Sunday, August 29, 2004

PRESSURE = WORK / TIME

The amount of pressure and tension that mounts within a person is directly proportional to the amount of work that has to completed within a specified time and inversely proportional to the time itself. I am sure that people who have been through project deadline situations, and time bound schedules would be in full agreement with the above formula! But now that I have been such time bound routines over and over again, the pressure no longer gets to my head. Infact I have started enjoying the pressure situations and like the challenge of performing under pressure.

Saturday, August 21, 2004

A WALK ACROSS THE CHARLES RIVER

I was once a real lover of Nature. Whenever I used to walk by a beautiful tree in College, I used to stop by, spare sometime, enjoy the tree's foliage, the chriping parrots and sparrows and the mild breeze. But due to work pressure and time limitations I had to curb these passtimes of mine. Today being my last day in the States I just took some time off my work and took a walk by the side of Charles River Boston. What a beautiful sight the river offers! It really makes you forget all the worries and eases your mind a lot. Across the river one can see the Skyline of Boston with its tall buildings and sky scrapers like Prudential etc.. Watching the train and other vehicles crossing the bridge is really a pretty sight.Various sail boats and motor boats dot the broad river and you can see people jogging on either side of the river. The side on which I was standing was the Cambridge Town where MIT is located. The Killian court of MIT which is where the famous MIT dome is located is also one enjoyable sight.

ROUTED ACROSS THE WORLD

It has been quite a while isnt it! I am glad that I am blogging again after such a long time. It has been two months since I have blogged. Time just flies you know.How much I have travelled since then!
My first hop was from Bangalore to Chennai and I remained temporarily stored at my home for a week or so. Then I was routed to Singapore. I spent about a month among the Computing clusters of NUS School of computing. Then I was again forwarded to Boston to the MIT Athena clusters. Now I am being prepared to be reforwarded to Singapore again, which will hopefully be my permanent destination for sometime.


Wednesday, June 30, 2004

RELATION BETWEEN SINGAPORE AND TITANIC

When I first reached Singapore, I was quite amazed at the amount of comforts the city offers. All modes of transport are air conditioned and the city itself is very well connected. The heartline of all this was the supposedly very efficient power supply of the city. People here are quite proud in saying that, the power NEVER goes over here like Titanic was deemed to be unsinkable. The last power cut had supposedly occurred 10 years ago! But I guess when I came here last week, I brought with me a feature of India with me i.e Power Cuts. Presto! there was a power cut in Singapore and it was quite funny to see people getting excited over a power cut, after all it is such a common feature in India!

I realise that the literary quality of my posts are going down nowadays! What to do, NO TIME, NO TIME!

Friday, June 04, 2004

FIVE STAR FOLLIES

The best part of working in an IT company is that you get to go to most of the Five Star hotels in the city. The primary reason for these visits/treats is due to the team building measures taken by companies so that people can get to know each other well. I do not know whether this is very effective or not, but I can surely say that we surely get to know all the specialities and delicacies of each Five Star hotel! During these visits, the general ettiquette says that you should not be outwardly explicit about your eagerness for the food. From what I have observed people do try their best to engage in a serious business or technical conversation, although all their inner thoughts are about the food and the surroundings. It is a general tendency to show that you are not too impressed/eager about the food and the place and that you have been to better places. People think that this is a sign of their sophistication and urbanity. But alas how long can the mind rule over the stomach? Soon all the irrelevant conversation ends abruptly and then all signs of decency
vanish in a jiffy and people rush to grab their plates.

