Logicus Illogicus

Spam and more spam...

2008-05-14T01:14:00.003+05:30

There was an entire debate running around in student community at the ISB about spam. Not the food variety (devara devara, would go some in the veggie population) but the Monty Python inspired email kind. The debate started off as a few random mails to the general mailing list, and then turning into a series of accusations and counter-accusations involving alleged spammers^[1] The core of the issue remained - what constitutes spam?

No, I'm not going to go into that. But I definitely shall provide a dispassionate perspective on why those accusations (the counter ones as well) are a bunch of bollocks. Not by any logical dissertation. Nay, I just think that anyone with a low threshold of spam-tolerance has:

(a) never been an engineer
(b) never lived in a boys hostel, where people chase each other from one end to the other of a corridor shouting "abey M****C***!!"
(c) never worked in companies where some 'valid points' raised at meetings are more inane than the most boring spam. Spam then become preferable in these cases, temporarily being raised to the status of a miniature bestseller.
(d) never owned an email account before

The last point is worth noting. I mean, we are in a day and age when most web-based email providers invest heavily in finding spam and filtering it out for you. Representative of the things that they manage to hide from us are messages like "Grow a massive package in your pants today" and "Any of these elegant women's watches will be a great gift to your fair one, mother, or girlfriend!"^[2] After all this, how could it be possible that people are still sensitive to spam?

Needless to say, an underground sense of humour also developed. There were the custodians of morality and all things good - proclaiming what was spam and declaiming all those who did. In the face of such damning authority, what power does the common man have? Well, the same kind that Laxman gave us every morning in the newspaper, and challenging the spam-guard came a one-liner sent to the entire student list: "This is not spam". Funny.

Overall, it's all about tolerance. Live and let spam. And that is what points (a), (b) and (c) would have reinforced and reaffirmed. I have great respect for a specific category of people: engineers, who have lived away from mummy-and-daddy, eating food that cows would not touch, and living with a bunch of half-crazed other guy engineers. That sort of situation tends to inculcate a lot of patience, spirituality, and a ton of horniness. I half-believe that tech companies take HR interviews only to try and figure out whether you are a potential spam-fundamentalist before they hire you (they wouldn't want to destroy the work culture of email-forwarding, would they?)

Sigh. The song says it all: Oh, when will they ever learn, oh, when will they ever learn...

[1] Yours truly was counted in for sending "too many emails regarding the theatre club". Whatta load of crap...

[2] If you're wondering how I know all this, then it's because I regularly go through my spam. No, no, not for finding any non-spam messages that were inadvertantly marked as spam (a Type-I error I think). I do it to understand the sheer creativity of the human race. My spam folder is a representative sample (yes, I've been doing too much statistics) of number of out-of-work third rate novelists being put to better (and probably more profitable) use, who would otherwise have churned up works like "One Night at the call centre". Reaffirms my faith. To quote my Eco prof - "Cathartic".

Nahiii....!!!!

2008-03-10T20:16:00.002+05:30

My laptop hard disk crashed. It's gone!! Now how will I while away my time at home... Sigh!

PS: It was a good laptop. Served me well. RIP my friend... you shall be remembered.

On a random day of movie watching...

2008-03-03T18:34:00.002+05:30

Yes, I watched it. Yes, I know... I don't usually watch these types of movies, but I really wanted to see what they could do with 3 chipmunks and some serious animation.

Verdict? It's cute. Nice timepass, especially if you are watching it with your girlfriend. Dave is bugging - he obviously doesn't know how to act or get variations in his expressions and tone (his constant expression being that of exasperation). Fortunately, not too much of him going around in the movie. If you concentrate on the 'lil-'uns then you should be just fine...

And then I went and watched Men In Black - II. Oh yeah, I had one crazy movie day yesterday. MIB-II isn't half as bad as it was made out to be. Tommy Lee Jones is amazing. Will Smith... is Will Smith. Rosario Dawson looks very cute in the movie, but that lasted only till I went through IMDb. Plot analysis: nah... I'm just kidding. You're not meant to watch this as a serious movie, analyzing the sub-twists and the loopholes. This movie (like a lot of others in its genre) is meant purely for style. It's about aliens, a dog that talks, and an interplanetary war for god's sake - do you really want to know more than that. To truly appreciate this movie, you have to keep your brain on standby. Preferably watch it the first thing in the morning, when slightly groggy.

Take a Sunday off, and watch these two in the morning. Follow it up with Mystery Men (ooh.. god level chaat), The Fifth Element, and The Devil Wears Prada in the afternoon. End it with a sobering The Lord of War in the evening. Now you know what I have been up to all these days. And this is just one day...

PS: The Lord of War... oooh.. still kickass. Saw it with Bra at Abesh's place and it rocked. Saw it again with Bra after a few hours, at Abesh's place, and it still rocked. Now in Denmark after a whole day of random movie-watching, and it still rocked. It seems to be pretty rare DVD-wise so you could watch "The life of a bullet" on YouTube. Might convince you to find the whole movie.

*Images thanks to DvdVcdPlaza and Movie-List.com/Blog

The 1-session Guide to Sarcastic Finesse : a practical methodology

2008-03-03T18:08:00.004+05:30

Good going brainiac! Of course, there is nothing easier to learn and apply than sarcasm, is there?

PS: You could go ahead and read the title and the main content line again. Do leave a comment if get it eventually...

PPS: Strangely ironical that this might actually achieve what's promised

Compiling!

2008-02-04T14:20:00.000+05:30

The ultimate programmer excuse: compiling. So true, so very true. It's tremendous how many times I have given that as an excuse to take a snooze after a heavy lunch. It's probably the most reliable way to shirk after sutta and coffee. And since I don't do much of those two, I do a lot of builds/re-compiles :)

Discovering the British...

2008-02-03T23:11:00.000+05:30

Of late, I have made some accidental discoveries. Mostly related to the British. And though I was surprised in the beginning, it did make a bit of sense later on.

My first discovery was with popular fiction. Science fiction and fantasy to be precise. There are a surprising number of good British authors out there that no one really hears about. Everybody knows about Sidney Sheldon and John Grisham, but who really has read Jonathan Stroud or Philip Pullman? It's difficult to compare them really, but the point of the matter is that The Lord of the Rings was written by a Brit.

Then came, rather slowly, the appreciation for some British actors. Paul Bettany is one. Have seen him in a few movies (Wimbledon.. simple story, interesting setting.. tennis.. who would have thought..), noticed him, and gave a pause to try and register him before the protagonist rushed on the screen and occupied the whole of it. But it wasn't until I saw "A Knight's Tale" that I actually took the effort to find out his name and more about him. And this is what I found on IMDb:

Writer/director Brian Helgeland wrote the role of Chaucer in A Knight's Tale (2001) specifically for Paul. He "refused" to do the movie without him. The production companies did not think Bettany was known well enough, Helgeland thought that if he backed down on his choice of Bettany, he would have to back down on everything else.

Made absolute sense to me. The movie is nonsense. A whole lot of fun with Queen's "we will rock you" in medieval England, but nonsense nonetheless. And in the middle of all this, the one character that stood out quite memorably was that of Chaucer.

I wonder how is it that the Sidney Sheldon is better known than Tolkien. Is the American PR machine unbeatable? Or are they shrewder - with fame a welcome side effect of writing for the common man? Dunno. I enormously appreciate the British comic style and their television comedies. I guess I have to extend the recognition to movie actors and books as well.

Damn, I'm getting old..

2008-01-11T00:56:00.000+05:30

"Everything that has a beginning has an end."

The Matrix Revolutions*

And the "end" in this case is just the beginning of a sequence of such ends. The sad part is that the only reason it is not 100% true is because I don't own a car. Maybe when Tata's 1-lakh car finally hits the market, I can officially retire to an old age home**.

*Sounds like a really cool start to a blog post only when you have "Clubbed to Death (Rob D)" streaming in through your headphones - which is what is happening right now.

** And now it's Colin Hay's "Overkill"

Denmark winters...

2007-12-24T17:59:00.000+05:30

... here have finally paid off - sipping chilled Coke while roaming around is now feasible. Though this might sound like a trivial reason to rejoice (especially with larger reasons like Christmas looming around the corner), but in order to truly appreciate this you should try the same thing in the sweltering Bangalore summer*.

The basic assumption here being that Coke must be served chilled. It tastes crap any other way. Gulping down half a litre of coke in a minute just so that you can drink it cold is just as useless. Coke is meant to be contemplated, in the same way that wine connoisseurs go about their wine, and is a great accompaniment for long walks with no purpose. This combination, however, is practically impossible in Bangalore. You can contemplate with your large glass of Coke in an air-conditioned environment with a lot of ice at hand, or you can walk aimless and Coke-less all you want around IndiraNagar's 80ft road. Together... umm, difficult.

The winter here solves one problem. Staying outside longer just makes your drink colder! Can you possibly find anything cooler (pun intended) than that? Of course, roaming around for too long will just give you frostbite or some such winter-related phenomenon. And there is only so much that a Southie can adapt. Still... item 1 out of 2 - check!!

* Ok, ok... so Bangalore does not have a sweltering summer so to speak, but if it's so bad in Bangalore then imagine Delhi and Chennai. Also, I just realized that roaming around in Bangalore at the height of the summer season will never be an enjoyable experience - with or without the chilled Coke.

Vaid's wisecracks..

2007-12-17T14:15:00.000+05:30

It takes a good blogger to bring back the joys of writing. Which is why this is refreshing: vaid.blogspot.com. Yup, it’s Lodu’s little nook on the wide web where he can throw pearls of wisdom at an unsuspecting world. Refreshing mostly because it’s the inimitable Vaidyanathan capable of making you laugh at the worst times. I had just come back from a ragging session with Akki with my cheeks swollen to three times its original size thanks to the loving slaps meted out. I was in no mood for anything, but he successfully made me laugh (through the discomfort of swollen cheeks). I think that some parts of “being Vaidya” rarely die and I suspect that we’re going to get a peek at those aspects through his blog.

And there are his newfound opinions on anything and everything in the world. Of course, he has progressed tremendously as a writer and a thinker since his first year, helped in part by the few hours he spends in meticulously tearing apart the morning newspaper. This has to be the second best way to find out what he thinks**. Opinionated – yes, but significantly better than the crap that Aaj Tak doles out everyday.

So Lodu, when’s the next post?! :)

** The first best way is to stand next to the laundry shop at the corner of street to Sanat and Abesh’s place, at 2AM, discussing social entrepreneurship’s long term sustainability. Or you could just meet him for a coffee.

The nice guys go to school..

2007-11-17T22:35:00.000+05:30

... The Ladder Theory

It is the mother lode. Sexist - yes. Works - might not. Still, knowledge is power and maybe it will help.

PS: Info from the Wilde man. Of course, I have to kick his ass for telling me this two years after it actually mattered...

I just figured out...

2007-11-02T02:56:00.000+05:30

... why I rub girls the wrong way^[1].

They demand bhaav. As soon as they do, it becomes some khujli not to give it to them eventually leading to the point where I say or do something that is the opposite of giving bhaav (and perhaps an incy-wincy bit more than that). For example:

Aunty: Aaseees^[2]... I'm looking nice today??
Me: Oh yes... wonderful. Excellent dress, by the way - love handles covered nicely...

Notice the casual compliment followed by the rather unflattering 'love handles' comment^[3]. The point here is that the dress actually was really nice, and if she hadn't asked I would have given her a glowing compliment. Somehow, a girl not looking for bhaav makes for a very very appealing girl. And now that it's sorted out in my head, I find that there have been quite a few girls who know how not to fish for compliments and are very graceful in accepting them once they are given out^[4].

Eventually, I think it all comes down to demand and supply - they demand it and I don't supply, and that explains exactly why in a world of fawning wannabe boyfriends and deliberately ingratiating orkuteers, there is no place and no appreciation for a well-deserved, well-intentioned compliment.

^[1] Not that I rub them the right way. In fact, I'm quite clear that there was no literal rubbing involved... ever. It's a figure of speech - get over the sniggering!

^[2] You know, it's surprising how many people call me that. But then a lot of people call me an idiot as well. The two groups have a surprising amount of overlap. Too many surprises for one day...

^[3] totally love that 'love handles' comment. In almost 99% of the cases you can pretend to be sincere about it by just not laughing when that look of utter shock goes over her face. That way she's convinced that you weren't just playing a prank and you were concerned about her inflating-by-the-minute tummy (which is a concern for them whether they weigh 50kgs or 150kgs). This of course makes you a concerned friend and saves you the well deserved slap. Gets them every time. Partially ashamed I managed to pull it off so many times. Disclaimer: do it at your own risk, but never, never to anyone you don't know well enough.

^[4] All it requires is a simple smile and a 'thank you, that's so sweet'. Full stop. No more conversation about it, no more lingering on with coy looks for additional, associated comments. Is it that difficult or am I just watching too many movies? Someone with more experience please enlighten me...

This man...

2007-11-02T02:38:00.001+05:30

... is a god!

I am truly ashamed for not being aware of him before. Truly ahead of his time. Halfway through his essays and got too enthu to not blog about him. His essay on machinery turned out to be true, and can be applied to the outsourcing phenomenon to predict the effect. Aah! Too many thoughts - a fresh, invigorating input after a reaally looong time. And to think thatI would never have known about him if not for Amit Varma winning the 2007 Frédéric Bastiat Prize for Journalism.

Read more about him here... Bastiat, not Amit Varma :)

Nice guys finish last

2007-10-30T00:43:00.000+05:30

Amen.

PS: Aunty, this is for you. I keep telling you, but you never believe me :)

Technology and Banking

2007-10-19T13:38:00.000+05:30

Banking in India, I always felt, was pathetic. It's a notion not based on a comparison of the banking systems of other countries but an absolute rating based purely on my imagination. That, and the fact that retail banking is just developing (even though it's been around in India for ages) and starting to take on a customer-centric outlook.

Nothing happens without a reason, and one of the reasons spurring this change is that the aam aadmi now has more money to put in banks. Banking also spread it's tentacles enough to allow housewives to use bank accounts instead of piggy banks and saree blouses for saving up money. Plus, technology allows you to maintain records of all transactions of all accounts at a fraction of the cost that would be required if it were all paper based. Technology has made banking cost-effective enough to allow anyone and everyone to use banks. And now that they are using banks, those teeny-weeny bits of money from a billion strong population adds up to big sum. Hurray for the banks!

Still, banks are functionally stupid. It's a legacy they have inherited from the 80s when (for all practical purposes) I was not banking and did not care about what nonsense they did. But the fact remains that since the time I started any serious banking, it has been a pain. A reasonable analogy would be to compare Indian banks to early versions of Linux - not user-friendly with limited functionality, getting better but only time will tell whether they will evolve into a Solaris (god-level functionality with a not-so-friendly interface) or a Windows (basic and most-popular functionality done for dummies) avatar. No guesses why Windows is more popular.

The first and foremost "I am dumb" feature of our banks is the working hours. Most branches open at 10 AM and close at 4 PM without working on Saturdays or Sundays. Considering normal middle-class working hours (9AM to 5PM) would mean that banks work only when everyone else is at their jobs. So if any bank work needs to be done, you have to take time out from your work. As not everyone can do that, or if they are able to bunk work then they must either work late or let the overall productivity take a beating. Considering the situation in India in the 70s/80s, the amount of lost productivity due to dumb banking is enormous. I won't go into details, but needless to say that bringing in some technology and some commonsense would be highly appreciated.

The second "I was born with my brain in my knees" feature is the complexity required for any banking transaction. The effort that is required to create a draft is mind-boggling, mostly contributed to by the thousands of challans that one has to fill. And the only question that comes to my mind is: WHY!!??? Every bank can happily have one (maybe more) touchscreen computer in a corner along with a printer. The user can be made to go through a bunch of screens requesting information in a very user-friendly way. If the user doesn't know why this information is being asked, then help (in layman English/Hindi/Pali etc... and not banking jargon) can be provided without having to ask the tellers again and again (I'm sure they get pretty bugged with such repeated queries as well). Once you're done:
1. You print out the challan and hand it over.
2. It gets electronically transferred to one of the tellers and you are given a number which will be called out for you to collect the cheque/draft.
3. The printer prints out the cheque/draft - with extra information identifying it as authentic (which can be verified electronically on submission).

And this is just the start. Basically, I can think of a hundred different ways by which technology can go about improving the front-end of banks, and not just their back-end automation. Putting up ATMs does not imply good banking. A bank should be abstracting as much of the complicated details from the end-user, or giving that information in understandable nibbles at the right time. After all, we're not here to spend our lives digging and discovering arcane banking policies. We have more important things to do with our lives (I hope so..)

the power of Kakkoos..

2007-10-17T19:47:00.000+05:30

It all started with Rakesh using it during our late-night conversations. Rakesh has this amazing ability to laugh at random things (including the craziest black humour from Southpark) and his laugh is bloody infectious. Once he starts laughing, it requires super-human effort to control yourself. [ This actually leads me to believe that Rakesh's best use would be to sit in the audience and induce them to laugh. A good full-bodied laugh from someone in the audience is a great way to trigger the laughter avalanche. He can then get back to his acting :) ]. The point being that he is rather potent by himself, but he's incredibly dangerous when he uses phrases like "what arbit kakkoos". Pretty soon were laughing till we were holding each other for support.

And that got me thinking about who else thought that this was funny. Of course, a search on Google revealed this. Heartening really...

And talking about funny words, my baap has got this amazing ability to string together words that make you laugh so much that it's debilitating. Maybe it's funny only to those who know my baap (someone please verify this...). Some eternal words from the thoti himself:
Still i just have one line to describe the
change i felt after leaving college ----->> "I eat
breakfast like a King, lunch like a middle class man
and dinner like a begger". In college i guess it was
the otherway round.

For the past one n a half months my time table has
been as follows:

for(;;)
{
5:30 = alarm for waking up at 6
6:00 = wake up + pray + fag
6:30 = play basket ball + fag
7:00 = swimming
7:40 = Cook breakfast + fag.
8:00 = Take a mughal bath + fag

if (day == weekday)
{
8:30 = Fight with lorry wala's (whaaat locals) who
park their vehicle in front of my car.
8:45 = Start from home to office.
9:20 = Reach office.
WORK WORK WORK
10:30 = tea brk
WORK WORK WORK
12:30 = lunch + fag
Teach new joinees. (i can never beat the Thuvakudi
loin cloth alias baffoon KVI,the Silent Swami NRS or
N/W Driver (white n white) Selva kumar in this)
15:30 = tea brk + snacks + fag
WORK WORK WORK
20:00 = Start from office.
Buy food stuff + fags.
21:00 = Reach home + fag
21:30 = Start cooking dinner Side by side have two
pegs n 1 Mary jane + fag.
22:00 = Eat and watch TV.
23:00 = One last fag then Sleep
}
else
{
8:30 to 20:00 = Sleep, play counter strike, NFS-2,
age of empires, read EDN mag + fags.
20:00 till sunrise = Party, blast music, go for
long drive, have more pegs n more Mary janes + fags.
}

}

So i respect those who dont comment on the programme
above... he he. Today is one chaaat day n thot i will
chaaat u ppl.

Urs Thoti (Country fellow)

and

I guess this is my second mail on the same day in
de grp, might surprise all. By the way since i told in
morning tht today is a chaat day n i am in no mood to
read some 1000 page data sheet i was wondering why not
give some tips to go on bangalore roads for our CS
batch bangaloreans. This just croped in my mind when
FAGendran(too much of faggin) sorry Nagendran alias
"Kuks" told abt going on pavements.

Holds valid for both 2 or 4 wheelers:

1) Never go straight on bangalore roads, where ever u
find a gap left or right just occupy it. Its like road
rash or NFS may be most of you might have played in
comps but in real phew no words to describe. Make sure
u and ur vehicle are insured.

2) Basically we have heard many a times abt flyovers
but i guess we got to give credit to the bangalore
govt to actually give the real meaning of "FLYOVER"
as whoever takes the flyover might at his risk
actually Fly over the bridge. Here are few instances :
a) There is bridge near richmond which actually
has a speed breaker at both the beginning and end of
the bridge with no sign saying humps ahead. (i feel
this should be the 8th wonder)
b) Another bridge has drains tht are open at the
side of the bridge and if any one goes on it by chance
he/she might actualy FLY and end on the ground. Its
also got another beauty this same bridge has a traffic
signal too. (9th wonder).
c) Some flyovers are just half way made which i
guess i need not comment.

