A walk in the woods

Even though I currently live in a quiet suburb at the edge of a large woods, I never really bothered to walk through it; either because its been too cold or I’ve been too lazy for a long while now.
Anyway, late this afternoon, I was on my way home from the mosque and decided to take the uncharted route (literally!) home, by cutting straight through the woods.

I did not regret my decision.
Slowly strolling through a peaceful forest, with a soft breeze gently rustling your hair amid dense green vegetation, watching squirrels run up the trees – and watch you from behind the branches; and seeing the rays of the afternoon sunshine from a beautiful spring day filter through the tall trees above, the fresh scent of pine, the feel of crisp leaves and twigs snapping underfoot while listening to the birds chirping above…

It has to be one of the most beautiful experiences in the world.

Manage-mental Issues

I don’t usually talk about my work life, but the past couple of days were a roller coaster ride that so rocked the management – something that went live the day before brought half the system down and we for the life of it couldn’t figure out what the heck was going wrong.

The entire corporation met to discuss this in endless meetings and I had the privilege of being in one such meeting with the top of the top management. The following are excerpts from that meeting.

(The statements in quotes were made by one of the morons managers. The italics are my thoughts at the time.)

“We need to fix this as soon as possible”
Tell me something I don’t know!

“I’m starting to lose my patience here with this problem”
You moron, I lost sleep last night, had to skip lunch and breaking my skull over this, you think I’m having fun here?

“The way I see it, there are two things that could have gone wrong”
The way you see it? Dude, when was the last time you looked at code. There’s a zillion things that can go wrong.

“You guys go ahead with your work, we’ll take care of the management issues”
So why the heck’d you bring me to this meeting? This isn’t exactly a technical discussion.

To another person on a call:
“Don’t worry; we have our people working on this as we speak”
No you’re not! I’m right here - listening to this stupid call.

“Do you require our assistance here any longer”
Any longer? Since when did you help us with to begin with? And what are you gonna do, compile a couple of programs for us? Maybe load a library?

“If we have to work over the weekend, then we will work over the weekend”
We? You mean “I” am going to work over the weekend. You’re probably gonna be sitting home watching TV asking me for a status every half hour.


Now, everybody has told me top managers are a waste of time, but after that call, I was convinced! How do these guys run the business without a clue of what’s going on!

Snoopy

In his own inimitable way, Charlie Brown once said to Snoopy:
“When a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it still make a sound”

Now unlike Snoopy, I’m guessing most of us never really give it much thought, but when I equated this with problems in our own lives, I found myself in a bit of a sticky situation:

Is it still a bug in my program when no one knows there’s a bug in my program?

Do I still owe Bob the €15 if he doesn’t remember I owe him money?

Do I still have to be in office at 9 o clock when no one will see there at 9 o clock?
.
.
The list goes on.

And unfortunately, I’m not too sure we answer ‘yes’ all the time. I don’t wanna go into deeper philosophical or moral consequences of the answers, but I’d just like to say that sometimes, there’s more to it.

After all, that tree did make a crash, whether you heard it or not!

Apple TV

Yup, I’m back again with another round of Apple-bashing…and this time, it’s the not-so-hyped-up AppleTV.

I 'm not sure why this caught my attention, but I guess there were two main reasons:
a) I’ve heard about it but wasn’t sure what it was and
b) because of the recent price slash Apple made

For the uninitiated, AppleTV is a device that allows you to seamlessly connect your existing tv to the internet and take advantage of Apple’s Online store to purchase or rent movies, tv shows, podcasts, even music, and play them out on your very own big screen. Watch what you want to from the comfort of your couch: the wide world of online content was no longer tied to your PC or the 3” screen of your iPod.

At least, that was the idea.

I think the biggest flaw developers failed to overlook is the fact that apart from bringing online content onto a TV screen (which is quite readily available on your PC without all this); it doesn’t do much else….at least, not enough to justify its €229 (slashed from € 299) price tag.

