I started Orkutting--Finally

For a long time now, I have been wanting to join the orkut community.Finally did that a few days back.
my thoughts on Orkut:

1. Typical web2.0 site with a lot of importance on building a community
2. Its great to see that the natural way of making friendship thru friends and their friends has been wonderfully replicated here.
3. Even better to see the absence of any sophisticated algorithms to find "ur best possible friends by searching for key words from ur profile".
   
4. One sad thing though is the huge registration form. It would have been nice if the user could just log on and then update his profile as and when he/she chooses to.
5. Also the UI leaves a lot to be desired--> Why put all the fancy buttons making the pages that much more slower to load--> Hven't they heard of this thing called Linklabels.
   
6. It was a nice experience to scribble on scrapbooks of friends whom I have not seen for almost 2 years.
7. overall it was a very nice experience and the site has won another loyal fan :-)
   

10 movies that I really like

The following is a list of ten movies that I really like(no particular order):
(I know this is a complete waste of time and is not going to serve any purpouse for anyone--but just felt like doing it :-) )

1. Matrix(only the first part)
2. Pirates of the Silicon valley
   
3. Seven
4. Veer-Zaara(maybe the only Shahrukh Khan movie that I really like)
5. No, Swades also(like the scene where Shahrukh Khan drinks water from the kid's jug)
   
6. Troy
7. Shawshank Redemption(saw it a long time back and dont remember most of the scenes--but the dialogues about Hope were nice)
8. Dude where's my car?
9. Nayagan(Tamil movie)
10. Lakshya(kinda like the way, Hrithik changes after his temporary drop out from the army)
11. Sholay
12. Satya
    

I guess there are some more,so, I will just continue

12. Passion of the Christ
13. Star trek--first Contact
14. Ek ruka hua faisla-- It is a Pankaj Kapoor movie in which 15 members of a jury sit and decide if a guy(or was it a kid??) committed a murder or not.
15. Blair witch project(only the 1st part--the best horror movie I have ever seen)
16. Sixth Sense(the 2nd bestand Unbreakable also)
17. Mughal-e-Azam(never seen the whole movie continuously)
18. Iqbal(very inspiring)
19. Lord of the rings--The fellowship of the ring(I like the hooded guys on horses who keep chasing the ring-bearer)
20. Benhur
21. Omkara(could have been slicker,but, I am ready to excuse that)
22. Hotel Rwanda
23. American Pie(the first part only---- how did I forget it earlier)
24. Luther
25. Don--The chase begins-the One with Sharukh Khan--ok one more SRK movie that I liked :)
26. Shiva--The hindi one--Starring Mohit Alawat and directed by RGV
27. Euro trip-- absolute classic--esp. the character of Mika's brother

How revolutions come--the Nepal case

After seeing V for Vendatta, me ,Sundar and Saurav were discussing about how countries go into anarchy and about the trigger points for a revolution.

I see a good example of a revolution brewing in Nepal.

If we see the Nepal case, the main trigger points are:

1. General discontent--A general feeling among the people that their freedom is being suppressed in the name of national security.
2. A rallying point--though the King's rule(or emergency as it is called) has been there for about 14 months now, but, the people could not find a rallying point. Now that the 7-party alliance has come up and there is some one out there spearheading a movement, it has found mass appeal.
3. A common enemy uniting different sections--For a long time now, the maoists didnt seem to see an eye to eye with the various political parties in Nepal,but, a bigger enemy--the king, taking powers into his hands seems to have made the maoists cosy up to other parties.
4. A general change in atmosphere--Nepal, which has been a sleepy country in the himalayan foothills, famous only for its natural beauty, suddenly seems to be in fires today--the change in situation has more to do with a general awakening of the people and a feeling among the common man that some political decisions taken in a palace in Kathmandu is affecting his life.

I don't know if the power will be transferred to people completely or even if the the new government that might get formed would be any better than the king's rule--but what I can be sure about is the fact that the people of Nepal have understood the real meaning of freedom and that itself will ensure a form of governance where the government is afraid of the people and not vice-versa(sound fimiliar??--copied from V for vendetta)

why I like Google calendar

1. Uncluttered UI.Rather I should say, a, no-nonsense UI.
2. Drag and Drop does most of the things.....no save button or delete button in the main screen.
3. Really like the way, the "what" and "when" fields change from uneditale to editable,when you move the mouse over it....
4. Ability to customise the view, for weekly,monthly, and next n days.
5. The agenda for the day comes to my mail everday.
6. The use of basic colors...typical google approach towards color selection.
7. I have not had to use the Help link till now(is there a help link??).
   

some things I would like to see:

1. The screen looks basically like an excel sheet,so, the user should have the ability to change the size of each cell(the way it is done in excel).
2. Should be able to change the month(and year), without clicking again and again on the >> button.
   

