Karthik's vineyard of thoughts

Threshold

2007-03-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

Its been quite a while since I posted. Looking back there are good list of things I want to blog. The journey at ISB is nearing its end. I walk along near lawns with parties of sections, teams and what not. Its a moment of celebration and reflection.

Here is my poem for my section 'E':

How soon hath Time come to an end?

Of cherished moments with our friends

With knowledge, job and self reprieve

Spring we arrive and spring we leave

Always ready to row in the CP flow

Made us go Eho! Eho!

The tempest fame spread like fire

Bringing dragon’s blab under professor’s ire

A passing philosopher asks which this is

Thou know not in ignorant bliss

I point my t-shirt in repartee

That is Section E filled with glee

Eho! is the official chant of the section. We were late in forming one but the tune was kinda catchy. The dragon refers to the official E shaped red dragon - our logo for section E. We were the riotous section known to be dreaded by everyone for our aggressive Class Participation (CP).

ISB Solstice

2006-12-24T04:24:00.000-08:00

This year's alumni reunion is dedicated to the founding batch to mark the 5th anniversary at ISB. There were close to 150 alums in campus. The timing could not have been more perfect - break for the students, christmas and the placement season is about to begin. The event kicked off with the inauguration from the Dean.

One alum recalled a quip:

M is busy taking a nap at the last bench in SAIT class. Professor Banker is discussing about Intel. He turns around and poses a question to students 'So why do you think Intel decided to do away with their memory chips?'. He directs the question straight to our M. She is nudged to reality by her neighbour only to realize the unaware of the situation. Involutarily she blurt out "Sir, it depends". Professor hails the response - 'Yes it all depended on ...' and went on to give an explanation. Smartly M pitches at the end 'Sir that was what I meant'! Full CP points awarded to M.

Photocontest judge and Well known cine photographer Avinash Gowarikar (of the Dus and Lagaan fame) partly stole the show with his insights in photography and education. Apart from these I didnt grasp much from the talks - I was trying hard to remain awake. I had slept at 5am only to be woken up NJ at 9am to inform that the event was about to start. Being part of the inauguration group, I had to show up. I contributed something meaningful by inviting alums for the speaker series and creating the poster for the event.

Placements will begin soon and with the alums coming in, the atmosphere is febrile for gyaan sessions and resume & interview tips (the last time we met our alums was during our orientation).

Time Flies

2006-12-22T15:35:00.000-08:00

Topics in this post
1. Time
2. Term 6
3. Two things at ISB

Time elapses quickly. Today I met my PaEV Professor on the way to the library. He smiled warmly and said "another term coming to an end?". Going by his experience, I would think he was probably hinting at the pace of the course. With assignments coming one after the other, you loose track of large intervals of time. Assignments are like strain applied to rubber - initially the rubber is highly elastic and changes are reversible but over time when the strain goes beyond the yield point it is chaos. But assignments now no longer dreadful - this term I managed to do three in a day - the highest compared to my other terms. Going by magnitude each assignment on an average should take atleast three hours. Not a bad change but somewhere there always a compromise - you either skim through multiple things by knowing just enough to sail through or you can dig deep down into one area at the risk of jeopardising other - call it the T framework if I may borrow from the biz babble.

Term 6 is coming to a close soon. There are loads of assignments this term. But that should go through smoothly. This new year is full of promising.....well...exams actually! We'll be writing exams on all of Jan first week. Term breaks have long been forgotten. We rarely get a 3-day break (holidays are long forgotten). Now that we do have a break, thanks to Monday Christmas, its party time here! Another surprise was seeing Santa Claus making rounds in campus.

There are two things without which you cannot survive here - your social group and your laptop. There is always someone who can help you with the problem. Let me give an example. We were selected to the IIM-Indore competition. P and I decided to bunk classes and travel to Indore even if our travel costs were high "just for the experience". Reflecting now its a waste of money but at that point the excitement justified the costs. We reached Indore enroute Mumbai and spent the wee hours of the morning sleeping on airport lounge chairs. The dreadful assignment had struck again! On our way back we stopped at Mumbai airport, analysed a case, completed our assignments on the faithful chairs upto 3am in the morning. My friends patiently answering my 2am calls when they have classes at 8 or 10 in the morning. We had our assignment mailed to them and submitted it even before we were back at ISB, meeting the 8am deadline on that day. The laptop and the social group was a powerful combination.

I'll write about Solstice, the annual ISB alumni meet next.

Term 4 officially ends

2006-10-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

Term 4 officially ended today. The SAIT* term exam had been postponed due to some administrative reason and was held in term 5. Term 4 exams were not easy. MGTO* exam was googly. All short answers were from nook and corner of the course pack. Most subjects required rote memorization. All core terms are over and from this term onwards it’s electives to specialize in an area.

I plan to take a few quant electives from term 5. The bidding system is used in selecting a course. The system is similar to the one used at Wharton. Briefly each student gets X points in his kitty and he smartly rations and bids points for the course he wants to join. The problem is that course bidding reduces to a one-shot game. If you don’t get a course in phase 1, you have to bid again and the prices for that course will go up in phase 2. Simple economics in play - supply is less than demand, prices will go high. If students don’t collude for the points, everyone ends up loosing points by bidding for the course. Since the points for all students are fixed, if one bids high this term, he might suffer with shortage of points next term.

I was partly disappointed to know even if a classroom can accommodate 70 students but if the course professor decides on 55, then only 55 can be allotted to that class. I am on the waiting list for a course and will have to bid in phase 2.

All sections ties are now dissolved barring the email alias. All study groups are also dissolved. New dynamic study groups will be formed as and when needed for the elective subjects.

* SAIT – Strategic Analysis of IT
* MGTO – Management of Organizations / HR

Beauty

2006-10-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

Beauty lies in the...hands of the photoshop user

See the flash ad campaign

Population

2006-10-10T02:13:00.000-07:00

My small writeup on population and the role of incentives.

Penalties coerced with legal or economic implication restrict the freedom of choice for individuals. Although some countries have enforced penalties successfully, like China with its one-child policy (OCP), the overriding approach, as defined by Dr. Amartya Sen, will ultimately lead to exploitation and abuse of the system. Unlike communist China, in India opinions of people decide whether the system is efficient. India decided to drop its sterilization program offering cash incentives in favour of a more voluntary approach to birth control in the mid-1990s. As a result of the enforced birth control policies during the emergency period in 1970s in India, candidates favouring the policies were defeated in the general elections.

The impact of incentives in population stabilization is difficult to ascertain. Given the improvements in healthcare, individuals can reverse the fertility control effects defeating the purpose of incentives. Moreover the reward may attract only weaker sections of the society.

Incentives for child-spacing, contraception or non-pregnancy raise ethical questions. Incentives help individuals, who are already thinking about a fertility, to hasten their decision making. An incentive to attract medical graduates, as stated in the National Population Policy 2000, by reserving seats in post graduate courses for medical graduates provided the candidate has served for 5 years at the First Referral Units is a positive measure. On the other hand, disincentives include barring individuals who have more than 2 children from taking up political posts. In 2003 during the Haryana Panchayat Raj elections, some contesters who violated this disincentive were disqualified from contesting elections resulting in a political imbroglio.

Policies and their incentives are a good way to promote awareness but they should complement rather than precede initiatives in education, healthcare and increasing job opportunities to control population. India’s overall fertility rate is not uniform and hence in a democratic system like India, high collaboration among masses along with incentives can address population issues. Government collaboration with NGOs and village self-help groups can set up a revolving fund for income generation.

In summary, it is difficult to have an efficient policy using incentives alone. Incentives and complementary programs on education and healthcare can be an effective measure towards population control.

Scramble

2006-09-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

Mid term exams ended today. We were to submit a presentation which was a take home exam on how government policy affects an organization. The question was open and one could come with all the wrong way of doing it considering all instructions were verbal and the exam carried half the grade weight. The second exam was on Investment Analysis. The paper was not difficult but I misread the exam time and when it was just 5min due to return the paper, I had one full question worth 20min left. Crammed in all I could but ended up writing the wrong answer for one part; didn’t feel good after coming out of the hall.

Today was hectic. After the 1.5 hours of exam from 8.30am, we had a class in the morning and another one in the evening. Somewhere in the middle, I finished writing my take home exam. When everything was done in the evening, it was time to party. Apart from the reason that the exams got over, this is last term where we remain as section E. My study group will also most likely be dissolved (unless we decided to continue with each other). So there is an emotional wave towards collective nouns like section and group. I will dedicate one post to my group. It has been some wonderful experience working with them.