To top things off, you are paying for the broadband separately. Remember, the AppleTV is just hardware – to get it to work, you’d also have to subscribe to high-speed broadband.
Of course, this may not be a huge problem for most people, but the idea of needing something additional just to get something else to work is annoying me.
I mean, I have wireless broadband that gives me 5gigs a month…which is okay for most of my needs but why would I wanna get something that eats up my bandwidth AND needs my credit card to work too? Which brings me to my other point:

Apart from the videos on YouTube, there isn’t much you could see for free. And even though movie rentals are priced quite sensibly, no one really wants to swipe their credit cards every time they wanna watch TV.

And judging by the way the sales figures are looking, I’m not wrong. So while this might have been a good idea in theory, bringing online content on TV is an idea that just doesn’t seem to ‘click’ with the customers.

Boot me up, faster

I don’t hear many people complaining about this, but to this day, computers take up way too much time to boot up and become ready for working on.

I remember how things were over 10 years ago when my dad got us our first computer back in 1997, with probably the first Pentium processor ever made and less memory than my phone has today.
And I remember timing it: it took 2min and 32sec to boot up Windows98 at the time.

Over a decade later, my Core2Duo powered workstation supposedly clocks at over 2Ghz, has 2gigs of memory and all the fireworks. But still takes it over a minute to boot into the OS, setup everything and in short, become useful.

Leaving aside all the facts and jargon about all the advancements in computing technology, memory management and the boot sequence; for the average guy on the street who doesn’t give a hoot about all this, it’s still a long shot.

Once when I was showing off my new laptop, my brother (who’s not too much into technology) remarked,
”Yeah I’m sure its got the fastest processor on the market, but can’t this stupid thing turn itself on any faster than that? When are they gonna make ‘em like a TV so you can just pop it on and get to it right away?”

And coming to think about it, I don’t think that was ever on any manufacturer’s mind. True, you have blazing graphics, real surround sound and enormous number-crunching capabilities. But a computer that just boots instantly?
We are still waiting...

World Autism Day

Today on the second of April, just a day after fooling the wits out of everyone, the world unites together to create awareness on Autism.

News channels here have been going into overdrive, bringing stories upon success stories from families who are coping with children with this condition.

Even though I personally do not know anyone with this condition, I would like to take a moment to pause, and spread this concern.
Autism has no known medical cause, can affect children in one of several bizarre ways, and so far, does not have a proven medical or therapeutic cure. But recent advances in therapy can assist in rehabilitating the person, and help them lead a better, if not complete life.

But one thing still bothers me…most of those ‘success’ stories on TV were from the United States. And as long as everyone knows the kid is autistic and is getting help, things are okay.

But what about the millions of others with this condition, who need help just as bad; but have no access to proper facilities? Have no money? Are stuck in a war zone?
CNN does not cover that.
Guess it’s up to each one of us to take this up and give a hand to those who we might know with this condition.

God save us all!

Calling all "bimbos"

Yes, you heard right…and don’t be offended by the choice of words here. That is exactly what a new website is calling for – to compete for the world’s hottest ‘bimbo’.

For those of you who came in late, I’m talking about the latest addictions to spring up on the net, this time with a sizable amount of protest against it: the Miss Bimbo contest.

Created by two London-based entrepreneurs, the game encourages young girls to select an avatar, accessorize them with sexy outfits and crash diets to compete against other real people to be crowned the world’s hottest bimbo.
And if you thought that was crazy; check out some of the details: you not only select outfits and stuff (most of which by the way are some forms of lingerie), you also get to give your avatar breast implants and face-lifts; even hook up with a billionaire.

And why is everyone complaining? Because apparently the site attracts a lot of nine-year olds. And it’s only okay to think this is alright if you’re over 18.

Which makes me wonder on where their moral standards are headed…
Is this game okay for ‘above 18s’
…to think appearances, sexuality and money are the only things in life that matter?
…to worship celebrities and their less-than-pathetic lifestyles just because they’re famous?
…for craving to be famous and loved to be more important than anything else?

Its funny you know…when religion said the same thing about modesty, the world called us backward.
When TV soaps and magazines are full of glamour and sex; that’s liberation.
Yet when some poor weirdo on the internet tries to cash in on this, all of a sudden it becomes offensive.

I don’t blame them; I blame the culture that feeds this trash… and sets a double standard later.

