C'est la Vie

They see him rollin, they kidnappin....

2011-10-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

This is hilarious !!

http://gawker.com/5848548/porn+making-gang-keeps-trying-to-kidnap-saddam-hussein-lookalike

Kalpana - A Short Story

2011-10-08T22:45:00.001-07:00

Kalpana was disappointed. She felt her life slipping in front of her eyes. She was shocked to see her lose control of her life and the worst part was that she could not see a way to work out of it. She had never been in a situation like this, and it bothered her greatly. As she walked out of the room of the “Regional HR Head”, after a long and bitter fight denouncing the company’s HR policies, she was a bit shaken.
Like many of her friends, as soon as she completed a degree in Electrical Engineering, Kalpana joined a software company. Though she wanted to join a company in her ‘core’ field, she was satisfied with the opportunity at hand. Salary was good, the quality of work was good (or so said many) and growth seemed to be good. In particular, there were no ‘Glass ceilings’ for women in the software industry.
Initially, she was ecstatic to be the part of this ‘MNC’. The plush offices, competent yet friendly colleagues & an informal atmosphere were almost too good to believe. The first 3 months in the company, she was busy with her training. As in with any training, be it with college or company, the boredom usually starts within the first half of the first half of the first day. Kalpana was no stranger to this, given that she was just out of 4 years of engineering education. After the training she was absorbed into one of the myriad of projects in the company. Her friends told her she was lucky because she was into an overseas client project. That meant an on-site opportunity, something of a craving, bordering on insanity, in the software industry. This should have been her first clue. Personally she felt it was a crude euphemism for bonded labor, albeit in a plush office.
Within a week into the new project, she became totally absorbed in it. She had to admit it to herself, though, that the work she was doing did not exactly require earth shattering intelligence that she expected. After the initial learning curve, it was gradually turning into mostly mundane, repetitive work. This should have been her second clue. Yet she drove herself on, justifying herself by thinking that initially, maybe, this is how it works. She didn’t mind the long, arduous journey back home, nor the adverse affects on her health. She believed in the bigger picture, the one that paints talented, hard working, dedicated employees quickly climbing the proverbial ladder. As the days went by, she was becoming an indispensible contributor in her project, something, she felt, her managers recognized.
Within no time, a year had passed after she joined the project. And it was that dreaded time of the year, the time of performance evaluation. Kalpana, however, felt that she did not have to worry about anything. Though all her colleagues worked very hard, she always felt she was one step ahead. On her own initiative, she envisioned and implemented 6 major process changes and numerous minor improvements. All of them were highly praised by her managers and all of them were certainly noticed by her peers.
However, after her first performance review interview, she felt uncomfortable. Something was amiss. Her manager spoke to her about her performance over the year. She was repeatedly asked to stretch herself and the conversation did not even remotely touch upon her achievements. Kalpana mentioned all the extra work she had done, but every time she brought this up, her manager diverted the topic. Something was seriously wrong, and she was worried. Her second and final interview too went more or less along the same lines. The final nail in the coffin was her performance rating. She was rated as ‘Efficient, but can certainly improve more’. The most highly rated people in her team were, apparently, very close to her managers. Politics it seemed, had taken precedence to hard work. And because she trusted her managers, she hardly ever documented her extra contributions to the project. Most of her managers had only verbally appreciated her. She did not have any ‘proof’ of her hard work. Overnight, everything was falling apart in front of her eyes.
Not wanting to see her efforts go up in smoke, she put up a vicious fight. She rejected her ratings and demanded to see higher ups. The fight went on up to the level of the regional HR head of her company. At every level, what she was essentially told was that her managers gave her a fair rating. By this time, she was fed up with the whole industry itself. It was quintessentially hypocritic in its nature. The so called ‘high tech’ jobs were usually mundane, repetitive pieces of work, just a degree away from clerical work. She certainly felt no one needed an engineering degree to do what she was doing. Throw a bit of computer training and some enthusiasm and anyone could pull off what she was doing.
As soon as she got involved in discussions to modify her rating, her project managers brought in her replacement. It didn’t seem that they tried too hard or waited too long to get one. Her replacement was already in training on the project.
So, here she was, just out of the office of the regional HR head. After the meeting, she felt that, in choosing a career in the software industry, she had made one of the biggest mistakes of her life. She was essentially in ‘foreign territory’, and as long as there were innumerable replacements for her readily available, she would always be at the mercy of the company. She resigned from her job and made a resolve that no matter how long it would take her to find a job, she would never put her foot ever again in the software industry. With renewed conviction and determination, she tried hard for some of the best ‘core’ companies. After a year of hard work, she wound up getting selected in 3 top ‘core’ companies in India. She chose the best of the three.
In retrospect, she was thankful for her low rating. It was a wakeup call to shake her out of the well she fell into and help her carve out her career the way she wanted to.

