My first week at Singapore has been quite good. As a newcomer, there are a lot of things one gets to see, know and learn about a place. The first thing i experienced about this place is its humidity. Right after i got out of the airport terminal, the humid hot air hits you. The heavily conditioned air at the wonderful airport makes the difference even more dramatic.   Another observation about the weather is that it almost rains everyday. It rains once and then we are done for the day. The rest of the day remains either pleasant or back to being very humid depending upon the intensity and time of the rain. Because of lack of enough space, most living spaces are in the form of apartments built by the Housing Development Board(HDB). These apartment complexes are very well places. For a bunch of apartments, there is a children's playground, shopping complex and gym. Thereby, most things get done at a short walking distance. If you have to travel long distance, there are 4 available options. The most common public transport is the SMRT(Singapore Mass Rail Transit). Other options are buses, taxis and ofcourse cars. The SMRTs are very efficient and are the backbone of public transport. The train network is divided into many lines( purple, green, red, circle, etc) which run across the country. Fares are collected mostly through pre-paid cards. One swipe at the entrance and one at the exit, irrespective of any number of interchanges across the lines. It deducts money mostly based on the time gap( though not confirmed). Sometimes money gets deducted once across train+bus journey,  which is very nice. One doesn't have to bother much about train timings as there is one for approximately every 3-4 mins.  Buses are the next alternative, especially during peak hours, as the MRTs can be quite crowded then. Buses are a little slow because of the number of stops and not to forget, the traffic signals and snarls.  Taxis come to your help when you are running short of time or when you have a lot of baggage to carry. These are mostly the only times when one does take a taxi, which is a costly alternative.      The most costly alternative to commute is by means of a car. They are comparatively less in number because of their high pricing( an initiative by the Govt to reduce the number of commercial vehicles on road). Further updates in subsequent posts.

If someone gave/did something to you, but it is not what you wanted... Does that mean that they didn't give/do anything?

Today is memorable in the cricketing fraternity for 2 reasons - one is obviously the '100th 100'. - the other is that in the quest for personal records, the players put the game at stake by keeping point1 as the highlight. What a shame!

A friend once told - "There ia always a lesson to be learnt from happenings in life, and they continue until the lesson is learnt". How true...

CEOs are making headlines everywhere... Steve Jobs resigns from Apple and is chalking out a plan for the future of Apple, Larry Page is busy strategizing Google's next aggressive move. In the meanwhile, we are also seeing some finger pointing at CEO's, of which the prominent ones are the sacking of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and the huge criticism of HP CEO Apotheker.

We have seen the media post-mortem the failures in Yahoo and HP and point out  mistakes in the company's strategy that leads to certain failures...and worse attributing it to the CEO. What bothers me more is the constant criticism by journalists and the tech-bloggers alike regarding how the company made a bad decision in selecting so-and-so person as the CEO. There are frequent out-bursts about how this person was from a totally different business and could not have done justice in this line of business, etc..


Here is an excerpt from the article on Carol Bartz

"First reaction: what exactly does Autodesk have to do with a consumer-focused Internet company like Yahoo? Bartz certainly sounds like she has a long history of running a big company – Autodesk has more than 7,000 employees and $2 billion in annual revenue – but what expertise and vision does she have that’s relevant to one of the world’s biggest Web companies, in desperate need of re-inventing itself?"

and one on Apotheker

"The thing is, Apotheker’s relevant experience was serving as CEO of SAP. What’s SAP? SAP is an enterprise software and consulting company. Honestly, we all should have seen this coming. You don’t bring in an enterprise consulting guy to turn around a PC and device maker. You bring in an enterprise consulting guy to turn a PC and device maker into an enterprise consulting company."

The problem addressed in both the above articles is about failure of a CEO who is new to that particular business.
Does this mean that a CEO who is familiar with the business fare well? Maybe. But this requirement fairly diminshes the scope of electing a new CEO.