D for Dashed hopes

A few days back ,I went to watch V for Vendatta. Being a Wachowski brother's movie, I expected it to be stylish and slick and revolutionary(I am not talking about overthrowing governments) like Matrix.Alas, I was in for disappointment.Lessons learnt:

1. When you go for a movie based on some novel,book or comic, then do read the novel,book or comic before going for the movie.Then only you will be able to appreciate the idea being presented in the movie, in the right context.
2. Dont compare 2 movies made by the same guys.A movie like Matrix(only the 1st part) is unmatchable in terms of the sheer audacity of the thinking that we are not in control of our lives and that what we see is not real(did I read the same in Bhagvad Geeta about moh maya)and for a lot of other reasons ,but, expecting that all the movies made by Wachowski brothers will be like Matrix is like expecting all search engines to work like Google.
3. Identify the intended audience and see if you are part of that.Maybe taking bullets from 7 or 8 machine guns and still surviving to beat the hell out of 7 or 8 baddies might be heroic for some--for me it looked like a cheap copy of some Rajnikant movie :-).
4. Go with an open mind and dont have any opinion about the movie till you have seen it completely.

From now on, I intend to follow these points to have a better viewing pleasure :-) .

and BTW, I think the film never talks about the concepts of The Land of Do-As-You Please and the Land of Take What You Want.Also, the movie doesn't seem to stick to the story of the original comics.

Exposure

When we all have a goal to work towards,we put our efforts in a definite direction and we all become the eopitome of sincerity,perseverance and mostly epitome of smartness also.So, when we know a goal, we are able to decide how to work towards it,but, how do we decide what is our goal?There are many factors that go into deciding a goal,but, I feel that one factor that governs all other factors is "Exposure".

For most software engineers (like me), some of the goals would be like:working on new technologies,climbing up the corporate ladder(or maybe starting something of your own,when you feel you are ready), earning money, interacting with people from varied cultures,etc.,but, how do we decide the benchmark for each of these goals.For example,lets take the game of cricket.If the best guy from your place is the guy who hs played at the district level(and you don't have a TV to influence you), then you might max. think of making it to the county team, but, if you have interacted with a guy who has made it to the county team,then you would like to be better than him and try to play for the national team.

Or maybe, incase , the most respected person in your place is a guy who manages, lets say,50-60 odd people across 2 or 3 projects in some company which is widely respected, then you would also try to be like him,maybe manage more people,get a higher post or something,but,in that situation or environment, you would never think of starting your own thing--> not because, you are incapable, but, because of the fear of the unknown(no one you know has done it before).

Now all of us don't get the best possible exposures at all times,so, we have to go and find out things.Some ways of getting new and better ideas(cos thats what exposure is supposed to do)can be by:

1. Talking to different types of people(as many as possible) .For example,lets say, you are a Java developer,then constantly interact not only with your team-members,but,also with developers working in other languages,testers,people from the QA team,guys who do the project management,people who dot eh HR and resource allocation,etc.
2. Talk to people at all levels ,cos, as a person goes up the heirarchy, he gets a better view and ofcourse, he is more experienced. Also, I ahve observer that in every person's life, a stage comes when he wants to proactively help otehrs and if you gel into the place,then you get a guy who sincerely wants to help/guide/mentor you.
3. Always help others.Helping others not onky gives you satisfaction,but,also a better understanding of the problems that you might face tomorrow.
4. Always be inquisitive,because, if you don't show enthusiasm or if you don't show interest, then no one would really want to help you.
5. Don't see profit and loss in every activity,cos,most of our actions don't have tangible results .
6. and Finally, use the internet for useful purpouses like blogging and reading others blogs(esp. reading the blogs of a guy called Krishnan Subramanian).
   

Steve Job's best quotes ever

saw this in wired.com

Another day in the cube farm

Disclaimer:

The stuff written in the post below, is only a reflection of the general perception that developers have in the IT industry.It is not meant to hurt anyone or any role(specially the parts about managers) ,nor, is it meant to demean or insult anyone or any role. As, in any profession, there will always be exceptions to the commonly perceived notions(and I can happily say that I have the privilege of working with such exceptions).In case I have ruffled a few feathers , then please note that it was not intentional and please tell me how that has happened,so that we can have a nice and meaningful discussion about it :-)

Good Morning

Alok could hear some weird tunes.Something that sounded like "Chaleeee...Chaleee....blah..blah....".Out of sheer irritation, he got up and realised that it was his cellphone alarm. Though he cursed the tune everyday, he knew that it was only irritating tunes like these that could wake him every morning.He saw the time and realised it was only 6AM.