3) Potholes no words to describe these. In bangalore
when we mean by road it is not complete without having
some potholes in it. Hmmm i guess u wud have seen
roads named 100 ft, 80 ft etc etc i guess they meant
the depth of the pot hole rather than the lenght of
the road. (no wonder it is the silicon valley of
india)

4) Left or right indicators are just a show pieces no
one bothers to give way or slow down. So i thought tht
i can may be invent some device instead of lights for
indicators why not press a left or right button and
some wooden hand/plank/rod of abt 1 mt sticks out.
This way i guess no one can dare go past it. HA HA.

5) If u want to take a left/right turn say never go to
the left/right of the road. Just take the extreme
right/left, block the traffic behind u and then take
ur left/right. Another cause for traffic congestion.
Its fun at times.

6) For pedestrians who walk on the side walks plz
make it a point tht its not only for you, its also for
bikers n auto drivers. I guess u wud have herd of two
TCS ppl who died as some water tanker went over them
when they were on the side walk waiting for their
company van.

7)Bus stops are just for Halli fellows or even cows to
sleep. Ppl stand on the roads to catch a bus. And one
more thing if u notice all bus stops are near the
turning of a road. And buses never stop straight they
always park it diagonally somewhere abt 40 degrees so
tht no one passes till the passengers have got in or
out of the bus. I have another invention for this in
mind, instead of having ordinary bumpers just fit in
some metal bumpers with spikes on it.

8) Never go on a bike or walk on the residential
streets of bangalore after 10 in the night as during
those times u might end up being chased by not only 1
but some 20 dogs. (personal experience). They dont
even leave cars at times. Dogs have gang wars n stuff
basically they are like crocodiles which are
teritorial. I guess everynight for dogs/goats/cows is
a first night (Mudal Ratri in tamil) coz here the dogs
are despo for sure. For instance a few weeks back near
my house there was a dog n a bitch making out n u shud
have seen some 10 dogs just barking n pulling the
bitch away and each one is barking at each other for
getting the bitch.

9) I have never in my life seen ppl pee in front of
transformers or inside ATMs but the halli crowd here
is really gutsy??? (no way related to traffic just
popped in my mind). In tht case abroad if u pee
outside ur fined but in india u got to pay 1 buck to
use the toilet and free else where. Seriously some
ATMS stink of urine eg: koramangla SBI ATM near Forum.

10) If ur going on Hosur Rd pls be carefull of the
vehicle KA-05 MB8949 a silver wagon-r (me) coz bikers
might end up in trouble coz of point no.1.

I guess these r the 10 commandments if i were to say,
there are many more points but i guess i will not bore
u busy ppl out there.

Urs Thoti (COuntry fellow-->>> Whaaat locaaaal)

"Back in Denmark" and other stories

2007-10-16T13:58:00.001+05:30

After an interesting month in India, I'm back in Denmark with a work permit. As Kristian here puts it, "So, you'll be here indefinitely, huh?" Can't put it better myself. Denmark is getting colder, and it's very evident from the time of sunrise and of sunset. When I first came to Denmark in June, sunlight used to stream in by 3:30 AM and by 5AM it was like late morning. Now, the sun's barely up even at 8 AM and sets quite definitely by 7 PM. They tell me it's going to get worse, but it should be fine as long as they keep the heater going :).

Kickass flight. Slept from the time the plane started moving on the Bangalore tarmac till it touched down in Paris. Spent a few hours reading "Games Indians Play" (which promises to be an interesting read) at CDG and then slept again on the flight to Copenhagen. Usually, there is that feeling of "when is this thing going to land.. how much longer..." but it was really nice this time. My only regret is that I couldn't watch the in-flight movies.

Btw, does anyone know why Air-France is so much cheaper than Lufthansa? And why do people still fly Lufthansa despite it being excessively overpriced? I got a few inputs, but haven't been able to build the complete picture...

Have to figure out my food habits here. I definitely know that the amount of non-vegetarian food I consume here has to be less. But, that said, I haven't been to the lunch buffet yet and all this talk about correcting my dietary practices will prove to be just that - usual idle talk.

Got crash courses in practical and macro economics from uncle. A lot of it is quite logical backwards, that is, to understand why something happened once it has happened. Predicting it forwards is more difficult. The case study being the US sub-prime crisis.

Rediscovering south indian (tam-brahm) food. Amazing stuff. Dosai with vetta-kozhambu.. whatta kickass combination. Very tough to find a restaurant that gives such good stuff. But the lunch at South Indies (100 ft Indranagar) is pretty good. Went to Kanti Sweets on CMH a few times to have the parathas there. Very nice and cheap. I'm surprised there aren't more 'northie' eating joints, and ones that cook with reasonable amounts of oil.

Health check-ups and Nemesis

2007-10-01T23:54:00.000+05:30

Finished reading Asimov's "Nemesis". Interesting, but has elements from various other novels. Have to find out the chronology to see if this novel set the base for other better novels, or is just a wishy-washy version of his earlier (and better) ones. There is the character of Marlene who seems to show early mentalic characteristics seen millenia later in the Second Foundation. Then there is the concept of the living planet Erythro which is seen at the end of the Foundation series through the living planet Gaia. Lots more really.. so do not know what he was trying. Interesting in itself, but still does not compare to the core series and even to The End of Eternity.

Had a health check-up. Usual stuff - need to exercise. But, they reported unusually high protein levels though. For the first time my fat became a secondary issue. So I have to cut down on my non-veg food, dals, sprouts (not that I had this one, but it's now off the list) and anything else that will contribute to this excess protein.

Post has a good honey-oats cereal. Too costly though. This is why they need to shift their production to India. Although, they must first think of the market and the target audience (which would mostly consist of me).

Got promoted on Friday (yay!), but thanks to all the dietary restrictions I cannot celebrate. People have reminded me that I can still treat them and watch them celebrate on my behalf. In any case there is a treat pending for Dusky Portuguese Looks and Adonis Man-of-the-Year - cannot escape that one..

Next play in the pipeline. Got some interesting stuff this time. Hope I'm around when the action happens - really want to get on stage for this one. Funda scripts..

And life goes on...

Itihas and other follies

2007-09-17T12:57:00.000+05:30

The Great Bong does have a valid point about Sri Sri (is there one more Sri there?) Ravi Shankar and his Itihas comment. Although I can imagine what sort of itihas was created when the Itihas movie was released.

The last few days have been, by far, mostly gaseous. The gas being related to by-products of an unwelcome attack of gastroenteritis. The remedy was new. Popping pills is just one part. The other is the wholesome ingestion of "not less than 150 million spores per gram" of lactobacillus*. It tasted positively unhealthy but the doc assured me that I was doing nothing more than repopulating my intestines with the friendly neighbourhood bacteria that I had so inconsiderately destroyed by drinking one litre of "Real Activ Blackcurrant and Soyabean". Before you talk about my pathetic tastes, I would like to state that I was just experimenting with the tastebuds and I did not have anything else at home to eat (umm... no, I had a large bar or Toblerone but I was saving that for later).

Twenty20 cricket is worth the hype and the excitement. I'm a little late to catch on but it's tremendously exciting to see Ajit Agarkar get spanked like a naughty kid. Surprised that he isn't crying yet. I think everyone is sold on the novelty of the game. I wonder how long it will be before people get tired of even this shortened form of the game.

Priyanka Chopra is moving up my list of hotties. I rediscovered a few videos from Bluffmaster and saw an ad with some scooter in it (point to note for all the advertisers - one can be so engrossed in watching PinkyC that one can miss the point of the ad).

* also known as Sporlac

Tagged!

2007-08-28T19:48:00.000+05:30

Response to a tag by Vikhram. Long overdue.

The rules:

Players start with 5 random facts about themselves.
Post these rules along with your 5 random facts.
Tag 3 other people and notify them that they have been tagged.

Les Facts:

I can sleep anytime, anywhere. More so if I am moving. Buses, cars, scooters, bikes, airplanes, trains and even ships (Linz to Vienna). Standing, sitting, kneeling, leaning and other bodily positions are just as comfortable. It's a gift...most of the times¹
I prefer sleeping naked. Something I picked up in my third year at NIT Trichy. It's understandable when you live there - it's always hot and humid, and any piece of clothing is just adding to the discomfort. It became a habit, and now college habits die hard. Ergo, I live alone. Exception to the rule: refer point 1.
I am a workaholic and am lazy at the same time. I always knew I was lazy, but it took a bunch of Thespi first-years to point out that I was a workaholic. That hasn't changed much. I still slog away at totally random things but will be too lazy to reach out and get a glass of water.
I never did a night-out in college. Totally true. I always thought that college life would be incomplete without a night-out before an exam. Never fulfilled that dream - always, always managed to fall asleep just before the sun rose. The funny thing is, my first night out was in BenQ's China office - I did a night out, went back to the hotel, ate breakfast, went to sleep, slept through an earthquake and then came back to office in the afternoon oblivious to everything.
I make a mean aloo-bhaji (officially approved by the aunts). Spiced andhra style, mashed ghati style and gobbled with thairu-saadam thambi style. Now all I need is a whip.. whoopah!²... err... and I would still make a mean aloo-bhaji.

I now tag Abhay, Jane and Swati.

¹ Except that one time when I was coming back to Trichy from Bangalore. The last stop was Kumbakonam and I slept soundly through the driver's calls of "Trichy!! Trichy!! Chattram!!" many times over. Had to get off at Kumbakonam (no option really - the bus would not turn around and go to Trichy, which was about 4 hrs away), and then take a government bus to Trichy. All that is great, except that I had a semester exam the next day and I had not even started studying (all NIT-T final years who have had Industrial Economics in the 8th semester would know that I am telling the truth about not studying until one day before the exam). It was the one time I was really scared because I was returning from a trip to my first company (Infineon) and they were kind of happy with my academic performance. Fortunately, I passed :)

² As Chandler describes the cracking of a whip

Religion, culture and that god thing..

2007-08-19T21:53:00.000+05:30

Now this is what is wrong with the world.

I had a chat with Deepkant on Friday that confirmed that there is a fine line between things. I happened to mention that I do not believe in god or it's existence, am a Hindu but do not follow a religion, and I listen to Suprabhatam every once in a while (grandma will be very happy). The surprise was the acceptance of the culture aspect of India and as a personal choice neglect religion and god. It then deviated (like every well-intentioned discussion without an aim) a bit into what is cultural and what is religious.

Somehow, I have been able to accept that religion is needed in this world*, even if I feel I don't need it. Religion is after all a man-made creation, even if god is not. Religion can be a source of, or a channel for, inspiration (and delusional fanaticism at the same time) to a lot of people - people who can then go on to create things that are truly mind-blowing. Now, how much ever I diss religion, I cannot deny that it helped create something better than itself. Even creations like the Thanjavur temple (really like the place) had a religious purpose or they might never have been built. It is ever so rare that one finds a source of emotion equally strong as to warrant such creations (with the exception of the world-famous Taj Mahal of course - being built in the name of love - what a refreshing change!).

What I have not been able to figure out is why do all the monotheistic religions of the world want everyone else to believe what they do? What is their overpowering motivation? It cannot really be that if we do not follow we will go to Hell because it's rather daft to imply that a third of the world's population has been roasting for so long just because they didn't know about the prophets of god**. No.. that's not an explanation. Still, a driving force strong enough to pit countries and people*** against each other must have a simple explanation. And this overpowering need to grow the group is a great way to make religion - which should be respected and not infringed upon as a private aspect of our lives - a public and uber-controlling tool.

And every once in a while there is a nagging doubt about the validity of my beliefs (rather than their strength). Then, in a very timely and almost divine manner, I see something like Conservapedia and feel happy about things. Well, even if I am wrong at the end of the day, I am happier with my current dis-belief in all things godly.

For now the stand is clear.

* Voltaire: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"

** Which would be very funny because if they were really the prophets of god then it's taken them a surprisingly long time to spread the word. I mean, where were these guys till the Middle Ages?

*** For a very short while the emphasis shifted out of religion and into national ideologies - basically the Cold War. Then, once that bastion fell, a we shifted back to our good old nemeses - the ones from the other religion.

tu shaadi kab kar raha hai?

2007-08-19T15:53:00.000+05:30

Yes! It is the flavour of the season, the spice garnishing my commutes back from work and that is sprinkled over masala filled gossip¹ sessions with Nighty. Apparently, more and more people believe that it is time I tied the knot. And I have but one classic repartee for all such random thoughts: WTF!!?? This is accompanied by a facial contortion meant to imply "what kind of a doofus idea is that?!" but usually gets interpreted as "See, I can put on a dumb look anytime I want. Hah!" Though recent aloo-curry successes in my kitchen have led me to believe that I was meant to be a domesticated animal (an animal nonetheless) by finding supreme pleasure in cooking and cleaning², it does not mean that I am ready to get married and have kids.

It all started with Saidulu. We were sitting facing each other, in the metro that was taking us back to Østerport from Sydhavn, when he calmly³ looked up towards me and said "Why don't you get married?". Unprepared to respond to this bolt out of the blue, I gave my classic retort and the accompanying facial twisting. Unfazed, he continued and what followed was a detailed discussion involving marriage, girls, likes, dislikes, problems, mothers-in-law, compatibility, finding, searching, availability, compromise, children, planning, future, understanding, companionship and friendship. He almost had me convinced.

Recent happenings in my team added fuel to the fire. Krishna got married; so did Bhupi, Guru, and "5-crore" Mavi; my boss is getting married soon; Veeru and Maggi are on the lookout. All in all, our "bachelor boys" team was becoming the "family" team. And then one bus-ride back to the hotel Deepkant explained why I need to start looking for a girl now. That explanation had only numbers, percentages and probabilities. To cut that long story short, if I don't start looking now the probability of finding a girl who is remotely close to my type is about 0.01. It's not a nice probability to have.

So, even though the classic repartee continues to be the standard response, the search will have to begin soon...

¹ it comes as a great revelation to most girls but les hommes are just as gossipy as les femmes. We tend to skirt around the feelings and emotions, but Chak De India's bevy of hockey-stick-type-belan-wielding beauties qualify easy for the watercooler variety of gossip.

² I get surprisingly agitated if the maid does not show up for the day. Not to be misinterpreted... the maid just cleans my room. Unlike this.

³ Actually, Saidulu is always very calm so this is redundant. Just for the dramatic effect though...

whose need is greater?

2007-07-29T17:07:00.000+05:30

[From an old chat with an old friend... you have been duly acknowledged :). Typing mistakes left intact.]

female : and as friends shidnt u ppl take a proactive role in trying to find me a guy...i have been single for over year..

me : I have been single my whole life - my needs are greater than yours.

female : see u cantg miss sthg u've never had...u can only want it.
and missing is much worse than wanting so MY need tops urs :)

me : See.. now that is a communist argument - keep the poor poor. After all, since you've never been rich, what difference would it make to your life.
Of course the answer is capitalist - the difference to my life would be the same that you got when you first tasted not being poor, and that difference is so noticable that you do mind. Looking back at history, ignoring the needs of the underprivileged and the denied will only lead to social upheaval - something that people insistent on the status quo definitely would not want. So try to give a finger now, in case we end up taking more than just the hand.

female : (no reply)

I suspect I was going to get the "this is why you don't have a girlfriend" routine, but I think she pitied my pathetic self-justifications and single state enough to not say anything.

PS: I figured it was not a communist argument, but I think that the exact nomenclature of the political doctrine is not the problem here...

XtraCold, Amsterdam

2007-07-29T16:56:00.000+05:30

Shame on all those tour operators for not including this place on their list: the XtraCold IceBar. Definitely out of the ordinary. Was planning a trip to see the Aurora Borealis sometime this year. After visiting this place I know that I will have to prepare myself a wee bit more. The temperature inside is -8 degrees Celsius and my fingers were frozen in about 25 minutes. And this is despite the thermal wear and the gloves they gave. And no wind chill..

A must visit on any Amsterdam trip.

an anonymous poem

2007-07-20T02:54:00.000+05:30

"I know you don't love me
But I still do
I'd steal from the entire world
And give it all to you"
-- Anonymous

No idea where I heard it. Quite nice.

Gunda!

2007-07-10T20:31:00.000+05:30

Yuss! I speak about that critically acclaimed movie of all time - Kanti Shah's Gunda. Many people warned me about Gunda; Abesh most of all. It was even used as a threat:

The mando: Abesh.. I'm bored. Let's watch something on your laptop.
The error: Tujhe movie dekhna hai? Chal, tujhe Gunda dikhata hoon.
The mando: eh? what crap?
The error: Haha.. kya ulti movie hai. Tu yeh movie dekhega to koi aur movie nahin dekhega. Muahaha.. chal tujhe Gunda dikhata hoon...
The mando: Err.. no thanks.. I have some urgent work to do. Bye.

Thus was the fear of Gunda instilled in me. Meanwhile, friends of friends were going online and ordering their own copies of the movie, were watching it, and then were raving about it and cursing it at the same time. There might even come a time when mothers shush their children at night with the threat of brain damage by watching Gunda (not that the kids will understand what brain damage is all about).

Other news followed, mostly as one line reviews: "kya hugga movie hai", "it's so crap that it's great! sheer genius!".

Hmm... very suspicious.

Finally, one lazy Sunday afternoon in Copenhagen while Chakri was taking his own sweet time cooking lunch, Rashmi and I decided to do some timepass and watch it. After all, it was just a movie.

And I was so wrong! Why?

It is a classic. There has never been any movie like it, nor will there be any movie that can ever match it.
The old saying is true: "it is so crap that it is great!".
The actors do such a good job of trying to act badly that one is convinced that they are truly amazing oscar-nominee actors.

Needless to say, I am now a fan. Eternal dialogues and all. And I beseech all ye people who have yet to witness the wonder of Gunda - go witness it.

PS: For the ones who need more written fodder to gather the courage to watch the one true movie, read Greatbong's post.

Monday or Friday?

2007-07-09T17:27:00.000+05:30

I had a chat in the morning with an old friend, and I was being a smart-ass for no reason. She put it down to Monday morning blues. The interesting part is that Monday usually doesn't give me blues. It is Friday. It gives me tremendous pain to get up on Friday mornings and go all the way to work and experience that excruciating wait till the weekend finally arrives. As Joe says here:

"You know how people always say i am suffering from the monday blues? Well how about fridays? Fridays are generally the most love or hate affair day..Its nearer to the weekend, but its not the weekend and the worst thing for those with a deadline, its a day closer to your freedom days but yet you still have to slog it out infront of books or your computer..so what do you call this Fridays?"

Bingo. That's exactly what it is. But what do you call it?

ah.. tis a bleak world out there...

2007-06-25T18:24:00.000+05:30

Read Abhay's post. Was bored, so tried it out. And I join the queue of people looking for a Negotiator. This is the break-up of my personality type:

As Abhay says, any Negotiator out there...?

jellyfish!!

2007-06-25T17:38:00.001+05:30

I went to the beach yesterday. Got into the water and ran back out in about 30 mins. My reasons are always simple and to the point.

First, it was fucking cold. My balls froze, and I'm not sure if I will ever have children. Still, I persisted, and after some time if I tried really hard, I could wiggle my toes - which had frozen long back.

Second, I think I saw a jellyfish in the water. I still have to check it up and try to see if it was my imagination or just something purple in the water, but I basically got out of the water like my ass was on fire (which at that time would have been welcome). Took me 15 mins to build up the courage to get back into the water, and then I saw that purple things again and I ran out faster than the first time.

I didn't go back. What a fun day at the beach - yippee, hurrah and all that jazz.

-------------
Update:
I found the jellyfish. It was the moon jellyfish which looks like this:

(picture from www.tolweb.org)

wear sunscreen?

2007-06-22T20:07:00.000+05:30

A few things came together in my head yesterday.

One was the stuff written in TT's orkut profile. It is an essay by Mary Schmich titled "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young". It's an interesting piece. I don't agree with it parts of it but I do know that at some point of time in my past I didn't agree with many more parts of it. It's interesting to watch how your own outlook changes over time.

The second was seeing this under five kid in my hotel, waiting for the elevator. He had a trolley-bag for his size and was standing next to his dad, who had a trolley-bag for his size. An interesting and partially amusing "father and son" sight. This kid was happily jumping up and down with his bag, babbling something, and generally feeling happy about nothing is general. His dad next to him was the model of silence, standing quietly and soberly with his hands resting on the raised handle of the trolley-bag.
No major epiphany here. Just saw myself there. I was that kid sometime back - screaming, shouting, enjoying, having energy for doing silly things that I don't find the energy or motivation for doing now. I am like the dad now - a little more focussed, the energy reserved for what seems to be more important tasks, reserved.

