True Story : Facebook

Just for fun.

Martian Conspiracy

Trying hands with memes.



But maybe Consipracy Keanu is right? What if Martians can't be seen in our dimension? or our assumption of life form is completly wrong? I mean ... even Sun is living !!

Google Doodle Soccer

Again a new doodle from Google dedicated to soccer. The new Google Soccer Doodle is somewhat like basketball doodle in terms of difficulty. Easier than kayaking one, that one involved many factors.

With a heavyweight striker and a frail goalkeeper you have to save as many goals as you can. Pretty simple hand eye co-ordination is a major factor, yes though its just a doodle but still it requires that :).
If you want to score high there are certain things to watch for. As usual after every 10points the difficulty level increases, the ball comes faster so less time to think if its a grounded shot or an aerial one. Lookout when the striker kicks from the edge that shot can be deceiving. Also sometimes the balls get cluttered at one place it pretty confusing when you can only see one or two balls. All major shots are there including curved ones and looping one (or maybe to me it seemed like that ). After 30 the striker gets more evil and shots are more and more powerful and deceiving. Just like the original game :).

Just a try, so close -"

It is expected to be a high scoring game maybe 60 or even close to 100. Enjoy the doodle( forgot what I had to search ).

Slalom Canoe Google Doodle

 

  

The new Google Doodle has unleashed whole new levels of difficulty. This time involving many factors to deal with in search for gold. The Slalom Canoe doodle requires to navigate via a river or stream turning at many points, at the same time you have to deal with rocks and frogs (most annoying) which slows you down. If you can navigate through the green poles on rapids (at least they help!) without hitting any frog or rock and the banks then you are guaranteed of a high score. Also I think hardware considerations have to be taken in account because responsive keys definitely makes high scoring possible. Close to the real kayaking.

Close Enough!

This will break by keyboard :P;

Google Basketball Doodle Score

Well this one is pretty addictive doodle. Though 42 is scored regularly, tried to get past 42 but can't. I think 45 will be the max score. It's fun though :)

HTML5 CSS3 Webtemplate

This is a simple HTML5 CSS3 website template you can customize it according to your needs. It has a clean and modular code and css. No fancy stuff just basic elements presents like : slideshow, social icons and a navigation bar. Its cross browser compatible ie supports all the major browsers including Internet Explorer, although some irregularities may occur as they sometimes do with any browser. CSS3 and HTML code is fully optimized and all the CSS and Javascript is minimized. Also, social icons in form of  CSS sprites.
Performance wise just to give an idea of pagespeed although it will change as you add more things to it, results from Pingdom.com.

Pingdom results

For every new page you don't have to add common element codes like header, navigation and footer, just include the header.php and footer.php files in a new blank page.

Preview 1

Preview 2

For Live Demo : See Here

Download  : Here


Your feedback will be helpful for publishing more complex templates.


Edit 1: As pointed out by some good people, I forgot to mention template is not ideal for mobile views. Although will be updating with mobile version.

Edit 2: Corrected the weird overlapping of div's, that was occuring when it was viewed in smaller sized screens.

Rainmeter Theme - Marilyn&me

Rainmeter is a popular and best desktop customization program. You can enhance your Windows computer at home or work with skins; handy, compact applets that float freely on your desktop. Rainmeter skins provide you with useful information at a glance. It's easy to keep an eye on your system resources, like memory and battery power, or your online data streams, including email, RSS feeds, and weather forecasts.

Theme is based around the Marilyn Monroe wallpaper although resolution is not important but strictly, resolution of wallpaper is :1200x800. Just drag the docks to set them to your preferred screen space.
This is a theme made for Rainmeter just unrar and install the theme. A screenshot is provided if you want to see the gadgets or docks in the theme. You should have Rainmeter installed for using this theme.
You can get Rainmeter here : http://rainmeter.net/
Wallpaper is not mine, but included.

