Smart things to know

 

Did you know, In a multiplex, you ‘can’ use the same ticket for viewing another show at another screen ?

Come to think of it, I never even gave a second thought to this anytime. But when I heard this It sounded crazy. But apparently there was some truth in it. Some of the present immediately acknowledged having done so.  No wonder many students might as well as use this information for getting into a screen which charges higher ‘ticket’ price by buying a ‘lower priced ticket’ and then switch to another screen after the show starts.

What Say !? Isn’t that smart ?

For quite sometime I was thinking about posting some of the smartest ideas I have learnt from my interaction with few of my friends in recent years.

Another friend of mine mentioned about considering ‘road inclines’ while driving in drizzle or rain time and driving in the highest lane to avoid encountering ‘hydroplaning’. Of course I should have known it, but It never registered until my friend mentioned.

The smartest mention according to me was to allow free entry into screening of ‘Bollywood’ movies and charging for ‘permission’ to leave in the middle of the screening. Come to think of that, the most tepid and stupid movies being made, this free business model might generate more amount of revenue than cinema halls running movie for less than 5 patrons. What Say !?

If you are aware that on Saturday mornings most theatres sell tickets at half the price, then another smart thing is to catch up with movies in theatres only on Saturday mornings.

Let me cut this post short here abruptly because I am beginning to sound a wee bit whacky !!!

Always remember ‘Information is wealth and/or power’, ‘Half Knowledge could be dangerous’ and ‘Look before you leap’.

Ciao again soon !!!

The Missing Decimal Point

 

Another weekend passed by and I had another set of interesting events and incidents.

I attended two sessions of NoVa Code Camp and both the session were extremes for my liking. While One was a slow and patient snail walk, the other was a roller-coaster ride without the safety belts on. Many interesting ideas presented just flew over my head before I could wrap my brain around it.

Was pleasantly surprised to see sparsely crowded temple, when we made it to the temple at an hour early than usual.

Learnt it the difficult way that Not all Costco’s have gas fuelling facilities, and It is best to avoid driving through Washington DC downtown on weekends even though the GPS shows a comparatively faster travel time.

When my Wifey read out the gas price to be 241 dollars, I immediately asked her to round it to the next cent up because of the 9 at the end. “Read that as 242 dollars coz its 241.9 where 9 is in superscript.”.

Strangely when she observed that people new to the country will misread that as “242” dollars instead of “2 dollars 42 cents” it makes me wonder who came up with this atrocious idea of dropping the decimal point.

I recollect now why my friend once filled up the car tank only to realize it later, it was the price of Milk ‘Gallon’ displayed prominently on the gas station board. Even I too had resisted from ordering wine at a local wine shop, when the labels on bottles showed 899.

I wonder how many people really correctly understand displayed price in any shop.

Think about this, Prices ending in .99 definitely have an edge than a rounded out price but the missing decimal point is can play tricks on the consumer. Time for a revamp.

What Say !?

:-)

Information Overload – Tipping Point

 

My understanding of ‘Tipping Point’ is a hind sight recognized threshold number at which an activity starts to deviate from its travel path. Thanks to new york press writer Malcohm Gladwell, ‘Tipping Point’, ‘Blink’ and ‘Outliers’ are words being used frequently in the day to day vocabulary.

Every time I open up a browser, I type the url http://reader.google.com and start acknowledging articles which arrive promptly by the rss subscriptions I have setup, by either sharing, marking as read or comment.

When I was introduced to the rss readers, google reader was the simplest and easiest to configure and I have seen it being upgraded with a few salient features which makes it a worthy utility.

Being a avid reader, before RSS Aggregator tools, I used to search for articles on a few subjects and visit various web sites, but thanks to RSS it became easy as a pie to get all the feeds in one place.

Sometime during the Last couple of weeks, I have had an epiphany that this ‘reading' on reader is an overkill for my appetite and I have lost track of my time and other personal events which keeps my life enriched.

From Now on till the end of this year, I am consciously pulling the plug on my google reader feeds subscription and will not visit again still 1st January 2010.

I have reached the ‘Tipping Point’ of information (junk) (perspective) Overload.

Whew !!!

Any Comments !?

:-)

Book Review : Free , The Future of a Radical Price

 

I always acknowledge that any book or article which introduces an ‘idea’ or a ‘train of thought’ I have not thought about is well worth the price and time spent. I might not always agree or be totally convinced but the influence it might cause will only be known later.

Today I completed reading (hearing) the Chris Anderson’s latest book ‘Free’. I did not pay a cent for it but I invested a lot of time, first waiting for the Library request and then later downloading the audio version (read by Chris himself) as podcasts on my iPhone.

Personally I have been a late bloomer to appreciate the value of money. I have unwisely lost large sums of hard earned dollars and the key reason being not really recognizing the potential power of money. My friends know that I often quote ‘The most difficult thing to do in this world is to wait’. Somehow unconsciously we all have been following a commonly recognized rule ‘Time is Money’.

When I picked up this book, Chris Anderson was being criticized for lifting paragraphs directly from Wikipedia without acknowledging the source. Hats off to Chris for covering an idea which lay in front of us and informing us consciously about the various applications of the word ‘free’ and the implications of the same.

You can read this book free at http://books.google.com/books?id=lLZbXN2odVYC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Please do pick up this book and read, listen to it on a long distance flight trip. It is worth the time invested.

 

:-)

What is Google Wave !?

 

I was searching for a brief and really helpful explanation of google wave for those who have come in late. The video below explains 3.5 % of google wave and is really good.

[Thanks Ben]