After a long Hiatus

2011-10-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a long long time since i posted in this blog. I've been busy with my other blog (http://code-nirvana.blogspot.com). I have decided to get on track once again and start updating this blog. Here is a run-down of things I might have done between the last post and this post.
1. Watched lots of episodes of Whose line is it anyway.
2. Watched lots of episodes of The Big Bang Theory.
3. Wasted countless hours of my life doing 1 & 2
4. Finally figured out how to turn ON/OFF household appliances with commands from a microprocessor.
5. Got red-hot angry at the UPA for simply arresting those who loot the country, but making no effort to bring back the black money that is stashed.
6. Have volunteered as an invigilator for my company's Engineer Trainee exam.( More on that later)
7. Wrote a short story. (More on that too later.)
8. Kept closely following Anna's hunger strikes, Baba Ramdev's mindless monkey business and all that is related to it.
9. Saw the rise and fall of JMR (J. Mohan Rddy)
10. Cheered for the hacktivist group Anonymous.
11. Closely followed the lawsuits big media companies are bringing against illegal downloaders.

Last but not the least have been mightily successful in boring you to death, 11 time over !
-Cheers.

Let's go to the Mall !!

2010-12-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

The 80's didn't come to the Canada till 1993 !

Somehow, I love this song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF1b1pf9DRY

Things my father made me believe me.. #1

2010-11-28T06:34:00.000-08:00

Way back in 1996 or so, me, my brother and parents used to travel to a lot of places on our trusty bike, an old Japanese made IND-SUZUKI. Now that's not the point of this post though, just a nostalgic slip of thoughts.

Once while on such a trip to an ashram in Jeedimetla, about 30 km off the Balanagar - Patancheru road in Hyderabad, we had to witness a small dust whirlpool. At that time, though, it seemed as Apocalypse Now to me. It genuinely looked huge and menacing. And it looked as if it was moving about with a purpose. My dad stopped the bike to the side and we all just watched. As always, my dad was cool as ice. The whirlpool looked as if it was coming towards us, then suddenly shifted it's course and drifted off into the waste land....

Back home, when I asked my dad what the 'thing' that we saw was, he went off into a long, overdrawn account of the supposed accounts of devils and evil forces in nature, citing historical and folklore references. At that time, I listened with rapt attention, as I was really into those stuff, back then.

After the whole talk, I had one question. Why did the devil in form of a dust whirlpool on a hot day in Hyderabad, motivated by pure evil, bent on destroying humanity and all those children who do not pray early morning and in temples, chose not to devour us into our deathly dust filled graves, but left us alone?

The answer impressed me much. My dad was reciting prayers silently, the power of which, brought upon the forces of good, from the heavens, with the force of a thousand counter dust whirl pools, on a hot day in Hyderabad, onto the representation of evil, bent upon destroying us.

I was so grateful to my dad, that for almost 6 months after that, I always brought him a glass of water whenever he asked my mom for one.

Good times.

I love my dad.

Good Bye Lenin !

2010-11-28T00:30:00.000-08:00

This is my first German movie till date. I've broken my German-Movie-Virginity, and I'm glad I could do it with this masterpiece. Even though I am not related nor affected by the events in Germany that happened during the collapse of the Berlin wall, I could instantly connect with the characters shown in the movie. The single mother who is committed to the socialist nation, loving and caring children who, while battling their own issues with life, take all that pain to create an East Germany in the post Berlin wall Germany for their mother.

The strength of the movie lies in the way the characters shape up as the movie progresses. It's easy to understand the context of the situations the characters in the movie face, given the excellent narrative. Though the movie feels a bit dragged sometimes, it can be forgiven for that. After all, where do you get to see such touching films made on such subjects.

I'd recommend it as a must watch for any movie buff. Watch it in the original German though.

Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß are added to my list of favourite actors and Wolfgang Becker to my list of favourite directors.

Licence Raj(a)

2010-11-26T06:14:00.000-08:00

That such a scam is happening in India, is of little surprise to many. Politicians in India, enter politics to earn money.

I'm not going to speak of the scam itself, it has been and is being covered in many leading dailies. I want to write about my calculations on the amount of loss that has to be borne by us.

