Harish Palaniappan's

Have been busy trying to settle down in life for a while.. but poor me, I never get the logic behind that thing.. "settling down".. as if I am unsettled.

Its been sometime since I wrote anything here on my blog. Here are quick updates.

> I got financially broke, this time around I found up some interesting job for myself in Bangalore and worked there in a company called craftsilicon.

>Yes, I am no more an independent consultant, though I have now quit this bangalore company to join another..

>Yes, you read it right, I quit that company already, I joined in august, and quit recently now in december, because I guess I can't work the way people want me to : "inside the box, strictly"... without doing anything out-of-the-box, innovative, and importantly without thinking big.

> What I observed working with craftsilicon, a product-based company with a few microfinance and banking products, is the product space in India is in a state which has all symptoms and can be easily called the nascent stage of a "boom". Indian companies have grown up to the idea of buying Indian software.. "Didn't they always do that?" you ask, and yes, there was always a market for indian software, but only for the cheapest and the basic most applications, not for something like an enterprise application. Yes there were these 'Financle' kind of products which are big for a long time, but not many products like that... and if I remember right, Finacle had its first indian customer also only after many foreign customers.

> So, that is something very interesting.. the product space growing simply means, Indians are now seen more mature in software development space...importantly by Indians itself. As a whole country, we always were considered one which lacks attitude and self-confidence. Now the tables are changing.

> Soon we can expect more software products, servers, who knows even operating systems churned out of India.

(Isn't this supposed to be a brief update... yes yes I remember)

> Then, I am now going to work in chennai .. back home. and I guess I found myself a very very interesting project in a new company. I can't share more details, but briefly, it is a home automation system, with your TV, and a few other equipments going IP way, and pushing service delivery say some 10% into the futuristic dreams we have seen in movies like wallE, where people sit in their couch and do a lot of things over the screen and touchpad, and probably get fat at the end of day.

> And then,
And then, I might be getting married soon. Ms. Right though can't still believe she has decided to marry me, and things are going that way for now, with 50% of my earnings going to telephone bills... and if I even ponder slightly towards that angle of discussion on the phone, the call gets cut with a bye only to provide for a longer call to make up for the fight with her.

> Who is she? .. the name is Triveni.

> Got very disturbed atleast a few times, a few minutes about what happened recently in Bombay, talking about the terror shootings which lasted "3 days" in a so-called "transforming" country, killing many, and with politicians still failing to understand/attach any serious thought to it, except for making new arrangements to win state elections shortly happening or already completed in a few states.

> The world media ripped Indian police system / intelligence system / security system inside out, going on to mention that Indian police still use the world war II extinct .33 pistol for their major operations.

> The ruling politicians just took to a 'sorry', 'we learnt our lesson', 'it will be better next time', etc., thoughts instead of keeping just quiet and show that they are badly embarrassed that they did just "Nothing" so far, that can't even give basic protection to people, and that too in places in bombay which are known as high-security zone.

> Everytime you switch on TV, still, you see some politician carelessly answering 'yes we couldn't do anything.. we have learnt our lesson'.

> Yet again, and still still still for so many years, so many times, Indian governance systems want an accident or problem to know when to change things.. The governance system, the police system, or any public system here in India, goes not by a process...but only by events that happen... that's the "if it happens, we will see what to do" attitude.

> While I felt bad even bombay wasn't secured to freak shooting, that too for 3 days, the 4th day, it was revealed it happened even after repeated security and intelligence warnings from many many numerous intelligence agencies around the world and from the country's own intelligence systems. It simply showed that people who received the warnings ignored it amidst the movies they wanted to see that day, or the election preparations they wanted to do, or just lazily thought they are just warnings 'if it happens we will see'.

Horrible..
I decided I am not going to vote here on.. I guess there is a new system in the electorate system in India, where one is going to be allowed to go mark their name on the electorate on the voting day, and just return without voting which will then become a 'no vote' and add to a 'no vote' count... instead of voting for any existing party which has ever been in power atleast once so far and couldn't use their opportunity when they were in power to fix anything...just anything.

That we are still having to be so dumb a country, not addressing anything that is required to help us grow. And probably here on I am going to see what best I can do directly to my environment and country rather than voting for some idiot or the other and expecting them all to deliver even one of their promises that means upgrading the lifestyle, rather than giving something free to make votes and degrading the lifestyle with freebies and freebies and freebies.

Posted by Harish at 5:57 PM | Permalink

Being a programmer sucks much.. while all the world is dreaming of ways to usher in a new year outside .. I sat down spoiling myself (and you readers) writing this new year counter program.

Happy New Year ..and.. Have A Great Year

If you don't see any counter image above, its probably already past Jan 1 2008 0:0:0 hrs, or your are reading this post through a feedreader.

If you are more lazier than me this new year's eve, you can happily copy the below line to your blog or website and have that counter setup there.

<SCRIPT language="JavaScript" SRC="http://www.floresense.com/timer/newyearCountdown.js"></SCRIPT>

The program works on user's systems taking the system clock's time, and so you can be assured it is really new year in the viewers timezone when the counter goes to zero. And wait till new year's strike to see a simple cool image wishing you the new year.

Posted by Harish at 6:00 PM | Permalink

Some interesting people run down a nostalgic trip down memory lane(links below).. with how in the 90's, young minds were attracted to this drink brand 'Gold Spot'

...I too remembered days collecting the crowns of these bottled drinks for gifts, collecting big-fun bubble gum stickers for cricketer photographs, and also of close to 1500 maggi two-minute noodle covers for gifts. These days, what do kids do.. Harry potter, harry potter, all the time, and the gadgets that come in it.. like nimpus 2000 broomstick, or the abraca-dabra with a magic wand. Poor fellas, today's kids.

Nostalgic trip links:
@ Venkat's : Venkat is now CEO of a medium-sized software company.
@ Financial Express: wondering what financial express is doing with nostalgic trips on that brand?.. the author is Rahul Jauhari, executive creative director of a very big AD agency.

The original goldSpot logo, as it was in india in the 1990's:

Now, seems like 'Gold Spot' is not used anywhere.. at least not on drinks.

The above photo shows a netcafe in portugal which calls itself 'Gold Spot internet cafe'.. and if you think that is brand-hijack, notice the color changes they have made to the logo of Gold Spot.

Posted by Harish at 4:35 PM | Permalink

Thalaatu.. is a tamil word meaning a really sleepy song.. ha ha.. yea, to make babies sleep.

On a side note, I don't know why babies can't understand the depth and energy of sounds in rock music.. with all those bass guitars and double-bass guitars.. How would it be.. if babies grow up to hear something like '18 till I die', or 'back in the summer of 69'.. :o).

Coming back to this post... is english music really only for adults.. no says michael.. Don't ask me who.. but there is this long time fav band of mine 'Michael learns to rock MLTR'.. and so I happily assume michael should be somebody's name in that band.

There is this song 'Sleeping child' .. so polite.. so mild.. with a husky voice of somebody from MLTR (michael, we will assume)..

Though I have never slept hearing it, it still is one of my fav from MLTR.. and its lyrics and music will suggest that it is indeed a thalaatu. and I really believe, babies will sleep for this song.

Read these simple lyrics here... try it on your baby or somebody's baby.. and see him/her stare wild at you.. ("who's this crazy guy...wyaaaeeeee mommy")

But. if you honestly want to sing it well with guitar and all in hand.. here's a youtube karoake thing for the song. (the video in the youtube thing has nothing to do with the actual band or the song i think.. somebody seems to have made this karoake video from a crazy beach full of people)

Happy singing..

ah. no.. I haven't tried it on any child yet. I am still trying it on myself.

Posted by Harish at 11:57 PM | Permalink

If you are coming to chennai.. or trying to understand the forecast for weather in chennai.. then do yourself some good in checking weather.com or any source other than chennai meteorological department.. or sometimes read that as dont believe any of india's met departments itself.

All those lazy idiots in chennai's MET dept, will do anything to remain lazy nuts at work forever. And it is better we all started using google Earth or weather.com for weather stuff.

Yesterday, there was this 30 mins of rain with good winds and in some places it even rained ice pellets it seems. When asked, the met dept people lazily told media that they recorded nothing except a few cms of rain. To repeated questions of the nature of the rain and stuff, all they got is 'we didnt record anything'.

I even see some simple people interested to find out why it rained suddenly and google for it or ask people about it.. but met dept, hah.. they are happily sleeping noticing nothing. Who will ask.. its a government job.. and may be they will one day even say, "you still don't use google earth for these things".. Atleast if they didn't record anything, they could have always said, something like this... we are trying to understand reports from places.. but for now, we have not recorded anything since in the places where we have our weather monitoring units there wasn't anything other than rain...or whatever.