Now that I’m back from the party (actually we were politely asked to leave the restaurant; people here are used to owl timings but the restaurant could not bear 40 students partying beyond 12am), its time to look at the pre-read for tomorrow’s class which starts at 8.45am.

Trilogy

2006-09-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

You can spot an entrepreneur from his style. Joe Liemandt, CEO of Trilogy was here in campus yesterday to share his experiences in starting Trilogy. Dressed in casuals, the Stanford college dropout brought his Silicon Valley story to life - the high-highs and the low-lows he had experienced. He captured the audience's attention right from the first minute. From idea inception to finding customers, Joe's speech kept the audience engaged for the next 60 minutes. He recalled humourous anecdotes like the one where his team started funding their venture using credit cards. Joe received a standing ovation in the end.

Joe also gave a similar talk at Stanford. Listen to the podcast of that talk below.

powered by ODEO

Term 4

2006-09-07T13:28:00.001-07:00

Term 4 is the last core term before we start taking electives in terms 5 to 8

Courses for this term

Strategic Analysis of IT by Prof Rajiv Banker, Prof Sandra Slaughter
Management of Organizations by Prof Mary watson, Prof Dishan Kamdar
Govt Society and Business by Prof Mudit Kapoor, Prof Shiva Kumar
Investment Analysis by Prof Tom Nohel, Prof Ramana Sonti

Barring the last subject, all others readings look like general topics. This term has less pressure from the core subjects but the ELP or the PaEV (both are projects) are taking most of the time. Moreover this term runs on a 5day week. Its back to TGIF.

Interesting in a way these subjects offer a different perspective of the outside world. For example, in Govt Society and Business we get to learn about institutions, government policies, or even Afghanistan. For the Afghan session we attended classes dressed as Afghans. How does one understand concepts in Management of Organizations? By building and flying paper rockets. Atleast that's what we did partially. We divided ourselves into four teams/companies. One group was for quality control. Each of the other teams got to make as many rockets from the limited number of paper sheets. As the team sizes were different but the supply of paper was fixed, we had to decide on our production capacity. Team members were divided into production department, logo creation and flyers (the ones who threw rockets). One person, the CEO, co-ordinated activities. In the 1 hour or so, this was a totally different experience. It is not about throwing rockets at each other. But understanding and co-ordinating a simple activity as this one. As the team size increases there is chance of chaos in the first round. But the larger team quickly realizes its shortcomings by observing the smaller teams and improves its efficiency in its operations.

So we did have fun. This time class start at 8.45am and get over by noon. But all other project activities take enough time so as to get oneself occupied all day.

Another term already?

2006-09-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

Term 3 started off slowly. In the first few weeks there were no assignments but lots of pre-read to do. But later on it was the opposite. Once every two weeks, we were asked to submit 3 assignments group/individual. Entrepreneurship was the exception with no assignments.

All three subject drop boxes will be placed next to each other at the submission center. Submissions are due at 8am. Once we started at 3am on Sunday and the work went upto 7.55am on Monday. Then we (my study group) attended classes from 8.15am till 4.15pm. It can get really taxing sometimes (reminded of Queen's hit UnderPressure)

Term 3 exams were by far the toughest. Exam on Operations Management was a complete surprise. Even the finance paper threw in a few surprise questions. Terms started and ended quickly. Term4 may not be as taxing as term3 or so it is believed.

Here is a wrap up of term3.

1. Corporate Finance - taught by Prof Bhagawan Chowdhry - one of the best professors I have met. His wit and humour will keep you engaged in class. One of the few classes where time just flies. I could keep listening to his class all day!

Midterm and final term exams were MCQs. The questions were somewhat tricky and unless one is attentive in class and has a clear grasp in concepts his questions will be tougher. Never wanted to miss any of his weekend review sessions.

2. Operations Management - At the outset the subject appears simple but progressively got difficult till the final exam. I haven't applied what I learnt from this course. Have a gut feeling that the learning has greater implication in the long run. The mid term was moderately difficult. The finals was a real challenge.

3. Entrepreneurship - One subject where I pre-read all the time! Partly due to interest and partly because of the high CP marks. The final exam paper was the easiet. It was an open book exam. We were asked not to exhibit the poetry skills. With a strict one page limitation, there is less leeway in spending time on one question alone.

4. Managerial Accounting - Barring one or two new ideas from the subject, I had been exposed to most ideas latently in other subjects. Never did justice to this subject. The last minute exam-cram was all I did. It helped. The final exam was slightly difficult less than I had dreaded.

Interestingly in all papers, I never really got to use a cheat sheet or the book/notes. At some point in the Entrepreneurship exams, my question paper got mixed up with the notes. All the diligently printed notes only added to my printing bill!

Now that we have a break, it is time catch up with sleep, movies and sports.

Entrepreneurship talk

2006-08-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

Manish Sabhrewal, founder of India Life, was in campus last week. He is an entrepreneur and a seasoned speaker. The session was part of the entrepreneurship PaEV course. When you meet an experienced entrepreneur you just know immediately. There is little theory, approach, framework, model; the talk is more practical. I pretty much knew what he would say. The presentation was practical and succint with some very good examples.

Some points from the discussion (not reproduced verbatim)

- Don't let the fee loan come in your way of entrepreneurship. Usually 15 lacs is a rounding error in business!

- Superstar is generally individual performance; In an orchestra not all are superstars

- It is better to aim high and fail than aim too low and get there (I want to add what Prof Jagmohan Raju said - 'most people say think big. I would say the opposite. Start with something small'. I think both thoughts complement each other)

- If you win a rat race, you are still a rat!

- Success is being at the right place at the right time. We are at the right place. If it is not the right time, we just hangout

- Strategy books will not help. Diversify your reading.

- Akbar lost Birbal because he wanted Navaratnas only who could fight. Birbal tried to be a warrior but was killed in war.

- Watch out for people who pull out rabbits out of the hat. You know eventually they will run out of rabbits (in the context of small companies competing with large companies)

Some of us were inspired from the anecdotes Manish shared. This is one of the best talks I have attended. Now it is back to assignments.

Term 3 exam that was...

2006-08-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

It is hard to start writing once you have stopped. I am starting out thinking the opposite will be true. Gone are days when I thought exams as a once in a semester event. Exams here are conducted every two weeks. Thats like saying if you are free this weekend you will writing exams next weekend. I have finished my third mid term exams - one on Corporate Finance and the other on Operations Management.

Here is one interesting question I faced:

What is the best time to polish your shoe? Is it a) before wearing it b) after wearing it c) as and when needed d) periodically. First thing that struck me in the hall was chappals. Why? If you are thinking this is all simple and funny, let me add this to give a clearer picture - your choice should be based on Lean Manufacturing. Lean What? See Wikipedia on what this is.

The point is it is question like this that sometimes catch you off-guard. Did I mention that in my marketing exam I got a full page advertisement and was asked to comment on it. Anyway these questions are fun to write. You think you know the obvious but explaining what seems commonsense becomes difficult beyond a certain point on paper however creative one is in business poetry!

Aikya meet

2006-07-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

Aikya is an informal meet for a study group to interact with a family in hyderabad - the concept of home away from home for students. The couple whom we interacted with called us today for lunch at the sailing club. It was a wonderful place across the Hussain Sagar Lake. Unfortunately we could not go sailing due to heavy winds. Got some gyaan on the different types of boats. The couple themselves own a small boat. Sailing is a pastime here. The lake here is polluted like Bangalore's.

Inspite of an assignment this weekend was lighter. This was our study group's first outing in 3 months and we had good fun. Plan to go sailing next time.

On your mark..get set...term 3

2006-07-25T14:45:00.001-07:00

Started off this term celebrating my group mate's birthday. Four subjects (again) this term.

- Corporate Finance by Prof Bhagawan Chowdhry

- Operations Management by Prof Sudhakar Deshmukh and Prof Sridhar Seshadhri

- Entrepreneurship by Prof Venkataraman and Prof Rama Velmuri

- Management Accounting and Decision Making by Prof Khalid Nainar and Prof Sri Sridharan

The first class of Corporate Finance required us to read 6 chapters from a book! Next class requires 3 more chapters of pre read from the book!! That is nine good chapters in three days. We need more? Apart from case preparation for the other three subjects, assignment deadline started as early as today (third day of the term).

