There are still good people in the world....

The day before yesterday, as I was driving near Chinnaswamy stadium, a car collided at a medium speed to my car's bumper damaging the rear bumper. I stopped my car and I was very angry because, just a week ago in the same place my bumper was damaged by a mammoth sized army truck. I had got it repaired and paid quite a bit for the damage.

Now this time by a Wagon-R !!! As I went to talk to the driver, the driver told that he will call me and took my mobile phone number and drove away. I realized I had not even taken his car registration plate.

Then after 1 hour, he got back to me identified himself as a Software Engineer working for Iflex. He transfered 4000/- from his account within half an hour. (The charges were 6000/= and I told 3500/= would be enough from his side, but he gave me 4 grand)

Kishore ... Thanks pal.
He also thanked me for trusting him in that situation.

Meanwhile my car, sports a grin with a broken tooth .... I will have to leave it to the garage within 10 days after it came out :-(

Bangalore rains suck... Bangalore Traffic sucks harder (especially when it rains) .... It is very difficult for aam-junta to brave a different kind of traffic problem everyday. I hope there is a permanent solution to this ever increasing problem.

Lead India

The initiative looks pretty good, but I guess it could become a case in which a leader is chosen by the media.

The leader might become a "media-groomed" leader. Moreover, using internet-print and TV could help them gain recognition and all that but the advertisement claiming to "Do something" doesn't work at the top level especially when we get hung scenario and one guy is desperately ready to get the power at the cost of losing all his morals and principles. To all the intellectuals out there, talking English and education won't help. Street-smartness is required up there. Otherwise we would have had ALL the double-degree and the triple-degree people in all the discipline vying for the top post!!!!!!

I understand the power and importance of Media in democracy, but media actually helping people to select a leader just shows people are ready to believe what the Times Group "informs" them. What if whatever the Times Group is giving to us is a fake ?

I would rather vote for an experienced and betrayed Yediyurappa than someone else.

PS :- Office alli blogger block maad-bittidaare...Olle goLu :-(

The so many things we've learnt

This Saturday I caught with Tejaswi and we were discussing about "those old and enjoyable college days". We were discussing about some subjects we studied like Instrumentation and Transducers, Karnaugh Maps , some Zener diodes etc. Of course it is a long distant memory (as far as I am concerned), but I missed the feel of sitting on a bench and listening to a professor.

And yesterday I had a dream about learning Calculus (i.e. Maths) in some old thatched roof engineering college in Bhopal. (Bhopal was on my mind for some other reason, of course...haha).

But today before I start my work, I kinda miss subjects like Pure Maths (like Calculus). Are they directly or in-directly affecting my performance. I am intrigued and in a mood of self-retrospection. My skills of Algebra, Calculus, Trigonometry and Arithmetic definitely needs a brush up. I feel you should keep your basics sharp and your mind alert.

I am looking forward for some study program of such sorts. Any pointers on this ? Any active internet group might be good enough.

More importantly, Does anyone feel the necessity of high school Arithmetic, Algebra, Calculus and feel and also "sense" its necessity of application ?

Confusion that never stops
The closing walls and ticking clocks,

-- Coldplay

puzzle

The absolute value of a real number is defined as its numerical value without regard for sign. So, for example, abs(2) = abs(-2) = 2. The maximum of two real numbers is defined as the numerically bigger of the two. For example, max(2, -3) = max(2, 2) = 2. Express: (a) abs in terms of max; and (b) max in terms of abs.

I could think of a). Simple.
abs(x) = max(x,-x)

What about b) ?
Can we do without a "flower bracket if{}" ?

Scientists

I should really salute these scientists. I thought Physics (in particular "basic Physics") is dead and gone. Let me pose a question:-

In today's world, what kind of truth (truth in a "Physics" context) can you find out with a beaker full of water, or half water ?

If you ask a question like this to a boring normal guy(like me) who has acquired ignorance and arm-chair philosophy due to daily-routine inertia, I would probably tell you about the story of a thirsty crow who dropped pebbles into a beaker so as to make it full. Or probably I would tell about Archimedes principle (buoyant force and all that).

In other words, I would say All that, which can be discovered with a beaker full of water, has been discovered by Newton (and his dog, diamond?) or Archimedes or Bernoulli.

