Not just in India

When disaster strikes, it is usually very painful for the victims. When it's caused by forces of nature that we are often powerless against, the situation becomes even more poignant. Hurricane Katarina received a lot of coverage due to the immense swath of destruction that it left in its wake, and rightfully so. Such coverage normally results in some good coming out of it - more people become aware of the damage to human life and property, and that usually results in more people becoming willing to help those in need.

When these things happen in developing countries, say India, there's a phenomenal amount of press coverage on how badly things have been managed, how the city / district was totally unprepared, how the poor have, as can only be expected, borne the brunt of the damage, how life will never be the same for the displaced and affected victims, and so on and so forth. It's another story, and one that isn't known as widely, that such disasters cause havoc even in developed countries like the US of A. Apparently, according to this article, New Orleans has not exactly bounced back from the depths of despair as readily as we'd like to think. Much of the city seems to resemble a ghost town, and even three years after the hurricane and the resultant floods struck the city, life can hardly be described as having returned to normal.

Having said all that, hope still lurks amidst gloom and painful memories, as it always does when human enterprise undertaken with intelligence is tinged with compassion and benevolence.

Rechargeable Mosquito-hitting Swatter

The following text was seen on the packing material of an "electric mosquito swatter" that I recently purchased. The text below was copied from it, verbatim, with punctuations intact. It's one of those "All your base are belong to us" moments.

Main Character:

1. Rechargeable Type: It furnishes 2 pcs. of 1.2V high quality rechargeable batteries which can by recharged in recycle for more than 600 times. It is quite practical and economic.
2. Twice-speed discharge: It adopts an innovative twice-speed discharge circuit which can output 2500V in a moment. So, it has the best result for result forhitting mosquito.
3. Electric Shockproof Net: It can kill mosquito which is sucking blood on human bodies but it is harmless to human. when touching the net on flat surface, without any feeling of electric shock, so, it is safe for use.
4. Leakproof Net: It consists on a special 3-layer net which can easily catch insect and never leak out.

Directions:

1. When charging, please use AC 100-240V, 50HZ power source.
2. Before using, please charge the batteries for 8-15 hours. They can be recharged in recycle for 600 times.
3. When hitting insect, you can easily kill them just by pressing it's switch.
4. When the indicator twinkle, it indicate that the batteries run out. Then, the swatter should be recharged for 8-15 hours.

Warning:

1. For more safety, do not press the switch or touch the ourface of net when swatter is in charge.
2. Please do not finger the medium-layer net.
3. Please shake swatter for cleaning off insect carcasses which remain in net. Be sure don't wash it with water so as to avoid shortcircuit.
4. The swatter may become without high-voltage or in low-voltage conditions when it absorbe damp in wet weather, the effect will be declined. Then it can be dried by blowing with electric blower or shining with sunshine. The effect will be recovered soon.
5. Children must instruce under adult when use it.

Let's save English from cold-hearted, cruel and almost casual murder

la lingua pura, as Dan Brown calls English in his "da Vinci Code", is the perennial victim of cruel, cold-blooded and almost casual murder. Just consider these dollops of excellence in communication that a knowledgeable English speaker must put up with day in and day out (the text in brackets are mine).

NOTE: These are all quoted verbatim from email messages that I have the bad fortune of reading.

• We constantly are trying to improvise the tool to provide additional features. [sure you’re trying to improvise. Now, how about some improvements for a change?] There are a lot of suggestions [are a lot of suggestions, or are lots of suggestions? Make up your mind!] coming from the users like you who would like to have various features in this tool...Please use this facility generously and help us to help you better. [yes, we shall be generous, and will "help you to help us better"]
• Please revert back for any further clarifications in this regard. [shall I also include the negative -5 for clarification?]
• Finally we are got the response from web service & thanks for your co-operation. [all your response are belong to us and thanks for all the fish]
• Can u give the xml request in your Adapter side(Helper Application side) not in the sample xml request ? ( Meaning Helper Application side your handle request, so that request we want.) [now, that parenthetic saved the day! We'd have been very confused otherwise]
• This will be different call. He only requested to setup at that time. I will check with him and rearrange the call. [this was from a manager]
• It is my mistake only I missed out earlier as M is on leave I could not able to concentrate on it. I will see it won’t happen again. [sorry, I couldn't able to resist including this only]
• I am also sending J for raising NAIF's for SDP and Open Zone for Live source application connectivity from R [edited] Platform. So that they will be in place before this will be migrated onto R from D [edited] platform. [phew!]
• We will have small meeting. I will let you know the timings. [The world is full of small things]
• I reviewed the doc, I updated some sentences and added some commends [wonderful! Thangs a dun!]
• Each environment will have different different settings [and each sentence will have different different errors]
• S is not the write contact, Could you please let me know the issue details [ah, he's the "read" contact; now I get it!]
• Currect Implementation : if(manualcbuk != null && manualcbuk != "null" && manualcbuk !=""){ [To be sure, this is an excellent example of how code ought not to be written, still...be very sure while writing code, son!]
• I didn't have nothing more then this to estimation….So the estimation will obviously grow up. [it will, but when will you?]

And on and on it goes!

Have you come across such gems in your career? If so, improve my day by sharing them :-)