The figure 1.76 Lakh Crore Rupees is being thrown around a lot. So i'll assume that is the loss to the public, and my calculations are based on that figure. If a more accurate estimate is given, i'll republish my blog with that.

So what does 1.76 Lakh Crore Rupees actually mean?

What difference does 1.76 L Cr. Rs. make to the poor in India?

1. NREGA - With the above mentioned amount, the NREGA program can be run in India for about 28 years.

That's right, with that much amount of money, you can keep the NREGA program running for 28 whole fucking years. Accounting for Inflation, etc, my guess is NREGA can be run smoothly for atleast 15 years. How many people does NREGA cover?

59619903 people. (This estimate is based on the actual employment given, for the year 2010-2011. If this is not the correct figure to use, please inform me. Source of the data is given at the end of this section.)

Almost 60 Lakh people can be given employment, for 100 days a year, for almost 28 years. Mind you, it's not donation or charity. These people do actual work, laying roads, cutting trees, tilling land, etc.

Source of data is here..

2. Poverty : At present, about 486 million people live below poverty line in India. 1.76 Lakh Crore rupees can give those mentioned above, Rs. 3000

Though it may sound nothing to me and you, 3000 Rs. can, be a blessing for those living below poverty line.

Source of data is here..

3. Infrastructure : In the 2010 Union budget, India set aside 1.73552 Lakh Crore rupees for Infrastructure development.

For every unit of Roadways, Railways, Bridges, Highways, Canals, Buildings, etc, one more could have been built, had it not been for the loss we have to bear.

And this, is including the usual leakage of money to politicians, contractors, middlemen, etc.

Source of data is here..

4. Military : We set aside 1.47344 Lakh Crores for Defence spending this year. That additional 1.76 Lakh Crores could have doubled our capacity of military equipment, ammunitions, tanks, guns, missiles, etc. Not to mention funding for research and development.

Source of data is here..

5. Education : 26,800 crores was set aside for Education in 2010. With 1.76 L Cr, we could have had almost 7 times as much to spend for school infrastructure, teacher recruitments, books, etc.

Source of data is here..

To TOP it all, the man in question, A Raja, under whose watch this scam took place, was not even questioned. Not once. Even by the CBI. The Supreme Court of India had to tell CBI to start questioning the man.

More stuff follows.

The Swine !

2010-11-21T05:59:00.001-08:00

On the way today,
to the library i pray,
my stomach began to rumble,
so began my day.

My chariot on fuel,
needed a place to rest,
Without so much as a duel,
i found one, my luck being best.

A sandwich so good,
soft potato, red tomato,
and my well baked daily bread,
My hunger was killed pronto.

I pranced down the road,
a road often taken,
a la strutting Leonardo,
and just as much gay.

Here my happiness was slashed,
My brow tightened, my anger soared,
I lost all joy, I turned all red,
my rhyming was lost, curse you all.

A glazing new chariot,
owned by a swine,
more often than not,
was laid behind mine.

My chariot was trapped,
I could not have it moved,
the swine shall be in duel,
and i shall indeed be cruel.

Time had come to pass,
And Einstein was right,
I had no lass,
and relativity had shown it's wrath.

I began to remember,
errands of much importance,
though it seems a puzzler,
that there were none,when my day began.

My wrath was unleashed,
on the said swine,
He was happy and gay,
with a heavy swagger, just like mine.

I cursed his highness,
with words that i rather not,
he was defiant, my goodness,
curse all of his lot.

-- Raghavendra Kumar

Christopher Johnson McCandless

2010-11-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

Respect :-|

Watch the movie "Into the Wild", it's great.

A sad ending though...

I'm Back !

2010-11-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

Not that I have gone somewhere, but I've been busy lately. I've decided to post 'something' here on a regular basis from now on. Hello, the one and only reader of my blog, take note please....

My Girl, My Wish

2010-10-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

In my 10th standard, an unwritten rule went like this : " thou shalt tease thy neighbor, with a student of your school of the opposite gender, that they are romantically linked, until thy neighbor cracks, at which point thou shall tease thy neighbor on his cracking till thy neighbor cracks again"

The rule was religiously followed, almost to a point of painfully funny absurdity. Needless to say, these games were rampant in our group. Lots of fun and no one got hurt. It was one of those things that you actually remember for some years after school.

Anyway, so one fine day, my friends started this ritual on me. I was all cool and like ' yo dawg, all this ain't mean nothing, cos i do it all the time to you too..'. But then the heat started building up on me. It slowly grew and grew until i was being clobbered big time.

Then it happened. Out of sheer necessity, i said the 4 words no 10th class school boy is supposed to say in front of his bros.