But hang on!!!!! People still manage to do interesting things with a beaker full of water.When exposed to high voltage, water does some interesting things. From the article :

'water in two beakers climbs out of the beakers and crosses empty space to meet, forming the water bridge. The liquid bridge, hovering in space, appears to the human eye to defy gravity. Upon investigating the phenomenon, the scientists found that water was being transported from one beaker to another, usually from the anode beaker to the cathode beaker. The cylindrical water bridge, with a diameter of 1-3 mm, could remain intact when the beakers were pulled apart at a distance of up to 25 mm.'"

Well I guess it is just a question of having a "research attitude" and that keen eye. It's all about seeing whether the glass is half empty or half full ! These kind of properties will definitely have some application.

Have a look around the world around you. You will find at least some questions : (If not answers)

Hmmm...Now I guess I should think what happens if you dip a Compact Disc in a beaker full of water mixed with Salt and pickle and give a high voltage!!!

Have a look at this article : Water forms floating 'bridge' when exposed to high voltage

IT IT IT

And there are more unpleasant realities expected to come in the near future of the IT Industry. First is the falling dollar. I understand inter-dependence is of high importance for a national economy to flourish. But a falling dollar in reality indicates yet another recession in the heavily dependent services-based Indian IT sector. Moreover, it can be a hit for both small scale and large scale software companies with news like these :-

What worries IT firms more is that the STPI scheme, which exempts their export earnings from tax, will be withdrawn in 2009. The industry is lobbying hard with New Delhi and even BPO firms have raised the demand for similar benefits. So far, the finance ministry has given no indication of warming to the idea.

The STPI scheme has special benefits like "Duty Free" Import for Hardware and Software, exemption for Corporate Income Tax etc. The IT industry has been pampered atleast for the past 2 decades. In 2009, we have to see how things shape up. But I believe that the Indian Economy will kind of stabilize, with a software job becoming another normal chaakri naukri.

Read the related article Why IT chiefs are nervous about the future

Manorama 6 ft under - * * * *

Here's a movie which is a VERY good creation of a new director. The acting is ekdum first class with Abhay Deol, Sarika (whatte voice!), Raima Sen doing good justice to their roles.

Well, the plot of Manorama... is from Chinatown. I have a book of the script of Chinatown. I loved the multi-layered plot of Chinatown. Jack Nicholson as JJ Gittes..man! what a script. I am still hunting for a DVD version of the movie.

Manorama is a fitting adaptation of Chinatown, one of the best screenplays written. Chinatown was a multi-layered script.

Since I love the multi-layered script concept, let me give an "rough" example of a multi layered plot.

paragraph-1
A ragged cat goes to a pond, catches a goldfish with its paws, and chews it and is delighted with its catch. The another small fish watches the goldfish disappear in the cat's mouth with tears in its eyes.

paragraph-2
A few minutes later,the "small fish" is seen celebrating with joy with its friends. WHY????? The small fish was actually an enemy of the goldfish because the goldfish had eaten the small fish's lover, an hour ago. The cat had not eaten for three days and had fought vainly with dogs. The goldfish was a tyrant. The small fish actually shed tears of joy, when the cat ate it!

Okay that was a stupid plot , I agree, but I hope you get the gist! As you can see in paragraph-2, you are adding a layer below to the peripheral outer layer. It is not just a twist, but a whole story which was covered-up!

In Manorama..., the action happens in Rajasthan. The film itself has such a feel of the desert and the tagline "Nothing is what it seems" is a befitting title.

Folks, Grab your tickets before the film vanishes!

Bangaloreans : The woe is that you have to shell out a monstrous 200/= for a ticket on a weekend. Something has to be done about such ridiculous rates.

ayyo Rama !

Regarding the Sethusamudram Project, it is a tough job to take a definitive stance on whether the Bridge should be actually demolished.

The reason to see why the bridge should be tampered :-
A ship channel across the Palk Strait will be created allowing ships to pass through the channel instead of having to go around the island of Sri Lanka. 30 hours of shipping time will be saved.

The reason why the ship should not be tampered :-
It is a heritage monument. Moreover, it is a pilgrimage place. By demolishing this bridge, they are actually playing with beliefs and sentiments of millions of Indians in general and Hindus in particular.

The Central Government issued a statement of blunder (based on Archaelogical Survey of India's survey) saying No proof of Lord Rama . I am sure the BJP will fight it to the end. Sonia Gandhi might have withdrawn the statement, but in doing that she has made another blunder by provoking the atheist Karunanidhi's DMK party.

