Mi Mazaa...

Web 2.0 and beyond

2009-11-01T01:38:00.003+05:30

http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194

A must read for every technologist and everyone who is going to be affected by the web...

Are We Out Of The Woods Yet?

2009-09-05T16:23:00.001+05:30

Investocraft

Publish at Calaméo or browse others.

Reliance Money - A Hydro Power Company?

2009-08-13T04:22:00.004+05:30

Here's finding fault with either the Google's search indexing, or bad meta tags by programmer or my lack of ability to comprehend the reliationship between the two but when I searched "Reliance Money" in Google today @ 04:15 AM, it gave me following in the search results:
"Reliance Money" - Largest Hydro Power Company in India".

(The timing 04:15 AM is very important here as I would want to read this blog when I am 50 or 60 and remember the good old 20s and my present B-School life when I can simply do the things that I want to do at the time I want to do them :-))

Away from Home

2009-07-20T02:55:00.011+05:30

I have been staying in Vile Parle for the whole of last year and I will be staying in Santacruz for the whole of next year till 2nd year of my MBA course is completed. Now what makes this seemingly unimportant thing a topic for a blog post is the fact that this was for the first time ever in my life that I stayed away from my home for more than two odd months (which happens to be in Thane – about an hour from my college).

Call it lack of infrastructure or whatever but NMiMS does not provide a residential MBA programme and those who stay in Mumbai are not allowed to stay in the hostel. Last year, around this time when I joined NMiMS all I wanted was a decent residential MBA programme. So, I decided to rent an apartment with a few of my classmates near college. To my surprise, my parents agreed to my proposition of staying away from home while I was still staying in Mumbai (I must admit here that I expected a more emotional farewell like the one that they show in most of those Star plus and Zee serials).

The first problem with renting an apartment in Mumbai is the astoundingly high rent. An advice for those who are hunting for a rented house in Mumbai here – You may at times experience emotions like sheer disbelief, extreme anger for your landlord and may hear numbers of unimaginatively gigantic sizes but get used to it as the homeowners here have been taught numbers beyond 25000 during their kindergarten days and that is where they start quoting from.

So, my pseudo hostel stay began in May last year. Staying with classmates was always fun as I could watch TV at any time of the day, drink gazillion cups of coffee and have other junk food at will, listen to loud music late at night, hang out in the college for most of the time. The direct impact of this liberalization in my life resulted into more frequent viewings of my Friends’ collection and addition of some other sitcoms like “How I Met Your Mother” and “The Big Bang Theory” to my collection.

The sad part of staying away from home is when it comes to washing your own clothes which had actually turned a 3 hour long Sunday afternoon grand ritual for me.

I can surely say one thing about staying away from home. You learn a hell lot. I have been seeing several improvements in me ever since I have shifted base. For starters, I realized that there are so many household things that need to be done that were virtually non-existent for me when I was staying at home. This includes taking Doodh from Doodhwalah in the morning, arranging and more importantly managing the maid, paying bills, buying routine household stuff from matchbox to mosquito repellents. I have changed from being a really pathetically lazy person to a more acceptable lazy person and I still continue to show progress. :-D

This post would be incomplete without mentioning my roomies.

Trying to study

Jigar aka Jigga, Saurabh aka Baldy (Ref: Barney from How I Met Your Mother) and Dhawal aka Kanta aka Horney Thorny (Don’t ask me why).

Jigga @ Hareesh's B'day Party

Jigga is the most sincere guy in the class and I had obvious advantages like getting assignments and notes from him. I also managed to read some stuff and study for sometime because of him (Peer pressure you see...). While he was busy in putting up an extraordinarily large family (Details can be obtained on special request ;-)) and challenging the existing rule of "One wife One family" ;-), he has been a true inspiration and pushed me every time from taking CFA to enrolling for different competitions.

Saurabh - Notice that developing spike

Saurabh is somewhat quiet and was like the big daddy of the house. Everyone feared him and we made it a point not to disturb him during his morning ritual of creating one large spike on his head ;-). A warning here - Though he is generally very calm and composed, he will stump you with his occasional one liners. He was the encyclopaedia of our lot and has helped me notice, understand and comprehend things beyond what is called “Mumbai”.

Dhawal on Holi day

Dhawal aka Kanta aka Horney is another being that belongs to the species called “Toppers”. He spent most of his time reading self-help books like The Secret and Vedanta Treatise. A Cricket fanatic and a former Satyamite (I’m sorry but I had to mention this), he was in search of true Gujarati love and tried to find it in many girls including some South Indian girls ;-). He thinks putting a couple of drops of Vodka in a glass full of Sprite is called “Drinking Vodka”.

Managing Household Chores - An attempt at Breakfast

Four of us always made it a point to waste time in trivial arguments, in house cricket matches and other discussions which cannot be mentioned here as this is a family blog ;-). However trivial, it all seems fun in the hindsight.

Diverging from the topic, among other things happening in my life, last month was one of the most hectic periods of my life... Managing my summer internship @ NSE and preparation of CFA Level 2 examination (Someone please let me know if I have violated the CFA Institute Code of Standards by this reference ;-)) was quite a task and kept me away from all the things which I otherwise like to do... Now that I have sucksessfully (No, it is not a typo) taken the seemingly difficult exam full of fictitious Balance Sheets and Income Statements, I have all the time in the world to get back to things I like the most... Reading, Writing and Imagining. So expect more of these from me...

Time- 03:30 AM... Location- Juhu Beach

2009-07-18T15:12:00.005+05:30

Next time you feel like bragging about your achievements in life, next time you feel like you have the power to control and take decisions on behalf of all your subordinates, next time you feel your race or religion is superior to that of others'; just walk up to Juhu Beach at night and stand in front of the vast Arabian Sea. The massive waterbody in front and never-ending black sky above will make you realize how inconsequential you are in this massive universe.

The immensity of the sea and air will make you realize that all your afflictions, worries, pains and egos are really insignificant. The dark, cool breeze will make this all a humbling but magical experience. All I can say is that the experience cannot be described in words but can only be experienced.

PS: A drink or two might actually help you enhance the wondrous experience

Wow... Thats Future...

2009-04-30T16:35:00.007+05:30

One of the accessibility technologies being displayed @ TED Talks. May look like an extension of the Microsoft Surface, but the portability of this device makes it much much more useful in real life than just being a exhibit of modern technology...

The Journey with Recession Continues

2009-02-02T23:49:00.003+05:30

The flow of grim news continues... Layoffs, thinner bottom-lines, red tickers and bail-out packages. All the markets around the world seem to have rediscovered gravity for themselves and there is no sign of recovery...

The slowdown starts showing in the Balance-Sheets of the corporate...

See the DLF results
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/DLF_plunges_nearly_14_on_poor_results/rssarticleshow/4065321.cms

I think there’s more pain to come. The Jan-Mar quarter will not be better either. God knows where the Sensex is headed...

Look at the scary job cuts all across the globe
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Features/Job_trends_during_times_of_turbulence/Rising_layoffs_9000_job_vanishing_every_day/articleshow/4059166.cms

It is not all that bad if you are an Indian techie though...
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Features/Job_trends_during_times_of_turbulence/Microsoft_Layoffs_for_some_visas_for_others/articleshow/4064164.cms

Assocham demands STPI benefits extension till 2012... Read the Story...
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Extend_STPI_benefits_to_ITeS_till_12/rssarticleshow/4066059.cms

The MSMEs are suffering... Though they have no one to lobby for them as hard... Where’s the relief package for them? Read the story...
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Micro_industries_face_closure/rssarticleshow/4064142.cms

Indian Exports put up a better show in December... Some sign of relief?
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Exports_put_up_a_better_show_in_Dec/rssarticleshow/4063486.cms

Meanwhile interest rates are headed downwards... SBI to lend housing and SME loans at 8%. Way below their PLR... Government pressure or a bold business strategy? Time to short SBI for a couple of quarters it seems...

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Exports_put_up_a_better_show_in_Dec/rssarticleshow/4063486.cms
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/SBI_contemplating_further_cut_in_lending_rates/rssarticleshow/4063716.cms

China pushes rural consumption

A novel idea may be... But a non-market force cannot have it all right all the time...Reaffirms my faith that with all the controls and directives by the government, China is bound to fail in a few decades’ time...
http://spoonfeedin.blogspot.com/2009/02/world-china-spurs-rural-consumption.html

Things to be done before you’re in a B-School for a course in Finance

2009-01-26T11:16:00.003+05:30

I know it sounds funny and far fetched but last week a friend of mine asked me for advice on pre-preparation before an engineer joins an MBA Finance course. The advice was for another friend of hers who had just finished engineering and was about to join a B-School. Obviously, she has chosen a wrong engineer for advice but however awkward as it may be for me, I generally never waste an opportunity to impart Gyaan onto others. So here’s my advice for all those engineers who are about to join a B-School and have time for trivial things such as preparation and all...

“Engineers need not study anything before the course has begun. They can manage everything you see... ;-)”, I told her. But, on a second thought, I think I would have had a better time in the class if I had brushed up little stats or read a chapter or two of basic accounting. So here it goes:

Statistics and Mathematics

Most of the part is covered during the 5 semesters of mathematics during engineering. Basic concepts of measures of central tendency (Mean, Mode, Median, etc), graphical representation (Frequency Polygon, Histogram), limits, sequences and series, calculus, matrices is what you are supposed to know

Financial Institutions

NCFM book for Securities Markets – Basic Module is a good read here. Different financial institutions, regulators and intermediaries in the Indian Financial System and their functions is what you need to know (You can download this book from NSE website http://www.nseindia.com)

Word, Excel and PowerPoint

I have seen many of my fellow classmates struggle with this. You at least need to have skills to make a ‘not-so-good-presentation-so-far-as-the-content-is-concerned’ look extremely good with different layouts and animations. For those who are already comfortable using office, some knowledge of macros and VBA programming will prove to be a great help...

Accounting Basics

If you don’t want to be in a position where you don’t have a clue what your accounts or FSA (Financial Statement Analysis) professor is talking to other commerce background students, you need to grab an 11-12 standard commerce book for basic accounting.

Laptop and Basic working knowledge of computers

Decide which laptop model are you comfortable with. Is it a Mac or a PC? Check out different models out there. See which one are you comfortable with. Another must have is a USB Drive or preferably a USB hard disk. If you are not comfortable with computers/ Internet, spend some time exploring and using the Internet.

Meet-up with Friends

This is the best thing you can do during the holidays is that you can meet up all your friends. When the course will start you will not have time to do such things. The presentations, projects and other such activities will keep you occupied for your two years in the B-School.

I think you’re all set once you are through with the things I’ve mentioned here... Have I missed anything? Fellow capmarks students can chip-in with their suggestions...

Bogie Number B2 / Seat Number 6

2009-01-21T11:16:00.012+05:30

Team Fintellect

My IIM Lucknow sojourn is almost over now. As I sit comfortably in Bogie Number B2/ Seat Number 6 on my way back to Mumbai, it is almost compelling to look back at the experience. It has been a couple relaxing and still busy days at IIML. For the uninformed, I was at IIML campus for last 3 days for ‘Call for Arms’ – a team event to adjudge the best B-School in India. We finally finished as eighth best B-School in India (I am aware that the B-School rankings are controversial and subject matter of a lot of debate, but eighth spot will do for me :-)). IIML guys had planned the event well and did all they could to make sure that we had sleepless nights.

Talking about IIML campus, the first thing that came to my mind when I reached the IIML campus was that it was damn spacious with greenery and over capacities observable everywhere. Large lush green grounds, smaller buildings spread wide apart from each other, large canteen, large library, large classrooms and large ‘almost everything than can be large’. For a guy who comes from a crammed B-School having a few tall buildings and no more than a few hundred square meters of campus in space starved Mumbai, this was an overwhelmingly overwhelming experience. In fact I wonder how IIML guys manage to study in such serene and scenic surroundings

Talking of ‘Call for Arms’- Different shortlisted B-Schools across India, three days, eleven events... It was an action packed venture... I could see the commending and commanding IIMs, long established XLRIs, FMSs, SPJIMRs, MDIs and NMIMSs all fight in the same arena for the best B-School title. The contrasting cultures of different B-Schools were apparent at each step of the tournament and it was indeed a learning experience for me.

Throughout the tournament, I observed the differences between ‘a winner’ and ‘a loser’. A loser cribs, attempts rationalization and most important of all misjudges his abilities whereas a winner regrets, analyses and most important of all is well aware of his abilities as well as weaknesses. Being a winner is as much a part of one’s attitude as it is of one’s abilities.

Another important thing which was observable was the rivalry between B-Schools and their willingness to go to any length to achieve the supreme spot. So much so that add Madhur Bhandarkar to a B-School fest and the outcome would be a Bollywood flick on the B-School rivalry.

I also got a chance to see the Rock competition at IIML. It was the first time I attended one. With all due respect to those who love rocks of any kind, I really could not digest the whole thing. Being in Mumbai, I had numerous opportunities of visiting rock shows. But I managed not to visit any of them somehow. Here at IIML, on a chilled grey Saturday evening, I finally decided to attend one while I was passing by the brilliantly lit competition area with people screaming and loud guitar accompanying their chorus. My first impression when I entered the competition arena was that it was insane but Power-packed. The lead singer (Though I am calling him a singer for the lack of a better word, most of the time he was screaming in a language I could not comprehend), was moving his head as if he had the shaft of a generator attached to his head and the power supply of the whole campus will go down if he stops. The guitarists and the drummer were louder than the singer and the show could have gone on even without the lead singer. As I watched them perform and watched people near the stage go crazy here’s an excerpt of my conversation with Jigar (Jigar, by the way, is my roomie and is one of those guys who believe they understand and like Rock...)

Me: Nice show... Seems interesting but I can’t understand why...

Jigar: Hmmm... (Giving me a ‘I-am-Harsha-Bhogle-and-you-are-Navjyot-Singh-Siddhu’ kind of a look

Me: Those people near the stage have gone crazy... They are mimicking the guy on the stage... This guy must be like very famous... Who is he?

Jigar: He’s a participant... Not famous at all... In fact these guys must be watching him perform for the first time...

Me: Oh... It is the song then... The song he’s singing must be like very famous in the world of Rock.

Jigar: Not a famous song either... It is his composition...

Me: Then, how on earth are these guys near the stage able to understand what that hairy and swinging guy on the stage is screaming and enjoying it?

Jigar: No answer... Just a laugh

Giving it a second thought, if I get drunk like crazy and have a lot of worries in life regarding my placement, exams, scores, etc even I can enjoy the thing called ‘Rock’.

I kept the conclusion to myself as the hairy and swinging guy promised the crowd for third time that it was going to be his last performance and the crowd raised their hands in the air as they did for his earlier performance...

More on IIML, the event and my take away from the trip once I reach Mumbai... Right now, the battery promises to die in a few minutes and thus time for me to go play some ‘Teen Patti’ in the train...

B-School, Bad news and a trip to Lucknow

2009-01-13T01:47:00.006+05:30

Third trimester has begun... Before I realize it, first year of my MBA experience is almost over... I realize that I haven't really jotted down anything on my B-School experience as yet and now is the time to do so.

After more than two years of work experience (Or whatever experience that was), I finally joined a B-School. I must admit that given the fierce competition, what people say about different B-Schools in India and different B-School rankings floating around, mine qualifies to be 'A B-School' and not 'The B-School'. The experience has been value adding and interesting nonetheless.

After working in the field of stock market for real-time trading software development at TCS, I, like any other mortal who likes money, got hooked onto the market. A few certifications and I started thinking that I know how the world of finance works. Finance seemed the most obvious choice for my MBA specialization. I knew I was made for Finance. I was born for Finance. As a matter of fact, I believed that I was born for Computers and everything there is about computing back in 2001 when I had to choose my specialization in engineering ;-). (Fortunately for me it turned out to be not so wrong and I still think I like technology and everything there is about technology and I hope it turns out to be true again this time too)

So I became a student again and after a big gap of three years, attending lectures and submitting assignments was quite a task. The strangest part and a significant difference between MBAs and Engineers comes from the fact that unlike Engineers that are programmed to mass-replicate the assignments, MBAs seem to be less into team work... This means that I have to do all my assignments on my own. Working hard throughout night, passing on work to group members, last minute changes, pretending to know everything during presentations is fun nevertheless.