Download Theme here :

Link1       

Link2

Link3
(press enter after entering the Captcha in download page)    




                              

Yahoo Password Leak

Around half a million of username passwords were stolen from Yahoo by D33d's who took the responsibility for the deed. Though according to Yahoo they were stored on an old file (seems like it was there to be stolen only) and  only 5% of the passwords were in actual use. Usernames and passwords not only included Yahoo but also Gmail and others. So those lazy souls using Yahoo services and have not changed their passwords for long better change them now.
If you want to check if your Email id and password were present in that unfortunate file you can visit
Sucuri Yahooleak

As for Yahoo they 'explain'  :

At Yahoo! we take security very seriously and invest heavily in protective measures to ensure the security of our users and their data across all our products. We confirm that an older file from Yahoo! Contributor Network (previously Associated Content) containing approximately 400,000 Yahoo! and other company users names and passwords was stolen yesterday,July 11. Of these, less than 5% of the Yahoo! accounts had valid passwords. We are fixing the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of this data, changing the passwords of the affected Yahoo! users and notifying the companies whose users accounts may have been compromised. We apologise to affected users. We encourage users to change their passwords on a regular basis and also familiarise themselves with our online safety tips at security.yahoo.com.

Aww, familiarising with security tips won't help if the password database itself gets stolen. Many things are leaking these days from password, usernames, economies to scandals etc etc.

PeaceTree

Once it was made with fountain pen ink!

Killer Coming Soon Page CSS

Well every website needs branding no matter what you are offering. A killer coming soon page is way to go, to create all the necessary hype and positive user feeling even before its launched.

How it was made it?
Thanks to the  awesome Mary Lou Tutorial example 2. (btw others are also equally awesome).

I tweaked CSS animations. Introduced a small HTML5 web form for email subscription. Added a PHP backend.

So, the conclusion is that, it is ready to use coming soon page with database backend, just change the text and php values and use it.

Hope it will be helpful to someone and save time for those who are short of it :)

Here you can download it  ::  ComingSoonPage Link 1
                                             ComingSoonPage Link 2  


                                          
Check out your coming soon page in Action  ::  LIVE DEMO

What it includes  :
HTML files : Optimized pages, no need to code for non tech guys.
All the required JS
CSS obviously
PHP backend file

flanker.mindwars.in/comingsoon

Any suggestions any demands? Comments are welcomed.

Universe and Thoughts

Universe, word that generates thousands of thoughts in the human brain throughout 

his or her lifetime. On hearing the word universe, for most of the people the first 

thought that comes to their mind is that of a beautiful clear night sky full of stars 

of some picture of the solar system that we may have seen throughout our life. 

Never does come, a thought of a Black Hole or some distant part of universe. 

Though black holes are also very much part of this universe. Is imagination or 

thoughts of a human mind really without limits ?? What we imagine is the product

of what happens around us, to our liking our brain selects the few events or anything 

that the body has felt or eyes have observed and weaves around that basic feeling 

or observation a whole fabric of imagination. Into the play comes our past experiences

and our memories which together with the selected memory or thought or feeling or

what we like to think makes the fabric of our imagination our dreams. So we can't 

think or imagine what we haven't experienced or seen anything in relation to.

It can be said that our definition of universe or the origin and working of universe 

functions in the same way. Till now what we have known about the universe is based 

upon our past observations, works, researches. As we discover new frontiers we gain 

more knowledge and with new knowledge our thoughts changes their course of 

previous thinking and together with them our mind weaves new fabric of our imagination.

Our universe cannot live outside our minds. With flowing time we generate new 

imaginations and at the same time the universe also changes, both ours and the 

one that actually exist. We don't have any means to measure the changing of our 

thoughts with the changing of universe. The Uncertainity which is observed at the 

atomic level is also present in the universe.

Universe constantly changes and so our thoughts. But if changing of our thoughts or 

experiences or you can say the speed of us gaining new knowledge can outrun the 

speed of change of universe then, maybe if we survive that long we may be able to 

know all the secrets of universe and be able to look ahead or look into the future of 

universe.