Was discussing this with Bra when we left college and then again a few months back, and we both came to same conclusion both times - we were changing, fast. It still holds. Yet, there is nothing about me now that I would like to change to something from the past. I can't really say that I am changing for the better, but I seem to think that I am perfect as I am now and was far from perfect some time back. The outlook is future looking... not necessary ready for the changes to come, but not hating it either. The best is now. Advice, like youth, is probably wasted on the young, but I'd rather live it out and then dispense (and regret not listening to) the advice than live it the right way and have nothing else to show for my life. I cannot imagine how wrong the world would be if the kid was standing soberly next to his dad. Youth is meant not to listen to advice, fortunately.

I said "hi" to the kid and the dad before I left the elevator.

it's blogging time again

2007-06-20T20:26:00.000+05:30

After spending a few months not blogging about random crap that this world keeps throwing at me, it feels weird to type this stuff. But that's mostly because this keyboark is Danish and I have to spend a few seconds looking for the right keys. So if you see any unnatural symbols like ø or § or ¤ or µ or æ or ... I think you get the picture ... then just ignore them. Or try to fit them into that very accomodating language called English.

Life has been busy. Busy throwing crap at me, that is. I have been busy as well - trying to dodge all the crap ... pause, rephrase required. I have been occupied as well - attempting to cautiously and gingerly navigate the criss-cross of fecal matter that this planet has been hurling in semi-projectile fashion at yours truly. Plenty of reasons really.

One. This peanut of a cyclone (compared to the mammoth tsunami that lightly brushed the Indian coastline) that banged into Muscat some time back caused the water level to rise a few extra feet. The problem? My house is on the ground floor and all my stuff from college (the REM book, the autograph book, my letters...) has been underwater and thus effectively destroyed. Terribly pissed. Nothing I can do about it - memories of four wonderful years of my life have been destroyed by a freak of nature*.

Two. The play is over. It consumed two months of my time and occupied all my waking thoughts. Semi waking thoughts were reserved for Perizaad Zorabien and the crush of the day. I lost a few kilos actually - mighty pleased. Now there is this huge void in terms of the amount of free time I have, and I don't have much to spend it on other than watching movies and tv serials. Wish I could start something right now. Miss the stage, however crappy I might have been (not too crappy really according to reports though I could reduce my ass a bit - especially if I'm going to be wearing tights often). Photos can be found here: http://merchantsofdrama.blogspot.com

Three. I have writer's block.

Got to go now. Have to plan my trip to Berlin...

* apparently the last time a cyclone hit muscat was in.. uh.. actually.. never!

Tit for Tat

2007-04-11T15:08:00.000+05:30

(Conversation involving aunty. Arvind was watching and grinning)

...
me: "... so if you're going to do that, then they are going to do the same thing back to you. Tit for Tat."
aunty: "Don't say that! It doesn't sound nice when a guy says it..."
me: "Say what?! There is nothing that I said that was that bad..."
aunty: "Not that! Tat that..."
me: "Why??! Tit for Tat??! What's wrong (getting a naughty look from aunty)... Oh!"

(silence for 10 seconds)

Me: "Well, if you figure out what my 'tat' is then we'll trade..."
aunty: "Arvind!! Look how Aasees is troubling me!!"

:)

The indian Dilbert phenomenon..

2007-02-20T16:37:00.000+05:30

Yes, we have finally arrived! And all it took was a disgruntled IT populace. Talk about a creative philosophy...

The right to cheat?

2007-02-15T09:32:00.000+05:30

They want the right to cheat. They might just get it. This is not a law-and-order situation. I suppose Bihar could become a case-study of the effects on civilization on the paleolithic man.

Valentine's day, being single and the lowering of TV IQ

2007-02-14T17:45:00.000+05:30

It's Valentine's Day. It's past 6 in the evening. I'm at work. I guess there is nothing more to say.

I found an interesting article on rediff that talks about living alone and being single. I think I'll pick up the book. She might be right but I'm not sure if she has met IT people.
(Nowadays I don't get dreams, I get only nightmares. With the recent strain of multiple reruns of Apt Pupil on my laptop, my stressed out brain conjured up some more vivid images for me to lose sleep over. In a nutshell, my dream involved IT workers as concentration camp inmates at Dachau. In technicolor with Dolby 5.1 surround sound, minus the German.)
Anyway, my point is that there are a lot of people who enjoy being single, and then there are IT people who are competing with the cockroach for a place in society. I'm not sure their 'singleness' is out of any choice. But seriously, if you have never lived alone and enjoyed the absolute freedom (mostly from appas, ammas and a regular thairu-saadam routine) that it offers - then I sympathize.

Jasmine forwarded this mail about a major in the Indian army - Manish H Pitambare. Apparently, instead of focusing on more important news like the death of this major while leading an anti-terrorist strike, they were focusing on Sanjay Dutt and the TADA case. The mail then goes on to chastise the TV channels for their inability to prioritize news for the viewer. Initially, my reaction was:
"WTF*! It's a good thing I don't have a TV. These TV channels are getting crappier by the day. Good woman this, forwarding the right news around!".

Then when the blood finally left my balls and entered my brain**, I thought:
"WTF*** am I blaming the TV channels for this?! They are run by bloody intelligent people - most likely those pre-OBC era IIM grads. All they are doing is giving the masses what they want.."

And it's true. They are not programming us, we are programming them. The day we stop watching Aaj Tak and it's boring-to-the-point-of-brain-damage new reports, they will run back to their drawing board and find something that the viewers do want. After all, they will do anything to keep the TRP ratings high and flying. I'll cut the obvious argument, and state the obvious - the people watching TV are stupid, and are getting better at it. Want to change the crap you watch on TV? Start by not watching it (no, no, unlike the method advocated by RDB, mine does not involve shooting important people and dancing shirtless near a military installation). The world will learn. Or rather you will learn what a small percentage of the vast bovine Indian population you really are.

* What the fuck
**There is this lovely quote that goes: "God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time". Robin Williams I think...
*** Why the fuck

'Nix concepts for creating mash-ups?

2007-02-14T16:52:00.000+05:30

Yahoo pipes seems to have taken a basic 'nix* concept and converted it into something tremendously powerful - a personalized data manipulation tool with all the power of internet-based syndication behind it. What makes this step so important is the enormity of the data being handled. RSS feeds will have mutli-terabyte databases generating the content; users will be pooling in multiple sources of data. Yahoo pipes essentially puts the power of an information database into the hands of a user, and then allows customization in a very database-oriented way - all through a GUI.

How Yahoo will handle the sheer processing involved in executing the pipes is beyond me. Anyone who has worked with the 'nix shell will know that when pipes go beyond 3 or 4 levels then the time taken to process large data is an unknown. This is very important because there is an implicit serial element in pipes - sometimes it is not possible to get on with the next job until the previous one has finished giving it's output. Thus the kind of optimization that databases do on SQL queries cannot be done in general manner when using pipes. Which is not to say that a certain amount of optimization cannot be done, yet it will always be less than what a database offers in terms of a well written SQL query.

Still, there is nothing like the power of a 'nix machine and it's concepts. To see them taken and applied to the internet does warm my heart. And extra brownie points to Yahoo for making it accessible to someone with a below-normal IQ**. Though I still doubt if it is simple enough for my parents to use, especially since it requires a minimal awareness about DBMS and RSS. And they have a long way to go before they reach the kind of power and freedom that 'nix pipes offer. (Great idea though!)

Wonder if any more of the 'nix concepts can be moved to an internet level..

* 'nix: Unix. Meant to encompass all flavours an derivatives including Linux
** IQ : Internet Quotient. It is how easily you adapt and work with technology related to the internet.

Dialectics, intelligent conversation, and the death of theatre

2007-01-27T10:36:00.000+05:30

Email threads with Abhay always have interesting content. I pointed this out to him with the additional observation that they are ideal fodder for blog posts. Which led him to conclude that it's dialectics that sets me thinking. Probably true. The outcome either way is that there is a lot of stuff from our mail conversations sitting here on this blog.

Yet, it's not often that one has an intelligent conversation, even in a city like Bangalore that claims cultural superiority. One doesn't get much of a chance to pick intelligent statements out of everyday conversation and build other conversations off those. Very dumb and boring people in the world - almost always concerned with tax, shares, cars, property or tech. Don't get me wrong - I do like tech, but I do for at least 8 hours in a day and would love not to talk about it. Nowadays I stick to subtle sarcasm for petty thrills and use it as a cheap substitute for a discussion. This earned me the title of Narad muni from the discerning ones in the group. I decided that I would assume the title and it's responsibilities and now take to saying Narayan Narayan every once in a while to keep up the image.

One part of our discussion was about Monty Python and there was the usual "have you seen this and that..". Basically, we both had seen everything and in that list of everything was Monty Python: Live at the Hollywood Bowl. Abhay thought that the television sketches that were the essential elements of Hollywood Bowl show were done better on the telly. Funda being that the setting was more authentic. And that came down to the theatre vs. movies and telly debate. As he puts it:

I agree that on the part of the actor, drama in front of a live-audience without cuts and retakes is tougher. But, the bottom-line is that the audience needs to be entertained. Given that there are patrons for stage, but more generally speaking, the number is reducing and there is always a lot of emphasis on trying to preserve culture. With all due respect, is it actually something to really preserve or just another nostalgic activity to be continued?
Hmmm... interesting question [scratching non-existent beard]. It got me thinking (which sort of proves his point about being triggered by dialectics).

In a way, I think theatre is dying. Partly because of the intelligence qoutient of the junta is reaching abysmally low levels, and partly because of the way movies have developed. The movies have a way of reaching people in a much more sense-enchancing way. At times you can be completely immersed in a movie with all conscious senses captured by the movie. Theatre unfortunately falls short.

The aspect of preserving I agree with, because an art once developed should never be lost even if it is anachronistic and useless. Something about the absolute growth in the knowledge-base of the arts and sciences seems to fascinate me. But it is one thing to entertain and another to preserve. Classical music concerts still go full-house in the south. That is purely because the artist is able to keep the audience engaged at all times. They are capable of doing it and they understand the importance of doing so. There probably are ways of keeping the audience entertained in theatre as well - irrespective of the culture being used/preserved in the process.
Evam I think has understood this well. Triggered by them, maybe we'll see theatre retain it's niche in entertainment. If a certain number of talented people take it up every year, then theatrical techniques (whether they are used or not) will be preserved as well..

Return to innocence

2007-01-27T09:35:00.000+05:30

Abhay and I were talking about innocence and the elaborate schemes that adults conjure up just to protect that innocence that kids are supposed to have. And being the good adults that we are, we solemnly nodded and grunted (over email of course) in agreement with this adult obsession. An interesting irony though... adults are as obsessed about the stuff that constitutes loss of innocence, as they are about preserving innocence for the kids.

But I was given a good idea about how innocent the kids really are yesterday evening. My cousin, who is in class 7, and I were helping my aunt in the birthday decorations for my youngest cousin's birthday party. I ordered him around a bit and he comes up to me, looks me in the eye, and says (in a rather threatening and menacing tone): "cock up yours". Heh?? I mean... what the fcuk is happening to the world!!? Even I don't use that kind of language! People should be protecting my innocence!! Cock up yours it seems.

I found out about this sort of thing in the first year of college (where my poor innocent ears heard a lot more - mostly thanks to Midhun and his Opal phonecalls). This kid knows it in class 7; I'm not sure if he knows what it means and I don't want to find out. Now I'm scared to have a kid of my own now - it'll come screaming out into the world, look at me and say "cock up yours".

Gokarna...

2007-01-23T18:04:00.000+05:30

Ameya, Sid, Raj, Lodu, Mando. No trek. No concrete plans. Just two days of lazing around, eating and swimming. Clear blue waters. Clear night sky (you can see the arm of the Milky Way without an effort). Great food.

Relaxation...

Ameya being adventurous. On our way to Kudle beach.

View of the main Gokarna beach from the hill between Kudle beach and Gokarna beach.

On the hill between Kudle beach and Om beach.

Om beach...

On the rock that forms part of the "Om" (the beach is in the shape of an "Om" - which is how it gets it's name)

One of the shacks..

Out of our shack - leaving for the town

Walking along Kudle - time for lunch

Raj, Lodu and me chilling at one of the shacks

That dog is what kept us occupied for over 2 hours.

General timepass. Lodu pretending to be a major book-addict.

General Info:
1. Very, very nice place. There are four main tourist beaches - Kudle, Om, Half-moon and Paradise. In terms of size Kudle is the biggest, but Om is more commercialized. Half-moon is not worth mentioning as a beach and Paradise looks like a hippie joint.

2. There is a direct KSRTC bus available from Bangalore to Gokarna. It takes 12 hours to get there so be mentally prepared if you're not too fond of bus journeys. The return is a slight problem - you cannot book it in Bangalore. You have to book the return in Gokarna. There is a quota of 5 seats reserved for the Bangalore ticket counter so getting a ticket itself might be a problem.
KSRTC is not the only option. VRL buses ply on the Bangalore-Gokarna route.

3. Carry cash. Not lots of it, but enough. The tickets (up and down) will cost you close to 1K. I didn't find any place that took credit or debit cards so don't run out of cash.

4. Kudle beach is about 20 mins walking distance from Gokarna. Om is 20 minutes walking distance from Kudle beach. There are plenty of shacks/huts on Kudle beach that go for anything between Rs. 100 to Rs. 300 per day. Expect plenty of foreigners to be there, so you might have to a little shack-to-shack enquiry before you find a place.

5. Food is not a problem (unless you are an idli-dosa-curd-rice type). You get all sorts of non-vegetarian (and vegetarian) food. Cuisines supported in almost all shacks are Israeli, Continental, Mexican, Italian and British. Loads of seafood available. Prices are not steep - cheaper than Bangalore, but definitely costlier than one expects in an isolated place such as Gokarna.

program to reverse the words in a string

2007-01-11T09:46:00.000+05:30

Question: Reverse the words in a sentence, i.e. "My name is Chris" becomes "Chrisis name My." Optimize for speed. Optimize for space.

Basic Algorithm
1. Reverse the complete string
2. Find the individual words - they are demarcated by spaces or the end of the string
3. reverse the individual words

Space complexity
The space taken is the size of the string (n). Local variables are considered to take negligible memory. The algorithm works in place, so no extra space is taken. This is the minimum possible space.
(AFAIK this is the best space complexity that one can achieve)

Time Complexity
Hmm... cannot say if this is the most optimized for time. The strrev function is relatively optimized. The complete string reverse operation has a strlen() operation done which is obviously not very efficient because of a complete string traversal but I can't think of any other way right now.
So the split should be:
O(n) for string length calculation
O(n/2) for reversal
~O(n) for individual word reversal
The net time complexity is still O(n) (is it? I totally forget my CLRS..)


#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>


char string[20];


void strrev(char *start, char* end)
{
 char temp;

 if( !start || !end ) //null pointer check
  return; 

 for(; start<=end; start++, end-- )
 {
  temp = *start;
  *start = *end;
  *end = temp;
 }
}


int main()
{
 char* tempstr = string;
 char* tempstr2;

 //input the string
 printf("Enter the string with words: ");
 scanf("%[^\n]s", string);

 //do a complete reverse first
 strrev( tempstr, tempstr+strlen(tempstr)-1 );
 printf( "%s\n", tempstr, string );

 //now reverse the individual words
 while( *tempstr!=0 )
 {
  tempstr2 = tempstr;

  //move till a space or end of string is found
  while( tempstr2 && (*tempstr2!=' ' && *tempstr2!=0) )
    tempstr2++; 

  strrev( tempstr, tempstr2-1 );

  tempstr = tempstr2+1;
 }

 printf( "%s\n", string );
}

The Bandipur Trek

2007-01-10T10:15:00.000+05:30

Bangalore - Mysore - GopalaswamyBetta - Bandipur - GopalaswamyBetta - Mysore - Banglaore! One Sumo, six guys, two cameras, lots of booze, one forest ranger with a gun = one whacko trip! It's practically a tradition for Bra and me. We do something before the new year and then sleep while the new year dawns. This time it was a trek at GopalaswamyBetta, bordering Bandipur, with a few of his colleagues and my parpota. The trek was just an excuse; it was more like "booze in the hills".

There was no place to stay there as such, so we "persuaded" the forest guard there to let us stay at a shack, give us a bonfire and take us on a trek into Bandipur the next day - all of which are illegal. The entire process itself was amusing with Sachin trying his best to reduce the prices with typical northi josh. It is worth appreciating the Indian bribery system when on the side that is able to afford the bribes without much problem. I just hope that I will never have to be on any other side (including the ones taking the bribe).

We had a great bonfire and the booze was flowing - triple-distilled Absolut and apple-flavoured Smirnoff. We all got drunk and had a few colourful episodes of drunken revelry. It's a surprise that any of us were awake to go trekking the next day. Trekking itself wasn't so great (mostly because we were sleepy and got even more tired), but a bunch of partly drunk guys with an impending hangover can be a whole lot of fun. We forgot to take water along, we were slightly high (even in the morning), and right in the middle of the trek eveyone felt like shitting. The sheer unanimity of the shitting episode was humourous. Of course, since we hadn't brought water along we had to use leaves and water from a teeny little spring along the way. Eventful... and sure beats paying 2.5K going stag to one of the new year parties.

PS: Rahul, Ankit, Adi - next year? Kompella, Rams, TVS - you were missed.

PPS: The return of the blog!

On the rocks: Down there is where we came from..

On the rocks: the hill next to GopalaswamyBetta. It has an excellent view of the plains below and of one part of Bandipur. It overlooks another little mountain lake that is (apparently) frequented by tigers and tuskers.

On the rocks: generally lazing around

The temple: The temple atop GopalaswamyBetta

The lake next to the temple. 15 mins through 5 foot high grass to get there from the temple

The lake near the temple: a beautiful sunset

Here! Here! Take a photo of me as well!!

ZeBra and the Mando: our long planned and prayed for trip together. The much needed vacation...

Our shack for the night

Another view of our palatial residence

Bhoot bangla

Generally monkeying around at night..

Entering Bandipur. GopalaswamyBetta temple in the distance

Somewhere in the middle of Bandipur

les tribals de Bandipur... sorry.. that's us..

Jungle mein (Sachin) Mangal. Me thinks he was still quite high when the trek started...

The wall: Apparently built by the Cholas, that is the unofficial boundary that marks out Bandipur.

The Ranger: Our very patient guide. Have got to admire his stamina - we walked up and down hills for about 3 hours and he didn't pause or break a sweat. Us software engineers are so out of shape :D

At the lake at the foot of GopalaswamyBetta

Sauron or Voldemort?

2006-11-02T16:04:00.000+05:30

Found this on the thread for Sauron or Voldemort in the LOTR community. Hilarious :D. Me thinks the Cyborg will whole-heartedly agree with this.

CMON......
Killed by love????
how gay is that????

Cheers to Shraddha for putting it so well. Is there even a contest?

[Rediff] Who is reading my mail?

2006-11-02T14:49:00.000+05:30

An interesting article on the laws upholding personal privacy in India (or in the case of out country, the laws not upholding them).

The Bartimaeus Trilogy

2006-10-30T06:58:00.000+05:30

The Bartimaeus Trilogy is a fantasy tale revolving around the djinni Bartimaeus. Can't really say if it's Brit humour, but the dry wit of the djinni is quite interesting. The author has an interesting style of explaining things in footnotes, which are sometimes quite extensive and cover half the page. The character delineation is good, and the author uses the internal conflicts of the characters quite well in the third book. Above all, it's good because it's ending is not an "all's well that ends well" type (ok! Sorry for the spoiler!). Like all trilogies the first part arouses interest because it's different, the second just about pulls through and sets the stage for the third part, and the third is the dramatic finale. In fact, I quite liked the third book - it delves slightly deeper into the psyche of the characters and plays with the soft/human side of all the characters.

This trilogy cannot be compared with The Lord of the Rings (which is not really a trilogy, but an epic). For one, LOTR is too complicated for average readers. The author has made life easier by keeping a modern setting and using as few magical terms as possible. Any terms used are explained well (the footnotes!) and in the spirit of Bartimaeus' character. This brings the book close to the Harry Potter series, and I would say quite frankly that it is better than the Harry Potter series. Simply because, at the end of the day, JK Rowling is still writing books for kids. If you are going to call making out as snogging and names of wizarding places are just homophones of common geometric terms, then kids are definitely your primary audience (though nowadays Emma Watson is pulling in a more mature (?) audience).

All in all, a good read. Good time-pass fiction that will your keep interest (though the second book does drag a bit, I guarantee that the third will more than make up).

