31 May 2005

Good Move

In an order that is bound to create many a ruffled feathers among parents, the Bangalore City Corporation has banned parents from dropping off their wards to school in cars and two wheelers.
Now why is this bound to cause controversy ? Coz many a parents will now have to use the government buses to send their wards to school.No not the crowded ones but special school buses provided by the government.
I am all for this order and it must be enforced in spirit and letter.If you want to know why then think of this.Why is it that schools have the concept of uniforms ? Why don't they allow students to come to school in whatever dress they please ? It is because the students should feel that they are neither superior nor inferior to none inside the school campus.
The schools in bangalore especially have an obscene and ostentatious display of wealth among kids.Many a parent love to pamper the kids, without knowing the kind of impact it is creating in their minds and that too at such an young age ! Mobile phones, bottled water { not your aquafina folks but evian(a tag of Rs 80/litre) }, bikes or chauffered cars ! What is all this nonsense ? If you want to really pamper your kid why not arrange a home tutor for him/her ? Foreign jaunts for excursions and what not !
The corporation is not interfering in this process.When the parents come off to drop and pick up their wards the traffic jams that are caused are horrendous to say the least. The government wants to find a solution to this problem ! Good that the government has acted in this regard.The wise parent might ask that when the whole city has bad traffic and is crumbling why is it that they are being targeted ? I can just tell them one thing.Please be responsible to the society and show to your kid how he/she can be responsible too. Explain to the ward as to why he/she should take the bus and make him/her feel proud of doing it !
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 11:35 AM 0 comments

30 May 2005

Im Back

Ladies,Gentlemen & others;
This is to say that ya im indeed alive & kicking.{ok not exactly kicking}.Oh that does'nt give me anything to put up two posts in a single day.Jus wanted to emphasize that im indeed alive down here.
Fortunately i have not got caught in any car on which some trees came crashing down, some drain which could have washed me away, some power cuts in which mosquitoes could have lifted me away ! Hah what a weather we have ! A week of merciless sun beating down roasting everyone and a week of more & more rains in which everything gets flooded and submerged ! screw this place man ! sucks big time.
Unfortunately though my brand new bike got tonked by a useless and irresponsible M*****F***** driving a ford ikon.To think of that ba***** was trying to overtake on the left ! I despise these morons who care a damn about road safety ! Trying to push me off the road he suceeded in pushing me ON the road.I hope you rot in hell moron !
And now-a-days i feel even more jealous when i see someone zooming in the bike { read females :)) oh ok!! }, coz i got tonked even when i was driving at such slow speed { 30kmph to be exact } and these ppl seem to be flying ! God save them too from these irresponsible car drivers !
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 12:40 PM 0 comments

Us Vs Them

Many a time i hear this from so many people sourrounding me.You are pretty experienced S/w guy.Why dont u go abroad and make loads of money and lead a happy life ? Excuse me a sec.Happy life you said ? What can be happy there ? To which the retort comes saying no bad roads, clean air, cheap lifestyle, loads of money when you come back etc etc
So many a time i wanted to issue a rejoinder to all those doubting thomases why i dont have even an iota of intrest in doing so.
1. Loads of money : This is possible If and ONLY if you come back.Show me how many of those who went with an intention of coming back have really come back ! 1% ? I might be a part of that 1% i might not be.It is not in me to risk it.So if i dont come back then i have to do the same sloggin i do here.So why not do it here ?
2. This is perhaps the most important reason why i am of no mind to leave my country. Whatever happens you are always treated as an outsider.Ok so you want proof ? US is suposed to be an epitome of free country.Free speech, Free thought.What happened when Forbe's top 50 most influential woman made a speech in a graduation day ceremony, deriding the foreign policies of that country ? Was she allowed to do so ? Come on it is a free country right ? No she issued an apology.Ok so why did she issue an apology ? That is because she is indian born ! The bottomilne : at the end of the day whatever you do whoever you are you will *remain* an outsider.I do not need that ! At the end of the day when you come back you jus hang your legs up for a quiet dinner and relax spending time with the people you like around you.Not think what should i do tomorrow !
3. End result the roads may be bad, education system may be bad whatever it may be that is not going to be a reason for me to leave this place.
QED
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 12:28 PM 0 comments

24 May 2005

Never has wishing someone bought so many thoughts and churn inside me ! So how did it come to this ? It will in all probability remain unexplained.Ah! Therein lies the matrix theory.The more i try to explain it the more complicated it becomes.But then strangely it does feel good doesn't it ? Best wishes once again !
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 7:06 PM

laloo's lollu

Lollu: Anything unpleasant. Tamil for the sound made by a dog (analogous to "bow wow" in English). Probably a neologism from the Tamil movie Perusu, starring Sathyaraj and Bhagyaraj. { Source Here }

