Vagaries

word traveler

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:08:29 GMT

Recently got a book from Mt View library. In it, I found:

- a 2006 ticket for NY Metro.
- Blossoms bookstore (Bangalore) bookmark.
- a small post-it with day trip plan for Barcelona (Las Ramblas, Park guell, etc).

Fascinating.

(For the curious, it was People's History of United States by Howard Zinn. I returned it
yesterday with all the accessories.)

FLL fun

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:08:25 GMT

Lots of fun judging robot designs at First Lego League yesterday.
Great designs and some very nifty ideas and strategies.

Congrats to Mach5, Robochicks, Lucky10, Tech Warriors, Vipors,
Phantom Riders, and all other qualifiers.

All the best for the next round.

A helpful tip & status update

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:01:24 GMT

tip: Never join a big company close to the start of summer interns event.
status: I am officially a Noogler now.

An attempt to get involved

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:48:58 GMT

I and my family spent three days - morning to night - in front of the TV during the recent Mumbai attacks.
Like all other Indians, we were angry and frustrated. The frustration with our current set of politicians was shared by everyone we met.

On one of the evenings, my brother popped this question to all of us: who do you think can lead India better? Can you list some Indians who have proven track record of leadership and, if given a chance, can lead India to a better tomorrow? Some interesting
serious and non-serious names came up. I guess he discussed it with many friends and colleagues over the next few days. After a
month of discussions, he's put the question to all Indians in the form of 552 Indians.

Here's what he has to say:

The last terrorist attack that our country endured at Mumbai, ruffled up my feathers quite hard. Besides the pain and the agony that we all went through, these attacks also showed us how badly we have been ignoring the state of our politics and the politicians. I have been thinking for over a month about what we, as individuals can do to improve the situation.

Honestly, when the blood was at the boiling point, I went as far as thinking about quitting my day job and getting into politics, full time. Over time, though, the wisdom and some counsel from friends made me think better of the idea. But I have been contemplating, what else can we do besides voting? Given the candidates that the political parties give out tickets to, does an average Indian really believe that the candidate that he is voting for, will do justice to the elected position? Is there any room for improvement here?

I believe, the state of affairs of our country can improve considerably, if we could get the right 552 people to fill in the seats of the Lok Sabha. I have attempted to solve a part of this problem through 552 Indians.com. Take a look at the website. If you think this idea has any merit whatsoever, then please vote for or nominate the candidates that you would like to see run our country and pass the word around.

Once the site acquires critical mass, I will try to do whatever is in my power to reach out to the leaders that get most votes and encourage them to form a party to contest in our general elections.

I am also open to any feedback that you may have about this idea. I am not sure if this will really click, but we won't know unless we get it an honest shot.

Thanks for your co-operation

living in a weird timezone

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:48:35 GMT

My biological clock has gone kaput after the recent trips to India and Costa Rica. Last night, I slept at 7:30 pm, got up at 11:30 to attend a b'day party at midnight; slept again at 12:30 and got up at 7:30 am in the morning.

This being xmas time, people are still putting up with me. Hopefully I'll settle down before the holiday season is done.

So, hows everyone doing?

update

Wed, 21 May 2008 19:14:07 GMT

Travel update:

India vacation coming up from 31st May to 16th June. I'll mostly be in Bangalore.
Join in the parties if you'll be around.

One also desires to have a pythagonal road-trip, but it might be too difficult to pull
off given the tight schedule.

Running Update:
(thanks for the gentle reminders)

Six more runs since the last update:
- 3 3.5 miles runs around shoreline
- 1 3.5 mile stanford dish loop
- 1 3.5 mile San Aquino trail

The heatwave has moved all running to treadmill indoors since the past few days.
2 treadmill sessions. 5 miles each.
This activity is going to take a significant hit in the next few weeks. Refer travel update
above and other updates below.

Other updates:
After weeks of Guitar Hero, finally I'll lay it down to rest today and pick up the latest
toy I picked up from my fav local store in the morning. Wii Fit is finally here!! Can't
wait to get home and try it out. Will put out a review soon...

Weekend run

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:05:08 GMT

Route: Shoreline, Mountain View
Distance: 3.8 miles (there and back) - mostly running.
Type: straight and flat, no slopes

Pedometer data here

Weekend Run

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:52:49 GMT

Route: Stanford Dish loop, Palo Alto
Distance: 3.6 miles (wam-up walking for the first incline and three quarters of the last mile)
Type: Hilly, steep inclines

Pedometer data here

re-run

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:37:01 GMT

After a long time I have started running again. My this year's aim is to get through two half-marathons. I'll be dumping my running logs here to get some open-source motivation. Do your bit and shout out once in a while if you don't see a run update for more than a week :)

Yesterday's log:
Route: Stevens Creek trail, Mountain View
Distance: 4.4 miles (there and back) with half a mile of walking.
Type: straight and flat, no slopes
Pedometer data here

back, maybe

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:03:49 GMT

Contrary to the popular belief, I still ain't dead yet. Had not-so-good six months in the non-wired world but here seems to be some sense of normalcy in life again, at least for the time being.

