Kick start

Well its been a while again since I have written something here for everyone to read up. There are lots of things that I would like to write about. Somethings that I realised during the lonely afternoons spent in a quaint corner in Pisa during my trip there last month. So I will put up something here. Very soon.

Ganesh Chaturthi 2010

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Day in Saket

Had been to Saket's Select City wall and DLF place malls. Had late awesome lunch at Sattvik.


Did major shopping at Maspar and Home Shop. Mom and Nancy bight lots of clothes at Biba. Had early dinner at Big Chill with mushroom and spinach lasagne and tomato garlic risotto.

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This conversation happens more often than you can imagine! :)

Posted via email from Doing it Kingsize!

This conversation happens quite frequently!

Posted via web from Doing it Kingsize!

Stanford teaches iPhone app development as a course http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/

I had asked Chirag to help me / share links on learning to develop applications on the iPhone.
He responded by saying that he learnt it from a Stanford course.

Look at this http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/

Stanford is now teaching iPhone programming as a part of its CS curriculum.

I guess Apple must have sponsored this course. :-D .

Will Android for Google / Bada OS & apps for Samsung / Symbian for Nokia phones course come in next?

Posted via email from Doing it Kingsize!

I am in the office on a Saturday!!! #FML plus H/w issues

 
Seems to me that there is a bug in the hardware. A pulse that should by default is not coming.
Hope this bug is caught and fixed asap.

Btw due to lack of equipment (LA) I am unable to proceed further  in my analysis.
It is terrible the amount of time it takes to get an LA down here.

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Volcano beneath a Glacier

My mom in the office on the day she is supposed to be in Europe.
Stupid Stupid volcano beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) glacier!
Read this for more info..http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_iceland_volcano

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Eurotrip started but fly found in first sip!

My mom and dad were supposed to be in Doha at the time of writing
this. Instead they are at home. Their flight to london has been
cancelled in view of the ash spouting unpronouncable named volcano in
Iceland. Now Mother Nature joins politicians in effing up holiday
plans.

Posted via email from Amalgamation of Vishal's online activity!

Avinash plays the guitar!!!

Today I was pleasantly surprised when Avinash pinged me on gtalk and asked me to see a video of him playing "Papa Kehte hain".



The boxer is strumming & whistling people!!!

Jobs at STEricsson

Linux Developers are required at ST Ericsson.

Role:
Linux Developers (2 to 6yrs of experience): 6 positions Device driver & other low layer software development and unit test


Domain Experience required:

Real time, Multi-processor, Multi-threaded systems knowledge
ARM based platform work experience & good debug skills with Lauterbach
Emebdded Linux (and/or other OS like OSE) experience is required
Agile & multi-site development experience

Please forward this among your friends who are interested and ask them to email me at dexkid at gmail dot com

Swine flu v/s YSR related deaths

This is interesting.

Swine flu till date has caused 111 deaths in India starting from Aug 4 i.e in 24 x 30 = 720 hours. (Source)
Rate of death = 111/720 = 0.154 deaths/hour

60 YSR fans have died out of shock / committed suicide just within 48 hours of his death.(Source)
Rate of death = 60/48 = 1.2 deaths/hour

No of people affected by swine flu = 4,364. (Source)
No of people affected by YSR's death should definitely be greater.

YSR's death is indeed a deadly calamity. Who is going to curb it?

Jobs at STMicroelectronics

Lots of job openings at STMicroelectronics. If interested please send across your resume to me at vishal dot sagar at st dot com or pass this message onto friends who are looking for one.

Why oh Why!!!

I used to love this song before the video killed my enthusiasm of 4 years in under 2 mins. Teri Meri by Shonali Vajpayee feat Cheshire Cat. The Cheshire Cat looks so Riddikulus! :) Check it out here.


P.S. I always thought Shreya Ghoshal had sung this song! Shonali sounds so much like her in this one.

100 yen = 54 INR

Well the week was going kinda good. My MSP was running good in loopback mode (although MSP1 has an issue), was enjoying the "baniya" jokes from the "brahmin" from HP, didn't have to use Palladium, etc.

