Just another funny mallu :) http://www.livejournal.com/users/gotjanx/

Linus on kernel management style "Everybody thinks managers make decisions, and that decision-making isimportant. The bigger and more painful the decision, the bigger themanager must be to make it. That's very deep and obvious, but it's notactually true. The name of the game is to _avoid_ having to make a decision." How true is that or what :)

Tough times dont last ..tough people do...!! Few years back, when I was in college and had lost a year since I had failed in some subjects, it was tough time for me. I had made a lot of mistakes and I knew that. Many things seemed insurmountable at that time, and also I think it differentiated people who would be my inner circle and who would not. A lot of support came from few whom I had not expected. Above all, my parents stood by me unquestionably and provided me the chances. I 'cocooned' myself and added 'value' to my knowledge which helped me see through the coming years in good confidence. Crisis visits us every now and then ...just to make us stronger. People who believe in you when your down, they want you to get up and walk again..they are your strength, and today when I look back from here, I feel good for what happened then. That made my life better in many aspects.

What file.ext am I ??

Which File Extension are You?

Ballmer goes baloney And I always thought that the big execs in M$FT were smart!!! If they do make hardware for $100, no one will pay $200 ~ $300 for the OS on it. If that $100 pc comes up, instead of seeing M$ST $$$ go up, it will definetly go down. Why ? Cos people would use Linux by then ;) or maybe even a GBrowser based services.

Smoky Mountains and Blue Ridge Parkway This weekend I drove down to Smoky Mountains and saw some fall colors. Fall colors are amazing when you experience it first time. But an overdose can kill some enthusiasm. Smoky and Blue Ridge Parkway have amazing roads to drive through and great over look spots. I drove about 1000 miles over the weekend, and enjoyed a lot.

No I have not stopped bloggin ;) Some other ppl I know have..Is it that it just gets on too much to put so much out? Maybe !! I have not blogged for few days (more than a mnth) cos I was not well for few days and just didnt sit down and blog. (Am almost recovered now ..from what ever I had...) So I am thinking I need to put in new links on the sidebar here. Btw are you on Orkut ? Its good. I know there are at least a dozen more sites like this. And wasnt Six Degrees the first of such almost 4-5 yrs back ?

Rule Engines and Declarative Programming Come to Java [Aug. 19, 2004] In the past one year a lot of attention has been given to rules engine and declarative programming. Having worked for 4 yrs on Rules driven enterprise projects, this kind of attention to this field seems pretty exciting. At Selectica I was involved in implementing business solutions using Selectica technology, and it gave me a good insight on this world. But I learnt more about the technology when I came out. Almost all Rules engines pretty much implement the famous Rete Alog, and all claim to do bunch of things. I really wanted to design rules engine which can be used to drive "agent software". I believe that rules driven agent software could prove to be a 'disruptive' technology.

Quote's ;) "Love is like energy which can neither be created nor be destroyed... It can just be transferred from one girlfriend to another girlfriend." This is from Arnab's blog, picked it it when Nidhi mentioned. Another well articulated quote Nidhi posted on her blog is - A friend who delivered a baby articulated it so well: "I feel like my heart is walking outside my body!"

Ferrari Domination Schumi wins again. Although I haven't seen much of this season's races, I dont think I missed out on anything. Come on, which ferrari fan would not want to see this kind of results. But not in this fashion. Schumi, Barichello and Ferrari have totally dominated. Last season, we all thought that Montoya would challenge or even Kimi. Schumi brings lot of exciting facets to F1, does anyone remember the 1994 season end GP at Australia. This is the one where Schumi and Damon Hill collided in the race, which left Damon Hill just 1 point behind Schumi for the Drivers championship. What drama it was. I remember sitting and watching that race from the edge..edge of my sofa :) Where are those days? Kimi, Ralf, Alonso, Montoya ..wake up. We will cheer for you :)

Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (BLEEX) UC Berkeley Human Engineering Laboratory The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) funded the BLEEX project in 2000. Last November, U.C. Berkeley�s Human Engineering and Robotics Laboratory, successfully demonstrated the first experimental Exoskeleton in which the pilot (i.e., the wearer) could carry a heavy load, while feeling only a few-pound load. Check this out. This what kids need today to carry their books. :)

Businessworld: The one-person global company Very intriguing article. Mahesh's articles are always fun to read. And I have been following his writing since the time he used to write in BT. Something interesting which I read in this article is eLance. I might be interested in trying it out :)

Selling Last week I was in Boston to attend a meeting with a prospective customer. Along with me was a senior Biz Dev director. He has been a shining star in the company over the last year or so. He had got the company big accounts and also pushed us into our non-voice BPO work. I had few minutes to ask him, what made his sales happen, especially when we were pitied against the traditional Indian giants or at times against the Big 5. His answer was brief and straight to the point - "Trust - its what wins you deal's. Personal Equation with the customer - When the customer is going to sign on multi-million dollar deals, its this trust and the personal equation he shares with the salesman, that allows him to sign on the dotted line."

