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Maybe “shocked” is a little strong, but here are three things that I never expected to see:When operating in the Caribbean for the first time, I had the Morning Watch (0600–1200). After raising the scope to come to Periscope Depth, but before we started moving up, I kept seeing little clumps in the water, rushing past the scope, that looked exactly like a wad of wet toilet paper. They would kind of appear just outside of my peripheral vision whenever the scope was looking forward, then would rush by. I wasn't even sure if they were really there, or if my mind was playing tricks on me. I was kind of freaking out about it, but going to PD is very scripted, so I went on up, we did our business, then back to operating depth (I always used the displacement of GM engines, so, 283, or 327, or 454 feet, etc.). After watch, I reported my issue to the Captain and he laughed. “I'm not going to tell you what they were, but you've got the mid-watch tonight, so you probably ought to figure out what they are before you take the watch.”Well, I got busy with all the things that we do during our off-watch time, and I figured since the Captain laughed at me, they were real, but apparently they weren't a problem. So I didn't think about it any more. Midwatch comes, I take the Deck and Conn, and the first order of business is to go up and catch the broadcast and shoot trash. The Control room was rigged for red when we took the watch, we had no sonar contacts, so I reported the conditions to the Captain and asked for permission to go to PD. I expect a “Very well, proceed to Periscope Depth” and I got a little flustered when he said “Did you ever figure out what that toilet paper was?” “uh, no sir.” “Hold at 150 feet, I'll be out in a minute.” Now I'm really nervous. I've only been qualified Officer of the Deck for a few months, but I had earned the Captain’s trust and it had been a while since he felt like he needed to be in the Control room for my trips to PD. Now I am really starting to get nervous - would he really lose his trust in me because I didn't know about some blobs of toilet paper? A couple minutes later I hear the Chief of the Watch say “Captain is in the Control Room” and then the Captain says “Officer of the Deck, proceed to Periscope Depth.” “Aye Aye Sir. Helm, all ahead 1/3, Raising #2 scope” I hear “speed 7 knots, depth 150 feet, scope is coming up” Then I said “Dive, make your depth…Holy Shit!” You can probably guess that is not a standard report. The Captain started laughing again, “What is the problem, Officer of the Deck?” All the other watchstanders in Control don't know what to think - I'm freaking out (and I never freaked out about anything), the Captain was laughing (and he didn't laugh much) and the watch standers got the distinct impression that he was laughing at me. The Captain persisted “Officer of the Deck, is there a problem? Is the ship in danger?” I said “Dive, maintain 150 feet. Captain, would you take the scope for a minute?” He said, “no, I'm not dark adjusted. I can't take the scope.” I said “Sir, you don't need to be dark adjusted. There are all sorts of lights out in the water.” Everybody in Control joined the Captain in laughing at me. The Fire Control Technician of the Watch said, “Lieutenant, those lights are bioluminescents. During the day time they look like wet toilet paper, but at night the scope makes them angry and they give off light.”Once we got back to our home operating areas, off of Long Island, I had the midwatch again, and we were going to surface at night and begin the transit home about 4 a.m. The Executive Officer was stationed as the Command Duty Officer to provide some adult supervision to make sure everything got done right. He was right there in Control, sitting in the Captain's chair and I gave him the status report and he gave me permission to go to PD. I raised the scope, and did a couple of 360’s and just as I was passing one bearing, I saw a flash that looked just like when an electrical transformer blows up (bright green glow fills the sky, then it goes back to blackness). Except this was 150 feet below the surface. For a minute I thought maybe a surface ship was practicing dropping depth charges. But that didn't make any sense. Then I thought maybe it was some different kind of bioluminescents, but these were way more random and crazy bright. I asked the XO to take the scope and tell me what I was seeing. He did, and then it was his turn to laugh at me. Lightning. We surfaced in a thunderstorm. It was the coolest thing ever to watch lightning striking the surface from below.