"My girl, My Wish"

The news spread like wild fire. I was clobbered for a good part of another 6 to 7 months on that one.

Good times !

Cigar-Guy

2010-10-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

I just love a good post, and this by far, is the best ..

Cigar-Guy

Guys, look what i found !

2010-09-18T23:33:00.001-07:00

I was surfing Reddit, the other day and this is what I found !

These are the comments...

And, as a bonus, the first link you see in the comments leads to this !!

Guess, the father - son duo have finally done, what Balayya babu could not do in his entire movie career. Kudos !

Here is the link to the actual link in Reddit..

http://www.reddit.com/?count=200&after=t3_dfudf#

Why Diaspora will fail

2010-09-17T05:21:00.000-07:00

As many of you might have already heard, Diaspora has been released, as a developer version. There has been quite a bit of negative talk on the internet and predictions of it's death due to restrictive License agreement and security.

Security flaws in the software have been over hyped. It's just a developer release, and I expect that the final release will be free from bugs.

Regarding it's License Agreement, a few have pointed out that Diaspora requires the developers of add-ons (Extensions, Apps, or what ever you might call them...) release their source code and give certain rights to the creators. This, they say, will be a huge turn-off for big business to develop for Diaspora. And apps, they say, are the lifeline of any social network.

If we trace the history of Facebook, we find that the reason so many people embraced it was due to it's functionality. Keeping in touch with friends, commenting on their activities, sharing photos, sharing links, etc, etc. The entry of big business started the rot in facebook. When you have business interests meeting social networks, the inevitable result is the auction of private user data. As far as a business is concerned, the meat of any social network is it's users data, their habits, likes, dislikes, etc. Unfortunately, for businesses, most of that data is regarded as a close personal asset by users.The dilemma of a social network to keep it's users data private or selling it for huge bucks is a consequence of it's fight for survival and growth.

Diaspora aims to overcome the privacy problem, by creating a framework for a distributed social network. It forms islands, called 'seeds', that host the user information. I'm guessing the user can move his data from one seed to another, hopefully, without much difficulty. So, Yahoo can create a Diaspora seed hosting service for it's users. Maybe Google can create a hosting service for Diaspora seeds. And if i dont like Yahoo, i'll move my data to Google. But then, I can host it anywhere else too. My own server, a rented ISP, my friends computer, or a community supported Diaspora server. This, the developers of Diaspora say, will mitigate the privacy problem. If my data can be moved to anywhere i want, if my data is shared with only close contacts i know, then there should not be any serious privacy issues.

Nice thought, but will it actually work? I mean like, layman work...

There are several problems I see with this approach.

1. Once my data is in a seed provided by a host, there is no guarantee that my data will be deleted from the hosting service if I choose to remove it. A problem users face with many social sites, as of now. I can create my own seed, on my own server or a rented ISP, to protect my data, but then, this will make Diaspora equivalent to the Linux of social networking sites. It's a great piece of software, but nobody can efficiently use it.

2. I presume that since hosting your seed, privately will be too much of a hassle,there will be providers of Diaspora Seeds hosting. Similar to the blogging sites we have around. Where will these providers get money to pay for the bills? Ads? Subscription? Choosing Ads, will inevitably lead to a situation similar to what Facebook is facing now. Subscription, is well, a joke.

3. This approach may lead to the creation of 'walled gardens'. If Diaspora, really starts taking on, big companies like Yahoo will jump into the bandwagon, providing Diaspora seeds, riding on the good name of Diaspora. But once they start providing hosting services, they will want to put ads on it. This is very similar to what is happening with Facebook. It's essentially a closed Diaspora, maintained by one host, and that host is very much willing to sell private data.

Diaspora's developers aim to mitigate the privacy problem by making the equivalent of a broken up, islanded Facebook. This just leads to a huge loss in terms of usability. In a way, Facebook is better. Since we have only one company handling private data, it's easy to hold it accountable and force it to mend it's ways, something very recently demonstrated. With Diaspora, we will have hundreds of thousands of Facebooks.

C'est la vie #1

2010-07-05T05:07:00.001-07:00

..... Go Figure !

