One Day Junkie

Yahoo can say "Up Yours" (politely)

2008-02-21T18:39:00.001-08:00

Jerry Yang: Thanks for your bid on Yahoo, we are by the best techies in the world. In fact, Yahoo almost never crashes and has an uptime of 99.99999999999999999899999876 %

Gates: Hmmm... while that might be great for you, there seems to be a clash in fundamental philosophies governing Microsoft and Yahoo. It could be cultural differences at play. We will not be in a position to look further on this merger.

eBay Boycott begins today

2008-02-18T21:28:00.000-08:00

The effect of a new fee structure and disallowing negative feedback for buyers by the sellers has raised a furore amongst eBay power sellers. The hyped boycott by sellers begins on Monday and lasts throughout the week.

The increased fees will be passed on to buyers. The sellers are more worried about the absence of power to leave feedback on a buyer and claim that there could be an increase in the number of scamsters.

Additionally, only feedback from the past year will be available for viewing. We should welcome this change as it puts the new guys and the power sellers on a more equal platform. You can't rely on past performance for future sales (similar to an appraisal system - you can't rest on laurels from last year. You have to keep peforming). I am sure power sellers will crib, but it does help create a free and fair marketplace. What should worry us is the statement below.

It is our intention to reward great sellers. Sellers that describe items accurately, ship on time, and ship at a fair price will enjoy preferential pricing and discounts on eBay. We think this will significantly improve the buyer experience overall - John Donahoe

The better sellers are already rewarded with better feedback and hence greater trust within the system. More buyers should flock to them as a result of past performance. Why dangle another carrot in the form of further discounts. The marketplace is no longer free and fair. It favours the big guys or the guys who have been around longer.

Well lets play the wait and watch game. Lets take things a step at a time or in this case a week at a time.

Who Googled you today

2008-02-18T20:23:00.000-08:00

Was it your boss, your client or was it your date from last night? Be careful on what you do online and who you interact with. If you don't want your mom to eventually find out, that her child ain't such a saint after all, please use an alias!! Better still is to be good, but thats not so cool is it :)

Blooter - Struggling Bands now have a worldwide audience

2008-02-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

Blooter is one of the websites I came across today and I wanted to write about them immediately. Unfortunately Blogger is websensed at my workplace and I had to wait till now to get this on the blog.

Blooter helps young musicians gain access to a global audience, and hence open avenues for feedback from around the world. Its free for the first 5 uploads. A small charge is involved for unlimited uploads, and you can choose to sell your downloads at a price you decide. A pretty neat option for bands who manage to get recognized.

I wish this website had been around, when I was drumming for a struggling band called Karmik Riffs. Now the members have split and are in different parts of the world, but Blooter gives us a reason to come together . What say people?

While you are on the website, check out this band called Flow. Their own compositions are pretty neat!!

Dude, Where's my Car?

2008-02-06T09:29:00.000-08:00

If you are lucky, you might find it in Time's list of the dozen most important cars of all time. Its a pretty logical list, starting off the first citizen in the car club, followed by cars that set the science and style of car design into motion. Then comes the culture clash between the American and Japanese models , before Britan butts in with the revolution paving way for the small car. And no prizes for guessing what car no. 12 is.

If you are unlucky, then you might find your car in another Time list of Worst Car, here.

And yes, they left out the Batmobile, Kitt, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Herbie and Lightning Mc Queen.

Apple unveils the 16 GB iPhone and 32 GB Ipod Touch

2008-02-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

More launches from the house of Apple. The 16 GB iPhone was predicted but the 32 GB iPod Touch caught everyone by surprise.

The damage that these models will cause on your financial health is still circumspect. Varying reports place the price of the iPhone at between $329 & $499. Just buy me one and lets set all the debates to rest.

Apple is feverishly upgrading its lineup. It seems like a typical strategy adopted by the technical world. Throw in a couple of slightly better features and hope the consumer to upgrade. Then throw in a few more and get them to do it again.

The absence of 3G is noticed and painful. It is also indicative of what their next upgrade might be. I will choose to just wait till the next version. Alternately, if you want to donate one to the author of this post, I might just change my mind,

TCS employees resign voluntarily - I swear!!

2008-02-05T08:51:00.000-08:00

The impending US recession and the rising rupee have constantly taken their toll on IT services companies like TCS(Tata Consultancy Services), Infosys and Wipro. The initial moves were to halt salary increments and look at a 6 day work routine, so that they could charge clients more in the same period.

The time has come for layoffs and the latest news is that TCS has laid off 500 employees. This comes immediately after their appraisal and there are claims that the employees "voluntarily resigned" from the firm. Additionally, TCS has announced a 1.5 percent reduction in variable salaries.

Additionally IBM has shown new trainee recruits the door. Are we going to see a similar situation to the crisis in 2002-2003, where new recruits where given the pink slip even before they joined? Will the other IT majors follow suit?

These are difficult times for Indian IT majors. The stock market rise in the last year has not seen participation from these stocks and they have actually lost 26% - 28% over the last year.

An official recession announcement by the US will sink these stocks to never before levels. The biggies have already begun looking at new markets, and further diversification of their revenue streams. There is no doubt that they will weather these storms. Will the investor community stay with them is the question?

Related articles from the Web
TCS Asks 500 Employees To Resign
Is the software profession losing its charm?
500 TCS employees resign after annual review

Gawd, you footage seeker - No cookies for you!!

2008-02-03T05:09:00.000-08:00

You may not have noticed, but Gawd is hogging all the footage on this site. Its time the rest of us roll our sleeves up, socks up, and drug Gawd so that he stops writing so much.