Reverse Engineering

His calculations started.I have a meeting at 9:15,so,I have to be in office at 9:10.The auto-ride would take 10 minutes,so,leave home at 9.To leave home at 9,start getting ready by 8:20.Then, why the heck am I awake at 6.The alarm got promptly set to 8:20 and his head hit the pillow again.


Getting ready for office

After 5 snoozes,Alok finally got up at 8:45 and realised that he would be late for office.That started the parallel threads of brushing,boiling the milk,putting ON the heater and searching for decent looking clothes,all happening together ofcourse.


The ride

After much running,Alok reached the auto-stand. As always, he got the seat to the left of the auto-driver. He knew that sitting in one of these share-autos as one among six passengers was a real health hazard.Right at that time, an Octavia zipped past him and that started a thought process."When will I own one of these?"Not now, he knew that for sure.Maybe another 5 years,"when I become a manager"."Ah, how good a manager's life must be.No need to worry about learning silly things like Java and Perl.All you have to do is attend a few conference calls,assign tasks,put it in an excel sheet and just mail it".His thoughts were abruptly broken when the auto screeched to a halt in front of his office.


The cube farm

Alok's office always reminded him of Dlibert's cube farm--a place where evil managers extracted the maximum out of hapless developers.When he stepped into the office, he caught sight of maybe the first and the last pretty thing in office--the girl who did the documentation."Why doesn't she start coding and come to my team?", he thought. The next cubicle was occupied by the testing guy. He was the ideal illustration of"The grass is greener on the other side" thing.His life was filled with only two things:

--> Filling bug reports with statements like "the response time has been measured as 5milliseconds,much higher than the agreed time of 3 milliseconds.

-->Complaining about how the whole project would change,only if he was in the development team.
The next guy in line was from the project management group.His world was divided not into black and white or grey or anything like that--it was divided into person days,revenue,expenditure and cost budgets.Alok could never understand how 8 hours could form one person day, when everyone ended up working atleast 12 hours a day.


Coffee break

The coffee break was the only activity that Alok was punctual about. 11:15 and you could be sure--Alok could be at only one place--the pantry,but, true to the software engineer attitude,Alok could find fault with the coffee also."This powder milk is not adding any value to the coffee", he would think, and, true to the software engineer lingo-- coffee powders were not supposed to add taste, they were supposed to add value.


Work

Work consisted of replying to some 15 mails,writing some meaningless piece of code which would never see the light of day,arguing for one hour with a fellow developer as to whether the clicked link should turn red or blue,peering over the cubicle wall to see if the documentation girl was still there,meeting the manager(which brought out Alok's dual personality -- the sincere,spirited and ever diplomatic Alok in the front and the disillusioned and frustrated Alok in the back) and the most difficult task--waiting for the manager to go home, so that he could also go home.



The post dinner discussion

Dinner(home delivered form some restaurant--Alok always thought, he would cook tommorow) was always followed by a discussion between Alok and his fellow software engineer roomies. The discussion veered around exactly 5 things:

--> Bitching about ofice and managers
--> Cribing about the shortcomings of Java/ .NET and how all of us ended up wasting time because of that.
--> Some Bollywood heroine(Bollywood doesn't have any heroes--it has only Emraan Hashmi).
--> Thinking of doing something new.
--> Thinking of changing job/giving the CAT exam.



Good Night
After the totally meaningless discussion,Alok hit the bed,but, not before he thought"this software life is totally sedentary,I need to workout,I need to go to the gym,so,let me keep the alarm at 6AM and get up in the morning and go to the gym".

The beauty of a face

"She is so beautiful"----thought Alex.Those cute dimples that would get formed when she smiled,the lock of hair that she would push back every time it fell on her eyes, ah, those beautiful eyes.He knew , he could spend the rest of his life , just looking at those eyes.

To Alex, her face was like the moon itself--full of radiance--not only an internal glow,but, also a glow that would make everything around it look beautiful.He felt like forgetting everything around and just going and touching her face.He could already imagine the smoothness of her cheeks in his palms.