Airframe

I guess everyone with a finger on the tech side of things would have heard of Apple’s newest toy in the lineup of lean, mean workplace machines – the MacBook Air.
(In case you haven’t, check out the video ad here)


At less than quarter of an inch high at its thinnest and weighing just under 3lbs, this is by far the lightest and thinnest notebook on the planet!


But while the folks at Apple boast at how their marvelous creation still manages to have a 13.3 inch screen, a full-sized, backlit(!), qwerty keyboard, gesture based track-pad (like the one found on the iPhone), built-in video camera and the works, I for one, still find some of the basics missing.


For starters, this only comes with an 1.8”, 80GB hard drive, same as the one found on an iPod. And by any standard, 80gigs won’t get you too far these days. And if you thought that was bad, get a load of the biggest blow to computing: no optical drive!
For the life of it, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to buy a notebook you can’t put a DVD in.
Of course, you do have the option of buying a separately sold wireless disk drive and transfer files to the notebook via wireless or Bluetooth, but not something everyone’s gonna be happy about.


Made me wonder on what kind of audiences exactly are they hoping to cash in on anyway. You can rule out average users – at $1,800, I guess it’s not something a college student is looking for.
No drive means no video games, no movies and not much else. There goes the second huge chunk of the market.
And with a sluggish 4,500rpm 80GB drive clocking at a miserable 1.8Ghz, performance users can look the other way.
Which leaves us with only one thing left: business users. You know, those serious-looking, time-zone hopping executives whose only excuse for even touching a computer are presentations, spreadsheets and nothing much else other than looking important and carrying the fancied gizmo around.
These bad boys can have a field day with this. The rest of us can go spend our money on something useful!

Scum of the cyberworld

I don’t usually get all personal and paranoid over some moron who’s lost his way in the world; but earlier this evening I (my blog to be exact) was attacked by a worthless, low-life scum who chose my blog to voice his pathetic opinion of the world.

Later when I was cleaning up the mess he left; it suddenly dawned on me as so how easy it is for anyone to get away with anything online!
You don’t need an identity, an address or even a name – just as long as you have a wee bit of skill and some creativity, the world is your canvas. Whether you want to create a masterpiece or mess up someone else’s using your graffiti is just a matter of choice.

And that’s a scary thought. But we’re not gonna take this lying down. Scum, you’ve just been tagged-out!

The Apple of my eye

Okay, I will shamelessly admit it:

Less than a year after writing about why I absolutely hate the iPod and everything around it (read the original post here), I became a proud owner of the shiny little player from Apple last week.

Don’t hate me just yet; I guess we are all infallible to human error.

Yes it sings, it swings, and burns a hole through your wallet. But what caught my attention is the sheer marketing brilliance the iPod really is. Actually I learned a lot about marketing from having an iPod than what I thought I knew.

For starters, I guess everyone who’s ever heard of it also knows about the iTunes bundle that the pod can’t do without. Not only is iTunes able to seamlessly connect to the online store for purchase of legal music (which, by the way, is a marketing brilliance on its own) it also allows you to subscribe to Podcasts, TV shows, Audiobooks and even Games right from the store.

Now here’s the real catch:
No matter who owns it, the podcast can only sync through your iTunes account. Games only get into the ‘Games’ folder if purchased off iTunes Store.
And even ID3 Tags can be automatically updated, but only via the store.

Of course, there’s always a way to work around it; for instance 3rd party games can be shoved into your pod via the notes folder using a hack, but then most people wouldn’t wanna do that.
And you can always update ID3 manually, but that kinda takes away the convenience of automatic update.

I take back everything I said against it.
With the product running into the 6th generation and beating Microsoft’s Zune hands down, love it or leave it, this is one pod that’s here to stay.

ThankGod!

This is again something a lot of us don’t usually think about a lot, so I decided to put it down in black and white.

Last night, after simply wandering all over downtown Constablerwache just for a heck of it and having an amazing dinner, I curled up in my easy chair with a steaming cup warming my hands watching reruns of Die Hard. And I realized, God, I have a good life!

Actually just yesterday, I was watching a special on CNN on how Congo’s “Tin soldiers” slave through the nation’s mines, barely clothed, digging with their bare hands and carrying sacks of the ore through a dense forest…just for food.
Yup, you read right, these guys don’t even get paid – they literally work in return for food. The only other option is to go hungry.

