Bangalored

"[Bangalored] refers to people who have been laid off from a multinational because their job has been moved to India—a business practice designed to save money that is arousing passions in some countries, especially Britain and the United States."

One may also be referred to as "Delhi-ted".

Google Talk

It's been rumoured for a long time, but it's finally here. Google releases it's Instant Messenger! Based on the Jabber/XMPP open standards.

Disable Windows Messenger if you have MSN Messenger

I don't know what has triggered this, but I'm seeing more and more people logging into MSN Messenger twice when they come online - once with Windows Messenger and then again with MSN Messenger. Have a look at this page to learn how to disable the (frankly useless) Windows Messenger client.

Chemical Diet - The Morning After

The results are in...

I got weighed on Sunday morning before starting the diet, and again this morning exactly 3 days later. Result: 2.5kg lost!

Now whether I could've lost that just by eating less is a different matter, but definitely shows that this diet made me take in less calories than I need. ;)

[ The Chemical Diet | Day One | Day Two | Day Three ]

Chemical Diet - Day Three

Day Three - The Final Countdown

Breakfast
Coffee: Yuck. Still.
Apple: OK.
Crackers & cheese: Yum!
Still got that washing machine stomach though. There's something not right about having 3 drinks (~0.75L) before 9am.

Lunch
Dew hard boiled the eggs last night, and made toast this morning, wrapped it in aluminium foil and we took it to work for lunch.
Hard boiled egg: Nice enough.
Toast: Rubbery. Not so nice.
Coffee: Yuck. Still.
2 glasses of water: Washing machine.

Dinner
Tuna: Nice.
Beetroot: Nice.
Cauli: Nice.
Melon: Nice!
Ice cream: Nice... :)

Altogether a, er, nice final meal to round off the 3 days of dieting!

Now this diet is referred to as the 'chemical diet', being chemically proven to do stuff to help you lose weight, but personally I'm sceptical (as you probably guessed I would be), so I decided to do some searching around to find out how the chemical diet works. Cue about an hour of reading about various food combinations, diets, but nothing concrete saying how these foods combine to do what they do. (In fact, as I suspected, more people point out that it's just another way of limiting your calorie intake, and if you take in less calories than you burn then you will lose weight). So as I'm engrossed in surfing for the facts, the subject of our upcoming holiday came up, and Dew asked what we needed to put on the shopping list for tomorrow. And what will we have for breakfast in the morning?

With all this stuff going round in my head I started poking round the cupboards to see what was missing, and trying to think about what we might need from the shop.

Milk, bread, *picks up almost empty bag of nuts & raisins*, we need nuts & raisins, cheese, *eats a couple of nuts*, water, stir fry?, chicken?, *takes nuts into lounge*, does this diet really work on calories? What do we still need to work out before the holiday? *eats some raisins*.

"What are you doing?"

That was the question that broke me out of my little trance with the shocking realisation that, with only 90 minutes left before midnight, the official end of the diet, and with only one glass of water still to drink (per the instructions), I had 'cheated'. I absent-mindedly ate a couple of handfuls of nuts and raisins! Argh! Dew and I had been chatting about various things and both of us completely failed to realise that I'd picked up the nuts from the cupboard, brought them through to the lounge and sat there eating them in front of her for about 2 minutes before it clicked.

So Dew says I've "failed", and I guess I have in a way. In my defense, it was only a few nuts and technically we'd finished the food anyway, so... Ah bugger. :)

Let's see what weigh-in says tomorrow. If I've put weight on I'm blaming the nuts.

[ The Chemical Diet | Day One | Day Two | The Morning After ]

Chemical Diet - Day Two

Day two in the chemical diet house.

Breakfast was an improvement on yesterday, with an interesting mix of banana and egg to go with the toast. The coffee was still awful, but I'm getting used to it.

Lunch was inadequate, with only 5 Ritz crackers and some cottage cheese to rid me of the taste of the black coffee. Damn, maybe I'm not getting used to it after all. Strangely, the hunger subsided as the afternoon went on. Maybe it had something to do with having other things on my mind.

Dinner was actually enjoyable, especially the hot dogs. Banana and ice cream also made for a nice dessert (and no coffee in sight)!

Again, coming up to bedtime and the hunger pangs are coming back. I feel like Alex the lion from Madagascar when he starts seeing steaks. Hmmm, steak... *licks lips*

Last day tomorrow!

[ The Chemical Diet | Day One | Day Three | The Morning After ]

Chemical Diet - Day One

So here we are at the end of day one. I'll give you a quick run-down of how today has gone.

Breakfast
I don't like tea or coffee, but when I do drink it I always have plenty of milk and sugar. Not today though, it had to be black. Yuck! I'm also not keen on peanut butter but 2 teaspoons wasn't going to kill me. By the end of breakfast I was glad the worst part of the diet was out of the way.

Lunch
Lunch was rushed as we were going to the cinema and didn't have long to get ready. We'd left it until the last minute to eat because we weren't hungry after having breakfast quite late. The tuna went down nicely, as did the toast. The coffee and water was a struggle and my stomach felt like a washing machine afterwards. Still, the film was OK and I only spent 30 minutes of it dying for the loo!

Dinner
Definitely the best meal of the day, and I was really ready for it by the time it came around. It was also surprisingly filling; I was feeling full as I ate the apple and still had the ice cream to go.

It's nearing bedtime now, and I'm starting to feel a little peckish again. I'd normally have some supper but it's not in the diet, so tough cookies (hmmm, cookies...). No chocolate, yoghurt, biscuits, not even a small alcoholic beverage (not even for medicinal purposes). Ah well!

