Embedded Files
10th Dec: "The Elements of Style"
Thanks to Varun Bhaiya, I finished this classic in English writing. Apparently this is must read for all English writers, better late than never.
29th Nov at Kaiser:
X-Ray says I have no fracture. It was the same story last year and it took 1 year to heal. I have my fingers crossed.
28th Nov ‘06: Ohh The Humanity.
I re-injured my ankle today. We had a 5k run at AMD and I was hell bent on running it.
I guess I had been warned: I got all the signs in the morning it self, no one from my group was willing to run, but me, "No Sir, I have to run this". I started off at a brisk pace and within 7-8 minutes I was running comfortably in the 5th position. The injury from last year, was not nagging me, and I was feeling much better running. After the first round of the campus (2.5km) all the positions were pretty much set, but my poor training over the past 6 months, started to show. I was loosing breath and about 3/4 into the last lap I lost one more position (6th). When I was about 500m before the finish line, I looked back and saw that I was comfortably in the 6th position with a lead of over 20m over the runner immediately behind me. Right when 200m separated me and what would have been my best position in a race, DISASTER struck. I twisted my right ankle yet again. I whimpered in pain. A jolt went thru my entire body and I felt down, bruising my knee at the same time, but it was nothing when compared to the pain in my ankle. I lay on the ground whining like a stray dog hit in the gut.
That is when I got a ruder shock. The two guys behind me ran past me with out bothering to see what was happening to me. Guys, this is just a shitty race!! A race in AMD for crying out loud, this is no Olympics, or the San Jose marathon, just a shitty 5k run in which we were running at a pathetic pace of 9min/mile. In my hay days I could run at that pace running back wards, and these two men, (calling such callous beings as men is probably wrong), choose to run past me by!! Ohh the humanity. I finally realized that I was alone in this. I stood up and limped to the finish line for the 8th position.
23rd Nov: Not Again...
As a kid, I have had the honor of doing things that not many kids can claim to have done. More than one time, I would come home empty handed, and when mom asked me, "Where is your school bag?", "At the school, I forgot it", would be my answer. and she would frustratingly ask, "Isn't that the only thing you have to get back from the school, besides your self?". twenty years later things have not changed a lot.
I was visiting Gaurav in New York, and had rented a car to go to Hollis NH. I come down from the 33rd floor with Gaurav, keep my luggage next to the car, say bye to him and drive off. Only 8hours later when I reach Hollis and I was removing all the stuff from the car did I realize that I left my luggage in NYC! This is unbelievable, my only piece of luggage which was also all the luggage I had. Yet again, I eclipsed, outclassed, outdistanced, outguned, outjockeyed, outmaneuvered my self.
22nd Nov: Bodies in NY
Ever since I saw the Advert of Bodies in the WSJ, I wanted to see it. I finally got my wish in NYC. But I really missed my Sis and Dad, as they would have enjoyed this so much more.
17th Nov: The Beast is Back!
Got my VW from the body shop. This was a first that a repair shop had delivered a car before its promised delivery time! This could have been a first for the entire body shop Industry:). Here is the best part: they repaired a minor scratch in the front too, without me having to pay explicitly for it. how often does that happen? Anchor Auto body in Sunnyvale rocks!
13th Nov 2006: To be rude or Not to be:
Its 9:00AM on a Monday morning and I am standing at the Enterprise at El Camino Real. I have just left my car at the car mechanic's and since this is starting of the week, I am trying to keep a pleasant demeanor. I don a pleasant smile on my face, the one that I have learnt to keep, completely detached from what is actually happening in my head. Suddenly a gentleman cuts in front of me in the line and demands that he be served first because he has an All State reservation. Duh…. Every one in the line has a reservation! But he persists and suddenly he gets the attention of the sales rep. After a while when the queue is almost over, I see that the folks who were behind me also start to grow restless and again dutifully a sales rep finds them a car. I say, “No I don’t have to grow impatient over such a minor thing”, and I am kept waiting and waiting and waiting. After 20minutes pass by I finally lose it and say, “Guys, I guess I might have to leave now”, right then I get my car and a free upgrade to a mid-size car. So what is the lesson? Go figure…
9th Nov: Lasik:
My little sis got her lasik operation today. Come to think there is nothing more precious than the eye. But the more intriguing thing is the change to something that is so innate.
7th Nov '06: The Gazzag Scam
Something I had to send all my friends on Orkut.
Guys I am sorry if any one of you got an email from me asking to join Gazzag. Please DON’T
Gazzag sends out emails not only to its member, but also to all friends of their members. These emails are repeatedly re-sent until the prospective member joins. When you create an account they ask you for your Orkut account and a naïve person might share their orkut login with them and this is where they get your friend list from. The worse part is that they don't even ask you if you want to invite your friends and the chain continues!! So next time you get an email from Gazzag just ignore it!!!
Thanks and sorry for the spam. And my suggestion just terminates your account.
Here is more about the scam
http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2006/11/gazzagcom_is_my_new_enemy.html
-monks
6th Nov : My new Phone : It will blow you away
4th Nov: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Check out the youtube national anthem.
30th Oct 2006: One for the Ages: A Prescription That May Extend Life
26th Oct: Gentlemen's Game?