Also completed 29 years of wasting oxygen. Somehow it feels better if I think of it as 27 years and 24 months.

So ... what all did I miss in the last 6 months?

Isn't it weird ...

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 02:13:21 GMT

... or at least a little surprising that Santa Clara county library owns 380 copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?
Thats just the hardcover books, and doesn't include e-books and audiobooks.

Tarots

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 01:11:56 GMT

Today, I might go out and buy a set of tarot cards - a dragon(oh, I love dragons) or LoTR(love Hobbitses too) set.

You are The Sun

Happiness, Content, Joy.

The meanings for the Sun are fairly simple and consistent.

Young, healthy, new, fresh. The brain is working, things that were muddled come clear, everything falls into place, and everything seems to go your way.

The Sun is ruled by the Sun, of course. This is the light that comes after the long dark night, Apollo to the Moon's Diana. A positive card, it promises you your day in the sun. Glory, gain, triumph, pleasure, truth, success. As the moon symbolized inspiration from the unconscious, from dreams, this card symbolizes discoveries made fully consciousness and wide awake. You have an understanding and enjoyment of science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect, clarity of mind, and feelings of youthful energy.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

another watch out

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 00:52:03 GMT

After Network World's top 10 listing, Byte and Switch puts 3Leaf in it top 10 storage virtualization companies to watch for!
very cool.

In other news, I am thinking about going to Burning Man next week. Still need a few more co-travelers to reach critical mass.

watch out ...

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:04:35 GMT

My company (3Leaf) features in Network World's list of top 10 virtualization companies to watch. Virtualization talks are appearing everywhere after VMware multi-billion IPO and an near-zero-revenue Xensource's half-a-billion buyout. But I also like this list because of other companies on the list. I have worked with or been close to some of them and they have some neat solutions to offer.

It also feels nice to be slowly coming out of stealth and get a little sunshine.

yacss! (yet another customer support story)

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:09:27 GMT

Owing to the recent mail-theft fiasco, I ended up receiving some items twice. So I wrote to customer support of one of the big online
stores asking of a way to return back the extra item that I have NOT paid for. The response I get is that they are terribly sorry but they can't
take it back as I didn't make the return within 14 days of purchase.

I am not quite sure what to do next...

Rock and Rockies update

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:36:48 GMT

The Indian Independence day reminded me that I didn't mention my second Rocky Mountains National Park trip on 4th of july. This time around we did a two day trek starting from Grand Lake, going over the flat top mountains, and finally ending at Bear lake. My friend and accomplice, the Theoretical Joker, put up an entry about it here.

Spent lot of July summertime in concerts ranging from Alka Yagnik/Kumar Sanu to Indian Ocean, String Cheese Incident, and Roger Waters.
Also caught a local presentation of Neil Simon play - they are playing our song - and a stand-up riot at San Jose Improv. All other days, I have been hiding in my cube working on obscure problems.

That's all for the updates since I have been gone from LJ world. Your turn now - what have you been up to?

The Case of Missing Mails

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:24:57 GMT

Last month, most of the packets left at my door by fedex/ups/dhl went missing. I do most of my shopping online and have been receiving
packages at my door all the time. But for all of last month, I'd get a mail notification that a package has been delivered and when I got
home there won't be anything. Someone surely was stealing our packets!

As the list of missing things piled up, aj and I decided to put up a hidden cam on our door and monitor all activity when we are away.
A trip to Fry's made it clear that buying an actual spy camera that could be used in that position wasn't worth it, considering the chance
of our scheme succeeding being so thin. It would be an utter waste to lose all our packages and a nice extra sum on useless cameras.
At home, we spent a weekend taking apart my roomie's webcam and making it fit into an unnoticed little corner of a window overlooking
the main gate. After a night full of design and debates, we finally got the rig all set. We were expecting another packet on Tuesday, so we
did a dry run of our setup on Monday. Apart from a few glitches that we could easily fix, our setup was ready for the show - recording 6 GB
of video stream of our door and the way leading up to it.

As expected, we didn't find any package on returning home. Quick scroll of the video showed the UPS guy tucking a package under our
doormat. The next five suspenseful minutes were spent binary searching the video: there/gone/there/gone. And there was the culprit - one
we (or atleast I suspected all along) - our neighbor's kid who has been hovering around a lot during the summer vacation. All through the
plan, we never actually believed that it'll work. But here it was - our master shot - and we were ecstatic.

I'll leave out the what-next debate details and the awkward encounter with the parents, and just say that we manage to get all our
stuff back and the little adventure had a happy ending.

music of the spheres

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 08:29:19 GMT

I have tons of small entries to make for all these days I have been away from LJ. Lets start with most recent first.
Last Friday, I and roomie went up to Lick Observatory to attend Kurt Ribak Trio concert at Mt Hamilton. The volunteers
at Lick observatory had told us about the shows when we went up there last winter. And when a half-priced ticket offer
landed up in my mailbox, it was just too good to resist. A trip up to Mt Hamilton alone is worth much more; especially
because they don't allow cars to go up after sunset, when the astronomers get to work. The view on Friday night was
fabulous - with san jose city lights (that's astronomy-friendly sodium lamps) below and a clear night sky full of stars
and galaxies overhead.

