My friend pinged me to give a shocking news yesterday - 'Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto assassinated'. 'What?' was my reply in complete disbelief. But as I read through the link on Rediff.com, my disbelief turned into a truth.
What a pity... A lady who just survived a deadly blast killing hundreds of innocent people, is murdered in a similar fashion. Some of the reporters say that there has been 4/5 attempted assassinations since this October. There was a baby suicide bomber, a 15 years old boy loaded with explosions was trying to kill her. In spite of such dreadful incidents, the Pakistani government failed to protect their one of the most influential political icons. What could be the implications? In an utter anarchy, a big shot political leader like Benazir is shot dead, where the hell an ordinary Pakistani will look for safety? The problem and solution might be found in the Pakistani Mentality.
Pakistan is always been notoriously known for its political turmoils and lack of respect towards the democracy. There has been a bunch of Generals, ISI honchos, Mullas - Maulawis who molded the principles as per their way just to fill up their own bags. And unfortunately, the Pakistani Aawam failed to recognize their hidden motives. To exacerbate things, there has been international pressure and interference in Pakistan's politics. This assassination is not the end, it's the beginning of realization which should force Pakistan for an introspection. If we look at past 50 years from Pakistan's birth, we will hardly find any strategic decision made to speed up the growth of economy, to provide basic needs of an individuals. Compare it with India's maturity as the World's Biggest Democracy, you will see a country willing to accept changes and the other one which is sticked to useless fatwas. We hear the news of hatred between the Shiyas and Sunnis, a violence on the borders of Baluchistan, a continuous struggle between people from rich Sindh area and other undeveloped areas for political supremacy, a militant, a self-consecrated leader who dreams of Islam Reign in Pakistan sits in a Masjid and challenges the Pakistan's very own constituency. What can one infer from this? Pakistanis are not learning from their mistakes. They are falling to the same delusion of 'Raat Ka Khana Delhi Me Khayenge...' slogan, which once visualized as a symbol of Pakistan's greed and so-called-pride, now leading towards their self destruction. I don't know the meaning of Jihad, but let it be whatever, you can't kill the people in the names of Allah....
The Islamic groups, Inter Services Intelligence, once built keeping in mind the interests of politicians were the icons of strength ( at least that's what they pretended to be). Now they are nothing but the boomerang of threats which has gone very much powerful in recent years. They are not only disastrous for Pakistan but equally dangerous to India's 'Sarwabhaumatva'. In India, the ISI has already gone far deep, and if it is not rooted up now, one day, we will also have to face some such blows or maybe catastrophes. Benazir Bhutto's assassination is a wake up call for all those who are promoting terrorism / fanaticism under the guise of false patriotism.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
It's Modi Again ...
It wasn't a shocking result, in fact very much anticipated by political pundits. But some of them did claim that this year will be much more tougher for Modi than his first term. The poles have proved it wrong and BJP is elected with huge leads over Congress. I am not a follower of BJP or Congress but somehow elections create a kind of interest for me, except election there is nothing in politics that I appreciate much.
Many newspapers claim that Congress's lack of ideas / focus on the local issues is one of the reasons of their defeat. On the other side, Modi's firebrand image, outspoken personality and 'straight from the heart' speeches are rewarded with a clear-cut lead over the opposition. Some of the speakers of opposition also lament saying that its a win of devil over god or bad over good. No doubt a bit of communal touch is given to this election, you can refer to Modi's statement about Soharabuddin's encounter and Sonia Gandhi's much criticized remark of 'Maut Ke Saudagar'. But somehow I believe that BJP did not win on the basis of these usual 'election mantras'. Modi has proved to be a good chief minister having nice portfolio of development, especially his prudent decision after Gujarat Earth quake and even after Godhra . Also his various 'vikas yojana's' over Gujarat are primarily focused during the election campaigns , a stand for which Congress has no answers. Modi's elections campaigns were more inclined towards promising a new, developed Gujarat while Congress was much into riots issues. Naturally, a positive attitude won over the negative one. Sonia Gandhi worked really hard with countless rallies but her 'Des ki Bahu' image did not create magic in a common Gujarati's business oriented mind. Congress did touch upon the sensitive and emotional points like Mahatma Gandhi and his connection with Gujarat, but again , failed to attract voters on their side. I personally feel that political parties in India should not use any of India's heroes in their election campaigns , it's because these great souls did not have any political motives behind their deeds. Let me clear one thing, the list of Great Souls does not include Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru !!!
People might come up with different conclusions after this result and may even predict that Modi will be next Advani, or The Saffron Brigade will get a rejuvenation after this win, or there will be more communal riots in India or anything... But I think, Gujarat election has put forth an example that the democracy is changing now. Gone are those days when people vote you just because you belong to some so called elite family, or a powerhouse of India. Now, the shrewd 'Aam Janata' find her leader with much precaution and after deep analysis, of course there are places in India where someone votes for you just for the sake of Rs. 100/- and a 'Desi Santra' , but we can look at it as a beginning . I suppose the voters should take decisions on the basis of the 'work done' and not on the basis of anything else. Gujarat gave Modi another chance and now its Modi's time to keep his words.
Many newspapers claim that Congress's lack of ideas / focus on the local issues is one of the reasons of their defeat. On the other side, Modi's firebrand image, outspoken personality and 'straight from the heart' speeches are rewarded with a clear-cut lead over the opposition. Some of the speakers of opposition also lament saying that its a win of devil over god or bad over good. No doubt a bit of communal touch is given to this election, you can refer to Modi's statement about Soharabuddin's encounter and Sonia Gandhi's much criticized remark of 'Maut Ke Saudagar'. But somehow I believe that BJP did not win on the basis of these usual 'election mantras'. Modi has proved to be a good chief minister having nice portfolio of development, especially his prudent decision after Gujarat Earth quake and even after Godhra . Also his various 'vikas yojana's' over Gujarat are primarily focused during the election campaigns , a stand for which Congress has no answers. Modi's elections campaigns were more inclined towards promising a new, developed Gujarat while Congress was much into riots issues. Naturally, a positive attitude won over the negative one. Sonia Gandhi worked really hard with countless rallies but her 'Des ki Bahu' image did not create magic in a common Gujarati's business oriented mind. Congress did touch upon the sensitive and emotional points like Mahatma Gandhi and his connection with Gujarat, but again , failed to attract voters on their side. I personally feel that political parties in India should not use any of India's heroes in their election campaigns , it's because these great souls did not have any political motives behind their deeds. Let me clear one thing, the list of Great Souls does not include Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru !!!
People might come up with different conclusions after this result and may even predict that Modi will be next Advani, or The Saffron Brigade will get a rejuvenation after this win, or there will be more communal riots in India or anything... But I think, Gujarat election has put forth an example that the democracy is changing now. Gone are those days when people vote you just because you belong to some so called elite family, or a powerhouse of India. Now, the shrewd 'Aam Janata' find her leader with much precaution and after deep analysis, of course there are places in India where someone votes for you just for the sake of Rs. 100/- and a 'Desi Santra' , but we can look at it as a beginning . I suppose the voters should take decisions on the basis of the 'work done' and not on the basis of anything else. Gujarat gave Modi another chance and now its Modi's time to keep his words.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
My tryst with GRE extra score reporting
I was reporting my GRE score to ETS tonight. When you appear for GRE, ETS ( the institution that conducts GRE and other tests) allows you to send scores to 4 university without charging a single dollar. But as I am applying to more than four, I called up ETS to report extra scores. I actually planned to do this before 4/5 days, but as usual my laziness stopped me from doing it. Now that I am on the verge of missing a deadline, today was the D- day for me. Generally ETS takes 5 working days to report your scores to the respective universities and that means from 20th Oct it will take around 31st Dec. to reach my scores at the concerned universities. It's because, they have a holiday on X-mas (23rd and 24th Dec) and I suppose they don't work on SAT-SUN. So, if I would not have called today, there would have been fair chances of missing the deadlines of 2 universities, one of which is 'safe' for me. FYI, safe in GRE aspirants world means some university from where you are cocksure to get an admit.
But it was not the end of the story. When you call ETS, it allows you to send your scores to 8 universities in one call. Again, I made a blunder there. At the time of taking my test, in free score reporting, instead of applying to University of Texas at Dallas, I applied to University of Dallas. And to my utmost insanity, I did not notice this while calling. When I hanged off the phone, and cross checked the code with that of Kedar's, I came to know about the stupidity. Now, I could have called ETS again to report the score to UTD, but thought I will send it by fax. Anyways, UTD's deadline is not yet close.
After this incident, I came to one conclusion. Whenever there is an critical moment to act comes, I make a mistake. That has became a characteristic of my personality now. I thank myself for at least knowing my mistake (some time later though). If I would not have understood the silliness, I might not have sent the GRE score to UTD, and will be happily waiting for a reply from their side.
One more bitter lesson from life !!!
Think, I need to keep the "thing over my shoulders" very cool, otherwise one day it will sink me down .... :-(
But it was not the end of the story. When you call ETS, it allows you to send your scores to 8 universities in one call. Again, I made a blunder there. At the time of taking my test, in free score reporting, instead of applying to University of Texas at Dallas, I applied to University of Dallas. And to my utmost insanity, I did not notice this while calling. When I hanged off the phone, and cross checked the code with that of Kedar's, I came to know about the stupidity. Now, I could have called ETS again to report the score to UTD, but thought I will send it by fax. Anyways, UTD's deadline is not yet close.
After this incident, I came to one conclusion. Whenever there is an critical moment to act comes, I make a mistake. That has became a characteristic of my personality now. I thank myself for at least knowing my mistake (some time later though). If I would not have understood the silliness, I might not have sent the GRE score to UTD, and will be happily waiting for a reply from their side.
One more bitter lesson from life !!!
Think, I need to keep the "thing over my shoulders" very cool, otherwise one day it will sink me down .... :-(
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Fantastic Link
Today Mohsin sent me a link The Programmer's Dress Code . One of the most hilarious and informative things I have ever read. The author of this post has got a great collection of some of the legends in the computers. Out of those, I liked Jaron Lanier's photo and especially the witty punchline 'No Woman, No Cry'. Must be showing the realities behind the virtual world. ;-)
Others are also quite good. Look at the smile on Dorothy Denning's face. How pretty and original , those spects are just the reflection of fashions at their times.
Anyways, thanks Mohsin for a nice link. I have forwarded it to all of my colleagues and they are really appreciating it.
Others are also quite good. Look at the smile on Dorothy Denning's face. How pretty and original , those spects are just the reflection of fashions at their times.
Anyways, thanks Mohsin for a nice link. I have forwarded it to all of my colleagues and they are really appreciating it.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Latest Obsession : Algorithms
These days I am reading 'Introduction to Algorithms' by Thomas Cormen. I wanted to take DAA ( Design and Analysis of Algorithms) as my final year elective but my project partners forced me to take AI ( Artificial Intelligence), so that our group can remain in the same class. In fact there was no logical reason behind leaving DAA and taking AI, but that time I didn't give it a thought. And as far as getting good marks are concerned, I am a total waste in AI as well as in DAA. As per the new syllabus , University of Pune has made DAA a compulsory subject and I believe that's a good decision .
