FAQ on sound recording from a home studio

An FAQ on sound recording from a home studio..

Background music - Karaoke of all major songs are available on the Internet. On a google search, you can get it.

Hardware and software - I play the instrument background Karaoke music through my samsung A4 tab. I sing along in a closed, quiet room and record it using a free high quality Philip's sound recording android software app, single track, from Google playstore, on my Samsung M30S mobile phone. 

Takes and re-takes - From my experience, it  takes on an average about 5-6 retakes before a recording is complete.. Yesterday I spent almost 2 hours with 7-8 retakes and still could not complete another Chemmeen song, Pennaale Pennaale ..

Throat clarity and hygiene - Your throat also should be clear. Drinking hotwater, hotwater gargling can help.

Recording room specs - A quiet sound insulated room with no fan noise, no ac noise, no disturbance, at the same time giving less trouble for other family members is very essential.

Avoid External Disturbance - Frequent planes flying overhead and shrieking mobile vegetable fruit vendors necessitate compulsory occasional breaks ..

Plan fixed recording time slot to improve effectiveness of process ..

-end of FAQ-

Is One big solution possible for Covid ?

I was going though an engaging article by Prof. Gary Pisano of HBS in the May '20 issue of Harvard Business Review (click here for the paper) where he makes a point by saying that many small hygienic practices like wearing masks, hand washing, social distancing and innovations during this Covid time would actually be better than one large innovation, ie. the vaccine.

During the Spanish flu pandemic from Jan 1918 to December 1920, the world saw almost 50 - 70 million deaths. That was a time when medial care was sparse, limited and expensive, many of the medical innovations had not been developed. Even to this day, the world has not found ways to kill a virus - we are in square one as we were in January 1918. Aleander Fleming's anti-bacterial antibiotic, Penicillin G discovered three years after the Spanish flu virus subsided, in 1923 is no good or the world now. Should we wait for the big vaccine toi be discovered o start with many small innovations now itself ?

Can we deploy Lean Healthcare to solve this Covid pandemic ?

 

In any lean system, the first and most important point is to 

1. identify value and map it

2. Ensuring a flowing setup and 

3. Ensuing a system of Continuous Improvement. 

1. Identify Value : We should think of having an inexpensive means of handling the Covid virus. The existing Eastern systems of medicine like Ayurveda, Homeo, Sidha, Unani etc should be explored to address this issue. These systems of medicine are effective in some cases and at the same time very cost effective. Every medical system of the world has evolved over centuries and has been effective in some part of the world, that explains the reason for its popularity in that area. There are some situations where each medical system has been effective. 

These ancient medical systems have got their strong and weak points. In India presently a huge movement is on to see that people are administered doses of a popular Homeo medication by name Arsalb 30, 4 medicines taken twice daily for three days before the virus enters the body. This is to be repeated after a month. These medications are preventive in nature and not curative. It has to be administered before one catches the infection, it builds up antibodies in the human body that can prevent a recurrence. 

2. Ensuring a flowing setup : The healthcare has to be in a flowing mode, ie. there should be no delay either in health care or health delivery, no queueing and batching, each patient is handled on a unit by unit basis. 

3. System of Continuous Improvement : The Japanese Toyota system hinges on their Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) setup, which relies on incremental innovation. Small definite, quantifiable improvements over time leads to large cost-effective, measurable, lasting innovations. Even if the Covid vaccine does not become a reality in the next 12 months or is ineffective to different strains of Covid 19, following the small innovations religiously like effective hand washing, wearing masks and social distancing will be the only effective solution in the long run. 

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 lasted for thee years and even to this day, no effective solution to attack a virus has been developed by modern western medicine, after exactly 100 years. Can we expect a similar repeat of the same this time too ?  

Will finally hand washing, social distancing and mask wearing be a social practice for the next many years ?

George

The only Marine Cemetery of the world ..

Uru ..

Beypore town in Calicut is famous from time immemorial, almost 2000 years back, for the boats that were built there which sailed the seas of the world - the Uru .. An Uru is a wooden dhow, mainly made of Malabar teak, probably the biggest handicraft in the world.

To add to the glory of Beypore, the world's first and only marine cemetery has been built on Beypore beach in 2019.

What is a marine cemetery ?

