Wet

Hangzhou is wet for the past one or two days. The trees and the leaves look very green and beautiful. Had a nice walk to office today - many people are wearing silk with large floral patterns and there are colorful umbrellas everywhere. The weather is pleasant and the environment is reassuring.

However there is a turbulence in my mind.Nonetheless, I have put my career on an autopilot mode and it floats on.

The october season is a national holiday time here and people are busy buying fresh crabs, ducks and lobsters. I am buying time and indulging myself in laziness.

Why is it I find so difficult to concentrate some days ? Let me get back to work. Tired of reading stupid stuff on rediff and answering to useless emails which is taking me nowhere.

Here in Hangzhou the car owners have a great diversity in their taste. I have seen cars from the humble suzuki alto and swift to the high end hummers, land rovers

BMW is like Honda City (compared to Blr here). Very common. However the most common cars are something called as "Buick" (seems it is a General Motors' brand). Also many s/w engineers have skoda fabias and skoda octavias and lauras.But the buick brand is the most common one here. Also there is one more brand called geely and some antique looking car called cooper.

I do not see renault's here.. ALL THE OTHER CARS in India are here and more

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.