Thought Garage

Hello World! Back again!

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 14:46:00 +0000

It feels like forever, but I am glad to be back.

It's been little more than six years since I wrote my last post on this particular blog. While I wrote a few posts afterwards on LinkedIn, Wordpress and Medium, I have been largely absent from blogging.

Lots of things have changed since then. The world order as we know doesn't exist any more. And silence isn't an option anymore. I have been thinking about coming back to traditional blogging for a while for variety of reasons, but couldn't make it happen.

Finally, Today is the day I will start over.

NDTV.com : Fact or Allegation ? Just another twisted title for sensationalism

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 01:29:00 +0000

This is yet another example of NDTV.com’s sensationalism twisted titles. The title says, as if this was a fact, woman made to urinate in public. In fact, this was just an allegation by a lawyer.

If NDTV.com to demonstrate any integrity, should have included the word ‘alleged’ or ‘charged’ or similar words to indicate that this wasn’t a fact, but an allegation by a lawyer. That would have changed the entire tone of the article.

The problem is that everywhere the page is referred on social networks and elsewhere, it is the title that will be quoted and repeated. Not many people may even read the whole story. Being very active on social networks, NDTV know that quite well. So NDTV.com scored a perfect sensational story, with its choice of words in the title.

Source: NDTV.com

At that time, there was nothing confirming that it actually happened. No video footage or any of those women directly made that allegation on videos.

NDTV.Com’s Another Twisted Title : ‘have learnt from Aam Admi Party, says Rahul gandhi’

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 01:18:00 +0000

This was the first time, I got confused and started questioning NDTV.com’s sensationalism agenda behind twisting titles of their news stories.

This was on the day Delhi Assembly election results were announced. The NDTV.com story title said : “Assembly election 2013: have learnt from Aam Aadmi Party, says Rahul Gandhi”. However, content later in the article says it differently :

"The Aam Aadmi Party involved a lot of non-traditional people and we will learn from that...and will better it in a way you cannot imagine," Mr Gandhi said

I have watched the video multiple times, just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. Here is the actual choice of words Rahul Gandhi used.

[04:07] “I think, I think the Aam Admi Party has involved a lot of people, who the traditional parties did not involve. We are going to learn from that and we are going to do a better job than anybody in the country and involve people in ways that you can not even imagine right now.”

Source : NDTV.com

There is a lot of difference, I think, between, ‘have learnt’ and ‘we are going to learn from that’. Some may say, well, it meant the same meaning. I don’t think so. Words are very powerful and Journalists know that. They twisted them deliberately.

Isn’t the primary responsibility of Journalism to quote the exact words? instead of paraphrasing to their convenience and biases?

If you don’t believe, try rephrasing the title with the exact words of Rahul Gandhi and see for yourself.

NDTV.com’s Yet Another Misleading Title Of Arvind Kejriwal As The most UnImpressive Politician

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 00:44:00 +0000

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have recently spotted quite a few ‘sensationalism’ twists to news stories on NDTV.com. This is yet another one, in this case, a misleading title, by deliberate omission of words that would have actually put the whole title in a positive tone for Arvind Kejriwal.

The article quotes a news paper quoting,

“The News daily reported: "India's new shooting star with dreams of another 'India Shining' appeared as the country's most unimpressive politicians but with a most impressive agenda."

It conveniently ignored the second part of the sentence, “most impressive agenda” which would have given a completely different kind of meaning and context to the whole sentence and would have put the same politician on a positive note.

Again, it sure look to me like deliberate sensationalism twist, this case also a biased view rather than anything. Isn’t it?

Source: NDTV.com

Did NDTV Just Twisted Words?

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 00:31:00 +0000

I have recently spotted quite a few places where NDTV title doesn’t exactly say the same as the details in the article says. Lost in translation? or just plain twisting for journalistic sensationalism?

Title says “'AAP doesn't treat women as humans,' says founder member Madhu Bhaduri as she quits”, but the quote in details says, slightly differently: “In this party, women are not considered humans” (see the text highlighted).

Source : NDTV.com

You may say, they effectually mean the same thing. Is it? Even if they mean the same, Why not use the same exact phrase in both places?

INDIA : Mangalyaan Blasts Off To Mars

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 14:16:00 +0000

Wow!!! Mangalyaan, the spacecraft on a voyage to Mars has been successfully blasted off. Superb. Hoping to see spectacular and ground breaking results from the ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission.

Pictures from ISRO

Google honors Shakuntala Devi with a doodle

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 17:34:00 +0000

How long will it take to multiply these two numbers ?

7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779

It just took 28 seconds for Shakuntala Devi and earned her a record in the Guinness Book Of Records. A child prodigy with unbelievable power to calculate will remain an inspiration to so many. She died earlier this year.

Google’s doodle today honors Shakuntala Devi, known to the world as the ‘Human Computer’, on her 84th birthday.

RIP.

