Things that crossed my way!

Hi Guys,

The past few days have been really busy. There were lot of works related with my studies and actually, it’s amazing that I am enjoying these days. I have never been a hard worker and the past few days have been different. More than that, I found some leadership qualities in myself which was something I never expected. I like the way things are going on and it gives me lot of pleasure. Thinking back, I can’t believe I have been working hard. Hope it continues in the future too.

The Toyota Way

I started to read the book ‘The Toyota Way’ and it is really an interesting book. It portrays how Toyota builds the car empire in the 1950s to become the world’s biggest manufacturer beating all the US competitors. The book focuses more on the 14 principles of Toyota (I don’t know why the number 14 is so common in all management principles) or the Toyota Production System (TPS). It was the first company to introduce Lean Manufacturing (an alteration of Ford’s Assembly Line).

Ford’s Line was concentrated on bulk manufacturing, but TPS focuses on more production with large varieties. The main principles are Kaizen (change for transformation in Japanese) and JIT (Just in Time). It was also interesting to know the story of the Toyota. It is a good book. But read this book, only if you know a little about management (we had Principles of management and now we have Total Quality Management) and so the book appears meaningful.

Mindhunters

I had not watched a movie during the past two weeks. So I was feeling a little awkward and so I decided to watch a movie from the huge unwatched collection I was having. I chose the movie Mindhunters which was a short movie (100 minutes). The movie was good thriller. A group of FBI trainees are left alone in an uninhabited navy island for a training mission. One by one, they start to die terribly. They find a watch which denotes the next murder time. They find one of them is the murderer, but who is it? It was a nerve tickling movie and the suspense lasted till the climax and that was the biggest plus.

That’s it for now.

Happy Reading!!!

The Birds! (1963)

Hi Guys,

Few days back, I saw one of the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece movies, ‘The Birds’. It was really a very horrific movie and it left me wondering, ‘How did they shoot the movie?’

One fine morning, Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) meets a lawyer Mitch Berner (Rod Taylor) in a bird shop at San Francisco. Mitch is in search of lovebirds for his sister Cathy’s 11^th birthday. After an interesting conversation, Mitch leaves as there are no lovebirds. Melanie gets a pair of lovebirds and goes to Bodega Bay where Mitch lives with his mother and sister in an island connected by road.

She makes it a complete surprise and leaves the birds when no one is at home. She waits in the boat and when Mitch sees her, she rows back to the main land. On the way, a gull hits her which is peculiar. She lives along with Cathy’s teacher Annie there. That night, a bird hits Annie’s door and dies.

After that during Cathy’s Birthday party, a flock of birds attack. Few children are injured and one friend dies. After that crows attack the school and thus an argument arises in the local bar. At the same time, a bird knocks gasoline filler unconscious and gasoline spills on the road. Due to a cigar lighting a large accident occurs. At the same time, Annie dies at the school entrance.

Before the School attack

Everyone returns home and Mitch makes the home fool proof by covering the glass windows with wood. Birds attack that night and they nearly break in but they escape narrowly. They decide it’s time to leave before the birds attack again. Mitch opens the door to find that the house is surrounded by 1000s of birds. Do they escape forms the climax of the movie.

The attack of the birds was horrifying. I don’t know how Hitchcock took all those shots. They were so real. The movie was filled with thrills. Particularly the mechanism of bird attack was shown interestingly. First a single bird comes and occupies the place. It is followed by some others and finally a huge flock assembles. Music is another plus point to the movie.

It’s one of the greatest movies made by Alfred Hitchcock. Don’t miss it. Watch the trailer to get an insight of the movie.

Happy Reading!!!

Thermodynamics and Dieting!

Hi Guys,

One of my favorite subjects is Thermodynamics and as I was reading a book on Thermodynamics, I found this interesting concept.

Dieting is generally based on calorie counting. It is based on the concept of conservation of energy which is also the first law of Thermodynamics. People who consume more energy than their body burns get weight, whereas people who eat less will lose weight. But, we see people who eat more and yet remain slim. We also see people who eat less and are stout. So, where is the problem? Researchers come out with lot of theories.

Certain people have food efficient bodies and so they need fewer calories to do a work than others require. Our body interprets dieting as starvation and starts to use the reserve energy more stringently. For instance instead of eating 2500 calorie daily without exercise, the basal metabolic rate (energy spent during our rest time) reduces by 10-20 percent. If dieting continues for long periods, our body adapts to lower metabolic rate and if we start to eat normally again, we gain more weight than before.

So, moderate exercise is a part of healthy dieting program. It builds muscle tissue that burns calories faster than the fat tissues.

Another general hypothesis is that genes are the reason for overweight. Stats say that 80% of children of overweight parents are also overweight. So heredity is a reason for overweight. Researchers have found a gene called RIIbeta which controls the rate of metabolism. The genes keep the fat level at a set point (which differs from person to person). So if a person is going to gain weight, the metabolism becomes faster and if he is to lose weight, metabolism becomes slow. In this case, exercises don’t help very much.

If metabolic rate is low, the people must reduce in taking foods with high calorific value as it is the only option to avoid putting on weight. Exercises don’t help as metabolic rate is low.

There is something known as Sensible diet, which consists of two rules.   

1.  Eat whatever you want and whenever you want as much as you want provided that you do not eat unless you are hungry. 
2. You stop eating before you get stuffed.

Overweight leads to lot of health related problems ranging from high blood pressure to some forms of cancer especially if people have diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

Listen to your body and don’t impose it.

Happy Reading!!!

P.S: This is an excerpt from ‘Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach – Cengel, Boles’