Steps for buying anything

How do you ensure that you are getting the best deals when you buy anything?
Following steps will help you achieve that!

Meaning of Saam Daam Dand Bhed [ साम दाम दंड भेद ]

This is the advise given in ancient Hindu scriptures. 

1.   Saam  - the policy of getting work done through peaceful negotiation

2.   Daam - the policy of getting work done through money or allurement

3.   Dand - the policy of getting work done through punishment or fear

4.    Bhed - the policy of getting work done through creating differences or divide and rule policy.

How to make a choice?

People often don't make any choice if presented with too many options!

50% of all decicions made by average CEOs take less than 9 minutes.

An average person (in USA) makes around 70 choices per week.

Following 4 steps are believed to help individual to make a better choice for each decision.

1. Cut - Less is more, make only fewer options available.
2. Concretize - Make consequences vivid. Try to understand real consequence of each option.
3. Categorize - In a way that it suits choosers' needs rather than choice maker's!
4. Condition - Go from fewer choices to more choices as you go on decision making process.

Source: TED talks

How a Lego 4-speed transmission works?

The following images explain how a Lego 4-speed gearbox works.

The brown numbers indicate how many teeth each cog has. The blue numbers indicate which gear the image explains. The green marks on cogs indicate which cogs are rotating to transfer the drive (some additional cogs in the image might also be rotating as idle).

For example, when 3rd gear is selected, the red holder adjacent to 3rd gear clutch (as marked by 3 in the image) moves and attaches to it. Then the associated cogs marked green starts to rotate and finally transfer the drive to wheels.

Please click on each image to view larger size.


If you want to model it, you can do this using either studded or studless beams. When using studded beams, there needs to be 2-plate depth separating upper and lower beams (to hold the axles). Please also note that inside the driving rings, there must be axle joints (as shown in the instruction manual for 8880 for reference).


I can confirm that I have actually modelled this mechanism and it works as shown.


If you own any Lego Technic sets like 8880, 8448 or 8466 then you already know how gearbox works!

Lego Technic - revived my interest

Introduction

Lego is probably the most famous toy manufacturer in the world. Throughout the ages, kids from all over the world adored Lego. Lego is very popular in Europe and North America. In other parts of the world, their penetration is low because of comparative high price and poor marketing.
Lego is company based in Denmark founded in early 70's. Lego builds mecanos. It helps kids to make cars, trucks, planes, houses etc. using small parts (known as bricks and studs in Lego terms).
Lego sets have various themes like trains, bionicle, duplo, technic etc. Among all these, Technic sets are the most sophisticated. In this article I shall discuss Technic sets only.
What makes Lego unique from most other toy manufacturers, is its excellence in providing features in its sets. Don't you feel amazed at 5-speed transmission in toy cars? How about a 4-wheel drive transmission, then?
Does Lego still build wonderful sets? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Though the company still makes toys, its quality has surprisingly fallen compared to past. Like many Lego fans, I don't know the reason. May be they are trying to capture a different market or so. That means, Lego has probably already made its best toys.
Lego has several technic sets. Not all of them are good. However, some are so good that they are more suitable to crazy adults than kids!
At the later part of this article, I have described all good Lego Technic sets in details.
Lego has sets of train models as well. However, I personally never liked Lego train models as Hornby (or similar manufacturer) trains are seemed far more realistic to me.

Features of Lego Technic sets

Please be aware that not all features are available in all sets! Most single sets have only two or three features available from the following list.

• Turn wheels using steering
• Differentials on transmission shaft
• Independent suspension on car/truck/bike wheels
• Air tank driven pneumatic cylinder movement (mostly in cranes & trucks)
• Multi-speed gearbox
• 4-wheels drive transmission
• Adjustable seats
• Opening doors, engine hood etc.
• Tilting truck container
• Engine mimicking cylinder movements (not real petrol engine!)
• Battery driven electric motors to move vehicle or cranes.
• Programmable movements (mostly on Mindstorm/RCX models)
• Rudder and aileron movement in planes
• Turntable movement in cranes
• Telescopic booms in cranes
• Rotor movements in helicopters

Lego parts are made of plastic materials. Their precision and manufacturing quality are quite high - they always fit together with one another. Usual shelf life of Lego sets is around 15 years or more. However motors tend to seize operation sooner.