Just a thought I like to think, doesn't matter if its stupid, wrong or weird because our 

imagination after all is part of the universe and it's physical.

Free Social Network Icons CSS Sprites

Using icons, rollovers in website if a very common practice and it makes the content visually pleasing and at the same time improving the usability of the website. But more the number of pics of icons or rollovers
more the http request. That means with every seprate pic you use, your site makes http request for every pic which in turns affect the performance of the site everytime it loads.
Css provides a clever way out of this situation in form of Css sprites. Css sprite is a single pic made of many pics that you are using across your website. For example the image below :

(7kb) Before rollover

Before you hover mouse on it :
 What CSS code looks like -

(8kb) After rollover

 

#div img

{ background : url( path to image) ;

  background-position : 0(left), 0(top); }

After you hover mouse :
What CSS code looks like  :

#div img:hover

{ background : url( path to image);

  background-position : 0%, 100%;}

But in reality the 2 images are in the end one pic only. The position of images is calculated as shown in fig. Thus using one single image instead of 2 images and this in turn reduces the number of http requests and the size of bigger image is smaller than the size of two seprate images combined. In this case size of image1 and image2 sums up to 15kb whereas size of the bigger image came to be 12kb. So CSS Sprites are very helpful when it comes to website optimization.




Free Social Icons CSS Sprites


See CSS Sprite in a Action  :

flanker.mindwars.in

Free Download                     :-    Socialsprites

                                   
Note : Click on the LINK at the bottom of download page.
              

Included  resolutions

128x128                64x64                    32x32

Don't have any idea how to use it ?
Don't worry    1. Download the zip file and unzip it
                      2. All the CSS and HTML code with explanation is included so all you
                          have to  do is  COPY and PASTE only.


Made simple CSS sprite of Social Network Icons hope it helps someone :)

The Bourne Legacy, without Bourne

Well the new Bourne Legacy theatrical trailer is out and it looks good. No Matt Damon and no Paul Greengrass meant that studio had to get the lots of starpower to maintain interest of a Bourne fan like me in the franchise. They did exactly the same, bringing in some starpower in form of  Jeremy Renner, Edward Norton and Rachel Weisz. Ironically, the film series has some similarities with the novel also, the first three were written Ludlum thats Identity, Supermacy and Ultimatum which were a trilogy in there own. After Ludlum's death the series was continued by Eric Van Lustbader, starting from Legacy.

So in terms of watching movie as a fan of Matt Damon as Bourne, I and many like me will be treating it like a franchise which was complusion of studio to continue because the first three movies earned them a cult following and ofcourse big bucks. Though they did some smart thinking in not continuing the character of Bourne with Renner, which would have been a very risky gamble. I don't want to take anything away from that guy but I can't imagine any other actor as Bourne other than Matt Damon, well they are good at making it that way only. But as a disoriented, confused and clueless guy who goes by his instinct in a hostile enviroment, with everyone after his life for seemingly no reason, Matt Damon was great. In trailer its mentioned, he's the agent(Renner) without inconsistencies so he will be going in hot without any problems Bourne had. Nevertheless action seems to be badass as usual and the guy who wrote screenplay for previous movies Tony Gilroy is the director, inresting to is if they can take forward the Legacy, left by Damon and Greengrass.

Zurker - Own a Social Network :: Join It Own It

 In the big market of social networking everyone wants a share and with the success of giants like Facebook and entry of other big players like Google one can be sure that this will go only one way and thats in up direction towards soaring profits. Facebooks's aquisition of Instagram just solidifies the fact.

So since every one wants to be part of this, how does a non technical user end guy can become a part of the big picture ?

Developers of Zurker seems to have come up with an answer.