To begin with, Natasha came back from Chandigarh this weekend. I had picked her up from the Delhi Station. For this I had woken up early after seeing Little Miss Sunshine late Friday night. On my way to the station, I decided to refuel and lo behold, I saw the price of petrol was around Rs 44. I was happy. So I just got Rs 500 worth petrol in the car from Greater Noida and filled up the rest on my way back from the railway station. Btw till date I have been receiving extra care and attention from my wife as I hadn't been to office on Saturday and Sunday. Plus I did some household chores and bought a nice Nilkamal plastic table for us. She is happy and I got to eat pav bhaji and bread pakodas. Yummmy!!!

On Monday morning, I had decided to test the MSP. So I was to use only the DE3 board. And what a relief that is. God Palladium is soooo slow!!! Dunno how does Cadence even make money out of such a product! It was announced in office that Carlo Bozotti, CEO ST, would be giving his annual speech on Wednesday via a satellite link. The "scientist" was excited looking at the freq and the satellite being used. It reminded him of his days at "Indian Space Research Organization, Ahemadabad".

For once I was excited that I would be hearing the CEO. I had expected him to be enthusiastic and full of energy like Jensen Huang (CEO, Nvidia) where I used to work earlier. Jensen used to walk around the stage, make a story and use funny phrases to inspire us to give more to the company. But here the story was different. All I got to see were 2 gentlemen seated and answering questions from a sheet of paper. It seemed Carlo's and Alan's answers were rehearsed. None of the answers talked specifically about something. It was so booring!!! All I could do was take a tiny nap. :)

I was hoping to take Natasha for a vacation in Japan. I fervently checked for the air fares. Thai Air was the cheapest on makemytrip.com for Rs 66000/- for both of us, RETURN. I was so excited. So I began to check for the currency exchange rate so that we could have some money to spend around in Japan. I saw this on xe.com. 100 JPY = 54 INR. I was shell shocked! God damn it. The rate is too high. I am cancelling the trip.

I am reserving the brahmin and baniya jokes for another post. Till then I astalavista and I hope tomorrow my MSP works well in external loopback mode too and the Palladium issue is resolved.

Dreaming to have a kid like Simba... Good night!

Starting afresh...

Lot has changed since the last time I blogged. I have been married for an year, lost a job, lost money in the stock market (the losses are unaccounted), gave interviews like crazy, fell in love with baby Simba and Ruhi, have been to Hyderabad and moved from Pune to Greater Noida after joining STMicroelectronics.
Well 2008 has indeed been a rocking year and a year of self discovery to an extent. I have learnt to an extent what I my stable characteristics are. "Humans are the most fickle creations of God!" says Papa. I know that now. Well for starters I have decided on some things to be done with in my life.
Especially about my physique. Currently I weigh over 95 kgs and my waist measures 39 inches. I am able to run at full speed for less than 200 m at a stretch.
I have decided to change that. I will be blogging my changes every weekend. I intend to lose at least 10 kgs in the next 3 months and 2 inches from my waist.
Current plans are
1> Aerobics (30 minutes a day)
2> Usage of Isabgol
3> Lemon and honey in warm water everyday (even if it causes heat)
Secondly I intend to save money. Monthly target currently is Rs10,000 and reduction in eating out expenses. I will be regularly using Buxfer.
Thirdly stocks. I have decided to teach Natasha how to invest in stocks and keep a track of the portfolio every other week. My passive behavior towards the markets has led to my position being weakened.
Lastly I intend to work with Suman and keep in touch with all my friends for the same.
I will use tools like Buxfer, Remember the Milk, etc to do such things. Fridays will be days for movies and relaxation. Sunday 1 hour in the morning for car wash and house work.
Let me see how this works out!

One of the better and worse weekends of my life

This week I had to go to Bombay (I prefer Bombay to Mumbai) as I had a few unfinished businesses to complete. It was an eventful week with the SAM and watching Dwight swing to Indian tunes while I held my glass of "Teacher's". It was one of those good times. I wanted to attend Sripathy's farewell party and get sloshed out again. My wife likes me when I am drunk coz I am a bit sober and funnier then.