It's all about the ambience

2006-10-09T20:24:00.000+05:30

It must be wonderful to be a software engineer. You get unlimited pizza for staying back late and working, geek-speak is nurtured like an indulgent child, and music of various genres is piped from the ceiling while you pee. For our listening pleasure I suppose.

Yet many a time I used to wonder whether this was one of those things that utterly velaa scientists would have researched and come to conclusions of astronomical significance. "Study shows that relaxed coders might just code", "Music soothes the brute" and "Filling timesheets is satori in disguise" could just have caught the eye of one of those excel-sheet-pushers. That and some complicated managerial logic resulted in many software engineers looking up at the ceiling in complete bewilderment rather than looking down and concentrating on the job at hand (no puns indended) while visiting the john.

I suppose it's fine to play music but their choices are terrible. And by that I mean Himesh Reshammiya. I know it's quite the rage to be anti-Himesh right now, but I have my reasons. Personally, I dont care whether he sings through his nose or his buttocks. I don't even mind it when he influences young and impressionable minds (my cousin in Blore who thinks that Himesh is Beethoven's reincarnation) to move away from true music. Yet what I do mind is when the uncle from the previous decade gets into Himesh josh - especially since he owns that lovely Bose system on which we listen to songs by BodhiTree (with feeling and empathy I might add). Fine. Can be digested. But Himesh in the office pot? True constipation.

Wait!... I hear "Babuji zara dheere chalo" playing...

The true watering hole of the 21st century.

The rise and rise of fundamentalism

2006-09-08T18:54:00.000+05:30

I have just finished reading India Unbound. Very thought-provoking. Somewhere towards the end of the book he mentions two factors that will increasingly affect India and the world in general. One is the stabilizing force of capitalism and globalization. It will bring prosperity and increasing peace as no country that participates will risk war as the damage done to the economy will be more than the damage caused by the war itself. The second is a mix of quasi-religious and fundamental forces that are trying to separate out the world. Currently it has one face – Osama Bin Laden, but there are many other faces that are unseen.

I had just finished that chapter in the book when my landlord’s younger son [Kiran] knocked on my door. He had come to inform me about something related to the maid. One thing led to another and we were talking about whether the current chief minister was doing a good job. “Of course”, he replied. “He is going from village to village and sleeping there, and he is taking good care of us”.

Kiran didn't have the ability to disconnect seemingly random events and their causes. To him, everything is one smooth string of time – if it happened before, it had to be a cause whether or not it was related. Among other things, there is no relation between sleeping in many villages and good governance.

“Us? Who is us?” That was an inadvertent and irrelevant question and I didn’t really mean to ask it. He was being too general and I was in a mood to just bite at his logic. It popped out, and an instant later I thought “eh? The kannadigas obviously”

“The Hindus”.

And that’s what made that irrelevant question highly relevant, and changed the focus of the conversation completely.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“See... before this the Congress government... ”

“Dharam Singh?” I asked quite stupidly.

“Yes yes... that government was ruling.”

“Ok... so?”

“Congress is the supporter of these minorities, and when they became the government all sorts of nonsense was happening.”

“Like what?”

“Like… some time back there was this foreign man* who came. To preach. They took the whole of Jakkur airfield for that. And they were doing all sorts of things there. When he touches a man who has been deaf for his whole life that man suddenly is able to hear. And then there will be a big show and hoohaa about this.”

“So…” Normally I would have gone all out and lectured about the personal rights, but this time it was my time to listen.

“If you want to do such things then do it inside your church. Why do you have to go to such a large area like Jakkur airfield and do it in front of the whole world? And all this is happening because the government is supporting all these minorities. All of us protested and no one was happy so JD(S) changed its support to the BJP and now everything is ok.”

At that time I thought that it was some rant by some silly boy, and the world was generally indifferent to such junk – no one would bother to attend and by consequence no one else would care about any misuse of part-military land. Then I used Google and this is what I turned up**.

That was just the start of the monologue that he was to deliver that evening for about half an hour. He talked about Nepal and how it was really good in being a Hindu state. He talked about the door-to-door preachers and how along with the neighbours he caught the evangelists, called in the police, and they all charged them with trying to convert people against their will. He talked about the neighbours and them living and pretending to be Hindus even though everyone knew that they were Christians. He knew that the money for funding these conversions came from outside India. He questioned why Muslims were exempt from singing the Vande Mataram if they were Indian.

The stunning part is that he is part of a very normal family. His father is probably one of the most humble people I have met, and is a genuinely nice person. Ironically, he is aloof and cares for little outside his life (though his life involves an extraordinary number of activities pertaining to music, theatre and art in general). The image of the true middle class working man. His mother shares the same values as his father – the image of the true middle class housewife. How then did he turn out with such radical ideas?

Gurcharan Das talks about globalization and the peace it brings. To Kiran, globalization also represents an attack on his religion, his beliefs. To him, a multinational corporation investing in India is indistinguishable from churches outside India funding conversions. It is too young a mind to have such negative thoughts – thoughts that will only solidify unless someone makes a persistent effort to remove them. And there are going to be a whole lot more like him. It makes no difference if he's unable to logically separate cause, effect and other events; the fact that he exists and thinks that way is reason enough to sit up and listen carefully to what he is saying (and then start worrying).

A line from Def Leppard’s When love and hate collide seems appropriate – “When the truth is like a stranger, hits you right between the eyes”. India is getting scarier at a level we close our eyes to. And the entire blogsphere ranting about it (as it usually does) is not going to help…

*Benny Hinn. The Hindu has this on him.
** Also turned up other evangelism related articles: link1, link2

Does god have project management headaches?

2006-08-27T01:54:00.000+05:30

If God had a plan when he created the universe and set it on it's current path, he would be wishing that all things go right according to that plan - with as little a fuss as possible. And since he's all powerful, he can make sure it actually does go according to plan. So all requests to change the course of this dramatic plan just because of some lowly employee's ecclesiastical whinings are going to be happily rejected. No use praying to him huh?

If he didn't have a plan, then conflicting requests would require him to use his all-transcending knowledge to choose the better request. Heck, if that was so then its just as well that us Indians figured out infinite ways of bribing even God, with strategies including divide-and-prey.. ahem pray, and buttering the wife (Swaha!). Not really much of a god then huh? Well, no one said that he had to be omni-goody-two-shoes - capitalism works everywhere. And if he didnt have a plan, why this entire charade in the first place??

All these problems because of us confounded workers!! Explains why he got Lucifer to do the resource management..

Having had a slight whiff of project and resource management (and it's headaches), I'm convinced that if God ever did any such work, he's too scared to repeat the process.

What is the word of one man?

2006-08-21T10:37:00.000+05:30

What is the word of one man? I wonder if it’s the person behind the word or the word itself that wields such immense power.

“Take care of Khalid”. My father was clasping my mother’s hand. “This will end faster than you can imagine. The Americans are coming, and once they come we will not have to worry about anything.” A single tear rolled down my mother’s cheek, and father caught it on his index finger, where it shimmered like mercury. “Ah ah... there will be no more of that. Your tears are more precious than water in the desert. Now promise me you will take care of Khalid.”

“I promise. Promise me you will come back…” There was an earnest plea in her eyes. There was a twinkle in my father’s eyes. He smiled a mischievous smile. “I promise”.

The Americans were late by a week, and my father was sent out to combat the Iraqis in the sky. Two out of three squadrons were wiped out, and we were sure that father was one of them. Yet, no news was good news.

On the third day, the Iraqis started the bombing, and the first to get hit was the military base next to the one my father was stationed in. Mother spent most of her time praying now. I prayed too. There was still no news from father. Yet, no news was good news.

One day before the Americans arrived, an army truck stopped outside our house. A young man in a crisp uniform saluted my mother and handed over an envelope. On the envelope was written “to the wife of Lt. Muhammad bin Salem”. My mother was too much in shock to register the saluting soldier, or his departure, or my frantic shaking of her arm. She crumbled to the ground as she opened the letter and read it. And then she laughed – he was alive! He would be relieved of duty the next day, for three days. He was coming home to us.

After tucking me into bed that night, my mother went to the neighbour’s house to get some sugar. There were sweets to be made in the morning, and that was no time to go around looking for sugar. And that is when the Scuds hit. The Iraqis has started bombing civilian targets. My mother was the first of them. My father found out when he came home the next day. He did not crumble to the ground as he was told what happened last night. He looked at me, squeezed my shoulder and then went inside to arrange for the funeral rites.

It never rains in the desert, but that night it rained. It rained like it was the desert’s only chance to quench its thirst in a thousand years. And from my window, in the rain, I could see my father with his proud shoulders slumped. Crying quietly against the thunderstorm. He had fulfilled his promise. He had come back…

What is the word of one man? Is it like a tear, lost when shed in the rain? Or is it like nectar, treasured when shed in the desert? I prefer to think that it’s just a tear. That only the one who shed it knows its worth.

NOTE: I was not high when I wrote this. Nor was I mooning over some lost love. Just a story. Was moved by the last five minutes of Blade Runner - that's the inspiration.

Those famous chinese signs...

2006-07-29T10:29:00.000+05:30

Seen at the Beijing Zoo's aquarium, Nag and me spent about 10 minuted trying to fathom what this sign was trying to tell us. The locals seemed to get it because they stopped, had a look, nodded gravely and then walked on. Or maybe that's because there was an equivalent chinese version above the english one.

No no... it's not what you think. It's a normal grocery shop (yes, that implies that I have been inside). The sign is just a publicity stunt - brings in the tourists.

The chinese are very specific about what they want. They want exactly this and nothing else - and they build a temple for that. The germans should learn...

Civilization propagation? Hmm.. considering china's current population, I would say that this company has been rather successful.

middle?

and like the sex shop, they dont wash lilies here.

A small spelling mistake...

... and a really big one.

It must be one of those new-fangled chinese copies. Didnt get the opportunity to use it though...

Kickass piece. foriegn affairs ministry.. killing animals...

they are really really specific...

me smoke no anyways fire preventing so

And the piece de resistance. Before you laugh and fall off the chair, I suggest you look up the meaning of the word 'toggery'. And they said the chinese were bad in english..

[flash news] The bong's bong girlfriend

2006-07-27T10:37:00.000+05:30

Murugeshpalya, 25 July 2006: After an eternity spent alone, morose and bitter, the uncle from the previous decade (known to us as Abesh) has finally found himself a girlfriend - or so he says. Rumours (from the horses mouth) claim that she is a real female, and is bong, and sweet, and full of sugar and spice, and... you get the picture. Initial reactions from duly informed junta have mostly centred around the theme: "Is she a girl? Really??", which seems to originate from the complementary albeit silent thought: "Which girl on earth will go out with this langur?". PGK however provided moral support by stating "She's bong? Then she has to be hot!".

Even though the relationship has been sealed (without a kiss), there is some considerable doubt whether the uncle's juvenile behaviour will keep it that way. Pointers in that direction are the uncle's fascination for all things live-in, jeans and relationships included. However, a small chat with Mando and Cyborg at Mando's place, has enlightened the uncle of the possibility of spending another eternity (alone, morose and bitter) without a girlfriend if he continues to pursue his quest for "an enlightened relationship with the process of procreation but without it's results".

While a certain amount of skepticism has been placed on the existence of this angel, the 12^th of August will reveal all. For the sake of anonymity (and since we have nothing against the Esmeralda who gave our hunchback uncle another shot at life) we shall not reveal her name.

Furthur questions can be directed to the uncle (I like this new name way better than his self-christened "Error"), who can be found on orkut.

**** Update ****
While one knows that bongs in general can be hot-headed, a certain amount of care must be taken not to anger the uncle (especially because of his unused thing..lance..whatever). And not making fun of his girl is not enough - targeting him alone will invite his wrath. However, gay jokes about him will still be taken in good spirit. In the true spirit of journalism (and so that we are not stabbed to death in our sleep) we shall continue to avoid any sort of slander against the angel.

The truth shall set you free, but populist essays can be much more entertaining...

QOTD

2006-06-28T14:30:00.000+05:30

"Aye.. show me some tigers man!"
- Nagbaby, after 2 hours of an unfruitful lookout for tigers during a jeep ride into the jungle (teambuilding@Bhadra). Nagbaby was given the false hope that he would get to see a tiger when the driver showed us an apparently fresh pugmark of a tiger.

"Fake chinese tiger..."
- Nagbaby, after seeing a sleeping tiger at the Beijing Zoo that did not move for about 5 minutes.

Twisted equality

2006-06-27T08:41:00.000+05:30

The great bong manages to give another instance of a worrying trend here. We know we are pretentious on a range of issues, and the great bong manages to capture that well...

QOTD

2006-06-26T09:19:00.000+05:30

"If you have the patience to wait long enough, either the answer will become apparent or the question will become irrelevant."
- Mando, in an epiphanic moment while dining with the rest of the team @ Eudora, and watching a desperately monotonous match between England and Ecuador where both teams were playing worse than I used to in school. Nagbaby in the mean time had managed to make a burrito out of his pizza, and Lalit had the hiccups - which was a source of great amusement to the waitress (who did not hesitate the slightest in showing it).

Tequilla and Salt

2006-06-26T09:08:00.000+05:30

(Thanks to Madhur for posting this on the Compsci group)

(Convo between Narad and Brahma)
Narad: "My lord, I fail to understand this human race."
Brahma: "What happened Naarad?"
Narad: "They just don't behave expectedly, every time I expect a particular behavior they behave differently."
Brahma: "Don't take humans as one. They all are unique, they all are different. But I can tell you one way which will make your life simpler."
Narad: "And what is that divine wisdom my lord?"
Brahma: "The secret is to take humans as belonging to one of five broad categories. For example suppose five humans are sitting close to a lemon tree and few lemons fall…"

1.The Ignorant: He sees it, thinks something and goes back into his own thoughts.

2. The Cynic: He picks up a lemon and tastes it. Furious with the bitter & sour taste he cries out,"What a frivolous life… What a wasteful fruit".

3. The Maarwaari: He picks up all the lemons (fallen as well as on the tree) and goes to the market to sell them.

4. The Cheerful: He believes in 'When life gives you lemon… make a lemonade' and he does exactly that.

5. The Jolly Good Weirdo: He gets up, picks up a lemon and moves on… in search of Tequila and salt.

As posted on the Compsci group, the question is - "which one are you?"

PS: I'm sitting under the lemon tree, waiting for the lemon to fall. Par woh aati nahin..

wat yu ree ding?

2006-06-24T22:00:00.000+05:30

Found some nice chinese phrases. Enjoy maadi! :)

Are you harboring a fugitive? Hu Yu Hai Ding?

See me A.S.A.P. - Kum Hia Nao

Stupid Man - Dum Gai

Small Horse - Tai Ni Po Ni

Your price is too high!!! - No Bai Dam Thing!!

Did you go to the beach? - Wai Yu So Tan

I bumped into a coffee table - Ai Bang Mai Ni

I think you need a facelift - Chin Tu Fat

It's very dark in here - Wai So Dim?

Has your flight been delayed? - Hao Long Wei Ting?

That was an unauthorized execution - Lin Ching

I thought you were on a diet - Wai Yu Mun Ching?

This is a tow away zone - No Pah King

Do you know lyrics to the Macarena? - Wai Yu Sing Dum Song?

You are not very bright - Yu So Dum

I got this for free - Ai No Pei

I am not guilty - Wai Hang Mi?

Please, stay a while longer - Wai Go Nao?

Meeting was scheduled for next week - Wai You Kum Nao

They have arrived - Hia Dei Kum

Stay out of sight - Lei Lo

He's cleaning his automobile - Wa Shing Ka

He is a fat man - Wun Fat Gai

blog feeds

2006-06-22T10:31:00.000+05:30

You might want to try out http://reader.google.com. You can subscribe to RSS feeds and not miss out on any new content. Good for blogs.

oru kutty ha-has

2006-06-22T09:17:00.000+05:30

It all started with Madan writing a testimonial for me. The funny part about it is that after reading it, I got the distinct feeling that if it wasn't a testimonial then there would be a lot of Mando-bashing going around. It was almost as if the true sentiment was being shackled by the need to write something good in that space. Which got me wondering...

No, the wondering was not why Madan would do such a thing. I know I am a complete harami and I have no qualms in stating it (for all those who didn't know, please ignore that - I'm a really sweet boy :)). What I did wonder about was the effectiveness or the purpose of a testimonial. Have you ever seen a testimonial that said "That guy is a total jerk who ruined my life the day I met him. Apart from that he's as sweet as Hitler". I guess not. So if all testimonials for the 10 million+ people on orkut are going to be good (and use the same adjectives) , then what exactly is it's purpose? More pointedly (as inspired by Freakonomics), what is the point of writing all the other stuff that you put on your profile?

"Anyway it's all chaat", was used by Bra to describe my profile. The background was that I was slowly removing information from my profile. I deleted photos, removed some information about my profession, and completely removed the personal section. If you think about it, orkut is largely a fun way of keeping in touch. For most people the fun involves e-flaunting and e-flirting. The biggest pull (initially) was the opportunity to ogle at photographs of various females and contact them (if you are the gutsy kind). Although you will also have to deal with public embarrasment, like Teke had to:

Teke (hindi movie ka hero scraps the female):
Hello

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Happy Dasara..

Sonal: jee.... Aap Kaun?

Such kelas are common; and thanks to people like Chodu and me, are made public to the entire world. Of humour there is no shortage...

1. ranganathan an integral part in my life...it seems 2day that there was a divine drama which was played between our relationship...when both of us started 2 realy feel 4 each v wer miles apart(physically) it is needles 2 say that both of miss each other...he is realy caring,luving n 4 ppl who r realy close 2 him know that he is a real "GENTLEMAN"...his humour sense is another gr8 quality...note these words"here is a person who will in near future will do some thing significant for his nation"... he is now just preparing himself 4 sucess... i wish him gud luck
The author is not a female, it's a guy called Ganesh.

2. roll roll roll ur joint gently down the line
take a toke inhale that smoke and blow ur frikin mind ....
A winner for life...

3. The pre-requisite for being homo sapiens sapiens..

4. A well known high-school... (someone tell me if there really is something like that)

5. Testimonial: ...well she is "Beauty with No brains" lolzz... (you don't get much of that nowadays)

6.
first thing you will notice about me: u tell me!!! what on earth did you see?
(Actually, I checked the profile at night, so not much...)

** Update 11:14 am IST **
Added Jaggu to my crush list. @Jaggu: no offence meant dude :)

Trip to the Great Wall of China

2006-06-19T09:13:00.000+05:30

The plan was for the three of us – Rajeeb, his wife Anamika and me, to leave the hotel by 9:30 so that we got the bus stand on time. And we managed to leave on time. Got to the Da Shen Men bus stand on time, got the 919 bus ahead of the long queue waiting for it (no idea how that happened) and had a nice nap on the way to the Great Wall. It is a nice place, and it would be a lot nicer if all conversations with the locals were not happening in DumbC.

And how was the Great Wall? It is one big wall…

(We have a Great Wall too – it’s called Rahul Dravid. Hehehe…)

I dunno.. highly vague..

2006-06-16T13:57:00.000+05:30

Got the idea from Abesh's blog. The dude has not put up the link correctly so I had to google and get the link (@Abesh: fix that!). Apparently very true for him. I have no idea if it is for me or not. Who cares.. just another 30-second psychometric test which is probably just as good as a three hour one.

Your Birthdate: March 22

You tend to be understated and under appreciated.
You have a hidden force to do amazing things, doing them your own way.
People may see you as strange and shy, but they know little.
Your unconventional ways have more power than they (and even you) know.

Your strength: Standing up for what you know is true

Your weakness: You tend to be picky and rigid

Your power color: Silver

Your power symbol: Square

Your power month: April

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

"So how are the chinki girls..?"

2006-06-16T09:01:00.000+05:30

They are green and scaly and they smell of fish, and at night they turn into beautiful nymphs whose sole aim is to lay innocent foreigners and then kill them. Later, the sperm are harvested for a secret bio-weapons project by the Chinese government. During the day, they will only rob you and yet mercifully, they will let you live.

I am so sick and tired of that question. And it's not just frustrated and horny male engineers who are asking me this question (with the "well, did you get any?" tone evident in their drooling). I get this question even from females, and non-engineering ones as well (with the "I hope for god's sake that you have some luck at least in China" just as evident). What on earth is the world coming to? I'm beginning to wonder whether I have become dysfunctional in some way, or my real job is to covertly check out the female species in China.

Ok, for the record (the first and the last time) - they are fine. Human beings with 2 hands, one nose and 2 eyes (and the usual features that I'm not going to elaborate). All of them look pretty much the same, and I like Indian chicks any day of the year. And I hadn't found a cute one until yesterday (she works in the hotel).