• Zurker allows you to be owner of your own content so thats good for all those privacy freaks and folks worried about ownership of their content.
• What you do is a simple signup process which gives you an opportunity to become one of the owners of the company .Well ofcourse their will be other people too but if it grows big value of your stakes or shares will be big too.
• When Zurker earns you Earn when your vShares are coverted to shares. 

Join Zurker

At Zurker, you are a co-owner and an investor. You can earn vShares by referring your friends. The more friends you invite, the more equity you earn. Zurker becomes better, and better, as more people join, increasing in value. As Zurker becomes more valuable, your stake becomes more valuable.Checkout Zurker

For more info ofcourse you can visit : About Zurker

Zurker is invitation only for now you can get your invitation by clicking the link below:



Invitation to Join Zurker

Indian Air Force to fly Dassault Rafale after a $10.4 billion deal

Dassault Rafale emerged winner

Finally India concluded its shortlisting procedure for the acquisition of 126 Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) for an international defense deal, largest single order floated by India. The French with their Dassault Rafale have been chosen over Eurofighter Typhoon backed by Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.

 Each and every aircraft had points in its favor and against it. It is useless to discuss their performance or capabilities because each one of them is amazing in its own terms. No wonder IAF took so much time in choosing the aircraft closest to their requirement, testing the machines to their limits in desert conditions, high altitudes and  many other different conditions, situations and scenarios. Also analyzing the economy of total requirements, offset costs, life-cycle and other prospects.

For people new to news, whole story in short :

India floated an international tender for procurement of 126 MRCAs, stated as the biggest India deal worth a whopping $10billion. Aircrafts were to fill the increasing void in the Indian Air Force due to its depleting squadrons and the phasing out of ageing aircrafts like the MiG 21 and already retired MiG 23s. IAF is functioning far below its sanctioned strength of 39 squadrons, with give the nature of situation in the sub-continent urgency to fill the gap felt and hence the mammoth deal. Also, high rates of crashes and a delayed LCA Tejas contributed to the factors.

A brief of participating countries and companies with their aircraft and there fate in the deal.



Dassault Rafale, France

Dassault Rafale in single and twin seater configuration

Dassault has been in India for long, currently with Mirage 2000 it’s already having IAF as a client. Rafale emerged as we can say first among equals. Initial French bid of Mirage 2000-5 was replaced by Rafale since closure of Mirage production lines. Though French bid of Rafale also had a bumpy ride but with it suiting to IAF’s needs, French lobbying and some lucrative offers helped Dassault to get ahead of others in the race. Also, already impressed by Mirage’s show in Kargil war, full technology transfers and not been supplied to any other neighboring country also favored to Rafale’s case. Availability of naval version of the Rafale (Rafale M) provided an edge to the bid over others.



Eurofighter Typhoon, Europe

Eurofighter Typhoon 

Typhoon made to it to the final two of the aircrafts selected, backed by Britain, Spain, Germany and Italy. Similar to Rafale in specs with some of the components been offered to be developed in India. Lost out to Rafale, with Dassault bidding a lower bid than that of its rivals. Also offered were thrust vectoring and invitation to India to participate in the Eurofighter Typhoon Program. Although British PM stating that he will ask India to 'reconsider' the decision. IAF currently does not operate any aircraft from Europe other than the French, so its induction would have meant for a whole new structure to be established and would have slowed the induction of Typhoon and IAF with it's depleted strength in a tensed region could not afford it.

Saab Gripen NG, Sweden

Saab Gripen 

Saab Gripen was the smallest of all the aircrafts in terms of airframe and only single engine aircraft other than F-16 Super Viper. Saab even announced a R&D center in India to develop hardware for aircraft and other needs in India only. It is state of the art and very agile capable of more than Mach 2. Initially offered Gripen did not impressed IAF much, it was after this that improved version of Gripen, Gripen NG was offered to India with improvements in overall features. But it was ousted with the other aircrafts above, reason as stated by some was it's reliance on US supplied parts mainly including its powerhouse the GE F414 engine.