Entrepreneurship has very high weightage for CP - 40% marks for CP! Talk in class and thou shall pass. Well not quite - the class was very well under control of the Professor who would not let anyone talk arbit. CP rules were simple: Two points are deducted for disrupting class. Minus one for detracting comments. Points are even deducted for yawning! Thankfully this class is not at 8am. The subject is case based - concepts come out from documented real life company experiences. Incidentally I have a classmate who is a successful pro in this field and surprisingly he was silent today. Later after class he talked about 'MBA grad errors' which I think no one mentioned.

I will write about other subjects as the term goes by.

Term 2 whizz along

2006-07-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

Back to the blogosphere. So many things have happened so fast. Term 2 seemed faster than term 1. Every term I seem to be accumulating knowledge. Information would be a wrong word but I can't help realize that unless I apply either to what I did back at my work it is really plain information. To me marketing and magnetism are topics I know. I can talk about one topic as good as the other. THe point is how is marketing going to be more relevant than magnetism.

Subjects learnt in term2:
Decision Modelling and Optimization : Basic Linear programming. Folks with Mechanical Engineering background found topics relatively easy. Those with CS background were comfortable with graph theory. I might say Monte Carlo simulations although they were run by a tool.

Competitive Strategy: Porter is a familiar name. I liked the subject but there were too many frameworks that one need to use when analysing firms which gave a theoretical feel.

Marketing Decision Making: Models, models and more models. This subject was more interesting that Marketing I from previous term. Most of what we learnt in theory were practically applied in the Markstrat game. All the nightouts and strategies we tried was fun and at times testing.

Macroeconomics: Complements the microeconomics course from Term 1. Interesting and byfar the practical subject I've learnt. It gets interesting when it gets to nation's economy, inflation, unemployment.

I'll write about the leadership program, and term3 in my next posts.

Professors

2006-06-30T06:59:00.000-07:00

Some of the professors whose classes I enjoy/enjoyed.

Professor Jagmohan Raju is back to teach us this term. During his class marketing seems important and practical. He seems to explain almost everything in simple terms. He introduces topic questions that makes us think as to why did something happened. He reaches out to students well.

Professor Akbar Zaheer. I almost thought Strategy to be boring regurgitating of facts till I attended his class. Ok, only one class is over but in that class we stopped short of saying a "wow". It is a subject where explanation is better than a ppt. Prof Zaheer just does that. He talks about the issues even relating to his research and spends only 10-15min on a ppt to wrap up the discussion. What I also liked is he encourages every student to speak (for the CP of 25 marks - the highest for any subject so far). There is no faff talk from students in his class just for marks. The atmosphere is also informal. When someone addressed Aks (as he wants us to call him) as 'Sir', he responded with 'Distinguished Students!'

Prof Rakesh Vohra's Economics lectures from my first term were also interesting. In one class I remember he introduced a basic concept and posed a seemingly simple question. When one of the students answered - he confirmed from the second student "Do you agree with him?". The professor provided some supporting statements to the first student's answer. After the second student agreed, he went ahead and ensured everyone in class was comfortable with the answer - "Does the class agree?". Yes. "Good. Now let me tell why your friend is incorrect". Class gasps!

Finally Prof Krishna Kumar - two time awardee of Best Professor of the Year - taught us Economics this term (he has already completed his portion and I have just finished writing the exam!). His CP method is unique - he asks you a specific question. You get it right and your CP is finished. His class is so popular that when he gave a general talk on India, students turned up to fill the classroom till the door.

Two things

2006-06-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

Two things that you can never miss at ISB

1. The assignment deadlines
2. Classes at 8.15am

Most assignments require that we submit a soft copy as well as the hard copy. The deadline is usually early in the morning 8am or sometimes 00:00 hours. For the latter, at 11.40pm suddenly there is queue of jobs and printers in all buildings become scare resources. It is now the ultimate decider of our fate. The happy ones sigh a relief while those waiting for their printouts let out a curse. To add to the pressure, people pickup the wrong printouts. But at the end of it, everyone has submitted their assignments before the deadline, even if means a nightout, and things seem normal again.

The best of all assignments so far has been with marketing tool MarkStrat. Notoriously time consuming! It is a blackhole - time gets sucked into it. You tend to get either over passionate or simply don't understand how it works.

My quad mates are from my section and we seem to make it to the 8.15 class JIT. After one of those hectic days, for one class I literally woke up from bed and ran to the classroom. I remember Sandeep asking me this question before I came here. Now I see why mint gums are also for non-smokers. And there is nothing wrong when your group mate wishes a goodnight in the afternoon - as one of alums had joked or so we thought.

When assignment deadlines overlap with the 8am class, it is sheer glory. Nevertheless, things seem to get completed in the last minute and the cycle repeats.

After the nighout

2006-06-17T03:36:00.000-07:00

Lazily I got up in the afternoon hoping to see my list of assignments for the week. The stress from the nightout on marketing was slowing wearing down. My laptop slowly came to life and I began checking my emails. They were the usual ones - funny links, deadlines, (more) elections results. I paused on one of the mails. Cobra mail. It did not interest me at first. There was a rumour of a student spotting a snake and students were cautious since then. Well it was worth a look. It was in my block. Ok, someone had also posted pictures. I stopped at picture 2 in shock. Well it was my quad! I got to know my quad mate had been awakened (he had a nightout too) by the local people at 9am in the morning as a cobra was spotted outside his window. Luckily his room window was closed. Heard the guards here quickly sprung into action. It was a sad story for the snake.

In this excellent campus, it is not uncommon to find peacocks, snakes, and lizards. Was it ethical to kill the snake? You may argue that one will not hesitate to kill an animal that is a threat to one's survival. Maybe it was already injured as I heard it did not move. The security personnel had acted in the interest of the majority but with prudence the creature could have been captured and left elsewhere in the campus. As Maslow's hierarchy says safety need is being addressed.

meeting people

2006-06-13T04:37:00.000-07:00

How to do you find friends or groups who share your interest considering the fast pace of the program. Well, environment here is no different from outside and the truth is there is no formula. You just bump into people who share the same interests. In the right setting, a 10-minute discussion with an individual and you probably know.

What makes certain people friends? An amateur attempt to rationalize this would be to see every individual having attribtues from a set of traits A, B, C,..,P, Q, R, S...Z. A combinaton, say A, P, S, from the set is makes a person unique. If the first conversation between two individuals throws up common trait (say P) then there is a good likelihood of bonding. On the other hand if one sees trait A and the other sees S, then maybe multiple meetings are needed to discover the commonality.

Should this be looked at in this complicated manner? Of course not. It is really simple. Imagine your close friend and think on what makes him your friend and you his. You will discover atleast one common trait P. If you have a circle of friends chances are everyone shares the trait {P} or the circle is actually a chain ( person with {AS} meets {SP} meets {PR} ). The latter is actually seen in social networks like orkut.

Link

2006-06-13T03:53:00.000-07:00

Watch this space if you are interested in the ISB information sessions or in meeting the alumni.

http://www.isb.edu/pgp/visit/admissions_important_india.asp

Breaks come and go

2006-06-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

Need for something is felt by its absence than by its presence.

Trip to bangalore confirmed that the city infrastructure was still inadequate. The local autorickshaw-wallahs tried to take me for a ride showing "authorized fare charts" with exorbitant amounts. I could not resist smiling and politely reminded them in colloquial parlance. The weather as usual was pleasant. On reaching Bangalore, it was as thought there was time for everything in the world albeit for a brief period.

Meeting with my social circle meant more to me this time. Before my first trip to ISB, the excitement to join had veiled the sense of separation. Reality spoke hard this time. But I did not stay long partly because I also missed the ISB atmosphere. A catch-22 situation.

Looking back, the holidays were a welcome break from the busy schedule. Term 2 starts from Monday and it's back to business again (pun).

In Term 1

2006-06-07T22:23:00.000-07:00

Term's four exams were held on two consecutive days this week. Last time I wrote four exams in two days was in school. As I was writing the first exam, it was announced that second term course packs must be collected by students the same day! I don't know if any student was desperate to start his next term. But the size of the course pack was sufficient to scare us before the next three exams.

Marketing was not my favourite subject (atleast for the moment) but the wonderful things happened in the class or in exam. The double entendre in the first weeks, Arbit Class Participation, Prof. Jagmohan Raju's (PJR) cold calling, 700 page reading scare two days before exams and best of all writing the exam.

PJR cold calling was unique. He makes best use of powerpoint slides. For the first few minutes, there is excitement in his class. A one-liner question flashes on screen. Every student now wonders if it is their turn today. PJR pauses and then pushes a key and a student photo appears. If a student is unable to answer then that student gets to cold call someone else or other students volunteer to answer. It seemed to me those who never CP'd in any class were the ones cold-called.