Now that I am reading the book, I am finding a different chord of interest there. I have just read Insertion Sort and loved it. The language looks okay except few 'bouncers', but that's accepted. When someone does a deep research in a profound field like Algorithms, the 'tangents' are bound to be there. Similar things happen when I read Kerninghan and Ritchie ( fondly called as K & R), so it was not new to me. After reading so many engineering books, you get kind of expert in digesting things even if you are not able to grasp it properly ;-). But Algorithms are not that easy, unless you are damn clear with what you MEAN by something, the corridors of uncertainty can trap you anytime.
The real fun comes when I start writing code, that's the thing I love the most. Backspace is the key which I use most of the times and sometimes I get so bored looking at code,wondering what have been written, I wipe out everything and start from all over again. I am looking forward to take a course in Algorithms during my MS, with a hope that this latest obsession will turn into a life long passion.
Wish me best of my luck for completing the book and implementing the assignments with some intense coding sessions.
Now that I am reading the book, I am finding a different chord of interest there. I have just read Insertion Sort and loved it. The language looks okay except few 'bouncers', but that's accepted. When someone does a deep research in a profound field like Algorithms, the 'tangents' are bound to be there. Similar things happen when I read Kerninghan and Ritchie ( fondly called as K & R), so it was not new to me. After reading so many engineering books, you get kind of expert in digesting things even if you are not able to grasp it properly ;-). But Algorithms are not that easy, unless you are damn clear with what you MEAN by something, the corridors of uncertainty can trap you anytime.
The real fun comes when I start writing code, that's the thing I love the most. Backspace is the key which I use most of the times and sometimes I get so bored looking at code,wondering what have been written, I wipe out everything and start from all over again. I am looking forward to take a course in Algorithms during my MS, with a hope that this latest obsession will turn into a life long passion.
Wish me best of my luck for completing the book and implementing the assignments with some intense coding sessions.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Bug?
I am having a lots of problems while adding a friend in my 'Blogger Friends' list. Posts on forums showing howto's of manipulating the template were of no use. As well as the official help from Blogger.com is not worth. The problem was, when I tried adding a friend in a list, it could not add him. I initially thought that there is a limit of 10 friends but it wasn't true. We can add as many people in the list. After Mohsin's suggestion, I even upgraded the template to see if something useful comes up or not. But again, the effort was futile.
When I clicked on Page Element tab, I could see a nice layout of everything but after clicking on edit button of Blogger Friend's tab, I could not really edit the things. "Add Link" tab could not do what it is supposed to do. Also I could not delete few links on my blog. It was so irritating that I eventually tried removing the complete page element. But that also did not work. ;-)
My other friends did not have similar problem with their blogs layout. Frustrated, I went to try out my luck on Internet Explorer and to my surprise, it worked. I could easily manage the things from IE but had hell lots of problems in doing the same on Firefox.
Probably it is a time to add a entry in blogger's bug database. They should have a consistent behavior irrespective of the browser that I use.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Hollywood vs Indian Film Industry
I wanted to write about this topic way before this post but somehow it didn't happen. Now since I am much into movies, the thought popped up again.
I am not a specialist or something but being a person who likes to watch good movies, I wish to compare Indian Film Industry with Hollywood. Now, someone might say that its totally a waste of time as the situation in US and in India is too different and one can not compare them. But I am in total disagreement of this point. We must admit that our film industry is often ridiculed by the name 'Bollywood' a similar connotation to that of Hollywood. And it is because of a major number of 'INSPIRED FROM XXXXX' movies from Hollywood. Our movie makers get furious when they are called as Bollywood's director than a Dream Merchant of Hollywood. But believe me, there is a bitter truth behind this word 'Bollywood'.
How often do we see a beautiful script equally presented by a connoisseur eye of a director? As far as the ones that I watched, I could separate out a very few. To name them, from oldies, it could be Sholay , Anand, Deewar , Bawarchi, and almost all movies of Hrishida . And about the latest ones, well, we know them very well. I might have missed upon few, but at this moment I don't remember all of them. Except these movies, all we see is an attempt to make a movie. I haven't made any movie yet but have read a lot about what it really takes to make a movie. All I want to say that if you are anyways doing it, why don't you do it with all your hearts and heads? What is the point in making a straightway copy of a Hollywood flick? Don't we have great authors and latest technologies? Don't we have enough money ?
The real problem is the lack of a good script and real actors... Actor here means , someone who gives his 100% in acting, who might not have inherited "so called" traits from godfather actors / actresses or in some cases both, who might not have dude / cool/ hunk / macho looks, who hadn't ever taken part in or won a beauty pageant, instead who has an extremely clear voice and pronunciations, who HAS a knowledge of what is called as acting. How many of these actors / actresses do we have in our industry today? I bet, we could not cross a figure of even 20. All we see here is a bunch of useless people who have got money and know nothing about acting. There are few exceptions though, I am not at all leaving them. On the contrary, in Hollywood, we see different shades of life in their movies. Be it romantic, action, Sci-Fi film or be it a drama full of emotions or a real life story inspired from a lovely novel. I am not saying that there are no flops and BS movies there, but what I see is at least they dare to show something different, something original ( which is very rare in 'Bollywood' of course with few notable exceptions).
50+ years of experience is much more to be a versatile film industry. I am not only blaming the film makers for this situation. We, the people are equally contributing towards this nonsense. We could not differentiate between the real gem and some haphazard sequences of ostentatious display. Otherwise, all those crap beauty contestants and miss / mister universe / world / galaxy/ milky ways / comets / or whatever hadn't been established here as a actor / actresses.
Show some maturity and originality man, and then hope for the prestigious Oscar. It's not a boys game out there. And if we really want to see that our movies getting a world wide recognition as a fantastic movie, we should better stop our current stupidity and seriously think of doing something really original.
I am not a specialist or something but being a person who likes to watch good movies, I wish to compare Indian Film Industry with Hollywood. Now, someone might say that its totally a waste of time as the situation in US and in India is too different and one can not compare them. But I am in total disagreement of this point. We must admit that our film industry is often ridiculed by the name 'Bollywood' a similar connotation to that of Hollywood. And it is because of a major number of 'INSPIRED FROM XXXXX' movies from Hollywood. Our movie makers get furious when they are called as Bollywood's director than a Dream Merchant of Hollywood. But believe me, there is a bitter truth behind this word 'Bollywood'.
How often do we see a beautiful script equally presented by a connoisseur eye of a director? As far as the ones that I watched, I could separate out a very few. To name them, from oldies, it could be Sholay , Anand, Deewar , Bawarchi, and almost all movies of Hrishida . And about the latest ones, well, we know them very well. I might have missed upon few, but at this moment I don't remember all of them. Except these movies, all we see is an attempt to make a movie. I haven't made any movie yet but have read a lot about what it really takes to make a movie. All I want to say that if you are anyways doing it, why don't you do it with all your hearts and heads? What is the point in making a straightway copy of a Hollywood flick? Don't we have great authors and latest technologies? Don't we have enough money ?
The real problem is the lack of a good script and real actors... Actor here means , someone who gives his 100% in acting, who might not have inherited "so called" traits from godfather actors / actresses or in some cases both, who might not have dude / cool/ hunk / macho looks, who hadn't ever taken part in or won a beauty pageant, instead who has an extremely clear voice and pronunciations, who HAS a knowledge of what is called as acting. How many of these actors / actresses do we have in our industry today? I bet, we could not cross a figure of even 20. All we see here is a bunch of useless people who have got money and know nothing about acting. There are few exceptions though, I am not at all leaving them. On the contrary, in Hollywood, we see different shades of life in their movies. Be it romantic, action, Sci-Fi film or be it a drama full of emotions or a real life story inspired from a lovely novel. I am not saying that there are no flops and BS movies there, but what I see is at least they dare to show something different, something original ( which is very rare in 'Bollywood' of course with few notable exceptions).
50+ years of experience is much more to be a versatile film industry. I am not only blaming the film makers for this situation. We, the people are equally contributing towards this nonsense. We could not differentiate between the real gem and some haphazard sequences of ostentatious display. Otherwise, all those crap beauty contestants and miss / mister universe / world / galaxy/ milky ways / comets / or whatever hadn't been established here as a actor / actresses.
Show some maturity and originality man, and then hope for the prestigious Oscar. It's not a boys game out there. And if we really want to see that our movies getting a world wide recognition as a fantastic movie, we should better stop our current stupidity and seriously think of doing something really original.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Treat for a movie freak ...
I am hunting for movies these days. It has been days since I had a Movie Marathon at my place. FYI, Movie Marathon is a term introduced by us (friends) which means watching movies all night. We used to do this earlier when we are done with the engineering exams. After seeing a long list of "haven't seen" movies, I am waiting for this Saturday. Saif Ali Khan's dialogs in Dil Chahata Hai, "Hum Cake Ke Liye Kahin Bhi Ja Sakte Hai" perfectly fits for me in the context of movies . I will be going to my friend's flat tomorrow to get some nice Hollywood movies. He stays around 20 kilometers from my home and tomorrow morning with the first ray of Sun, I will be heading towards his place ;-)
Here is the list of the movies:
The motorcycle Diaries, Wait Until Dark, Carlito's Way, Apocalypse Now, Being There, Casablanca, The City of Angels, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Glory, The Gods must Be Crazy, The Groundhog Day, Love Actually, Raising Arizona, Requiem for a Dream, Saints and Soldier, Sideways, Taxi Driver, The Hudsucker Proxy, The King of Comedy, The Others, The Shining, Amadeus, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Entourage, Garden State, It's a Wonderful Life, Leon, Roman Holiday, Scum, Sling Blade, The Merchant of Venice, The Road to Guantanamo, Trainspotting, Unforgiven, Fargo, Rebel Without a Cause.
Well, I don't know how much time will it take to see them ( at least once) but this much of stock is fair enough for a movie freak like me !!!
Here is the list of the movies:
The motorcycle Diaries, Wait Until Dark, Carlito's Way, Apocalypse Now, Being There, Casablanca, The City of Angels, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Glory, The Gods must Be Crazy, The Groundhog Day, Love Actually, Raising Arizona, Requiem for a Dream, Saints and Soldier, Sideways, Taxi Driver, The Hudsucker Proxy, The King of Comedy, The Others, The Shining, Amadeus, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Entourage, Garden State, It's a Wonderful Life, Leon, Roman Holiday, Scum, Sling Blade, The Merchant of Venice, The Road to Guantanamo, Trainspotting, Unforgiven, Fargo, Rebel Without a Cause.
Well, I don't know how much time will it take to see them ( at least once) but this much of stock is fair enough for a movie freak like me !!!
