Bits & Bytes

Scooby, the cat

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:17:00 -0800

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Kindle

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 06:17:33 -0800

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Cappuccino

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 07:04:00 -0800

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Marathahalli Junction

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 05:38:42 -0800

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Overkill

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:26:00 -0800

We are the masters of overkill. Where subtlety is required we paint the whole town. Where a little will do, too much is the norm. Look at the BMTC Volvo buses. Chances are you might have seen some of these buses using their body as an ad platform.

(pic courtesy : enidhi.net - http://www.enidhi.net/2007/03/bmtc-volvo-city-buses.html )

During the initial days when the Volvo was introduced these ads just covered the glass windows. Nowadays the whole bus is covered with it except for the display boards and the front. Like a weed that has grown out of control.

I understand BMTCs efforts to gain revenue from these ads but have they seen how ugly the buses look with these ads pasted all over? The default red paintjob is a distinct colour of these Volvos and looks classy. A little bit of ad pasted on the side doesn't take away its beauty (though I would prefer not a single ad). But no, somebody decided they need more revenue (as if the high priced tickets and fully packed buses were not enough) and made buses that look more like Manipal hospital on wheels or a Flipkart delivery van. Not only the aesthetics take a hit but also its difficult to see if there are any empty seats in the bus from outside during the daytime. And I prefer a seat on paying for an A/C ride.

These ad-infested buses are very less in number now. But I expect them to rise as businesses see others doing it. How long for all the buses to follow suit?

PS: I read this report published last year on how ads on Volvo buses are illegal and BMTC fixes back the ads after RTO approval. Here is the TOI article mentioned in the previous link. Is the law still valid?

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Steve Jobs

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:03:00 -0700

This just came in. Thank you @flipkart

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War of Words

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:31:00 -0700

I waved to the cheering crowd. 'Thank You, I LOVE YOU ALL'. Pretty young things were screaming my name wildly. I blew kisses to them. The kids elbowed each other for an autograph. I signed them all.

'Don't be so dramatic', said the wife. Poof went the PTYs and kids. 'Its just 13- all', she continued. 'Have a good lead and then you act like a star'. Of course I was exaggerating. But what to do when you have a winning streak of 9 consecutive game in scrabble. I am vain like that.

We play scrabble with each other on our phone a lot. I introduced her to this app Words with friends (WWF) and later Wordfeud. Initially, I had the advantage but had to let her win few games to build her confidence. If you ask her she would whack my head and tell a different story but my version is better so don't ask her. Anyway, the point is that a winning tally came into the picture. We played on. Pretty soon it was clear who is the boss. I played. She won. I strategised. She won. I referred dictionaries. She won. I cheated. She won. It is quite evident that I was the better player but somehow the tally came to 13 - 5 in her favor. That's when I decided to unlock my hidden potential and dare to dream beyond words. What I did after that, well, is what they call a mystery. I will post the details when I remember my mysterious ways but the most important thing is that we managed to reach 13 - all pretty soon. A straight win of 9 consecutive games. And I am hungry for more. I don't need to tell you whom you should cheer but in case its not clear I am sending a white Sumo full of goons with swords to teach you all a lesson. Learn well, they know how to Dappankoothu.

[*] My Wordfeud nick is yldguy.

[**] Wordfeud > Words with Friends app.

[***] Dappankoothu - Refer Wikipedia

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IBM

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 04:30:00 -0700

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Cycling to office

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 02:39:35 -0700

Last sunday, as an experiment, I rode my cycle to office. A total of 12 kms to and fro. Just to check out how much I have to exert myself. Being completely out of shape and stamina to cycle long distance. Besides the traffic was almost nil on a sunday.

The ultimate aim is to go to office on a daily basis. But before that I need to build up a little stamina. Also I have to get these accessories. LED blinkers and a decent helmet is the priority. I will be heading back home from office often late in the night and the shortcut that leads to railway tracks is often dark.

