Culture or plain economics?

The other day when I went to my barber for a haircut, I was surprised to see a little girl sitting with her mom and enjoying a donut. Knowing that my barber gives haircut only for men and does not do women’s hair let alone kids, I figured the kid must have accompanied her had. In a few minutes my suspicion was proven right.

I thought this could only happen in this country and this would be a cultural blasphemy if happened in India. I began to wonder if the culture is the byproduct of plain economics. Here is how I justify my argument.

The barber shop I go to is a 800sqft facility, she has done a wonderful job of decorating the place and keeping it simple yet elegant and the some of the furniture though old is pretty comfortable and nice. In short apart from the barber chairs and the tools, there is hardly anything around to make it a barber shop. Compare this to a 100 to 150sqft single room with a few barber chairs on one side and a sitting bench on the other side. The shop walls are usually decorated by huge cut outs of the barber’s favorite movie stars. Some places in India where the real estate is expensive, the barbers don’t believe in renting a place but do their job on the side walks.

Thinking rationally, I wouldn’t taking my daughter with me to the barber shop and let her play around while I get my haircut. But I wouldn’t do it in the near future, for one my daughter is too young.

This small thing makes me wonder how many such “cultural/traditional” reasons exist which can use a re evaluation under changed circumstances/conditions?

iOS 5 and lateral thinking

In general with Apple and its iOS everything is always perfect and over time I have come to expect the simplicity and perfection from them. Any small deviation from this is completely unheard of and my lateral thinking mind does not come into play when working with Apple devices. Last week I had to do a tiny bit of it with my Iphone4.

When Apple rolled out the iOS 5, I was eager to get the new OS and adopted it pretty quickly. The updating even though it was a 2 step process (update ITunes, reboot and update the OS) was pretty clean. After the OS was updated, I saw a notification in the App Store that the the Flickr app I have installed needs updating. I clicked on the update and nothing seemed to happen. I kept pressing it to update and it refused to do anything. For a moment I started to wonder if the screen has lost its touch sensitivity (thankfully no).  

I went a bit lateral in my thinking and deleted the Flickr app and asked it to be freshly installed, this time around, it refused to install. It said the terms and conditions have changed and I need to accept them before I continue the installation, I clicked on OK but instead of taking me to terms and conditions it kept taking me back to App Store. I repeated the process multiple times but to no resolution.

Since I can’t let go of the Flickr app, I took the additional step of connecting the phone to the computer and getting the Flickr app through ITunes. This time around it popped the updated terms and conditions and once I agreed it installed the app.

Now for some good and bad about the iOS5, I like the new OS but I have noticed some issues with the same.

• The news stand app seems like a joke for the only news paper that qualifies for this is NY Times (rest are all some form of magazines).
• I have turned off Face Time and used to work beautifully in OS 4 but in OS 5 it appears as though turning on or off of Face Time doesn’t make any difference.
• The Reminders feature is a nice one to have but it is unlike the APPLE I was used to, just takes too many steps to setup a reminder.
• The are a few cool things in iOS5, one them is the iMessage ( a blessing for people like me who refuse to sign up for the text message plan).
• Another big improvement I noticed is in the camera utility (more post processing capabilities).
• Because of the added features, the settings app has become bit more elongated and complicated. I liked the iOS4 in this aspect. 
• Haven’t used the icloud service, hence no comments.

A year with Iphone

About a year ago when I decided to upgrade to a smart phone, I wanted to get a cool Android phone. But thanks to AT&T the only good smart phone they had in their line up at that time was the Iphone4.

After a year of usage, I am pretty impressed with the Iphone4 and now I am almost a fan of Apple and iOS.

My usage model of the phone is pretty limited, I use it mostly like a phone to make and receive phone calls. There are only couple of smart features on the phone that I use very regularly, One is the calendar and the other is the Notes. I do check my Gmail once in a while on the phone but rarely reply to emails from the phone. Once in a while I use the GPS. To give an example of how less I use the phone for the web related things, I have never exceeded the 100MB data plan that AT&T offers. 

Initially when I got it, it felt a bit big in my hand but over time I got used to it. The phone is snappy and the touch screen is really touch sensitive. The glass front and back of the phone are magnets for finger prints, I suggest getting a protective coating done (most malls have one or two shops to do this). The GPS is fast loading (even without the cell signal). The notes are easy to type into and the calendar feature is easy to work with. Of the limited apps I have installed (Flickr, Google, Google places and so on) most everything load real fast.

The 720p resolution video camera is really good and I have managed to capture some of the once in a life time moments of my daughter with this. That said, I am not really impressed by the still picture performance of the camera. The images look great on the phone but once loaded on to big screen it appears a grainy. I wonder if it has to do with the HDR function of the iOS.

The other feature I really cherish in this phone is the Ipod feature. I use it so much that I have rarely turned on the radio in the car. The sound quality from the phone is not the best but good enough for my purposes.  

One thing I do not like is the fact that Apple does not provide an easy way to turn on the flash led to be used as a flash light. I had to download an app for that, even though the app itself is free, it keep loading ads.  

The battery life is pretty good, without loading a single YouTube video I manage to get 4 to 5 days of battery life but watching videos from the web really drain out the battery. I do keep the wi-fi on all the time, but the GPS function I have enabled only on for a few applications.

I noticed a few things that Apple has done to optimize battery life. The first and very obvious one for me was that the mail checking frequency set to default once a day (I have changed it to manual). The other thing is, the phone doesn’t keep searching for wi-fi round the clock but only looks for it only once when it wakes up from sleep and doesn’t bother after that. I am sure the GPS is kept off unless an application demands it.  I am not sure if the phone goes into different states of sleep to save power, for sometimes I need to press the top button and not the bottom home button to wake up the phone.

I paid $199 to get this phone and surprisingly Apple has reduced the price to $99. At that price I think it is definitely worth considering. Now looking forward to iOS 5.

Steroid based treatments

Most every time I have visited a doctor in the USA, may be for a poison ivy rash or cedar pollen allergy or any form of cold/cough/etc, apart from the antibiotics (which I have been very rarely prescribed), the doctor has prescribed some form of steroid based treatment. It could be in the form of inhalers or tablets or cream, most every time it is steroid based. With almost 100% accuracy the treatments have worked and I have felt better each time. 

In the Initial days I used to be worried of these steroid based treatments, for my experience has always been with traditional medicine. But over the years I have come to understand that the medicine rarely cures (unless we are talking about cancer) but we are cured by the body’s innate ability to heal itself. Which we in the spiritual domain call the life force or Prana.

So, instead of taking the traditional medicines which mask the symptoms and hope that the body will feel better soon, isn’t it better to take the steroid based treatments and help the body accelerate the process of healing?