words of wisdom in IT

Today I was asked, what should one do to be successful in IT industry… I told them the only thing I believe:

You have to love a person to be good with them, but with software its the opposite, you have to hate the Software with all your guts to be really good with them… thats the only way to master what you are working on!

who is the half blood prince?

Well, if you are still wondering that, let me save you some bucks and let you know the secret not worth paying money for… it is meeeeeeee, yes, after watching this movie (till the end!), half of the blood that was in my body prior to the start of the movie was utilized to cool my brain and was evaporated in the process and after watching the movie and scoring 6/10 on “are you sane” quiz, I am feeling on the top of the world, sort of what a prince might feel…

so, having lost half of my blood and feeling like a prince, it is hence proved that I AM THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE…

seriously, this is the most mindless movie I have seen, to be frank, I am not a follower of Harry Potter franchise, I never caught that bug, but I went to watch this movie purely out of boredom on a saturday evening and I had very little expectations from it… but as you can see from my vented frustration above, I am disappointed.  Whew, got to go now, I need to rest to replenish the blood 😦

F1 : Lessons to learn from Brawn

Sports are often linked to life, many lessons for life can be learnt from it… case in point being the almost fairy tale rise of Brawn GP team.

In 2008, Toyota team gave up trying to better their 2008 car and started investing time and money on developing 2009 car… it seems to have paid off… look at the performance of that car!

The new rules and regulations have been incorporated mostly by the erst while toyota team, we should learn about how sacrificing some of our short term ambitions can lead to fruitful results in the future!!!

Way to go Brawn… I am rooting for you guys all the way… (also for McLaren though, but don’t worry, I will be booing Ferrari all the way too 😉 )

How terrorists affect my life…

Disclaimer/Notes : As usual here is a list of things I want to clear out first.

Long post, but my blog, my rant… so live with it… (oh, the comments sections is all yours buddy!)

Terrorists are sometimes referred to as TITS, no offense to feminists, but this is a habbit I cultivated while playing Counter Strike… calling them tits saved many of my fellow players lives cause it is quicker to say “Lemon, tits 4′ o clock”, more over, I played mostly with dudes (and some dudes pretending to be gals), so, calling terrorists tits was guaranteed to get their attention towards what I am saying.

How come terrorists (whom I do not know nor have I ever seen in person) have an influence over my life? How has my life changed due to these tits? Here is the story in retrospection…

how I changed as a person :

I remember about 7-8 months ago, an elderly person came up to me and asked me directions to an address to a company’s particular office, the name sounded fairly familiar as it turned out to be the place where I work !!! I also found it hilarious, because I was asked this question at the last place I expected, my office’s smoking zone!!! right near the rear entrance of the building !!! How did he get past the security checks? How come guards who always ask me to display my ID tag completly even when it is ever so slightly hidden (accidentally ofcourse!) not notice this guy wearing no tags? How did I react? I laughed, pointed him to the reception desk and kept walking back to work, shared a few laughs with my colleagues and that was the end of that!

what would I do now if there is a deja-vu? I would escort him to the security kiosk, give the guards there a tongue lashing, report it to appropriate authorities and follow it up.

my sense of humor:

The way I approach problems in life which I should generally not bother about do not concern me (directly) [writer’s block, do not know the exact phrase to use to put my feelings in words, but hope you get the point] is to see the funny side of it… honestly, how else can I keep living? I have enough of problems to deal in my day to day life, what good will it do to me if I worry about same sex marriages, abortion laws, US Presidential elections, terrorism??? But unfortunately, terrorism takes that away from me as well, I have no clue as to what can I find funny in a dude dressed in dynamite sticks, fingers on the trigger or the looks of people in the aftermath…

All I can say is any terrorism related news just dulls my day.

my career:

Now we have recession looming large, life is difficult any how and the frigging terrorists are not helping!!!

my visits to the mall:

I am by nature a very very forgetful guy when it comes to shopping and more than that, I am extremely lazy. so, when I go to the mall, before going in and coming out, I have to concentrate really hard on stuff like did I get all the stuff that I need, do I have everything I need on me, do I have to go to the ATM? cause really, the security check lines at the malls really make the decision for me whether I should go in or not…

Apart from that I also am very particular about being on time at some place, so, if I have to meet someone at the mall, I have to start 30 mins early atleast… I hate that!!! I hate waiting!!!

whew… now that was a good rant…

General Observation #2

The two words guranteed to get a programmer pissed off… or for that matter anyone who uses a computer pissed off are : “Access Denied“…

Most of the major issues… we go like… oops… did I manage to scr*w that or what… but we never lose our temper… its just when we are trying to play around with the registry or maybe even the environment variables… and that annoying thing comes up… Access Denied… you do not have privileges to do this… go beg to your system administrator…

Who put them in charge???