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Klueless3
Finally it arrived.... It was a long awaited and much appreciated online puzzle competition. After solving Klueless1 and Klueless2, you get quite addicted to this kind of game. What is different this time is the difficulty level of Klueless3 . Earlier we used to get easy ways to find an answer but this time the kluemasters have put in lots of brains in it, and lots of ( Wikipedia research also).
After getting overloaded by the same kind of boring work everyday, you need a break and some online hunting place. Such competitions just provide what you want, a change. And it really tests your patience. Lots of googling and with some hints from Klueless's forum and friends I could get to level 11. I am still stuck at it but will find a way soon. When I got its link from Punit, I was not knowing that it has been released already. As expected, I am spending much of my office time digging through HTML source pages, Wikipedia . And I am not the only one who is involved in this "fond act", there are 4-5 members already working hard on it...of course,using company's resources...
Hope will find more and more online refreshments like this one...
After getting overloaded by the same kind of boring work everyday, you need a break and some online hunting place. Such competitions just provide what you want, a change. And it really tests your patience. Lots of googling and with some hints from Klueless's forum and friends I could get to level 11. I am still stuck at it but will find a way soon. When I got its link from Punit, I was not knowing that it has been released already. As expected, I am spending much of my office time digging through HTML source pages, Wikipedia . And I am not the only one who is involved in this "fond act", there are 4-5 members already working hard on it...of course,using company's resources...
Hope will find more and more online refreshments like this one...
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Fun in the lift
Today's incident was too much. I often look around here and there to find some pretty faces around me and most of the times, do not get caught watching them. After all, its all about experience, I have been doing this from ages ;-) but till today, I have never taken a step ahead. It's not like I am afraid or something, but somehow I feel 'the one' is still to come in my life. Whatever happened today was not planned at all, it was just natural.
Coming to the point, I was going to the cafeteria for my lunch and was standing in lift. Kedar and me, as always were playings pranks at each other. At some floor, the lift stopped and someone went outside. As the lift was about to close, I saw a "pretty face" waving her hand for lift. Being a "good boy", I moved my hand through the door to stop it from closing. I could not see her face clearly but being a seasoned person, I am quite sure that she must be a good looking girl.
As she came towards the lift, I started looking at her and the door was again about to close. I wanted her to come in, but was so much into staring at her that I forgot to move my hands through the door. Instead, I was pushing the door in a opposite direction with all my strengths and in doing so, I almost fell in the lift. I was trying so desperately to prevent the door from closing , but finally Kedar managed it on time. I was like 'What the hell I am doing" as it looked too bad. She must be thinking what an idiot person I am. A "Thank You" from her brought a smile on my face but I did not even replied her saying "You are welcome". What a jerk I am ! By the time the lift went on the last floor, Kedar and me blasted into laughter. Fortunately she got off on 6th floor. We were laughing for about 5 minutes and Kedar was showing me how stupid I looked in the lift. I must have looked like Mr. Bean :-). As Jogya and Sneha came, he shared the story with them from start, not only by narrating, but with acting also.
One should take lessons from every incident in his life and I am looking forward for another opportunity to correct these mistakes ;-)
Amen...
Coming to the point, I was going to the cafeteria for my lunch and was standing in lift. Kedar and me, as always were playings pranks at each other. At some floor, the lift stopped and someone went outside. As the lift was about to close, I saw a "pretty face" waving her hand for lift. Being a "good boy", I moved my hand through the door to stop it from closing. I could not see her face clearly but being a seasoned person, I am quite sure that she must be a good looking girl.
As she came towards the lift, I started looking at her and the door was again about to close. I wanted her to come in, but was so much into staring at her that I forgot to move my hands through the door. Instead, I was pushing the door in a opposite direction with all my strengths and in doing so, I almost fell in the lift. I was trying so desperately to prevent the door from closing , but finally Kedar managed it on time. I was like 'What the hell I am doing" as it looked too bad. She must be thinking what an idiot person I am. A "Thank You" from her brought a smile on my face but I did not even replied her saying "You are welcome". What a jerk I am ! By the time the lift went on the last floor, Kedar and me blasted into laughter. Fortunately she got off on 6th floor. We were laughing for about 5 minutes and Kedar was showing me how stupid I looked in the lift. I must have looked like Mr. Bean :-). As Jogya and Sneha came, he shared the story with them from start, not only by narrating, but with acting also.
One should take lessons from every incident in his life and I am looking forward for another opportunity to correct these mistakes ;-)
Amen...
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Free as in Freedom
Free as in Freedom is a book ( open book rather) which narrates Richard M. Stallman's journey of Free Software. I finished reading three chapters and can't leave this book aside. It's fantastically narrated and articulated written. The depth of details and style of narration shows that Sam Williams, the author, has taken a hell lot of efforts in bringing the life and career of RMS to larger audiences. It's a typical biography kind of book that tells us how a simple incident of a jamming a printer's paper in MIT's AI lab could be the harbinger of a big movement of open software. Also an incident when a professor at Carnegie Mellon denies to share his copy of a program with Stallman has a tremendous effect on Stallman's mind that it totally changes his path of career.Stallman's life, his great contribution towards Free Software Movement, the respect that he earned in programmer's community all over the world by his elite yet free programs definitely deserve the attention. Almost everyone who is somehow related with computers knows Richard Stallman. I remember watching a video of his speech on my friend's computer but did not get a chance to read about this revolutionary hacker. This book will certainly add to my knowledge and introduce me to the concept and history of Free Software Movement.
One more notable thing about this book is, for its electronic version, you can pay in free software manner, i.e. by contributing towards it. The book is distributed under GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) , so that we can help improving the work and can create a personalized version and release that version under the same license. Just like any other free software program, this book will also accept patches.... Interesting !!!, I haven't heard of any other book which accepts patches !!!
So, that's what I want to say about it... 11 more chapters to go... I need to finish it up as soon as possible :)
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Diwali...
Diwali is one of the most awaited festivals for me because it brings at least 2-3 days of vacation with itself. And those 2-3 days + a weekend can easily make up a half week leave for you. You get an official reason to run away from the work. :) Let me tell you one thing, on the day before the vacation starts, I do nothing. Nothing means nothing related to work, I use my precious time in planning what to do and what not to do in those 2-3 days. Earlier I used to write postcards ( mind you, postcards and not mails) to my friends which generally have a poem of a famous Marathi poet followed by a Diwali wish. I left doing it from last 2 years when my Grandmother and Grandfather passed away.
My mother always complains that I am too busy with my friends when I go home and seldom stay with her. This time I tried to be with her for almost all of the time. I had an urge to meet my school teacher Mr. Kaundinya sir but somehow could not manage it for many days which I finally did now. He is having his by-pass surgery today. My mavashi ( mother's sister) and her two kids ( Pratik and Pratiksha ) were our guests for this Diwali. Pratik is a biggggggggg fan of cartoons , Pratiksha is very cute and loves to dance ( even if she is in lower kindergarten). As always, I met other relatives and had a chat. I went to Shaggy's place ( Shaggy = Abhishek Dnyate) along with Sanket to meet his parents and wish them a happy Diwali.
This Diwali, I had a continuous thought running all over of my mind. This is going to be my last Diwali in India. At least for two years. I will not be here for 2 years, if I get an admit from some university plus the rest of the process goes smoothly. And that, added some tinge of sorrow in the celebration. My mother said it twice or thrice that she will be missing me a lot in next Diwali. I replied saying that we can celebrate Diwali together through web cam, but that did not stop her saying the same thing again and again. I am kind of confused and emotional at times, sometimes I think that I am very selfish in the sense, I am leaving my family and home at the time when they look at me as a responsible person and going away just for my future. And sometimes I feel that this is the right time to achieve something in life and one should take all kinds of risk for it. But many times the second thing overcomes the first one... I should slowly start adapting to it. And that's why I will be going home regularly from now onwards.
My mother always complains that I am too busy with my friends when I go home and seldom stay with her. This time I tried to be with her for almost all of the time. I had an urge to meet my school teacher Mr. Kaundinya sir but somehow could not manage it for many days which I finally did now. He is having his by-pass surgery today. My mavashi ( mother's sister) and her two kids ( Pratik and Pratiksha ) were our guests for this Diwali. Pratik is a biggggggggg fan of cartoons , Pratiksha is very cute and loves to dance ( even if she is in lower kindergarten). As always, I met other relatives and had a chat. I went to Shaggy's place ( Shaggy = Abhishek Dnyate) along with Sanket to meet his parents and wish them a happy Diwali.
This Diwali, I had a continuous thought running all over of my mind. This is going to be my last Diwali in India. At least for two years. I will not be here for 2 years, if I get an admit from some university plus the rest of the process goes smoothly. And that, added some tinge of sorrow in the celebration. My mother said it twice or thrice that she will be missing me a lot in next Diwali. I replied saying that we can celebrate Diwali together through web cam, but that did not stop her saying the same thing again and again. I am kind of confused and emotional at times, sometimes I think that I am very selfish in the sense, I am leaving my family and home at the time when they look at me as a responsible person and going away just for my future. And sometimes I feel that this is the right time to achieve something in life and one should take all kinds of risk for it. But many times the second thing overcomes the first one... I should slowly start adapting to it. And that's why I will be going home regularly from now onwards.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Arsenal vs. Manchester United
What you see when you have Arsenal playing against Manchester United? A thriller... This match wasn't an exception. William Gallas's injury time equalizer exemplified the greatness of the game of football, its uncertainty. I was almost breathless when the captain pushed it in the nets. What a relief !!!!
But I must admit that the red devils were superb on the ground. In the first half, Arsenal was having 57% of the possession and they still could not score a single goal. Of course, Adebayer, Fabregas, Hleb and others were trying their best, but somehow could not get the ball through . On the other hand it was the impressive Rooney who gave ManU a breakthrough. Arsenal must be missing Van Persie at that time. Rooney was continuously accompanied by magical Ronaldo and veteran Giggs. But gunners were not sleeping, they are known for bouncing back hard. Eboue gave a lofted pass over the head of the defender; Van Der Sar defended against Adebayor's ground shot but made a big mistake. The ball was going to the byline and ManU's defenders were static, waiting for the ball to go out of the game. There came Sagna who slided the ball to Fabregas. The Spaniard scored his 11th goal of the season.
There was a desperate try form the 18-year old Theo Wallcott who replaced Eboue. His attempt was almost a goal but missed it by a few inches, quite resembling to that of Ronaldinhio's one of the goals in World Cup.With about eight minutes remaining, Evra pushed the ball back to Ronaldo, piercing Gunners defense and Ronaldo slammed it to the empty net. I thought it was the end since ManU were looking aggressive and the gunners were loosing their grip on the game. It was frustrating. It went on to the last two minutes to see a decider and yes, gunners made it. Call it a luck, but still, it was sweet stealing the victory from the visitors.
Hail the gunners !!!!