Other important difference is the improved quality of the pedagogy. With all due respect to the teachers in my engineering colleges (Last time I visited my engineering college, my professors still remembered me... I am dead sure that none of them reads this blog though...), I can safely say that teachers in the B-Schools know what is teaching. Here, there's more to teaching than reading out of a book when you know that no one around is listening. Here, most of the students listen to what the professors have to say and most of the professors know what they are teaching. (The word most is of utmost importance here ;-))

The title of the post also says something about bad news. The bad news this time comes from a probable scam in the Munis Bond market in the US. Read this story in New York TImes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/business/09insure.html?_r=2&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

After Satyam, it is turn of Wipro to get punished from the World Bank. Read this Bloomberg story

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=a9JU.qfdvJ08&refer=india

The disclosure came almost 18 months after the actual ban was imposed. After world bank made the information public, the company did whatever it could to assure market of its negligible share of revenues from World Bank project but the scrip was still hammerred down 10 percentage points. In the context of the overall grim sentiments, markets seem to be in the mood of punishing even the slightest mistakes of the corporates. This also brings out the fact that disclosure norms in India need to be improved.

For the last part of the title, I am going to IIM Lucknow a couple of days hence to represent my college for an event there. Visitng an IIM campus was always a dream and I have a chance to put it into reality and that too as an all expenses paid trip by IIML :-). As I am packing my stuff and deciding things to do and movies to wathc during the 24 hours long train journey, I find this post that lists great business related movies of all time

http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-list-of-business-related-movies.html

Now that I have covered the whole title, I can hit the bed...

PS: Song Playing - Kahin to hogi woh - Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na....

The tale of A Satyam Computers

2009-01-08T01:24:00.005+05:30

In what promises to be India’s biggest corporate scandal till date, Mr. Ramalinga Raju, founder and chairman of Satyam Computers, one of India’s four premier IT companies, admitted of a fraud through a letter addressed to the board of the company. The controversial and seemingly absurd acquisition proposal of Mytas, an infrastructure company of Satyam promoters by Satyam computers a few weeks back suddenly started making sense once the letter by Mr. Raju to the board of the Satyam was out.

Here’s how the story unfolded...

Full Text of Mr. Raju’s letter to Satyam Board

http://spoonfeedin.blogspot.com/2009/01/business-satyam-full-text-of-rajus.html

Mr. Narayanmurthy reacts... It is important to remember that one Satyam does not make the entire Indian software industry. I believe it is an isolated case

http://spoonfeedin.blogspot.com/2009/01/business-satyam-case-is-warning-for.html

ICAI, ICSI say they are working on the facts of the case... Will soon take action

http://spoonfeedin.blogspot.com/2009/01/business-indiaicai-moots-strong.html

Satyam to be thrown out of NIFTY, SENSEX?

http://spoonfeedin.blogspot.com/2009/01/business-satyam-may-be-removed-from.html

The Fraud

There is Rs. 5040 Crores worth inflated cash and bank balance

Non-existent accrued interest of Rs. 376 Crores

Understated liability of Rs. 1230 Crores

Overstated debtor position of Rs. 490 Crores

For last quarter,

Overstated Revenues by Rs. 588 Crores and overstated operating profit by Rs. 588 Crores

Added together, it is a discrepancy of Rs. 7724 Crores on the face of it for a company having annual revenues of Rs. 10000 odd Crores, a gigantic fraud by Indian standards.

The After-effects

Satyam Scrip on NSE, BSE crashed 77% to Rs. 40.25 on the news and the great story for a seemingly successful Indian IT company ended. Fingers were pointed, concerns were raised, complaints were filed and dreams were shattered. What happened at Satyam and why it happened will be contemplated by regulators and chewed by business media for days to come but I think it is time for some quick action on part of the regulators, corporate India and the government
The event has left Satyam with virtually no board as most of the independent directors have resigned and promoters will be kicked out. The Acquirer or the government must appoint able directors quickly to ensure business sustainability
There are about 53000 able employees of Satyam which need to be taken care of. They are at no fault for the current crisis at Satyam and still make Satyam a valuable enterprise
Many customers of Satyam still expect to be serviced and in case of an unfortunate event of bankruptcy, the contracts should be sold to other Indian companies (By the government of course) so as to make sure that Indian IT story is not dented
The auditors and their inability to verify even the cash balances of Satyam is a fact that concerns me. There should be higher accountability or responsibility on part of the auditors and those found guilty should be severely punished
Other Indian IT companies should do all that they can to prevent their image from denting. This includes assuring customers and investors about sound corporate governance (If it exists that is) and introducing transparency and stringency in the disclosures

Finally, my first recession gives me my first big scam in India. The crisis times like these separate good companies from ordinary ones and expose ill-managed organizations. The crisis could dampen India’s image as a good investment destination. It could affect badly, the businesses of Indian IT, BPO, KPO firms. We should remember that the position India is in, as an emerging and promising market, we cannot afford such mistakes and this event should and hopefully will have enough impact to trigger India’s Sarbanes-Oxley so that such mismanagement can be prevented in the future

PS: The word 'Satyam' means 'The truth' in Sanskrit whereas 'Asatyam' means a lie.

My First Recession

2009-01-03T03:08:00.004+05:30

There is a special place for all the firsts in our lives... First day at school, first day at college, first drink, first job, first salary and many other firsts... These firsts in a way are milestones that define the journey of our life. As I was going through the newspaper in the morning today (which was full off grim business outlook, layoffs, etc) it struck me that this happens to be my first recession... Not something to be celebrated but interesting nonetheless... As far as the facts and figures go there has been a recession in India during 1996 but this one is the first one ever since I have become literate in economical sense and thus deserves its share of attention...

The times are exciting. Yes, I dare to say so and I say so during a recession at that... Living in this part of the world, I should call it a slowdown rather than a recession as India will still continue to grow with estimated GDP growth rate of anywhere between 5-7% in the next couple of years. I think as a student of the subject of finance the opportunity to learn is immense during these times. Not that there are no opportunities to learn when there is a general feeling of well being all around or when financial system around the globe is operating smoothly as it should unlike in the past few months but because there are a lot of things happening around which I may not seen again in my lifetime. Take for example the historic 700+ billion dollar bailout package in US, historical fall of the stock markets around the globe, the Iceland crisis, the historic rise and fall of crude oil prices and so on...

The good thing about slowdowns, recessions and bad times in general is that they help in weeding out the weak and unwanted excesses and result in many reforms or at least that is what we’ve seen in the past... I intend to look at this recession from an emerging markets’ perspective and focus on following aspects as India rides on this trough of the business cycle:

The action in the Indian stock markets
Actions of RBI in relation with the FED
The policy reforms in India
Indian businesses pre and post recession

Every week I will be taking up one important event pertaining to these aspects and discuss it at length. Your views, comments and inputs are welcome as always...

Fate of US of A?

2008-12-29T20:53:00.001+05:30

A Collapse of the US of A...

Read the following hypothesis by a Russian professor on America’s eventual fate in the ongoing financial crisis. He thinks that rising debt, weakened financial position and growing influence of other countries on US will finally lead to disintegration of US into 6 states. A bold statement, but WSJ seems to be taking note... In fact the world seems to be taking a note...

Wall Street Journal Says:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Watch the prognosis from the man himself - Professor Igor Panarin:
http://www.russiatoday.com/guests/video/1839

Terror in Mumbai - What the world thinks

2008-11-29T00:34:00.002+05:30

Even as the Mumbai continues its battle with the terrorists, the questions which should have been asked a long time back are being asked... India dreams of making Mumbai a financial hub of Asia but the present crisis only emphasizes that a lot is yet to be done... The brand Mumbai and brand India is being damaged...

Here's what Wall Street Journal thinks about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

India's perpetually squabbling leaders have failed to put national security above partisan politics. The country's antiterrorism effort is reactive and episodic rather than proactive and sustained. Its public discourse on Islam oscillates between crude, anti-Muslim bigotry and mindless sympathy for largely unjustified Muslim grievance-mongering. Its failure to either charm or cow its Islamist-friendly neighbors -- Pakistan and Bangladesh -- reveals a limited grasp of statecraft.

The full article can be read here...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122783260486063039.html

Terror in Mumbai

2008-11-27T17:14:00.001+05:30

Yesterday night was a terrifying night for any Mumbaikar. A few unidentified terrorists attacked the city by resorting to indiscriminate firing and grenade attacks at different places. Even though the standoff between the security forces and terrorists still continues for more than 18 hours now, hundreds are feared dead and many more injured. This number is feared to be far more than what it is right now by the time the operation gets over.

At around 10:00 PM in the evening yesterday, the terrorists attacked The Leopold Cafe. Terrorists simultaneously opened fire with AK 47s at the iconic “Taj Mahal Intercontinental hotel” and “The Oberoi hotel”. Few more attacks were reported at “The Cama hospital” and “The CST railway station”. A bomb went off in a taxi in Vile Parle. This was followed by terrorists moving from places to places and firing indiscriminately at civilians and security forces. The terrorists held hostage a few guests at the hotels. Mumbai police and ATS retaliated to the attack but lost its important personnel in the process. The news reporters were relentlessly reporting the incidents of firing and portraying the general sentiment of fear which had gripped an otherwise energetic and fearless Mumbai. Telephone networks were jammed as people called their near and dear ones to ensure their safety. Blood, pain, fear and terror could be seen on the streets of Mumbai. As the things moved from bad to worse, the NSG and the paramilitary forces were called in to handle the situation. Kilos and kilos of RDX were recovered from different places. Live bombs diffused at a few places. It looked like a very well planned and coordinated attack on the financial capital of India. The world extended its support to India and vowed again to fight global terrorism with countless futile promises as Mumbai was still fighting the terrorist attacks. It was dawn and the standoff still continued. The people who escaped from the attacked hotels told that the terrorists were asking for people with US and British passports. The Taj Mahal hotel caught fire adding to the commotion. Several explosions were reported within the two hotels. Politicians condemned the attack and gave hour long interviews to the news channels. English cricket team cancelled its India tour midway citing security concerns. Businessmen demanded more security and a more conducive environment for businesses. Deccan Mujahidin owned up the responsibility for the act. Citizens grabbed their share of limelight on news media to report what happened. Mumbai was fighting terror all night as the world’s largest democracy watched. Mumbai was awake all night as the whole world watched.

Reasons for the attack?

Lot of theories will be cooked up and contemplated as to why Mumbai was attacked? I think it is not only Mumbai which is being targeted. It is the common man in the normal world being targeted. There have been several such attacks in different cities in India in the past few months. Mumbai, being a symbol of India’s strength is most obvious target. Mumbai has people from all over the India and in fact people from all over the world. An attack on Mumbai would be a symbolic attack on the peace and order in the whole world. Who were the attackers? The rift between the two worlds is pretty much obvious from what has been happening in the world since 9/11 in US. Every now and then we hear a new Mujahidin group popping up and carrying out different terrorist activities. Is there any solution to this? Resolution of long pending problems with neighbours and making efforts to close down the growing rift between the different countries in the Indian continent could be one possible solution.

Impact of these attacks?

Having stayed in Mumbai for 25 years of my life, I always thought that Mumbai is a very safe place. But this lifelong held belief is now being shattered. There have been sustained attacks in Mumbai from both internal as well as external factors. For the first time, Mumbai did not live up to its much celebrated spirit. The Mumbai was virtually brought to a halt by these attacks. These attacks will certainly damage brand Mumbai. Businesses will be moved. Venues of events will be shifted. Tourists will think twice before visiting Mumbai. I fear we are losing the ever accommodating, resilient Mumbai for past few years.

Will Mumbai bounce back?

Will such incidents affect the spirit of Mumbai? Time and again Mumbai has recovered from such terror attacks within days if not hours of the attack to get back to its original pace. Will Mumbai bounce back again? It sure will but I think this time, the attack has had an impact on people of Mumbai. At least I think that the so called land of opportunities is losing its sheen. May it be by being a target of external terror attacks or by being a target of internal friction. I strongly believe in Mumbai and would like to think that Mumbai will think its way out of the present crisis.

The Mechanic in me...

2008-11-20T22:17:00.007+05:30

Want to know about the style of writer inside you... Here's a website that analyses your blog and lets you know your writer personality type:
http://www.typealyzer.com

Here's what the website has to say about this blog...

I do not completely disagree I must say...
Want to know how it works? Check out here

Update: 21st Nov 2008
As pointed out by Chetan, the algorithm now classifies me as a 'Duty Fulfiller'... A couple of posts here and there and the algorithm has changed my personality in a day... Developers need to look a bit more into the consistency... The brain map hasn't changed though.... Now, analysis of my blog goes something like this
Update: 28th Nov 2008
It is 'The Mechanic' again... I think I for some unknown reason like 'The Mechanic' more than 'The Duty Fulfiller'. The brain activity map has changed a bit this time indicating that I have started using my brain a bit more since last week. Weird, immature but acceptable nonetheless.

Is it Marketing? Cajoling?? Or Begging???

2008-11-18T22:55:00.004+05:30

I got this mail from ICICI Credit cards a couple of days back... I do not know who advises ICICI on marketing and promotion but I don't think this kind of promotion will help...

They say: ""We miss you and would love to see you using our card".
Does this mail connect to me or strike a chord? Hell No...
Will it serve its purpose with other consumers? I don't think so...
Would they still love me so much if I miss them (monthly dues)? No points for guessing
Am I overreacting? May be Yes but I hardly expected this from India's largest private sector bank

One last question: Did subprime happen because of such cajoling mails?

The Ironic Insanity of Modern Man

2008-11-14T21:19:00.002+05:30

Second Life affair leads to real life divorce... Check out this Article in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/nov/13/second-life-divorce

A real woman divorces her real husband for misdeeds in virtual world...

It is ironic that the more advacned we become technologically, the more insane we become. Foolish as it may sound to me, an average citizen in an emerging country like India, it is a fact and it is very much happening in reality... Gosh, God Help Western World...

Read Read... Till you are Dead...

2008-11-08T17:16:00.002+05:30

Today, I received a couple of books from the college. While I was carrying the giants home, I realized that the 5 odd Kilograms of paper had around 1800 pages together. I have seven subjects in a trimester on an average. Now, simple mathematics tells me that I am expected to read around 6300 pages of textbooks this trimester. Please, note that this is only the textbook material and reference material suggested would be an equal amount of another 6300 odd pages. Add to these the daily ET and FT articles that the professors expect us students to read. Assuming the fact that I don’t read any of the reference material and I read about 3000 pages of blogs, newspaper articles, etc in a trimester, I am expected to manage about 9300 pages of reading.

As a normal B-school student, I can divide my work-day into following activities
Sleep – 6 hrs
Lectures and other classroom activities – 5 hrs
Other activities like competitions, projects, etc – 1 hr
News (Or should I say Bad News, etc) – 1hr
Eating, Travelling and other unavoidable daily activities – 2 hrs

This leaves me with about 9 hours in a day which I can solely dedicate to reading. Now with a speed of about 3 minutes a page, this will take me about 52 days to read the whole thing. Add to this the time that I should dedicate to internalise and contemplate on the matter and the figure crosses 2 months. I want the readers to appreciate the fallibility of the plan terms of tightness of the schedule here...

My term ends on 15th of December. This means that I have only 38 days left in this term. And unless I have a Time-turner like Hermione Granger has one in HP, I will not be able to complete the expected reading this trimester.

Conclusion:
Chetan (Class CR), please arrange for the books as early as possible in the next trimester so that I will be able to read the stuff... ;-)

Food for thought:
I wonder how Nidhi (Class Topper) manages to read it all in time ;-), faster reading speed may be...

Check your gender online...

2008-11-03T21:56:00.003+05:30

Check out this simple script that tries to guess your gender based on the recent sites that you have visited. It works like this... If your surfing habits are skewed towards websites having more male/female visitor ratio, then your Male score increases and if otherwise, your Female score increases. Final verdict for me is that I am a male and so are my surfing habits...

You can check out your own gender at the following link ;-)
http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-estimate-gender/

And there's more...

2008-10-06T20:54:00.002+05:30

Wall Street Journal also supports the view that the days of fat pay packages in the financial sector are over.

http://s.wsj.net/article/SB120933096635747945.html

The sector as a whole will surely take time to bounce back but I think the role of raising and managing capital is too important to be 'any-less important'. May be it is my heart and not my brain speaking this time but it has happened in the recessions of the last few decades and though this promises to be larger one and a more painful one, I think it will happen again this time...

Impeccable Timing...

2008-10-06T20:36:00.003+05:30

I could not have chosen a more (in)appropriate time to do MBA in Finance... Amol Agarwal discusses excesses in the global financial sector and paints a realistic picture of the future here...

http://mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/quantifying-financial-sector-excesses/

On a more brighter side, this will really clean-up the system and prepare the financial sector for next leg of innovation...

Google Chrome: First Take

2008-09-03T22:36:00.010+05:30

Google has launched a brand new web browser called 'Google Chrome'. It is a bit difficult to understand the need for Google to launch another browser of its own when it was already supporting and funding Firefox (Check out here...). Naive as I am in business strategy, let me do what I think I am good at... Evaluation of Google Chrome...

