Advice and Opinions

A lot of bad stuff can happen to someone but then we always need to remember that things could have been worse. There are two ways of looking at things if there are roadblocks in your path. Either you break those roadblocks or you go around them. Yeah, if you cross them...then you can surely put in your email comment things like below

The only good things about stones in my path is that once i cross them....They become milestones

But nevertheless you needn't worry if you cannot do both. Yeah!! That is true and you may term me as an escapist here but if it is not working out for you on a said road, it is quite possible you are on the wrong road. If one is on the wrong road, then i am sure instead of trudging it and struggling, you can choose to go on a different route. 

A different route may also not work out for you...Because routes may just not be your thing, because you mayn't be the type who is meant to walk but to  fly. I am quite sure the Siberien crane wouldn't have made it to Ranganathittu every year, had it taken a road. It takes the sky, because it was meant to do that. 

The world sometimes mayn't realize that. In which case doing anything which the rest of them dont do, would essentially land you in the zone which is generally termed as 

 "He has an attitude problem"

Yes gentlemen and ladies...I do have an attitude problem. A big one too!!...But i ain't ashamed about it...( Jeez he starts again!!). However, one more thing is that all these are perceptions aren't they...and yeah the best thing about opinions are...

"Opinions are like assholes. Each one has one and it stinks to the other"

I feel that Paulo Cohelo is very right in saying that..."Everyone in this world seems to know how one should lead his life in a better way, except their own". 

There are two things i learnt today:

1. It is not me ONLY who is judgemental
2. Advice is like a loan without repayment....People are willing to give you one when you really dont need it. And when you try to return it, they don't need it (oh i have already created a paradox)

Maybe continued....

Innovative Film City - dying by the day...

I am writing after almost after 3 months, evils of having a office very far from your house and loads of travel time. Currently, i waste about 2.5 hours in my cab travelling to office and another 2 hours in front of the computer. Come to think of it, i think internet has eaten more time off my life then anything else. Its a type of addiction which seems to have caught everyone around. I remember we used to have this debate in school days 

"Science Boon or bane!!"

I think its time we agree that Science is a boon and replace Science with Internet.  Recently i came across a statement which went something like this...

Computers where meant to useful things for humans...until someone invented the internet. 

To take a break from the monotony of the computer world i decided to a few things to spice up my otherwise "gruel like" work. To start with i did some compering....for the 1st time....And guess what i didn't have tomatoes and eggs thrown at me only for the lack of sufficient energy in the audience, thanks to the supposedly sedative laden food served at our canteen. 

Next yeah, i decided to write this blog....but before i could write this i had to think of what i could/should write about. Hence, to break the life of boredom and also to take my car for a walk (thanks to this line from Sreenath) we decided to go to The Innovative Film City. 

The place lies about 50Km from where i stay (Malleswaram) and after taking the Tumkur road-> Nice Road -> Mysore Road path we reached the place at around 10.30 after starting at 9.00 am. Thanks to some missed navigation points due to which we had to go along tumkur road for a distance of about 7 Km extra.

It was a monday and the place wore a deserted look but looked magnificent from outside. Inside its really really big. Huge area which in my opinion has seen better days. The convention hall just after the entrance point is almost dilapidated with everything falling apart. You might be initially hit by the magnanimity of the place since its spans close to a few acres if not more. A low resolution map provided to you at the entrace guides you through the place but as i said initially the immensity of the place can be overwhelming. Many shops are closed and the place seems to remind you of the sets of the "Om Shanti Om" movie. However, alls not lost. You have some interesting games like the Archery area, shoot the target etc. Haunted house (which has really a haunted look) is a good place to go if you are with friends, you can really have fun with the grotesque phematically controlled dolls most of whose phematic controls are either purposefully severed or have got severed due to lack of maintenence. 

The most interesting part of the whole deal is the 5 feet wavepool which can be good fun with friends since its quite clean and the mirror maze which can really play with your brain. You will be given plastic gloves so that you dont smudge mirrors. Other interesting things are really the Ripley Believe it or not mueseum, The dino park and the Louis Tussaud mueseum. These are good for kids but adults may too easily get bored. It could also be because you would be tried walking all over the place by the time you reach these attractions.

 

He drinks what we earn in a month

I read this piece of really thought provoking article here 

Enraged Ashwin and his friend started arguing with the waiters and refused to pay the bill, that run up Rs 30,000, until their order was accepted.

This means for some people a night's drinking spree is worth 30,000. This is perhaps many of us earn in a month. Our more unfortunate breathens perhaps see such amount of money in a few months. What i do not understand is that when people of such kind of money to spend, why are we still a developing nation. 

