The Rambling Robot

Fluid Communications and Sixth Sense. - This is Mind blowing!!!

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Turning the works of Sci-Fi (in Minority Report) to Reality!!!!! You have to see it to believe it…

Demo of the Sixth Sense.

Shared with me by Ippu

Must See: Pervez Musharraf at India Today Conclave 2008

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I have my own stand when it comes to India, Pakistan and the tons of issue that we’ve had. But, the way Musharraf answers all the issues raised, it just Amazing!!! I guess its the mark of a True Diplomat.

Also, one more thing to watch out for is how candid the questions get during the course of the session. It goes from Deporting Dawood Ibrahim to offering Mr. Musharraf a job at an NGO

And he gets a standing ovation in the end.

“A must see, I would say! ”

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=31FC4B07701AA0A7

Ramblings…

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Too much work, too many things I wanna do… Too much tension, confusion, procrastination, more work…. Do I know what do I really wanna do??? ..more tension and confusion.

Constant thinking, pondering, questioning….OMG! what is really happening????

The Next World Order - Gurucharan Das.

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An Awesome article by Gurucharan Das on India, China and where we stand in terms of Global dominance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/opinion/02das.html

Mac vs. PC

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As Some of you may know I recently got a MacBook Pro and I am just laughing off at the Mac vs PC ads.

After using the PC for about 14 years, I just moved to a Mac a couple of weeks back. A few things I’ve realized in this short time are:

1. The interface is much better and a lot more intuitive compared to a PC. Don’t worry about how you will transition, it will be smooth like a breeze. (I had actually spent hours on reading all the tips and seeing all the possible YT Videos before the took the call. But, once I lay my hands on this thing, it just took me a couple of hours. )
2. Don’t worry about the Ctrl C, Ctrl V and most imp Ctrl Z on a PC, just replace the Ctrl key with Apple (Command) Key and everything will work fine. Also, Control key that you see on a mac is mostly used when you are using the terminal.
3. The sound quality and clarity on this thing is awesome! You will just want to play the music on its Built-in speakers, unless, you are some of the lucky ones owning a Bose.
4. The Apple Logo looks awesome at night
5. A Mac does Crash, so don’t expect a miracle but Do Expect a “Genius“.

For so long then, Here’s to the Crazy ones :

I am back!

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Yup, back after a long long time (I actually had to go back to the website and check the date of the last post ) So, after a period of 3 months and 20 days - I am back!

What happened in the last 3 months:

1. Changes…Loads of Changes.
2. Resolutions, Reviews, Ratings, Rantings.
3. Traveling, Writing, Loads of Sleeping
4. New Hopes with the New Year.
5. More traveling
And something that just happened yesterday - “A Black Man in the White House“.

One thing I can say is that you will see posts more often or should I say pretty often. Post about My thoughts, Life, My Surroundings, Technology, Stock Market, Economy, Traveling, The World, etc, etc, etc.

“The Change is Here”

From Terror of Blasts to the ease of FireCrackers…

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I had started writing this blog sitting at the Delhi airport, waiting for my flight which still had about 1.5 hrs to leave. Thanks to the Cab driver telling me that the airport is more than an hour away and then reaching the airport in 20 min.

Anyway, I landed in Delhi on Friday evening for a business trip and I had ‘thought’ that I would squeeze in sometime to go around the city and do some touristy stuff. I reached the guest house and was really happy see a beautifully decorated room to myself. Actually, happier when a few of my friends in the other guest house cribbed about theirs.   After enjoying the well made dinner, I dozed off.

Next day, I was up and ready by 8.15 but thanks to the cab confusions and Delhi traffic, I managed to reached the destination with an hrs delay with a lot of colleagues still on their way.
Starting off with really high energy levels, we all were almost dead by the time we finished at about 5pm. We were just about to leave and someone told us that there were blasts near Mehrauli (a locality in Delhi) at about 2.15pm.

Surprisingly, we were neither terrified nor shocked. I mean, it sounded if it was a every day thing and if you think of it, it has. It really has…

You might call me and my friends crazy but, we were on our way to visit the Connaught Place. We had planned to take the Metro and just hang around for sometime. But, as soon as we got in the cabs, my friend received a call with someone mentioning that there was one more blast in Delhi and that too in Connaught Place.

Now, all of us were a little petrified. We canceled the plan and went back to out guest houses. (That thankfully turned out to be rumor) It was a long way back to my guest house and I just kept thinking about how things like this just keep happening…

What was the fault of the kid who picked up that packet, or his parents or people traveling in the trains in Mumbai, why this suffering for these innocent people.

I am sure, that the series of blasts that have happened all over India, have not only killed hundreds of mothers and fathers, but also killed tens of hundreds of sons and daughters who have no one left in this world now. What about a blind mother who is still waiting for his son to return home after getting her medicines????? What about the family, whose only bread earner was on his way back from a long toiling day at work???

The ministers appear on the T.V channels saying, “We are really sorry this and our condolences are with the families of the dead. We will help and compensate the family for the loss of their loved ones.

My Question is: WHO THE FUCK CARES if you are SORRY OR NOT? Would you still be SORRY if your Daughter or Mother or Father or Son or your Wife died?  OR Would you be OK with the Death of your loved one, if someone paid you 5 Lacs? I don’t think the families even get 1/5th of the promised amount, considering efficiency of our system and the honesty of our babu’s.

Even after so many blasts, the government has not been proactive about their actions. If they have then why are such things still hapenning? I don’t think these things are out our control, if they really are then why is this not happening to any other countries, I don’t think our forces are so incompetent.

