Good ol'days

Ahhh...nostalgia! Here is a trip down the memory lane!

Sonus on the move

There is still a long way to go before it becomes Cisco or Infosys but what the heck! Gotta be optimistic.

Summer activities!

If you haven't planned your summer vacation yet, I invite you to consider Leesburg. It is not only close to Washington DC -- which has its own attractions -- the town has a lot more to offer.

If you're musically inclined the following events are stones throw away from where I live:

• Bluemont summer concerts
• Wolf Trap
• Potomac celtic festival
  

Some are free.

Bring your bike or rent one for a nominal price if you like biking. There is 45 mile WOD trail that practically goes thru my house. There are B&Bs along the way if you would like to spend the night there on your biking trip.

If you're into running, the town holds a 10K/20K race usually in August. I participated in the 10K last year and it was a lot of fun. Total party atmosphere with bands and food etc. There were about 300+ participants and I came 17th. From the bottom that is. A major part of the race is on WOD trail. Spring is in the air so it's the perfect time to start your training.

If you'd like to go wine tasting, that can be arranged too. There are few vineyards near by. Here is one.

If for nothing else, you've got to come for this restaurant :-) It's quite famous in the region.

Hope to see you soon!

March madness

Since GMU is stones throw away from here, not a day goes by when I don't hear people talking, in my office building, about the latest cinderella story. Was surprised to see it making waves in the aussie-land. Not really a basketball fan but since I always root for the underdog, I will probably watch the game.

Google, watchout!

Margaret Mead said

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever was.

Majestic-12 is trying to challenge Google's supremacy in the web search. Come to think of it, isn't it how Google got started? Small.

6GL

I think automatic code generators are still some (actually quite a bit) way out, it's an interesting, though not novel, concept nevertheless.

Inside Man

Heard that A. R. Rahman's music is used in this movie. The review on NPR wasn't bad either. Gotta see it!

Google Finance

I take that you've read the news by now. There are couple of things that caught my eye:

One of the more novel features of the site gives user the ability to view financial news alongside historical price charts over various time frames. As the user zooms back in time, the news results change with the date.

And the other:

Google Finance started out as a part-time project by Google engineers working in Bangalore, India, Stanton said.

Look what we have?

Please welcome Nagaraj Avadhanam to the blog. To the best of my knowledge he is in the west coast (physically) and currently working for Cisco. You might remember him from Infosys days :-)

Welcome Nag. Glad to have to onboard!

Steve Job's commencement speech at Stanford

This is inspiring, have fun:-)

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Politicians and such

I recently read a post: Why Does India Have Such Terrible Politicians? It lists various reasons from greed to money and what have you. But the only thing suggested by way of solution is stop the flow of money into politics. It indeed is an effective solution and should be pursued. Only if people in charge have the political will to do it.

The thing that struck me the most was (and I'm quoting):

Clearly, there is something about the profession that induces even otherwise decent fellows to behave caddishly. It is the way the game is played.

This reminded me of a book that I read recently: The Tipping Point By Malcolm Gladwell - How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference. To give you a background I will quote some other reviewers comments:

The Tipping Point is the name given by epidemiologists for the dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once. The flu, for example, can be held in check for a long time without being an epidemic. But suddenly, once some threshold is crossed in terms of number of people infected, things get much worse very quickly.

Gladwell believes that by understanding how such tipping points are reached, we can deliberately use them to market products, or push for social changes, or just understand ourselves better.

Gladwell argues that there are three rules for a situation to hit the tipping point.

1. Law Of The Few - explains how only a handful of socially well connected people can quickly spread a message, any message.
   
2. The Stickiness Factor - explains why the content of the message is important.
3. The Power Of Context - explains how the environmental factor affect the situation.