Laloo prasad yadav has done it again folks.He has used his political clout to arm twist the ruling party at the center to twist the governer into holding election again. When will the politicians in our country ever change ? I think it will change only when all educated people go and vote *without* arguing "Everyone is corrupt then why should i vote?". Ok that is the rant of a different post.
Already thousands of crores of tax payers money had gone down the drain in holding the previous elections.Now the elections are back again.I hope that some goddam party gets a majority and forms the government.No not laloo.Not him again.Not that M*****F*****. Pardon me guys but im forced to say that. 15 years of rule in bihar and he has given nothing but anarchy.And the central goverment had just taken steps to throw out the arrogant relatives of laloo occupying the goverment houses for years without paying their dues.
In a clear case of pot calling the kettle black he had the ba**s to accuse the CEC of playing the casteist card.
I think he should now be taught a fitting lesson by the electorate of Bihar.Come on my fellow countrymen of bihar.Can't you see the abyss he has pushed your state into ? Patna also called pataliputra was the seat of higher education during the early 14th centuries { Ok forgive me if i erred in the timing }.And where does your state stand in terms of education now ? Ok forget education.Take jobs for instance.Why were biharis attacked in maharashtra ? Why is it that a large number of security personnel outside sofware companies in bangalore and other places, predominantly biharis ? Friends of bihar it is time to move on.I cannot guarentee that the next chief minister will give you roses but atleast you can see what change can do.I urge all bihari's to go home and vote laloo out of power.Good luck my fellow countrymen.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 4:49 PM 0 comments

23 May 2005

Current Mood : Ecstatic , Euphoric { and almost all superlatives for being on cloud nine }
Reason : someone close to me gave some wonderful tidings or im getting a bike, or unknown or possibly because i jus had a trip home, or .. well so many
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 2:45 PM 0 comments

19 May 2005

Good Showing!

One of my college juniors Achal Rastogi is a part of the team that has won the Computer Associate's Challenge.I just hope that his company does not give him a raw deal and gives him a decent share of the money he has won.However if developing this software has been the full time work at his place of work, well good luck to you man!

This is the article courtesy rediff.com

Indians reign supreme in CA's million-$ challenge

A Correspondent in Mumbai | May 18, 2005 16:45 IST

Are Indian's the smartest software programmers? It sure seems so!

Two Indian teams and one Indian from New York have won the Computer Associates Ingres Million Dollar Challenge.

The winners delivered migration toolkits from Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL to CA's Ingres r3 open source platform. Between them, the three have netted $550,000 in prize money.

The challenge was designed to leverage the global talent pool of the open source community, while providing substantial financial compensation to those who successfully met its requirements.

Under its terms, open source developers were invited to create solutions that enable users of popular databases to migrate to Ingres. Qualifying solutions were eligible for cash awards up to $400,000, with a total purse of $1 million.

Shift2Ingres, an Oracle migration toolkit submitted by Harsh Azad, Rohit Gaddi, Achal Rastogi, Geetanjali Bahuguna and Ashutosh Upadhyay of New Delhi won the largest prize of $400,000.

EzyMigrate, submitted by Danes John and Varghese Jacob of Kerala, was awarded a prize of $100,000;

DbConverter, submitted by Bipin Prasad of New York, was awarded a prize of $50,000.

"We are grateful for the hard work and creativity of the open source developers who participated in our challenge, and we will continue working with the open source community to develop migration tools for Ingres," said Tony Gaughan, senior vice president of development at CA, in a statement.

"With these tools, organisations can easily and cost-effectively transition away from proprietary databases to take advantage of Ingres' highly scalable, feature-rich open source database platform."

Submissions were registered on SourceForge. The judges included Robin Bloor, partner, Hurwitz & Associates; Tony Gaughan, senior vice president of development at CA; Gavin King, founder of Hibernate, JBoss, Inc; Alan Runyan, founder and lead architect of the Plone content management system; Michael Stonebraker, founder and CTO of StreamBase Systems.

Team profile -- Shift2Ingres

Harsh Azad: Harsh is a Technical Analyst with Trilogy E-Business Software India Pvt Ltd He holds a master's degree in computer science from University of Pune. Harsh has won prizes and contests on computer programming organised by The Computer Society of India and South East Asian Regional Computer Confederation during college days.