What further drew my interest is that one of the comments on this post suggests that a special tax be levied on pubs. A better and more directed approach would be to levy a special tax on drinks bills which is beyond a particular limit. Of course, we indians would have generally found a way around this. For example, 2 bills of lesser amounts. However, i wonder after having drinks of 30,000 bucks, can anybody still have the sanity to pay the bill or even read it clearly?

Back in action - The journey begins...

There is something about laziness that is different. It defies itself by helping us actively find a well justified, quite likely believable reason for us to procrastinate something which we could have otherwise loved to do. For the uninitiated, i have just got married in the month of Dec,2011. I entered into a new life with a brand new wife by my side and a new year to look ahead. Unfortuntely, things have not been so smooth on the proffesional front with too many screw-up's happening with out me being responsible for any of those. Oh! well that cannot be fully true, because for every miserable situation that we land ourselves up in, somewhere we are responsible for our misery. 

I have always believed that the only person who can make you happy or sad is yourself. If you are getting affected by someone's action and undergoing some mental agony then it is quite likely that you need to help yourself. Well this i realized after i vented out my frustration on someone only to be told the following golden words 

"Deepak, you are not having your heart in what you are doing. Obviously, everything around you will look gloomy and you tend to get irritated quite quickly".

I am sure everyone goes through this phase in some or other point in life and when this occurs, it almost feels like you have a golf ball stuck in your throat. You can neither gulp it nor can you spit it out. However, this void in the life needs to be somehow filled. One cannot let time and destiny take its course and just wait. Yeah! that is also a way of life but perhaps the easier way out. 

I am doing some introspection of the current upheaval in my proffesional life and also trying to figure out ways to calm myself and go ahead. In my quest to adapt myself to the chaning situation at work and home, i am sure to make mistakes and learn from those. As i fall and get up again, i would like to chronicle my adventures so that someday i look back and reflect upon this journey.

Its my experience that once i achieve a goal, which i know i will ...I take a few minutes to look back and see what i have conquered and how have i have done it; before going ahead. This gives me the strength that i need to conquer the new challenge that stands before me....

I once read...

"Today is the tommorrow, you feared about yesterday".

So all this chronicling activity is only so that when i am done with my goal...i can look back ,see how tough times where , how i worked my way up...

 

Lets wait and watch...i guess thats the best we can do right now...What say?

The man without passion

"Yeah, But with every sport it is the same. Even the Euro-qualifiers for soccer start almost immediately after the Euro cup. If you are crazy about a game you will follow it", he arguged against my comment that Cricket was being played too often thereby almost making it uncouth. So drifted the discussion and he poured me with immense and many a times minute details about Cricketers and Soccers clubs. Just to make a detour to something which i presumed he might not have so much involvement in, whereby i could gain an upper had i started talking about Tennis and How i liked Nadal. Though except for a few prosiac details about Nadal i didn't know much. However to my utter dismay and eventual admiration, he started talking about tennis as though he has been living Tennis every one of his past 25 years.

It was only after a few such attempts, that i was able to understand the significance and the depth of the word "Passion" for something. Yeah, I have never had passion for anything in particular. That is why neither do i know about every possible defence aircraft be it the MiG's, Sukhoi's, F-16/18; or cars be it the Audi-TT, Audi-R8, SLS-AMG gullwing; or be it Weapons, which incidently is the extremly strong point of my brother who can tell you the features of the gun to the minutest details about when, who, why and how a gun was made. You might as well add my lack of knowledge of Sports and Geography...For i still don't quite well know where is which country in the Europe. That Macaredonia is a country in Europe, drew up to me only after hearing to the advertisments on CNN from this country.

Why don't i have a passion? I cannot answer this well. I have never been madly crazy about anything. I do love things...be it climbing trees, going on treks, eating different food, playing different games...but never been like mad at anything. I have done high-rope walking, i have played cricket (hurt myself and my ego badly !!), Done miles of cycling before my cycle was stolen, have ripped my bike at speeds upto 100KMPH ( any further and i would have been looking for a new bike!!), learnt german ...done many things...but with Passion...cant say so..I just did because i liked doing them.

Take for example this stupid blog....I have barely 20 people who read this...and most don't even care to have a look at it...still i write..well, someday Google will find this too much of clutter on their discs and just choose to set the magnetic fields in their discs right there by sparing a few of the trouble of reading of my ideas....But i guess, tills such a armageddon comes to being, i think i will write.(Hey...also if they start charing me for writing i might stop!!)

Cannot say if this is the right way to live, but i am happy the way i am...Although, sometimes i suffer with pangs of guilt that i dont have passion ,like many others. Any suggestions to help me out? 