Monkeys watch from a stadium gallery as the England cricket team practices in Ahmadabad, India. Picture from BBC :D
24th Oct : Box of Sweet
Last night, while returning from Shilpidi home, Badi mummy gave myself and Priya a bag, "Take this bag of sweets, it is from the Deepawlai pooja". Well, we took the bag and thanked her for the sweets. Upon returning to home I had a sneak peek at the moti choor in the bag and put the bag in the fridge. Today when I had come home for lunch, and Priya took out the bag, this is what we found in the bag. And it had been sitting in the fridge for 1/2 a day!!Isn't this cool?
21st Oct 2006: Jungle Jungle Baat Chali Hai :
There is this famous song from the Indian version of the cartoon jungle book that goes like "Jungle Jungle baat chali hai pata chala hai"
My guess is that every Indian from the age of 3-80 yrs knew this song when this cartoon was being played some 12years (circa '95) ago.
The lyrics are written by Gulzar, and Mowgli is seeing frolicking in the forest. (Did you know most of the stored by Rudyard Kipling were based in India?) So any way, it was only yesterday that I came to know the fact that the song I believed, I knew by heart, had actually different lyrics. The line that sounds like "Chaddi phen ke phool khila hai" (a diaper clad flower is blooming) actually goes like "Chad ti pher mein phool khila hai" (as the day dawns, the flower blossoms). The kids who sang the lyrics, improvised and the wrong version actually sounded cuter. So there you go, the whole nation gets it almost wrong!!
By the way, I think Sampooran Singh Gulzar, is the best lyricist that India has ever produced.
20th Oct: LATEX:
While I was interviewing candidates at Cornell University, I looked at almost a hundred resumes during the course of the day. Besides the breadth of accomplishments, the aesthetics had myriad forms.
Every one had their view of the best way to present the contents in the resume but one of them stood out. Christopher Leary had use LaTeX to type set his resume and it looked great, not to mention that he knew a lot of programming languages but even the presentation was good.
I just finished changing my resume to Latex, here is th tex file, and the class file. I would suggest using pdflatex to get the pdf file. I saw several other templates on the web but they were not as space efficient as I wanted then to be. Here is my updated Resumé mayank-cv.pdf, Doesn't this look great? I mean why leave the last mile in impressing someone? Also if you are using LaTex, use this cheatsheet.
17th Oct: Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck 1938: George and Lennie dream as we all do, but what broke George?
The story is set in the near by Salinas Valley and gives an exemplary account of plans going awry.
16 minute run on Homestead, after a long time.
7th Oct: Priya is Here.
5th Oct 06:Doing Bill/Receipts/Hisaab/Rent
The expenses had been piling on and I had to settle them fast. It’s always such a mess to enter hisaab/expense in MS Excel and them taking care of two way /three way transactions. The funny thing is that if you google “Expense report” you are taken to the Microsoft website where they have templates for expensing travel/legal bills. So who takes care of the expense between friends and roommates? I found something better at “Geek Heads”, which I then modified to look more logical. Here is Excel Sheet to settle bill/payments/receipts. Download here.
26th Sept 2006: “me gustaría ir a la India”: Future Conditional.
We learnt the conditional forms in Spanish today. And to build on that we had to think of “lugar” (places) we would like to go.
So Sofia asked the class around about the places, and people wanted to go to Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Botswana etc even I choose Paris and then she ended the sentence formation with “me gustaría ir a la India”, because “Ella tiene ropas coloridas” (she has colorful clothes) and then she proceeded to give a lot more reasons many of which I couldn’t possibly understand due to my weak Spanish. But the fact that she wanted to go to India and was so passionate about it really touched me.
14th Sept 2006: Dispensable Humans.
I was recently planning to move homes and a part of the whole moving ritual is to call up all the utilities and ask then to start the service in the new place. Of all the 1-800 phone calls there is one that I will remember for a long time.
Pacific Gas and Electric’s automated system allowed me to a) close account on the previous address 825 E Evelyn Ave, Apt 623. Sunnyvale CA 94086 b) Start the new account at 1180 Lochinvar Ave, #92, Sunnyvale CA 94087 on a different date. And at no point did I have to talk to a human; the machine was smart enough to understand every thing, without a glitch!! Street name, apartment number, City you name it. Come to think of it, it is a bit scary. What will all the Call centers do?
12th Sept ’06: Tracing the Footsteps of Great Men: I had been planning to buy a good notebook since a long time and it just so happened that today had to be that day. I recalled that I had seen some nice, leather bound notebooks at Barns and Nobel, and thought I might as well drop there to have a look.
Right behind the cashier, there were there beautiful black notebooks with thick cream pages, soft leather cover and an elastic band to keep it from opening. On top of the package was a paper slip that blared out that these were the same note books used by greats like Van Gogh, Picasso, and Ernest Hemingway.
I turned the book over saw the price tag, 5x8¼", 240 pages, and $14.95. Well, I swallowed my surprise and got the Thing :). If you are curious, the brand is Moleskine, and you can check out some of the famous stories at This link . While walking out from the store, I saw the note books that I had originally planned on buying, $4.00, Made in China, I thought, “No, Thank you”.
