The day when my mobile broke down

It all began when a mosquito bit me the other day, and I had this irresistable urge to scratch. Eventually it led to a small wound and that later developed an infection. So, now, for a few days, I have been going to Kapil uncle's place for its medication. Yesterday was my second day, and since I was on a shirt, I had to take it off, my wound being right next to right shoulder. I ended up putting my mobile on floor. When medication finished, I stood up to put on my shirt, and then it happened, "crack", a small but definite sound of plastic board cracking. Apparently my knee was over it, with my full weight of over 70 Kilos now. Now Jine has had his plastic screen of mobile cracked, and my mobile is just a day older than his, I thought, for a second before looking into the mobile, the upper screen may have cracked. And I was going to New Road, AND I have always wanted a black cover anyway, for that second, I thought it was time to buy a new cover. Then the horror struck -- I glanced over the phone. It had this funny display,  looked strikingly similar to a pair of lips tightly closed together across a wide smile. I didn't believe what I saw. Maybe the stress of my weight bent it to discolor and restart would solve it... off it goes, and --WOW.. the pattern stays even when it is off!! Now panic starts to take over. I still had a computer to check out, turns out it is a display problem, and I start moving towards New Road... PRT was waiting... My mind was to get it fixed and get it sold! Didn't care how much it would fetch, but I wanted to get rid of if, at any cost. OK now it need a careful assessment of situation, a definite crack on LCD, and a pair of tight lips. The reality slowly hit -- what if LCD is not available? What if it is very expensive? The very thoughts are scary... scary enough to drive you crazy. So I get to New Road, and start my hunting.

 

There are so many mobile repair centers around New Road. at least 50 of them. So I choose one and ask the price  -- 2200 bucks for a duplicate one. Few more and they shake their head - one even priced it 3-4 thousand!! It is kind of relief, at least it is available, though a bit expensive. almost half the price of the set itself. And a variation of price -- if people don't know anyone, its so easy to take you on a hike.  after about two hours of hunting, and a considerable effort from Prabin dai (He would be my cousin's co-worker), I managed a piece at Rs 2200, for an original Nokia replacement.

 

What surprised me the most from this ordeal was the availability of the screen. I started out thinking how common would it be to break the screen of mobile. Lets do some maths, there are about, I don't know, 100000 lines in ktm? Okay, lets make it 200000, about 100000 in 98412xxxxx series and roughly same figure in 98510xxxxx series. Mind, these are distributed throughout Bagmati zone, as I understand it. But lets say about 90% of them is within valley and its periphery. There should be at least 100 different models of mobile sets, and no one can put a figure on how many sets of a model is in use. Lets say roughly 10% of the total set in use is Nokia 6610, the model I own. That would make roughly 18000 sets. A considerable figure, I will agree that. But the shopkeeper told earlier on the phone that he is almost out of stock. Now, with that, I'd assume he has just a piece or two left. When I got to the shop, he says he has 10 pcs left!! And he was out of stock. He is expecting a new consignment today -- who knows, may be 100 pcs, may be 50 pcs. May be just 10 pcs. But judging by what he said, I'd bet on above 50 pcs. Their talks make me think they get at least one consignment a week. Now that is 50 pcs a week for a shop. That would average out a mobile's LCD life for 360 weeks...  A little more than 4 years. But assuming there are around 50 repair centers around the valley with similar businesses, the average life comes down to more like 7.2 weeks!! Of course I wouldn't bet that there are 50 businesses with similar volumes but I think I can count up to 10 places I went yesterday. And that too, in the range of half of Pako road. Even with 10 businesses doing 50 LCD's a week, average lifespan of 6610 LCD seems to be 36 weeks, half a year.  Now, wouldn't you think that it is a little too much? Isn't 6610 a little too prone to danger? Now, so far I have talked about only the Genuine Nokia Spare part. Judging by the price difference, I'd bet there are equal amount of duplicate LCD screens in the market. Now you do the maths, and figure out a final figure. Mind, there are more than 10 mobile repair centers in the valley. Well, it does give some insight to shoppers out there, doesn't it?

 

Well, my ordeal is over and my initial instincts to throw it away has jumped out of window. After all, all that was done on it was opening of 6 screws and a tweezer work to remove connector. No solder required. I guess the new one would also be similar handiwork, and will not be much more different, except that it'd be done in a better environment. And I am happy with the end result. So I will keep it for a while.

 

What happened to the broken LCD screen? Well, soon after that replacement, a couple of Electronic De-Engineers got hold of it and started playing with it. The result now looks more like graph of wide histeresis loop, rather than a pair of neat, nice and tightly closed lips across a wide smile. Guess every engineering starts with some de-engineering!!