I remember .. after tsunami struck south india, a news channel (i think NDTV) did a casual interview of indian space research organization's chairman then.. and trickily the host pulled a slappy last question where she asked.. "you say you have all these satellites.. mostly weather satellites or imagery satellites..and have more plans / research stuff.. but what good was all this if you couldn't make a warning even 5 minutes before the tsunami.. or you didn't even record a tsunami". For which, the man stupidly smiled and had no useful answer.

Posted by Harish at 1:58 PM | Permalink

Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chariman and Managing Director of Bharti Group was on DD in an interview. This was my first of Sunil Mittal's interview.. and perspective of things.

Like all entrepreneurs, he was too inspiring.. with each answer. The interview host wasn't great.. and DD's was a lousy interview set.. and so the only thing bright and interesting on the interview was sunil.

I knew only today that Sunil has a political background.. his father being a workaholic politician, first with punjab government, then at the national politics, and later at the UN level. His mother a caring, motivating punjabi house-wife.

Things he said (not in any particular order):

Like all children, inevitably, sunil had his parents influence at the age of schooling or college.. his father had a minimum 16-hr work cycle.. and he shared less with his father because he was busy, but admirable for his workaholic nature. His mom was very motivating and would always ensure things that were neccessary to bring up her children well and to make them successful in their careers later.

Sunil wears a ruby, and he does believe that everything is controlled by the laws of the universe, and there are cosmic forces and things like the ruby in his finger could influence the cosmic force. In his younger days he had a small humble one due to his wallet that time, and now only that the size has become bigger.

When it comes to business, he admires Sam walson, founder of walmart, a lot.. for it was a lot of hard-work for a lot many years of sam walson that walmart is what it is today.. and also for the reason that sam walson's ideals and view of business are very much like what sunil himself believed.

When asked about whether he is happy with the governments in india.. and their attitude towards growth and problems and whether they should do more.... he said he is little both ways.. good is done.. but whether all six cylinders are firing.. then the answer is no. A lot more has to be done.. and importantly if india had to shine, it also has to lift lower-strata of people who are not in sync with the growth today.. Sunil believes that india cannot shine with just 15% of people growing.. but we should fire all six cylinders and all strata of people have to grow.

He said, he was fortunate, and current generation of people are all fortunate, to witness the kind of development and transformation that has happened in India in last 10 years alone.. in that india has moved from socialistic economy to enabling economy (he doesn't use capitalistic economy).. and that an enabling economy has encouraged industries and sectors, enabled people to earn more, consume more.. and hence this kind of growth.

He said he was happy to have been successful with bharti group.. and that from humble beginnings, today they are household names in india with airtel and b-Tel services... and they are looking forward to being successful in new ventures like horticulture.

Bharti is into horticulture.. for opening an avenue in exporting lot of fresh produce from the country abroad.. and said its happening and should take quite sometime, because we still dont have cold-storage chains (for protecting food/produce), neither we have airports in all those villages, or nearby, which are rich in agriculture.

For the question, whether he was trying to mint money from agriculture as much as with his tele-communication enterprise, he said.. money making is there.. but for now it is simply for the sake of opening avenues in that industry and making a transformation there.. now we cant make money because like in all businesses, you have to burn a lot of money even to get to the region where you might have the thought of success..let alone success happening.

For his thought on the reason for getting into horticulture.. he says..
We were discussing about new ventures into other areas .. after having tasted success with our tele-communications business and having made it considerably stable and sustainable over the years..
and the immediate thought that came to us was agricultural produce.. india is blessed with a lot of irrigation, sunshine.. (he said something about india being the worlds 2nd best in sunshine and stuff like that.. but i forgot now i think).. and we have more than 60 million people involved in the agriculture of land.. and there is a huge potential here.. very promising.

For his thought on sharing any philosophy with viewers, he said..
the difference between doing what you like, and liking what you do is as simple as being superbly successful or having an average performance. and india is a country where many parents force their children into a career and the children start getting to like what they do, rather than doing what they like.
he said.. if you have the luxury of doing what you like, as against liking what you do.. "Go for it"

He also shared that in western countries.. children get out and live alone and learn life after they are 18.. no matter how much ever rich their parents are, they live separate after 18.. and thats in a way what makes them all driven and have better attitude. In india, the case is different, and we have to grow our own way, and find and grow attitude within people, and the transformation that has happened in the last decade is very promising.

There was more. that he said.. or shared.. which was inspiring.. but i think i have listed what was the core of the interview. After typing this.. i wish i had shared something about all those interviews, speeches that had inspired me also here in blogs.. may be i will later start a TV channel and only telecast interviews.. hah.. what an (i)dea.

Posted by Harish at 9:00 PM | Permalink

The 1 2 3 agreement as it is called, is trying to layout a system of mutual cooperation between the two countries India and United state of America, on the nuclear energy business front.

My reasoning on why it is called 1 2 3:

While India is trying to safeguard its supply of nuclear material for use in generating energy, the Americans are willing to do business based on a lot of terms that they want to put forefront just to ensure 3 things..
> they profit from the business,
> ensure india is a long term client by making it mandatory that india cannot buy nuclear raw material from anybody else unless they buy enough from Americans that will keep the Americans happy,
> and also do this trade the secure way ensuring that India uses the material only and only for generating power.

While India could buy the material for probably cheaper prices from other countries like China, and Russia, they still want to do this with America, for basically 3 reasons.
> so that they make an important trade partnership with the Americans which could garner more support and goodwill with Americans in areas like software outsourcing laws in America, and other trade laws.
> so that they don't create a friction with the Americans by doing the big business with other countries.
> so that Americans consider India a little more important than its neighbours Pakistan and China.. because for Americans China as a rising power is considerably important, and pakistan as a "war on terror" partner is also equally important.

Though all this, and the name 1 2 3 itself looks simple and gives obvious expectations, the deal has been and will be complex... again for 3 reasons
> considering it is a nuclear one,
> considering that the American laws of trade in weapons-capable products or weapons are too many and it is too complex to find a way to work in obeyance of all those laws,
> and further that both the countries know that they are always trying to take advantage of each other and so things have to be carefully worked up.

Amidst all this, with months of negotiations between the two countries, and with almost all top brass of both the governments visiting each other including the president of America and the Prime Minister of India over a period, the 1 2 3 deal finally was worked out.

But, then... they all woke up.. whoever was not in the know that this deal could be a major major trade partnership between India and America. The deal being so sensitive, how can they not talk about it. So they talked and talked to the extent of one side saying 'The American government have sold off their nuclear capacity to India for nothing much in return', while the other side said 'It puts the sovereignty of India in question'.

Whatever they did-doing-will do, they have made the 1 2 3 look a very very odd name.. and my suggestion is changing the name of the deal should help.... (like they do here very often with Tamil movies, changing the name of film, if the censors are too sceptic of giving a go-ahead :o).

And,
Everyone in India knows the fact that those who are fighting against the nuke deal in the parliament, saying things about protecting india's sovereignty and all that, I mean some Members of the Parliament, just don't seem to know what the deal is about..blame it on politics or on their levels of IQ.

Here's a funny take on CNN-IBN channel on how much the MP's understand the deal.

Cyrus broacha's show "The week that wasn't" (also on CNN-IBN) hijacked a karan thapar interview of CPI(M) party's sitaram yechury to make fun.. (It wasn't online at this time of posting, since the show was just published on TV.... but may be it is now updated. Check below link)
http://features.ibnlive.com/show/the-week-that-wasnt.html

Posted by Harish at 10:43 PM | Permalink

What's is a Calorie?
Simply an unit of energy.. while energy itself is imaginary by nature, its measurements are also based on studies and are only approximates.

That means, there's no truth in someone saying "this has 23.21 calories".

Technically, 1 Calorie is the amount of energy required to raise temperature of 1 KiloGram of water by 1 °C (sometimes defined as 1 gm of water rather than 1Kg.. then its called a small calorie with small 'c' in calorie.. big calories are what we are talking in this article).

Also, it is not correct to say that a sandwitch with cheese has so much calories because energy acquired by the body through foods most often is also dependent on the person eating. Haven't you known people who eat good, and burn up less calories, but still are slimmer than you.

First burn.. The myth:

> Myth: Calorie ratings in foods, and workouts..are exact.

Calorie ratings in food labels and items are only indicatory and approximate.

Does it mean.. all those labels on food containers are wrong?? No. But they are crude approximations. These ratings should only be used to help you understand which of two foods is higher in energy or Calories, so you can decide. Only for referrence. Also the same with your workout machine's calorie reading in your health gym.