You guys might be aware that New York City was a mess in the early 90's until Giuliani took over. Again quoting from the review:

Perhaps the most well-known example described is the rapid fall in crime levels in New York City in the mid-1990s. Murder rates fell by 64.3% in a five year period, with other types of violent crimes dropping by 50%. This happened after years of steady increase. Gladwell argues that the factors conventionally cited as causing the improvement (improved policing, declining crack use, and aging of the population) are not sufficient to explain the suddenness of the change. All three factors included gradual shifts in behavior, and yet the drop in crime occurred very rapidly. Gladwell makes a convincing argument that the police in New York put into place certain conditions that suddenly “tipped” the crime epidemic, sending crime rates into a decline.

Gladwell explains how the graffiti in the NY subway trains encouraged (at an unconcious level) people to commit more crime and the effect erasing them had on the crime rate. The graffiti in a way created a context or environment for more crime.

Coming back to the subject in question, I think the last rule: "the power of context" is most important.

In my recent visit to Bangalore, a friend of mine came to pick me up at the station. We were together in Dallas until he moved back to Bangalore. To my surprise he was driving like any other bangalorean (no pun intended). I asked him why is he not following the rules? He said: "I did try (initially). Giving the right of way to pedestrian etc. But nobody here respects that so what's the point?"

I really think it's the power of context that encourages our politicians to be so terrible. Every body is corrupt so what's the point?

If the message in this book is anything to go by: it takes very small things to snowball into a big thing and become an epidemic of social change. I hope I will live to see that day.

PS. The book Freakonomics By Steven D. Levitt offers an alternate explanation for the drop in the NYC crime rate. If I remember correctly he attributes it to Roe v. Wade but that is for another day.

Pic of the day

India Factor

Read this some time ago.

Sonus At Nasdaq

Remember the opening bell I talked about?

Amusing bits

Most of cricket match reports these days are quite boring in the sense that they just recount what happened in the match with stats and figures. But then there are people who really love the game and put that extra bit in their reports that make you chuckle and marvel at their imagination.

While still basking in the afterglow and reading the reactions after the 2nd test match between Ind/Eng I captured some amusing bits. Reproducing them here for your reading pleasure:

Times says:

England were rumbled, humbled and kumbled, Kumble bowling with that slightly apologetic air of his, as if he were rather embarrassed to have to point out so many flaws in so many batsmen.

And a little later in the same report:

England intended to win, or at the very least to give India one hell of a fright. And for a moment it seemed possible. Then Virender Sehwag got off to a flyer and India won by the cruel and unnecessary margin of nine wickets.

Boycott in Telegraph:

Kumble is a freak. He bowls at Derek Underwood's pace, a bit quicker possibly, and doesn't give the batsmen time to settle because he's on to them so quickly. He's got many variations, he changes his pace cleverly and he's also very accurate. In Mohali he got bounce and turn and caused problems for the batsmen.

Derek Pringle in the same newspaper:

While Sehwag will have welcomed some time at the crease, Rahul Dravid presumes it is his right to be there.

The greatest of 'em all

If you'd like to watch Aus/SA 5th ODI highlights, check out this website. You will have to create an account.

Match Report

I was savoring the afterglow of the Indian victory in the 2nd test match when I came across this report that stood out from others. It's actually a recount of the match after 4th day but the description of what it is like to play in India and that of the two spinners is really "brilliant" (I want to use a better word here but I'm not as talented as the author, Simon Barnes). Here is an excerpt:

The trouble is that when you play a Test match in India, it is quite easy to get the idea that every mortal being on the planet, and now a few immortals as well, are against you. Even the sacred cows in the streets want you to lose.

Full report here.

A billion reasons to care....... an ABC news coverage on India, the rising

Check out this video, guys:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1674437

Money! Money!! Money!!!

