Starving Billionaire

ZIMBABWE Inflation at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent

The Zimbabwe dollar now seems to have lost all its appeal, and calls for the adoption of a foreign currency to replace the struggling monetary unit and put an end to the country's crippling hyperinflation are becoming louder.

Dollarisation, or the use of a foreign currency - not necessarily the US dollar - in parallel to, or instead of, the domestic currency, has long been a daily reality for most Zimbabweans. Record-breaking inflation has made them reluctant to accept the local currency, preferring either to trade in a more stable currency, or to barter.

The monthly inflation rate passed the 50 percent mark - the threshold for defining 'hyperinflation'- in March 2007; in January 2009 the RBZ issued the world's first 100 trillion dollar note.

In an article in the December 2008 issue of the financial magazine, Forbes Asia, put the annual inflation rate at around 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent - 65 followed by 107 zeros. Prices double every 24.7 hours.the hyperinflationary crisis of Hungary in 1946, in which prices doubled every 15.6 hours.

Indian reality - DevD

Saw the movie - DevD - after a long time.... The genius of Anurag Kashyap is in its full bloom with practically controls each and every aspect of film making, not that i know much about it, but this is by far his best direction...

One thing comes out clearly with Kashyap... his portrayal of real life people and their personalities on reel-life brings out uncanny resemblance with people you know, and what happens in day today society... the director makes no attempt to hide or glorify the inner most feelings of a girl and boy in heat or that of a father who realizes he cant face the world because of daugther's foolish steps on one hand and that of a father who hides her daughters overtures to an unacceptable relationship and finds out a way to get her married off quietly...

it also brings the brashness of a regular spoilt brat-kid and youth from a rich family who has no idea on what he will do with his future ... scenes like the BMW accident, the MMS scandal, the typical kothis of Delhi brings out real life characters with a disclaimer that it being "purely coincidental" or rather "a deliberate attempt with hurting sentiments"....

somehow I was expecting Kashyap to also put a scene Jessica Lal murder case but I guess he could not find an angle for it in the movie...

more importantly he tries and portray the youth and the earlier generation in its likeness to reality... how Paro still comes as a married woman to meet Dev in his shoddy hotel, how she is clear in his mind what she wants and what she does not... how Dev has his realisation on value for life.... every scene, though quite a few of them, have been crafted to give out a meaning and show you the mirror...

The casting is another brilliant attempt to move towards hiring new people and clearly puts forth that a successful movie does not need super stars but a great director...

Mind you English

A Colleague the other day commented on the word "wacky" as being spelt wrong and the right way of doing it is "whacky"... checking the antecedents of the word found both being right, while the former being more right...

why?

because "whacky" as defined by dictionary.com is a slang form of "wacky" ...

but then why the confusion... probably because our overt dependence on US English that adopts the slang cousin more and probably non conformance of standard style sheets by prominent newspapers..

I think its neither... it seems people tend to use as a noun in various scenarios like a blogger who calls hime self whaky, whackyscience.co.uk from Bayer, whackynation, whacky sports...

probably the 'h' brings in more more punch to the craziness of the word...

dont know why I am writing this but maybe someone who reads this makes some sense to my thought process...

but the correct usage of the word lies at "wacky" and not "whacky"

Fifth gear Car of the Year - Volkswagen GTI

The Volkswagen GTI... don't know when it will come to India... but the car is remarkable in every sense.... see it for yourself in the video....

The car launched, way back in 1983 in US stores, as the Rabbit GTI with a 1.8 Ltr 90 BHP engine has now transformed into a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine capable of 200 Bhp and a six-speed manual transmission that sends power to the front wheels.

Nuturing the genius within....

Saw a very interesting talk from Elizabeth Gilbert today... on ted.com...

for those who don't know Ted... its a platform for people to discuss on ideas that probably help others ...

Everybody has a genius within him/her... what matter is how you sustain it and nurture it and actually manage it... genius, while it helps takes you to spurts of fame, or glory due to one of your unique moments of genius... but this puts in pressure on the person to perform better next time and in way drives him to under performance....

Elizabeth who is an acclaimed writer came with her latest book "Eat, Pray, Love" pushes her to the creative genius moments and now has a lot more pressure on her that whether she would be able to actually out do her genius on this book for the remaining 40 years of her life which she plans to spend writing better...

As she puts it... no person is a genius... it is those moments of extraordinary work of recognition within a group (however small) that calls him one... how to sustain that moment is the secret which we need to to find out our way...

A new beginning

the last i signed in was on 28th November 2008 when Mumbai was attacked, molested and raped by 10 terrorists from Pakistan who

The anger and angst still burns in my heart and many other mumbaities, who felt so insecure in their own homes... what followed next was spate of protests, debates and deep inside Mumbaities started thinking of issues that have not been addressed for so long... Internet became the most vocal platform to ask for a separate Mumbai state...

but while this was happening... i was undergoing my own change in looking outwards to prepare for the people who work with me... intimidate me ... and moreover not let me settle in my job....

just like the terrorists did...

The best way to counter them is probably not be like them or what Purohit did... but put up a strong front, face them and not worry about the consequence that you might be worried about... look at the other side... what haveyou got to loose, when people just want to screw around with your happiness and keep you unsettled anyways...

Calling Bala and Raj - There are some outsiders in our City

Hey Raj... Bala... you know what there are some outsiders in our city.... and they are not north Indians or south Indians or east Indians or any sort of Indians... they carry guns kill people and they just floated into India, our BOMBAY ... make you feel unsafe in your own home and suddenly all your brave shiv sainiks and your Manasay guys are no where to be seen... the real heroes are the NSGs, the army, the police and you know what they are not fighting for the north, east or the south indians infact the guys who are fighting didnt even matter who they were fighting for... all that mattered to them some unscruplous elemensts form aross the border came into India, our motherland and dared them to touch use again...

You guys should have worried on how in the first place they came in and all you are worried about, how do you win the next elections... shame on you....

BIO Mimicry

In the African plains a large group of buffalo's are running hard so that the lions don't catch upon them. The interesting part is the average speed of the group is equal to the slowest and the weakest buffalo.. It is only when the weakest buffalo's die that the average speed increases and the so does the chances of the survival of group.

Apply this to the corporate world....

Inefficient employees need to be weeded out else the entire team can only be as slow as the weakest link...

This is bio-mimicry..

The Story of insecure employees

Have you ever entered a world of insecure employees, where people work to keep their job, they feel threatened that someone will come and take away their cheese and there wont be any cheese any more. they fear the unknown and in the process want to protect only what they know and in the bargain never get to explore what they never know.... hard to believe... yes I have entered this strange world....

for some strange reason this seems to stem from the plan of the wicked employers who induce this strange fear of the unknown with intent and eventually when the person gets trapped into it, instead of fighting free he actually gets more and more into it without realizing that the more you get deeper into this system, the more you erode your skill sets and the more chances of surviving in your next job....

reminds me deeply about the picture plant strategy... attract the fly with your sweet liquid, in this case lots of them.... and then as you get more involved in climbing over other dead bodies without realizing as the other body goes down you go down too... and as it happens the plants only intent is to rob your body of all its proteins for its own reason for survival....

strange... isn't it....

The incorrigible indian american boss

For some bosses it is so difficult to accept that they are dumb and they are a misfit.... take my boss for example... we had a marathon session of over 5 hours of meeting on the pretext of "guidance"... eventually it turned out to be a one of those meetings when he needs overview of what is happening in the system, when you have no clue of what is happening...

it turns bad at the end of the meeting when he wants to hold another meeting the next day just to give more guidance on an issue that we have sent him over mail and seek "advice" over mail only....