The classic guidelines for electing a CEO has been mostly past performance and personality - vision, aggressiveness, enthusiasm, dynamism, strategizing, leadership, integrity, etc etc.

I think that this specific requirement of "familiarity with the line of business" is a gamble.It may work or it may not. Does the aggressive tech industry which is dynamically changing causing this move where we can't afford a new CEO(new to the industry) to settle down and bring in slow changes? or is this just a short window view of the big picture?

Since one cannot drag and drop a link on iPad, one cannot easily add the Google Reader's 'Note in Reader' bookmarklet to the browser(in my case, Safari).

One method is to get the JavaScript of the bookmarklet from your desktop PC, mail it to yourself and use it in your iPad browser.

But for lazy people like me, here's a quicker method.
1. Open the browser and bookmark any random page and name it as 'Note in Reader'.
2. Now open the Bookmarks section and go to 'Edit Bookmarks'. Click on the 'Note in Reader' bookmark that was saved in the first step.
3. Clear the existent script and paste the below script

javascript:if%20(typeof(_IS_MULTILOGIN_ENABLED)=='undefined')%7Bvar%20_IS_MULTILOGIN_ENABLED=false%7D;var%20b=document.body;var%20GR________bookmarklet_domain='http://www.google.com';if(b&&!document.xmlVersion)%7Bvoid(z=document.createElement('script'));void(z.src='http://www.google.com/reader/ui/link-bookmarklet.js');void(b.appendChild(z));%7Delse%7B%7D

as shown in the image below

Ever since I decided to buy an iPad,I was worried that the non-availability of Flash on apple devices may cause problems while web browsing, especially since that was one of the main reasons for me buying the device in the first place! But after enquiring with people already using apple tablet devices, I was rest assured that it is not a major problem, rather it sometimes helps by preventing viewing of some irritating ads!

But i didn't have to wait long to stumble across a site built on flash! and look at the error message by Adobe below -


"Thanks for trying to access Flash Player. Unfortunately it is not available for your device because of restrictions that Apple has put in place. Click here to see a wide array of the latest smartphones and tablets that do support Adobe's Flash Player.

Copyright © 2011 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved."

I found this to be hilarious and aimed outright at Apple! Especially the section that asks us to view the list of other devices! Is it not apparent that all the other available devices do support Flash?




Doesn't every other tablet, other than Apple devices support Flash?..

The British royal family is in the news again, but this time for a good reason of Prince William's wedding!

As a kid, i was always fond of Princess Diana... the elegant classy beauty... So also the media was in total awe of her and followed her everywhere.... whether it was some land-mine relief camp in Africa that she visited or some other high society event in England...they made sure that she was in the news.. Hence one couldn't just ignore her.So much to say that i had written in all the slam books that i found Diana to be the 'Most beautiful woman'( no denying it though....)

Prince William has definitely received some of his mother's 'beauty' genes. Across my child-hood he was one of the first 'crush'es... His wedding this week marks a transition and not to forget, reminds me of how 'old' we are getting! (Oh!) Really?!


And, wishing William & Kate a very happy wedded life! May they get to be the King & Queen soon! :) [ No, i don't wish anything happen to Queen Elizabeth and oh ya right, there's Camilla in line too! :) ]

PS - Getting too many markers about getting old of-late.... :(

Audi is the new BMW....

BMW is the new Merc....

and Merc???

March brings with it not only the summers, but also the much dreaded exams into perspective. Exam brings with it difficulties not only to the people writing them, but also to their families too! Daily routines get temporarily modified for sometime. The TV, movie-watching gets the much needed rest, the radio is seldom switched on, attendance in family functions see a decline and the like-wise.