Mitr Spoke to a old friend of mine couple of days back. Felt good! We talked after almost a year. Do things change over time? How you relate to someone you know change because things around you have changed or cos you have changed? Many close friends of mine, say I have changed. I dont think so. But yes things around me have changed. It was different when we were friends and in school or college. Its different now. Some of my opinions might have a different perspective now. At time's I have to curb the wild side. Sometimes I do. But have I changed? I don't think so. :) Ok! So I was talking with my friend and we hit the same old topic of do we intend to stay back in US or would want to return back to India. And this time I think I took the side where I would want to return back to India. :) My friend wants to be here in US. They have an offer to be back in Blore. And they don't know if it would be the right thing to do. Will I be any influence to the decision? Probably not! ;) But can I? ;) Anyways!! Sometimes I wonder "what-if" !!! We all have choices to make in our life, and I wonder "what-if" this was the choice I made in my life. Sometimes it can be amusing.

"The Power of the Google Cluster" Is google the start of matrix? Perhaps!! Maybe some of my friend�s interested in AI can comment on it.

Love Sid: Deepa, tum aakash ko kyun itna chahti ho ? Deepa: Sid: Kabhi mein soochta hoon, kyun koi kisiko chaata hai. ... Sid: Deepa, tum toh khobsoorat ho, intelligent ho, tumhe toh koi bhi accha ladka mil jayega. Deepa: Ittna hee hai toh muje Aakash kyun nahi mil saktha. ... This small conversation between Sid and Deepa (in DCH) provoked my thoughts. Yeah! Why does one like someone? Why does one love someone? And yea if deepa is beautiful and intelligent and can get any guy, why cant she have Aakash. Koi mujhe baatao :) Life is unjust to many people many times!!

MURDER Bheegey Hont Everytime I hear this song, wish I was a little younger and back in past ;) Sansen aach teri, tan aag tera Chhenain neend meri, loote chain mera Kala jadoo kare lambe baal tere Aakhen jheel teri, dore laal tere kabhi mere saath koi raat guzaaar tujhe suabh tak main karoon pyaar vo oh ho.... The singer has sung it with a lot of passion.. Hasn't he!! So are the scenes from the movie.

Countries Visited
create your own visited country map or write about it on the open travel guide

Pareshaani ;) Lyrics of hindi song Hai Khuda Hafiz Pal Do Pal Kya Mile Mil Gayi Pareshaani Just my sentiments on some incidents that happen in life.

Back Yes, life has been demanding and have had little time or energy to update the blog. Past few days a lot of activity happened. Finally bought a car - a Toyota Corolla!! Just before any of you jump lemme tell it�s a old old model without the bells and whistles and since I didn�t have money, I got it financed by the bank ;). Visited Washington DC for the weekend. Met up some friends who are out here in DC. As usual they had really interesting updates ;). Jade is gay, that�s what I came to know. But it wasn�t a surprise, the other chaps had told me about it. I really think its no big deal. Everyone has a right to live the way he/she wants it to be. But sometimes I just wonder how it is on the other side (for I had always thought that there is just one side). Just had a few questions, but yea didn�t ask. But in all it was nice catching up with old pals. The next time I was in DC, we stayed over at my best pal�s house. He is moving to another place soon and so thought we could stay at his place now and also help him move. He has been my best pal since school days. That way we know each other since almost 16 yrs now. In many ways more than one, we both are alike, but now-a-days it seems that the very �values� I held up as what I stood for, are the things that he is siding with. And I seem to have started thinking like how he used to. I was wild then, mellowed now. He was mellow then, wilder now. ;) Over the years, whenever I have had a �crisis� somehow he always was there. It�s good now that he stays just few miles from here. I think there are many more fun times lying ahead.

Quote on Marriage ;) "Marriage is not about finding the right person, it is about being the right person." Read Sid and Tan's weblog

Virtual Presence Slashdot is carrying a post about Jabber Virtual Presence. Sounds smiliar to something I had in mind during my college project days. Then we thought about it for 15to25.com. Something interesting!!!

