Instant Icecreams for kids!

The following is the recipe to make a sugary caramel syrup. It takes about 20 minutes to make this, or alternatively you can buy this from any super store. Whenever you need to serve soft ice-cream, get the whipped cream out of the fridge, put it in a cup, and decorate with the caramel syrup. You can ask the kids to either mix it thoroughly or just have it like strawberry sauce on vanilla ice-cream.
This has been my one of the favourite dessert, especially at those times, when you dont have anything around apart from a lump of jaggery or a spoon full of sugar.

Caramel Syrup:
Ingredients:

Large Stainless Steel Pot

2 Cups White Sugar

2 Cups Water

1/4 cup Corn Syrup

1/4 cup Maltose (Optional)

1/4 cup light caramel (Optional)
Steps:

1. In a pot, combine 2 cups sugar, 1 cup of water, and 1/4 cup Corn
Syrup. Reserve the other cup of water for later. Turn your stove to
“medium high.”

2. Bring the mixture to boil and place a lid on the pot for two
minutes. This will allow the steam created during boiling to wash the
sides of the pot.

3. Remove the lid and continue cooking until the sugar turns dark
amber / red. This will take about 10 to 15 minutes. When the sugar goes
from a golden colour to dark amber/red, it will happen very quickly, so
don’t leave the pot unattended.

4. If you notice that areas of sugar are turning darker quicker than
others, this means your heat is uneven underneath the pot. You can
rotate the pot to balance this out, or very gently swirl the sugar.

5. As the temperature approaches 195°C (about 400°F) have the lid to
the pot, two oven mitts and the reserved cup of water ready.

6. Once sugar has reached the temperature, or proper colour, remove
the pot from the heat and add the cup of water quickly and place the
lid over the pot. CAUTION! Adding water to hot sugar results in a lot
of sputtering and steaming. The steam and flying blobs of hot sugar can
burn, so use your oven mitts and stay back once you add the water.

7. Once the volcanic reaction has subsided, you can start stirring
the mixture. This will help dissolve the clumps of undissolved caramel.
The temperature of this liquid is still very hot!

8. Upon cooling to about 65°C you can add 1/4 cup of Maltose Sugar
(Maltodextrin) and stir until dissolved. This will help give the syrup
a thicker consistency the results in a silky texture when added to
drink. You can get maltodextrin at any home brew or wine making shop.

9. The light caramel syrup can be added to give your dark caramel a
sweeter taste. If the caramel has been over cooked, this will help
balance out the flavour. If you find the dark caramel syrup to have an
adequate level of sweetness you can skip it. Light caramel syrup is
made the same way as the dark version but you only cook it until it’s a
medium amber colour.

10. Store caramel syrup in glass bottle

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Unfair rules from London Underground (tfl)

In the heat of mass promoting the oyster cards, Tfl forgot to iron out some serious issues which does hit them quite hard financially. One such issue is allowing to terminate the journey with negative balance on your oyster card.
I have seen lots of visitors in London who do not pay for the last journey in the city, and leave the city with negative balance on the card. I agree, that trains do not allow to commence a new journey, but if that is the last journey who cares. Same is true for monthly oyster cards. If you buy a monthly pass, you get an oyster for free, that is without any security deposit! So every month you accumulate oysters, and then have free journeys throughout london for once!
These are the losses if tfl can override, will save quite a handsome amount of money, and the honest commuters might be spared a fare rise next year! Because I am a software developer, I can say, it wont be that difficult to change the current system, to include this minor changes!

Mayor Ken, are you listening?

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Spare a thought for gas meters!