From the Central Government point of view, they should not have opened the Pandora's box of troubles.

However, the Nuke deal and its implications, is keeping the Left's useless morons and the whole Lok Sabha busy. So this issue might not blow up. But they may have strained relations with the DMK.

Have people gone crazy ?

It seems they are developing a web-server on a mobile phone. This is getting ridiculous. It may work, but why ?

From the article :-

Running a server on your phone is, at the moment, more of a proof of concept demonstration. However it has interesting potential uses. For example it offers away to gain access to information about where the phone is, what is stored on the phone (both contacts and pictures), as well as providing a personal web server that is more intimately connected to an individual.

Bollocks. When a phone is mobile why would the owner login to the phone when he carries it around ? (unless his whole world is centered on that goddamn phone and he is a forgetful person).

My advice to people who are students who want to come to software.
Give up the software dream; People have run out of ideas and have become stupid. Go back to farming. This is of no use.

Wow!

It was 1956 and these guys were trying to dispatch this hard disk somewhere.
The hard disk weighed 1 ton and it could store 5 MB of data.

This was one of the early hard disks. Have a look at the IBM 350 Disk Storage Unit.
We have come a long way.I somehow feel the oldies(ppl in the industry till the end of millenium) of CompSci were the real innovators...Can someone give the scientists a 4GB pendrive, please ?

B Grade

There is something REALLY to look forward about B-Grade movies. The movie itself has a kind of charm. If carefully watched B-Grade movies are a source of great entertainment. Be it any language, they are fun!

My first tryst with the B-Grade movies started probably when I got Star-TV installed in my house. Some of these exploitation based themes do have good stories and of course good ahem.... But it maybe the camera or the direction which gives the "B-Grade character". But there is some degree of honesty and effort by the B-Grade directors (in at least some movies).I really appreciate that and it is a lesson on production values/direction and shots for all aspiring writers and directors.

The Best B-Grade movies from India were from the Ramsay house, who went on to produce a popular serial called the "Zee Horror Show".They featured some weird kind of Draculas , mandirs and Kali maatah and all that. There was also a VERY interesting story in a Kannada B-Grade movie called "Tulasi Dala". Amazing story by a Telegu writer woven into a Kannada movie.

Well I stumbled into some Hollywood retro B-Grade flicks which are referred to as The Grindhouse.

Have a look at some of the Dialogs from B-Grade movies :-

Narrator(introducing the hero to the audience) : He wears a 600-dollar suit and drives a 10,000-dollar car. He has two guns. One to stop Trouble and the other gun to make trouble.

hahah.

Have a look at the Grindhouse trailers on youtube. The music is a real beauty.

Oh yeah and a scene from the worst movie of all time (according to imdb) :
Manos: the hands of Fate

Enjoy B-Grade movies!!!! (At least once in a while)

Amadeus

The movie "Amadeus" is strong movie. You need patience and a sense of cinema to appreciate it. Deeply.



Well, to be frank, for sometime, when the director goes into all the details of staging operas and the librettos, you'll end up bored.

But the essence of the movie is about : Are men created equal ? .

The director tends to answer this question through a comparatively "inferior man" who's done things the hard way.

The movie is essentially a conflict or a case of rivalry between a genius and a textual, orthodox hardworker.

Consider this in real life:

You have worked for twenty hours and come up with a great piece of work (whatever field you are in). Now your immediate rival because of his genius (who keeps just frolicking away to glory is able to do everything in the last moment.) You are left slack jawed thinking how was this possible ?

Is he a genius ? What the eff is wrong with me ? I work so hard...Why is god so unkind to me?

Well, the story is between Rivalry between Mozart (who was the genius) and Antonio Salieri (who was the inferior conductor).

Caution : It is a very heavy movie and is a work of genius. If you like movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and TaxiDriver and movies with ulterior meanings, this will leave you affected.

More than the direction, it was the acting. Salieri was AWESOME!

The top 5 common dreams

It seems the top 5 common dreams are these :-

1. Being Naked (lol!!)
2. Being Chased
3. Flying
4. Losing Teeth
5. Falling

As far as I am concerned, I get from the above list : 5(frequent),4,3,2(rare) in that order.

Nonetheless, this article regarding "Top 5 Common Dream Themes" is a good read. But don't know how much all that is true....

But some of my dreams are ridiculous...Just plain nonsense...

Which ones do you get ?

Outsourcing Mania..

