Mr. Menon Writes

Thrissur Traffic Chronicles: An Accident Waiting to Happen (And it did)   So, here we are. Part 2 of my long rant about Thrissur's charming traffic situation. I mean, who would’ve thought that after my passionate blog post on how much I hate the traffic, the traffic would come back to bite me? Quite literally.   Yes, ladies and gents, I, the fearless Thrissur traffic crusader, met with an accident. There I was, minding my own business on a busy junction (which one? Take your pick – they're all chaotic). And BAM! Some careless driver slammed into me from behind. Next thing I know, I’m on the ground, leg fractured, all wrapped up in a plaster for the next 4 weeks. Ah, the sweet irony of life.   Now, I’m not one to brag, but this accident has turned me into something of an authority on all things traffic-related—mostly because I’m currently bedridden and have nothing better to do than think about it. I’ve become a full-time couch potato, working from 8 AM to 5/6 PM, an

The idea is to spark discussion and bring in great ideas and send them to PWD (or something). So feel free to roast this, and my stupidity. TT- Not thrissurkaran thendi. Thrissur’s traffic. Thrissur has a traffic problem. Our busy junctions: Toyota to Puzhakkal, Punkunnam, Patturaikkal, Eastfort, MG Road, Shankara Iyer Junction, Post office road, Railway Station Road. There are many reasons for me to bitch my heart out. Running late, stuck in sweltering heat, in heavy downpours, carrying many heavy bags. And yet I get by no thanks to TT. Coming from a guy who has been outside the city very infrequently, this might be … very… obviously… biased. But Thissur’s traffic problem isn’t really a traffic problem. It’s just poor management of traffic, bad roads and bad drivers. Poor Management of traffic: ·         Puzhakkal: No complaints here. With the NH 66 happening, roads are widening here too. For the first time in the history of Kerala, road construction is happening from one

Homegrown Viacom18 has bagged the rights to broadcast the Indian Premier League matches from 2023 to 2027. This should be seen as the Reliance Group’s foray into the Sports broadcasting industry. The significance of this venture apart from IPL being the second largest sports events (in case you’re wondering, its bigger than the EPL!) in the world, relates to the fact that the winning bid for the rights has risen exponentially. Here are the numbers: The 2017 rights (All broadcasting rights) were sold to Disney Star for Rs. 16,347.5 Cr. In 2022, these rights were split up as TV and Digital and were sold for Rs. 23,575 to Disney star and for Rs. 20,500 Cr to Viacom18 respectively. The growth has been nothing short of astronomical. For perspective, these rights were sold for Rs. 8,200 Cr for 10 years, that is Rs.820 Cr per year! The four broadcast packages: ·         Package A: TV Rights for the Indian Sub-continent ·         Package B: Digital Rights for the Indian Sub-continent

It's been over an year since I had published anything here. I wrote my last article about Wallstreetbets in a span of 30 minutes, sitting in my boss' cabin waiting for his call to end. Revisiting that memory has given me something to think about: it doesn't take a lot of time to publish something. I just was not committed enough. This is not a first. I've tried to come up with something every once in a while in the past BUT never followed through. Part of this has to do with the fact that I've never really considered writing to be my thing, I was just curious to find out what it's like. Nevertheless, this time around I have a few other goals in mind apart from satisfying my curiosity. Consequently, I have decided to re-restart my blog "again".  There's one other thing I'd like to throw in: I'm interested in a lot of things. So, if you make up your mind to come visit me here, you might almost never know what to expect! This is what's wro

Lately, there has been very less to write about. But I was intrigued by what happened at the WallStreet. The working class heroes took it up to a whole new level, totally unprecedented.  Here's the long story short: THE GME (Game stock) are retailers of video games. They sell their games physically, not online. This model had become increasingly loss-incurring even before the Covid induced lock down as people started going to online markets. The figures are quite remarkable- they lost about $275mn on around $5Bn revenues. This would mean for a lot of institutional investors out there-a huge shorting opportunity. And they redeemed it. The short positions came flying in. However, Ryan Cohen, founder of Chewy Inc, began bringing the public attention to this stock by taking a 13% stake in the company. The public started taking long positions and the Big players kept shorting.  This is where the redditters come on stage. The Wallstreetbets  (a forum) began discussing the stock and the i

The Blockchain Technology “Distributed ledgers”, that is what the whole thing is all about. Well, of course, there is more to it than that. But for now, let us start with how it carries out and delivers. Now imagine you live in a Utopia. Perfectly balanced, like the kingdom down in South India ruled by the king Mahabali. All the citizens are honest, trusting and the whole system is transparent. Not nearly as possible these days, isn’t it? Dear readers, let me just tell you, you’re wrong. The blockchain technology is exactly what the world needs right now. Maybe not what it wants, but most certainly what it needs. A system is being built where the whole area of data security and safety is autonomous with zero human intervention. How does it work?  Imagine you want to buy a property in a foreign land. How can you trust the guys there? How can they trust you? What if there is a well-established escrow?. Both parties now feel a sense of security. Now what if the escr

The Legend: C handler Bing's job was statistical analysis and data reconfiguration. It was a boring job. He was dead inside. He was just a regular employee in a huge organization - ill-fitted, unhappy. Apparently, statistical analysis and data reconfiguration, made his life boring. The thing is, it was not the job in itself that set him off. He was witty, funny and dynamic, he thought it would be better if he tried something where he can use all that qualities. Present day: Chandler Bing was a Data Scientist before it got its present name. Statistical analysis and data reconfiguration is just technical jargon now. The boring desk job around computers, spreadsheets, graphs, data sets, Data Science has lost all of these characterizations. In fact, it did a good job growing up. Data science is presently the "sexiest job" on the planet, of the 21st century. Harvard University gave this label. To put it simple, the world is data driven. It's the oil of the 21s