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Memories fade fast. Capturing it while it is in my memory. I lost a dear friend. It is about him.  My friends will know his identity - not revealing his full name.  Hardwork and some amount of luck brought 60 of us to this Electrical Department in CEG. Half from Chennai rest from other parts of Tamil Nadu, and a handful from rest of the country.  Among them was this handsome young man with a cheerful personality who was an instant hit among all of us. He was in the same hostel floor as mine - 2 rooms apart.   In the English class we had to speak something in English ( duh ) - and based on how we spoke we were to be kept in A section or moved to B to be improved. SS said he is from this Great City called Pollachi near Coimbatore. We all had a laugh and he went on to sell his Pollachi. I was put in B section and missed similar entertainment from SS in English class. However, SS entertained us almost daily in the bathrooms - with his songs as we wait...

Yesterday happened to see Rocket Singh Salesman of the year movie. Let me get the good out of the way. There is corruption everywhere. Wrong decisions, inflated bills are accepted with a bribe to get the sale. Bad for the company, bad for the industry, bad for the end consumers. This segment is the only good part of the movie. Other than this - I was squirming while watching the movie. Bad 1 Misusing company's (AYS corporation) resources while building his company ( Rocket ). They do justify in the movie that our hero is insulted as zero by AYS's boss. Rocket's employees will use AYS's van for transporting equipments, they will work during the night and sleep during the day in the office - while drawing salary from AYS. Bad 2 Rocket team had the honour not to divert existing leads that come to AYS. However, they dug out the old leads which have declined AYS. AYS would have spent lot of marketing dollars, WoM to generate leads. Also the reasons for declinin...

I ran 10K last on 06th August 2017. After that the maximum I touched was 8k - rarely. Most of my runs were 4 5 or 6 kms. Partly because I did not find any good audio book. I fondly remember the days when I used to run with Three Body Problem, Ender's world - all kept me on my toes ( literally ). Summer heat, difficult audio books ( Ubik, Diamond Age ) - weren't helping. Today my running friend - Akshay - joined me. This is how usually runners talk He : How much today? Me : Trying 10. 2 down. How about you? He : 21 yesterday, planning 10 today. Me : Wow. Lets do it. I switch off my audio book. I know Akshay tells Ohm while he runs. When I dont listen I keep telling Om Ma Nee Pad Me Hum. I think about these mantras. They are powerful and slowly chip into your soul. 2 or 3 rounds around the lake, we run across his son. 14 year old - he comes with us for a full round as we talk about cricket. He is a fast bowler. We egg his ego. But he drops off after a round....

BBMP - The corporate body in charge of Bangalore - which keeps roads pot hole free, streets free of trash, lakes without foam, keeps underpasses dry during monsoon - was able to carve out free time to brainstorm and come up with a new law - to regularize pets. BBMP has put up a list of allowed breeds in Apartment Complexes. Sufi who happens to be a Beagle is now an illegal immigrant as of today. Sufi, Trump also hates you now. And it is not over - there is a new rule now - only one pet per apartment is allowed. And Indies are not in the list either. Good luck Carbon ( Sufi's friend living in a nearby Apartment ). To tackle pet breeders they justify. I tell this to Sufi and she does a face palm with her cute paws. Instead of punishing all pet lovers - why can't they legalize and regularize pet breeding. Right now it is done illegally and the poor animals are exploited. The mothers are made to give birth every 6 months for 14 years at a stretch and are reduced to machi...

My last post was in January 2018 and it was an effortless post - just a book round up of 2017 books I read. From then to now lots have happened. Rajinikanth has announced his entry into politics. Flipkart got acquired by Walmart. CSK won the IPL tournament. BJP struggles to win Trump is not yet impeached. Spectre Bug Bitcoin went up and down and out of news now. And yet it all went unobserved by me. So my future self on a rebirth who somehow discovers this blog - or an alien race researching on why the Earth imploded - a big part of history will be missing. My future Self and aliens - I am resuming my blogging. Unblocking the Bloggers Block - let my ideas flow and live in the ether.