New elections, new candidates, but the issues remain the same... I-raq and Outsourcing are some of the hottest topics, besides trade deficit with China... The outsourcing of manufacturing to China dint cause much furore as IT/BPO jobs are being moved away to low-cost centers mainly in India, western europe, china, philliphines, brazil, mexico etc..

Ofcos the target nation is INDIA .. the mania has outgrown the actual problem. Phrases like 'Bangalored' were discovered and there will be many more such words and phrases. It has become such and issue that Michael Bay could not resist dedicating a scene in his latest movie - The Transformers.

The soldier fighting a transformer in Qatar tries to contact US security through an international call. The call gets re-routed to the phone service company and the guy answering the call is India, who promptly asks for credit card info, for payment. And this becomes a mockery scence as the Indian doesnt not understand the importance of the situation :-) :-). Well my question is would a customer respresentative from the US would have understood the situation?

Imagine you rush into Wal-mart to buy some emergency stuff and you try to run out to resuce without paying the bill, (assuming these Wal-mart jobs cannot be outsourced) and utter words "US security office + emergency + defence secretary", I am damn sure they let you go with their patriotic spirit
their understanding of the aliens from the numerous movies they have watched,
the sense to save save the world,
the urge to attack Iraq and protect humans and oil wells
blame China and India for uncompetitiveness
blame Honda , Toyota , Nissan for producing better cars
blame Samsung for producing cheaper memories
north korea and iran for missiles
cuba and venezuala for having too much oil and not giving
blaming mexcio for immigration problems.......

oh might amercian, u r so knowledgable.

ps:- The movie is a good watch

Music is in everyone's dna

The DNA molecule is probably one of the most complex molecules which can be created. In fact, it contains the blueprint (or genetic instructions) of how a living organism can be constructed. It is basically an "information storage" molecule.

But there is a strange co-relation between DNA and music! In simple words, when DNA sequences are converted to music, it sounds musical :-)

There are many ways in which a DNA can be interpreted as music. Two ways in which DNA sequences which I could decipher were pretty interesting.

1. The DNA sequences (the ATCG sequences ) can be mapped to octaves and played, and it sounds musical. Some software guy has already gone ahead and has written a software for doing this. Go ahead and check out the Bio2Midi Genetic Music Translator

2. Another way a live DNA molecule could be interpreted as music was by mapping molecular vibrations into sound frequencies and getting music. Have a look at this article here : Listen to your DNA

There are some links related to "DNA and Protein Music" here.

There might be some applications of these methods like this one (which is my idea ...heheheh :-) make way for Pseudeep the bio-researcher) ...

Given a DNA music you can study the co-relation between the haromonies and distortions and maybe enhance the music and get a better DNA sequence by the process of reverse engineering!

But the creme de la creme is that "Two lawyers have patented generating music from a DNA sequence." . %^!@$#%$@

Do we owe anything to our ancestors ..

The present lies in the debt of the future, atleast in the context of the envirnoment. By using, polluting and making environment hostile for living the present and past, has in terms borrowed from the future. In that sense the present does not owe anything to the past, rather it has obligation towards the future.

This probably explains parenting in a sense. The present taking care of the future, and the future of their futre. In Asian countries the present even bears some debt to the past generation and we do fulfill our rights by taking care of them.

Some instances where we owe big time to the past are a. parenting (nothing can be fulfill this), b. freedom fighters, Human rights and social right activists (like raja ram mohan roy, Martin Luther King Jr etc). Most of the corporates owe a big deal to the future and there should be a mechanism where in they should really pay the future.

Have to watch Inconvenient Truth sometime soon.

Caught up with Uppit, Bisi Bele Bath and Transformers this weekend. Unable to decide which was the best part :-). It was an awesome saturday.

The Indian IT Industry

There is this huge baloon called the Indian IT Industry which was being inflated right from the year 2001, as soon as the word "Outsourcing" gained momentum. For the companies, it was a good thing to do to save themselves from being doomed.

As you already know, for a company, the bulk of the expenditure is salary. The giants in the Financial Software, Retail Software and Banking Software and (particularly) the Telecom Sector started their outsourcing model (some of them also gave names like Offshore-Onsite model) to reduce the company expenditures by cutting down the task force responsible for the software implementation and execution arm. These jobs were outsourced to India/China/Romania/Vietnam/Brazil etc.

