Bridesmaids

with the wife accompanying me to various 'male oriented' movies, it was time for pay-back. So we decided to watch the "Bridesmaids" this Saturday which captures the travails of a struggling single woman presumably in her thirties, having to undergo the trauma of being the 'maid of honor'. This after a 10K walk/run session in the morning and a heavy south Indian breakfast

For the first time in our HK movie watching history we arrived way too early -20 mins before the show had started. That gave us enuf time to surf for a good sandwich and coffee in the IFC mall, which is not so a great place if you are looking for anything apart from the BRANDED overpriced clothing and accessories.

After 15 mins of loitering we finally settled for a coffee and a sandwich from the multiplex's cafe . My initial discomforts on watching a 'chick flick' were put into rest when around half of the viewers were men or women who sounded like men. The show began with the trailer of "Point Blank". (probably something we will watch, esp it sounded like a Spanish movie) I hate it when there are no or just 1/2 trailers. I usually watch movies for the trailers as well and HK leaves me disappointed in this arena.

Anyway, the movie starts with the lead character having a somewhat humbling sleepover, and goes through her emotional travails with a sense of good humor, as she tries to see the positive side in her best friend's wedding. Agree its no "The Hangover", but it certainly is not one of those Hugh Grant movies, and actually falls into the categories of "Bridget Jones Dairies" movies.

So ladies go watch it for some good fun and guys if you are into a relationship suggest this movie to your better halves and get some brownie points or else wait for its appearance on Netflix, HBO or Star Movies. ( don't sue me pls)

When you are dealing only with signed and unsigned integers to represent antenna transmission powers expressed in milliwatts and decibels and there are lot of logarithm and exponential function conversions in a signalling processor where floating operations are banned due to CPU cycle consumption (as per coding guidelines), life is difficult.

But then that's what programming on a dsp is all about - hard and challenging and dealing with only integers. tough stuff. Yesterday we are faced with a problem of calculating (y)^x when x can be = {2,4,8,16,20,40,80,160} and y = {0.000 ..... 0.9999}. Yes there is a 4 digit precision needed and you need to use only integers. But then we saw some code on the web and we could adapt that code.

It was interesting to say the least.

Something which is extremely apparent at the work place at China is the way the developers perceive the management. The manager's authority is not questioned. I have seen three teams here and it is the same in all the teams. His word is the final. I am more of people's person (at least that's what I try to project) and I try to value people over process - That's what I at least aim to do so. When I gave the choice to some people to pick up some work items, their first reaction is :- we would like you to allocate us the work Also, as I was watching the CCTV channel, there is one scene where the students get up and greet the teacher when he comes to class. They really bend their heads down and bow their heads REALLY DOWN.

OK - perhaps that's why communism works here - Perhaps I am restricting myself to a narrow minded stereotype but that's my gut feel. Somehow communism may not work in India. A few idealists shouting their principles out and neither Kerala or West Bengal impress as communist led states - which makes me believe that communism may not work in all places.

This led me to google more on this topic and I landed into Power Distance Index and a management research paper by a guy called Hofstede.Perhaps, many people have already heard of his name, but this is really interesting.

Power distance Index measures the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. 


Look at China and India and then look at the scandinavian countries' power index in this post

The unofficial vegetarian guide in the Zhejiang province

Take a print out and carry this -

I tasted some chinese dishes today. Theye were "interesting" and really tasty to say the least. By mistake I ate duck's egg..Quack quack. Remember "egg" can mean any egg - that's where I got misled.

Step 1: express your preference to the waiter- Show him this sentence

English: I am a vegetarian（I only eat vegetable）, I can take eggs/milk but NOT meat．|
Chinese: 我是素食主义者（只吃素菜），我可以吃各种蛋／牛奶但是什么肉都不吃。

NOTE: please NOTE vegetarian is really rare in China, so in some rare cases it might be possible some servants can NOT understand what does vegetarian mean, though I suppose the above statements should be clear enough

Step 2 : Spoon and Fork - unless you are a chopstick master

English: I need spoon and fork.
Chinese: 我需要刀和叉作为餐具。

Step 3 : Menu
English: please show me the menu, with English OR with pictures.
Chinese: 请给我菜单，有英语或者有图的。

Step 4: After burrrp

English: please show me the bill! How much is it?
Chinese: 买单！多少钱？

2: typical words used in the restaurants:

#	English	Chinese	pingying
1	fork	叉子	Chazi
2	Spoon	调羹	Tiaogeng
3	Chopsticks	筷子	Kuaizi
4	menu	菜单	Caidan
5	Vegetable	蔬菜	Sucai
6	Meat (the things you want to avoid, e.g. pork, chicken, lamb, etc)	肉	rou
7	Flying cake	飞饼	Feibing

3: what I had today

#	English	Chinese	Pingying	Estimated price
1	Pickled duck’s egg	皮蛋	Pidan	~ 12 CNY
2	Chinese Date (jujube)	枣	Zao	~ 10 CNY
3	Sweet lotus root with sticky rice	蜜汁糖藕	Mizi tang’ou	~ 10 CNY
4	Pumpkin covered by egg yolk	蛋黄南瓜	Danhuang nangua	~ 18 CNY
5	Boiled souliecai （Vegetable）and tofu NOTE: sorry there is NO English name for手捏菜 I am afraid, thus I put the pingying here	手捏菜（青菜）豆腐	Souliecai doufu	~ 20 CNY
6	rice noodle with egg and cabbage (without sea food）	海鲜炒粉丝（不要海鲜）	Haixian cao fensi (buyao haixian)

9 Nations of China

The nine nations of china.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/11/the-nine-nations-of-china/7769/

Now, I stay in the Zhejiang province. "THE METROPOLIS" according to the article.

suddenly i am totally unplugged from the happening India....need to dig into this anna hazare news...

regarding corruption - I really cannot take a concrete stance :I think it is impossible to eliminate corruption at ALL levels.

