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My 2011 Books Roundup

2012-01-07T05:47:00.000-08:00

Books Books Books.. what will I do without you!

Here is the list of books that I crunched last year. If you are curious - here is my list for 2010.

Conversations with God 1,2 and 3 by Neale Donald Walsh

During one of the demos I met this interesting 70 year old Gentleman who suggested these books. The author reaches the bottom pit of his life and cries out in anger to God - Why are you not talking to me - and God responds.

It has got a good mixture of eastern and western philosophy and can help you form your own theory on Religion and God.

For me I did not get any answers, but have more questions in my mind now.

Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho

Now I don't remember what was there in this book. But it was a good timepass and helped killed time on a day train from Coimbatore to Bangalore. You can give this a pass.

The Pixar Touch, Making of a Company

If you love Pixar movies you would like this book. The Pixar Touch

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Total Geek Novel. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Cryptonomicon

Enn Inniya Iyanthira by Sujatha

The only Tamil novel I read. I was always curious what this highly regarded novel was all about. This was written in 1980s and I read this one after almost 3 decades. The story happens in the future and is about a robot dog ( the hero of this novel ). This was a weekly running story published in Ananda Vikatan - so is a little jerky and there is not much of a flow. Wish the editors or Sujatha himself had re-written this masterpiece before he logged-out.

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Good Time pass, interesting writing style. I recommend this one if you are looking for something light to munch on. Eat Pray Love

On writing well by William Zinsser

The author is a regular columnist in New Yorker, and also teaches how to write good non-fiction. I am not sure if my writing has improved, but it opened up my eyes to recognize what is good writing.

What I talk about when I talk about Running - Haruki Murrakami

Loved this one. I read this when I had decided to break the 5 km mental barrier I had developed - and wanted to run more. A little disjointed and boring at some places - but if you are a runner you will love the way he talks about his running! What I talk about when I talk about Running

Born to Run - Christopher McDougall

The 2nd must read book for runners. This one is a good eye-opener to running. Loved this one thoroughly and inspired me to kick off my nike and run on a Bata Canvas shoe. Three Running Myths Busted

Snow by Orhan Pamuk

A heavy one by my favorite author. Middle East fascinates me and this one is about a poet who returns to Turkey. The clash between conservatives and liberals.

Aleph by Paulo Coelho

Brilliant book. Recommend this one - Aleph by Paulo Coelho

Currently reading the Tibetan book of living and dying. Finding it hard to finish it...but I will finish it nevertheless - I do not give up on books that I start!

My first Half Marathon!

2011-12-11T09:27:00.001-08:00

"Did It"

That was the SMS I sent to Sangeeta at 4:00 AM after finishing my half marathon in the Midnight Marathon held in Whitefield, Bangalore on Dec 11, 2011.

Now to the story.

The Irrational act !

A month back on Nov 11, some one tweeted saying "Registered at Midnight Marathon". I just clicked on the link and paid 600Rs for the half-marathon. Human progress happens on such irrational acts.

Why was it irrational? : My personal best was 12.5 Kms. The half marathon is 21kms. I thought I can practice harder and increase my mileage.

After signing up for the marathon, I announced on Facebook and even got 13 likes and 5 comments and tips. I duly forgot about the marathon and went on with my work + occasional runs ( I average 6 runs a month - yes its very bad - good runners run almost 4 times a week )

The Panic Attack

Suddenly around Nov 26th I panicked. I SoSed some of my friends and runners I follow on Twitter and got useful tips.

@nilakanta, @_bharath_k,@ulaar and Jayaram Srinivasan ( ex SAP VP and now entrepreneur ) - Thank you guys for the pep talk and encouragement.

Some of the tips I got from them :

* eat curd rice couple of days before the race to load up on carbohydrates

* watch out for the cold in the midnight marathon - it will be good if you can change your t-shirt in the middle of the race

* Just run - thats what running is all about. Don't over analyze things

* You can easily stretch your 12.5Kms to 21Kms on race day - adrenaline will keep you going.

So I started pushing myself a bit - went for 3 runs on alternate days and ended up with a new pain - "runners knee". This was Nov 30th.

The Suspense

The next 10 days was the most harrowing time. I was reading more and more of runners knee - and learnt that I should have been doing strength training exercises - not just running. Now it was too late - so I decided to just take rest and not injure my leg any further.

Twice I was tempted to run but better sense prevailed and stayed at home. Walked gingerly all the time and even got a knee socks kind of thing and wore it now and then hoping it will do some magic.

Race Night

I was very anxious through out the day. We reached around 10:30 pm and I got my first whiff of a marathon event. The atmosphere was electric. So many were walking in shorts and wearing sports shoes, wearing bibs, people stretching, warming up. There was a rockband called "one night stand" playing some oldie hits. I couldnt quite enjoy it as I could only think of the race.

Thats me with my Bib - 764 and Prithvi - who was excited all day since we told him that we will be all going to the midnight marathon.

Also there was a timing chip - which I tied to my shoe lace - after seeing some one near me tie it to the shoe lace. I was planning to put the chip on my pocket ;) At the race start and at the mid way mark where we turn around - there is an RFID sensor placed underneath a red carpet - which will give a beep when it detects the chip.

Around 11:40 PM went to the race line. A huge crowd was there already. Here are some snaps from the starting line :

My Running Accessories : Bata Canvas Shoe, Sennheiser headphone, SGS Android phone with Cardio Trainer App for tracking time and distance

The ambulance was reassuring. Also behind my Bib had to write emergency contact person name and mobile, blood group, alergies to any medications etc.

My Cheer Party!

Just before the start

The Race

At 12 precisely the race started. There were drums at the entrance and people were cheering. After the first bend it was quite and all I can hear was the sweet thump of foot hitting the road - and ahead of me - for the entire stretch that I can see where heads bobbling rhythmically. It was beautiful the very sight.

We were to complete 5 laps for the Half Marathon ( 10 laps for Full Marathon ) - each one was around 4Kms. I typically alternate between running and walking - and keep increasing my running time and reducing the time I walk. My knee pain did not surface and I was very much relieved.

The course had 3 slopes. I have never practiced on a slope and I found that it was hard to run on an upward slope. I had to redo my strategy and started walking on upward slope - this totally messed up my rhythm - but I didnt mind much as I was enjoying the whole experience. When I crossed 1Km I saw the Ethiopian runners on the opposite side - they were already returning from the half way mark. Just watched them with my mouth open !

I managed Laps 1 and 2 pretty smoothly.

And it gets tough

I reached my 12.5km mark without much trouble and felt elated. I typically average 7Kms per hour, but this time it was 6.5Kms per hour...because of the slope walking.

Then I felt a tinge at the back of my right knee. This always surfaces when I cross 12kms ( and this is the reason I stop running after that and go home ). I knew what was coming - so stopped stretched, ate a banana and gulped some gatorade in one of the stations. I completed Lap 3 running.

The pain was pretty acute now and so I stopped and rested again. Did some more stretching and ran gingerly putting more weight on my left leg ( earlier this was the problem leg with shin splints - thankfully I am beyond that now )

By the time I was returning on the 4th lap I knew I could not run in this race anymore. The right leg will not bend. Also since I was putting more pressure on my left leg, started getting pain around the knees on left leg too.

The last lap

I walked slowly to the finish line at the end of lap 4. The experienced half marathoners were completing their runs and the newbies like me were walking or slowly jogging.

I went and sat. I had carried Volini - a pain ointment my mother uses - and applied it generously on my knees. Removed my shoe and let my toes breathe - they were literally burning.

I did not bother looking at the clock as I knew it will depress me. I took a deep breathe and started walking. I had another 4+ kms ahead - and it looked very far. I was literally dragging my right leg as bending it would send pain waves through my leg.

Most of the half marathoners had completed by now and only the full marathoners were now running or were also walking. But they walked briskly and also jogged - unlike me.

One kind soul while over taking me said - walk briskly sir thats all you have to do. I just smiled at him and said Thanks!

I dropped the idea of sitting and resting - as I knew the last time I sat and applied ointment I had a tough time getting up. Lot of thoughts were buzzing in my head. Why the heck did I even decide to run? This is it - I kept thinking - I am not going to run any more Marathons ever. I tried to banish such thoughts but the negativity in me was going on increasing.

To shut up the devil in my head I started focussing on the pain. The toes were literally burning, there was a sensation of a tight pull above my knees and also a searing pain behind my knee. I tried diverting my mind to think of positive things - but the negative thoughts started coming and it was making me angry and wanted to give up - so I started focussing on the pain again.

I think focussing on the pain strategy might have worked. I reached the mid way point and was elated. Phoo - just 2 Kms more. I was certain at this point that I would be completing the race.

I did not stop for any refreshments but kept walking dragging my right leg literally. I had become an expert on my pain as I had been observing it so much. I literally lost track of how long I was walking and I started hearing drums - I was getting closer to the finish line.

The finish

I registered my final beep on the RFID scanner and crossed the finish line. I need not turn back for any more laps. I had such a surge in emotion that very moment. I walked very slowly and found a chair and slouched on it.

A kind organizer came to me and asked if I was alright. I had a tough time talking and said yes, Thank you. He let me alone and went away ( later he would come back give me a bourbon biscuit packet saying apologetically - this is all I could get! - he had no idea how grateful I was ). I was basking in pure joy. The pain was still there but I did not mind it anymore. I just sat there stretching my legs. I could see the full marathoners turning back for their remaining laps.

The kind soul who asked me to walk briskly was coming towards the finish line. I clapped and he saw me - he put his thumbs up and smiled. He went back on his lap - don't know who that person is - wish I had shouted to ask for his twitter handle.

Here are some screenshots of my phone.

My home screen - always shows the calories burnt from previous runs - was 0 at the start of the race.

My running graph captured by Cardio Trainer

And for the time I took to complete this race - it is pretty embarrassing when I think of it - this is the typical time runners take to complete a full marathon. Anyway I can only do better next time - that is guaranteed :)

Thankfully I have no blisters or swelling - the poor muscles in my legs are just tired I guess. My confidence on running has only increased - I will try to run smarter - run on slopes and also try to mix up strength training to my routine.

Now to the devil in my head - I will participate in marathons again and again - year after year. I will try to better my time, will aim for 42 kms and more. You sir, the devil in my head, can go take a hike!

Aleph by Paulo Coelho

2011-11-19T06:35:00.001-08:00

I am getting back to Paulo Coelho after a very long time. The last one was disappointing - "The winner stands alone",

This book - Aleph - hits me at a time when I am going through a spiritual turmoil sort of.

I have told this incident to a few folks, but never in this blog - long back in December 2010 - I ran out of Petrol on my bike. A very first in my history. I pushed the bike for more than a kilometer, and managed to buy some questionable looking fluid and resumed my journey.

I was to meet a gentleman to show a demo of our product - and I was late by 1 bloody hour. He waited patiently for me even though it was already his lunch time and did not cancel the appointment.

We spoke for an hour about the product and then we started chatting - what I read, what is my philosophy. He then said this :

"Venkat, do you think we meeting at this moment is coincidental? It is all planned"

Yeah yeah I thought - have heard that one before. Was being polite and just smiled as I did not agree or disagree with it.

He then gave me 9 book titles - 3 of them I have read so far. The 3 are - Conversations with God 1,2 and 3 by Neale Donald Walsch ( another incredible story this author has - from a homeless man to a best selling author ).

What I am going to write below is a gist of things I have read both from the 3 books and Aleph.

* We are all one soul - yes you me and everyone.

* God is manifesting in us to discover who he is

* There are infinite parallel worlds - right now right this minute I am living another life in another time

* Dreams are like a snapshot into these parallel existences

* There are 3 things - Mind, Body and Soul. Soul is actually unhappy when it is trapped - but it is the only way the soul can experience its being

* Death is beautiful - when the secret is revealed and soul is liberated ( remember Steve Job's last words : Oh Wow ! )

* The soul choses what it wants to do in this life - but the mind and body do not allow the soul to do what it wants for various reasons - dogma, fear etc. ( Alchemist : The soul knows - just follow the heart )

* What the soul learns in previous life it brings to this life - the present is a product of the past and future ( yeah its weird but its all parallel remember )

* The whole world is actually going towards euphoria ( the old Gentleman said this same thing ) - as in each reincarnation the soul seeks and reconciles with its previous / future conflicts.

* Religion - the way it has evolved is not right. - this is my humble opinion.

I will leave it here. Try these books - even if you do not agree and read it for entertainment value - will give you a different perspective to who we are and why we are here?

Aleph is not in the same league as Alchemist - it is more profound and there are some brilliant passages where Paulo Coelho talks about love, loss, gift and particularly one on what is Hell and Heaven - this book deserves a second read.

One word of caution though - if you have never read Paulo Coelho before do not start with Aleph. Start with Alchemist, and see if you can get hold of The Pilgrimage too - his personal experience that made him a writer that he is now. Then start on Aleph - he is a genius and you will mis interpret him if you read Aleph first.

Speed, Distance, Pain-free Running - Pick 2

2011-11-09T20:52:00.000-08:00

Here is an equation that dawned on me today while running. It is quite simple.

a) Speed at which you can run.
b) Distance that you can cover.
c) Running without any pain or injuries.

You can only have two of the above.

Obviously c) has to be selected - cannot imagine a life with pain - unless you are Zahir Khan or one of the sissy Indian cricketers who always feign pain in order to skip playing and go act in more Ads.

That leaves us to pick either a) or b). So if you have only 30 minutes to run - run as fast as possible for a short distance. If you have lot of time on hand - run as far as possible - but slowly with enough breaks.

At times these constraints are a real PITA - but that's life - we should just try to make the most of it.

Steve Jobs is Howard Roark

2011-10-09T00:15:00.000-07:00

Claimer : This is not a post to mourn but to Celebrate Steve Jobs.

I read Ayn Rand's FountainHead in 2008. A life changing novel.

If you haven't read here is a gist.

The hero of the book is Howard Roark.
He hates the old school architecture - where you have the professors expecting one to design buildings with 18th Century architecture - the pillars and ornate designs. Howard Roark could not stand this "apeing" and refuses to follow the college's dictum and drops out and moves to New York to start his own design firm.
At the same time - Peter Keating, his fellow student, graduates with top honors and moves to New York. The first half of the story is all about how Peter Keating's career rises while Howard Roark is rejected by the System and he goes to work as a day laborer in a mine quarry and as a construction worker.
The second half is all about how Howard Roark's style of architecture is accepted and creates a new School of Thought. He creates a design secretly for Peter Keating which wins an architectural award by the same people who rejected Howard Roark.

In the end, Howard Roark Wins.

Towards the end of the book I almost believed that a Howard Roark existed. I was so fascinated by the idea of a single "man" revolutionizing an entire industry.

Whenever I heard about Steve Jobs or read about him - the picture of Howard Roark kept coming to my mind and I secretly believe Steve Jobs is Howard Roark!

Here is one man - who was instrumental in creating not one - but many industries.

1. The PC Industry

You and I would still be stuck with the 'dumb' terminals with green fonts had not the visionary Steve Job spotted the whizkid Steve Woznaik tinkering on a project.

2. CGI Animated Movies

Animation was just another special effect in a movie - until Pixar came along created those magical CGI animated movies.

3. Glamorous OS

It was love at first sight when I first saw Puma in 2001 - borrowed from NeXT OS. If you enter a wrong password the login dialog box would shake like a head refusing to accept the answer - an OS can be fun and elegant while still doing the OSy stuff. Was a convert from that day onwards.

4. Portable Music Device

iPod. What a simple elegant device ( except the fat nano ). Apple did not invent the hard drive based mp3 player, nor the clickwheel - but took them to the next level.

5. Online Media

People wrongly attribute the success of Apple's Digital Media Offerings to iPod - but the secret is iTunes - it made the process of media consumption easy.

6. Podcasts

What will I do without them? Twit, Car Talk, Macworld podcast, TED Talks - all at my finger tips waiting to soak my brain whenever I run or for a long journey to kill time.

7. Smart Phones and Tablets

My Brother in law bought a Nokia smartphone in 2007 - it had a touch screen, a gyroscope etc. It was jerky and will freeze now and then. I liked the touch concept but did not excite me. Then came iPhone and elevated the SmartPhones to an entirely new level. And alongside the "App Industry".

This man had Taste and Instinct like no other. He created multiple industries. He turned around Apple from the brink of death. He brought smile to millions of kids and adults. He inspired so many entrepreneurs to go against the current.

The world is a better place because of him.

In the end, Steve Jobs won.

Three Running Myths Busted

2011-10-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

I love running.

I was never an athletic person - whenever there was a race, I was the last, play any competitive physical sport with me and I assure you I would have made you triumphant. As a kid I never cared much about sports and hated PT classes. However I discovered running the last couple of years and it was just what the Doctor ordered. I set my own pace, listen to a podcast and I am content and happy.

I touched 10km a few months back and I celebrated. Then I pushed to 12km and a nagging pain started - "shin splints". Read all about it and in the process came to know the names of other minor pains I was having. So I tweeted

venkat2 venkat kandaswamy

dear runner friends - did any of you have shin splints.. I am touching 12 km and having this pain.. any help/pointers appreciated

got a few replies

knowsnotmuch knowsnotmuch

@venkat2 yeah it does creep slowly. Back off a bit, increase gradually when you get back and examine how you land on your feet when you run

knowsnotmuch knowsnotmuch

@venkat2 got it when i touched 6-7km because I pushed too quickly. It put me out of action and it took me ages to recover. Ease up a little.

khushnood khushnood

@venkat2 have you read 'born to run' by Chris Mcdougall ? It could help.

A book suggestion - wow! - immediately I grabbed Born to Run and started crunching it.

The author who writes in a sports journal is also a runner and is always in pain because of his runs. He meets various podiatrists, physiotherapists and the answer is always the same - slow down on running, human body is not supposed to take so much of shock while running.

Then on a trip to Mexico he reads an article about a runner tribe - Tarahumara - who run for days in one of their parties (tesguinado) and the winners usually are the veterans at the age of 60s, they just wear a handmade sandal and run on hostile terrain. They contradict everything we have come to know of running.

This leads him to Kabayo Blanco, an american who has is now living with the Tarahumarians and follow their simple life style. They arrange for a run where the best of ultra runners in America ( an ultra is > than a marathon - 160 KMs and even more, while a marathon is only 42Kms ) - come to the Copper Canyons and they run with the Tarahumara.

While the story progresses Chris Mcdougall keeps uncovering interesting facts about running.

Myth 1 : You need sophisticated shoes.

I love conspiracies and this one is about a $20 Billion industry started by Nike. Prior to 1970s - there were no shin splints, plantar fascilitis, over pronation, plica syndrome or the running ailments that are so common today. Then Nike was born and it made a good shoe ( Nike Pegasus ) - which had a thin sole and was great for running. Then the Capitalist greed kicked in and Nike started retiring their successful models every 10 months.

Nike gave more and more support and cushion to the feet - and the feet forgot how to run how the way the human body was supposed to run. All the nerves in our human body that starts in the brain - ends in the feet ( Some 70,000 or so ). Whenever the feet touches the ground it is taking a snapshot of the temperature, the hardness of the surface etc. - and this feedback is used to plan the next step.

a) When the feet is put in a nice comfortable soft shoe - the brain thinks that it has to put more force on the next step for stability as it feels its on soft ground and has to plant the leg firmly.

b) Also the way the shoe is designed ( thicker heel ) - the body lands on the heel - and the shock wave gets multiplied. Our foot is designed to land on the toes to dissipate the shock.

so a) makes your foot to land harder and b) makes you land the whole body on the wrong place - a) x b) has a multiplicative effect on the "wrong" way of running - and it leads to pain.

This brings us to the "barefoot movement" - people are kicking their shoes off and running barefoot - as the best shoe is "nothing".

This was an ahaa moment for me - it made complete sense. My running shoe ( which I got free for a Reebok sandals that I got 5 years back ) has a thin sole but still has a nice cushion at the heel. I started noticing that I was landing on my heel. I contemplated running bare foot - but before that I want to get the cheapest Bata canvas shoe and give it a shot. The road has got lots of dirt and sharp objects - do not want to take chances.

This book just saved me a few thousands of rupees. One of the things I was going to do was get a more fancy, cushiony Nike or Reebok shoe - thinking it will ease my pain. Myth busted.

Myth 2 : Woman cannot run.

This one is for the Wife who I am encouraging her to run with me. There are stories of 2 lady ultra marathoners - one a school teacher who has won so many ultra marathons and one a young upcoming ultra marathoner - both have no special training - but they beat the best American runners and even beat the Tarahumara tribe's best runners. As the distance increases - women seem to beat men - as their endurance levels are much higher.