Outsourcing was a definitely a success in some sorts , it did bring out a sigh of relief for the software giants like IBM, HP , Accenture and also established India as a popular outsourcing destination for these companies.

Outsourcing made the Indian Software Industry unnaturally big. But, how long will this model survive ?

As the Indian Software Industry has matured (has it?), there are a large number of problems which are plaguing the Industry. The first problem is to find the "right compensation" for a particular engineer (or "IT Professional" ). Since companies are trying to get software projects by hook or crook, the competitors are ready to pay any amount of money. The job market is so lucrative that you stumble across news like these :-
10,000 quit TCS, Infy, Wipro, Satyam in Q1 . This is in fact, not such an alarming number because in effect, it accounts to 15% annual attrition.

The Indian Software Industry still seems to focus on Engineers with expertise in C, C++ or JAVA or EJB or J2ME or some thing who can be roped in to do sub-standard maintenance. Writing Software is not just about knowing some languages or platforms or perhaps even Data Structures and Algorithms or the ability to understand a cryptic programming language syntax. It is like asking a guy who is a master of English to explain the theory of Supernova explosion. This is something which has to be drilled into both the heads of job seekers and job givers.

That is definitely important, but it is profoundly important for Indian Software Engineers to develop an understanding of the Domain and build an expertise on a particular domain. otherwise the industry won't mature. India cannot have its own killer product.

For example :-

If you are an architect of a banking software, then, based on experience, you should be able to either modify, redesign or re-engineer your solution in a new company. You should be able to lead a team of, say, 40 engineers and direct them to your solution.

With frequent switching of domains, I'm afraid, we won't gain the domain knowledge to call yourself a true designer/engineer. We can't even dream of becoming an architect who conceptualizes and gives a life to the product.

Moreover in the Indian Software Industry, for technical people, the corporate growth ladder is very vague , unlike his counterpart who has a flair for management. We wont have many architects, if they are, then most of them are namesake guys.

But Most Software Professionals I know, get dissatisfied by /frustrated by /bored of their job in a span of 3 years. They find/invent reasons and move out.

Thats why I state this rule

At least 70% People in working Software Projects move out withing 3 years quoting some excuse (which may be valid)....They may move out to higher studies/ America/new job etc

Now the big question is :-

How long does this shift(from India Services to India Products) happen ? How long will our domination in ITeS remain ? What if all these outsourcing jobs move out to China (sob!) ?

How long will it take to have 100% Indian Product Software Companies delivering killer apps ? How long will the Sales guys try to invent ways to keep the monies circulating (instead of stagnating) ?

We do have a massive Internet muscle. We showed how patriotic we were when we wanted Taj Mahal to be the new7wonder. Now why dont we have an Indian Google or a Inaian Yahoo like baidu (the google of china....for china...by china...to china).

Time will tell...I am cross-eyed.....Let's wait and watch... And there are rumours of a 6day working week .... hahahah....

NICE

NICE is the name of the corridor project which runs between two important cities of the state : Bangalore & Mysore.

It can take off some of the burden on the existing, beautiful "Mysore Road". And the fact is that it is shorter than Mysore Road by atleast 9km.

On top of that, it is an expressway (no humps, no signals) and it is designed for safe travel at a speed of 120km/hr. That's a WOW. Because the road itself is 111km.

As of now, I know many drivers who can reach Mysore within 1.5 hours. That's more of a half an hour reduction!

On top of that, it is a toll based expressway. And it is parallel to Mysore Road.

I believe it comes near the RR-Nagar and I hope it mitigates some traffic !! I am curious where exactly it comes near RRNagar. I believe it comes 1 km from Zeedy's site.

Visit the official site of NICE and also check out the NICE Road and Mysore Raod (SH17) map

7 AM

* Is the time when I get philosophical about life, living, existence, work etc
* Envy people like Sudeep, Daniel, Haerin (both from MBA), who wake up much before 7 Am and wait for 7AM
* Contemplate seriously about Phd, with the option of taking classes in the afternoon or night
* Curse the birds chirping away to glory, and the sun shinging bright piercing my eyes
* Shrug at my helplessness of not not avoiding work
* Promise myself I will not get into a Banking jobs, some of which demands me to be present at office at 7am
* Have a home close to office, so I can sleep more and travel less
* Have enough money so I need not work
* Curse the fact that I have put blades on my face for 10 minutes and peel my skin(hairs actually) off

and at 8:30 am,things are back to normal , well almost .. :D