My first blog post of every new year is on the books I crunched in the past 1 year. Here is the list for previous years -  2010 ,  2011 ,  2012 ,  2013 ,  2014 ,   2015  and 2016 Compared to other years, this year I had shunned Social Media - zero posts in FB. Few marketing retweets in Twitter. TV was shunned already.  I had more time to read books than previous years - inspite of a hectic 2017  Here are the books I crunched - classified by Genres : Science Fiction 1. Death's End - Cixin Liu This is the 3rd and final part of the Three Body Problem. Science Fiction from China. In the earlier part Earth Civilization is preparing for an attack. In this part they are attacked. There is one funny piece where a scientist falls into a Black hole. However his wife does not get insurance, because he can never be declared dead - he is still falling into the black hole and is never dead theoretically!  2. Dark...

Imagine. A place without the Social Media noise. A place to go to read what the great minds are thinking. A place without Advertisements or Clickbaits. That place was Medium. It is no more. But isn't Medium a business? It is a business at the end of the day. There is no free lunch. Medium has to pay its staff. The investors need an exit. But shouldn't knowledge and thoughts be free? Human Kind has progressed with the free flow of knowledge. Whenever knowledge was dammed, chaos reigned. Human progress slows down. When knowledge is shared, we grow by leaps and bounds. Tesla made all its patents open source. So other electric car manufacturers can develop on it. Volvo invented the seat belt and opened up its patent. They saved millions of lives. In contrast.. Apple and Google and Samsung - the Mobile Phone giants are patenting the smallest of idea - and stiffling innovation in Mobile phones - so no new ideas can come to life - except the giants. Or like India...

Few of my Muslim colleagues and friends were starting the month long Ramzan Fast.In  Tools of the Titans  book I had read how the health nuts go on long fasts and the health benefit they get. I had to jump into the fray.  I started researching on the month long 12 hour fast without food or water. I knew I could manage without food but water - that was the big doubt I had. I am someone who always goes around with a water bottle in hand. Here is the story on what I discovered in the 30 day fast.    Keto State First some Biology. There are 2 mechanisms how energy is distributed in the body.  The first is the normal one. We eat food - and the Carbohydrates gets broken down to glucose and blood carries this to all parts of the body. When glucose content is low we feel depleted and low on energy. Body refuses to move, brain usage slows down - and it will start searching for the next food - and the whole cycle repeats.  However, when things are not normal - w...

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl is a difficult book to read - if you are the types who get sucked into it. I typically read before sleep, and I could not go to sleep while reading this book. Victor Frankl is a Psychatrist by profession and he and is wife are picked by the Germans and sent to the camps. The first half is all about Victor's experience in the Nazi camps. How the prisoners are shepherded from one Camp to another in train - with no knowledge if they are being sent to the Gas Chambers or to another camp. I strongly recommend this book - will give a new outlook to your life. "He who has a why to live forcan bear almost any how " "Mental health is based on a certain degree of tension - between what one has already achieved and what one still has to accomplish " "What man needs is not a tensionless state but rather striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal " "Live as if you are living already for the second time and ...

I love Tim Ferris and his hacks. [  4 Hour Work Week  ]  In Tools of Titans he has put together a bunch of show notes from his podcast interviews. Very shoddy and all mixed up and very difficult to read because of the links he has provided all over the place [ How am I supposed to watch a YouTube video on Kindle? ]. This style might not be digestible for some. Other than this little downside on the messy format - each and every chapter has some good take away or the other. Each of the celebrities [ from Startup, Tech, Media... name anything ]  have a few habits which has made them successful and they have shared it in this book. This book is like a Gold mine. Lot of actionable items.  Ok - here are some of the key take aways I am making it part of my daily routine.  1. Cold Showers. After an intense workout, the athletes sweat it out in a  Steam Sauna, then they immediately plunge themselves into a bathtub filled with ice blocks. These are what an...

Yesterday I went for a demo. An elderly gentleman - Vice President of this Society asked me - why should I pay recurring and not one time. Just give me your software we will put it in this computer - showed me an old computer with a CRT monitor - and we are good. It has been a while I had answered this question - "a while" being - might be 2 or 3 years. I take it for granted nowadays that Online Software as a Service ( SaaS ) is the way to go. Here are the Online Services I use - on a monthly / yearly basis . Personal 1. Apple Music - Rs.190 per month - for an infinite supply of songs. 2. Amazon Prime Subscription - Rs.499 per year ( introductory I believe - will be Rs.999 later ) 3. www.the-ken.com - Rs. 2,750 per year - for well researched Indian startup news 5 times a week. 4. Art of living app - Rs.60 per month. For the Pranayama count mainly. 5. Apple 200GB Storage - Rs.140 per month 6. Magzter - Top Gear - Rs.670 per year, Readers Digest - Rs.370 7...