Rohit Gaddi: Rohit is a Technical Analyst with Trilogy E-Business Software India Pvt. Ltd. He holds master's degree in computer application from Pune University. Rohit was ranked 37th in a recently held Google India Code Jam 2005. He was also a Junior Research Fellow with Computer Science Department, Pune University from July- Nov 2002. Rohit was ranked amongst the top 1 percentile in NCST entrance 2001.

Achal Rastogi: Achal is working with Trilogy E-business Software (I) Pvt Ltd for past one year. He holds master's degree in computer application from National Institute of Technology, Trichy. Achal's areas of interest include Databases, Data Structures and Operating Systems. Besides winning the Ingres Million Dollar Challenge, Achal secured 2nd rank (all India) in DOEACC 'O' level exam recognised by the Union ministry of human resources and development.

Geetanjali Bahuguna: Geetanjali is a Technical Analyst with Trilogy E-business Software (I) Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore. An MCA from University of Pune, Geetanjali was a topper in college for all the three years during her bachelor's in mathematics from University of Delhi.

Ashutosh Upadhyay: Ashutosh is currently working with Trilogy E-Business Software (I) Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore. Ashutosh holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

Ashutosh has won several prizes and awards in various software and programming contests organised by IIT Roorkee.

Team Profile -- EzyMigrate

Danes John: Danes is currently working with Oracle India at Bangalore. He is responsible for the design and development of Oracle tools. Danes holds a master's degree in computer application from TKM College of Science and IT, Kollam, Kerala.

Varghese Jacob: Varghese is currently working with Oracle India at Bangalore. He has over two years experience in Database and ODBC Internals. Varghese holds a master's degree in computer application from Bharathiar University, Tamil Nadu, India.

K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 11:21 AM 2 comments

Introspection

Folks by and large this blog has been largely non-personal.However i think i have an urge to write something personal today.
Uh ok it s about me.People who know me know that i dont show emotions that readily.In fact the only emotion i show quite frequently is a laugh.In fact there are guys from my school days who know me and who have never even seen me cry or shout at anyone.And i have always been able to laugh off leg pullings.In fact i remember quite a lot of incidents from my hostel life where there has been lots of my leg pulling and i managed to laugh it off. However it always used to happen that when i pull my friends leg they do get wild at me ! :-(
In fact once i passed some remark for which one of the guys got so wild that he had to be restrianed by others ! Gosh luckliy.
Now the point is not that.The point is how can i assume that just as i can laugh of leg pullings the others will also do so ? Conversley you could ask this question that "when you are laughing off other leg pullings why aren't they laughing it off" ? Well i think it is kind of hard to answer.When our very own five fingers are of different shapes should'nt i respect each person as an individual and know the limits that i must not cross ?
I think that is the more sensible approach.
Oh ok as you probably guessed this is more of a personal thought process due to some recent events.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 11:06 AM 0 comments

18 May 2005

The lazy bum gets lazier !

Oh well i wanted to post a write up about the satriani concert.Then again i had this comment in my previous post and since i think this write up kicks some real butt i am posting it here.

Lucky you:-)(sigh--and green with envy:p)

So you are going to watch the God "JOE SATRIANI" with your "FRIENDS" at one of his shows on the "CRYSTAL PLANET" podium in Bangalore!!! I am so happy you are going to enjoy his "SUMMER SONG".

Like you said, Satriani is "NOT OF THIS EARTH".His "STRANGE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC" keeps one "ROCKING IN THE FREE WORLD" and makes one "FLYING IN A BLUE DREAM".

So tell me did he bring the "LIGHTS OF HEAVEN" onto you?

"WHY" ? Did he strum the "CHORDS OF LIFE" with his "BEAUTIFUL GUITAR" to the "ENGINES OF CREATION" making you travel back through the "TIME MACHINE"?

Did he leave many of the audience "CRYING" with tears of pleasure hearing to "THE EXTREMIST".

"I BELIEVE" he can make a "TRAIN OF ANGELS" fly with his music, bring "THE FORGOTTEN" back to memories, light "THE CRUSH OF LOVE".

Were you still "DREAMING AT #11" as the show was ending? Did he leave you wondering "IS THERE LOVE IN SPACE"?

I hope his guitar "ECHO" didnt bring you "SURFING WITH THE ALIENS".