Let’s look at the features of Google Chrome as stated on Google Blog

One box for everything

The address bar serves all your browsing needs Web Search, Web history, suggestions and address bar...

I think:

Nice, Sleek and well implemented...

New Tab Page

Every time you open a new tab, you will see a visual sampling of your most visited sites; most used search engines, recently bookmarked pages and recently closed tabs.

I think:

Other than the recently closed tabs feature (because I tend to close some tabs accidently at times... Still getting used to the touchpad...), I think all the other features are either copied or unnecessary or both.

Application Shortcuts

Use web apps without opening your browser. Application shortcuts can directly load your favourite online apps.

I think:

This is a wonderful feature and I have already created a couple of application shortcuts.

Dynamic Tabs

You can drag tabs out of the browser to create new windows, gather multiple tabs into one window or arrange your tabs however you wish -- quickly and easily.

I think:

So what... I mean... Does Google think that I like to play screen design game on my computer?

Crash Control

Every tab you're using is run independently in the browser, so if one app crashes it won't take anything else down.

I think:

Much required feature... My only concern is that if each tab creates a new process, then it is surely going to be a problem for a 20-30 tab user... Need to check this one with actual tests... So I hold on to my verdict here...

Incognito Mode

Don't want pages you visit to show up in your web history? Choose incognito mode for private browsing.

I think:

This feature is really cool... For obvious reasons... I know that this feature is gonna be a hit with everyone.

Safe Browsing

Google Chrome warns you if you're about to visit a suspected phishing, malware or otherwise unsafe website.

I think:

Big deal... IE has this feature... FF has this feature...

Instant Bookmarks

Want to bookmark a web page? Just click the star icon at the left edge of the address bar and you're done.

I think:

Remember, the star at the right end of the address bar? Guys, you have copied this from FF...

Importing settings

When you switch to Google Chrome, you can pick up where you left off with all the bookmarks and passwords from your existing browser.

I think:

No one would have used Chrome if this feature was not incorporated. Again, every browser I know of has this feature...

Simpler Downloads

No intrusive download manager; you see your download's status at the bottom of your current window.

I think:

Frankly speaking, I don’t mind if my download manager opens another window or sits quietly in the bottom of the browser... As long as it is downloading stuff... that is... Nice feature to have though... Just another unwanted feature you see...

Developer Tools

Included in the menus, are the developer options of "View Source", "Debug JavaScript", "JavaScript console", and "Task Manager".

I think:

Good one for people like me who have habit of copying code whenever they come across a cool JavaScript website... Task Manager feature is a big hit for me... The 'stats for nerds' is another wonderful thing... Google also says that API for third party developers is coming soon... Expect loads of Plug-ins in the days to come...

Configuration

The browser was built with simplicity in mind and there are only a very small set of configuration options to worry about.

I think:

Mission accomplished when you see the minimal configuration settings. No one can beat Google at simplicity. No One...

Memory Test

Now for the most important part... They are fast they say... Let’s check it...

Scenario:

5 Gmail Windows + 3 Google Reader Windows + 5 Google Search + 4 NMIMS Home page Windows + 1 ICICI bank page + 5 Wikipedia Pages + 2 Orkut Pages

I checked memory footprint and number of processes when I open all of this in different tabs in FF and Chrome. The results...

Firefox Memory Footprint

Chrome Memory Footprint

The difference is pretty clear... New process with each tab means loads of processes and loads of memory usage... The bugs related to memory leaks, improper garbage collection, etc will only be evident after I use it for some more time...

Final Verdict

Some features, it scores well... Some features are copied... But all in all, I will give it a score of 3 on 5. (See how a mediocre job hurts when you set a very high benchmark for yourself...)

Ma... Main Ghar Aa Raha Hoon Ma...

2008-08-20T02:57:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, I went to my home after almost a couple of months. Yes, it had been two months since I had visited my home and last few days my mom called me every day and asked me “Beta, tune ghar chod to nahi diya?” I had hard time concincing my mom that I was busy with all the presentations, case studies and other unimportant things that I was doing in life and that was the only reason for me not showing up every week which and it meant that I was still the same old loving son that left the home a couple of months back.

On a serious note, life has been a little hectic since I have joined NMIMS for my two year MBA course. I am living the hostel like life that I always wanted to experience. Even though it means doing a lot of daily chores like waking up myself (And my roomies) every morning, ironing my clothes, making my own breakfast, washing my clothes, etc. Life is enjoyable. At the moment I am staying in a rented apartment about an hour and a half from my home. (Why? Because, I don’t want to spend one eighth of my time travelling in a bus or a train...)

My typical day goes something like this:

It starts with me, cursing at my alarm clock and getting up at around 07:30 AM in the morning after snoozing it for an hour or so. That follows a newspaper reading session of about half an hour when I read the morning newspaper and imagine myself drinking mom-made tea like good old days. After getting ready to go to college and managing a quick breakfast (And missing it most often because I am late), I start off for the college.

Auto-Rickshaw or a 20 minute walk from my place takes me to my college. Then there is the usual daily dose of enlightenment from some fascinating professors on some even more fascinating subjects which I pretend to understand ;-). That leaves me with only half of the day for doing something useful. At around 1 o’clock in the afternoon, I eat some Biryani, Pulao, etc along with a cup of tea in the canteen. That follows a lazy afternoon session of project/ case study discussion where people work diligently on some critical aspects of the project presentation like font of the presentation, colours to be used in the presentation, etc sidelining some of the more trivial aspects such as content of the presentation, etc. After fighting for a cause that no one in the group is sure about but everyone in the group wants to fight for, there’s again a chai-session at the tapri outside the college.

By this time, I realize that I have only a fourth of the day left with me to do something useful (In the MBA lingo, something that adds value to my being). Then, after all the day’s hard work, at around 6 o’clock in the evening, there is a mail from Chetan (He is class CR and is the actuator, stimulator, guide of our otherwise lazy class) stating that the presentation we’ve been fighting out about has been postponed to the next week and now we have another presentation instead. People utter some good words of appreciation for Chetan and this sets stage for another similar fighting-cum-discussion session that runs well into the night. At around 9 o’clock in the night (Or night for normal people), my stomach starts making me aware of its presence and I head back to canteen for a quick bite. After finishing the presentation (rather finishing off the presentation), I head back home where my dinner is waiting for me in the dabba that that black, old, shabby man delivers. Now, the man and his appearance is very important here because I suspect that he’s the one making the dabba indicated by the little smirk that he shows me every time. I eat my dinner, watching Olympic game highlights and contemplating whether that shabby delivery boy is the one who actually makes my Tiffin.

Then, there is a chatting-cum-music hearing-cum-reading-cum-mail checking-cum-googling-cum-contest registering-cum-previous contests’ result checking-cum-frowning at the result session that starts at around 11:30 PM. This is when I end my day at around 02:00 AM in the morning.

On a lighter note, this schedule also has some interesting sports, competitions, paper presentations, festivals, excellent guest lectures, wonderful regular lectures which add a spice to the whole thing. I think this hectic but enjoyable schedule is something that makes B-School experience pleasing.

Coming back to the topic, I wasn’t able to go home for some time because of such self-inflicted hectic (or is it?) schedule and finally, after getting ultimatum from my sister on Rakhi, I went to my home and in its cosy comfort again.

You don’t realise the importance of your home and your family unless you are away from it for some time, especially if you’ve lived in your home all you life... like me. I used to take everything for granted when I was staying at my own home for 25 years but it is only now that I have come to understand the importance of my home and family. On that senti note and with “Koi Aaney Wala Hai...” from Strings playing in the background, I think I should head to bed now...

Goal

2008-07-10T11:44:00.003+05:30

"What is your ultimate goal in life?" That was the question I was asked in the 'Values in Management' class the other day... I must admit that I felt the same what Rakhi Sawant would... when asked “What do you think about being sensible?”

“I want to be happy”, I said - An all inclusive and simple answer. But, what is it that makes me happy? Money, Power, Friends, Family, What? It is very uncharacteristic of me to think about such things, but one needs a mission statement in order to accomplish something. Ideally, I would want to accomplish whatever there is to be accomplished in the world. But, given the fact that there are only 55*365*24 hours of life left (in the best of conditions) to achieve whatever I want to achieve, I must cut down my wants to a few.

I know for sure that the money drives the world and can be traded for other mundane things in life... That makes money the most important thing to gain. What is money if you cannot put it to use for your loved ones... That means I want a very good family and friends with whom I can share my life (and money), go on a lot of vacations and spend a lot of time.

There are several ways to achieve my first want. Let me start with the simple ones...

I can just do nothing about my want and let my luck (which has been a not seen, not heard, not felt thing till now) play its own role. May be I will continue to do what I am doing at present and expect some amir baap ki beti to marry me or maybe I will win a billion dollar lottery some day. Again, given the reality of lack of luck in my life and my inability to attract girls like that guy in the axe advertisement (Read as my decency), I need to find out better ways to earn money.

This leaves me with only one more option... Study a lot, earn a handful of degrees, work with the best of the companies at best of the positions earning best of the salaries and earn money. But, more salary means more work, more business trips and less time with family and friends. That means my two wants are conflicting and I need to maximize both when both are negatively correlated (Yes, I also have a stats professor who asks me questions and he teaches me things that help me analyse things like correlation coefficient between the number of words spoken by the professor in the class and the number of paper-planes created-launched and crashed by the students in the class)

Jokes apart, I think when there is a conflict between my two wants, I would prefer my family and friends over money. I just hope that my family and friends make a lot of money so that I need not face such hard times ever ;-)

Among the other breaking news, I have been starving for a few days now and extracting all the nutrients that I need for survival from the cutting chai served at a tapri near college. The phenomenon has obviously taken a toll on my health and I have not been able to pretend to concentrate in the classes these days. This may seem to be an overstatement considering the fact that I live in Mumbai but I have really come to understand the worth of ghar ka khana while I have been away from home. So, weekend or off-day food at home is like a grand party for me these days.

Anyway, that is enough for now; a garma garam cutting followed by lot of knowledge-imparting classes are waiting for me...

Mutual Funds are subject to manipulation by distributors. Please know your basics well before investing

2008-05-19T21:22:00.016+05:30

Has your investment advisor ever advised you to buy a mutual fund because the fund has announced a cool 30% dividend? Chances are that he has because mutual fund distributors are luring people into buying mutual funds by telling them about the 10-20 odd percent dividend the fund has declared. Dividend within a week of investing into the fund… Sounds Cool… Isn’t it? But wait a minute, there is more to it than what meets the eye.

Consider the dividends declared by different tax saving ELSS (Equity linked Saving Scheme) funds

Birla Equity Plan (Mar-08)
Birla Sun Life Tax Relief 96 (Mar-08)
SBI Magnum Tax Gain (Feb-08)
HDFC Tax Saver (Mar-08)
Sundaram BNP Paribas Tax Saver (Mar-08)
Principal Tax Saving (Mar-08)
Fidelity Tax Advantage (Mar-08)
DSP - ML tax Saver (Feb-08)
Lotus India Tax Plan (Jan-08)

Most of the funds seem to have declared the dividends during last few months of the financial year, the time at which most of the people do their tax planning and thus invest in mutual funds and other instruments. The distributors use these dividends to attract the investors. However, investors have to realize that they are at a big loss when they buy into a mutual fund just before the record date (the date on which you should have the units of the fund on your name in the books to be eligible for dividend). This is a classic case of miss selling. Let’s see how…

Let’s get to the basics first. As we all know, mutual funds are a form of collective investment which enable many people to pool in funds and have a common diversified portfolio managed through professional fund managers at relatively low costs. The NAV or Net Asset value of a fund is
NAV= (Total Holdings Value+ Cash)/ No of units sold

When a mutual fund declares a dividend, it liquidates its holdings and converts them into cash for distribution to the unit holders. Consider a fund having total assets worth 1000 Rupees and 100 outstanding units. So, the NAV of the fund is 1000/100=10. Now, if the fund announces a dividend of Rupees 5/unit, then it sells off its holdings worth Rupees 500 to generate Rupees 500 worth cash which is then distributed to the unit holders. So, its NAV reduces to a value which is approximately equal to the dividend declared (approximately and not exactly because of certain variables like portfolio appreciation on the record date, dividend distribution tax, etc) . This means that you are, in effect, being returned your money back when you receive a dividend payout by a mutual fund.

Consider a scenario where you have Rupees 1000 to invest in a mutual fund scheme. The fund has an entry load (the initial amount deducted towards distribution/ marketing costs) of 2%. The Fund NAV before dividend is Rupees 10 and the dividend declared is Rupees 5/unit.
When you invest the amount just before the record date, the fund deducts 2% entry load i.e. Rupees 20. Part of this amount is handed over to the advisor as a commission. For simplicity, assume that the entire entry load is passed onto the distributor as commission. So, in our case, your investment advisor gets Rupees 20 in commission. Out of the remaining amount (i.e. Rupees 980), the fund units are bought for you at the prevailing NAV (i.e. Rupees 10/unit). So you have 98 units of the fund before record date. Post record date, you get a dividend of Rupees 5/unit. (i.e. 98 X 5 = 490 Rupees)

Case I (Before Dividend)

Total Amount	Fund NAV	Units owned	Amount in Fund	Cash Owned	Commission Paid
1000	10	98.00	980.00	0.00	20.00
(Investment, After Dividend is declared)
1000	5	98.00	490.00	490.00	20.00

This means that in effect, to invest 490 rupees in the fund, you end up paying 20 rupees load (or commission)

On the other hand, if you buy into a mutual fund just after the record date, you end up paying lesser commission. Consider the case when you invest rupees 500 in the same fund on the next day of the record date. The 2% load is deducted in this case also and amounts to Rupees 10. Out of the remaining amount, (i.e. Rupees 490), the units are bought for you at the prevailing NAV (i.e. Rupees 5/unit). So, even in this case you have 98 units of the fund at a purchase price of Rupees 5/unit

Case II (After Dividend)

Total Amount	Fund NAV	Units owned	Amount in Fund	Cash Owned	Commission Paid
1000	5	98.00	490.00	500.00	10.00

In both the cases mentioned above, effectively, the investor has same amounts invested in the fund. This means that the chances of capital appreciation are exactly the same in both the cases. However, in the first case, the investor ends up paying extra load and has less cash available with him.

It is clear from the above example that the distributors have a selfish intent in promoting and selling mutual funds just before they declare dividends. The investor, on the other hand loses out. Please note that the mutual funds do not claim that buying a fund before dividend is profitable... but again, they do not clarify this fact either. So, next time, do a little bit of homework before you take advice from a distributor. It is your hard earned money after all…

HR - Human Rigging

2008-04-15T21:26:00.004+05:30

Look what I found in my mailbox the other day...

One day while walking down the street a highly successful Human Resources Manager was tragically hit by a bus and she died. Her soul arrived up in heaven where she was met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter himself.

"Welcome to Heaven," said St. Peter. "Before you get settled in though, it seems we have a problem. You see, strangely enough, we've never once had a Human Resources Manager make it this far and we're not really sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in," said the woman.

"Well, I'd like to, but I have higher orders. What we're going to do is let you have a day in Hell and a day in Heaven and then you can choose whichever one you want to spend an eternity in."

"Actually, I think I've made up my mind, I prefer to stay in Heaven", said the woman

"Sorry, we have rules..."

And with that St. Peter put the executive in an elevator and it went down-down-down to hell.

The doors opened and she found herself stepping out onto the putting green of a beautiful golf course. In the distance was a country club and standing in front of her were all her friends - fellow executives that she had worked with and they were well dressed in evening gowns and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both cheeks and they talked about old times. They played an excellent round of golf and at night went to the country club where she enjoyed an excellent steak and lobster dinner.

She met the Devil who was actually a really nice guy (kind of cute) and she had a great time telling jokes and dancing. She was having such a good time that before she knew it, it was time to leave. Everybody shook her hand and waved goodbye as she got on the elevator.

The elevator went up-up-up and opened back up at the Pearly Gates and found St. Peter waiting for her.

"Now it's time to spend a day in heaven," he said. So she spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and singing. She had great time and before she knew it her 24 hours were up and St. Peter came and got her.

"So, you've spent a day in hell and you've spent a day in heaven. Now you must choose your eternity,"

The woman paused for a second and then replied, "Well, I never thought I'd say this, I mean, Heaven has been really great and all, but I think I had a better time in Hell."

So St. Peter escorted her to the elevator and again she went down-down-down back to Hell.

When the doors of the elevator opened she found herself standing in a desolate wasteland covered in garbage and filth. She saw her friends were dressed in rags and were picking up the garbage and putting it in sacks.

The Devil came up to her and put his arm around her.

"I don't understand," stammered the woman, "yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and we danced and had a great time. Now all there is a wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable."