When we hear abt corruption, first we think about bribes.The biggest unaccounted sum I had paid was Rs.12,000 for which I received no receipt. This was while getting the house registration - This I learnt would be shared among all the workers working in the sub-registrar's office including the computer data entry boy and all the odd job workers. Of course, I am sure some portion would also go to sub-registrar. But then - some amount of bribe could be legalized - By having a STRICT demarcation between a GIFT and a BRIBE. For eg. anything < 5000/= could be a legal gift. More than that, would be a bribe. According to the current law, both the bribe taker and the bribe giver are criminal offenders - NRN's idea => Make Bribe GIVING as legal and make bribe taking as illegal. I dunno how it would work.

Regarding the Jan Lokpal bill, I seriously do not know whether any other country has such a model of policing the Indian State. Any fleeting/ serious thoughts ? Our India seems to be becoming absolutely intolerant towards corruption - what a very good trend!

These days, our blog has become sooo inactive- Hope I will find time to re-vitalize it!

hello hz

one week in china.....having bitter sweet experiences here....I wait for the internet connection @ home with bated breath.

Grading subjective answers using a program

An Optical Marker Sheet can be scanned and computer readers can detected the shaded spots and detect a correct / wrong answer based on an answer key.

But consider this challenge:-

a) A student can write an exam on a paper => Which can be graded by a computer.

b) A student can type an exam on a computer => which can be graded by a computer.

So, is this solution a) or b) possible ? At least for the option b) I am just wondering what would the software architecture of the system be like ?

Some professors are already using such software : Here is one such software - SA grader from Idea Works.

Just wondering what could be the applications for such a program : subjective grading - checking against a template and evaluating. There must be a "semantic component" in this software which "understands" the text - Just wondering whether it could be used in web search (for longer queries) ?

Reference article : http://chronicle.com/article/To-Justify-Every-A-Some/128528/

Has the post 2008 crisis economy peaked?

It doesn't seem really good as to what we are heading towards - stagnation in the western world which is influenced by a debt crisis in Europe and a deficit driven craze in the US. The Asian region still seems to be okay, with inflation being the main concern. Asian countries still have some levers to keep the domestic economy propelled by adjusting the interest rate downwards. And we have China which still wants to build excess stuff in almost all sectors which will keep demand going for a while.But not sure for how long Asian tigers can sustain with the help from the Western demand as most of them rely on exports.

The West seems to have lost the recovery race. And the banks are taking note of this by shedding jobs in Europe and NA. Oil is rolling back towards $90/bbl, leading indicators are slumping again, gold's hitting a record daily and interest rates on European bonds are on a massive rise. Or

This is all just a massive market scam to force US to go for a QE3 as most of the instruments above (stocks, bonds, oil, gold etc) are controlled by financial institutions and having milked $1.5 trillion out in profits from the treasury and setting record profits in 2009 and 2010 (not to forget massive bonus payouts), the profitability is on a decline.

The only neutral indicator "Unemployment" rate which the banks do not contribute much to hasn't improved that much.

Now we shall hear requirement of stimulus drumming up from the banks, Fed comes out with statement, followed by treasury and then Mr. Obama will sign for an another stimulus. But wait, he cant do it so directly this time as the Republicans will be vying for his blood. So where do we end-up ??

Is Obama the biggest disappointment of the decade

I usually reserve my reservations about people to verbal conversations only, as I am assume I do not have the authority to put it down in writing. But man, this guy for all the things the world/ more importantly US of A gave him, he has been the biggest disappointment ..

This is not what is expected from the 2008 Time Person of the Year and the Nobel prize winner.... probably the awards committee went too much ahead in time in declaring him a super-hero.

this week follows one more compromise on the debt issue.. cut deficit to push debt through 2012.. meaning.. i don't really care about socialistic agenda, I just want to get my second round of Presidency.. Capt' America is certainly as glued to his seat as is BSY.. (oh the latter resigned).. The Supreme commander is no better than our senile PM, who bends over and out to please Madame Gandhi..

I seriously wonder if Obama is a Republican mole inside the Democratic party... ?? If he seriously believes in whatever he says.. be it that the tax cuts for the rich is not appropriate, or his views on medicare and helping the 99% of American population. Why does he always reach a compromise with the Republicans and give away so many things? Is this what Harvard thought him to do??..

why cannot he Veto out the debt plan, and face the Supreme court..?? I am admiring Jr Bush more now as to how he managed to maneuver his totally stupid decisions through the house and senate .. be it the invasion of Iraq, tax cuts, $700 billion bailout package etc etc.. by creating FEAR and passing it through others spine successfully..

I am now against sending young ppl to mighty positions.. they suck due to lack of experience..

There are 2 types of students.

Some students follow their master to the hilt. They are the perfect students for a master. They follow the principles laid down by their teacher or the master with devotion. This is especially true in the "field" of religion. The principles laid down by the guru are religiously followed by the students. Those principles are so blindly followed that, the original intent of those teachings would perhaps be forgotten over the course of time. In the field of science, Aristotle's ideas were accepted EVEN by the scholars of those years without challenging until Copernicus, Galileo came along. Newtonian Physics dominated until Einstein came along....

Some students are smarter. They find the best points or the talent of their master which actually was responsible for making the master, and then advance to add their own blend of creativity and carve their own path and write their own destiny. The key point here is that: recognize when you should branch from your master - you cannot just worship your master your whole life- when will you put your own head to use ?

