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CityBlog is back with all fresh local news, views, opinions, jobs, food and entertainment. Do send us your blog contributions to us for publishing at cityblogpuneonline@gmail.com

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Cityblog Special; Flamingos in Bhigwan


Cityblog Feature Ashish Joshi's Wild Life Photography



 Asian Paradise Flycatcher

Asian Paradise flycatcher aka APFC is one of the most beautiful bird amongst flycatchers. It's long tail is very distinctive and helps in flight.
Male are seen in 2 morphs, the picture below is of white morph and other is Rufus in color.


Cityblog Feature: Fitness Tips from Fitcon


Cityblog Events Corner


Cityblog User: Gardner Lifestory

Cityblog User Carbondioxide Energy

Cityblog User Carbondioxide Energy


Cityblog User Bad Driving

Friday, November 16, 2018

Cityblog Special Brexit


5 Ways Smart People Sabotage Their Success


Mark was always one of the smartest kids in his class. He’s done well in his career, but when he checks Facebook, he sees people he outperformed at school who have now achieved more. Likewise, there are colleagues at his firm who have leapfrogged him. Sometimes he wonders, “What am I doing wrong?”
Sound familiar? You might relate to Mark yourself, or have an employee or loved one who struggles with similar feelings. Raw intelligence is undoubtedly a huge asset, but it isn’t everything. And sometimes, when intellectually gifted people don’t achieve as much as they’d like to, it’s because they’re subtly undermining themselves. If you’re in this situation, the good news is that when you understand these foibles you can turn them around. Here are five I’ve seen smart people particularly struggle with:

1. Smart people sometimes devalue other skills, like relationship building, and over-concentrate on intellect. Very smart people sometimes see their success as inevitable
because of their intellect, and don’t see other skills as important. For example, an individual who finds workplace diplomacy difficult might write this off as an irritation rather than as a core skill required for their role. Similarly, they might see it as critical for a secretary to be personable, but not an executive. Therefore they don’t invest time and effort in developing these skills.
These views don’t come out of nowhere. Most people have a natural bias towards wanting to capitalize on their strengths and, conversely, would prefer to avoid thinking about areas in which they’re not naturally as strong. Bright kids typically receive a lot of reinforcement throughout their early lives that their intelligence is valuable. They grow up being told they’re smart, and during their schooling, experience that success comes more easily to them than to others. It’s easy to understand why, as a result, they would continue to focus on their intellect as a adults.
But in most workplaces, you need more than raw intelligence to get ahead. And only focusing on your greatest strength, rather than also addressing your weaknesses, tends to be self-sabotaging.
Solution: Use your strengths to overcome your weaknesses. If you’re good at learning you can simply learn the skills that don’t come as naturally to you. You don’t need a personality makeover, you just need a game plan and a genuinely constructive attitude. For instance, identify three specific workplace diplomacy behaviors that would improve your success in that area. 

Cityblog Feature MPC News

Click Below
Sachin Tendulkar

Cityblog Events Corner



मी सावरकर - एक अभिनव वक्तृत्व स्पर्धा (वर्ष दुसरे) १६ नोव्हेंबर २०१८ ते फेब्रुवारी २०१९ ह्या कालावधी मध्ये आयोजित केली आहे . सर्व वयोगटांसाठी सावरकरांच्या जीवनातील विविध पैलूवर आधारित विषयांवर वक्तृत्व स्पर्धा घेतली जाईल. स्पर्धा आधुनिक तंत्रज्ञानाच्या म्हणजे व्हाटसअँप च्या माध्यमातून संपन्न होईल. स्पर्धेविषयी अधिक माहिती थोडयाच दिवसात जाहीर केली जाईल. गतवर्षीप्रमाणे स्पर्धेमध्ये जगातून कुठूनही सहभाग घेता येईल .

ह्या अभिनव वक्तृत्व स्पर्धेसाठी आपण स्वयंसेवक म्हणुन काम आणि इतर काही मदत करण्यास उत्सुक असाल तर आमच्याशी संपर्क साधा. शहराचे बंधन नाही. आपली थोडक्यात ओळख आम्हाला mesavarkar@gmail.com ह्या पत्यावर ई-मेल द्वारे पाठवावी हि नम्र विनंती.