The Devil looked at her smiled and told...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
"Yesterday we were recruiting you, today you're an Employee"

True... Very true... What about the nice HR lady who wooed me into my first job during my campus placement...

And what about the glossy, well-lit conference rooms that lured me into my second...

Money Matters...

2008-03-01T22:38:00.004+05:30

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The downside of democracy

2007-08-05T11:17:00.000+05:30

The verdict is finally out on India’s most long-drawn trial, ‘The 93 Mumbai bomb blasts case’; and of all the acquitted and convicted, possibly the most celebrated, hyped and covered by media of all the accused, was Munnabhai Sanjay Dutt. He has been sentenced to six years’ rigorous imprisonment. There have been loud cries from his colleagues in Bollywood and his fans world over, about the ruling. They believe that he is innocent and six years’ imprisonment is too harsh a sentence for carrying a mass destruction weapon by an adult. Ever since the judgment (and even before the judgment day), TV channels have been airing the sympathetic reactions of the common Indian man for Sanjay Dutt. Fair enough, we are the largest democracy in the world and every one of us has a right to express our opinions about everything happening in the country. That, I think, is the downside of living in an uncontrolled democracy. Reserved and narrow-minded as it may sound, I think too much pressure was being put on to the judiciary system by portraying the sympathies of common Indian man in every possible way and through every possible means in Sanjay Dutt’s case. What we should understand is that democracy lets you express your opinions but this expression should be used with utmost care and responsibility; and now, in this flat world, more than ever, where opinion of common man counts.

It is a paradox, how we fail to understand in today’s world of specialization that it is not us but the judiciary system that is specialized in the skill of judgment. I am not saying that we should tight shut our lips even if we feel strongly against a decision, but converging general opinion to pressurize the judicial mechanism (especially by media) is unfair. We do not rely on general public opinion when deciding the monetary policy, the intricate details of our nuclear deal with US; because we know that there are people who understand these fields much better than we do. We cannot take every Indian’s opinion while we take policy decisions on important things like these.

Should a democracy not count on its people for the course of its direction then? Obviously it should. But we need to modify the phrase ‘where every opinion counts…’ a little to ‘where every sensible opinion counts…’. Audiovisual media, I think, is anything but sensible these days and deserves a control on its content. It may sound undemocratic, but I think, it is fair to say that control should be imposed on those who fail to understand their role and responsibilities in a true democracy like it is imposed on a criminal.

It is a fine line, between controlling public opinions and suppressing them. But that’s what separates a democracy from a successful one.

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”- Not worth the Hype?

2007-07-14T16:52:00.000+05:30

As any other Harry Potter aficionado, the month of July 2007 is like a dream come true for me. This month, new movie in the Harry Potter series, ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’, released on 11th July and now, on 21st July, the last book in the HP series, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’, will be published. With two weeks advance booking even before its release, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was the most anticipated movie release in the history of the Hollywood. However, I was thoroughly disappointed when I actually got to see the movie.

Movie, a failed attempt
J. K. Rowling gets better at portraying Harry’s character and the events around him with each book in the HP series. The most impressive aspect of Rowling’s writing style is the way she gets into details of characters and events. While reading the book, she easily manages to create each and every character and scene in the reader’s mind. The fifth book in the series can be most easily summarized as a pre-cursor to a final showdown between lord Voldermot and the magical world. I think it would be more than asking for a movie to match the entertainment quotient of the book but I find that the movie lacks depth and tries to include too much without really including too muchfrom the book, causing a bit of confusion, especially to the first time HP audience, who’ve no idea about the HP world. The movie has also ignored a few important events like ‘Rita Skeeter’s article in the Quibbler’ and ‘Hagrid’s journey to the giants’ land’. It is clearly seen in the movie that director is short of time and has managed to create a mess with the same actors, same writer and better visual effects. I think the movie is not worth the hype created around it.

The last book
I am very certain that the forthcoming book will be the best in the series and fans can expect sheer excitement as Harry takes on lord Voldermot in the final battle. I am hoping that it would be a happy ending with Harry managing to destroy the Darklord without losing many of his friends. Can’t wait to get my hands on the book…

Gratefulness…

2007-06-05T23:48:00.000+05:30

Before I start this post, a word of thanks to Rahul Gaitonde, who posted one of my older posts on Nokia N-Gage (:-) Keep on writing buddy, someone is reading :-D) on his blog and rekindled my writing spirit. It is like Amitji watching Himesh Reshamiya’s attempt at acting in ‘Aap Ka Suroor’ and appreciating it. Gives me enough fillip to create ‘Aap Ka Suroor – 2’, nonetheless. The only sad part is that I have replaced my ‘N-Gage Classic’ with the ‘Nokia N-70 Music Edition’ phone. After much R&D, I managed to narrow down on this one. Other phones which I considered were Nokia E-62, Nokia E-61 and Sony-Ericsson w810i. This time, I wanted a phone that looked like a phone and thus had to eliminate both the E-series phones. Another shortcoming of E-series phones is the lack of FM tuner. What made me decide on N70ME over w810i was the 1GB RSMMC, familiar Symbian OS environment and the fact that I was upgrading from one of the first generation N-series phones (Yes, I’ve heard that N-Gage Classic and N-Gage QD were the first two N-series phones).

The Nokia N70 Music Edition

It's a 108.8 x 53 x 17.5 mm, 126 grams black phone with Triband GSM and WCDMA. It comes with 22MB internal memory, a 176 x 208, 256K colour TFT screen, a 2MP camera and a VGA camera. On the connectivity front, it supports GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Bluetooth 2.0 and USB Pop-port.

On the software side, it has Symbian OS 8.1a (S60 UI) and comes pre-loaded with a lot of software like QuickOffice suite, Acrobat Reader, etc. Has decent stereo sound output and comes with a 1GB RSMMC, enough to store around a couple of hundred mp3s. And this feature-packed phone comes at a price of INR 13200.

Pros and Cons

Has looks of a decent executive phone

Has next generation connectivity options like 3G and EDGE, lacks WLAN though

Good PIM capabilities

2MP Camera comes with a cover

Not very impressive battery life

Decent Sound quality, but inferior to most of the walkman phones

Comes pre-loaded with useful software

Comes pre-loaded with 100 songs (No necessity at all)

Visual Radio

Why Music Edition?
The things that differentiate an N70 from an N70ME are

1 GB RSMMC

ME Headphones

100 pre-loaded songs

The music edition headphones are the ones that come with an N71. I haven’t really compared these with the N70 headphones but I’ve heard that they are better than the original N70 headphones. Visual Radio (FM Tuner) makes it a complete music phone.

What has changed?
One striking difference between N-Gage Classic and the N70ME is the ease by which I can set up the phone for different functionality. Settings’ Wizard lets me configure, GPRS and EDGE for any GSM operator in India at the click of a button. Configuring GPRS in N-Gage Classic was more complex. Things like connectivity with PC, Synchronization, etc have all become a layman’s stuff as opposed to techie stuff earlier.
All in all, N70 Music Edition is a great value for money buy.

Talking of music, Sleeveless Mini Mathur – 3 ;-) has commenced and this time the judges include Udit Narayan, Alisha Chinay, Javed Akhtar and the ever-available Anu Malik. If you have no clue what I’m talking about, it’s Indian Idol -3. Lack of Sonu Nigam on the panel of judges hurts but again, can be done away with so long as Mini is hosting the show. It still being the early, piano round episodes, I get to hear more of music and less of those emotional result declaration episodes where everyone takes Atalji-style pauses wherever possible.

Among the other things, I have learnt the macro-economics behind the relationship between inflation, money supply and appreciating Rupee, the hard way. Having bought a lot of tech-stocks on correction, and having averaged out on every subsequent correction, here’s my attempt at explaining the rupee appreciation.

The Rupee appreciation was a long anticipated event taking into consideration, deluge of foreign investment (FDI and FII) inflows in the recent past and around 200 billion dollars worth foreign reserves in the Indian exchequer. However, like india, most of the Asian countries have prevented their currencies from appreciating for a long time now in the fear of losing out on exports to their other Asian counterparts. However, in the backdrop of high inflation at the time when some of Indian states are going to polls, government took every possible measure from CRR hikes to price control threats to some industries to curb inflation. The appreciating rupee came to the rescue here as rising rupee means cheaper imports and thus lower costs. The RBI intervened as little as possible and let the rupee appreciate. Weakening of dollar against all major currencies was also one of the causes of rupee appreciating against the dollar. Now, with inflation tamed to a more acceptable level and exporters crying out loud against this sharp rise, government has assured the India Inc. against any such further sharp movements in the rupee. However, as told by commerce minister, Mr. Kamal Nath, appreciating rupee in the long term is a fact of Indian economy and that whether they like it or not, the exporters have to live with it. Huh!!! I think that is enough for today…

Media Blunders...

2007-04-29T18:17:00.000+05:30

Here are a few media goof-ups I've come across in the last few months... One, hardly expected whereas the other one, highly expected... Have a look...

1. Moneycontrol.com website (Jan 07)

Poll Question: What is your trading strategy?

Choices for answer: a) Yes b)No c) Can't Say?

Now Come on... Even Udayan Mukherjee, who is generally very good at shooting impeccably obvious answers to equally obvious questions cannot answer this one ;-)... Or [;)] (Now, that's a lot of orkutting)

2. Zee News (July 06)
The news anchor was openly addressing former Maharashtra CM and now MP, Mr. Manohar Joshi as senior BJP leader 'Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi'. What can I say about this one? I am uploading the video which I could fortunately record...

Talking money... For a change...

2007-04-22T13:03:00.000+05:30

After losing some money during my last few investments in the market, I've been reading some stuff about TA and FA in capital markets.

This is the best article describing 'Dow Theory' I have come across till now:
Check out here

This is another TA article which throws some light on the 'Elliot Wave Theory':
Check out here

Anticipating Nifty

Applying the Dow stuff to Nifty charts, we can see that there seems a Secondary Bearish move inside the overall Bullish Primary move. However, instead of eating into around half of the gains of the last move, Nifty has broken previous low during last correction. This means that though the market has almost recovered from the last correction, a further downside is possible in the Nifty in the medium to long term. It may possibly mean the end of the Primary Bullish move. Any how, TA tells me not to take any new positions at this time and wait for further signals.

Indian Retail Industry… What does the future hold?

2006-12-03T00:09:00.000+05:30

US based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest retailer, is entering India's sprawling retail market through a tie up with Bharti Enterprises Ltd. In the future, we will have many such cases of global retailers entering Indian markets, given the huge Indian consumer base and growth across all sectors of the economy generating a positive wealth effect of sorts.

According to KSA Technopak, a consultancy firm, the Indian retail market is projected to grow from US$300 Billion in 2006 to US$637 Billion by 2015 as GDP rises from US$804 Billion to US$1.7 Trillion over the same period. The bulk of the market is unorganised with less than 5% being classified as ‘organised retail’. The urban market is 45% of India's retail market, with the top 784 cities alone accounting for US$105 billion in retail sales. The rural market is dispersed over 627,000 villages, though it has a concentration around a core 100,000 villages that account for 50% of the rural population. Indian retail has a unique concept of ‘Kiranawallahs’, family run small shops.

With global players all set to capture the Indian retail, the Indian businesses have also recognised the opportunity and recently few large businesses have jumped into retailing. Reliance entered the retail market by opening its chain of Reliance Fresh hypermarkets in the city of Hyderabad. Reliance is expected to pump in close to US $ 5 billion in the next five years to build a chain of thousands of such shops across urban and rural India. The Aditya Birla Group is reported to be putting together a plan for a similar venture in the retail space. The group may invest upwards of US$3 billion to set up 6,000 stores within three years, with the first stores set to open by middle of next year. Pantaloon Retail, an earlier entrant to retail in India, has aggressive plans to double its retail space to 8 million sq ft within a year and to 30 million sq ft by 2010. It owns the most successful Big Bazaar/ Food Bazaar chain of retail shops. Godrej Agrovet and ITC (e-choupal) are large payers focusing primarily on the rural sector. Godrej plans to launch 1,000 Aadhar stores in rural India by 2010. The Tata Group is also getting involved in the business in a big way with Infiniti Retail venture. It has already opened its Chroma chain of consumer electronics shops across Mumbai. Global players like French retailer Carrefour, UK based Tesco are some of the other biggies in the pipeline waiting for their share of the action.

The Left is opposing such a generous liberalisation of the Indian markets. They believe that the scale and efficiency of the operations of the mammoth global retailers will hit the business of small family run Kiranawallah Shops and will leave millions of people jobless. The global players, on the other hand, are arguing that they will be targeting only the cream of the Indian consumer base in the urban India and will not affect Kiranawallahs in any significant way. They also argue that large Indian retailers like Reliance, Pantaloons, etc are also posing similar threat to the small retailers, if at all. Whatever may be the fate of the smaller retailers, the consumers will surely win with maturing retail market. Long used to shopping in packed and dusty marketplaces, they will flock to the neat, air-conditioned malls, fascinated by the convenience of one-stop shopping, a wide range of products to choose from, and significantly lower prices than they pay today. The savings will likely find their way back via higher consumption, helping drive the economy. Tax collections will also increase as more retail sales flow through the organised trade. Farmers and other suppliers who are able to deliver against the stringent quality requirements placed on them by modern retail will benefit from higher prices as middlemen get cut out of the supply chain. Landowners and real estate developers will laugh all the way to the bank as multi-billion dollar investments compete for limited supply of space.

So, what does the future hold for big retailers, Kiranawallahs and consumers?

As I’ve already mentioned, consumers are in for a good time for sure.

Contrary to general opinion, I think that the local Kiranawallahs are in a vantage position. They already have a loyal consumer base in place in rural as well as urban India. The young Indian consumer may be charmed by the large, brilliantly lit malls, larger than life shopping experience and loads of so called discounts, but small shops can counter these by their customised, personalised services. They will have to unite and achieve the benefits of scale which the bigger retailers enjoy. They will have to drastically change the way they services their consumers and innovate and they can survive this revolution in the Indian retail. The Kiranawallahs are placed in the vicinity of their consumers and this is where they score over the larger retailers. My local Kiranawallah almost knows all my family’s preferences right from the brand of the oil that we use to the quantity of wheat floor that we consume every month. For all my sundry orders like a loaf of bread, a bottle of ketchup, a pack of Maggie, I cannot go to a large retailer’s shop. My local Kiranawallah turns to my help in such cases. Indian consumer is not used to doing all his shopping for the month at one go. With the increasing share of organised retail in the Indian retail industry, the consumer will also have to transform itself into an organised consumer. If all small retailers in an area come together to give a basket of services to the consumers in the area then Kiranawallahs can very well survive alongside the big retailers. I really think that Kiranawallahs can see through this retail restructuring if they believe that they can counter bigger retailers and innovate.

As for large retailers, not everything is as good as it seems. There are already half a dozen players who have either announced their entry or are already operating in the organised retail. There will be enormous advertising and consumer education expenses that these larger players will have to bear. Immense competition in the large players will see a fierce price battle and will reduce the margins drastically. Foreign retailers cannot mimic their US or Europe business models directly into India as Indian consumer has its own characteristics and Indian market is like no other markets they’ve been before in. Only a few players with superior supply chain and consumer reach will survive this revolution.
Indian retail is trying to achieve in a decade what other developed retail markets have achieved in a span of two to three decades. This very fact makes this transition period very interesting. No one knows who will survive and who will not but consumers are surely in for a good time.

Grasshopper

2006-11-30T23:25:00.000+05:30

The other day, a nice little green insect came into my bedroom (After a bit of googling I found out that it is called GrassHopper ;-)). Interesting thing is that, it too didn't have much work like me and thus a stage was set for a long photo-shoot. These are some of the stills from the shoot:

These are considerably scaled down versions of the original images. I can even zoom onto the little baby ( that's my assumption) in the insect's womb in the original pictures... That reminds me... Are insects oviparous?

2006-10-20T13:59:00.000+05:30

This is the view from my room's window... On one of those relaxed hot coffee evenings...

and this one's half an hour later...

The Donkey

2006-10-13T15:12:00.001+05:30

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

MORAL :
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

Update: 28th Nov 2008
I have been retold this story by one of my professors. The story is now called 'The Dunky Story'.

Can Dada make it into Blues once again?