Long time...eh!! Yea, time I posted something. So my home is kinda set up. Got in the couch and the tables, the TV/DVD and yea even a good mattress. Work wise things have been not so hectic but sure did keep me occupied. Appraisal is done. Was it good? No! Could have been better. After seen what I got, and knowing what others got, all I could remember was what Jack Welch said in his "straight from the gut" book - If you are not getting the top bill on what you deserve : walk out. Have a good mind to do that. Let see what the coming few days and months unfold. This brings me to a topic pretty sensitive to me - ME. Sometimes the times are down, things just do not go your way. These are times when you have to keep your chin up and say hey tough times dont last, tough people do. I by nature am a positive bloke. I really can stand up the tough times without falling over, and if I do, I sure know that I can stand and run again. So usually nothing stops me from knowing what I should know.Back in college days, yours truly wasnt the brightest of kids or the one posting big grades. Yes I was lazy. But heck I can safely say that I have covered good ground. I usually dont take critisism well (although I might say otherwise in public) So someone who knows me well, pointed critically at me. No I did not take that straight. Never will.F_CK the world I aint care. Come what may, I will do what I want, you like it or not.

Another day gone.. Yep another day gone..I finalized on a rental appartment and hope to move in sometime this week :)) Now the next big "buy" phase starts. Some times I wonder, is this good life? Living like nomads isnt as much fun..is it?? Spoke with couple of friends over the weekend. One had a big complaint - that I did not spend time or even remember to call him the day he left pune. Why is this happening to me? Everyone says I dont give them time X-( . PPl hang on... ever wonder if I do give myself the time? I think I should just stop caring abt giving time to anyone. Period.

3 Days The first three days out here in Richmond have been hectic as hell. And yea am jet lagged. Countless meetings, meet the ppl, do the conf calls,wake up at 6 to call offshore go to the bank, check out the appartments, run through some yard sales, read volumes of junk documents, visit cousin, go to birthday parties (Zzzzzzzzzzz) - Thats what I did last three days. Am yet to decide on a appartment yet, will probably do on Monday. Then the hunt for a car and furniture starts. Am sure the coming week would be also as hectic as hell. Me missing being in Pune :( This was not how it was before. This time I spent about 8 mnths being back India, and living life in Pune had started to grow on me I guess.

Sarang.. dude Marriage rocks! Both ways! You cant escape! But yea you can decide when to rock ;).

BJP Lost! Congress won! Where does this take India to ? Will India Shine ? Will Sonia be the PM? Or is it going to be Mulayam? This result shows, India cannot just shine in the cities. At least for the politicians. C Naidu is a case in point.

Am back in US of A. Yes I mean back here after 8 mnths in India. This time am missing India. Yea thats right I wish I was back in India instead of being here. My Grandpa is not keeping good health. I wish he could get back to being what he was, good fun and chitty chatty.

Am back in US of A. Yes I mean back here after 8 mnths in India. This time am missing India. Yea thats right I wish I was back in India instead of being here. My Grandpa is not keeping good health. I wish he could get back to being what he was, good fun and chitty chatty.

It's rained showers in Pune for last 2-3 days. The heat is down, so is it at my place :)

Time for a song Woh Pehli Baar Jab Ham Mile Hathon Mein Haath Jab ham chale Hogaya yeh dil deewana, hota hai pyar kya kisne jaana Teri aankhon mein jannat basa ke chala, Teri zulfo ki chauv mein chalta chala Tere naino mein chain, tere lab pe khushi Tujhko hee main mohobbat bana ke chala Khilti kaliyon mein dhundhu bas tere disha Main na jaanu hai aakhir yeh kya karva Tujhe dekhu to aaye lab pe khushi Khuda na kare ho kabhi duriya Woh Pehli Baar Jab Ham Mile Hathon Mein Haath Jab ham chale Hogaya yeh dil deewana, hota hai pyar kya kisne jaana Hogaya hun mai pagal ab tere liye Tere bin dil bechara yeh kaise jeeye Maine khoyee hai chain payee tujhme khushi Tu banni jaane jaana meri zindagi. Woh Pehli Baar Jab Ham Mile Hathon Mein Haath Jab ham chale Hogaya yeh dil deewana, hota hai pyar kya kisne jaana Teri aankhon mein jannat basa ke chala, Teri zulfo ki chauv mein chalta chala Tere naino mein chain, tere lab pe khushi Tujhko hee main mohobbat bana ke chala. One of my fav songs :)

Sarang mentioned me in his blog :)

