Journey to Blacksburg in photos
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| View before NY | Island before NY |
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| JFK | Roanoak Airport |
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| Mountain of clouds | View from my room |
Congratulation Abhinav - We are proud of you
Abinav Bindra recieving Gold Meal
Indian Nation Anthem @ Abhinav’s gold medal podium
Underground Intelligence
Impact of Blogging?
After Ahmedabad and Bangalore serial blasts we friends were having this general discussion. Deepa tweeted about blogging about the incident and what can be done and this is what Nimish and I replied.
KV: @ddeeps what will blogging do? We will blog and few ppl will read and agree n nothing will change.
Ddeeps: @kv Oh never despair. We talk, we discuss, we think, re reflect, we are spurred to action, we support - all things happen.
Nb42: @kv 98% of the people are decent citizens. 2% are extremely stupid. But it’s us 98% who’s at fault for electing the other 2%.
KV: @nb42 exactly, but do you think we 98pc ppl can blog n change those 2% ppl?
Its almost 5 years since I have been blogging, but still I am not clear about the impact of blogging on general people, or how we can change the opinion about certain things?
I am not talking about the tech people, the people from our gang or bloggers. When we write about technology and tech news/reviews/bug fixes/hacks it is to be accessed by similar minded people and they find solutions online. Or when The Economics describes Robert Scoble as Chief humanising officer and quotes ‘he has made Microsoft, with its history of monopolistic bullying, appear marginally but noticeably less evil to the outside world’ then I completely agree. Because people who had views about MS, hated MS or had no opinion, they all belonged to the tech world, the internet world. That was the place where Scoble was hero and everyone listened to him.
But once we try to apply same things to normal world specially in country like India where most of the people do not have access to internet, where politicians still try to get votes based on caste, region etc rather than what actually people really thinks, the situation is completely different. If we talk about people who blog or we interact on twitter we see most of them have rises above the level of these small issues and cannot be misled by politicians. But those are the people who are our target audiences too, they are already aware of what is happening around, they know problems and solutions too, they do not have power to change it. They can blog about things but who is going to read, not the politicians or general public.
There are these small incidents that happen in our daily life, for example when I went to get a medicine from medical store, most of them did not give me because I wanted to just have one injection. They wanted me to buy a complete pack of 10. These medical store guys act like a mafia and sell medicines in bulk only. Every medical shop I went to I got the same answer ‘buy 10 or don’t buy it’. Where do I raise my voice against it? Who should I complain to? In the end what did I do, I just wrote a blog post. [I never posted that because I knew that post will have no impact]
Push button publishing might have made everyone a journalist, but what good it is when the ideas can’t be propagated into real life. I have another question too, few months back we had a Blogathon India, and it was really a nice effort. I read all the posts and learnt a lot from them, I tried to change few habits too. But I don’t think it caused a lot of impact, its purpose was to increase awareness, but I think it just tried to help those who were already in better shape. We need to reach out to common people and authorities, but blogging isn’t going to help much.
So, I want to ask all the bloggers what is the solution? Do you really think blogs will have impact someday? In a country where 1/3 of population is trying hard to get two meals a day, we can blog and can change perspective of people? I have no clue on this. At this point I was thrown with another question, did you vote? What or how did you decide who to vote for? Maybe answer to this question will lead me somewhere.
Just Chill!
I hate PHBs, not just because of there ignorance. Ignorance is not an issue, but when they pretend that they know everything, that is what bothers me more. I have no clue why this happens but once a person crosses the limit from normal being to become a PHB, he looses common sense; he crosses the threshold of being normal and achieves idiocracy.
If you guys have seen Office Space, you will remember the daily conversations between Lumbergh and Peter. As soon as Peter enters his cubicle Mr. Lumbergh will come to his cubicle, place the coffee mug of cubicle wall and …
Lumbergh: “We need to talk about your TPS reports. You forgot to add some important points to it”
Peter “I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time.”
Same thing used to happen to a friend of mine. His manager had recently been to a ‘top level conference’ and had got a red coffee mug with golden engraving ‘member of so-n-so club’. Manager’s routine was same as Lubergh’s, he will come to my friends cubicle and start the conversation:
Manager: We need to talk about the user guides that you sent for review. They were not formatted properly.
Friend: Yes sir, I think I made a mistake.
Manager: You should have referred to old reports; your report looks so different.
Friend (thinking): those reports were pathetic and had nothing in them, only good thing about them were they were formatted properly. My reports make sense but are not formatted, now what is more important?
Now this routine continued for few days, manager and his coffee mug. Finally my friend got an idea, he bought a coffee mug and in just 3 days manager stopped visiting his desk.
The Coffee Mug
An Appeal to BBC
To BBC,
First of all I would like to thank you for producing Top Gear, best TV show I have ever seen. I have seen every episode of Top gear (current format) multiple times and I wait eagerly for the new episodes.
I am not a car fanatic, but still I could watch the show multiple times and only reason for that is the chemistry between Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. The way these three presenters review the cars, crack jokes and plan pranks on each other, is just awesome. These three are the soul of the show and if we take any one of them out, the fun is over. I still remember the first series when Jason Dawe used to be presenter instead of May and that was not good. First series was not half as much fun as any other. No one but these three only can create the fun in ‘ambitious but rubbish’.