That website is of GGI. Go Green Initiator. My friend @Deepakao is a member and goes on regular cycling trip organized by them. They have a lot of useful tips on their site for a cycling enthusiast. I am pretty much starting out but do hope to get in on one of their cycling trips in future.

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Android

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:59:54 -0700

Take a look at this post. This sums up my irritations with Android. I have the Galaxy S1 device. Comparable to iPhone 4 in terms of raw power but it doesn't offer a fluid experience. Apps sometimes take a moment longer to open. Apps occupy memory and eat bandwidth when they should not. I have to kill apps regularly throughout the day to keep the battery at reasonable limits. I have never heard of any iPhone user speaking of these annoyances. The software doesn't do any justice to the hardware.

A smartphone is a dumbphone without internet. Being on the Vodafone network means I can't use it in bus while moving. Here, purpose is not defeated but defeat is purposed. The perfect solution is iPhone. But the bloody thing is expensive. The 3rd generation iPhone 3GS is still on the market at Rs. 19,999 with their latest OS iOS5. And the phone is smooth as butter! That would still be a better device than Galaxy S1.

Carrying two device is foolhardy so I tried to sell this off first at 20k, then brought it down to 18k and then finally to 15k! but most of the people who call up are confused between Galaxy S1 and Galaxy SL (same as S1 but with an LCD screen, no scratchproof gorilla glass). To complicate matters further, Samsung discontinued this model. Even after 46% discount nobody is ready to buy this :(.

I would probably have gone further south from 15k but that would be a colossal loss. So I am gonna do what can be done best with this. Mod like crazy.

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Blogger → Posterous

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 06:56:00 -0700

Why did I move from Blogger to Posterous? Simplicity. Yep.

Of late, blogger feels bloated and unfriendly. Their unified theme (all Google products) looks clean but I feel a bit lost while navigating in blogger. Their measly template collection has always been a sore point. And the templates have far moved from the classic html to something monstrous. I can still use the classic template but then I had my unused photo blog here at posterous which I wanted to combine for quite a while. Cross posting at too many places is a hassle. Posterous is what I wanted ever since I saw their theme collection. Beautiful and simple. Their template is also much easier to read and edit. Autopost to different services was a plus.

Importing a blog to Posterous is simple but not easy in some cases. My blog name was all Posterous asked for here. What posterous doesn't mention is that the blogpost blog should be in plain classic html format and not the latest template. And the comments are not imported. Not at all failproof but I don't care much about the comments. There are couple of duplicated posts which I will weed out in due time. What messed up royally was my FB notes which was linked to the old feed. The feed changed (I use feedburner) and took away the likes & comments on posts (huge loss!!) and splashed few posts from the feed on the timeline. Fortunately, people were busy watching videos and tagging themselves so nobody took offense (I hope :p). And thanks for the latest comments and likes. Much appreciate it :).

update: Apparently, my old notes are still there on FB along with the new ones :)

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When does one feel married?

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:35:00 -0700

Its been 3 weeks since I got married and to be honest, I still don't feel married. We have known each other for 4 years and maybe that's why we don't have to explore each others behavior and annoyances and habits. There is no sudden feeling of sharing ones life with another. We have been doing that all along. She had no problem in getting along with my parents and siblings. She got along so well that my dad had teary eyes when we we left home.

My friend Rivas says that it will slowly grow on you. Maybe it does that way. I will have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, can any of you married fellas tell me how to regain control of the TV remote?

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The terror that I am

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:43:00 -0700

When my colleague G borrowed my thumb drive to watch a movie, little did she know that she will be creating a legend.

G is watching movie on her laptop. Her kid comes along and tries to pull the thumb drive.

G: Don't pull that! it belongs to Sajesh Cherian
Chinnu: ...

Just then Chinnus twin Minnu comes along and attempts to pull the thumb drive.

Chinnu: Don't do that! it belongs to Sajesh Cherian.

And a legend was born.

The unfamiliarity of the name along with the emergency it was said, coupled with the tone of their mother created a monster named Sajesh Cherian in those two kids mind. Gabbar used to say, jab door kisi.. well, you know the dialogue. G now uses my name to drill obedience into them. Now the kids have learned it well that Sajesh Cherian means bad.

