Seven years in this industry!

On 12th of this month I completed seven years in software industry. It doesn't seem like a big deal now, but I still remember the early days when I used to look at people with 5 years of experience and think they were 'super-seniors', as if I was never going to be like them. Time flies and it flies concord, not Boeing :-) Looking back, I think I was expecting to learn a lot more in 7 years when I started off.

Anyway, it is time to look back at these years and wonder - "Whoa, I am growing old!". To my contemporaries - just think about this : most of the people coming out of colleges now don't know that Internet without Google could exist - they take Google along with roti, kapda and makaan as basic necessities. Going further, most students in high schools and colleges probably don't know that STD phones didn't exist a few years back and there was something called trunk call. They think trunks are only for elephants. Most kids in primary schools aren't aware that there could be a world without mobile phones! Looks like generation gap doesn't really need decades now, it happens in 10 years. People like me _almost_ belong to previous generation already. :-(

Human behavior

I read an article about some riots in the US today that set me thinking about the human behavior.

We are used to seeing people not following rules, accepting (demanding) bribes, being corrupt, rioting, behaving rudely in public and so on in India. We tend to believe that most of those behaviors are fundamentally native to our people, something that makes Indians, Indians. When we visit developed countries, we appreciate the way they keep their country clean and the way they seem to be more honest, following the rules, polite and so on. However, some incidences and circumstances bring out the devil in people in all countries. Think of the riots and cops going around looting houses in New Orleans after Katrina. Think of Government's decision about handing out huge contracts to companies they prefer. Consider for a minute why people drive so horribly in New York and honk at will. Think why the subway entrances in big US cities are not even as clean as our Majestic bus stand.

I think many people are fundamentally scums, irrespective of which country they are from. The chances of these scums exposing their real behavior is inversely proportional to them being caught in the act and being held responsible. This chance is _very_ low in India, so there is nothing to deter these people from being that way. The same people behave much better when they go to, say, Singapore because they know that their a**es will be kicked if they don't behave. The same rule applies everywhere. Secondly, the number of such scums in a society depends on how the society is built up. I guess some of the western European countries have had the best such societies for many generations, so crime rates are lowest there, people keep their country clean, bribery and corruption is lowest and so on. We in India, over centuries, have built a society that does not reward good behavior nor punish bad. So it is a fertile place for people to grow up without many of these good qualities in life. These things can't be changed overnight. I think it will take a few of generations. I hope we start at least now.

Duh!

Here is a proof to show that Linux on desktop is coming along really nicely. Today I was able to see something that I have seen only on Windows, that too not in recent times. Error messages of this type used to be common on Windows, especially if you used any software from Netscape. Looks like Linux desktop is going in the right path, just a matter of time before it catches up with Windows.

(Click on the pic to enlarge it.)

Coconut oil in your petrol tank!

Some university students in Newzealand claimed that coconut oil can be used as fuel in automobile engines. If that ever reaches mainstream, our cities are going to smell like Kerala-style restaurants! A whacky solution to the pollution problem as well.

This immediately brings to my memory one Ramar Pillai, who, around 1997-98, claimed that he could 'make' petrol out of just herbs/shrubs. Now that was some news! Here was an idea that could solve India's fuel woes as well as parthenium menace ;-) But alas, his trick was busted after a few days, but he maintained that his 'trick' was 'genuine'. I read a news after a few years that the Pillai guy continued to happily use his own herbal petrol in his TVS50. If he could _really_ make fuel out of some flora, I would expect him to at least become rich enough to drive a Merc.

Okay, back to coconut dudes of NZ. They claim that this is a possible answer to rising fuel cost woes. Well, I for one am totally against this whole idea. Do they know that we are already paying 12Rs for a coconut in Bangalore? If your family is from the west-coast districts of Karnataka, you know that pretty much all of the daily foods have coconut as an ingredient. So anything that can take the cost of coconuts up, I am against. Also, if cost of coconut oil doubles, what are Indians going to use in their hair? Petrol? And make it easy for bride-burning in-laws?

