Could you double check the envelope ?

After losing out five times, director Martin Scorsese was awarded his first Oscar on Sunday for his mob informer movie "The Departed."

The story here

Coffee Festival - Kopi Luwak anyone ?

Yesterday there was a program on 101.3 FM
So there is gonna be an international coffee fest for us to enjoy coffee.

The three-day fest from Feb 23 will feature a wide-ranging exposition, conferences and workshops on coffee by renowned speakers and flavour of India-Fine cup competition to promote the best Indian coffees in the domestic and international markets.

After a stagnant growth for over a decade, domestic consumption began increasing during the last two-three years to touch 80,000 tonnes annually from about 55,000 tonnes till 2002-03, thanks to the mushrooming of Cafe Days, Baristas, retail outlets, vending machines and wider acceptance among the youth.

One of the leading coffee producers, India exports about 70 percent of its annual production of coffee (about 290,000 tonnes), with Karnataka accounting for about 80 percent of the production as well as exports.

Okay , didnt know Karnataka was a major coffee producer.
I heard that it will be held in the Hotel Grand Ashok.

But apart from all the coffee news, there is something REALLY peculiar about the MOST expensive coffee in the world called "Kopi Luwak"

The most expensive coffee in the world is made from beans which have been procured from the faeces of an animal!!!!!!!

Kopi Luwak or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee cherries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The animals gorge on the ripe berries, and excrete partially-digested beans in their feces, which are then harvested for sale. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and in the the coffee estates of south India.

Details on Kopi Luwak here

Nenapirali

While watching a Kannada Sa Re Ga Ma program, I stumbled across songs from a movie called "Nenapirali". The songs are simply fantastic. It is a 2005 movie.

It is a typical Hamsalekha composition. He still retains his charm of penning clever lyrics.

One song, which is about Mysore where the whole story of Nenapirali happens, is really worth listening once, if you have been to Mysore at least once in your life.

Listen to The mysore song here. It reminds me of the Hamsalekha of the Premaloka and the Ranadheera days.

Iron Maiden in town !!

Yes, the heavy metal band Iron Maiden is going to be in town.
Woohoo!!

Boy..I am excited!!

Bruce Dickinson will be a treat to watch on the stage...Hope there is going to be a lot of energy and josh. As I get ready for my favorite Iron Maiden songs , I realise they take up situations and pen the lyrics.

One thing which is very distinct about Iron Maiden is that, the lead guitar is really fast.
Hmmm..It was my favorite band in my college days.

As I hear the songs after a long time I am reliving those days of playing Half-Life , TombRaider, Snooker 1/4/7 on my computer which was oddly placed!!

Some of the songs of Iron Maiden which I love

a) Run to the Hills
b) Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter
c) Hallowed be thy name
d) Blood Brothers , Wicker Man
e) Can I play with Madness ?
f) 2 minutes to Midnight
g) Fear of the Dark
h) The Aftermath
i) Futureal.

Hmmm..Waiting for march 17

Apple and its naming blues.

Apple has a penchant for landing into trouble for using names. Firstly there was the Apple v/s Apple lawsuit. .

Now it has landed in soup for the use of the word iPhone.
Cisco is suing Apple for the use of the word "iPhone".

Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 when it acquired Infogear, a small Redwood City, California, start-up that developed consumer devices that allowed people to easily access the internet without a PC. Infogear had actually registered the iPhone trademark in March 1996. Cisco's home-networking division, Linksys, has been using the iPhone trademark on a new family of VoIP phones since early last year, Cisco said. And last month, Linksys expanded the iPhone family with additional products.

In general, when companies try to make products, they tend to keep it as simple and meaningful as possible and thats when you discover that all the simple and meaningful words are taken!!!

The art of investigation

Programming is definitely fun and can be trained (at least to some extent) , but investigation is not trained as a formal course in Engineering.


The need of being Sherlock Holmes is of utmost importance especially while maintaining software , because you have to sense and search where the error is. Very similar to the job of a mechanic. When you say the car doesn't start, he first has to figure out whether it is a battery problem or a starter problem or a stupid mistake of petrol tank being empty or a fuel injection problem. This investigation skill , I feel is crucial for Software Maintenance. It has its own charm and degree of kicks. You should have this "leave this to me mate! I'll take care of this" attitude.

Yesterday I read this mail about how some of the guys at Paris investigated and located a bug. The fix was so trivial, but the investigation process of how they found the fix was so complicated! Man that was pure adrenaline!!

Sometime ago, this was demonstrated by one member of our team, for which he was granted a "Spot Award". There was one electronic chip board, to which we were unable to telnet. The code was perfectly alright. Our team members were searching everywhere in the code to locate a fix.

The fix was literally out-of-the-box.One of the experienced members told to wash the board with alcohol as the board arrived as a shipment from France. One the board was washed with alcohol, the telnet command worked like a charm!

Especially if you are in the field of Software Maintenance, you have to highlight this skill and your ability of searching an issue in a huge system. After all, developing new software every six months means that no-one is buying your stuff. There is always a need for support.

[Fwd] Ravana and Seetha

RAVANA
Bhavathi bikshaam dehi.


SEETHA
Thogolli Swami.


RAVANA
Border line daati Baaramma Seetha.


(she came out for giving the biksha)


RAVANA
Ha Ha Ha..Naanu ninna Swami alla, naanu Ravana..


SEETHA
Ha Ha Ha...Nanu Seetha alla...avara mane kelsadavalu...Muniyamma

There's too much confusion in this world.

Haloor ge ulidavane Gowda

The teacher:student ratio cannot get worse — 1:800. The prestigious University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering has just one teacher for 800 students! .... The lone faculty in the nearly 100-year-old institution is K R Venugopal, chairman, department of computer science and engineering, who sits in the college premises from 9 am to 9 pm!

This is the same Venugopal, from who wrote the book on Pascal Programming Language.

Okay, I'll stop fretting and you read the full article here