The Marine Cemetery is dedicated to marine and riverine species which are endangered due to plastic waste, water pollution, climate change, and overexploitation. 

Aerial view of the cemetery

The monument has nine markers, each dedicated to an endangered marine and riverine species, built with plastic bottles encased in gravestone-shaped iron frames. 

The cemetery is jutting into the Arabian sea and is built on a rock foundation, probably to make sure these iron frames will stand for generations to come and will withstand heavy ocean waves and sea winds.

Eight of these markers are 4 feet (1.2 m) in height, and are dedicated to the 

1. seahorse

The epitaph

2. parrotfish 

3. leatherback sea turtles

4. eagle rays

5. sawfish

6. dugong

7. zebra shark and 

8. hammerhead shark

One of the markers is 6 feet (1.8 m) in height, and is dedicated to the endangered native freshwater fish species 

9. Miss Kerala

The monument is an awareness initiative.

In November 2019, a team of about 80 volunteers cleaned up Beypore beach, and collected over 800 kg (1,800 lb) of plastic waste which they handed over to Kozhikode Municipal Corporation for recycling.

2,000 plastic bottles were left behind which were later used for building the monument.

The monument was initiated by Jellyfish Watersports in collaboration with the Beypore Port administration, the authorities of Kozhikode district, and under the Clean Beach Mission of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. 

Climate change activist Aakash Ranison and his team built the structure. 

It was opened on 4 December 2019, the World Wildlife Conservation Day.  

Source : www.wikipedia.org

Cotabato Prison, Philippines, one of world's toughest prisons..

The other day I was going through a documentary from Free Documentary on the Internet. I have never closely understood how prisons work or what goes through the prisoner's minds.

This is the story of Cotabato prison in Philippines. In a space of 2 buildings designed to accommodate just 600 prisoners, these are not hard core convicted ones, they are standing trial for crime, yet to be punished, about 1600 prisoners cram.

Cotabato prison, Philippines, Free Documentary

Click here to watch the 45 min documentary ..

In any prison we are likely to find many innocents too who get caught in the cross fire and get arrested by the Police just on suspicion. If we take about 30% are of that category and the rest are yet to be charged, without understanding the motive, the injustice being meted out tio these people is indeed beyond words.

The sad part is to understand that almost all of them are in their thirties or forties,, barley few in their fifties or more. The best productive part of their lives is being spent in these horrible conditions.

My first experience of prison life happened just once when as a young student in the Govt. College of Engineering, Trivandrum, from the church, as a youngster group during Christmas time, we got permission to visit the Poojapura jail, on the outskirts of Trivandrum city, where we went to spread the cheer of New year during the New Year of 1985. A rare experience, which most of my colleagues and friends have never had and would never wish to. Kerala prisons do not have the issue of overcrowding. Imagine having to share the prison room with 6 - 8 other criminals or suspects ..

It was Kiran Bedi, IPS, now Governor of Pondicherry who is credited with bringing great jail rreorms or changes in the country's top and notorious Tihar jail in Delhi around the nineties. It was remarkable and commendable. She was awarde the Magsaysay prize for that. 

Overcrowding at prisons .. Aljazeera

Most of the freedom fighters during the Indian freedom struggle have been jailed and the most important of it I would say is Jawaharlala Nehru who unfortunately was jailed for almost ten years. But not losing hope, Nehru went into writing inside the prison and some of this best writings have come out of his prison stay, like Letters to a Daughter, Discovery of India and so on.

Being jailed for protesting against injustice meted out to the people in the name of racism, for just protesting and for no fault , even for upto 29 years, like in the case of Nelson mandela is the other sad part of jail stay.

Besides losing hope, the psychological strain on the human mind is very shocking,. Drug related crime, I find, is responsible for maximum prison sentences around the world. Impoverished upbringing without love and care is responsible for making many of the convicts to turn to hard-core criminals. 

Creatively using the inmates and their energy within the prison to produce creative things is a creative way of using the time of the prison inmates. The revenue from the work is returned to the inmates at the time of their finishing their prison sentences. Poojapura jail inmates in Trivandrum make chappathies and sell to the city hotels, they also make Covid PPE in the jail and sell the medical shops and hiospitals across the state.