It was one such visit to the Oberoi hotel in MG Road Bangalore. This was my first Five Star hotel visit. I was quite amazed at the elaborate table arrangements and the display of arrays of exotic food varieties. I was terror struck seeing the fork and spoon beside my plate as I hardly knew how to use them. Then I was relieved to see that most people around us in the hotel were not using fork and spoon, but just the God-given hand. We began the treat with a general dull conversation. Most of us were really hungry by then and soon one saviour mentioned that we begin our meal. I was quite relieved at this suggestion and immediately made a grab of my plate and walked over to the food counter. There were so many dishes, half of which I could not even recognise the names. Then I decided that I would taste only those dishes whose name I recognized. So it was just the usual North Indian Dal,Rajma,Roti I had. I tried to scram in as much as food possible into my plate so that I could avoid the frequent akward refills. After I finished this course of my meal, my colleague casually glanced at my plate and remarked that "Hey dint u want to try the starters?". Of course I wanted to try the starters, because god knows when I would visit such a hotel again. So after my main course I started munching on the starters.Here I was having my meal in an upside down order.

When asked, the chef there told us that the speciality of the day was "Avial Kootu" and "Bindi (Lady's Finger) Poriyal(Curry)". These dishes are so commonly made in South Indian households that I wondered how it could be called a speciality!


Finally everyone finished their meals and we marched on to conquer the deserted dessert section. I would have surely gained a few solid pounds that day that could be directly associated with the amount of fat content in the desserts. Then came the formal session of thanking the sponsor of the treat, the team consultant, who was visiting from the States. Poor guy he had hardly eaten during this treat.Probably he could not digest the fact that so many of us were digesting his money !!

BOOKS FOR THE MONTH

I dedicated myself to reading R.K Narayan's novels for the whole of this month. I was so impressed by the two books "English Teacher" and "Guide" which I had read long ago, that I bought a big collection of five R.K Narayan novels from Crossword. The following are about three of these stories I read recently.

Vendor of Sweets R.K.Narayan
I remember seeing this story in the Malgudi days serial shown on television. The story is centered on the owner of a sweet shop. This vendor has a son who is quite detached from his father though the vendor is quite affectionate from his son. The son is quite uninterested in his studies and he suddenly decides to abandon it and take up writing as a profession. He makes hardly an effort towards this and finally realises that he wants to go to the U.S. much to his father's dislike.

Years pass by and the son returns home with a foreigner whom he claims as is wife. He has a new business proposal for manufacturing Story Writing machines (similar to type writers) for which he asks financial support from his father. The vendor gets quite attached to his daughter-in-law though he refuses to part with his money for financing his son's business.Eventually it turns out that the son has not wedded the foreigner girl at all and the son sends her out of the house too. The story ends with the Vendor of Sweets abandoning his shop and house and going and settling down with a sculptor who has plans to build a big temple.


Bachelor of Arts R.K.Narayan
This was a very enjoyable novel about the life of a B.A Graduate, his college and after college experiences. He falls in love with a girl and the girl is married off to some other person without his love being expressed. After this he enters a period of self destruction wherein he becomes a sort of an ascetic. Then he realises the sacrifices his parents had made for educating him and feels that if he carries on like this it would be really unfair to them. So he goes back home and takes up a newspaper agency where he is quite successful. His home atmosphere and involvement in work makes him forget his bitter love experience and now he becomes ready for another love affair with a new girl!


Man Eater of Malgudi R.K.Narayan
This story revolves around an owner of a printing press and his idyllic life. A taxidermist arrives as a guest and friend to stay in the printing press. He is a dangerous huge man and a big bully who causes great havoc wherever he goes. The story ends with a rather comical death of this "Man-Eater" of a guy and peace is restored in Malgudi.


Now reading the Dark Room by R.K. Narayan.










Wednesday, June 02, 2004

A QUESTION OF COMMITMENT

The state of being commited essentially means something pledged or the state or an instance of being obligated or emotionally impelled. One could be committed to various things like, one could be committed to a cause, his profession or to someone. The designers of the orkut portal have assumed the latter meaning to the state of being committed. I see quite a number of people listed in Orkut who are already committed and the number is day by day increasing.