History of the link between calories, diet and workouts.
People made observations under lab conditions that fats have so much calories, carbohydrates have so much etc., and the food manufacturers add up the calories based on the ingredients they have used in the food, and put it on the labels.

The same way, personal trainers calculated per hour calorie burn-ups in certain workouts based on how much people reduced in weight doing the workout for a month. And the numbers were set into the machines you workout on..finally giving you a number of calories you burned by exercising on them for 30 mins or so.

This later got mixed up with dieticians making cocktails of calorie charts custom made for people of certain ages, in a crude and approximate way, and all this became standards of measurement in diets and workouts...which never had any measuring standards before.

You should only consider the Calorie rating on things as approximations of energy levels.. as said earlier, to compare foods or to compare workouts. That's how dieticians / your gym trainers actually understand it, though some of them mistakenly put it to us as the exact number.

> Myth: Eating less food, means less calories and is good for being in shape.

As stated earlier, Calories are measurements of Energy.

And Energy is required for being active or doing work, so avoiding food intake itself heavily, is going to bother your health and lifestyle itself if you don't understand it correctly.

Take salads at times, avoid high intake of fats at times, etc., but keep a healthy mix.

Everyone's body is different, and the way it reacts to food or workout is also different (though its debateable, medically physiology is a unique aspect of birth and growth).

So, over a period of time, you will find a mix of food intake and schedules which best fits your energy requirements based on your activity levels at different times in the day, and based on your craving for certain foods.

Don't starve your body with a calorie rule book...starve it with giving importance to energy rather than satisfying crave.

> Myth: More Calories, more weight.

This is a misconception. Weight and calories are totally unrelated.

Still this misconception is popular because some people take a lot of food, sometimes 3-5 times their energy requirements... the higher unused energy becomes stored fat (discussed later).

If you don't link your food intake with respect to your lifestyle or activity then you will either be under-nourished or over-weight.

> Myth: More energy requirements means ..more physical activity.

Many many people believe that doing physical activity is the only good reason for higher energy requirements. In my opinion this is not true.

The brain needs energy too..though it is smart to use less energy to do more work. Keep yourself starving for long, you would have a head-ache. Also, for what other reason do you think the brain sometimes makes us feel stressed or sleepy. Why else should caffeine or tea be able to strengthen our focus at work, sometimes over long work hours.

Yes. it means, doing nothing also consumes energy.. but if you are trying to understand, may be sleeping all the time, without nightmares, with low activity in the brain, could reduce energy requirements.. and keep you alive longer without starving to death.

Something like above should answer how an old woman in her 70's survived for close to 14 days under the debris of the Gujarat earthquake in India in 2005(if i am right) without food.

What is meant by "Burning up"?
Physical exercise increases activity and hence energy requirements, and if you still eat based on your old energy requirements, you will be starving your body of some energy, which it has to makeup by burning up the stored fat in your body.

This is when you are typically "burning up" and losing weight.

Hence, when you use more energy than you intake through food, you are losing weight. When you use almost the same amount of energy that you intake, you are maintaining your weight.

How to lose weight.. why it takes time.. why shouldn't you use electrodes and other non-exercise stuff to reduce weight quickly.
Related to the above discussion on stored fats.. we have to understand that, every human being more or less has the same amount of skin and body tissues depending on their age and growth... the rest is all made up of stored fat.

Stored fat is mostly what makes people fat or heavy...and is stored in bulks under the skin. And, why is it stored when you don't want to? When your body needs more energy the stored fat is burnt up and converted to energy needed.

This is a more complex process involving metabolism, breakup of food or fat into acids and molecules, etc., but we are reading this very crudely to keep it simple.

That complexity is what will help to understand why then all the fat can be burned up by simply not taking food.

But, to look at it easier, to break-up stored fats also needs energy which comes through food intake. Food intake, we already know that if it is in excess, it still add up to the stored fat.. So this creates the balanced limit to amount of fat that can be broken up over a period. This is why losing weight is a long-term process by nature.

And since going against nature always has implications, people advice you to not force the break-up of fats through means other than exercising...and even through exercise, only to a limit to avoid over-stress in workouts which could cause other problems.

Why Junk foods are always criticized:

No intentions of hurting anybody when they criticize everything to junk food intake. But everything said is truth.

There's a big difference between junk foods and foods. While people eat normal foods for energy requirements, junk foods are had for satisfying that crave. Also, junk foods are manufactured with no nutritious or low-calorie intentions(and hence called 'junk'), they are just prepared for giving that crave or satisfying that crave.

This means that junk foods are usually high sources of fat, carbohydrates, oils and milk products. Your dietician would obviously scream hearing you had all that in your food.

Junk foods are inevitably the quick and easy sources of food given today's predominant lifestyles...and its difficult to close doors on them. But help yourself by being careful to avoid them, by eating low, and drinking juices or water whenever you get the crave.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie
http://health.howstuffworks.com/calorie.htm

Posted by Harish at 12:33 PM | Permalink

Power, in Business terms, is considered synonymous with Energy, Strength, higher Intelligence and decision making skills. Sometimes even negative energy (as in Evil) or influence, or, egoistic characterists.

People in powerful positions in Businesses, feel both the positives and negatives of being powerful and some of them strive hard to keep an imaginary barrier in their heads to separate its negative characteristics from tempting the Brain from doing things.

Some Chairmans, CEOs always insist in eating with their lower order employees, having get-to-gether's too very often officially and unofficially to the extent of considering drinking their Coffee with their subordinate employee, even if its thier 8th Coffee for the day.

All powerful people in Business like being there.. in their top post as CEO or chairman or General manager of their company. And only differ in what they like it for. While some, like it because of the feeling of responsiblity and control of their Business's various parameters of growth and attitude, some, like it for the pride of having achieved such high ranks in business after all those years.

Exercising the top most powerful position in the company, is very commonly the interest of all Middle-Level managers and assistants/subordinates of the top ranks. Though very similar to the old days of kings where dynastic successors were numbered based on their heirarchy to the throne, Business obviously don't go that extent to deciding who carries the baton next.

In big Businesses, most often except a few exceptions, the process of identifying a successor from an internal pool of top brass, or appointing a new person to the top post, simply goes by the normal recruitment processes. With interviews and discussions over a few weeks to few months shortlisting candidates and finally selecting the right person.

After living in the top slot for a while, and earning the top pay packet for a few years, some managers decide to step down themselves to give way for a new person. But, many top managers leave office only when they decide to retire.. or when they retire by virtue of health and non-confidence of their collegues.

We could say that a top-level manager giving up his office by means of stepping-down or by retirement is a 50:50 ratio. The top-level manager, however he/she leaves office, is considered responsible for the consequences of the business even for the couple of years after their exit.

This is very often why most CEO's step down to be a chairman / chief mentor of the organization to still be able to control or monitor the newcomers work and decisions in his office space.

In the backdrop of all this, there are many advantages for a manager stepping down after a couple or more years in the top post, which many managers overlook and stay till retirement.

Advantages of Stepping down.. and points to consider to decide when to step down:

> Avoid Stagnation at the top level:

The top order of any company is always the most stagnant part of the company, only because the CEO can't become a super CEO or further, because there are no such positions. And so, the subordinates of a CEO are not happy people after a couple of years being the same CEO's subordinate...in the same level of office. Like in politics, the every other guy next to the prime minister wants to become the prime minister. This is not a bad thing... the idea of doing things for the company from its apex is always a tempting feeling.

Like people age, companies too age with the same people at the top level. Unlike human ageing, the company ages much faster, and a slow down pitches in.

> Leave at your peak, and feel happy looking back:

You would hear the statement from Sports persons very often, that they want to retire or quit the game at their peak.

The advantage is a happy and proud feeling of achievements during their reign(especially if they had a winning streak at things), and also the compassion and praise people and media shower on them for giving up the slot for younger minds...or bringing a new perspective and freshness to the corner office.

For example, very often, people in top government office, step down for this happiness and pride after having been a president or minister and taking pride in having done things for people.

> For personal Gains:

Though not the best thing to do, sometimes people negotiate their stepping down to personal benefits in wealth, or, other personal gains.

Again, people in government office at a top level have been most attracted to step down on preconditions or negotiations with a pre-determined successor for their position. The personal gains sometimes could be to the extent of not being held later for mistakes in office, be it criminal or civil...and the freedom to live like a high-ranked, high-pensioned citizen with special benefits for self or family from the government.

People quote examples that a Russian president allowed his lesser known subordinate and right-hand man to assume his office in the condition of keeping the new government entirely away from mistakes that the president had committed in his office which otherwise would come to light after his time in office.