Cityblog User: Matka Man

Cityblog User: Climbing Heights

Cityblog User: Success Secret

Thursday, November 15, 2018

ISRO Mission Accomplished! 



Here's a stunning capture by SDSC SHAR crew of #GSLVMkIIID2roaring away to its destination carrying #GSAT29 under the watchful eyes of Moon. The 1st operational mission of #GSLVMkIII will be #Chandrayaan-2.

Launch



Mission  Explained



Cityblog Feature MPC News

Amita Nene's Yummy Expressions; Fruity Creamy Pastry

Amita Nene's Yummy Expressions


 Fruity Creamy Pastry


Some years back, I remember that the Independence Day weekend was a long weekend that time and on Friday night itself, before I knew it I was coaxed by my 8-year olds, to give an affirmative answer for an impromptu Pyjama Party.
So by 8pm, some 7 odd kids had arrived all set with pyjamas and tooth brushes in their backpacks.
Kids and I spent all afternoon and better part of the evening planning and preparing for the party games that they would play with their friends that night. The dinner menu was, on popular demand, to be outsourced from their favourite pizza haunt.
So we decided to dish out something at home for dessert. It was their party, so kids wanted to make the dessert. A quick dash to the neighbourhood convenience store and we were all set to get the dessert ready.
We called it the Fruity Creamy Pastry.
To get our Fruity Creamy Pastry going, we got ourselves some easy to find ingredients –
One 2-pound vanilla sponge cake (round shaped one is better)
200g Fresh cream
2-4 tablespoons of powdered sugar
A small tin of canned mixed fruit (if you have the time, its best to use fresh cut fruit like papaya, pineapple, pear, apples and cherry soaked in sugar syrup)
1-2 drops of vanilla essence
Some candies or tit-bits for decoration
To start with, we need to get the fresh cream, powdered sugar and vanilla essence mixed together and whipped with the electrical mixie to medium stiffness.
Cut the cake horizontally into 4 discs. Place the lower most disc on a flat plate or a large container with a flat base. Drizzle with a little fruity syrup just to maintain the moistness of the pastry as it needs to be refrigerated. Cover the disc with a thin layer of whipped cream. Place the fruit pieces on this cream layer. Take the next cake disc and apply a thin layer of whipped cream on the lower side and press the creamed side lightly onto the fruit layer aligning with the lower disc. Again drizzle fruity syrup and repeat till the fourth disc has been firmly placed on the top. Spread evenly all the remaining whipped cream on the top. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes.
Finish with decorating the icing layer with colorful sugar candies/ chocolate chips/ candied cherries/ tutty fruity/ gems/ fresh cut seasonal fruit/ thick puree of strawberry or blueberry. Refrigerate again for 20 minutes. Cut the set pastry into 8 portions and serve.
While we were at the recipe, after whipping the cream and slicing the cake, my role became that of a supervisor only and kids took over. All the layering including the garnish was by them, their own version.
And how they beamed when their friends raved about the Yummy creation! And so very proud when it got polished off!
A sure shot good way to spend quality time with your kids and let their creative juices flow! You never know what ‘out of the box’ creative ideas they come up with when they make their own version.
So go ahead…. Make the most of their holiday and give your boys and girls another occasion to unleash their creativity ….. Be prepared to be surprised and indulge!

Cityblog Feature : Fitness Tips from Fitcon


Cityblog Special : Great Letter from PuLa


Giridarshan Trek to MakarandGad


Cityblog User: Real FungSook Wangdoo

Cityblog User: Dont Text and Walk

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Cityblog Wishes all Happy Children's Day