I feel that we are just trying to convince ourselves and just say that this is eventually going to stop so why take this pain. Who are we trying to fool? ” Ourselves.”

I mean look at the United States, once that found who the culprit was behind 9/11 and the Pentagon incidents, boom they went. I am not trying to advocate the actions of the Bush Blair government and the reason for why it happened but my biggest take away is that after 9/11 US has not been subject to any terrorist attacks.

I think we should ask this question to us and more importantly to the people who are trying to run this country - I guess the word accountability still exists. (atleast in some minds)

There is so much I wanna say but I guess I should just let you ponder over these thoughts for now…

Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Identity Crisis?

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I just happened to read an email signature of a person on an miscellaneous email and I had to, just had to blog about it. It read:

Pooja Batra.

Assistant of Vijay Mallya

Chairman of KingFisher Airlines and United Breweries Group

Phone: 123-456-789.

Dude, what happened to your own identity, I mean seriously, what the hell? 

Mumbai…Ganapati Visarjan… and ‘Lalbaug cha Raja’

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Think of Ganesh Chaturthi + Mumbai and you are already imagining an electric atmosphere in every nook and corner of the city. Right from the hustle bustle of purchasing the idols to decorating the pandals and from the lezim dance to the immersion of the idol, the city just ceases to sleep. The 11th day is when all the idols are taken to the nearest sea or lake for immersion with all his bhakts(devotees) singing and dancing along the way, its a sight to endeavour and enjoy.

My Trip: Being a Mumbaikar, its one thing that I enjoy and I try and make it a point to be there aleast on the day of the Visarjan. Call it unfortunate or me not able to take time off, I wasn’t able to make it for the last 2 years.  However, this year I planned for it about a month in advance and there I was…

I reached Mumbai (Dadar) at 4.30am ( for once, the Indian Railways exceeded Expectations, the expected arrival time was 5.30am). Dead sleepy, I thought I would take a local train, go home and sleep. However, I shocked to see the railway station CROWDED with people at “4.30AM” I mean for a second I thought that I was dreaming.

After standing there for 10 min and seeing a 500 mtr long queue for the tickets, I decided to take a cab to go home. On asking the cab driver, I found out that they had come to visit ‘Lalbaug cha Raja‘ (The King of Lalbaug). The festival was started in 1934 by the local fishermen and vendors and has continued ever since. A lot of people (including me ) believe that when you pray to him with all your faith, he makes them come true.

The 75 year celebrations where taking place this year attracting people from various parts from India. The queue for darshan is so long that it could take anywhere from 6-8 hrs during the day and about 3-4 hrs in the wee hrs of the morning. I assume that most of the people I saw were standing in the queue from 10-11pm on the previous night and going home after the darshan at 4.30 am Phew….

I reached home at about 5.15 am and slept for most part of the day and went out with my family in the evening.

The next day was the day of the Visarjan and we were supposed to go to my Mama’s house. My mama’s house is located at a very strategic location called Chowpatty. Chowpatty is the place where almost all the idols in South Mumbai are immersed and the is infamous for its view. (Apparently, some guy’s terrace was rented this year by a media channel for Rs. 2.5L for just one day for its view )

My mama’s terrace having a fairly decent view of the whole procession, me and my cousins make it a point to be there. The best part being all the ladies of the house (mom, sisters, mami’s, masi’s) sending us beverages and snacks non-stop. The processions start from about 1.30 - 2pm in the afternoon and end at about 5-6am next day with the eagerly awaited ‘King of Lalbaug’ bidding goodbye! The fun and frolic continued through the day with music, masti, dance, the charming idols and ‘creativity’. Yes, expect to see themes to the likes of the Govardhan leela by Shri Krishna to an whole idol made of Chocolate (Yummm…. ), creativity truly has no boundaries.

In the evening, about 10 -15 of us got together and start working on garlands of flowers, coins and currency notes (as offerings to the lord). The length of the garland varies from about 20-30 ft and the designs and patterns that come out are just mind blowing. These garlands are tied across 2 buildings as then lowered as the idols come by. Most of these are offerings to the ‘King of Lalbaug’.

Just to give you an idea of the crowds and the rush, the idol started from Lalbaug at about 12.30 in the afternoon, with Lalbaug being at a distace of 2 hrs from my mama’s house by foot. I leave the rest to your imagination

(The Crowd at Lalbaug)

Finally, the King arrives at my Mama’s house at about 4.30 am in the morning. I and a few other went downstairs to offer prasad to the idol, with barely space to move your feet and to top it the sevak mandal wouldn’t allow us in.

After some amount if convincing and a lot of luck, I barely managed to get through. I offered the Prasad and got modak and a small garland from the Pandit. It was something that I haven’t experienced before, a moment of pure pleasure and joy. It was just Beautiful.

The procession moved ahead and we all came up and passed the Prasad to everyone around.  I sipped the steaming cup of hot coffee my mami had made and got ready to drive back home.

On our way back we all went to the Siddhivinayak temple and finally reached home at about 7am. I just crashed on my bed for about 4hrs, just to realize that I had to catch a train back to hyderabad at 12.30pm. I just had a quick shower, grabbed lunch and I was on my way back. Reaching hyderabad at about 6am.

I think it was one of the wonderful trips that I have had and as my Mama put it, “I was able to acheive the purpose of my trip.”

Last but not the least, “Ganapati Bappa Morya, Pudcha Varshee Lavkar Yaa.”

(PS: This post of dedicated to a friend of mine who has made sure that I post regularly..Cheers.Mr. Vanity)

My Motto for Life… or atleast this week…

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The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren’t special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one– and preferably only one –obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you’re Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it’s a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea — let’s do more of those!