General Observation #1

Ever noticed that the power up icon on your computer looks like a toddler showing you the middle finger !!!

Why of all the symbols possible did they choose it??? its like login power this sh*t up and you will f*ck up your civilized life!!!

General observation Series

Sometimes, I notice somethings which look hilarious to me… and make me question, why or all things available did the dude/dudette choose this???

So, let me try and list them up…

help me… the color pink is after me!!!

Baby pink, pinkety pink, salmon pink etc etc… these all have two things in common… they are various shades of pink and they are out to get me!!!

I am paranoid about the color pink… but not to the limit of being cuckoo type crazy… but I am tolerable in some departments… like, the pink shirt which makes me look very smart is acceptable… but generally… the color pink has not been one of my fave ones… rather I shy away from it…

The attack started about 2-3 months ago… we needed a new apartment to move into… and after 2 months of fruitless search… we had just one day to find an apartment for ourselves… so, we ended up in a nice place, the owners were cool rent was obnoxious but aggreeable at the sametime… so, I entered the new apartment, my first thought… PINK… every thing was pink… everything except the floors… even the door bell was colored PINK!!! who in the hell colors their door bells pink!!!

It was just the start… then I got another PINK shirt as a gift, then the website I was re-designing, the client wanted me to put in various shades of Salmon pink, I bought my self a soap-case, it was pink, I bought myself a scrubber… it was pink… I accidentally put my red sock with the white socks in the laundary… now my white socks are pink…

I tune in to the radio, they are playing PINK… wth… what did I ever do to offend the color pink to come back so strongly after me!!!

Some one save me…

Donnie Darko OST…

Music is like Valium for my soul… with out the nasty side effects… (except some funny ones… well funny to others but kinda embarrassing for me!)

I watched the movie Donnie Darko not too long ago… the movie blew me away… I am a fan of Sci Fi movies (well, only those which make some sense and lend a purpose to the movie). I didn’t notice much of the soundtrack… except at the very end when the song “Mad World” plays…

That hooked me on the OST… I just needed to get that song… and along with it came so many great songs… it really is a trip to fantasia… OST has been chosen grandly and the changes done to the original songs are awesome… and to top it all up… the tracks have been arranged in a way which makes for a very pleasant hearing experience…

Loved the movie, loving the OST…

Those (if any) are reading… get it!!!!!!!!!!

Euro cup 2008

Still about half an hour to go before the Russia vs Spain encounter… and Russia have been playing tremendous football…. Ashrawin has been great… so have been others…

It is going to be a hell of a match… two great attacking sides going after each other… alas I won’t be able to watch it live… I have to hit the sack now…

But I am rooting for Russia to win…

It would be slightly ironic to see two countries who both tried to take over Europe in not so recent past… slug it out on the pitch to gain domination of Euro cup!!!!!!!!!!

Whatever… it is going to be a greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttttttt match…

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A humbling experience…

Quite often in the recent past, my words (spoken, written and the ones I truly believed in) have come back to literally bite me.

1. I wrote about Society vs Individual in this blog here. Soon after that, incentives were announced in the company I work for. I have worked as dedicatedly and as passionately as humanly possible. Yes, I love my work and the challenges it brings to me. I can dare say that my work bought huge profit to the company as a whole and solidified the already existing relationship with the client. But when the incentives were announced, I was appalled to say the least, it was pitiful. Quick maths told me, I received 0.00002 % of the immediate profit (already received by the company, not the projected profit).

0.00002%. It amounts to nothing… salary hike has not yet been announced, but I fear it will be enough to buy me that extra packet of salted peanuts that I had always desired. I felt angry at first, felt why the hell should I work for that kind of an incentive, what is the company doing to motivate me? nothing, my only source of motivation has been the one which I had created for myself, the small goals and milestones I set for myself.

