Yo!

Oh yeah! I am finally writing again. A 1 month hiatus was a bit too much wasn't it? I actually saw the world fly by in the last month as I literally tried to relax and enjoy California for what it is - a beautiful state!

Lots of changes happening in my life. The Project on which I spent 8.4% of my life (yeah statistics! I know I am good at that ;) !!) is finally getting over (atleast for me!). So the 2+ years that I spent at uncle sam's land are slowly coming to an end. Like the last shopper on a sale, I am trying to grab all that I can. Every weekend is thus spent exploring that one last State Park, or that one last Restaurant that I couldn't make it to, in the last n months!

I made it to Disneyland in Anaheim CA three times. I know thats an achievement for an elderly gentleman like me. Come on, its for kids ain't it? Well nooooooo!! Disney is for people who are still in touch with the kid in their heart. If you guys want advice on planning your trip to Disney so that you sit on every ride, see every show and do all that you can do, come contact me :) !! I have done a PhD in running around there :) !!

What else happened in the last month? Hmm, for me ... well lots of things ... go-lives, apartment moves, dejections, recession and everything in between :) !!

Nano?

I bet all of thee motor-souls have already read the news that India built the "cheapest production car in the world!" Holy cow, Tata could actually fit a whole 624cc 2 cylinder engine along with 4 wheels, chasis and a steering and then extract a 54mpg from the engine while still meeting the Euro-IV and Bharat Stage-III emission norms in the Tata Nano!! Sometimes I feel that some of us Indians are simply crazy :) !!

And, now let me take the pleasure of introducing my most favorite portrayal of an Indian. It sure is "Asok the Intern" from the Dilbert comics. Not only is he extraordinarily brilliant, but also he knows telekinesis and shape-shifting!! If this is not enough, he could also re-incarnate himself :) !!

Haha, I bet the mysterious land of holy-men, snake charmers and software engineers has more in store than what meets the eye ;) !! Watch out world, a land of 1.1 billion people can't be just sleeping...

Time travel

Though technically, more than half of the world is already into 2008, the land that I currently contribute my weight to, is still in the last year. Taking advantage of this great time difference, I try to squeeze in my very last post for this year.

I am not much into resolutions. The last one that I remember I promised to myself was long back when I was learning to tie my shoe laces! I couldn't keep mine, and if any of you have noticed, I still use slip-on shoes. So much for resolutions. I don't keep any.. (well, that's a lie, in the last century I kept a resolution, that I won't ever keep any more resolutions, and I have stuck to it :) !!).

Now let me get into some numerology. 2008 will be a good year for all of you who read this post. The reason is simple. 2008 is an even number. It ends with 8 which happens to be the cube of 2. 2 is the base of our binary world. Also 8 bits make a byte, the fundamental foundation of this great virtual world. The word "blog" is a 4 character word. 4 is a divisor of 8 (got the connection?). 2008 starts with a 20. The prime factors of 20 are 5 and 2. Its an interesting combination of an odd and an even prime number. You will have a great financial year this year! All your financial trouble will be washed away. Your love life will be rocking and if you are married your spouse will be very happy with you.

Thank you for your attention. Wish you a very happy new year 2008. I cant believe we are already 9 years into the 21st century. None of the essays that I wrote as a school boy on "Life in the 21st century" have come true yet! Come next new year and 10% of 21st century will already be over!

Slash

Being from the field of computing and computers, we inadvertently use a lot of "slashes" everyday. Thought I make a stupid tutorial for all those of us who are confused between the terms "back slash" and "forward slash" :) !!

Imagine a slash to be a guy ---> |- with a head and a toe.

If he leans on his back he becomes a back slash like this --> \
If he leans on his front he becomes a forward slash like this --> /

If he can hold a guitar in his hand and wear a hat and play with his hair on his face, while smoking a cigarette, he becomes Slash and is a part of the Guns N' Roses :P

And if you didn't find this post funny, its absolutely okay, neither did I :) !!!

Food for thought

Going by the title, I bet most of my regular readers are anticipating another blog where I talk about food, fat and other pleasantries :) !! Naah, don't you worry, this time, I am actually thinking, so this ain't a stupid blog on food.

I read this particular comment on Slashdot by a user "Opportunist" and it got me all thinking about our responsibilities as netizens sharing a common information highway. Have you ever wondered that to do anything in this society you need a license, a permission? To drive, you need a driving license, to possess a weapon you need license etc. etc. This licensing scheme though has many pitfalls, actually makes you liable for your actions, and brings order in the otherwise chaotic society. I remember my Indian license has these words on its last page "Driving is a privilege, not a right".

However, when it comes to sharing the Internet (hey you can't deny, the entire Internet is a giant interconnected web) we somehow don't seem to have any responsibilities. In this world of always-on Internet if your computer gets compromised, you are not only hurting your own self, but also hurting others on the Internet (which means, technically you are a threat to everybody!). If a user doesn't know how to protect his/her computer on the net, then he/she shouldn't be allowed to use the Internet. Cause every compromised computer is a time bomb waiting to wreak havoc ....