From term 1,
MicroEconomics - Prof Rakesh Vohra and Prof Amit Bubna Concepts, weekly quiz from Amit, Assignments that went into early hours of the day, two exams both problem based

Marketing - Prof Asim Ansari and Prof Jagmohan Raju
Too many terms, theory and problems, case discussions, CP and PJR cold calls, one exam

Accounting - Prof Mark Finn
Highly practical, fewer concepts but importance to data structure, weekly online quizzes, one exam

Statistics - Prof Bob Stine and Prof Richard Waterman
Most practical subject, application based with little or no formulae, no assignments, two exams

We have a term break now - it is a weekend from Wednesday!

Monsoon paradise

2006-05-25T05:45:00.000-07:00

A calm lake with a crossing bridge and a muster of peacocks during sunrise. This place is hidden and unless you see from tall buildings or travel around the campus, you'll miss this place. Come rainy season and this place will be a paradise.

[the second picture shows an ant-sized peacock standing on the rock. I cannot zoom and that's as close as I can get! Peacocks fly away once they hear a rustle. ]

A weekend after the exams

2006-05-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

One of those good days when I get to do what I like without worrying (too much) about assignments. The mid term exams are over. The two weeks of lectures culminated in a 3.5 hour operose exercise using open books or a summarized 1-page "cheat" sheet. Not all exams are that way. Infact open book exams tend to be tougher that closed ones. Unlike in undergrads where one could write theory, here one need not write much - it is problem solving and MCQs. So the answer to any question is simple - either you know it or you don't!

The president elections are over and now it is turn to campaign for coveted posts of directors in student life council, placements and marketing. I was initially interested in academic affairs but have decided to stay off. Had some interesting chit chat on why someone would/would not want to be a president or a director. A few students have been advertising through emails (as posters are disallowed) and the repartee with the rallying is neat. Soapbox presentations are scheduled from these candidates.

More often than not in elections, voters tend to get impressed with one quality of remote relevance which may tilt the balance in favour of that candidate. I find this true outside the elections too. If you find a person with a quality you admire, you are bound to admire that person and, unless exercise caution, involuntarily admire their personality also. How then are good qualities different from good personalities? Maybe I'll ramble on this one later. A reminder tells me that I do have assignments after all but with extended deadlines. Back to reality.

PS: I mentioned about the posting photos some time back - I'll do that in my next.

Half term

2006-05-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

The subject heading pretty much says it. The half term is almost over.

Each term is handled by two professors for most subjects. After half term the second professor continues from where the first professor ended. Economics and Statistics half term classes got over today. Marketing and accounting half terms end tomorrow. Suddenly after 4 classes you realize that the 5th class is the last one by that professor. The tradition is to have a ceremony after the last class. Our section gifted a T-shirt to the Professors with our signatures on it. This is a depart from the cake-cutting tradition.

One thing I notice is inaddition to good lectures, all professors have a good sense of humour. Even if a student does not fully comprehend the subject matter, a joke or two peps things up. Particularly, Prof.Bob Stine has an excellent knack to keep students engaged by combining humour with his lectures. He was the one to wear the presented T-shirt during the class session break inspite of the smelling ink. Prof Jagmohan Raju will be coming here for the second term in marketing. I hear he cold calls students using their photographs and utterance of his name evokes a sense of respect among students. Thats 3 days later.

Does this mean that the constant in the learning process which is subjected to change is the self. Yes this is always true.

Thankgod it's Thursday?

2006-05-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

The state assembly elections are over but the graduate student board (GSB) elections are starting here this weekend. Walk into the cafetaria or the dining hall the election talk is abuzz. There has been some (latent) campainging as well. Midterm exams are also next week. That will make us busier for a while.

Some cases of chickenpox infection were reported here. Some of my section mates were on medical observation. Fortunately with the help of some students, who are also physicians, a vaccination camp was organized. The first round of medication was administered today. As a safety measure I signed up. The whole process took less than a couple of minutes.

And for some funny moment in class - I'll rephrase it as closely as possible. Professor is explaining the concept of new ideas.

Prof: .....Pilcam is an example. It is a pill with a camera in it. How can it be used?

Student-1: Endoscopy

Prof: Good. The patient swallows the pill and it takes pictures of the oesophagus.

Student-2 who had been listening all along innocently interjects.

Student-2: Sir....but how does the pill come out?

The whole class bursts into laughter

Case in point

2006-05-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

Marketing assignments invariably involve number crunching in case studies. After discussing cases in marketing all I see is statements need to be backed by data. Intuition is rarely part of the game. Anyone can make a decision but how can you prove it or at least back your judgment by sound numbers. It seems like a formal process to decision making.

Most decisions aired in cases are challenged. The "How?" makes a vital part of the discussion than the "What?". I believe the converse is true in some cases. Every now and then a "So?" is asked as though each member was totally unaffected by the decision labouriously made by another member. It helps in weighing alternatives. It also helps in another way - if you haven't been listening and feel a sudden urge to get involved just say the magic words to get a playback of the previous point. Fortunately my group has whole participation and such comments get spotted.

The fun part of such discussion is to proxy the real life situation. One member went to the extent of suggesting the phone number of the CEO whose company's case was being discussed. But sometimes the fun in these discussions outbalances the economic benefit of the case. Assuming 10 hours go into a 20 marks assignment ideally the benefit in terms of marks/hour should be around 2. That way you know if your group is over-engineering (a borrowed phrase) stuff. Each group may have its good estimate of their average value, which may improve over time and know when discussions lead nowhere.

The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest - from A Case of Identity Sherlock Homes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Term1 begins

2006-05-05T23:06:00.000-07:00

My first week in the core terms - partly strenuous and partly fun. Life in ISB sure moves at a fast pace. I have been juggling a lot of things in a 24 hour schedule. My colleague says student life here needs a 30-hour day with the 6 hours for sleep. Weekend starts late Thursday. That's a reprieve from the intensity only if there are little/no assignments! But again the nature of program is such that one is occupied all the time. I need to balance my time well with the activities I wish to do. I tried playing tennis for sometime yesterday. Sleeping is slowly becoming a weekend hobby.

Student class participation is increasing and the CP King and CP Queen nominations have unofficially begun in my section. The professors are par excellence. It is great to attend a session on Statistics from professor Robert Stine of Wharton and then a session on marketing by professor Asim Ansari from Columbia. Professor Mark Finn from Kellog amazed me by his sense of time in Accounting class. He once told us that he was behind schedule by 5 minutes! Even otherwise I have noticed that punctuality is a hallmark here. All activities begin and end on time (except the student discussions ofcourse!).

The student clubs have started the activities. For the first time I attended the entrepreneurship club meeting. An IITian who had started his venture gave an impressive presentation on his company. His company turnover was good and I could only guess why he was here.

On a different note, my quest for finding peacocks ends and I finally spotted the elusive ones in campus. I'll try to post some pictures.

Strange co-incidence?

2006-04-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

If you see someone today whom you don't know but seen face to face what is the probability that you'll recognize that person at a later point in life? Maybe 1 in a million. This happened to me recently when we went for a section party at a wonderful hotel near Hussian Sagar Lake. I heard this place is not open to public yet. I met this person R from my section and we started talking.

R, K : the usual hello how are you yadayada
Then R begins.

R: Where are you from?
K: Do you know .....?
R: Yes. I know which area?
K: Are you also from ...? I was in .... area
R: Yes. I know the place. (Curiously continues) Which street?
K: (I am surprised) Do you happen to ... street?
R: Very well. What is your door number?
A "kumbh mela" discussion! Gave my number.
R: (laughing) You know I was living two houses away.
K: What?!
R: I was living there for few years. We might have seen each other
K: Yes.

I don't know if it were our daily routines, individuality, the neighbourhood or the city life. We had never met as neighbours. I recall in childhood when I knew every family in the street. Something has changed the way people lived over years. Today Africa is closer to home than the neighbourhood. The realization brings in amusement.

Team logo

2006-04-27T03:49:00.000-07:00

I created this logo for my study group. We are a group of 6 in section E. We wanted to name it "6e" but this one came out as the unanimous choice. The X has the 6 and the e.