Lego resource on web

I am sure you are going to ask how you can get old Lego Technic sets now. Well, there are several shops who sell those old items but their prices are usually quite high. Following websites may help you.
www.lego.com (official Lego site only current modes available for sale)
www.bricklink.com (unofficial Lego market place for new/used sets)
www.lugnet.com (Lego fan site - see picture of any Lego set and read review)
www.brickset.com (Lego fan site - see picture of any Lego set and read review)
www.brickshelf.com (scanned pages of Lego instruction books)
www.ebay.co.uk, www.ebay.com etc. (for used Lego sets)
It is even possible to create virtual Lego models on computer. There are CAD like programs available for this. Fortunately, they are free. One such original program is LDRAW (www.ldraw.org). However, it is a DOS based program. But you can have several of its Window's GUI versions. One such popular GUI is MLCAD (www.lm-software.com/mlcad/). LDRAW is an open architecture program. That means you can even incorporate custom parts with it.
When buying used Lego, be careful about its completeness! Often seller claims items as 100% complete and which after purchase turns out to be not so. If some minor parts are missing, you can probably replenish them from your other Lego sets, however, if any critical part is missing, it might render your entire model incomplete! Also, battery operated motors tend to become faulty with older used models.

Lego in India

Unfortunately, very few shops sale Lego technic sets in India. Moreover, their price seems to be too high! (Rs 3,000 - 7,000 range). Moreover, you'll only get latest Lego sets in the market.. Also, it is highly difficult to get old Lego sets in India. My own Lego sets were all bought from Germany and UK mainly.

Lego Technic

Description of best Lego Technic sets (includes set number, year of release, brief description, indicative market price in £ GBP where possible - please note that price may vary widely between seller to seller).
A/RWD = All/Rear Wheel Drive
CARS
853 Car Chassis 1977 - V4 front engine, 2-speed gearbox, RWD £40
8880 Super Car 1994 - V8 rear mounted engine, 4-speed gearbox, AWD, all wheels independent suspension, all wheels steering, opening hood, pop up headlamps etc. £50
8448 Street Car Sensation 1999 - V8 front mounted engine, 6-speed gearbox, RWD, all wheels independent suspension, opening hood, opening doors etc. £70
8466 4x4 Off Roader 2001 - V8 front mounted engine, 6-speed gearbox, RWD, all wheels independent suspension, opening hood, opening doors etc. £60
8865 Test Car 1988 - rear V4 square cylinder engine, 3-speed gearbox, RWD, all wheels independent suspension, adjustable seats etc. £25
8860 Auto Chassis 1980 - V4 square cylinder engine, 2-speed gearbox, RWD, rear wheels suspension, adjustable seats etc. £35
8437 Future Car 1997 - V4 engine, RWD, rear wheels suspension, opening doors, hood etc. £6
8428/8432 Concept Car (with CD) 1998 - similar to 8437, front V4 engine £8
8461 Williams Racing Car 2002 - V10 engine, RWD, suspension, large scale car (65 cm length) £50
8458 Silver Champion Racing Car 2000 - V10 engine, RWD, suspension, large scale car £50
8386 Ferrari 2003 - V10 engine, RWD etc. £35
TRUCKS & CRANES
8479 Barcode Truck 1997 - motor, Code Pilot (barcode reader), several programmable movements and sound by reading barcode sheet, movable front clamps, tilting container with cogs, rack and pinion, electronic sensors, RWD £60
8868 Air tech Claw Rig Truck 1992 - V6 engine, RWD, pneumatic cylinders driven by motor, air tank compressor £60
8460/8438/8431 Pneumatic Truck 1995/2003/2002 - pneumatic cranes, several gear functions, crane boom movement, turntable etc. £40
8462 Tow Truck 1998 - air tank, pneumatic cylinders £30
8436 Truck chassis 2003 - V6 engine, RWD, pneumatic cylinders £40
8862 Backhoe Grader 1989 - several gears and pneumatic cylinder functions £30
8459/8464 Front end Loader 1997 - V6 engine, air tank, pneumatic cylinders £30
8455 Backhoe 2003 - pneumatic cylinders movement £50
8275 Motorized Bulldozer 2007 - remote controls, 4 motors, tracked wheels £100
8421 Mobile Crane 2005 - an version of 8460/8438 with motor and air pump £80
8258 Crane Truck - realistic truck with crane. Has mechanical stabilizers, tilted cab, V8 engine, power motor, pneumatics. £150