Now why am I saying all this ? I keep watching (or rather , forced to watch) all those reality shows. In one of the reality shows, they judge people based on how much the contestant follows the original song. If the contestant follows the vocals of the original singer accurately, he is judged better. Conformance to the original song is appreciated.

In other reality show, (the judges are of the calibre of SPB, Hamsaleka) they encourage creativity, improvisation.

Somehow I feel this value is more ingrained in the roots of Indian society. We tend to encourage and feel safe of about confirming to accepted ideas, time tested careers, family business continuation and never let a person blossom his creativity. I do not have a solution to this problem. The European countries, I always wonder, how do they have so many contributing citizens in so many diverse fields . It is very seldom that find a German/Swede/Finn who is a zero. They tend to honestly specialize in something. Hmm that is a big topic and we cannot conclude anything ....

I watched the movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara yesterday. Did not expect much from the movie, but liked the songs which have been playing on the TV.

The movie has a certain mood of "feel good" attached to it. I like the idea of three thirty something friends going on a road trip. The best part is, the movie unfolds beautifully about how they open up with each other as time spent progresses.

Raja Sen's review is unsurprisingly merciless (as usual). Of course I did not watch Dil Chahta Hai , so I do not know whether this movie will click. Btw, still have not watched Delhi Belly.

Maybe we should do that road trip thing one day. Sounds like a fun idea.

my new nokia c7 mobile is lost. :-( ...Life sucks. I had so many contacts and nice photos and videos of my daughter in that phone. Reckless with valuable stuff....sometimes it is better to buy a phone like 1100...

i got down from my cab to wolf down my daily dose of pani puri and i must have dropped it on the way back....

Need to get a duplicate sim, that 7 year old mobile number is all important to me.

Current Music : Karma is a $#@%W$@

I am fascinated with scripts which deal with plagiarism. There was a Kannada movie called Kantheredu Nodu which is one of my favorite movies to remake if I were a director.....

The best part is that, I have not even seen this movie fully, but the script gives a lot of scope for improvisation. This mixed with the story of the Kannada playwright Samsa will be an interesting recipe.

However, as I browsing about all this plagiarism related trivia, I came across this REAL startler:-

What if William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him ? Whoa...When all the truth in this world is a big lie !

Check this article about Shakespeare Authorship Question - Maybe it is a conspiracy theory. But I would love to believe that Shakespeare wrote the stuff attributed to him.

Picture this :

You are dancing to some nice Jazz music and there is wine and all that. The background music to this is : Enter Sandman - From Metallica.

Sounds far-fetched ?

Some smart guy in Youtube has taken the vocals of Metallica and made a Smooth Jazz version of Enter Sandman, perfect for a romantic evening. heheh...The metal heads will be fuming !!!

March 27th

An early morning piping hot coffee with 2 ice cubes and a dose of Movies Now. A well slept night washes away the thoughts and the mind is a clean mark board. A missed calendar alarm and a missed sms. An eggless cake. A dusty red car trying to soak in the elusive rain . Speeding through a known area after a period of 2 years. Veg Sizzler. A red ant bite. Pipes through the nose and mouth. 2 pen shots and the black eyes clearing up.

Life goes on...

Weekend

Friday late evening there was a call from my manager to check some release blocking defects and I was forced to stay awake till 1:30. After that I took a nice nap on Saturday morn, but got up at 5:45 and I was spaced out and dizzy because of lack of sleep....

Saturday afternoon, I was tired and was stuffed like a python and wanted to sleep...But, I decided to watch Dhobi Ghat. It was a hot afternoon and I curtained my room and blocked sunshine and made the room dark and the ceiling fan whirred at a gentle speed. I was undoubtedly tired...

I dunno, if I had seen the movie in some other mood with expectations, I would not have liked it at all...But somehow, I was really freshened - Maybe it was the rains they show in the movie or the gentle pace or the life of Bombay - In fact nothing happens in the movie - Background music is so minimal and artistically used . And all the actors have done an awe-inspiring job. Very well made.

Hmmm...Other than that I had a convocation ceremony for my degree at MSRIT. The food was good and we were made to wear the caps and the provost of IIT had come all the way from Chicago and TN Seshan and Rajiv Mody (Sasken CEO) were there....Interesting event...

This Chinese New Year is the year of the rabbit : Not many people have turned up from the testing team from Hangzhou, and looks like I will have a relaxing week. Seems like the new year in China is a week long celebration.

We do not have such a vacation like that :-( Except for Diwali.

2 suns ...

Wow if our astronomers are to be believed, that would be an incredible event. Betelgeuse one of the real big stars is going to be blow up (or we see the event now) - it would be a Supernova. Here is a news report on Betelgeuse blowing up

This star is really gigantic and hence it would blast as a supernova....and then probably become a neutron star or a black hole. See the size comparison of Betelgeuse with Earth or even Sun here

But when it could blow up is a question : It could be million years from now ? Or as recent as 2012 ? If we are seeing it blow up in 2012 then it should have actually exploded in 1400s as it is 600 odd light years away and that light is reaching earth just now....

Nonetheless just wondering how can they predict life cycle of a star. A star can live for millions (or perhaps billions??) of years...Then how can we predict its lifecycle ? We might have advancements in astronomy for the past 100 years but that's just a fraction of time. They might be using some simulations/ theoretical models...

When you are testing Wireless Networking equipment, you can easily see testcases depicting scenarios like :

User travelling at 30kmph and he is doing an ftp application and he executes a "handover" (which would mean, one tower would handover its responsibilities of managing/ tracking this user to another tower because the user is going away from this cell) and the handover has to be successful and the ftp has to continue with an acceptable speed without disruption of service.