Thursday, October 18, 2007
GRE
I had my GRE on Tuesday, 16th. This was my second attempt and was hoping to score more. I had a poor 1030 in my first go and this time its 1200. So, I did improve but not sure if this improvement is enough to get into a decent school. My scores in mock tests were consistently above 1300 and was quite sure to fall into the same range in the final. But, something went wrong and my plans went awry.
First section of Issue was quite easy. Second one ( The argument) was like a lolly-pop . I took more than expected time in solving first 10 quantitative questions and that sucked. I remember it took me around 5 minutes to solve first problem :( , and it was not that difficult but I was over-cautious at that time. So, having messed up with timings, I should have recovered from the early loss of 4 minutes. but didn't. I am quite sure of solving first 10 questions correctly, but later I must have made some serious and series of mistakes that landed me in a poor show of 690. Verbal was comparatively easy, easier than what I expected. I have a great faith in my vocabulary and that helped me somehow to get into an average score of 1200.
So, that was my second tryst with GRE. I made a same mistake of fumbling at the most important moments and thus incurred a loss of around 100 marks. If it would have been 1300+, I would have been on cloud #9. My academics are not convincing though they show a rising graph, and scoring around 1300 was a must for me. That could have bolstered the chances of getting into some of the good universities. But alas, I did not make it. After talking to some of my friends, I learned that 1200 is not bad at all, and can take you to a decent place, but I am a bit skeptical about it. So what's next? Need to find out a good counselor and search for good recommendations from professors, I am having few names to request for. On 28th I will be having TOEFL, and after that, I have to look into a list of universities for selections. I am god damn sure that this process of selection, getting reco's and SOP's , transcripts. sending them to the concerned persons will definitely take a hell out of me.
I am prepared for one more hectic month!!!
First section of Issue was quite easy. Second one ( The argument) was like a lolly-pop . I took more than expected time in solving first 10 quantitative questions and that sucked. I remember it took me around 5 minutes to solve first problem :( , and it was not that difficult but I was over-cautious at that time. So, having messed up with timings, I should have recovered from the early loss of 4 minutes. but didn't. I am quite sure of solving first 10 questions correctly, but later I must have made some serious and series of mistakes that landed me in a poor show of 690. Verbal was comparatively easy, easier than what I expected. I have a great faith in my vocabulary and that helped me somehow to get into an average score of 1200.
So, that was my second tryst with GRE. I made a same mistake of fumbling at the most important moments and thus incurred a loss of around 100 marks. If it would have been 1300+, I would have been on cloud #9. My academics are not convincing though they show a rising graph, and scoring around 1300 was a must for me. That could have bolstered the chances of getting into some of the good universities. But alas, I did not make it. After talking to some of my friends, I learned that 1200 is not bad at all, and can take you to a decent place, but I am a bit skeptical about it. So what's next? Need to find out a good counselor and search for good recommendations from professors, I am having few names to request for. On 28th I will be having TOEFL, and after that, I have to look into a list of universities for selections. I am god damn sure that this process of selection, getting reco's and SOP's , transcripts. sending them to the concerned persons will definitely take a hell out of me.
I am prepared for one more hectic month!!!
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The boys are back!!!
I am back and so is The Indian Cricket Team. The only difference is they are back with a bang!!! They say that India vs. Pakistan Cricket match is more like a war than a normal game and the Twenty20 final on Monday is just the manifestation of it. Our team has done it and created a history of being the first team to win the first T20 world cup.
After 'thrown out' of the world cup, the team must be aching with the bruise and T20 gave them a way to thunder. Remember, these guys are considered as underdogs and someone who are unaware of even the basics of Cricket ( remember Ricky Ponting's bitter remark ?). But boys showed their mettle and rose up like a Phoenix.
One notable thing about this new team is its energy and zest. Young and Restless. Something that Team India never had before, a strong determination of giving an individual's 100% out there on ground. World cup title, fame and all, are secondary outcomes of this win, more important reward is a great confidence booster. And when you have a team of beginners who present itself as a compact, bundled package of talent, unity and professionalism , this confidence is just THE THING which makes such victories possible.
But it's not the end of the world, it's the beginning. On his column in TOI, the veteran Alan Border said that Dhoni and company must keep up with this tempo. They must not get carried away with the praise. Winning for the first time is easy if you have a talent of doing so, but the most difficult thing is to have a habit of winning, something that Australians are used to of. So, if we want to really perform like the world champions, we better start studying ourselves from today. There is still a lot of scope for improvement.
After 'thrown out' of the world cup, the team must be aching with the bruise and T20 gave them a way to thunder. Remember, these guys are considered as underdogs and someone who are unaware of even the basics of Cricket ( remember Ricky Ponting's bitter remark ?). But boys showed their mettle and rose up like a Phoenix.
One notable thing about this new team is its energy and zest. Young and Restless. Something that Team India never had before, a strong determination of giving an individual's 100% out there on ground. World cup title, fame and all, are secondary outcomes of this win, more important reward is a great confidence booster. And when you have a team of beginners who present itself as a compact, bundled package of talent, unity and professionalism , this confidence is just THE THING which makes such victories possible.
But it's not the end of the world, it's the beginning. On his column in TOI, the veteran Alan Border said that Dhoni and company must keep up with this tempo. They must not get carried away with the praise. Winning for the first time is easy if you have a talent of doing so, but the most difficult thing is to have a habit of winning, something that Australians are used to of. So, if we want to really perform like the world champions, we better start studying ourselves from today. There is still a lot of scope for improvement.
Friday, June 22, 2007
A road to perdition
This is ridiculous. How the hell one can build a road to Everest? And look at the reason for doing it... China wants to create world's most far reaching Olympic torch... And they find Mount Everest as the god damn place to prove their madness. How enlightening!!! isn't it? I probably feel the eternal or divine bliss when that light goes over my house. It will be like being in heaven, isn't it? But who cares ? China is notoriously known for its leaders and their ambitions . And they are right, why should they care about environment and all? They are not going to get affected anyways. Because today we are least bothered about the nature. What we bother about is everything else than nature . We bother about our career, our job, our salary, our so called FUTURE. In the rush of pursuing our materialistic goals, we are degrading the nature, which is in fact the most influential factor of the life on Earth.
History has shown it thousands of times, that whenever a human goes to any place which is naturally blessed earlier, he makes a hell lot of wastes there. And still we call a human as the most intellectual animal on Earth. God's masterpiece. Such a pity. We go for trekking with lots of plastic bags and we throw them anywhere in spite of knowing that plastic is not naturally decomposable. Similarly, China wants to build a road to Everest to make a showy display of their abilities. The abilities of crushing the rules of nature. And India is no different. Look at what we did with the lovely Badrinath in Uttarakhand? It used to be a pure place with not a tinge of pollution, and now we made it our home. A home of unmanageable people and lots of wastes.
And the saddest thing is even though we know that we are messing up with the ecology, we keep on doing the same. Imagine how pristine Ganga would have been in her early ages? How calm and clear would have been the bays of Bengal, the Arabian Sea?
It is not unknown that we will be facing a monster of Global Warming in the upcoming century. And if we keep on doing the stupid things , one day we will have to say a final good-bye to this lovely world. China and India both will be suffered from the preposterous idea of building the road. Here is what experts say...
Syed Iqbal Hasnain, senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research and a renowned glaciologist, said, "Such an idea should be condemned outright. A road in an area like that can completely change the ecosystem dynamics. Glaciers are super fragile systems. If indirect impacts of warming can be seen so dramatically, such a direct human intervention would be dangerous for the Himalayan ecosystems in the areas the road goes through. Even in Alaska, the government refuses to build a second road despite people being there, because everyone realises what a road can do to such habitats."
He added,
"Already, there are reports of problems in glacial melt-based rivers in China suffering flooding, and India too has its share of problems from global warming. A road is like a direct attack on ecology. You have to put up the entire set-up to run such a high-altitude link. At present, people talk of removing debris & waste from the base camp and surrounding areas and now this shall completely change the dynamics
Right now I am searching for the ways by which I personally can protest this decision of building a road. Finding out some online petitions which I can fill. Do let me know if I can do something in this regard. After all, we must shoulder a share of our responsibility to protect the mother Earth.
History has shown it thousands of times, that whenever a human goes to any place which is naturally blessed earlier, he makes a hell lot of wastes there. And still we call a human as the most intellectual animal on Earth. God's masterpiece. Such a pity. We go for trekking with lots of plastic bags and we throw them anywhere in spite of knowing that plastic is not naturally decomposable. Similarly, China wants to build a road to Everest to make a showy display of their abilities. The abilities of crushing the rules of nature. And India is no different. Look at what we did with the lovely Badrinath in Uttarakhand? It used to be a pure place with not a tinge of pollution, and now we made it our home. A home of unmanageable people and lots of wastes.
And the saddest thing is even though we know that we are messing up with the ecology, we keep on doing the same. Imagine how pristine Ganga would have been in her early ages? How calm and clear would have been the bays of Bengal, the Arabian Sea?
It is not unknown that we will be facing a monster of Global Warming in the upcoming century. And if we keep on doing the stupid things , one day we will have to say a final good-bye to this lovely world. China and India both will be suffered from the preposterous idea of building the road. Here is what experts say...
Syed Iqbal Hasnain, senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research and a renowned glaciologist, said, "Such an idea should be condemned outright. A road in an area like that can completely change the ecosystem dynamics. Glaciers are super fragile systems. If indirect impacts of warming can be seen so dramatically, such a direct human intervention would be dangerous for the Himalayan ecosystems in the areas the road goes through. Even in Alaska, the government refuses to build a second road despite people being there, because everyone realises what a road can do to such habitats."
He added,
"Already, there are reports of problems in glacial melt-based rivers in China suffering flooding, and India too has its share of problems from global warming. A road is like a direct attack on ecology. You have to put up the entire set-up to run such a high-altitude link. At present, people talk of removing debris & waste from the base camp and surrounding areas and now this shall completely change the dynamics
Right now I am searching for the ways by which I personally can protest this decision of building a road. Finding out some online petitions which I can fill. Do let me know if I can do something in this regard. After all, we must shoulder a share of our responsibility to protect the mother Earth.
Friday, June 15, 2007
शत जन्म शोधितांना
I was in my home-town, Nagar, before two weeks. I generally don't watch much of the television, but that day I planned to see French Open-2007 men's final between Fedrer and Nadal. So just switched on the TV. There came and advertisement of "शत जन्म शोधितांना" on ETV- Marathi, and I decided to watch that program.
शत जन्म शोधितांना - सावरकरांच्या अलौकिक प्रतिभेचा शोध was arranged by Maharashtra Military Foundation. As the name of the program suggest, it was an attempt to look at Savarkar from a perspective of a poet. I have gone through some of his poems earlier and was aware of his thoughts. So, this was another treat for me. The specialty of the program was its simplicity. There were no high-class instruments, neither a flashy display.
