Welcome change

Thumping win and majority is a welcome change for our country. Hope to see bold decisions, reforms and progress (desirably less corruption and firm legal actions).
This change has been desired for so long.... Kudos to responsible Indians for giving a strong gov't at the center.

Goodbye Pune

Living comfortably is great but can be monotonous. I decided to step out of my comfort zone and amazing experience called Pune. I have accumulated lots of memories and friends during my 7+ yrs of stay and enjoyed the joys on offer, be it monsoon rides to various parts of Maharashtra, great community of near and dear, life @ Symantec.

 I am sure the magic can't be replicated, but now I got a chance to get to know and connect with new people and place.

According to "Ocean/River theory...", my friend, hope to meet you very soon :-)

James Burke - Conntections

Want to see...
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=james+burke+connections&aq=f

My Indira Moment

Though I haven't seen her in action or read enough to get inspired, she had a profound impact on me due to the following child hood incidents.

One fine day morning (probably 2nd of 3rd of Nov) my father took me to a Government office (I don't remember what it was) in a small town called Narsampet to mourn and pay tribute the great leader. I can still recall that day... a big garlanded photo frame of Mrs. Indira Gandhi was stationed on a table amid a very big gathering. I searched entire building and got disappointed for not able to see her corpse as my father told me earlier that her dead body was being kept there for all to see. Of course now I know I got tricked ;-).

After a couple of years we moved to a new house. The owner of the house (now a family friend) was a big admirer of Indira. He savors a rare photograph of him taken with Mrs. Gandhi at New Delhi. I learned how charismatic she was and how she used to greet visitors at her home etc.

I think, the lead editorial of The Indian Express on Nov 1, 1984 precisely describes Mrs. Indira Gandhi as An anguished nation will remember Indira Gandhi as one who led the country to great heights, saw a great vision and created opportunities for its realization but then, somehow, never stayed the course, fell, and rose again. She was loved, hated and feared in turn. She had many admirable qualities and her share of political frailties, largely products of her own deep insecurity and sense of mission that she felt was being thwarted by malign forces within the country and a foreign hand.

Rise of Robots

How smart can robots become? At this juncture, they are as smart and as dumb as humans. It's along way to go in the field of Robotic AI. This video shows latest advancements in the field of robotics... it is really amusing.



Keith Curtis in his book After the Software Wars reasons that driver less commuting would have been achieved by now or inching close had the AI community adopted FOSS and worked in a collaborative model.

Probably as smart and as dumb as might hold true forever. However powerful the machinery becomes, heroes emerge to save the World. Have we not seen it happen in I-Robots or The Terminator? probably the best of the lot is Forbidden Planet in which the machinery is so advanced that it can materialize anything including mere subconscious thought of it's creator and gets destroyed for the same reason; earnestly decoded by our Hero.

Chat with GOD

We are experts in complicating issues, simple tasks, designs ;-), products and our own life. Any one disagree? may be you are not a homosapien.

Here is some thing to ponder! have a glance and spare some time for retrospecting on where you stand now.

God: Hello. You called me.
I, Me, Myself: Called you? No, who is this?
God: This is God. I heard your prayers. So I thought I will chat with you.
IMM: Sure, I pray. Just makes me feel good. Actually, am busy now. In the midst of something, you know.
God: What are you busy with? Ants are busy, too.
IMM: Don't know. But I can't find free time. Life has become hectic. It's rush hour all the time.
God: Sure. Activity gets you busy. But productivity gets you results. Activity consumes time. Productivity frees it.
IMM: But I still can't figure it out. By the way, I was not expecting YOU to buzz me on instant messaging chat.
God: Well, I wanted to help you resolve your fight for time by giving you some clarity. I wanted to reach you through the medium you are comfortable with.
IMM: Tell me, why has life become so complicated?
God: Stop analyzing life. Just live it. Analysis is what makes it complicated.
IMM: Why are we then constantly unhappy?
God: Your today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday. You are worrying because the act of worrying has become a habit. That's why you are not happy.
IMM: But how can we not worry when there is so much uncertainty?
God: Uncertainty is inevitable, but worrying is optional.
IMM: But then, there is so much pain due to uncertainty.
God: Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.
IMM: If suffering is optional, why do good people always suffer?
God: Diamonds cannot be polished without friction. Gold cannot be purified without fire. Good people go through trials. With that experience their life becomes better, not bitter.
IMM: You mean to say such experience is useful?
God: Yes. Experience is a hard teacher, though. She gives the test first and the lessons after wards.
IMM: But still, why should we go through such tests? Why can't we be free from problems?
God: Problems are Purposeful Roadblocks Offering Beneficial Lessons to Enhance Mental Strength. Inner strength comes from struggle and endurance, not when you are free from problems.
IMM: Frankly in the midst of so many problems, we don't know where we are heading.
God: If you look outside you will not know where you are heading. Look inside. Looking outside, you dream. Looking inside, you awaken. Eyes provide sight. Heart provides insight.
IMM: Sometimes not succeeding fast seems to hurt more than moving in the right direction.
God: Success is relative, quantified by others. Satisfaction is absolute, quantified by you. Knowing the road ahead is more satisfying than knowing you rode ahead.
IMM: Sometimes I ask, who am I, why am I here? I don't know the answers.
God: Seek not to find who you are, but to determine who you want to be. Stop looking for a purpose as to why you are here. Create it. Life is not a process of discovery but a process of creation.
IMM: How can I get the best out of life?
God: Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear.
IMM: Sometimes my prayers are not answered.
God: There are no unanswered prayers. At times the answer is NO.
IMM: Thank you for this wonderful chat. I'll try to be less fearful.
God: Keep the faith and drop the fear. Life is a mystery to solve, not a problem to resolve. Life is wonderful if you know how to live.