And when you connect the two sides together, it doesn’t even seem to make sense anymore. I mean, on one hand you have us guys cribbin about how work’s so lousy, the boss so mean, and not getting paid enough when we have enough money to…well not needing to care about going hungry for even one meal!!
On the other hand you have people like the ones you see on tv, working maybe ten times as hard as you or me and still having to wonder where lunch is gonna come from.

Unfortunately a lot of us don’t realize it but we are a very fortunate lot. And being so, means social obligations to people around us. Help for a needy, food for the poor, clothing for the less fortunate.

We have a lot to be thankful for.

T is for Torture

Let’s suspend the fun stuff for a bit and talk something serious.
I guess most of us don’t think about stuff like this quite often and I’ll have to admit, what really got me going was while I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and got to the part where Hermione gets crucioed by Bellatrix. That kind of spooked the daylights out of me, so I started to wonder on the real-life implications and applications of torture and brutal interrogation techniques.

I didn’t have to look too far.
All you have to do is spell it out on Google, YouTube or any major portal and there you have it: hundreds of thousands of first-person accounts, pictures and videos of people – in many cases innocent civilians – being tortured on the pretext of accusations; and in many cases confessing to a crime they did not commit.
And if you think I’m stretching this issue, check it out for yourself. A UN report once openly claimed that almost as many as 2 % of the entire population on earth has at one point been a victim of torture.

What really hits me hard is that several governments accept this as a form of maintaining security. The now famous Taser (which was in the news recently) is one such device United States law enforcement would swear by, maintaining that they wouldn’t have been able to capture a lot of crooks without it.

And you don’t even have to imagine what goes on inside war-zones.
While Israel approved of using ‘mild pressure’ on detainees, more infamous places like Guantanamo Bay have CIA approved ‘techniques’ to interrogate POW – many of whom have been detained without specific reason. Without going into the specifics of the horrors recounted by them and others like the fortunate ones to make out of Abu Ghraib, I’d just like to mention: this isn’t just about them.

This is about every single one of us. Every one of us rational, free thinking, citizen needs to stand up and shout it out loud…coz it might not be long before we wake up one morning and find a guy pointing a wand at you and say “Cruicio”.

Happy New Year?

A few years back, former first lady of the United States , Hillary Rodham Clinton signed off her greetings with a “Happy New Year?” and for once, I’d like to agree with her.
Yes, it is a whole year that has gone by and all that, but formalities aside, what’s so happy about the new year anyway?

People in Iraq don’t have much to celebrate; just more bombs and killings to follow..
Come to think of it, people in Lebanon , Palestine , Somalia , Kashmir and lots of other places don’t have much to celebrate either.
So why celebrate a new year anyway?

Astronomically it doesn’t make much sense; its just the earth making a revolution of the sun (from where, there are no markers in space!)…
Job-wise it makes little sense; we’ll still be stuck with the same problems at office in spite of the greetings you get…
Theologically it makes no sense; most major religions of the world happen to have their own calendars and festivals (none of which fall on Jan 1st)…
Academically it makes no sense; the new ‘Academic’ year starts somewhere in April…
Financially it makes no sense; the new ‘Financial’ year starts on 1st May…

So who’s New Year is this anyway?
The only people for whom this makes sense is the marketers who promote their products with a New Year tag, discounts and gifts – and with good reason too. New Year purchases increase revenue by over 200% in the 2-3 weeks that precede it. That’s some sale!

For the rest of us, New Year is just an excuse to go empty our pockets.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

I dunno if you guys’ve been watching the stuff they show on CNN lately. No, I’m not talking about the US Presidential Elections or the War on Terror. Something fiendishly paler:Fairness creams.
Yup, you heard right. Apparently some of the stuff on the shelves that’s supposed to make you the ‘fairest of them all’ do just a little more than that…and can get you killed. The report also featured several serious-looking doctors lamenting on how Sodium-whatever-oxide can get inside your body, poison your liver and stop your kidneys.

That really got me thinking; apparently fairness creams are big business…and why is that? Simple.