Kiran Bedi, 1994, Magsaysay award

The Psychological distress these prisoners bear is very heart breaking. Due to the gravity of the crime they have committed, it is not safe for society to allow them to get back to mainstream soon enough, they are a constant threat to society.

In my opinion, political prisoners should be treated differently from other prisoners.

Lets hope in the coming days we get to respect the human rights and offer them to prisoners in prison, even though they have infringed upon the human rights of someone else that has brought them to jail.

Prison reforms are needed.

George..

Were we over-indulgent and over-exploiting world resources ?

Why did a virus suddenly hit the world from the beginning of this year , 2020 ?

Even though we knew that the resources and life on planet earth were limited, in our ever increasing appetite to exploit mineral, oil and energy resources, we scoured all around the planet and identified pockets of concentration of critical and vital raw materials.

The innovation in processes and materials brought in more exotic materials to the limelight and to maximise the utilisation of these innovative materials or combination of materials, we over exploited the natural resources even more.

With the ever increasing threat of global population staring at our face, from 6 billion at the turn of the century to 10 billion by 2050, we are facing the daunting task of having more mouths to feed. Can we aim to feed all these mouths at the pace at which we are growing now ?

Was the Covid outbreak but a natural reaction to the over stress Mother Earth was experiencing since 2010, when the population grew to 7 billion at the turn of that decade and expected to touch 7.8 billion by end of 2020 ?

This planet earth where we co-exist with all other flora and fauna was exploited beyond it's capabilities. This led to a breakdown in the services offered.

An overtly materialistic society which exploited natural resources beyond the capability of restoration by nature led to imbalances and cracks in the ecosystem. This would have led to the progression of certain ecological processes that led to the disturbance of the ecological balance.

Here we are 6 months into the progression of the virus, with no end in sight. It may go into 2021 or into 2022, but the system is really going for a change.

The world will not be the same ever again.

George..

Covid 19 fever - indications . .

Share please

******

COVID-19 is the daily body condition of a person with an infection. To your attention!

1 to 3 days:

1. Symptoms similar to colds.

2. Sore throat.

3. No fever, no fatigue, no general appetite.

Day 4:

1. Sore throat and body aches.

2. Sound rough.

Body temperature is 36.5 ° C.

4. Reduces appetite.

5. Mild headache.

6. Minor diarrhea or indigestion.

Day 5:

1. Sore throat, rough voice.

2. Mild fever, 36.5 to 36.7⁰C

3. Weak body and joint pain.

Day 6:

1. Mild fever, about 37 ° C.

2. Cough with mucus or dry cough.

3. Sore throat when eating, talking, or swallowing.

4. Fatigue and nausea.

5. Difficulty breathing frequently.

6. Pain in fingers

7. Diarrhea and vomiting.

Day 7:

1. High fever between 37.4-37.8⁰C.

2. Cough with sputum.

3. Body aches and headaches.

4. Diarrhea is more severe.

5. vomiting.

Day 8:

1. Fever at 38 ° C or higher.

2. Shortness of breath, chest weight.

3. Persistent cough.

4. Headache, joint pain and pelvic pain.

Day 9:

1. Symptoms worsen.

2. The fever is high.

3. Cough more persistent, more severe.

4. Breathing is difficult and laborious.

At this time, blood tests and x-ray examination of the lungs are required.

Forward this message.

Please be careful on this issue .

Wear mask, clean hygiene, wash hands with care, avoid crowds and cancel trips.

Please ...please ...please♥️♥️

Temika Mallory's fiery speech to America ..

What a fiery young lady !! 

Temika Mallory, the activist against racism
 is very much true .. The whites looted and killed native Americans, the original owners of North America, from 400 years back, reducing them from 75 million to barely less than 5 million now.. 

The descendants of the black people brought in as slaves from Africa, exploited and used for centuries, have all right to object against the treatment meted out to them. 

The opportunities for the blacks are grabbed by the whites and other ignorant, helpless immigrant communities, pushing the blacks to perpetual penury, poverty and lower academic achievements, denying them the right to climb higher in the social ladder.

Social inclusion in all walks of life is the only solution, including providing more educational opportunities to the blacks.

Click here for the link ..

Let's hope the whites take the lead and hold the blacks and native Americans by the hand and jointly maŕch forward as brothers to a bright future for that country..👍👌

Let human justice prevail, not white justice..

George..