PS: Received this as a Mail from a friend in 2005. It's time for digging some older stuff to enjoy those rare memories.

Lull period? not at all

Past few months has been fantastic, took me through roller coaster of events and experiences.

During the scorching summer I have enjoyed a lot of sporting action that includes my team's great run @ Corporate Cricket cup, Deccan chargers victory @ IPL2 & fantasy cricket, Foosball etc.

I guess it's time to reveal a secret (shhhhhh.....). Look at the chart and you may wonder whether I fared well or not? (during 2009 edition of Inter IT Tennis ball cricket). Numbers may not tell the truth but I did very well :-) just that we ended up being next best.

Probably "number of dot balls" column was missing from the chart :-(. Lack of that stat can present a skewed picture - good excuse right?

Well it's not over yet. It's still raining Cricket, ICC T20 WC is on the cards now (obviously I am cheering for India - ye cup kahin nahin jayega :-) )

What a cracker of a start. England deserves to loose for underestimating their opponents and for having chokers like Stuart Broad. Oh boy, he was provided with so many chances to pocket the game but he chose to loose. May be I am a bit harsh? may be not. Others have jumped at this opportunity to flay the English team.

Congratulations to the winning Netherlands, they played superb game of T20.

What next?
Though there were occasional rains, waiting for the monsoon and long drives.

Video Collection

Society still the same

Added on 4th Nov 2009

Inspirational performance
Added on 9th May 2009



The disgraceful under arm ball
Added on 14th March 2009



Young Sachin
Added on 14th March 2009



Sonu Nigam's mimicry
Added on 28th February 2009



Masakali from Delhi 6
Added on 26th February 2009



Star Wars ASCII animation
Added on 31st January 2009




Amazing Voice of Chitra (Venuvai vachanu from Matrudevobhava)
Added on 31st January 2009

Recovering lost data

NTFS undelete came to my rescue for the second time. Its a very good tool to have but it works only on NTFS filesystem (?).

While recovering the data, most important thing to remember is to use a new partition or storage as target. Attempt to recover to the same location may corrupt the recovered data.

It worked quite well with USB disk, but took a lot of time on Vista partition... GUI hanged for quite some time ;-)

Becoming lesser by the day

Interesting, got it as a mail fwd

Our communication - Wireless
Our dress - Topless
Our telephone - Cordless
Our cooking - Fireless
Our youth - Jobless
Our food - Fatless
Our labour - Effortless
Our conduct - Worthless
Our relation - Loveless
Our attitude - Careless
Our feelings - Heartless
Our politics - Shameless
Our education - Valueless
Our follies - Countless
Our arguments - Baseless
Our Job - Thankless
Our Salary - Very Very less
Our emails - useless (especially this one)!

Pune Barcamp5

This is my 2nd barcamp @ SICSR, Pune (earlier being BC3). Weather on Saturday was just like pre-monsoon season, more suitable for enjoying long drives than attending tech sessions :-)

Well about BC5... it wasn't as interesting as BC3 barring a couple of sessions. Recession seems to have an impact on BC5 too ..., NO sponsors, NO free T-shirt, NO free lunch ....

Some notes from interesting sessions I have attended

Startups and Venture Capital

• Startups should consider approaching good VCs to seek seed fund, guidance, direction, and industry connections
• VCs generally look for good idea, its scope and market size, motivation of the team, domain expertise, leadership and execution skills in startups

Its advantageous for startups if their idea is backed with patents and has scope for fallback if required (part of the idea may be marketed to serve another purpose or another set of users).