Pre term

2006-04-26T08:06:00.000-07:00

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe - Abraham Lincoln

That is exactly what we are doing/atleast trying to do this week - sharpening our basics in the pre-terms. I have attended a couple of sessions in accounting and statistics. The accounting class started off really well. Although my knowledge of statistics is not very bad I thought I should attend and get accustomed to the classroom environment. Students in pre-term classes are from different sections. It is an chance to meet new people as well.

In classes there were some who asked interesting questions and others who asked arbitrary questions. We have made it a point to honour students in the second category with a desk-clap. This is to remind ourselves not to hog classtime with gabbing. Most of us want to make good points. But the fact is a good point in your opinion may not be a good point for the rest of the students.

In pre-terms class participation is moderate. Come core terms and Class Participation (CP) will go high especially in subjects where marks are alloted to CP. An interesting point was made the other day by one of the alums - cost of Class Participation interms of $ per minute was more than cost of talking over mobile phone. Learn to CP judiciously!

Some pictures

2006-04-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

Pictures I took on the first morning in ISB. I was out looking for peacocks. Yes there are peacocks inside the campus; I am yet to spot one even after one week.

  1 Main Building       2 Boy on bull...do you see it?

 3 Student Village Tower   4 No peacocks on road

Eventful week

2006-04-20T04:27:00.000-07:00

The orientation week is being organized by the alumni. They are doing a great job in helping us get to know about placements, processes and the clubs. Officially sessions started from Sunday morning with the Dean and the Deputy Dean's address. I gather our batch has a high GMAT median score. Events are conducted almost all the time and on all days. I have lost track of the day in the week.

The alumni are here for this week and are helping us get to know the departments, processes and placements. Officially these are called the "Gyaan Sessions". Typically they start late in the evenings and go past midnight. Inbetween sessions, they played a couple of pranks - first they informed we needed to write an exam(!) similar to the gmat and believe it or not almost 90% of the batch wrote the exam diligently; some even asking for extra time. Next alum 'Atta' infused wisdom on a make-believe club and more than 100 inspired students wanted to join. It was fun and you enjoy if you take it lightly. A number of ice-breaker sessions were also organized.

My class contains people with interesting backgrounds including a commissioner and a major. Diversity is required in learning. Equally important is to respect individual opinion irrespective of age, experience or background.

I'll post some photos in my next post.

Touch down

2006-04-15T05:37:00.000-07:00

Reached ISB early today. From the maingate I was guided to my student village. I was the first to enter my apartment. My other room-mates are yet to join.

The registration was scheduled in the evening. So had some time to look around the campus. The village is well maintained like other parts of the campus. I now fairly know the directions overall but within the main building right now I trust the signboards.

The registration was a smooth but there was some waiting. Met a whole bunch of students sometimes exchanging pleasantaries - I have difficulty recollecting their names. Activities start from tomorrow with the welcome address. I have also been given some reading to do. I'll post more about the campus and the activities later.

RedHat does it

2006-04-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Oracle had earlier pitched for $200m while Jboss wanted $400m. That deal is off and Jboss is now to be acquired by RedHat. That's good news for the linux community. But will jboss support be continued on Windows?

Links:
RedHat website
Marc Fleury Blog

placements

2006-04-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

Officially this year's placements are out in the media. TV channels and news sites are once again actively discussing salary figures. I do not want to go into the figures nor draw any comparison with other schools. Simply because salary is not the only factor and each school has its own merits.

Only two things interested me - one the largest offer is from an Indian company and two - a positive trend - indicating people preferred to work in India. Why not? Not only Indians but students from abroad are also coming here for their internships.

That said I managed to complete most of the items in my checklist amidst writing my assessment tests. That's a relief.

Follow this link for placement news from the official site

1984

2006-04-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

Read Orwell's 1984. With a blend of love, struggle and war, the story is about the protagonist Winston Smith's voice against oppression culminating in his resentment as well as submission to oligarchy. Replete with literary fireworks this is political novel. The last few chapters of the novel remind me of Steve McQueen's role in the movie Papillon.

Three random lines from the novel

If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones
The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon
Our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is

Language of Thoughts - Part II

2006-03-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

Since thoughts can be language represented, they have structures. Natural languages or images as a means to realize it. Normal humans realize it using more than one form. However, children and people with disabilities realize it using symbols.

20th century western philosopher Jerry Fodor feels thoughts are a language represented with mental sentences or 'Mentalese' that is distinct from natural languages. His Language of Thought hypothesis can be understood from an analogy in computers. Computers use binary numbers to represent logic. All programs written in higher languages are translated to their binary forms which form the words of the language. Accordingly all natural language conversations have a underlying basic Mentalese.

On the other hand, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests an extreme approach that language shape thoughts. This idea relates to two of its principles. One, language determinism, our language determines our thoughts and two, language relativity, people speaking different languages think differently. This theory has come under many philosophers' microscope and is widely debated for its sanctity.

It seems internalized language is thought while externalized language is speech. Few years back, the Harvard Gazette ran an article on which comes first - language or thought. But the question remains - can thoughts exist without languages?

Language of Thoughts - Part I

2006-03-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

Hear your thoughts closely and you'll notice that it uses languages. Often this is in English, your mother tongue, some regional language spoken in your place or some language you know. The logic of requirement is understood - Thoughts are a form of communication. Communication requires a language. Therefore, thoughts require a language.

But thoughts are something personal to you - why is the mind, which I suppose is the originator, require a loopback communication to itself through a language. Is it not taxing for the self to support itself from something gained externally. This also raises a second question - how does one think before one has learnt a language? I find it hard to believe that I never thought before I learnt a language!

Maybe the answer to the first lies in the second. This is my theory: Thoughts have forms - one using pictures or the other using languages. When a person sleeps he/she hardly thinks using languages. Thoughts occur as picture sequences. When the person is awake, he/she can think using both ways. Like what you do when you imagine swimming - you see only pictures. When you plan on how you will spend money, you will use a language and 'hear' yourself talking. Maybe there is a way to eliminate languages and think as it should be thought. Wouldn't that mean our mode of thinking is primitive.

I still need to consider how this applies to newborns and people with disabilities. As I write this post I did hit upon a few links in google. If you have a different opinion, let me know your comments

Feats

2006-03-15T11:13:00.000-08:00

A popular soft drink ad goes like this: Youngsters languid in the hills. One of the them decides to leave on his bicycle. The others join him on theirs. They pull off a 'cool' feat of drinking and cycling in the air. 'Cool' Drink - that's just one of the many stunts in advertisement today. Others are by street children who force their nimble body through tiny wheels not knowing why they are extorted to perform each time the traffic halts.

But why do people perform stunts and create records outside commercial circles? Is publicity a social urge? Case in point is watching people create bizarre records where no money is involved. Grotesque depictions hardly deserve a mention. For what meaningful purposes are these records created? Fame alone cannot be justified. Maybe it's time to legislate what constitute a record with human involvement.

Cyber city

2006-03-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me -Sigmund Freud

My sojourn at Hyderabad explained why it is a hot city. Hyderabad, like Bangalore, is an IT hub. What impressed me most were the wide three-lane roads. Demolished buildings on roadsides and flyover constructions suggest an increase in traffic.

Visited the Hitec towers which boasts of an infrastructure similar to ITPL Bangalore. In the morning, I travelled for about 20km without bumping a signal or a traffic jam - hardly a statement I can make in Bangalore. Not that there is smooth traffic flow in Hyderabad but I never ran into potholes or drains. Irrespective of traffic conditions, auto drivers there seem to flout rules. The driver of an auto, I happened to travel, cut in the highway to go on a one-way while the local "mama" totally neglected.

Being away from Bangalore had caused traffic sickness. Back home, I felt at ease once I experienced traffic jams - how else can you expect ones driving skills to be honed? Once the metro rail and possibly the mono rail are underway, personal vehicular traffic should decline.

[Mar 13] Addendum:

Bush's visit to ISB is making waves. My guess is his visit to Hyderabad but not Bangalore was more to do with ISB than with city infrastructure. Kiran Majumdar feels Today, Hyderabad, to some extent, has overtaken Bangalore

Laptop

2006-03-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

My laptop arrived today. I had ordered for a Vseries 2324 two weeks back but due to unavailabilty and end-of-life HP offered me, without any extra charges, a rollover model V2620 with a DVD writer.

This 14" WXGA notebook weighing about 2.3kgs is heavier than the 12" B series notebooks which weigh around 1.6kgs. The dimensions are only more than an A4 paper workbook. The battery life is around 2 hours. This model does not have an infra red port which I have seen in some HP laptops.