The sketchbook of Vincent van Gogh (1888–1890) Kept in the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam from the Moleskine website.
Disclaimer: Buying the same stuff as the giants of man kind, doesn’t necessarily make you one too, they probably used Colgate too :)
1st Sept : “Over the Rainbow”
How many times has it happened to you that you hear a song and it gets stuck in your head? So yesterday when I saw the TV advert for Kellogg Rice Krispies where a Mom is giving breakfast to her kid, I heard this song playing in the background. and just like scent of a beautiful woman it got stuck on me.
The music has a guitar playing, but is absolutely mesmerizing, Sui Generis, Reminiscent of some age old bygone good times. So today I spent one good hour at work tracking down this song. Obviously the Kellogg website was the starting point, but that didn’t talk about the music, just that the ad campaign was names “Childhood Calling”. Yahoo Answers gave me some clues and finally I tracked in on iTunes.
The song is called "Somewhere Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World" in the album “Facing Future” by Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole. Obviously when one sees such a peculiar name he is temped to look it up and I found that IZ was a Hawaiian singer, who died at an age of 38, from morbid obesity. (He weighed 750lb at one point!!!). What a loss?. You can sample the song on Amazon.
18th Aug: Looking For Apartments
My search for a new apartment had been frought with frustation. The web sites are horrible. I had a vision of giving a zip code and the seeing the places on a map, with places that are clickable. www.rent.com was horrible, www.apartments.com good but www.apartmentratings.com had exactly what I was looking for. Great Site!!
12-15th Aug: The UTC program at AMD lead Sushant and myself to Austin. We had Shireesh's company for 3 days. At the shooting range in TX with AR-15 in our hands. Then at the Alamo in San Antonio. You will also see the ever jovial Amit Partani. Here are the Pics
http://picasaweb.google.com/mayank.gupta/AustinAug06
28th July: Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later?
14th July : Loosing Sanity:
I knew it, I had known it all along… it was déjà vu. Fact of the matter is that I am loosing my nuts.
So this Thursday night I am doing my groceries and I think let me pick up a movie from Blockbusters. Now you have to bear in mind the fact that the last time I was here, I could not find a decent movie and thus had to return empty handed. So I am walking past the aisle and I pick up “L4yer Cake”. Come Friday night, I pop the DVD into the player, and 5 mintes into the movie, get the feeling something in wrong. The scenes look a bit familiar, I think naaa, that couldn’t be. Probably because I had seen “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch” I could be just misplacing scenes. Ten minutes gone and I am convinced that something in dead wrong. Then I started telling my roommate what was going to come next and I knew it: I had rented the movie before!!! I had re-rented a movie and then watched it for 15-20minuted b4 I could piece the pieces together :(
10th July: Fixing Problems with USB drive
In the past few months, I had been having a strange problem with my Sandisk Cruzer mini USB drive. Even though this drive was functional (tested as functional on other computers), my office windows XP machine would not show it as folder in the “My Computer” folder. I finally managed to fix this problem today. Apparently windows prefers the “F:” for a removable storage medium. What I had accidentally done was to map one of my network drives on to the “F:” drive and thus windows was having a problem distinguishing both these. Once I renamed my network drive to “H:” all the problems were alleviated.
20th June: Dot the I : You would think that you are seeing an average movie until you reach the end and suddenly the whole picture changes dramatically.
14th June: Thank God for any thing you have. Read this photo journal on BBC about kids living in sewers in Ethiopia. It is hard not to get moved.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/africa_underground_children/html/1.stm
13th June: What was that Again?
The BBC news headlines reads “World Cup ban in Mogadishu denied”. The funny part comes half way down the article.“Their spokesman, Sheikh Abdulkadir Ali Omar, indicated to the BBC it was the cinemas that were being targeted because they also showed Western and Indian films that the Islamists say are corrupting to the young.”
Indian movies in Somalia!!! Those dancing actors sure are popular :D…
7th June: More Collateral Damage done by the US in Haditha, Iraq: The incident was reported in the TIME some time back and now every one is talking about it. Just in case you are wondering if this was the first time “Collateral Civilian Damage” was done, read more about.
My Lai (Vietnam War): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre
No Gun Ri (Korean War): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri
4th June: Bay Area for Equality: We organized a protest against the reservation policies of the Indian Government at the Fair Oak’s Park in Sunnyvale. The event was a great success. Some 300 people showed up. A good friend, Shamboo, was among the people who did a lot of work.
San Jose Mercury, Hindustan Times
But there was a minor scar from the Incident. A guy, Kumar Gaurav, made a scathing remark about doing work at the gathering. Little did he know that those hours that I spent distributing the fliers at Bharat Baazar and the other places were done on a severally swollen leg and an impending exam deadline. Sometimes people are too quick to judge.
3rd June: Motherly Love, Too mUcH?
There is a something I must admit to. I still believe that whenever I am deep in trouble or say in an utterly hopeless situation, I can talk to my parents and somehow, miraculously, thing will work out. This has been the case every single time in the past, so why not in the future? But here is German Mother you wish you never had… German convicted over baby deaths
29th May: The Gang at MIT:
Standing: Ajay,Anuj,Goli,Anjana,Tanu,Manisha,Manish,Monks,GB,Suraj,HVD,
Sitting: Talwar,Isha,Sonal
28th May: It was a pleasant coincidence to meet Ashish in the most unlikely of places: the MIT campus. And this was after we last met in A2/12 Annapurna Nagar.