Typically the process of meeting, convincing and successfully seeking funds from VCs last anywhere between 4 - 6 months. On the average, VCs stay invested in startups for about 7 years with typical investment size of $1 to $10 million.

This talk was given by people from headstart...

Guy Kawasaki may have different thoughts on this topic though ....






NULL


Theme: Security is an integral part of IT hence none should take it for granted

Group of enthusiastic people have come together to spread cyber security awareness. The plan is to have regular get-together and share knowledge pertaining to cyber security.


Why you should use Twitter


This is an interesting session. Till I attended this session, I never appreciated twitter and treated it like just another social networkish time waster (of course it is unless one really makes use of what it has to offer as a good communication platform).

The best part of twitter is

• Short messages would do, don't need to worry about composing big post (but at the same time blogs helps improving writing skills :-) )
• Messages can be posted / received through various means to twitter (mobile SMS, messenger, web, standalone apps such as TweetDeck)
• With good network, useful information flows in
• Keep up to date on topics of interest by creating filters? (ex: #bcp5 to get updates related to Pune Barcamp5)
  
• Helping hand can come from any corner of the network, even if you are not connected to them

Photos on flicker...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

A gap too wide @ Cricinfo

Well written article by Andrew Miller about frustrations of currently touring English team.

Andrew points to an amazing feat of Shewag. His stats in tests read 195, 309, 155, 164, 173, 201, 254, 180, 151, 319, 201 ..... definitely he made a mark in history of Cricket.

Enjoyed the article including the comments :-).

Pune gearing up for CYG 2008

For a sporting event of this stature, preparations should have been amazing but unfortunately Pune is still under construction lots of roads are in bad shape despite of lot of efforts put into renovation.

Fortunately the road I use for daily commute has been very good and pleasant in terms of neatness traffic and usability :-)

Trying to capture CYG colours..., will try to put more

- Cat-eyes along Aundh Road
- Walls painted with CYG theme
- CYG bill boards

Unfortunately the CYG rules says cameras are not allowed into the sports complex :-(

Abhinav Bindra makes history at Beijing 2008

Bindra is the first Indian to win a GOLD at Olympics in an individual event. Abhinav won the Men's 10m Air Rifle with a total score of 700.5.

Congratulations Abhinav for the great show. You made my day! I was very excited :-)

The match was so close that, Abhinav overtook Hakkinen of Finland and scores got leveled at the pre-final round. When it mattered the most, he hit a magical 10.8 in the decider.

More interesting to see was his composure and behavior even after making history.

I could enjoy this see-saw contest just because of the pouring rain that held me from leaving to office early.

Way to go, hope to see India vaulting in the medal rank this time

Doing the right thing

Good quote from Benjamin Franklin

Just knowing the right thing is not enough. You must do the right thing to get results. The person who does things makes many mistakes, but he never make the biggest mistake of all: doing nothing!

Good to know more about the Nuclear Deal

Entire nation is divided over Indo US nuclear deal. Every one can be an expert in topics such as the nuclear energy (deal) where both sides of the coin could be true and justifiable.

The need of the hour is a well respected, reliable and highly intellectual expert (I mean a real expert) who can weigh the pros and cons for us so that we can either feel comfortable or voice our concern.

Though I am not fully convinced, following articles eased a bit of my confusion

The Deal and Its Impact

Nuclear Power, pros and cons


Curtsy IndianCurrentAffairs for pointing me to the above TOI articles

Very Good Article on Farmer suicides — myth and reality

Very well written article that gives a good picture of how numbers are misused for self interest Farmer Suicides - myth and reality @ ET

Bears take on Sensex... What do you do?

If you are an investor... don't miss this article.

Market dynamics always had short term impact on equities. All one need to keep in mind is patience pays (of course, only if one is not greedy and invests in good companies).

What if the Sensex falls below 10k? Still invest @ rediff.com

I can't do any better

Cute little baby singing Janaganama....

Cartoons and thinking out of the box

A movie director will have 2+ hrs to present his story/crap, a TV commercial director can have the luxury of a few seconds. What about the news paper cartoonist? all they can afford is a corner of a page to present a story which is relevant, thought provoking, sarcastic, and laughable.

One has to think out of the box to produce some brilliant work (cartooning) under such constraints.

This cartoon is from today's (22nd June) Eenadu Magazine by famous Telugu cartoonist Mr. Sridhar. Its about the state of current tussle between UPA and Left on the Nuclear Deal with US.

I enjoyed it a lot :-)