Never thought of anything like this before. Sunday was the worst possible day for me in London. It had been raining all day, and was pretty cold, and just around 5:15 in the evening, the gas meter went off. Initially we thought, we ran out of the gas, so went into the nearby store, topped up the gas, and inserted the card, but it wouldnt accept the card.
Frustrated, we tried all possible things, but it wouldnt budge! Then wonderfully, after about half an hour, it displayed a message on the display of the meter "CALL HELP - BATTERY". Out of the whole world, this message was quite precious, as then we started searching for any contact details of the Gas supplier. As if selected for the occassion, the customer service department is closed on Sundays, and even on weekday, they close at 5pm. We tried our luck, as gas emergency center, but they just simply said, if we can smell gas or technically if there is a gas leak, only then, they can jump into picture, and they can pretty well do nothing but switch off connection from the house in that case.
So jump on internet, thank God, the technology is still there to rescue humans! After googling for few more minutes, we finally found out that we are suppose to contact national grid, as they are responsible for maintaining the gas meters. Why dont they write this stuff in the welcome pack?
So called up them, again using the 0845 numbers (for all those outside UK, these numbers are the hidden charges, that the customer is suppose to pay, to call for support almost in every company!), and the lady in a very beautiful voice booked an appointment for the engineer next day!
Hello! It is freezing outside, and you want us to stay in cold, even when we have paid the money for gas! Unfortunately, they hand out the jobs at about 5:30 in the evening, so if the gas supplier (read Npower) had the information needed to contact the national grid, we would have been the fortunate ones to get the stuff done that night itself, but because of that we had to spend the night in freezing cold.
Next day morning, had to take a day off, as the engineer who would come at any time between 9 to 6 in the evening, had to be granted access to the celler! After waiting for about whole day, the engineer comes in at 3:30, opens up the meter, removes the battery, inserts the new battery, and closes the meter. To be specific, 67 seconds, is all it took, and there it is the gas running! Just for this 67 seconds, we spent the night in the cold wearing 3 shirts, jacket, denim, and socks on feet! Can you believe it?
So next time something happens to the gas meter, you know the first place to contact!

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New form of passwords or PassImage to be specific

A group from Newcastle University has released work, that suggests new easier form of passwords that humans can remember well. The basic concept behind the Draw-a-Secret is that humans excels at image recognition and memory. They have, they claimed, refined the technique by parsing the shapes with a flexible grid and using existing images as background to reinforce memory of the password.
The only drawback for this is that you have to remember at which point exactly you started drawing, and which course you did take, as it not only matches the image you draw, but also how you draw. There will be people who have their own set of images, and then create a graffiti of alteration. Still not disclosed is what kind of images would be not allowed to be used as passImages. You know what i mean!

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Over-50s get networking website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7070667.stm

I keep wondering why do you need separate networking website for over-50s? I have been using the same browser, same computer as they might be using. Probably, it is more simple to use, but so is Facebook or Myspace or Orkut? This is just another marketing gimmick by the site or company that has launched the site to attract revenues in ads!

Am I the only one thinking in this way?

What is secular politics?

We all have been fooled into the term secular politics, but what is it exactly?
Today on rediff one blogger had some serious allegations to be made, they are as follows:

Sikhs getting slaughered in thousands = A MISTAKE.
Hindus getting killed in Kashmir = Political problem.
Muslims getting killed by a few hundred = Holocaust.
Poor protestors getting shot in WB under Left Govt = Misunderstanding.
Banning Parzania in Gujarat = Communal.
Banning Da Vinci Code and Jo Bole So Nihaal = Secular.
Kargil Attack = Government failure.
Chinese invasion in 1962 = Unfortunate betrayal.
Reservations in every school and college on caste lines = Secular. Reservations in Minority institutions = Communal.
Fake encounters in Gujarat [Sohrabuddin] = BJP Communalism.
Fake encounters under Cong-NCP in Maharashtra [Khwaja Younus] = Police atrocity.
Talking about Hindus and Hinduism appeasment = Communal. Talking about Muslims and Islam = Secular.
BJP freeing 3 terrorists to save 100 Indian hostages = Shameful
Congress freeing 4 militants to save just a life of one daughter of it%u2019s minister in Kashmir [Rubina Sayed] = Natural Political dilemma.
Attack on Parliament = BJP ineptitude. Not hanging Afzal Guru the mastermind despite Supreme Court orders = Humanity and Political dilemma.
BJP questioning Islam = Communal. Congress questioning Lord Rama%u2019s existance = Clerical Error.


Now if we consider, all the aspects, there have been so many issue relating to minority community worship places being hinderence to development. In my city, Vadodara, the city center needs wide road, but there are "dargah" on the road, which cannot be moved, because it is communal. Why is then destroying Setusamudram not communal?
I will be writing a complete article on this issue, during next few days. so keep on watching!

Planning to go home in December

Hurray!
I have been waiting for this moment since last two years! I have booked my tickets and am looking forward to the trip! I will be touching down in Ahmedabad on 22nd of December in morning at 11, and hopefully be in Vadodara by the very same day in evening!
I am quite excited, and am planning to go to either Mumbai or Pune to meet all my friends from MIT, but still the plans are not chalked out, so keep watching for the dates!
See you all soon!