Race to Mars : Tomorrow is a BIG day for India

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 15:17:00 +0000

Mangalyaan, the aptly named spacecraft will take off on Tuesday on a 11 month voyage to Mars, from Sriharikota. No matter what happens tomorrow, it will remain a big day for India.

Image Source : BBC

Hope and wish for a very successful launch and fruitful voyage.

Infosys to pay $34 million in fines for visa fraud

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Latest news reports confirm that Infosys has reached a settlement to pay $34 million in fines for visa fraud, for bringing in developers on B1 visas to work and other irregularities in keeping accurate I-9s.

Dumping Vonage For Good

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 12:09:00 +0000

If you already have Vonage or planning on signing up, you may be better off dumping it as there are now much better alternatives. Read on.

Vonage was touted as a pioneer for commercial VOIP phone service back in 2005 when I first signed up for the service. The excitement of a killer and industry disrupting VOIP service evaporated very soon. The quality never measured up to the ‘carrier’ quality. I disconnected in a couple of months due to voice quality issues. And what happened when I tried to disconnect was yet another totally frustrating customer service story, “Vonage – expecting good customer service is stupid”.

When Vonage announced unlimited international calling to India (and few other select countries), I hesitated due to my earlier experience. A few months later, we needed a landline phone and I did little research to shop for a better one. At that time, Vonage proved to be a better option for a landline phone that would also double to be able to call anybody in India, despite its voice quality issues and poor customer service.

That was little more than 5 years ago, when most people in India (particularly my friends and family) can be reached only on their phones and internet access at homes was still a rare and privilege in many areas. Things have been changing quite fast in India these days, particularly in terms of communication and access. Almost everybody that I knew have a cell phone now and family and friends have internet access at a reasonable price and connections are quite capable of watching YouTube videos and supporting video chats.

Skype, my new best friend to stay connected, always and anywhere

That means, time has come to fully leverage my favorite, Skype, that I have been using for a really long time to stay connected with my friends. Skype supports instant messaging, video calls, voice calls, can take with you anywhere in the world and can instantly connect with your friends and family anywhere in the world for FREE. Along with friends and family on Skype, you can call any toll free number in the US for FREE. With a better internet access in India, Skype became my best option to stay connected to all family and friends in India and anywhere in the world for that matter.

Calls to India to any number are about 1c/minute

Skype does offer calling plans so that you can call those that do not have internet access or need to reach somebody on their phones, for a price close to 1c per minute. So you are in full control to purchase a subscription that will suit your needs. These days, I use Skype to reach most of my family and friends, I just use a $1.50/month subscription that will give me 2 and half hours of talk time per month.

Unlimited calling to US/Canada for just $2.99/month

And just for $2.99 a month, you will get unlimited calling to any number in US/Canada. Skype does have unlimited international calling for about $13, but India is not in the list.

For about $5 a month, you can also get a Skype number so that anybody in the world can call you on that number from their phones and you can take the call on your Skype (on your Smart phone, iPad or any computer). Best part of this feature is you can get a local number in a country of your choosing.

Replace Vonage @ $40 a month with Skype @ just $6 a month

Needless to repeat, Skype works the best for me. It offers much greater voice quality. Instant messaging, video calls, can take any where in the world on my smartphone or iPad and use on my PC and reach anywhere in the world. For under $6 a month, I have effectively replaced my Vonage phone that costs me close to $40 a month ($25.99 + taxes).

Give it a try. For most people, this should work just fine. For those, who talk on and on to regular phones to India, you may have to still suck up the lower quality voice and stay with Vonage for the unlimited calling, but for the rest, its time to dump it.

China, The Largest Living Success Story of Communism

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 11:47:00 +0000

By all measures, the rise of China as one of the leading global economic power houses of the world is a great success story. And by all estimates, China will become the largest economy sooner than the rest of the world is comfortable accepting it. So, isn’t China, then officially the largest living success stories of communism?

Watch this great TED talk by Eric Li, a venture capitalist, I bet, your understanding of China will never be the same. And so does your understanding of efficacy of democracy.

Eric X. Li : A tale of two political systems

I can’t resist the temptation of comparing the largest living democracy, India, with tens of parties at the helm and the largest living communist country, China, and for all practical purposes a dual party system in the US and its current political gridlock, only to realize that the point Eric Li made is quite reverberating.

Unfortunately, while China can easily replicate the best of the rest of the world in terms of technology, systems and innovation, it is probably next to impossible to replicate the best of China’s political system. What an edge.

One of the best talks and an idea really worth spreading.

Lessons From A Plate of Upma

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 13:56:00 +0000

I am not a big fan of Upma. Never really liked it so much, though I eat when I have to. But somehow my 3 year old loves it. If you ask what she prefer for a breakfast on the bed, she always says Upma. And it goes without saying, she gets it.

So today is one of those days. It’s the second time I prepared it in the last few days, and oh boy! I nailed it today. It was awesome. Even I really liked it myself and my daughter loved it so much she comeback for seconds. Yahoooooo !!