2006-10-03T22:47:00.000+05:30

Challenger Trophy is on. Though, Indian squad has already been chosen for Champions’ Trophy, this tournament provides much needed hope for many former Indian team members to get back into the team. Their performance vis-à-vis frontline Indian cricketers is their only chance of proving to the selectors that they have what it takes to be in the final 14 and who can know this better than Sourav Dada… Dada is playing in the Indian Greens (Least favorite team to win the tournament) under the captaincy of Mohammed Kaif. It is strange how life can quickly turn tables on you. Who could have ever imagined that the Legend, Sourav Ganguly will have to prove himself for a place in the Indian cricket team and that too under the captaincy of Mohammed Kaif? I don’t know why but when I saw tired-looking but determined Sourav Ganguly trying his every bit to perform, I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry more than I do when I see Salman Khan acting in the movies. I think Dada is really determined to make it to the final 14 and though his performance in the first match does not approve so, sooner or later he will stage a come back.

The challenger trophy reminds me of the chunk of time I have wasted watching the first two matches of the tournament. At times I ponder my sudden shot- term love for time consuming things as unimportant as the Challenger Trophy and prime time soaps as hackneyed as ‘Left Right Left’ when I am preparing for some exam or the other. I had developed a liking for ‘Remix’ last time round when I was to appear for my eighth semester exams.

Among the other things, I can now access orkut from my office… I am logged into orkut from 9-6 these days and every time I open orkut window to scrap someone, my ML peeps into my computer… I have a feeling that he thinks I am logged onto some matrimony site and badly searching for a girl to marry, thanks to the way orkut GUI has been designed… This has, by the way, softened his attitude towards me which is palpable from the kind of work I have been getting…

I have been thinking about saving tax these days… I have gone through considerable amount of material on investments, mutual funds and taxation in the past few days. I think the government is looting us of our salaries and that it would be better if we paid a monthly fee for all the services that the government is making us available. I have made a preliminary analysis of my risk appetite. According to it, I need to invest about 65% of my savings in the equity and related instruments. Now I also know that NSC is a damn bad idea for investing which yields 8% returns 5% of which is eaten up by the inflation. More about my investment tips in the posts to come…

Appraisal, Increment and Job of Receptionist

2006-09-06T01:23:00.000+05:30

I was confirmed into TCS last week with a not so bad rating (this actually means outstanding… but I don’t want to blow my own horn you see…). There was a formal evaluation of my deeds (or misdeeds) in TCS by my ML which turned out to be not so bad :-D. Most of the people I know were unhappy about their evaluation and some more research made me realize that this is a very common thing in the IT industry: ‘People not being happy with their appraisals’. The very thing was enough to put me into my favorite contemplating mood. According to me current evaluation practices are a complete failure (take my case for example ;-)). Reasons of failure are:
• Most of us are miles away from the reality and perceive ourselves to be what we want to be rather than what we are.
• We have this perception that animals belonging to the “Boss” category are here to damage our career and can do no good to us. True as this may be to an extent; this is not the truth always.
• Then again there are some unavoidable stupid practices like curve fitting, etc.

I personally think that the task of valuation of human resource in any organization should be strictly quantitative and should follow quantitative performance measurement rather than subjective appraisals. Old fashioned as it may sound, I think it is the only solution to making us realize about our shortcomings.

My company policy document says that my confirmation also lets me enjoy a salary increment and access to a host of company facilities (I am yet to know these facilities though). Jubilant I have already spent a considerable future income last week to celebrate my confirmation. On my hit list this time, were:

A cool 5.1 MP Sony Cybershot DCS W5 Digicam

A sleek HS-11W Bluetooth Headset from Nokia

More on these beauties in the posts to come…

After my confirmation, increment and valuation by seniors I could not keep myself from floating my resume on a few job sites just to find out my real worth in the job market. The results were shocking… After a few call centre job offers, today my CV was short listed for the job of a receptionist.

Conclusion: I am not in any hurry to change my job just now…

KANK is Kyon Ki Saans Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.zip

2006-08-19T18:27:00.000+05:30

Last week everyone on this planet seemed to have only one thing on their mind. Karan Johar's Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna or KANK as they call it. A handful of channels had joined hands with Karan to trick everyone into watching this film. Yesterday, I was forcefully taken to the cinema hall and made to watch KANK and my verdict about the film is that KANK is Kyon ki Saans bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (or any of its counterparts) zipped into 3 hours...

Karan has managed to sign best of stars in the industry so that lack of good direction can be done away with. It is a story of two couples. They do not have so called successful marriages but are afraid to accept this fact. First couple is Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta. Preity plays this ambitious, intelligent, charismatic career oriented girl whose boss has hots for her. Shahrukh Khan is a good at heart but eccentric ex-footballer. He has lost his leg and thus his career in an accident right at the time when his career was at its peek. Preity has to assume the responsibility of "Ghar ka Mard" due to inability of her handicapped husband to earn money. Being a complete failure himself, Shahrukh Khan has a lot of broken dreams which he wants to fulfill through his son.

The other couple is Rani Mukherjee and Abhishek Bachchan. Rani plays the character of a simple girl who loves cleanliness and is not sure if she is really happy with her husband. Abhishek Bachchan plays Rani’s husband and he loves her very much. Rani is incapable of having a child and Abhishek every now and then makes her realize that he is okay with all this and will never ever make her aware of her incapacity.

Amitabh Bachchan and Kiron Kher are also thrown in to provide some nonsense comedy and some equally nonsense philosophy about love and life. Then, somewhere down the line, not happy with their partners, Shahrukh and Rani fall in love with each other. They know that this is going to tear apart their marriages but have no control over them and rightly so as Amitabh says before dying in the movie, “Mohobbat aur Maut, dono bin bulaye mehemaan hote hain, aur kisikaa saath naahi chodte…” After cheating their partners for quite some time, Shahrukh and Rani decide to let know their partners, the truth. After this, Shahrukh and Preity separate and so do Abhishek and Rani. However, as they always do, for no particular reason, Shahrukh and Rani pretend to each other that their corresponding partners have accepted them even after their misdeeds. Around ten minutes before the film ends, Preity meets Rani in a party and tricks Rani into spending the rest of her life with her eccentric ex-husband.

Touchy? I did not cry this time…
I’ve heard this from a few people. They say the movie is really touchy and addresses some of the complexities of human relationships. I must make a confession here… I cried like anything after I saw Million Dollar Baby, Titanic, Rang De Basanti and a bunch of other movies… But I did not cry this time (but again, neither did I laugh). So, for me the movie is anything but touchy…

Misdirected Direction
Is it Comedy? Is it a serious portrayal of extra martial relationships? I think it is nonsense. The film (if at all it tries to) fails to send across any message to the viewer… KANK has finest actors in the industry but the story does injustice to the acting skills of these actors. All of them have acted well but as a whole, the movie fails to make any mark. So, in all, KANK is shot completely outside India, at some of the most magnificent locations, with some of the best actors in the industry and all of this compensates for the poor direction or lack of it.

Box Office Story
Box office, however, has a different tale to tell. The movie has grossed record high earnings in US and UK. In the first week, the total earnings of KANK outside India are more than those in India. The movie is rated “Super hit”. This only means that a majority of Hindi film viewers have a different taste and expectations from Hindi movies and will ignore my post.

Why Kyon Ki Saans Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.zip?
Finally, if I want to summarize KANK, I will say “It is some nonsense comedy, nonsense emotional drama packaged in with best actors, poor direction by a lady ;-) and awesome locations. Though I may not believe it but people have liked it and I am now regretting my decision to watch it.” All of the above also hold true for those family soaps on TV at prime time like KSBKBT. Thus KANK is a KSBKBT.zip.

A wise decision... Huh!!!

2006-07-04T12:51:00.000+05:30

I have banned some very entertaining Hindi News Channels for viewing from yesterday night. I'll surely miss out something on the entertainment front but again, excessive laughter is also harmful for your health. Actually, I have been watching a lot of TV these days because I was stuck in the house as heavens broke out once again in Mumbai. I was surfing through all the news channels, hoping to see any news regarding 'Citywide Holiday' being aired on any of the news channels. Each and every news channel was breaking this news that "It is raining very heavily in Mumbai". Deepaks (News Correspondents) of every news channel were reporting from each and every remote corner of the city and trying to prove that their area is the worst-hit area in the city.

News Centre Lady: Aaj Takriban ek saal baad firse Mumbai sheher main Jhama-Jham (I like that word) barishne apna keher barpaa hain... Log abhi 26 July ka woh hadsaa bhulne ki koshishhi kar rahe the ke kudratne apne takat ka Mumbai wasiyonko ek baar fir andaza dila diya... Pichle chaar dinse Mumbai mein Musaladhar barish ho rahi hain aur Mumbaike sare nichle ilakon mein pani bharne laga hain... Is bareme aur jankari leneke liye chalte hain Hamare sanwaaddata Deepak ke paas jo is waqt Mumbai ke Andheri ilake main maujood hain Deepak hamein batayiye ke ab waha kaise halat hain?

Deepak: (Suddenly realizing that he is on camera and bringing India-Pakistan war wala emotion on his face) Aparna Pichle chaar dinse yahan jordaar barish chal rahi hain aur sheherke sare nichle ilakon main ab pani bhar chuka hain... Log abhi dare huein hain aur gharse bahar nikalneko katra rahe hain (On second thought, I realized that Deepak had conveyed exactly the same message as the News Centre Lady). Aparna, main abhi yahan Andherike J. B. Nagar ilake mein maujood hoon. (One more redundant sentence BTW, thatÂs where I live these days) Yahan subahse jordaar barish chal rahi hain. (Aaaah... This Deepak guy is getting on my nerves now) Jaisa ki aap dekh sakte hain yahan ab pani ghutnese bhi upar ja chuka hain (Huh, finally something new). Camera suddenly moves from Deepak to a sort of swimming pool in the middle of a road. A lot of people are struggling to move into the camera frame. Kids are jumping in the water and throwing water at the camera. Pretty girls are moving gracefully through the swimming pool as if these few moments of fame are going to bring them their first Bollywood assignment. Camera again moves on Deepak and Deepak again wears that same "India-Pakistan war" emotion. Yahan ab sare nale puri tarah bhar chuke hain aur kai nichle ilakon main logonke ghar mein bhi pani ja chuka hain. Jaisa ki aap dekh sakte hain kai jagah gadiyan bhi pani main doob chuki hain. (Has Tata Motors finally come up with Rs. 1 Lakh car that drowns in Ghutnetak aya hua pani?) Surprisingly Camera actually moves on a Maruti 800 almost drown in water. In the middle of all this, I got up and walked towards my window as I heard people shouting outside and to my surprise I found our very own Deepak standing near the end of the road where one could see some jama hua water... Deepak and gang were busy in that corner only and they had managed to spot probably the only drowning Maruti 800 in the Mumbai at the end of the road... Most of J. B. Nagar was free from water and still Deepak was busy gathering reports on something which was only a fraction of reality... I was shocked but resumed watching the exaggerated news again.

News Centre Lady: Deepak, wahan aur kitni barish hone ka andaza lagaya jar aha hain?
(Question of the day, I must say)

Deepak: Aparna, agar logonka kehena mane to aisi barish Mumbai mein har saal hoti hain... Logonka manna hain key eh yahan ke 100 saal purani drainage system ki problem hain aur na ki kudrat ki... (This guy will surely get a 0 in PI for relevant content. :-))

News Centre Lady: Deepak, Mausam vibhag ka kya kehna hain ke aisi barish aur kitni der chalegi? (Slightly changing the question so that Deepak can comprehend it)

Deepak: Aparna, Mausam vibhagka kehna hain ke kudrat ka yeh keher aur teen-char din tak chalega. Agar yahan aur do-teen din aisihi barish chalti rahi toh yahan ka sara janjeevan ast-vyast ho jayega. (What a short and sweet answer to probably the only sensible question)

News Centre Lady: Deepak, wahan prashasan kya kuch kar rahi hain aise halat se nipatne ke liye? And the news continued...

This tickled the ever busy contemplating neurons in my brains. I remember how media put an entertaining touch to the Mahajan story with news titled "Bhai bana Khooni" etc some time back... The other day some news channel was trying to find similarities between Rahul Dravid and Krissh. (C'mon how stupid can you get?) During Kargil war some channels had imported experts to discuss what will be the next move of Pakistan and the list goes on... I, therefore, in the best of my interest decide to give the same treatment to these channels as I did to those Prime time soaps long time back... From now on I will only be increasing TRPs of some quality news channels like CNBC TV 18 and CNN IBN...

Http://office.google.com

2006-06-25T14:00:00.000+05:30

This URL is soon going to be a reality. Google launched its online spreadsheet editing software Google spreadsheets last week.

With reference to my earlier post, I reiterate that google is thinking about waging a war with Microsoft in its very own, dominated market of ‘Office Automation Software’. Think about the scenario where your boss has asked you to give a presentation on ‘Recent Bear Run in Indian Markets’. You go to Google’s search engine http://www.google.com/ and quickly search some statistical data about the recent crash. Next, you prepare your report using Writely, an online document editing software that Google has bought recently. Google provides you with a G-drive of 5 GB capacity. Your report is stored safely online on Google’s powerful servers and you don’t even have to worry about the backups. You also create a small presentation using Google’s online Presentation software (Google Presenter or something?). Then you mail a copy of the report and the presentation to your boss using Google’s Gmail, a web based mailing software. Next day you walk into the office without carrying your presentation. You can easily download it onto your desktop in the office from Google’s G-Drive. After your presentation, some of your colleagues show interest in the topic and tell you that they’ve lost a hell lot of money in the crash. They ask you if you can guide them about investing into a bear market. You decide to start a blog, ‘Baring the Bear’, that allows not only you but also many more people to write about their trading strategies in the bear market.

One thing to notice here is that you have carried all of the above activities without using something you are so used to, the ‘Microsoft Office’. Google has launched a lightly loaded, online alternative for almost all the software in the ‘Microsoft Office’ suite as can be seen in the table below:

Microsoft Office Software	Google’s Online Alternative
Microsoft Office Word	Google Page Creator/ Writely
Microsoft Office Excel	Google Spreadsheets
Microsoft Office PowerPoint	???
Microsoft Office Access	Google base (I’ve heard)
Microsoft Office Outlook	Google Gmail

All these alternatives are not as feature packed as their Microsoft Office counterparts but most of the small businesses can manage their daily office work with these alternatives. For example, most of my work in the office and at home involves creating some documents with basic formatting, creating spreadsheets with embedded formulae, etc and I could almost manage it without ‘Microsoft Office’.

Next in line should be an online alternative to “Microsoft Office PowerPoint’. Google also needs to do a lot of work on adding a few advanced features to their software like ‘Automatic Index Creation’ in Word and so on.

Sometime back I felt that replacing software that resides on your desktop with some web based application is almost impossible. However, Google has already proved me wrong with all its new generation web applications. I have already started countdown to the day when the term ‘Microsoft Office’ will be replaced by the term ‘Google Office’.

My N-Gage

2006-06-05T17:56:00.000+05:30

Ever since I got my first smart-phone I wanted to write about "The New Generation Mobile Phones" and especially "My Nokia N-Gage Classic". I had bought it in the month of November year before last to celebrate my so-called good score in the 7th semester engineering exams (So-called because it was good when compared to my entire engineering academic performance till then… ;-)). It is a 3’’ X 7’’ black beauty that made my wallet lighter by around 10K rupees (No, I was not looted… It includes a 256 MB SD MMC). Actually it was the most precious thing I possessed then and it continues to be the most precious thing I possess till date (Yes I am earning these days but again I’ve become too lazy to go to mandi and buy some stuff apart from the fact I don’t like spending my hard earned money ;-)). I had done a lot of research on the Internet before narrowing down to this piece and among the other factors that influenced me to buy this one were its modest cost (other smart-phones where almost twice its price) and the fact that I can use it as a repellent for street dogs to bhagaofy them when I return home late in the night. Poor quadruped creatures really think that it is a stone and run away. :-D.

Going a bit technical it has a 104MHz ARM924 Processor, 3.4 MB System Memory, 3.5 X4.15 cm TFT screen, FM Radio, Hardwired MP3 Player, is enabled with Bluetooth 1.1, J2ME and GPRS and uses Symbian OS.

Going a bit aesthetic some people find its shape really sporty whereas some people think that if aliens use any mobile phone it is N-Gage.