Data Data Everywhere....and that is my biggest scare

I am back. Yeah that is not the best of starting lines one can give when he write after more than 3 months. Blogging for me has been more like a fashion statement i guess, when it was in fashion i too was blogging big time. You can see that from the number of posts have constantly come down over the last 12 months. 

This blog comes at a time when i have almost given up on bangalore traffic and also on my company policies that dont allow working from home. It is quite surprizing that the dudes who make the best cars in the world, dont want their folks to work from home. Yeah!! we are paranoid about the confidentiality of our data.

However, when i think about this i find it quite shocking. About 20 years back, when i used to go to school, there where still sparrows at the window sill, the First rain was interesting because of the warm smell of water on dust would entice your senses to the extent that you would want to eat it, when the air we breathed had still a the measure of oxygen that it was supposed to have, when going to office was boring but not a near death experience, when we happily used to carry waterbottles and fill water from every other station where the train stopped during a journey without worrying about weather we would live after drinking such water, When going to see Ramayan in neighbours house was not embarassing, when Bisleri was the only bottled water which no one cared about, when Goldspot & Tinka were famous, when kids read more than just textbooks and in India libraries where more than wine shops, when letter to the editiors where written in paper and posted by walking till the post box;  at that time there was very little data that was flowing around us, as compared to today.

Today there is data flowing everywhere, my computer is speaking to thousands of other computers spread all over the globle, at the same time it is talking to my phone wirelessly which is also taking to another phone via Bluetooth. Messages are flying all around me at Gigahertz frequency and going from my mobile phone to phones & Towers via Satellites that are thousands of kilometers above the earths surface. My pc is also talking to my LCD TV which is getting data via a Dish antenna placed on the top of my roof and picking up high-definition video from some other transponder the same satellite maybe. Btw, the satellite itself is getting commands from somewhere in Hassan ( small town in Karnataka). 

Data is there everywhere and even then we have long queues in banks, hospitals and stores because the data is still not accesible fast enough....I have to stay in front of the ATM machine looking like an idiot till it decides that i am the genuine ( My brother who is seeing down my back says i look like an idiot otherwise too!!), I have to stay till the credit card machine gets the authentication...Well, the point is that data is playing a very strong role in our lives and everything about this data needs to be taken care of. Unfortuately, technology is not so simple like how my father used to keep all the bills, contact numbers and addresses in a separate file under lock and key. 

It is quite evident that all the data that is flowing around in the air, in the wires and everywhere else can have a significant damaging impact if they get into the wrong hands. I guess it is time we step back and think, can we do something to put this whole network in order and ensure that we still know that when i send a letter ...oops email...I know that it goes to the right person, with no other person able to get this information. 

....Food for thought!!

 

God, Soul auf Life - 2

I have been such a wonderful writer ( especially going by the experience in my blog) that except for myself and a few forced readers...my blog is not even read by the google-crawler.  However, the last post generated some interest among a few i know. And that is why i am typing this continuation to this. 

There are wonderful things written about the soul in the Gita. Starting with the fact that it is neither born nor can be destroyed, is perpetual, cannot slay or be slain etc etc. However, if we try to compare this with some of our known physics then that is almost matches what energy is. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, and really we know that nobody can really answer how did energy come to being. Ofcourse, the clever would say matter can transform to energy. Wow!! Great realization :-). But how did that matter come to being ?

Quoting from one the great physicists of our time, Feynmen has explained in one of his lectures a bit about how matter and energy are so related and how matter can be thought of roughly as a battery that traps energy. You destroy the matter you get the energy back which in turn can again be converted to matter. Well no explaining here for this part because then we would get deviated into a completely different path of physics. However, we have to believe scientifically or spiritually that there is a need for energy to be there for life to exist. So for those who can get easily convinced, i would like to make a direct comparison or even claim that soul can be equated to the energy that exists and drives our life. 

Assuming that i have been able to put forth my idea of the soul, i think i am now better qualified to present my ideas on god, which again would be fully based on the arguments and hypothesis that have been discussed in the previous paragraphs. The simplest way to understand god is to understand him or her as someone who knows the answer to the question, how did everything come to being. Matter or energy. We know that the SUN which is almost the entirely the source of every form of energy, note almost every form of energy on earth ( directly or indirectly) is something which is getting its energy by fission of Hydrogen into Helium. But Why should Hydrogen or helium exist? Why be there? Confused? I am too!!! 

Astronomers and Astrophysicists have come to a theory that the universe started from a blackhole that blew up. The universe is expanding and some day the expansion is going to stop. It is hypothesized to be like a big rubberband that is being stretched and some day it is going to stop and it will fall back. Is God the one who is stretching it? That is something I cannot answer. Nevertheless, my take is that if one has to simply visualize god as something or someone who is making the whole show run i.e. conversion of matter to energy, energy to matter...making new organisms come into being by adding some life into them, exiticntisizing (if i may use the word like this) some other races etc, then God can be considered as a Summation of all the energy that is there in the world. 