 

 

Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban

The other day I was minding my own business (Read it “Reading yet another Harry Potter book”) during my lunch break when someone IM’d me. She was actually waiting for more than an hour, and our little chat went from all ranges to stop at the HP movie. And guys, before you start thinking since when has HP started making movies, let me tell you, HP does not stand for Hewlett Packard. Turns out she also wants to see that movie, and being two of a kind, I kind of thought to ask her to the movies on the following day. She’d like that, but the following day happened to be Friday, and Niraj called me to go find his mobile. After about 18 hours of that IM, I had forgotten all about my plans, and agreed with Niraj. It wasn’t until 8 PM that I remembered the movies. This was disappointment beyond description. Felt something like a hundred Dementors came across my room and sucked every little bit of happiness out of me.

But guess we muggles can’t have a one-on-one with luck. As fate would have it, I was given a treat of the movie. How I got it, is a completely different story, may be I will post it some time in future. What matters is the fact that I got there on Sunday morning show. But I was very tight on schedule. A meeting soon after movie meant I would not be allowed to reflect on the movie, and to make matter worse, my phone rang quite a few times during the show. And guess what? Jine called me. And by the time I cancelled that call and turn towards the screen – a time span of less than a minute – there it was – Harry’s equivalent of “The End”!!

I have a hunch that reviewers at Yahoo! Movies didn’t do a good job at grading it D. That movie didn't deserve a D! If they asked me, I'd have given something completely different, more on the lines of F. Either they didn’t read the story, or they didn’t watch it carefully enough, possibly both. Why did it occur to the director to make Harry scream when he rides his Firebolt for the first (and last in the movie) time? It’s as if a fighter pilot screaming upon going supersonic for the first time. Harry used to own a Nimbus 2000, and never lost a game of quidditch on it!! He is a good rider, and experienced too… bit unusual for him to scream. Furthermore, some of the viewers were laughing, at times hysterically, when the story was supposed to be very grave. People were laughing when Dementors arrived, or when Professor Boggart Snape appeared in front of Neville, or when a large spider came in front of Ron. That’s supposed to be scary, not funny! May be they didn’t have the advantage I had, but all in all, I was disappointed. Even the story’s timeline seems to be shortened. And why was Dumbledore’s welcome speech altered? What happened to the role of Crookshank the cat? Why is it just a pet and nothing more? Would Malfoy, a “pure blood” really be so afraid of Hermione, a “mudblood” when facing her wand? Would someone as big as Crabbie and Goyle sprint to safety when Malfoy gets a punch from Hermione? And whatever happened to Quidditch cup? Harry was supposed to win it this year!! At least in the story!!!

It all started with an IM and ended with a day long meeting. As I had guessed, I couldn’t reflect upon the movie. I am furious over myself for forgetting my plans on Friday. But well... we are mere muggles, and can’t fight what has already been decided. Sorry Jenu, for being busy on that faithful evening. I wish I could call you sometime soon, but as the heavenly bodies tell me that it will not be possible for this movie. Mars is awfully bright and that means returning back from evening show will be late… a little too late for you. For the rest of the folks, well, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Why is my phone still silent? Let’s face it, even if I gave it a Z grade (if that existed) and I absolutely hated that movie, I’d still go there for a late night show!!! At least I can reflect upon what happened in the movie. And this time, I will make sure my cell phone IS actually switched off!

First post never has anything interesting

Well, this is not a lot more than my "experiment" with blogs, since Sushil has recommended it.. Primarily he seems to be using it quite successfully....

after reading Sushil's latest post (http://sushilbajra.blogspot.com/) ... I guess I'd like to take a ride with that "thingie" and experience 2g first hand... I would not guess it has more than 2g worth.... thats more than enough to freak out lesser mortals like us.. Fighter pilots, however, crave for more. Not that I haven't tried myself for high g experience... at one time I almost killed myself!! My machine was very crude.. and I doubt, now, it could have done 1g. So there I was, on my machine -- my trusty old RX 100 -- and speeded up to 60 km/hr. After that, my target was to slow down to 20 km/hr in ONE second. That would have created my 1 g, or so I thought. I did my maths on the fly and to this day I have not thought necessary to do the calculation again with more accurate methods. Anyway, I did slow down, but with a drum brake? Well lets just say I managed 0.25g on that one attempt and never tried again. I guess I was smart enough to try that when the road was empty and even smarter that I haven't tried that again... yet..

well so much for my experiment... I will come back again after a while.. May be I will write on some more crazy stuff that I have been through. gimme ur thoughts and I will improve myself