I have increasingly grown dependent on the phone and now a normal life seems impossible without N-Gage. I get up in the morning with N-Gage alarming me at 6:30 sharp. The ‘Talking Clock App’ can play all sorts of monstrous sounds to wake me up. I am seriously thinking of recording my ML’s “Prasad, what are you doing today?” wala dialogue that he says with a “God, what an over smart, idiot you are” expression on his face to use as my wake-up alarm and frighten me up in the early hours. At eight o’clock it reminds me of important events of the day including anniversaries and birthdays. I never send any “Wish you many many happy returns…” SMS though, as ‘SMS-Timer App’ automatically does the job for me at 10 o’clock. While I am traveling to the office, I put on the headphones and listen to Malishka blabbering some useless stuff on 93.5 or at times the loads of Junglee Songs stored on my MMC. N-Gage has stereophonic output giving you an acceptable sound quality (though not as good as an IPod or a sony-ericsson W800i). In the meantime I update my daily expenses using ‘Money Manager App’ by adding an entry for the 11 rupees that I gave to the Rickshawwallah as I was a bit late as usual and was most likely to miss my bus. At this point, my analytical mind demands all sorts of statistical data about my expenses and I watch a tabular representation of all my expenses ranging from food to traveling. I frown after looking at a big 0 against the row having “Expenses on Girlfriend” header. After my bus reaches the office premises, N-Gage automatically switches to “Silent Mode” with ‘MiniGPS App’. It is one of the most intelligent Apps on my cell that actually uses and remembers the cell ids of different cells as I move around them and does anything from “Reminding me about buying a magazine when I pass by local Paperwallah or switch the cell off whenever I enter the office conference room. I immediately head towards the canteen when my ML calls up to know my whereabouts. Damn… I have ‘smartAnswer App’ working for me here… I press a short-cut key that plays traffic sound in the background and I tell my ML about the deadly Mumbai traffic and how I get stuck on road everyday (Probably he will give me a release from the project after listening to my sorrow story everyday ;-)). After making an entry of the lunch expenses in the canteen in the afternoon, I return back to my beloved chair and put the headphones back where they belong. Dhawal drops by in the lazy afternoon hours and challenges me to a one-on-one ‘Virtua Tennis Game’. After beating him badly in the game (He thinks I have better playing conditions as N-Gage's 9-way round cursor joystick allows me some magical shots that his bulky 6600 does not allow him to play) I get back to my work. At around 5:30 or so Yogita sends in a message on ‘Bluetooth Messenger’ to ask if I am going to join in for another half an hour of tea break in the canteen. I lock the PC, message Rohit on the Messenger about the important meeting in the canteen and get going. Late in the evening at around 8:30 Varun calls in from Chennai to update me about the newer problems that he’s introduced in his life on the day. He also uses some very decent language for our ML. I obviously have ‘Call Recorder App’ switched on to save our conversation for re-airing in the canteen at the evening meeting the next day. While coming back in the evening, I use ‘SmartMovie App’ to watch my Friends Collection on my cell. Watching on tiny screen is not very interesting I must say but kills time nonetheless. I go home and switch on my computer. I synchronize my mobile with the computer and also use ‘ProfiMail App’ to download my Gmail Inbox onto the mobile so that I can read mail whenever I have time. There are a hell lot of other things I do with my mobile like looking up meaning of words in the middle of a meeting when someone uses a word outside my limited vocabulary, Browsing from the mobile by sharing my computer’s internet connection over Bluetooth using ‘OperaMini App’and so on…

I wanted this post to be an informative one mentioning latest advances in the world of mobile phones and capabilities of Smart phones but it turned out to be an ode to my “Nokia N-Gage Classic”. I will cover technicalities of S60 phones in some other post.

By the way I still cannot stop myself from appreciating my phone a bit more and the latest news is that someone has recently offered me a resell value of Rs. 6000/- for my phone (Yes this time it is without that 256 MB MMC :-D). I am not going to give it up at any damn cost though.

World War 3 is Happening... Its between Google and Microsoft

2006-05-18T00:27:00.000+05:30

Yes... I confirm it from my side... Goggle is ready to take on Microsoft...

Look at this... This is an online substitute for Microsoft Office... It is called Google Page Creator.
Though in its early development stages, it promises to be a sufficiently feature-packed tool very soon... At least feature-packed enough to meet my needs and needs of millions of people like me. Creating and editing documents on web appears a bit too weird but not when Google Page Creator is around. They've again got AJAX working for them along with a good interface design resulting into a fairly responsive web application.

You can put in images, do basic formatting like bold, itallics, text color, bullets, fonts, alignment. All in all a nice idea implemented into an excellent product. I did not really like the name though. Innovators as they are.. they could have come up with a better name I guess...

Only missing thing is a Spell Check feature (I'm sure I make more spelling mistakes than the number of words in my posts) and a Search feature for Images and Content... But looking at the overall package that is absolutely pardonable...

Cancer cures Smoking...

2006-05-07T23:33:00.000+05:30

We’ve come a long way from those old Nirma Nirma washing powder Nirma… adds to these more mature and entertaining ones…

The Reservation Thing...

2006-04-18T22:53:00.000+05:30

BCCI to introduce 30% reservation for backward classes in Indian Team…

Indian Railways introduce 50% reservation for backward classes…

Passing percentage for backward classes reduced to 20%...

Backward classes need not pay taxes… Prime Minister…

Backward class people will live 30% longer… The Almighty (what the heck)

I will not be surprised if I get to read any of these in TOI in the morning some day. I had decided not to react on this “Reservation Thing” and express my views anywhere or sign any petition as petitions and protests are hardly paid any attention these days. But later I realized that this political stunt for votes has much more to it than just being a political stunt. This is the time when India seems to be making a mark of its own on the global map, thanks to its skilled workforce. This is the time when graduates from IITs and IIMs are recognized world over for their brilliance. This is the time when Indian IT biggies are being known for their processes and efficiency. I really think that introducing (or rather increasing) reservations in premier educational institutes in India as well as in India Inc. is not an ideal way to support the massive growth we are witnessing today.

Facts:

1. Government has almost made up its mind to increase OBC reservations in IITs, IIMs and other such premier educational institutes to 49% from current 27%.

2. Government has been urging India Inc. to introduce reservations in jobs for backward classes and is now hinting at introducing a law for the same.

India edging over India:

Indeed there is a huge population in India that still does not have access to good educational facilities. There is large rural youth population that does not have access to opportunities as in urban India. We have a problem at our hands here and it needs to be addressed but introducing reservations is going to make matters worse rather than improving them. There is more to the current reservation policy than what meets our eye. First, we need to think from the point of view of an underprivileged student, who will use such reservations…

Where’s the Competition?

Reservations kill the very element of competitiveness. We can introduce better basic education, schools and colleges, more seats and scholarships if we want more people to be a part of modern, developing India. According to me, assisting backward classes to grow is a better option than securing their growth and that too at the expense of someone else’s. We need “National Talent Schemes” for spotting and promoting talent in less privileged sections of society. An underprivileged student surely needs financial assistance for his studies but does he really need assistance in terms of “seats solely reserved” for him? In fact “reserved seats” keep him from trying his best as he surely knows that he does not have to compete with all the students to secure the seat but it’s only the students of his category he is competing against.

Brain Drain:

Thinking from the perspective of a student in general, if he is not able to fulfill his dreams here in India, he will go abroad and fulfill them. We are already seeing this trend in urban India. If the government continues to continue with its reservation policies, the “Brain Drain” is just going to get worse. I strongly oppose reservations introduced in higher education and especially those in IITs and IIMs. We need to keep in mind that IITs and IIMs are not just educational institutes but they are “Best Education” that India has to offer. People go to IITs and IIMs not only because they are brands that assure highest of salaries but also because they are home to some of India’s greatest minds. Interaction and competition with like minded peers is one of the greatest offering of these institutes. It is really unfair to introduce reservations and thus bring down the quality of students in these institutes.

Government’ Stand:

Here's what our respected PM Mr. Manmohan Singh had to say about the stand of the government on the issue:

"We all need to ensure that no group feels excluded from enjoying the fruits of rapid economic growth"
Surely, we need to make sure that India as a whole profits from the massive economic growth we are going through today. At the same time we should not forget the reasons for this rapid growth. It is highly skilled low cost workforce in IT and ITES that has helped our economy gain this momentum. It is those ambitious entrepreneurs from IITs and IIMs that have catapulted India in this vantage position. The very concept of introducing reservations reduces the competitiveness and thus our advantage in these fields.

"Opening up the economy has meant diminishing job opportunities for the socially disadvantaged"
If there is a considerable difference between the skill set of “Socially Advantaged” and “Socially Disadvantaged” people then it’s a failure on the government’s part. It means that the government has failed to narrow down this gap. It is highly foolish of the government to expect the Indian industry to pay the price of its misdeeds by introducing reservations in jobs.

India Inc.’s Stand:

India Inc. has clearly signaled its disapproval on this matter. Industries should concentrate on increasing their stake holder’s wealth rather than anything else if we are to survive in the opened-up economy against other global players. Industry thinks that everyone should come forward and do something voluntarily to improve the condition of the socially disadvantaged but introducing a law and forcing things is not a solution.

Solution:

India has to manage two things at the same time if it has to progress in a true sense. At one hand it has urban population that is living like people in any of the developed countries. These people are rich, have access to best of facilities. On the other hand, it has a large rural population devoid of all such facilities. This rural population cannot afford and does not have access to good educational facilities. But this distinction should solely be done on the basis of income of a family and not on the basis of “which caste it belongs to”. Again, scholarships would be much better as compared to “reserved seats”.

What next?

After strong opposition from the Indian Industry on “reservation in jobs”, the government has softened its stand a bit. Even the IITs and IIMs have not been informed about the new reservation policies. I hope this “Reservation thing” was a mere vote-magnet for the assembly elections and will soon be forgotten by everyone. If not so, we are surely in for a lot of debate and controversies.

Teams of the world... It's Showtime...

2006-03-12T09:42:00.000+05:30

A new season, a new beginning and a whole new look... Teams of the world... It's Showtime...

2006 promises to bring one of the most closely fought battles on the F1 circuits with Alonso all set to defend his crown and Kimi n Schumi fired up to challenge him. While everyone was away from all the action, there have been a few changes in the rules, teams and circuits as well.

Major rule changes this year include:

1. Teams now have to use 2.4 L V8 engines instead of 3.0 L V10s last year. This theoretically means lesser power, lesser speed and eventually a safer race. Some teams like Toro Rosso have been allowed to use last years V10s with a limit on their Revs which I'm sure is going to raise some eyebrows. For engine manufacturers, this change means that they'll have to work harder to make their new V8s stable and extract as much power from them as possible.

2. Last year's most controversial rule has now been taken back by FIA. So teams can now use 7 sets of dry-weather tires, 4 sets of wet-weather tires and 3 sets of extreme-weather tires. Does this mean that Bridgestones are back in the race? Only time will this but racing is surely going to get more interesting as drivers can draw out that extra bit of performance from cars without worrying about the tire ware.

3. Following its tradition, FIA has yet again introduced a new Qualifying format. It seems complex and promises to lessen advantage for front-runners. It consists of 2 mini-qualifying sessions of 15 minutes in which 6 slowest cars drop out. These are followed by a 20 minute session for top 10 positions. These first 10 cars have to start the race with the same fuel load as they had in the 20 minute qualifying session. The remaining 12 cars can change their fuel strategy as they wish. This means that teams at the end of the grid can be more flexible with their fuel strategy as compared to their counterparts starting at the head of the grid.

Teams for Formula1 Season 2006:

There have been loads of changes in the teams this year. Narain couldn't bag a race driver's seat in any team but managed to clinch a test driver's assignment at Williams. There have been a few additions in the F1 Family and a few divorces and marriages between engine and chassis manufacturers. Different teams and their drivers this year are:

Team name: BMW Sauber
Engine: BMW
Tires: Michelin
Drivers: Jacques Villeneuve, Nick Heidfeld

Team name: Ferrari
Engine: Ferrari
Tires: Bridgestone
Drivers: Michael Schumacher, Felipe Massa

Team name: Honda
Engine: Honda
Tires: Michelin
Drivers: Rubens Barrichello, Jenson Button

Team name: Midland F1 (Earlier Jordan)
Engine: Toyota
Tires: Michelin
Drivers: Tiago Monteiro, Christijan Albers

Team name: Mclaren
Engine: Mercedes-Benz
Tires: Michelin
Drivers: Kimi Raikkonen, Juan Pablo Montoya

Team name: Red Bull (Earlier Jaguar)
Engine: Ferrari
Tires: Michelin
Drivers: David Coulthard, Christian Klien

Team name: Renault
Engine: Renault
Tires: Michelin
Drivers: Giancarlo Fisichella, Fernando Alonso

Team name: Super Aguri (New Entry)
Engine: Honda
Tires: Bridgestone
Drivers: Takuma Sato, Yuji Ide

Team name: Toro Rosso (Earlier Minardi)
Engine: Crossworth
Tires: Michelin
Drivers: Vitantonio Liuzzi, Scott Speed

Team name: Toyota
Engine: Toyota
Tyres: Bridgestone
Drivers: Ralf Schumacher, Jarno Trulli

Team name: Williams (Earlier Williams BMW)
Engine: Crossworth
Tires: Michelin
Drivers: Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg

My Predictions:

Now the most interesting part... My predictions for the season. I think Renault have done good enough to maintain their Drivers’ Championship. Constructors’ Championship however is a tough one to predict. It is going to be a cut throat competition between Mclaren and Renault but I think in the end Mclaren will have a slight edge on Renault in Constructors' as their Kimi-Montoya duo seems to be more promising than Alonso-Fisichella pair. All in all, good teams, good venues and good competition... What else can you ask for?

Businessweek IT100

2006-03-11T13:42:00.000+05:30

My company features in Businessweek's The Best of The Info Tech 100. It also stands third in the Most Profitable category (I wonder howz that possible ;-) ). Here's a comprehensive report from businessweek on most happening 100 IT companies in the world. Infy stands 10th in the report whereas TCS holds 12th place. Other Indian tech companies include Telecom giant Bharti Televentures in 19th place, Wipro in 23rd place, Cognizant in 32nd place and Satyam Computer Services in 85th place. Read More Here...

Back 2 Blogging...

2006-02-17T20:35:00.000+05:30

I can access blogspot from my office now. This probably means a lot of blogging :-). Life has really changed a lot in the past few months. This transformation from a college student to a so called Professional has not been very easy for me... College was so cool... Actually, I was so keen to work when I was in college but now that I've started working, I feel college was much better...
Worst part of office is that everyday I need to get up early in the morning and reach office by 9. Even if I feel like not going to work someday(which I feel everyday), there's no option but to catch the same old bus on the same old street. Not that it matters to everyone in the office whether I turn up everyday or not, but these people will cut my salary if I don't sign the attendance everyday.

Life has become so predictable and so scheduled that at times I feel I'm actually running a life.bat file everyday and it is not very exciting. I've even managed to write down the code of my life.bat. It goes something like this...

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: Filename:life.bat
:: Life of Prasad Shahane
:: A (buggy) software developer
:: Located in India (the land where all not so interesting work is outsourced)
@ECHO OFF
:: Equivalent of tolerate everything and "Awaaz Bandh"
ECHO A DAY IN LIFE OF PRASAD SHAHANE
:START
SET /A TIME= 6
ECHO %TIME% O'CLOCK
SET /A MINUTE=30
ECHO BATH,BRUSH,BREAKFAST:
PAUSE
:CONTINUE1
IF %MINUTE% NEQ 0 GOTO BATH_BRUSH_BREAKFAST
SET /A TIME=7
ECHO %TIME% O'CLOCK
ECHO CATCH BUS AND GOTO WORK
ECHO CHECK MAIL:
PAUSE
GOTO CHECK_MAIL
:CONTINUE2
ECHO MEETING:
PAUSE
GOTO MEETING
:CONTINUE3
ECHO WORK AS IF THERE IS NO TOMORROW:
PAUSE
GOTO WORK_AS_IF_THERE_IS_NO_TOMORROW
:CONTINUE6
SET /A TIME=9
ECHO %TIME% O'CLOCK
IF %TIME% EQU 9 ECHO TIME TO GO HOME :-) :-(.
PAUSE
ECHO LEAVE FOR HOME
SET /A TIME=10
ECHO %TIME% O'CLOCK
ECHO SLEEP
SET /A TIME=6
ECHO %TIME% O'CLOCK
ECHO ANOTHER DAY FULL OF HOPE IN LIFE
PAUSE
GOTO START
:BATH_BRUSH_BREAKFAST
SET /A MINUTE=MINUTE-10
ECHO PREPARING FOR WORK
ECHO %MINUTE% MINUTES TO GO
GOTO CONTINUE1

:CHECK_MAIL
ECHO DELETE ALL FORWARDS FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE ON BENCH ;-)
GOTO CONTINUE2

:MEETING
SET /A MEETING_TIME=0
ECHO DISCUSS TOPICS THAT ARE NOT ON AGENDA
GOTO WASTE_HALF_AN_HOUR
:CONTINUE4
ECHO GOSSIP
GOTO WASTE_HALF_AN_HOUR
:CONTINUE5
GOTO CONTINUE3

:WASTE_HALF_AN_HOUR
ECHO WASTE TIME IN MEETING
SET /A MEETING_TIME=MEETING_TIME+30
ECHO MEETING TIME:%MEETING_TIME% MINUES
PAUSE
IF %MEETING_TIME% EQU 30 GOTO CONTINUE4
IF %MEETING_TIME% EQU 60 GOTO CONTINUE5

:WORK_AS_IF_THERE_IS_NO_TOMORROW
ECHO PRs/ CRs
ECHO CONFUSION
ECHO MORE CONFUSION
GOTO CONTINUE6
:END
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I understand that this code could have been much more elegent but given the limited time that I have and my awesome programming skills, this is all I could manage to put down.