But then I remembered the words I wrote, I believe in them and surprisingly, I still do… I know that rest of the money I had helped the company earn was used to help finance other things, maybe it was used to upgrade the gym, maybe it was used to add few extra bucks in every one’s incentive, maybe I am losing my mind… but what ever, I have no qualms, I am at peace with myself, for the moment yes, cannot speak so for the future.

2. I had ridiculed the news service of Aaj Tak in this blog. It still receives the highest viewing. But most of the people who read it, go back disappointed, they came here with a hope that I will help Aaj tak in showcasing the plight of those people. Even if Aaj tak’s news material is not that high, the language they use does not speak of intelligence rather ignorance, but still Aaj Tak helps people. No matter how small or insignificant the news may seem to us, it is of some importance to people who are involved in the news.

I think aaj tak helps them. It helps them in sharing their plight, it gives them hope that people elsewhere will sympathize for them, some one will say a prayer for them before climbing on to the bed.

If you look at the comments that the post for Aaj tak got, you will get to know what I mean…

life is full of such humbling and enlightening moments. I just hope I am strong and wise enough to learn from all of them.

Movie review : Lives of others.

Dedicated to all the artists… no art, however small or unappreciated, is a small thing.

Firstly, what to expect from this review. It is not a professional review, I will do my best to steer away from any technical aspect of the movie. What I am writing here, is the chain of thoughts that crowded my brain as I was watching this movie.

For those interested, here is the link to the movie on IMDB.

Now, cutting to the movie. I read a review about it in a new paper, had just about 100-110 words, they were enough to make me desperate to watch this movie.

Movie is set in an era just before reunion of Germany, yes, the even of bringing down of “Berlin wall”.  Movie focuses on the plight of Theater rather artists in general. Movie is a show case of a good screenwriter/poet Georg Dreyman and his wife Christa-Maria (an actress).

In the movie we see the influence the ministry had over artists. How stasi (German secret police. wiki entry) were used to monitor everyone they suspected.

Georg is a politically correct man, simple and true to his character, at heart he is but a poet! His wife loves him a lot, but equally loves her career, she is constantly abused by a corrupt minister Hempf. Minister Hempf leads the ministry of arts (or something), he essentially decides who works and who does not. There is a Stasi officer Weisler, very strict and thorough, a role model to all the Stasi! Then there is his superior who went to college with him, he is at heart a politician.

So, characters have been introduced… The one thing movie really touched me was the story… How a politically correct man struggles to live there… the sacrifices he makes… Weisler is trusted with the responsibility to monitor him and come up with something to nail this Dreyman.

This is all I can come to get myself to right… no amount of words could let the world know how beautiful this movie is! It is full of so many heart touching moments… like, Dreyman playing “Sonata of good men” when he hears that Jerska is dead… he exclaims… “who, after listening to this, can still be a bad man?”.

Movie moves on, never letting you off… at no point of time did I feel that the movie is losing pace. Through out my watching it, I felt involved, I stopped watching it because it was a movie, I stopped watching it for the entertainment, I watched it, cause I wanted to be there with those ppl, I wanted to share their grief (so wonderfully presented in the movie), I wanted to kick the minister Hempf in the n*ts…

Art is very essential to us… nothing will ever captivate us more, nothing will ever make a difference in our life as much as art has… hats off to these people…

shaken & stirred…

Shaken not stirred… that’s how Bond likes his Martini…

Well, this post is not about Mr. Bond… nor is it about his Martini, infact it has nothing to do with ALCOHOL (though I can use a LOT of it right now) .

It is a weekend, hurrah no office, impossible deadlines make it : Sh*t got to go to the office on weekend too…

Ok, that is not that bad, so I went, after a hard day of work, I am coming back, wind is a bit strong, but likeable, I stop for a smoke, the vendor is sitting on the ground, so I too crouch down… just when she has handed me my smoke and change back, the wind gets stronger, a branch from a tree nearby falls down and catches me on my head and left ankle… yes…. a FREAKING BRANCH OF A FREAKING TREE FELL ON MY HEAD!!!

