the awesome GoogleLookUp function

Got this from a ReadWriteWeb:
Try the following on a google spreadsheet
1. Create a Google Spreadsheet
2. Tape "bmw" in A2, "mercedes" in A3 and "nissan" in A4
3. Select A2:A4 and, while holdind the Ctrl key, expand your selection until A50.
4. Say "wow"
5. Tape "employees" from B2 to B50.
6. Enter "=googlelookup(A2; B2)" in C2 and expand the formula until C50
7. "wow", again
8. Take a look at other Google functions in the "Google" tab of this page: http://documents.google.com/support/spreadsheets/bin/answer.py?answer=82712&ctx=
10. "wow", again and again

Eldeco never seizes to amaze - update

Update on my earlier blog entry Eldeco never seizes to amaze
The suffering reader says again:

They are constantly trying to exploit the situation. I am trying to post my experience with them, in the internet which would help others to take right decisions choosing the property. Even after 4 years, they have not given me offer of possession and saying that I have to pay holding charges for 1.5 years to process the handover.

May God bring some sanity in Eldeco.

You know you are driving in India

Recently got a mail about driving habits in India.

You know you are driving in India if ...

1. People in cars think they are conserving their battery by not using the turn signals.
2. The side-view mirrors always remain folded in, lest they come in the way of the car's aerodynamics.
3. The cellophane/plastic covers on seats and headrests remain in place even after the car is a year old.
4. The right of way belongs to the bigger vehicle.
5. Pedestrians are unnecessary objects on the roads that need to be honked out of existence, if possible.
6. The slowest moving tractor is invariably be on the fast lane.
7. The truck in front of you has both the driver and the cleaner waving their hands out of the right and left window at the same time.
8. The "L" sign adorns vehicles that are speeding past you.
9. The traffic light at a junction is showing red, amber and green at the same time.
10. The bus driver wanting to take a right turn at a traffic junction moves to the extreme left lane, picks up a passenger and cuts directly in front of all the right lanes to take his right turn.
11. Your first new car scratch "happens" within 30 minutes or 100 metres of driving out of the showroom, whichever is less; first new car dent within 10 days or 1000 km, whichever is less.
12. You have an accident while driving at less than 20 km/hour or less (you are lucky if you can get up to triple that speed these days!)
13. Every fifth car you pass has a saree pallu or dupatta peeking out the bottom of the passenger side door.
14. The number of milk cans on any given Royal Enfield motorcycle is an even number greater than 5.
15. You have an accident and ask the truck driver to produce his license and he tells you casually that it was confiscated by the police some 20 years back near Jhumri talaiya.
16. For every bull you see standing on the road right in front of you, there are five cows approaching you from either left or right. And the cow dung under your car is really bull shit!
17. The five trucks you overtake on a given road have the following five messages on their backside - "HORUN PLASE", "HURN PLEESE", "HOUR PLISS", "HARN PLECE" and "HORNY PLACE".
18. The bus in front of you is listing heavily to the left (the door side) and a whole family is hanging on to the door by one hand.
19. The number of passengers in a car is indirectly proportional to the size of the car - a Merc or a BMW will have a lone occupant, a Maruti 800 a family of 10 plus the neighbours.
20. The lane divider is seen as something you use to guide yourself while driving on the wrong side of the road.
21. The speed breaker height is universally one and a half times the ground clearance of your vehicle. The only exception is if you are behind the wheel of a Tata truck.
22. The road on either side of a railway crossing is fully occupied by vehicles of 17 types, with each one pointed directly at another one on the other side of the railway crossing.
23. The average distance between vehicles going one way is a safe 2.345 cm and the same statistic for vehicles going in opposite directions is a highly conservative 3.987 cm.
24. The headlights of every vehicle are defaulted to the high beam mode, since this is a clear sign of manliness and machismo. If a vehicle is not able to drive with its high beams on, it has no rights to unhindered driving on the road.
25. The road may have a length, but no fixed width. Every road is a many-shouldered thing - you drive on the road, but when you can't, you drive on the shoulder; when you can't on the shoulder, there is the shoulder's shoulder, and so on. It is only after you have scraped the wall of the house on the edge of the road that you start considering the remote possibility of slowing down and nosing your way back towards the centre. Of course, real men don't do this - they just take the wall along with them.

Comment: Microsoft offer to buy Yahoo

EETimes.com - Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6B -- Very interesting.
Is it part of Microsoft's strategy to counter Google? But Yahoo is no competition to Google in search and Gmail is much better and faster than Yahoo mail.

Peter Clarke in his comment on the above news makes an interesting observation - It really marks Microsoft handing over the torch of succession: because Google is the big dog now - and I totally agree with him on this. To me Microsoft today seems like Sun of the browser war. Sun was wiped out by Microsoft then, is it Microsoft's turn now? Microsoft is trying hard to save itself from getting commoditized by Google's killer web applications.

Power politics

The manner of disposal of complaint against Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh for alleged racist remarks to Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds has incensed a lot of Australians. The main grouse being the way Indian cricket board (BCCI) was able to arm twist the world governing body ICC and Cricket Australia (CA) into following its lead.
With some explicit and some implicit threats of withdrawing from the tour from BCCI and its resultant financial loss to CA and ICC and not to forget Television companies, from the very outset, it was not tough to figure out that the final decision would be as per the liking of Indian team and cricket board. So I wonder why the comments now. Maybe the reality dawns on some people later than others.

I tend to sympathize and agree with the Australians who feel that the financial clout of BCCI in cricket led to the unwanted semi-withdrawal of complaint from the Australian cricket team.
But isn't it the norm in every society that the rich and powerful always have there way? Whatever space the weak get is not taken but given by the strong.
Few examples:
This article on how the rich nations which contribute most to the UN kitty are arm twisting the UN to spend in the manner in which they tell it to.
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. Who says that the US is a bad country?

Australians, welcome to the real world!!

Eldeco never seizes to amaze

One of the readers has sent this about his experiences with Eldeco at Utopia:

It is 4 years, I have paid them in full for a flat in their Utopia project. FDN is partially pending. I am trying to sell my apartment. The prospective buyers go there and see the situation and return with lot of resentment. ..... they [Eldeco] are misusing my flat as their store room by them and their contractors and not made the flat ready for possession and it is in shabby state.


Eldeco never seizes to amaze me!!

Eldeco hasn't changed its ways

It seems that the residents at Ananda are not the only ones who are suffering due to apathy of Eldeco. Almost once in a week I get a mail from a sufferer of Eldeco. Be it Utopia on expressway or Amantran in Sector 119, Noida.
I wonder what happiness Eldeco gets by treating its customer with such apathy. They charge a bag full of money and they give back a bag full of woes.

The comment in this post makes an interesting read:
http://nitnblogs.blogspot.com/2007/04/eldeco-ananda-pathetic-service.html


And the latest at Ananda:

Last night (20th Jan 08), there was an event in the passage of 7th Floor. Whole row of the tiles above the Lift door, collapsed en mass with a very loud noise. It happened last night, luckily no one was using life at that moment, otherwise it would have caused a grave injury, including head injury with a possibility of fatality. I think this is a serious concern, showing extremely poor quality of construction done by ELDECO(an ISO certified organisation)