Men are wimps when it comes to pain. I keep crying all the time that my feet hurt, my shin hurts.

However a woman can experience an incredible amount of pain during child birth and can laugh about it later.

Also the human body was designed to run - as the title of this book "Born to run". We are not supposed to walk or pump irons or pull fancy weights in gym - but run. This is the best way to exercise and can ward off diabetes, hypertension, back pain and whole lot of ailments brought to us thanks to the progressive and lazy lifestyle. The whole body reacts beautifully to running - I am no longer a coffee addict - I drink coffee when I am bored - thats all.

So ladies rethink again if you have any doubts on running - the "Men" have spread lot of mis information and taken away your right to run. Second Myth - Woman cannot run - is also busted.

Myth 3 : You need to be a carnivore if you have to run.

Another eye-opener. The best ultra marathoner ever - Scott Jurek - who has won 7 titles in his career and has won in all hostile environments - turned a vegetarian. The tarahumara are vegetarians. There are these monks in Japan who run 70 miles every day for 7 years.. ( as they reach Nirvana daily by running ) - eat just Tofu and veggies.

Animal protein is bad for the human body. It brings cancer and also gets stored as fat. Like all the studies - we were not supposed to process animal flesh. It is bad for running. There are issues with water retention and fat build up. Also when you are a vegan - your body is more supple, leaner and can run better, faster and longer - I am sold.

Other than the humanitarian and ecological aspects of turning Vegan - the running angle appeals to me a lot. Already I am cutting down on my carnivorishness - and I am now following the Veggie on auspicious days strictly ( Monday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday) - and planning to expand it to all 7 days so I can joke like my good friend Sathya [ he is a Vegetarian and will joke - oh I do not eat meat today - because its ____day ]

Myth 3 busted - you need to be a carnivore to run.

So thats all folks - all the pre conceived notions I have about running are all over turned. Thank you Christopher McDougall, Barefoot Ted, Scott Jurek, Kabayo Blanco ( search these names on You Tube and you can see videos, TED Talks, interviews ) and Harruki Murrakami. You guys have changed me for the better.

I Support Anna Hazare.

2011-08-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

There you go - let me come out in the open.

While I might doubt the success of the JanLokpal bill - which no politician in the right mind will ever pass it - I love the revolution Anna Hazare and team is creating.

Dear Egypt, Syria, Lebonon - watch what is happening here. We are a healthy democracy and we are not fighting dictators. In another 50 years you will be going through what we are going through. You might be getting a honest leader now - but slowly without you even knowing - like the proverbial frog on a hot stove - your country will start getting looted. You will get so used to corruption tax that you will not even know that this is a crime you are committing. Then look back at history and see 2011 - what happened in India. You can get some inspiration out of this.

Back to my beloved country people - Go ahead - ask me - have you bribed?

Yes. I have. I am guilty but I am not ashamed. Before you call me a hypocrite read further.

Karnataka - the most corrupt state in India - is the only state in India to have Lokyukta. Santosh Hegde and his brave team keeps unearthing stash of illegally got wealth from officials from every department. We see in newspapers the photos and the grand total - that run into crores. What happens next? The officials get suspended for a few weeks or months - and they are back to their jobs - milking the system.

All we are asking is a Lokyukta with powers to prosecute.

These are the benefits :

1. Of course the whole corruption industry will go into recession.

2. The "tout-layer" will go out of business. There are honest officials and the buyer ( we ) are not aware of them - however the touts charge a fee saying it is for bribe and pocket the money. All these lazy goons will stop loitering around the government buildings and we go meet with these honest officials directly.

3. The rich country that India has become - will see less poverty. The largesses dished out ( no not the TVs and Fridges from TN govt ) - the subsidized rice from ration shops, the compensation from calamities ( gosh how can they even think of stealing from this ) - will all reach the people to the last paise.

4. People will donate to the PM's relief fund.

5. Probably the goons will start concentrating on other ways to make money and will quit politics - so educated youth like you and me can start thinking of Politics as a career option.

Provided I have the confidence in me - that I will not be beaten up by goons for raising an RTI, or my house transfer is frozen for ever - because I refused to pay a bribe - I will not pay a bribe. I will use that money to go buy something tangible - that will provide more jobs and make everyone richer.

So my friend - you support Anna Hazare or not - let us work towards revolutionizing India.

I am following Anna Hazare's path - you find a better path take it. Probably I will join you as well - and let us let India rise to its true potential.

What I talk about when I talk about Running

2011-07-11T22:04:00.000-07:00

This is the book written by Haruki Murakami (thanks to @kgthegreat for pointing my spelling flaw) Nila mentioned to me about this book on Thursday evening, Friday morning I had to plan for a surprise one day trip to Chennai, Saturday found an audio version of this book and Sunday listened to this book on the afternoon return journey. At times it is really amazing how it looks like as if someone sat and planned the whole situation to the very last detail.

I have read only one book of his before - kafka on the shore. He is an amazing fiction writer and paints such crazy images and situations. ( http://kvrlogs.blogspot.com/2008/07/kafka-on-shore.html ). I was very curious to know what he had to talk about when he talks about running!

Pic from one of his interviews ( http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-410--8908-0,00.html)

The book starts with him training in Kauai, Hawaii 6 days a week, 10kms a day with 1 rest day. He is putting in these miles in preparation for the New York Marathon. The story weaves in and out of of how he started running ( at the age of 33 around the same age I started running and this is where our similarity ends - I am yet to touch even 10kms, yet to write my first novel and I can't speak Japanese - neither can he speak Tamil ).

I will list down some interesting facts I still remember.

* He does not walk when he runs in the marathon. He will take a break to stretch his legs - but he never walks as a policy. I am still in the run-walk-run routine, will try to emulate this.

* He has run the ultra marathon - 100 Kms in a day. This very thought is crazy. While a marathon with 42 kms is itself a crazy number - I just could not digest this number. He gives a vivid account on what went through his mind and body on that day when he ran this. How his body resisted and finally something inside him gave away and he could run with no pain. He reaches a meditative state. It is so beautiful to just listen to this part - imagine if you could experience it.

* He talks about how running helps his writing. Makes absolute sense - It is all about Focus, Endurance and Rhythm. This passage is brilliant how he relates his writing to running.

* Our man ran the real "Marathon" - between Athens and the small town of Marathon.

* He has run 1 marathon every year for the past 24 years.

* Best quote from the book "Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional".

This book is like an adrenaline shot to beginner runners like me.

I give Newspaper the boot.

2011-07-05T01:34:00.000-07:00

Finally - after years of reading Newspaper with a cup of filter coffee in the morning - I am breaking free from the thing called Newspaper.

The disillusionment started with Indian Express becoming more of yet another run of the mill Masala Newspaper. When the world was burning with Wikileaks - IE choose to look the other way.

"Tata Sumo turns turtle on NH-4"
"Mugging on ORR, techie loses mobile,laptop"
"Old Couple Murdered in Jayanagar"

I started feeling that it is a random generator which picks these news. Of course there were these moments of brilliance - when the editorial will go hammer and tongs against the establishment. But it was becoming less and less.

Then Nadia Tapes leak happened. With it Vir Singhvi - whose columns I used to love - was chucked out. Swapan DasGupta left IE long back to write for ToI. Gurumurthy and TJS George's columns were coming very sporadically..they were getting old. IE could never find anyone to sit at their desks.

Finally I gave up - and switched to ToI for 2 months.

"Should item numbers be done by popular actress" - center page editorial debate.
"Strawberries good for health" - with an accompanying photo revealing all other details.
"Property News" - actually Ads - you can't guess which is which anyway

And always the opening page - being sold to companies with deep pockets. It is like a coupon book the whole newspaper. There was no sincere intelligent editorial. Swapan Dasgupta's editorials didn't have the punch it used to have -felt very much tamed. The leaks, scams, Anna Hazare - all had a passing reference - something that should have been the front page news.

Finally with my disillusionment complete - I gave up.

Now I have filter coffee with a book in hand. It is so much peaceful.

And for the world and scams - I get them on my twitter & facebook feeds - can make my own judgments - I am grown up now.

Have you kept rice in the pressure cooker?

2011-06-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

5 years back we emigrated to India - and here is the story.

July 13th - 2006 :

My sister got a phone call around 10.30 AM. We called her from Meenambakkam airport - and this is what we asked her : "Have you kept rice in the pressure cooker?" - she did not understand - why will we call from US to know if she has kept rice in the pressure cooker for the afternoon.

We were not supposed to come to India till October and it was not yet confirmed - and why was he asking this dumb question. Anyway I did not let her wonder too much - and broke the news that will be in landing in Coimbatore airport in another hour. So please add some more rice for both of us!

Good my mother did not take the call - she would have got a heartattack.

My sister's and my mother's BP shot up. After we had spoken, my sister suspected I was playing a prank. But she knew I will not play with sentiments like this - so it has to be true. And for the first time ( her claim ) she scolded me as "Naai" (dog ).

July 11th, 2006 :

We had to board Air India flight in Chicago's O Hare Airport. We packed a little too many things - thought will pay ( no not bribe ) for the excess and get through. We had a little too many sentimental things and of course chocolates. The iron lady behind the counter was unforgiving. She hated Sangeeta for some reason and will not allow any slack to us. So we had to take off all the chocolates and bring it to precisely within the range. Ideally we should have got embarrased with so many people watching us take things out and giving it away to a lady who had come to see someone off ( her lucky day ) - but we were so excited about getting back to India - and the very thought that we were going to shock everyone..kept us in high spirits.

July 2, 2006 :

Witnessed Formula 1 at Indianapolis - one of my lifetime dreams to watch Formula 1 Live. Schumi won - but what a bore. Watching it on TV was much better. Some dreams should always remain dreams - should never meet them.

It was hot sweaty, everything was expensive, nothing good to eat. Bought 2 Ferrari caps and Ferrari 2005 replica adding to the weight of our suitcases ! This was our last long drive in US. Will surely miss those gas stations, slurpies, starbucks, cruise control...

June 2006 :

Shipped off 10 boxes of stuff we had accumulated. Then put ads in craiglist etc to sell off our cars, router, futon, table..

A cousin's family was planning to visit Chicago in end July - and we had to discourage them without letting out the big secret. Having a secret was too much of stress - especially when the D day was just a couple of weeks away- we had to watch what we speak to home and friends.

May 2006 :

Applied for transfer to India - and finally got it approved after a few twists and turns. Got off work early that day and went to Devon avenue to book tickets to India. Picked Air India as they let people carry a little excess weight - someone knowledgable had once advised me. 2 one way tickets - and they were quite expensive.

Sangeeta was in Cleveland that time - got into the car, kept the tickets on the passenger seat and called Sangeeta to tell that I have got the tickets. It was an amazing feeling.

---

So that was what happened 5 years back. The story had some more events - none of our suitcases arrived with us, flight got delayed, missed the connecting flight, they put us on a flight to Hyderabad (??) and finally landed in Chennai. There Sangeeta & I lost each other in Meenambakkam airport - and we had no cell phones to find each other.

And since we had to give away all the chocolates while checking in, I bought some in a shop inside OHare, and had kept it under the foot, but forgot while changing planes. So we landed without a single chocolate on our hand. Till date my sister, my nephew and Sangeeta's brother have not forgiven us for this oversight on our part.

Eat Pray Love

2011-06-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

I picked this book because the cover had Julia Roberts saying - "this is an amazing book and I gifted this to all my girl friends". Before you start passing a judgement let me just say - I agree. It is not a smart way to pick a book.

But - I did and ended up reading this one. and I recommend it wholeheartedly to both boys and girls.

This lady, Liz 34 years of age, goes through a pretty messy divorce. She is an accomplished writer/journalist living in New York - like one of the New York movies ( wait they did make a movie out of this - with Julia Roberts ). Has an affair that does not go well either.

So she takes off on a vacation for a year - split in 3 parts equally - Italy, India and Indonesia ( Bali actually ).

In Italy she joins a class to learn Italian. And she hunts for great food. I was hungry all the time while I was reading this part of the book - every page will have some dish or the other that she relished to the core. That is all she does - day in and day out and puts a lot of weight.

Then she moves to India - to an ashram near Mumbai. She was to spend 6 weeks and then go around India - but she ends up staying the full 4 months and never leaves this place. There are some hilarious bits here - how she does meditation and how her mind keeps getting in the way. If you are a beginner in meditation you should read this part - you are not alone.

Then something magical happens during her stay. She experiences ecstasy - the divine one. Till date I have only heard of this - but she explains it beautifully. She gets over her messy divorce finally - and is at peace with herself.

Then the story moves to Bali - where she had a deal with a renowned medicine man who had said during one of her earlier visits ( she is a journalist - and keeps travelling to interesting places - and during one of her trips she had met him ) - she can come and live with him to understand things better.

However the medicine man does not remember - but accepts her and she learns interesting things. She finds a place to stay and from here it is like a fiction. She is to find the balance in life in Bali - between the pleasure ( Italy ) and divine stuff ( India ). She gets lot of insights into the medicine man - he has mastered various types of meditation and can visit Heaven and Hell apparently.

It was interesting reading on Bali culture - Bali babies never touch the ground for the first 6 months of their life - as they are still Gods. After 6 months there is a ceremony to convert them to humans. Also they have only 4 names - The firstborn is "Wokalayan" (or Yan, for short), second is "Made," third is "Nyoman" or Komang (Man or Mang for short), and fourth is "Ketut" (often elided to Tut). [got this from wikipedia] The fifth kid on wards the names are repeated. So if someone tells their name you can easily place them where they are in the family.

The books ends well - she falls in love with a 55 year old divorced Brazilian and ends on a high note. I read that her second part of this book ( which I am not going to read - as 2nd part always suck ) is about this second phase of her relationship.

So that is it - got a nice mix of spiritual and meta physical, 2 interesting cultures ( Italy and Bali ) - all written very fluently and in an entertaining manner - good TP.

and for me - I have moved on to metaphysical stuff - I am conversing with God now for the third time - perhaps will write about it next.

The Pixar Touch

2011-06-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

The above video is from 1967 Disney's Jungle Book - and this is the best part of this movie in my opinion - smooth animation, great synchronization wtih music and great drama. While watching the movie it does not feel it is a cartoon - what an achievement Disney!

This post is however about the story of Pixar. The founders have a dream - to create a full length animated movie - not hand drawn like Disney's but animated on a Computer. The founders were all along inspired / coached / educated by Disney's philosophy on how to make an animated movie with emotion and a story. Pixar wouldnt be Pixar without Disney.

The technology, software, methodology - none existed when they started. This core team of Pixar - which came into existence as part of George Lucas's Studio and later got sold to Steve Jobs later - were involved in developing some of these methodologies - Z Buffer, Ray Tracing, Shadow on Shadow, Particle animation - Photoshop was originally developed at Pixar and then sold to Adobe.

The second half of the book devotes a chapter each for each of the Pixar's hits - right till Ratatouille. The story behind how the team was formed, how the idea originated, the legal troubles they fought - you will get tremendous respect for each of these movies.

If you are a fan of animation and Pixar ( /Steve Jobs ) you would love this book. Here are some interesting stories :

* It took almost 2 years of coercing to make Disney approve Toy Story. And mid way they almost scraped it thinking it was not good

* Finding Nemo was laughed at by Eisner ( Disney's horrible CEO ) - and when it is released Finding Nemo eclipses The Lion King in BO collection ( till then held the all time record for biggest BO collection )

* For Monster's Inc - Pixar gets sued for copyright violation of the theme - Monster hiding under a closet. Apparently the brave girl, the hairy hero and one eyed side kick were part of a poem - and inadvertently Pixar's story writers got influenced / inspired ( their defense ). They settled out of court for an undisclosed sum

* Dreamworks was started by a guy who was pissed off by Eisner. He wanted to hurt Disney - so he stole the 2nd movie idea - Bugs Life from Pixar's director over coffee - and made a clone called - AntZ - similar theme, story line - and released it before Bugs Life. After that Pixar became very closed to outsiders.

* Cars is the worst movie to come out of Pixar - though technically it had many advancements like Ray Tracing in it. Each frame took some 20 hours to render. That is 24 frames per second, and movie is more than an hour. But made hell lot of money for Disney

* There is a very intriguing movie called Princess Mononke that I watched last month - the director is apparently a respected Japanese Animator - Miyazaki - he visits Pixar HQ. They pitch the idea of Incredibles to him and he gives some wise crack I cant recollect now. One of the directors have a wall full of Miyazaki's characters.

* Pixar went IPO 10 days after the release of Toy Story - Steve Job's idea - so they had the movie drive their opening day numbers.

Incidentally - my review of Incredibles - written way back in 2004 was the first post of my blog. I for one love Computer Animation and I watch all cartoon movies. If you read this book you will get the answer to the following question - which keeps coming to me whenever I watch a Pixar movie.

How in the LIVING HELL can Pixar manage to make hit after hit after hit.

Cryptonomicon

2011-04-18T10:33:00.000-07:00

Yep - thats the one. Took almost 2 months to finish this monster. Recommended reading for geeks, nerds and all the in betweens.

I first read about Neal Stephenson in a Wired article in 2006. Since then have been on the look out for his books. Every year will go to Strands book facility and will ask them about any of his books - they will draw a blank.

Anyway - found this book in JustBooks in February- the wonderful library chain that has been feeding me books for the last 2 years.

This is one big masala book - has some mathematics ( yep - equations, graphs and all that ), computer stuff of late 90s when the book was written ( Finux is the OS one of the main character uses - I do not know why he did not use the word Linux ), has an elaborate VC/lawyer, entrepreneur battle, nerd culture of late 90s - and of course the whole underlying theme - cryptography.

The book starts during World War II and the interesting stories are only here. Alan Turing and his college buddies fight it out ( one of them is a German and goes back to work for Hitler ). Each party will try to break each other's cryptosystems and once broken they will do lot of stage managed accidents in order to keep the opposite party from knowing that they have broken the code - so they will not change it.

The present and past keep alternating - and the whole story centers around a ton of Gold buried under a man made lake by a Japanese Naval Captain who would have escaped from an air attack - escape from sharks, land on a cannibal island, escape from them, get captured by a rogue Japanese Army who are the ones secretly stashing tons of Gold. The Captain while designing the elaborate tunnel system will also plan his escape route through that without his bosses knowledge.

The location of the Gold is hidden in an encrypted message which will finally be cracked by our hero ( who uses Finux ) and the story will end with them bombing the gold out.

After reading this book I do not feel awkward to encrypt all my stuff with TrueCrypt and Keepassx - someday will blog on my paranoid setup !

I salute thee Neal Stephenson - you are the next Michael Crichton.

Life with Tinnitus

2011-01-29T06:33:00.000-08:00

Imagine someone holding the above whistle and constantly whistling into one of your ears - day in and day out, month after month. That is Tinnitus for you.

Have been enjoying this since my child hood days - will get loud whenever I have cold or some fluid gets into my inner ear. Couple of days before new year some fluid entered the inner sanctum sanctorum in the middle of the night and all hell broke loose - accompanied by severe pain. I made my first visit to the doctor in 2010 - on Dec 30th - bummer.

You might be wondering - so how does this story end? Well - there is no end. Medical technology is only now figuring out slowly why this whistling happens - it seems there are 20,000 miniscule hair inside our inner ear. They respond to the tiniest of sounds and transmit it to the brain.

For some ( around 30 million Americans - no such statistics for India yet ) - some rogue hair "imagine" that they heard something and keep transmitting to the brain the sound - this is the shrill whistle noise I hear - Tinnitus. There is a famous personality who has this condition - Guy Kawasaki - he had mentioned it in Art of Start.

From my unscientific research - anti depressants are prescribed for Tinnitus - which is depressing to hear ( double pun !! ) . Best solution is to just get used to Tinnitus and enjoy the constant raaga.

If you know anyone in your network having Tinnitus - do connect me to them - would like to know how they cope with this.

My 2010 Books Roundup

2011-01-13T23:58:00.000-08:00

1 & 2. Dune and Children of Dune by Frank Hebert

The first part - like all movies - is the best. Truly unputdownable - best science fiction I have ever read. Second part is little tiresome.

3. Flow - Psychology of Optimal Experience. How to find joy in everything you do. This book helped me in my running and car washing! Amazing book - will give a new perspective to how you view little chores to big tasks.

4. Outliers - By Malcolm Gladwell. Reasearch is boring - but reading the interpretation of such research is fun. The figure - 10,000 hours got drilled into my head.