18th May: PERL/HASH/ARRAY/KEY/VALUES:
24th May: LiveStrong: I got tired ironing the cloths for 2hrs and the right leg swell up all again. So I called Anchal and Papa as to what I should do and she tells me that I should wear one of those yellow Livestrong bands in my right leg and it will get strong....
20th May: Ajay's Play: Ajay just sent me the link and it was soo cool to read
Directed by Ishwinder Kaur Banga Produced by Ajay Somani
, our man is Producing a play!. Check out the play web site of :WHERE THERE IS A WILL
I had been working in this Perl code for the past 1.5weeks. I was almost at the end of my wits, and unless Naval Verma had not come to my rescue, this one had me. The idea is to create a tree with multi branches. The nodes would be hashes, and the branches would be the references to hashes. If you look at the sample input file you realize that the tree structure is something like this
Device_name==>Parameter_name==>Device_bias==>Device_Temperature==>Device_Width==>
Device_length==>Array of Site_data
Now as you can guess that these could be any other attributes that might be specific to your needs but idea is the same. Also since different device_names can have the same parameter_name you need to differentiate then right at the top. The bottom most leaves would be the array of data that you would like to get out.
So here is the perl script and the test file.
I have modified the data slightly, and the script has NOT been tested on the modified data. But if you are smart enough, you will get it
17th May John Brown’s Reggae band: After a gloomy Sundays, Pathak proposed that we do something exciting for the weekday and what better day to have ball than Wednesday? The Band was playing at the “Great American Music Hall” in San Francisco, which is quite a place in itself. The ornate ceiling in the hall and the gargoyles are a sight to see. The hall has a look of the old times so old such that at one point I actually wondered that it this building earthquake safe? Any way after a local band tried its throat at the imitating reggae, an attempt that was hopeless to say the least, John Brown and his troop showed up 9:20ish. And immediately the good times started rolling, there is something in the beats that livens you up. It cheers up the mood, the saxophones, flutes, bamboo fifes, banjos, violins, bamboo fiddles, guitars, rhumba boxes, double-basses, rhythm sticks, shakkas and drums, played with both sticks and hands are mesmerizing. Bob Marley would have been so pleased.
The downer? The dance floor was full of pot heads, there was so much smoke that you would have to stand in the side lines to enjoy the Show, so as not to choke on smoke. All in all it was a fun night.
17th May 2006: 5K run in 22:41, More painful than completing the race was the fact that I took almost 3minutes extra than my pre injury timings. This ankle is not healing.. 7months and 10days and I am still not there. When will I look back to this injury?
Movies: Leon the Professional and Over the Edge (free by AMD)
12th May Getting Killed: So there is biking, intense biking and then they is getting killed. And that is exactly what I got today. Slaughtered, butchered, manhandled. Wow!! 1hr of biking out of which 35minutes were spent at >85% heart rate. It’s been a long time that I had my muscles so sore. Also the funny thing is that Carroll had the music to set up the tempo. So when Black Eyed Peas were playing "Pump It", we got really going. Music is gooood... Makes you do things that you would never dreaming of doing other wise
3rd May: As Weird as it get ?? Cannibal 'must never be released'
29th Apr: First 30minute run after 6 months! and I have been limping there after.
28th Apr: Paradise Again movie: Nice to hear arabic after a long time
27th Apr: Oil Co and price gouging: Exxon and Chevron earned a combined 11BILLION$ in the last quarter. That is 11Bil for each of us paying an average 2.70$ in the past 3month. And look at the preposterous part, Republicans are asking to give 100$ to the americans as a gas rebate. Guys, what ever happened to taxing the Oil Co? Think about balancing the book, not tearing it!!
26th Apr: Secondary Axis in Excel: I had spent so much time trying to figure out how to plot a y1 and y2 on the same plot in MS excel. tons of hrs spent on google/over laying plot by making one transparent, until Sushant finally found out that all you need to do is to plot both y1 and y2 in the same plot, good old fashioned way, and then select one of the series, right click and change it over to y2 secondary axis.
25th Apr: Just checked sitemeter: I have actually started getting hits on the pages.google web site rather than the blog at UCLA icsl website.
24th Apr: Spanish Class: Holly's daughter Anna was in the class. The sweet 5year old could speak better spanish than any of the adults in the class but it was her unmitigated enthusiasm was infectious at the least that struck up. Also we got a beautiful presentation on Equador by Milton.
22-23rd Apr Movie: First Dutch movie: Antonia’s Line. Good. La Petite Lili, crappy movie to say the least, I had to actually forward parts to get over with it.
Undated (sometime in 2003) Gandhi
One of the latest fads of the new Indian generation these days is the bashing of leaders from the past. This has probably more to do with the fact that given the present political status of our country, people
have simply refused to believe that a Man can ever think of his country before him self.