Back in 2006, I would have smirked : Good testcase....but, Ha! which moron would be doing an ftp while travelling. Probably this is valid in developed countries ...

But today in 2010, I found myself doing that - I remembered myself thinking aloud that day and I was so convinced that Wireless data services would not make a big impact to the life of people ! A real life Handover scenario (forget the testing and all that) ....Yes, I was downloading the "Angry Birds" application which is a popular game , sitting in the cab. The 2MB download started near my place and completed near Ghali Anjaneya Swamy temple which is like 5km away and there must have been at least 1 Handover....The download went through smoothly.

A http session is still a stateless protocol so all your web browsing may not have a real handover scenario but just a change in the serving cell....but an ftp session is a different story.

Which made me think about Vision. Some people can think 2 or three years down the lane. They have staunch beliefs that their ideas (be good or bad or useless) would come to light and people would use them. Vision is what a higher management team needs. They need to predict what will happen say in 2015 and then bring in the people who can execute their vision.

I know I may sound really like "??????" but it really pays for having a roadmap 5 years down the lane. True for corporations, True for Politics, Perhaps good to have for Personal Life as well...(I agree : Sometimes live for the moment works very well in life)

A mammoth idea

One Japanese professor has announced that he would go to Siberia and try to find the undamaged tissue of a mammoth or at least get some mammoth tissue from Russian scientists and clone a mammoth.

Sounds cooL enough...The technique of regenerating a mammoth is interesting to read but everything depends on what he is able to find.

I do not know, but somehow I do not like the idea of cloning....Remember Agent Smith ?

Also, do you remember the movie Omen-1. The son of the devil , Damien was born out of a wolf or some other creature. At that time, it sounded fearsome , but then that is what the science of cloning could do.

Sounding "Apocryphal" today ...heheh

No one killed Jessica

India is a country when one can easily lose hope because of the chaos, the grind. Most people continue to live this existence like sheep and some become tigers ruling the sheep and some become greedy dogs barking and snatching; Some are pigs - eat the filth and are despicable.

Can someone lose their life because of not serving drink ? Is the value of a drink as valuable as a life ? asks Vidya Balan's intrepretation of Sabrina Lal. It is a hard hitting depressing movie. Does not lose the tempo and really well done.

The music is FABULOUS. Amit Trivedi of Dev-D scores like a master in this movie. The songs are raw and they have the angst and dark depths required for this kind of the movie. One of the most promising music directors of the post Rahman era. Here is a sample of one of the songs : No one killed Jessica - Aetbaar.

The movie is a good one, it requires that kind of a mood to appreciate the movie - It tries to show what kind of role media can play in a democracy. Watch the trailer of No one Killed Jessica to understand the mood.

Interesting video : This is relevant to large corporations - Very true.

Mobile Number portability is coming to India

And as usual the Telephone Operators are fighting their asses out to lure away the customers. Now you might probably know the fiercest battleground of advertising is Telecom operators in India. They often come out with amazing ads.

But somehow, the Vodafone ads are a cut above the rest. They capture the eagerness and curiousity of a child in a fair "something special is happening here, i want to go there" very well.

Not sure who is the director ...The photographer...I dunno how they found that guy...You can tell a story abt him.... Check out this MNP ad from VDF

Here is an ad for MNP from Idea.

BUT APART from the ads, if you ask me about the VDF coverage, this is still a debatable point.

India has a booming Health Tourism Industry and this is reflected by the number of patients visiting India. However there is a strange case of politics happening in the field of medical research:

A superbug (an antibiotic resistant organism) has been named after New Delhi. It is being called "New Delhi superbug" - A name that hints that the origin of the organism is in Delhi, but Indian doctors say that's not the case.

Eminent doctors like Dr. Devi Shetty have spoken to the media that it is a case of tarnishing Indian Health Tourism.

Healthcare experts in India say the British are just worried because they are losing patients to hospitals here. “It’s a false alarm, I track infection and have not seen a single case in my hospital. Hospital-acquired infections are far more common in Britain and the West than in India,” said Dr Yatin Mehta, chairman, institute of critical care and anaesthesia, Medanta – The Medicity.

And the Journal () editor has also acknowledged the unfair naming.of the new delhi super bug.

Back to Monarchy

okies.. almost everyone knows this..but the statistics shown in this article on Indian politics turning into a family business is quite alarming..

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?269931

Not sure what the future of politics in the country is.. but it certainly doesn't seem to be encouraging.. in the future we will have "Shenshah e hindustan' rather than "prime minister of india" blah blah blah..

somehow when we were politically progressive we were economically backward, now when the economic engine is steaming well politics takes a backward step..

succession planning has successfully penetrated business, bollywood and politics.. the Defense force is the only salvation..

The office has been updated to the distant fairyland Manyata Tech Park.

Although the place is really damn good, I have to get used to this long journey YET AGAIN.

Hopefully I shall get used to this.

Happy New Year

Here is wishing everyone a happy, purposeful and prosperous New Year 2011.

As you might already know, Google is working on a laptop called Chrome Notebook.

Here is a video about the some features of the Chrome notebook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-Vnx58UYo&feature=player_embedded

But this post is about the marketing of the notebook !!! Check out what happens at 2:23 in the video.

You can see a few equations in the video.

One guy took an interest to really solve those equations and win the google laptop.

The puzzle is a mensa level puzzle and when you see the answer by this guy, you will realize the heights of human curiousity and the craze for google products.