I'm currently experiencing similar exam related routine changes, thanks to my cousins! and i end up enquiring some issues related to it. Recently i learnt that students can use simple calculator to solve numericals in Physics, but one still needs to use Clark's table in tuitions! To achieve what? I don't know...(is it a test of time management? Maybe)

Physics involves numericals that involve quite some amount of calculations. When i studied Physics in 2nd PU, we used to solve the numericals by the use of Clark's tables. I didn't understand then and don't understand now as to why do obsolete methods need to be used as and when we have advanced further in a particular field. Clark's tables was used in ancient times because of the non-availability of a computing device aka the calculator. Now, after the calculator is in wide-spread use, why should one be using a Clark's table to solve numericals?

People who have attachment towards the old methods argue that it is expected of every student to learn the usage of these methods. But to achieve what end? when one has absolutely no usage of it any further, why fill the neurons with redundant data?

I don't know if the concerned committee has even given a thought to it. But i don't see any value addition in using Clark's tables.(I know that one may point out many such redundancies, if we may call it, that exist in our education system, but this is one of it). Rather, the time consumed in learning the methods of usage and solving problems by looking up at those tables could have been put to a productive use... Would it be?

I'm back with one of my auto related experiences :)
This was in the aftermath of the change in auto fares, all the meters have to be re-calibrated.One morning in an auto having an electronic meter with old calibration

Me:Innu haLe meter ide. Yaavaga change maadthira?
      [The meter is of old calibration. When are you going to get it modified?]

Auto driver: Ondu RTO alli dinakke 6 auto-meter maatra change madodu. Adakke tumba nidhana aagtide. Adhbere yeradu saavira rupaayi kottu change madasbeku madam!
      [6 autos are calibrated in each RTO per day. Hence the process of re-calibration is taking up lot of time. Also, it costs around 2k to get it re-calibrated! ]

Me: Ashtondu duddu yaake?
     [ Why does it have to cost that much?]

Auto driver: Maamuli meter na entu nooru rupaayalle madkodthare. Aadre electronic meter alli IC ella change madbekalla, adakke yeradu saavira rupaayi!!
    [ The older meters can get re-calibrated at only a hundred bucks. Since the electronics meters have IC's in them, it costs more!! ]

The Centre Court, Wimbledon !

Recently i discovered a new bit twiddling hack, which proves to be quite useful.

If a number is AND-ed bit-wise with its two's complement, then the resulting number will hold the first bit that is set in the original number(from LSB)


For ex: Consider a number 62hex(11000010).
Its two's complement is 3Ehex(00111110).

AND-ing the two numbers gives us 2hex(00000010) ,
i.e the first digit of 62hex(from LSB) is got.

If you want the next bit that is set, clear the bit of the previous operation and repeat the above steps.

i.e. Clear the processed bit(2hex) from 62hex => 60 hex.

AND the num with its 2's complement => 60hex && 40hex = 40hex(0100 0000)

Thereby the next set bit in the byte is obtained.

This is a very helpful tool when one has to perform certain operation based on the bit set in the byte of an array. One can loop or shift through only the bits that are set in the byte, thereby reducing the execution time by a great extent.

Nange "food-u" Indian bekadru, "dhuddu"(money) American beku! :)

While i was looking for some information in the internet, I landed on a URL which turned out to be an outdated listing. The error message was as follows :)

To err is human.
The page sought could not be found
but, is the fault yours?

As the IPL is approaching its grand finale, everyone is(rather was) curious about who will be the final 4 that will be battling it out. On one such discussion at home, my uncle and dad were arguing about the net run-rate that is the decider when there is a tie in the point-table.The argument being that - Does the number wickets lost by the team have a say in the net run-rate of the team?

As one knows that run-rate is the average runs scored in one over
.i.e. if Team A scores 125 runs in 20 overs, then their run-rate is 125/20 = 6.25 (runs/over)
or
If Team B scores 125 in 15 overs, then their run-rate is 125/15 = 8.33 (runs/over)

Run-rate =
Total runs scored
------------------
Total overs played

Now, the net run-rate of a team is the incremental/decremental rate change with respect to the opponent, i.e. it is the value obtained after subtracting the opponent's run-rate from the team's run-rate.