A stock-market tip - time to buy shares of parachute coconut oil company!

Summer's over!

Today, for the first time, I had to turn the AC at home from 'cool' to 'heat'! So summer is finally over! I can't believe the speed with which things changed. Just 10 days back we were seeing all-time high record temperatures in Austin (107F-42C) and today (50F-10C) it feels like all that was a distant dream. I know I am extremely under-prepared for the winter. When you suddenly realize that the warmest clothing you have is a half-sleeve polo shirt, you know it ;-)

Technology for the sake of technology

Don't get me wrong. This is not a rant about everything related to technology, nor am I a technophobic. Though it may seem to be so, it is not directed at anybody in particular ;-)

The promise of technology has always been to make our lives better. But what I really abhor is people getting so blinded by technology that they forget that that all this is supposed to make our life easy and better, and just believe that if anything is new and funky, they need it! You know the type - "Your camera has 10 megapixels? mine has 11!", "I can watch NDTV on the (crappy little) LCD screen of my mobile phone.", "I can sync all my e-mails to my PDA from my laptop and (with squinty eyes) see all mails on it." This is exactly what the companies selling all this stuff want. This is what the Governments say helps improve the economy, through 'solid retail activity' and 'consumer's confidence in economy' or something like that.

Again, don't get me wrong. There are millions of products of technology that have improved our lives, but almost all of them come with myriad features that are just of snob value. When I buy something I try not to be blinded by the feature list, instead ask myself how many of those features do I really need. I don't need to browse the web on the tiny screen of my mobile phone. I don't need to see my e-mail on a PDA - my life is much simpler so far. I don't need 300 channels on my TV. A car that can zoom from 0 to 60 in a couple of seconds doesn't have any advantage in Bangalore. I don't need a watch that can show time at 50 cities of the world. When I see a product whose instruction manual looks like 'War and Peace', I know to stay away from it.

I have seen a person who had a fundoo home network, it let him log into his home computer from office and then turn off/on lights at home. He couldn't answer my simple question - "Why?" I think these are the type of people that inspire thoughts of toasters that can get on the Internet. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who are unable to use all the rich features of their gadgets is increasing, approaching 100. But these are the same people who jump at the next version of the gadget which has EVEN more features!

Whats the color of your sox(cks)?

Ananth has written in his blog something about various colors of sox(cks) available in the US, and people paying thousands of dollars to see them. The whole thing seems to be related to this game called baseball. This is in fact my reply to his blog, so read his first!

Well, all I know is my white sox(cks) sometimes turn red when soiled, and remain red sox(cks) until they go to laundry, when they turn white again. If I yank(ee) them too much, they get torn and go out with trash! This sox-yanking costs me a few dollars, not even close to $1025 :-)

So isn't baseball the game where they hit full-toss balls out of the ground? I know what Ananth will now say - full-toss balls travelling at 90mph in the general direction of your nose! And is this the game where the whole (and ONLY) US competes for the world (or universe?) title?

Another weekend post

I watched another Kannada movie, "Joke Falls" today. Chauffeur-driven car (thanks to Manju), a good movie and good food at Sarovar, and you know your Sunday hasn't gone wasted! With this movie, I have now watched more Kannada movies (in a movie hall, not at home) in these three months in Austin than in the last 3 years in Bangalore. Thanks to Austin Kannada Sangha for bringing a number of Kannada movies (both of them!) to Austin during this time. They have improved their website as well, things WORK now! What they could do better is ask the volunteers selling tickets and the ones who make announcements (about Rajyothsava celebrations, incidentally) in the movie hall to speak in Kannada. There is no need to prove that you know English and I can pretty much guarantee that every person who is watching a Kannada movie obviously knows Kannada!

