What You See Is What I Think

Google+, circles and the role proliferation problem

2011-07-01T13:29:00.003+05:30

Ever since I got my google+ invite yesterday, the thing that has fascinated me is the concept of "circles" in google+. After a bit of discussion with my friend Arvind, I see that it is very similar to facebook lists. But it is different in the respect that friends in google+ is built around circles. For example, you add someone as a friend by adding them to one or more circles. I like it this way since it forces you to think about privacy when you add someone as friend or post something. Add to that, the UI for circles is so good that I kept playing with it on day 1.

Day 2 was when I started missing hierarchies in circles. I have a circle for my wife's paternal relatives, I would also like to have a common circle for all my relatives and would want members in my wife's paternal relatives to automatically be part of my relatives. Something like a role hierarchy where users are inherited through hierarchy. May be google can call it inner circle and outer circle. Wouldn't that be cool?

The other problem that I could relate to based on my background of identity and role management is the role proliferation or circle proliferation in this case. I now have 36 google+ friends and 18 circles. Thats a circle per 2 person. And I keep thinking about new circles even for existing users. For example, "Relatives in Chennai" which can be used to invite folks for my daughter's birthday. Where do I stop? There is also a question of maintenance when a relative moves out of Chennai or shifts back to Chennai. Its the same problem organizations face when they try to implement RBAC (Role Based Access Control) and end up having a as many roles as user. I do not know what the solution could be. May be I should reduce the number of circles I have, just have high level circles and manually add folks based on . For all I know, every post I add might be intended for all my circles. And I might manually add people to a post if I need to send to a limited set of folks. Or I might just continue to use facebook.

Of Permutations and Combinations

2010-04-12T22:36:00.004+05:30

Note: There are updates after every match at the end:

At the time of writing this, IPL 3 is nicely poised with only Mumbai Indians assured of a place in the semifinals. It was shown on TV yesterday that Kings XI Punjab is out of the tournament. Are they really out of the tournament though?

A small program I wrote for fun tells me that its not the case. There are abt 31 different combinations in which it is possible for Kings XI Punjab to be jointly placed at the 4th position (and then everything boils down to net run rate).

This is the current points table

MI 16
RCB 12
DD 12
RR 12
CSK 10
KKR 10
DC 10
KXIP 8

Now, consider one of the 31 combinations - if you are a KXIP fan

RCB beats DC
MI beats DD
CSK beats KKR
RCB beats RR
CSK beats DD
KXIP beats DC
RCB beats MI
KKR beats RR
KXIP beats CSK
DC beats DD
MI beats KKR

That makes the point table as

MI 20
RCB 18
CSK 14
KXIP 12
DD 12
RR 12
KKR 12
DC 12

This combination leaves a 5 way competition on NRR for the 4th spot, and who knows KXIP might still make it.

Updated on 4/13 after DC beat RCB - KXIP has still 14 combinations of the 836 unique combinations to get the points needed to reach semis (provided they have good NRR). One of those combinations is as below:

MI beats DD
CSK beats KKR
RR beats RCB
DD beats CSK
KXIP beats DC
MI beats RCB
RR beats KKR
KXIP beats CSK
DD beats DC
KKR beats MI

MI 20
DD 16
RR 16
KXIP 12
KKR 12
DC 12
RCB 12
CSK 12

PS: I am no way a fan of Kings XI Punjab. I am still rooting for CSK. I am just showing that there is still a mathematical possibility of KXIP getting into top 4.

The power of CAR Section 3 Series M Part II

2009-02-18T14:09:00.002+05:30

Have you ever booked a ticket in one of the no-frills airlines in India and you had to cancel the ticket for some reason, and then you are told by the customer care that you will not get a refund, but they will keep the money in a credit note to be used for booking a flight with the same airline within an year?

The fact is - Directory General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) gave a Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) in May 2008 which mandates all airlines to refund the amount remaining after cancellation back to the traveller's credit card (if card is used for booking) and few more requirements. Read it in this link.

But even though this was reported widely in news papers, the next time I did the cancellation, there was no option in the website to request for refund. So I called the customer care and they repeated the same stuff about storing it in credit note. Thats when I started using the "CAR" word to them. And it works like magic. With Spicejet, its very simple - when the customer care tells you that you will not get a refund, just tell them that there is this Civil Aviation Requirement which says that the airlines should refund money and they will say that they need to raise a ticket with their accounts department. This has worked fine so far and I have got the refund back to my card within few days.

It was slightly tricky with indigo. The customer care was adament that there will not be any refunds, so I asked to talk to a senior person who gave me customer relations email id to send a mail to. I sent a mail to that email id giving link to the CAR and explaining why it is mandatory for them to refund the money. I got a reply in couple of days that the customer care has now been informed to refund my money and to contact the customer care by phone. I called them again and they again said they wont refund. Then I told them the mail I had got from the customer relations and finally they said they will inform their accounts department and I will get a refund in few days. I did get the refund from them in few days.

So, the next time an airline in India refuses refund, use the power of CAR section 3 Series M Part II.

How fast are you?

2008-12-18T12:05:00.000+05:30

80 words

Typingtest

Gmail themes

2008-11-21T09:31:00.002+05:30

Okay - so gmail now has themes. But there are hardly couple which I liked - pebble being one and summer ocean being other. Terminal is an interesting theme, but if there is an option to change the colour scheme in this theme, it would be good.

Cricket matches - 20 Nov 2008

2008-11-20T10:52:00.011+05:30

Another day in office, and there are two matches going on today. How did I forget the Aus - NZ test? Otherwise could have seen some in TV before leaving for office. It feels so nice to see Australians under pressure at 152/7 at tea. Well done NZ.

For the India England ODI - I will keep updating this post with my thoughts as the match goes on. At toss, MSD had an interesting thought after he lost the toss. He said the light would deteorate early and DL would come into play. Thats an intelligent reading of the situation. Time will tell if he was right and do Indians adapt their game keeping this in mind.