See the solution to the puzzle here :-

http://www.sylvainzimmer.com/2010/12/10/first-to-decode-the-chrome-os-video-equation-won-a-cr-48/

weekend was memorable ... Met our good old zeedy and even richie is in town...let us all sync up and meet somewhere!

the other day (sunday), was a non happening pensive mood day....But still relaxing. I have to catch the "Super" movie. Wanted to check out Tees Maar Khan but was discouraged by the reviews ....

Let us see how the work load is ;-)

Feel much more comfortable in my little blog than any other part of the web.

Work is supposed to start : There are 4 or 5 people sitting on the top of my head regarding CQI 0 (I am supposed to reply to that guy) and the other chinese over enthusiastic guy whose email always has a hehe or haha...dunno wtf to do with that guy.

What rains yday. Came home drenched after almost riding the activa into ditch for getting that invaluable piece of road to move forward in the crowd.

Life goes On - Mid December is here : General LUL. Nothing is more boring than starting a workday with a lackadaisical groan.

My Outlook reminder box pops up to remind me that I am forgetful and there is a team meeting in the canteen.

Ok off to the canteen with a cup of coffee

Bang and Boom

What would happen if a Mills and Boon lady meets a Cowboy ?

It would sound like this song : Bang Bang the song which was played in the movie Kill Bill 's opening credits. The way she says "Bang" has no Bang at all ....

One more song like this is Boom Boom song : the lady singer says Boom with no Boom.

I remembered this song after seeing the name of a Chinese guy here :- Bang Wang . Seriously the names are the exact stereotype you have ...There is a Jing Jing Tong as well

This is really bad. The US Airport Security check procedure is so tedious and the I personally feel that the officials tend to misuse their power.

India needs to do the same .... Strip search the bloody US diplomats at Airports. Let them howl or cry.

When Obama came down to India, it seems that Indian Ministers had to show their Pan cards and ID Cards to get an entry, at the Taj Hotel for some Bangquet party!

Indian ministers in India and in Mumbai - to show their full credentials and be quizzed by US security officers.

And most of them did show their ID cards to the US security officers. Some of the ministers at least boycotted in a dignified way... It may seem perfectly logical to some people on the msg boards , but somehow we should retaliate/ react in a strong way for this.

wikileaks

Consider this problem :-

Alice has documents D1, D2, D3,...., Dn which are leaked to the web and now Alice faces a major problem. Now how can she mitigate the effect of leak ?

Here is a "Confusing" answer

Read this article about Wikileaks at Godel's lost letter blog.

milking the cow

it doesn't matter who you are in politicis.. BSY, HDK, DG, AK, SMK, Reddy bro etc etc.. there is just one motive.. Milk the cow as much as possible.. the others oppose the loot as they fall behind.. and then one gets overthrown by the other.. and enters a new person with better milking technique.. by this time the herd would have expanded.. in the past two decades Karnataka politics hasnt seen much change and there is no hope for change ...

its freaking depressing reading a national newspaper.. on one side you have A.Raja and the PM and the other side you have BSY...

Ad free Wiki world

Wikipedia needs around $20 million to continue without Ads. If you believe that this is the right way then read this and contribute accordingly.

If you believe Economic theory should prevail then ignore this Post

tech..

following on Sudeep's comment.. if you visit NY times, technology section.. its all about apps and gadgets.. meaning US is no more into other technologies..

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/index.html

Weekend Chennai tales

Had been to Chennai on the Diwali weekend. Train travel after a long time and this time with my daughter...She gets hyper on train : Initially she is hyper active , then after some time hyper bored and hyper crying. But interesting train journey.

Chennai has some typical things : The men wear the sparkling white Dhotis and lungies and ride on two wheelers: Something not seen much in Bangalore; The white shirts have a blue tinge because of Robin blue drops added to the detergent soap water....and then the moustaches and the distinct chennai way of saying "saar" ... Enjoyed all this and more. What sambaar in the hotels, yaar! They use tamarind and the right amount of huli pudi...Never get that in Bangalore.

I used to like one Illayaraja song when I was in Chennai the last time when I was in Chennai way back in 1996-1997 timeframe and my uncle was doing his mtech. Was remembering that song and humming it all the while....

I am no web expert, but now it looks really obvious :

If you have the web site traffic, you are literally the superman. Content can gradually evolve.

Bring in the people :Then applications can evolve

"If people do search within Facebook, if they do email within Facebook, if they do instant messaging within Facebook, all of these will chip away at Google's properties."

Google bars Facebook from accessing contacts and other data. Good move, from a rivalry point of view. But Social Network comes with an expiry tag unless you try to bring in some really useful applications apart from sharing photos, videos.

Social Networking websites are a necessary evil. Anyway let us see what happens. Seriously, people can invest time on something more valuable - I know it sounds cliched , but that truly is the case.

Playbook..

Looks like Blackberry has got it finally...
check this out
It looks awesome.. probably time to get into RIM stock (up 6% after the demo) and short AAPL ??
BB is FLASHing too much about Adobe .. thats the downside.. (a dig at Mr.Jobs who seems to be proud of his non-FLASHY 10" Pad compared to a FLASHY 7" tablet)

Cloudy Morning

I just could not stomach the fact of going to office today. Felt groggy and couch potatoey. Ate some roasted peas and I started to blog. Yesterday I listened to a famous song which I had heard of. Apt song for the moment.

Ain't no Sunshine by Bill Withers.

The drummer looks drugged and that's called true style. He is stoned and he is enjoying himself.

I happened to get a copy of the 100 day movie "Krishna'n Love Story". The promos look very peppy and happy. The movie promos these days focus on color and pretty faces and this 100 day curiosity made me watch this movie.