I have started borrowing books and DVDs from Austin public library, so evenings are pretty eventful now. Lack of TV pinches once in a while, but for most of the time I don't miss it at all now. But here is a guy who would miss the TV if it was taken away from him for a day - the guy who set Guinness record for non-stop TV watching! His first name is Suresh, but he is not Indian. He apparently watched TV for 69 hours and 48 minutes, with 5 minute breaks every one hour. I know what you are thinking - you could beat it, right? But I guess the challenge here is not falling asleep for three days straight. But you have not heard the funny part yet - why does he do all this - this is straight from CNN website: "to raise awareness of suffering children" These are things that make you go "Huh?". Probably the children suffering due to excess TV watching? Oh, I now remember - I too watched a couple of DVDs this weekend. The purpose was to "raise awareness about suffering children and poverty in Africa" :-)

Oh Jeeves!

I heard today that www.ask.com is dropping it's well known butler mascot. This reopened my memories from far back when I first started using the Internet. I started using the net first when I was in college, in 1997. The SJCE-STEP was the only place in Mysore with internet access. Around ten 286 and 386 PCs shared a dial-up speed connection and we surfed the web using Netscape Navigator 4.x, which used to take hardly 2 to 3 minutes to load when starting up. As part of our intense research for our college project, we would go to rocketmail.com or mailcity.com and send 'test' e-mails to our friends sitting at another PC across the hall. After this, we would run to our friends to see if the mail really reached! Once in a while mails would reach, and by then our quota of 1 hour of browsing would be over. We would return home with an aura around us of having tamed the net.

Almost all our searches were done on Altavista, because we did not know any other search engine. I came to know that there was something called lycos when they bought over mailcity. Sometime during 99 I discovered askjeeves. ask.com was known as askjeeves.com during then (roughly 99-2000) and it was my favorite search engine. I don't know why, I just liked it's interface and I was happy with the search results it threw up. All this until I surrendered to google, like millions of others. I can't think of ask.com without Jeeves mascot. To me it is like google without it's colorful letters, IBM without it's 8-bar logo, Mysore without Chamundi hill, pizza without cheese! I will miss you Jeeves!

Talking about the internet, it is interesting to see how it has progressed in all these years. These days you can open a mail account on hundreds of websites and effortlessly receive thousands of spam mails every day. You can search for just about anything and google will return a couple of hundred thousand results in 0.00234 seconds or something around that. It is nice to see people making best use of the search engine technology to search for - Pamela Anderson. Yes. Lycos says the most searched phrase on their search engine in the last ten years was this woman! She fought off a close battle with "Britney Spears", "Las Vegas", "WWE", "Pokemon" and so on.

How to cheer up a bored mind!

There are dull weekends, but this one set the bar for me. I think a good weekend is not just about doing a lot of exciting things, it is a state of mind. (which means I don't know what the heck it is). I started reading a book by Dave Barry, the king of humourous writing himself; watched two movies on DVDs, but all things I did this weekend to cheer my mind up came to naught. Of course, "Riding in cars with boys" sounded far more interesting than it actually turned out to be. It was a good movie, but quite depressing.

One thing that many do when they are feeling this way is to eat chocolates. Chocolates are supposed to trigger feel-good chemicals in our brains, called endorphins. But I find that any fat-laden food will also help. Why is the nature so unfair to people who are concerned about putting on weight? Why does it have to be chocolates or fried foods that trigger these little bastard endorphins? Why couldn't it be broccoli or lettuce?

I realized that I have spent more than three months in Austin now. I am now thinking more about what I am gonna do after I go back to Bangalore, than what I am gonna do in the remaining months here. That shows I am now 'over the hill', so to say, with respect to my this onsite assignment.

Rita disappointment!

With Hurricane Rita not causing as much damage as initially feared, most of the country, especially Texas, should be breathing a collective sigh of relief. But I am sure there are few who are disappointed a little bit, okay, I know there is at least one for sure, that is me!