Anyways making the long story short, I took a Metrolink bus to Bombay at 7 am (with the Mrs). Having just cozied myself, I saw this huge blob infront of me. It was Srips and his two henchmen, Vasanth and Devesh, who were carrying Srips 4 bags. I thought of it as an Act of Faith by the Almighty and all of us traveled happily to Bombay. Srips promised to meet us for dinner at a place called Spice Tree in Bandra on Hill Road.

Natasha and I went to Chembur to finalise our wedding reception album and DVD. Natasha wanted to buy a pair of earrings for her friends in Japan. But because of some unfortunate talks we didn't buy those. Came back and slept like a log till 8:30 pm.

Srips called up asking when would we be meeting him. We decided to meet up at 10 pm at SpiceTree. But FATE had a different plan for us. By the time we reached Bandra Srips managed to reach Lucky's (another famous restaurant of Bandra). We went together to Spicetree.

Spice Tree is a wonderful restaurant. It looked very similar to Angelo Mio restaurant that I had been to at Santa Clara with Dilnaz and Joe albeit the expensive chandelier and glass cutlery. There were a mix of hip youngsters and goras. We settled into a table at a corner of the restaurant. Srips, me and Natasha had a wonderful time over there. Me and Sripathy had 3 Cobras each and Natasha had her first taste of a Screwdriver. This was accompanied by different starters.



I was drunk that day and did some crazy things. I asked Sripathy to take a snap of us while I hugged Natasha tight.



After that we headed to Naturals across the street but Srips pushed off to do some more "important" work. We had strawberry ice cream and coffee walnut ice cream. I had to take a leak and went to Cafe Mocha. I saw this guy there.



Razak Khan

After this we took a rick, picked up Srips from his friend Abhijeet's house and headed to Bandstand where we had a nice long walk and discussed about Jeevesh Terrace and other important things in life.

Later we headed to Cafe Coffee Day and had cold coffee. This was the parting pic of the night.



On Sunday we were invited to ITC Grand Maratha Sheraton by Natasha's cousin Charul who works there. We reached the grand hotel at around quarter past 2. We were damn hungry and this place turned out to be one of the most poshest places I have ever been to. We were invited for lunch at the Pan Asian restaurant. For starters we had Tom Tom and sweet corn soup with some momos. This was accompanied with white sparkling wine for me and orange juice for the lady. Later we had some of the best Chinese food we ever have had in our lives. There was some Tofu preparation which was simply great. In between we were served a shot of Screwdriver. Natasha had it and was "jhooming" for some time. LOL. Later we had excellent desserts.

Charul played the perfect host and turned this to a perfect afternoon.



As a souvenir of this day I kept a pair of chopsticks.

Later in the night we returned to Pune not before arguing on somethings which makes me realise my current situation and the responsibilities associated with it. Well I have decided to do something and take charge of my life from now on. If everything goes well with the blessings of the Almighty, I would turn into a very learned person. I just to plan well and execute it.

30 and counting ..

0.083 year... 30 days ..720 hours ... 43200 minutes..

This is the amount of time I have been married.. And I can't believe the luxuries that I am enjoying. Someone once said "The grass is always greener on the other side...". I agree. The grass on this side is lot greener than what I was having earlier. :D

Have a look at some pics from Leela Kovalam.







Having your best friend as yor wife gives you some of the most pleasurable moments of life. I am lucky to be one of those. I get good food everyday, my clothes are washed and hung for drying and nicely folded and kept into the cupboard.

Life was never so easy.

I feel like a king. But these 30 days have made a slob. Yes a slob.

Slob of the third order for those of you who are more mathematically inclined.

My attitude towards work has been something of this sort.



This graph shows my slobbiness level.



I realise that this one month I have lazed around more than I can remember. The last time I had lazed around like this was when I was less than 12 months old when there were only 3 states in my life eat/drink, sleep and poop in different permutation and combinations. Sometimes these states occured simultaneously too. Now at least they were different. But the fundamentals remain the same.

Life has come a full circle.

I get all I want. Literally :D. And I am happy. Truly happy.

Anyways I just wanted to record that the past month had been eventful.