Happy Children's Day. Lets relive best part of our lives


Stan Lee

The world of comic books has blown up in the 21st century a way few could have predicted. A lot of this is due to the tireless standard-bearer of this cultural revolution, Marvel Comics, and its colorful chairman emeritus, Stan Lee. Lee, who passed away this week at the age of 95, is rightly credited as a comics visionary. But he was also devious and problematic, qualities mostly hidden by his talent for self-promotion. While complicated, however, Lee inarguably changed the face of our entertainment landscape, both in the niche world of comics and in the mainstream world of movie and television entertainment.
Born in 1922, Lee spent his life in the comic and magazine world, but his breakthrough didn’t come until the 1960s, when he was already nearly 40 years old. It was then that, along with the late Jack Kirby, Lee co-created “The Fantastic Four.” Together, Lee and Kirby would go on to create many comic titles still popular today, including “The X-Men,” “Iron Man,” “Hulk” and “Thor.” Lee also collaborated with comic artists like Bill Everett and Steve Ditko — Lee and Ditko created what is arguably Marvels’ most popular character, “Spider-Man.”
Lee’s biggest achievement wasn’t so much the comic characters themselves as it was the concept of fandom.
But Lee’s biggest achievement wasn’t so much the comic characters themselves as it was the concept of fandom. He put out regular newsletters (called the Marvel Bullpen Bulletin) advertising what stories and characters the publishing house was working on. He created an entirely new way of crediting comic artists, known today as “the Marvel method,” that promoted the writers and creators. He pushed the boundaries for what his writers could talk about in their stories. In fact, his refusal to tone down frank depictions of drug addiction ultimately forced the strict Comics Code Authority to update its standards, allowing more comic books to include adult themes in their stories.
Lee did much to promote comics; he also used comics to promote himself. While often associated with the birth of Marvel, for example, Lee did not create the franchise — that was Martin Goodman. Lee exploited his “Marvel method,” where anyone who added the smallest amount to a project would be listed as part of the team who created it, to give himself credit for stories he barely worked on.
Moreover, as Lee rose in the company from writer to editor to editor-in-chief and finally publisher, he did so at the expense of those he once collaborated with. Ditko left Marvel in 1966 without explanation, but most assume it was over the rights to Spider-Man, something Lee for a while insisted was his creation alone. (Lee eventually backtracked on that claim.) Kirby stayed on for decades, still writing and drawing long after Lee stopped. But by the late 1980s he had become embittered and angry over the raw deal he got. Kirby referred to Marvel as a group of “thugs” who screwed him out of royalties for his creations, while Lee was making millions playing what was perhaps his best character creation: Marvel’s "Stan the Man.”
Lee was also a problematic figure when it came to diversity. Like many men of his era, he talked the talk, overseeing the creations of characters like Black Panther and Luke Cage in the 1960s and 1970s, and regularly used his Marvel soapbox to comment on social issues like racial bigotry. But walking the walk was harder. As late as 2015, he still insisted Spider-Man films should only cast the character as straight, white and male, because that’s the way Lee imagined him. The idea that his characters could be recast or reimagined as women, or as people of color, didn’t sit well with him.
There’s a reason Marvel has struggled to find a female superhero to match DC Comics’ Wonder Woman, and it’s a simple one.
There’s a reason Marvel has struggled to find a female superhero to match DC Comics’ Wonder Woman, and it’s a simple one: There aren’t any. Lee never took female superheroes seriously, thinking them more suited for Playboy than Marvel ‘s imprint. Look at his vision for Jessica Jones, for instance, who was originally a far bubblier and feminine character than the version portrayed on Netflix. Captain Marvel, who is being played by Brie Larson in the upcoming blockbuster, was a man during Lee’s time as editor and was only gender-flipped decades later. (There are also some dark but unresolved allegations about Lee’s real-life behavior, including that he abused employees and groped nurses in his final decade of life.)
But despite a messy history, Stan Lee’s idea of putting his comics on the big and small screen inarguably changed the entertainment landscape in radical ways. Marvel’s decision to lean into Lee and Kirby’s interconnected universe concept — best exemplified by “The Avengers” — played a huge role in this impact. Before “The Avengers,” there were stand-alone superhero trilogies than focused on one character or set of characters. After “The Avengers,” though, it seemed like every tentpole franchise, both superhero and otherwise, was trying to figure out how to create crossover stoylines.
Lee also laid the groundwork for the sort of online interactions between consumer and artist that fans take for granted today. His comic book creations, even if they were not his alone, came down from their pedestals to show human and relatable sides; many of Lee’s superheroes were portrayed as flawed people who just wanted to do the right thing, not demigods. This in turn enabled a film like “Iron Man” to flourish, even as two-dimensional idealists like Superman are having a harder time getting off the ground.
Lee may have been mortal, but his ideas, like his superheroes, will never die.