PS: The Code actually works. Copy it in a life.bat file and run at your command prompt.

Google Technology

2006-01-08T01:54:00.000+05:30

Here's what I stumbled upon the other day while finding some information on Google... This is really an example of how innovative and creative a technology company could be... Great going Google... Though the technology is around 4 Yrs. old, it still impresses me ;-)...

http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

Everybody should Blog

2005-08-21T20:52:00.000+05:30

Just as I have installed this new application called BlogJet to blog more frequently and easily, one of the millions of scintillating (mind you, this word has been corrected by BlogJet Spell Checking feature ;-)) neurons in my brain lit up and inspired me to write this post. Just think of all the possible uses of blogs. Actually, it is nothing more than a web site but the fact that with so little efforts the information can be published and shared by anybody and everybody is very important and powerful. Consider a group of grads sharing a blog for keeping in touch with their batch-mates, consider a group of people interested in The Taj Mahal sharing little snippets about its history with each other, consider a blog for citizens in a city for sharing their problems, consider a movie blog where people post their reviews on different movies, consider people from all over the world sharing their thoughts with each other on some special topic of interest. The possibilities are limitless.

One might think, “What different is this than having forums on different topics?” I think blogging is much less complex and much more flexible than forums like phpbb. Blogging is much cheaper (free of cost, so to say) whereas forums need to be hosted on web servers. Configuring forums require a lot of skills and understanding whereas Blogging is really one button publishing. Blogging has many features like RSS feeds, remote blogging through mail, mobile blogging, etc.

I have not researched on the web to see if such blogs already exist but here are a few blogs that I think are a must.

Blog by a local governing body in a city for updating it’s activities
Blog by large organizations to keep its employees all over the world in touch and also to keep them informed about the latest in the organization
Blog for TV series, Movies review n so on

Here, in India, people have just started blogging seriously. So, it may take a while for everybody to know n understand what a blog is. But, I see millions of new blogs being written in the near future and they are surely gonna help people communicate and share. (I hope, someone will use the web for what it should be used for ;-))

This is my First post with BlogJet

2005-08-21T20:04:00.000+05:30

I’m currently trying Blogjet, an application that provides much feature-rich support for desktop blog publishing.

It’s like a little WYSIWYG HTML editor with adequet features like

Unordered Lists
Spell Checks
Recent Posts History
Other Formatting Features
Smilies, Images, etc

Konfabulator is Fabulous

2005-08-20T20:04:00.000+05:30

Looking at Windows Vista? Naah!!! It's Konfabulator.....

The idea is to use XML and perl to create cross platform widgets that sit on your desktop and may perform some functions. Currently I found a couple of good widgets like blogging wdget and Google Search Widget. Though not being used by many right now, this one is pretty cool and I suggest you to try it.

Out of this World

2005-08-13T00:26:00.000+05:30

My blog which has not been updated for some time now is now out of this world.....

This is what I got in my inbox in the morning....

Dear Humanoid:

Your attempt to contact extraterrestrial intelligence has officially begun. At approximately 7:43 a.m. on the morning of August 12, 2005 at a longitude of 28.3 North and a latitude of 80.6 West traveling at 186,000 miles per second, the speed of light, your message was beamed into deep space trailing the launch of Atlas V at Cape Canaveral Florida. (Again, something for the nerds; Pluto is 2.7 billion miles from Earth. That means your blog has far surpassed our solar system!)

Whoa!!! I wonder if they really do transmit all these blogs as they claim to do. Anyway, I'm still happy.....

Flickr

2005-08-07T01:01:00.000+05:30

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

What a come back....

2005-04-29T09:56:00.000+05:30

Imola was really one of the best races I have ever seen. Raikkonen finally had something to cheer about with a pole just ahead of to-be-crowned champion Fernando Alonso. Even with the launch of new F-2005, Ferrari seemed to have lost the glory of those old golden days. The car looked good last time but didn't show anything that can compete with in form Renault, Toyota and Mclaren. Ferraris finished in the 6th and 7th rows (mostly) in the second qualifying. All satrted well with Kimi having a good start ahead of Alonso and maintaining the lead for a first few laps. I couldn't believe that everything was so normal and so not unlucky in Kimi's life again. But it was not to be, as the race leader started slowing down and let all the others pass by him. Mclaren said It was a Mechanical failure yet again. After that it was something that we are getting very much used to this season; Alonso leading the race comfortably. When it looked as if Alonso will again be the star of the race, Schumi had some other plans.

Everything seemed so perfect for Schumi suddenly. The car showed that Ferrari challenge is still not over. It had speed, good handling and Bridgestones also worked extremely well with it. Schumi was racing in the third position after half of the distance covered, thanks to some great pit-stops carefully planned by the team. His car looked better than the car in front, Jenson Button's BAR-Honda. Under continuous pressure from Schumi, Jenson made a slight mistake near one of the shikanes and Schumi immediately took the opportunity to move to the second spot. Everything looked dramatic and hard to believe but what followed was a few laps of even more dramatic, skillful, aggressive and determined racing. The last ten laps showed how a perfect race should be. Alonso and Schumi, two great drivers in good cars finally reached the Chequered flag within fraction of seconds of one another.

Schumacher again looked to have a better car of the two with a better speed at the straights and carrying more speed through the corners. He put Alonso under a lot of pressure and managed to get a glimpse of Alonso's nose one or two times when he almost overtook the young veteran. Alonso however, kept his cool and brilliantly controlled the pace of the race by making use of better handling of the Renault. He drove very slowly out of every corner so that Schumi could never come out of any corner with full throtle. The brilliant strategy not only kept him ahead of Schumi but also kept him behind two backmarkers, a few hundread metres away.

All in all, a great race. Really fun to watch. Only thing not good in the race was the absence of Montoya. Who knows he would have made the race even more interesting to watch. I hear that he is probably not racing in the next race also. I wish he makes a good come back as soon as possible.

Renewed Renault

2005-03-22T11:46:00.000+05:30

Sundays Sepang GP was another 'Renault dominant Race' as Fernando Alonso made it to the Top of Podium. Ex-Renault driver Jarno Trulli was second driving impressively throughout hinting at the bright future for this year's TF105. Nick Hedfield ensured a BMW-Williams podium place in third position. Ferrari once again failed to impress with Schumacher in 7th position and Baricehllo out of the race.

Renault really seems strong at this moment of time in F1. Looking at the performances till date in the new season, we are forced to think that 'Days of Ferrari dominance are over'. At the same time I think these are the days of Renault dominance. I have little doubt in my mind about Alonso n Renault being on top this year. This car seems to have a very powerful engine as compared to earlier Renault cars with as always great aerodynamics giving it an edge in handling over the other cars( At least this is what I hear from other people and I haven't driven the new car, Hehe).

However, there was one disappointing thing for me so far as this new season is concerned and that is "New Montoya" that we see on the track. No aggression, no bolt overtaking, no amitious rash starts, no heated word-exchanges. This is not the Montoya we've been used to looking at. This is a very sad thing if Montoya has changed his attitude towards driving. He said to a press conference that he has absolutely no problem with him being second driver in the team and that even he thinks that Kimi is a better driver. If Montoya really thinks that way, I think this is the end of a great driver which F1 once had. Perhaps, he is waiting and watching at the start of the new season, getting used to the new rules and his new team( I hope so..). I think even in 2005, he has had better results compared to Kimi and he is as good as any other driver (i am talking about the front-runners) in F1.

Talking of Kimi, he drove a good race and in the process I think he tried a bit too hard ending in a tyre failure. The new Mclaren is not as impressive as it should have been after 'very poor performance not suitable to Mclaren reputation last year'.

All in all a good demanding race. Not a bad result for Montoya. Excellent performance by Alonso and Renault.

Picture Perfect!!!

2005-03-07T07:16:00.000+05:30

Everything seemed perfect this weekend. Everything seemed promising. There was no ferrari 1-2, there was no schumi dominance, there was an Indain on the track for the first time, Fisichella won a race (on his merit this time). Just as good a start as one could hope for, for the season. With the introduction of new rules in F1 this season the things aren't easy and not easy to anticipate either. TO summerize the major rules changes:

ENGINES
Engines must now last for two races, rather than just one, with any unscheduled change resulting in a 10-place penalty on the starting grid. That will put a premium on reliability. "Every second grand prix is going to be tough, particularly Malaysia
where we'll all be stepping into the unknown," says Williams'
Australian driver Mark Webber. The change is aimed at cutting costs and improving safety through reduced speeds. A two-race engine should be less powerful than one
designed for half the distance.

QUALIFYING
Qualifying will be held over two days, with the final session on Sunday morning. The Sunday and Saturday times will be aggregated. This will mean more action for the crowd at the circuit on Sunday but the starting grid and pole position will not be decided until shortly before the race.

AERODYNAMICS
Front wings have been lifted by 50mm, to reduce downforce, while the rear wings have been brought forward 150mm relative to the centre line between the rear wheels. The diffuser at the rear becomes shallower, at around 40 percent the height of 2004 levels. The changes, intended to cut downforce by about 25 percent to slow
cars on safety grounds, should make cars 'twitchier' to drive and more
spectacular to watch with less grip. "The focus in the factory has been to recover that downforce and obviously it won't be until the early races of the season that we'll see how well each team has done," said Williams' co-owner Patrick
Head. Testing has seen teams experiment with innovative aerodynamic parts,
notably McLaren with a horn-like wing on the engine cover.

TYRES
Tyres must last for qualifying and the race. The reason being that harder, and therefore more durable, tyres will reduce cornering speeds. This means that pit stops will look very different, with fewer mechanics involved as cars take on fuel without tyre changes, and will be less frequent. Tyres can be replaced in the event of a puncture or damage caused by debris, but not at a refuelling stop. Drivers would previously have changed tyres two or three times during a race, after around 70 to 100 km, in carefully orchestrated pitstops. They must now last around 350km.
All drivers will be allowed three sets of the same specification tyres for Saturday and Sunday. One will be used for Saturday practice, another for qualifying and the race while the third set is held back in case of a puncture. "The driver who can look after his tyres best, and has the feel for how to maximise tyre performance over a full race distance, will undoubtedly gain a performance advantage," says Renault's engineering head Pat Symonds. "I think we will see a change in the rhythm of races this year."

Now about the race, Indian rookie Narain Karthikeyan managed to do a decent job by completing the race in 15th position ahead of his team-mate and the running Minardi. He seemed pretty reluctant at the start though and Montiero looked better of the two in the initial stages.

About the front runners, Fisichella drove a perfect race without any mistake and really seems a contender of the driver's championship. However, personally I feel Alonso will end up higher than his team-mate and may even finish at the top of the leader-board.

Barichello managed to gain a few well earned positions through excellent ferrari strategy and so did Alonso. The driver who lost out on a podium position however, was DC who drove well only to end up 4th behind Alonso.

Surprisingly, Montoya did not make any move on anybody throuout the race. I wonder if the original, rash, daring Montoya is replaced by a more diplomatic, calm Montoya. I wonder what is it that these ESPNSTAR people have with Montoya. Heard one of the commentators saying that Montoya finally accepted that he is not the best F1 driver in a press conference and that he stands no chance even to beat his partner Kimi. I think if Montoya really thinks that way, he should have no place in F1 and as always if he has been pressurized to think and most importantly express himself that way, then everything is alright with F1 this year.

Sepang is next in the queue which demands maximus out of the car's engine. It could be one of the reasons why Montoya and some of the other guys did not push too hard may be.

Finally, Schumi as always managed to make another intelligent move. When he collided with Williams of Heidfield, he retired rather than continuing the race so that he may now use a new engine for the next race.

Hope that next race will also be as fun as this one.

Pirates of The Silicon Valley

2005-02-25T20:44:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I saw this good movie named "The Pirates of the Silicon Valley". Excellent movie, I must say, for Computer Enthusiasts. The movie is centred around the life of 'Steve Jobs', founder of Apple, a very intelligent, energetic young man who dreamt of changing the world of Desktop Computing and succeeded to a great extent. I am not sure if all the incidents shown in the movie are true or not but it throws some light on the Microsoft Vs. Apple battle. 'Steve Jobs' always believed that his people at Apple were all great artists and was realy in a position to give ibm people a run for their money before a genius called 'Bill Gates' cheated and stole the show. 'Steve' always said, "Good artists copy but great artists steal". Bill and Steve were both not very rich n famous when the Xerox Company had developed world's first so called GUI with mouse. Though Xerox did not see any future for the technology, both these guys were very much overwhelmed by it. Steve Jobs at Apple developed worlds first successful and commercially deployable GUI n mouse in Macintosh but Bill Gates at Microsoft who was supposed to be working for Apple stole their technology and used it for himself instead. A pirate stealing pirated stuff from other pirate. When a slightly overconfident 'Steve' came to know about this, he told to himself and 'Bill' that he still had the best package and even though 'Bill' had stolen the things from Apple, Macintosh still had better things to offer. The Great Bill Gates then said, "You don't understand this Steve, it dosn't realy matter now." Great lines from great man that changed the world's history. Who knows otherwise, I would be using an Apple i-Mac instead of Windows today for writing my blog. A great movie.....Really!!!

A bit too late I guess...

2005-01-07T20:32:00.000+05:30

I found this very good article on the net forwarded to me by a senior. A bit too late for me may be coz I have almost completed my graduation now. Nevertheless, I think fortunately or coincidently I have done a few things as per Joel's advice during my graduation. A lot many are still a problem which I can't change now. Huh!!!

Advice for Computer Science College Students
Joel Spolsky
Sunday, January 02, 2005
A part of Joel on Software, http://www.joelonsoftware.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the fact that it was only a year or two ago that I was blubbering about how rich Windows GUI clients were the wave of the future, college students nonetheless do occasionally email me asking for career advice, and since it's recruiting season, I thought I'd write up my standard advice which they can read, laugh at, and ignore.

Most college students, fortunately, are brash enough never to bother asking their elders for advice, which, in the field of computer science, is a good thing, because their elders are apt to say goofy, antediluvian things like "the demand for keypunch operators will exceed 100,000,000 by the year 2010" and "lisp careers are really very hot right now."

I, too, have no idea what I'm talking about when I give advice to college students. I'm so hopelessly out of date that I can't really figure out AIM and still use (horrors!) this quaint old thing called "email" which was popular in the days when music came on flat round plates called "CDs."

So you'd be better off ignoring what I'm saying here and instead building some kind of online software thing that lets other students find people to go out on dates with.

Nevertheless.

If you enjoy programming computers, count your blessings: you are in a very fortunate minority of people who can make a great living doing work they enjoy. Most people aren't so lucky. The very idea that you can "love your job" is a modern concept. Work is supposed to be something unpleasant you do to get money to do the things you actually like doing, when you're 65 and can finally retire, if you can afford it, and if you're not too old and infirm to do those things, and if those things don't require reliable knees, good eyes, and the ability to walk twenty feet without being out of breath, etc.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Advice.

Without further ado, then, here are Joel's Seven Pieces of Free Advice for Computer Science College Students (worth what you paid for them):

Learn how to write before graduating.
Learn C before graduating.
Learn microeconomics before graduating.
Don't blow off non-CS classes just because they're boring.
Take programming-intensive courses.
Stop worrying about all the jobs going to India.
No matter what you do, get a good summer internship.
Now for the explanations, unless you're gullible enough to do all that stuff just because I tell you to, in which case add: 8. Seek professional help for that self-esteem thing.

Learn how to write before graduating.
Would Linux have succeeded if Linus Torvalds hadn't evangelized it? As brilliant a hacker as he is, it was Linus's ability to convey his ideas in written English via email and mailing lists that made Linux attract a worldwide brigade of volunteers.

Have you heard of the latest fad, Extreme Programming? Well, without getting into what I think about XP, the reason you've heard of it is because it is being promoted by people who are very gifted writers and speakers.

Even on the small scale, when you look at any programming organization, the programmers with the most power and influence are the ones who can write and speak in English clearly, convincingly, and comfortably. Also it helps to be tall, but you can't do anything about that.

The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it's not whether they prefer Python or Java. It's whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code, which means other programmers can use and work with their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless. By writing clear technical documentation for end users, they allow people to figure out what their code is supposed to do, which is the only way those users can see the value in their code. There's a lot of wonderful, useful code buried on sourceforge somewhere that nobody uses because it was created by programmers who don't write very well (or don't write at all), and so nobody knows what they've done and their brilliant code languishes.