Which means he exists in you, your neighbor and neighbor's dog. ( Maybe thats why bible has ...Love thy Neighbor...Though most of it think of as Love thy Neighbor's Daughter ;-) ). He also exists in the thief who picked your pocket, and also the Nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki. So is god good or bad...? From the second line he look bad ain't he? Why do we pray him them? why are such great things said about him? .....

Well my ideas on that are for another post....I hope its worth the wait :-)

 

God, Soul aur Life

Finally I got the time to update the blog. The reason being that i have finally finished the Deutschkurs or the German course as they say it in English. This gives me time to write sometimes, somethings on this blog. The good news is that i have a few hours extra per day...the bad news is that i have many more things to read and a few extra things to do workwise. I have been having a lot of discussions with parents, friends & foes alike on various topics starting from "How our Education system should be?" to  "What should be done to express our ideas in the best way"...

One such interesting topic, though a bit sensitive and intriguing in nature was that of Religion and God. Yeah! Yeah ! I know, i am not qualified enough to comment on this because I am no saint or Godman. However, I am not here to preach people or tell them what to do to vanquish all their problems or how the mighty fist of God will slay all their enemies. I am just trying to understand the concept of God over the past few years and have got many answers; some from within and some from the people who tried to help me by providing their versions of the answers. 

There are a lot of people who just do not believe in God. Poof!! That is dumb. Or at least in my perspective it is dumb. Why dumb? The reason is to say something doesn't exist, one should understand what it is? However, To understand "God" itself is a quest that takes a lifetime. What the so called atheists really consider god, is what their "god-fearing" brethren consider as god. Idol worship or worship of a book doesn't qualify to be called god worship. So what really is "God" ?

In my point of view, "God" doesn't exist in the forms that we know him as. Energy is what drives us all. There is a process (Metabolism) to convert the food that we eat into energy and this is the energy that somehow  makes our existence possible. The key word here is somehow. Because, if we provide the same energy by for example burning a piece of wood or by doing some kind of a exothermic chemical reaction we still cannot produce what we commonly call as "Life".  There is something unique in the way things have to work together in tandem, in harmony to result in this stupendous thing called "Life". Arguers may state that Brain coordinates everything!!...Yeah true, but there are more things apart from just commanding the different organs; There are feelings,emotions and what we call as conscience, which if strong enough can make one take decisions which are perhaps counterproductive to the Logical Goal of a being i.e. Survival. This is because there is unknown or let me say un-understood by me force that connects all these well explains things together. This is what i believe constitutes of the soul. Spirit as we more often call it in the Christian terminologies, i guess is this special energy that binds and keeps the show going. 

Every organism that has come to being, has at least one purpose..and that is to thrive. Because without this the very fact of existence doesn't make sense. However, to bring it into existence there needs to be that some extra force, which is capable of creating the raw materials to something which can live and thrive on its own. We can create a culture on a petri-dish in a lab, however if i give you a dead amoeba, scientifically it is just not possible to make it do what it was doing as it was alive. Which means, there are parts of existence, that are still not understood fully by science. This defeats the purpose of talking about atheists who claim the Non-existence  of something which they don't understand anyway or cannot be fully explained by science :-)

What about the initial question of GOD?....Hmmmm, that is for another blog i guess.

The rhetorical cracker story

As the skies are getting illuminated by the bright sparks from the innumerable number of Firecrackers being lit by kids and adults alike, i began to ponder over the topics which gain popularity each year during the Diwali season and that is "Ban Crackers because it leads to child labor". Each year scores of hours of discussions and talk shows happen in air conditioned rooms where intellectuals discuss over the evils of crackers and talk about how they blow a dent in our environment. Then there are environmentalists who boldly come to the studio's in their 4 and 6 cylinder cars to tell you that the pollution level rises by 40% during Deepavali. 

What started with the color matches and the mudpot based "Diya" better known as the "Bhakthapu" is today an whole industry, which has been plagued perhaps since its very inception by child labor. However, while we try to point fingers at this industry, we some how fail to see that the whole town of Sivakasi or lets say the best part of Sivakasi, Tamilnadu feeds off firecrackers. A complete ban on fireworks would as well mean stealing the livelihood of this town. Further to this what most of might not be aware of, thanks to our media which promotes what is juicy, is that there is a big racket of crackers being produces illegally without proper licenses or safety measures taken into consideration. This is where you would find most of the child labor, since that would bring bigger profits to the cracker-mafia (Funny that we have mafia in India for everything). Instead of every season playing a blame game and by having some dumb jokers come on the television to tell us about the ill effects of Crackers and how it promotes child labor, why cannot we treat this an opportunity. Why cannot the industry be better controlled by avoiding child labor, enforcing strict quality control on the manufacture of crackers and promote innovation in this area. A google search tells me that the Indian fireworks industry once locked horns with the Chinese Firework giants only to ground down to dust. The reason is not only that our varieties of crackers is scarce, but also that like many or of our other products, they are considered sub standard, unsafe and mostly unpredictable. Anybody who has burst a couple of bombs during Diwali would tell you this. It is a saddening fact that each one of knows most of these things and we still try to solve the wrong problem. 