"The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their heir bones", so said Marc Anthony. So what if Gandhi fasted for years to get India free? that was actually because he wanted to spread
his propaganda. So what if the British oppressed us for 250 years, and crushed so many armed mutinies and it was only Gandhi's ahimsa that could finally convince them to leave? Gandhi was trying to sabotage India's
plans for freedom. What if Gandhi refused the post of PM, once Nehru asked him after India's freedom ? his real motive was to make people worship him. What if Gandhi cried when India burnt?, they were only fake tears..
Bapu, that is what we know him by, he never allowed anyone to call him Mahatma, in his presence. Is what a man, hungry for fame, does? He was a barrister by profession, a title that bought a lot of perks in the British Raj still he left every thing he had and fought the freedom movement. If he was egocentric, he would have never done that.
So they say that is was good that he was shot and we got separated with Pakistan. So why the Bombay riots?, why the Godhra and Surat killings ? Why do people have to die in Benaras every year in communal riots? Is this because what Gandhi taught us? No, on the contrary, this is exactly opposite to his principles. What is a separated Pakistan doing? It is doing more harm to India than we can imagine. Each year the Indian govt spends close to 14 billion USD on defense, most of it is targeted to keep our army in J&K and other states neighboring Pak. There are a Billion people in India who could have benefited from than money. I am not saying that we don’t need an army. What I am saying is that we can/could peacefully coexist, if we had followed his doctrines.
Since the beginning of time there have been followers and skeptics. The Believer form a religion and continue to live for generations to come and the skeptics are relegated to writing articles on Rediff.com or shouting at the moon. We have to make our choice. It is all about where you want to be.
monks
In response to
> http://rediff.com/news/2003/may/19varsha.htm?zcc=dc Varsha Boshle of Rediff
15th April: Rang de Bansanti
Was at a friend's place for her anniversary celebrations and they ran to Stanford to watch this movie with Naga and Patil. I had to see this in a theater and it was worth very penny. "No system is perfect, but we have to try to make it better".
10th April 06: Adobe Acrobat Sucks!!
Uff. I am sick of Adobe Acrobat 7. This piece of shitty software has just tipped of all products by Microsoft to claim the worst and most incomplete software ever.!! Every week you have a update or two that is
20Mb in size and needs multiple reboots to install. What is that ? I just installed 3patches and I had to reboot my m/c 6 times!! Also it takes forever to load any thing. and all this to display a tiny tiny pdf document. Plus it is pretty darn expensive. Usually the auto update is turned on and this would mean that while you are working ion something important Adobe in installing a 20mb file to support chinese or arabic! The unsuspecting user has no clue what to install and what not to.
5th April 2006: Crying over Happiness: This is was the first time that it happened. I was always amazed how people managed to choke on hearing good news. Why cry at something good? But it happened today. My Sister got selected in Ophthalmology in Medical PG at Lucknow. My Dad went to KGMC and now my sis. She had spent last three year putting inhumane efforts for this Day and today her dreams have come true. I couldn’t be happier.
1st April 2006: Ice Age the Meltdown: Saturday with Chinky and his better half. Ok movie, plenty of laughs.
31st March 2006: Prelude to a B’day:
I got the surprise of my life when Vineet, Sushant, Shyam, Juthika, Ciby, Priyanka and Pranav, showed up at my home at 8pm with a huge chocolate cake and Champagne. The best part was the trick that they played to ensure that I was at home. I was asked to buy roti and stay at home till Ciby came to pick it. And all the while I had no clue :-). Next day Chinky shows up in San Jose. All this equal to more fun. Pics: notice the 8lb belly in the pic with Chinky.
25th March 2006: Holi At Stanford
Wow this was the most fun filled holi that I have placed in the US. There were some 500 people and the event was efficiently organized by ASHA. Here is a Pic. Sushant was nice enough to let us dirty his car ;) pictures: Bay area is good for something.
19th March 2006: Unkindest cut: Heckled at home
This was the head in the online version of the Hindustantimes.com and we were referring to Sachin Tendulkar being booed at Wankede for his 1/33 ball in the 3rd test vs. England. This reminds me of “Let him be Cesar” from “Julius Cesar” by Shakespeare. Ahh the short lived memory of the crowd. Here is a guy we have worshipped for 15 years, who has single handedly brought smiles and tears of joy to a nation of 1billion. Such insolence? This fan will never ever question your loyalty, Sachin.
19th March 2006. Salmon and Srikhand and a good movie : Crash
Juthika and Vineet were at my home and thus we watched Crash. Actually is good movie, (recall it was the surprise winner at the Oscars too). The movie is about the cosmopolitan milieu of Los Angeles where people from all races are trying to eke out a living and in the process clash with each other. But despite the apparent hatred down under there is a human being under each one of them. The strange thing is that nothing gets people closer or further apart like adversity. It is funny, it is thought provoking and at is real. Asians, Hispanics, Arabs, Black, White or Brown, aren’t we just flesh blood and emotions all inside. Still it is so easy to over look all this, to make racial generalizations, put people in baskets with the color of their skin as a label tag, or the place they come from. Actually I have been guilty of this at times. But after finishing the book “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” by Jared Diamond, I know that give the right conditions and ever one can be a star. After all, all this started some 25000 years ago in Africa when all were one and one was all there was.
17th March : gmail.com g.mail.com or g.m.a.i.l.com ?