Indians in the Forbes list of richest people:
(Rank, Name, Citizenship, Age, Net worth (Billions), Residence)

25	Azim Premji	India	60	13.3	India
56	Mukesh Ambani	India	48	8.5	India
104	Anil Ambani	India	46	5.7	India
114	Kushal Pal Singh	India	74	5.0	India
125	Sunil Mittal	India	48	4.9	India
140	Kumar Birla	India	38	4.4	India
168	Shiv Nadar	India	60	4.0	India
185	Pallonji Mistry	India	76	3.6	India
245	Ravi & Shashi Ruia	India	NA	2.8	India
278	Adi Godrej & family	India	63	2.6	India
317	Indu Jain	India	69	2.4	India
317	Dilip Shanghvi	India	50	2.4	India
562	Baba Kalyani	India	57	1.4	India
562	Tulsi Tanti	India	48	1.4	India
645	NR Narayana Murthy	India	59	1.2	India
698	Uday Kotak	India	47	1.1	India
746	Subhash Chandra	India	55	1.0	India
746	Vijay Mallya	India	50	1.0	India
746	Habil Khorakiwala	India	63	1.0	India

This article suggests:

India added 10 names to the list for a total of 23, but only three of them based on software or technology. Their combined net worth of $99 billion passed the net worth of Japan's 27 billionaires, estimated at $67 billion, for the largest concentration in Asia.

Compare this with those in the neighboring asian countries like Pak, China, Japan. You may be in for a surpise.

The Numbers

I suddenly had this urge to learn a little more about indian population in the states. The search resulted in some interesting stats. e.g.

The estimated annual buying power of Indian Americans in the United States is around $ 20 billion.

Based on the count of the 2000 Census, there are 1.7 million people in the US who identify themselves as Asian Indians or Indian Americans -- first- and second-generation immigrants or those whose ancestors migrated to the US from India.

According to University of California, Berkeley Study, about one-third of the engineers in Silicon Valley are of Indian descent, while 7% of valley high-tech firms are led by Indian CEOs

More details here.

Slightly older data here.

If you want to hear it directly from the horse's mouth.

NZ/WI match

The fun part is about 3/4 into the clip.

Visiting India

I will be in India starting Apr 8 thru Apr 27. My itinerary includes Mumbai, Raipur, Jabalpur, Nagpur, Bangalore. If you guys need to send/receive anything, let me know.

Food lover?

Ever since I was forced to live the "bachelor life" again, been experimenting with two things at home: cocktails and cooking! Just for the record, the former is limited to Friday evenings only :-)

I'm not sure how many of you are into cooking but last saturday I tried this panini and it turned out pretty good. You may want to surprise your significant other by playing a chef and serving this treat sometime.

Here are my favorite websites in case you would like to know:

• HookedOnHeat
• CocktailDB

So there you have it! Couple of reasons for you to drop by my place :-).

Hypertension

The office, the customer, the home, the wife, the kids, the taxes, the finances, the stress...oh boy!!! And while we are taking care of all that, we tend to ignore some important signals that our body sends. I recently went to a physician for what I thought was a harmless thing but turned out to be "prehypertension". Figured you guys aren't getting any younger either so here is an excerpt from another newletter that I receive:

When it comes to blood pressure, you just might be in for a surprise. What once was considered safe is now viewed as potentially risky. Federal health guidelines currently put about 45 million Americans in a category called "prehypertension." This category was created to warn people of the dangers of developing full--fledged high blood pressure--including heart desease, stroke, eye problems, and kidney desease.

Expert now consider optimal blood pressure to be lower than 120/80 mm Hg. Readings between 120/80 and 139/89 are considered prehypertension, even if just one of the numbers falls in that range.

Why the change? New research shows that damage to the cardiovascular system from increased blood pressure can begin earlier than doctors previously realized.

Health experts recommend having your blood pressure checked at least every two years, beginning at age 18.

Fortunately, recent studies show that making certain lifestyle choices can lower your chance of developing hight blood pressure, even if you already have prehypertension. These include:

• maintaining a healthy weight
• exercising for at least 30 minutes a day on most days of the week
• limiting alcoholic beverages to one daily drink for women, two for men
• consuming less than 2,300 mg of sodium--about the amount contained in 1 teaspoon of table salt--a day
• eating foods rich in calcium, potassium, magnesium, and folate

The grocery stores w/ pharmacy usually have blood pressure monitors that anybody can use. Next time you're out there, you may just want to give it a go.