The amount of preparation that went behind preparing for this hurricane here in Austin was seen to be believed. People, having seen TV reports of Katrina, took Rita seriously, a bit too seriously. Austin was shown to be right in the path of the hurricane and though we are around 200 miles inland from the ocean, people were taking no chances. By this Wednesday most stores had run out of bread, water and other essentials. I went to buy some stuff on Thursday and found that people were filling up their Ford-250s with all the water and food they could find in the store. I found one woman buying loads of toilet paper. I really wondered if this was a part of some special plan to handle the hurricane. I heard that some people bought enough water to last a month. Well, if the hurricane had really stuck us, the one item we would find in abundance and not need a bit would be water, right? ;-)

I on the other hand decided to go very light on preparations for the hurricane, you know we Indians are like that! I live on 3rd floor (Ground-Second-Third in the US as against Ground-First-Second-Third in India), so I figured I would remain dry until the water raised almost 20 feet!

By Friday, it was clear that Austin was well clear of the main path of the hurricane, so the euphoria had come down. But the way events unfolded today left everyone dumbfounded. Not a single drop of rain, for heaven's sake! Not even some dark clouds in the sky. It was just like normal here, temperature at around 100F. I had hoped that it would at least rain a couple of inches, so I could still brag that I was in the hurricane path. (You know, when I was in Austin, there was this huge hurricane, roads filled with water and I could just swim to work instead of walking... something like that). But alas, Austin was left high and dry. What an anti-climax! Looks like we are going to continue to see temperatures in low 100s for a few more days.

Hurricane naming

More about hurricanes, the topic that is the flavor of the season.

As hurricane Rita prepares to run down the US gulf, meteorologists have a huge problem on hand - no, it is not the destruction she might bring with her. What can Rita possibly do that Katrina couldn't? New Orleans mayor to hurricane Rita : "Madam, we already have enough water in our city. We don't want any of yours, thank you. We could even gift some water to you."

The problem meteorologists are facing is - they have only 4 names left for hurricanes and storms this year. Apparently they come up with 21 names at the beginning of the year for the hurricane season (around January to around December). Each name begins with an alphabet from A to W, skipping Q and U. Names are alternatively male and female. Male names were added in 1979 (to silence women right activists, I guess). Names are rotated every seventh year. If a hurricane causes extensive damage, he or she is dropped from the list ;-).

This year they may run out of names and so they are planning to name the extra guests Alpha, Beta and so on. Equally effective, but far less glamorous! They could get a few interesting names from India. What names best suit the worst hurricanes? Yamaraj? Hidimba? Ghatothkaj? Lankini? Bakasur? Okay, may be Yamaraj is not such a good one...

Kannada movie!

My friend Manju told me that a Kannada movie, "Joke Falls" is coming to Austin next weekend. So I quickly checked the website of Austin Kannada Sangha to see if they have more information about this. But alas, looks like their website has been recently 'upgraded/redisigned', by which I mean we can't find any good information on it anymore. They are running a poll named "What do you think of the new AKS website?", with the following three options to choose from:
1) Think? I use it
2) I love it
3) I will send an email with suggestions

Yes, that's it. There is no option that says "Sucks". Looks like the third option covers that. Intelligent people.

BTW, I came across pictures of a couple of 'leading' stars of Kannada movies that made me wonder "How much money did they get JUST to wear a dress that is so awful"? and "What was the costume designer of the movie smoking when he/she came up with these designs?". See for yourself here and especially here. After all, Bangalore is home to too many fashion designers, so they could have gone to any one of them to get the dresses designed. Or may be they did!

Innovation at it’s best

Here is a fine example of how US leads the world in technology and innovation. Gillette, as you know, has been helping us fight one of the biggest problems plaguing mankind - the stubble on the man's face. Gillette were one of the first to market 'safety' razors, which means you can 'safely' cut off your nose or ear with those razors if you are not careful. They were the first to introduce the twin blade razors during early 70s in the US and 3-blade razor during the 90s. Their innovation also included the Aloe strip that is found on their Mach3 razors. This strip has a unique property of enhancing the price of the razor without providing any material benefit. But then, another company, Schick, beat them to the next number. They were the first to come up with highly innovative 4-blade shaving razor. That must have been a dark day in Gillette headquarters.