For the first time I heard a लावणी ( Lawani, a type of Marathi folk dance ) written by Savarkar. He is generally known for his patriotic songs and his revolutionary thoughts on Hindutva but on that day I was seeing another unseen side of one of the greatest legends of all times. He has even written some romantic poems, in midst of hardships when he was deported to Kalepani (Black Water) jails of Andaman-Nicobar. He has also written some of the plays in Marathi. As one of the scenes of a plot, Nina Kulkarni was reading dialogs of a mad woman who comes to Madhavrao Peshwe and asks him to take the revenge of Panipat's defeat. Followed by that, there was a पोवाडा ( In Maharashtra, the narrative hero laud is called as Powada, where a person tells a story in high pitched voice. A melodramatic acting is a soul of a Powada.) In all, it was a great experience to see that event.
I am currently searching for some of his poems and posting them here...
शत जन्म शोधितांना - सावरकरांच्या अलौकिक प्रतिभेचा शोध was arranged by Maharashtra Military Foundation. As the name of the program suggest, it was an attempt to look at Savarkar from a perspective of a poet. I have gone through some of his poems earlier and was aware of his thoughts. So, this was another treat for me. The specialty of the program was its simplicity. There were no high-class instruments, neither a flashy display.
For the first time I heard a लावणी ( Lawani, a type of Marathi folk dance ) written by Savarkar. He is generally known for his patriotic songs and his revolutionary thoughts on Hindutva but on that day I was seeing another unseen side of one of the greatest legends of all times. He has even written some romantic poems, in midst of hardships when he was deported to Kalepani (Black Water) jails of Andaman-Nicobar. He has also written some of the plays in Marathi. As one of the scenes of a plot, Nina Kulkarni was reading dialogs of a mad woman who comes to Madhavrao Peshwe and asks him to take the revenge of Panipat's defeat. Followed by that, there was a पोवाडा ( In Maharashtra, the narrative hero laud is called as Powada, where a person tells a story in high pitched voice. A melodramatic acting is a soul of a Powada.) In all, it was a great experience to see that event.
I am currently searching for some of his poems and posting them here...
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Freedom of expression
I don't understand why such incidents keep on happening. We had enough controversies when M.F.Hussain portrayed indecent pictures of Hindu deities. And this time we have yet another so called Expressive artist Chandramohan Srilamantula, who was considered as an award winning student from Vadodara's Maharaja Sayajirao University.
When I read a newspapers, everywhere I see people pin-pointing Bajrang Dal and other organizations who believe in Hindutva. Especially editor's of almost every newspaper try their best to prove how violent or iconoclastic these groups are. At the same time they deliberately overlook the root cause of the agitation. When someone uses the freedom of expression to express something which is morally very hateful, then he / she must be punished and should be shunned from doing so. It's because freedom of speech does not mean expressing something that will hurt the sentiments of the society. One should not take liberty of doing anything just because he / she lives in a democratic country.
Few of these questions that I would like to ask to those existing and emerging "Expressive Artists" and to the useless National Human Rights Commission of India and to all those who don't understand the difference between a sacrilegious act and a real art.
When I read a newspapers, everywhere I see people pin-pointing Bajrang Dal and other organizations who believe in Hindutva. Especially editor's of almost every newspaper try their best to prove how violent or iconoclastic these groups are. At the same time they deliberately overlook the root cause of the agitation. When someone uses the freedom of expression to express something which is morally very hateful, then he / she must be punished and should be shunned from doing so. It's because freedom of speech does not mean expressing something that will hurt the sentiments of the society. One should not take liberty of doing anything just because he / she lives in a democratic country.
Few of these questions that I would like to ask to those existing and emerging "Expressive Artists" and to the useless National Human Rights Commission of India and to all those who don't understand the difference between a sacrilegious act and a real art.
1. Why is always a Hindu god / goddess chosen to express their aesthetic approach. Why not any god / goddess from other religion ?
2. Why the name of a painting is related to India, e.g. Bharatmata drawn by M.F.Hussain? Why can't it be Queen Victoria? Why can't it be a icon of Christianity like Pope? Why can't it be Mohammad Paigambar.
3. Why is Nandita Das named as Sita and Shabana Azmi as Radha in the movie Fire? Why can't they find any other names?
4. Why only minorities are counted as seekers of justice? Why not the pracharak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha who were hostages for a long time and found dead in North-Eastern India?
5. Why an Al-Quida bellicose who killed hundreds of innocent people is suddenly considered as humane at the time of testimony?
Friday, May 11, 2007
Wikipedia effect
These days I am enamored with Wikipedia. It is such a wonderful site. Each day you get lots of new stuff to read. And though the contents could be edited by anyone, we get highly authentic information. That makes it a true wiki site, combined with a great oracular repository of information.
I was reading Srinivasa Ramanujan, C.V. Raman, Chandrasekhar Bose, Dr. Homi Bhabha and Dr. Vikram Sarabhai. Their work and their contribution towards our motherland was amazing . These eminent Indians did a pioneering job in Mathematics, Physics, Indian Aerospace Programs. And they did suffer a lot while doing so, perhaps that's what made them so great. After completing these articles, I started experiencing pity on myself. There are people who had done some great jobs in past and here I am, pushing each day, waiting for a rosy weekend.
I don't want to compare myself with those great souls. But still, I feel I should do something that will make me feel proud. Leave the rest of the world, I want to make myself happy.I argued with one of my friends about my monotonous life . I was not convinced that my job makes me so exhausted that after office hours all I can think of is a sound sleep. Neither a fact that we did not meet with a situation that could foster our creative thinking. I fretted about my problems and hardly tried to solve them. And these great people faced difficulties, surmounted them. Their difficulties were certainly bigger than mine.
I need to read more and keep myself motivated by these sources of information. Let's see if it can make some change in my "way of looking at things" and could help me somehow?
Thanks Wikipedia for those nice articles.
I was reading Srinivasa Ramanujan, C.V. Raman, Chandrasekhar Bose, Dr. Homi Bhabha and Dr. Vikram Sarabhai. Their work and their contribution towards our motherland was amazing . These eminent Indians did a pioneering job in Mathematics, Physics, Indian Aerospace Programs. And they did suffer a lot while doing so, perhaps that's what made them so great. After completing these articles, I started experiencing pity on myself. There are people who had done some great jobs in past and here I am, pushing each day, waiting for a rosy weekend.
I don't want to compare myself with those great souls. But still, I feel I should do something that will make me feel proud. Leave the rest of the world, I want to make myself happy.I argued with one of my friends about my monotonous life . I was not convinced that my job makes me so exhausted that after office hours all I can think of is a sound sleep. Neither a fact that we did not meet with a situation that could foster our creative thinking. I fretted about my problems and hardly tried to solve them. And these great people faced difficulties, surmounted them. Their difficulties were certainly bigger than mine.
I need to read more and keep myself motivated by these sources of information. Let's see if it can make some change in my "way of looking at things" and could help me somehow?
Thanks Wikipedia for those nice articles.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Birds fly away to the southern sky searching a home
This is a line from Parikrama's song 'But it rained'. I am writing this blog when one of dearest friends Sanket is flying to Japan. His company has got a Japanese account and they need him on site. It will take almost a year for him to come back to India. When I first knew it I was delighted. And why shouldn't I ? You don't go on-site so often; at least not at the start of your professional career. It's not that I am not happy but I don't know why I feel so nauseated.
Sanket, Bhushan, Charu, Nikhil, Abhishek, Amey and me. We had some great times in our college-days. I still miss those golden moments that we enjoyed together. But someone said is right, time doesn't wait for anyone. As days passed, we graduated, earned jobs. And now I see, we all are cruising towards some aim, a demanding aim that will never keep us physically together. We will never play cricket in the scorching sun neither bunk our computer classes for a football match. We will never talk about 'always welcome' topics of our discussion that includes everything in our little world ,neither will spend a complete night bugging each other.
As I see it today, Amey is getting married soon. Charu and Nikhil are enjoying their jobs in Bangalore and are planning for their post-graduation most probably in US. Abhishek found his love and will soon be getting engaged and will be pursuing his PG in States. Bhushan is doing his job and looking forward for C-DAC preparations. And I am preparing for GRE. Looks like everyone is set for a new beginning.
Yeh, this was bound to happen one day, we knew it. But I never thought that this day will come so sooner. I may sound a bit emotional, but guessed that this is a right topic to write a blog on. Thanks a lot to the revolutionary internet,messengers and emails, phones that will keep us all together.
So, here I am taking an opportunity to wish a bright career to all of my friends.
We will always be in touch, wherever we go...
Friends forever!!!!
Sanket, Bhushan, Charu, Nikhil, Abhishek, Amey and me. We had some great times in our college-days. I still miss those golden moments that we enjoyed together. But someone said is right, time doesn't wait for anyone. As days passed, we graduated, earned jobs. And now I see, we all are cruising towards some aim, a demanding aim that will never keep us physically together. We will never play cricket in the scorching sun neither bunk our computer classes for a football match. We will never talk about 'always welcome' topics of our discussion that includes everything in our little world ,neither will spend a complete night bugging each other.
As I see it today, Amey is getting married soon. Charu and Nikhil are enjoying their jobs in Bangalore and are planning for their post-graduation most probably in US. Abhishek found his love and will soon be getting engaged and will be pursuing his PG in States. Bhushan is doing his job and looking forward for C-DAC preparations. And I am preparing for GRE. Looks like everyone is set for a new beginning.
Yeh, this was bound to happen one day, we knew it. But I never thought that this day will come so sooner. I may sound a bit emotional, but guessed that this is a right topic to write a blog on. Thanks a lot to the revolutionary internet,messengers and emails, phones that will keep us all together.
So, here I am taking an opportunity to wish a bright career to all of my friends.
We will always be in touch, wherever we go...
Friends forever!!!!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Hacker.Dropout.CEO
There is this guy called Mark Zuckerberg who ventured a social-networking site Facebook . Check out... Here is the link that narrates the journey from a small startup to the latest buzz of Silicon Valley.
Mark, like almost all entrepreneurs, was a prodigious child. He and his friend built a MP3 plugin for Winamp that adapts to the test of your music and accordingly creates play list. Upon seeing their software under freely-downloaded category, Yahoo! came calling. Both of them turned down an offer of Yahoo and pursued their graduation in Harvard and Yale.
Harvard was reluctant to give away the information of the students and that made Mark to hack into Harvard's server. That is the birth of a new baby-Facebook. After dropping out from the University, Mark and his colleagues devoted themselves to a new startup .Starting from a normal web-portal, Facebook engrossed into a multi-million dollar company that never looked back. It even turned down a lucrative buyout offer of $1 billion from Yahoo!
I think, to be a successful entrepreneur, one needs a sight to foresee the things, and a immense self-motivating force, an ability to take risks. Naturally, one needs to have an "Out of box" thinking which anticipates the changing colors of market. Nowadays, we see IITians, IIM graduates getting caught by an entrepreneur bug. But being a successful person, doesn't need any tag of IIT or IIM. It all depends on how alert we are.