Heat and Ray!!! Past few days have been hectic. Heat in Pune touched 41 C ..so did the heat at my place :)) Then it showered rain ...So did it at my place ;). Took a day off from office today to attend pending things at home. Felt good to come to office and post this blog. Think I need to watch "Mind of a Married Man" and "Everybody loves Raymond" ...Wish I could do a Ray Romano... Laugh at my life :))

Is Google the best bet for AI's big frontier - Intelligent Machine? What is AI? Although most attempts to define complex and widely used terms are just exercises in futility. So what is it? AI is the study of how to make computers do things that at the moment, people do better. A lot of AI work has been conducted in the past 30-40 yrs. Yet, however no AI program can match the commonsense reasoning powers of a five yr old. This is due, in part, to the large amount of knowledge required for common sense. Human Intelligence is based on a lot of different skills such as perceptual or linguistic skills. Also the amount of knowledge that a human brain stores and the speed at which it is retrieved is still way ahead than what the machines can do. A human can 'learn' based on various inputs and experiences. Also a human can infer on the knowledge already known. This ability to learn and infer on the huge amount knowledge separates humans from other animals and also machines. So one of the big problems the AI community has been delving on is in areas of storing huge amounts of 'knowledge' and fast retrieval of stored knowledge. Humans are very good at this, although the amount of information we store might not seem to be to large, trust me it is more than what we think it is. So to build a intelligent machine what do I need? Some of the skills are - massive knowledge (data), inference, learning, natural language parsing and ?common sense?. So where do you find the 'massive knowledge'? There isn't one place that hosts this. So where is it? It's the web. The web collectively holds 'knowledge' in multiple forms, at a scale, which no human can. Can we utilize this data? How? The answer is that yes we do utilize this by means of search engines. Search Engines are your index to this 'massive knowledgebase'. The Search Engines enable you to retrieve, relevant data from a huge and distributed store, lightening fast. Over a past few weeks I have been reading many blogs and articles on Google and the impact it's making to the web community. One of the authors suggested that Google is the biggest distributed OS over the web. Yes like this one, many other theories might hold true for Google. But the way I see it, Google is perhaps the best bet for people in AI, to build a 'intelligent' machine since Google has put the first 2 steps forward in through its ability to 'contextually' mine huge data sets very fast. Google is the best hope for 'agent' software. We need to take the next step by creating program's that have basic genetic code and behavior pattern defined. 'Agents' can mine Google and 'learn' and in process grow. Also enable these 'agents' to provide interaction with humans through "gmail" and then sit back and watch the "matrix" weave in. Sounds spicy. Just need to remember � do not name any agent � "Agent Smith"

Gmail Just opened a gmail account. Thanks to blogger.com for it. I have not been this estatic abt opening an email account since I opened one on rocketmail.com in 1996.

Hedge Few days back Infy announced that it crossed $1 Billion in revenue, so did Wipro a few days later. There was good programme on CNBC on the effect of rupee's rise. And the reason why I am writing this is the word "Hedge" caught my fancy. The rupee is rising vis-a-vis the dollar. (I lost roughly 10K rupees due to this in last 7 mnths :(( ) . And companies like Infy hedge against such volatility. So what is currency hedging ? Here are some links 1.ttp://www.efmoody.com/investments/currency.html 2.http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/glossary/glossary.asp?TermID=908 3.http://www.tweedy.com/library_docs/papers/hedging_foreign_stock_currency.html And in this volatile job market I am hedging against changes at my job ;)

Team Rudyard Kipling wrote: For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

Sun and MSFT Deal / Free software Slashdot is talking about the Sun and MSFT deal. Ppl say that its Microsoft's pre-emptive move to cut the other "evil" IBM in the enterprise market. I really dont understand why so much is made out of evil empires (IBM and MSFT). To me any business that becomes big ( $800M and greater) have tendency to be evil. But the good they do is far greater from the evil side of their businesses. No, I am not defending the practices of IBM or a MSFT. Its just that we tend to focus so much on the 'evil' side, we loose sight of the good one. Yes we need to weed out the evil, but we do need to appreciate the good side too. And yea, I am not for free software as much. Free software is good when its for educational purpose or even say individual use. Corporates should not be given free software. It just helps companies make bigger profits and the top management pay cheques fatter. Does giving corporates free software help the individual. No it doesnt! Not at least in the immediate sense. We can argue that benefits of lower costs wouldsometime be passed on to the individual customer. Oh yeah!!!

Another blogger >> Another good friend of mine joins in the blogging world. He runs his vizualization company out of Pune, is Hard Rock freak and drives a 500cc Bullet. We both share the same birthdate ( 19 days after 30th of sept ). He is fun to read and usually posts very well written and opinonated articles.