Pretty heavy and depressing Love story : That's what it is. The love story moves beyond this dating, coffee day scenes and the heroine has put up an impressive performance; Reminded me of a piece of Kalpana's histrionics in Sharapanjara....

These south indian directors have an unofficial PhD when it comes to Love Stories.

Italian Song

I found this remix of a song called Yolanda Be Cool - We No Speak Americano. The video is hilarious...The singers seem to be so happy and enthu. Uplifting :-)

The original is on a different level, much better and even more entertaining ! Highly recommended

Renato Carosone - Tu Vuò Fa' L'Americano

Seems that this is NOT italian but some language spoken Naples, Italy. I imagine Don Corleone dancing for this song.

CWG and Cricket

Was it right to have a cricket series amidst the CWG ??

Cant the cricketers stay away from a little limelight and give other sports some chance ??

The sports markets aren't perfect yet.. so it needs some support someway..

Political Drama

whats happening in namma naadu.. karu naadu ??

another drama??

every year there is some dissidence, some coup, some no-confidence motion..etc etc ..

the only thing that is stable and growing is the corruption level.... and the business in the resorts of the neighboring states

idu copy !!!!

Identify the copy .... from the original ...

Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre.

Finally I finished reading this magnificient book.

Here is a review of the book - Freedom at Midnight - Review

Dear Zachary

I had discovered an keyboard artist called Money Mark and I was listening to his songs. One such haunting and sad song was Color of the Blues which has a Beatlesque melody. However the video aroused my curiousity. It showed some random family snaps, of some 2008 documentary called Dear Zachary.

I read about the documentary some days ago, and it is still lingering in my mind. I think I shed a tear just by reading abt it. DO NOT READ IT. Try to get the movie. Really affecting. I have not watched this documentary but still I am sure it will have a powerful impact. Highly recommended documentary, really depressing story. Here is a trailer of Dear Zachary

Shankar

Ananth talks about Shankar in this article after 20 years since Shankar Nag passed away. The final accident.

It just offers an insight on the political views of the brothers.

Brilliant.

GM .. wassup with CWG

Now , along with the usual Good morning salutations, someone always asks about "whats up with CWG" .. two weeks ago the answer would be "dont worry, things will fall in place".. now its like "you still care??"..

watched Dabaang over the weekend.. just showed how much masala we lacked in bollywood since srk/aditya chopra unleashed DDLJ.. a nice break from the exotic foreign locations, designer clothes, Hinglish etc etc etc..

In my dream yesterday, Suresh Kalmadi had made an appearance. He was playing the saxophone. Then in the next scene, it becomes a pungi .... Inspired by the dream, I present you this high technology graphic.

Snakes are found at the CWG Village.

sweet memories

God knows - Mando Daio
Music Video which looks like a home video :-)

A thought

Alexander the Great was a great Leader. Not much of a master strategist. Leadership is about belief and emotion : Perhaps not much about logic.

At the height of his power, Alexander the great, the undisputed master of the known world (at that time) would still draw his sword first at the beginning of the war and his horse(s) would charge in the front and lead his men to the war. Alexander felt that he could not ask his men to risk their lives unless he was willing to demonstrate by his actions that he had complete confidence in the outcome.

The sight of Alexander charging forward so excited and motivated his soldiers that no force on earth could stand before them..A leader is able to inspire the "fire to do" in others.

That kind of confidence make men believe in the leader.

I am not back from any soft skill training, but this is inspirational.

CWG

First of all, India scores very poor in the infrastructure department. Taking CWG 2010 to be hosted in India, was quite a challenge. And then corruption at various levels has just provoked everybody.

Now dog faeces was found in the CWG Village (just like any other village in India) and then this and this.

Really embarrassing and bad news. We have spoilt our image due to corruption. Shame on the organizers for spoiling India's image.

Which Sunday Morning do you like ?

Sunday Morning (1995) No doubt (The first sunday morning I heard, it is hard)
Sunday Morning (2004) Maroon 5 Song (Beginning is really good, but then it loses steam)
Sunday Morning (1967) by Velvet Underground (Heard this recently )

I like Velvet Underground version - very lullaby-ish : Andy Warhol's group....

newS

I hate the 24-hour story broadcasting in the disguised NEWS form from Star News. I bet it is no different from the other channels in India.. In emulating BBC, CNN etc these guys have gone whacky.. not to be said that CNN, BBC themselves can do 24h * 365 days of quality news..

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/us/10media.html?_r=1&hp

illustrates how things are blown out of proportion by media..

I miss prime-time news .. i do not know anymore where to catch this...as a kid we used to tune to DD twice in a day in the night for the Vartegalu and English News (dint care much about the Hindi thing)... and as we grew up the frequency increased to add one in the morning and one more in the night.. but now its there all the time.. which suckssss... to much data and much less information and no analysis...

Chinese Influence

Its been no secret that China is ploughing through its way in South Asia, building strategic ties with India's neighbors. Its association with Pakistan is well known for a long time, so is its relationship with the JUNTA. And now its flexing its muscle in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

With a bank balance of $2.4 trillion.. (its literally bank balance for China), it seems to be splurging (in local currency terms) in the Indonesian ocean. The influence is just on infrastructure it seems to be entering the political minds as well..

Sri Lankan president extends grip on power

By Jane Cowan

Updated 8 hours 15 minutes ago

The Sri Lankan president will extend his grip on power after the country's parliament voted to amend the constitution.

In what critics describe as "the last nail in the coffin" of Sri Lankan democracy, the country's parliament passed a constitutional amendment abolishing two-term presidential limits.