> For Personal Health & Family:

High office, is for obvious reasons, a lot of stress and workload,
especially, if there are open issues in office already when you are considering stepping down.

Such stress could get a top level manager carried away into work to create sometimes irrecoverable issues with health, their personal life, and family.

While these issues could aggravate or deteriorate based on how a successor to the position deals with them... it is sometimes better to step down to allow for de-stressing and spending time with family, at the same time introduce a new perspective or thought by means of a new comer to deal which might help resolve the issues at office.

For example, Once a top ranked defence department official in America stepped down because of his family facing lot of threats from external agencies whose criminal/civil activity the official had been monitoring. And as the official stepped down to allow himself and his family be given lesser importance by the agencies, the new official who took over helped bring to justice the agencies quickly.

> To pursue others interests:

Everybody has a life outside office.. yes even the top level managers, though most of them realize it only after retirement.

People grow passionate about some sort of work or activity over their younger or youthful years, and always wish to do things that they possibly couldn't do when they were in the top post in their office.

This could be something in charity like working with organizations to fund charities, or, something passionate like starting a management school or yoga center.

Stepping down after a few years of stressful, hectic, number crunching office hours, these new openings for the top managers, give both the satisfaction of work and more time with family. That is a decent balance to most workaholic managers who just can't stay without work.

Also, in charities, the involvement of an Ex-CEO or Ex-Chairman of a big organization helps the charities a lot, quite immediately.

----

The above reasons should more or less cover a spectrum of reasons / advantages of stepping down from office.

There is always a best time to do stuff, especially considering a previously stated point that, though you step down, you will be considered responsible for the consequences or growth of the company for a couple of years after your time, especially if you had stayed in the top post for a considerable time.

Posted by Harish at 8:51 PM | Permalink

AR Rahman performing in the 5cities nokia party..

The Nokia party website

Posted by Harish at 3:06 PM | Permalink

Did you know! that there is a term for people who understand the problems of trees and diagnose them. Yes, quite interesting to use these medical terms like surgery, diagnosis, for trees. "Tree surgery" its called, the idea of operating on trees, fixing their problems.. and these guys are "Tree surgeons". They do the same, except that thes surgeons go to the patient and operate on him( or her... but, hmm whatever).

This science is Arborist.

Arborist

Ar-bor-ist [ahr-ber-ist], noun

"A specialist in the cultivation and care of trees and shrubs, including tree surgery, the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of tree diseases, and the control of pests."

-- heard this for the first time.. so this post.

And there are professional arborists who have websites. visit here.

Posted by Harish at 4:36 PM | Permalink

Its NOT about the film, its about the weird climate this holiday season.

Its holiday season, and more than it is at bethelhem, it is in the United States. Swap around any of their radio or TV channels (through internet radio, or through slingbox) you will hear and hear nothing but christmas songs and holiday Advertisements.

'no work all play' season.. usually more remembered for the festive fairy tale setting with all snow.. snowing around all the time. (For people like me who haven't been there, you can remember all those english movies from funny children stuff, to Die Hard 2 where christmas time climate is "snow".. only snow).

But this time around, the sad thing is, seemingly there's 'NO' Snow or much less snow in many parts of the Americas, Britain... except for probably the north pole where too possibly its 'reduced' snow.

Here's a report on the abnormal weather conditions in 2006

'Climate change' is what everybody is thinking and everyone is worried and serious about doing anything to get back their earth from its growing anger... leave alone those thousands of people who are more worried.. we don't want to discuss doomsday this season..not now.

Questions to ponder over the holidays?

Will we be (or already) missing... the ice man, the snow balls, the snow covered cars, and all that white everywhere...with those big machines throwing snow out of the roads.?

Is climate change actually making everything go wrong slowly?

What all will stop the change as it is today, then we think about reversing the change.

What the weather channel can forecast is the climate.. not why it is happening.. thats something we should be bothered about. are we?

Organizations, scientists, educationist's can always study climate change and suggest theories, but by the time they come back, we shouldn't have worsened the situation. Should we start with better or lesser fuel consumption, ban on freon like chemical components, and what else. ?

Should we stop NASA research on moving to colonies outside earth .. and contribute that on existing problems.

We know more damage was made by katrina than the attack on WTC. in economic loss and change in priorities of american people. Shouldn't the government and UN be allocating equal funds and energy to analyze climate change, as much as on 'war on terror' ?

For the brave thinkers..

Are we looking at something as serious as 'the day after tomorrow'?

How long do we have?

Posted by Harish at 3:55 PM | Permalink

Chatting with friends, I lumped on a topic of an old video I remember seeing.. which depicts how america became what it is today.

Searching the net with little sceptism whether the video was still available somewhere... i found it WAS! Great!...

Here it is.
If you haven't seen Bowling for columbine's 'A brief history of America' .. please do now.
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/media/clips/index.php

It is a video that you can watch online.. If you have windows, click on windows media player links in the page, or if you have a mac with Quicktime video player then click the appropriate link.

You will remember this history of america for your life.

Posted by Harish at 10:37 PM | Permalink

That's almost become a phrase to cover-up things these days.

When a country goes nuclear and you ask WHY?.. they say that.
When the government passes a bill to get access to your privacy, without your consent, and you ask HOW CAN YOU?.. they say that.

What are Advantages .. and What are disadvantages?

If you are still thinking that advantages are good consequences for everybody, and disadvantages the opposite of it... you are probably living in ancient world or still too young to understand the real reasons behind things.

Like every movie these days seem to have, if we did a behind-the-scenes thing for every political decision every government and the political folk make in this world, .... i bet they will become more action-packed than the latest hollywood flicks.... of what is happening in Iraq and the mistakes that even American president and British prime minister accept, it already is better than hollywood.

There are innumerable cases already and Iraqi liberation is just new among them. For the others, we could briefly analyze two cases.

Case 1:
When the Narmada bachao andolan (NBA), a protest group constituting villagers from the villages sunk by a dam built across river Narmada asked the indian government officials to compensate them for taking the decision to drown their villages,

and when that didnt help and they moved the supreme court of law in india,

the judgement by the supreme court had this statement.. "When the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages...", and ofcourse also did the judge recommend (not ordered) the government to form a committee to analyze the problems faced by the displaced villagers and compensate them, but that's a different story and we know how politicians will implement recommendations.

Case 2:
Similarly when every country goes nuclear and does nuclear explosion tests, the next day the country justifies it with "the advantages of understanding and using nuclear technology for generating power and help other research activities far outweigh the disadvantage of sceptically feeling that the technology could be used in warfare and destroy millions of people".

Are politicians really short-sighted and seeing only one-side of things.. that probably we can only have different opinions.

Bottomline:
It would be stupid to lean on one side and say 'No' to these decisions, and also at the same time say 'Yes' and continue doing it. Probably this is why some people often say "hmm. No and Yes actually" when you ask them complex questions.

I have had quite a few teachers in my school or college days, who used to brainstorm the class one side.. a science teacher would come in the first hour and say that science is what helps evolve and grow, and though there are some disadvantages we should mature to use science in ethical ways.... and the next hour a history teacher would come and say, science and technology may have done good things, but have also paved way for destroying the fabric of peaceful life that used to exist, and science should not-study or only-study some topics like nuclear fission and not try it (Don't try this at home kind of warning.)

One can't stop many bad people grouping together to form a bad organization, acquire money and resources from different bad groups, and finally use them to satisfy their wacky pleasure of destroying the voice of the good groups, so that they can enjoy being bad, lazy... and of course wacky for their life.

In my opinion:

No matter if some of the disadvantages are bad and cruel...If advantages far outweigh the disadvantages of a plan.. then the plan should be implemented !

My agreement with the about statement is 51%, as against the 49% of my thoughts being critical about the statement. And I understand that majority lenience make a final opinion, which means I am in favor of the statement.

In my opinion, the facts that i have seen around me, the evolution of life i have seen, i have read, or i have heard, seem to suggest to me that the advantages of using the statement to convince majority opinions on the evolution of things for the good sake, .... far outweigh the disadvantages of winning a majority opinion for some decisions like testing nuclear fission.

But like the science teacher said, the good people however limited they might become, should make sure that whatever done is done for the welfare and good of everybody and atleast 75% of the consequences should be good for all sorts of beings impacted.

Ideally, before every major decision taken which has negative impacts on the environment or on any living species, an analysis of the impacts should be documented and a % fairness approach should be applied.

For example, to cut down trees in 400 acres of land to make it viable for developing a new city, a specific number of trees and portions of a few acres of land should be identified to be left in place to merge into the environment of the new city.

In essense we would still disturb the population of birds and similar life in the land, but we might have given a chance to 20% of birds and the life to remain, although having to try to cope up with the pressures of a city.

