Abhinav Agarwal: June 2006

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Prey by Michael Crichton

Prey by Michael Crichton (Flipkart, Kindle e-book)

5 stars

Just finished reading Michael Crichton's 'Prey' (see book page on Amazon.com, link to book page on Michael's web site). Compared with the last fiction novel I read - Baldacci's The Winner (link on Amazon.com) - this is a far, far better written and researched book. "Prey" holds your interest, has a good plot, and the pace is well maintained. The details at times may bore those uninterested in the minutaue, but the technical gore is kept to a minimum. The pace at which the bio-engineered nanoparticles evolve is a bit too fast to be entirely plausible, or the level of sophistication that they become capable of within a few weeks, but is well presented to make it at least a little bit plausible.

Kindle Excerpt:

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Sex and advertising

Sex in advertising - Sometime last year in September 2005 I had posted a photo on sex in advertising Sex in Advertising, where I posted the "before" photos. I realized I never posted the after photo. Here it is. The entire campaign was for a fitness gym. Go figure.

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Cog vs Crucial Cog

C|Net had a story, "India becoming a cog in IBM's machine" (link to article on C|Net), that originally appeared in the New York Times (link to article on NYTimes.com), but headlined "India becoming a crucial cog in IBM's machine" - the word "crucial" has been omitted from the C|Net story, possibly for reasons of clarity, brevity? What difference does it make? A cog is a cog is a cog. Crucial, dispensable, incidental - it's all the same!

Anyway, here are some snippets from the article:

"On Tuesday, on the expansive grounds of the Bangalore Palace, a colonial-era mansion once inhabited by a maharajah, the chairman and chief executive of IBM, Sam Palmisano, will address 10,000 Indian employees. He will share the stage with A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, India's president, and Sunil Mittal, chairman of the country's largest cellular services provider, Bharti Tele-Ventures. An additional 6,500 employees will look in on the town hall-style meeting by satellite from other Indian cities."

"IBM is growing not only in size by adding new hires, but also in revenue. The company's business in India grew 61 percent in the first quarter of this year, 55 percent in 2005 and 45 percent the year before."

"From 9,000 employees in early 2004, the number has grown to 43,000 (out of 329,000 worldwide), making IBM the country's largest multinational employer."

Business Today also had a cover story in its May 21 2006 issue, titled "The Race To $10 Billion" (paid login required to read article), that detailed the chances of the big three of making it to $10 billion - TCS, Infosys, Wipro.

Reposted to this blog, Dec 2013.

Monday, June 5, 2006

Wockhardt Hospital

Wockhardt hospital on Bannerghatta Road - opposite the Indian Institute of Management and before the HSBC office and Mantri Paradise is where the latest addition on Bannerghatta Road is coming up - Wockhardt Hospital, which is also listed as an affiliate hospital of Harvard Medical International. The Harvard crest is as prominent as the Wockhardt sign. Wonder what the cost of medical service will be here. What makes things interesting is that the site adjacent to Wockhardt is where Apollo Hospital is coming up. Now people will know that there is a Sagar Apollo hospital already present on Bannerghatta Road, some 3 kms north, near Dairy Cirlce. So Bannerghatta Road will now have four major hospitals, the fourth one being the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology.

Another photo of Wockhardt hospital on Bannerghatta Road - I forgot that to send multiple photos to Blogger via Hello I have to use the pipe character... well... anyway. Here is the second photo. See my previous post on more about this hospital. See this page -http://hmi.harvard.edu/hmi_partners/partners/wockhardt.php - that briefly describes the nature of Harvard Medical International's affiliation with Wockhardt Hospitals. The Wockhardt Hospitals web site is at http://www.wockhardtin.com/ (hope these URLs are converted into hyperlinks by Hello...

Ebony Restaurant

View from Ebony restaurant on MG Road - this is the view of MG Road and the parade grounds from Ebony rooftop restaurant in the Barton center. And the food isn't bad either. On weekends the buffet is priced at Rs 250 per head. You have to get there before 1pm to get seating, lest you wait.

Sunday, June 4, 2006

Opal Mehta

Who is Opal Mehta? Read her Wikipedia entry (accessed Dec 31, 2013).

The Opal Mehta book on Queen's Road this Saturday. I think this is not a pirated version. I was tempted to pick it up, for posterity, but didn't. I don't think anyone will remember Kavya after a few months. The phrase "internalizing" may be the butt of some jokes for some time, but even that will pass. The young plagiarist will be forgotten... So why waste a hundred rupees or so? It's interesting to see however how keyed in are these street vendors on what is hot and what is more likely to sell.

Reposted to this blog, Dec 2013.