No cold medicine for the very young

A new article in the NYTimes highlights safety concerns associated with the use of over-the-counter cold medicines for kids, especially below the age of 2. Not a lot is known about the efficacy of cold/cough medicines in kids and there have been reports of serious side-effects in many children.

So what all this boils down to it, use cold/cough medicines with your kids with care. Be especially careful about dosage and if you don't know the dose, ask a doctor. Lastly, be aware that if the medicine isn't working, you shouldn't be giving your kid more if you got the dose right...

UBUNTU countdown

Thinking about getting married?

For any of you out there who are thinking about getting married, here's a checklist of questions or things that you should have discussed and thought about with your 'to be' before getting married.

It's an interesting mix of questions that are relevant even in the Indian context, some of them even in the context of an arranged marriage. Take No.2 "Do we have a clear idea of each other’s financial obligations and goals, and do our ideas about spending and saving mesh?" or No.3 "Have we discussed our expectations for how the household will be maintained, and are we in agreement on who will manage the chores?"

So if you are thinking about marriage or know someone who is, take a look at the questions.

ps. I never thought I would be posting stuff like this :)

No more vids

Thanks to privacy concerns from R about posting videos online, I have taken them off the blog, I will however continue to post photos. So if anyone wants to see them in the future, email me and I'll send you the private URLs.

ps. Privacy concerns, R is already getting more American that she knows

Three Bridges

SLR camera vs. point & shoot camera

With point and shoot digital camera's getting better and more sophisticated, I have been tempted by the idea that an SLR camera is unecessary, especially for everyday photography. Another factor against buying SLR's is cost, the D-SLR sold today are prohibitively expensive, with a basic kit starting at about $600, whereas you can get a good digital point and shoot (p&s) for less than half that amount. There is also the 'manual' option, either get a Nikon FM-10 or a Leica (if you have a lot more money) and you should be set.

I have been scanning a lot of my old film-negatives over the 10 days (thanks to Jeff, who generously lent me his scanner), and the one feature of all the old photos that stands out is how well exposed they are. Let me elaborate, when I take photos with our current digital p&s, the photos are very nice, the focus is sharp and you can see the features I was aiming for well, but thats about it. I see nothing of the mood in the room, there is often no depth to the photo. I often take photographs to try and capture the mood or the scene, the way something looks to your eyes, and that is hard to accomplish with a p&s. SLRs let in a lot more light onto the sensor (irrespective of whether the sensor is film or a chip), and that allows you to capture subtle lighting and shadows that together make a good or even a great pic.

I know I will be using my SLR a lot more, and saving up for that D-SLR, pity they get outdated so soon....

Anyway, thats my 2 cents on the topic.

How happy is your country?

A new article in the BBC shows what they call the "The First Published Map of World Happiness" (pdf alert). Denmark is supposed to be the happiest place in the world, while Burundi is the unhappiest coming in at 178th. So where does India stand? Pretty poorly at 125th, which brings me to my next question. Does this mean that when I moved from India to the US (which is 23rd on the happiness scale) I went from being unhappy to happy, and that will I be unhappy when I go back.

To be clear, I get that these are measures that represent whole countries, but come on... how realistic are these estimates and do they mean anything wrt. real people?

So, to make this a bit more realistic, I searched the net for a measure of unhappiness and I found a chart of the suicide rates across the world. Turns out Denmark is 27rd in terms of suicide rates (higher is worse), well ahead of India (44th) and the US (45th). I thought happy people didn't kill themselves!

Anyway, thats my $0.02 on this.

Youtube

I don't know how many of the folk who read my blog have come across YouTube, a video sharing website, where users can upload their videos and share them. While the majority of vidoes on youtube are crap and worse, occasionally one comes across gems like this one - where the hell is matt?.

A Goose that eats French fries and Chicken

Originally uploaded by sharathbs.

This was one of the geese roaming the Philly zoo, it ate everything people offered including fries dipped in ketchup and a strip of chicken, there's something almost cannibalistic about the latter...

The Philadelphia Zoo

We visited the Philly zoo yesterday, long walks for the 3 of us but all in all a day of fun :)

The Philadelphia Zoo is America's first zoo, and its a pretty good one too. While their collection probably isn't the biggest or most extensive, their animals look happy and well looked after. Also, I really liked what they had done for their monkeys, their primates looked really happy and occupied, unlike other zoos where they typically looked bored to death.

All in all we had a lot of fun and we hope to go back there soon and maybe we will see all the animals next time... We even got a zoo membership that lets us visit the zoo free for a whole year :) Hope T appreciates it.

The last place where I saw so many peacocks running free was Delhi