Everyone wants to look a little bit better than they really are. If you think that’s lame, look closely the next time you see one of those fairness cream commercials (yes they’re on TV even in Europe, for whatever reason).
The fair girl gets the hunk or the job or the promotion.
It’s always the same story on the other side too; prince charming always falls for the fairest maiden.
I don’t know what they were thinking when they made those commercials, but I know what they want us to think: success is nothing more than looking good. Good-looking people are more successful. In other words, if you’re ugly, you ain’t going nowhere.
That is so pathetic.

But again, I’m surprised by the sheer number of people who fall for this gag. Because if they didn’t, well it wouldn’t have made the headlines. It’s about time someone put a cork on it.
And lightened things up!

Ground Zero

Call me naïve, gullible or just plain childish.
But I guess it’s a special moment, in its own crazy way, when you see the thermometer hit home base at zero degrees just outside your house. Of course people who’ve lived in cold places before, can laugh out about this, but for the rest of us hot-heads who’re used to around 40 degrees (yes we are talking Celsius) in the tropics of Southern India or the Middle East; we don’t exactly find this…er…cool.

And, I am told, this is just the beginning. Hell, we haven’t even seen snowfall yet. And I’m not exactly looking forward to it. But from the looks of it, we have a long way to go…

A "loner" strikes again!

I don’t mean to be insensitive, but all I can say is – Yup, there it is again.
For those of you wondering what’s this all about, here’s an insight. Yesterday, on the 7th of November an 18 year old ‘gunman’ walked in and opened fire in an otherwise quiet town in Finland, killing 8 people before turning the gun on himself.
And that’s not all. Further investigation revealed that at the time of his death, the guy still had over 320 bullets and lots of inflammable liquids in possession; and I bet my baloney sandwich he probably planned on using them!
Which brings to mind an important question: how does a teenager end up with around 400 bullets (by the way, each of his victims took at least two bullets) anyway?

Somehow, it feels just like just yesterday when the same thing happened at Virginia Tech University in the United States.
And once again, it’s the same story all over again; the kid was a ‘loner’, hated people, was bullied at school, and somehow figured out a way to end it all.
And just like the last time, people light candles, flags fly at half-mast, news channels go into overdrive, and in two weeks everything will be forgotten and back to normal.

And once again; NO ONE called him a terrorist!

Almost makes me wonder who the hell a terrorist is exactly. Does it really take a middle-eastern-looking guy wearing a turban and waving an AK-47 to be called a terrorist? Or would you have kill people on a plane or train rather than a school to qualify as one?

I believe terrorism has no religion. And I also believe pre-planned, calculated, cold-blooded mass murder of innocent school-children amounts to terror.

It’s about time we did away with the stereotypes, and called a terrorist a terrorist; loner or not!

Fear off, death!

Yesterday, having nothing better to do on a Saturday night (well, that’s been the case ever since I’ve landed up here in Raunheim but that’s a different story!), me and the guys decided to have some fun and check out some neat horror flicks. One thing led to another and we ended up watching a couple of Omen and Final Destination titles back to back. Now, they maybe just movies but watching them at 2 o clock in the morning does sometimes get, well, spooky.

So I lay in bed and started wondering on the common theme that unites horror: the fear of dying. Maybe alone, maybe in a graveyard, roller coaster or airplane, but then all the same; going kaput!

And that got me going. Every single day we go through our lives minding our (own?) business, doing stuff, taking care of tomorrow, except that we may not make it there. I don’t wanna sound paranoid but the basic reality of life is this: you can work all your life to have that one special something and then when everything is ready, all can go blank ~snap~ just like that.

What comes afterwards is not for me to answer; I turn to religion to give me an answer to that and if I were you; I’d do the same thing.

Call me paranoid or even plain crazy but I guess there is no denying the fact that we are all gonna go one day. Before that happens, you better be ready for a few basic questions on what happens then and if you aren’t, then you better start searching for some really good answers today.

Because it’s a one way trip, and it ain’t going to be on your calendar of upcoming events.

Makes no cents!