OTHERS

8480 Space Shuttle 1996 - 2 motors, fiber optics, multi-speed transmission etc. £65
8422 Circuit Racer Bike 1995 - V2 engine, suspension, chain drive etc. £5
8425 Black Hawk Plane 1996 - retractable landing gear, rudder, aileron, propellers movements through gears £25
8855 Sea Plane 1988 - V2 engine, big propeller, rudder, aileron movements etc. £12
8284 Tractor 2006 - engine, RWD, ploughing equipments £30
8274 Combine Harvester 2007 - rotating cylinder, detachable cutting and thrashing bars £50
HOUSES
Lego modular buildings. All are on mini fig scale.
10185 Green Grocer - A G+3 story building with floors and some interior details like windows, stairs, fireplace and furnitures. £100
4956 a house with ground floor only with gable roof and garage.
4954 town house with two floors and garage. But it has no interior or floors!
10197 Fire Brigade - replica of a fire brigade building. £100
10211 Grand Emporium - a 3-storied departmental store with flooring, figures, interior furniture, revolving door and several other details. £139
10190 Market Street - a somewhat narrower version of 10185 with good detail.
10182 Cafe Corner - G+3 building with interior detail.
5891 Apple Tree House - G+1 house with garage. Empty interior but ladder to upstairs. £33
6754 Family Home - a G+1 storied house with interior details £84
Note: Models released after 2001, mostly use stud less (non conventional technic) beams.

Linux Distro watch - again

I was recently playing again with some more Linux distros.

PinguyOS, which is based on Ubuntu, is very good out of the box distro. You can run it from live CD or from USB.

The flash support is built in and YouTube videos open fine.

But it has a big drawback - you can use persistent storage feature. Even though it exists in theory I could not make it work!

That's why I still can't praise it enough.

One reason why typical Windows users will be willing to use Linux is they want to play with a different OS.

For them, being able to boot from USB and save settings and other data is important. Also flash support etc. should be very easy to set up.

If possible, USB disk should be accessible from Windows system (with SuSE, Windows could not read the drive).

The distro should also come with common packages Open Office, although it is not that imporant as web based office apps are quite handy nowadays.

I tried EasyPeasy Linux and didn't really like the interface.

Lately I also poked around SuSE 11.3 It now has persistence feature created on the fly at first reboot. It's interface is eye catching. But some useful apps are not put into shortcuts by default! It froze once during my brief testing.

So, at the end, my Linux distro favorites still remain the same - Fedora, Ubuntu and SuSE (in that order).

Ab Initio vs Clover ETL

Among all ETL tools used, Clover ETL comes closes to Ab Initio in look and feel.

I felt immediately at home with Clover's Designer (equivalent to Ab Initio's GDE).

Here is a 1-to-1 equivalent of Clover's components compared with Ab Initio's.

Ab Initio	Clover ETL
Input files	Universal Data Reader
Output files	Universal Data Writer
Reformat	Reformat
Join (in memory)	ExtHashJoin
Join (sorted)	ExtMergeJoin
Run component	SystemExecute, DBExcute, RunGraph
Join with DB	DBJoin
Lookup	Lookup Join
DB Table	DB Input Table
Trash	Trash
Filter	ExtFilter
Sort	ExtSort
Sort within Group	SortWithinGroups
Replicate	SimpleCopy
Dedup	Dedup
Concatenate	Concatenate
Gather	SimpleGather
Merge	Merge
Partition	Partition
Aggregate (deprecated)	Aggregate
Normalize	Normalizer
Denormalize	Denormalizer
Rollup	Rollup