Cityblog Feature: MPC News Click Below

Cityblog Feature: Fitness Tips from Fitcon


Cityblog Events Corner


Cityblog Special 2019 possibility


Cityblog User: Swadesh Hari Nath Click Below

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Why Being Bored is Sometimes Good


Remember when you were a kid and you used to say, “Mom, I’m booored,” and she’d tell you to go entertain yourself? Maybe you don’t. Maybe you weren’t as whiny as me. Or maybe you were born sometime in the last two decades(ish), and had a childhood that perpetually involved a screen. But there was a time before the iPhone (and after the Industrial Revolution, which, really, gave birth to leisure time) when we humans desperately tried to avoid the dark embrace of boredom. Having nothing to do meant spending time alone with your own thoughts. Which: Ew.
Then? Phones got smart, and so did we, with easy access to more information and entertainment than we’d ever had before. Now, every moment you spend being bored—while riding an elevator, or waiting at the doctor’s office, or biding time until your date returns from the restroom—is a moment you don’t spend reading a book, skimming the news, or catching up on social media. Basically, being bored in 2018 is a slap in the face of technology. Never again will we have nothing to do. This is a good thing… right?
Not so fast, says Manoush Zomorodi, whose New York Public Radio tech podcast "Note to Self" turned into a project called “Bored and Brilliant” that was designed to get listeners to spend less time on their phones. That then turned into a book of the same name, a deep dive into the neuroscience of boredom, and the discovery of an important new insight: it’s actually when we are bored that we’re able to quiet the part of our brain that talks all day and turn up the part that’s more creative. The unthinking mind wandering that happens when you’re bored takes all the information you’ve entered and makes use of it in innovative ways. In other words: being bored is the difference between being good at Jeopardy! and being someone who actually uses the knowledge that you've learned to come up with solutions to fix problems (both of the personal and societal kind).
In a culture obsessed with productivity, boredom seems like a sin. (Not to mention impossible when so much of the everyday stimuli we take for granted—email, ads, Facebook—is bent on robbing us of our attention.) But sometimes sitting back and doing nothing is, ironically, exactly what you need to do in order to get more done. We were so scared of being bored at all that we failed to appreciate the frightening repercussions of not being bored enough.
GQ: Could you put some guardrails on what we mean when we say boredom?
Manoush Zomorodi: For our purposes, I think we should call it that moment when you're like, "I'm not doing anything. I don't have a focused activity for my brain and my mind is beginning to wander and I'm just going to look at my phone." For those of us of a certain age, we remember waiting for the subway to come, and then you realize you forgot to put The New Yorker in your bag. That was back in the day. Now, we have our phones to take that space. For me it was like, "Well, that seems like a good thing that we never have to be bored anymore." Everyone says only boring people get bored. We inherently think boredom is to be avoided at all costs. But then it made me think, well, there must be a reason why we got bored. What's going on in our brains when we get bored? And what, more importantly, would go on in our brains if we never got bored?
Then I learned this really amazing thing that actually when you get bored and you're not focused on an activity but you're either lounging—fucking off—or you're folding socks—something super repetitive that doesn't need your brain to be engaged—that's when you ignite this network in your brain called the default mode. Now neuroscientists know that the default mode is when you do your most original thinking. You do your problem-solving. It's where you have imagination, where you have empathy. Your mind does something that's kind of like time traveling. You go back and you think of things that happened and you make sense of them and then you extract lessons from them. They call it autobiographical planning. Then you can imagine yourself in the future, and set goals and all those things that the type A freak show that I am wanted to do.