I won't hire a programmer unless they can write, and write well, in English. If you can write, wherever you get hired, you'll soon find that you're getting asked to write the specifications and that means you're already leveraging your influence and getting noticed by management.

Most colleges designate certain classes as "writing intensive," meaning, you have a to write an awful lot to pass them. Look for those classes and take them! Seek out classes in any field that have weekly or daily written assignments.

Start a journal or weblog. The more you write, the easier it will be, and the easier it is to write, the more you'll write, in a virtuous circle.

Learn C before graduating
Part two: C. Notice I didn't say C++. Although C is becoming increasingly rare, it is still the lingua franca of working programmers. It is the language they use to communicate with one another, and, more importantly, it is much closer to the machine than "modern" languages that you'll be taught in college like ML, Java, Python, whatever trendy junk they teach these days. You need to spend at least a semester getting close to the machine or you'll never be able to create efficient code in higher level languages. You'll never be able to work on compilers and operating systems, which are some of the best programming jobs around. You'll never be trusted to create architectures for large scale projects. I don't care how much you know about continuations and closures and exception handling: if you can't explain why while (*s++ = *t++); copies a string, or if that isn't the most natural thing in the world to you, well, you're programming based on superstition, as far as I'm concerned: a medical doctor who doesn't know basic anatomy, passing out prescriptions based on what the pharma sales babe said would work.

Learn microeconomics before graduating
Super quick review if you haven't taken any economics courses: econ is one of those fields that starts off with a bang, with many useful theories and facts that make sense, can be proven in the field, etc., and then it's all downhill from there. The useful bang at the beginning is microeconomics, which is the foundation for literally every theory in business that matters. After that things start to deteriorate: you get into Macroeconomics (feel free to skip this if you want) with its interesting theories about things like the relationship of interest rates to unemployment which, er, seem to be disproven more often than they are proven, and after that it just gets worse and worse and a lot of econ majors switch out to Physics, which gets them better Wall Street jobs, anyway. But make sure you take Microeconomics, because you have to know about supply and demand, you have to know about competitive advantage, and you have to understand NPVs and discounting and marginal utility before you'll have any idea why business works the way it does.

Why should CS majors learn econ? Because a programmer who understands the fundamentals of business is going to be a more valuable programmer, to a business, than a programmer who doesn't. That's all there is to it. I can't tell you how many times I've been frustrated by programmers with crazy ideas that make sense in code but don't make sense in capitalism. If you understand this stuff, you're a more valuable programmer, and you'll get rewarded for it, for reasons which you'll also learn in micro.

Don't blow off non-CS classes just because they're boring. Blowing off your non-CS courses is a great way to get a lower GPA.

Never underestimate how big a deal your GPA is. Lots and lots of recruiters and hiring managers, myself included, go straight to the GPA when they scan a resume, and we're not going to apologize for it. Why? Because the GPA, more than any other one number, reflects the sum of what dozens of professors over a long period of time in many different situations think about your work. SAT scores? Ha! That's one test over a few hours. The GPA reflects hundreds of papers and midterms and classroom participations over four years. Yeah, it's got its problems. There has been grade inflation over the years. Nothing about your GPA says whether you got that GPA taking easy classes in home economics at Podunk Community College or taking graduate level Quantum Mechanics at Caltech. Eventually, after I screen out all the 2.5 GPAs from Podunk Community, I'm going to ask for transcripts and recommendations. And then I'm going to look for consistently high grades, not just high grades in computer science.

Why should I, as an employer looking for software developers, care about what grade you got in European History? After all, history is boring. Oh, so, you're saying I should hire you because you don't work very hard when the work is boring? Well, there's boring stuff in programming, too. Every job has its boring moments. And I don't want to hire people that only want to do the fun stuff.

I took this course in college called Cultural Anthropology because I figured, what the heck, I need to learn something about anthropology, and this looked like an interesting survey course.

Interesting? Not even close! I had to read these incredibly monotonous books about Indians in the Brazilian rain forest and Trobriand Islanders, who, with all due respect, are not very interesting to me. At some point, the class was so incredibly wearisome that I longed for something more exciting, like watching grass grow. I had completely lost interest in the subject matter. Completely, and thoroughly. My eyes teared I was so tired of the endless discussions of piling up yams. I don't know why the Trobriand Islanders spend so much time piling up yams, I can't remember any more, it's incredibly boring, but It Was Going To Be On The Midterm, so I plowed through it. I eventually decided that Cultural Anthropology was going to be my Boredom Gauntlet: my personal obstacle course of tedium. If I could get an A in a class where the tests required me to learn all about potlatch blankets, I could handle anything, no matter how boring. The next time I accidentally get stuck in Lincoln Center sitting through all 18 hours of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, I could thank my studies of the Kwakiutl for making it seem pleasant by comparison.

I got an A. And if I could do it, you can do it.

Take programming-intensive courses.
I remember the exact moment I vowed never to go to graduate school.

It was in a course on Dynamic Logic, taught by the dynamic Lenore Zuck at Yale, one of the brightest of an array of very bright CS faculty.

Now, my murky recollections are not going to do proper credit to this field, but let me muddle through anyway. The idea of Formal Logic is that you prove things are true because other things are true. For example thanks to Formal Logic, "Everyone who gets good grades will get hired" plus "Johnny got good grades" allows you to discover the new true fact, "Johnny will get hired." It's all very quaint and it only takes ten seconds for a deconstructionist to totally tear apart everything useful in Formal Logic so you're left with something fun, but useless.

Now, dynamic logic is the same thing, with the addition of time. For example, "after you turn the light on, you can see your shoes" plus "The light went on in the past" implies "you can see your shoes."

Dynamic Logic is appealing to brilliant theoreticians like Professor Zuck because it holds up the hope that you might be able to formally prove things about computer programs, which could be very useful, if, for example, you could formally prove that the Mars Rover's flash card wouldn't overflow and cause itself to be rebooted again and again all day long when it's supposed to be driving around the red planet looking for Marvin the Martian.

So in the first day of that class, Dr. Zuck filled up two entire whiteboards and quite a lot of the wall next to the whiteboards proving that if you have a light switch, and the light was off, and you flip the switch, the light will then be on.

The proof was insanely complicated, and very error-prone. It was harder to prove that the proof was correct than to convince yourself of the fact that switching a light switch turns on the light. Indeed the multiple whiteboards of proof included many skipped steps, skipped because they were too tedious to go into formally. Many steps were reached using the long-cherished method of Proof by Induction, others by Proof by Reductio ad Absurdum, and still others using Proof by Graduate Student.

For our homework, we had to prove the converse: if the light was off, and it's on now, prove that you flipped it.

I tried, I really did.

I spent hours in the library trying.

After a couple of hours I found a mistake in Dr. Zuck's original proof which I was trying to emulate. Probably I copied it down wrong, but it made me realize something: if it takes three hours of filling up blackboards to prove something trivial, allowing hundreds of opportunities for mistakes to slip in, this mechanism would never be able to prove things that are interesting.

Not that that matters to dynamic logicians: they're not in it for useful, they're in it for tenure.

I dropped the class and vowed never to go to graduate school in Computer Science.

The moral of the story is that computer science is not the same as software development. If you're really really lucky, your school might have a decent software development curriculum, although, they might not, because elite schools think that teaching practical skills is better left to the technical-vocational institutes and the prison rehabilitation programs. You can learn mere programming anywhere. We are Yale University, and we Mold Future World Leaders. You think your $160,000 tuition entititles you to learn about while loops? What do you think this is, some fly-by-night Java seminar at the Airport Marriott? Pshaw.

The trouble is, we don't really have professional schools in software development, so if you want to be a programmer, you probably majored in Computer Science. Which is a fine subject to major in, but it's a different subject than software development.

If you're lucky, though, you can find lots of programming-intensive courses in the CS department, just like you can find lots of courses in the History department where you'll write enough to learn how to write. And those are the best classes to take. If you love programming, don't feel bad if you don't understand the point of those courses in lambda calculus or linear algebra where you never touch a computer. Look for the 400-level courses with Practicum in the name. This is an attempt to hide a useful (shudder) course from the Liberal Artsy Fartsy Administration by dolling it up with a Latin name.

Stop worrying about all the jobs going to India.
Well, OK, first of all, if you're already in India, you never really had to worry about this, so don't even start worrying about all the jobs going to India. They're wonderful jobs, enjoy them in good health.

But I keep hearing that enrollment in CS departments is dropping perilously, and one reason I hear for it is "students are afraid to go into a field where all the jobs are going to India." That's so wrong for so many reasons. First, trying to choose a career based on a current business fad is foolish. Second, programming is incredibly good training for all kinds of fabulously interesting jobs, such as business process engineering, even if every single programming job does go to India and China. Third, and trust me on this, there's still an incredible shortage of the really good programmers, here and in India. Yes, there are a bunch of out of work IT people making a lot of noise about how long they've been out of work, but you know what? At the risk of pissing them off, really good programmers do have jobs. Fourth, you got any better ideas? What are you going to do, major in History? Then you'll have no choice but to go to law school. And there's one thing I do know: 99% of working lawyers hate their jobs, hate every waking minute of it, and they're working 90 hour weeks, too. Like I said: if you love to program computers, count your blessings: you are in a very fortunate minority of people who can make a great living doing work they love.

Anyway, I don't think students really think about this. The drop in CS enrollment is merely a resumption of historically normal levels after a big bubble in enrollment caused by dotcom mania. That bubble consisted of people who didn't really like programming but thought the sexy high paid jobs and the chances to IPO at age 24 were to be found in the CS department. Those people, thankfully, are long gone.

No matter what you do, get a good summer internship.
Smart recruiters know that the people who love programming wrote a database for their dentist in 8th grade, and taught at computer camp for three summers before college, and built the content management system for the campus newspaper, and had summer internships at software companies. That's what they're looking for on your resume.

If you enjoy programming, the biggest mistake you can make is to take any kind of job--summer, part time, or otherwise--that is not a programming job. I know, every other 19-year-old wants to work in the mall folding shirts, but you have a skill that is incredibly valuable even when you're 19, and it's foolish to waste it folding shirts. By the time you graduate, you really should have a resume that lists a whole bunch of programming jobs. The A&F graduates are going to be working at Enterprise Rent-a-Car "helping people with their rental needs." (Except for Tom Welling. He plays Superman on TV.)

To make your life really easy, and to underscore just how completely self-serving this whole essay is, my company, Fog Creek Software, has summer internships in software development that look great on resumes. "You will most likely learn more about software coding, development, and business with Fog Creek Software than any other internship out there," says Ben, one of the interns from last summer, and not entirely because I sent a goon out to his dorm room to get him to say that. The application deadline is February 1st. Get on it.

If you follow my advice, you, too, may end up selling stock in Microsoft way too soon, turning down jobs at Google because you want your own office with a door, and other stupid life decisions, but they won't be my fault. I told you not to listen to me.

No One Day for Tests now...

2004-11-19T13:56:00.000+05:30

My internet connection, probably one of the most important things in my life has been down for more than a fotnight now. So not been updating the blog. This post is just to make myself remember that day, when I made this blog and decided to update it daily.

Anyway Xams are on. So right now I dont have much time to think about it. Seems like my "One Day Preparation Strategy" is not working very well in BE. Lets wait and see till the Xam gets over.... Still I have no plans of studying regularly in the next semester.

In F1 news Montoya finally won the last GP of the season and gave something to celebrate to his fans. Next season is really gonna be fun when Montoya will take on Schumi n Barichello with Kimi alongside him. Can't wait till 1st week of March when the action kicks off.....

One more Submission over....Huh!!!

2004-10-15T02:23:00.000+05:30

I am very very very very very happy today. So happy that I could repeat this a thousand times. One more submission #7 is almost over now. Ten minutes back I finished my last assignment and surprisingly, I've turned to my PC to write a blog post. Last week was full of assignments, write-ups and what not. Hopefully I have only one such horrifying 'submission thing' left now before I get my BE degree. This year I had decided not to copy a single assignment and eventually ended up not writing a single assignment on my own (lol). But this time I've decided for sure that in the Eighth Sem. I am really not gonna copy a thing. Lets see.....

Not "Just Another Day"

2004-08-30T07:31:00.001+05:30

In the Belgian GP today, surprisingly it was not Michael Schumacher but the young Finn Kimi Raikkonen who finished on the top spot of the podium. Mclaren looked unbeatable right from start and despite the deployment of safety car more than once Kimi seemed to have it all in control. Good news for F1 that Ferrari has a competition.
Montoya was again involved in a controversial whhel to wheel instance, this time with Renault Driver Jaro Trulli. I think he was a bit too aggressive and should have backed off on the particular turn as he did not have enough speed carried through the turn to get passed Jarno.
Rubens was lucky and gained positions as safety car was introduced twice and finally finished third. Schumacher drove brilliantly again to finish second. He could not clinch one more driver's championship in this race though as Rubens finished third. Probably he will do that in front of all Ferrari crew and fans in Monza.
A good race all in all and more importantly a different result this time. Hope everybody continues to give difficult time to Ferrari.

Why am I writing this in vi?

2004-08-23T00:37:00.000+05:30

A few days ago I got my hands on Fedora core 1 installation CDs. As per the tradition I installed the brand new Linux system and started working on it. The first thing that I always have to do after installing Linux is adding my windows drives to automount by edition /etc/fstab. I wonder why has Red Hat not come up with something that automates this procedure as only a fool will install Linux onto the PC without any windows version (Only Mandrake 7.1, I guess...., does this identification and auto mounting of windows partitions for you.). After completing my traditional installation configuration which cannot afford to include luxuries like KDE as my system runs on a 64 MB RAM chip and with onboard 16 MB video memory, I happily logged onto my brand new Linux FC1 machine. It is always nice to listen to some music when you are really happy. What the heck!!! Xmms does not support mpeg anymore due to some licensing problems blah blah blah..... This did not surprise me though, as after every fresh Linux install I always wait for something shocking (In some earlier version they completely forgot to include xmms.....). The real fun comes after this.....

I needed text browser for some reason a few days later. I had to install it using add/remove applications in the control panel as it was not included in the basic installation schema. I also thought of adding a few more applications like mysql which is surprisingly not included in basic database support by default, etc. I selected approximately 25 new apps. to install and 5 apps. to remove. Now before you read next part I want to first give you a few tips and tell you about a few mistakes that people always do and then later curse innocent Linux developing team.

Always see to it that you have plenty of time to do any system changes or installing Linux for that matter as some unforeseen situations may arise which even linuxers (this term a references those people who claim to have a very satisfactory working experience with Linux) cannot explain. It took me 4 iterations and 3 days to install a basic Linux configuration on a PC in my college (Ah college PCs.....Always problematic. Isn't it?). Every time some a new error message would flash on screen (that too after 25/30 minutes when the installation is almost complete) informing me that I am a fool and don't know even the basics of installing an OS and that perhaps I should read a few reference books before trying something as adventurous as this. In an other incidence the installation simply refused to detect the extended secondary memory on my friend's computer. The poor fellow did not upgrade his BIOS and so his BIOS could not detect the newly added 40 GB HDD. Windows though did not even complain of such a problem(Ah, these windows guys......I donÂt know how do they manage to be that over smart). Apart from these minor things Linux installation is fairly simple and even a novice could manage it.

Take a few hours' rest before attempting to upgrade a Linux system. I will explain this later...but probably this is the most important tip as otherwise you may end up losing your beloved PC or have a nervous breakdown.

Forward this to everybody you know and ask them to please reply to me if anyone has any answers.

Now the rest thing. I selected all add/remove applications, put FC1 CD in my CDROM drive and decided to spend next half an hour watching Indianapolis GP as system was being upgraded. As this thought struck my mind my CDROM drive ejected and a message flashed on my screen indication to put the 2nd FC1 CD to continue installation. I was amazed at the speed of upgrade and thought of first completing the upgrade (as I thought it would take 5 minutes more at this speed) and then watching schumi. I was correct I guess, in less that 15 seconds my CDROM drive ejected out again and a message informing me to put in FC1 3rd CD into the CDROM drive to continue installation. Frankly speaking I was impressed by this upgrade speed. I put in the CD for upgradation to finish and again the same thing happened. My CDROM drive ejected out and a message informing me to put in FC1 1st CD flashed again. Believe me people this fun continued for next 20 minutes and involved at least 12 ejections and reinsertions. I have nothing more to say....Have Fun. the only question to be asked here is "Why am I writing all this in vi?".

Prasad R. Shahane.

Email: prasadshahane@yahoo.com

URL: http://www.prasadshahane.co.nr/

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2004-06-20T17:52:00.000+05:30

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