Sorry for the lengthy answer in advance, but I've tried to cover almost all major impacts on our economy.Impact on Business activityStory 1: The impact on import and exportWhen dollar rises, economies that rely on imports suffer the most. As Vanathi Parthasarathi said in her answer, there’re two types of countries in the world if seen from economic standpoint: current account surplus countries and current account deficit countries.Current account = Total income from exports – Total payments for imports.When current account balance is positive, the country is called a current account surplus country. It means that country earns more from exports than it pays for imports (like a profitable company).When current account balance is negative, it means country is earning less from exports and paying more for imports (like a company running in loss).The problem of India is that it’s a current account deficit country, like a company running in loss.Or in other words, in India there are more businesses that rely on import rather than businesses that export.So whenever value of dollar rises, the import-based businesses of India end up paying more for the stuff that they import. And since most businesses in India are based on import, the whole economy of our country ends up losing more money when dollar rises.So this was the story of import and export. Now let's take a look at another way in which rising dollar impacts Indian businesses.Story 2: The impact on the debt of Indian businessesYears of low-interest-rate policies from Federal Reserve encouraged companies in fast-growing economies like India to borrow dollars because they could do it more cheaply than if they took out loans in their local currency INR. So they did: Between 2008 - 2014 many Indian companies including Tata Power, Indian Oil, Vedanta, Reliance Industries and Power Finance Corporation borrowed heavily from US. By June 2014 they had borrowed over $40 billion from United States.Source: Companies queue up for dollar loansBut as Raghuram Rajan, Governor of RBI, said in a Bloomberg TV Interview, taking loans in US dollars is like playing Russian roulette, especially if you’re borrowing relatively short term. Much of the time it will work out fine, but when the value of the dollar rises, suddenly companies find that they need more of their local currency to pay back the dollars that have since gained in value. Source: Rajan Says U.S. Must Accept Strong Dollar as Fed NormalizesAnd trust me, it works like a crippling blow to many businesses that borrowed dollars, depending on how aggressively they borrowed. Again, export based businesses may be okay with the rise of dollar because their revenue will also rise with dollars. But for those focused domestically a more expensive dollar only means hurdles in paying debt. This includes many important markets like real estate, electricity and food.What is likely to follow as a consequence of this are bankruptcies, or at least layoffs to cut operating costs by individual companies that borrowed too aggressively. If you work in any of the companies mentioned above, keep some security prepared. Nobody knows when hell is going to break lose.Story 3: The impact on businesses due to change in purchasing behavior of customersIf operating costs of businesses rise too steeply because of more expensive imports, aside from cutting costs they also need to increase the prices of their products and services if they’ve to survive.Now the problem is, when prices for something that’s not too important rise, people delay their purchase decisions until there’s a correction in the prices. That means, if any business isn't selling something as important as food, medicine or electricity, people can wait for it. So they stop purchasing things like mobile phones, cars, bikes or other imported items that get costly after rise of dollars.Now multi-national companies may definitely get support from their American parents during this tough time, but this may wreak havoc over businesses that’re not multi-national and do not have a parent sitting in US to take care of them. They’re bound to suffer as people stop buying, and bound to suffer even more if they took loan in dollars or their business relies on imports.How much any business suffers after rise of dollar will depend on how many of these 3 conditions are true for it:Debt from US? Check.Business based on imports? Check.Business not too important for public? Check.The more the number of conditions that apply, the greater the risk of survival for that business as dollar rises.Impact on Forex reserves of IndiaGovernment needs foreign exchange to pay for its international transactions (i.e. importing food items from other countries). So it keeps some foreign exchange in reserve for such transactions.In May of this year Dollar’s rally left RBI's Forex reserves poorer by $17 billion.Why? The Forex reserves are saved in dollars, so their value must soar with the value of dollar, right?Nope actually. The problem is that Reserve Bank of India doesn’t hold all of its foreign currency assets in dollars only – it’s a pool of many different currencies, such as US dollar, euro, pound sterling and Japanese yen. But still the total figure of reserves is denominated and expressed in dollars only because of dollar's reserve status.So any fluctuations in the value of dollar against other currencies reflects in the total reporting value.And when dollar rises, it doesn’t rise against INR only. The value of other currencies also depreciates, which also include many currencies that RBI has held in its reserves.Because of dollar's appreciation this time, the value of other currencies dropped significantly. RBI bought net $56.9 billion of foreign currencies from the market in fiscal 2015, according to latest data released by the central bank, but due to rally of dollar foreign currency assets in its reserves had shrunk to only $39.8 billion by the month of May.Impact on outside investmentWhen dollar rises, or is about to rise, foreign investors start pulling money out of emerging economies (like India) for the sake of better returns by re-investing them into dollars. This reversal of capital back to US first of all decreases the amount of money in India (depreciating INR), and then further fuels the price of dollar when reinvested by investors in USA. This may already be happening, but I couldn't find enough data to put some figures here in my answer. Pardon me.Impact on the pocket of Indian common menAs stated above, when dollar goes nuts, the imported items (or items that’re manufactured in India but with the help of imported items) become more expensive. Which items, namely? Well, some of them are so crucial that you can’t delay the decision of buying them:Medicines:I’d like to talk about the most important things first. From GlaxoSmithKline to Novartis to Pfizer, some of the most used and respected names in the medical industry of India are not Indian. Their medicines are imported from abroad and no effective alternative is