Lockheed F-16 Super Viper & Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, US

Lockheed F-16

Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet

Despite heavy lobbying and pressure from the US, the both aircrafts from Boeing and Lockheed didn’t made to the last two. F-16's were first introduced in 1978 and since has been mainstay of USAF and many other air forces around globe. US supplying F-16's to Pakistan, issues of transfer of technologies and further future scenario in case of US sanctions leading to unreliable supplies worked against the two aircraft. Though F-16 offered to India was proposed to be most advanced F-16 made and option to provide F-35 Lightning as a future replacement. Though it's been said that it has no relation to the deal, US Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer resigned.


Mikoyan MiG-35 - Russia

Mikoyan MiG-35 final version was
 unveiled in Aero India 2007

Developed from MiG-29 by Mikoyan which India already operates, also MiG-29K the naval version of MiG-29 aircraft is due to be delivered with INS Vikaramaditya formerly Admiral Ghorshkov. Initially MiG-35 existed as a demonstrator only and the final version for production was introduced to the world first time in Aero India 07. Constant renegotiations on other deals, already India sourcing much of its military hardware from Russia contributed to the causes of not been selected in the deal despite lobbying. India also is already still in process of acquire it's full order of Sukhoi 30MKI. India is already developing 5th generation fighter jointly with Russia which is expected to be inducted around 2015 in the Indian Air Force.

Though the official documents have not been yet signed and can take many months or even a year to finally confirm the deal. But for now after many failed attempts to sell Rafale, the French are on the final stage of the deal and they are alone. If finalized, then India has kept an open option of buying ~70 more aircraft, the probability of which is very high and with the current economic condition of Indian Rupee this deal could well cross $20 billion mark.

Dassault are delighted, Sarkozy is also happy and may use this to his advantage in the coming French elections, after all he has a proven track record of clinching deals, at least in India’s case. To be noted that when he toured India in 2010 he took deals worth $20 billion with him considering that it was more than even what Obama took with him in return for the nuclear deal. Although the president is not enjoying popularity among French people, this deal could prove to be a breather for him. Also it can be argued that due to the elections around the corner the French president was desperate to seal the deal, beneficial for not only Dassault (who before this failed to sell Rafale due to some or other reason) but also for others involved in the Rafale program like Thales, Safran and the French defense industry, not to mention the president himself.

Lately the US Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer resigned and British  PM David Cameron said that he would ask India to 'reconsider' its decision on Rafale in favor of Eurofighter Typhoon, guess someone is already started facing heat on failing to grab the deal. With the  given economic conditions of the west and especially Europe with its weakening Euro and slumping economy, further tremors are expected to be felt by whoever was associated with an unsuccessful bid.
This further confirms the fact despite of denials that politics do affect everything whether it is a defense deal or a nuclear deal.

Dawn of British Rule in India - The "amazing" Battle of Plassey,1757

Positions of two forces
Red are the British

Nearly for 200 years India was ruled by the British. The British rule in India is remembered for the suffering of local people and exploitation of the country in all possible ways spanning from natural to human resources. But its also true that the it was under the British, that the fighting princely states of India were united to form majority of the country under one rule, although many were added afterwards but the rough draft of the country was drawn. It all started in battle of Plassey which was the battle that established British as the dominant force in sub-continent or we should say paved way for the British to establish their rule in the sub-continent. Although this was one of the main battles which became the reason for the British Rule in sub-continent majorly India and thus, is important part of history It just occupies nearly one paragraph or half a page (in case of some generous books) in our history books taught to children. We are made to learn the dates, between who and who the battle was fought and who won, but never are we told why did the British win or how the battle affected the future events and that's Indian education system for you.

For people who don't know anything here are some facts :
Battle was between the British and the Nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud-Daulah the last independent Nawab of India, the British were led by Colonel Robert Clive.  Nawab had wealthy states of Bihar and Bengal stretching to most of Bangladesh and Orrisa.