10:57 AM - So after second powerplay England is 80/1. A very good start for them and KP is in now. It will be interesting to see how he handles the part timers and more interesting will be when he choses the third powerplay.

11:10 AM - This is brilliant. Yuvraj already under pressure 17 of his 2 overs. MSD would continue with him for atleast one more over. But if he bleeds run in that over too - he would be under pressure

11:11 AM - Okay - this gets interesting. KP gone trying to hit Bajji out. May be he should have targetted only the fifth bowler. Now damage control time for England. And if its earlier times, bowling team would have taken the powerplay - not anymore. So this new rule is fun.

11:20 AM - Collingwood also gone. Good thing for England is that brings Freddie in. If he can put his head down and keep rotating strike - they can pick the right time to take the third power play. Meanwhile Aussies lose their 8th. I am loving it.

11:30 AM - Well played Ravi. It was a joke to have coming at 8 in first 2 ODIs. He has now made use of the opportunity at the top. Atleast from following the match in cricinfo, looks to be me that Bajji is in the zone today. May be India should keep few overs of him for third powerplay.

11:50 AM - Eng 149/4. I think India should save Bajjis last two overs for later and get in Sehwag or Yusuf to bowl few.

12:06 AM - Eng 166/4 in 36. What happened to third powerplay? I think they would take it immediately after this drink. By the way, Yuvi bowls his 10 and then a substitute field for him??? Didnt ICC talk about being strict regarding substitutes?

12:14 AM - And now the one man who can kill India during the third powerplay is gone. Seriously, did they forget about the third power play? On my earlier comment, cricinfo says Yuvi is back on field. Good.

End of Play - Office work and personal reasons meant I could not update this. But it was fun and let me try this may be for 5th ODI. Dhoni showed his smartness in the way he handled the situation knowing DL will come into play and took the batting powerplay at the right time. What is with Ishant Sharma? He bowls so well in tests and then he comes up with this performance today? Was he really fit? Or does he reserves his best for tests? Whatever it is, hope this does not affect his test match performance. Thats very crucial for Indias quest to Test No 1. It will be interesting to see what the selectors do with Raina and Rohit Sharma.

Meanwhile Aussies fighting back against NZ. The thing that is separating India from the rest when playing against Austalia in the recent past is the intensite which Indians have maintained when they are on top. NZ are 143/7 and Aussies on top. This might turn out to be an interesting test if NZ manage to get Australia out for around 200 (which might be too much for NZ to chase).

Indian in Roja

2008-01-07T18:12:00.000+05:30

Was seeing Roja in Raj TV couple of days ago after a looong time. The scene was where Arvind Samy comes to see Madhoo's sister.. After lifting one of the pattis till home, they all settle down and in comes Madhoo and Vaishnavi where Madhoo's mother stops here from coming.. Watch for this scene when you watch Roja next, or rather hear the background music. Its the music that ARR later used in Indian "Telephone mani pol" for the lines "pengal vaasam ennaith thavira ingu veesak koodathu, annai therasa avaraith thavira pirar pesak koodaathu".. Interesting :-)

Lucky with Indica

2007-12-30T13:05:00.000+05:30

Recently, the cheapest mode of transport in Chennai for me seem to be Tata Indica. The first instance was, when I had been to Chennai central to send off my relatives. Since it was a night train, it was almost 10:30 when I came out of the station. Nevertheless I decided to wait for bus for some time to see if I get lucky. The first to ask me was a share auto guy who said he will take me exclusively to Tiruvanmiyur for Rs 20. I declined and decided to wait for some more time. Then came a tata indica which offered to take me to Tiruvanmiyur for Rs 5.. wow .. I immediately jumped in, followed by couple of more people. So there I was in the comfort of an indica and reaching Tiruvanmiyur from Central for just Rs 5.

And couple of days back I arrived at Chennai airport and since I had only one bag, I decided to not take auto/call taxi and just got by train till Guindy and then by bus to Tiruvanmiyur. After having walked past the call taxi stand, in the road parallel to the domestic arrival road, there was an indica guy who said he will take me at Auto fare. I asked how much he will charge for Tiruvanmiyur. He said 150. I sticked to 100 and finally he agreed and so I arrived home in a tata indica (no other passengers this time) in the peak traffic time (6 PM) at just Rs 100.

I have also heard from friends that similar stuff happens at late night time if you want to go to Pune from Mumbai. You can get a ride in nice luxury cars at bus rate at Dadar since they will anyway have to return back to Pune and wont mind making some money for them.

You just got to be lucky and there could be such a taxi round the corner trying to make some money before reaching to their next location. After all, its win-win for both, right?

Light year

2007-12-21T20:56:00.000+05:30

I read prem panicker's blog regularly and recently I read this post which I found interesting. So when I was walking back home from hotel and I saw the ad of cool-homes I got reminded of this post. The ad was for a society being built by that builder and said "Luxuries which are Light Years ahead". On seeing that.. I thought.. hello.. light year is supposed to be a measure of distance and not time.. it makes sense if someone said luxuries which are many years ahead.. but how does it sound if someone said luxuries which are 1 kilometer ahead :-)

Usha Uthup

2007-12-21T19:13:00.000+05:30

Few days back as I was browsing channels, one of the channels was showing "Bombay to Goa". May be one Amitabh movie which has its origin in Tamil (Madras to Pondicherry). Anyway, coming to the topic, as I switched to that channel, the scene was were Amitabh and the heroine will be in a club, there will be a club singer to whom they will ask to sing their favorite songs. And when I saw the singer, I thought I have seen her somewhere and then it struck me.. yes, its Usha Uthup. Looking so young, and her mesmerising voice as it is now.. the style with which she was singing English songs one after another.. But yes, I had to add she was looking shy/awkward facing the camera.

