in this disease, it can spread through droplets on your skin, through contact etc, and I have seen that the masks in Pune are worn as fashion statement, while walking on road today morning I saw people wearing masks coming out for a morning walk with their dogs!, many wearing masks around their necks, and so on, infact these masks shall act as the vehicles to carry the virus, instead, avoiding crowded places or cinema halls or malls where airconditioners are on, is advisable, because you get recirculated air, where the virus density multiplies
5. Death after H1N1 flu is not common, infact infections like measles is taking toll of thousands more every year, and we are oblivious of the facts. Swine flu is being blown out of proportion by media trying to create hysteria among lay people.
6. Fever accompanied by respiratory distress, should be immediately notified which is likely to be a complication of H1N1 flu
7. The mortality is less than .01 percent of those affected, that means may be one in 10,000 affected is likely to suffer the life loss.
8. If you remember, 2 years ago SARS was blown out of proportion, what happened? Humans develop immunity to the virus, the same is going to happen, we develop immunity in due course of time, the virus is in the air, you can not stop it, our body is already developing the immunity so nothing to panic.

We need to take care of children and elderly who have less immunity and do not let them go to crowded places that is all .

we must start this campaign of not to be afraid of this flu and let your daily work continue as normal, no masks for ordinary citizens, health care workers or specific exposed to lot of crowded environments may be benefited, not proven.

I am amazed to hear that people are selling masks of RS 20 each which are available to less than Rupee 1 in the market.See who is getting benefited ?
Please spread the scientific info, do not join the band wagon and stick to science, that should be the order of the day.” - Dr Deepak Purohit

- An email forward

Stint with Antivirus herd

Stint with Antivirus herd

Some times a forwarded file from a friend or a crack for your winmobile software. You never know, if the downloaded file is a virus or a clean software. However clean it looks, there are lot of ways computer gets infected by virus/malwares. It's always advisable not to open unknown files directly in desktop.

One safe way is to scan the file with many AntiVirus softwares, as most of the time one AntiVirus may not able to find the black spot. Also it's not advisable to install all available AntiVirus wares because they stalemate the system altogether. I found a free, safe and viable solution to scan with all available AntiVirus wares called - VirusTotal.

VirusTotal provides a fantastic online service that analyzes suspicious files and facilitates the quick detection of viruses. Here's an interesting statistics of its usage on how many files were scanned and what's the common virus/malware affected user's system.

One of the safest & novel solution to open such suspicious files in desktop environment is using sandbox-based isolation program. I rely a lot on Sandboxie.

>> Try free virustotal to be in safe side

Sky Fighters, the french hot sausage !

Sky Fighters, the french hot sausage !

{My movie of the week - Sky Fighters(2005) }
Never miss this one ! an authentic aviation aeronautics movie to make u gasp for more and more of sky bird's aerobatics. For fans of modern military aircraft, this movie is not to be missed. Some Trivia's of this movie :

1. Working in cooperation with the French Air Force, director Gérard Pirès was able to get some of France's top gun pilots to do the aeronautic dogfights that were used in the film.
   
2. Initially at the start of the shoot, the Air Force had some particular rules regarding the minimum distances the aircraft could be together or be above the ground, but by the end of principle photography, the daring pilots got permission to bend the normal safety rules, thus allowing them to do maneuvers normally never seen (or possible) outside of actual combat.
   
3. By the final days of filming, the initial minimum distance the pilots could fly above the ground (500 feet) had dropped to a tiny 10 feet, and the distance between the planes in the air (a varying range, usually of several hundred feet) had been reduced to a minuscule 3 feet, thus allowing some amazing shots that could otherwise never have been pulled off

>> More force and more throttle

'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

A priest offered a Nun a lift.

She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg.
The priest nearly had an accident.
After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.
The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'
The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.
The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'
The priest apologized 'Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.'
Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.
On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.'
Moral of the story: If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

Subway maps design

Subway maps design

"Organizing functionality and content into a structure that people are able to navigate intuitively doesn't happen by chance. Information architecture (IA) is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems"-That's about 'Information Architecture design' an important usability process for designing computer based applications.