I too can claim to have committed you know! But the only time I have committed is when I performed a database commit operation. I would rather prefer to remain noncommital about my intentions towards a commitment, although I feel that it is best to postpone it as long as possible, because responsibilities and unimaginable troubles are usually concomitant with a commitment. What I would prefer to do later, is to entrust this quite assiduous task to my parents who would quite happily take up this job of getting me committed with great commitment!

Monday, May 31, 2004

PROGRAM Wife 1.0

Here is some really interesting read. Check this out-->



Upgrading Girlfriend 1.0
Tech Support Request


Last year I upgraded Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure. In addition, Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialization where it monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Pokernight 10.3 and Beerbash 2.5 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected. I can not seem to purge Wife 1.0 from my system. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend 1.0 but un-install does not work on this program.

Can you help me? Jonathan Powell

---------------------------------------------------------

Dear Jonathan Powell-

This is a very common problem men complain about but is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 with the idea that Wife 1.0 is merely a "UTILITIES & ENTERTAINMENT" program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and designed by its creator to run everything.

WARNING: DO NOT TRY TO: un-install, delete, or purge the program from the system once installed. Trying to un-install Wife 1.0 can be disastrous. Doing so may destroy your hard and/or floppy drive. Trying to un-install or remove Wife 1.0 will destroy valuable system resources.

You can not go back to Girlfriend 1.0 because Wife 1.0 is not designed to do this. Some have tried to install Girlfriend 2.0 or Wife 2.0 but end up with more problems than the original system. Look in your manual under Warnings-Alimony/Child Support. Others have tried to run Girlfriend 1.0 in the background, while Wife 1.0 is running. Eventually Wife 1.0 detects Girlfriend 1.0 and a system conflict occurs, this can lead to a non-recoverable system crash. Some users have tried to download similar products such as Fling and 1NiteStand.

Often their systems have become infected with a virus. I recommend you keep Wife 1.0 and just deal with the situation. Having Wife 1.0 installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Protection Faults (GPFs). You must assume all responsibility for faults and problems that might occur. The best course of action will be to push apologize button then reset button as soon as lock-up occurs. System will run smooth as long as you take the blame for all GPFs.

Wife 1.0 is a great program but is very high maintenance. Suggestions for improved operation of Wife 1.0

* Monthly use utilities such as TLC and FTD
* Frequently use Communicator 5.0
* Tech Support

Friday, May 28, 2004

COMEDY OF ERRORS

When I first created this blog I named the blog based on my nickname 'esu' as it would be easy for me and for others to remember. But I never realized that it could result in a confusion as described below!

It was the first time I had ever created my blog post and I was quite enthusiastic about how it would look once published on the blog. So I tried to open my blog by specifying the URL.But here I made a small error:

Instead of keying in
www.esusays.blogspot.com

I keyed in
www.esusays.blogpsot.com
I was quite surprised by the web page that came up. It had connected me to a site called Amarons Bible which was supposedly a mega-site of Bible, Christian and religious information & studies.

I was just wondering what could be the reason behind this! Then only it struck me that another name of Jesus christ was 'Aesoo' (esu) in the Tamil Language and possibly in other languages too. What a coincidence!!

I just hope that people trying to connect to the other site who would be naturally more in number, make the same keying mistake I made, but in the opposite way so that
they come across this site. They would be in for a major surprise too!!

BOOKS TO REMEMBER

FICTION

The Blue Nowhere by John Deaver
This book is a techie novel based in Silicon Valley. It is a very gripping novel which is kind of contest between two brilliant, professional hackers. Quite a number of new terminologies could be picked up from this book like "Social Engineering", "Kludges",
"Bots" etc. Social Engineering is the term given to engineering or disguising onself to give the exact kind of impression you want the others to have.


If Tomorrow Comes by Sidney Sheldon
This was a very entertaining book with the interesting and intelligent schemes of the hero and the heroine of the story. The Chess funda used by the hero in playing two
Grandmasters simultanously and intelligently using one's move against
the other was great.