Amitabh and Rajni

2007-12-20T21:58:00.000+05:30

This is not one of those endless comparisons of Amitabh and Rajni. Its just that I am amazed by how many movies of one is remade by the other (I think its mostly Amitabhs movie being remade). And most of the movies are hit in both the languages. With very less exposure to Hindi movies till I came to Pune, everytime I see an Amitabh movie, I was surprised that the story line is similar/same as what I have already seen in a Rajni movie. So I did a little research and here is what I could come up with.

Deewar - Thee
Khoon Pasina - Shiva
Kasme Vaade - Dharmathin Thalaivan
Trishul - Mr Bharat
Don - Billa
Laawaris - Panakkaran
Namak Halaal - Velaikaran
Khud daar - padikkadhavan
Mard - Maaveran
Hum - Basha

Add to the list if you are aware of any

There are couple of Amitabh movies which I have seen in Tamil with Kamalhasan in the lead role.

Dostana - Sattam
Aakhree rasta - Oru Kaidhiyin Diary

And yes, there is atleast one Tamil movie which I know for sure which was remade in Hindi with Amitabh as hero.
Madras to Pondicherry - remade to - Bombay to Goa (with the same bakkoda kadhar)

Tamil Blog

2007-11-10T10:34:00.000+05:30

On the holy day of Diwali, I started my Tamil blog. That way, those people who do not know Tamil need not have to see Tamil postings in this blog.

Happy Diwali to all !!

தமிழ் Key

2007-08-30T14:49:00.000+05:30

Firefoxல் ஒரு நல்ல extension இன்று கிடைத்தது. இதன் மூலம் எந்த ஒரு transliteration siteக்கும் செல்லாமல் மாறி மாறி தமிழிலும் English-இலும் எளிதாக type செய்ய முடிகிறது. உங்களுக்கும் வேண்டுமா? இதோ இங்கே செல்லவும்.

இனி தமிழ் blog பல எழுதுவேன் என்று எதிர்பார்க்கலாம்.

பி.கு - நன்றி, திரு. ப்ரசன்னா - இந்த extension பற்றி இங்கு எழுதியதற்கு.

Traditional Day

2007-08-21T12:35:00.000+05:30

Today we had traditional day in office. Not to miss the once-in-a-year opportunity, here I am, dressed in my traditional panchakacham.

Prime Minister's Independence Speech through many eyes

2007-08-16T15:07:00.000+05:30

This is the tag cloud for Dr. Manmohan Singh's Independence day speech yesterday. Tag cloud created using many eyes. Gives an interesting view.. Development is so prominent in his speech (26 occurances). Other ones that caught my eye were eduction and employment. Making all right noices.. What do you read from the tag cloud?

Yahoo Widgets

2007-08-10T15:08:00.000+05:30

Installed yahoo widgets yesterday. Its pretty cool to have. I tried/installed/uninstalled lots of widgets and am probably now have only the ones I think I need it.

The ones I am using are - Picture Frame (show pictures from your harddisk or a website - changing continously - and randomly if configured), SuDoKu (to play when I need a break), Twitter (to upload twitter messages - see at the right side top for my twitter messages - more on twitter sometime later), World Clock Pro (shows clock of India and Austin - changes the background color based on the time of the day - always on top), Yahoo! Stock ticker (configured for stocks I am interested and sensex - 15 minutes delayed quotes), Yahoo! Weather (shows weather of Pune - always on top).

Any suggestions for some good widgets?

Sughosh

2007-08-08T14:06:00.000+05:30

For those who have not seen my photo albums and hence not followed the growth of Sughosh, here is a latest photo of him (of course using my new Sony Camera). Can you count the 4 teeth? (there are 2 more not visible in the photo making it 6)

He is probably destined to become a rock singer. Glimpses of that below :-)

Note: Click on image for full size image.

Layout changes

2007-08-08T12:38:00.000+05:30

I have made several changes to my blog page. I have changed the template to something I felt is more pleasant. In the left, you can see feeds from my picassa web album - access that to check out latest photos I have uploaded (mainly of Sughosh). I am trying out with the poll feature - and if I like it, might have regular polls.

Hopefully all these changes will encourage me to blog more. Keep visiting.

Sony DSC-W555

2007-08-06T13:10:00.000+05:30

Bought my second digital camera - after the first one has become unusable when I dropped down the bag containing the camera. This time, I have bought Sony DSC-W55. Check out the features here.

Also, I will hopefully blog more frequently in the future.

Windows in Tamil

2006-06-14T19:51:00.000+05:30

Inspired by my friend Ram who had sent a mail to our college group showing his fedora desktop in Tamil, I installed Windows XP Language Interface pack in Tamil.

And believe me - it is so funny to read. It does look good, but you wouldnt have seen such pure Tamil translations for quite some time now. For example, have a look at the message I got during one of the operations. Funny isn't it??

PS: Folks who dont know Tamil - pardon me.

Sughosh

2006-05-21T10:34:00.000+05:30

The newest arrival in my life - cute little Sughosh (which means one with melodious voice). Born on 18th May and weighing 3.78 Kgs he is currently having a great time sleeping.

Well, attaining parenthood is a great feeling. If you are already a parent, you will know what I am talking about. If you are not - you need to wait to feel it.

Isn't he cute?

Who will be my 100th Orkut friend

2006-05-04T12:37:00.000+05:30

My orkut friend list has reached 99. Just one more to go for 100 friends. Who will be the lucky (!!) person? If you want to be the one, search for Magesh R and send me a friend request.

IE 7 beta - Initial impressions

2006-04-21T16:27:00.000+05:30

I wanted to try out IE7 beta for some time now, but unfortunately my machine had Xp SP1 and it will not install in SP1. So finally today I managed to install SP2 (the one which my company allows us to install) and then installed IE7 beta - and of course, the first pain is I had to restart my machine after installing this "browser"...