For all these years, there had always been some kind of a barrier which stopped him from reaching out to her.
She was just on the other side of road---so near, yet so far.The distance between them was not physical,but, it was the distance put up by society and its barriers.This was his predicament--always.He had known her for a long time now,and still,he was afraid to tell her about his feelings for her. He was not afraid about how she would respond,cos, he knew that even if her response would end up in the negative,still, his admiration for her would not diminish a single bit.Even if she were to ditch him for another man, he had no problems,cos, his happiness existed in her happiness,but, his problem was the fact that society would not see them as companions.They were from different communities, weren't they?What would people think about them, why people, what would their own parents think?Would her parents accept him?Would his parents accept her as one of their own?When he though about all these, his heart filled with sadness.The clouds of gloom started filling the clear sky.He always tried to stifle such thoughts with the excuse that he would think about them when the situation actually arose,but, today he felt helpless. He felt as if his life itself was being sapped away from his body.He felt his whole body going numb.

Then he looked at her and saw her beautiful smile,and immediately felt courageous enough to accept that the thoughts about society was just a mental block,what he was really afraid of, was the fear of the unknown--what he was going to do,he had never done it before,and, maybe, he would never do it again also.
With these thoughts in his mind, he took the rose from his shirt pocket and went ahead to cross the road.

why did Dilbert cross the road

We all have heard about chickens crossing roads(here in Hyderabad--U can also see cows and Buffaloes crossing roads---I am serious) ,maybe, its time we started thinking , why did Dilbert cross the road??

1. Because that would help the sales dept. in getting 4 more victims(read Clients/Customers)
2. Because it was part of a team-building exercise(proposed by none other that the pointy-haired boss himself)
   
3. Because Dilbert saw a fellow software engineer(a female ofcourse :-) )
4. To join the rival company
5. To start his own company
6. To join the start-up started by Catbert.
   
7. Because crossing roads is another form of stress reliever--just like pressing soft balls and putting your legs over your head and sitting in pain for 10 mins--actually thats called yoga :-)
   
8. Crossing the road was one of the change requests that the client had given.
9. To commit suicide, because, coding in hell would be better that coding in his office(software engineers don't go to heaven and software engineers can't do anything except coding)
10. Beacuse crossing roads was in his yearly goal sheet
    
11. Because the grass is always greener on the other side
12. Because, the new framework being adopted in the project , suggested clear demarcation between different components.So, he had to cross the road and go to a different building , where a different component was being developed.
13. To straighten his tie.
14. Because he couldn't order a cigarette over the net.
    

The Meeting

"He is old enough to be my Grandpa"--thought Alex as he watched the old man ruffle his hands through his hair.The broad features of the face remained the same, the same matured look(as he liked to call it), the small pock-marks around the cheeks,the slight discoulouration around the temples,the small cuts in the lips,the dark circles around the eyes, the mistiness in the eyes.......

Ah the eyes---they were so attractive.Not attractive because of beauty,but attractive,because of the complete lack of emotions they displayed.You could look at them and keep guessing for eons as to what they signified ??

Did they show the cold hard stare of the determined soul,or, were they the epitome of blankness that comes when you lose everything that you ever cared for, or, were they depicting the mental peace obtained when all your worldly responsibilities have been fulfilled or maybe they were showing the simple gaze of a dutiful listener.

These questions always used to whiz through Alex's mind when he used to watch his own face in the mirror, and now, there was the old man's face.

There was so much to talk about,but, what all did the man want to tell??Alex tried to look at his clothes and try to guess the man's profession,but, he immediately realised the folly of his actions when the old man looked at him quizzically and muttered--"U know young man--every one likes to wear a pair of jeans and round neck T-shirt".He eased Alex out of the ackward situation by beginning to talk about the revolution."Revolutions don't require the strength of the majority--it only requires the power of will"--he said. "When we started , our only companions were our dreams and loneliness. We didn't even know who were with us and who were with them.We didn't know whether to trust a person as a friend or to be wary of him.Why others--at times we didn't trust our own people.The only thing that sustained us during those tumultous times was our vision of a grand republic."

"Well the republic did come up--maybe not as grand as we had envisioned---but a republic nonetheless--atleast the people are happy now. You will soon realise that the life you are living--where you serve others to earn your bread--where you curse the people above you and get cursed by the people below you--where every thread has to be vertical and never horizontal--is actually a comfort zone.Your true potential--or maybe your true worth-- will be known only when you start thinking about the world beyond the system. It's not easy to break the system, its even more difficult to live without a system--but atleast you will be satisfied.You will be satisfied, not because you don't serve others, but, because, you will serve yourself."