Now please please please do not ask me that question again...

oh.. those bastards..

2006-06-08T14:24:00.000+05:30

The reservation debate is not about the right way to move forward, or the wrong way. At it’s core it is casteist. If it was about financial difficulties there are different ways of addressing the problem. If it was about incapability of getting into premier colleges – there are ways of tackling that as well (innumerable articles have now been published about primary and secondary school education and how they have failed). And everyone really knows that it is all finally about caste. There is no point in throwing numbers around (especially since the last real numbers came in 1931) because numbers will not change a thing. So this is not a rant about Arjun Singh, or Manmohan Singh’s incapabilities, or Sonia’s moves to destroy a nation with a fascination for white-skin. It’s about caste (yes, that dirty topic that everyone claims to be above).

I cannot be non-casteist and Indian at the same time. I was under the impression that some things are above attack and that I need not protect the sanctity of my libertarian beliefs. And I have been proved wrong consistently. The result is that I am a cynic.

Despite being so hardened, there are things that still anger me. It's a great idea - a Machiavellian classic. One must know what is the representation of the different sects in each sphere and sub-sphere of life; it's just the kind of information that one cannot live without. Classification, sub-classification and more sub-classification. Divide and rule.

Yes, I'm a brahmin (an Iyer to be more precise). Yes, that makes me a person from the most forward of castes. But for years I argued with people about the irrelevance of this in the modern world: parents (most of all), batchies in college, and random people making random comments not meant for my ears. For years I maintained that religion did not matter; it only divided people. For years I maintained that we were progressing out of such trivialities, and my identity at birth would not be needed. I was a brahmin by birth but never a brahmin by thought - but oh you bastards, you will make me one. I am being forced to believe that I was born more fortunate, more intelligent and more equal that most others.

Most of the quota supporters are hiding behind the “upliftment of the downtrodden” shield. Yet it is certain that in a fixed resource system, artificially promoting one group will cause the decline of others. It is impossible for the government to increase resources in the premier instiutions and get them functional within a year (less than a year now). It effectively remains a fixed resource system. Thus in a fixed resource system one cannot use the word upliftment – the word has to be discrimination.

Some bold ones have actually brought it down to the 2000-years-of-discrimination* funda. They seethe with resentment that is not caused by anything that they have ever faced; just ghosts of the past that haunt them, and us. And we have equal right to bristle – we gave up that control voluntarily. Social reforms were initiated at a time and place when the consequence was effectively sacrilege – and mostly by the brahmins. Careful dinning into cringing minds the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Eventually, the non-conforming brahmins came about to these ideas, but I’m uncertain about the rest of the populace. What can one do if the mind eternally cringes?

I find a Jews and Brahmins similar. Superficially there is absolutely no relation, but only if you dig deeper to find the core beliefs that drive each set do the similarities arise. These beliefs might be found elsewhere, but they are most deeply entrenched in these societies. I hope that the similarity does not extend to events faced by the Jews. It makes me wonder whether we will ever be treated like aliens in our own land. Whether a time will come for us to demand our own oasis, our own Israel…

*The 2000-years of discrimination funda is basically about brahmins suppressing dalits for 2000 years. Factually, it was never 2000 years. Caste stratification and solidification was a rather recent phenomenon (relatively). Arguable. But then again, who among those who live remembers more than their own lifetime? Does more than the current lifetime matter?

Next stop - The City of Dis

2006-06-05T15:16:00.000+05:30

Found it via (the) GreatBong's blog. The result is not something new. If not St. Peter, my relatives will surely send me there. Or at least keep me away from my currently god-fearing cousins. May god (??) bless them with understanding - eventually, everyone will join me :)

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Extreme
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

yes, yes... I'm in China

2006-06-05T12:15:00.000+05:30

Don't be surprised - I'm still recovering from the shock. And if I haven't told you it's because there wasn't any time. I found out on Friday that I was supposed to leave on Saturday night. It was a blitzkreig. Even the passport (and the chinese visa) came just in time.

After travelling for so many years, it was not too tough pack up and leave within a day. The rule of thumb is: take the passport, 2 sets of clothes and your toilet kit, and cash. Everything else can be bought as and when it is needed. It's the secret of travelling light, with a lot of experience coming from trips between Trichy and Chennai. Cash works in India, but a credit card can take you a long way outside India. If you want something - just swipe and sign, and it's yours. Of course, it helps that someone is paying for all the swiping you are doing.

The trip to Beijing was uneventful - slept through it. I have an apartment allotted to me. It's amazing. I'll barely use 1/5th of all the stuff there.

Kitschy Kitschy ya ya.. bleh!

2006-06-01T19:33:00.000+05:30

The hotel had a bad selection of English TV channels and that was because cable costs too much to give guests who would barely watch anything. The situation forced me into flipping through the German channels out of pure boredom, and guess what I found - Hindi movies! Well, not really - they were dubbed. Pretty obvious really; a shortage of English channels is not going to result in a flowering of Hindi channels.

Saathiya was on, and what made things very interesting was that they were providing English subtitles to everything. That made things easier for me. The songs however remained in Hindi (it would have been very difficult to imagine Herr Oberoi with a deep baritone and Frau Mukherjee with an operatic squeak, trying to run around and fit into an Indian rhythm). What became evident about the movie over a period of time, is what Markus gave me a word for later on during a discussion - it was kitschy. We've always known it, we admit it, but we still go to watch SRK swim through the ocean of girls that surround him in every movie. Our movies are kitschy.

Kitschy is close to "overly sugary" and "too perfect". The Sound of Music is kitschy, fitting the bill with it's random songs and dance, and the equally random 'Edelweiss...' sung with a deep baritone and a sad-and-supposed-to-inspire-patriotism look. The Austrians are ashamed of the movie. It has led many to believe that edelweiss is their national anthem or requiem (or even a bird). It's a misconception created by Hollywood that it has been paying for ever since, for the Austrians sent over Arnie as revenge.

But watching Saathiya in German with English subtitles brings out the extent of kitschiness in Indian movies. Markus had a lot ot say about Indian movies (having watched DDLJ though he's not sure since all of them seem the same to him). "They're all so colourful.. Who wears colours like that!!?" , "Everyone is talking and suddenly they are all singing and dancing" , "first the boy and girl meet, there are lots of songs, there is a bad guy, and finally they get married" (even a German watching a few Hindi movies can figure out the plotlines!). And a lot more comments like that. Kitschy. Hilarious. Bang on target. And I still love Hindi movies!

Equal work, equal pay

2006-05-15T15:18:00.000+05:30

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/09/women_pay_gap/

It's true. The gap does exist in many places. A chat with Markus* revealed that it exists even in Austria - a supposedly developed country. His claim was that it's still taking time for the women to get their rights into the real world.

(I lived a long and imaginary life in which I believed that men and women should be treated equally, and that Yoda is not that short. Most of the times I still feel that way, and I think that the first step in any direction is to first state it as if it was fact. "Yes... equal to men, women are." Nope... and surprisingly enough, it has been the women who are telling me that women are not equal and will never be equal. Right, so there is some equality to fight for. Who exactly wants to fight for it? Hmm... flummoxed I am...)

There is another matter though - the matter of equal pay for equal work. Funnily enough, I have seen the exact opposite of what the news article claims. I actually feel that some women should be paid less. This is more out of heavy resentment of the fact that many women are getting paid equal salaries but end up doing less work. The argument is slightly different, and it would apply to men who do less work as well. This argument is what is tom-tommed by most companies - that your pay depends on your performance. From all that I have heard, it does not (not in India, at least).

For one, a woman cannot be expected to work long hours. The root of this problem stems from the fact that the male is still the breadwinner in the family and the female is still in charge of the home and the kids. It’s very tough to be an equal pay-master and be sensitive to the women. In most IT companies now, working long hours has become the de facto standard, and instead of pushing for better hours we are actually spending more time in the office. It's a direct consequence of the amount of work coming to India (amount... not quality) and the zeal to rise fast, but it's not healthy. So if you are getting paid to do those long hours, then you had better do them! If you cannot do that much work - you should not get paid as much. If that is not followed, then another sort of inequality is being promoted.

The second point is the work culture. The Indian software industry does not have the culture of working for 9 hours and then just leaving. We chat, mail, take calls from relatives and do a whole lot of things in those 9 hours. When I say we, I mean men and women, but I have seen a majority of women do it. You get these geeky forwards that describe women before in terms of C-structs and say things like "long time_on_the_phone;" and "short attention_span;" etc…, and a lot of it has been inspired from real life. Geeks have a weird way of venting things out… The exact same things can be said about men (I had Moti bitching about a colleague whose daily schedule was coffee-sutta-mail/chat-water-loo run in an infinite loop).

The third point is the Indian software industry. That’s it. It’s a menace that we cannot remove. Maybe reform, but I don’t see that happening. There is a shabby middle management/lead culture running around that might make things profitable in the short term, but is doing a lot of long term damage. From 80% (approx.) of my department-mates from college, I do not get a favourable review of the work or the environment. That’s a huge percentage of people!
Over a period of time there are two distinct classes of people who evolve. One believes that there is no point in working that hard when you are going to get paid that much anyway and the bonus/performance pay is a trifle. The other believes in working hard and proving themselves. The math does not work out for HR, but it works out fine for the project itself. Hence, there is little distinction that is made out between an average worker, below-average and an above-average worker – especially if your workforce count in the whole company tops 10,000. In such a company, it is a disadvantage to be an above-average worker and you can easily get away with being a below-average one. The above-average worker easily gets frustrated and moves out to a smaller company where the chances of being recognized are higher. Over a long period of time, it’s the average and below-average workers that remain in the company and grow to be the next set of leads and managers. In essence – promoting mediocrity. Companies struggle hard to retain the talent, but it’s not possible to do to so with a huge workforce and no-so-huge revenues.

So on issues of equal-work-equal-pay and women-don’t-get-paid-as-much-as-men (and other similar situations) – fight it if you can, else bite it. Life’s not fair either way :)

Disclaimer: These views are not completely from personal experience. Hours of ranting and hours of listening to irate batchies about idiotic internal practices in their respective companies has led to this blog entry.

*Markus works at the Hotel Landgraf in Linz, Austria.

Ten things to do on a day without electricity

2006-04-25T18:20:00.000+05:30

Read a book. This can only be done till dusk but that good enough for killing most of the time
Clean your room. Ooh... nobody's going to like this suggestion, but for a part neatness-freak like me it counts!
Cook dinner. In case you are an exceptionally good cook then you could try cooking lunch as well, but if you are as untalented as I am in the kitchen then the effort will probably take you a day. And if it still doesn’t work then you always have Maggi.
Catch up on sleep. Needs no explanations really...
Round up your buddies for a day of cricket. There can be no excuses about this. Everybody loves to play cricket, and everyone adores the batting part. There is always a pitch or a corridor nearby that wouldn’t mind the attention. Drag the ladies in for cheerleading or a friendly “war of the sexes” match (always remember to scrape a victory – a rather obvious victory will not bring them back).
Play Mafia. Exceptional results at night with a bottle of beer for each person.
Go shopping. The right time to do what you wouldn’t normally do – any other time is too precious to waste. This time as been wasted anyway...
Play 28. No money involved. Loads of dhakkan gujjus and shrewd mallus always add spice to the medley.
Antakshari. Not really my favourite, but it does top the list for a lot of people. Doesn’t work when you have a roomie who knows no more than two line of any song, including the national anthem.
Spend the entire day doing bakar at CCD and eating at fabulous restaurants. The only disadvantage is the hole in your pocket, but that doesn’t bother some people.

The auto-driver case study – Part 3

2006-04-01T22:19:00.000+05:30

Risk management
I told the auto-driver to get me to the airport in ten minutes, but there was always a risk of him not making it. To mitigate that risk, I kept a ten minute buffer which I don’t tell him about. It means that even if I do not make it in ten minutes but make it in twelve, there is no significant loss for me. In fact, I don’t have to give him the extra money promised and I have reached my destination well in time. Subconsciously, we all do this. In fact, when in college and selling tickets for the annual play I remember telling people to be there right on time, knowing perfectly well that they would be an hour late and that we would take an extra hour in setting up the stage. So technically we can start right on time. Dealing with these delays has become an inherent part of us. However, immense pressure that builds up on the side that does not know about the buffers.

Buffering and how management deals with us
It is important to see two perspectives here. One is that of the auto driver (employee) and the passenger (manager). The passenger has to make sure he gets there on time irrespective of any delays and how the auto driver goes about doing his job. The auto driver has to make sure he gets the passenger to his destination, along with fulfilling any added conditions imposed. However, usually what happens in the process of buffering from the passenger’s side is that the deadline becomes unreasonable. And anyone who lives in Chennai knows that covering the distance between Adyar and the airport in twenty minutes is an impossible deadline at nine at night. At the end of the day, we either have to completely refuse the task (auto drivers regularly refuse) because we think it’s impossible; or we resign ourselves to doing it and crib that there are no options.

Hypothetically, if I know about…
There are multiple situations that arise with the buffer situation in mind. What if the existence of the buffer becomes known just after the limit has been crossed? Will they still try to make it as past as possible or will they try to make it as leisurely as possible since they have already “failed”?

Once a buffer is encountered, the employee knows that it will always be there and be a part of the planned time. Does he then have the right to challenge the unreasonable deadlines given? How does the knowledge of the existence of a buffer affect the manager’s ability to set a goal and push for it, without having to keep falling back on the buffer (now that the employees know that there is a buffer, they might relax and not bother about the deadlines that have been set).

What is the effect of this 0-1 incentive relationship on the way work is approached?

Trust
One important question that comes up in a dynamic workplace environment is that with the multiple deadline and variables that are always in play, who’s playing the unbiased watchman?
Does the employee have to check whether manager is playing fair in terms of goal-setting? Does the employee have to watch out for whether the manager is updating the required targets just when they seem achievable? In my case, the auto driver did not look back even once to see if I was manipulating the watch to cut short his allotted time in a deceitful way. And I didn’t try either. Is this an ideal situation? Why so much trust? Is it implicit to start off with? What can change or end it?

In case you haven’t noticed, I have plenty of questions and no real answers. I sat with Rams once and we started talking about this. The conversation had to be cut short four and a half hours later, at 3:30 am, because he had to work the next day. We did arrive at a vague sort of formula: E = mC2 (Einstein, please don’t turn in your grave), where E was the deterioration of ethics (refer part 1 for the ethics discussion), m was a constant, and C was the cost (or the amount of money one is willing to throw to get the auto driver to agree). To a large extent it works. Just think of how much more software engineers are willing to work for a salary jump from 3.6lpa to 5.6lpa.

Ironically, at the end of the trip with its stimulating multiple perspectives, I arrived late at the airport. In fact I didn’t just arrive late, I got there just in time to see the plane take off. I read the departure time wrong on the ticket…

The auto-driver case study – Part 2

2006-03-30T22:03:00.000+05:30

Computer science in real life?
As I watched the auto-driver weave through the traffic to gain that precious time, I thought about whether his approach was optimized or not. Very computer science based, but hey, you can’t control your thoughts!

What came to mind was the conflict of choice between dynamic programming and greedy strategy as the optimal method. Greedy strategy deals with trying to get the best deal at the moment without bothering about the future. Dynamic programming, on the other hand, takes into account possibilities of the future and then takes a more informed decision on what to do. This is best explained with the “thief in a store problem” (better known in Computer science circles as “The 0/1 knapsack problem”) which goes something like this:
There is a thief in a bank who has a bag that can hold up to 30 kilograms of gold. The bank has got 3 solid blocks of gold weighing 10, 15 and 20 kilograms respectively. The thief does not know the weight of the gold until he reaches the block, and he also does not know how many blocks are there and in what order they are arranged (basically he knows nothing except that there is gold inside). The problem posed is to devise a strategy to allow the thief to take as much gold (as possible) and taking minimum time.

The greedy strategy would be:

Go to a block of gold
See if it can fit into the bag
- YES
  - Put it into the bag
  - Go to the next block
  - Go to step 2
- NO
  - Go to the next block
  - Go to step 2

The inherent problem with this strategy is that it does not guarantee that the thief would have taken the maximum possible gold out of the bank. If the blocks are arranged as 10kg, 15kg and 20kg, then the thief will pick up the 10kg and 15kg blocks and will then be unable to pick up the 20kg block. However we can see that the best strategy is to pick up the 10 and 20 kg blocks because that will completely cover his quota of 30kgs.

This is where the dynamic programming method scores. In this method, the thief first goes around and makes a note of the available weights, and then does a little calculation to arrive at the 10+20 kg solution. So in the case of dynamic programming, we take a little extra time but we are guaranteed to arrive at the best solution whereas the greedy strategy is random at best.

There are however, other examples in which the greedy strategy scores (do a search on “fractional knapsack problem”)

Getting back to the auto-driver
Why these two methods intrigued me while sitting in the auto was because neither method would guarantee an optimal result. If the auto driver decided to follow the greedy strategy and jump into any gap ahead of him then he could end up behind a bus – which would be very bad if your aim is to move ahead as fast as possible. On the other hand, being behind a bus may not be a permanent situation. There will be more random gaps in the traffic that the auto driver can use to jump ahead. So maybe using the greedy strategy is not that bad an idea. But what about dynamic programming? There is a problem here as well. The auto driver cannot know all the future possibilities of the gaps, the traffic lights etc… which means that he’s limited to using dynamic programming to the extent of his vision. But even that does not guarantee anything.

So in terms of solving this problem in computer science, there is not direct and easy method due to the element of randomness introduced at every point. However, it would be nice to think of some rules of thumb…

(TBC...)

Girls, holidays and washing machines

2006-03-23T22:56:00.000+05:30

There's a mail thread going on between Abhay and me, and we have generally been discussing all things important to engineering guys - girls, girls and girls. The topic came up recently because of all the heightened activity on campus. The heightened activity being that within a short span of 1 month all the single girls became double (?? that phase also comes resulting in most females being called "moti"), and that there are a LOT more girls on campus right now (which according to Abhay makes it look like a normal campus). To top that he informed me about the washing machines that were being bought for the hostels and their vacation period was going to be 75 days.

I got a post-script in that mail that read:
ps: expecting "why god, why wasn't I born a few years later, all these holidays, girls, washing machines"

Obviously I was wishing exactly that, but I had to prove that I was not in the least bit affected. And out came a reply that amazed even myself. I haven't done such good chaat in months...

Dude.. there is no point. I would never have got the girls even if I was on campus. So, its highly likely that with all the girls running around, I would have been more frust than before. I left at the right time :) and I have no doubts about that. Especially since I get confirmed reports about all the canoodling that is going on. It's a lot easier to digest when you're not even contending for the canoodling.

Washing machines are another matter. Its nice that you have them, but I think washing your own clothes by hand builds character. The explanation for this apparently random connect is simple. When you wash, you have to go through the following:
1. Plan: one cannot decide to wash all of a sudden. There must not be other people washing and there must be water. The impact of planning on life cannot be overrated.
2. Soak: to make life simpler, otherwise scrubbing will take your life away. The lesson in life? "As you soak, so shall you reap"
3. Scrubbing: now this is hard work. Every time your hands, back and other unnamed body parts ache and you feel like going back and playing cricket instead, understand that there are a lot of people out there who do this for a living (I'm starting to sound like my dad now). Now you know how they feel, especially when you bargain with them for a few rupees.
4. Drying: this you cannot do anything about. Its all about waiting, more waiting, and just waiting. And patience is a virtue...

On the other hand, getting a washing machine is the equivalent to becoming a snob with your nose high in air. Not only are you making all those dhobis unemployed, you are also not imbibing these essential values. This is one of the main reasons that mothers-in-law nag the daughters-in-law into doing the household chores instead of letting them watching saas-bahu serials. The other reason being that with this much exercise, there is no way the bahu is going to get cellulite - which only makes the son happier.

Holidays.. Yeah you guys are slightly better off. But don't rejoice too much. You're practically in your final year, which is a one year holiday. After that you'll get 18 days a year. Read that figure again to let it sink in. I had my hols - right from KG1 till final year. Now I will never have them again. You'll be with me in a year's time. I shall be waiting for you with the smug satisfaction that you'll be suffering for a lifetime in just a year's time :D. Muahahahahaa...

I'm sure most alumni will share the same sentiments.

The auto-driver case study – Part 1

2006-03-17T00:16:00.000+05:30

And my obsession with Chennai’s auto-drivers continues. There are so many behavioural experiments conducted, but there was an itch to conduct one for myself. It wasn’t planned and probably was not executed under “controlled environments with finite parameters”, but it was fun (which is very important) and instead of answering any questions it raised a few interesting ones. Later on, I had a chat with Rams about this and it acted as fodder for a very stimulating discussion that ended after 5-6 hours at 0330 hrs.