Thumare Paas kya hai ? This is a good funny take on the famous Amitabh dialouge : An Indian and a Pakistani Cricketer are chatting about the wealth of batting and bowling in their respective countries... The Indian Cricker goes like, 'I have the best batsman in the world in the form of Sachin Tendulkar... He is a Genius... I have Sehwag... The Delhi Bulldozer which will smash oppositions... I have Dravid... Mr Dependable... I have Laxman... Very Very Special... I have Yuvraj... Young Blood... I have Kaif... Excellent Talent... I have Saurav... Gutsy Captain.... I got Irfan and Balaji and Kumble and Harbhajan and Agarkar and Zaheer... We are just too good for you... Thumare Paas kya hai ?????" with a grin... The Pakistani Cricketer replies, "Mere paas Buckner hai!!" :-)

Political SMS Quote This has nothing to do with my political choices, but was pretty funny to read it though. Kaun Banega PM? Sonia jisne shaadi ke liye desh chhoda; ya Atalji jinhoney desh ke liye shaadi chhodi? Aap hi sochiye!

$600 M fine on MSFT wont help change its practice and help innovation EU $600 Million fine on Microsoft's trade practices has caught a lot of people's fancy. I seriously think that any such moves would really not help the end consumer. Look, so if MSFT is made to 'unbundle' media player from Windows, will it help foster innovation ?? Naaahhh...Hey I use Winamp to play my MP3 songs. Yes I watch the movies on Media Player. Why? Jeez cos I have no choice and MSFT is putting Media Player down my throat. No, MSFT cant bully me into that. Would I use Real Player instead. Maybe! I use Media Player because its 'faster & lighter' than RP, also serves my needs. And hey its FREE! So tell me why should I pay $19.99 and use RP when MP serves my needs and also is FREE! yes MSFT has some 'inside' advantage in making MP 'faster & lighter'. Look the way MSFT has attained success can be a matter of debate. Yes it has some practices which go against the common consumer. MSFT should be taken to task for those and not things like bundling MP. MSFT might not be the company that has enabled innovation, but yes they sure have perfected some other people's innovations.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them. One Ring to bring them all, And in the darkness bind them. The Nit Picker's Guide to the Lord of the Rings

India Whacked Pakistan's butt :)) We won a thrilling match against Pakistan. I didn?t think that we had it in us to stop Inzy and Hameed from hammering us. But a defiant Pathan and Balaji showed 1 Billion Indians that Yes! India is Shining and why!!! I think the youngsters in India will play a huge role in changing the perception of India as a country around the world. Over these 2 decades the youth of India have brought in a huge change in mindset of the common man. Today the sheer competition makes people stand up and fight to be counted in. I just see some people who are 4-5 yrs junior to me, and their enthusiasm, vigor for life and fighting spirit just amazes me. Heck! Am not to old myself to be speaking this!!! Will this Indian cricket team go on to become world-beaters and champions? Time can only answer that. But yes I will have my money on them, than anyone else. Some defining moments of the match according to me: - Laxman reaching his first fifty of the series (on his way to another cool 100). Pathan hitting the Paki fast bowlers to boundaries. Balaji's sixer on Sohaib?s bowling and then his bat breaking into 2 pieces the next ball. Balaji knocking Hameed?s stumps off. Pathan making a mamu of Yohana for second time in a row. (1 ball on legside, next little wide of off and the third bang on to the middle) Tendlya's 'kaifu' like catch on the ropes to send the sleepy giant back. Kaif's superb catch in the deep to send Shoaib Mallick back. (It was a difficult one to take. Moth's, the white haze and the dew could not stop Kaif ) Yuvi's direct hit to send an already dejected Akhtar running back to the pavilion.

Ok, Here is another good blog which I read regularly. This girl writes some amazing stuff. Way to go Rash ...:)

My good friend just started his blog. He is my old rommie and a 'non-veg' poet who also masquerade's as a embedded software specialist in B'lore.

India lost the second final of the VB Series against Aussies. It was a 'deja vu' of the world cup finals, only worse.

I read JOS! Do you ?

Just came back from Blore. Had been visiting some friends.Blore seems to be a good city, although there is too much dust and the distances are too much. Here at Pune one can get from one end to the other in just abt 1/2 hr. Yes the pollution here kills but it is not as 'dusty' as Blore. My friend told me that now Infy and Wipro are scaling down any expansions in Blore and instead expanding in Pune. Its good, so might not ever move out of this place.