Take care!

Taxes

Guess, you guys must be tired of my posts on taxes. I think this is my last one, quoting something verbatim from a newsletter that I receive:

Whenever you mail checks, tax returns or other documents
to the IRS, make copies for your records and send the originals
via registered mail, return receipt requested. This way, if the
IRS claims it didn’t receive your papers, you have proof that
you mailed them by the due date, and you can easily produce copies.

Without these important steps, you could find yourself having
to prepare your returns all over again, but without supporting
documents such as W-2s or 1099s. You also could find yourself
forced to pay interest and penalties, in addition to the tax you owe.

Right now, 30,000 taxpayers — including thousands of Virginia
residents — wish they’d followed my advice, because their
third-quarter estimated tax payments are at the bottom of San
Francisco Bay. A U.S. Postal Service truck ran off the bridge
into the deep, cold waters.

The IRS actually considered hiring scuba divers to try
rescuing the mail. Instead, the agency decided to contact
individuals directly. If you live in Virginia, Alaska, Arizona,
California, Hawaii, Ohio, Utah, Washington or Wyoming and you send
quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS’s San Francisco office,
don’t be surprised if the IRS tells you that it hasn’t received your
payment. 

Securing your WiFi network

Here are some tips and visual guides for popular routers like netgear and linksys.

The lighter side of life

Sometimes you come across situations that force you to smile regardless of the mood you’re in.

This morning I was driving to work. All taut and grim with countless thoughts going through my mind while, on the surface, I was trying to maneuver through heavy traffic in an attempt to get to work on time. And suddenly a Camry whizzed past me in the adjacent lane with the number plate that said “DOODWTF”.

In another incident, I was going through comp.lang.c to find an answer to one of my questions. My search for a phrase returned a bunch of posts. I was reading them one by one, squinting in the process. Something people normally do when they are trying to concentrate and focus. And at the end of one of the posts the following signature pops up:

"In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented six feet downward and covered with dirt." -- Blair P. Houghton

check out kerala's martial arts form kalaripayattu

Looks like Donna Ganguly is not yet giving up SG's return to Indian team. She has decided to fight against all the obstacles ( read: the selectors and Yuvraj Singh ).

If you guys want more proof, check this out:
http://sify.com/news/infographics/kalari/info1/index.php

Quiz

You guys seen this before?

Free cricket continues

Looks like the 2nd test match would be shown free too. Click here.

Tax filing software comparison

If you haven't filed it yet, you may want to check out this comparison by the post.

Cricket and Bush

By now, you probably know about this but the story goes that when Bush was in India a journlist asked him if he had time, would he rather watch a Bollywood movie or play cricket? Bush probably didn't know about Bollywood so he goes "I'm a definitely a cricket person" (or something to that effect).

What he didn't realize was that Pakistan would take it to the heart. So when he was there, Injamam and Salman Butt tried to give him a crash course on the sport. Here is a look at the incident in a lighter vein. You want to go half way down the page to the EXTRAS section.

Trends in 2006

Our recent discussion on the global economy reminded me of this article that I had read some time ago. It appears some of them are already taking a pretty firm shape. Take a look.

Curry-N-Rice-Girl

If you haven't seen it, check this out:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4532245984549289375

Ind vs Eng Test-1

Just found that one can watch the first test here. I will try it out tonight.

War of the words

I went to see my physician yesterday. After the check up he prescribed some medicines and asked me to visit him few weeks later for a follow up. I requested the receptionist for the next appointment. She gave me one and wrote this in her calener: "Harsh Daharwal May 2, 8:30AM F/UP".

I'm debating whether I should go back.

Is it true?

At lunchtime today we discussed at length about the surging indian economy....booming IT...enormous purchasing power...huge talent....bla bla bla...

And then back to my desk I read this--
http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/mar/02children.htm

Comeone please tell me this is not true

Caption contest

Have a dekho.