5 & 6. Goal 1 & Goal 2 - By Dr.Eliyahu M.Goldratt. This book is a must read for everyone in any profession. It has got nothing to do with Agile or Lean - it will shake you up and make you think. I have heard multiple times about out-of-the-box thinking - this book has enough examples to trigger the out of box thinking process. Also it gives a whole different view point to dealing with constraints and inefficiencies - it is an opportunity waiting to be exploited.

7. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. I picked this book because cover said Nobel Prize winning author. And what a ride it was - Traditionalist vs Modernism. I think I missed most of the deeper philosophies ingrained in it - but what I grasped it was intriguing. Highly recommend this one.

8. Viral Loop by Adam Penenberg. We live in a an interesting social networking era. This book will be defunct in another year or two ( Ning is already on a downward spiral - and this book glorifies Ning ). With MySpace going down the drain - Facebook is not far off. This book covers the journey of all these startups.

These are the 8 books I read in 2010. Just finished reading a mind blowing book this year already - but hey - to know about it you have to wait for my 2011 Books Roundup !

I Can Run!

2010-12-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

This post is to brag on a mini milestone achievement - I can now complete the upcoming Whitefield Mid Night Marathon ( only the baby 4.2 Kms )!

Of the last 3 runs I have been consistently covering 4.2 kms plus.

Here are a few steps (woohoo managed to squeeze in a pun ) I took :

1. Shunned the iPod. The ear hurts after a while, the buds keep falling off, the wire keeps coming in the way - and the podcast / songs might get boring and I lose interest in running. So ditched the iPod and I can now run just with my thoughts.

2. Psyche myself on Diabetes. Genetically South Indians are programmed with this disease and shipped into the world. I sit and work 12 plus hours - almost 7 days a week. Office is just on the 1st floor. ( ahemm home is on 3rd floor but I am lazy ). Only way to beat diabetes is to exercise - no other way out.

3. Psyche myself on Personal Victory. This one is from Stephen Covey's 7 habit book. You should first win personal victories before you can win public victories. This one statement makes me spring up from the bed and keeps me going till I reach the goal I had set - 4.2 Kms.

4. Enjoying the zone / the rhythm. It took a long time before I could find the rhythm. Now when I get over the initial few minutes of heart pounding - I start to glide - it is a beautiful feeling - and I do not notice the minutes that go by.

5. Ignore the knees will give away scare. It will be another ( hopefully ) 2 decades when my knee problem surfaces. I am betting on knee technology to improve - and there will be a magic pill very much like the Taj Mahal pill - which will rebuild the knee !

My next goal is the half marathon ( 21 Kms ) and then a full marathon ( 42 Kms ).

PS : A special thanks to @diduPublish Postknow, @nilakanta who I follow on twitter - their tweets used to make me feel guilty and now their tweets inspire me.

PSS : See Twitter is much more healthier than facebook. All I do in facebooks is view and share youtube links and talk politics. My eyes and head are getting corrupted :)

Breaking the Reality Distortion Field!

2010-10-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

I did it !

I broke the Reality distortion field cobweb of Steveji and joined the Android Brigade! It has been more than a week since I bought my first smart phone - a Samsung Galaxy S ( on the left - yes it does look very iPhoneish ) and it is Enthiranistic ( hehe :) )

It was a tectonic mind shift for me. I love Apple products - my first laptop was an iBook. Then I bought iMac, iPods. When the 1st gen iPhone came I wanted it badly - but as a rule I never buy 1st Gen Apple products ( can't afford the Apple Tax ).

Recently I decided ( the power above approved rather :) ) to go for a smartphone and my obvious choice was an iPhone. Despite the attenagate I wanted to buy the iPhone 4. However I started reading more and more on the iPhone vs Android wars and found how closed Apple had become.

In the iconic 1984 Super Bowl Ad when Apple introduced PCs to the IBM masses - a lady with a hammer hurls it on the Big (Blue) Brother who preaches :
"Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause."

How ironic. You can now replace the Big Brother with Steve Jobs and the words still apply. You might own the hardware, but you cannot install any applications that you want to. You cannot hack your machine - you will void the warranty. Want to transfer files - you have to do it with iTunes and nothing else.

And more importantly - Apple for some reason - hates India. The iPhone4 release date could as well be in 2011. iPhone 3 got released exactly after a year it got released in USA. Also Apple's prices are illogically high in India.

Anyway - here are the things I liked on the Galaxy.

Swype - I am as fast as the Chinese Teenage kids when it comes to texting now.

Google Apps Integration - Whenever I want to add a contact and if I am near a computer, I add it in my Google Contacts - and it magically appears on the phone.

No Brainer Syncing - Since I am on linux I do not have iTunes -in fact my iPod is yet to be updated with Enthiran songs. However with Galaxy S I just dragged and droped the media files.

Internet Tethering - Worked out of the box - on Ubuntu. I did not expect that.

I am not sure how this phone pits against the Retina Display of iPhone. And this phone does not have a flash - which is a bummer.

One parting advice for Steve Jobs - just let it go. You have the best product in the universe. Why create gates and windows?

The One vs The Many Heroes

2010-08-28T02:51:00.000-07:00

I started reading a Sci Fi novel - Dune by Frank Herbert. I have not even crossed 30 pages and already the characters in the book are analyzing if the hero ( a kid as of now ) is the one? It kind of put me off a bit..but I will persist with the book. Curious to know if he is the one ;)

Coming from an eastern civilization where there is really no "one hero" it does sound a bit funny initially. There are 1+ million Gods, in Mahabharata there are 5 heros, and there is a hero who is part of the dark side too ( Karna ), in Ramayana actually the bad guy is projected to be on the good side ( Rama - who else.. haha ;) he plots the downfall of one of the monkey kings, suspects poor Deepika...better known as Sita and burns her etc. ).

Switch to the Western world - there is Matrix. After snazzy graphics, exploding cars and trucks, and 3 parts - it is determined that Neo is the One. In Lord of the rings the ring chooses a sad looking Elijah Woods as the One. In the latest movie too, Avatar, there is some legend among the Pandorites and our hero happens to be - not surprisingly - the One.

Its fun - being part of both worlds. I grew up fascinated with the Mahabaratha, and Ramayana - it helped me identify shades of grey in the world, and that there is not one, but many heroes - and they are on both sides.

Then Hollywood movies and American politics showed how things are really not as complicated as we Easterners think - but it is quite simple - as either a red or blue pill/vote and how there can be "the One".

I can sense there is something deep here - but I am a superficial blogger so I won't bother digging deep. Like the Inception ending, I will let you draw your own conclusions on what impresses you the most - The One vs Many heroes concept.

Cure for the Common Cold

2010-08-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

"If you take medicine the cold will go away in 7 days, if you do not it will go away in 1 week" - My 12th Std Biology teacher. That was the only time I smiled in his class, rest of the time I would be sleeping or keeping myself awake dreaming of college just a few months away and how liberating it would be.

Anyway this post is about my cold. It always hits me when I least want ( as if anyone will want to get cold ). A big release, an important interview, a vacation, a family get together - it is always there to give me company. I have tinnitus ( like everyone's hero Guy Kawasaki ) and it gets worse during cold - meaning - 1.5 of my hearing will be out of service for this period.

I have tried all things. Pranayama, Running, Walking, Japanese shower, Orange juice, Nuts, Fruits, quit smoking ( even though I don't smoke ;) ) - and also doing none of these - still the cold gives me a visit without fail. I have been fighting this battle since my earliest memory - still no respite.

I have decided what legacy I want to leave behind to this world. You would have guessed it by now. I will create this wonder drug. I have even named it : HAWT ( hawt always work terrifically - recursive name ;) ). However it will not fight cold - it is useless to fight cold. It is like writing a software to replace Excel.

Instead, HAWT will fight all the symptoms cold brings - headache, loss of apetite, stuffy nose, runny nose, itchy nose, mild cough, dry cough, teary eyes, sore throat, mild fever. HAWT is designed to do precisely drugs are not supposed to do : that is to just take care of the symptom.

So where do I download cold APIs - want to start working on my legacy.

IQ, EQ, CQ, PQ

2010-06-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

After reading Malcolm Gladwell's book - Outliers - I have started looking at things with a different perspective. Here is my hypothesis on the elements that can make one successful in life.

Whenever we see someone who has "arrived in life" we presume they have a high IQ - but this is not the only criteria. Having cart loads of IQ is good to have, but it does not guarantee success if the below 3 are not present in good measure

Emotional Quotient : The person who laughs at the face of danger; the one who lost badly but has the courage to try once again, or take a different path; the go-to guy at work when the experts give up and report sick on crisis situations; this is the guy every project manager wants in his team. EQ is a must have - not just a good to have.

Creative Quotient : The guys with a high CQ spruce up dull meetings; their emails are all a joy to read; their stand-up updates are fun - and the team tries hard to match him - and the whole team bonds & has fun day in and day out. When our man does not turn up for work - the project feels like a funeral home ( ok I am over stretching a bit here :) ) - but I guess you get the picture.

PQ

Political Quotient : Bite your lower lip & accept the fact - you have to play the game ( there is a better term for this - hehe). In large organizations - PQ determines if you get a cubicle near the window or a seat next to your boss's boss - it is a hard life and it gets harder for the ones with zero PQ.

In startups politics is non existent - who has time for such games anyway - however having a good PQ is essential for customer relationship management - and also to see the team through during some tough times.

In summary - the schooling taught and measured our IQ - post schooling - the real world expects EQ, CQ & PQ - in some combination or the other - and this will decide how far one can go in life.

Success = a(IQ) + b(EQ) + c(CQ) + d(PQ)

And the above formula is open sourced under GPL - use it freely, improve the a, b, c & ds and enjoy sweet success. You are welcome :)

[Img courtesy : http://malefis.u-strasbg.fr/site/images/homer-brain.jpg ]

Earth hour is a sick joke on us

2010-03-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

So you participated in the Earth Hour? Good for you - this will encourage Bescom ( or TNEB or whatever entity ) to give more power cuts - Oh so our customers don't want power - lets cut some more.

There are so many power cuts in a day for varying durations. Our office UPS beeps almost the entire day - and I have started getting "flow" when I hear the beeps. At times when the beep stops ( because power is back ) I start browsing and cannot concentrate on my work.

We have placed an order for one more home and lighting UPS - Jan Feb we were able to manage without a fan, but now it is unbearably hot. The term "sweat equity" takes a different meaning for us!

Anyway, I applaud the western world to interrupt the power for an hour in a year. Great. I wish they do it every week. And also they switch off the AC and lighting on weekends when they leave office.

And we Indians - let us see how to increase power production. I initially thought I will go with the flow and participate in Earth Hour - but later realised we are kicking ourselves in the butt - why will I sit in darkness - let me enjoy the little power Bescom had blessed us with.

With the nuclear technology US is going to give us ( thanks to Manmohanjee risking his turban et all ) , I am waiting for some enterprising hackers from national market to come up with a desk top mini nuclear fission reactor to ease our power woes. I will buy one - even if it is going to mutate me into an ogre!

What the doctor ordered!

2010-03-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

AI - Ad Industry
Doc - The Wise Doc

AI : Doc - we need a way to show ads on prime time.
Doc : Ok?

AI : We need to show ads every 2 minutes
Doc : Hmm.

AI : Is it even possible or are we greedy?
Doc : Any thing is possible my dear AI. There is a religion worshipped by Indians that we can exploit. It is called Cricket. Let us come up with a 20 over format and force the players to play fast - so you can show ads every 2 minutes - between the overs. Also encourage the batsmen to treat their wickets with scant respect - so they will get out quicker - and you can show more ads during that time.

AI : What about replays?
Doc : Screw the replays - no one will care how the batsman got out - either he will be clean bowled or caught somewhere on the boundary line.

AI : That is wonderful. God bless your wisdom tooth.
Doc : You are welcome my dear friend. Even though you did not ask I will give you one more opportunity to show more ads - introduce a "strategic time-out". The viewer will now wait eagerly and guess the new strategy - and meanwhile he will watch all the ads you throw at him.

AI : Brilliant.

And so happened IPL1, IPL2, IPL3.... and so the soap mobile soda sellers became rich, the cricketainers become richer, the worshippers wasted their prime years watching cricket and tweeting and blogging.. err..hmm..ok bye :)

My Top 10 things of 2009

2009-12-28T05:28:00.000-08:00

The world is currently full of 2009 lists..here is the list from my world !

If you are curious - here is the link to my top 10 things of 2008 - http://kvrlogs.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-top-10-things-of-2008.html

10. Running 10KM/hr for 8 minutes

This might be easy for many - but this is a huge achievement for me. I could run for 2 minutes at the most at this pace before I had to slow down to 8KM/hr and then 6KM/hr. I have been trying to increase this duration slowly and nowadays I can run for a flat 8 minutes at this pace on the treadmill without my heart jumping out onto the floor.

9. Blogging

Started writing regularly in all of my blogs :

this one you are reading - kind of a satire nonsense blog - http://kvrlogs.blogspot.com

my entrepreneurial journey - http://venkat2.blogspot.com ,

and a new one I started this year - on books for startups -http://artofstart.theindianstartup.com/

The last couple of months things have been crazy and my blogging has been sporadic or I might have got a blogger's block..but it is over now I guess!

8. MJ

MJ shocked the world for one last time.

Aside, "This is it" happened to be Prithvi's first movie theater experience. We took him to a late night show expecting him to doze off. But he watched intently the entire movie and dozed off only on the way back home. The next morning he wakes up and first thing he says is "Akka dancing" ( sister dancing ).

7. Twaddicted !

This year I became a Twitter addict. I love watching the trending topics, discovering new sites posted by tweeples, reading comments about news as it happens. Obama winning nobel prize news was lot of fun - I was right there when it happened and shared lots of funny one liners with others. Twitter is just amazing.

6. The no beach year!

From 1994, the year I started my studies at CEG, Chennai - I would have visited a beach every year atleast once ( Juhu, Florida keys on the day of Tsunami, Galveston, Santa Monica, Chicago lake - technically it has a beach ). This year I went to Beasant Nagar 3 times, but could not go to the beach. I know it might not be worthy of a top 10 list...but hey this is my list :)

5. Ubuntu

I had an on-off relationship with Linux for the past 10 years or so - Mandriva, Red hat, Ubuntu, Suse. But this year, thanks to the gem of an OS called Vista, I started spending more and more time with Ubuntu and kept uncovering the beauty of Linux like never before. Now Ubuntu is my OS of choice and I am not upgrading to Win 7. Perhaps that shiny OS X might tempt me away someday, but who knows..with gnome 3 blowing the socks off OS X I might stay put.

4. Movies

I love watching movies. But this year I kind of rediscovered the movie magic. I could switch off completely from my work threads and let myself be immersed in a movie. Dev D, Slumdog millionaire, Avatar, Up..relished them all.

3. Swine Flu Scare

All of us in our home went through a bout of flu one after the other. The first one to get hit was Sangeeta at the height of swine flu mania and she almost wrote her will. Later Prithvi picked that weird flu and it was painful to watch that energy ball lie quietly on the bed conveying something through his eyes..

2. "Naana kaapi deddiee" - Naana Coffee Ready!

Thats my toddler shouting and banging our home-office door around 11.00 A.M every day when coffee has been prepared by his Avva ( my mom ). It has become our daily ritual. I might be the luckiest of all Dads ( touchwood ) to be with my son all the time - day in and day out. Starting Jan 1, 2010 I will be moving to an office and he will start his playschool life - hope we both can manage the separation anxieties.

1. ApartmentAdda : My life, My mission !

Receiving the first cheque for ApartmentAdda Premium package.
Cutting the first salary cheque for 3Five8's personnel.
Registering 3Five8 Technologies Private Limited.
10 PM Demo which went till mid night!
Demos in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad
The small mentions of ApartmentAdda in print ( Deccan Chronicle ) and media ( CNBC TV )
And many many more I cannot divulge here - but can do over a CCD cuppa :)

Wish you all an awesome event filled 2010.

Conspiracy Theories - Part II

2009-11-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

Here is my second edition of Conspiracy Theories. The 1st part is here - http://kvrlogs.blogspot.com/2009/09/conspiracy-theories-part-i.html

4. Cure for the common cold.

It has been discovered and the pharmaceutical companies, the presidents and prime ministers around the world, the Shah Rukh Khans, the TV News Anchors - are all having access to it.

But the common man like you and me do not have this cure for the common cold. So we will end up spending on chicken soup, vicks, steam inhalers, doctor visits, orange juice etc..

5. Money does not buy happiness.

Oh hell it does. You can buy an iPhone, an iPod nano that shoots video, a Nike shoe that plays well with that nano, an European vacation and lot more. If this is not happiness then what is?

It is a conspiracy by the uber rich, so the unwashed masses will not work too hard - and the rich will not have much competition and can continue enjoying their European vacations and the cool cars. The rich authors write books and movie directors dish out art movies that glamorizes mediocrity and simple living. Don't buy this philosophy I tell you - try to make more money and enjoy life.

6. Michael Jackson is not dead

There is no conspiracy here...but for this one I whole heartedly wish it was true - that he is still alive - and it was all a drama played by his creditors to recover his debt etc. I wish he will emerge some day and release a few more albums.

Just Beat it.

Review - The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddnine

2009-09-19T23:46:00.001-07:00

They say never judge a book by its cover but that is what I did when i picked this book from the library. I was in a rush to catch the afternoon train to Hyderabad from Yeshwantpur, and I still had to press my clothes, do some biscuit/bread shopping ( YSR had died the day before in the chopper crash and I was preparing for a bandh - thankfully things were peaceful there ).

In the train someone sitting opposite me was reading a Sidney Sheldon - don't remember what book it was. He broke the ice by saying fat book and we chatted about other things.

And the book was very interesting. In ancient times when Baghdad, Persia were thriving - there was a profession called "Hakawati" - the story teller. He used to entertain the Kings and nobility - since they did not have Tata Sky and 24 hour news channels.

The book has 3 stories running in parallel. The one is about the author himself starting from how his Grandfather became a Hakawati, about the pigeon fights, the music instrument

Oud, the Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt wars in the background and childhood years..

The 2nd story is quite bizarre. It is about the dark world, demons and their interaction with the living, poets, bards, wit and all that. It starts with the Emir dispatching his slave Fatima to meet a wizard/witch in another city faraway to find out how he can be blessed with a boy. He has 12 girls..but he has no one to take over his kingdom.

The 3rd story is actually one within the 2nd story - the slave gets back after an adventure ( where she dies and falls in love with the demon and is reborn ) and tells the King that he should narrate a story of bravery to his wife so she can give birth to a boy. So the Emir narrates a story and this is the 3rd one.

There are so many stories within each story - the whole book is a riot. Its like TV. It is late, your eyes are tired but you just cannot switch off the TV. I gave up reading this book a few times after I got back from Hyderabad and thought will return the book.

But simply couldn't, once I started reading I would want to read a few more pages to find out what happens to that Babylar - the hero of the 3rd story who is a slave and rises to become the king or Othman - a cunning thief who becomes a loyal friend and bodyguard of Babylar, or Othman's wife - Layla a reformed lady dove !

And the author employs all the Hakwati tricks. He will leave the story at a very nice "cliffhanger" and move on to the next story, and I will look forward to how it turns out.

After reading this book I really wish the middle east countries resolve all their disputes and go back to enjoying life with no wars. They have so much tradition and culture and they should cherish it and not let it die. I want to visit them some day and gaze at their mosques and minarets, taste their tea and lamb, listen to oud and arabic songs, read their poems and stories.

Hmm..wish world becomes a better place...and not something I read and imagine in books..

Conspiracy Theories - Part I

2009-09-14T04:04:00.000-07:00

I do not have the bandwidth to research - so listing out the news articles I keep coming across which are suspicious in nature...so a reporter can pick it up and run with it and hopefully win a Pulitzer or something !

1. Force India finishing 2nd, 4th

I love Formula 1, and I love India and I am quite pleasantly surprised seeing Force India finish in the podium. Well actually I did not "see" because I do not have sports channels at home - so read the news. But I am tempted to subscribe again and see the race and the Ads and be an "eye-ball" once again.

The conspiracy here is - with Ferrari once again in the dumps ( how it was prior to Schumi days ), Indian fans have lost interest in F1 - majority being Ferrari fans. And with a 200 million tv viewing population - which is almost the size of European continent, F1 cannot afford to lose India. So suddenly Force India who never finished a race is on the podium..hmmm !!

