Here are some of the puzzles/games that you can (rather should!) try during office hours...in fact from my personal experience I can tell you that these are more fun if tried during office hours!!! :D
~ Kaustubh
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous. Show all posts
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Now, BPOs to be run by prisoners
This is interesting...so now don't get scared if you call up Customer Service and are greeted from other end in Tapori language :)
Another implication - the HR policies will have to be tweaked a bit to deal with 'unsatisfied' employees from this lot...or else the discussion could prove fatal!!!
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Now, BPOs to be run by prisoners
Hyderabad: Clicking on a public-private partnership with global IT firm Radiant Info Systems, the Hyderabad's Cherlapally Central Jail will become the only prison in the country to have a BPO unit in its premises, reports Saswati Mukherjee from the Economic Times.
While Radiant Info Systems will invest money and expertise in the unit, prison authorities will provide space and labour. To begin with, the BPO will function in three shifts, with a strength of around 70 odd inmates in one shift. The prisoners will work from within the 'closed space' of the BPO office and will be taken out of the locked enclosure at the beginning and end of each shift.
Jail officials said that after the BPO is set up, the "interest level and aptitude" of the inmates will be considered before involving them in this ambitious project. According to C N Gopinatha Reddy, Director General of prisons, Andhra Pradesh, as many as 200-250 inmates could be engaged in the BPO unit and they will be shortlisted from inmates that are matriculates and graduates. Officials explained that those shortlisted would first be trained by experts and later absorbed by the BPO company.
"For starters, the convicts working at the BPO would not have access to phones as is the case in a call centre. They would be involved in bank-related work of data entry and transfer," said Reddy. "The idea is to ensure that on being released, the prisoners find it easy to get absorbed in the mainstream. Prisoners often find getting suitable employment post release a tough task. So, this is an attempt to ensure that their employers know them well in advance."
Source: SiliconIndia News Bureau
~ Kaustubh
Thursday, May 28, 2009
For sale: baby shoes, never worn
This thing amused me a lot - especially after having just completed Atlas Shrugged - which is about 1200 pages long!
Have you heard of 'Flash fiction'? (or 'sudden fiction' or 'microfiction', 'micro-story' or 'postcard fiction' or 'short short story')
I hadn't - till I came across this Ernest Hemingway's six-word flash,
"For sale: baby shoes, never worn"
Yes, that's the whole story! Apparantly Ernest Hemingway was once prodded to compose a complete story in six words; Hemingway accepted the challenge and came up with this story...and it is said that he rated it the best among his work.
...
...
...
I explored a bit on this and found that such form of writing is called 'flash fiction' i.e. fiction of extreme brevity.
Wired magazine had published a compilation of few of them
The one I liked is:
Failed SAT. Lost scholarship. Invented rocket.- William ShatnerAndWe went solar; sun went nova.- Ken MacLeod
After this I collected a few interesting attempts by various bloggers/ writers:
Shit or get off the pot.You're not my wife? My bad.the pattern was perfect. well, no.hmmmm....there must me something more...I hate long goodbyes. Just leave.
Another interesting thing I found was:
The World's Shortest Horror Story:
"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door."
(author unknown to me)
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Cool, isn't it? It really amazes me - The power of words - when used sparingly :)
~ Kaustubh
Sunday, April 26, 2009
When...?
Mood: sombre
State of mind: extremely disappointed with myself
---------------------------------------------------
When - was the last time you yearned for something so intensely that the only aim/ focus of your life was to achieve it...nothing else mattered to you
This is the quality that differentiates a good or above average performer from a STAR performer.
A Star performer, genius, gives his 100% to the current task at hand - no matter how trivial it is.
Today I played a small chess tournament - everything was going well till the last round. Even in the last round, I was winning. But that is when I lost attention on game - took it too lightly and blundered...result a DRAW instead of my WIN.
I am so annoyed, angry at myself - I have no words to express. This is not the first time I have lost focus like this...and every time I have the same question - how could I do the same mistake AGAIN???
I don't know what to do now - if you have any suggestion/ advise pls. help me....maybe I should cut my finger - everytime I do a silly mistake :(
.....................................................................................................................
Anyways, too sick and tired to even curse myself...my behaviour is getting incorrigible. Maybe I deserve to live and die as a mediocre person.
Friday, February 27, 2009
The I’s Have It
An interesting article from the New Your Times...about Obama and his grammar.
WHEN President Obama speaks before Congress and the nation tonight, he will be facing some of his toughest critics.
Grammar junkies.
Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using “I” instead of “me” in phrases like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I” or “the main disagreement with John and I” or “graciously invited Michelle and I.”
The rule here, according to conventional wisdom, is that we use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object, whether the pronoun appears by itself or in a twosome. Thus every “I” in those quotes ought to be a “me.”
So should the president go stand in a corner of the Oval Office (if he can find one) and contemplate the error of his ways? Not so fast.
For centuries, it was perfectly acceptable to use either “I” or “me” as the object of a verb or preposition, especially after “and.” Literature is full of examples. Here’s Shakespeare, in “The Merchant of Venice”: “All d
eb
ts are cleared between you and I.” And here’s Lord Byron, complaining to his half-sister about the English town of Southwell, “which, between you and I, I wish was swallowed up by an earthquake, provided my eloquent mother was not in it.”
It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that language mavens began kvetching about “I” and “me.” The first kvetch cited in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage came from a commencement address in 1846. In 1869, Richard Meade Bache included it in his book “Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech.”