Of course, it happens with every IE - and so I rebooted, and then opened IE. Instead of opening the site which is my homepage - it first told me that my security settings are not safe (did not tell me what they are - I had to go to the help to see what they are - and it gave me only option to fix it or continue as it is).. so I fixed that. Even before that, there was this phishing setting that it wanted me to select or not. I selected the phishing filter also. Finally, it opened my homepage which happened to www.rediff.com - and there we go - the rediff pop-up. I thought okay, the much advertised popup blocker is not on by default.. but it was on, but was medium level. I selected the high level, closed IE, opened it again - and this time instead of rediff - some other microsoft page openes up where it asks me to select some setting like default lang etc.. I click on do not ask this again link and it takes to rediff.. and of course, the popup comes.. I told this to my friend and he ssid may be rediff popup comes in Firefox also. I told him no.. opened firefox and it did not popup - but it did not show me that the popup is blocked. I realised it was because of my noscript extension, so disabled it and reopened rediff. And now firefox shows that it has prevented a popup from opening.

So, initial impression.. better to stick to firefox. Anyway, will have more impressions coming up as and when I try more.

My Handycam

2005-12-15T11:56:00.000+05:30

Finally I have a handycam - SonyStyle.com | DCR-PC55/B MiniDV Handycam^® Camcorder

Is it not sleek and cute?

Ganguly - a batting alrounder

2005-11-25T11:35:00.000+05:30

So Finally Saurav Ganguly is back to Indian team as a batting alrounder. Now this announcement has brought in lots of ridicule among columnists and (so called) experts. To reinforce their views they are using the stats of Sauravs bowling performance in the past in tests and saying that he is nowhere close to being called an alrounder. What they dont see or conveniently ignore is the efforts put by Ganguly to improve on his bowling and the efforts are showing. As I write this, he has already scored more than 130 runs and also got 5 wickets in the Ranji match against Maharashtra. Yes, I agree that Maharashtra is no australians by any means. But see what even the australians are doing.. they are having Symonds bowl his gentle medium pacers and using him as the 3rd seamer and of course as an alrounder. Remember a guy called Sanjay Bangar.. he used to bowl gentle medium pacers wicket to wicket (even R P Singh is of the same mould), but if Ganguly evens play half as well as he used to do in his golden days, he is better than these 2 folks I just mentioned. The effort he is putting in bowling more overs (He bowled 25 overs for Bengal against Maharashtra in the first and second day) and be economical and also get some wickets (5/75 again in the same match) should be considered, and if he is ready to do the same thing when playing for India, that will give the team the flexibility to go with 2 seamers, 2 spinners and 7 batsmen including Saurav. Remember Dravid - who had a painful run in one dayers and then he took the additional role of wicket-keeper and also reinveted his one-day batting?

Lets give Saurav a chance. He deserves it !!

Supersub - a thought

2005-11-17T18:45:00.000+05:30

I have been planning to blog for quite some time now. I keep thinking about various topics while travelling - topics as varied as philosophy, religion etc.. But finally some thoughts on cricket - on the supersub and how it could be used.

Instead of the now traditional use of supersub where you pick your supersub hoping that you will win the toss and use the supersub based on your decision, why not pick the supersub assuming that you will lose the toss. This will be useful mainly when the pitch and conditions are already favouring the team which is winning the toss. For example, Wednesday's match of India against South Africa had enough assistance to bowlers bowling first that even if Dravid had won the toss he would have opted to bowl first. Now instead of having Gautam Gambhir as supersub, if Dravid has had Murali Karthik as supersub, we would have had one bowler extra when India bowled. Now what would have happened when we had won the toss and bowled first, we would have had the best of the conditions - and so the lack of one bowler wouldnt have hurt us.

The same way, for the second match where dew will play a factor, Dravid would like to bowl first - so, it would be interesting to see him have a bowler as a supersub. If he loses the toss, he will in probability need to bat first and the supersub will be handy in tough bowling conditions where an additional bowler would be handy. If he wins the toss, he should go ahead and bowl - and hope that he never need to use his supersub, since anyway he is going to bat in favorable conditions.. so he can as well have 5 bowlers and 6 batsmen - with a 6th bowler coming in, in case he loses the toss.

Dravid had done this strategy in couple of matches against srilanka. Would be interesting to see if he repeats this now.

Consumer Complaint - 2

2005-08-30T17:15:00.000+05:30

This one is an outrageous case happened (happening) to me.

I got Sify Broadband and have problems right from day one. But somehow I continue using that.

On 25th August morning at around 9:30 - I connected to the Sify network to check the sudoku for the day from the daily sudoku site. There was almost 300 rs worth MB pending in my account. After my work is over - which took me less than 5 mins, without disconnecting from the sify network, I hibernated my machine - I have done this many times and the connection get timed off automatically. But that day evening, I get a call from Sify person telling me that my account is about to expire and asking me whether I want to renew the account. I was shocked and told him that I had almost 300 rs in the morning only. He checked his records and told me that I have been using the account today morning for 6 hours and downloaded about 300 MB of data. I told him that I use my laptop to connect to internet and I bring it to office in the day time and there is no way I could have used so much of data. He said he will get back to me.

On Saturday, he called me again and told me that the technical ppl says since the system shows I am logged in - I am logged in and I cant get back those MB back - but instead he will give me 14 days free pack (at 64 MB - whereas mine is at 256 MB for 2 months - with a MB cap of 500 MB which I will anyway not use even in 2 months). i told him a clear no and told him that I want my MB back and want to know how this mistake happened. He said he will again talk to them. I then went back and checked my system logs which clearly shows that my network was disconnected at 9:30 AM and got connected again at 10:45 AM (when I reached office) - and Sift guys are talking about continous 6 hour session.