I have heard rumors that Hammond and May might be out of the Top Gear because of some financial constraints. I would just like to say keep all these three together so audiences can enjoy the best. After all you are BBC, how hard can it be for you?
-Top Gear Fan
Twitter acquires Summize - Endless Possibilites
The deal is done; Twitter has acquired Summize and most of its employees. I would say this is the perfect move by Twitter. Most important thing that twitter was lacking (other than stability) was a search functionality and Summize will fill the gap.
Now only thing that twitter needs to do is provide a search API which is as simple as twitter’s API. I think that’s the motive of Evan in keeping the employees. As soon as API will be out there will be many clients which will provide options like tagging and channels. By integrating search and not mot making it complex what twitter has done is maintained its simplicity and provided a way in which almost everything is possible. I would say for developers who write clients for twitter only their imagination will be the barrier, possibilities are endless.
A post from airport
This airport looks great, one of the best I have seen in recent times. Best part about this is FREE WI-FI, I enjoy bandwidth and if it free, I love it 
Journey to airport is also pretty nice. We just have to go to www.bmtcinfo.com and find out the volvo schedule and book the cab, that will pick you from your house and drop you to the nearest volvo pick up point. Phone number for this service are available at BMTC site.
This would be my last post from Bangalore. Many people have asked me ‘How are you feeling today? sad or happy?’ My answer to everyone is, this is a mixed feeling, I am sad for leaving the place, many many great friends I made over 3 years and happy that I am going to start a new life, I will be student once again. I would be enjoying the college life once again.
PS : this post is like notes because I was finding it very hard to type in using my iPod touch. JS is too heavy and it crashes safari very frequently.
Diary of Anonymous Cubicle Dweller - II : The F1 Club and Bangalore
continuation from Diary of Anonymous Cubicle Dweller - I : Mysore
The F1 Club
In Mysore we did not have internet access and only way to ‘kill’ time was to browse through ‘personal pages’. There were many games available, most popular were Stick Cricket, Gold Mine and Chopper. But the thing that attracted me the most was F1 Club at Jaykrishna’s page. I logged into it and was amazed to see the quality of content. When I joined it just had ~200 members. The most interesting part of club was Fantasy League, where we used to form teams, predict and after every race would check our standings. Newbie section contained details on aerodynamics/mechanical aspects [flash demos], F1 facts, statistics and a lot more. The bulletin board was much better than the BB we have.
Just after 2nd anniversary of the club, we had to shut it down as JK moved to secured location. But by that time, the club had moved from personal pages to Sparsh>Clubs and has reached a membership of more than 3000 users.
Anonymous Cubicle Dweller
After training I was posted to Bangalore, it was time just after ‘the 2005 flood’, city was messy and buses used to take ages to reach Silk Board. First day at office was a long wait; I was assigned to ‘research unit’ and was excited to work on something interesting. We had to wait till 4 PM to meet our HR and then I was told that I have been placed in J2EE team.
I was allocated a cubicle; I was sharing it with a very senior employee. He asked me few questions about Java and then gave me a set of presentation to go through, I read those presentations more than 20 times in next 2 weeks and did not understand a single word. No one used to talk, not in my cubicle but also in surrounding cubicles. Everyone would be in place by 8, leave by 5 and no one ever talked. I was confused, everyone around were senior employees whom to ask my doubts, and how to tell them that I am so dumb that I can’t understand anything at all.
In the bus too, no one used to talk, everyone seemed to be tired and lost. I was not happy and was not expecting this kind of life. But things changed as other people joined the team, groups started forming and people used to talk. But a bigger things was about to happen and that will change a lot…in next part.
Diary of Anonymous Cubicle Dweller - I : Mysore
The journey started three years back; that was one of the greatest moments of life. This was my dream company and whatever I was standing outside the gates of famed campus. First day, Ali and I were just looking around amazed by the beauty and facilities. Next day was the induction, sitting in front row (but one) we (Geo, Cijal, John, Ali, Owais and few more) were mesmerized by presentations and were dreaming of a bright future.
Training days were awesome, staying in a (~) five star hotel, doing some easy assignments, going through ‘champak’ and clearing exams, ordering pizza on every Raceday and kicking out roommate so we friends can enjoy F1. The basketball tournament where we had India – China in finals was amazing. Spending most of the weekend in the pool or bowling alley and going out to Dhaba for dinner…OMG! I am going to miss all that action.
I still remember the first salary, it was in 4 digits but still it felt like a treasure, I wanted to go to Strand and spend everything (and I almost did it). I bought my first digital camera and used it to cover Mysore Dussehra and Vintage car show.
The Gurukul : Gurukul – The GEC newsletter was the first assignment that I got involved in. The team was full of editors but there was not a single designer, I joined the team and had to release in 3 days. Amee, Kedar and I worked continuously for three nights and got it released. Its release on 5th September (teacher’s day) in front of a Chinese and Mauritius batch was one of the most memorable experiences. I met a lot of people while working on Gurukul and a few became friends for life.