2. Ms.Nigeria/Ms.Venezuala/Ms.Phillipines winning Miss World

This has been my pet conspiracy theory from the day Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen won the pageant. This is a no brainer.

Who sponsors these events? The beauty products.

How does beauty product enter a new market? By letting one of the Aishwarya Rais win.

The Miss World trophy conveniently migrates from one country to another - dictated by the market. So when there is a dip in sales, soon you will see another Indian winning Miss World.

3. Moon landing

There are many websites and books on this topic. NASA even commissioned a book to be written saying its all bull, we did land on the Moon - but later for some reason cancelled this project.

Questions?

1. Why have we not landed in the moon again - even after 40 years? We have sent robots to Mars - but why did we not try for the moon?

2. After seeing the failure of Chandrayaan I learnt that the moon's gravitational pull is not uniform and the satellite needs constant course correction. Then there is the sun flare and other extremities of space which a satellite built in 2008 could not handle. What is amazing is 40 years back NASA sent a satellite to successfully land on the moon, someone gave a grammatically incorrect statement, and got back alive. Hmm...

3. We have very powerful telescopes that can peer at stars some millions of light years away. Why cant we turn this on the moon - the closest object we have - and try to find the foot print, the flag and other objects dropped by the man on the moon?

Guess this much is enough for my first edition...!

My dear netas - you deserve business class

2009-09-13T22:12:00.000-07:00

Our poor netas, who have already sacrificed some good professions like farming, medicine, engineering, business, law, stock trading, IT etc - for the greater good of the country, and for serving the downtrodden of this nation - are being punished by forcing them to travel in economy class. What sacrilege.

No one is there to speak in support of our netas - and they will not protest but will accept this quietly - because their humility does not allow them to protest. So I am taking up their cause in this post. No they did not pay me - our netas will never do such a thing.

Why our netas deserve business class and private jets:

1. Stress

They take so much stress. From the build up to getting a party ticket, fighting for votes, then the horse trading and finally they become ministers. And still it is not over, they have to ward off allegations of corruption, nosy reporters, RTIs, PILs - and somehow manage to find time to serve the masses.

And you expect them to be herded like cattle in economy class? Give them a break.

2. Seats are too small

Have you not seen the photos of our netas? Because they take enormous stress and the long hours they put in every day - they are a little bigger than an average Indian. They simply cannot fit in an economy seat. Please do not ask them to go join a fitness club. There is not enough time in a day.

So if your seat is next to them - in economy class, you are better off sitting on the floor. Fight for them to go business class to save your ass ( literally speaking ).

3. Entourge

Do you think our netas travel alone? They will have a bunch of IAS, IPS, SAS, CRM, CBI, ABC, GHI officials accompanying them all the time. Putting all of them in a private jet is cheaper than buying tickets for each one of them in an economy flight.

So my dear fellow countrymen - don't you agree - our Netas deserve business class and private jets. Don't believe what the media is saying and don't join them in celebrating the suffering of our poor netas.

5 simple tips to fight Flu

2009-08-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

The media is doing what it does best - spreading fear and panic. So here is my little post which is an anti-dote in these scary times. Some tips for increasing your immunity - so when flu gives you a visit, it knows it is not welcome.

1. Orange Juice & Fruits.

Fruits have become really expensive - nowadays Doctors are cheaper than Apple ( the fruit ;) ). However packaged juices are cheaper than fruits if you do the Cost benefit analysis.

Try and get juices that claim they have no sugar and no preservatives. I do however remember reading that Vitamin C by itself does not help fight flu - but there are other good things - anti oxidants, Vitamin C, fiber - so over all it is good for a healthy you - and it is tasty too.

2. Japanese Shower

Take a hot bath and once you are done - in the end - take shower in the cold water. While taking a hot bath the pores open up and blood flow circulation increases in the skin. When suddenly cold water hits your body, the pores start contracting, and blood is forced to rush deep into your system - carrying with it nourishing oxygen and anti bodies. This is very effective and fun.

3. Pranayama

It takes 2 minutes but this is the most effective of all - I do this while reading the headlines of the newspaper in the morning.

Remember the 10-10-10 rule.

First set : 10 times breathe slowly but firmly through left nostril with right nostril blocked. Repeat with right nostril.

Second set : 10 times breathe a little more faster and with more force through left nostril.Repeat with right nostril.

Third set : 10 times inhale through the left nostril, exhale through right nostril and reverse.

4. Stay away from fries and chaat

8/10 times whenever I ate those delicious fried bajjies, or paani poori outside I have caught cold. You can try rice bran oil for frying ( but do not reuse ) and relish the same sinful stuff at home - cheaper and comparatively healthier.

5. Wash hands constantly

I once heard a NPR podcast about the correlation between number of heartbeats and the lifespan of an animal. The only species which defies this is humans - whose number of heartbeats is less, but their average lifespan is disproportionately higher.

The reason they gave was that humans wash their hands. Simple as that. All the epidemics enter through hand-mouth/eyes route.

Have soap dispensers in all the basins - and yes, you should use anti bacterial soap - just washing hands with water is not going to be of much help.

6. Bonus - Aerobics

This is the panacea to not only fighting flu - but to most of the ailments which might trouble us. If you think about it there is no way of fighting flu alone - your whole body has to be healthy - that will ward off lot many things - bad cholesterol, back aches, stiffness, excess fat build up.

So friends let us not wait till New Year to get healthy, this is the right time - we are being brainwashed with Swine flu scares by the media. Instead of reading reports and worrying, let us hit the healthy lifestyle button.

JK Wedding video & more

2009-08-02T00:18:00.000-07:00

I know I should not be writing about this video - according to Wired's How to Behave : New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans.

But I have to - this post is for my not-so-wired friends about a phenomenon that took the net world by storm. It is a video of a wedding party that makes its entrance dancing to a song ( thanks to this video the song- Forever by Chris Brown - went to the top in iTunes ).

Here is the real video :

And here is the spoof from college humour -Unexpected Divorce Intro - which takes things a little too far..:)

Enjoy !

How to make a decision?

2009-07-28T00:32:00.000-07:00

The last decade of my life has been very interesting - I had to take decisions at various points in my personal life as well as in my career - a few times the choice was very clear, at times both the choices looked equally attractive and at times both looked equally hard and difficult.

So how do we decide which one to take?

The thumbrule I have is - take the harder path. By harder I mean - I might have to work harder, educate myself on something new, might have to let go off my comfort zone, let go off things I love. But this might not be the case always - at times the easier option was also the best option.

So how do we know if the choice we had made is the right one?

The answer is - we will never know. If there was something called time travel then perhaps we will know. So I tell myself - the decision I took was the right one - always. I never regret on any decision I had taken because I know just around the corner I have one more decision to make which will be harder than the previous one. These things just keep coming :)

How about instincts & gut feeling?

Absolutely go for it - this works 9/10 times. From my personal experience and what I have found out from others - listening to your inner feeling, your heart - has a good success rate. I recommend reading Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - which will help open your ears to this heart/gut feeling of yours.

The Usual disclaimer : This post cannot be held responsible for the decisions you will be taking in your life :)

Some random photos

2009-07-19T10:26:00.001-07:00

Photos shot on my Nokia 6630

with his Avva in Reliance Footprint while his Ma shops !

this is equivalent of commenting out the failing test because the entire build was failing ! forgot where I took this one.

in Lal Bagh or Cubbon park - one of them.

after Prithvi's birthday party.

Achu, this is for you !

on the terrace - should be the world for this little ant !

He is a Royal Challengers fan, but was just being nice.

Next in human evolution - use mouth for carrying stuff, so hands are free to tweet and blog.

MJ

2009-06-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

I was in school - 7th or 8th Standard is when I heard about Michael Jackson. I did not know how he looked, how he danced, how he sung - but I was already a fan. My friends who had listened to his music and seen video brought by their Amru uncle - told in such vivid details that MJ was already dancing in my imagination.

Then I caught MJ on World this Week - hosted by Prannoy Roy - the only window to the world I had at that time. And what I saw was better than what I had constructed in my memory.

Over the years I watched him fall from one disaster to another and prayed silently for him. And in 2000 he was awarded the greatest entertainer of the century by Mtv. And in his acceptance speech he said "You ain't seen nothing yet". Gave me hope - perhaps he has turned a new leaf and will produce another amazing album. Sadly the clock stopped for him.

I saw a tweet from someone yesterday - "even my office peon knows about MJ" - that sums it up how great a person he was.

Tweets that does not make sense..

2009-06-23T00:06:00.000-07:00

I love twitter. If you don't like twitter - still you can read this article - because you will get some fresh twitter bashing stuff

1. Boarded plane !

Oh you have a GPRS enabled mobile is it - oh it's an iPhone - so you are able to tweet till the flight attendant comes and asks you to switch off your phone and then give a dirty look to the guy next to you who has a Nokia 1001.

2. Good morning!

Dood - I live in India - and its evening for me. Try to understand - the world is not flat how much ever Thomas Friedmann has made millions out of that statement.

3. RT this RT that !

Well even I RT that at times but not all the time.There are tweeters who live only to RT. At times Tweet something other than 1) and 2) and I will follow you.

4. #fail !

I fail you. I see so many fails that it depresses me. I wish the tweeters use some other hash tags..like #boo, #yuck etc. Be creative. Fail brings back school day nightmares.

5. I bought an iPhone 3GS

Good for you. You can now tweet till the flight attendant comes to warn you.

and btw - you can follow me at http://twitter.com/venkat2 and I assure you I follow proper tweetiquette.

3 Reasons why India should stick just to IPL

2009-06-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

I wasted sleep yesterday night to watch Indians play test cricket and lose. And here is my advise to India - stick to IPL and do not bother about playing world cups.

3. Better Prime time

In this world cup India matches start(ed) at night 10.00PM. Given that only Indians watch cricket how can they schedule all India games at 10.00PM? You are wondering about the non-Indians sitting in the stadium? - they were brought to the stadium with beer - like how they do in Indian elections.

With IPL the game bends for you. Games start at 3.00PM to kill afternoon boredom at office and they give a break so commuters can fight the way through traffic and reach on time to watch the next match at 7.00PM. And go to sleep at night 10.00PM. Early to bed and early to rise - IPL is good for your health.

2. Guaranteed Runs

In IPL, any team will have 2 good bowlers and the rest will be like henchmen in movies who are there to be beaten up. So just save your wickets till the henchmen come on the scene. And to support the super star batsmen are the flat pitches. There is guaranteed fireworks in every match.

World cup is so boring. It is like watching a one day - too many dots because of good bowlers. And the pitches are not flat. All the balls keep coming to the chest or face and poor Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Jadeja cannot handle them - so unfair.

1. You never lose

I was rooting for Chennai Super Kings till they lost. And Bangalore, my adopted city, reached finals. I conveniently changed my allegiance. You cannot do this with the world cup. Since India is gone I cannot start rooting for another country - there is no fun in watching a game without rabidly supporting a team.

In IPL and the Amru sports - like the world series or super bowl - no one goes home sad. At times you watch a game supporting for both the teams. I watched a world series once where I supported New York Yankees because of Derek Jeter and also at the same time rooted for Boston Red Socks - because they had flair and their players had unkempt hair and were such mavericks.

So Modi, I hope you are listening. Increase the IPL games and we will all be winners.

PINIP, MINO and VINOSX - Upcoming products from Redmond

2009-06-01T03:29:00.000-07:00

Following the phenomenal success of BING ( aka - Bing is not Google) which is actually Microsoft's Live search renamed and a 100 Million dollar marketing budget , Microsoft is preparing more product launches along similar lines.

PINIP - Pinip is Not iPod. Bloggers will go crazy with this name - Zune never had the hipness to it. Along with a 1000 Million dollar budget, they can use the money to buy it off the shelves and prove Zune has more market share than iPod.

MINO - Mino is not Oracle. With Oracle now owning MySQL the rich and poor use Oracle's databases. By renaming MS Sql server with a jazzy name like MINO - Oracle will have to forego hogging the database market and instead concentrate on reviving the companies it killed by buying them - like PeopleSoft, Sun etc.

VINOSX - Of course you guessed it right - V is not OS X and is actually Vista repackaged. Difficult to pronounce but with a 100000 Million dollar marketing budget with lots of youtube ads, banner ads, television ads, super bowl commercials Microsoft can sell this name..and the OS.

Its all in the marketing folks - poor Sergey,Larry, Jobs, Ellison, Torvalds don't seem to know this and are wasting their energies and R&D Budget.

How to watch Tamil TV Serials !

2009-05-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days I am watching Tamil TV Serials - during lunch and dinner. I have to socialize with the guests who are visiting us. It will not be manners to read a book when guests are around you see.

So here is how I entertain myself.

1. Watch the side actors. Usually the main heroine ( no heroes ) will be talking a few pages of scripts in one go. And time to time the side actors will keep looking at each other. It is so funny. At times one actor will try to look at the other - and she/he will be listening intently and will not look.

2. Watch for mistakes. There are so many. Usually when there is a large crowd there will be 5 or 6 people who will never get a dialogue. Keep looking at them - and they will keep seeing into the camera now and then.

3. Guess the cliche statement that will emerge out of the actor's mouth. You will win all the time.

"Enn uyiruai kuduthaavathu unnai kaapaathuvaen"
"Vaanga. Coffee saapidureengala"
"Nalla mugurtham paarthu sollnuga"

There is more to entertain yourself. Guess what they really wanted to speak.

"Unnoda Call Sheet mudiyuthu. Seekiram sethu tholai"
"Vaanga. Beer saapidureengala?"
"Marriage set innamum ready aagalai - 2 months thalli date iruntha sollunga"

Here is my suggestions to the script writers to hook up people like me.

1. Mix up a few sports news in dialogue.

"Chennai Kings kalakuraangala"
"Chelsea manager sothapeetaan"
"Gilli marana adi adikuraan"

2. Product placements.

For instance, all the actors use a cellphone. Why can't they use it to their advantage -

"Entha Phone ithu? Oh Nokia N97. Cool machi"
"Wow Flat screen - Samsunga - nalla color kaatuthu"
"Oooh Mac Book" ( If a day comes to this Steve Jobs will be selling movie tickets in black )

3. Mix a few PJs

I understand you script writers dilemma. Years of writing cliche after cliche dialogue has blunted the brain. Suddenly you cannot ask them to write jokes - atleast browse on the internet and insert a few PJs here and there.

"Knock knock"
"Why did the kozhi cross the road pa?"
"Intha Blonde joke kelaaen?"

God save Tamil TV Viewers.

Who will lose in this election?

2009-05-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

It is easy to accurately predict who all will lose in this election. A fractured mandate is bad for the country. Here is my list of losers because of this election 09.

1. Environment

With the makeshift horse traded government trying to hold on to power on a day to day basis - the environment will never show up any where on the radar. Instead we will see environmentally unfriendly projects getting sanctioned at a furious pace - because even before the PIL can be submitted - the minister in charge might be replaced and a new government would have come. Make hay while the sun shines will be order of the day. Sorry Earth.

2. Economy

I feel sorry for the poor sods (including yours truly ) who have sunk their money in Stock Market . I am predicting market to fall to 8000 in the next few months. The parliment will be run by everything other than pragmatism. With the netas whims and fancies changing on a day to day basis - and along with it the fluctuating majority - and along with it the market will keep plunging.

3. Aam Aadmi

The new Government's life span is in weeks to months. They will not think even of a 1 year long project. So no new infrastructure projects will start, no improvements to healthcare or education will happen- everything that a Government is supposed to do - goes for a toss.

Of course the politicians are not responsible for this mess - they would say it is the Aam Aadmi is to be blamed for having voted such a fractured mandate.

The world will turn dark tomorrow ( May 16th when counting will begin ). Brace up folks - and get ready for a rough ride in the coming few months. Probably my next posts will make fun of our pathetic situation and wont be this gloomy - so don't blacklist my blog yet :)

Chennai Vs Bangalore

2009-05-06T19:18:00.000-07:00

Some people will live and die for a city. I am not one of them - and I will objectively analyze which city is a best fit for me - a 30+ year old dad, techie, non-pub hopper, digs Chettinad food and Saravana Bhavan, and who enjoys the beach. By now you know where my allegiance is :)

Beach Vs Mall

The beach might not be how it used to be 10 years back - but still the salty air and cool breeze are the same. No one can prevent the breeze from hitting me - and every time I go to Beasant Nagar beach it reminds me one of the fun times I had there - late night cricket, intellectual and mushy exchanges...numerous.

When I go to a mall I get blinded, suffocated and when I come out I feel drained of my energy and am happy to get out of the mall.

Chennai : 1

Bangalore : 0

Traffic

Traffic has shot up everywhere - even in tier 3 cities. Chennai traffic is still smooth like butter. You wait only once in any signal - lots of flyovers and smart traffic management ensures you keep moving. Bangalore - uggh. Driving is zero fun in Bangalore.

Chennai : 2

Bangalore : 0

Food

Chennai has got great food at affordable rates. Saravana Bhavan and chettinad joints are there everywhere - Karaikudi, Ponnuswamy, Anjappar - and you can get a tall Falooda for 75Rs ( in Anjappar ) with an umbrella. Try to get one like that in Bangalore for the same price.

However, to Bangalore's credit the type of cuisines are endless - konkani, mangalorean,egyptian...you name it - it is there in Bangalore. It might be costlier than Chennai but I would award equal points to both.

Chennai : 3

Bangalore : 1

Chennai Super Kings vs Bangalore Royal Challengers

Awarding points to both. BRCs seem to be fighting back.

Chennai : 4

Bangalore : 2

Cars

Chennai wins hands down. I spotted 2 Audis in a space of an hour. There are so many Mercedes. And once I was sandwiched between 2 Mercedes - felt as if I was being escorted like a rock star. Bangalore? Too many indicas, sumos - and even if an Audi R8 pulls next to me I will not notice - I will think it is a figment of my imagination.

Chennai : 5

Bangalore : 2

Weather

Ahem. Heres where things get tied.

Chennai : 5 ( wanted to give a negative score )

Bangalore : 5 ( awarding a whopping 3 pointer )

Bottomline - it is a tough choice. You go where your career takes you - rest of the things you can compromise and live and hope things change for the better.

And finally to sum things up here is my haiku that I wrote when I was in Chennai.

Audi might have got its quattro

But Chennai still has its bovonto*

Dhoni might be from Ranchi

But he is now Chennai's own Machi**

* Bovonto is a fruit drink looks black in color and bottle says - "does not have fruit juice or pulp". Is as bad and unhealthy as a Pepsi or Coke and does not have an Amir Khan or SRK peddling it - but tastes fantastic. You can still find it in Chennai.

** Valid till he is bought by a Mumbai or a Kolkata team.

Fight the Good Fight !

2009-04-26T23:21:00.000-07:00

Book Review - The Pilgrimage

The book is all about fighting the good fight!

When we were young we had dreams but did not have the skills to achieve the dream. Then we educate ourselves, and through apprenticeship learn the skills to achieve the dream. However while doing so we lose sight of our dream and when we have the skills - we do not fight for the dream. "Fight the good fight" - Paulo's guide tells him - inorder to achieve your dream.

The second interesting thing is - we all fight for a reward. We achieve a dream so we can get a reward. But we never think what we will do with the reward. Once you answer it - the process of achieving your dream, getting your reward becomes easy and more meaningful.

Finally, during the course of the book you will realize how a devil is as important as an angel. Confused - let me explain from what I understood. Angel is the one that protects you. Devil always looks out for its own good and is selfish. Wondering how a devil can help you? Well - devil is the one who will help you inflict injury to your enemy - so if you can use your devil appropriately - he will not desert you in a fight ( to save himself ) but you can use the negative energy to inflict injury to your enemy - and win the fight.

I will not recommend this book if you are not a Paulo Coelho's fan. Try Alchemist first and then come to this book - you might appreciate it.

What I like in Paulo Coelho's books is how he gives different perspectives to well established things (devil/angel for instance ) and how you can relate your life to the events in the protogonist's life as you are reading the book.

Now I am off to fight the good fight :)

IPL 09 or Election 09 - which is the best entertainment?

2009-04-18T00:11:00.000-07:00

I feel Election 09 is more wholesome entertainment than IPL 09 - here is my top 5 reasons.

5. Cricket is a boring sport and IPL is trying to make it interesting and is quite successful in it. Politics has been the world's most oldest profession/game/sport and Elections make it really interesting. So no contest in this front.

4. IPL has got too many statistics - Net run rate, Batsman's average, Bowlers average - it all confuses me and is too much for my mind. I like what Election 09 is going to throw up - all within 545 seats distributed among 1025 parties - and you can play the permutation and combination to see who can make the magic 272 - except make sure you dont club the 2 big parties ( now why don't they partner for a change...that will be fun!)