Today afternoon I talked to the person again who again suggested me taking the 14 days free pack and he tried his best. Now the next logical step is legal action. Anyone in Pune can help me with how to file a case in Consumer Court, any good lawyer you are aware of who can help in this. I have enough of technical proof as well as physical evidences who can confirm that I left from home at 10:10 AM on that day through my office bus along with my laptop and once in the office, it is not possible to get connected to the Sify network.

Now friends in Pune, can you help me with this case - in finding out how to file this case in a consumer court.

Consumer Complaint - 1

2005-08-29T12:15:00.000+05:30

On Saturday evening, We went for a movie "My Wife's Murder" in Inox. The movie was a mixed bag - first half was good, but at the end of the movie, there was the sense of incompleteness - there was hardly any twists in the second half.

The purpose of the blog though - is about what happened in the interval. They have advertised some offers wherein a combo of Pepsi and Popcorn is being given for Rs 55 instead of Rs 70 (They specifically printed 70 - strike it off - and printed 55 below it). So when I asked for this combo - the guy gave me a 400 ml Pepsi and popcorn, I sensed something was wrong and checked the prince list - For Rs 70 - one would normally get a 500 ml coke and a popcorn. Now what he is offering me is a 400 ml, and even after trying to make him understand (and I am sure he understood), he was saying these 2 are 2 different things, this particular deal comes with 400 ml only. I kept asking him, then why have you advertised that the price of 70 is reduced to 55 - and he again said the same thing. I said I wanted to talk to some higher up - they called someone (not a manager though, I guess) - and after listening to me he said I am right and gave some excuse of this offer being there only for the last 2 days and so they were not aware of this problem - he said he will have the advertisement changed to correct this anamoly.

Now, you wonder why I am making so much fuss for Rs 5 - Its really not the money, its the act of cheating which angers me.. they could have easily had 65 printed and striked out to make it 55 and claim a 10 rs deal and still ppl would have gone for it. But they probably thought no one would realise this and a deal of Rs 15 sounds better than Rs 10.

Whatever it is, I am going again to Inox soon - and am going to check if the advertisement and offer has been corrected - or I have to take it to the logical conclusion..

Any supporters?

PS: Coming up - Consumer Complaint 2 - this time a bigger problem with Sify Broadband

Back to work

2005-07-11T18:16:00.000+05:30

Finally after a month of working from home (!!) I am back to office today. Feels good to be back to office - back to checking mails all the time when I am in office, downloading anything I want - not worrying about the size of the file and how much it will cost me (one of my worries when I was using broadband connection at home).

And yes, I miss being at home too - with all the positives in the office, home is the heaven, nothing can come closer to being at home.

SuDoKu

2005-07-08T20:53:00.000+05:30

I promised a write-up on SuDoKu couple of blogs back. So here it is.

Sudoku is a number game with a 9 x 9 grid, subdivided into 9 3 x 3 grids. The rules are simple - every row, every column and every 3 x 3 grid should contain numbers from 1 to 9 - all of them - and only once. To begin with, the grid will have prefilled numbers which will help us in completing the complete grid. So the way the grid is prefilled makes it very easy to very tough.

More information on Sudoku here.

For daily sudoku, check your newspaper - it probably has sudoku already coming. I know its coming in Times of India, The Hindu. But pls pls, do not try the Hindu sudoku if you are not a kid. Its so simple. Dont know when they will grow up to give some tougher ones. TOI is better, it gives easy, medium, tough puzzles randomly. Another site where you can get daily sudoku is this.

The first thing both me and Suba do after getting up is to check the Sudoku puzzle in TOI and complete it. Its fun. Try it out, if havent yet.

Supersub Crepe replaces Plaster

2005-07-08T20:22:00.000+05:30

In comes the supersub Mr Crepe Bandage in place of Mr Plaster.

My plaster was finally removed yesterday. Swelling has reduced considerably, now doctor has adviced me to wear Crepe Bandage while walking. I am finally going to office on Monday after a gap of a month. Pain has also come down a lot, though I think it will still take a couple of weeks for me to sprint around my office lawn.

And the first thing I did after my plaster was removed was to see Anniyan - a Tamil movie directed by Shankar with Vikram in the lead - playing a person with 2 more Split Personalities (Multiple Personality Disorder). The movie was good, its too late to review the movie - so am not venturing into that :-) The climax is very good, Vikram has performed well, as usual. Shankar is finally back to his social theme after the forgettable Boys. Sada as heroine is very saada (ordinary) :-)

Life without a Television

2005-07-06T08:49:00.000+05:30

Its wonderful. You need to try it out to understand and appreciate what I am telling you.

I always thought TV wastes lots of our precious time. But knowing me - I dont have enough self control to stop seeing TV if its there. THere are times when for hours together I used to simply switch channels - just in the hope that atleast in one channel there will be something interesting or worth seeing. And then I took the decision of my life - about 2 years back - to sell my TV. My friends were surprised at the decision, but I went ahead with my decision. So its been almost 2 years without TV. I was lucky that Suba seconded my opinion and happily agreed to be without TV. I have made a deal with her that the day she feels bored and wants a TV, we will have a TV at our house. And the day has not come so far in this 2 months.

We are so used to it that we no longer feel there is no TV. It gives us so much time to spend with each other - listen to songs (we both love songs - mainly Tamil movie songs) and anything else we want to do - rather than being couch potatoes - simply watching those soaps and crying with the characters in it. I have long back come to the conclusion that there is nothing useful in the TV and Suba also agrees to it. So we are leading a very happy life without TV. You need to try it to experience it.

Finally after 2 years, I started getting newspaper at my house. One of the motivations is the Su-DoKu puzzle (more on this another day). Of course, no day passes without me scolding Times of India a couple of times for their biased reporting and their bad editing. I seriously wonder if they do proof reading or just print whatever they typed in.. every day there are numerous typos, incoherent sentences, repetition of words etc.. And take up any issue - they will end up with their favorite BJP bashing - even if that issue has nothing to do with BJP. Man, I hate this newspaper. But the alternative - Indian Express - the mouthpiece of Congress is equally bad. Waiting for the day when The Pioneer starts publishing in Pune (I think it only publishes in New Delhi).