The English Teacher by R.K. Narayan
A very moving and emotional book that elucidates upon the love between a husband and wife. The story takes a turn when the wife dies tragically and the story continues very beautifully as the husband continues to love and yearn for his wife even after her death
and tries to make contact with her spirit. This book is sure to strike an emotional chord
within each of us.


NON-FICTION

Living the Seven Habits by Stephen R Covey
This is quite an inspirational book about how the lives of people have changed after following the Seven Habits namely --

1. Be proactive
2. First Things First
3. Begin with the end in mind
4. Think Win Win
5. Seek first to understand
6. synergize
7. Sharpen the Saw (keep yourself updated constantly)

Check out this url for more details:
http://www.leaderu.com/cl-institute/habits/overview.html

Thursday, May 27, 2004

I WANT TO SPEND MY LIFETIME LOVING YOU

One of the best movies song lyrics I have come across so far! This is from the Original sound track of Mask of Zorro. Anyone could borrow these lines to make an impression on someone you want to impress!!


I WANT TO SPEND MY LIFETIME LOVING YOU

Moon so bright, night so fine,
Keep your heart here with mine
Life's a dream we are dreaming

Race the moon, catch the wind,
Ride the night to the end,
Seize the day, stand up for the light

I want to spend my lifetime loving you
If that is all in life I ever do

Heroes rise, heroes fall,
Rise again, win it all,
In your heart, can't you feel the glory?

Through our joy, through our pain,
We can move worlds again
Take my hand, dance the dance with me

I want to spend my lifetime loving you
If that is all in life I ever do
I will want nothing else to see me through
If I can spend my lifetime loving you

Though we know we will never come again
Where there is love, life begins
Over and over again

Save the night, save the day,
Save the love, come what may,
Love is worth everything we pay

POPEYE GA GA

POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN!! Aagh ga ga ga ga
Popeye has been one of my all time favourite cartoon characters. He is very righteous and can do anything for his love Olive Oyl! Time and again Popeye has proved that the Good always prevails over the evil i.e Bludo.

For all those Popeye fans out there the following is the lyrics of the opening song of Popeye the Sailor Man.

POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN
Words to "Popeye the Sailor Man" song...
Copyright 1933, by Sammy Lerner

I'm Popeye the sailorman,
I'm Popeye the sailorman,
I'm strong to the finich, 'cause I eats my spinach,
I'm Popeye the sailorman.

I'm one tough Gazookas which hates all palookas
Who ain't on the ups and square
I biffs and I bops 'em, and always outroughs 'em
But none of them gets nowhere

If anyone dasses to risk me fisks
It's bops and its wham... understand
So keep good behav'our, that's your one life-saver
With Popeye the Sailor Man

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man
Popeye the Sailor Man
I'm strong to the finich, 'cause I eats my spinach,
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!!

Toot toot!!

Thursday, May 20, 2004

LIMERICKS : Win Tay From Trinidad and Tobago

LIMERICKS

A limerick is a short, often humorous and ribald poem developed to a very specific structure. A true limerick is supposed to have a kind of twist to it. This may lie in the final line,or it may lie in the way the rhymes are often intentionally tortured, or both.

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.


HISTORY AND ORIGIN
The origins of the actual word limerick is obscure. The first dictionary reports it only in 1898. The name is often linked to an earlier form of nonsense verse which was traditionally followed by the refrain that ended "...come all the way up to Limerick?", Limerick being an Irish town.

There are quite a number of famous writers who have contributed many limericks.Ogden Nash is renowned for humorous short poetry, and often used the limerick form:

There once was a miser named Clarence
Who Simonized both of his parents;
"The initial expense,"
he remarked, "is immense,
But it saves on the wearance and tearance."


RECURRING THEMES IN LIMERICKS

The island of Nantucket has been an especially recurring theme in limericks, including the following,which is likely the best-known of all poems in the form:

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all of his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket (Nan took it)


For more information on Limericks Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_(poetry)

The following is an original composition of a limerick from me. Hope you like it!
WIN TAY FROM TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

It is has been quite sometime now since my poem you have have heard
I am still trying and this is only my third.