How did it start?
I had come down to Chennai for a day to get my Schnengen Visa, and was supposed to get back at night. I was getting late, and there was really was no room to bargain (but bargain you must with auto-drivers of Chennai). The driver demanded 120. I said 100. He agreed after two minutes of haggling.

How far are you willing to go?
Now comes the interesting part. I told him I was willing to pay 120 if he would get me to the airport within half an hour. If he was late by even a minute, then he would get only 100. Impossible really, if you considered all the traffic and how far the airport was, but that was the challenge. And as I saw him try to reach that impossible goal, its implications became interesting questions.

Software project management in India...?
One of the first things that I noticed about his struggle to be on time was the fact that he was breaking every possible traffic rule. Jumping lanes, going through red lights, and even driving on the wrong side of the road. It brought to mind the software sweatshops in India and their impossible deadlines. The analogy is simple – there is a foreign client with money (me) who would tell the Indian software company (the auto-driver) that they want a software done fast, and are willing to pay more for it (the deal). The software companies would overwork the employees and break all rules for making good software (thorough testing for example, that takes a lot of time), just to meet the impossible deadline.

Sociological side-effects
As the deadline neared and he saw that he was not getting anywhere, he bacame crabby – something that is pretty visible in the software industry. Rising tempers, irritability, and frequent cursing (which could be a remnant of the engineering college days) is a common sight when project time is tight and things are not going great.

The ideal carrot..?
Still, it drove the auto-driver enough to keep going. Can this be treated as the golden rule for driving up performance? That it works in some circumstances is beyond doubt. The question that arises is: How often should this incentive be given, and what are implications of the incentive given frequently/infrequently?

(TBC...)

Teambuilding at Badra

2006-02-25T16:37:00.000+05:30

1700 hrs, 11 Feb 2006, IFIN
Maggi was making last minute grand plans for the trip. He turned out to be the organizer for this teambuilding activity. The details are best left to my ignorance. Maggi is a form-over-function sort of guy, and this means that even the little details matter to him. The result of this is that he decided that we were to catch the bus at 5:30 am the next morning, and instead of letting us sleep in peace he was going to make us play Pictionary. The incredulous looks that the team gave him did not change his decision; neither did the threat of giving him a good GPL. As a known co-conspirator, I was entrusted with the Pictionary set and two cricket bats. Though I couldn’t figure out how he was going to make us play cricket in the bus, I decided not to ask the man too many questions. After all, both dreams and grand plans are pretty fragile.

2130 hrs, 11 Feb 2006, Home
Nagbaby comes over to my place. Marathahalli is a little too far away to be staying when you have catch a bus at 5:30 in the morning near TGIF. Plus Nagbaby is a standard-edition NITTian – lazy to the core. My house being walking distance from TGIF helped a lot. And another NITTian’s company is always welcome…

0030 hrs, 12 Feb 2006, Home
I have just finished watching Enemy of the State. I should have slept a long time back considering that I had to be up at five. Nagbaby needed his beauty sleep and so politely declined to acquiesce my request to keep me company by watching Gladiator, which was coming up next (I watched Pirates of the Caribbean pretty recently). What the heck, I might as well watch all the good movies that are coming. If I ended up doing a nightout in the process then I could finally claim membership of that elusive club. Half an hour before Gladiator ended, I succumbed to increasing serotonin levels and retired. The membership still looked remote, and my membership switched off the TV… can’t remember when…

0515 hrs, 12 Feb 2006, Home
Beep, beep!! Adi and Bra will testify to my unique sleep habits. So when the alarm rings right next to my ear, it practically signifies the end of my sleep – however early in the morning it is, or how soft the alarm.
Fifteen minutes to go, and I wake Nagbaby. With his characteristic NITTian insight he tells me “Boss, Arvind said 5:30 means the bus will leave only at 6:30”. I scoffed at his naïveté. Still, to humour him I set the alarm for 5:40. The alarm rang and this time Nagbaby humoured me by agreeing to wake up. We were ready in 5 minutes. The bus came at 6:30.

0930 hrs, 12 Feb 2006, Bus to Badra
After having a hearty breakfast, we were back on the bus. This was going to be a two-day long session of getting my leg-pulled. It started with breakfast. I was the only person there who ordered for Boost instead of coffee, and the resultant howls of laughter were interspersed with “Ipam-Opam-Ipam-Opam-Japam” and more laughter.
Maggi brought out the heavy artillery – Pictionary. The team was split into two. For a team-building activity it did not really seem to be the right thing to do, but I guess everyone is always up for some competitive activity. It was fun, especially since lines looked like circles and circles like spirals. My rat and monkey looked the same; my hamburger, tree and thermometer looked the same as well. On the whole our team did pretty well :)
We did a little DumbC as well. I guessed some heavy-duty English movies in a matter of seconds. It took me 5 minutes to guess Mr. Mojo Rising. I don’t have to elaborate on my new nickname…

1215 hrs, 12 Feb 2006, Badra
It’s stunning. The cabins are lovely. The lake redefines serene. And the silence is what stands out clearest.

Nagbaby gets to stay with me. After practically gaying with everyone in college, I think NITTian guys are pretty comfortable sharing the same bed – even if they are not sleeping all over each other. [Reminiscence: I’m reminded of the mallus of Agate Room 1 – 11 guys, 3 beds. Hats off to you!! Was Tommy on top of kakkad or the other way around…? Lets test thy GK – What is kakkad’s full name? I found out recently :)]
We freshen up and go for lunch, but not before stepping into the balcony that overlooks the lake and standing for a few moments, in silence, to absorb the beauty all around. We forgot to close the balcony door…

(Nagbaby in his element – on the verge of sleeping)

(Don Amritanshu is eating. Yeh gehrayee waali baat hai…)

The teambuilding exercises were interesting. But my talents lay elsewhere – sadly there are no photos capturing my mid-teambuilding siesta [the Thespis will remember this trait very well…]

But Maggi and Raghu seem to enjoying themselves (probably because there was nothing else to enjoy…)

1730 hrs, 12 Feb 2006, Badra
We’re off for a trek into the jungle, to see the sunset. And it was worth it. A picture is worth a thousand words, but a picture from a 5 MP camera still cannot compare to the human eyes. You have to see it for yourself.
After dinner we gathered for a rather interesting bonfire session. The catalyst was obviously booze, and some really nice vodka and wine from Austria. Cheers Lalit!

Oh yes… I forgot about the open balcony door. When we came back after the trek, we had a guest – a sweet little rat swimming around in the toilet pot. We got help to get it out of the pot, but then it ran off somewhere we couldn’t find it. We come back from dinner and find it happily chewing my bag which lay on my bed. I slept protecting my privates. Nagbaby slept peacefully without any protection. The logic? Since I was the one covering my nuts and sleeping, the rat would have keeda to nibble only mine and so would leave him alone. Perverted logic… seemed pretty funny to him but they were my nuts on the line. Talk about a sense of humour.

0630 hrs, 13 Feb 2006, Badra
The wildlife safari starts. It’s freezing with a windcheater on, and Senthil is wearing nothing but a t-shirt. We made plans of thawing him over the embers of last night’s bonfire.
The good part about a safari like this in India is that we’ll never get to see any really interesting wildlife (read that as tigers, lions and girls in bikinis). The only major things we got to see were deer and tiger tracks (the closest we came to the tiger). But one can see deer even in IIT Madras. This made Nagbaby so frust after sometime that he said “Aye... just show me a tiger and we’ll go”. He shouldn’t have because after this there were barbs about tigers parading about on a ramp – some naked and some in bikinis, all for Nag. Engineers…

0930 hrs, 13 Feb 2006, Badra
Water sports!!! Some can’t swim, I can… Good fun pulling people underwater :)

1530 hrs, 13 Feb 2006, Badra
We’re leaving. Two days well enjoyed, and we’re tired to the core. Our guest didn’t molest either Nagbaby or me. Maggi had his fun spoiling some of Vandana’s photos by standing appearing in the middle with a toothbrush in his mouth. Senthil managed to thaw out in the lake, and Raghu gave him company in diving out of the water trampoline.

And we found out that a lot of people can be software engineers and not know any geography! Cheers!!

BodhiTree : GMD

2006-01-30T10:49:00.000+05:30

It required a little educating from Abesh's side - so the first thanks go out to him. It's the story of my life (and probably many others out there). The song of all songs for the truly frustoo engineer : Gaand mein danda by BodhiTree. The lyrics were written with managers in mind, but that doesn't stop you from feeling the song was written with you in mind. Even XLRI Ki Kudiyan is applicable to engineers and their colleges.

Download the song : http://www.jammag.com/rock/show_rock.php?article_id=66.
And the article takes care of all that you wanted to know about them [ saves me the time :)! ]

The lyrics : http://imagine.blogintro.com/210/lyrics-of-gmd-by-bodhitree

Guess who's going to buy their album (if they eventually release one)..

The darker shades of life

2006-01-28T00:36:00.000+05:30

I'm immensely fascinated by the dark side of life. Have been for some time now. While talking about the dark side there are immediate images of Harry Potter, Voldemort and Jagannath Dey. But casting the childish, the intriguing and the scariest ones aside (mentioned in no specific order), we can go back to the true dark side. There is a dark side to everyone, and for most people that would translate to a mild yellow or a touch of pink on the absolute scale. But there are others, who are pretty deep in grey.

Its not rocket science to figure out that a lot of this rambling nonsense has been triggered by a recent suicide. But what exactly would drive a man to give up his life in the most unheroic of ways? For if a sane mind thought it through then the question of giving up one's life would not arise in the first place. A paragraph keeps running over and over again in my head, like a stuck tape-recorder : "Our lives are a facade. Our happiness and poise in an uneventful life, is living on the edge of a knife. We don't know it until its a little too late". I can't figure out where I heard that. For some reason I think its Desperate Housewives, but I'm not too certain.

And right now, no man-eating alien from any of Stephen King's books can match up to the pure horror that can be conjured up by the lonely educated mind. One always thinks that education is the key to dispelling darkness, the bringer of light. I'm beginning to think that it it does no such thing. It sharpens us to think darker than would be able to without the training. It trains us not to fear the dark. And then come the times in our lives when we welcome the dark. Sometimes we are better not educating ourselves. Children are scared of the dark, and for a very good reason as well.

I have reason to believe that the dark side of life teaches us much more. We're not always prepared for it. Its probably a window to your soul. Wells are dark too. And the water at the other end is cold; dark. The well will lie for three generations in your backyard and still no one in your entire family will jump in. There is fear. Probably unwarranted. Are we willing to look into the dark and not feel afraid? Are we willing to look at ourselves and our fears? I guess its the same question. For if we gaze deep into a well, the darkness reflects nothing but you.

The dark is not always bad. Embrace it. Celebrate it. Do not fear it.

And don't ever commit suicide...

In the memory of a friend...

2006-01-28T00:24:00.000+05:30

In such cases I would like to be blunt, because that is the hardest to do. Navin Agarwal, my batchmate and a fellow Compsci, is no more - he committed suicide. I'd like to write more; but the less I write, the less I feel I'm tainting the memory of him. For in the long run, that's all that will be left of him...

Hope the Bengali babu finds his way across the river.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

2006-01-15T11:59:00.000+05:30

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;

I had been running after this movie for a few months now and it turns out that my roomie had it all along. Bummer, I have to talk to them a little more :). But last night was more than just a simple movie-watching experience. I finally got to see a movie I've been dying to, and it didn't disappoint at all. Jim Carrey is god, Kate Winslet is amazing, and the storyline.. no words. It is at the end of it, a lovely movie.

I can keep going on and never be able to express completely what I'm trying to tell you. I'll let you watch the movie and decide for yourself...

But if you're the kind that cannot do without a review of some sort:

http://www.slate.com/id/2097362

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/eter-m26.shtml

[LOTR] The secret diaries..

2005-12-28T11:37:00.000+05:30

Bra sent me the link, so I do not claim responsibility for broken furniture due to anger exhibited by LOTR fans.

Sanat: Apologies my man, but this is too hilarious...

The Secret Diaries

Tag! I'm it...!!

2005-12-21T12:03:00.000+05:30

Books that I liked the most:

No one should be asked to choose their favourite books. Books have feelings as well. Human beings are another matter altogether – they consciously jump into such competitions and manage to lose with as much panache as a duck (not the duck, a duck). But here’s my list, in no specific order.

The Foundation Trilogy – Isaac Asimov

The book starts with an amazing funda of psychohistory, and this little thread runs all the way through. Most sci-fi books push imagination to absurd limits, but this does not – which is what makes it such an amazing book. I started reading the e-book at 8 pm and I could not stop till I reached the end of the third book at 4 am.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig

Firstly, this is not about motorcycles. Yes, there are motorcycles, but that’s not what its about. This is one book I would suggest to all Ayn Rand fans. Ayn Rand’s brand of philosophy has a quality that is action-oriented, and is extreme to an extent. This book is practically like Zen – calm, simple and almost a way of life. It attempts or answer questions that any budding philosopher would have come across… and that’s when your search really starts.

Different Seasons – Stephen King

At one point of time I was heavily into Asimov, and now I’m even more into King. This book has 4 amazing novellae (plural of novella?) – one for each season. It is this book that has the story “The Shawshank Redemption”, which was converted into a movie. I’ve got a special reason to love this book – the second story “Apt Pupil”, was converted into a play and done by us. A psycho-thriller for the first time I think…

The guide – R. K. Narayan

Yup, the same one that was made into a movie. The author has woven such a lovely story, with characters so human and so vivid that I was wishing for a sequel. But that would spoil the magic…

The Great Indian Novel – Shashi Tharoor

Now this is one book no engineer should miss. The story is simply amazing, and the use if the English language is just exquisite. At the end of the day, its good entertainment and good reading. Something that’s very difficult to find in books.

Authors I like:

Stephen King – the “king” of psycho-horror-thrillers. A master…
Isaac Asimov – For amazing ideas out of the ordinary, with “Nightfall” being proof of the power of his imagination.
Jeffrey Archer – This man has a way with endings, and he never fails to disappoint – even after you have tried your best to figure it out. “Kane and Abel” was an interesting book, but rather unusual in the way to was broken up.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – If Holmes was a genius then then the man who created him also must be.

Unusual books that I liked:

Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman – Tales from the life of Richard P. Feynman, the physicist-god. His zing for life might just rub off a little too much on you.
I moved your cheese – A parody based on Dr. Spencer Johnson’s “Who moved my cheese?” Hilarious, and probably helps you more than the original self-help book.
The man who knew Infinity – the book is a biography on Ramanujam. Every once in a while it makes you feel as if you could touch infinity as well…

Cartoons I like:

Calvin and Hobbes – Sheer genius
Dilbert – I could never understand it while I was in college. Two weeks after joining work and its crystal clear. Now, its an all-time favourite.
Garfield – I suppose cats are more intelligent than humans. Sheer wit.

Books that I want to read:

Critique of Pure Reason (the fundamentals of reasoning and logic are expounded by Kant. A must for logicians)
Midnight’s Children (just for the story, and it has been recommended)
The Grimm fairy tales (They were really supposed to be grim, and those are the original ones. Old enough to accept them I guess)
Train to Pakistan (chumma…).

Books that I have left halfway thru and want to complete:

Vernon God Little (don’t really want to but I bought the bloody book..)
Fact and Fiction – Bertrand Russel (not something that you can read on the way to work.)
Nightmares and Dreamscapes (there were more interesting books of Stephen King)

Currently reading…

Airframe (Michael Crichton) – Need some pulp-fiction once in a while, and Crichton’s are interesting enough.

So now I pass the Tag onto Bra and Ankit. Now Tag! they are IT!! (the stephen king monster lives on...)

Love across the sand desert

2005-12-17T22:43:00.000+05:30

Greetings from the desert land,
Where the food is tasty and the water is bland;
Far it is across the sea,
But doesn’t seem so when you fly free.

Bengaluru has guards at the port of air,
To security they give an extra share;
To travel they did not allow me,
And the manager did I have to see.

“Oh, just change the sector – that’s about it”,
Chennai became Bengaluru in a just a bit;
The guards had no option; they let me through,
“See you in Muscat!” I said. “Toodley-doo!!”

There was a cute chick nearby,
And then she started talking;
It’s always what comes out through the mouth,
That sends me away balking.

“So lets be a frust engineer” I thought,
And spend time just gathering in her beauty;
There’s no point in getting distraught,
When there’s no possibility of her being your cutie.

But in all these thoughts,
Did Sanat of Exceter I think,
And of the different airhostesses,
Around whose waist his arm did slink.

Oh the good looking bum,
Had a way to make the girls have flings;
People like him made us look,
Like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings.

So in Stephen King did I myself bury,
(Almost) sure to get a girl later, so why the needless hurry?
Plus the ritual was approaching and the plot did thicken,
Descriptions and gory details of It did sicken.

And the turbulence outside went unnoticed,
With the plot in such constant upheaval;
Until the call of nature intervened,
The book put down for later retrieval.

The plane did finally land, without much of a fuss
“#@!% this was the interesting part” came out a cuss;
Then I smelt the warm sea air, not too humid or too dry,
And the ever-sightable Orion against the distant black sky.

“What the heck, I’m back at last
To the place where in Ramadhan they fast.
I’ve got a short time to have a blast..”
And so into my bag did IT I cast

So greetings again from the desert land,
Where the food is tasty and the water is bland.
Far it was across the sea,
But doesn’t seem so once you’ve flown for free.

The Riddle of Epicurus

2005-12-10T11:58:00.000+05:30

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

Religion is not all-encompassing as most religions end up restricting their explanations about God based on the third line. Which is saying that God is willing and able, but we do not understand his purpose. Almost all religions, cults and theological groups would be based on one of these lines. Atheism itself seems to sprout from the last line.

The closest anything gets to covering all of these is the Greek (and to a large extent ancient Indian) belief of gods. They were not omnipotent, could be malevolent, and evil that lower mortals faced were but a side-effect of the game of dice that they played. But why call them Gods? Simply because they were more powerful than mere mortals. So they weren't really gods, but super-humans. Which reminds me of Nietzche's concept of a superman in "Thus spake Zarathustra". The diference probably being that the Greeks still advocated prayer, but more out of an instinct to placate and please a more powerful being, rather than a need to rise spiritually to reach and combine with an omnipotent being. If this is true, then it has more worldly truths in it than most modern religions, and could also partially explain their deep philosphical and logical roots.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2005-11-25T19:36:00.000+05:30

Yup, I've watched it. Yup its good. And yup, your siblings below the age of 8 should not watch it. Its pretty dark and its surprising to see that a kids book can be converted into so dark a movie. Though if you take into consideration the actual percentage of kids sitting in the hall to watch it, I guess its fine.

I did read the reviews before going to watch the movie, and fortunately it did not take the magic out of the experience (pun not intended. For that matter I have read the book, so I should have been thoroughly disappointed). Though I totally agree with the review that I read. Dumbledore for one is a way too animated. The same Dumbledore who sets the standards of being stoic and calm, is now grabbing Harry's throat after his name is thrown up from the Goblet of Fire. Geez! That's a personality difference in a single year.

Another aspect that I noticed was that the movie makes no effort to explain any fundas. If you have not read the book, tough luck. Had gone with my uncle to see the movie, and he had no idea why the two wands connected (same core, phoenix, Fawkes...). It was just another cool graphics stunt. In an effort to be fast paced, they have cut down on some essentials. How could they cut a Quidditch match between Ireland and Bulgaria?? Damn stupid, I thought. I'm sure I could have sit through for another 1 hour, and enjoyed a more complete movie.

Of course there are many plus points to the movie. To the hot blooded NITTian, there is one very important one - Hermione! When she comes for the Yule ball... no words. They have finally identified what the rest of the world knew all along. Probably even more appealing than Fleur, and they definitely didn't bring out the Veela side of her.

If you haven't seen it yet, shake that lazy ass and get it to the nearest theatre and spend some quality time watching this movie. Worthwhile even if you are not a Potter fan.

(Pic from http://www.veritaserum.com)

[HOT!] Spice girl pic..

2005-11-19T10:43:00.000+05:30

hehe.. :)

A linux virus!