Last day first job

2006-02-28T23:59:00.000-08:00

Finally the day arrived! I ended up working more on the last few weeks than on any other. You need to prepare yourself when you are joining or leaving a company. Everything in-between is to flow with the stream.

The transitions, processes in HR, finance and thankyou notes are all done. The feeling of being part of the organization seems to fade away as I seem to branch off. A lot of friends to leave behind and a bunch of good and oh-not-so-good memories. Its human nature to get emotional when one leaves one's first things - first job, first school, first home, toy or maybe a first relationship.

What I liked : The people, culture of the company
What I did not like : The rat race in software

Looking forward its going to be a exciting time in ISB. There is an email frenzy with applicants getting their final waiting list calls. The mail-o-meter touched a whopping 100 mails/day! Hopefully this will settle down once we get to business.

Cricket

2006-01-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

I renewed my interest in playing cricket. Last time I played a match was two years ago in my team. I have been practicing for three weeks now -three matches actually! - at the local BTM playground preparing for our team tennis-ball match. I will continue to play on weekends maybe till next week. The weather is sunny and we start at 7am.

In all matches played, I scored a few boundaries. I had lost touch with bowling - in the first match I ended up bowling a number of bouncers and wides. Worse all my soft muscles started complaining after the first game. Things have improved since. I seem to have a better control on the ball now.

Sunshine

2006-01-08T00:51:00.000-08:00

These were taken from the balcony during evening coffee. The pictures are distorted at the corners due to the phone camera.

Free hardware software

2005-11-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

Never heard of a Free Hardware Foundation similar to the FSF for software. I always believe anything tangible and manufactured is never free. Recently asiatotal.net launched the iT free PCs. Is it latent advertising or purely munificence? And how is Windows part of a free product ?

I am asked to give an introduction on computers to people who have rarely worked with computers. What is interesting is Windows forms part of the curriculum. I have used Linux for a long time but lets face it - for someone who is not computer savvy, Linux is nowhere in the picture. Probably Macintosh comes close. But why should anyone invest in new hardware (till the x86 version is out).

Branding is higher for software than hardware. To a new user it does not matter whether the CPU is Intel or AMD or cdrom is from Sony or Samsung, he accepts a system as long as it can run MS Office. The reason being functionality must be same across similar products.

The usability factor dictates Windows. Naturally new learners expect Windows as the only software. Technology must be accessible to everyone through free hardware, software or both. Product promotion while legitimate cannot be separated unless the free stuff is channelised through governing organizations.

Trip to the Canara region

2005-10-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

Sandeep, Ashvin, Ashok and I went on a 4-day trip (Oct 12-15) to the western ghats in Sandeep's new Opel Corsa. Missed Chandan in the trip. Ashok has just returned from Sweden and Ashvin now sports a juttu.

Day 1: We travelled on NH-48 and reached Hassan. From here we headed to Belur's Channakeshava temple. These are incomplete architectures built by the Hoysalas celebrating their victory over Cholas. It was past noon and I was hungry by the time we reached Halebeedu ( poignantly the name translates to 'Dead City' ). From there we visited Jain Basti - temple of two tirthankaras. What caught our attention were the magnificent pillars having convex and concave mirror properties. Finally by 4.00pm we managed to eat lunch at Mayura Shantala. The food was not appealing neither was the place but no empty stomach complained.

Our plan was to reach Mangalore by night. But by 7.30pm we were forced to stop as the windshield turned frosty due to heavy rainfall. We reached Mangalore only by 10.30pm. Dasara procession was about to take place and we had no hotel rooms booked. We wandered for a while before settling for Taj Mahal - a modest hotel near K.S.Rao Road. My purse was nearly empty.

Day 2: This was going to be hectic day. Mangalore is blessed with many ATM's but I made three trips to find the right ATM to deliver cash. At breakfast we got to taste the Malayali delicacies "puttu" and "appam". Unless you are a connoisseur of coastal food you can at best avoid them. Mangalore has not many tourist spots other than religious ones. We spent some time at Pabba's ice cream parlour for "the famous Ideal ice cream". We skipped lunch and traveled along the Arabian Sea coast via NH-17. I realized that I had parted with my shoes back in the hotel. I had bought a pair of slippers for the humid weather and forgot the extra shoe baggage back at Mangalore. More on this one later.

We stopped at Kaapu light house. The view of the sea beside the light house was beautiful. The air smells fishy but the weather was simply excellent. We spent the night at Sagar Kinara close to Sowparnika river (the hotel by the shore). Again a modest hotel with basic facilities. Turtle beach resort is a better option for those planning a journey there.

Its late (yawn). I'll write on the next two days later. See the photographs at http://www.flickr.com/photos/22783391@N00/tags/canara/

Alma mater

2005-09-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

Couple of pictures taken last week. The pictures would have looked better if I had set the resolution properly. The original pictures before scaling were at 120x160 pixels.

Book without electricity

2005-07-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

Read Crichton's The Terminal Man. This is definitely not his masterpiece.

These pictures were taken last Sunday when there was no power for 15hrs!

2005-07-09T22:58:00.000-07:00

experiment with light

2005-07-06T05:49:00.000-07:00

Captured in the terrace

Su Doku

2005-06-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

Su Doku is a logic puzzle of numbers. This Japanese game, originally from USA, is causing waves in the media, especially Britian. Each publisher is vying to introduce the puzzle in his paper. An ex-judge, Wayne Gould introduced the Su Doku in the The Times.

Wayne's website on Su Doku runs a monthly contest and is the source for newspaper puzzles and solutions. There is lot of brouhaha after the puzzle was introduced in major newspapers in the last two months. In India, 9x9 puzzles were introduced this month in the TOI and The Hindu.

Su Doku literally translates to Single Number. The rules of the game are simple - numbers are to arranged in a 9x9 square such that no number appears more than once in a row, column or the smaller 3x3 squares. There are variants from the 9x9 like the 6x6 or the 5x5. There is even a 3D version of the logic puzzle from the Daily Telegraph. Mathematically speaking, Su Doku puzzles are Latin Squares. You get a Latin Square for example in a nxn matrix by using addition of numbers with modulo n.

If solving puzzles is your forte, you will find right at home. For others it is still worth a try as knowledge of either maths or complex logic is not required. I got addicted to this game last week. Below you will find links to play the game online. I felt it is best to solve using the paper-pencil way (puzzle print-out) or the stare-till-you-get-it way (software like MS-Paint will do). It is never fun to solve logic using "solver" programs.

Solve and go hoo-hah @
www.sudoku.com
www.menneske.no/sudoku/eng
www.websudoku.com

2005-06-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

National Readership Survey

The National Readership Studies Council, an autonomous body of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, recently released the National Readership Survey (NRS) for 2005. The survey covered about twenty-thousand respondents. It is believed to be the largest such survey in the world.

According to the survey, Indian literacy has gone up by 8 points to about 70%. What is interesting is the fact that of the 200mn readers, about half of them are from rural India. What is also interesting is that only 11mn people (less than 2% of the Indians) have access to the Internet. The survey indicates the growth of TV and Cable/Satellite particularly in KN, AP and TN. One can estimate that on an average an urban adult, sleeping 8hrs/day, spends a little less than 25% of his time per week reading paper (4.9hrs/week), watching TV (11.8hrs/week) and listenining to radio (10hrs/week). It dosen't come as a surprise that in a country with more than 40% of the population speaking Hindi, the Dainik Jagran and Dainik Bhaskar are the country's leading newspapers.

India's population is more than 1 billion and it continues to grow at 1.4%. But as the literacy growth rate is 21%, India will soon be a 100% literate country. Access to the Internet for all is not far from reality either. In Asia alone, the growth rate of Internet has been 150% in the last five years.

2005-06-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

Java
Two weeks ago, Java turned ten. Over the years, it has evolved from an Object Oriented programming language to a full fledged (commercial) programming system. And for good reasons, it continues to evolve. Read the article "Celebrating 10 years of java..."

2005-06-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
translated by Lucia Graves

Overall La Sombra del Viento or The Shadow of the Wind is a good book considering the literary style and flow. But at times there is over treatment of describing things to the finest detail. The story is interwined with many little stories. A speculative reader gets the complete picture as the same events are narrated from different people.

The story is about a boy, Daniel Sempere, who gets a copy of "The Shadow of the Wind" (yes - it bears the same name as the author's book) from his father's Cemetery bookshop and how his interest in find the book's author, Julian Carax (not Carlos!!) leads him through emotional trails along his journey to revelation. The story also outlines the growth of Daniel from a child to an adolescent.