1. Got married.


2. Pulled off the wedding reception successfully.


3. Made my near and dear ones feel happy once again.


4. Found great friends in Joe and Dilnaz (me and Natasha got to take them out to Vie Lounge).


5. Got to meet Ruhi, the cutest baby till date.


6. Had a great honeymoon (wink wink)


7. Having a good time setting up our home. (I decided against calling our place a love nest and a house, the former having a touch of lust and sensuality, and the latter being too impersonal)


8. Had some good conversations with Hemant, my future PWM (Personal Wealth Manager)


9. Got a shit load of credit to take care now.

I hope I can get my life on track again. The next two months are going to be crucial
professionally. My life will soon be at a Y junction where I have to decide whether I should take the blue pill or the red pill..

Hope I take the blue pill and discover myself and the real truth!

Rendzenvous with Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO, NVIDIA

Today was a real great day. I got to meet the great man himself, Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, in flesh and blood. This is the man who revolutionized the Graphics industry with his company NVIDIA for which I work proudly. My association with Nvidia products goes back to 2000 when I had persuaded my parents to buy a Rs 4000/- NVIDIA Riva Tnt 128 Mb card. I still remember what all I had to listen.


It was kind of completing the circle when I met Jen-Hsun Huang today.

To begin with he has a lot of energy and infectious enthusiasm. He single handedly gave his presentation and answered lot many questions. I found him very approachable and enthusiastically mixing around with the people. I had a fun chat with him while we were having a round of drinks.

Front to Back, Left to Right :- Rajib, Jaya, Parag, Jen-Hsun, me. Shazia, Surath, Bibhuti, Kali, Karthik, Sachin. (Missing - Bhaskar and Meduri)

Here are some of the points that I noted while I was attending his presentation.

• Be in a "sustainable" industry some place where there is potential for growth.
• The field should have very few competitors.
  
• The solution provided by you should help a lot of people.
• Always do something that is worthy to do.
• Create a brand name minus the hoopla of advertisement. Nvidia hasn't spent a lot on money on advertising. It is only by word of mouth that the brand has been built.
  
• Create an ecosystem around the product to advance in the future. Create something that initiates something more. In Nvidia's case it is the CUDA technology that is doing that.
  
• Create demos to shock /awe / inspire people.
  
• Focus on the needs of the next generation.No one in the 90's ever thought that their cell phones would have music on them, could capture videos,etc.The next generation can't live without these on their cell phones.
• The leader has a self deprecating sense of humor. Jen Hsun has a great sense of humor. He laughs at himself and makes us laugh too. There was this instance where he answered a question with something that was totally not what was asked. Dwight had to correct him. So Jen Hsun said that he was afraid he was turning into an old senile man. :D
• Focusing on your competitor is not a good strategy. People always kept on asking him " Why don't you compete with Intel / ATI ? ". He says that you need to focus on your strengths and keep creating innovative stuff so that your competition has to catch up with you all the time. Don't spend time in thinking how can I dodge / attack my competitor.
• Put in funny incidents in your speech. While speaking to us, I observed that he used to put in stories and make them interesting. This story telling ability with a sense of humor is a potent combination.
• Build on your competencies by age 30. This is something that I concluded from the talks that I had with him. Develop your armoury, your skills by the age of 30 to see that you can develop something really fruitful in your life.

For other party pics please visit my photos.

The Homosapien thought..

Today I was having this weird thought.

Why are we humans named as "homosapiens"? Didn't the nomenclaturist / the person, who is supposed to give names to the human species, think of something before naming our spieces ? From homo habilus to homo erectus, all the known evolutionary species associated with humans starts with a "homo". Dont take me to homo erectus. Will write about that some other time.

This raises a huge question in my find. Are we all born "homos" and we get conditioned to become "hetero" so that there might be that one lucky couple which gives rise to the "heterosapiens"? So in the future we may have a movie aptly titled "Planet of the Homos".

I seriously wonder what happens when we meet aliens. When they ask us "What is the name of your species?", are we going to reply back to them saying we are HOMO sapiens.

Or have we already been visited by aliens ?

I guess we have already been visited by aliens. No, I am not supporting the Seed of Life on Earth theory but just randomly guessing that this naming issue is the work of those bast#$d aliens. They might have camoflouged themselves as the group of people working on choosing a name for the human species. And they have chosen it as homosapiens.

At the end of it I don't know why the martians or the dumbass scientist named us homos. But I do know for sure I am straight as a "ganna" (sugarcane for those who can't ...).