At the same time the city would also have given up 20% of its ambitions of becoming a mega city or metro where trees are considered to occupy costly real estate.

hmm! I hope this post brainstorms somebody someday.

Posted by Harish at 1:41 AM | Permalink

I was hearing this bbc world's clickspace.. or some program its called.. which comes as supplement to the 'click...' gadget programme. The show advices of some good websites or interesting web concepts that viewers can visit and the websites showcased are based on user recommendations of good websites.

POOMOO.COM was one of the websites referred. I went there to find that it was inspired by another project equivalently interesting.

First, poomoo.com: Poomoo though sounds funny doesn't really mean anything related to the work on the website i think. "The website has a 20/20 formula.. where 20 people were asked to describe something that they liked most in 20 secs". Interesting isn't it.. to drop by some strangers on the road and ask them to say it, then record it and put it online. You will find the website's presentation of information even more interesting.

What inspired poomoo.com: "The thought project", thats how Simon the author of this website simonhoegsberg.com calls it. Its like he went down the street, met up with some 150 strangers, asked them what they were thinking just the sec before he bumped into them. While somebody says he was thinking about his college project and gives a confusing synopsis of the project itself which could take you aback, somebody tells about a gift he bought for a friend and thought that is it worth the money and should he give it to his friend. :o)

Simple things about everyone's life, but the way its presented on the website is simply clean than you like to read even ordinary things online. Check up the websites for yourself.

www.poomoo.com
www.simonhoegsberg.com

Posted by Harish at 8:37 PM | Permalink

It confuses me very often living in India. Everything is confusing here.

Democracy is confusing:
Is 'Anybody can do anything' democray. or is 'Doing and talking what is feasible' democracy. I don't know whether in any other country you can promise a goat / or a cow/ or a color TV to win the elections. That's straight forward bribing... and that too to win elections to lay hands on the big treasure of tax money.

No election commission will question this, no court-of-law would.... not even the president of india whose very duty is to have the most interest in an election process than anybody else in the country.

In India, you can kill someone in front of everybody, and just walk away cool if you have the money or the power. Thanks to jessica lal case that stands proof of concept. Till this day, this minute the killers are not charged because though everybody saw nobody narrated it perfectly to be a good enough witness. And no protection of witness act.. and this state is what we popularly boast of with the title 'World's largest democracy'

The worlds largest democracy... this certainly is because you just can do whatever on earth you want and have your way with it. Obviously Indians are sure that nowhere on earth you could get away with things you do in India starting from spitting to killing.

People are confusing:
So much action in the run up to elections everytime, people are excited and glued to news channels and those statements the politicians make..... , and so much silence aftewards.

Why are you silent after the polls. then why do we all vote.
Just by stamping the paper, pressing the button and you thought India will change.
If it was this easy, things would have already changed.

Are we expecting something like what is happening in Nepal, to happen in India, to rise up to respond.

You are good, you want to protest, but you know nobody will bother, so you sit quiet.
This is like that story I remember:
A king asked all his people to pour one boul of milk into a big pot kept in the palace to mark a ceremonial occassion. One guy thought everyone is going to pour milk so if i pour water its not going to show up and make a difference.. so he poured water and went away. Two days later everyone was done and the ceremony was to happen. But the king's men had a problem to reveal. ... the pot was full of water. Everyone thought why bother and the king ended up collecting water instead of milk.

Replace the king with 'India' and milk with 'our responsibility' and we know what we are doing to ourselves.

The man who spits thinks... what the hell.. this is one corner...its not going to dirty everything around. So is everybody with everything.

Just because I don't drink, smoke, spit, shout,... i dont become a good man.. Do I protest when something is going wrong... that makes me one.

If we are silent longer, ... "Too much silence is like mourning already.."

Politicians are confusing:
This is not happening you thought.. and top politicians migrated loyalties. Sometimes worse, they do that after the elections and you wanted someone and someone else came to power.

There's something called an election manifesto... its after all paper. What you can write on paper is not what you can do...or with politicians ..what they will do.

Here in Chennai one politician promises Rice for 2Rs/kg if he comes to power, and immediately his rival annouces that rice goes Free if they come to power. What nonsense. Whose rice, and where is all that cheap rice they are bullying on. Madam Condoleeza Rice would be worried if someone told her that her name is being used here.

What a politician will do after the elections is something that is based on his character not the paper. But we are tempted by the media into analysis. To analyze the best feasible manifesto and vote for them.

Analysis is a word which can have no meaning when the situation is unstable. How would it be if the CEO of a major software firm all of a sudden resigned to join a rival software firm as the CEO. Will you call up your stock broker to action something.... or sit quiet and watch. It should not be any different when political parties and candidates shift loyalties and beliefs from one corner to another just like that.

How to grow:
Did somebody think that just because the finance minister made a good budget, the country's economy got boosted. Where are we hiding the amount of hard work those Tata's, Birla's, and software guys are putting in, all-day all-night, struggling to prove that in India that work can be done with little higher benefits to business. Where are we hiding all the recognition the business gurus deserve for making something that was thought impossible.. possible with resources in this country.

Its like praising the father of a guy, for having such a capable son, who won the olympic silver for the country. He didn't do it just because his parents had him, but because he believed in him and struggled to get there.

Everytime on Indian Media, the first question they ask an achiever from India is, "Who all inspired you, who all would you thank for this"... ... as if just inspiration, and guidance will take you places. If you thought so and get misled into things, you will not realize until you fall from somewhere and struggle your way back to being a fighter.

Whatever happens, But the bottom line is, "Just by stamping a paper, or pressing a button to post your vote, India is not going to change.. .neither are the states that are going for elections.

Posted by Harish at 8:41 AM | Permalink

This post is about the movie I just saw.. "CRASH"

Firstly... my usual justification.

Everybody writes about movies in blogs..I wanted to be different and thought I will never write one.. but you can't beat the fact that more than any other media and Television, movies make a bigger effect on how people see things.

Indians are now accepting love marriages more than the one in million it used to be..(now its one in 100).. Thanks to a roller coaster decade of romantic movies in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu..everywhere.

Indians are now changing..and feel more disturbed about the sanitation of their country..(atleast in the cities)..some people really have stopped tolerating bad behaviour, spitting, shouting and all such stuff. .. even the police today is looking at acts like spitting as criminal (which was earlier considered 'Manly').. Thanks to again a roller coaster decade of aggresive patriotism in movies like Yuva, Anniyan, Muthalvan, Ramana.. etc.,

Justification done... and aside.

This movie CRASH

The movie CRASH... won an oscar (or did it win more than 1, i dont remember)... it gives a clear idea of the internal black-white racial discrimination issues of America. The cold war kind of reactions and thoughts the whites have seeing blacks, and vice-versa.

The film takes a case-study approach and shows the discrimination that happens, and the follow-up solutions that happen to make people understand each other better.

Why did it feel Indian?
The film's bottom-line reminded me of 'Anbe Sivam' where the movie declares through love and patient understanding, we could help avoid wrong perceptions and mis-conceptions about group of people or their community.

The film's screenplay and direction reminded me of 'Yuva' and many more Indian movies, which also have the approach of taking two or more cases independently happening in different parts of society and how they link together finally, or how the issues with the cases get solved.

Don cheadle - is getting closer to an oscar.
Don cheadle, the actor who made a long-lasting impression on me in the film 'Hotel Rwanda' .. is also in this movie (as one of 6 cases, so not much of his show here).. After 'Hotel Rwanda' & after the oscar winning 'CRASH', he is become a known face in Hollywood for sure.

Links:
CRASH -the movie
Hotel Rwanda -the movie
Don Cheadle's cool official website

Posted by Harish at 1:18 AM | Permalink

Peotry is an Art, sometimes abstract (so you don't understand), sometimes modern (so you derive your meanings & mark it research),
sometimes simple (as I would like it), sometimes humourous.. rhythmic, glamourous.. and all that.

They say, it has to be written by people who can convey a thing or two.. in a word or two. They say, it has to flow like a river or a waterfall, beautiful and themed with the context.

Uh!...Poetry is good, and honestly, I am not able to write too many motivating and encouraging sentences, to make you read my poem.. the one below that I wrote up now.

