Coke!!! My Love-Hate Relationship.

A multi-billion dollar mega business would aptly describe the business which was initially started in 1886.  It success being so large that it was once believed that ‘ok’ and ‘Coke’ were the two most widely recognized words in the world, although searching the internet,  I couldn’t find a study to validate this claim. It was however recognized as the world’s most valuable brand in 2011. The fact remains and when you say Coke or Coca-Cola a distinct image comes to mind.

Hard to imagine that the company, Coca-Cola, was founded more than hundred years ago, and since its beginning it has spawned a legion of other products and copycat companies.

Invented by a colonel of the American Civil war who was looking for a substitute for his morphine addiction, people don’t realize the background, the pros and cons of the company. Did you know that the term coca in Coca-Cola comes because they used the some minute coca leaves, not to be confused with cocoa which is used to make chocolate. Coca is the same plant from which cocaine is extracted. Well, the company claims that they substituted Cocaine with caffeine for health claims but still uses a minute amount of fluid extract from the coca leave which is not addictive.

Coca-cola was initially made over a hundred years ago as a patented medicine….a mixture of coca , wine and other stuff , which could cure a variety of ailments like cough, cold , morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. Can you believe that? How the world has changed right.

Now the modern formula of Coke claims to have caffeine, high fructose corn syrup, phosphoric acid, other ingredients and carbonated water; carbonated water was also initially thought to be a cure to many health problems as well.

Bottom line … most of the people around the world like Coke!!!

So what is my love hate relationship with Coke?

In my earlier days Coke wasn’t a part of my daily diet , I didn’t go searching for it , but I didn’t avoid it when it was in front of me . It was just ‘there’ for me.

Then a couple of year ago, I started working in McDonalds; another high-powered industrial name.  McDonalds, with its fast food services, have been infamously accused for its health problem. Basically: Obesity. I worked in McDonalds for little over 4 months. At the end of the four month period I was shocked to find out that I had gained approximately 40 pounds or 20 kilos. Shocking right?

Yes, blame McDonald and their mechanically produced product for my weight problem. After leaving McDonald (not due to the weight increase) I came back home.
6 months after my return I went to the dentist and found out that several of my teeth were damaged and eaten by germs. Oh the horror.... sitting under the limelight on the dentist chair

A year went by, I blamed McDonalds for all my woes. Then another year went by and I forgot about everything. Later I came across a book ‘Atkins diet’, it said in that book that when you consume sugar or carbohydrate, it turns into glucose which, if in excess within a body, converts to fat. So I went on a diet …. No sugar or carbs. What was the result you ask…I lost 35 pounds or 16 kilos in 3 months. 11 kilos or 24 pounds in the first month.

Then it hit me like a flash of lightning, when I worked in McDonalds, I used to eat burger every day, but I also had access to unlimited supply of Coke. While you were on a budget to the number of burger you could eat at lunch, I had access to unlimited supply of Coke, so did everyone who worked there.  I nearly had an average of 2 lit Coke every day. With so much sugar or sucrose in Coke (10 teaspoon in 400ml), of course I was bound to have dental problems, it turned out that I was also the root to my weight problem.

So I cut out Coke from my life. At this point you are probably thinking …..Great!!! I was thinking that as well.

A couple of month ago I had a health problem, non Coke related I assure you. I started coughing one day, and it just didn’t seem to go away. I was coughing all the time. First I went to the pharmacist and got a bottle of cough syrup, then another bottle, then another, finally went to the doctor and got anti- biotic. The cough was reduced a bit, but it wasn’t gone. It lasted a month. Thanks to Wikipedia, I had read Coke was initially invented t cure many ailments. So, one day when there was a bottle of Coke sitting on the table, in the middle of my coughing fit I grabbed a glass of the room temperature elixir and drank it. Next day, I was sad to say it but my cough was gone. Similarly it worked for my cold in another occasion. I know that itdoesnt have cocaine in the drink anymore but they still have fluid extract of the coca leaf.

I was like “damn!!!”. Coke again found a purpose in my life

Life continued….

I got a new job. The new job required that I travel a lot in my truck. Late nights and early hours made me droopy and sleepy when I drove. I was scared, it is quite deadly in the highway of Texas, if you sleep and drive, I believe that it is more dangerous than if you drink and drive.

He he

Anyways, I tried energy shots when I was really tired, but I didn’t like them. I tried drinking a lot of water, but that didn’t actually help.  Then one day in one of my drowsy state at work one of my colleagues gave me Coke, to my surprise, the coca extract, sugar and caffeine did wonders to my drippy state. Now that I think about it I regret those days when I dozed off in class in front of the professor and in the first row nonetheless, when it could have all been avoided by drinking just a little Coke.