Well, on a lighter note I remember two years back there was this particular virus that infected my client organization's computer network. Around 10:00 AM in the morning I got a instant message from my boss which said "Hey Girish! Check this out, photo of you and me from last night ". Luckily for me, I didn't click on the link, cause well I didn't expect my straight faced boss sending me such messages outta context and secondly I wasn't with him the earlier night :P !! But all said and done, there were at least 100 other users in the network that clicked on similar messages that they received, and in no time the entire network was infected by the virus. We lost most of our network functions for more than 2 hours after that. Imagine 40000+ users not working for 2 hours because some people were fullish enough to click on links that weren't relevant.

Hmm, so what am I trying to say from all this? Well, since we are not as computer savvy as the brains behind these attacks are, our only defense is to be street smart while on the Internet, and behave like responsible citizens, who are sharing a road!

Diet Control

Though I regularly cook lunch or at least have one in the cafeteria everyday, the friendly vending machine still happens to be my chief source of nutrition (the bad kind!). So everyday around 4:00 PM, my stomach growls and then I go and spoil myself crazy with a high calorie snack or two.

Every time that the vending machine dispenses the oh-so-tempting forbidden fruit, I promise to myself that this will be the last time that I will ever eat outta the evil machine, but come tomorrow ... and the cycle continues... so much for self-control :) !!

But the last week has been funny! I have been outta dollar bills. The vending machine just accepts 1$ bills and loose change. So, though my stomach growls, the poor me can't feed the vending machine a credit card and make it spit out poison! And everyday in the evening I promise myself that I will get change tomorrow.

Today happens to be just one more time that I did that, and I suddenly realized that procrastination is not all bad. Sometimes it does good to your health :) !!

Mona had eyebrows

I am not an art aficionado nor am I remotely interested in history, but yesterday I paid a visit to "Da Vinci - An Exhibition of Genius" in San Francisco, and the 4 odd hours that I spent there were truly unforgettable. My knowledge of Leonardo Da Vinci was limited to his role in my history textbooks in school and thereafter his passing references in "The Da Vinci code", but yesterday I got a glimpse into the life of a genius. The breadth of his knowledge and the contributions that he has done to a vast spectrum of fields is amazing.

Also, yesterday was the first time that I studied Mona Lisa so much. I mean, I had heard about the painting and that it existed in the Louvre in Paris. But I almost attended an art appreciation class yesterday :) !! From figuring out that there is a bridge behind the left shoulder of Mona and a road on the right, to the presence of an "H" written behind the painting for no particular purpose, I did learn a lot about her :) Other than helping rookies like me to understand how to look at a painting and genuinely admire it, the exhibition also lists the in depth analysis that was done by Pascal Cotte (I can't believe there is no Wikipedia entry on him :( !!) on Mona Lisa using his multi-spectrum 240 megapixel camera.

Coming back to my subject line, well, the research done by Pascal Cotte indicates that Mona indeed had eyebrows, laying to rest some of the most profound questions of history :) !!

If you live in San Francisco bay area, and are remotely interested in art, technology, war or history, this exhibition is a "must attend".

Blogging in plain English

Found this funny video by common craft about blogging and thought I share it with you guys...

That reminds me, I have been using del.icio.us for more than 2 years now. Everytime some one asks me what it is, I have to sit and explain a million advantages. Some helpful soul from (Common Craft again) has made a video explaining del.icio.us too :) ... check it out:
The video is titled "How to explain del.icio.us to your parents :) !!"

Grow with time

I have been cursed to be clumsy since July this year. I have dropped everything and anything that I lay my hands on. So, I have been consciously trying to avoid holding anything nowadays, lest I drop it and cause a mess :) !!

All said and done, I dropped my dear watch a Casio G-shock in the shower today and for a moment missed my heart beat. She (I have decided that all things that I own are going to be of feminine gender from now on :P ... my car, my computer and yes my watch!) has been my faithful companion for approximately 3.5 years now. I know you must be wondering what I was doing with my watch in the shower. Which reminds me, practically the watch has not been off my hand ever since the time that I bought it. May it be while I am swimming, bathing, cleaning, working out or just generally being clumsy, the watch stays on.

It stays upto its reputation of the toughest watch in the world, and with a solar panel, it never even would need a battery replacement. This has got me thinking on a new business idea ;) !! Let me explain....

Casio should tie up with all the hospitals that deliver babies all around the world. Immediately after the baby is delivered depending on whether its a boy or a girl, a watch should be put around its wrist. The parents can ofcourse choose the kind of watch that they want to put on their baby's hand. So along with the name, the genes and the fat cells, parents also get to choose their baby's watch. Now to make it more useful, we could have some other defaults embedded into it like the kid's SSN, its Passport no., blood group etc etc. Also a built in RFID tag would make it more geeky and we could program more things into it as and when required. It should also be designed to grow along with the kid. With interchangeable face plates and other whiz-bang, it will be a product of the future! Haah, I can only pat myself for the amazing ideas that I come up with :) !!

And here is a thought for the day --- do not write a blog when you are dripping wet right out of the shower, cause your chair will get soggy .... God should have given us the amazing shaking power of a dog. So right after my shower I shake myself crazy and there I am dry and ready to rock :) !!

Happy Diwali

A very happy Diwali to all of you and I wish you have a healthy and prosperous year ahead.