When I was still in Chennai last month, I used to lament no end at the seemingly worthlessness of the 25paise and 50paise coins. In fact, there was once a time when I even argued that we ban the entire paise episode and started dealing in whole rupees instead. And with good reason too; I mean after all, apart from bus tickets and the occasional kick-knack at your roadside store, there really is nothing you can do with coins less than 1 rupee; even beggars scoff at you for tossing them something so pitiful!

Now some 3 weeks later, here in Germany, things are no better; only this time, it’s in cents. I don’t know if it’s just me but almost everything I seem to buy has an annoying 2 or 3 cents attached to it. A stupid bar of soap would cost me 98cents. So I give the guy a 1 Euro coin for which he politely and dutifully returns me two 1cent coins.

Now the question is, what do I do with this anyway? My wallet is full of at least a dozen such 1, 2 and 5 cent coins and I have to admit, it does look like of ridiculous fumbling for 98cents at the cash counter.

And I for the life of it seriously can’t understand why they price everything with a 69 cents or 36 cents attached to it. I mean does it really take the fun out of selling if those guys stuck to round numbers, say 70 cents, instead?
Call it culture shock, adaptation or whatever, but the way things are, guess I would be walking around with a pocket full of change for quite a long time..

It's a free world...

Firstly, I must say, it has been quite a while now; I know I’ve been a bit silent these days and I really must say: Thank you. For all your thoughts, comments and the sheer nag that’s keeping me going.

Coming to terms with my current update, I’ve now relocated from the warm, sunny sands of Chennai to Raunheim, a quiet village near Frankfurt in Germany. After the initial ‘wow, this place looks awesome’ thing died down; reality strikes as the beautiful but intimidating place this is.

One of the first things I’ve noticed is that nothing; absolutely nothing here is free. Those of us who’ve lived in Chennai or the Middle East will swear by the huge amount of freebies you get with your goodies. Okay skip that; who needs freebies anyway, but at least you get used to getting at least a bit more than you bargain for. Who doesn’t like the little cute helicopter you get with your pasta?

But that’s a different story all together. I walk into a supermarket here to buy stuff and that’s when I realized you not only pay for your stuff, but also for each of the plastic carry-bags you take. Of course, probably that’s why a lot of the folks here carry their own bags to the stores. And oh yes, bottles are extra too.

In line with this doctrine, restaurants here don’t serve water either, leaving you to decide if you really want to drink water at all. (Of course on the up side, you do get to choose between Regular, Sparkling or Classic water, whatever the hell they all are, so there’s no lack of choice here)
And with bottled water being priced only 20cents below a regular coke, no winners for guessing what most of us drink here.

But then, I guess that’s what the choice is really about. After all, it’s a free country isn’t it?

A new product "Surface"s

After Apple blew the world away with the multi-touch interface in the much-touted iPhone, everyone was now talking about the next greatest thing in computing – the multi-touch interface.

Not wanting to be left out, Microsoft embarked on its own touchy endeavor (pun intended) to bring out the next big thing to woo the prosumer market – the Microsoft Surface.
You probably heard all about Surface; it’s been all over the news and splashed on computer magazines, even on TV. So much so that you’d run the risk of being such a dinosaur for not having even known it. Hailed as one of the biggest things to happen to computers, the Surface promises (like all good things) to make your interaction more fluid than ever by using hand gestures and touch to display, organize and view photos and other graphic media, giving you the impression of actually touching your data.
According to the demo shown, the system is so neat it automatically recognizes a camera placed on top of it, and downloads the pictures to its ‘surface’, after which you can probably view them by waving your hand at it or dragging it to the center. Impressive, huh?

Now here’s where the fun ends: okay so you’ve got your pictures and stuff, now what? Unfortunately we can’t answer that one because frankly no one seems to know. Beneath the swanky touch-sensitive screen and multitude of mini-cameras that make up the gesture processing unit, there doesn’t seem to be much save a very ordinary computer. I’m hoping someone will prove I’m wrong here because if it really is just this much, this doesn’t seem to be much more than an interface.

And let’s face it; touching or typing it, interfaces are only part of the system – they don’t make up the complete thing. But that remains to be seen. For now, at the rate Surface is gaining momentum, it probably wont be long before you shake your pc screen to wake it and ‘Touch here to continue’