https://www.loksatta.com/lekhaa-news/food-speciality-in-aurangabad-shahi-food-1589788/

http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/QdWbf4DI5TntzyaSnMyhXM/A-trip-to-the-Sundarbans.html

http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/vGOh6JHuRnHy7OIpjcaWkN/Whose-Bandra-is-it.html

https://www.loksatta.com/lekhaa-news/pondicherry-food-culture-south-food-in-pondicherry-1593628/

The Essential Cookbook series from Penguin Publishers

Kashmiri Cooking - Krishna Prasad Dhar

Flavours Of Avadh - Salma Husain

Food Path - Pushpesh Pant & Huma Mohsin

Onion-free Indian Non-veg Delights - Malini Bisen

Film Stars' Favorite Recipe - Saida Begum

The Hangover Cookbook - Jack & Jill Smedley


Done: The Secret Deals That Are Changing Our World - Jacques Peretti

India's Most Fearless: True Stories Of Modern Military Heroes - Shiv Aroor & Rahul Singh

 

Supernatural, S13, E05

I think I can breath easy now. It is pretty clear that neither of the Winchester brothers can die or stay dead for long. The show just won't go on without them, right? So when I saw the whole Reaper saga rehashed in the flashback at the episode's beginning, I just wondered whether it would be Sam or Dean who was going to end up dead. I, however, didn't move to the edge of the seat holding on to my breath for dear life. The Winchester boys are not mortal - at least till the last season of the show. And I hope that's not in the offing in the near future at least.

I ain't complaining about yet another case. God knows we all need a long breather from the entire Lucifer-Prince Of Hell-Apocalypse saga. But a psycho doctor doing lobotomy on his patients? C'mon that sounds like a third-rate slasher movie. If you have run out of American folklore, feel free to dip into the vast store of myths and legends of other cultures. Hope you aren't taking 'America First' too seriously :-)

Has Billie put on some weight? I also found it rather hard to believe that she was clueless about how the doorway into the other universe opened up. That room with rows upon rows of books detailing different ways in which Dean could shuffle off his mortal coil seemed rather comical. So also the sight of the Reaper who went shouting at the top of her lungs that Dean Winchester was in The Veil - whatever that means. Good to know that the Winchesters are needed to keep the Universe running but I wonder whatever happened to the 'consequences of cosmic proportion' that she had promised when Castiel bumped her off.

The highlight of the episode, at least as far as I am concerned, is that Castiel is back. The Winchesters would have, no doubt, managed without him. But the equation against Lucifer seems more balanced now.

I am glad Dean got his win.

Don't Just Roll The Dice - Neil Davidson

One of the articles that I read recently contained a reference to this book. So I checked it out. Just 70 pages so easily digestible over a couple of days. And the subject is software pricing.

Davidson begins with a short dose of economics. Nothing complex. Just a few basics like the Demand Curve. The second chapter on Pricing Psychology makes an important point that in order to price your product right you need to be aware of two things - one, what is your product and two, what is its perceived value to the customers. Then it goes on to explain how people perceive values and how that can be influenced. Chapter 3 covers pricing pitfalls like e.g. setting the price too low or too high.

The next chapter is about advanced pricing techniques such as different kinds of versions and how to use them to steer the customers to your intended price point, Bundling, Multi-user as well as Multi-site licenses and free trials. It also has a section on pricing models. The last chapter sort of ties the whole book up with the product pricing checklist. If you are too busy to wade through even 70 pages, just go through this checklist.

In a nutshell, this is a good book to turn to if you are looking for an overview of software pricing as well as a few pointers on how to (and how not to!) go about it. Sure, it contains examples from real world to illustrate concepts but there are no detailed case studies. That said, this would be a good first step in the study of software pricing before turning to bulkier volumes.

P.S. Somewhere in the last chapter, the author says 'It's more useful to fix the problem than to understand why it's broken.' That's the only advice that I found hard to digest.