"Your journey will not be easy.There will be a lot of hardships,why, your destination will be even more difficult than the journey itsef--but atleast you will be satisfied.I won't tell you any more,because, you are wise enough the take your own decisions based on the present circumstances."

With these words, the old man took a step back,turned and started crossing the road. Alex knew that the old man would soon be gone.He knew that the man wouldn't answer any of his questions,but, now he also knew that there was some purpouse in his life.His eyes wandered away from the old man to the gun which was now lying on the floor. Only a short while back, it had been in his hands and pointed towards his temple--but, that seemed like a distant past--even his mental turmoil and decision to commit the ultimate sin--to take one's own life--seemed like some distant dark past.

"maybe I should try out something--let me not waste this oppurtunity--for how many people get adviced from their own self who come 60 years from the future?"thought Alex.

Beyond the rocks

The kuiper belt can be a very cold place, thought Alex.How many people could get a view like this--standing on Charon--the Planet on one side, and the vast nothingness on the other."I may not be the first person to come here, But, I will surely be the first person to go there"--he thought.

He was himself not sure why he had volunteered for such a mission---I guess it might have been the attraction of the nothingness that had pulled him in.Technically , the kuiper belt was not "nothingness"---it had its own fair share of rocks(and planets--as some liked to call it) and his journey was supposed to start where the kuiper belt ended. The debate as to whether some rocks in the belt should be called as planets or not had been very fierce and sometimes even stupid,but, now it had died down--not because, an understanding had been reached,but,because, people finally understood that the discussion was not contributing to humanity in any way--why humanity--it was not even contributing to the advancement of Astronomy.

He didnt bother to see the temperature on the thermometer--for him, everything below -10F was same--"damn cold".He couldn't stop thinking about the future---what would happen to him--he would be going to a place where no one had gone before--only some satellite had gone(he couldn't remember its name--heck was it even a satellite or was it something else) and that too had gone bonkers before it could cross the kuiper belt. He wanted to take complete pleasure of this view--the kuiper belt--its millions of tiny rocks looked like scattered debris of some crashed space-ship.He knew this would be his last view of the belt from Charon, not because he was going back, but beacuse, he would never come back. Ofcourse the camera would keep taking shots at regular intervals--even after his death---but he would never be coming back.

Alex had always been fascinated by what would lie after the belt, why does the kuiper belt end so suddenly,why is the belt in such an elliptical orbit.If I were to be a rock, then after the belt, would I become attracted towards some other body or would I just stay there without any gravitational pulls or pressures---stuck in space--stuck in a place where neither time nor distance mattered--stuck till some other body comes and pushes me(or pulls me ) into some motion.

well there was only one way to find out. With these thoughts in mind, Alex moved towards his shuttle. Suddenly he felt a deep sense of disgust--the same feeling that had troubled him every minute, when he was on earth--the deep negativeness--call it what you want--hatred,dislike,whatever. He realised that it was this feeling that had made him accept this assignment---not his fascination for the kuiper belt, not his curiosity about what would lie after our system, not even the oppurtunity to discover something new and be etched in the annals of history for ever----it was his disgust towards humanity that had made him accept this assignment to get into a craft with a camera and go beyond the Kuiper belt, go somewhere ,where he wouldnt see a single human face ....


Here he was, ready to become another captain Nemo.....

He took one last look at Pluto and fired his thrusters.......

who are our audience???

ok....now that my blogger id is working,(it kinda took me about 4 months to figure that out :-) )
I can start posting.
This post covers a discussion with Srikanth about Blogging(what else could be more apt for my first post :-) ).

some food for thought............

1.
do we blog to express our ideas alone(and end of story) or do we blog to express our ideas and throw it open to people so that others can comment on it....
I guess the answer is obvious........blogging wouldn't be fun if we had no other opinion except our own .
Then the next question follows:
2. If a blog is to be read, then to what extent should we go to get more viewership of our blogs...
well here we have something that cannot be easily answered......
I guess , we should check the following points:

what is the intent of our blog ??--is it just to express our ideas , is it to market something, is it to stir up a discussion.......


who are the intended audience??---can they be made to read our blog just by publishing it, or do we have to put catchy words so that google will catch it(ie are we trying to use the page rank algorithm to increase our hits???)
well that makes me think ----why go for all this----good blogs should automatically attract people(isn't it), why do we need to market it......

so, this puts me into a thought process---is it that content attracts audience or is it that we may have to compromise on content(and put catchy stuff) to attract readers???
again--is it worthwhile to compromise on content and attract an audience who are ready to read a sub-standard content????

my first post

I am creating this post to just check if my blogger account is operational and to check if the URL is working