Punch the keys

Two months of notice period have passed, and I arrive at the last day in office. Like most people, I too am bad with goodbyes. I want to leave with words that would leave behind some portion of my experiences, but know that whatever I say would not do justice to it. There would always be the few people, who made my stay great, that I would not be able to say bye to properly. But then it is my hope that I would definitely be keeping in touch with them in the future. So in that sense, it is not goodbye but until the next time! For a long time I was wondering what I would say. Goodbye in itself is sufficient, but feels bland to me. I mean, in this age of digital and social media, we could always keep in touch. Most of you would either be already on my Facebook or Google+ or LinkedIn list right? So it is utmost ease to keep in touch in the future. But I still have the nags to put in more words, possibly because I am getting older. I hear that folks talk more as they age. And given the...

I have always been a sucker for statistics. I really don't know why. I hated statistics as a subject when I had it in school. I felt the standard deviation and all the mean were knowingly named such. Anyways I like to read about statistics and comparisons. Love infographics the most. However, I have never liked the way statistics were used to report news. Although I like to read about these, I firmly believe that statistics can be used to prove anything. It just depends on what you want to prove and in which direction you want your argument to go. By definition, statisticians need to be extremely unbiased and detached from the topic they research else the reading are definitely going to end up skewed whether they like it or not. It is even more difficult for readers since we definitely have a preconceived notion of the topic and our bias get in the way of interpreting the data. Unconciously, we choose to derive from it what we want else we trash the whole idea...

Yesterday, the weather decided to change it plans. From a bright and sunny morning, it quickly turned cloudy and was pouring heavily by 4 pm. Looking out of the window, it was very easy to visualize my plans of leaving office early getting soaked and flowing down the drain! Of all the days why did I have to come to office on my scooter! Not being one to give up so easily, I made up my mind to get the taxi from just outside my office and go home anyway. I could always pick up the scooter the day after. So on the dot at 5:00, I rushed out to the line of taxi's hoping that there would be one, it being such a rainy day. Thankfully there was one still in the taxi stand. Taxi driver is busy cleaning the moisture forming on the insides of the glass... He does not see me as I approach. He turns his attention to the other window. I hesitate thinking he may be on hire, waiting for someone.. But since I am getting wet, I persist. I knock on the glass. He does not turn. So I go to the ...

I used to remember a time when anybody and everybody hailing from southern India was called a Madarasee. This was rampant during my parents generation. But even in my own, I had to inform at least one aquaintance that it was an incorrect usage. In recent times, there are more references to the Malayali and I find that in general, more people have become aware that there are actually different states down south and not just one city. Is it because there is no more a place called Madras that has brought about this transition? I don't think such triviality would bring about the change in generalized nomenclature. I am more inclined to believe that one factor is that the the Malayali has made a mark and the other being that, more and more people are refusing to continue to be arrogantly ignorant. I hope anybody reading this blog and feeling that I woke up to this fact pretty late, would forgive me. In my defense I would like to mention that I do not usually think along lines of...

Giving a demo to an audience always requires some preparation. Even if it is only one member in the audience, it matters a lot because the impression the person would have depends on how you are doing. As it is, it is difficult to give a presentation or market an idea to another person. Add to that the language barrier and the mix gets interesting. Well, I had my first experience with such a mix a couple of days back when I gave a presentation of the proof of concept that we were working on. My colleague from China acting as the translator for the presentation. He had already instructed me to go slow since it would otherwise be difficult for him to keep up and translate. Having no experience in this and  no chance for a rehearsal, we dived in. The important thing for me was to keep track of what I was saying. Speaking slow and having to pause in between, I needed to keep my attention on where I was more than usual. My colleague would say the gist of what I had said and then te...

The Oscars seems to have started off an interesting discussion. The angle being that of the ex-wife being one up on the ex-husband by winning the award were both were nominated. Yes, dear folks, people have been discussing the James Cameron/Kathryn Bigelow and Avatar/Hurt Locker relationship angle. By default, it seemed like people just knew that they were plotting against each other. Does divorced mean by default that the ex-partners now cannot stand the very sight of each other? Does mutual consent not figure into these people's mind at all? If they had at all bothered to read the interviews of Cameron or Bigelow, they would see the respect each shared for the other. They both have acknowledged that they had discussed their respective moves with each other to get feedback. Thats how mature(and open minded, I must add) people behave. Well it sure is not going to stop people from forming their own opinions and cases in this matter. And I am quite sure many are not even bother...

Today spent a lot of time, about 16 hrs and more, on going through the internet and exploring social networking. Phew! There are so many sites and applications that have come up that contribute to this phenomenon called social networking. Just to name a few, MySpace , Orkut , Hi5 , Facebook , Friendster , LinkedIn , Twitter ...... And the list goes on. Have a look at List of social networking websites to get an idea of the HUGE number of sites that are available and the different categories they cater to. It is so easy to get lost among the plethora of web sites and applications. Every now and then, I get a mail from an acquaintance, inviting me to this new cool site that he or she has created an account on and which will help us keep in touch with each other. Of this list here are My Favs: LinkedIn - Caters to professional connections. Facebook and Orkut - My friends are spread across these two networking sites. Twitter - lets me broadcast myself to all ;) I never used...

Is it not really irritating when you see people driving down one way streets the wrong way? When people don't bother with the traffic signals. Oh it does irritate the heck out of me! Especially, when I am returning from a hectic day at work. And in Mangalore, I find people having a penchant for ignoring signals and following one ways, the wrong way. Today was especially irritating. I was waiting at a signal(the first in line) for the light to change to green and the car behind me is honking away to glory. As if I am doing my personal business in the middle of the road! The signal turns green and I go a little further to turn into my lane and I find a truck trying to come opposite to me in the one way street. That did it!     I just stopped my car right in front of the truck and did not budge. The driver and the cleaner stare at me.     I stare right back! He says something I cannot make out.     I say somethings that I am ...

When I moved to Mangalore, I looked for an apartment which was decent and had a reserved parking space. Yes, I specifically looked for reserved parking. I did not want to go around looking for parking space after a hard days work. And I got just such an apartment. However, recently I have been having quite a bit of trouble with the car parking at my apartment. Even though the parking is reserved for me, I have been finding some other car parked at my space. Why? It seems that some owners did not pay up for separate car parking and hence do not have reserved parking. So they just park it at any place they want. They can see that it is marked for use by another flat number, however this does not bother them. They, and their guests, just feels free to park where ever the heck they want! Why do people just think "me! me! me!"? Can they not be considerate enough to think about others? Will we not change? I find very few incidents where I find someone acting considerately to their ...