Google finally clarified the apparent gmail bug (ref. Blog 5th Jun 2005). FirstString.LastString@gmail is same is FirstStringLastString@gmail.com
12th March : Change in address
I will have to move this web page soon. My UCLA EE dept admin sent a mail that they are going to end my account on 30th June.
Well this webpage will have to go somewhere else.
7th March Liberating Women the Western Way: It has been almost 4.5 years since I have been in the US, so probably this opinion of mine might be generally pertinent to the US but then I think this might be true for some other Western cultures too.
I think I just have had enough!! If there is one place that you have to see women as mere objects of display you should come over to the Western half of the globe. The other day right when the Super Bowl was being held in Detroit, there was Lingerie Bowl being held in LA. The idea being lingerie clad models would play football. What could be more demeaning than this? Oh on it is not over yet, you should see the college cheer girls, again dressed in the shortest possible skirts possible for the pleasure of the very one to watch. I think it helps to catch then young, doesn’t it? You go a club and every 4th or 5th women in her 30’s has 2-3 kids at home and she is there looking for a soul mate. What ever happened to the mates you got the kids from? (I am not making a judgment but should the guy who fathered these kids take care of them to?). Often one sees women in their 40’s with fake implants all over their bodies still trying to find the one, coated in make up to the point that they look more frightening then mummified dead bodies. Try Craigslist personal and you will be astonished to find 55-60year old ladies trying to find soul mates.. What ever happened to aging gracefully? Not in this place, here men get it all. Even an 80 year old billionaire can marry a 25year old stripper, and it is fine. Teen age girls would do anything to come in the videos of Girls gone wild or for that matter the “Very Prestigious” cover page of the Playboy magazine. It doesn’t get better does it? Sure it does. Flip the TV channel to any of shows and you would find women with the deepest cut neck top you can possible make, with out things popping out. You don’t see guys doing that, No no that is only for the women. That is national TV, change to any of the Music channels and what you would see is the unbelievable. There is so much booty shaking that some it seems more like a booty commercial than a rap song. Is this women liberation or selling them out?
Who am I to judge?
4th March Fight Club: Really Cool movie. I saw and I was really surprised how I had missed this one. And then I checked IMDB, 33 from the TOP. No surprises there.
3rd March 16 Blocks: Mos Def is definitely the star of this Movie. I would rate him better than Bruce Wills in this one. But one advice, rent it on a DVD and watch it with the subtitles on, then only can you hope to catch Mr Def’s dialogues.
2nd March: AIPGMEE 2006
Anchal called and told me that All India Post Graduate Medical Entrance Exam’s results, in which she had secured a poor rank, had been put on hold. It was such a relief. I know my sister and she is good. She had put so much for this that the poor rank did not make sense. Faith Prevails.
1st March: Leaving Las Vegas:
I was sight of Elizabeth Sue and I knew I had to watch this movie. Nicolas Cage is good as ever, but the really good part of the movie is the score. Truly heart moving.
27th Feb: Grizzly Man:
Timothy Treadwell dies doing what he loves best, saving Grizzly Bears in the Kodiak Islands, Alaska. There is a moment in the movie when you get the feeling that they might actually play the audio tape of the last 6minutes of Timothy’s and his girl friend’s lives. These are the 6 minutes when they are being torn apart by a grizzly bear, and his girl friends in screaming and Tim is asking her, in vain, to leave. That really sends the shivers down your spine. The sound of death, we have seen it all and yet the FEAR.
25th Feb : The Edukators
Daniel Brühl (Good bye Lenin) was in this nice German Comedy. The end has a twist that is sure to make you remember the movie for a long time.
23rd Feb 2006: Save my Browser
Just found this very cool firefox extension. Remember how frustrating it is to see all your open windows get lost when your browser crashes? Well there is hope now.
-mayank
Ps. IE7 also has this feature.
Crash Recovery - Firefox Extension https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1955&application=firefox
Crash Recovery 0.5.3, by zeniko, released on January 27, 2006
Quick Description: Crash Recovery automatically restores all opened pages after a crash happened. It is an "install and forget" extension which you will only notice right after the occasional crash.
Additionally this extension could also be used as a very basic SessionSaver replacement, since it allows to resume your browsing sessions if you prepend your browser's homepage (in Tools -> Options -> General) with "about:crashrecovery?" (without the quotation marks).
Note: Don't install this extension, if you're already using SessionSaver or Tab Mix Plus.
OR
SessionSaver .2 - Firefox Extension https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=436&application=firefox
SessionSaver .2 0.2.1.031, by rue, released on December 13, 2005
Quick Description: SessionSaver restores your browser -exactly- as you left it, every startup, every time. Not even a crash will phase it. Windows, tabs, even things you were typing -- they're all saved. Use the menu to add + remove sessions; right, shift, or middle-clicking will delete. "Simple mode" for peace of mind, or "Expert mode" for advanced flexibility.
14-17th Feb 2006: Gold Palm Resort Bangalore
Veenu at IBM arranged for this fantastic place for a couple get-away. The service was impeccable and the place superb.
Pictures here.