Thus this can be a positive or a negative value depending on the relative performance of the team against the opponent.

Net run-rate =
Total runs scored by team _ Total runs scored by opponent
-------------------------- --------------------------------
Total overs played by team Total overs played by opponent

While calculating net run-rate for a team's performance for more than one match(mostly a series), the score and the overs should be a cummulative data, and the above equation becomes

Net run-rate =
Cumm runs by team Cumm runs by all opponents
----------------- - -----------------------
Cumm overs by team Cumm overs by all opponents


Hence the number of wickets lost by a team plays no role in the calculation of net run-rate of a team.


Hence if Team A has a target of 200 in 20 overs, with required run-rate = 200/20 = 10 runs/over and they get all out for 150 in 12 overs, then Team A shall lose the match, but have a net run-rate of 150/12 - 200/20 = 12.5 - 10 = +2.5

I feel that this parameter doesnot give a complete picture of the performance of the team. Even though team A has a bunch of irresponsible batsmen who throw their bats at every ball bowled, their team ends up having a higher net run-rate than the rest!

There has to be a different parameter which also brings into account the wickets fallen and/or the rate of fall of wickets and maybe other parameters that provides a balanced picture of the performance of a team.

The international cricket proves yet another time that it is eventually a batsman oriented game rather than an evenly balanced game!

is a semi drama- semi romantic movie that revolves around the life of Ryan Bingham(George Clooney).

The opening credits of the movie has some aerial shots of various places in the world. That's a really nice piece. Some of the shots are so incredible that it makes you wonder if such a landscape actually exists!

What makes one think is how Ryan passionately, without wax; loves his not-so-lovable job. There are broadly two aspects to the story - one is the professional side of his life and the other is his personal story - his way of life, thinking, mind-set, relations,etc.

I, personally did not like the story line of his professional story. It is a loosely-woven story-line there. But the other part is beautifully done. Ryan- his concept of the light back-pack and how he literally practices it, his commitment to his work, nice guy character, the commitment-o-phobic behaviour, the twist all make up a good watch.

The official IMDB review is here

1. MJ is no more. Came as a shock! RIP MJ...

The King is Dead, long live the King.

As a kid, the first English songs i listened to were those of Boney M, Abba and MJ....

Was touched by Nokia's tribute in today's newspaper.

2. Meghu is back!!! My partner in crime is here. I'm soo happy :)

It seems so long ago as well as not so long ago at the same time.

3. Enjoyed thoroughly while preparing the treasure hunt for Deepi yesterday.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

4. Sahana got engaged last week and it was nice.

An event marking a transition phase in "Namma Gangu".

This is the book that i completed reading yesterday.... It was a pleasant change, as I'm not used to reading classics, especially in the romantic genre.


Even though I'm not much of a feminist, the strong character portrayal of the female lead, Sinjun/Joan impressed me much. I found the initial 2/3rds of the book to be interesting , after which i felt it a bit draggy and seemed to lose my interest.


The story line is that of Colin Kinross, an Earl of Scotland who is at the threshold of rags, unless he happens to wed a rich heiress. He leaves to England in search of thee and meeting Sinjun in one of the parties. Her childish infatuation and their story....


I don't have plans of reviewing the story.Just few observations from the book that stood out

- The rapport between Sinjun and her sister-in-laws was truly amazing. Have never heard of stories where the sister-in-laws escape from home to help Sinjun,who is in distress...all without the knowledge of the brothers.

- The smart manner in which Sinjun wins over Colin's children, Dahling and Philip.

- The extremely childish phases and contrarily mature instances displayed by Sinjun.

- Her unconditional love of Colin... truly nice.

- Last but not the least, the ghosts in the 2 castles which are extremely helpful at difficult times.... never heard of it right??

Overall a nice one-time read.