Yes, crackers pollute....but so do our cars, bikes industries. However, no one protests then!!. We tends to love or hate something based on how it is portrayed. Why cannot open spaces be organized where all the residents can come together in burst their crackers? That way the pollution is to some extent localized. The changes are necessary, but not at the cost of someone's livelihood. One would prefer to live 40 years and die with respiratory problems than dying in the next 1 year due to hunger. It makes sense to gradually reduce our habit our crackers, giving sufficient time for the industry to look for newer options. Or how would it be, if we start concentrating more on creating crackers for the export market? Atleast the pollution is not ours anymore? Or how about creating low polluting crackers? Norms in the automotive industry have given us cars that promise to pollute less, why not norms for crackers?

Something for the MBA's and decision makers to brood over???

 

 

 

Has the Internet...netted us?

Out of my class today my classmate asks me ..."Why do you blog?". It got me thinking, why i blog or better why people blog, tweet use more of the so called social networking sites? Is is that we are not able to express ourselves well enough in our physical forms by talking to people, by interacting with them ? or is it because we live a dual life were we are what we want to be, in our internet self and are what are expected to be, in flesh and blood?

At the outset of internet, there was a huge rush of people who found it as a wonderful way to express their ideas and let their creative juices flow all over the electronic media. People used it to connect to people who were earlier only available via the telephone. Soon the internet manifested itself into a space where people not just ventured to express their creativity, but also to express their views over topics which otherwise were out of their bounds. It also became a playground for demonstrating ones wit and wisdom. Mud slinging via internet is no more new. Attention grabbing via controversial statements on social networking sites has become a modern day fad. Sashi Tharoor being the baton bearer for the Indian youth by making statements about  "Cattle class" and sorts. 

What was initially designed to just transfer information between a group of computers has gone to become so huge that it has a personality of its own. It is almost like the internet is something that has its own life and we all have made this a part of our life. I for one cannot imagine a life without internet, because for every bit of information that i need, i just google it. This shows how much i am dependent i have grown to this beast. I call it a beast because when it is good it is great and when internet turns bad it can be worse then your darkest nightmares. There have been umpteen number of cases where Internet has played a lifesaver. At the same time with malicious worms, viruses and hackers on the prowl it is almost as scary as a walk in the darkest streets of Pennsylvania in a cold winter night. 

Online gaming, chat sites and public forums give us a new perspective of life. We can be what we want, who we want and do what we like to do . However, we have got so much involved in this that we have started to be more of what we are online and in reality we are trying to lead a life which suits the demands of the polished society that we try to impress all the time. It makes me wonder if there has been more that the necessary amount of intrusion into our lives by the so called " Social Networking". 

Food for thought, ain't it?

 

The profession less chosen!!

These days we are having quite some interesting discussions going on in our German class. These are usually based on very interesting social aspects like Child Education, Vacation and various other topics like alternative medicines and their influence on our life. Though the main aim in the German class is not to make us aware of these social problems or provide us with interesting topics to brood over, it does influence my mind and my thinking during the day to day activities that i do. 

Last week i saw a really heart rendering sight. It might not be what many people would find amusing. Most might not even agree that there was anything heart-rending in what i am about to describe. However, I am sure who ever is doing it, is doing it because there is a very good reason to do so. The scene - Heavy rain is pouring down with all its vengeance on the pothole ridden streets of Bangalore. On the dark corner are standing a few girls who are inordinately dressed in dresses which neither suit the climate or the location. They don't seem too happy about standing there but stand there trying to manage their makeup in spite of the wrath being showered by the rain gods. Some are negotiating with potential customers, some of whom shamelessly are feeling them, as one would normal touch and feel a vegetable in the Saturday market before deciding to purchase it. Yes, I am talking of the scores of Sex-workers, Prostitutes or any other sick name in the abundant set of Indian languages.