 

Did you find that explanation for why we do get bored? Was there some evolutionary reason?
Nobody knows the real reason. But the way I like to think of it is: boredom is the gateway to mind wandering. If every time that your mind might wander, you look at your phone, you've interrupted the process. It's like a muscle. That makes sense because that's what the technology has been designed to do. It's been designed to exploit that split second where you decide, "Should I look at my phone? Yeah. You should check Facebook. You should retweet something." That, we're told, is how you build a personal brand. It's how you stay connected to friends and family.
"One young teenager said to me, 'What you're describing is scary to me. I don't want to be alone with my thoughts.' Well, that worries me, because you're gonna be with you for a very long time."
It's almost like we're confusing productivity with reactivity: the more reactive you are and the more output there is, that is productive. But actually to do the deeper work—as Cal Newport calls it, the deep work—or to find solutions to problems that're in your life, your community and society, it's harder. And especially since we're going into this automated era where: what will humans be good for? We'll be good for the bigger problem solving. We'll have so much access to information, but it's how we put that information together to find new solutions to bigger problems—that's where the real work is.
How do you think about navigating these challenges, as a mom?
In a lot of places, there is this idea that if your child is bored, it somehow reflects poorly on you as a parent. You're not sending them to tap classes or swimming classes, or maybe they should be learning a second instrument, or another language—that you're not tickling their brain in some way that will enrich them. If they're bored, that means that you've screwed up. But that's not the relationship that a lot of us have with our kids. In many ways, that's more wonderful and rewarding. We talk about our feelings. Children are no longer expected to be seen, not heard. But at the same time maybe we're a little bit too involved.
I remember [as a kid] being so bored and walking around and collecting all the plants in the house and then naming them all and giving them name tags and performing a concert for them. That would never have happened if I had been carted off to Mandarin lessons. So I think there's a healthy balance to be found. Like, one young teenager said to me, "What you're describing is scary to me. I don't want to be alone with my thoughts." Well, that worries me, because you're gonna be with you for a very long time, and you really need to rely on you. You better figure out the relationship you have with yourself. It’s pretty important… There's a sense of: why do we go on Instagram? Because it's a nice place to be as opposed to in our thoughts, which can get dark.
...I really don't like sounding like an old fogey: Oh kids today, they don't know how to be—I don't think we're saying that. We're just saying that their experience is very different and so we have to try and understand the human things that are being affected by new technology, and try more than ever to remind ourselves what is good about being human.
I wonder what the connection is between the seeming rise in anxiety among young people and the constant need to be stimulated.
Some people think it's a little bit crazy to draw this line, but I think it comes down to the incentives of the tech platforms that we use. If the way that they pay the bills is based on the amount of time that they spend with your eyeballs, then they're gonna maximize the design and feedback loop to get to spend more time on them, right? We all know this. But until they change the way that they make money, then that's going to continue to be the way that we interact with those platforms. And that annoys me because then it's, "It's either on or off.” And I don't think that's the answer. That's bullshit. To be a person in the world today, you need to have a social media presence and people who don't are considered sketchy. So if on or off is definitely not the answer, it's a two-pronged attack.
On the one hand, it's about explaining to ourselves and to kids that there are good reasons why you feel this way. Don't blame yourself. The way that the internet has evolved, the product is you and the reason why you feel anxious is because it's a design choice: the constant scroll makes you feel like you never reach the end. But also, we need to explain that self regulation is a thing. Until we have real regulation of big tech, self regulation needs to be practiced and taught, too. Which is really hard. I wrote the book on it, and I still really struggle. It's not a one-time fix. This is a constant conversation that you need to be having with yourself. “How do I feel right now? I feel anxious. Okay, time to close the Twitter app then 'cause then it stops serving you.”
Unfortunately, it took the hacking of a presidential election for people to start to peel back what's going on in the guts of these tech companies, which are essentially putting earnings above the well being of society a lot of the time.
"Your brain needs time to get weird. Otherwise, you're just posting cute pictures of your dog."
What are some good ways to go about exercising that boredom “muscle,” as you call it?
I heard from numerous people who were like, "Oh, I never get bored." And I was like, "What do you mean? Do you mean because you're always busy?" And what I think they meant, my interpretation, is that they knew how to pass through the uncomfortable part of being bored more quickly. A guy said, “I guess you could say it's super boring to mow my lawn every week for an hour, you can't listen to anything because it's so loud. But I kind of love it and I don't find it boring.” It's how you reframe it: he lets his mind do whatever it wants to do while he mows the lawn.
For me, I started running without listening to anything, which is torturous for the first minutes. Then I start to think about my day, and then I'll notice that I'll replay a bunch of different things that have happened to me in the previous days, and I start to actually process what happened in a meeting instead of just going to the next thing. I also find that I start to imagine myself delivering a talk. Like, what's it going to be like when I walk up on stage? What shoes am I wearing? Are my feet going to hurt? Is that going to distract me? It's like working out your shit so that you're not feeling anxious and freaked out all the time.
Running, mowing the lawn, folding laundry—these are all really good options. There's so much literature about how the best writers in the world were always fans of constitutional walks. [Being bored is like] the stuff that feels super uncomfortable if you're not used to it, like going to the gym. It really hurts [at first]. But then you start going maybe three, four times a week and it gets a little easier and maybe you get the little high and the sweat starts to feel good and it just suddenly becomes part of your life.
I heard from my 20,000 who did the [Bored and Brilliant] project that amazing stuff happened. They figured out ways to confront big problems with co-workers, or they came up with a new idea for a business, or they finally understood what they needed to do to finish their thesis. Lots of big things that make not incremental, but big changes in their life. Your brain needs time to get weird. Otherwise, you're just posting cute pictures of your dog.
Someone who's playing devil's advocate might be like, okay, but if I'm folding laundry and getting in touch with myself, how is that better than folding laundry and listening to "The Daily"? I'm getting laundry done, but I'm also learning about the news and that seems a little bit more advantageous than folding laundry and getting to a place of personal revelation.
I don't think there's anything wrong with folding laundry and listening to The New York Times. What I do think is—I find that a lot of people tell me they do [this], and I certainly do—this idea of feeding ourselves more and more and more information and then never actually doing anything with it. Not ever taking a moment to think about it or to synthesize it or to connect it to something you might be doing at work. “Climate change is a disaster.” Well, okay, yes. But then what? Does that mean that you are going to make a donation? Does that mean that you are going to start an initiative at work? Does that mean that you are going to talk to your kids about it?
When you think through how you want to respond to something, that cuts down on what a lot of people do on social media, which is have a knee jerk reaction. I'm outraged. I'm angry. I'm pissed. Go cool down or go sleep on it or whatever. Think it over a little bit before you respond. We want hot takes in this society, right? I think there should be a version of slow Twitter… some way of having messages and conversations, but slowing it down just a little bit, [being] a little more thoughtful and less angry or pissed or whatever. Nobody does well when they freak out.
If you can figure out some way to make it so you succeed—whether that's by crafting a response, or thinking through how you are going to tackle a problem, or making a plan to woo your boss or get them to see your side—that to me is not just about getting in touch with yourself, but improving your life, too. Basically, boiling it down, you're telling people to think. I feel like that's where we’ve sadly gotten to in this society. What I’m talking about is not rocket science.
It's almost like you have to put “Do nothing” on your to-do list. We've just slipped priorities in our society. When things move slower, and there is less connectivity, you had to work harder to get it all done and then the day was over. Now, it all happens instantaneously. I think for those of us who love to get shit done, this is awesome. But then, [we’ve got to] realize that other stuff is missing in our lives, and we have to acknowledge that it's just as important and build it back into our life.

Cityblog Feature: MPC News

Cityblog Special : Cleanliness Initiative


Day After Diwali festivities: Shame

काल होती पाडवा पहाट, आमचा होता रूबाबदार थाट
संस्कृती आणि परंपरेच्या नावाखाली, आम्ही लावुन आलो सारसबागेची वाट"
काल सकाळी पहाटे सारसबागेत गेलेल्या सर्व सुशिक्षित नागरीकांना दिपावलीच्या हार्दिक शुभेच्छा..


As noticed & photographed by Rahul Dharmaji Bulbule