Gawd dear, Since your posts have not brought any traffic to the blog, you are hereby banned from swallowing any adsense earnings that may have unintentionally accrued to this blog. A quick check reveals we have earned what most people in India call "Shoonya". For the rest of the world, that would mean zero.

Yup we, as a team, are at the top of Maslow's hierarchy and we love writing for ourselves. Ok, not really! We read our own posts, and refresh the page, so that our number of hits increase. We even encourage family & friends to comment, and as you can see thats exactly what they have not been doing.

Well I will get back to sleeping, while all of you can encourage the others to stop the footage hungry Gawd from posting (Ishwar - yeah thats his name)

American Gangster gets a thumbs up

2008-02-01T18:58:00.000-08:00

Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Brian Grazer and Ridley Scott come together to tell the true story of Frank Lucas, a cult figure from the streets of 1970s. The tale is as much about Frank Lucas, the entrepreneur, who becomes successful in peddling heroin, by cutting out the middleman. Unlike business, the middlemen here are as likely to cut you out (or 'cut you up' in little pieces).

Rolling Stone - Call it the black "Scarface" or "the Harlem Godfather" or just one hell of an exciting movie, but the fact-based, 1970s-era American Gangster is already looking like a major awards contender.

CNN IBN - Forget everything else and head straight to the multiplex this weekend to catch a screening of American Gangster, director Ridley Scott’s remarkable film about real-life drug-lord Frank Lucas, played by Denzel Washington.

Rediff - Thematically, it is a very interesting conflict: a gangster villain who works in a scrupulously ethical manner, contrasted opposite a staunchly idealistic cop who just happens to be a womaniser with a failed-marriage behind him.

Full Movie Trailer (to help you decide)

Have you caught the movie yet? What are your thoughts on it

Harbhajan case: Stump Mike Evidence provides new twist

2008-01-28T12:00:00.000-08:00

The drama associated with the Harbhajan vs Symonds case could well have been the latest thriller to hit the box office. The twist in the plot happens to be the transcript from the stump mike, which will be available as additional evidence during the re-hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday.

It is rather surprising that fresh evidence has surfaced after so many days

The BCCI, continues with its bullying ways and has refused to consider additional evidence under the claim that it could be doctored. In addition the threat of pulling out of the tour remains, the damages of which could be 2.3 million Australian dollars as penalty to the Indian Board. This sum is too low to even raise an eyebrow, for the cash rich Indian board.

What is more worrying is that as a result of this controversy, the game and a great cricket rivalry will suffer. The Aussie's will not play their normal aggressive game and the next time India meets the Aussies, political correctness could just replace passionate cricket. If Sport replaces passion with controlled emotion, the game would surely be less interesting.

Update: Racism charges have been dropped. Harbhajan has been charged with hurling abuses against Symonds. Previous good conduct and the fact that Symonds was the first aggressor, resulted in Bhajji losing only 50% of match fees. (the lowest punishment possible). Hail the all powerful Indian board, who win this round!!

Thinking about it, I would love to hear that stump recording. Was it really "Maa ki"?

Indian School of Business makes it to the Top 20

2008-01-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

In just six years, the Indian School of Business (ISB) has made it to the Financial Times Top 20 Business schools in the world. The FT ranking is calculated on the basis of 20 criteria covering specifics like career progress of graduates, diversity of the MBA experience, international mobility of alumni, ideas generation and research.

ISB launched the one year MBA model in India and looked at actively accepting students with significant experience and diverse backgrounds. It moved away from the Indian entrance exam version CAT, to a more globally accepted GMAT. The prevailing models being used by the IIM's has been predominantly the 2 year MBA, and a higher ratio of fresh graduates.

The ISB model, being in line with global standards, has achieved widespread recognition in a very short span of time. The ranking achieved, will succeed in making India a destination for foreign students. The course is more value for money compared to many of its international peers, and could hence trigger a huge value for money quotient amongst Business School aspirants.

Topping the list were some of the usual suspects Wharton, London Business School and Columbia Business School

Financial Times Last Year: No Indian B-school among top 100

One Day Junkie - Why, Who, What etc.

2008-01-13T07:23:00.000-08:00

One Day Junkie was formed One Day by a group of junkies. These junkies as you will discover have diverse interests.

The grand idea is to be a One-a-Day blog on a wide variety of topics. They will bring the “one best” piece of contemporary/non contemporary/weird issues and their thoughts on them.

You will notice that the blog moves from seriously frivolous to frivolously serious stuff to seriously serious stuff every now and then. It’s just a reflection of the writing styles and eccentricities of different authors. Love it, hate it or just get confused - let them know.

To summarize (it’s the in thing to summarize!!), each category gets updated with just one post a day.

Want to contribute? Send us a link of your post to onedayjunkie@gmail.com, we award you the title of "Junkie of the Day" and link back to your original post. If you want to be a Junkie too, then subscribe.

Our featured authors

Gaurav (Moron) -Tech geek, Internet Junkie. Insists we all use walkie talkies to save the world. The number of wires in his house can put spiderman to shame.

Ishwar (Gawd) - The boring guy, he gets high on business, marketing and the like. Insists on ‘adding value’ to the blog, for customer satisfaction apparently.

Karthik (Corporate Whore) - A long haired dude, who hates writing on whatever Gawd writes about. A gas bag of the highest order, you can speak to him on anything including hair straighteners.

Pradeep (Conga) - The sports lover and trivia king. Moved on from winning quizzes to distributing prizes. Wears a party hat to prove he can be cool.

More to be added as we go along

Chief Junkie