People call me nuts,
for I always saw things different, me and my guts,

They still say you wouldn't change the world,
but for me the world already looks different,

thanks to people who said things like 'Future is already there but in pieces',
so that their thoughts help me out of my recess,

people tell me, the world is big, go travel,
and then they say, its so small, sending an email is a marvel,

people tell me, take life as it comes,
and when i fail, it seems i didn't plan, and so their drums,

some more tell me, history repeats,
i heard india won the 1983 cricket world cup... it beats,

more keep telling me, eating pizza gives bad health,
after all these days, should i still eat rice for all my wealth,

a few more people tell me, Sir, do you want a personal loan, its cheap,
if i get irritated, i say, 'please leave your message after the beep',

some more people, aah..

they keep coming, they keep telling,
i knew this birth will be like this, i would have born a chicken, but they are now culling,

if chicken gets disease, they keep culling -to protect the rest of the herd, but,
when people get it they legalize it, and spread it for ages, calling it 'telling'.

- Harish's poem this,... why are you yelling.

Source of inspiration for the poem: A friend (Thanks JP) sent me a mail with this Einstein's essay, it was more like reading poem of philosophy than an Essay by a scientist, and had advice to look at world differently (yes, one more document where Einstein motivates)...
The thing is I read the Essay Poem at 1AM IST with half-eyes, and kind of got the required poetic hang-over for this post. Now read the poem again, and you will feel the hang-over part of the script in it.

Posted by Harish at 12:51 AM | Permalink

All of a sudden I thought I have to read on China..

I don't know why I felt it, but I feel kind of attracted towards China because I believe they(chinese) are right in the middle of the days where they are changing their country into a developed nation.. and once they complete the project 'China awakening'... I somewhat feel insecure and jealous that China will be better than India with skills and people.

I sure feel, chinese are already better than indians. And yes, every other country is better than india. Probably like somebody said, "it always looks green the other side, while your side looks dry"... that's how we perceive things. If you didn't like the proverb kind of stuff I just quoted, its because of my bad translation of the tamil proverb into english.. in tamil it is: "Ikkaraiku akkara pacchai"

Like me, I wonder whether some chinese also feels insecure about India's growth into a bigger economy. But, truth is, (I have always experienced this everywhere I have worked).. "as long as you look at the competition or the neighbour and compare your work, you always set small targets and never achieve a greater position... or most often you get worried and feel insecure. The day you focus on only your work and don't compare it with anything else except for quality purposes, you will come out Thumping success in everything.."

For now! What did I read about china?
Read it for yourself.. I pulled some interesting chinese blogs, and websites.
China's English newspapers: (Caught this practise from a friend Sudarshan, at a previous employment. he used to always read other country's newspapers more than India's ..:p)
China Daily.com.cn Xinhua News

Blogs:
Leylop's blog* John Biesnecker* China challenges China photos

- The * marked ones go to my favorites list.

Posted by Harish at 10:12 PM | Permalink

I was watching the news... as usual and as weird like everyday, I heard a politician making a, what would anybody call a mis-statement, or "mis-quote".

Below is the one that provoked this post of many other misquotes I remembered reading and could search back from the web.

Most recent: Uttarpradesh, India
The finals of the Ranji Trophy match between UttarPradesh team and Railways team was to be held at a Lucknow ground in UttarPradesh giving the home team advantage.

But, interestingly, at the last minute the match is rescheduled to be held in Wankede stadium, Mumbai. Politics at the center, they say played a role to remove the Uttarpradesh teams advantage and help the Railways team.

When asked, the UttarPradesh sports minister says,
"The match had the permission. But the Regional Sports Officer cancelled it. For the last two days I am searching for this sports officer," said RK Chowdhry, UP Sports Minister.

When Bill Clinton was president of America:
Clinton: "I can spend your money better than you can."
In a post-State of the Union speech in Buffalo, NY on January 20, 1999, Bill Clinton was asked why not a tax cut if we have a surplus. Clinton's response:
"We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right... But ... if you don't spend it right, here's what's going to happen. In 2013 -- that's just 14 years away -- taxes people pay on their payroll for Social Security will no longer cover the monthly checks... I want every parent here to look at the young people here, and ask yourself, 'Do you really want to run the risk of squandering this surplus?' "
Source: Washington Times, January 21, 1999

Al Gore's turn:
At an event in Las Vegas on a Monday, Gore declared potential breast cancer victims faced "a long waiting line before they could get a biopsy or, uh, or a uh, another kind of, what am I looking for, a sonogram or...." People in the crowd shouted "mammogram."
(Source: Fox News 09/18/00; MSNBC 09/21/00 - The News with Brian Williams)

US Republican politician Dan Quayle:
"I have made good judgements in the Past. I have made good judgements in the Future." -Dan Quayle

"I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix." - Dan Quayle

Dan Quayle is very popular with mis-quotes..more..

Our very own George.W.Bush:
"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country". -George W.Bush

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." -George W. Bush

Also read: The Education of the President: Bush On Pakistan (Bush, though we all think he likes Pakistan a lot, ... seems like knows not much on Pakistan!!

Most interesting of all: And actually good quotes, not mis-quotes
During his period as president, a lot of people wondered, 'How dare an actor have the audacity to run for this job,'
Ronald Reagan told the Chicago Sun-Times in 1990. "There were times when I wondered how you could do this job without having been an actor."

An old Russian woman had asked Mikhail Gorbachev whether communism had been invented by a scientist or a politician. Gorbachev said he thought it was a politician. "That explains it," said the woman. "A scientist would have tried it on mice first."

Last two 'interesting' quotes: As sp(read) from Venkat's blog

Posted by Harish at 12:22 AM | Permalink

No, its not about writing love letters... that's proprietary art only lovers understand.

This is about how a couple in their 50's feel reading the letters after years of writing. I loved this short story in 'The Hindu', especially the story's flow.

We'll bury our past: publised in 'The Hindu' 5-mar-2006 Magazine supplementary.

I am a short story fan.. especially because I can't wait the time and effort to know the full story for days reading a thick book. So this was one of the very few, short & sweet.

Posted by Harish at 12:48 PM | Permalink

Don't miss this film.. if you felt India a little closer to your heart. Its an artistic impression of India's youth brigade.

The film got a standing-on-the-seats ovation in Indian Institute of Technology campus where it was recently shown with Actor madhavan and producers present for questions.

A.R.Rahman's music is just inside the emotions in the film...

I don't want to talk more.. close your ears and eyes to all reviews until you are in the theatre... so you feel the pleasure of the film.

Posted by Harish at 11:17 AM | Permalink

The new Italian police car...Lamborghini Gallardo..max speed 320km/hr



The Italian car manufacturer Lamborghini donated a Gallardo to Italian polizia.

"The Italian highway patrol are using the Lamborghini to keep pace with reckless drivers"
"The superfast Lamborghini can also be used to transport vital transplant organs at high speed"

Another country where police have top-notch cars.. is Japan.

These ones are Lancer Evo IX. Looks like photograph of a police parade.. And some of them coming behind look like Honda's...looks like a Honda logo on a gray car behind..hardly visible.
You know Japan is the land with many GT-R and other sport compact police cars.

Posted by Harish at 3:13 PM | Permalink

There was a man who had worked all of his life and had saved all of his money. He was a real miser when it came to his money. He loved money more than just about anything, and just before he died, he said to his wife, "Now listen, when I die, I want you to take all my money and place it in the casket with me. I wanna take my money to the afterlife."

So he got his wife to promise him with all her heart that when he died, she would put all the money in the casket with him. Well, one day he died. He was stretched out in the casket, the wife was sitting there in black next to her closest friend. When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said "Wait just a minute!" She had a shoe box with her, she
came over with the box and placed it in the casket.

Then the undertakers locked the casket down and rolled it away.
Her friend said, "I hope you weren't crazy enough to put all that
money in the casket."
She said, Yes, I promised. I'm a good Christian, I can't lie. I
promised him that I was going to put that money in that casket with
him." "You mean to tell me you put every cent of his money in the
casket with him?" "I sure did," said the wife. "I got it all together, put it into my account and I wrote him a cheque."

Note: If you read the above joke.........if you are an unmarried young guy, ... then you just got a bad omen becos you read this.. You will get a wife like this only...

he he... that's a shaabum.. a bad omen..
i am sooo happy to have pulled you into this omen.

ha ha ha.. lol.. still rolling.
Don't get irritated... hold it.. Have many great days guys. :o)

Posted by Harish at 10:50 PM | Permalink

“Acute and smart criticism is what has fostered the progress of human thinking in all fields from philosophy to the sciences and the arts. Criticising and questioning lies also at the basis of the methodology used at the fundamental stages of professional academic life, such as the defence of PhD dissertations or the publication of papers and books.”

--that's as read from a blog... interesting!

Here's the link to the page: The quest for Earnesty

I love this blog where I found this link.. the writings of Daniel Mark Harrisson.

Posted by Harish at 12:23 AM | Permalink

If you thought this is about some new year party and digital speakers, do excuse me.

The BJP
Its about the Bharithiya Janata party's speakers... BJP, a political organization in India.