But then, we are talking about a company which boasts more about innovation and technology on their website than NASA or Intel do. So it was obvious they were not going to sit quiet. Their research teams set out to find out what number comes after 4. Within a couple of years, they knew it. This week they introduced - suspense - hold your breath - the world's first Five-blade razor system!!!!! Don't believe me? See for yourself. So I guess you get the picture of what shaving razors will look like in 2010. There will be more blades than can be fit on the razor, but there is the long handle to be made use of ;-) Or probably razors will look like cheese graters.

Where does all this leave India? We are still stuck with age-old 3-blade technology. It looks like nuclear technology and high end computing and encryption technology reach India faster than this razor technology. We are stuck with yesterday's shaving technology, Shah Rukh Khan's smooth cheeks notwithstanding. It is high time Topaz blade company in India put some money into razor research. (clue: Just find what number comes after 5 and you have it. Better patent it now). Meanwhile, I am too scared to try the 5-blade variety from Gillette. I will stick with my Electric shaver. It may have 100s of tiny blades, but it takes far more effort to cut off my nose or ear with it.

Bilingual blog

I made my other blog at http://huchumanasu.blogspot.com bilingual, in Kannada and English, so that it can be read by everyone. Of course, what I say there may not make sense for everyone! Sometimes thoughts in our mind get horribly diluted by the time they are put to words.

If you want to enable Kannada fonts on your computer (XP/Linux), go here and read easy-to-follow instructions: http://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Kannada_Support

C & H

If you love Calvin and Hobbes, here is one of the best ever. ("Y" as in "Y do we care?" I am LOL) http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ch/1994/ch940912.gif

Travelogue Part 2

I am back with Part 2 of my blog. Shows how 'eventful' my weekend has been ;-)

The next day (3rd Sep) began with drive towards Newark, New Jersey. By noon we were in NJ. The first thing thatsurprised us simple minded Texans was the way people drove there. We had to quickly remember our driving skillsfrom Bangalore to acclimatize ourselves to driving here. Honk if you are happy (or sad or neither), never leave more than 2 inches of space between your car and the one in front and so on. After checking in at the hotel, we decided to check out NY in the evening, taking the train to Newyork Penn Station from Newark Penn Station (ugh! very imaginative naming!) At the Newark Penn Station, it appeared that they had outsourced the information desk and "May I help you"counters to friendly neighborhood thugs and cheats.

A long walk around the Times Square, the famous curved facade of the Nasdaq building, along Broadway and other 'famous' roads made a memorable evening. It was niceto see so many people walking on roads. We quickly learnt that we can cross roads almost any time we want. Of course, cars can honk at us any time they want and we can shout at them when they do it!

The next day we started with Ground Zero (where the WTC buildings once stood) and quickly proceeded to Liberty and Ellis islands. Any trip to NY is not complete until you have taken your picture with lady Liberty. The immigrantion centre museum at Ellis island was very informative as well. Tip to future visitors to Ellis island: Don't eat at Ellis island food stall if you are a vegetarian. It sucks big time.

Rest of the day involved a visit to the American Museum of Natural history , The Central Park and Madame Tussauds wax museum. Madame Tussauds looked far less impressive here compared to the one in London. No Amitabh Bachan, no Aishwarya Rai! Our evening was dedicated to seeing the Empire State building, the tallest now in Newyork. But most of the evening was spent in waiting in a queue there. But it was worth the wait. Clear skies offerred a majestic view of the city all around. Made me remember seeing Paris from the Eiffel Tower.

The next day morning (5th Sep) Ananth took us to his cousin's house in NJ where we had a fantastic brunch. After days of eating McDonands and such stuff, not to mention burgers at Ellis island, our tastebuds were treated to a sumptuous fare.We later left to see the the Longwood Gardens on the outskirts of Philadelphia. It is a nice botonical garden, but for us it was only an opportunity to take pictures, especially for Ananth with his SLR. Later in the day we returned to BaltimoreAirport and rest of the trip back home was eventless.