Why did these 19th-century wordies insist “I” is “I” and “me” is “me”? They were probably influenced by Latin, with its rigid treatment of subject and object pronouns. For whatever reason, their approach stuck — at least in the rule books.
Then, why do so many scofflaws keep using “I” instead of “me”? Perhaps it’s because they were scolded as children for saying things like “Me want candy” instead of “I want candy,” so they began to think “I” was somehow more socially acceptable. Or maybe it’s because they were admonished against “it’s me.” Anybody who’s had “it is I” drummed into his head is likely to avoid “me” on principle, even when it’s right. The term for this linguistic phenomenon is “hypercorrection.”
A related crime that Mr. Obama stands accused of is using “myself” to dodge the “I”-versus-“me” issue, as when he spoke last November of “a substantive conversation between myself and the president.” The standard practice here is to use “myself” for emphasis or to refer to the speaker (“I’ll do it myself”), not merely as a substitute for “me.” But some language authorities accept a looser usage, and point out that “myself” has been regularly used in place of “me” since Anglo-Saxon days.
Our 44th president isn’t the first occupant of the White House to suffer from pronounitis. Nos. 43 and 42 were similarly afflicted. The symptoms: “for Laura and I,” “invited Hillary and I,” and so on. (For the record, Nos. 41 and 40 had no problem with the objective case, regularly using “Barbara and me” or “Nancy and me” when appropriate.)
But an educated speaker is expected to keep his pronouns in line. Here, then, is a tip, Mr. President. Nobody chooses the wrong pronoun when it’s standing on its own. If you’re tempted to say “for Michelle and I” in tonight’s speech, just mentally omit Michelle (sorry, Mrs. Obama), and you’ll get it right. And no one will get on your case.
I never thought Americans cared too much of their grammar (or even what they said!) and Pure English (Read: Queen's English) was a matter of pride and concern of Briton - England, to be precise.
When I was 14-15 years of age, my english teacher (who was my grandfather's age - and taught me lot of other valuable things - apart from English) told me on the very first day of his English tuition:
"Kaustubh, I may not teach you good English, but I can certainly teach you Correct English! Because concept of Good English keep on changing over the years/ generations...what was considered improper or even indecent 100 years back may become norm in futre, definition of Good and Bad may change...but what is Correct will always be Correct."
Coincidentally he went on to explain his point with the very example discussed in this article - of use of 'I vs Me, and myself'.
So when I read this article, it immediately reminded me of my teacher...nostalgia!!!
Here is the article:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The I’s Have It
WHEN President Obama speaks before Congress and the nation tonight, he will be facing some of his toughest critics.
Grammar junkies.
Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using “I” instead of “me” in phrases like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I” or “the main disagreement with John and I” or “graciously invited Michelle and I.”
The rule here, according to conventional wisdom, is that we use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object, whether the pronoun appears by itself or in a twosome. Thus every “I” in those quotes ought to be a “me.”
So should the president go stand in a corner of the Oval Office (if he can find one) and contemplate the error of his ways? Not so fast.
For centuries, it was perfectly acceptable to use either “I” or “me” as the object of a verb or preposition, especially after “and.” Literature is full of examples. Here’s Shakespeare, in “The Merchant of Venice”: “All d
eb
ts are cleared between you and I.” And here’s Lord Byron, complaining to his half-sister about the English town of Southwell, “which, between you and I, I wish was swallowed up by an earthquake, provided my eloquent mother was not in it.”
It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that language mavens began kvetching about “I” and “me.” The first kvetch cited in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage came from a commencement address in 1846. In 1869, Richard Meade Bache included it in his book “Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech.”
Why did these 19th-century wordies insist “I” is “I” and “me” is “me”? They were probably influenced by Latin, with its rigid treatment of subject and object pronouns. For whatever reason, their approach stuck — at least in the rule books.
Then, why do so many scofflaws keep using “I” instead of “me”? Perhaps it’s because they were scolded as children for saying things like “Me want candy” instead of “I want candy,” so they began to think “I” was somehow more socially acceptable. Or maybe it’s because they were admonished against “it’s me.” Anybody who’s had “it is I” drummed into his head is likely to avoid “me” on principle, even when it’s right. The term for this linguistic phenomenon is “hypercorrection.”
A related crime that Mr. Obama stands accused of is using “myself” to dodge the “I”-versus-“me” issue, as when he spoke last November of “a substantive conversation between myself and the president.” The standard practice here is to use “myself” for emphasis or to refer to the speaker (“I’ll do it myself”), not merely as a substitute for “me.” But some language authorities accept a looser usage, and point out that “myself” has been regularly used in place of “me” since Anglo-Saxon days.
Our 44th president isn’t the first occupant of the White House to suffer from pronounitis. Nos. 43 and 42 were similarly afflicted. The symptoms: “for Laura and I,” “invited Hillary and I,” and so on. (For the record, Nos. 41 and 40 had no problem with the objective case, regularly using “Barbara and me” or “Nancy and me” when appropriate.)
But an educated speaker is expected to keep his pronouns in line. Here, then, is a tip, Mr. President. Nobody chooses the wrong pronoun when it’s standing on its own. If you’re tempted to say “for Michelle and I” in tonight’s speech, just mentally omit Michelle (sorry, Mrs. Obama), and you’ll get it right. And no one will get on your case.
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