The $18 ticket included the jazz concert by Kurt Ribak Trio, an astronomy lecture on big bang and origin of the universe, viewing of a ring nebula through the old 36 inch telescope, and a commemorative coffee mug ( We took mugs, other option were wine glasses). In addition to that, there were a bunch of amateur astronomers at the observatory with their expensive shiny telescope, willing to show you whatever you wanted and patiently answering all questions.

- Kurt Ribak Trio: was awesome. Try out some of the songs at their site. Havana Gila and Tango Para Mi Padre are my favs from the show.
- 36 inches telescope: We also got to experience setting up of the telescope: the wooden floor is raised and dropped, and the
dome goes around to place the slit above the telescope.
- Lecture on Big Bang was very basic but fun. And some of the simulations were really nice.
- The amateur folks with scoped were the best lot. We got to see Andromeda galaxy, A twin star system, messier 22 star cluster, saturn, and
some other interesting bodies.

Oh, and later I found out that one Jeremy Zawodny was there at the show too - in the vip section though. Read his entry on the concert here.

All in all, one awesome Friday night! For anyone interested, there are a few more concerts coming up in the first week of September. Google for it.

life update

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 08:32:46 GMT

While the journal was gathering moss, I have:

- Managed to get a lot done at work. Though I am still not where I should be, but it could have been a lot worse.
- Spent many a nights at office and had many pizzas for dinner. Both me and my code have gained considerable bloat.
- Spent memorial day weekend at L.A. and San Diego. Much fun was had.
- Caught up with my SFF reading - Bujold's Cetaganda and Ethan of Athos, Simmon's Ilium, and RCW's Spin.
- Replaced songs with audio book in car and at gym. Half way through 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell'
- Settled down with my Treo and adjusted to its faults and shortcomings. Its hunger for batteries still keeps getting me in trouble.
- Attended A R Rahman's concert in Oakland. Great performers and extremely bad sound engineering.
- Decided to buy Wii. Still looking out for deals and packages. All ideas welcome.

razr no more

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:51:45 GMT

Having used Nokia phones for several years, it was really hard to adopt to my razr's unuser-friendly ways. And finally when I was getting a
hang of it, folks at office decided that I needed tracking round the clock and dumped a Palm Treo 750 on me. Its called a smart phone and
for the time being, its definitely outsmarting me (even though it runs a windows whatchamacallit).

Good part is that it comes with a 3G plan which, when enabled, might ease life a bit.

and so it ended ...

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:47:06 GMT

Back from rio and back to work. The trip was fun, but 5 days are way too short for all that can be done in rio alone. Definitely a place I am going to visit again. My Aus-NZ trip got canceled this week, so its a good thing that I stuck with my brazil plans. Oh, and no Aus-NZ also means that
some of you will be seeing me in sept-oct in India.

I also made a start towards learning portuguese on this trip. Hopefully it will go better than my previous attempts to learn french and mandarin.

and so it begins ...

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:41:34 GMT

Got tired at work, and decided to fly to rio de janeiro, brazil on impulse...
This is the most unplanned trip I have ever made. Let's see how it goes...

mailing woes

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 03:33:41 GMT

I lost a few mails on my gmail a/c this week as exceeded my storage quota ( I am a popular guy). So, now I have to
spend some time deleting mails from the a/c that didn't even had a delete button a while back.

And this happens on the heels of Yahoo announcing its unlimited storage mailbox!

Vitamin D, more vitamin D!

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 09:57:21 GMT

After spending a lifetime in my coding dungeon, I finally got a bit of sunlight on the weekend - thanks to some old friends visiting this part of the world. Much fun was had with long cacking sessions and roaming around. The fun finally culminated with Eric Clapton concert on Sunday night (while friends back in India were still high on Iron Maiden).

Back to the coding dungeon now. And 3 in the morning is not the best time to be updating journals :(

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (its right behind your nose!)

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 05:58:48 GMT

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a part of brain that plays critical role in decision making. People with damaged ventromedial area lack judgement and can take forever in analyzing and deciding on the most trivial affairs. I recently came across some extreme examples of this in a book. Even though I have never encountered anyone suffering from a damaged ventromedial, I do have to deal, on a daily basis, with people who suffer from the exact opposite problem. What ails them is a kind of hyperactive ventromedial area - these souls tend to be highly opinionated and can make a split-second decision about everything without requiring any kind of data at all. Any plea for considering other options is usually ignored, and may even result in verbal or physical assault(only with patients at a late-stage of the disease). Because of its location, some patients with enlarged ventromedial might exhibit extreme nosiness in others' affairs.

Till now I have bracketed it as a character flaw but now I feel like visiting each of them with a bunch of flowers and a get well card (a la Munnabhai).

And yes, I do feel a little grumpy today.