Let's see how I feel in the morning.

[ The Chemical Diet | Day Two | Day Three | The Morning After ]

The Chemical Diet

Dew and I are taking the plunge and are going to do the chemical diet in preparation for our holiday in September. Here are the details...

This diet works on a chemical breakdown and is proven. Do not vary or substitute any of the foods below.

Salt and pepper to be used in moderation and no other seasoning.

Where no quantity is given there are no restrictions other than common sense.

After 3 days eat normally in moderation.

If you commence the diet a few days later you can lose up to 40lbs in one month.

Toast is to be dry (no butter or marg).

Cauliflower, carrots string beans and beetroot can be frozen.

Saltine crackers are either Tuc or Ritz.

It is important to drink a glass of water before and after each meal and drink a further glass before bedtime.

The diet must be followed exactly with no substituting to lose 10lbs in 3 days.

Day One
Breakfast
Black tea/coffee
1/2 grapefruit
1 slice of toast
2tsp peanut butter

Lunch
4oz tuna
1 slice of toast
Black tea/coffee

Dinner
3oz cold meat
1 cup of string beans
4oz beetroot
1 small apple
4oz vanilla ice cream

Day Two
Breakfast
Black tea/coffee
1/2 banana
1 slice of toast
1 egg

Lunch
4oz cottage cheese
5 saltine crackers
Black tea/coffee

Dinner
2 hot dogs
4oz broccoli
2oz carrots
1/2 banana
4oz vanilla ice cream

Day Three
Breakfast
Black tea/coffee
1 small apple
5 saltine crackers
slice cheddar cheese

Lunch
1 HB egg
1 slice of toast
Black tea/coffee

Dinner
4oz tuna
4oz beetroot
4oz cauliflower
1/2 small honeydew melon
4oz vanilla ice cream

[ Day One | Day Two | Day Three | The Morning After ]

Agilent Cashes in Its Chip Unit

NEWS ANALYSIS
By Justin Hibbard
AUGUST 11, 2005
Agilent Cashes in Its Chip Unit
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Silver Lake Partners paid $2.65 billion for the division, with its fast-growing cell-phone chip business

Private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Silver Lake Partners have won an auction to purchase the semiconductor-products business of Agilent Technologies for $2.65 billion, according to a source close to the matter. Agilent may announce the sale as soon as Monday, when it reports fiscal third-quarter earnings.

In the final days of competitive bidding, KKR and Silver Lake edged out such rivals as Texas Pacific Group and Francisco Partners, which were unwilling or unable to beat the winning bidders' offer. Most analysts had expected the bid to reach $2.5 billion, but the $2.65 billion price is in line with the valuations of similar chip companies.

FURTHER SPIN-OFFS? The deal values Agilent's semiconductor business at 1.5 times trailing 12-month revenues, roughly the same multiple at which chipmakers Micron Technology, Freescale Semiconductor, and Fairchild Semiconductor are valued. "It seems like a fair price for all," says Richard Eastman, senior analyst at investment bank Robert W. Baird & Co. Agilent, KKR, and Silver Lake declined to comment.

The new owners will likely focus on developing Agilent's personal systems business, which sells chips for mobile phones, printers, PC peripherals, and consumer electronics. This unit accounted for two-thirds of Agilent semiconductor sales in 2003 and 2004. Chips that equip mobile phones with multimedia and high-speed Internet access are among the personal systems division's fastest-growing products. The semiconductor business has an agreement to supply printer chips to Hewlett Packard, which spun off Agilent in an initial public offering in 1999 and accounted for 14% of the chip division's revenues last year.

Less certain is whether KKR and Silver Lake will keep the unit's networking business, which makes chips for fiber-optic equipment and computer-storage devices. "They might spin those products off to a company that wouldn't want to buy the whole division," says Mark Fitzgerald, an analyst at Banc of America Securities. In 2000, Agilent unveiled a much-heralded optical switching component right before the telecom industry entered a prolonged slump.

STILL BURDENED. The sale of the chip business could bring good news for long-suffering Agilent shareholders, who haven't seen the company's stock rise above its $30 IPO price in over a year. In a June report, analysts at investment bank Needham & Co. suggested that Agilent could use proceeds from a sale of its semiconductor division to boost its share price by buying back convertible bonds and shares. In the long run, the analysts predicted Agilent's growth, margins, and profitability would improve as management focused on the company's $2.9 billion test and measurement business.

The semiconductor business has been a drag on Agilent's profitability. After two years of losing money, the division last year turned a pretax profit of $166 million on $2 billion in sales -- a meager 8% operating profit margin. Shedding the unit will allow Agilent's more profitable test and measurement and life-sciences divisions to shine through.

But Agilent's results are still burdened by the company's semiconductor-testing arm, which last year turned in a 7% operating profit margin. Agilent CEO William P. Sullivan, who joined the company in March, has vowed to improve profits by fixing, restructuring, or exiting businesses. Could a sale of the chip-testing business be next?

Grow

Got this link from a friend. In his words:

"It's a strange little game. The idea is simply to work out which order to upgrade your little planet. Get it wrong and something bad will undoubtedly happen! Trial and error your way to victory!"

If trial and error isn't your style, here's the solution I used:

Tree   2 | Chest  7
Stairs 8 | Castle 3
House  1 | Water  4
Rocks  6 | Tower  5

That is:
House, Tree, Castle, Water, Tower, Rocks, Chest, Stairs

Montage-a-google

Montage-a-google uses Google's image search to generate a montage of images based on keywords that you enter. Have a play, then take a look at Guess-the-Google, which is a game that works in reverse: Given a montage, can you guess the keyword?