I am about to weave one hell of a story
A bit too comical a bit too gory.

There was a man called 'Win Tay' from Trinidad and Tobago
He had a habit of consuming too much tobacco!

He puffed and puffed and smoked away to glory,
Little did he realise that his life would become such a sad story!

One day while he was driving in his Mitsubishi Lancer,
His spanish doctor called him on his cell and informed that he had Cancer!

The poor guy's heart was really broken,
Now he regretted every puff of smoke he had taken!

In a frenzy he brought his car to a screeching halt,
He now contemplated on ending his life with cyanide salt.

Then he saw an unbelievable sight,
Of a stray dog laughing and barking at his sad plight.

He went up to the dog engraged
To be laughed at by a dog, he really felt disgraced!

He took a stone and aimed it at the dog,
The throw was off target and the stone landed on a rotting log.

The laughing dog ran away howling,
However the log now had started rolling.

It was coming directly at him,
He knew his chances of survival were really dim!

His whole life flashed past him in a second,
He had hardly a few moments of life left he reckoned.

He repented his deeds and started showing signs of compunction
He prayed to God with a solemn heart and great devotion.

He vowed that he would refrain from smoking,
He also admitted that hurting other beings too was a cause for his undoing.

High in the sky the Gods smiled and nodded,
Convinced that he had transformed, to him a new lease of life was awarded.

Then his cell phone rang again,
It was the fateful Doctor calling from Spain.

"My Dear boy there has been a grave mistake,
Lately there has been a considerable increase in my alchohol intake!

Drunk, I switched your file with my patient called 'Tin Way'
You are quite healthy and have every reason to be happy and gay!

I am sure you will live a very long life,
With many a children and a wife!"

Win Tay gave a big sigh of relief,
what had happened that day had gone way beyond his belief!


YOU HAVE GOT MAIL

YOU HAVE GOT MAIL

Recently I got so bored writing these usual dull e-mails that I thought I indite something more lively and it was quite a good experience for me. So here is the outcome of my writing effort.

TO: FRIENDS
FROM: ME
MESSAGE:START

Hey guys

I am very much sorry for my previous mail,
I owe you all an apology without fail.

It was out of sheer boredom,
that I began my quest for poetic wisdom.

Writing good verse is really hard,
and it is not easy to become a poet or a bard.

I know my verse lacks coherence and continuity
When it comes to writing poems I am nothing but a 1 by infinity!

I know you guys must be really busy
with "heaps" of work,
or "Stacks" of Tasks
or "Queues" of chores

But take this "Pointer" of a humble fool,
Take it easy, relax and cool!

I do know that the last bit was really pathetic,
So there is no need to get very much emphatic!

I would like to sign off now
but before that I do vow

That if I do find little leisure time
I will hit your inboxes with some more rhyme!


MESSAGE:ENDS

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

LOVE BY THE PIZZA

LOVE BY THE PIZZA

Women are the primary source of inspiration and catalysts for Poets and the following is an outcome of such an inspiration:

I Saw a face
I Saw a face
She left a mark
which I cant erase

It was in a brigthly lit corner in Pizza hut
That my eyes fell upon an angel so white
But not to have noticed her for long I really must be a nut
She was really so beautiful and a Wonderful "Sight"!

I tried hard to make eye contact,
But she had enough people around her to distract,
Soon it was time and I had to leave
And now I had enough reasons to grieve.


I left with a heavy heart
With so much unsaid I still had to part.
But I am sure I will meet her again
My time will come and I have everything to gain!


I saw a face
I saw a face
She left a mark
which I cant erase!!

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

The following is one of the best PJ's I have heard till now.