Gold Palm Spa and Resort Bangalore
8th Feb 2006: Reception in Mau
This was as some said the best reception people had see in Mau in a long time. For 1.5hrs I danced with my cousin Amit, like a man possessed. Pictures Here
3rd Feb 2006: Shaadi Marriage the Real Thing
The barat was staying at the Padmini hotel and the marriage ceremonies were held at the Tulsi Lawns on Mahmoorganj in Varanasi.
In the pictures you can see the Mehndi in my hand as well as Priya’s Hands. Also you can also see the pictures of Haldi being applied at over me.
There were tons and tons of people in the Barat. My Chacha, Chachi, Taau, Taayee, Dada, Dadi, Nana, Nani, Mama, Mausi, Mausa, Mami, Boowa, Phupha. Uncles and Aunts from Mau. There was the dance floor in the marriage at the Lawn, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Then the Jal Mal which went with out events, (no one lifted no one). Lots of smiling done. I actually didn’t know what all the ceremonies were until I looked it up on goolge. Google was always smarter than the Pundit. You can see the ceremonies of hetaleva, Vivah, Kanya Daan and Vidaii in the pictures here.
1st Feb 2006: Tilak @ Malti Hotel Varanasi
We had it at Malti Hotel, 3rd Floor. Pictures here
30th Jan 2006: Ladies Sangeet:
This was held at my home in Mau. A lot of mom’s friends were there. Starting Pictures in this album are from sangeet. Damyanti ensured that we had five folk songs for all the four days.
Vidaii: In this ceremony, after the wedding is over, the brides parents gives a warm send off to their daughter. They wish her a very good and harmonious long married life. From now onwards their daughter does not belong to them.
Kanya Daan: This is also a part of the wedding ceremony in which the brides parents entrust their daughter in the safe hands of the groom.
The Wedding Ceremony (Vivah, Shaadi): During the wedding ceremony the bride and bridegroom are seated in front of a holy fire. A Pundit conducts the wedding, performs havan, and recites various religious sayings. In the havan, offerings are made into the holy fire. The Pundit explains to the couple their responsibilities and duties in their married life towards each other. Hindu religion believes that fire is a sustainer of life. The couple walks around the fire four times (in some customs seven times) exchanging vows of their duties.
Hathleva (Joining of Hands): In this ceremony which is a part of the wedding ceremony, some henna is put in the right hands of the couple and are tied with a cloth. The couple pray to the Gods to bless their marriage.The Hathleva signifies an eternal bond that will join the couple forever. The Hathleva also signifies that although they are separate individuals, from now onwards they are one in mind and spirit.
Garlands Exchange(Jai Mala): The bride & groom exchange garlands of fresh flowers acknowledge their life long bondage in front of all the people. The bride & groom are then escorted to the mandap (alter) by their parents.
Procession & Reception (Barat & Swagat)): The groom, accompanied by his family & friends, goes to the Bride's place in a procession. He sits on a decorated horse. The bride's parents and other senior members of the family welcome the groom, his parents & relatives and introduce each other. The introduction is known as milni. The procession may consists of 100 to thousands of people, both men and women. Earlier married women were not permitted to go with the procession, but now a days close women relatives go and even dance in the procession. The barat, i.e. all the people who come in the procession are garlanded and seated. Cold drinks, snacks, and sweets are offered. They also take dinner as the guests of bride's parents. All the expenditure of the barat reception, marriage ceremony and the dinner, etc. are born by bride's parents in most of the cases. However, the groom's parents give the dakshina to the pandit (priest) for the marriage ceremony.
Mehndi (Henna): Both the bride and the bridegroom applies mehandi. While the bridegroom applies it as a token on his hands, the bride applies it on her hands and feet making intricate patterns. Mehndi signifies the strength of love in a marriage. It is believed that the darker the mehndi color, the stronger the love and bond will be between the bride and the bridegroom.
Tilak: This is basically a promise on the Grooms side that he will marry the girl. The tilak ceremony is held mainly at the groom's residence because according to the Hindu custom only the groom is formerly engaged so the tilak ceremony is only for the boy and not for the girl but gifts are exchanged between both the families.
Sangeet: Geet and sangeet are the soul of any Indian wedding. Ladies collectively take part in Geet/Sangeet for 4-5 days. Now a days a programme for ladies Sangeet is kept in which all the relatives and friends are invited. the ladies sing wedding songs and the girls dance.
Thanks to http://www.matrimonialbank.com/indianmarriage.html for the details
26th Jan 2006: Google Campus: Living the Dream
Naval, started to work for the most well known Co in the whole wide world almost a year ago and I always had my mind to visit the place physically one day rather than on the web, which I do more than often every single day. Plus if you are a visitor at Google and you know someone at the place, Lunch is free. Well, who in his sane mind would refuse a free lunch? When I reach the Google Campus on exit on Amphitheater way on 101, I come to a place that is bustling with life. The place is just teeming with cars parked. It is impossible to find parking; it is like every one in this part of the world works for Google. You can look in any direction and you will see the variegated Google sign printed on the entrance of the Building. When you go inside the place is a dream played in real. It is more like a college scene, median age 25-30, M:F ratio a staggering 1:1, an impossible feat to achieve in a engineering Co. The part that I like the most: Free Lunch. Really I mean it. There is a massive courtyard, which seems small cause there are even more number of people and there are 5-6 restaurants all around. You can have Indian, Mexican, Italian, Asian or the good ol’ American steak. All you can eat and then desert too. Then there is a refrigerator filled with all drinkables, and yes beer too. I don’t eat much but this was just too hard to resist. All over the food court you can see people wearing Google sweat shirt, Polo’s, T-shirt , caps , It was like the whole wardrobe was furnished by Google, free again. There are electric scooters and Segaways parked at various places so that Google employees can go from one building to another. The office place is just like grad school, big room with LDC screens every where (just that this time every one has two 24” LCD screens, side by side). The best part, the conference room had the board room table and Chairs, and a Stairmaster. If you get tired sitting in the meeting, just hop on the Stairmaster and workout. That was it: I return back to 1-AMD building trying to understand what I just saw.