I always dreamed of starting my own software firm. There are certain steps that I am taking to achieve it. And I wish one day that dream will come true.
Amen...
Mark, like almost all entrepreneurs, was a prodigious child. He and his friend built a MP3 plugin for Winamp that adapts to the test of your music and accordingly creates play list. Upon seeing their software under freely-downloaded category, Yahoo! came calling. Both of them turned down an offer of Yahoo and pursued their graduation in Harvard and Yale.
Harvard was reluctant to give away the information of the students and that made Mark to hack into Harvard's server. That is the birth of a new baby-Facebook. After dropping out from the University, Mark and his colleagues devoted themselves to a new startup .Starting from a normal web-portal, Facebook engrossed into a multi-million dollar company that never looked back. It even turned down a lucrative buyout offer of $1 billion from Yahoo!
I think, to be a successful entrepreneur, one needs a sight to foresee the things, and a immense self-motivating force, an ability to take risks. Naturally, one needs to have an "Out of box" thinking which anticipates the changing colors of market. Nowadays, we see IITians, IIM graduates getting caught by an entrepreneur bug. But being a successful person, doesn't need any tag of IIT or IIM. It all depends on how alert we are.
I always dreamed of starting my own software firm. There are certain steps that I am taking to achieve it. And I wish one day that dream will come true.
Amen...
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Namesake
A perfect treat for those who like watching soft, real life stories. And why not? When Jhumpa Lahiri's narration and Mira Nair's adroit direction comes hand in hand, no wonders we meet some great creation. The title of movie itself is quite meaningful. If a person, place, or thing is named after a different person, place, or thing, then one is said to be the namesake of the other.
The story begins with a first generation of immigrant Bengali family to the United States of America. Right from acclimating with a cold weather to getting accustomed with totally different culture, we see lot of small situations making an impact on the couple's lifestyle. Ashoke Ganguly (Irrfan Khan ) and Ashmita (Tabbu) manage themselves to a new country, but the problem comes with their next generation. Nikhil "Gogol" Ganguli, and Sonia Ganguli, both are americanized are unaware of Indian culture. Then comes the tragedy of the family. Of course, this seems to be a tragedy to an Indian, not to an American because of the cultural differences.
The reason why Ashoke names his son after Nikolai Gogol, is very touchable. The bond of emotions between Ashoke and his son Gogol is presented in fantastic way. The pros and cons of an American culture make us think.
Irrfan Khan as always puts a solid performance. He easily manages to speak Bengali and English in an Indian's accent. But I have to say who acted best in the movie, I will select Tabbu. She presents an orthodox middle class woman Ashmita, who comes to an unknown country with her husband. Shouldering her responsibility of growing up her children and finally when everyone settles in their lives, she quietly returns to those things which she always wanted to do. Kal Penn, Gogol looks like a perfect ABCD (American Born Confused Desi). He lives his life his own way, an American's way and looses his love twice, struggles through emotional decline but settles.
One last thing to mention, the music. Truly melodious. The background scores give a typical Bengali look to the film.
A must see movie...
The story begins with a first generation of immigrant Bengali family to the United States of America. Right from acclimating with a cold weather to getting accustomed with totally different culture, we see lot of small situations making an impact on the couple's lifestyle. Ashoke Ganguly (Irrfan Khan ) and Ashmita (Tabbu) manage themselves to a new country, but the problem comes with their next generation. Nikhil "Gogol" Ganguli, and Sonia Ganguli, both are americanized are unaware of Indian culture. Then comes the tragedy of the family. Of course, this seems to be a tragedy to an Indian, not to an American because of the cultural differences.
The reason why Ashoke names his son after Nikolai Gogol, is very touchable. The bond of emotions between Ashoke and his son Gogol is presented in fantastic way. The pros and cons of an American culture make us think.
Irrfan Khan as always puts a solid performance. He easily manages to speak Bengali and English in an Indian's accent. But I have to say who acted best in the movie, I will select Tabbu. She presents an orthodox middle class woman Ashmita, who comes to an unknown country with her husband. Shouldering her responsibility of growing up her children and finally when everyone settles in their lives, she quietly returns to those things which she always wanted to do. Kal Penn, Gogol looks like a perfect ABCD (American Born Confused Desi). He lives his life his own way, an American's way and looses his love twice, struggles through emotional decline but settles.
One last thing to mention, the music. Truly melodious. The background scores give a typical Bengali look to the film.
A must see movie...
Monday, April 02, 2007
In the times of TOI
On this Sunday, I happened to read Times of India. There is a small supplement called Time, we get these days. And guess who we had this time? It was a male stripper. The punchline was 'The confession of a male stripper'.
I am reading TOI from last 5 years. But from last 1-2 years I could see a debacle in its overall quality. TOI was never well-known for its editorials. I read it just for the sake of reading. I am living with my roomies and all of them except me love Times. So, I fall in minority.
If we look at past 2 years of TOI, we could see a drastic change. Earlier there were no Page-3 news, neither were useless articles gossiping Bollywood/Hollywood actors/actresses. I don't claim that it was an ideal paper. But these days what I am seeing is TOI doesn't have anything worth reading.
Try retrospecting Time, we had 'A confession of a bar dancer', so called bold interview with a girl who left her home in her early ages with a man whom she though she loved, a new metro sexual man... the list goes on. My question is , is this a real India? Is this what we think when we dream of a modern India?
One more thing I feel contradictory is the news that we see in Pune Times. Now what does Pune have to do with Hollywood's current affairs?
I came across an editorial of Lokmat, a Marathi newspaper. There was some comment from Dr. P.C. Alexander. I don't remember the actual wording, it was about the non-sense news that media is spreading these days.
I think, instead of wasting those soft pages on pairs of Aishwarya-Abhishek, Liz Hurley-Arun Nair, better talk of something really useful.
Let people know that there are mavericks out here who devoted their lives for some good cause. Let them know that there are still some figure who stood tall against throughout their fight and whom we see as a source of inspiration.
I don't know if TOI have a time for its introspection, but for now I am switching over from 'The Times of India' to 'The Hindu'. At least, I could read some good Edi's here.
I am reading TOI from last 5 years. But from last 1-2 years I could see a debacle in its overall quality. TOI was never well-known for its editorials. I read it just for the sake of reading. I am living with my roomies and all of them except me love Times. So, I fall in minority.
If we look at past 2 years of TOI, we could see a drastic change. Earlier there were no Page-3 news, neither were useless articles gossiping Bollywood/Hollywood actors/actresses. I don't claim that it was an ideal paper. But these days what I am seeing is TOI doesn't have anything worth reading.
Try retrospecting Time, we had 'A confession of a bar dancer', so called bold interview with a girl who left her home in her early ages with a man whom she though she loved, a new metro sexual man... the list goes on. My question is , is this a real India? Is this what we think when we dream of a modern India?
One more thing I feel contradictory is the news that we see in Pune Times. Now what does Pune have to do with Hollywood's current affairs?
I came across an editorial of Lokmat, a Marathi newspaper. There was some comment from Dr. P.C. Alexander. I don't remember the actual wording, it was about the non-sense news that media is spreading these days.
I think, instead of wasting those soft pages on pairs of Aishwarya-Abhishek, Liz Hurley-Arun Nair, better talk of something really useful.
Let people know that there are mavericks out here who devoted their lives for some good cause. Let them know that there are still some figure who stood tall against throughout their fight and whom we see as a source of inspiration.
I don't know if TOI have a time for its introspection, but for now I am switching over from 'The Times of India' to 'The Hindu'. At least, I could read some good Edi's here.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
The Pursuit of HappYness
I saw this movie last weekend. I will say, after a long time I saw a stunning performance. This movie should be considered as the best-of Will Smith. Although, Smith didn't get the best actor's award this year, but man, he makes you cry and he makes you clap. We see an emotional push throughout the movie and at the end we see an inspiration, that shows us the imperishable power of love and determination.
First thing, a fantastic script and storyline. Chris Gardner's life an inspiration for all those who want to pursue an American Dream. He struggles all the way, for everything in his life. Right from his homeless fatherhood to his apprenticeship in the stock market. He struggles and finally he wins.He cries, he claps, he celebrates. Just like a common,hard-working man. This is what strikes our mind and touches our hearts.
Some of the scenes are truly marvelous piece of acting and direction.
First- The conversation between Chris and his son, when they play basket-ball. "Do not let anyone tell you that you can't do it." , "You have to dream and you have protect your dream"...awesome.
Second- The scene at the tram-station. Smith tells his child that the machine he is carrying is a time machine. The homeless child being very innocent, follows his dad and sleeps in a toilet. Smith cries.
Third- (This is the best one...)Smith gets selected and his interviewer offers him a job. He accepts it. His eyes speak. He walks out of the room to the pathway, remembers his hardships, cries and claps. He goes to his son, hugs him with all of his joys... "There is a little place called heart and there lies the happyness..."
Hats off to Gabriel Muccino ,Will Smith, and Jaden Smith.
Outstanding!!!
First thing, a fantastic script and storyline. Chris Gardner's life an inspiration for all those who want to pursue an American Dream. He struggles all the way, for everything in his life. Right from his homeless fatherhood to his apprenticeship in the stock market. He struggles and finally he wins.He cries, he claps, he celebrates. Just like a common,hard-working man. This is what strikes our mind and touches our hearts.
Some of the scenes are truly marvelous piece of acting and direction.
First- The conversation between Chris and his son, when they play basket-ball. "Do not let anyone tell you that you can't do it." , "You have to dream and you have protect your dream"...awesome.
Second- The scene at the tram-station. Smith tells his child that the machine he is carrying is a time machine. The homeless child being very innocent, follows his dad and sleeps in a toilet. Smith cries.
Third- (This is the best one...)Smith gets selected and his interviewer offers him a job. He accepts it. His eyes speak. He walks out of the room to the pathway, remembers his hardships, cries and claps. He goes to his son, hugs him with all of his joys... "There is a little place called heart and there lies the happyness..."
Hats off to Gabriel Muccino ,Will Smith, and Jaden Smith.
Outstanding!!!
Friday, March 09, 2007
Women's day special...
It was Women's day yesterday. We had a small discussion in my room about women's contribution towards the computer related fields. We could hardly come up with some names. And so, at the end, we concluded that women are "weak" in computations. Today, I was passing time, and came across some information that I was unaware of.
Here are some of the womens who are remembered for their pioneering efforts in the field of computation.
1. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), promoter of Charles Babbage's analytical engine
2. Grace Hopper (1906-1992), first programmer for the Mark I Calculator
3. Kay McNulty, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Ruth Lichterman, Betty Jennings, and Fran Bilas, original programmers of the ENIAC
4. Jean E. Sammet (1928), mathematician and computer scientist; developed FORMAC programming language
5. Barbara H. Liskov (1939), first American female Doctorate of Computer Science (1968)
6. Irma Wyman, first Honeywell CIO
7. Sally Floyd (computer scientist), most renowned for her work on Transmission Control Protocol[1]
8. Frances E. Allen, first female recipient of the ACM'S Turing Award
9. Anita Borg, the founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT)
10. Shafi Goldwasser, theoretical computer scientist, two time recipient of the Godel Prize
11. Eva Tardos, recipient of the Fulkerson Prize
This list was sufficient to prove the fallacy of our conclusion!!!
Happy Women's Day... :)
Here are some of the womens who are remembered for their pioneering efforts in the field of computation.
1. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), promoter of Charles Babbage's analytical engine
2. Grace Hopper (1906-1992), first programmer for the Mark I Calculator
3. Kay McNulty, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Ruth Lichterman, Betty Jennings, and Fran Bilas, original programmers of the ENIAC
4. Jean E. Sammet (1928), mathematician and computer scientist; developed FORMAC programming language
5. Barbara H. Liskov (1939), first American female Doctorate of Computer Science (1968)
6. Irma Wyman, first Honeywell CIO
7. Sally Floyd (computer scientist), most renowned for her work on Transmission Control Protocol[1]
8. Frances E. Allen, first female recipient of the ACM'S Turing Award
9. Anita Borg, the founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT)
10. Shafi Goldwasser, theoretical computer scientist, two time recipient of the Godel Prize
11. Eva Tardos, recipient of the Fulkerson Prize
This list was sufficient to prove the fallacy of our conclusion!!!
Happy Women's Day... :)
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Police raid Pune's Rave party.
Pune Gramin Police arrested around 251 young people doing a rave party at villa near the National Defense Academy in Khadakwasla, 30 km from Pune. The party-freaks were caught red-handed with a large amount of narcotics and Afim.
The accused involve young IT professionals and students, including 29 girls and 12 foreign nationals. All of them were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act as some of them were found to be in possession of drugs and most others under its influence, police said. The party was arranged and the invitations were sent through SMS, e-mails etc. It's also found that it involves an international racket of Drug-Dealers. When these party-animals are arrested, they were not in a position to understand the seriousness of the matter. Even after their arrest, they were found making some indecent remarks at the police and media personnels.
The serious question that arises here is, why is our young generation is so fanatic about drugs? Those who are arrested are from so called high-class society and are highly educated. I think the excess of money that these people possess and the ignorance from their busy parents make them so ecstasy-addicted. There is a large population of students that live in Pune. They are the one most falling for this addiction.
The Superintendent of Police Vishvas Nangre Patil was the brain behind the raid. He has got all those virtues which an ideal Policeman should posses. I am sure, he will definitely dig into the roots of this matter. The police has an important assignment, to find out the system that spoils our young generation.
Good job Nagre Patil, keep it up...
The accused involve young IT professionals and students, including 29 girls and 12 foreign nationals. All of them were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act as some of them were found to be in possession of drugs and most others under its influence, police said. The party was arranged and the invitations were sent through SMS, e-mails etc. It's also found that it involves an international racket of Drug-Dealers. When these party-animals are arrested, they were not in a position to understand the seriousness of the matter. Even after their arrest, they were found making some indecent remarks at the police and media personnels.
The serious question that arises here is, why is our young generation is so fanatic about drugs? Those who are arrested are from so called high-class society and are highly educated. I think the excess of money that these people possess and the ignorance from their busy parents make them so ecstasy-addicted. There is a large population of students that live in Pune. They are the one most falling for this addiction.
The Superintendent of Police Vishvas Nangre Patil was the brain behind the raid. He has got all those virtues which an ideal Policeman should posses. I am sure, he will definitely dig into the roots of this matter. The police has an important assignment, to find out the system that spoils our young generation.
Good job Nagre Patil, keep it up...
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Arsenal Vs. Reading
It was this Saturday's Premiership match at The Emirates Stadium, London. Arsenal was playing without their Ace players like Henry, Persie, Adebayer, Flamini. Fabregas and Baptista were having the "not so easy" responsibility of strikers. Arsenal finally won the match with a score of 2-1 but it could have definitely been 5-1.
In the first half, Arsenal lost some great opportunities to score. Fabregas was in a great form on that day but somehow he could not covert the chances into points. He just could not finish it properly ( remember the chance where Fabregas and Baptista were playing stupid game of passing the ball to each other and finally Fabregas lost an easy chance to score!!!)
You can't be that careless.... It was Arsenal's luck I will say on that day, that made them win. Imagine, what could have happened if there was someone other than Reading?
Walcott, the young sensation was looking good. But he again proved that he needs to work on his physic.
Lehman, was cursing like anything out there. The way, he pushed Gallas was truely unprofessional. They could have a discussion in the dressing room. I think,Arsene Wenger should take a strict action against this issue. Certainly, this wasn't expected from a player like Lehman.
I strongly think that Arsenal needs to shape up their attack more and their players need to grow up a little bit. Everyone knows that Arsenal has a great young talent but then its' their responsibility to nourish it.
In the first half, Arsenal lost some great opportunities to score. Fabregas was in a great form on that day but somehow he could not covert the chances into points. He just could not finish it properly ( remember the chance where Fabregas and Baptista were playing stupid game of passing the ball to each other and finally Fabregas lost an easy chance to score!!!)
You can't be that careless.... It was Arsenal's luck I will say on that day, that made them win. Imagine, what could have happened if there was someone other than Reading?
Walcott, the young sensation was looking good. But he again proved that he needs to work on his physic.
Lehman, was cursing like anything out there. The way, he pushed Gallas was truely unprofessional. They could have a discussion in the dressing room. I think,Arsene Wenger should take a strict action against this issue. Certainly, this wasn't expected from a player like Lehman.
I strongly think that Arsenal needs to shape up their attack more and their players need to grow up a little bit. Everyone knows that Arsenal has a great young talent but then its' their responsibility to nourish it.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
The open source
Here is what I understood from the concept of Open Source:
Open source describes the principle and methods using which one has an open access to production and design of the goods, resources and products. This allows the user to create new revisions of the software contents by either incremental individual efforts or through collaboration.
The name Open Source has got an interesting history. This term was coined out of a strategy session held at Palo Alto, California. It came through an announcement from Netscape in release of its Navigator's source code.Netscape licensed and release their code as Open Source under the name Mozilla.
Most economist agree that Open Source candidate have a public good aspect to them. The original work requires a lot of time, money and efforts. But when someone reproduces it, it's cost decreases. It could be so low that the additional users may be added to low or zero cost. This is called as a marginal cost of product. So, here comes the concept of copyright. When something is copyrighted, you have to pay something to access it. But this cost is more than the cost of making additional copy but less than its original price. Thus the consumers will pay the access cost.
The basic idea of the open source is to reduce the restrictions of the copyrights. This will add to the original work and will get the social benefits. Some argue that since the monetary benefits which one gets from open source are less, there is a less chance of its development. However, history says that larger corporations have often taken over startups who compete with them in development of a particular product. In other way, they intentionally slower down the development of the product. Some counterparts argue that opening the door of development to many will definitely increase the product's capabilities while benefiting the original creator. The creator gets reputation, becomes an expertise in a specific area. He/She consults some software firm where their experience and skills are valued.
How to contribute to Open Source ?
http://today.java.net/pub/pq/18
http://www.kegel.com/academy/opensource.html
http://www.granneman.com/techinfo/linux/contributewithoutcoding.htm
After writing this much, I think I should also try to contribute towards it.
After all, Linus Torvalds must have thought something before saying
'The future is open source'....
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
How things work?
I love Physics.
While surfing through the net, I came across a link. It explains some interesting real life problems and how Physics help us to solve them. Thought is worth sharing.
http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/
While surfing through the net, I came across a link. It explains some interesting real life problems and how Physics help us to solve them. Thought is worth sharing.
http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The top of the atmosphere
Atmospheric gases scatter blue wavelength of visible light more than other wavelengths, giving the Earth's visible edge a blue halo. At higher points the atmosphere becomes so thin that it ceases to exist. The image shows the translucent moon emerging from behind the halo.
There is no dividing line as such between Earth's atmosphere and space, but it is useful for the scientist who study the balance of the incoming and outgoing energy of the Earth. They conceptually think of the altitude of 100 kilometers above the Earth as the "top of atmosphere". The top of the atmosphere is the place where solar energy enters the Earth's atmosphere and the thermal radiations from Earth release. So, the balance of incoming and the outgoing energy determines the Earth's temperature. The ability of the Greenhouse gases to change this balance by reducing the amount of thermal energy exiting is called as The Global Warming.
Greenhouse gases are not the only part of the Earth's system that affects the balance. The percent of the incoming sunlight that Earth reflects ( called as 'albedo' ) is also one of the influential factor. Clouds over Earth's surface, snow, ice are highly affected by the Earth's reflection.
Because snow and ice are so reflective, scientists have long expected that melting of snow and ice in the polar regions will accelerate climate warming by reducing the Earth’ albedo. Atmospheric scientist Seiji Kato of NASA’s Langley Research Center and several teammates have used a suite of NASA and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) satellite observations to investigate whether this feedback is already underway. The team compared reflected sunlight, clouds, and sea ice and snow cover at polar latitudes from 2000-2004. What they found was a bit of a surprise: while snow and ice in the Arctic declined, the albedo didn’t change.
The above picture was acquired on July 20,2006 with Kodak 760C digital camera having 400 mm lens by the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The International Space Station Program supports the astronauts to take the picture of Earth that will be of great value for scientists and for public.
The sharpest man made object
Researchers from the University of Alberta in and the National Institute for Nanotechnology in Canada created the sharpest object ever made. The new nano object is tungsten needle tapering down to about the thickness of single atom. The breakthrough might help improve future scanning tunneling microscopes.
The needle, made by Moh'd Rezeq in the group lead by Professor Robert Wolkow at the University of Alberta and the National Institute for Nanotechnology, was initially much blunter. The needle was exposed to pure nitrogen atmosphere which made it thinner and thinner. Tungsten is chemically highly reactive and the nitrogen is used to roughen the tungsten surface. But at the tip, where the electric field created by applying a voltage to the tungsten is at its maximum, N2 molecules are driven away. This process reaches an equilibrium condition in which the point is very sharp.
Furthermore, what N2 is present near the tip helps to stabilize the tungsten against further chemical degradation. Indeed, the resultant needle is stable up to temperatures of 900 degrees Celsius even after 24 hours of exposure to air.
The probe tips used in scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs), even though they produce atomic-resolution pictures of atoms sitting on the top layer of a solid material, are not themselves atomically thin. Rather their radius of curvature at the bottom is typically 10 nm or more.
According to Wolkow says that although a narrower tip will be useful in the construction of STM arrays (you can pack more tips into a small area; and a wide array might even permit movies of atomic motions) the spatial resolution won't improve thereby. The real benefit of the sharp tungsten tips, he believes, will be as superb electron emitters. Being so slender, they would emit electrons in a bright, narrow, stable stream.