In his journey, Daniel finds a disturbed police officer Fumero, who is blood thirsty on his early childhood friends. Fumero is desperate to eliminate all of them especially Julian, as it was Julian who stole Penelope from him. Most women in the novel - Daniel's childhood crush Clara, Daniel's wife Bea, Julian Carax's wife Penelope, Julian's mother Sophie Carax, Miquel Moliner's wife and Julian's girlfriend Nuria all engage in affairs whose activities are put in celebrated detail. At times humour reveals in the form of the know-all Daniel's guru Fermin who works at Daniel's father's bookshop.

In short, it is a good story if not a great one and considering all the elements it will probably make a good movie.

Links :
Amazon
Book Review from MostlyFiction.com

2005-05-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

Library Books sale

I visited the library old books sale and bought few books.

Among them was Michael Crichton's "The Andromeda Strain". For a first book by an author at the age of twenty-five that too in the 1970s, this is a very good book. Enjoyed reading this classic novel to the last page. Although not all of what is said in the book is correct, I liked the author's research into the biological details in writing the book.

The other book I read was Jeffrey Archer's "Not a penny more, not a penny less". A funny novel, as it turns out only at the end, on how far one can go to get even. When Harvey Metcalfe, the rags-to-riches millionaire hoodwinks five men of their money, they set a decoy to get their money back right to the last penny - nothing more nothing less. The first half of the novel portrays Harvey's life. But just when your interest starts fading no more no less, the author dives right into the plot.

Somehow the books I read this week have something in common much like the last time. Both were first books of the respective authors. Instead of a single protagonist both novels are about a team. If it was ace performer Nobel laureate Jeremy Stone in The Andromeda it was Stephen Bradley from Oxford for Not a penny... . In the end, the last action hero turns out to be the one least expected (by the characters of the novel) - Dr.Hall in the former and Lord James in the latter.

I shall post about the others in the coming weeks.

2005-04-24T03:28:00.000-07:00

Blogger, LiveJournal

Posting a link on the blogging tools - Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad ...
http://www.elise.com/web/a/weblog_tools_market_update_february_2005.php

The earlier version by the same author is here :
http://www.elise.com/web/a/an_overview_of_the_weblog_tools_market.php

2005-04-24T02:33:00.000-07:00

Read two good books...

Both are to be motion pictures.

The first one was Robin Sharma's The Monk who sold his Ferrari. The story, wound around the principles to make it sound good, is a bit stretched. I felt Paulo Coelho is a better story teller. Robin Sharma is a lawyer himself and I think there are personal reflections in the fable. His Indian origins can also be seen. Most of what I read was common sense in print. According to the author's website the movie will star the author himself. I also bought "Who will cry when you die" by the same author (you would have heard a similar quote by Katherine Mansfield).

The other book was Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. I bought it on the streets for a throw-away price. Its has a train of ciphers one after the other and it keeps you glued till the end. The movie on the same stars Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon.

Links

2005-04-17T06:35:00.000-07:00

Nature destroyed

Bangalore is becoming a graveyard of trees. The decision to fell 700 trees is nothing short of a crime. Trees as old as 50 years are being brought down in a few hours.

Do the authorities have any consideration to nature at all? Enough
nuisance has already been committed in cutting down trees for
unconstructed flyovers. The concerned authorities should immediately stop destroying the beautiful garden city.

2005-04-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

Live Cricket match

I least expected that I would go to a Test match between India and Pakistan on Mar-24. Initially I offered the single ticket to my friends but none responded. Then finally I found company and decided to go.

The place surrounding the stadium was crowded by ice-cream and “kalle-puri” hawkers hoping to make an extra buck as well as by enthusiastic cricket fans making every effort to get in. The entire place was cordoned by police, who seemed to be frustrated with the traffic more than anything else.

It was my first visit to a stadium. We reached around noon and seated ourselves in the executive wing. Executive coterie entitles free lunch and tea, free beer and of course a fantastic view. The green field was a wonderful sight. The view was as though a 40-inch television screen was placed close to your eyes but only looked better and real. It took the eye some time to settle the panoramic view. We were as close to 100m from the stumps or so it appeared.

We spent sufficient time in identifying each player on field and casting aspersions on each player’s ball performance. We witnessed Inzy scoring his 100 runs in his 100^th test. A few yards away, in the player’s wing we spotted Afridi, Yuvraj, and Kaif sharing a lighter moment.

2005-04-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

A few asked me as to why I stopped blogging? Hooking onto the giant www network through a tiny 64K (reduces almost a 10K) line, with frequent disconnections and unacceptably low speeds, seems ridiculous. I’ll try to upgrade the connection, but till then my postings may be infrequent.

2004-06-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

Trip to ManchinaBale (June 12 2004)

Cool trip on a Saturday! Thats all.

We planned a couple of days in advance before the weekend to drive to this place which is 40km off the city. Just to beat the heat, we had planned to start early at 5.30am!? The laziness of early Saturday lingered. Ashok and I diligently started at about 5.45am to head to Chandan's place only to find him sleeping. Then it was sometime for the Sandeep duo to turn up. Ashvin agreed to join only on our way as that was of a shorter distance for him.

Pity me only I hadn't taken my bath. I hadn't known our journey would actually start at 6.30am. We headed to Ashvin house and to accommodate all we took Ashvin's car. On the way, every now and then I had to catch up driving with Ashvin. He reminds of Schaumacher. Consider him riding @ 100kmph on busy lanes in a Maruti-800 (no to mention the red L-board sticker). I am indeed impressed Ashvin ;-)

It had been quite a while since I met Sundeep. After taking a turn in his career, he is now an AirForce officer. All along the drive, he kept me and Sandeep.R engaged with his Airforce adventures. Due to his AirForce lingo, I had to frequently interrupt him. But now I think I have a hang of few words. Roger that Sundeep!

After driving for about 1 1/2 hrs, we reached ManchinaBale at around 0900hrs. The road was narrow and neither the bumpy road nor the car fuel seem to support our endeavour in reaching the bank. We parked the cars along the roadside and continued about 400m by foot to reach the water body.
A faithful dog accompanied us during the walk. Well, Famous Five can be sometimes Not-so-Famous Seven too.

The place is a stretch of land with a stagnating water body due to the dam. We devoted sometime lazying on a rock near the shore. We had not brought food except for the 6 Chapathis with Chutney-powder from Ashok. Sandeep had got his yummy chocolates too. Lucky for us the fishermen there had left one of the their coracles. Soon we took it to row in turns of two. The weather was largely windy with hazy sunshine. We spent about 2 hrs there and decided to head back. I'll post some pictures taken from Chandan's new digital camera.

Ashvin's car was empty of fuel. There were no bunks nearby. But we resumed journey after buying (or shopping?) for fuel at the nearby grocery store at a higher price. By this time all of us were hungry. Ashvin suggested a hotel 10km further away opposite to the city's direction.

We began to drive....for 20km without finding the "Karavali restaurant". We had driven more than 50km and were only 70km away from Mysore. Our eyes caught the board "Kamat LokaRuchi 1.5km away". We drove straight to this place. The eatery was excellent. The long drive was worth it. We wouldn't have stumbled here if it not were for Ashvin's idea. The cuisine was coastal food known as the "Karavali" with the option of Raggi Mudde/Rice Sevai/Ragi Roti.

The food there was differnt from the city-style food. After lunch, it was raining and we drove back to the city.

2004-04-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

Security is a big concern. Most people brush aside security for reasons of having a totally-secure software, being ignorant, overly trusting a network or being indifferent to the issues. I did belong to one of these categories for a short period.

I realized how vulnerable people are on the network. The moment you have an ip assigned and people can see you. I was really annoyed when some time back I received a message from some kid trying to impress with the (mature) message. It easy to nail them but then again its also our duty to be vigil to make sure such things are impossible.

Security is only partly made available by applying patches or by installing a "secure" software. Most important is to realize that nothing is ever fully secure (even in the real world). One has to take necessary steps in ensuring just that. Sometimes this occurs after being "hit". At other times one needs to be a paraniod about security.

Most software are too ready to give out user information just to throw in that added/unwanted "user-friendliness". They just do more harm than good. So the next time you are about to buy some great-out-of-the-world user friendly software ask yourself "At what cost?"