2005-11-16T12:15:00.000+05:30

Yes there are, but they are few. This one uses a PHP vulnerability, but is classified as low risk to home or corporate users. For more info on this virus, check out the following links:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_136821.htm

http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=823

But while we are on the topic, we might as well discuss the source. Yup, its Linux vs Windows time! First, I will begin by saying that I am a diehard Linux fan. My first comp had win 95 on it, and that was when I was in class 11. It gave me a really bad time when I tried to fiddle a little too much with the screensaver. After it gave up on me and went on a permanent holiday, taking my hard disk with it, I put in Win 98. I must admit that it worked decently - and if I did not do any fancy things, I could connect to the net without problems. But that was the beginning of all problems. I managed to evade melissa, but I got hit by something else (don't remember which one). Had to get a cleaner that worked in DOS-mode and wait for a few hours while it cleaned the virus from everything - including the ever-present explorer.exe. To cut a long story short, I was frustrated with Windows, but there was little I could do.

Enter college, and enter the world of enlightened souls and academic nirvana. There I came across Windows NT, which gave me the first taste of what a stable operating system could be like. But even if there weren't viruses from the internet (our LAN is well separated from the internet), there were still blue screens of death.

So here we would like to introduce two people: B. Vijay Kumar, fondly known as BVK - the linux guru and GNU evangelist, and the man who gave Prasoon many many nightmares; and BVK - the prof who taught me Linux in the 3rd semester. After that there was no turning back. After lukewarm GLUG-T meetings, courses for newbies, and many nights spent trying to get the patch that allows XMMS to play MP3s, I was a full fledged user of Linux. I even had it on my PC. Thankfully, Manik screwing up the first Linux installation on my PC did not deter me (had to clean my MRB thanks to that fiasco). But Red Hat 9+ and Fedora have probably made Linux installations easier than those of Windows. KDE made the Linux desktop way cooler than the one that came with XP.

But one must (at least) try to be objective about it. Windows is popular, and you have to admit that not everyone is intelligent or motivated enough to use it on a daily basis. Sometimes, you just want to connect to the net without any hassles. Now whether the hassles come after that or not, is beyond discusssion.

And that brings us back to the original topic: the tiny virus! Linux has had its share, and though obscure, its good to know that nothing is infalliable. Staog was the first Linux virus, but it died pretty fast (here's why).

While we are ending this rather unilateral debate, have a look at some articles from around the world with views and information on this matter:
The Register: Linux vs Windows
Vnunet.com: More Viruses for Linux..
Bliss: another Linux virus
Kernel trap: a debate thread!
Michael Horowitz: a more balanced opinion

The hump of the camel

2005-11-14T21:18:00.000+05:30

(Again a joint composition - Cyborg and Mando)

There was a lady called Ms. Albright,
Who wanted the US to get into a fight,
So she decided to give the Arabs a fright,
By bombing them in the middle of the night.

The bombs were dropped from a great height,
And the resulting fireworks were a great sight.
The Arabs were terrified of this new blight,
Clerics prayed to Allah to save them from this plight;
But to Albright's great delight,
The bombs gave no respite.
And in the chaos of "fight or flight",
the Arabs crumbled before the US might.

The president was attacked with a slight,
"People say your son's dyslexic, and they're right!".
Said the presi, "Haha you fools! let thy words be contrite,"
"or more of the desert dust will you have to bite!"

In all this, the UN was out flying a kite,
with closed eyes and lips sealed tight,
even as the academics in reports did cite,
That the aid was a trifle and a mite,
For both the Sunni and the Shiite.

And after watching quietly from a corner, a man stood upright,
"It is time for me to teach the US, the meaning of affright!"
"Jihad is the cry now, to set their towers alight,"
"and to teach those dsylexic warmongers, a lesson outright!".

So the future of the world (or the poem) doesnt seem too bright,
Cease and desist this torture! It is far from all right!
So I take this opportunity, in this dark and lonesome night,
To wish you all, a happy and fun-filled festival of light!

For all you software engineers...

2005-11-14T19:01:00.000+05:30

http://indicthreads.com/blogs/6605/india_recruiting_like_crazy.html

http://www.indicthreads.com/blogs/316/software_job_india.html

http://www.businessworldindia.com/sep2004/contrary.asp

So what are you doing in life? As the Smirnoff ad puts it - Life is calling. Where are you?

The thin pink line

2005-11-07T10:13:00.000+05:30

Anyone watched “The Thin Red Line”? Blood, violence, gore, shooting… dhishoom, dhishoom, kuttey!! Sorry, mixed it up with a Hindi movie, but you get the gist. Anyone watched “The Thin Pink Line”? No? That’s probably because it hasn’t been made yet, but you get the gist. Today was a revelation. All guys walk the thin pink line that borders us and the fairer sex. Too much of the pink thing and you might end up like the legendary Galt Raman. Pink has other important connotations. Red is our colour, the guy colour. The colour of Mars – the war god, the colour of the t-shirt that Manchester United wears, and the colour of blood. Add a little white and what happens? Pink!! So women are not really from Venus (because that planet is mostly yellow with all the acid) but are from Mars – just like us. But they insist on adding that little white…

The plan was to go and look for cargoes with the help of Shilpa. Knowing my colour sense, it made plenty of sense to take someone along with me to make sure what I bought was not bright orange. I remember giving into the temptation once for a t-shirt, and didn’t stop hearing enough about it. Made it just in time to the predetermined rendezvous spot (or as Sanat would put it, 3 minutes and 29 seconds late). Then got summoned to the Allen Solly showroom at the corner of church street. Eh? Cargoes at Allen Solly? Oh well, she should know best.

“Hiiieee!!” she goes, her usual greeting. Had my mobile volume on the higher side today morning, and when I got that greeting in the morning, it startled my aunt. “This is Indu, Aishwarya. This is Aashish”. I managed to mumble a hello and smile a little. Things were looking hazy – were that many women needed to buy cargoes for one little guy? Then came enlightenment…
“These are my facchas. They’re looking for formals”. Aah… first year bacchas of IIMB, AKA facchas.
“Why?”
“Because they have their placements”
“Oh”

A few minutes into the conversation I gathered that they had been all over the place looking for something good but hadn’t found anything. Enter the knight in shining armour, stage left.
“Uhh… have you tried Commercial Street?”
“But that’s for guys stuff and informal things”
“Neow… you get everything there”.
And that’s the truth. I searched everywhere for good underwear but finally had to go to Commercial Street to get something other than Jockey. The real problem with Jockey is that it’s nice to wear once, but after Bahadur has finished washing it, it doesn’t look or feel too much like an undy. And there was no way I was going to do a Gutgutia (hey Gutgut, if you’re reading, what do you do about it now? Washing machines?)

My Commercial Street idea got rubbished a few stores down when the salesgirl suggested going to Bangalore Central. A few more stores down the line, at Blackberry’s, the shop girl suggests Eva Mall. Tab jaake batti jali! Of course, where else would you go for girly clothes? Sanat had mentioned it quite some time back, and at that time there were conjured images of mermaids, princesses and the most beautiful girls on the planet shopping, in hordes that would match the barbaric Persians of the past. But it is one thing to wish that you could go there, and to actually go there. Now that I was going, I felt weird. So many females, and so few guys. After years of being a starved despo (I have never denied it!) and being used to spotting the lone maal for miles, this would be criminal damage to the psyche.

“Shit, this is going to be weird”
“Why?”
“Because I’m probably going to be the only guy in that place”
“Shut up”. Has anyone noticed this shut-up thing? It’s the ultimate rubbishing statement.
“We’ll see how many guys are there”
“Ok… and we’ll see the ratio of guys to girls. But guys who work there are not counted”
“Ok!”
It was a challenge. I was betting on more girls, and she was betting on more guys. Deep down inside, I was hoping that I would lose this one. Even guys with their girls would be a welcome sight.

I won. It was a miserable win. Loads and loads and loads of females. Seven guys. Seven sins, seven guys. It gave me horrible images my condition 10 years down the line – shopping for kids, with a wife, and quietly suffering the curtains, colours and carpets. The only comforting thought was that Bra would be there before me (might already be there now.. snigger…)

The only advantage of shopping with the enemy is that I get a chance to improve on my colour sense. But what happens when you end up advising them?
“Do the blacks match?”
“No. I can make out from here. Why don’t you just take the pin-stripes?”
“Too obvious”
Too obvious? What’s that supposed to mean? If you go to the interview in a pin-striped negligee then it would be very obvious, but a pin-striped suit? No questions, milord. Treading the thin pink line here…

My diwali gift turned out to be a free Eva mall key chain. Talk about rubbing things in.

After the facchas left with a blazer and lunch at Casa Piccola (the khadoos was not there this time), she had to get some work done. And this included stopping at every roadside shop that sold earrings.
“How do these look?” she said, holding up a pair.
“They’re ok.”
“Formal?”
“I guess. How about those?” I was pointing to some shiny pink ones. Walking that thin pink line there… careful.
“No, they are informal.”
“They are?”

After a few unsuccessful attempts she got slightly frustoo.
“Where can I get good studs here?” Did I mention that she knows nothing about this part of town? IIMB is closer to Koramangala.
“Just around the corner. There’s a shop there.” Did I mention that I know this part of town well? It looks like a little too well for my own good.
“Aha.. accha baccha.. how did you know this?” Bad question. No comments. Just skipped across the thin pink line there.
“Umm… just…”

Fortunately I made up by taking her to a computer shop and showing off my USB HDD discovery and making a sales pitch to her. But I have to be bloody careful from now on. The next time is going to be some serious shopping for cargoes.

And careful of that thin pink line...

Tips for a faster Windows PC

2005-11-05T15:42:00.000+05:30

Install only the programs you need: Installing programs that you rarely use creates undue clutter in your hard disk and especially in your registry. If you are going to use Paintman Pro – the ultimate utility tool for making banners only once a year for your roommate’s birthday party, then it makes sense to install it only for that time, and then uninstall it.
I knew a guy who had so many (useless) programs installed that Start Menu → Programs covered the entire screen. Now that’s pretty dumb.

Uninstall programs, do not delete the folder: The biggest bane for DOS converts to Windows. Please remember that Windows is a little more intelligent (emphasis on little) than DOS (what a waste of intelligence) and keeps track of your programs. This means that there is an unduly complex process for removing a program from your computer, and just deleting the folder containing the programs will just cause more problems.

Defragment your hard disk regularly: As files grow and shrink, they become fragmented [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragmentation]. Its much easier (and faster) if the file was continuous and in one place. That’s what defragmentation is for. There is a visible difference in the hard disk read/writes.

Clean your registry regularly: The holy grail of keeping your comp in shape. Use a good tool like RegClean provided by Microsoft itself, and for a change you don’t have to pay for it (though its still not free software).

Use a good browser: which basically means - do not use Internet Explorer. IE is buggy, slow and incredibly irritating with its lack of features. This is apart from the strong affinity that it has to hackers and viruses. I recommend Mozilla’s Firefox. [http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox]

Enable DMA: Devices now transfer and store data in very large quantities. Floppy disks are a thing of the past. DMA allows you to do a lot of direct transfers without really involving the CPU, which is then free to do other things. Things like CD writing will be a lot faster (visibly) if this is turned on (ooh la la!). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_memory_access]

Increase your RAM: Doesn’t have to be explained. Sometimes increasing the RAM can be better than upgrading to a new CPU. RAM RAM satya hai… and that’s the truth.

Increase your swap file size: Too complex to explain and the link is complex too. Just do it – you don’t have to understand everything that’s good for you! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory]

Disable animations: you will not believe how much faster things work when we stop trying to make things look cool. Although the idea of Windows always has been to make things look cool rather than to get them to work.

Use a tweak utility: These give you access to some of the unreachable and untweakable aspects of Windows. Can be used to improve performance as well.

Install an anti-virus: And a good one too.

Install a firewall: This comes bundled by default with most Linux distributions, but Windows users aren’t that lucky. However, installing a firewall is a security booster.

Stop all those services that you’ll never use: This is for the advanced guys. Windows provides a whole lot of services. Some of them we use regularly and some of them we’ll probably never use. Shutting down a few of them will save a few precious MBs of RAM, and will make things more secure. Most people would never really use the telnet services or the remote terminal services, but I’m a sure a lot of hackers/crackers do. Intelligent stopping of the services can shave off 25-30 MB of memory that is used.

Cleanup those taskbar programs: There will be a lot of programs running and most of them you won’t need. Make sure that they don’t start up when your computer is booted up, and you should see a slight difference.

Don’t auto-open attachments: Especially ZIP, PIF and other self-executing extensions. Most of these are usually viruses. Especially don’t be as dumb as Chandler in FRIENDS and get carried away with promises of things that Anna Kournikova would never show you in her right mind.

Kaamwalis et al

2005-11-02T09:00:00.000+05:30

One has heard plenty about gharwalis, baharwalis and kaamwalis, and fortunately for the male population their unity is in eternal doubt. And yet they cause plenty of problems. The kaamwalis always give problems - one of their more dependable qualities. If its not washing the clothes properly, then its about unclean floors. Yet they are the most astute when it comes to capitalizing favourable situations. That being the fourth wali - deepawali. This is when the other three walis finally agree, and more specifically, they agree on money.

Gharwalis are a known phenomenon. The internal thought fight between the urge to buy a saree and the necessity to save, is one of the finer examples of balance in nature. But that goes straight out of the window in and around deepawali. A bad influence, this deepawali. Nalli, Kumaran, Pothy of the silk saree fame, have to endure the annual status degradation of their sarees from luxury goods to FMCGs. Not that they should be complaining - a third of Tamil Nadu's festival spending must be ending up there.

Baharwalis are not too different from the gharwalis. Its just that you cannot be seen shopping with her. Chivalrously however, you have to foot the bill. Its nice that you can have multiple credit cards nowadays. What's even better is that if you live in Andheri and your baharwali lives in Mulund, its probably impossible for your gharwali to ever find out.

The kaamwali is the easiest to deal with during festivals, and she is unusually helpful in reducing the load on your wallet. And based on her successes, the rest of the service sector joins in to get their share of the baksheesh. Postmen, laundry-walas, doodh-walas, sabji-walas, autodrivers, and anyone else whose dharma was to make your life simple and whose karma actually made it hell, now swear by the impeccable service offered in the last year. Additional swearing is done by the governor of Bihar when he has to make Laloo the head of the state (again). Laloo swears by just repeating everything that the governor just gave him. Tit for tat. I suppose thats why the language in lands ruled by dictators is so sweet - swearing just does not happen.

Given the right to speech by the Indian constitution, and by extension the right to swear, one does not vent out anger against any of the original walis, or Chetan for intelligent suggestions on web server user-friendliness and robustness. What I will do is denounce deepawali, for uniting them and putting to waste the tried and tested Brit method of Divide et Impera. Among other things, instead of lighting up our lives (which I am assured the rest of the walis do very well), she brings in a lot of noise in the form of crackers to amuse the kids. Its all very nice, but at 6:30 in the morning is atrocious! With the kind of volume that is generated these days by one teeny-weeny bomb, I'm wondering whether the Delhi blasts were actually extra-large firecrackers. I guess thats for the Delhi police to figure out. Until that happens - Happy Deepawali!

Phi-loo-sophy

2005-10-23T15:32:00.000+05:30

Wandering off on philosophical adventures requires many a time, a place that affords the scant quality of solitude. One look at Bangalore and it becomes glaringly obvious that it is the exact antithesis of a philosopher’s paradise. For all the violent abuses that are associated with the very mention of NIT Trichy, one is forced to admit that lying on the stone outside Lapis and staring into the dark sky with the coffee addicted bovines uttering the occasional moo, is the best time to philosophize and the worst time to do engineering. Sadly, no such luxury here.

But where there is a will there are relatives, or so said Sanat some time back. Witticisms aside, a philosopher will surely find a way out of trivial quandaries like this one, to enable him to fruitfully waste time thinking of all the other trivial problems of the world that do not need solving. I found my spot – the loo.

This finally brings me to what I want to say -
Friends, Romans, countrymen… lend Van Gogh your ears;
(For he has cut off one his)
I come here to bury the western toilet, not to praise it.
Well, only if Brutus is an honourable man, and 19-19-19 hates the spinach eater. The truth of the matter is that the western toilet has played a crucial role in shaping civilization and intellectual superiority of the western man.

You see, initially, there was no toilet. Then god said, “Let there be a toilet”, and there was the toilet. And god saw the toilet was good and decided to take the first heavenly timeout. That toilet was the mother of all toilets. If you are imagining gold fittings and anytime-anywhere hot water then it would be wise to inform you that god was an engineer. Functionality took precedence over form, and the mother of all was nothing but a large gaping hole (so taken was he by this design that apparently it affected a lot of future creations as well). This design was preserved and passed on to successive generations by Laloo Prasad Yadav and his ancestors, and is now known as the Indian loo (lota and all).

The process of using the Indian loo is akin to doing yoga, and as I was informed by the lawyer-chick that one of the asanas has that posture. Yoga aside, functionality is still the fundamental guiding principle of the Indian loo. The squatting position is suitable for a quick shit of not more than 2 minutes, the only exception being Vivek Vaidyanathan whose legendary shits have seen some record breaking lengths. Any more and the blood flow to your legs gets cut off resulting in the pins-and-needles feeling, which I can assure you is not something that you’d want to get in that funny position. With all the high-tension action going on, it’s impossible for your mind to relax and think of the finer things of life (one look at an Indian loo will dispel that possibility anyway). It is definitely not the place to philosophize.

The western loo on the other hand is just the sort of place you could use to get away from the rest of the world. Privacy is ensured, and comfort to a great extent because of the design. And one can spend hours in there pondering about issues that plague the earth. No restrictions of time, no acrobatics required, and the silence lets the mind wander freely. Ideal for philosophizing.

And I need not elaborate on the essential nature of philosophy in shaping man and his thoughts. It’s what leads us ahead. And I think that’s what gave the angrez his edge after years of squatting.

Yet the sages say it was anti-Indian;
And, sure, they were honourable men.
I speak not to disprove what the sages spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did use it once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to use it again?
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the loo there with Sophia,
And I must pause till it comes back to me.

Fakes and Fraudsters! The IIPMs and Shiv Kheras of the world

2005-10-13T16:03:00.000+05:30

Sadly, I was not the journalist who broke the IIPM story. I was given a few links to follow by Bra, and my god did I hit upon a goldmine. Bra and I have always been on the bashing side of the likes of Arindam Chaudhary and Shiv Khera, but never did we imagine that we’d get damning information to substantiate our spite for these now proved fraudsters. It’s a wonderful feeling to have your most sadistic and spiteful dreams turned into reality.

Here’s the link to Outlook Magazine’s article (Note: might require you to register to view this).

I remember sitting with Bra while my brother was reading out parts of the book “You can win!” that he found really inspirational. We were turning into shades of magenta and red, just laughing at all the stuff written in there. Of course, we were the cynics, and my bro was still a little fresh at the time. One thing that stuck out that would make engineering students go up in arms against him is the statement that says something to effect that rock music is bad because of the pseudo-offensive lyrics in it. I remember Bra countering that claim with my then favourite song – Nothing Else Matters by Metallica. He’s released one more book since then, and is going strong (with the exception of the small hiccup that claimed that everything he has written is plucked clean from somewhere else). I’d wish him the very best in writing more books that provide much humour in a humourless world (whether or not they inspire anyone).

And now for the star of the show – IIPM. Launched by the author of another pitiful self-help book “Count your chickens before they hatch” – the pony-tailed Arindam Chaudhary. For those who joined in late, I’ll give you the background.

You all must have seen the huge ads in the newspapers put in by IIPM that claimed to be better than the IIMs and have better placement etc… JAM magazine decided to do a claim-check and discovered a whole load of dirt under the carpet. Follow the links and learn about the tall claims and the extent of the fraud. (Try to follow the links in order). Then came IIM-L grad Gaurav Sabnis with his blog post on IIPM and his pungas. IIPM decided to give his company (IBM) a whole croc of shit and a lot of bad name if his blog post (one more here) was not removed. He stuck his ground and resigned. Paralelly came the turn of Rashmi Bansal, the editor of JAM. DesiPundit - this has got a goldmine of links that will give some sexy updates and extra info. Gaurav Sabnis has more on IIPM and on the legal notice. Rashmi Bansal's caution notice update.

Also, as caught on from the latest blog info – NDTV is taking IIPM live on air about the latest fracas. So don’t forget to tune in today. To read up more: http://alaphia.blogspot.com/2005/10/iipm-vs-bloggers.html.

Hope you have fun following this (or at least as much as I am!).

The six dumbest ideas in computer security

2005-10-09T19:53:00.000+05:30

http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/

Definitely worth a read, and almost layman (definitely requires you to know what Linux, Windows and anti-viral system are).