3. IPL needs gimmicks like cheer leaders, bollywood actress and actors to keep people glued to the screen. Netas need no help from any quarters. They goof up enough, say outrageous things, call names of their opponents - its like reliving kindergarden once again.

2. IPL is short lived. You have it for a few weeks and then its all over. But Election 09 is going to continue for ever - according to most of the predictions it is going to be a hung assembly. It is bad for the economy but good for TV, Newspaper, Coffee machine gossip. A humble farmer, a 10000 shoe owner, a buffalo milker - everyone has a chance to lead us now. Tell me can IPL give you so much of thrill - that too not for just a couple of weeks - but for the many months to come?

1. Best reason of all - IPL is a non entity in the world's eyes - except Australia, SouthAfrica, Indian sub continent. No not England - they invented Cricket and pushed it down our throats - but now have switched to Soccer. But Election 09 will keep Mr.Obama, Zardari, Sarkozky, Putin - all glued to the television sets, twitter accounts or whatever - to find out how the political landscape is shaping. Which language should these leaders start learning - the language of the cows, language of the soil, language of kids ( hehe :) )?

We are giving them nervous breakdowns - because like it or not India is on the highway to becoming a super power and Election 09 is going to be a major event in the World's history. IPL is a mere blip. Forget Mc.Cain vs Obama battle - that was nothing. Lets watch Congress vs BJP vs Third Front vs We-are-not-the-fourth-front vs The-unknown-front-to-be-formed after election front.

So, get ready by stocking up on Filter Coffee. Cut down on your morning jogging routine to give more time for reading Newspaper. Things are going to get very interesting. Trust me - you will not bother reading the sports page.

Walden - I give up!

2009-04-12T02:42:00.000-07:00

With much bravado I began reading Walden by Thoreau. After completing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Ayn Rand's Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged - I thought I can take on anything.

I tried reading this book off and on for the last 3 months. During this time I finished reading a lot of books ( I read in parallel and have atleast 2 books that I keep alternating ) - but I never got beyond 20 pages of Walden.

I can safely apply a quote of my friend, Akbar - "it is a lot of tedious nonsense" - he used it for the Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Thoreau brags about his minimalistic life. But he has not seen the iPod, iPhone, Audi A4, Wii, Internet, Kulfi icecream and so many good things in life - why the heck will I let go off enjoying them or not work hard towards achieving these pleasures.

Second reason why I gave up was I never quite got the writing style of Thoreau. I would read a page then at the end of it will realize - man I have been dreaming of something while reading it - It was like reading the Power Electronics book once again. I would again read the page and still it will not make sense. After the reading streak in me that began with Ulysses in Dec 2007 ( when I started commuting by Volvo to work ) - this is the first book I am giving up. Sorry Thoreau - I have to disagree with you on your philosophy, your writing and your style. Perhaps English and Literature enthusiasts will praise you all over the world - but not me. I stand by my statement.

Now where is my minimalistic iPod - that I like !

Why Tata Nano is good for India, Environment and everyone

2009-03-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

Tata Nano is back in the news - for all the good reasons - booking is open online and launch date has also been announced. Here are my top 3 reasons why Nano is actually good for all of us.

1. Nano will make better citizens out of us :

Nano is going to congest the roads - which is a good thing. Now the lazy ones who always had better alternatives to commute will just give up driving and take to cycling, walking, take the public transport or try car pooling. One cannot drive on 1st gear for 20 kms daily - the clutch foot will hurt and petrol bill will bite like a vampire in the neck. Ouch. So these lazy bozos will now suddenly "discover" new ways of commuting - which are cheaper, cleaner,stress free and faster too.

Time to recommend two of my friends who are doing their part to change the world -

Rohan Kini's pedal power - bumsonthesaddle.com

Vipul Kasera's Car pooling portal - commuteeasy.com

2. Govt will make better Public Transport:

This will be the second effect. Now the Ministers and their entourge cannot zip through the roads anymore. How much ever the policemen try they just cannot control the Nano army from invading the roads. So our smart ministers will device ways to shepherd people into buses and trains - so the roads are relatively empty for them to zip past.

3. Nano will go green:

It is just waiting to happen. Hackers will soon throw in a few batteries and a electric motor into a Nano - so for less than the cost of a Reva you have a better looking 4 door car. Then Tata will think - why don't we do it ourselves and Tata will launch an electric Nano and suddenly the environmentalists will have to reinvent themselves to criticize Nano - like how it is using Steel and Lead and Arsenic and how bad it is for the environment.

I for one welcome the Nano overlords :)

Top 5 reasons why I love Election 2009

2009-03-11T00:27:00.001-07:00

Here is the top 5 list !!

5. I get to refresh my "political GK". For instance I had forgotten there was a person called Naveen Patnaik - had this election not brought the seat sharing issue - I would have totally forgotten him and I might have lost the Rs. 1 Crore worth question someday.

4. Pink Chaddis did have an effect after all. Now Mr.Muthalik is off to making sure this election is corruption fee. He has taken his eyes off the women of Bangalore - you can all drink and dance - till the election is over.

3. Newspaper has become fun to read. Can now read the goofups ( one politician in Karanataka in a rally thundered do not vote for party A - and just a week back he had moved to party A !! - its true )

2. You will get to know how good your country is and how good you are doing financially - and at the same time turn another page and you will get to know how bad your country has become, and how pathetic you are doing financially.

1. No power cuts in Bangalore. It seems the Bangalore Govt is working extra hours to ensure there will not be any power cuts till election ends. So enjoy power while it lasts folks !!

My advice to politicians - do not take credit for SDM winning oscar

2009-02-23T19:32:00.001-08:00

The Congress spokesperson says that Congress has created a "conducive environment" that has led to the emergence of 'Achieving India' during the UPA rule and hence the oscar.

Perhaps he did not see the movie ? The movie glorified India's slums and the filth that is associated with our country. And Congress has created a "conducive environment". Amen to that.

Please think twice before you try to take credit for everything.

And the news article : http://in.news.yahoo.com/20/20090223/1416/tnl-oscar-wins-are-a-proof-of-achieving.html

Vista is an A$$

2009-02-23T18:26:00.000-08:00

In my blog post a year back ( http://kvrlogs.blogspot.com/2008/04/rendezvous-with-vista.html ) I had given a favourable review of Vista. Now i take everything back that I said.

Earlier I thought my Dell 620 ( had a Vista performance rating of 3.0 ) was not man enough to run Vista - so I was forgiving. But now I have a Dell Studio 17 which has a performance rating of 5.0 - and it is still troubling me. Here are the reasons :

1. I have an apple USB keyboard with the mouse attached to it. Every time the machine comes out of sleep I have to wait 1 minute before it gets activated. And yes the year is 2009 and it takes such a long time for Vista to detect a USB device/hub. Good job.

2. BSODs - I see it 2 to 3 times a week. I still have not found a pattern and I do not have any freebies off the net.

3. I am in Bangalore and power goes off frequently. And along with it my internet connection goes off. Mostly I will be connected to Apartment Adda through putty and it will stop responding. The CPU usage will shoot up to 100%. It took a long time before I found this problem. I started suspecting that my machine got infected and ran scan after scan.

How did the kernel overlords allow any process to consume 100% CPU - that too a lowly SSH client called putty which is 300KB in size.

4. Search and Indexing is a joke. Microsoft is trying to compete with Google? Good luck.

5. Finally, booting speed. It is as slow as Windows 3.1, Win 95, Win 98, Win ME, Windows XP. Nothing has changed. I have to start the laptop, go brush teeth, read newspaper and drink coffee, wash the cup, read A to Z to my son, and then when I come back it might be ready - or it might have installed updates and restarting.

Oh so you recommend trying windows 2007? And I have to pay for it. Naah - I think I have had enough with Windows OSes the past decade.

Now I have Ubuntu on the other partition and it blazes - takes full advantage of the hardware that is offerred to it. I am going to format this machine with just Ubuntu in another couple of weeks. Wish chrome is ready for linux soon.

Mr. "Ad"vani

2009-02-21T20:07:00.000-08:00

Hello Mr.Advani - err.."Ad"vani. You are killing me. You are there everywhere - wired posts, slashdot posts, lifehacker posts. One Mr.Obama had tremendous success by working the internet machine - but it will not work for you. Here is why.

1. Ads annoy people - especially if it is not targetted. Why should a prosperous India ad show up when I am reading about Pirate bay's defence or some tech forum topic. If I am reading about a political blog or on some serious concern related to India then there is some sense. Just throwing money and plastering an ad everywhere will not work.

2. Is it a wholesome media campaign or your campaign team has bought a big bag of google adwords? I close my laptop, open Indian Express and if I read some thought provoking Ad it will sure impress me.

3. The "How" is missing. I agree Mr.Advani will try to make India strong prosperous and all that. And so are Mr.Manmohan Singh, Mayawati, Jalalalitha, Laloo etc. - but "how" is what I want to know. Answer me - either in your speeches, print ads or even in those google ads. People are way too smart to be brainwashed these days.

So till then please stop these ads - they are doing more damage than you guys can imagine.

The Facebook somersault

2009-02-18T05:38:00.000-08:00

You would have heard about facebook changing its TOS and reverting it back. Only google is allowed to own you and everything you create - no one else. Facebook tried to change this and failed miserably.

Perhaps facebook can change its motto to "We also claim we don't do evil" and perhaps people's perception might change and they can own the rest of the content google does not own.

Jokes apart, I am liking facebook. I created an account a year back but only recently I got on facebook - and find so many of my friends partying over there. Facebook feels more mature than orkut and the applications seem to be well evolved. I feel it is somewhere between Orkut and linkedin.

And I liked the facebook page concept - created one for Apartment Adda http://www.facebook.com/pages/Apartment-Adda/67354785534 .

25 things about me seems to be quite interesting - planning to write one sometime. Also planning to check out the facebook APIs.. watch this space for a facebook app from me - once I hit the magical dev complete status for Apartment Adda !!

When will Kindle launch in India?

2009-02-09T17:32:00.000-08:00

Hi Jeff Bezos! How are you doing? Feeling recession pangs? Don't worry - you have got a solid business. You can recession proof further and consider expanding to India. When are you releasing kindle here btw? This is the one gadget I really really want.

I have 30 or so books in my reading list ( in shelfari ) and none are available in India.
I feel guilty when I buy books - dead trees and environment and all that.
I need to search - lot of times I would think of quoting from a book but feel lazy to go search through the book
Can read multiple books at the same time

But please please please do not do an iPhone in terms of pricing. Thank you.

Catch 22 and Strategies for Marketing

2009-02-04T07:40:00.000-08:00

This time I experimented by starting to read 2 books - Joseph Heller's Catch 22 and Strategies for Marketing which is based on Sun Tzu's Art of war. It is like eating a pickle and a rosogolla at the same time!!

I read how you should prepare for an assault in one book, and a little later in the other book read how Yossarin ( the main protoganist ) moves the bombing line in the middle of the night - so the attack gets called off. Both were fun to read - and can be summed up with the most used Indian word - "timepass".

Did I gain anything out of Strategies for Marketing so I can use some tips in promoting Apartment Adda? - only time will tell!! Wish Sun Tzu had written about how to market a Web 2.0 product - how to increase SEO, how to develop and maintain a buzz - now that would have been really useful to me!

Did I gain anything out of Catch 22? It was hilarious reading and the end did get a little dark but good it did not end bad ( oops spoiled this one for you didn't I? ). Will I recommend this book - naah - there are better time passes around.

Next I am starting on 2 more books - Walden by Thoreau and Motorcycle Diairies by Che Guevera. Walden seems to be a tough nut and the other one seems to be lot of fun - and matches my adventurous startup mentality.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

2009-02-01T02:27:00.000-08:00

"The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." - Randy Pausch

This quote is from the last lecture delivered by Randy Pausch.

There is so much to learn from his life experiences.

Shahul Hameed still lives...

2009-01-25T08:31:00.000-08:00

Today I was listening to Thiruda Thiruda - A.R.Rahman's 3rd movie which whenever I listen transforms me to the slogging days of 12th Standard. However, I was listening to Raasaathi en usuru ennuthilla and remembered the voice - Shahul Hameed - the unfortunate singer who died so young in a car crash near Chennai in 1998 or around that time. I was appreciating the intense song the way Shahul Hameed had song with so much passion and life - I felt sad. How unfortunate - he could have been a great singer with his high pitch and powerful voice.

However, he still lives on. 10 years down the line, a soul thought about him. Isn't that wonderful. Very few can leave a mark on the world they lived - it is easy for artists - musicians, painters, singers, dancers, actors,writers. What will people like me leave behind?

Anyway, Shahul Hameed - your voice is immortal. Thanks for the great song.

Dell Studio 17" vs MacBook 13"

2009-01-20T04:22:00.001-08:00

I purchased a Dell Studio 17" for 58,000Rs. I am a big fan of Apple and I am now going to say a sacriligeous thing - Mac is ****ing expensive - atleast in India. Even before I considered the Dell laptop I went over to Apple's India store and drooled over the laptops - but the ones I wanted were all in 6 figures - over 1.2 Lakhs. The starting price of MacBook was 56,800Rs. I dropped the idea of buying an apple.

So I went over to Staples and looked around. Acer was the cheapest less than 30k. Then lenova,compaq and HPs were in the 45-55K range. Thanks to Vista having the windows performance index - I was able to quickly see how these machines perform without even checking their processor, memory information.

Only Dell had a 5.0 or higher. Dell Studio 17 registered a decent 5.0. The XPS laptops registered even higher. The rest of the pack - HPs, Acers had between 3.5 and 4.5. Also the rest had unnecessary freebies thrown in - audio system, choice to pick 2 gifts from some 10 gifts etc. Thank you very much. It was an easy decision in the end - also Dell had onsite service, whereas for the rest I had to take my laptop physically to their repair workshops.

Coming back to the decision - I feel happier in the end. I feel I got lot of bang for the buck when I compare this with the high end Apple laptop ( which is 3 times pricier ) . Here is why.

What Dell Studio 17 has :

1. 17 inch screen vs 13 inch MacBook

2. Biometric sensor ( none of the apple laptops have this yet )

3. Backlit keyboard ( available only in the 1Lakh plus MacBook Pro)

4. 3GB Ram ( macbook comes with 2GB Ram )

5. HDMI output - the day when I get a High Def TV I will pat myself for the choice I made

6. 5.1 output - dont think macs have any

7. 320GB of hard drive space vs 160GB of a MacBook

8. Memory Card reader.

9. Dell support in India.

10. Choice of colors.

What Dell Studio 17 does not have :

1. Apple OS X.

Hmm...I have vista and what a poor copy Microsoft has managed to make. I tried a freeware for expose but its not the real thing. It is jerky and ugly. I have ubuntu running on the other partition and the compiz effects are nice - but still its nowhere close to the functionality and smoothness of OS X.

2. The apple touch.

I remember the ibook I purchased in 2002 ( G3,512MB Ram,30Gig Harddrive ). When I opened it a nice fragrance greeted me - they had sprayed a perfume on the keyboard. Then they had a nice glossy book about OS X, heck even the box that came in looked beautiful. I felt I was ripped but I was happy about it :) And everything is so smoothly integrated and works as one piece - iTunes,iLife,expose - even the terminal is so well behaved.

Anyway if you are trying to decide between a Dell and a Mac - if you have enough money in your bank and your job is recession proof - go ahead and buy a Mac - its worth every paise/cent of it. However if you are in my position where I have to beg/steal/coerce someone ( in this case my wife :) ) to buy me a laptop - get a Dell. 17" is lot spacious and keep comparing it with an entry level macbook ( which costs the same ) - and you will feel 3 times good about it.

And speaking of 17" laptop reminds me of this apple commercial

In conclusion - I hope this Dell Studio 17" helps me buy a 17" MacBook Pro :)

My Top 10 things of 2008

2008-12-30T08:59:00.001-08:00

Today I got stuck in a barber shop for more than an hour - the last hair cut of 2008 eh - and ended up reading India Today's top 10 things of 2008. I got this brain wave for a list of my own top 10 events of 2008.

10. Stealing my nephew (Achu's) cycle. I turned green this year ( partly inspired by my wife, partly by oil prices ) and thought now I will cycle my way around AECS Layout. Well cycle is here but the back wheel does not hold air. Have to fix it first thing in 2009 so we can use it.

9. Learnt how to change nappies, sterilize bottles, hold a baby, put him to sleep, feed him, entertain him - I can write a book !!

8. Worked on my first .NET project on Vista. No comments.

7. Got the shock of my life on the new modified 81 seaters in Sleeper class and a never ending journey from Bangalore to Calcutta and back with a demanding never-tiring-keep-entertaining-me 10 month old.

6. Watched Obama create history.

5. and my heart brimmed with pride seeing Chandrayaan take India to new levels.

4. Discovering 335E - the red volvo bus for my daily commute and which in turn led me to Ulysses, War and peace, Anna Karenina, Big Bang, FountainHead, Atlas Shrugged, Alchemist, Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, Kaffka on the shore...

3. The horror of bomb blasts, terror attacks culminating in Mumbai attack. I am getting my voter Id registered. I feel I should do more.

2. Launching our start up - Apartment Adda, the first few nights when I could not sleep, the adrenaline rush when Apartment Adda went live, seeing unknown ip addresses on apache's logs - the last 3 months have been long tiring and worth every minute of it in richness of experience.

1. The privilege to witness and hear my son's first cry and the wide open eyes looking into me. An unforgettable day when we were bonded like never before by this little bundle of joy.

What an year it has been for me.

Should I eat my humble pie now?

2008-12-20T19:51:00.000-08:00

Ahem..Dravid has now scored a century. Perhaps he read my blog and got angry and wanted to prove a point. Anyway hats off to you Mr.Dravid. May India win.

But here is some statistics I painstakingly gathered - The total runs scored by Dravid in the last 10 matches - in both the innings.

47 - V South Africa

24 - V Sri LAnka

46 - V Sri Lanka

78 - V Sri Lanka

56 - V Australia

39 - V Australia ( he did not bat the second innings though)

22 - V Australia

03 - V Australia

07 - V England

136 - V England ( only the 1st innings score )

I rest my case.

It is time to retire - when you have scored a century. You have contributed immensely to Indian cricket. Scoring 10,000 runs is a major feat. You have delighted the world and us with your stroke play. But the time has come - let us see more Dravids emerging out - give them a chance.

and I give Dravid Man of the Match award

2008-12-15T02:07:00.000-08:00

The man-of-the-match award committee did not give Dravid the man of the match award - they are a bunch of fools anyway. But I confer the man of the match award to Rahul Dravid.

Why?

No one deserves the award better than Dravid. He faced 19 balls and scored 4 runs ( see my earlier post about 5 opt repeated cliches - point no. 5 - I still have some cricket left ). After 19 balls he sacrificed his wicket so India can go and win the match. He could have easily wasted 113 balls to score 5 runs - and then get out - so that the asking rate is impossible to achieve, and also the other batsman would have lost all interest in playing cricket. But he did not do such a thing. The noble soul sacrificed his wicket for a just cause. He deserves to be honoured.

Also he pleasantly surprised the poor crowd who had come to see a defeat or a draw. Man of the match always should be given to the ad model who is instrumental in shaping the victory - who else is responsible for paving the way for an India win other than Dravid.

You think I should be voted the man-of-the-match award committee chairman? Thanks. I am flattered !!

Hi Venkat.

2008-12-13T04:34:00.000-08:00

This post is to that Venkat - oh you are a little confused is it? Let me clear the air a bit. This post is for that Venkat ( I don't know him though ) who keeps occupying the online world before I get there.

I probably rank somewhere on a 7 on a 1 to 10 scale when it comes to the nerdish world. Why 7 - because I started twitting only a month back, had this blog since 2004 but seriously started writing only now, have an xbox - but have not completed a single game - better than the average unwashed masses but not a complete certified nerd yet.

Now this Venkat is miles ahead of me. He has grabbed venkat@gmail.com ( spam that guy you bots ughh ), has already created an an account with the name "Venkat" wherever I go. Today I tried to register in an online game - tavarian - and lo and behlod venkat is already taken.

So to you Venkat - I salute. And I certify that you are a 8 on a 1 to 10 scale. And my parting words to you - GET A LIFE.

5 oft heard cliches

2008-12-02T20:20:00.000-08:00

I am still fuming from the Mumbai carnage and hearing our politicians soundbytes. Felt it is bad for my blood pressure - so here is a post on a lighter vein - the cliches that media,politicians, pundits, commentators - keep telling on and on.