While preparing I was wondering, what most people that cook in the family go through , to prepare something that you don’t necessarily like, but you do it anyways because others love it. Hats off to you all.

Am I getting my first lesson in what matters when you care? Hmm, that may sound little heavy on the breakfast table, but I guess I made my point. Have a nice day.

Beautiful Godavari Rail Road Bridge

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Beautiful sight of Godavari rail road brdige.

via 92229232@N02@Flickr

Cooking looks like an unforgiving art

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 02:38:00 +0000

When you are writing software, you always get a second chance. In fact, lots of chances to get it correct. You have compiler warnings, failed test cases and some times crashes alert you that something is not right and will give you a chance to correct. And you get literally unlimited chances to apply those corrections.

Well, cooking looks to be totally unforgiving in this respect and on any given day, you may get just one chance to get it right. If you fail, you fail. Try again right away if you have patience of starting it all over. Or start over some time later or next day. But not much of a second chance to correct a mistake.

More ruthless, when it comes to salt. If you put just a little more, even a tiny little more, it never hesitate to show what it got. Totally ruthless. End result will be a failed dish that no one will be able (and/or happy) to eat. And most dishes, you may not be able to add something little more to offset it.

Little trick I learned the hard way, start on the conservative side and go easy on salt. You may get a second chance to adjust later if you fall short of the perfect dish.

Microsoft Office 2013 : Disappointing UI

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 11:47:00 +0000

What happened to Microsoft’s usability team? The color choices, particularly the single glaring white background everywhere make it appear as one giant screen instead of meaningful sections on the screen. Why dumb down so much in terms of user experience? No more round edges, gradients, shadows, contrasting backgrounds or easy on eyes highlighting.

I am not a designer, but I see an UI element communicate by its color, shape, position, contrast, focus and of course text. The new UI in 2013 definitely eliminated some of those attributes for some elements.

Word 2010 vs. Word 2013

So far, the only big difference I see is the integration of SkyDrive so that documents can be readily saved in to the cloud and retrieved any where. At another level, going towards subscriptions could be a game changer for Microsoft.

But when it comes to the UI, I find it boring and am little disappointed.

Black Friday Begins ….crashes SAMs Club servers

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Black Friday deals began at SAMs club online at 10 PM central and the website is already down within 20 minutes.

Heard about cloud computing ?

Video : Score a zero, you can still become an engineer in Andhra Pradesh

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 15:18:00 +0000

Scoring a zero will still entitle you to get an Engineering seat, with fees fully paid by the government, in Andhra Pradesh, India. If you belong to a certain caste group. (SC/ST) Hmm!

In Andhra Pradesh, you can get zero in an entrance exam, but still get a place in the state's engineering colleges in the reserved quota.

Video : India's love affair with gold

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 01:47:00 +0000

Its a love affair. I guess its fair to call it a love affair. Unreasonable. Blind. And mad.

"No gold, no wedding," is a saying in India, indicating the importance of gold to Indian culture and tradition. Byron Pitts reports on India's obsession with gold.

Video : LeBron asks about free throws versus three pointers

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:34:00 +0000

Wonderful video. I knew the principle of multiplication of probability for repeated occurrences. But when looking at this specific example, it struck to me why the multiplication makes sense in the first place.

LeBron James asks Sal Khan whether it is easier to make three free throws or one three pointer

Satyamev Jayate : What makes the difference?

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Thu, 10 May 2012 04:31:00 +0000

Quite thrilled and optimistic about the possibilities of this show: Satyamev Jayate. Novel angle of commercial TV on social aspects.

Its worth researching more on why and how those states that stay clear of the bloodbath of innocent and unborn girls at an alarming rate, while rest of the country is so full of it.

from Satyamev Jayate inaugural episode

Ferry Boat - Images tell the story

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:27:00 +0000

Technology changes fast. But infrastructure, probably take a life time for many parts of India. Beauty is life goes on with the best we have.

via 65899947@N08@Flickr

Its a tradition for some, a game for others

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Its a tradition for some, a game for others.

via 44325598@N00@Flickr

How Leap Year Brought Down Windows Azure Cloud Services

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 04:35:00 +0000

So finally, its the Leap year that brought down the Windows Azure Cloud services. The root cause behind the Windows Azure Outage was found to be a simple Leap day bug. Read more on Windows Azure blog here.

When the GA creates the transfer certificate, it gives it a one year validity range. It uses midnight UST of the current day as the valid-from date and one year from that date as thevalid-to date. The leap day bug is that the GA calculated the valid-to date by simply taking the current date and adding one to its year. That meant that any GA that tried to create a transfer certificate on leap day set a valid-to date of February 29, 2013, an invalid date that caused the certificate creation to fail.

Source : Windows Azure Blog

Isn't it a brighter spot of the whole issue that Microsoft got 4 years to fix the root cause of the issue :-))

Happy Holi from Varanasi

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:52:00 +0000

via 68513159@N02@Flickr

Happy Holi

noreply@blogger.com (Murali) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:25:00 +0000

via 50295193@N00@Flickr