I am sure many of you who belong to the class of people, who consider even reading the word "Sex" is a crime would have started creating opinions about me. However, Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and it stinks to the other!!. I am sure that the girls standing on the side of the road on that cold evening were not thinking about making money but rather were perhaps trying to make their ends meet. It is quite clear, that on an evening when most of us would love to sit in our houses and drink a cup of hot tea, let alone venture out in the cold rain, these ladies or girls ( some of them being too young to qualify to be called ladies) were standing that side of the street, upholding their bosoms just to attract the potential customers. Yeah, they have to do this else most would just feel them an leave. It is such a sick thing that this is all being done just to meet their frugal needs and to ensure that some of their loved ones are not dragged into this flesh trade. Neither do these Sex workers get proper education nor do they have a regular income. Use of condoms and ensuring safe sex is a luxury that these beings can barely afford. 

My question is very simple. Are they also not doing a job like any of us? I am sure the highly critical would start protesting that we are selling our skills while doing our job and not our body. India being a highly cultural land, we are not supposed to do such things!! Bullshit!! Hunger or basic necessities in life do not understand the borders of land or greatness of our culture. When a girl ( these days guys too) have nothing else to offer, they can offer their bodies. Sickly enough, we have enough buyers in both categories to buy these wares that are for offering. This brings us to the pointed question - Should this be banned? For whatever reasons!! Maybe we turn passionate towards prevention and revival of our culture or maybe we realize that Sex-workers are leading a life no better than slaves in the yesteryears and try to uplift them...However, the question still remains...should we ban them? 

This question has been lingering in my mind, not because i am a pervert but because i wonder if banning solves the root cause. The Root cause is that there are lot of girls who are not able to make their ends meet by any other means or because they have already become a part of the so called "Dirty" class of the society and can no more come out of it. Instead of banning which anyway will do no good and ensure that our law enforcers can further more extort these people, how would it be if we legalized the whole things. Provided the Sex-workers with a decent identification, ensure that their kids go to decent schools...make laws for them by which they can ensure that condoms are used, ensure that they get proper medical care and social recognition when needed. I am sure that such topics would mean shaking up the hornet's nest but these are hard issues that one needs to think over and come up with solutions that can really stand the test of time. 

I find it funny that we all live in the society, understand the problems and most of the time know the root cause...but unfortunately try to choose the solution that is the most inappropriate, inadequate and sometimes introduces further social problems....

Food for thought...ain't it?? 

 

Miniscule gadget collection expands a bit

I have never particularly been a fan of Laptops, though the idea of being able to type your blog sleeping on the bed did entice me many a times. However, today i am writing this blog after successfully installing Ubuntu-Netbook remix on my new 12" netbook (Asus 1210T). The machine is powered by a AMD processor running at a neat 1.6GHz with ATI GPU trying to ease some of the load from the processor. Out of the box, this netbook doesn't have an OS. However, who needs one when you have Ubuntu or better Kubuntu. The installation of the OS however was a bit of a bitch...This is primarily because i did not know something that i should have known...After creating the startup disk on a memorycard which inserted in a card reader, i made the USB as the first boot device in the 1210T's extremely frugal bios. However, to my surprise and dismay every time the boot device was not recognized and all i got was a screen with the Minimalistic OS from Asus. This apparently is because memory card and the usb reader somehow don't seem to work. Finally, i created a usb startup disk and then booted...

Finally came up the ubuntu screen which i know almost by heart now, having done the installation on many a machines many a times. Partitioning was not a big issue, i chose to keep one partition with multiple mount points in Fat-32. I know for sure that for some time in future i am not going to invest in a Windows variant of the OS...so nothing to worry in that regard. I could have very well chosen ext4 for all of the disc, but decided against it.

The netbook remix version of the Ubuntu has a side bar by default when you log in. This is really kinda cool because it gives the whole things a rich look and kinda makes you feel great looking at the bright screen. Note that coz of the GPU from ATI this machine can play full HD videos at 1080p.

Connecting to the Internet is not a problem if you have a BSNL connection and the rain gods have been kind enough. Once the net was running, first thing to do is to get the Graphics driver to update. You should be able to get the ATI/AMD driver by using Synaptic. Or just navigate to System->Administration->Hardware Drivers to get them.

I have still not got all the things in the netbook working however, i am already liking it because i can type very fast thanks to the flat keyboard with well spaced keys...and yeah i can do it from my bed ;-). However, i don't like the keys provided with trackpad..they are too hard...either time should soften then or is should invest in a good wireless mouse.

I would be updating more as i learn about the netbook...now its time for me to sleep...Finally, i have a "Laptop" of my own...Btw, the reason for my investing in this small piece of hardware lies in the strict (read dumb) policies of corporates which disallow the use of wifi on coporate laptop in unsecured ( read hotel) wifi network!! This will keep me good company when i go aboard next time and i have to stay in a hotel with free wifi :-)

[UPDATE]: To use the various buttons and the special features which come with the laptop like the clock change feature, enable disable of the trackpad etc you would need some additional tools which are thankfully provided in ubuntu. However, to do this you have add the repository to your existing sources. Refer here how to add this repository. After adding the repository the next step would be to install eeetray using synaptic. Then  a reboot should bring a new tool on your startup called the eee Tray too using which you can control almost everything like wifi on off, processor settings etc. You can avail the same features by using the Fn keys too..