Here is a panaramic view of Manhattan and other areas from Ellis island. If you care for more pictures, go to http://sripathi.fotopic.net

Travelogue Part 1

This is a travelogue of our trip to DC, Niagara falls and NY last weekend. It was my first trip to the eastern part of the US. Ananth, Murali and I planned a 5-day vacation to during labor day weekend. The photo here shows the amount of driving directions I had obtained :) Find a lot of photos at http://sripathi.fotopic.net.

It started with a flight to Baltimore airport on 31st Aug. The super-shuttle ride from the airport to our hotel was a memorable one. The driver insisted on driving in two lanes all the time, and often grossly over the speed limit! Just when we were wondering if the road rules are different in Baltimore, a cop promptly pulled us over.

The next day began with a taxi driver trying to con us, immediately making us feel very homely :) But rest of the day went very smoothly in Washington DC. The new security restrictions in the city make it far less enjoyable experience, however. We were only allowed outside the distant fencing of the White House, and we missed the ticket to go inside the Capitol building. To go any closer to the White House, we need to obtain a letter/pass from our local senator six months (yes, six months) before our visit! But I am not complaining too much about not going into White House because. Well, it was obviously white in color, but it really did not look too impressive. We then saw the Washington Monument. In fact it is difficult not to see it if you are in DC, it is a tower 555 feet tall! We later saw the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, WWII memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. Here is a picture of the Capitol building.


The next day started with a long drive to Niagara falls. Driving directions given by mapquest (Yes, I used a Microsoft website) ran us through many green, beautiful country roads in Pennsylvania and NewYork states. Niagara falls had a huge waterfall as expected ;-) But the first thing that caught our eye was the board "Sardar Dhaba"! You know you are near Canada (or Jalandhar) when you see that board. We really enjoyed our stay till late in the night at Niagara falls. Toronto offers a beatiful skyline on the other side of the falls.
More later.

Katrina aftermath

I am back from the long weekend vacation and am still trying to remember all my gazillion logins and passwords. I have decided to use Revelation for remembering my passwords. With that, I will only need to forget one master password!

I would have written about my trip to the east coast, but Katrina is still a hot subject, so some more about it. It is of course a big tragedy, possibly the biggest natural calamity in the US history. However, I can see some humor in the way the aftermaths are going.

First of all, the 'Superdome' in New Orleans. Only now are people wondering why a board there spelt it as 'Superdoom'. Now people have been shifted to another doom (dome), the Astrodome in Houston. Apparently law and order in New Orleans was also washed away in Katrina fury, so now it is normal to hear gunshots there.
News reader: "Here we have some clips from violence-ridden streets of Baghdad, where our armed forces are engaged in pitched battles with terrorists to protect democracy and liberty of Iraqis. Oh my God, wait! it is not Baghdad, it is our own New Orleans!!!"

News channels and news websites are the only people, I think, who have benefitted from the evil hurricane. However, only a few fortunate (!?) news reporters actually went to where real action is. Many less fortunate ones ended up reporting in a very excited voice, anything and everything related to Katrina in their own hometown. This is something I saw on a local TV station (I am really not making this up!): A TV reporter with an empty parking lot behind her: "THIS VERY SPOT right here is where the truck collecting Katrina relief materials stood till a few hours back, before it left to New Orleans". Desparate, unlucky news reporter!

Gas prices have shot up to all time highs as an effect of the hurricane. We paid 3.5$ per gallon during our trip last weekend. It may be simple for Californians - they just need to transfer their entire salary to gas stations owner's account now. The only place that doesn't need gas could be New Orleans, where people now depend on small boats and kayaks for their commute. It's time they built some Kerala-style backwater resorts in New Orleans to attract tourists.

Long weekend!

Going off for the long weekend. No blogging for at least 5 more days.