Here it goes:

A man on a boat has 2 sacks of sand, a cricket ball, a string , a glass of water and a cigarette. He wants to light the cigarette but is unable to find any means as he does not possess any normal lighting equipment. Then he sits down calmly and thinks what to do. Presto he finds three different ways of doing this.


Think a lot before you actually want to see the answers.







METHOD NUMBER 1

STEP1: Drop the two sacks of sand in the water.
STEP2: The Boat becomes "Lighter".
STEP3: Use the lighter to light the cigarette.


METHOD NUMBER 2

STEP1: Throw the Cricket ball high into the air and then catch it.
STEP2: CATCHES WIN MATCHES!!!
STEP3: Use the Match to light the Cigarette.

METHOD NUMBER 3

STEP1: Take the String and the glass of water.
STEP2: Dip the String in the glass of water and take it out.
STEP3: The droplets of water fall from the string....

TIP TIP BARSA PAANI,
PAANI NE AAG LAGAYA!!

Take the fire and light your cigarette or ask Raveena to light it for you!

Thursday, May 06, 2004

SPIRITUAL - IT

SPIRITUAL - IT
There is an inevitable link between the developments in the field of Computers and Information Technology and ideals of Spirituality and religion. The more I have been exposed to the various concepts and technologies in the vast field of Computers, the more parallelisms I have been able to draw with Spirituality and the philosophical teachings of the various religions in this world.

Let us take up one fundamental concept in the Hindu Religion that says "Everyone and Everything in this World has a purpose and it functions only to serve that purpose". Computers and Computer Based Systems are outright examples that stand exactly for specific purposes they are meant for arent they? We have dedicated web servers that handles the various requests of the clients, and day in and day out they keep receiving and sending requests and responses and they stand for a specific purpose. Everybody using the services of the server are totally oblivious of its very existence. But the moment the server crashes and all hell breaks loose, only then people realise its presence. I would associate such a server with HIM the 'Paramatma' the Supreme Being. It is he who guides us all the way. But not many of us acknowledge his presence and thank Him for his services. Yes I come to the question that is in everybody's mind. Is it really necessary to thank HIM the Supreme being? Just imagine a client sending a Thank you message to the Web Server for its services. The Web Server would throw up an error to the Client saying Unable to Process request!. Similarly from what I understand God too does not expect explicit gratitude from us, because God is within each of us (* this is a concept by itself which I do not wish to delve upon here).This is a question I am myself searching an answer to. If any of you who come across this article know an explanation kindly send in your opinion regarding this. I tried offering several explanations to this question, none of which seemed satisfactory. Now we move on to other analogies between religious concepts and Technologies.

JSP (JAVA SERVER PAGES) & THE HINDU TRINITY GODS

In the Hindu Religion there are three main deities called the "Hindu Trinity", namely Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Within the hindu trinity Brahma is the Creator i.e. the Initiator, Vishnu is the Protector or the Preserver who serves the masses, and Shiva is the Destroyer. When I was first introduced to Java Server Pages Technology architecture I was struck by its resemblance to the Hindu Trinity Gods.
If you can recollect, the JSP Servlet has three components the jspInit() equivalent to Brahma or the Initiator, jspService() that accepts Requests and sends Responses which can be equated with the Preserver Vishnu and jspDestroy() which is equivalent Lord Shiva or the Destroyer.

Based on the above comparison of JSP with Hindu Trinity I was able to draw various inferences.
As we can clearly see, JSP is one single component and as a whole provides the programmer a strong tool for generating dynamic web content and processing on the server side. But internally it has several components and functions like the ones we discussed above.
Similarly God too is a Single Entity, but based on the different functions that we associate, God is perceived in various forms. For example Saraswati is the Godess of learning, Hanuman is the God of Strength (both Mental and Physical) etc. etc.

Similar to the analogies I have stated above there are several analogies that could be identified and matched with old religious and philosophical principles, some of which are really interesting. I will try and present to you more of this in the near future.
Arise Awake ! Rest not until you achieve you next Goal!
-- Swami Vivekananda