I am just wondering when I will get rid of my laptop too :-)

Twisted my ankle

2005-06-26T20:17:00.000+05:30

For those who are not aware, I twisted my ankle badly 2 wees back while climbing down 2 steps. Couple of weeks back I had been to Hyderabad for a personal visit. But sadly, while getting down at steps - there were only 2 steps, but I missed the second step and landed directly in the floor from the first step. Its really amazing - if I had planned on missing the second step intentionally, my brain would have calculated the force needed to apply in my leg - the way my leg should land etc etc.. and since my brain thought I am going to keep my leg in the second step, it had different calculations and so when I landed my right leg in the floor, the force was probably more - adding to that the weight I have put on after marriage ;-) the sprain was pretty bad.

The doctor in Hyd told me that there is a dislocation (though my Pune doc says there was no dislocation by seeing the x-Ray) and applied local and general anesthesia and supposedly set the dislocation alright and also put a Plaster Of Paris plaster in my leg. Once I am back to Pune, I went to Dr Electricwala who removed the plaster to take a proper look and a new X-Ray and then put on a synthetic plaster which is more convenient than the traditional POP. He also asked me to take rest for 4 weeks without using my right leg for walking and 2 more weeks with plaster, but I can walk using my right leg also. Its been a boring 2 weeks - where I spend most of my time in my bed room.

To enable me to work from home, I got a new broadband connection from sify which actually sucks with its frequent disconnections. The other problem is that whenever power goes off at my place - since the power for the network switch is taken from my house, the connection also goes off even though my laptop is running in battery. Anyway, I am managing to work from home. Should be in this state for another 2 weeks and will hopefully be able to go to office after that.

Google ads

2005-06-23T16:49:00.000+05:30

The latest way to earn money in the net is having google ads in your site. I actually saw one of my friends having google ads in his blog and that gave me a curiousity to try out the google ads. If you too are interested, you can get started here. Its pretty simple to get - it will take a day or 2 for you to get the approval after which you can select the layout you want for your site - copy paste the small code to your html and you have got google ad. And yes, you get paid for the number of site visits and number of clicks on the google ad. Google says they will be sending the cheque to your address once your account reaches $100. So far my account says $5.

So if you want to actually get confirmed that its working, click on the ads to the right and make my account reach $100 and then I will confirm if I really got the cheque or not. What more, since google uses some smart technology to show ads that are related to the contents you are reAding, you might even find the links useful (like the free hit counter I saw in an ad in my site and going to use in this blog).

The 500 Rupees Trick

2005-06-02T12:47:00.000+05:30

This one is not really a pleasant experience. Nevertheless, I think sharing such experiences will benefit others to be careful in the future.

This happened on the night of 20th May when we (me and my wife) took a bus from Pune to Mumbai and got down at Dadar at around 3 in the night. We had to go to Mumbai Domestic Airport to catch a morning flight and we took a taxi. On reaching the airport entrance, his taxi gave some strange noise, and he said he cant take us to the first level where we need to go - but drop us in the ground level and we reluctantly agreed. He told that the fare was 280 rupees, I checked with him if he has change for 500 rupees. He said ok and I gave him the money and he immediately returned back to me asking me why I am giving him a 100 rupees. Surprised, I had a look at the money and it was a 100 rupee note, I was still confused, but couldnt do anything else, gave him a 500 rupee note and got back the change.

I recalled the whole incident, and I am 100% sure I gave him a 500 rupee note. I knew exactly how much I had with me, and I also know that I kee 500 rupee note in the far corner of my purse from where I gave him the money. So the driver has chosen a place to drop us which was not having enough light, and he had a 100 rupee note ready in his hand in the darkness of the taxi and when I gave him the 500 rupee note, he has simple swapped hands and gave me back the 100 rupee note - thereby making a profit of 400 rupees with a small trick. When I was thinking hard about this, I recollected that about 6 months back - again when I was travelling from Dadar to airport, exactly the same thing had happened to me. That time I wasnt too sure how much I had and I convinced myself that the mistake was actually mine - now I am pretty sure that in both the incidents, I was robbed of 400 rupees each by the same or most probably 2 different taxi driver thieves.

My intention to record this in my blog is for the people reading this blog to be careful about this incident. It could happen anywhere - specially during night times, and in the Dadar to airport segment during night times, 2 out of 2 times, it has happened to me. So in case the light is not good, avoid giving 500 rupee notes and try to give change. If you do not have change, make sure you show him that you are really giving a 500 rupee note before giving him that.

I am perfectly fine with anyone wanting to forward this incident to others as a warning.

I am a family man

2005-05-17T14:02:00.000+05:30

Finally, the much awaited April 27th arrived and I got married to Suba. Marriage went on very well, attended by a good number of friends and family. We got back to Pune on 7th of May after a trip to Tirunelveli. After a day's trip to Mahabaleshwar with my parents, Suba's parents and my sisters family, had our weddding reception in Pune on 9th of May. Back to office on 11th of May and started with work.

You can see the marriage photos here.

For a sample, here is one photograph taken during our reception on April 27th.

My Wedding Invitation

2005-04-19T12:55:00.000+05:30

My wedding Invitation

Chandramukhi

2005-04-18T19:33:00.000+05:30

Last Friday, I did something unthinkable if I had been in Tamilnadu. I managed to see Chandramukhi, the latest movie from Rajnikanth - on the first day of the release (technically the second day - but it was the first day in Pune).