Sonnovabitch… there is a cyclone out of no where… when I manage to get up… some ass0 shrieks “Runnnnnnn Runnnnnnn for your life…”, I am confused but I run… all the time I am fearing the entire tree got uprooted, taking some power lines with it and falling down to hit me… f*ck, I ran for my life… I hate running yet I run…

I get inside subway… no tree fell, no power lines snagged, but the wind had picked up more speed… rain has started and its absolute chaos out on the road… then I start examining what happened to me… the smoke sticks are still there clutched in my left fist, with the packet protecting them… I say whew, then I look at my right hand… nothing… my change (INR 60) and my matchbox have “Gone with the wind”!!! F*ck…

I live very near to the place of accident, I got to take a ride home, I cannot walk… but all I have are Rs. 100 notes… no change what so ever… bus ride takes Rs. 4/… anyways the bus conductor grumbled a bit… but let me ride anyways…

As for my injuries… minor… a little pain in my left ankle, a small bump on my head, but f*ck… I am SHAKEN AND STIRRED!!! Man that was a close shave… I never saw it coming… and b*ll sh*t, I checked kolkata’s weather on the MET site yesterday and it said partly cloudy… Mee krob… they could not see this coming with all their fancy technology and stuff… damn you govt if you pay the MET dept a single penny from my taxes…

he he he he

to follow up on my entry below, here is a snapshot of what to expect from xkcd…

Comics on the web.

WWW is a nice place to go wandering about… manage to find so many things which can keep me hooked up for a long time…

I came across this site http://xkcd.com/. It is a nice series of comics on the web…

I love sarcasm, romance (math and language are really not that high on my list) . I have been going through their strips for some time… and I liked most of them…

So, check them out!

Hurricane Sehwag hits South Africa

NEWSFLASH: Hurricane Sehwag hit South Africa real bad today. There have been no casualties reported yet, but chances are many South African players are going to have heart burn, some like M Ntini most probably will have nightmares which will prevent them from getting sound sleep for quite some time… Economic damages are likely to run into millions as South African player’s brand value might tumble.

Alright, time to be serious, What a blinder of an inning… brilliant attack… daring, swashbuckling… but never ever did he seem in trouble. If one saw the innings, they would see that Sehwag was never in trouble. He was in control.

South Africa having made 540+ in their first innings, now see their lead drop to 40 odd runs with India having batted just 4 sessions… South Africa definitely seemed out of any ready answers to get wickets. Conditions are not easy for them… Chennai pitch is flat… but it has a history of dramatic crumbling in the last day.

Chennai is hot… I am an Indian, when I say hot, I MEAN IT IS HOT AS HELL!!! It is so humid in chennai and to see the South African players toil so hard, run so far… I feel bad for them…

Coming back to the hero of the day (and possibly for a lot longer time if he can break Lara’s record! ) . This was Sehwag’s 2nd score of 300+. That makes him only the 3rd person to ever have done so (Lara and Bradman are the only ones who have done that previously). He now holds the record for being the fastest in terms of balls faced to get to 300!

Sehwag never comes across as a typical test batsman, but he is the only one from the Indian team who ever seemed capable to make that big a score. He scores fast, relieves pressure of others, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman & Ganguly, they always seem to lose focus or run out of partners when attempting that.

Watching Sehwag play is a pleasure, that guy looks like he is out to enjoy his game… his last ten centuries have all been scores over 150… just that they are spread out…

Many scenes from today’s game are etched in my mind, one being Smith running all the way to the boundary and getting beaten by the ball at the last moment!!! Such was their day… no chances came their way, nor did they ever look like creating one…

So, at end of day 3 the score stands at (for complete scorecard click here) :

SA 1st innings – 540 all out

India 1st Innings – 468/1 Sehwag 309* Dravid 65*

Will Sehwag break Lara’s record??? I certainly will pray for that… looking at the way he batted, surely does not look like he needs any prayers!!!

UPA Govt’s boon to the farmer…

When P Chidambaram (Union Minister of Finance, India) presented the budget for the FY-08, there was a huge uproar following the announcement of the Rs. 60,000 Crore (6*10^12!) loan waiver for farmers.

That is HUGE by any margin… through that, he would eradicate 4% of total bank loans!!!!

Some people cheered it, others cried foul. They had their reasons…

1. Most of the farmers in India have borrowed from money lenders. They do so for primarily 3 reasons…

• No banks near by.
• Money lenders are always eager to lend
• They know the money lender since ages… (humane factor, but I DO think that figures in perfectly)

2. No government can write off all the bank loans of all the farmers… so, obviously the government had to set up a criteria… The criterion was set to apply to only those farmers who have <4 Acres of land (I am not certain of this figure, will have to Xcheck.) In any case, let us consider this land ceiling for tax waiver to be y Acres, even then many farmers will feel cheated… especially when they happen to hold y.1 Acres of land!!! So many people cried…

3. Others cried, where will so much money come from… valid question… I am sure there will be a valid answer in time…

4. All this money could have better utilized to pay for seeds, buying their products at a better price, training farmers in technology, providing them amenities etc…

But I still think the government did the only right thing… when they wanted to help the farmer and are prepared to put that much money into it… then this loan waiver was the only valid way forward.