Date 23 June 1757 Location Palashi, Bengal Subah Result Decisive victory for the British East India Company Territorial changes Bengal annexed by British East India Company
Belligerents
British East India Company	Bengal Subah  French East India Company
Commanders and leaders
Colonel Robert Clive Major Kilpatrick Major Grant Major Eyre Coote Captain Gaupp	Siraj ud-Daulah Mohan Lal Mir Madan  † Mir Jafar Ali Khan(defector) Yar Lutuf Khan (defector) Rai Durlabh (defector)  Monsieur Sinfray
Strength
750 European soldiers 100 Topasses 2,100 Indian sepoys 100 gunners 8 cannon (six 6-poundersand 2 howitzers)	35,000 infantry 18,000 cavalry 53 field pieces (mostly 32, 24 and 18-pounders) 50 French artillerymen (6 field pieces)
Casualties and losses
22 killed (5 Europeans, 13 Indians) 50 wounded (15 Europeans and 30 Indians)[1]	500 killed and wounded

Since it can be seen that facts or stats are from Wikipedia obviously, since I am not good at statistics and by no means an expert in history.
Anyone just with a glance of stats can't help but, amazed on how come Nawab lost the battle.

Siraj-ud-Dualah had earlier captured Calcutta by attacking the British at Fort William due to the refusal of British to stop fortification of their positions in Bengal, in the wake of Seven Year war with the French in the west. He was aware of the global British interest in colonization and hence, resented the British politico-military presence in Bengal represented by the British East India Company. Since French were also present in Bengal at Chandernagar, the British and French began consolidating their positions, which to the Nawab, was an offensive act.

Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Discovery of India quotes:
"" In Bengal, Clive, by promoting treason and forgery with very little fighting , has won the Battle of Plassey in 1757, a date which is sometimes said to mark the beginning of the British Empire in India. It was an unsavoury beginning and sometimes of bitter taste has clung to it ever since.""

Treason as it is visible from the above facts, was from the Nawab's side. From 3 of his generals.
Mir Jafar Ali Khan was the main defector. The British(Clive) knew that the only way they can win this hopeless situation is to turn people against one another (sounds like still happening ) already major part of British army consisted of Indian soldier as the stats show. Mir Jafar was grand uncle to the young Nawab Siraj-ud-Dualah and since he was adopted by his grandfather Alivardi Khan who's death resulted in Siraj-ud-Dualah being made Nawab. Mir Jafar who considered himself legitimate heir to throne, became a General in Nawab's army. Though there was another contender elder sister of the deceased Nawab but the British and Clive(clever chap..) choose Mir Jafar Ali Khan and promised to make him next Nawab of Bengal. Finally, on June 5, 1757, a written agreement was signed between the Company, represented by Clive, and Mir Jafar, ensuring that Mir Jafar would be appointed Nawab of Bengal, once Siraj-ud-Daulah was deposed. It was also the classic case of military failures on the part of Nawab's army and relying on assumptions rather than getting first hand information from the battlefield.

On the eve before battle their were heavy rains and the gunpowder Indians had was drenched and those intelligent souls assumed that the British will also suffer same fate but British had their gunpowder covered, rest you can sum up. Moreover the French had provided them with their little artillery (goodwill, probably should have provided with a General to lead Nawab's army). French thought that with Nawab's army British had no chance and it would help them eradicate British from Bengal and country eventually. Sadly for French with Nawab's defeat their presence in Bengal ceased and eventually from country(this sounds familiar). The British acquired large amount of wealth from Bengal which helped East India Company to establish British Rule in India. Bengal was among the most richest and wealthiest state at that time. Though its another case that severe drought soon followed the British occupation.
As for that clever chap Robert Clive he was made first Governor of Bengal in 1765, interestingly he commited suicide after becoming addicted to opium.