1. "Iraq is in the danger of going into a civil war."

Knock knock - Iraq was in civil war from the very beginning since Dubya started his engagement 4 years back. Stop saying it and call what it is - civil war, failed state etc.

2. "We will give a fitting reply"

This is what our Indian politicians say immediately after a bomb goes off somewhere. They have been giving fitting replies for the past 50 years. No one knows what the reply will be. Our youth leader has said Pakistan has slapped us and we should give a fitting reply. When asked what will that be - he says that is for the PM to give.

Dude don't pretend to be a leader come join me in writing blogs - I can speak such things without giving any solution.

3. "Our strategy is to bowl tight and score runs"

Yawn. Same strategy from Kenya to Australia. Nothing new here. Move on. It will be the same strategy 10 years from now.

4. "We are in the danger of going into a recession"

From where Dear Economist? From a boom time - oh from another recession is it? And how is it different from the old one? Oh earlier it was sub prime crisis and toxic debts - the new one is...you don't know yet do you -till it reveals itself to you?

5."I still have some cricket left"

Now how do you quantify some? 1 Run, 2 Runs, 3 Runs?? Oh 4 is it? Ok ok - continue continue. I will also go do some work now.

Scapegoat

2008-11-29T21:28:00.000-08:00

The man on the left is the scape goat because of the incompetency of the following stalwarts.

1. Manmohan Singh

2. A.K.Antony.

3. Sonia Gandhi.

Mrs.Gandhi has successfully placed "dummies" for Prime Minister, President, Defense Minister and Home Minister. 1 and 2 might be clean but that did not come of any good to handle crisis. I prefer a corrupt paan chewing bad guy who will make our enemies think twice before indulging in any such adventures.

Venkat how can you say such a thing? I know I know - even if 1. and 2. are clean - the rest of 3,4...272 are looting - remember the just concluded Telecom scandal - Rs 60,000 crores swindled by a Swan technology and one more company - who never had any plans of selling mobile network - but got the spectrum from Mr.Raja for a measly sum and resold it within days to companies who wanted the spectrum badly.

So corruption will happen - its a serious cancer. But the wounds that are being inflicted now will bring us a quick death. It has to be tackled with some guts and bravado - do you think our "clean" PM and Defence Minister and "competent" Home Minister and the Remote Control can handle it? No.

2 reasons why Terrorists made a mistake this time

2008-11-27T23:05:00.000-08:00

Terrorists choose the wrong place and wrong time to strike. They have dug their own graveyard.

Here is why.

1. It is election year. The in power, out of power, no chance of power - all politicians with half,quarter brain will be baying for terrorist blood. Any draconian bill will get passed this time in the assembly.

Of course the short term impact will be - the terrorists will look for alternative professions and lie quietly. The long term impact will be - too much power with police,army will backfire in the long run. Then a peace loving government will come to power and clip its wings.

2. Those idiots attacked business capital. In the past few years business lobbying has started growing. So now enough businesses ( I am counting on you feuding Ambanis, Tatas and Birlas) will lobby for tougher security - and the half and quarter brains will comply and pass the laws even if they do not understand a thing.

And in another note :

We are tired of our Neighbour

My great neighbour next door I last read are in the brink as usual. I hope they learn a lesson or two from us and get going with life. They are blessed with the same brains we have, their culture is the same, they watch the same stupid TV serials like us and that boring game - what is stopping them from creating an economy like us.

I hope they realize and stop exporting terrorism or fight for a piece of my land - and instead copy us in creating a happy place to live. Heck, we can help you with everything. Infosys,TCS will be more than willing to set up shop there - having exhausted the supply here.

We are tired of you guys. We cannot spot you in the rear view mirror any more - we are off...just like Chandrayaan to higher orbits. Stop chasing us and trying to compare with us. Accept it - you guys have lost it. So take a break and concentrate on progress. That is the only way to be happy. You guys deserve to be happy.

Shame on us

2008-11-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

I respect Mumbai more than Delhi.

It is India's capital according to me - so many businesses, ideas, entrepreneurs have flourished here.

I got my coffee ready and picked up Indian Express and saw "Terrorists take over Mumbai" - I could not believe it. Thought it was a prank. Economic Times concurred.

This is like a movie script. What is going on with our country?

Knock Knock Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Shivraj Patil - what are you guys doing? Enough of your vote bank politics and cuddling terrorists. Terrorists have gone from 0 to 1000s in the last 4 years - thanks to your inaction.

If you cannot deal with it - quit. Take with you the crores that you got from Telecom licences and what nots and go holiday in France or Swiss - I don't care. Leave my country alone - and let an able administrator take over. Cannot watch this country bleed slowly to death.

Who is John Galt?

2008-11-20T18:56:00.000-08:00

I completed Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. After 1000 pages and sitting through the philosophical discourses by John Galt ( what a fabulous speech in the end), Atkinson - the philospher, Fransisco the Copper Barron, a pirate, a car manufacturer, a music composer - I am still in one piece and I still love humanity - more later.

First Who is John Galt? This phrase gets asked by everyone in the book. John Galt is the intellectual who decides to stop the motor of the world - by withdrawing the forces that drive it - and he is successfull in doing so.

The whole story is about intellectuals going on strike. The intellectuals - producers,scientists,thinkers - are the one who are bearing the weight of this earth - like Atlas holding the earth. But they are not rewarded for what they deserve - the industrialists are accused of exploiting others for their wealth, the scientists are not rewarded for their inventions but ridiculed and stifled, the music composer is not appreciated "with the mind" but "with the heart".

Now these intellectuals decide to stop lifting the weight of the earth - they are like the Atlas and they take a shrug -they disappear or retire - and this exposes the lower lazy useless minds ( the looters - politicians, conning philanthropologists, lame writers, hollow philosophers..) to the world without intellectuals and how chaos and anarchy descends on the country.

The second half of the book is where all the action is. The build up to it is slow but methodical. In the middle all the retired intellectuals - each one of them - industrialist,musician,philosopher,judge - explains why he quit. I am in awe of Ayn Rand - how could she write with so much depth and detail - in every different profession?

And then there is the John Galt speech where he speaks to the country for 3 hours ( and it took a week to complete this stretch ). He talks about morality, rationality,integrity,independence,honesty,justice,productiveness,pride,happiness,love,relationships - almost the whole gamut of philosophical threads - from the view of one man, an individual. He goes on to talk about existence and consciousness. I still have not digested it well - needs a second reading and I guess I will keep going back to it.

Wondering what the book is all about? Some of the reviews I read said that it is anti socialistic - do not do any favours - it is a sin. But that is not what Ayn Rand says. Instead what she says is - do not do any favour when you do not get any value out of it - does feel like selfish but there is a deeper meaning in it. Lets say you are helping another "able" person as a goodwill expecting nothing in return. Now you are not helping him - but instead sinking that person more into the hell hole he is already in. You are not giving an opportunity for that person to climb out of the hell hole he is.

In context of the world, the developed countries give "alms" to the African countries - billions of dollars each year. But instead - had they paid the billions for the goods the African countries could have produced ( and yes they can very well ) - the need for alms would have stopped after a few years and the African countries could have developed really well and can stand on their own feet. Heck - over a period of time they can over take the so called "developed" countries.

Now you might wonder - what about a disabled person? Apply the same logic - you expect a value out of the disabled person - can he paint, can he make some handicraft? - I will pay him for it - I get something back, he earns his self respect - he does not feel miserable about the bad luck he has had.

Then the other lesson I learnt is - you have every right to earn the right value for the talent you possess. It was the same lesson I got when I read Fountainhead. You earn less than what you deserve - it is a sin - because you are doing an unreturned favour to whom you are doing the work. So, let the current economic crisis blow over - and ask for your hike :)

Finally - you need not feel bad about enjoying the fruits of your labour - do not feel bad that half the country is below poverty. You have studied hard, worked hard, used your intellect. Go ahead - buy that iPod you have been drooling for a long time.

And you should help the less privileged - but let them earn it - let them give back some value to you - so their confidence improves and they gain self respect.

And following is the mantra all of the followers of John Galt will have to realize when they retire and have to join John Galt's team.

"I swear-by my life and my love of it - that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

Peace.

Top 5 things I lost by shunning TV

2008-11-18T18:36:00.000-08:00

It has been almost 2 months since I stopped watching TV. With 2 exceptions - Followed Chandrayaan launch on the (t)rusty Doordarshan and saw Obama creating history.

Rest of the time I have shunned TV. Here is my top 5 things that I miss about TV.

1. Breaking News - yeah right. I do miss a whole lot of things that seem to break continuously round the clock.

2. Cricket - Oh I miss so much. During this time 4 test matches and 2 ODIs were played and I missed the painful ecstasy of watching world's most boring entertainment and not to mention Rahul Dravid score 0 in 3 balls or Ganguly's o in 1 ball of his last match (don't take the knives out yet, my next post will be on Ganguly - in fact I like him a lot)

3. Movies laden with Ads - A good hollywood movie will take 3 hours with all the ads strewn inbetween. I really miss the analysis I do with all the products and advertisements that are shown between the movies - so I can plan the next unwanted purchase and help the economy rolling.

4. Car and bike show - I miss the anchor talking for an hour walking around a car describing about the tail lights, the bonnet's shape, the lines, the curves - and finally the 10 minute drive he will do on highways. I will surely miss watching a maruti 800 with 3 digit number plate that will overtake him on 4th gear.

5. The rest - Will miss the mindless Takeshi's castle, financial analysis ( who needs them anyway), how grasshopers escape from their predators, Shah Rukh's Birthday...an endless list of things that I missed out so now I am a total social misfit. I don't know what I will speak when I meet people from the outside world...scary.

Launching ApartmentAdda.com

2008-11-12T21:32:00.000-08:00

I am happy to announce the launch of www.ApartmentAdda.com . It is an online portal targetted at apartment communities.

Today most of the apartment communities network online using yahoo groups or google groups. Apartment Adda is a replacement to these groups and in addition provides more tools custom built for apartment communities - like notice board, file sharing, polls and also management tools like maintenance fee tracker, issue tracker etc.

I have been working on this portal for the past 2 months.

Some major milestones !!

October 2007 - Registered apartmentadda.com domain

Then Prithvi was born and I got busy in a couple of projects.

September 17, 2008 - Work begins on Apartment Adda

September 28,2008 - Prototype demo to Oasis Breeze Apartment's Association Committee

Oct 5,2008 - Early Beta release - Oasis Breeze, Harmony Apartments sign up

Nov 12,2008 - Launch

Head over to the site and have a look - www.apartmentadda.com . I feel very excited and nervous !! Perhaps this is how Steve Jobs feels when he launches his iPod or MacBook !!

Michael Chrichton ( 1942 - 2008 )

2008-11-05T22:56:00.000-08:00

Michael Chrichton passed away on Nov 4, 2008.

A salute to a great author with a great imagination.

His books that I relished.

Jurassic Park

Enjoyed it for the chaos theory and he inducted me into fractal world.

Disclosure

Picked this book in the middle of my 3rd year exams. Started reading at 2.00PM and put it down at 3.00AM the next day. ( thankfully I had a day between exams).

Eaters of the dead

I don't remember much about this book but for one interesting anecdote in the book - the length of a man's nose determines the length of his..you can guess :)

The Great Train Robbery

Chaltahai book. Nothing is sticking on my brain now.

Prey

Introduction to Nano technology. But kind of predictable and got boring towards the end.

Airframe

Marketing said you will never fly an aircraft after you read this - but my memory is too short so it did not matter !!

Movie adaptations that I enjoyed.

Sphere

I made the cardinal sin of seeing this movie and then regretting later that I saw this movie. Now I will never read this book - time is too short and also the director has already imagined for me - I cannot imagine anyother way now.

Congo

Good fun. No regrets that I did not read the book. Couple of months saved :)

Lost World

I do not remember the movie - but still I want to read this book - it is in my list of books to catch upon.

Got to get the books he has written after Prey - State of Fear and Next. I will definitely feel sad when I read his books henceforth - while reading a book you are actually reading the author's mind - and the feeling that the mind is no more - kind of makes you feel sad.

Good Luck Mr.Obama

2008-10-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Good luck Senator. I hope you win the election and by next week you are Mr.President. Here are the reasons why I support this young man.

1. Obama is young and is experienced enough. If W can be President, Mr.Obama - editor of Harward Law Review - can very well be. No arguments. Shut up Mc.Cain and Palin.

2. I am an admirer of Clinton. I love to listen to him. Obama is another great orator of our times. Give him a chance to speak to the world.

3. This is kind of a hope. Currently I am reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and there is a striking similarity to the story and our present day crisis. In the story all innovation wasstifled. The industrialist who invents a new alloy, another one who invents a new way of drilling oil - all are hounded by the establishment ( Washington, old way of doing business guys, incompetent scientists ) - to not prosper with their innovation. In fact these new ideas are killed unceremoniously citing various reasons.

Roll forward 70 odd years and the same thing is being enacted. Stem Cell research has not taken off, electric cars are yet to start rolling off in US ( biggest consumers and biggest pollutors - sorry - it is not China and India - howmuch ever you twist the facts ). I feel John Mc Cain, W - are all the bigots who stifle innovation - because they and their friends ( oil companies pharmaceutical giants, insurance companies) will get wiped out if the new ideas succeed. They prevent the world from becoming a better place to live in. I am hoping Mr.Obama will remove the barricades and change the world. I can bet on Mr.Obama than on Mr. Mc Cain.

4. And this is another hope. I hope Obama inspires another Obama in India. An energetic young man who will put India to where it deserves to be - a country that redefines mankind and spreads peace and happiness in the world - and not a third world country, that apes US and UK.

Me? Thanks for the thought :)

And Hell No - not you Mr.Rahul. It is a sad sad comparision. Tell me one good book you have read. I know you have not written any thing - not even a blog? Tell me one original speech you have given - what are your views on Reservation, Terrorism, Kashmir, China, LTTE. I cannot stand the coming General Election in India when such comparisions will be made.

Coming back to the man of the moment - Mr.Obama - may the pregnant chads and dimpled chads fall in your favor.

Best stress reliever

2008-10-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

I have a 10 month old son - and he keeps me occupied all the time I am at home -and I am at home all the time !!

Whenever he is up he tries to grab the chords. He is fascinated with the optical mouse and keeps turning them upside down to see if the light is still on. He just does not get bored of it.

Whenever he enters the room after a nap, or after his feeding battle - he gives a big smile. And I have to smile back at him. And of course the other times when he is doing something really crazy and I will silently smile inwardly without distracting him.

And of course all these smiling sessions will be punctuated with lot of blood curling cries - when he bangs himself on the door,wall,chair - in fact you start noticing how many hard objects are around you. And when he gets sleepy and does not want to sleep. His motor skills go for a toss and he will make any Bangalore policeman suspicious.

Someday will introduce you to him - he is a great guy :)

and we have a lift off !!

2008-10-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

Morning today I woke up to see Chandrayaan lifting off on our trusty Doordarshan. What a feeling it was. There was cloud cover so did not quite get the majestic spectacle of a rocket firing on all cylinders - but instead had to watch a dull 2D representation of a dot moving through a graph paper with the rockets speed slowly increasing - 4.8Km/s and so on..

A few minutes after launch when all the boosters had done their job, and the satellite was safely tucked away in orbit around the earth a mic was put and all the scientists got behind it and one by one started congrajulating their team. The 3rd to speak was one gentleman who was so emotional that he said "i dont know what to say" and his eyes were moist. And he did went on to congrajulate all his team members.

I was waiting for some sound bite where some scientist will say take that you NASA or take that for calling us land of snake charmers and call centers - but none. All of them were such sophisticated gentlemen and were so visibly elated and at peace - and were profusely thanking their team members and their family for having allowed them to spend months of hard work.

But one gentleman did make me happy. ( Thank you Doordarshan for not having the "vision" to put the names of the scientists when they come to speak ). He said next is Mars and other planets. Wow - that is exactly what I wanted to hear. We need visionaries, we need Howard Roarks and I was glad to spot one among them. It took 4 years of dedicated effort for this day.

And the screenshot I took now - is from CNN. Back in 2000 when I was sitting in US doing my MS - I would wait for any news from India on TV. There will be none, zilch - except for Fox News where they had a segment - around the world in 60 seconds. They will dediate 10 seconds for bizarre news - and news of big mouchtaches, or upturned buses that killed school children - was all they showed. Scroll 8 years down and here we are in the home page of CNN - India launches unmanned mission to moon.

Perhaps it is time I let down the nagging feeling of what the world thinks of India and instead let India think of the world in turn. Perhaps seeing our sensex zoom, the markets in other parts of the other world will react positively to it. Perhaps the Revas and Nanos will teach the world how to conserve. Perhaps Hollywood gets inspired by Bollywood and Angelina Jolie starts doing jatkas.

I am feeling groovy...

Chandrayaan

2008-10-20T23:47:00.000-07:00

I have every reason to be proud of India. A mission to the moon. I am awaiting eagerly for this historic lift off tomorrow.

When the rovers scooped dirt on Mars I was proud to be a human being - from swinging from branch to branch - and now to hopping planets - what a giant leap mankind has taken. Also was teeny weeny jealous of NASA for having achieved such a big feat

But when a Made in India metal starts orbitting the moon, it will be doubly special. We have squeezed a rocket from pinching poverty, corrupt netas, terrorism, border disputes, pollution, suppression of minorities - it is an endless list. But for the common man beaten up by all these bad elements - the lift off will be one uplifing feeling - to encourage him to fight off all these cancers and rise above the clouds to achieve bigger things.

ISRO - a salute to have dared to think beyond 36,000KMs. What is next?

No you take the bill, no you pay the bill!!

2008-10-18T19:26:00.000-07:00

Senator Obama and Senator Mc Cain meet each other on the eve of the November Elections. Both are in a generous mood.

BO : Hey John. I thought a lot about the past few months and I want to apologize for all the things I told about you.

JC : Same here. I too want to apologize. I should have treated you like one of my grand sons.

OB : Anyway, coming to the heart of the matter, I want to withdraw from the Presidential race.

JC : Hain? You crazy or what. You are leading the charts, go ahead it is your cake. Eat it.

OB : Well I think only you can handle the economy and war and all that. I am still a bachoo you see compared to you. So please become the President.

JC : My dear grand son listen to me. I do not want any part of it. I just joined the Presidential race because I was bored. The Bushs had made sure no republican will ever win the election in his lifetime. I joined the race because lot of people are dependent on this circus - media, my friend Bill O'Reilly..and also my autobiography will sell well if I am an also ran for President. I dont want any part of this economy mess, Iraq mess. I will be happy signing autographs in my book and reading WSJ, WPost about the mess you are in. Its good to be at the other side of the aisle beta.. you will learn when you reach my age.

OB : Kelatu .....

JC : I knew that reference from Indian movie. Poda podipayya. Good luck and good night.

Double Whammy for my bong people

2008-10-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

I am half a bong so I can talk about myself. So dont throw fish bones at me. Chew them instead ;)

In the last 2 weeks 2 important events happened in West Bengal.

Nano moved out and Ganguly puts his stinky feet up. These 2 are isolated incidents and both happen in different sections of the newspaper - business and sports. However I read both and since the events happened close by I have to connect the 2 dots.

Ganguly - love him or hate him he does hold a mind space among us. There is this IndiaWatchDogs website which was born 3 years back mainly because of Ganguly ( to talk on how to throw him out of the Indian team ). Or the 100000hours of coffee time that bored techies talk about Dada - for and against. Ganguly has done a great service in entertaining the masses. A salute to him. And of course he has scored some runs in that boring game called cricket - which I have striken off from the list of things that I classify as sports.

Nano - I am waiting eagerly for it. Its like linux - give it to the masses and they will change the world. It wont take much time before the dead fossil digester - a 28% efficient combustion engine !! is thrown out and some one puts in a 95% efficient electric motor ( yes - compare the doctored lab notes lying on a Thermodynamics lab and a doctored lab notes of a electric machines lab ). I will get one - no will get two nanos once they do that. So I can carry passengers in one and batteries in another.

Now the 2 or 3 month delay my dear Mamta and Buddadheb have caused is a minor set back. But thanks for upping the ante now before Nano started rolling off the assembly line from Singur - and then if they had done their "politics" - Tata could not have pulled out of West Bengal. Thanks thanks and thanks - for your short term vision in your politics too. Love you both. I will give you a dinner in Leela Palace when you come to Bangalore. Its on me.

