Go fish?

Revealed: How Big jewellery shops are Cheating public

I recently went to silver jewellery shop and the reputed owner told the following thing. I cant find any flaw in his logic and since he is in the business, I have to say, unfortunately right. Have you gone to a big jewellery shop and asked the gold rates for the jewellery? The 5 shops which are next to each other will quote different gold prices as each one will be offering a different amount of discount on gold. Not discount on the making charge but on the gold rates.

Now lets see the logic. Gold prices are standard all over the world on any particular time or day. If not there will be people buying it where it is cheaper and selling it where it is high, thus bringing the rates equal. Mind you, gold is a very liquid commodity and sold and bought massively from a gram to kgs around the world from time immemorial. 

So the rate at which a jeweller can buy gold is the same as any other jeweller as the 24 carat gold rate is constant at a period of time. So how is it that the jewellers are able to give you a discount on those rates? 

The answer is that they aren't giving you the amount of gold they are promising they are giving you. They may say they are giving 2 grams of 24 carat gold, but in truth there is no 2gm of pure gold, but 1.98 grams of gold and 2 grams of copper which basically means you are buying a lesser than 24 carat gold.

The bikini and Godzilla

What does the beautiful bikini and the beasty Godzilla have in common?

Ans: A place called Bikini.

Bikini Atoll (also known as Pikinni Atoll) is an atoll in one of the Micronesian Islands in the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands. 

Bikini Island is well-known for being the subject of nuclear bomb tests, and because the bikini swimsuit was named after the island in 1946. The two-piece swimsuit was introduced within days of the first nuclear test on the atoll, and the name of the island was in the news. Introduced just weeks after the one-piece "Atome" was widely advertised as the "smallest bathing suit in the world", it was said that the bikini "split the atome".

Between 1946 and 1958, twenty-three nuclear devices were detonated at Bikini Atoll, beginning with the Operation Crossroads series in the summer of 1946. The March 1st, 1954 detonation codenamed Castle Bravo, was the first test of a practical hydrogen bomb. The largest nuclear explosion ever set off by the United States, it was much more powerful than predicted, and created widespread radioactive contamination."Bravo had an explosive force equal to nearly 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs. It vaporized the test island, parts of two other islands, and left a mile-wide crater in the lagoon floor. In total, nearly 70 acres of the Bikini Atoll were vaporized by the nuclear testing."

Among those contaminated were the 23 crewmembers of the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon 5. The ensuing scandal in Japan was enormous, and ended up inspiring the 1954 film Godzilla, in which the 1954 U.S. nuclear test awakens and mutates the monster, who then attacks Japan before finally being vanquished by Japanese ingenuity.

A large majority of the Bikinians were moved to a single island named Kili as part of their temporary homestead, but remain there today and receive compensation from the United States for their survival.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll

The new circle of life

New ratings and censorings

http://poomanam.blogspot.com/2010/02/brothhood-lurve.html

One comment there this is very apt!

We now need shows and movies with rating:CG - Under Children's guidance.

And we also need a parental filter when they browse the internet.  :P

Stopping drunken driving

Many a people are killed in India and elsewhere annually due to the effects of drunken driving. Apart from the nice "cute" messages and talks given by traffice policemen in schools, I believe the traffic should do more. Firstly, remember that the majority of the drunken driving happens by college going students, the age group of 18 to 22 and beyond. The traffic police departments should team up with doctors and hospitals to make a video presentation and interview of people and relatives involved in accidents. The gruesome photos and videos of accident victims with flesh and bone and writhing in pain should be shown to the students to hit them hard with the effects of drunken driving. They should be so shocked that they will always remember it and  that will force them to not do drunken driving and not co-operate with drunken friends to drive and travel with them and discourage people from drinking and driving. These presentations should be made part of their curriculum and compulsory for all students in colleges.

If a doctor can go into depression seeing a few accident cases in a week, a half hr video session to college students will do wonders to keep their ego and arrogance(the main reasons drunken driving happens) in check.

Darwin, a free-market economy enthusiast?

By saying "Survival of the fittest", did Darwin just talk about free-market economy? In the real world, no one can forcibly control most of the environment and evolution as a response for it. Hence free-market environment reigns supreme in the long term nature of the world.

What type are you?

A strange sight

Guess what these people are doing....

Clue: "It happens only in India"  :P

Back with a bang

It has been ten days since I arrived in Mumbai and have taken time to set myself up. Finally decided to get the internet connection and got it. 

So far, in ten days, I have seen the best that Mumbai has to offer. Be it film stars, scenic skylines, business tycoons or sea link.

Will upload the best and strangest parts of Mumbai soon. :)

Crazy units

Q:How much is a ton?

1000 kgs?

2000 pounds?

2240 pounds?

And how much is one tonne?

How much is a short ton and how much is a long ton?

I bet most of you didnt know how many ton(ne)s you weighed :P

Answer:

1 metric ton = 1000 kgs.

short ton = 2000 pounds = net ton

long ton = 2240 pounds = gross ton

1 quintal in UK is 100 kgs while 1 quintal in US is 100 pounds

Note: 1kg = 2.2 pounds

Predictions for the decade

Some very interesting predictions for the countries for the new decade:

http://www.businessinsider.com/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1#china-doomed-1

Destroy the pyramids

Well, it is time we destroy the pyramids and start constructing apartments/flats. If we are to remove the widening rich-poor divide, the government will have to make some new policies and rules to discourage the people at the bottom of the pyramid to stop growing and simultaneously make them jump to the highest level. So how is it possible?

I have a probable solution. Yes, it is a little radical but here is a solution.

Make it compulsory for the rich to have/raise atleast 3 kids. If the family has one or two biological kids of their own, then they should adopt two or one kid respectively of their choice from the thousands of orphanage kids in the country and the adopted should have the same right as any other kid in the house and should also have the adopting parents' surname and religion. If they already have 3 kids, then they should adopt atleast one more. Such rules will make the following things possible:
1. There is a real chance for the poorest of the poor to come up in life if they are adopted.
2. The caste discrimination between the higher rich castes and the lower poor castes will come down drastically.
3. Parents who have always wanted either a boy or a girl but couldn't conceive one will have their wish come true.
4. The rich will be forced to have their riches divided between more children. So the average wealth of the richest will fall a lot bridging the rich-poor gap.

On the other end of the spectrum, the people at the bottom of the pyramid should be punished in some way for having more than two kids. Their selfishness to have more kids is putting more strain on the society and making the society as a whole poorer and creating excesses following the invisible leg theory
http://ajitjagan.blogspot.com/2009/09/invisible-leg.html

Till now, people are only avoiding to solve the real issues and problems and trying only to solve the symptoms of the problem. How else can people keep giving ideas of how to keep the people going up the pyramid structure while continuing to have the pyramid in the first place? Why not realise that the pyramid structure of society is not the most efficient and worthwhile of structures? I think the apartment structure is better. There is also a fair chance in the apartment structure that the non-performing may come down by a level and someone may have a better chance to go up.

The zones

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