2004-04-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

Back
I know Iam Writing after a long time. At times, I would want to type but I may not be online or other times plain bored to log information. But now that interest and being online are both in place I am begun to log (atleast for some time I think);

After a really long time we discussed mathematics. Not that its not applicable but the kinda of theoretical turn the discussion took it questioned our basic understanding of some simple ideas that we often take for granted. For instance, why do we use logarithms, how are numbers populated in the log-tables, why is e=2.71 and how does it relate to logarithms?
Well, Napier's method has a lot of thinking for us to do. The central part that I missed over the past several years is that how do logarithms simplify calculations. I only has a vague idea that it reduces multiplication to additions thereby simplifying calculations. The explanation I gave myself was:

log(a*b) is log(a) + log(b)

Here * is being re-written to a + and this may simplify calculation as most people are good at addition than multiplication.

I hunted around for some information about what logarithms really are. I am surprised how I learnt logarithms without knowing some of this for this long.

Heres a link that gives some details:
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52469.html

Another question which actually Chandan shot up was how can you be sure that to prove(disprove) that a number is (not a) prime you need to verify the divisibility of the number for numbers 2 to square-root number. Simple ain't it? Something I remember learning in my grade-school. Chandan himself did all the book-searching and came up with the rigourous proof. I'll leave out the nitty-gritty details from here.

Thats it for now.

2003-11-29T10:53:00.000-08:00

Having an OS like linux is good as long as you know how to go about working with it. lilo seemed to complain with my hdd being a primary slave to the cdrom master! Interchanged the cables and lilo could be installed. I think it is more difficult when there are many flavours of linux and subversions within themselves hosting similar/additional applications with common/uncommon formats installing on native/hosted partitions.

2003-11-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

Crashed my hard disk!
I remember Chandan saying this frequently; Luckily enough my other disk has survived. The ide cable safety notch was absent and I connected the cable in the opposite way. Duh! I should have known when my disk light menacingly flashed twice...

2003-11-04T07:16:00.000-08:00

A day at the hill station
Nature today is no more natural. It is likely that a child when asked to paint a picture of nature would draw a mountain, sun, and sea with some birds flying around. We tried exploring this nature.

Saturday this time had to be different. We planned to go to Nandi Hills. Situated 60km off the city at about 4851ft above the sea level the hill station is pulchritude barring the littered plastic cups and bottles. The plan was to go as far as the base of the hill and trek our way up to the top.

We started late and the added surprise was that our sumptuous breakfast was cake and fruits. After travelling in Sandeep's car for about two hours we reached a point from where we could begin our adventure by foot. The lady vending tender coconuts at that point indicated the "steps" used by the horses during the reign of Tipu Sultan () to reach the station. Horses less we were but more akin to our primitive ancestors in climbing.

The journey up the hill cannot be completely put down in words. We would climb a little, rest, admire nature, and climb again. We went as far as the old fortress of Tipu from where we traversed back to the road. The map on the top of hill showed that we had climbed from the Brahmagiri view side. We had climbed about 1000ft.

Heading forward we reached Amrita Sarovara (the ambrosia) pond that was nearly empty. We had just begun relishing the remaining food after the tiring journey when one of the monkeys called us in for a battle for apples. Scared we generously handed over the bag of apples to the little one, which accept it with great honor. After endless roaming we reached Tipu drop - a place of spectacular eye-catching beauty. The sultan used to drop his enemies down the hill. The panoramic view was enchanting.

It was time and we were to go back to the base where we had parked the car.

2003-11-02T07:12:00.000-08:00

Concorde
October 24 2003 marked the end of a majestic British flight - The Concorde. The sharp billed aircraft that could fly at Mach-2 had always commanded its presence by its glass shattering noise. The landing of the last three flights at the London Heathrow airport brought joy and sad to the masses. The plane had carried celebrities, and the rich. The flight would now rest in the museums.
The first ever crash of the Concorde occurred on July 2000 on the flight to NewYork just minutes after take off from the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. This coupled with the events of 9/11 outlined the end. The flights would be used to train engineers (source: BBC). The Concorde represents the beginning of a promising era of supersonic flights in the future.
Adieu for now.

2003-10-26T07:37:00.000-08:00

Movie
After a hiatus, I watched an animated movie. Disney and Pixar's "Finding Nemo" is no less spectacular than the earlier "The Lion King", "Toy Story" and "Shrek".

The story centers around two clown fishes - cautious papa fish Marlin and adventurous kid-fish Nemo. The young Nemo, on his first day to school, explores a little too far only to be caught by sea-divers. Marlin on learning that his son is in Sydney, begins his journey in finding his lost son and encounters a host of animals ranging from the sharks, whales, sea-gulls to turtles. On his way he meets Dory, a 'literate' blue fish suffering from dementia which adds humour to the sea adventure. Dory is also a polyglot who can speak the whale's language. She helps Marlin through-out this adventure. The movie is interesting to watch for the young ones (and that includes the 40-year olds)

The clown fish which is found in the Australian Great Barrier Reef, it seems lives symbiotically with the sea anemone. The greatest danger to this fish is from humans. All these information is well brought in the film.

Links
http://www.findingnemo.com/
http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/nemo/
Voices from the movie

2003-08-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

Fiction today is reality tomorrow. It is difficult to prognosticate. Aliens landing on earth, invading us, establishing their colonies are a common theme in movies - Independence Day, Signs, MIB, The Abyss, Predator or X-Files. They try to bring out the idea that extra-terrestrial life forms do exist. Despite quaffing a large dose of sci-fi stuff in movies, one looks out for more.

The esoteric question at hand seems to be reasoning out the existence of self rather than the existence of others. As an example, how does one answer the question "Where are you?” Most often it may suffice to reply in interms of place name, street, area, state or country. But beyond that, do we refer by time, space, and planets?

How about living for the next 200 years? Seems irrational and puerile. Think again. Scientists advocate that if one lived in a place with lesser gravity than earth's then relatively one would age slower than his fellow beings here. May be true but first I need to read today's newspaper and catch up with the future.

2003-07-06T04:01:00.000-07:00

It was Saturday and as promised my turn to treat my friends. It had become a ritual of some sort with each member of the group taking the rest of us to an eating place. I had no plans in mind and we headed to a thai/chinese restaurant. It was my first time to such a place and let alone the food I had trouble reading the menu items. We had someting like "Veg. Tum Yum", "Talumein", "Manchow", "Schezwan" not to forget the Malaysian Noodles. As we were next heading to the "Go Karting" place, one of us complained of an upset stomach. That was when the team of 5 split into two groups of 2 and 3 each of them not knowing where the other was. Never understimate the force of Nature! Fortunately, one of the techno-guys had a cellular phone and we managed find each other after a lost trail. The karting was even more fun. We were confronted with diesel running decrepit toy cars. After a 5 lap drive we were all satisified with the F1 racers that we had become in the last hour. One of the energetic members suggested that we next go bowling. The blaring sounds at the bowling avenue wouldn't dampen our spirits. We would actually bowl as in cricket displaying our proficiencies in both the games. All in all, an eventful day.

2003-05-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

Take you side
Using both linux and windows frequently is never easy. The famous / inclined one way or the other, interchanging $ for a %% in variables - these and more are common to the fledge Bi-OS-ist. It would be wonderful to have an OS that stops complaining and obeys its master irrespective of what the command means. A more supportive message such as "Do you want me to learn that command?" or "Shall I operate as that OS now?" instead of a niggling error message is welcome.

I guess the problem is being faced by everybody otherwise cross-tools wouldn't exist in the first place. Sometimes this is challenging [and trivial] trying to figure out ways in which tasks could be accomplished. This has driven the use cross-OS-tools.

Portability is the order of the day. In addition to programs, commands for on OS should also be added to the portability list. The initiative by mtools, Wine, Cygwin and others in this regard brings light to the developers dark room.

I recollect that sometime in my early years in college, I had the Unix prompt changed to the familiar DOS prompt leaving my batchmates trying out DOS commands. Some of the DOS commands were also wrapped as shell scripts. It was long after when the admin tried to intervene, when one of all-too-familiar commands failed to work, that things were revealed. These days one would install products like VMWARE and be able to do things much better than that.

It would be wrong to draw a veil over the choice of OS platforms. There are more OSes available today than the varieties in the Indian curry! The day when the OS just understands what is to be done based on the situation [time, user expressions, access] is probably is near.

2003-05-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

08:40 PM 02-May-03

Information. Everything else is your imagination.

RoadRunner
RoadRunner is the state bird of New Mexico. True to its name, the bird runs more than it flies. The bird spreads its wings as a cup during the mornings to absorb maximum sunlight. More information on this bird can be found here:
http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/sep/papr/road.html