Now how does Ganguly and Nano link - is it the beginning of an end and the beginning of a new beginning. Whatever - perhaps Tata ropes in Ganguly to model the car - then my bongers will go boinkers. You never know. Now that will be the Raj Bhog gift back to WB from Tata.

Google has run out of space !!

2008-10-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

Now I have to reschedule all my appointments because of this...ughh..

Thank you for your interest in Google Developer Day India. Due to huge demand we unfortunately have run out of space and are unable to accommodate your registration this year. We encourage you to check out our new APIs and Developer Tools on code.google.com. Hope to see you next year.

Sincerely,
Google Developer Team"

An announcement..

2008-09-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

"As we are hurtling through space at the rate of 67,000mph ( milky way's velocity), in one corner of a small blue planet, in a small 3BHK apartment in Bangalore - there is this guy who has decided to take a plunge into the unknown. ThoughtWorks was generous enough to offer him a 3.5 month off time from work to try out some of the ideas he always wanted to work on."

Of course - the guy above is yours truly and I am relishing every moment of it. It has been 12 days since I stopped attending daily stand ups and work commutes. I wanted to write about this on day one but suddenly things got super crazy from day one and never found time to make this announcement.

Right now I am in the middle of building this online portal for apartment neighbourhoods. I have completed the ground floor - still 3 more floors to complete :) We are aiming for Oct 20th release if everything goes fine. Wondering who "We" is - it is Sangeeta of course joining in my crusade. She is continuing her job to support the monthly EMI and diapers ;)

And btw I completed Big Bang by Simon Singh and he made me feel so insignificant about myself and the gallaxy crunching decision that I thought I have taken. Helped me feel that it is no big deal to get out of one's comfort zone and stare at the unknown bravely. After all I am a speck in a small speck called Earth.

Next update will talk about my work setup, or will list a few threads that are running in my head or about how I am running Windows XP ( not vista, not ubuntu !!)

Wish me luck :)

Is Windows not detecting your external hardrive/thumbdrive?

2008-09-17T05:02:00.000-07:00

Thank you Windows. Thank you. You wasted half an hour of my precious* time because I thought the flash drive was faulty. This is another reason why you should have a linux system to make sure the flash drive can still flash.

The problem was I had mapped a network drive as E: ( C: the only partition and D: being my dvd drive). Now when the flash drive was plugged in it wanted to take the place of E: and not increment to F: as any sane human being and a pig wearing lipstick would have expected.

I had to blink finally by pushing the network drive to z: and then the flash drive showed up with a smirk on E:.

precious*: Today is the first day of my unpaid Leave of Absence from ThoughtWorks. Working on a business idea that is going to change the world and bring world peace and prosperity.

Now it is the turn of fountainhead to trouble me

2008-08-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

If you have been following the last few posts you know how much I am troubled by these books - in a great positive way. "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand is no different like the great books I have read earlier. It puts a twist on individualism by linking it to creativity and how collectivism is crass base and all the bad things it represents. You can read the entire book to appreciate Howard Roark's speech or if you are still curious to know what the ruckus is all about without spending a month or two you can see the speech here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4 . Don't worry if you are intending to read this book its not going to take anything away.

The book is still sinking in. It kind of justifies some of my actions so far - and kind of makes me feel a little uncomfortable on what I could have / should have done. Instead of mulling over spilt milk this book focuses me like never before - to achieve an objective - can be anything - signing the 1000th autograph of your book and taking a break for your paining knucles, turning on the ignition of an audi and catching yourself in the rear view mirror with that wicked smirk,turning back and looking on the fast disappearing steps in snow on top of K2's peak. ...can be anything. And to achieve that objective you need not compromise on what you believe - the end is not the means by itself. Its the man who is the means. Integrity and uncompromising ideals is what one needs.

I remember another great stretch in this book where Howard Roark explains about "owning" other man's work. You listen to Beethoven or Richard Wagner ( both I have been listening a lot lately ) and kind of get it in your own way - need not be the way Beethoven intended to be appreciated - but in a sense you have owned Beethoven's master piece. You say "yes" in the sense of getting it - and you have owned the master piece. Howard Roark too says that if a person has said "yes" to his work, then that person now will own the building. I know it feels like lot of bs but it made sense to me.."yes' Ms.Ayn Rand :)

Do read it - the love story between Howard Roark and Dominque Francon is kind of weird - not the run off the mill(s and boons) for you - made me uncomfortable reading it in the bus - wondering what my co-passenger think of me if he reads what I am reading - but otherwise it is one "swell" of a book.

I guess I will steal Murakami's short stories from my wife for sometime. Gotto give the guy at the top a little break.

The alchemist

2008-07-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

This book lasted 2 days. Started on a Friday after a colleague of mine managed to steal the book from his wife to keep his promise or to escape from my embarrassing remarks I made about not keeping your promise ( hey Georgie just joking :) ). And I finished it on saturday. I am not bragging - its a simple read and its only 160 pages. The book is full of metaphors and inspiring thoughts. Perhaps I would put it along with Art of the Start by Guy kawasaki. Forget entrepreneuring - its all about thinking through the pathetic mediocre life one is having - and ask oneself - where are you headed.

I remember lying on top of the water tank of my second year hostel along with a friend called Musk. We were watching the flights on the landing path right above our head - with their wheels extended before they touch down minutes later at Meenambakkam. We did not know what business we were going to do but we were multi b and were doing quite some serious globe trotting.

Fast forward 10 years ahead and here I am - living an ordinary life. Day in and day out - the same routine repeats. Work, weekend, work, weekend. Fire up the editor, open word to read the stories ( agile you see !! ), work on a hobby open source project, read some tech blogs and nod or disagree about the latest rant on java or ruby or xml or whatever. Where am I heading? Is this the destiny I am set for? What if I pursued one of the what ifs. Reading this book made me feel - perhaps I should get fired and no one take me back as a salaried employee any more. Perhaps they steal everything from me, like our hero in the book, and he relearns new techniques. This bad book will make you think. There are lot of chains - home loan, kid, responsibilities, but now I feel these are all excuses I keep telling my heart. All this noise has made my heart go quiet. Perhaps it was telling lot of things to me but I kept shutting it up. The hero in the book learns to listen to the heart - perhaps I should try listening to it.

Anyway tomorrow its monday and I join the millions sleep walking through their lives. But tomorrow like Neo in the first part - will wear my black vogue -5 powered sunglass,and step out of my apartment aware that I am not sleeping any more. The Wachowski brothers will shoot the scene from above our apartment's cracked roof - and ....yawn. Tomorrow is IPM and I have to catch some sleep tonight else I will not be able to understand what the stories are all about. Hello reality. Atleast you feed me. And heart..err..some other time. You prepare what you have to tell me - perhaps as a mind map - you know I do not like power point presentations. Not that I hate microsoft but power points are too mind numbing...will rant more in one of my posts.. you read it ok. Ciao.

Kafka on the shore

2008-07-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

I was in between books. Had a heady read of Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance and had to unclog my brain !! And what a pick this book is. Totally mindless and riveting. Forget the story - cats talk, stones listen, time stops - it was fun to have a peek at the author's mind.

* Archduke trio - Beethoven's last composition I guess. One of the characters goes on and on about how good it is. I am trying to lay my hands on it - and on the way I am discovering Beethoven. Still I do not know what a minor C or D or symphony or sonata whatever means - but the discovery process has started. Also at the same time my son Mr.Prithvi awakened me about the power of classical music. The other day he was wailing uncontrollably and I was making stupid noises to no awail. Then I started singing the basic Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Da Ne and he became quiet. It was a repeatable experiment. Now when I do variations of it as A B C D E F G H in the same tone he listens. Why -I cant fathom but one thing is certain. Music, especially classical music has some magic. So Beethoven is no more a deaf guy in my Dictionary - getting to know him more.

* This is kind of sick - so kids you can log off now. Our hero kid in the book reads a book - its about the trial of a german nazi general who oversaw the cleansing of Jews. He did his job with no feelings whatsoever. In his trial he outlined the challenges he faced - poor quality of the gas, how to manage the "operation", how he had to over come red tapism. Finally when he was asked dont you feel bad for what you did his response was - I was just carrying out my orders in the best way possible. Is the general to be blamed?

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

2008-06-21T23:55:00.000-07:00

Probably I am the millionth person to read this book and go ga-ga about it. This is my second attempt. First was in 1998 when I was in college a friend of mine ( who later turned out to be my wife :) ) - was reading the book and it piqued my interest - so got hold of it and started reading. Did not survive more than 2 chapters.

Now again I gave it a go and what a read it turned out to be. Here is some gist of what I felt reading it.

Things in no particular order :

* Robert Pirsig, the author, says about "gumption". What an idea - gumption is kind of an energy cum enthusiasm. You have to earn it by doing things - when you acquire gumption it gives a good feeling - kind of smug and happy feeling. I have felt it lot of times when I fix a problem or do some thing useful. The author says it in the context of fixing a motor bike - but you can feel it at lot of places - installing ubuntu on an old worn out computer. Now the trick is to watch out for the things which will drain gumption.

Ego is the biggest one. If I start doing the work to satisfy my ego it will drain all the gumption. For instance I say to myself alright here I am a linux geek. Now let me get this machine up and running with linux with some nifty hacks - thats a bad start. Now the simplest hurdle - lets say your CD got burnt with a bad sector and installation fails midway - or you cannot get the network up - will quickly drain the built up gumption. Because you started doing this work to satisfy your ego - not to reuse an old discarded machine to do things it was not destined to do when it was built. Now if the approach had all humility - alright let me have some fun in making this old guy see how 2008 looks like - and any small hurdles that come my way I can just hum and fix them - because my goal is not to satisfy my ego. I have felt it more than once - and I get frustrated and throw things away. Gotto watch out for this in future.

* Zen state: Zen, or chen or our own hindi word - dyan- means meditation. There are 3 ways of zenning - forgot the first 2 - something like you sit and meditate with no material thoughts. The 3rd one is the highest state - you do your work live your life and yet be aware of yourself and the outer world and you earn gumption living your life.

Also in another place he says how having a composed and calm mind helps create a great product. All you have to do is take a look at microsoft and ubuntu or OS X. Now microsoft has better developers, more PhDs than apple + linux GNU developers combined. But how can microsoft regularly dish out a sucky operating system - when compared with apple or linux volunteers. Its the state of mind. Microsoft employees have to put up with middle level managers who have to put up with high level managers who have to put up with a chair. Sad. The end result shows the turmoil of mind of the developers. The crazy volunteers blast music rippoed of bit torrent and create a rocking OS that is changing the world.

*Quality: What is quality. He starts by saying how quality splits classic view and romantic view. Oh I forgot to tell what is classic and romantic right. The parts of the motorcycle, the property, the science behind it - its the classic view. The beauty of the parts jelling together, the hum produced by the bike - just the joy of seeing a well built machine - its all the romantic view. Art vs hard facts. While reading it I got a feeling that perhaps I have not made much of an effort to appreciate the romantic side of things - trying to appreciate art, classical music - the right side brain of things. Perhaps with my educational background had always a classic bent on things.

Anyway, he first argues that quality is the entity that splits the world into classic and romantic - but then he dwells more into this hypothesis and comes with a brilliant analysis of how quality does not split the world but actually binds them and its the third entity. Kind of a trinity.

*Reference to Illiad : Now last december I read Illiad and there was a passage which Robert Pirsig had quoted in this book. Its about the villian ( but you will not get the feeling reading the book ) - Hector - going to his final battle where he will be killed by Achilles. His wife pleads him not to go and Hector speaks how heros speak with valour and pride. I was pleasantly surprised to see this passage getting quoted. Now the author brings this up to bash poor Aristotle. It seems till Aristotle came around the Greeks cherished such virtues - like how Hector speaks about destiny and living his full life and dying at war. Aristotle came and tried to define everything and there are things that cannot be defined - why will a man go to die or display his valour? - and that was the beginning of the end of romanticism in life. Everything has to be defined - else it does not exist according to Aristotle.

Now the author does not stop here - he goes on to make a connection between quality, virtue and dharma. - my brain just froze. You have to read this stretch to appreciate the philosophy.

*Mu : This was very interesting. Mu is a japanese word. Now a zen scholar was asked is there God in a dog. His answer was Mu. Its neither a yes or a no. It is one of the tri states - and in fact it means the question has too broad a context. Narrow your context or change your question. Pirsig in his onslaught of Aristotle explains this word - we cannot split everyting into two - and so on - we have to appreciate this fuzziness.

Now I have to pay pension..sigh

2008-05-24T08:06:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I went to brand factory to scoop up deals. And guess who I bumped into - Vijay Mallya himself and had a quick guftagoo with him.

VM : Hey venkat what are you doing here?

VK : Oh recession time in US boss and the hike letters are just not coming. But you tell me what are YOU doing here instead of roaming around with your wife in Louis Vuitton showroom?

VM : Louis Vuitton - yes yes my wife wanted to go there. I had to lie to my wife that I have a board room meeting . I heard they are selling Royal Challenger's TShirts 2 for price of 1. Tell me if you find it. You know I have sunk so much money and pride and now I am really struggling to pay these pensioners. Have to cut costs to keep them well fed.

VK : Its alright. You have world class players in your team they will turn it around.

VM : Really? Tell me do you believe in it?

VK : No. hehe

VM : Damn you. Anyway - coming back to my team - you know I cannot fire any one. Seems I have to pay 3 years worth of money. Have to live with these pensioners for 3 more years. Then will wash my hands dry of this mess. Cricket is a bad sport you know. I was reading Outlook - and you know instead of thrashing the cricketters they are taking their side. They are painting me bad. I just cannot believe it. It seems I should not expect victory. Then why should I be paying all these gentlemen all the dough. Just does not make sense.

VK : I understand your frustration Mallu. Do what they do in NFL and MLB - trade the non performers next season.

VM : Who will buy them?

VK : Sweeten the deal a bit. Give your cheer leaders free.

VM : Now thats an idea. Anyway I heard that Mukesh is also visiting Brand factory today. I gotto leave before he sees me.

VK : Mukesh? Does not ring a bell

VM : Woh Ambani bhai. We are in the same boat - dont you know that.

VK : Oh then I will hang around for some more time and have a chat with him too. Nice talking to you boss.

Rahul Dravid's first 20-20 match

2008-04-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

"Wow I am so excited this is my first 20-20. That Dhoni will not let me play one day nor 20-20. Now here is my chance to prove him wrong. Imagine if I hit it big I can do more advertisements. Already I am an icon. Take that you Dhoni fool. Mallya will let me fly one of his kingfisher flights, or let me drive one of his F1 cars and put me bare chested like Fisichella and Sutil in one of the volvos, and I will dominate Bangalore like never before. Perhaps they will rename airport road as rahul dravid road. Then that loser blogger venkat who commutes on airport road every day will have to say my name.

Now let me concentrate. In test I have a full day before I hit my zone. But the umpire will say it's stumps and I have to start all over to get into my zone. Here already those Washington red skin cheerleaders have distracted me enough. And this Ishant Sharma is on the other side. Its getting difficult to see the ball nowadays - perhaps I have to see a doctor. Gotto ask Sachin or Saurav who they are seeing. Somehow they are able to keep their heads above water. Let me concentrate. If I send this ball to the ropes the crowd will start chanting my name. Oh how it was at one point in my career. Even if I defend the ball the commentators will go gaga over it - and the crowd will appreciate the style. I do not know what has changed. Perhaps I will show these T20 fastfood buffs how you can defend the ball in style.

Bring it on Maga. Ok here comes the ball. Man this Ishant is quite tall. I will tell Pepsi not to feature him next to me in my ads - he will make me look really short. What was that noise. Oh crap my leg stump is on the floor - how did that happen. Alright time to hang my head down and put a stunt as if I am disappointed at this lose of wicket. I am the captain right. If I do not act well perhaps they will think I am not committed enough. I hope they do not show the new ad that I shot yesterday for that - what was the product? - anyway it doesn't matter - it will be quite embarrassing if they show that ad now. But I hope they show some other ad soon and I go off the tv screens. The crowd is anyway watching the cheer leaders. Neck is hurting. Why do not they make an underground tunnel to the dressing room from the pitch directly. Have to go through this ignonimity often.

Anyway why should I care. I am making 4.5 crores in this one month. Tomorrow have to make an appointment with my auditor if I can get this waived some how. Hey venkat want to look at my tax return? Oh you are busy writing a post about me. Carry on dude, now let me go relax and pray the wickets fall soon so I can go home and get some sleep. Today traffic will be horrible - these damn IT people. "

Rendezvous with Vista

2008-04-19T01:15:00.000-07:00

Last week I got on beach ( in Thoughtwork's parlance - rest of the world calls it the bench for awaiting project allocation ). And I got vista ultimate installed in my Dell 620, 2GB RAM. Had to make some free space - actually lots of it - to install vista. Then once installation began I got an error on step 1 - An installation error has occurred. Restart installation. I did that a few times till my co beacher found that you need not enter the key and click next - thats what I did. Later I found while activating that the key I have is for enterprise - perhaps thats why the installation error?

Now I glanced at my harddrive after the installation. It had consumed 10Gigs. Now thats lot of stuff. Is the OS going to predict my next click?

Being an ardent Mac fan and an ubuntu fan I had lot of expectations for this contender. However I had to turn off aero's animations because its not smooth. I turn off compiz's goodiness too because it gets in my way. Only in OS X I let the graphics be on because they do not hinder me.

Pluses :

1. Hibernate and waking is instantaneous - just like how my (now) dead 800MHz, G3 ibook used to do in 2002. Good job MSFT - finally you have recreated something thats been there for ages.
2. The dethrottling controls on the battery power icon - it turns off network adapter. I dont know if the network adapter is a sucker but I feel good that my laptop's battery is stretched.
3. Search button on start. So useful.
4. Network - finally MS has got it right. Connects to my home wireless internet - automatically. For some reason in xp I had to manually search and discover every time.

Cons :

1. User Access control or some feature the MS overlords thought about - gave me a headache till I turned it off. Deleting a harmless file - does it warrant an annoying warning. Each and every step it annoys you. Dont they have high paid usability analysts - how didnt they see it?
2. Its not smooth and gliding - I cannot blame my laptop - come compiz running on the other side is so smooth and gliding? same hardware right - when I come oranges to oranges why does vista aero suck so much?
3.Indexing is a joke. Howcome I never read any complaints from leopard users about timemachine being a drag. I got a good performance boost by turning off indexing ( Thanks Sanchit )

Can go on but now time to play with my sonny. He is now up and wants attention !! More fun than talking about vista.

download link for lotus notes 7

2007-08-18T04:49:00.000-07:00

is hidden here : http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/ls/lsds/?S_TACT=105AGX13&S_CMP=LSDL

go kill yourself.

You dont want to be Rashtrapati Bhavan this week..

2007-07-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

Great many men have walked on my lawns, corridors, steps. The last one who took my abode made me famous like none other. People looked at me with a new found respect. Camels, deers, dogs came to me to be treated. Flowers started blooming with joy. I did not know I had other uses than being a rubber stamp. Alas...those days are over.

Now I am going to let criminals walk on my lawns, corridors, steps. Someone who has cheated a poor vegetable vendor's daily savings, a poor clerk's daughter's marriage's savings by using their hard earned money to write off loans taken by her husband,brother,uncle,aunt - by being the director of a bank. Someone who has used her MPLAD funds to help her husband create a mall instead of a housing unit, or a hospital or one of the many useful things 1 Crore a year could have done. Someone who has tied the investigating agency's hands so her husband will not be prosecuted for murder..yes you read it right - murder. Its a shame I have to bear this "rubber stamp" for 5 years..

No kvr - you dont want to be me this week. You are happy being yourself...take solace..I am getting soiled left right and center. Just pray for poor me and hope this black cloud passes off soon...

A sad Rashtrapati Bhavan..

I dont want to be Alonso this week

2007-07-08T00:08:00.000-07:00

I was always thinking of writing a series in my post-a-month blog - so I will get disciplined to write more frequently for my million audiences...Finally I have broken my procastination shackles and heres the first post in a long ( hopefully ) series of a celebrity I definitely dont want to be this moment...so here you go : And the top rated honour goes to Fernando Alonso , 2 times world champion in Formula 1 currently driving McLaren Mercedes - (always) behind another McLaren Mercedes car driven by one Lewis Hamilton - who is a rookie and supposed number 2 for McLaren - who I heard has stuck Alonso's photo on his rear view mirror ( I just made it up - Hamilton from what I read about him is too humble and a nice guy to do anything like that).