 

 

 

Tech Robber

Now that is intelligent use of technology....

"Robbers loot using vaccum"

What is interesting that they could do it so many times. Monoprix has nothing to comment...can it?

 

The past days

No i have not been very busy with work. However, I have really been a bit busy with a variety of things at office and home which are playing a toll on my blogging frequency.
To start with there is this "So-To-Say" Lead activity at office which means u do all the other stuff + your normal software activity!!. To follow that up we have a house rennovation activity that is under progress. I couldn't do much but still i have to search on the internet for costs of stuff and things like what needs to be done and when.
Next we had an activity at office which was technically christianed "Cubicle Decoration". Well it meant some sleepless nights and lot of Thermocol chopping, typing, countless amount of printouts and then sticking them together.

Though these have been three different activities there was something common that i could observe. In each of the activity be it the lead activity, or the research being done on house rennovation activity and the cubicle decoration activity, if i could cooperate and ask the right questions i could get my way out through tough situations. Be it arranging the pulley system to make our octopus ( ChadraPaul - The limping Paul ) pick up the Mercedes car among the other cars on display ( Audi & BMW)...or be it ensuring that a team short on man power is able to work on complicated testing of Transmission software.
 

From cubedeco-MBRDI

Quite often we fear ridicule and dont ask the questions & at times we create an image of the person we are dealing and close ourselves. I think sometimes it is easier to live life if we just start accepting people and co-operate with them to help them in their weak areas and request help in areas where we need the same. Food for thought!!

Status update from Germany

I am in Germany at a good time by "Jahres Zeit" or Season and at a bad time in practical. Why good time? because the outside temperature is around 30 degrees today, the sun is shining bright and the birds are all happily chirping all around. Further to add some icing over the cake it is almost like vacation time here with schools closed and folks cycling around in their bicycles which look at times as complicated as our mopeds with around 40+ gears. Why bad time? I have very little company that is interested in going around and enjoying what nature has to offer us. Though i could travel alone everywhere, which i did a couple of times with not much fun, it is always advisable to travel in Germany in a group.

There are many reasons why group travel is better than an individual travel in Germany. For one you have company to talk to and express what you feel when you feel it. Furthermore it is extremely cheap when we travel in groups. For example a ticket to the entire Bundesland or State of BW ( Baden-Wuttenberg) will cost you around 20 € if you are alone. The same will cost you just 27€ when traveling in a group of five people...bringing it to roughly 6€ per head. If that is not just enough, you will be entitled to get some discounts at some museums if you are in a group of 5 folks.

There are many ways to travel in Europe. The car being the most common transport for an earning European. However, for folks from India who go more on a shoe-string budget...or simply get enough per Diem just to manage their meals, it is better to use the public transportation. bahn.de   is a good place to look for cheap offers to travel various places within Europe. By common sense it is clear that the slower transportation mechanisms like RE (Regional-Express) or the IRE ( Inter-Regional Express) are way cheaper than the faster trains like IC (Inter-City) or ICE. However, that does not mean that you cannot travel by the IC or ICE. The IC or ICE tickets will be very cheaply sold about 6 weeks before the day of travel. However, then you cannot afford to miss this train because the amount is not refundable and not valid on any other train too.

The big problem that i faced in booking tickets in advance was that my date of travel was not decided for a very long time. This is the reason why i could not get some good offers which otherwise would have been normally available.
Anyway so much for now....need to get ready for the office tomo...signing off until next time...chio

BlackForest tour in Germany

Though i should have done this much earlier...however earlier i had not internet in the room and no proper time too to write something on a blog. Finally i have got 4 days of free time out of which yesterday (4th of June) was the first day.....

I was at the so called and famous mostly because of the cake from here "Schwarzwald" or the "Black forest". Extremely scenic and calm, the place could be a heaven for an introvert....but was almost like hell for an extrovert. For long distances all you get to see is thick forests with a few houses here and there. Yeah and mind you most of the houses will be occupied but you will not see a single soul on the street. Yesterday being a holiday in Germany, it was more so. Thankfully to save grace and not to make my 20 Euro expenditure on the Baden-Wuttenberg ticket which allows you unlimited access to the Bus & Train network with BW for 1 whole day; I had the Triberg Wasserfall or the Triberg waterfall open. An entry fee of 3.5 € and after a huge climb you can get a great view of the waterfall. It is very nice to see how the trees provide and extremely wonderful cover. Squirrels can be seen around the waterfall and will come to you if you are kind enough to offer them some groundnuts.