Through various trial and error life experiences, I have come to realize that my love-hate relationship with Coke will always be there. Love it at times, hate it at times!!!

Either way, it’s always there.

Sony in a Coma

You know there used to be days when Sony used to be the king of all things electronic. It kind of makes me sad that Sony hasn't been able to keep up with the latest trend. I truly believed that if they had been more focused from the beginning, they could have really been leading the technological race.
There is no doubt that Sony was once emperor of the entertainment industry, and nokia was the king of the communication industry. Still when I go for window shopping or shopping not a single event goes by without looking at a Sony. But then I realize that I am getting more in a Samsung product for a relatively less price.
I don't get it why the Japanese aren’t able to reduce the price of their product. At the end of the day, everything is really assembled in China. I mean, iphone is in China, and almost all the products designed in Japan are manufactured in China.
Sometimes I sit down and think, that the standard of living in Japan is so high, as a result of which, companies have to pay high salaries to their worker. So to compensate for the high wages, they are charging exorbitant prices for their products. But don't they realize that if they keep on charging high prices, without any giant technological leaps they are going to lose all of their customers, upon which they will have to fire all of their workers. This is even a worse scenario.
To come back to the top, I believe that Sony has to make drastic changes in their marketing strategies. Come out with smarter technologies which will allow them to construct durable product at fraction of the cost. I believe Samsung have worked on the starting principle of Sony, and Sony just got lost along the way.
I just don't want a future without a Sony, You know, when I have my grandchildren I want them to be using Sony products.... side by side with apple (i am not a big apple fan.... but they have such a big fan base ... I think that they are going to survive)
Right now Sony is in a coma... it can go either way ....death or revival.
All the best to Sony.....Return to your Roots!!!!!!!!

The Problems of my HTC Sensation 4g

 The one thing that i want to make perfectly clear is that i absolutely clear is that i love my phone . i got my HTC sensation almost 2 years ago at about the time of iphone4. through the mist of hype that the iphone carried around it , i just didn't understand why more people didn't carry the HTC phones. cause it is an absolutely fabulous device. It has an amazing touch screen matching that of iphone 4 , with amazing camera, htc sence and all the richness of the android goodness. i loved it ... and i still do.
i bought my phone from a friend ....secondhand . but as long as it worked great i didn't care. At the time i was sharing an apartment with 3 other friends as well and..... all of them had iphones.
needless to say i could take all of them on with my htc.
but recently from around 6 months back i started having problems with it .

1.  while playing games the bottom half of the device gets extremely hot (i mean you can cook an egg on it!!)
2. the phone has started rebooting so frequently . i will be inbetween calls and suddenly everything is droped and it starts to reboot. 
3. cycle of reboot: this one is my favourite . soppose i have pics that i want to copy to my computer and i have connected the phone to my computer. when i disconnect the device the phone again starts to reboot. not only that when it has finished rebooting and everything is order.... it reboots again. and so the reboot continues on and on and on . so much so , if i had the phone in full charge before i connected it , the phone will reboot until the phone literally dies. hahaha i wimper by myself in the darkness
4. invisible enternal storage: when i first got the phone, i simultaneously bought a 32 gb external storage , cause the internal storage in this device sucks. now days from time to time , when i visit my gallery , one moment it shows an excess of 5000 photos and videos as well ....then the next time you check it out there is nothing there!!!! hahaha... just feels like a cruel joke you know
5. the soundsystem on this phone sucked from the beginning though (i hear htc one is amazing). at full volume the best i get is a sigh from me which is louder than the phone . 

but dont get me wrong i love my phone ... the games are great , it works amazingly as a book reader and the 8MP camera( when the iphone offered only 4 MP) was amazing . you could literally see the smile on my face when the OS on the phone got upgraded to ice cream sandwich .
Now i have an eye out for other phone htc One, nokia lumia, sony xperia z10 and the blackberry z10 . but i still think that htc one will throw them all out of the water . but still i have my eye out
on the other hand , i have my eye out for the nokia 105 as well ... the minimalitic phone with minimum features and which is not a smartphone , but has internet facility ..but the main attraction .......A MONTH OF BATTERY WITHOUT CHARGING !!!! :) cheeers guys

Setting up an image for the world coordinate system. Swmm 6

When you insert an image into SWMM5 , the image enters in standard size in any random coordinate. If we are with the world file of the image then the image stays in the actual coordinate representing the true nature of the land , coordinate wise . I would like to remind you that this only gives the true coordinate and does not give the elevation data of the image. Also the only method I know how to give the world coordinate to an image also requires the knowledge of AutoCAD. Cause you need the real coordinate vector data for this process. Cheers

STEPS:

1. Open Arc GIS –Arc MAP 
2.   Upon the initiation of the ArcMAP , start by creating a new empty map.
   
3.  You need the AutoCAD data where you have already created the map.( you need to do this step cause SWMM cannot take file with AutoCAD .dwg  extension
4. Click the add data button to add the AutoCAD drawing.
   