Thanks to my friend in office, managed to get a ticket and the fun started even before the screen doors were open to let us in. Inox would probably not have seen such a noisy crowd - with the typical shouts of "Pana marathula vavvaala - thalaivanukke savaala" (Roughly translated to "Bat in Palm tree? - Challenge to the leader?" dont bother about the meaning - it rhymes well, and yes - the leader is none other than Rajnikanth himself) and shouts of "chala bula chala bula gumtha lakka - uh aah uh aah" (it doesnt mean anything, but try telling this in chorus with about 20+ ppl and you will enjoy it).

Rajnikanth's entry in the movie is one of the best I have seen in recent times (not able to recollect when Rajni entered in a fight sequence - it had been generally in song sequence), even though the graphics was glaringly visible, it was enjoyable. The first half an hour was enjoyable - with Vadivelu's comedy scenes evoking laughter in the theaters.

The problem started there on - typically you would expect the story to start atleast after half an hour in the movie - giving enough time for Rajnis introduction. But the story was threatening to start for the next hour or so and started only just before the interval. Till then, its Rajni everywhere (of course, its the same even after interval too). There was about 15 minutes before interval when Rajni was away from the scene as per the story when the story starts. (Incidentally, I read somewhere that in the original Manichithrathazhu - Mohanlal, whose role Rajni is playing, enters the movie 10 mins before the interval).

I dont want to spoil the suspense in the movie - so just few more comments - the last half an hour was good, mainly because this is when the suspense unfolds and also good acting from Jyotika. Surprisingly she even manages the dance sequence, though the grace of the co-dancer Vineeth was missing.

Now I am trying to see the original movie Manichithrathazhu. I want to see what the original story was - how it would have been if it had not been for the super star in the movie - how much story and suspense were compromised for rajnikanth. In rediff review, I read that in one place where Prabhu tries to cry, it only evokes laughter in the audience - and it really did. A sad commentary for the son of the great Sivaji Ganesan. Nayantara looks beautiful - but thats all she has to do in the movie after all.

Overall - a better movie than Baba - but not as good as Padayappa (the movie I saw before my microprocessor exam in college).

And yes, one notable and appreciatable feature is - Rajnikanth never smokes in this movie. A rarity in his movies.

Now waiting for Mumbai Express (Tamil version) to release in Pune

Why I don't celebrate valentine's day

2005-02-14T19:29:00.000+05:30

Or I should rather say St.Valentine's day - because thats what it is, a Christian celebration, started by Pope around 498 AD <link> and curiously Catholic Church removed it in 1969 from being an official holiday. Even though there has been some confusion on who this St.Valentine exactly is - there are different versions - but one thing in common in all these versions is that he was a Christian Priest. So here we have - an essentially Christian festival, taken by the English people to America, popularised in America - and the so called elite Indians, because of their blind worship of anything western - picked this one up also and started celebrating this. This was further aided by blatantly western media and the gifts and other related commercial folks - who found a good economic sense in encouraging the celebration.

If you are really in love, you dont need a special day to celebrate it.

Some data also taken from here

I am Engaged

2005-02-07T15:11:00.000+05:30

I got engaged to Subashri on 27th January 2005 at Chennai. Marriage is on 27th April 2005 (its a co-incidence that both the dates are the same) at Chennai.

Will soon share some of the engagement photos (and provide a link in this blog).

Enjoying the post-engagement days !!

Hindu Calendar for dummies - Contd

2004-12-31T10:47:00.000+05:30

The last few days have seen some good visits to my blog, I should probably put a counter to find the number of visits to my blog :-)

Ok, here is the promised writeup on the Solar Calendar - the one that is followed in my native Tamilnadu, Kerala and I guess also Punjab. To understand this calendar, you need to know that there are 12 rashis (moon signs). Rashis are decided by the stars, a group of starts form a rashi - so the 27 stars form 12 rashish.

Different planets (graha) move from one rashi to the next periodically. The famous example is that of Shani, which moves from one rashi to another every 2 and a half years - (the 7 and a half years Shani calculation is the period when Shani is in your previous rashi to when it is in your next rashi, of course it will be in your rashi for 2 and a half years in between). Same way, Sun completes its cycle of moving from one rashi to another in a year, and so the start of every month in solar calendar is when Sun moves from one rashi to another.

For the system followed in Tamilnadu, the name of the month is following the same rule as that of the lunar calendar (see my prev post).. for example, in the month of Adi (which is derived from word Ashadi) - the Poornima will fall on either poorva aashadi (pooradi) or uttar aashadi (uttradi). To know how each of the Tamil months derive their names, check here. This is a translation of "Deivathin Kural", Teachings of Sri Chandrashekarendra Saraswathi Swamigal of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam. Go through the link and that should give a good account of the Tamil months.

Well, the names of the months followed in Kerala is more logical, since the names are the rashis in which the Sun enters each month - like Mithunam, Katakam (again something I read and not too sure abt). But in Tamilnadu, the system is solar while the names are that of lunar.

Now, try to figure out your birthday in Solar Calendar - Its generally the month name and the star name - mine is Vaikasi (Vaishaki) month and Thiruvadirai (Arudhra) nakshthram.

Hindu Calendar for dummies

2004-12-29T11:01:00.000+05:30

Its the time of the year when we celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of a new year - new year as per the Gregorian calendar - calendar proposed by Pope Gregory. As Indians, have we even wondered about the calendar that was followed by our ancestors? I thought I would put in atleast my knowledge of our ancient calendar system and how it works.

For starters, there is no concept of weeks in our calendar - there was an interesting link on having a calendar which will not change year after year. There was a line which interested me

"Calendar reform has always failed before, and for a simple reason: All major proposals involved breaking the seven-day cycle of the week, which has always been -- and probably will always be -- completely unacceptable to humankind because it goes against the Fourth Commandment of the Bible about keeping the Sabbath Day," Henry said. "C&T never breaks that biblical cycle."