It does not take a lot of inciting to make people corrupt… especially in the bureaucratic chain in India. With so much money, by the time it filtered out to farmers, in the best case scenario, 40% of it would have been siphoned off!!! Yes, it is true… my gut feeling is, had the govt. gone ahead with providing farmers with goods worth that capital, farmers would have got 20% of what was actually offered and the number of scams in India would have grown by 400%.

By making this loan waiver not all the farmers who are the most needy will get help. Many would think it is unfair… but think of it in this way… in this loan waiver, govt interacts directly with Banks… banks have immaculate records… this is the way in which corruption could be prevented from spiraling out of control!!!

faux pas : moments the word f*ck seems to be made for!

Faux pas : is defined as:

• false step [French]; figuratively, a social blunder. While the pronounciation is close to foe-paw, that is not how this is spelled.
• a socially awkward or tactless act

It is amazing how the English language with so many words at its disposal, fails to properly emphasize this French phrase. So, I take this upon myself to properly define “Faux pas” once and for all…

What is Faux Pas? It is a moment in life, when you commit it, you yourself cannot justify your existence on this planet earth. There suddenly is no hole big enough for you to throw yourself into, even though 3/4th of the planet is covered by water, it is just not enough to drown you.

Small sentences, mostly pleasantries, are the major cause of faux pas. The moment the words come out of your mouth, you feel had your tongue just fallen down, or maybe one of your foot just lodge itself in your mouth, you would have felt less embarrassed.

I recently chatted up with a friend, we went to college together, I remember congratulating him when he moved out of Satyam into Oracle… but when chatting up with him, I honestly ask him, “So, how long do you plan to stay in Satyam?” , “Dude, I left satyam about 8-9 months ago!” was the reply. where do I go from there???

That is nothing you might say, well, I would agree… this was quite harmless…

One of the worst Faux Pas I have had in my life was when I was given a lift back home by a girl, it was a long ride (20 mins or so), we were chatting all the while, but I could not remember who she was, surprisingly she knew exactly where I lived… not many people in my FAMILY then knew where exactly I lived!!! She dropped me in front of my door, and I am still trying to remember who she is… finally in desperation I asked, “So, where do you live now a days?” hoping to get some hint as to who she was from the answer…

I didnot get a hint, but I got the answer… she was my neighbor, she lived just in front of my flat… ( don’t get me wrong, I am not THAT forgetful, I was new to the place!!!)

Faux Pas never kills, but it still leaves you wishing you were!!!

am I a typical male?

All my life, or what it has been so far, with out any exceptions every one I have met have either said or hinted that they are not the TYPICAL MALE/FEMALE. Did I ever ask them that? I don’t remember ever asking or even hinting to ask. Then why such statement?

Why such disgust at being tagged as a person which is stereotypical? All people are different in some ways and alike in many. So, to stereotype a person is a bit ambiguous in itself. Still every one has an image in their minds… Indians are like that, Chinese are like that, Americans are like that…

There is no rule/ central repository in which these stereotyping characteristics are stored and studied. Our view of stereotyping a group of individuals comes from our experience with people from that group, television and media are big players when it comes to creating a stereotypical image of a group, then there is word of mouth stereotyping, in which we judge the people basing on reviews we heard from our friends, relatives, colleagues or even on a blog like this!

When we create a stereotype of a group, we generally gather and label them with negative vibes/qualities. We get mugged on the street by an individual of a particular race, cheated by a shopkeeper of a particular origin, we take it for granted that it is a stereotypical behavior! What follows after is that even when we do come across people from that group behaving differently (in a pleasant manner) we think these people are exceptions!!!

In an event when we come across a person who exhibits exceptional good behavior, we still tend to attribute it to the individual rather than the group. Is it true? There are examples which contradict what I said in the previous sentence: Indians are good hosts, Chinese are laborious, Americans are entrepreneurs… etc etc…

But still the desire to be known as an individual surmises all!!! including me… hence I conclude I am NOT a typical male!!! 😉