The changes also loosen rules designed to prevent the politicalisation of the police and the judiciary.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa was re-elected in January after the government won the 25-year-old civil war against the Tamil Tigers.

He can now stand for re-election in 2016.

Mr Rajapaksa is popular with Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority but critics have accused him of stifling dissent.

He had already been accused of ignoring the rule of law and jailing opponents.

Other changes empower him to appoint top judges and other public officials unfettered by any legal veto.

Mani Ratnam made Ravana and revived the trend ;-) and now it looks like Ramayana will repeat all over again..

Looks like a new Lankeshwar in the making..

Wisdom

I was walking past the ABB compound near office in the evening hour, sunset hour. The moment I walked past a lamp post (which was very close to my head) it switched on. It sort of looked like a Halo.

Nirvana near the ABB compound. Enlightened. It was like the Billie Jean video.

Heart sutra (contd)

Here is a meaning of the heart sutra. [Emptiness]

While some random Youtubing, I stumbled upon this surreal buddhist chant called "Heart Sutra". It seems it is a Sanskrit sutra composed by a Chinese Monk. The rendition is "very chinese" but the music is really relaxing. The meaning is too complex to decipher. Just wondering how people in those days used to think so much about Philosophy.

Check out the Heart Sutra by Imee Ooi.

Under/Over Paid?

In comparison to many services which are regarded not so sophisticated, a professional working in MNC/ bank/ conslutancy seems to be grossly underpaid in Hong Kong and I suppose its the same in any big cities.. Consider this

the average salary for an MBA + 2 years exp/ IT guy with 7-8 exp/ investment analyst with 4-6 years exp in HK is around 60,ooo HKD / month which works out to $300/hour for 22 days work and 9 hours/day (many work much more than this)..

and now consider this..

1 hour Mandarin class - $500

1 hour English class - $500

45 mins personal fitness/yoga/blah blah instructor - $500 - $1000

1 hour Massage service - $200 - $1000

Relocation (2 guys working for an hour) - $1700 or $ 850/hour per person..

party planner - should be super duper expensive..

part-time professional maid - $300/hour..

somethings really seem to be way out of proportion and some other things seem to be highly underpaid..

cleaners in restaurants - $16/hours

dish washers - $18/hour

servers - $25/hour

and the hotel industry and the rest. employee association are lock heads over a $33/hour minimum wage bill.. apparently they are now stuck between $27- $30/hour...

wtf

No time to pause on rate hike yet

http://www.livemint.com/2010/08/22215134/No-time-to-pause-on-rate-hike.html?h=D

I was going through this article today on rate hike and inflation, but the problem (inflation) and the popular solution in India (rate hike) and elsewhere in the world has been bothering me for a long time, and as late as yesterday night..

If Price is a equation of supply/demand, shouldn't supply be addressed to control inflation rather than demand through credit for a country like India which is still at the development phase ??

Clearly, we do not produce much of anything, import huge quantities through traders (almost everything), much of which is hoarded most of the time, with exorbitant duties (the total duties on any product in India can reach 25% of the value easily) to benefit a few communities who monopolize manufacturing by intricately teaming up with politicians and setting beneficial policies.

It is so strange the world's biggest steel producer doesn't have a plant in India even though steel demand is expected to increase or is required for the massive infrastructure overhaul. 80% of the country's oil is imported (know the talk of low reserves, but what about low exploration). Coal imports hit a new high of 70 million tonnes last year (even though we have the 4th largest coal reserve), nearly 2/3rds of all the chemicals are imported into India and so on and so forth... obviously with the world demand increasing the prices of a lot of products which are imported in India tend to rise, and the country has to bear the price burnt...

India is one of the highest interest rate countries in the world.. they should certainly have a re-look at creating a low interest rate environment for industries to produce more.. and cater more to the demand.. rather than increasing interest rates and curtailing demand...

no idea if the above make sense.. but till then lets tighten the screw on interest rates...

P == NP ?

Lots of literature has been written over it. Scientist Vinay Deolalikar has claimed P != NP.

Of course people have been really hungry over this problem. Let us wait and watch what happens.

Meanwhile there is a joke doing the rounds : P == NP for N = 1. I would strongly agree with that.

Bullet Santi

Bullet Santi is a simple yet effective innovations from one of the brilliant yet practical brains of India. Looking at these innovations, I sometime wonder as the what the heck am I doing crunching numbers on a spreadsheet..

anyway not to take the credit away from "Bullet" here.. the things I could most associate about "Bullet" before this was

a. the character called "Bullet Basya" from the movie CBI Shankar.. though the movie and the character name sounds cheesy, its one of the great thrillers of all time..

b. Kumar's bullet.. though Avinash had one before Kumar, Kumar's transformation to Bullet made it more memorable..

Jugaad : The best Mobile App ever..

Move over the Apple/ android apps.. here is one of the best innovations

http://economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/08/jugaad

fitness

after a lot of deliberation overnight (during the sleep as well in form of nightmares), I have decided to start attending the boxing classes in the gym.. there are several reasons to it.. but certainly the aim is not to challenge Joe Frasier..

a. classes starts at 7:30 pm and lasts till 8:30 pm... giving enough space in the changing rooms/showers.. (other classes start and end on the hour)

b. probably will pick up some defensive skill over 3-6 months..

c. will not get bored as in the case of DUMB bells.

d. last but not the least, need not wear sneakers..

the whole purpose of publicly announcing it is to stick to the plan..

on the contrary I might end up like Indian politicians with announcements before the polls and slumber after the polls..

a word of caution to myself - i need to make sure i don't get injured.. my back pain has been the biggest nemesis to ACTIVITY and the greatest friend to "COUCH POTATO"...

of high military spending and poor infrastructure..