Of all politicians in India, I have always admired two people in the BJP, Venkiah Naidu, and Pramod Mahajan, for their clean handling of the Press. But from today, I think I would include Advani to my favorites.

Both Venkiah Naidu and Pramod Mahajan make great speakers and favorites for the Press when it comes to asking for comments on actions by the BJP. Another favorite for the press is LK Advani. But I have never heard much of Advani on TV until today.

Its not the politics that inspires. Its the way they handle those tough and rough questions with one-line descriptive answers...sometimes teasers.

Advani's Press Meet on New year eve 2005
No, we are not going to discuss political news here. This press meet and the things that happened was interesting.

Today, the Bharatiya janatha party moved in for a shift of reigns. Deciding to give the control of the organization to younger people Atal behari vajpayee, the former prime minister of India, a couple of years back told that he is giving up politics.. and now the second top man in the party, LK.Advani does a similar act by resigning his party president post.

Both Vajpayee and Advani continue to remain in the party as working politicians... While Advani will possibly still be the leader of the Opposition in parliament.

For the occassion the day chosen was today Dec31 2005, probably chosen with an eye to usher in new energy into BJP as new year 2006 dawns. On the Agenda, Advani handles a press meet where he states his resignation as the BJP president post, congratulates the new president Rajnath singh, and then, here we are.. he takes up questions. Questions.. on him, the party, his reasons behind the decision to resign, etc.,

In the press meet, Advani had a superior confidence and flair for answering the questions. (Its difficult to have that when people ask you about a lot of things...particularly when every word you say is watched by all of India's media)

Advani's answers though sent the right signals that the BJP wanted to, leading into the new year.

Advani even knew the names of most of the reporters... the top ones who we get to see everyday on TV.

During the press meet, as soon as a reporter showed signals of asking a question, advani called out the reporter by his name .. "deepak, bolo". This was a very good gesture which I haven't noticed by any politician on TV. Particularly, I remembered those press meets of the west, by Americans or Europeans...they call out like "the man with the speks. your question?"..."the lady there.."

Considering these, Advani's gesture on calling out the reporters by names (like we do with pals), and sometimes even knowing the channel they represent.. was something I am sure the reporters there would appreciate.

"Get used to the Mike"
Advani didn't stop there...he probably was in full form. When one or two reporters had trouble with the mike, Advani promptly commented on them with.. "Mike oopar utao... jaise NDTV mein bolthe ho" (Lift the mike up near you and speak like you speak on NDTV. NDTV was the TV channel that the reporter represented.. yes advani even knew a few reporters by the channel they represented... though the mike was a generic one circulated by his party men..not the mike with NDTV on it.)

.. To another lady whose question Advani couldn't hear.. (she had trouble with the mike), he said... "mike chal nehi rahi hai.. dekho... inki TV mei bhi show ho gaya magar aadath nehi padi hai .. (smiles)" (The mike is not ON..check it. She has had a show on TV already but still hasn't got used to checking the mike).

While the questions were keeping on coming... enters a man with a loud announcement "baiyon.. ab time katham ho chuka hai ...press meet yehi samapth hothi hai... aap log chaliye bhojan keegiye" (Brothers, its time now.. we would end the press meet here... lets have lunch now). And.. this was our Pramod Mahajan showing up. Look there... the press was invited for lunch. Another gesture nice enough. (Probably these things also happened before, in other press meets.. but were not LIVE on TV like today, so, I felt these small things very heartening and ethical on handling press meets).

With that, the press meet ended on a very good note, giving all the right signals for BJP's prospects in the new year.

"I am Hanuman"
...Before this meet, there was a conference yesterday between all top members in the BJP. Here, former prime minister Vajpayee made a statement that he sees two top guys in BJP, Advani and Pramod Mahajan, who are like 'Ram' and 'Laxman' of the BJP. (Ram & Laxman happen to be characters from the great indian epic Ramayana)

This statement of vajpayee was seen by the media as important giving signals of who the new president of the party would be if Advani resigned.

Later in the evening, when BJP top brass came out of the meeting, Mr.Venkiah Naidu the former BJP spokesman, and an important person of the BJP was asked... "If Advani and Pramod mahajan are 'Ram and Laxman'? of ramayana... who is venkiah naidu?".. trying to provoke him that he wasn't considered as important as them in BJP.

To this, Venkiah naidu very easily replied.. "hum .. hanuman hai" (I am hanuman). :o)

Hanuman, also an important character in the epic Ramayana, serves the needs of Ram, is powerful, and brings back the pride of rama when he weakens on losing his wife Sita.

Posted by Harish at 12:15 PM | Permalink

Did you see this campaign against arnold schwarzenneger yet.. (dont mind the spelling of his last name.. i never get it right)

http://www.arnoldsneighborhood.com

Nicely created.

Posted by Harish at 1:30 AM | Permalink

That was what i searched once in Google.com when i was depressed. "Poison silica gel". Yea, i was just one other guy whose actions are at times motivated by films. i didnt do that though.. or else how would i be typing this. hey, if you are very worried, i still exist, you can expect a reply for a mail you can send to harish020[at]yahoo

ok. Why silica gel?
Silica gel is more often easily found in a new flask just bought. They keep small porous bags of silica gel in flasks to keep it in the flask whenever you dont have anything inside. it fights odour in the flask. A prominent warning will be put on the small porous bag mentioning that it could be poisonous if consumed.
So, now you know what caught my eye..

hey, if you are looking for committing suicide.. dont eat this stuff... you wont die. Also c'mon why would you die for depression. got to face it fella. do it like i did.. i browsed "poison silica gel" on google, got a good amount of search results, some of them leading to facts of manufacturing silica gel, some to medical sites saying how to provide first aid for kids who accidentally consumed silica gel. i finally ended up reading and browsing information on the web. yea, feels good to be alive after checking in on poisons. :o)

Sometimes, we do don't get what we want. or neither like what the 100 other things we get. That doesn't mean you got to stop life. Imagine you were here enjoying life's good and bad, living with activity around, trying making few friends and many foes, ... all that.. and one quik decision, you committed suicide, and you are gone. leaving just space in your place. That isn't going to make the world better.. honestly.

Live happy.. leave me a note... not if you stopped dying, leave a note if this blog entry leaves you more irritated than you were before reading it.. :o)

Posted by Harish at 12:06 AM | Permalink

What is so interesting about politics? This is a common question that's up every teenagers mind, particularly when they see their elders glued to the News channels on a TV everyday when there's a lot more happ'nng stuff at music channels or movie channels or atleast Discovery/National geographic for god's sake.

Politics is an art of influencing things / people, (and very often an art of making-up things that were done wrong). People understand politics only when they start understanding Life, people, relationships, environment/society they live in, and importantly understanding to influence all these.

And that's time when people start watching news channels more than music or movie channels. There's a lot of happ'nngs here too, and these are real happening stuff.

One might ask... What's the big deal? Why should I bother about understanding politicians, governments they form, the rules they breach? What help is it going to make to my life?

Well, Firstly, politics is not just about governments and rulers. There's politics is in the office, in the college, in the school.. and everywhere. But in these places atleast in the college and school they are not very critical most of the times, and college or school politics are not done for any long term advantages...and that's why people who try taking advantage by influencing others in college or school are not to be considered politicians (or atleast not called so literally).

Secondly, politicians, governments, rules have indirect affects on our lives at every stage... its just that we ignore it at the early stages and take careful note of things in the later days.

How about having elected a bad Minister for education in the government, who in power absorbs a lot of money into his stuff decreasing practically the amount of grant your college receives than what it should have got, and this leads to your college paying less to staff and recruiting not so interesting lecturers... you end up with a boring session everyday, and still worse with bad grades and little knowledge about what was taught.

Politics gets interesting when you learn its effects, its motive, and sometimes when you get to influence somebody or some activity with your capacity as a person.

I had a long time trying to understand politics.. trying to churn some meaning from the newspapers everyday. but not of use. it never got into the head, because i was still not having the know-how about life, people, friends, love, enemity, and a lot of things. After a couple of years after my college and into my first job I started observing people, their lives, my lives, compared findings, and it started happening. the understanding came by, though very slowly.

And mind it, there's nothing called correct or wrong about understanding something.. its only a perception, so what politics you understand could be entirely different from what your friend does.. and still different from what your foe understands.

That's politics!
Its about researching on what happens everyday around us in our environment of people.

Posted by Harish at 9:48 PM | Permalink

Browsing the web has turned out to be an interesting experience, especially because of the amount of interesting techniques browser makers put in to their tools.

Browser developers are not just developing an application that will enable you to browse the web, but are enabling features that will make browsing an interesting experience to the users.