Indian General lacked experience in unconventional warfare and on the other hand Robert Clive and the British had loads of experience in both conventional and unconventional treason forgery etc) from wars they fought in different conditions and different continents.Also before this the British had and were fighting series of wars or conflicts in Southern India and around Godavari delta. Therefore instead of panicking running like the Nawab's army did after brave general of artillery Mīr Madan died on being hit by a cannon ball, the British followed the orders and stood their grounds not to mention the agreement with Mir Jafar earlier. Though on first assault they were randomly firing in all direction since due to heavy fog there was not even walking visibility.

Re quoting Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Discovery of India :

"" In Bengal, Clive, by promoting treason and forgery with very little fighting , has won the Battle of Plassey in 1757, a date which is sometimes said to mark the begning of the British Empire in India. It was an unsavoury begining and sometimes of bitter taste has clung to it ever since.""

Plan of battle by Robert Clive

As fate would have it many more acts of treason like that of Mir Jafar continued and are happening till the present times affecting the country and its people. Moreover people are still fighting among themselves although the British and Robert Clive are long gone. Even today the country goes through same battles and with same results although the perspective has changed the scenarios have changed the times have changed and enemy has become from one to many both outside and within the country. As they say "history repeats itself", in this case history has repeated many times and still sadly no lessons learned. Its no longer about direct military wars there is a whole new set of warfare and proxy wars out there ranging from economic to electronic. Still you can see many Mir Jafar Ali kind of characters and even their approach has changed instead of supporting, now days these Mir Jafar's have moved a step ahead now they lobby for the enemy, surely times have changed.
Don't know why we consider it as just another battle in history. Probably it shows that we don't learn from our history or failures. This was and  is the main difference between us and the west history is for learning and thus should be respected and not considered irrelevant.
History teaches and repeats itself.

All above things are on net since I am no historian and like me if you want to take a look you obviously can.


""I knew that this battle was important in the history of India but was amazed when studied about it in detail and decided to share events with you""
There maybe some confusion on exact facts, who did what and statistics well which piece of history doesn't have its share of controversies and who cares. Overall I found the story was interesting and worth sharing.

Stay ahead of the Times, The Hindu ad campaign that took on ToI

We all know Times of India and Hindu both are two of the biggest names in the print media industry. The Hindu dominates the South, especially Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Though Hindu is considered as a boring newspaper mainly because of its lack of colors, pictures and page3 news when compared to other news prints in circulation, it is widely popular among students preparing for competitive exams particularly Civil services. ToI on the other hand is the most popular newspaper in India, especially in metros and in the North, given its colored print, all with visually rich content, which gives readers a kind of refreshing feel, with all the news and the much in talk page3 content, ToI is the market leader in terms of readership, not to mention their innovative ad campaigns from time to time.

In 2011, ToI launched a series of ads which urged readers to switch to color print since black and white was boring and outdated, the tagline itself said
"Had enough of black and white era, switch to Times of India." although it didn't seem to be a direct campaign against any specific newspaper but, against every black and white paper.

      


Since there is stiff competition in print media for a readership share, ToI decided to enter Hindu's turf and launched ad targeted to Chennai readers and The Hindu directly. Thing to be noted is that its Chennai where Hindu is based and has been in print since 1878. Advertisement mocked the paper for being full of boring news while much more interesting things happen around the world at a fast pace. Even the main character is seen carrying the Hindu in his hands in one of the scenes.

This was the ad with which ToI started.

                            
                   

Well no need to say that latest direct advertisement, is good in concept and funny. But probably ToI didn't expect any reply since it assumed Hindu to be same the way they tried to portray in the ad above. But alas, the big giant woke and there came reply or replies one should say that simply tears through, also some of it, unfortunately is more closer to reality. Though there can be weak points to everything and you can expect a more interesting reply but for now the ads below are clearly bang on target.

Below is the advertisement campaign which needs no explanation.

One.
                         

Two.

                         

Three.

                         

The print campaign.