Annually both Pakistan and India spend anywhere between 2- 4% of the GDP on defence. This has been going on for the past 63 years and given the state of affairs will probably go on to reach a century and probably can even strike triple century..

the total amount would probably run to trillion dollars which mainly benefit the western defence organizations contributing to their respective GDPs. While India/Pak and other developing/underdeveloped nations (african, south american etc) keep bickering and diverting money to defence projects, the lack of basic infrastructure leads to massive destructions YoY (earthquakes, floods, typhoons and other natural disasters) both in terms of human life lost and damage to the GDP...

though corruption consumes more amount than the defence budget in most of these countries.. it might be a good option to just bluffing about having nuclear arsenal and cutting back on defence spending.. somehow nuclear weapons have really been the real preventer of World war 3...

food binge..

during the last two weeks, the stomach has crunched through the globe, with a great tour of Asia.. while during the first week it was constrained to China-Shanghainese.. Sichuanese, Ningbo and Yangzhou cuisine.. it got liberated during the weekend through Burger King at the Shanghai airport.. (almost dying for non-Chinese food) and went on a wild ride...

over the next three days, i was relieved to have some good Vietnamese and great home cooked food..

starting Tuesday the culinary adventure took great strides.. starting with some french and Shanghainese on tuesday, English Curry buffet (was a pain getting thru) and local hong kong cuisine on Wednesday, some great pan-Asia and Indian on Thursday , with Chinese and Thai on Friday, No wonder corporate trainings are a real pain on the stomach and the eyes, which have to fight to be awake post lunch..

the weekend went down with some awesome food again.. Ragi dose on Saturday, followed by Japanese for lunch.. Sunday started with great Akki rotti, followed by a mexican lunch and "anna saaru" for dinner ..

The following would be the ratings in descending order of liking

1. Akki rotti

2. Anna Saaru

3. Chinese fried rice (the best I have had in Hong Kong till date)

4. Fried Garoupa with Cashew nuts

5. Sashimi

6. Fajitas

7. local Canton food ( the atmosphere was like VV puram)

8. Ningbo

9. good old thai

10. Burger King (just for the break it provided)

end result .. 2 pounds++, but no regrets at all..

Happy Independence day

miss the feeling of independence day/ republic days back from the school days..

One of these days NSN will be shifting to Manyata Tech Park and I will be leaving this Infantry Road Office. We go to the North of Bangalore. 30km from my house. Far journeys. Will not think about that now. I tell my mind, to take things one at a time. I'm thinking about what I'll miss....Short 2 wheeler journeys. Going everyday in front of Vidhana Soudha.

Seeing the common junta. Manyata is a "Tech park" with people wearing ID tags. Here, at Infantry Road, it was a pleasure to just walk out of the building and get some good filter coffee and good darshini food. 2 people come to my mind when I think of people whom I see everyday while going to office.

Just in front of the Bangalore High Court, a lady sells buttermilk and flavored milks under an umbrella. She looks somewhat like Sudha Murthy. Was just wondering she must have some financial crunch to work at that age....She was not to be seen for a week....Then she returned yesterday - with her hair dyed. Must have gone to a marriage to some other town.

There is one more character who stands in front of SP Road, dressed like Jesus. People put coins into his hand. And then there is a car with a sticker "The Power of NOW" which sometimes charges me up as a motivational statement.

Hmmm....Change is essential in life.

Inception

Finally got to saw the movie. Took a half day leave (bunked office ;-)..Had not used that word for probably a decade ) and saw it in the theatre.

Interesting movie. Generally audience snores while the actors act. Here the audience see the actors snoring away and still walk back dazed.

Here is a good explanation I got regarding the movie. Reminds me of OSI Layers.

Time and Memory

Time and Memory are certainly inversely proportional.. As time passes we forget things, and in most cases as in India we forgive them as well.. a few exceptions were the Jessica Lal's case and to an extent the Narmada valley protests...

a long list of forgotten things can be associated with the Congress party. They make sure it is done so.. The same will be done with the Common Wealth Games corruption, as would be Lalit Modi... they seem to be systematically attacking the BJP and making them weaker.. while they make every effort to implicate mayawati.. they seem to be forgiving everything associated with Pawar , Lalu Prasad and A Raja

the Congress(I) will eventually be the only standing party in India with a sucky opposition (when was the last did we hear of BJP/CPI).. the dynasty rule will continue (not just the gandhi family, dynasty politics is just the heart and soul of Congress).. and where is the Crown Prince Rahul Gandhi.. ??

Anyways, looks like CWG is something not to look forward.. Still not sure how Kalmadi can't own up responsibility for anything... well again its a Congress legacy..

dont they get tired of the scams they originate..???

The trees and duets

Nowadays the original Bollywood heart and soul is removed from the Bollywood songs.
Songs post the A R Rahman are about "collaborations". Out of the 5 songs, there are about 10 singers - Which is good thing, I agree.

But the good old days where the hero had one voice for all the 5 songs is conspicuously missing. There is no one like a Kumar Sanu or a Udit Narayan or a (ummm whatwashername??) Alka Yagnik. Kumar Sanu was good. Now he has become antique value, if you ask me.

We have songs like this one which I can't understand....Is it really Hindi (or urdu or punjabi or mix) ?

But if I listen to a song like this one or this one there is a bollywood soul to these songs (the duets) and the lyrics are easy as well. The songs now are somewhat different(gosh! I'm sounding old), if you understand what I mean. Good if you purchase a CD of Rs25, you can put it in your car, and remember those student days.