Looking Back: I don’t feel envious of the folks at Google, no not at all. All this is just too good and won’t last for ever, while some one is enjoying it, why not. May we click more Ad’s so that at least some one can reap the benefits.
25th Jan 2005: The Hospital Scam
Readers beware! There is hospital on 2500 Grant Rd, Mountain View, El Camino. Those folks are thugs, actually legalized robbers. One single x-ray cost me 574$. My dad has a X-ray machine and the X-ray plate does not cost more then a dollar. !!! They charged me 374$ for a Aircast, something you can buy off the internet one piece for 43$. I am going to a consumer court, this is one scam I am not going to sit back and see.
16th Jan 2006: Laptop Problem. My Toshiba Satellite laptop started giving me problems. It simply refused to connect to the internet. No IP address. You type “ipconfig” and you get “Windows IP Configuration”. That is it and nothing else. The problem was traced back to Cisco VPN client. The client was assigning the IP address and not allowing windows to get an IP address. I simply used the Windows XP restore to do to a date when the client was not installed.
15th Jan 2006: Salmon for dinner and Thanks to Google another mystery has been solved: Eau D'Asparagus
By Elizabeth Somer, MA,RD
Aug. 14, 2000 -- You may have heard the tall tale that "asparagus urine" is linked to higher intelligence. In fact, it's the result of a simple chemical reaction. Asparagus contains a sulfur compound called mercaptan. (It's also found in rotten eggs, onions, garlic, and in the secretions of skunks.) When your digestive tract breaks down this substance, by-products are released that cause the funny scent. The process is so quick that your urine can develop the distinctive smell within 15 to 30 minutes of eating asparagus.
But not everyone has this experience. Your genetic makeup may determine whether your urine has the odor -- or whether you can actually smell it. Only some people appear to have the gene for the enzyme that breaks down mercaptan into its more pungent parts. A study published in the May 1989 British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that 46% of 115 people tested produced the odor in one group of British citizens, while 100% of 103 people produced it in a group of French citizens. The ability to smell the by-products may also be genetic. While eating asparagus may make your urine smell strange, it won't harm you. Actually, asparagus -- a member of the lily family along with garlic, onions, and leeks -- is a powerhouse of nutrients. It's an excellent source of folic acid (a B vitamin that may help protect against birth defects, heart disease, and cancer), a significant source of vitamin C (an antioxidant that may protect tissues against damage), and a good source of vitamin A (an antioxidant). Not to mention that asparagus contains 3 grams of fiber per 3.5-ounce serving and a host of health-enhancing plant chemicals, or phytonutrients, that may protect against disease.
Although the link between "asparagus urine" and higher intelligence is a figment of someone's imagination, eating it regularly could be a sign of some serious health smarts.
Elizabeth Somer, MA, RD, is the author of Nutrition for a Healthy Pregnancy, Food & Mood and The Essential Guide to Vitamins and Minerals, and co-author of The Nutrition Desk Reference. An advisory board member to Shape and a contributing editor to Eating Well magazine, she has appeared on The Today Show, The View, CBS This Morning, and other television and radio programs.
12th Jan 2006: Getting there
So what do we eventually want? Well depends on where you are in life. When you are young: Possible name, love, when you in your 40’s: recognition for all you have done over the last 10-15years of work. And finally when you are old you want to leave your legacy. Not that there is anything wrong with having a moving target and changing wish list. But what if you miss a stage? So you are 20-30’s and you are thinking of legacy? Well some things are the way they are for a reason. You will just hurt your self if you go against the natural course of life. (This is part of a discussion that I had with a friend over some beer. Amazing how some alcohol brings out some of the most important issues right in the frontline. Well for a change I won’t mention his name. Cause in his words, “you just want on name on your blog to get more hits on it.” Naah I will pass ;)
6th Jan 2006: Matchpoint
Well the movie was written and directed by Woody Allen and had the lovely Scarlett Johansson. So the movie was put. The opera playing through out the movie is thoroughly distracting. I would say the movie was a let down for all the hype around it :(
5th Jan 2006 White Fang: Jack London
Jack London takes you right in to the Alaska. The soul of the Alaska can be found in this writings. I first read the “Call of the Wild” by him in 10th Grade and I had my mind set on going to this enchanting place. Well june of ’05 was exactly for that. White Fang is a Wolf-Dog and it was just a beautiful journey looking thru the eyes of a puppy to a grown dog.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse