DMV and traffic school : to reduce traffic school times

Dear DMV and traffic school, It will be nice to keep the traffic school to no more than 4 hours, to save folks time; every lost hour is equal to one hour lost in the world's productivity. Some of the questions I faced in recent online traffic school are not related to driving at all, for example : "When did President Hoover come to office ?" , "When did Roosevelt get the nobel peace prize ?", "How much did Haynes-apperson 1903 sell for ? (Answer is $1500)", etc. More and more such questions can be removed from DMV Traffic school curriculum
Thanks, Avinash

Wrote:
DMVCustomerCommunications@dmv.ca.gov
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/feedbak.html
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/online/email/esw_ogi.html
http://gov.ca.gov/interact#contact

Write to India's Ministry of Environment and Forests

Dear Mr A. Raja and Mr Pradipto Ghosh, I hope this email finds you in the best of health and spirits. I read about India's stand that India's per-capita emissions are far lower than those of wealthier, developed countries. But what needs to be looked at is not per-capita emissions, but emissions per square kilometer. Otherwise, a country can simply keep increasing its population, to bring down the per-capita emissions numbers. India's per-capita emissions is simply lower because of India's huge population problem.

India simply does not have the amount of land ie air, and number of trees to be able to afford emissions. The pollution level per square mile in USA is FAR less than that in India.We understand that economic growth is very important, but we need to do that while having more trees and lesser pollution.

In response to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/06/12/eaindia12.xml
Best Regards, Avinash

From http://people20.blogspot.com/2007/12/write-to-indias-ministry-of-environment.html

Write to Ministers from http://india.gov.in/govt/cabinet.php

Write: mef@nic.in
Shri. A. Raja
Union Minister for Environment and Forests
Government of India
Paryavaran Bhavan
CGO Complex, Lodi Road
New Delhi 110003
Fax: 91-11-24362222

Write: mef@nic.in
Dr. Pradipto Ghosh, IAS
Secretary
Ministry for Environment and Forests
Government of India
Paryavaran Bhavan
CGO Complex, Lodi Road
New Delhi 110003
Fax: 91-11-24362746

Freecycle.org : to be made more ebay-like

Wrote to Freecycle.org : to be made more ebay-like. I tried to use freecycle, but it seems to be made up of lots of yahoogroups, and am still waiting for yahoogroups moderator approval (this is tedious), also there seem to be lots of comments in the group. I expected freecycle.org to be more ebay-like, where I simply post the articles I have for give-away, and other folks can simply search for it. Another issue is that I live in Menlo Park, and there are so many different groups in freecycle.org, like palo alto, san mateo groups, etc and one cannot join all of them. Also there should be some facebook application on this, that would help me simply add it to my facebook profile, where I can do the posting/browsing of such recycled items.

From http://people20.blogspot.com/2007/12/freecycleorg-to-be-made-more-ebay-like.html
Best Regards, Avinash

Wrote : info@freecycle.org, faq@freecycle.org

IIT students : laptop loans

Wrote to Indian Banks:
Please forward to Corporate headquarters:
Dear Sir, IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) are the premier educational institute in India. Currently, less than 1 in 10 IIT students have laptops. Having laptops will help them study better and help them learn valuable skills too. It will be good for everyone if your bank can have a plan, whereby IIT students can get laptop, on loan, for which they do not need to pay till they get a job. Since most IIT students do well anyway after IIT, they can easily repay the loan. Also then, after they are working, they can avail of more loans on house etc.

Best Regards, Avinash
From http://people20.blogspot.com/2007/12/iit-students-laptop-loans.html

https://infinity.icicibank.co.in/web/emailus/jsp/emailUs.jsp
http://www.hdfcbank.com/personal/default.htm (Click "Contact us")
http://www.sbi.co.in/viewsection.jsp?lang=0&id=0,12,93
hosecretarial@canbank.co.in ceybank@md3.vsnl.net.in pharok.lala@asia.bnpparibas.com ctcbndinfo@chinatrustindia.com
http://mail.abnamrobank.co.in/contactusmail.html vpo.india@scotiabank.com rajan.venkatesh@scotiabank.com taibdirect@taib.com rajendra.swaminarayan@axisbank.com sbihelp@sancharnet.in, helpline.lhomum@sbi.co.in
http://www.adcbindia.com/feedback.htm
http://www.online.citibank.co.in/
https://www.tools.asiapacific.hsbc.com/webform/apply?id=in+contactus
https://play.standardchartered.com/smail/in/fb/index.html
http://www.ingvysyabank.com/scripts/emailus.aspx

Wikipeida should provide an easy-to-use editor, like WYSIWYG editor asap, similar to what Google does

Wrote to Wikipedia: Dear Wikipedia, Can you please have a WYSIWYG editor, like Google Docs/Pages provides ? Editing using your current editor and results in all kinds of funny-language coming up in the text, it is VERY tedious and with Google Knol, it will be very easy to do such changes and will lead to its success too. Please take this up at HIGH priority.
From http://people20.blogspot.com/2007/12/wikipeida-should-provide-easy-to-use.html

Facebook, Orkut, MySpace: to help service providers find and bid for consumers

Wrote to Facebook, Orkut, MySpace: to help service providers find and bid for consumers:
Facebook, Orkut, MySpace to help service providers find, and bid for services to consumers :

a) If I indicate on my social networking site that I wish to travel from SFO->NYC for duration of month in economy class, then sites like Orbitz, Priceline, Cheaptickets etc should use this info and come up with the cheapest/short-duration quote for me, instead of me going to their websites individually.
b) Similarly, lets say I want to attend online traffic school in a particular county (and I enter my details on my social networking site profile page), and since the cost of this varies from $9 to $29, online traffic schools should come to my facebook account and bid for me, with the cheapest rates.
c) Insurance : For example, I have my profile on your social networking site, and I would like to buy auto insurance. Using my profile data and my actual details like car, driving history, car model, etc (that I can make available on your social networking site under profile), insurance companies should come up with the best quote and let me know. Instead of me going to tens of insurance companies websites and getting quotes, they should be able to come up with direct quote for me.Thanks, Avinash

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.contacthttp://groups.google.com/group/orkut-help-suggestions/posthttp://www.facebook.com/help.php?tab=suggest

United Airlines feedback

United Airlines feedback:
Hello, a) I recently booked international flight from United airlines, thru my travel agent. But when I wanted special meals, I had to call up United on phone, and spend 20mins in the process. I had tried to modify my meal plan online, but could not do so. I should be able to request special meals online too, and change it online, any time. This will also help UAL save money.
b) On recent trip from SFO to LIH, via honolulu, the first flight got delayed by 4 hours. But there was another direct flight from SFO to LIH was taking off around the same time and it had empty seats. If United could have found that out and announced that or let us know, we would have reached our destination in half the time.
Write at:
http://www.united.com/page/specialpage/0,1451,2076,00.html