Whenever i get on this word "experience" in relation to software, i remember Microsoft Windows XP. Very aptly did Microsoft name its new version that time. XP for experience. Making known that user experience of an application is of atmost importance to sell an application. Ah..ha.. i jumped on another interesting topic that i would like to detail on "user experience in computer applications".. may be in another blog.

Ok. coming back to our topic of the day... (i do divert into items away from topic now and then, just the way i am .. got to bear me pal)

Browsers like Opera and FireFox are gaining popularity for their good innovative browser feature design.

Opera designed something called "mouse gestures" wherein you move your mouse straight up and straight down casually on the opera display area, and that means a command to the browser and the page refreshes. There are many other interesting gestures you can make on a opera browser to close the current website, open a new window, move back one page, move forward one page, make display area full-screen... and the likes.

The FireFox browser..takes its turn into innovative design with "dynamic bookmarks" in its newly launched browser version 1.0.6 (yes version 1.0.6 and innovative design is already in, with many other features which other browsers took to give only in versions 6 or higher)
Dynamic bookmarks works like this.. All of us are aware of RSS feeds, which are headline and short-description xml feeds of a website that gets updated everytime the website has new content. keeping track of the RSS feeds itself would tell you whats new in a website. This is more for applications which can read RSS feeds and tell you when the website is updated or the better off download the update on the website.

The functionality as read in Forbes review of the firefox browser

When Firefox sees a site with an RSS feed, a little orange tag lights up in the lower right hand corner of the browser window. Clicking it gives you a new bookmark that changes as the content of that site changes. Dragging down to that "live bookmark" leads to a menu of headlines of new stories. Selecting one takes you directly to the story you want, without having had to go to the trouble of first visiting that particular site and rifling through its headlines. (It only sounds complicated in my description. Trust me.)

Interesing? Try these browsers.. and experience the advantages of browsing with something other than the usual Internet Explorer.

Dowload Links: (You can find download links in the sites below)
Opera home
Firefox home

Now, coming to reality..
You might ask, is there a browser which has both the above features, so that you dont have to try different browsers for different things.

Well, i am afraid we are still in a technology-age fix on this now. Because if i am right, all these innovative features are patented by the respective companies and others can't try to implement the same.
That leaves us with opera not implementing 'dynamic bookmarks', and firefox not implementing 'mouse gestures', neither can Internet explorer implement both.

What else.. hmm.
may be you will be interested in a 2-part article of mine on 'Browsing Smarter' which was published by www.infinsource.com long back.

Posted by Harish at 12:28 AM | Permalink

If you invested your time and money in developing people you get payed back as the investor. The same thing with developing your kids, your own thoughts, ..and all, but infrastructure.

Infrastructure development leads to developing everything else around. Catalyses development of people who use the infrastructure, the facilities in the infrastructure, the cost of things sold there, etc., And, all these costs are typically to be borne by the person investing on the infrastructure... who is expecting Returns already, rather than spending more.

Truth is, ROI on infrastructure is only for the eyes, or for the business in it, not for the investor to use as money unless its leased.

This holds good very well with developing a "City". When the infrastructure like roads, freeways, airports, in a city develop, it rather than doing good to existing citizens increases costs of the real-estate, costs of living, & costs of travelling.

Labour costs also increase since developed infrastructure gives a opinion to everyone that businesses are making more money (Though the city's infrastructure may not have been developed by these businesses).

Recently, my parents toured two states in India, Bihar and Orrissa. They came back with strange feelings that living costs, transportation and food costs are too high back here.. in Chennai, Tamilnadu. Bihar and Orrissa are relatively under developed compared to Tamilnadu and Chennai especially. That explains the difference.

If you are developing infrastructure, make sure you lease it or develop it for the sheer luxury of it. :o)

Posted by Harish at 11:04 AM | Permalink

For the first time in my life, I read movie reviews rating a movie the highest rank. And categorizing the movie as a "MUST SEE". Yes, its all reviews of the movie 'Black'.

For those non-indians who were questioning the quality and capacity of bollywood, and for those indians who thought good highly express-ive movies are made in south or east of india, here's BLACK.

B L A C K
Well that's how the title of the movie is pronounced and I have just tried to be putting it straight like it is. To brief, the movie is about a deaf and dumb girl's plight in understanding life, and understanding relationships, love, despair, hope and quite a few things. To my knowledge, the director Sanjay leela bhansali has expressed the black world that one can experience by trying keep eyes closed while we carry on with our everyday work.

The film's title itself expresses a lot, and every act and every scene has detail and an expression, which one might notice only if glued to the film's presentation.

People call it a copy of many similar themes in many english movies, but my opinion would be... Y bother? If the film is good, the idea good, the quality and expression outstanding, the storyline and performance of actors heart sinking, ... do you want to let go yourself from seeing black's expression.

For me, it was a wonderful experience and I felt like I come out of the theatre and email every contact I knew in the world to see this movie.. but then I waited till the experience subsided. and I will remember black and the education it has given me on deaf and dumb people, for years to come.

For Reviews:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/films/bollywood/2004/12/black_preview.shtml
http://www.glamsham.com/movies/scoops/05/feb/06black.asp
http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/article/13066.html

For Images:
http://www.indiatarget.com/cgi-bin/piclist.cgi?id=840&gallery=1

Posted by Harish at 12:06 AM | Permalink

The Great Indian Tamasha

If you vibe well with happenings in India(especially politics), and if you haven't yet seen it, you should try watching NDTV channel's show every sunday "The Great Indian Tamasha". It is one good hilarious show of depicting(actually digging) some tight-corner's that India's celebrities get into.

More details on the show here..
The show's online message board here..


About NDTV

NDTV, The NewDelhi Television Network stands out as one comparable television network with quality in the world Media arena. Finally, India's search for a professional media television news group is arrived.

Actually, I would say AAJ TAK, the india Today magazine's television was all poised to be a proffessional news channel but for a few misgivings in its presentations to commercialize the presentation with more advertizing revenue focus.

You may feel its little exaggeration to call NDTV the one channel. But you wouldn't agree any less with me, if you had watched NDTV's news presentations a few times.

And you would agree more for the fact that AAJ TAK won the best news channel in india award in successive years (quite a few years- i exactly dont remember how many years they had their hands on the award), until recently as NDTV took possession of this award... and NDTV also got the "outstanding Journalism award 2004" from International Press Institute (India).

Posted by Harish at 11:52 PM | Permalink

Popular Singer of India, someone hailed "Swami of Melody", Adnan Sami, is not a new person in the music world... atleast for Indian Viewers. He seems to have a passion for different sounds, tones, and music from thought, more than the passion he is known to have.. for playing The Piano.

As a boy, he caught everyone's attention when he performed the piano, for the speed at which he moved his fingers on the piano, and the clarity with which he could manage the speed. He was hailed the fasted piano player in the world.. and if I am right, this is recorded by the Limca book of world records.. after which adnan's popularity index grew steeply.

While "fastest" didn't leave him though.. he has received that appreciation in almost anything he did.. related to music. Be it his fast rise to an achiever and one of the top music composers in India, or be it his fast selling albums.

This day, he is well recognized in the music world as one of the best musicians. His obese look though explains how many hours days and year, he would have spent sitting at the piano practizing without burning much calories.

I enjoyed hearing adnan play at a Tsunami fund raiser show today (though I heard it on a TV), pulling out a good song for the show. I enjoyed more so, watching him dance and express himself on the stage with his hands and legs kind of anecdoting every sound just a fraction before it was played.

I admire adnan as some kind of a distant motivation for me to learn to play guitar that I got myself almost an year back but a'int able to make any useful sound of it still. I am motivated adanan. Thanks! :o)

Posted by Harish at 1:38 AM | Permalink

Today I saw something very interesting, very good, very promising of India's future..

Its usual to see truck drivers making a shady backyard kindof... behind their vehicles parked in-line... on the sides of a busy road. When this other-side of the road is scorched by the hot sun in Chennai(India), this backyard rest place fills up with gossip.

Usually the truck drivers either have a gossip, a siesta, or, play an old game of squares by drawing lines on the mud and use small stones as coins. But today, I casually peeped into one such backyard on the road adjoining my office, and I found them (the truck drivers) playing chess.

Isn't it something very interesting, very good, very promising of India's future.. ;-)

It was nice to see Chess catching interests in these people..I thought its only cricket that fancies all kinds of Indians. Is Chess becoming interesting.. after Cricket .. in India?

Posted by Harish at 11:44 AM | Permalink

Hello world!

This is a test of my new blog. A 'Movable-Type' one, i have setup..
If u see it, it means it worked.

Posted by Harish at 12:59 PM | Permalink