What if 'Information Architecture' is used for design of Subway or Tube map.

If you've seen such interesting transport maps in Singapore, Bangkok, California rail and London. I'm sure it's not easiest task, it's quite an innovative mind at work as massive physical navigation to be designed.If you've seen Subway maps, they are not just another city map. They've lot of inter-connections, information, visual cues which are part of intelligent design.

When I first got into London underground Tube in 2007, I just loved the simplicity and effective design of 'Tube Maps' of London. Color, mapping, context points are well designed by Harry Beck at 1933.It has become the iconic signature of London too.

I've observed many media houses using tube map design to convey the common meaning of the product advertisement. London has a massive commuters who uses underground tubes for daily travel. They not only speaks English & all possible languages and many don't even know to read English. Designing a navigational route to such 'diverse audience' must be a challenge.

I found an interesting read on the conceptualization, ideation, design and evolution of such maps design at the World's Most Impressive Subway Maps

What's the Greatest Pain In Life ?

What's the Greatest Pain In Life ?

What's the Greatest Pain In Life ?

My mom once told me, it's the pain while delivering a baby. It's one of the killing pain a woman could ever face. I am sure, anyone who knows human anatomy a tad bit, would know how a little life comes into a shape in few minutes out of human body.

Now imagine this, a woman on the hospital table delivering a baby. Doctors helping her to give a life. And suddenly few slain terrorists enter into hospital and start shooting indiscriminately. The whole hospital is abandoned and people run and hide for life.They kill mercilessly anyone who's making a noise. Even docs, nurses are scared for their life. But they had to help the pregnant women to deliver the baby. She is screaming with the pain. How to control her, when there are terrorists outside blood thirst for life ? How can she control her pain ?

Irony is: Some one is erasing life, some one is gifting life.

That's what happened in 26/11 last year at Mumbai when terrorists struck Cama hospital. They created a merciless carnage. It's a dreadful story. Bunch of young terrorists were mastered & sent from across the border to carry on suicide attack in the peace loving nation.

Their perpetrators assured young terrorists that, after death they'll reach heaven. I don't know if they've reached heaven after achieving such a fake martyrdom. But history would never forgive their handlers. What if their mother was silenced while delivering him in pregnancy ?

Thanks to my friend Nikhil who shared this detailed mega documentary about 26/11, 2008 Mumbai attack.

>> You got to see it to feel it here
('Dispatches - Terror In Mumbai' Video | duration: 48m | 14,699 views | 378 MB )

Accessibility compliance for Rich Internet apps

Accessibility compliance for Rich Internet apps

{Punk girl in a wheelchair descending a escalator in London underground tube}

How to treat accessibility in rich internet applications ?

There are much more powerful, time saving UI patterns and JavaScript frameworks, ajax libraries than before. But where & how accessibility will be nurtured between all these hoopla ? So far validating accessibility of semantic code was quite easier but may not be that easy when a content is wrapped in intelligent UI widgets rendered by rich internet apps. In one way, web 2.0 backed UI patterns are very intuitive and user friendly but how 'disabled person' is going to access such advanced applications ?

w3.org has come come with new way of looking at rich internet applications accessibility. I was quite keen to understand what's this all about WAI-ARIA (Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications)

WAI-ARIA (Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a set of documents published by the World Wide Web Consortium that specify how to increase the accessibility of dynamic content and user interface components developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript and related technologies.

WAI-ARIA describes how to add semantics and other metadata to HTML content in order to make user interface controls and dynamic content more accessible. For example, with WAI-ARIA it is possible to identify a list of links as a navigation menu and to state whether it is expanded or collapsed.

I found an interesting read on 'importance of the ARIA presentation'. The article discusses about bottlenecks of WAI-ARIA. I am sure, WAI-ARIA is the way to go when section 508 standards and WAI's are the necessity in quasi govt and federal linked companies.

>> Read more on the WAI-ARIA here