I was watching last week's French Grand Prix ( yes I am married..hehe:) ) and Alonso chased Nick Heidfield for 60 laps trying to over take him on one corner which was immediately after the pit lane exit. After the second pit stop Hamilton comes out with a fully loaded car and cold tyres and over took some car exactly at that corner - a lesson for the maestro on how to over take..perhaps?

So definitely I dont want to be Alonso this week - and the British Grand Prix will be starting in another couple of hours now and Hamilton is at pole, Raikkonen two and Hamilton's rear view mirror at 3. Good luck Alonso !!

Next week - I have not yet decided who I dont want to be - lets see how the world shapes up.

Fools paradise !!

2007-02-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

Today ( Feb 12th ) is the Bangalore Bandh - for protesting against Cauvery tribunal's verdict. Let me observe this objectively.
Bandh : Bandhs are illegal in this great nation of ours. We needed Bandhs to eradicate the British - but bandhs are like self goals, inflicting injury on ourselves, setting your own shoe on fire, hit wicket - wish those boneheads understand the negative impact Bandhs create - It makes irreversible damage to the economy, image of India, investments, our work schedule. Now will this Bandh do any good to the cauvery verdict? No. Will it change the opinion of a single soul who has the power to do anything about it? No. What does it achieve other than doing all the damages I mentioned? Nada.

Banning Tamil Channels : This is the most ridiculous "protest" I have ever heard. How does "boring" tamilians ( who watches Tamil Channels other than my poor mom and her friends ) achieve the result of pissing Tamilians that they will give back the water? Fools.

Daily labourers : We the blessed lot of this country will compensate on a Saturday - grudgingly - or take the day off using up our precious privelege leave quota. What will the poor day labourer do - who work day to day, who cannot compensate on a saturday - because its his working day , nor take a privelege leave because they are not privleged. Who do you think these goondas, politicians are hurting? - their own vote bank, their own people they are dishing out speeches on. Fools.

Lorries from across the border: I read of the plight of the poor lorry drivers from Tamil Nadu who are stopped at the border ( wait - I thought India had only borders with its neighbouring countries ) - and are allowed only in the night to enter Karanataka. Loads that take 3 days to reach from TN to Mumbai now take 6 days. Calculate the loss. Also I heard the cost of a poor chicken has shot up from 65Rs to 85Rs - in Karnataka. Pretty soon the price of non-Karnataka manufactured goods will go through the roof. Its a delicate equilibrium that is being maintained - every one loses. Fools.

I can go on and on about this cauvery issue that is kept hot by politicians - because they think the only way they can be heard/seen is by supposingly working on these issues - keeping them alive. They do not think that doing a good deed or two is going to get them publicity too. Why arent they educating the poor masses that there are other means to fight it out - other than inflicting injury on yourself. The more I think about this it angers me to no end. In all this noise I do not hear a single voice of reason, intelligence. Its madness in this paradise of a land - run by fools, controlled by fools. Sad.

Something we should not forget

2007-02-07T04:57:00.000-08:00

I stumbled upon this blog that has unpublished photos of Hiroshima. It is very moving and will make your mouth dry. Still you have to watch it - to know the horrors of nuclear warfare - and think about the morons who are controlling the triggers for such horrors.

http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/2007/02/hiroshima-pictures-they-didnt-want-us_05.html

when eclipse tanked on me...

2007-01-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

it was smooth sailing on my new amd 64 bit kickass box. And suddenly eclipse failed to start with this error message : java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: eclipse/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/bundles/104/1/.cp/libswt-pi-gtk-3235.so: eclipse/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/bundles/104/1/.cp/libswt-pi-gtk-3235.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Also my jdk was java_1_5_05..so I downloaded jdk_1_5_09 and all was well. Also I remember having some plugins - for web development - perhaps they screwed it up - anyway hope this helps some one.

first post of 07

2007-01-07T20:15:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my observations the past year.

I got back to India for good during the middle of 06 - after 6 years in US. There was lot that had changed meanwhile.

* Any bill gets rounded to 50 paise. No more 5,10,20 and 25 paises. And I see 50 paise rairly too.

* Indicas - it was a time when I was working in TCS the GL ( Group leaders ) got a Tata indica free or for some discounted rate I dont remember - and were going gaga about it - now 7 years later Indicas have replaced the black and yellow ambassador taxis. They look good nevertheless - but the mere sight of an Indica brings some anger in me - daily I see thousands on airport road waiting to cut into my lane( lane - something thats in the figment of my imagination ) - and also on the road - parked in the middle - creating a traffic jam. I dont know the GLs still drive aroun d in their indicas or given them away to the taxi wallahs.

* Pulsar -somewhere in the middle of 04 or 05 I dont remember - heard about this new pulsar which people were buying in droves. I thought - no one can shake hero honda's stranglehold on the market - but I was shocked seeing the black good looking pulsars everywhere. The new one is even more awesome - led tail lights, digital display dashboard. The roads are full of good looking bikes - unicorn, apache, cbz...bikers paradise this land is !! And hero honda's net profit dipped by 20% for the first time in its history in the last quarter.

*Cellphones - its a festival everyday everywhere - you get to hear long lost tunes, there is this colleague of mine in another project - who has malgudi days tv serial tune - every time it rings it makes me smile - tananaanaaa tannaanaa !! Only issue is train journeys are a pain with all the phones going off all around you. But its a festival out here - should just enjoy it !!

*Indian railways - Its been 7 months since we got back - make atleast one trip every month on train, and all the tickets get booked on internet - havent visited those railway booking counters at all - a big big BIG pat for the folks who made this happen.

*Cricket - give me a break please. There are dedicated sports channels ( what happened star sports, ESPN to all those rugbies, dart throwing competition, trick ball billiards ) - its that boring game all the time, every time. And yesterday - after dont know how long - Mr.TendulAdmanPeddlerOfAllStupidThingsWeDontWantWasAGreatBatsmanOnceButNowBoringMeToDeathkar
hit a century on a flat pitch ( where the other Mr.Rahul....fill up with more stupid things...Dravid was able to hit a 50+ ) and headlines screamed - Tondulkar and what nots - Its been ages and ages before that Mr.Tendulkar won a game for India. Anyway he has cemented his position till 2011 world cup. Good luck you Gambhirs, Dinesh Karthiks, Uttappas.. Learn from Schumacher and Pete Sampras to bow gracefully at your peak. Ganguly you listening right?

Alright...guess thats it for now - until later - tanannana tannanana !!

Why 24 hour news channels are bad...no make it stupid.

2006-11-27T20:39:00.000-08:00

I went to grab water in the break area and saw the TV spouting news of Sanjay Dutt's impending verdict today. And there was this anchorman telling the news of Sanjay Dutt leaving his house. Should I even honor the word "news" for what the anchorman told? Do we have so much happening that it has to be told as it happens? How is it going to affect me today - will I lose electricity today, will there be a traffic jam in Bangalore? It wont be even a blip in my radar - nor so for the billion people in the country - perhaps for the one or two souls called producers who have invested on Mr.Dutt. Things are rapidly falling the Fox,CNN way - I remember once seeing some thing like this : breaking news : 10.01 PM somecriminal has been escorted by somePD to the airport, 10.08PM : he has been seated in the plane, 10.23 PM : he has been served prawn rice, 10.40 PM : he has been escorted to the loo. What idiocy is this? How do I save myself from the idiot box and the idiots pushing stupidity in the guise of "news". Will someone pull the plug please?

Disconnected from mothership !!

2006-11-24T20:31:00.000-08:00

Today I removed my blog ka link from Thoughtworks profiles site. I had always wanted to do it - because it was kind of inhibiting my writing. I should watch what I say, be politically right - even though TW does not say anything of that sort - I felt I have to be a responsible citizen and not land TW in trouble. Now I can write what I feel about Karnataka Govt, the Indian Govt, Indian cricketers, Airport Road, people who park their cars on the road jamming traffic, the smokers who smoke their and my lungs out, the ridiculous property prices in Bangalore, the sad state of working children, our friendly neighbors P & C and so much more !! I thought I will start another blog - when I am this lazy to write in one blog itself - I will end up not writing on any of them.

Later !!

I am back on broadband in Bangalore !!

2006-11-19T06:05:00.000-08:00

ahh...my 7th grade English teacher would have written a "V.G" for the alliteration in the title. Anyway - last week the nice folks at AirTel set up a DSL modem in our home - and life is at supposedly 256Kbps now. Had hathway cable internet till now - but it was hopeless - net was good for checking emails - sudo apt-get updates will never complete. The list of woes is endless and it all got sorted out after the bandwidth expanded.

Anyway here is what I have accomplished at home. A full fledged ubuntu "headless" server.

Subversion :

This was the first app I installed. You might be wondering why subversion. It keeps some of the files - like an excel sheet of expenses I have - versioned. I am trying to organize lot of stuff - and its time to get disciplined and versioned !!

Torrentflux :

This is one sweet app. Throws a web interface to the torrent downloads.

Wiki :

I have installed phpWiki. Why wiki?? I have been using it at work for the past couple of years and I have always wanted one at home. Nothing can beat the wiki when it comes to organizing stuff. The wife loves it too - the simple interface and the japanese zen like philosophy it has running through it.

mt-dappd :

Rendezvous for streaming music out of the linux box. So now my linux server shows up on itunes and can enjoy music from anywhere in the home.

It took some time googling trying to figure installing all of the above. And since its a headless server - I installed all the apps using command line. My advice will be to download the ubuntu server version - I had to spend some time configuring LAMP stuff - so it will be a great headstart.

Perhaps, if I have the enthu bug biting me will expand on each of the installation - but who knows when the next post will be.....!!

Moving back to India

2006-06-27T17:33:00.000-07:00

For some reason I have kept this blog impersonal - because I was too lazy to write about myself, or perhaps nothing big happened. Well anyway now I have to - We are moving back to India. Thoughtworks has accepted my request for transfer to Bangalore and we are moving in July 06.

Top 10 things I will miss when I am in India :

10. Starbucks
9. Netflix
8. Apple show room
7. Interstates and its gas stations and its restrooms !!
6. Daily show ( thanks youtube!! )
5. NPR ( thanks podcasts )
4. 8.00pm sun light, snow ( but I dont like the cold that comes with it)
3. BestBuy window shopping
2. Americans in general - and especially the friends I made whom I might or might not meet again.
1. Hot water anytime and long showers.

2 months of linux bliss

2006-05-08T20:04:00.000-07:00

I have Ubuntu dapper running on Dell Latitude D610 - with some help and inspiration from my colleague Josh Cronemeyer - a linux whiz. I have tried linux in fits and starts but never covered so much ground as I have in the past 2 months - and now very rarely I boot into Windows world.

Pros :

Stable.
Gnome.
Boots up fast, everything is ultra responsive - compared to windows xp on the other side of the laptop.
Lotus notes on wine works surprisingly ok. ( damn you IBM for lotus notes )
Cisco VPN !!
Java compilation time - 20% less time than windows
apt-get install
Multi desktops, desktop spanning.
Wireless support much better from Dapper onwards.
Hard drive never starts threading - uses virtual memory the way it is supposed to be.
I run lot of stuff all the time and the OS never twitches.

Cons :

No TextPad
No TortoiseSVN
Lotus notes ( damn damn you IBM )
Colibri - perhaps there is an equivalent - havent researched
Lot to catch up with OS X - but far ahead than that thing called windows.

How to become a Java Developer?

2006-04-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

Who is this post for?

Anyone trying to switch careers ( I was in mainframes, asp then php developer then a swing developer before I switched to this web-app java development), or who is already in Java and wants to get to the next level.

What this post is about?

Few years back I was slogging on a swing app without knowing what the market was all about - though the swing app taught me the good and bad about Java - it did not help me in getting a job. This post is a guideline for that directionless soul...

this.post :

Heres some philosophy of mine. Ask yourself - how much did you spend last year on books on technology? If technology is your livelihood, think of it as an investment. You need to invest a lot ( and read a lot ) to get good returns. So do not hesitate to buy books, magazine subscriptions - its worth every penny/paisa/rouble.

Lets start.

Step 1 : Get to know Java's strength.

Assuming it was me years ago, happily coding php in dreamweaver and nodding along with the posters in slashdot who say how bloated and slow java is and how fast and nimble php or any scripting language is...Here are some of the arguments "for" java to that nay sayer that I was.

Java is not for a 10 page web application.
Java is not for a guest book like application.

Java is for an enterprise. Something big - really big - having some 500 plus pages, 100 or more modules.
Java is when you need your app to scale to crazy levels - say 2000 users per second?
Java is when your app has to live and be maintained over a period of - say 10 years?
Java is when your client wants important stuff like transaction, security, clustering, fail safe
Java is when you have a team of 20 or more developers, 10 or more Analysts and a no-nonsense client who will sue your company for any goof ups.

Ask yourself and try to find answers. How has Java become to what it is today? Sun is not microsoft when it comes to hype, marketing - still - how did Java become the next COBOL? ( meaning - something the enterprise trusts, and also there are lot of developers with Java expertise ). Why is there such a huge ecosystem in the Java world?

Frameworks ( Spring, IBatis, nano container, pico container, Struts),
IDEs ( IntelliJ, Eclipse, Netbeans, JDeveloper, WSAD),
Webservers ( Tomcat, Weblogic,Websphere,Oracle App Server,JBoss),
Object Relationship Mapping ( Hibernate, Toplink),
Tools ( JUnit, Ant, Maven, Cruise Control),
EJBs ( Entity, Session and Message Driven )

and the above list is not even 50% complete.

Its a little overwhelming but it all makes sense - each one exists to solve a specific problem. You need not try and understand everything in one go - you simply cannot and even the most experienced developer might not know all. But once you have the fundamentals in place you can quickly master any of the above technologies or the new ones that are being cooked right now.

I have given you a nice path to go from a dabbler to becoming a master - that I found through trial and error and from my friends and co-developers. So rest easy and keep reading.

Check this link - comparision of programming languages to see for yourself how Java is doing.

Step 2 : SCJP, fundamentals

It takes a month of preparation to clear SCJP - Sun's certification program. What do you get out of this?

Very clear understanding of the language's syntax
OO Basics - Polymorphism, Inheritance, Encapsulation - are drilled into you
Collections - A Java Developer's best friend

I strongly suggest you take the SCJP exam. Everything else is built on top of this so its very essential to have a clear understanding of Java.

Books I own : Head First Java, Khalid Mugal's book for SCJP.

Step 3 : Jump into web application world

Download Tomcat.
Download Eclipse. ( Notice the No in Notepad.)

Write a simple hello world servlet and print it on a web page.
Send a string on the response to a JSP page and print the value on the JSP page

Download mysql database server and start it up.

Connect to mysql and try saving some data. Dont worry about the beauty of code, design etc- just get it working.

Move on to Struts and see what MVC is all about. I have 2 posts on struts on my blog. If you have patience try reading them.
Try writing a simple web application - a guestbook - in Struts.

All along you might be asking - why the heck do I need to do so much? Again the answer is these technologies were not designed for a small app in mind. Its for a goliath - an enterprise.

Here are some design tips :

1. Separate the business logic from the Action Servlets. Write unit tests to test the business logic. Write unit tests before you write business logic. This is called Test Driven development (TDD). Net is full of resources - this is a powerful programming style - and my company - thoughtworks - believes in it strongly unlike any other company.

2. Separate stuff like Database connection into seperate objects - and use that object in those objects that need database access.

3. Most important - keep all logic out of your JSPs. Its only for presentation. The most complex logic a JSP page can ever have is iterating a collection and displaying it on the page. If you are curious, explore custom tags - so you can even move most of the logic needed for presentation into java class files.

Books I used : Head First JSP / Servlets, Struts in Action.

Step 4 : Become a smart Java developer - with your best friend - Ant.

Ant probably is the most widely used tool. Get to know Ant - try incorporating starting and stopping tomcat inside your build.xml. So you can do cool things like :

ant startserver
ant stopserver
ant runalltests

ant can also compile your application
ant can deploy your applicaton
ant can win you girls.

Step 5 : Get adventurous

Incorporate hibernate
Try doing some AJAX stuff in your app - its very very easy - and might give you the edge in a job hunt

Step 6 : Next step

Having a fair knowledge of Java, Struts can get you a entry/medium level developer position. To go to the next step you can explore the following areas :

EJBs - Great concept but bad reputation - Read Head First EJB.
Design Patterns - Get to know Factory pattern, Command pattern - my favorite and the rest - Read Head First Design Patterns book.
SOA, Web Services - These buzz words are picking steam this year - find out about them and arm yourself for that curve ball in the interview.

If you have specific questions, email me or post a comment here and I will be more than happy to respond to your question.

Good luck and welcome to the world of Java !!

Bad Ant in Fedora linux

2006-04-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

I messed up the Java that came with Fedora linux and had JAVA_HOME pointing to Sun's JDK. Then I downloaded Ant, set ANT_HOME to this new location and whenever I typed ant i got an error message :

Unknown argument: -cp

Even though when I did a "which ant" it pointed to the correct location which was in ANT_HOME/bin/

Googling did not give me any useful results. Then I thought am I the only one having this problem - so I tried in yahoo ( was planning on trying dark lord's search if it didnt work) - and got the first result with the solution itself. You can try this search query "ant unknown argument: -cp" to see how Yahoo trumps Google in this. Google if you are reading this clean up your act.

Anyways heres the solution. Remove the ant that came with fedora.

Become root and type : "yum remove ant"

Done.

How to browse the web...in 2006!!

2006-02-09T20:39:00.000-08:00

Well heres a primer for the un initiated in the new www. Googling for something has become so 90s. I will list some tools/techniques I use daily which are far more effective.

1. RSS - RDF Site Summary, or Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication

Think of it as SMS text messages sent by websites all the time. Once you subscribe to it you need not hit the website to see if there is any new content. Firefox, Safari, Opera all have RSS built right into them ( The Dark Lord is still building as of this post) . So if you have the urge to see whats happening in the world you need not type cnn.com - instead you can just pull up the RSS list to see if anything interesting has happened before you last checked - It saves time, saves bandwidth and you can quickly check across multiple such websites in under a minute.

The above screenshot is one I took just now.

2. del.icio.us - A social book marks manager.

Before I go further lets go back to early 90s - pre Google days. There was this website called yahoo which I used to go which had stuff classified under categories - much like a library. Entertainment, sports, news etc. So if you want to find something you have to follow the path set by yahoo' s classifier monkey/bot/whatever - if you deviate you will be the loser.

Enter Google - which indexed everything and turned the entire world upside down. So you can find anything about anything. Now billion web pages spring up every month - and Google still does a great job of finding relevant stuff - but there has to be a better way.

Enter del.icio.us - what a smart name !! Here you or me or any one can assign metatags to websites. So instead of searching on the content on the websites, now at del.icio.us - the tags are searched. One step above Google God. Results are more accurate and relevant to what I am searching. Sweet.

3. Stumble Upon - another social bookmarking site

Google says there are 8,870,000,000 websites in this tiny earth of ours. Even if you randomly go to any website - to find something useful out of luck is highly improbable. Enter Stumble upon - a tool that discovers websites for you - according to your tastes. First you have to install the firefox extension of stumble upon. When you hit a nice website - click on the I like It! icon and enter a tag - much like del.icio.us. You help others and others help you. Now when you are bored at work or at home - just click on stumble upon toolbar and lo and behold there is a random website someone has discovered and seem to like it. A great way to discover new interesting stuff. Let me click on my stumble upon button now..

..and this is what I got - my age on other worlds. Ha - did you know there was a site like this? Me neither.

Still there is digg, slashdot, bloglines, lifehacker.org, wikipedia's random page - I will leave them as an exercise for you !!

Enjoy WWW - in a new way !!

Developers developers developers developers

2005-12-15T20:24:00.000-08:00

I heard this song in a home made video that I saw in google videos. It piqued my interest and found this song. Pretty hilarious.

First watch this Steve Balmer's monkey dance.

Next watch this music video.

And read the lyrics.

Now have a good laugh.

EPIC

2005-11-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

EPIC.

I found this link on a ThoughtWorks employee's blog. The flash movie is so engrossing, for the rivetting presentation and the content. Its a nice guess, gotto wait and watch to see how it all develops.

Flock

2005-10-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

The next firefox. Instead of slapping RSS, Blogging, Flickr,Del.icio.us onto the existing browser, these fine folks have created this new browser called FLOCK. Now I am blogging with FLOCK. Hope I can blog at a faster pace henceforth with blogging toolbar built right onto the browser window.