Chinnu playing with the electrical socket
Minnu : Don't touch that.. Sajesh Cherian will come

No kidding.

And today, the kids were going to the school for the first time. You know how kids are. They cry and make a scene. So our little Chinnu was crying and guess what Minnu said. "Chinnu don't cry... Sajesh is coming"

Oh boy! I had a good laugh over this. G is planning to use my name as long as they behave well :).

And the fun part in all of this is - The kids haven't seen me yet.

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Lioness - Bannerghatta National Park

Thu, 05 May 2011 19:41:00 -0700

The only shot that came good. The 'Safari' at Bannerghatta National Park is a waste of money anyway.

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This moon makes me restless

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:42:00 -0700

See the full gallery on Posterous

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There is a difference between making cars and making cars that make a difference

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:46:00 -0700

The heading is Hyundais latest slogan for their cars. Pretty good one. A powerful one. Believing that ones work is making a difference in the world. One can substitute cars with whatever they like to do and it would still hold true. I can say:

There is a difference in writing code and writing code that makes a difference.

Do we fulfill our duties with a sense of "making a difference"? Perhaps, within that answer lies the key to "Loving my job".

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Conkywizard

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 22:21:00 -0700

The latest conky update on my Ubuntu

desktop. Most of the stuff is provided automatically by Conkywizard. Few items needed to be modified manually as the app has some bugs.

Conkywizard

The hardest part was to find a wallpaper that would go with the look. The screen estate looks less but its fine by me as I rarely keep anything on the desktop. On the plus side, I can hide folders in plain view as the conky will hide anything below it ;). The terminal colour will be familiar to few as the "green-screen". I find no other colour combination that goes easy on the eye in any light condition as green-screen. The Terminal is stripped of its menu bar, scroll bar and status bar. Plain and simple. The dock at the bottom is Docky. Simple and elegant. There is a fix I want to do on Docky in the coming days to make it behave more like how the dock on a Mac

does. Conkywizard instructions are available here.

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Lamp in the sky

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:17:01 -0800

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Lamp in the Sky

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:28:00 -0800

Lamp in the Sky

The Moon has always fascinated me. I have spent a long time gazing at the moon rise from the backside of our house. Somehow the moon rising behind the hills and through trees made the moon look huge. There is actually a reason for that which I discovered much later.

I love the fact that we can make out little features on the moon with our naked eye. At the least the darker shades on the surface. There is no celestial body like this. Someday I hope to buy a telescope good enough to observe the surface of the Moon. [My closest brush with a telescope was last year when we were on a trip to a resort in Maharashtra. I had observed Saturn and its rings back then (its like a white blur)]

'Lamp in the Sky' was the phrase I used when talking to a friend about todays Moon. I have tried to give that feel to this photo here. This is done with a resolution of 1280x800. Does the title do justice to this photo? Do tell me.

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Lunch @ Chung Wah

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 15:44:00 -0700

There is one particular chinese outlet I am very fond of. Chung Wah. And not just any Chung Wah outlet in Bangalore. The one located near Kathreguppe. They serve the most awesome lip-smacking-finger-licking-mind-blowing-mouth-watering Chicken Leg Hakka in the universe. But having had it every single time we go there, Elvis, the manager of that joint asked us to try out something else. Something from his cook book. Ok, we said and there it was infront of us a Chicken Sizzler.

That was a month ago. It was that Chicken Sizzler that we had in mind when we entered Chung Wah again today. The sizzler this time came with an Omlette on top. The Fries, the Chicken, the Omlette, Tomato, Capsicum, Cabbage and their sauce. Believe me, It trumped ANY sizzler I ever had. Perfection has a synonym and it's Elvis' recipe.

Elvis' Chicken Sizzler

Totally loved the omlette they had as toppings and I ended up ordering another one of that omlette :D. I am so not gonna set foot in any other Chinese joint for a long long time. Chung Wah, you have my soul!

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