                                                         

Well what ever be the reply one thing is sure first blow sometimes proves to be the last one. People are surely enjoying it.

Just want to share another picture from a different ad campaign by different companies and in a different country with a similar result. This was BMW v/s AUDI and BMW nailed it.

                               

                      

The Subconscious

 There is a continuous tension between man and his surroundings and this tension arises from his drives, needs and finally actions with those of his surroundings. These surroundings when engrossed in man himself, creates the society which demands a rationale for each and every action that he does. The source of requisition of this rationale can be external, as in the environment or can be internal, as the inner self.
Lets try to investigate the same.
Question being
"How do we take decisions that we take and what factors influence them."

There are 3 most important traits of our personality, namely - id, ego and superego.id is formed from desires and exists by birth. Its something we can't shred off, its something which makes us human. It exists by birth and changes forms as we age. One of the desires an infant has is hunger and corresponding action to this desire is crying. Collection of [desire-actions] forms the id.
Second one is ego, which is basically id, combined with some reality of the situation.
The Superego is the moral part of us and develops due to the moral and ethical restraints placed on us by our caregivers.

The sheer ingenuity of our the human psyche is that at times it works on levels, some of which are hidden, even from itself. These levels encapsulate the three traits of personality. Our psyche is like an iceberg, with the tip of it being the CONSCIOUS.

Conscious has things which we know about ourselves and the traits which we associate ourselves with or want to. This is the way we create a mental picture of ourselves. All the things happening here(which are thoughts more or less) are in our command, and we are incontestable on the point that we can draw our picture in and out. Now the way in which "the conscious" plays it part is it generates reasoning based on our past thoughts, actions and beliefs.While taking decisions it also takes into consideration the mental image that it has conjured overtime(Note that this image may differ from reality in some aspects).

Then comes the PRE-CONSCIOUS.
Preconscious hold our superego. Its a filter which acts and tries to stop us from taking certain actions,or conjuring certain thoughts. These are the thoughts which come from the sub-conscious, and dont match your consciousness's image of itself. So what does your conscious try to do? it tries to repress them.Not as simple as it may seem. It's like trying to block up the entrance to a water vole's nest. You can be pretty sure that it will pop in some other part of the garden. For an example sometimes you want to shout profanities at somebody but refrain yourself from doing so. This action can be a result of your surroundings which means that you don't want others to hear you swearing or it can be that you don't want yourself to swear. Things happening at a preconscious level are in control up to some extent. It all depends on how long you can hold yourself back. But when you lose control,these feelings come out as a source of embarrassment or at times relievers also.

Then comes the SUB-CONSCIOUS or the unconscious which is a vast,endless store of information that a person has congregated over time. This is the part of our psyche where 'id' resides.Its the part from where desires arise.
The most intriguing as well as baffling part of subconscious is that a person has a flimsy if not no control, over how it builds up. Each and every thing in our environment, our parents, our friends,our foes and everyone else contribute something to it and we just cannot discard any of those small bits and pieces of information. These small bits keep piling up and give us our 'nature'. These bits of information give rise to subconscious impulses and there is no escaping from these. Thus, Sub conscious contributes to our decision making in way that it actually defines who we are, its the thing which gives us our individuality.
And i think its the sub-conscious which gives meaning to "I".

Whole point being that, there can be discrepancies between what we think and what we want to think and I think that these discrepancies can only be sorted out by time and thoughtful actions. Our sub conscious is something that doesn't built up in few days or months but it takes a series of events over a period of time to divulge itself to reality.

Its a system which runs in the background, taking inputs, transforming itself and giving outputs to the outside world without even letting you know. That's the power of sub-conscious which can strip you off your mask in a jiffy.
CONSCIOUS= ACTS
PRE-CONSCIOUS= THINKS
CONSCIOUS= DRIVES THE OTHER TWO AND SAYS "I AM THE WAY I AM.FUCK YOU!". ;D