Arvind Sharoff renamed…

2005-10-01T18:37:00.000+05:30

After searching far and wide for a good nickname of Arvind, we found the ideal one for this eternally busy integrator - MAGGI. Why? Because of the line he repeats so often - "Just 2 minutes…" This line is usually accompanied by a pleading look that requests for just a little more time.

“Hey Arvind, coming for tea?”
“Just two minutes… gimme two minutes” comes back the reply, while showing us a V.

“Arvind, …” And you find him talking on the phone. He looks up and signals a V to you again.

Facts about Maggi:
1. When you both have to catch an ITPL bus in 10 minutes, and he says "just 2 minutes…" then you had better go alone because what Maggi is actually saying is "arey yaar… teen ghante lagengey".
2. When you're going for lunch, and he says "just 2 minutes… I'm coming, you go ahead" - you had better go ahead. He will join you tomorrow.
3. Second favourite line is: "Arey... Gym jaana hai". And he's going there... In just 2 minutes. :)

Imagine what if Arvind had started Maggi noodles with his definition of "just 2 minutes". I mean, we have all heard of Indian Stretchable Time, but this would be starving people too far.

And now for a PJ.
Q: What is Maggi’s favourite TV show?
A: Aur Ek Minute. Why? Because Ek Minute and Aur Ek Minute make “just 2 minutes”!!

I guess Maggi's going to have me for dinner now.

Illegitimi Non Carborundum

2005-09-19T10:06:00.000+05:30

Yup… don’t let the bastards grind you down. The welcome sign on Bra’s door. I intended to write an article on the court’s recent decision to give illegitimate children a share of the ancestral property (apparently the court does not want to punish the kids for the pleasurable mistakes of their parents). However, thinking about doors, especially those in NITT, has changed my mind and I’m going to write about them.

Bra and I decided to go with Latin on our doors. I think that had something to do with Topaz East Wing. We heard that there was as really cool Latin phrase somewhere there, and we set out to find something cooler (though we didn’t know the original cool phrase). We did pass through Draco Dormeins Nunquam Titillandus but that was already booked by J K Rowling. Cogito ergo sum was too common, so my door had Cogito ergo doleo – I think therefore I’m depressed. Maybe I should stop thinking…

Bra of course was having a covert war 24x7 with the northies, the thambis, the NRIs and basically everyone else in the world, so Illegitimi Non carborundum was more like a war slogan rather than an amusing door sign. Chodu, Joshi, Patro (the bathroom radio), Kesari, and a few more definitely made the sign worth the two years it spent on his door. Dear bra went through great pains to make a plaque that said I’m an atheist, thank god, but the unstated fear of Hindutva banging his door down and giving him bumps led him to pin it up on his notice board instead. Of course, the official statement is that he did not find enough nails – two, and a hammer.

Sanat had Russian – Kuss mir im tuchiss, or simply stated, kiss my ass. Of course, Sanat also had his door announcing his reign as the head of Balls. And right there, a few doors down on Lapis second floor west, was Jaggu. Like all others, Jaggu too had dreams and aspirations. Sadly, the others in the wing completed them for him. His door was ravaged beyond words, providing ample amusement to the passersby.

Did you know Jaggu carries two passports? Yup, one for him and the other for his ass – the separate entity. That technically makes them a couple, no? And they are inseparable. Wonder if they’ll get married sometime… Jaggu called himself the Dark Mystic and it’s nice that he didn’t call himself the “white knight” or anything like that. After all, that post is reserved for Ravi, who picked up Anju (alias Bumji, Hippo and now Bambi)… ouch… and rode off with her, leaving Jaggu in the lurch, with Raj watching all this and drinking crates and crates of Mountain Dew that’s not cold.

Anyway, getting back to Jaggu’s door. Some creative person (psst… Kunal) decided that Dark Mystic was a little too glamorous for Jaggu and decided to put within quotes the “stic”, with a graphic image of a floppy part of the human body. Needless to say, Jaggu was not pleased, and we all feigned ignorance about the perpetrator of this act. Jaggu’s door also had Komodo written in big bold letters, with a lizard-like animal drawn below. Apparently, this friendly dragon lives inside his separate entity (with origins in Jaggu’s mind-blowing pubic statement “I’ll shove a komodo dragon up your ass”). Rumour has it that it’s going to get converted to commode pretty soon.

Ankit lived in Lapis 66, and added a six to the existing set, and wrote The beast below it. Definitely the most creative one of the lot. My room number was 69, and I didn’t need to add anything to it – that magic number seemed to attract attention to itself (and me) without much of my help. Despite all the magical and tantric powers that were attributed to it, I didn’t get much benefit out of it. Big kela…

Madhur Deep, in 65, just had to be different. The copyright owner of The iron hand in the velvet glove and Chameleon Technology (TM) used his door flap as a means of giving weekly bits of wisdom to the rest of the world. Yes, basically he used his door as an external notice board, with the help of a whiteboard marker to do the graffiti. It irritated us to no end in the beginning when copied lines from the matrix would appear on it. Later, we decided to fight back and just kept rubbing them off.

Rams had octasamy scribbled for him by the very kind LIFE members. Kompella had ULTA somewhere, which stands for “Unix Linux Technical Administrator”, or just “upside down” – whichever one you prefer. Kesari, of course had some undignified stuff on his – which we shall conveniently leave out.

Well, that’s about all I can remember right now. More on this, as and when things come back to me.

PS: With this high court decision, there will be plenty of “illegitimate” kiddos mushrooming all over the place. Wonder if there will be coaching classes for them…

What fruit juice can do to you...

2005-09-14T11:28:00.000+05:30

(Text in the red box: "Real Mixed Fruit Juice from Dabur is the all-natural way to keep your little one super charged all ay long")

Came to office one fine day to find the integrators of our team sitting around a Real Fruit Juice carton and turning red and purple laughing. Didn't have the courage to interrupt them, but I had a look at the carton after they left. Looks like Dabur has discovered the "all-natural" and more potent alternative to Viagra. "super charged all day long"... quite a claim.

It requires a bunch of engineers to think like this - even if they have been out of college for more than 10 years. Aah!... the joys of being in a tech company :)

PS: Technology can be useful at times. This picture-proof would have been unimaginable some time back. Now its easier to put more junk like this up on the web. Thanks to Som for letting me take the pic with his PDA!

[PJ] What is Kuppusamy's favourite drink?

2005-09-08T18:39:00.000+05:30

Answer: A Kuppu-chino!! :)

imaging tricks

2005-09-06T11:50:00.000+05:30

Nice one, came in a forward. Just like those "hologram" stickers in which you can see one image at one angle, and another when you turn the image a little bit.

(Open the image in a new window, and then highlight the image)

[Infineon] ultra low-cost handsets soon

2005-09-06T11:35:00.000+05:30

(Old news, but this seems to be pretty hot right now.)

http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=5006

The story of a fascist – Part II

2005-09-05T21:07:00.000+05:30

Before we get to Biskuit, lets talk about Hitler. Now Hitler was one of those guys who thought Charles Spencer Chaplin was cool, and there was always a debate in his inner circles whether the fashionable moustache was invented first by the performer or the dictator. Hitler liked life the way it was, but just like Biskuit, was unhappy about the situation of Rhineland. The difference being that Hitler was a lot more educated and knew that there were no rhinos there. So the simple and eternally optimistic Hitler launched a public awareness campaign which propelled him into the limelight, and into jail.

Contrary to popular belief, Hitler was never really against Jews. In fact, the first editions of his book “Mein Kampf” talked more about nationalist philosophies than about repression of Jews. Hitler at that point of time was rather confused because his learning led him to certain contradictions for which he was actively trying to find answers. Biskuit on the other hand was never confused about anything – he knew nothing to be confused about. And it was Hitler’s association with Biskuit that historians would secretly attribute to his revisions – which we now see.

His years in Rhineland had made Biskuit a natural entrepreneur, which of course he didn’t realize. When he took a tour of Berlin, he noticed that beer was not that popular, and before he took on any parliamentary duties, he partnered with the local barman and opened the first exclusive beer outlet in the city.

His first parliamentary session caused a meeting with Hitler, who was standing outside with a fag, contemplating the fate of Germany. Biskuit was rather frustrated on finding out that there would be no lager during the breaks and promptly went up to the leader of the party to take up this distressing state of affairs. A conversation was struck up, and Hitler was delighted to meet the person who with a unanimous vote had thrashed his candidate. Lamenting over the poor state of the beer community, he happened to mention that he was the one who had brought about the beer revolution in Rhineland, and simultaneously lamented about the fate of Germany – the exact thing Hitler was contemplating. “Apparently, our frequencies match”, thought Hitler, and in a moment of unparalleled magnanimity invited him to join his Nazi party, and help transform the nation. And that is what Biskuit did.

Nations were build be good strong people, and good strong people drank beer. Milk was for kids, rum for the partly frozen, and whiskey for the British. So, it rather logically followed that the fatherland need more and needed it now. So in the auspicious month of October, he announced the beginning of a month long festival dedicated to beer. “’Oktoberfest’ it shall be called – all the beer you can drink – subsidized by the government”, he announced, in English. Fortunately, nothing was lost in translation. One of the biggest hurdles he faced was that the Jews had a natural tendency to move away from alcohol, even if it contained only 4% alcohol. How much ever you convinced them, they would not support beer – either by owning shops that sold beer, or by simply just drinking it.

“This would just not do”, thought Biskuit, now promoted to being Hitler’s right hand man. At a clandestine meeting with the soon to be Furher, Biskuit unveiled plans where every weekend, Jews would be taken to a secret location and made to taste beer. “Once they have a sip of the draught, which one of them can refuse another?” reasoned Biskuit. Hitler pondered, and then looked at Biskuit and pondered more.

“But what if they refuse to take the beer?” he asked, almost meekly.

“Then we keep them there until they do!” said Biskuit commandingly, banging his fist down on the table – which scared Hitler. Any normal person would not have flinched, but since when was Hitler normal?

“But won’t that mean taking the law into your own hands?” he asked, this time a little more confident.

“Will you stop asking that many questions!!” said Biskuit, resting his hands on his belly. “This is a matter of national security, and any amount of stupidity is acceptable! In any case, I have no idea what the answers are.”

“Right! I declare myself the Furher, and take the law into my hands” declared Hitler, pulling close to himself a female policewoman standing nearby. “Biskuit – you know what to do. We are now fascists!! Ha!”

And that pretty much sums up what I wanted to say. The rest is well known to all of you, except that behind all of Hitler’s misfortunes was a rather undocumented gentleman well known at that time as Biskuit der Faschist Schwein or, Biskuit the fascist pig (he seemed to like it when he was called that – probably because he didn’t know what it meant). He essentially wrote history, yet probably not as a winner. Though I’m not really sure who lost…

The story of a fascist – Part I

2005-09-01T14:46:00.000+05:30

This is no ordinary story. It recounts a tale that has unimaginable depths of human character, and flawless ignorance that shines pure and unadulterated. This is the story of Herr Biskuit der Faschist Schwein.

Biskuit, born towards the end of the year 1900, was of questionable parentage. The beginning of the year was witness to a rather sloshed mother of Biskuit celebrating the turn of the century. Three quarters of a year down the line, his mother had one more reason to celebrate - Biskuit. Sadly her joy did not last too long for she died a little after giving birth to him. Biskuit was left with little more than an instruction to name the boy in German and a photo of his mother, which he looked at fondly and often wandered off into fanciful flights of how wonderful his mother would have been and how she would have loved him. But by no stretch of imagination was Biskuit to be left an orphan. The local bartender, Chivas, was hooked by the boy’s bright blue eyes and adopted him immediately. There was however a problem of naming the boy. Sadly, Chivas knew as much German as a teetotaler about Johnny Walker. What he did do was ask one of the local frequents, who was a German, to give him a name. Historians have recorded him as ‘often seen cursing and looking for something to feed his dog with’ and there are suspicions that this had something to do with Biskuit’s nomenclature.

Right from the beginning, Biskuit was marked as exceptional – exceptionally stupid. It was probably a combination of his stupidity and his attractive blond hair that resulted in the first use of the phrase “dumb blond” (though those bloody Americans think that everything starts in America). This would be but the beginning of the many titles that that he would assume in the years to come. One of his teachers would recall him as ‘an exceptionally shy boy, especially when it comes to answering questions’. Education was not to be Biskuit’s ticket to fame, fortune and success. That ticket had BEER stamped on it.

At a very young age, Biskuit was exposed to war. War as a philosophical entity is one of the most powerful catalysts of change, and its effect on him was not unnoticed. Though of British citizenship, he felt a surge of anger when Germany lost the First World War. Especially when the Rhineland was taken away, he felt it was an absolute necessity to return the region back to the fatherland because only they were capable of ensuring the survival of the endangered species that gave the region its name. Prompted by the adolescent rush of blood to do something about the appalling situation, he bid goodbye to his bartender father and set forth to Germany.

The problem was that Biskuit knew no German. Crossing the English Channel, he found himself thick in the middle of the frog-eating suave scoundrels. For a few weeks there his efforts were vainly diverted into saving those grenouilles from the sumptuous soups they’d end up in. He ditched his attempts when he accidentally had frog soup for dinner once, and was reconciled to the fact that the frogs were better off in the soup than outside. By no means was this a moral victory for the French, for German tastes were far more sophisticated than eating amphibians. Plodding his way across France, he reached Rhineland, where he was considerably disappointed in discovering that there were no rhinos, and because of the Treaty of Versailles the only things endangered were aircraft. Indifferent to continental politics and without a cause to rally brother rhinos (who were still inexplicably missing) his life became rather empty. A normally idle mind as this would be a devil’s workshop, but Biskuit not having much of a mind was just idle. Eventually he took up what he knew best – beer, and set up shop in the heart of rhino country, making and selling fine beer.

Biskuit’s beer was undoubtedly the best, but that didn’t ensure him any financial successes. How would it when the beer maker cum bartender would frequently get drunk along with his clients? But for most part he didn’t live in poverty, but modestly happy making and drinking beer. He did get a beer belly soon enough and the when it was noticed for the first time at the bar, there was a celebration and a free night of drinks in honour of Biskuit’s entry into manhood. Not unattractive, he could have had his share of the ladies if he would just manage to stand up straight when the party ended. Disheartened by his routinely floppy state, the ladies would resort to other gentlemen there – however much they would have preferred a roughing in the hands of Biskuit.

Biskuit’s beer became famous, even if he did not. Biskuit however was completely ignorant about the non-intoxicating effects of his beer. In and around the time Hitler was on the rise, and his minions were forcing democracy to its knees, the good people of Rhineland decided that they needed a candidate who was well known and could beat Hitler’s candidate in the local elections. For the men at least, it was Biskuit. For the women, interestingly, it was also Biskuit. This had little to do with Biskuit himself and more to do with the fact that the other candidate was a rather stunning Aryan woman whose descendent would be Pamela Anderson. The women came to the conclusion that this was not the time for the solidarity of women kind, and the beer-man was better than this nymph-who-also-does-politics. So almost unanimously, Biskuit won, much to the disbelief of Hitler.

So, Biskuit finally did leave Rhineland, after years of living there and making beer. Interestingly, he still did not know German, which according to him was not as important as the unifying language of beer. And though he didn’t really want to see it, he did get to see the Reichstag – that was before Hitler burnt it down. But Hitler was more of a misguided idealist – misguided by Biskuit. For as you will find out about the things history does not tell, the deep misgivings Hitler had about the world around him, were not his own, but those of Biskuit.

Template changes

2005-08-31T18:40:00.000+05:30

Things can go tremendously wrong when you dont take a backup. Or even if you do. Had to change my template because one fine day my sidebar decided to appear at the bottom of the page. While searching for a good template, I came across Blogger templates, which is good, but may just be too good. Have a look for some really funky templates (might just use one when I get the time to customize it). Tried to stick to the "blue" theme. Its still vaguely blue - green looks horrible (and is also very bright).

More to come...

The paradox of our times...

2005-08-30T23:26:00.000+05:30

(As seen on a t-shirt)

We have bigger houses but smaller families;
More conveniences, but less time;
We have more degrees, but less sense;
More knowledge, but less judgement;
More experts, but more problems;
More medicines, but less healthiness;
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour;
We built more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less comunication;
We have become long on quantity,but short on quality;
These are times of fast foodsbut slow digestion;
Tall man but short character;
Steep profits but shallow relationships.
It's a time when there is much in the window, but nothin in the room.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

To the beggar go the spoils…

2005-08-17T18:56:00.000+05:30

Value systems are tough to define. Tough not because it’s tough to make rules, but tough to make them non-conflicting with each other and bring about a “feel good factor” to the conscience. Most value systems will have humongous flaws in them – gaping cracks in logic that are pointed out time and again in characteristically unique real-life situation. These are the situations that really test the strength of the value system, or find the weak links, whichever way you want to look at it.

One such situation came up on my weekend trip to Chennai. My mom and I were sitting in an auto, waiting for the signal to turn green, when a beggar stops by and puts his hand out and mumbles something that I assume was a request for some money. Almost immediately my mom opened her purse to give him something, and she would have given it if I hadn’t stopped her. Not a weak “why do you want to give money unnecessarily”, but a rather strong and convinced “No, don’t give beggars money”. I think she was rather surprised at this cold behaviour, but anyhow acquiesced to my rather firm request. At this point of time there started a conversation (or debate) on why one must or must not indulge in such practices, which lasted all the way back home, and triggered a whole host of morally murky questions – most of which the world chooses to avoid when faced.

I’m not going to put down the exact conversation here, but I will take the essence and add to it the opinions of many other people I have asked. This “white paper” however, is the result of an attempt to think beyond prevalent “this is how it is done” opinions, and to justify a more solid value system.

The rule of thumb seems to be “I give money only to those people who are really in need”. This set encompasses my mom, Jaggu (with whom there are no arguments when he presents such statements), and a host of nameless people I have met. Why do they do it? Maybe sympathy, maybe the rule of giving back to society, maybe the requirements of the conscience – who knows...

The rather standard riposte of the logical mind is “How do you know who is really in need? Who are you to judge?” Why this is important is that I’ve witnessed money going at the drop of a hat to any and every beggar that stops to ask – irrespective of whether he/she is deserving or not. So, either the statement is used as a cover for just giving everyone, or those people are just really bad at judging need. A more decent way of putting that is “If you really want to give money to people in need, then give it to organizations that are dedicated to doing such things, ala CRY”.

What really is the problem here? What is the conflict? Why did the question of “deserving” even come into the picture? Ask anyone, and they don’t really know why they are saying those things; why they do not want to give randomly, but to those chosen ones. But, they have to give – no questions asked.

Let us question the fundamentals. Why should I not give beggars anything? When you ask yourself this question, there are alarm bells ringing all over the place because it goes against everything – your sympathetic conscience (which feels much better when you have helped out another human being), your upbringing, and mostly everything you have ever known. Let those alarm bells be – Alice is now going deep into the rabbit hole.

Most beggars are not begging out of dire need, but it is a well planned and profitable profession (typically reflected in the mumbaikar’s no-nonsense demeanor) . We all know this, and yet most of us tend to give them the benefit of doubt. “What harm can it do?”, is the usual question. Now we have to put that harm in perspective.

Assume that every person that the beggar meets, gives him (or her) 5 Rupees. If the beggar meets 50 people in a day, he makes 250 Rupees – which is probably not that tough to do. How much in a month (I’m sure they don’t take weekends off)? 7500 Rupees. Quite a lot no?
Now let’s take a hard working carpenter. Giving him the benefit of doubt, he could earn about 8000-10000 Rupees a month. But he’s not whiling away his time, but working bloody hard.
If the difference between a beggar and a carpenter is 500 on the lower side and 2500 on the upper side, why would any sane person want to spend so much time and effort working? Let’s go and beg! Not only that – we are more than willing to haggle over and over again to reduce a few rupees from the price of a table, and at the same time dole out an equal amount to the beggars. Is this the sort of treatment one gets for hard work?

The basis of any progressive society includes hard work, and its rewards. But what we are doing on a daily basis in India is killing this basis. On the surface of it we all support and encourage hard work, but it really does not reflect in our actions – mostly because our thoughts and our actions are systematically detached right from childhood following the example of our elders. What we are doing on a daily basis is sending out a subtle yet profound message – “We don’t believe in hard work, just an easy life”.

Now let’s get back to the argument “I give money only to those people who are really in need”. The people at the absolute bottom of the economic chain, who slog it out and find the rewards meager – are probably the real ones who need that money. And since you are going to give anyway, why not give it to them?

The next time you are out to bargain with the cobbler, or are going to give 10 rupees to a beggar – think.