Rajneeti

2010-06-20T08:23:00.001-07:00

Given the sorry state of script power in recent products of the Bollywood movie machine, this movie stands out to a good extent. The twists and turns in the events on the screen pull you into the movie, though at times, they are predictable. There are two major weak points, or rather, extremely lucky coincidences, in the script. One is the conveniently useful love of Katrina Kaif towards Ranbir Kapoor. The other is the conveniently useful gay relationship of Babulal. Barring those two, the script is strong.Barring those two, the script is strong and engaging. Combine that with powerful acting, by ALL of the major actors, including Katrina Kaif and the chick from US, you have one gripping movie. Some might complain that the movie tried to stuff too much in too little space, but I believe that is necessary for a movie in this genre. It gives you a sense of the chaos and complexity, something very much necessary in political thrillers.

What I like the most is that all the characters having a full spectrum of shades, from white to black and everything in between. Some have more of black and some have more of white. But everyone has the full set of shades, which is very much true in contemporary politics. The scripting of Ranbir's character is more mature and realistic in the beginning, but the last scene where he explains that he did not intend to do all that he has done, shatters it. Iwould have loved to see the movie end with Ranbir being the person he turns into. It's difficult to justify his transformation, given that he does all this mayhem in the most willing manner.

Special kudos to newcomers Ranbir and Katrina (Newcomers in this genre of cinema). Both have proved that they are not just sweet candy, but can pull off complex roles. Ranbir can easily take the throne of the most promising actors of this generation, if he continues to further refine his own style and his innate ability to add 'naturalness' to any role. Katrina has to improve a bit on her body language.

All in all, this is a great movie.. Personal relationships between the characters were shown a bit more raw than required, some more panache in that area would have been nice. If this was done to attract people to the theaters, it's a pity.

Watchability Index : 3.9/5

My letter to sjobs@apple.com

2010-05-17T08:01:00.000-07:00

Just because everyone is sending one......

Dear Steve Jobs,

I think i know what you are trying to do with this huge platform that you have created. For years, the true strength of Microsoft has been it's gigantic developer base. I believe you have recognized the importance of it. I believe you have either discovered or carefully planned the potential of the iPod/iPhone/iPad platform to breed OSX developers on a large scale. Maybe that is why you are forcing developers to learn 'native' development for your platform. I believe, in the long term, you want to get the same developer 'availability' as Microsoft's. Good going bro!

PS : As a person who has so spectacularly turned around a flailing company into a global cultural and technological phenomenon, I deeply admire you.

Regards,

Raghavendra Kumar V.V
India.

Think out of the box !!

2010-04-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

This. had me laughing for almost 5 min. The expression on the cat's face is priceless !!

Night Shift

2010-03-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks, i've been going to office on night shifts. last week I found this..

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/bhbyx/reddit_what_is_your_creepiest_most_unnerving/

And now, it's seems so damn spooky at night. I just cant stop having visions of ghosts and strange 'mists' walking across the road.

To compound that, I've got carried away, as i usually do, and also read Exorcism, Annilese Michel, The Grudge, The Ring,etc etc.

I'm even went and purchased 'The Exorcist"

AHHHHHHHHH...Damn you creepy stories for being so damn intriguing.

DAMN YOU !!

'Maya'wati

2010-03-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

She gives a whole new meaning to the phrase - "Drowning in ones wealth" - ain't she.

I suppose all that money is 'gifted' to her. That is why, perhaps, all her statues depict her carrying a handbag. It certainly comes in handy for 'collecting' the 'gifts'. Here in the south, there is another word for all that.

Happiness Quotient

2010-03-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered the most beauuuuutiful visualization on earth. If this is not an epiphany to you, jump in a spoon of water and ....you know what....

anyway.......

Visual Music.

2010-03-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

This is pure genius !!

Dedication.

2010-03-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

Check this out...

Source : Reddit.com

God !!

2010-03-06T10:45:00.001-08:00

This just cracks me up...

M F Hussain

2010-03-02T06:53:00.001-08:00

Statements like this, enrage me to the core. All of us remember the furor that was unleashed when certain comics were published in some Danish newspapers. That is the attitude of muslim communities towards defamation or insult of their prophet. I dont disagree with it. Insulting ones god is not tolerated in any community, and neither should it be. No community should live under such conditions, and it has all the right in the world to vehemently protest such things. And that is precisely what Hindus all over India did, when Mr. Husain revealed those paintings.

When the paintings came out, there was a lot talk supporting Mr. Husain, essentially saying that art, being is a creative field, should not be taken personally. To an extent I agree. But, if an artist is dumb enough not to recognize the potential havok his paintings could wreak upon a society consisting of loosely held, highly volatile communities, then such an artist is better off being banished.

Any sound, rational person should know that harmony and peace in the society takes a higher precedence than 'art'. It is blatant and arrogant irresponsibility on Mr Husain's part to make or show such paintings in a country so fragile as India.

Paintings.