5. Add the autocad file with the dwg extension
   
    
6. The the figure should appear in the ArcGIS workspace . to get the full view of the drawing just click the full extent button.
   
   
   
7. after this . get the picture of the map, image or a google earth image that you have saved and import that into arcGIS as well
1. again click the add data button
   
   and navigate to your image file (.jpg extension)
   
2. the software will  ask you to insert pyramids cause the image has no pyramids. just say yes to
   
   it 
3. both the autocad drawing and the image are shown in the 'data frame' of the Arc Map
   
4. and when you right click the image in the data frame ... you can zoom to layer to see where the image has exactly landed
   
8. after getting both the files in to Arc Map , you have to use the tool within Arc Map called geo refrencing which you can get by right clicking on the blank spot on the toolbar and selecting geo refrencing
   
9. Now just use the double crosshair button on the side of geo refrence toolbar and select a point on the image and match it exactly on the autocad drawing . you can do this more conviniently by doing 'zoom to layer' in each of the layers after repeating the process at multiple points you get an image which is more accurately placed in the world coordinate system. have the layer in geo refrence selected to the image file as well. this is very important!!!!
10.  
11. The video for the above procedure is below but in the end of the video i forgot to show that you should also rectify the image to a given folder , this i have shown in the image below
    
    
12. after everything is done you import the said image in to swmm 5, also you import the world file which you have successfully created through the ArcGIS program. this process i have shown in the previous tutorial of how to import the image in swmm
13. now the image that you have is correctly positioned image file 
14. CHEERS :)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

Inserting a Location oriented image into SWMM- SWMM5

Now it is necessary to design a drainage system , we must have a guidance of the placement of a supporting map. so what we do in we insert a backdrop image into swmm with which we are able to generate the pipe placement . But the problem with this is that when we insert an image into swmm, the size and location of the image is not in correspondence with the geographic location .
for the moment i will show you how to insert an image into swmm . in the next lesson  , i will try my best to make an image location oriented with the help of ArcGIS. the only problem is that ArcGIS itself is a very expensive software.

STEPS:

1. Menu 
1. View-Backdrop-Load
   
2. Backdrop image selector window
3. select the backdrop image from the browse folder button
4. select the world file from the browse folder button
5. select "scale map to backdrop image"
   
6. the image is imported , scaled and in its proper geographic location

Setting Up SWMM- Map Display options- SWMM Part 4

Setting Up SWMM- Map Display options- SWMM Part 4

After configuring the project defaults and setting it up to all future projects as well we need to set up the map display options. This is done to determine how the maps will be displayed in the workspace of swmm model.

Steps:

1. go to  Tools- Map Display options
   
2. The Map Display option in opened
3. Set the setting as it fits your requirement
   
4. click ok

setting up project defaults - swmm part 3

the project defaults are how you want the swmm to calculate the projected data and display them in output.
Go to

1. Project  - defaults
   
2. fill in the shown boxes 
   
3. similarly in nodes and links withing the project default box
   
4. save default to all new projects 
5. click ok
   

working with SWMM .. opening a new project and importing a map-2

to create a new project in swmm and import a map to develop the piping system in swmm 5.0

steps:

1. open  SWMM from Start
2. click on File -new
3. A new Window appears
4. Click on View-Backdrop-upload
5. select a jpeg file from the pop up window, a bitmap image is more preferable for this
6. the image is shown in the workspace of swmm, now you can draw your elements on top of this image

working with SWMM software part 1

SWMM is a software produced by EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) of U.S.A . It is a free software used for developing the required data for drainage design. After showing the proper ground surface , catchment area and pipeline, the software generates the discharge at the various points. The full form of SWMM is Stormwater Management model.
So , right now , i am basically trying to learn the software and run it for the project as well. another alternative to this software could be Autodest Stormwater and sanitary analysis software.
 the project that i am doing is an urban development project where i have to design the storm water drain system . i need to determine the discharge at different nodes of the system. to determine that i want to import a jpeg image which i have taken out from an autocad drawing. I want to insert the jpeg image in to swmm and determine the pipe system in swmm according to that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9CLMVMfvjA&feature=youtu.be

my attempt at Iron Maiden's Blood Brother