available for some of them from any Indian company. When dollar rises, medicines of these companies get costlier. And in some critical cases, you can’t quit them for a while or switch to any alternatives. If they get costlier, you’ll have to afford them anyhow.Crude oil: India relies on import to satisfy a large part of its demand for crude oil, so a weak rupee will definitely influence petrol and diesel prices.Food: As I just said, a weaker rupee against dollar will influence prices of petrol and diesel – which will increase the cost of transferring vegetables and other edible stuff. As a result, food too becomes costlier.FMCG: Crude oil is used as a key input for Fast Moving Consumer Goods, or FMCG products such as soaps, detergents, deodorants and shampoos, so they too are likely to become more expensive.Jobs and Remuneration: As if rising costs of things mentioned above aren’t enough, some people may see their paychecks to shrink as well. Leave shrinking, in worst case scenarios paychecks may disappear completely. As said above, businesses based on imports must cut their costs when dollar rises. So one way is to control the money being spent on human resources. Either lesser number of people will be hired or the salary bill will be kept constant or reduced. But in any worst case scenario, if you’re extremely unlucky and company you work in has taken debt in US dollars, plus it relies on imports, then this double havoc of increasing debt and increasing operating cost may send the whole company into tailspin. The company you work in may go bankrupt overnight, or you may have to suffer from a layoff!Foreign education: This is pretty self-explanatory. Your parents will have to send you more INR if you're studying in any prestigious universities of US.Vacation: Now heading towards some less important expenses, which can be delayed if dollar rises. Your vacation trips may get costlier. More costlier if you were planning them abroad, less costlier if you were planning a domestic trip to an exotic beach in Goa. This is plain and simple – rising fuel price will increase operating costs for airlines, which they’ll obtain from flyers like you in the end. Plus, if you were planning a trip abroad, especially somewhere in US, then you’ll have to convert more Indian currency into US dollars. However, don’t worry if you booked your holiday package in advance before the rupee fell. That package is safe.Cars: South Korean Hyundai, Japanese Toyota and Honda all become costlier to import. Heck, even Indian Maruti Suzuki relies on imports for its operations. So your dream of a new car is going to cost more if dollar rises.Smartphones and other electronics: Unlike Japan or China, most smartphones that we use are not manufactured in India. And even the ones that’re manufactured in our country rely on components imported from other countries. So it’s usually a bad time to buy your next shiny gadget if dollar is rising. Don’t forget to check price fluctuation before you buy. And yes, this is true for other electronic items too!

An app that helps you reduce your fixed costs on online subscriptions by analyzing your utilization.Here's a scenario:Jimmy runs a growing online business and manages a personal blog on the side.When he started out a few years back, he realized that he needed a number of services to operate these ventures effectively. He figured he needed:- to reach out to his customers/readers via email with nicely designed email templates. He signed up for a Mailchimp account.- an email service for transaction-based emails that promised high deliverability. He signed up for a Sendgrid account.- a ticketing system to provide support to customers. He signed up for a Freshdesk account.- a place to store and share lots of files with his team, stakeholders and investors. He paid for a Dropbox account.- a Gantt chart tool to share project status and activities to investors. He signed up for TeamGantt.- an online chat tool for his customer reps to conduct live chat with customers on site. He put down money for an Olark account.- an even more advanced Analytics solution as Google Analytics wasn't cutting it. He opted for MixPanel.and in that same vein, he kept subscribing for services that he 'thought' he needed like a Linkedin Recruiter Account, Axure license, Pipedrive, Hootsuite and so on.Sometime later, Jimmy hired a finance analyst, Astro, to see how they were doing on expenditure. Astro pulled out the PnL for the past couple of years and observed that they were paying $5000 worth of monthly subscriptions. Astro made a list of all these applications, who in the team was currently using them and how much they were being utilized. Astro then consulted Jimmy on this and sure enough, he was a bit shocked.He couldn't understand why he would still need a Dropbox account when their team had already ported over to Google Drive, or a Sendgrid account when they had opted for Mandrill sometime back and why they would need an annual plan for a recruiter account on LinkedIn when their Workable-powered career portal had been doing a good job for the past 6 months.Moreover, he wasn't sure why they were still on monthly packages on Mailchimp and Pipedrive (which they plan to use in the long run) when an annual deal could have saved them X%. Also, he noticed that he really didn't need an "Estate" package from Freshdesk as his team wasn't really making much use their enterprise reports - they would have been fine with the "Garden" package that nearly costs half as much. Astro even identified a number of services that now had cheaper alternatives in the market and that too, with minimal transition cost and effort.Jimmy assigned Astro to un-subscribe from services they weren't using, research cost-effective alternatives with low transition costs and file a memo to the team to let them know which tools to stick to now.Soon enough, Jimmy's fixed cost dropped to $3200. Jimmy was very happy. He gave Astro a bonus of $500 for a job well done.So that's my business idea: make Astro.An app that not only knows what services you use but also can tap into utilization metrics of each to advise you on any optimizations you can make including:- recommending discontinuing a service if utilization was nil for quite some time- advising different price packages if utilization was lower than what you are paying for- suggesting other cheaper but reputed services he could move onto, with comparable reviews and ratings- most importantly, allowing you to "action" on all the above through the app itself, in a few clicks/taps (rather than logging into each site, remembering credentials, finding your way to the accounts/settings/control panel/profile/billing/whatever other possible term that has been used to describe the page that handles payments and locating the unsubscribe or switch package facility)The business model is simple. It saves tangible costs for the user. Charging a monthly or annual subscription fee would be a pretty reasonable ask.Make Astro and I'll be your first buyer.