From Kaala Wan

Click to get the clear pic...

Also dont forget to visit the worlds biggest Kukoo clock in Triberg...apparently quite old. However, shops are very expensive and you will end up spending anywhere between 40 € and above for a good clock.

Frieburg is about 1.5 hours journey from Triberg. One search on google will tell you that this is like the capital of Schwarzwald. Well surprisingly, this place failed to impress me much. For one the tourist information center is quite a walk from the Hauptbahnhof...or the main railway station. Frieburg has a lot of churches, the old and new rathaus which can be both visited by folks who have interest in taking some pictures. The Saint Martin Kirche (Church) and the gate with the same name are some of the good tourist attractions. You can also do some shopping on Kaiser-Joseph-Strasse on a working day....Dont forget to click a pic of this bull there....
 

 Bottom lines-
 Travel to Black forest in a group else u will be bored to death...u might as well look like this lonely bull
 Take your camera with you, you should go there only to click pictures...

Procastination once again

After undergoing enjoyable ( read torturous early morning classes) i finally managed to complete by German B1 level examination. Due to various reason including some bright plans of my company to send me across seven seas i have been busy like a bumble bee....The anxiety of a trip and the excitement never seems to leave me, So i have been going over and over my travel items list. I wonder how some people can travel so carefree...maybe i should make more trips around...( Hope my managers have plans of that for me).
I hope to get some more time once i am across seven seas to update my blog more regularly. As of now the blog update graph looks very much like the Bangalore rains! Highly unpredictable
In the meanwhile there have been some very nice Engine models and openup engines that have been brought up at my firm...hopefully i will be able to write more in the other blog of mine about them in the coming days.

Agent Deepak and 5230

It is been atleast 3 months since i have been using Nokia's budget offering in touch phones; The Nokia 5230. The phone is quite cool with all the basic stuff chugging cooly on a symbian OS and and ARM processor. The design and outer looks match that of the 5800 express music. However, the phone comes hardly with any accessory as compared to 5800. Don't be surprised to find no Memory card or free screen guard. You will have to shell out money for these from your own pocket. After bargaining for what looked like a eternity to me, I got a 4GB memory card and the phone together for 8.5K. A deal i thought!! However, there are a few glitches. The phone doesn't have all the wonderful software that you would expect from a phone with Symbian OS. I missed the document viewer and pdf viewer. These are available with the 5800 without extra payment. A search online revealed that i could get "QuickOffice" for my mobile provided i was ready to pay $19 for that....No more a deal :-(.

GPS and 2 MP camera in the phone are quite good to use. I have used more or less all the functions of the phone. One thing that irritates is that with the sensor turned on very slight movement will make the phone screen flip 90 degrees. However, irritative as it might me the feature helps when you want to do some photo or web browsing. Funnily the 90 degrees tilt works only in one direction...i.e. if you tilt the screen 90 in anti-clockwise the screen turns so that you can read it ...If you tilt it 90 degrees clockwise...well the screen still turns as if it was a anti-clockwise turn :-o. Well that could be easily fixed...i cant understand why or how Nokia did not think regarding this.
The one touch music, gallery and internet access is very useful. Further there are multiple options for the default screen. However, do not choose to change the theme to anything apart from the ones which come with the phone, lest you would be struggling for standby time. Again a question why that happens????

This phone doesn't hang....rather it just reboots when things go bad. Happens very often when you add new themes or keep switching the phone direction while browsing photos.

Overall rating for the phone outta 5 would be a max 4. I would have been happier if i could get a company supplied screen guard and also a few more softwares. ...

Better reviews here

My first Phone art....

I know it is not some art to look at...But this is what i created using my Symbian phone, Python and a wonderful software called Scribble. Not bad ain't it. You can get Scribble from Online Nokia stores.

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Marathi Manoos again

What i cannot understand is what is this whole hue and cry about "Marathi Manoos". I can understand linguistic patriotism...but what is happening in Maharastra is linguistic fanaticism. Some things that our great politicians forget is that what Maharastra is today..."Maha" is because we the rest of India help it to become like that. Would it be right if IT companies just laid off every marathi? Would it be ok if all the other states ban the movies made out of Mumbai...or so to say the heart of Bollywood which gave rise to stars like Amitabh Bacchan? What good would be Tendulkar's talent if he was not a part of the national team?
Well by now the Thackerays would have a room full of apologies!! Though I am they care a damn about the apology, vis-a-vis the publicity they create for themselves....
Got save us and the Marathi manoos!!

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