The picture shows a field ion microscope (FIM) image of a very sharp tungsten needle. The small round features on the image are individual atoms. The lighter colored elongated features are traces captured as atoms moved during the imaging process (approximately 1 second).
Monday, February 26, 2007
How technology delievers for UPS?
Ever thought of the technologies that UPS might be using to get the right things at right place at right time? Here is something that I found while browsing.
A truck driver of UPS in Atlanta checks out his hand held device to find out today's schedule and finds out that it's gonna be a busy day for him. 400 packages to deliver till the day ends. If he doesn't want to use some intelligence, he will have to bang the customer's door at nights also.
And in fact this was the condition until recently, but thanks to a custom-built software program that UPS began rolling out before two years. Now the driver makes up all of his deliveries before 6p.m. and comes back to his home well before the dinner.
Not so long ago, UPS drivers worked off maps, 3-x-5 note cards and their own memory map to find out the best path to deliver their packages. It was until 2005 when UPS began to implement a $600 million route-optimization system -think MapQuest on steroids. On each evening,this system maps out the next day's schedule for its 56,000 drivers. The system is said to be so sophisticated that it designs a route to minimize the number of left turns, thus minimizing the time and gas the drivers waste idling at stoplights.
This is an example of how technology helps companies to capture their institutional knowledge of the customers. Earlier when a truck driver walks out of the company's premises, leaving the job, his experience walks out with him. But now, as the information is stored in a centralized system, training someone becomes more easy.
But what about the efficiency of the system? No question at all. In November alone, the company's driver logged 3 million fewer miles than they did the year before.
The GPS ( Global Positioning System ) technology, warns a driver with a beep if they are on the wrong-way. Since the exact position of driver is known, UPS can send a the closest driver quickly after you call in for a pickup.
This is what is the real-application of technology, that makes the business grow and that too in a simpler manner.
A truck driver of UPS in Atlanta checks out his hand held device to find out today's schedule and finds out that it's gonna be a busy day for him. 400 packages to deliver till the day ends. If he doesn't want to use some intelligence, he will have to bang the customer's door at nights also.
And in fact this was the condition until recently, but thanks to a custom-built software program that UPS began rolling out before two years. Now the driver makes up all of his deliveries before 6p.m. and comes back to his home well before the dinner.
Not so long ago, UPS drivers worked off maps, 3-x-5 note cards and their own memory map to find out the best path to deliver their packages. It was until 2005 when UPS began to implement a $600 million route-optimization system -think MapQuest on steroids. On each evening,this system maps out the next day's schedule for its 56,000 drivers. The system is said to be so sophisticated that it designs a route to minimize the number of left turns, thus minimizing the time and gas the drivers waste idling at stoplights.
This is an example of how technology helps companies to capture their institutional knowledge of the customers. Earlier when a truck driver walks out of the company's premises, leaving the job, his experience walks out with him. But now, as the information is stored in a centralized system, training someone becomes more easy.
But what about the efficiency of the system? No question at all. In November alone, the company's driver logged 3 million fewer miles than they did the year before.
The GPS ( Global Positioning System ) technology, warns a driver with a beep if they are on the wrong-way. Since the exact position of driver is known, UPS can send a the closest driver quickly after you call in for a pickup.
This is what is the real-application of technology, that makes the business grow and that too in a simpler manner.
Friday, February 23, 2007
The Michelin Tweel
Michelin invented the first radial tyre fifty years ago. The first tubeless tyre was invented before around 100 years and now they are back in the mood of doing something really innovative. Tweel is a prototype designed by Michelin. In a crude, simple language we can say that it is a tyre without air pressure.
Flexible spokes are fused with a flexible wheel which deforms to absorb shock. The Tweel also has a unique capability to have different vertical and lateral stiffness.
Vertical stiffness affects ride comfort, and lateral stiffness affects handling and cornering. The ability to tune these two parameters differently allows the best of both worlds, ride comfort and superb handling!
Though it looks new, but some complains that it's ugly. But we need to wait until Michelin comes up with a beautiful look for their Tweel.
When I showed how this new technology works to one of my friends, he said that they are not going to work on Indian roads as Indian roads have got there "special characteristics" :-)
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
How to make money by Blogging?
I wanted to try out some new internet browser so I installed Netscape7.2 The thing I like about this browser is its homepage. Some fantastic news and polls are posted there.
I heard about Google's Adsense and fortunately got an article which browsing through Netscape. Here is a link.
This is related with a guy called Kevin Vahey's website on Boston transit and how he generated a revenue out of it. It also mentions a website http://www.problogger.net
I am yet to go through it, but it seems useful. It teaches some basics of blogging and making money out of it.
So, I searched on Google and applied for their AdSense program.
Let's see if I can get a confirmation from their side or not?
I heard about Google's Adsense and fortunately got an article which browsing through Netscape. Here is a link.
This is related with a guy called Kevin Vahey's website on Boston transit and how he generated a revenue out of it. It also mentions a website http://www.problogger.net
I am yet to go through it, but it seems useful. It teaches some basics of blogging and making money out of it.
So, I searched on Google and applied for their AdSense program.
Let's see if I can get a confirmation from their side or not?
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Grad's HelpLine
My friend Vijay designed a web-site for GRE-GMAT-TOEFL preparation.
Here is the link
http://www.freewebs.com/vijaybahirji1985/
Hope that, he gets more free time for such on-bench activities...
:-)
Jai GRE!!!
Here is the link
http://www.freewebs.com/vijaybahirji1985/
Hope that, he gets more free time for such on-bench activities...
:-)
Jai GRE!!!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Our "Sabse Tez", "24x7" news channels...
I was not knowing the name of Major Manish Pitambare until I read that mail. It made me think.
The body of Major Manish Pitambare, who was shot dead at Anantnag, was cremated with full military honors at Thane on Wednesday. This was the news on BBC that day. Manish Pitambare fought for us and he laid his life for our country, and instead of publishing this news our news channels were busy in something else.
Those so called "Sabse Tez" and "24x7" channels were paying there salutes to Sanjay Dutt by trying their best to prove his innocence. And to support their mission "No Bhai Sirf Munna", they were interviewing the great Salman Khan. Now the whole world knows what kind of person Salman is. To add to this, Amitabh Bachhan was remembering the relationships between Bachhan and Dutt family. And was proud enough to say that Sanjay is a good kid. He is like a elder brother to Abhishek. By the same time, Sanjay Dutt was ruling all news chammels. His love towards his daughter, his prayers in temples were shown in such a way as if he is the only person who cares for family, who looks after the children, who offers prayer, puja.
The worst thing is, there was not a single Indian news channel who was interested in Major's news. He killed Hijbul Mujahiddin's most wanted terrorist Sohel Faisal. Leading the operation he lost his life and other four were injured. We see it everyday. Celebrities, politician are always there in headlines. They even show some crap incident of someone trapped in main-hole and how he is been helped to come out of it. Our parliament discusses Greg Chappel's comments , Shahrukh Khan's KBC. When there are some riots, they even don't think of the consequences of the news which they are spreading.
One thing is clear, media is no more a formidable, unbiased pillar of democracy. Like everything else it is also sold .
I am proud of you Shahid Major Manish Pitambare.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Hail the gunners
Gunners did it again. Last time they said that it was Adebayer's sheer luck. But Persie and Henry showed Manchester United their real place.
Rooney's stunning header put ManU ahead but that wasn't enough to take them through. Indeed, that goal was a class act. And there was absolutely no chance for Lehman.
ManU 1 - Arsenal 0.
But ManU's celebrations were ended when Persie came with a superb equalizer. That was such an athletic performance. At the last moment, Persie managed to push it in the nets.
ManU 1 - Arsenal 1.
By the time three of ManU's player were "rewarded" a yellow card.
The rivalry continued till the extra time. And finally when about one minute was remaining, gunners had a treat. Thierry Henry's brilliant header turned the tide towards gunners.
ManU 1 - Arsenal 2.
Right said, Arsene Wenger , Henry is back and hungry.
Arsenal had a great comeback. After lagging behind by one goal, the came up and crushed Manchester United. They showed up the skills for which they are widely known,
TOTAL FOOTBALL.
Friday, January 19, 2007
GURU
This was a long awaited movie. I had more expectations from this one, because it is inspired from the life of Dhirubhai Ambani. A package of typical Mani Ratnam's touch and Rehman's melody. Throughout the film, we never loose main storyline. Of course, there are some places which could be reshaped. e.g. instead of focusing on Madhavan and Vidya Balan , they could have made the last court-appearance more interesting and exciting. Also there are some songs (like the one which Abhishek and Aishwarya sing after she gives birth to her twins). And in fact, the way Abhishek pleads in court and wins the lawsuit against him is more dramatic than realistic. He simply doesn't prove to the court instead he runs through a kind of public speech and that's it. But I guess, we need to grow up in order to accept some see real-whacky-shaky courtroom arguments on silver screen.
Rest is fine. Abhishek once again proves that he has a potential to be a good actor ( when he works with a good director) . Madhavan is decent enough in his small role. Aishwarya and Vidya Balan didn't get much footage. And last but not the least, Mithunda , after a long period, we could see him doing a good role. (Remember Agnipath ? )
Rest is fine. Abhishek once again proves that he has a potential to be a good actor ( when he works with a good director) . Madhavan is decent enough in his small role. Aishwarya and Vidya Balan didn't get much footage. And last but not the least, Mithunda , after a long period, we could see him doing a good role. (Remember Agnipath ? )
Monday, January 01, 2007
DOR
Yet another brilliant piece of art. Nagesh Kuknoor has proved it many times before Dor. These days, we hardly see 'acting' in movies. Especially when we have those model-turned-actors/actresses all over , we should not expect some great things happening. But Nagesh has put forward a masterpiece and proved what difference could a connoisseur director make with a seemingly simple script. Gul Panag, Alisha Takiya were superb. And as expected, wonderboy Shreyas Talpade was awesome.
The locations were simple yet rich. No show-making, no jazzy Hollywood style flicks. All that flows is a pure creation, a melodious music and great dialog-delivery.
Indian audience is "famous" for their movie-tastes. But this time, Nagesh got accolade for his creation. Let's hope that this creativity and originality continues in Bollywood. Definitely, Dor is there in my Hall of Fame movies and Nagesh, you are too good...
Keep making these kinds of Great Movies...
The locations were simple yet rich. No show-making, no jazzy Hollywood style flicks. All that flows is a pure creation, a melodious music and great dialog-delivery.
Indian audience is "famous" for their movie-tastes. But this time, Nagesh got accolade for his creation. Let's hope that this creativity and originality continues in Bollywood. Definitely, Dor is there in my Hall of Fame movies and Nagesh, you are too good...
Keep making these kinds of Great Movies...
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