Unacceptable to humankind ?? biblical cycle ?? excuse me - I dont follow Bible and I am a human. Never mind, the bottomline is, from the above para - I think the week cycle is something to do with Bible, which you will not find in our calendar.

Now, to the actual calendar - there are 2 types of calendar - one is Solar and another is Lunar. I would take Lunar first - simpler to explain and is followed in most of India - north of Vindhya (except I think Punjab) and also, most of the festivals follow Lunar calendar.

Its as simple as it gets - the month starts from the day next to Amavasya (new moon) and ends with next Amavasya. Now for the name of the month - (I believe) the Nakshatra (star) in which the Poornima falls in the month will decide which month it is - for example, in Chaitra month in which the poornima falls in Chaitra Nakshatra. Here, there are no dates - but 'thithi's (position of moon) are important. Thithis starting from prathamai (1), Dwithiyai(2) and goes on to Chathurdashi (14) and then either amavasya or paurnami - these thithis can come either in Shukla Paksha (amavasya to poornima) or Krishna Paksha (Poornima to amavasya). Now Ganesh Chathurthi always falls on Badrapada maasa (month) Shukla Paksha Chathurthi thithi - that will be 4th day of Badrapada month.

Now go figure out which month, which paksha, which thithi you were born on, and start celebrating your birthday on that day (your parents are probably already celebrating that day - and forcing you also to - you are just not aware of it)

Solar calendar - the one we follow in Tamilnadu - for another day, another blog - very soon

Disclaimer : Any factual inaccuracies are entirely mine, for further knowledge on this topic, read more (and correct me too about my misktakes)

Is Hindi our National Language - Myths and Truths

2004-12-11T13:24:00.000+05:30

The Answer is Yes. But, it is not "THE" national language, but one of the 22 national languages - my mother toungue Tamil is there in the list, and so is Marathi, the language of the state I am currently in. Here is the official website which has the list of "National Languages" as the left frame rightly describe. So what is this crap all about Hindi being THE national language of India. For me, its a myth being propogated by -dont know who- but believed by almost everyone, and taught in our schools. Hindi is an official language of India (even though the link above uses the word 'The', I would still stick to the word 'an' since English is also an official language of India, approved by the constitution of India.)

Ok. Enough of proving my point. The point I am trying to make it - I get pissed off when any Indian points at any fellow Indian who doesnt know Hindi that you "should" have known Hindi being an Indian - because hindi is "the" national language of our country. One incident is etched in my memory - it was in the Railway reservation center of Pune when the person standing in the queue was insulted by the booking officer for not knowing Hindi, that poor Tamilian was asked - what an Indian he is if he does not know Hindi?

In a nutshell, In a vast country like ours, there cannot be one language which everyone should know, just like there cannot be one type of food or one type of dress. Learnt to co-exist, learn as many languages as possible, but never force anyone to learn a language of the majority's choice.

PS: I learnt Hindi from the age of 8 and have completed 8 examinations in Hindi, even though Hindi is not a subject in the schools I learnt. I am only against forcing Hindi on non-Hindi speaking Indians.

PS2: A very interesting read on this topic is a set of 4 articles written long back by Rajeev Srinivasan in rediff.com. Here they go
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4

Is Tajmahal a wonder?

2004-12-09T23:55:00.000+05:30

I got a forwarded mail from one of my friends today - sent to our college group about a "New 7 wonders of the world" survey and the mail went on to vote Tajmahal into the top 7 wonders of the world. This blog is triggered by that mail.

I confess that I have not seen Tajmahal in person - all I have seen is the photos of Tajmahal and yes, I saw "Bibi ka Maqbara" at Aurangabad, supposed to be the Tomb of Aurangazeb's wife. People say this one in aurangabad is a poor attempt to replicate Tajmahal. I was not impressed by the tomb, neither I was ever impressed by Tajmahal itself. So I am wondering if Tajmahal really is a wonder? My curious question to anyone who claims that it indeed is a wonder, is, give me 5 good reasons why you think its is wonder.

There is another interesting side-story to Tajmahal - a claim that it could be a Shiva Temple - Tejo Mahalaya . I am leaving it to the individual to decide on the above version, but one point mentioned there did strike me -
The unusual explanation of the term Tajmahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal, who is buried in it, is illogical in at least two respects viz., firstly her name was never Mumtaj Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani and secondly one cannot omit the first three letters "Mum" from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name of the building.

Ok, Enough about Tajmahal. One of the truly magnificient architectural marvel I have actually visited is the Brihadeeswarar Temple (Periya Koil) in Tanjavur - the shadow of its Gopuram never falls in the ground. Someone who is really interested in seeing the architectural genius of Indians - visit Tamilnadu, every nook and corner of the state has ancient temples with breathtaking sculptures and arts - mostly in stone.

(few of the many sites which has information on Brihadeeswarar temple with some photographs
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Brihadeeswara%20Temple
http://www.info4india.com/Indian-Monuments/Brihadeeswara-Temple-Thanjavur.shtml)

Election in Maharashtra

2004-10-14T00:15:00.000+05:30

Its election date in Maharashtra. I do not have voting right here (neither do I in my native place in Tamilnadu). Just make me wonder how many lakhs or millions of such people are there who are away from their native places and staying in other states. Why is it necessary for a citizen to apply for voting rights at every place (s)he moves to? The question is a complex one to answer.. But, someone like me who stays alone and who works 7 days a week from 10 to 9 will not think about enrolling himself in the electoral role or wherever he goes.

Leave alone the part of me voting, somehow the election atmosphere was missing in the past 1 month. For someone who is used to the election fever of Tamilnadu, it was kind of disappointing. May be since I spend most of my time in office, I dont see it. But then even on weekends, I havent observed the fever I am so used to seeing it.

I am back to office even though its a holiday for us. Lots of work to be done.. So saving my first ever blog and waiting for comments