Well I guess he rocks "UNTIL WE SAY GOODBYE" and still rings in our ears and hearts-"ALWAYS WITH ME, ALWAYS WITH YOU"

I hope,as you are heading back home "DRIVING AT NIGHT", his music will shine high upon the dark shady alleys of your life like a "BIG BAD MOON" :-)

Hope you had a rocking time at the concert.Pity I missed it out:-(

This was written by Smitha.Good work man ! Nice interplay of words.

oh this was the expectation about the concert.The original was almost close to this. Not exactly but close.
And the actual attendance would have been at best 3000 ppl with not many even having the faintest idea of what god was doing on stage.

To top it all one screwed up M*****F***** says play some metallica covers.He could have very well used the 1000rs he spent on the ticket to stay at home and buy some metallica cd's.Jerk.

The sound system could have had some tinkering.Best piece of the concert was undoubtedly summer song when he played some notes which were pretty different from the recordings.
Overall money well spent.Someday i shall get to 10% of what he is.My life would get a new meaning at that point in time.

Ok so now onto what makes him so very intresting.basically western music is just 2 octaves and heavily rythim based.You pick a chord and keep strumming it lifelessly. That is all what western music is about.Ok this is in terms of guitars.
Satriani, Hendrix, Santana IMHO the best ever guitarists in that order do it a little bit different.They merge in the flok music componenet.Hendrix had the blues, Santana had the mexican and Satriani {surprise} has clear strains of oriental music ! So what does this lead to ? One full extra octave folks.That gives them the depth to explore and that is what they do.To understand what this extra octave can give i can just tell you one thing.Listen to canatic music.You need not even be a connoiseur or whatever but just listen to it.Better if it is instrumental.Carnatic on Guitar is a fair place to start.Violin or a flute would just do fine too.Why even hindustani has some definite strains.When such a merger happens you get an unique sound and that is why satriani's concerts are just pure instrumental magic without the head banging crap.
To all those folks who still are doubting thomases let me tell you take some silly head banging crap like say an iron maiden or a judas priest or even that over hyped good for nothing buggers called metallica.Just try to follow the background guitars.Ah then again it is difficult becuse the lead singer drown it with his cacophony.But if you listen keenly you will understand what im trying to tell you.
Any opposition to this sort of head banging crap particularly metallica would be met with "You ain't cool dude" kind of expression.But then again Satriani's music demands serious listening to !
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 1:33 PM 0 comments

17 May 2005

God is Satriani


Folks im leaving now to see the god in flesh.I know for sure that even if the sound systems sucks and the environment is totally screwed up i will still indulge myself listening to god for sure.
And yes incidentally i own the entire collection of satriani in addition to the other gods Jethrotull.
If you are not there well you are missing something for sure.
Tracks which i can bet will be played : Flying in a blue dream, Summer song.I wish he plays the songs Circles.It has got some stunning use of counterpoint techniques.
Ok await my write up about this !
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 4:32 PM 0 comments

16 May 2005

Long Away from this world

Folks i was long away from this blogging world.Apologies for that.
Regular readers and those who know me know of my admiration for "Amma" Jayalalithaa. Well in what seems to be a significant and a far reaching result, AIADMK the ruling party has won the by-elections.
Now consider the following :
1. The opposition was united, and it was the same as the one during the lok shaba elections.
2. The tamilian electorate has always know to be anti incumbent.
3. When the same alliance could waltz through the lok shaba election why couldn't they win this elections ?
4. Im more intrested in seeing the response of that good for nothing TV channel called Sun TV run by DMK and its cohorts

Ok now will this alliance of 7 parties last for the next elections ? Will "Amma" Jayalalithaa become complacent that we won the by-elections and hence we can win the main one too ? However something tells me that this alliance will not last long.Why ? DMK's second rung leaders campaigned for this election and it fell flat on them.This i think this bound to bring in some changes in the political scenario.Time to wait and watch.But one thing is for sure.If the alliance of the opposition breaks then "Amma" Jayalalithaa is bound to win unless she does something really drastic in the next 365 or so days.

And another intresting developement took place over the last weekend.My t-shirts were saved ! I had posted this saying i was ready to wager my last t-shirt.I got an intresting response that said that i would now be seen in shirts, which i normally detest ! { why ? simple i have to press them everytime :-) }.The girls outbeat boys in class XII exams too !
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 5:33 PM 0 comments

2 down and how many more ?

ok folks i finally conquered the bangalore marathon too after the madras marathon a few months back !Kribs & my brother Sathish did it too.
Here are a few pictures.

Kribs myself with a few others at the podium.


Our medal front and back view.
Watch out for my posting about the marathon and other stuff shortly
K.Shyam
PS:If you still believe bangalore is cool and pleasant please dispel that notion.It was hot and humid at as early as 8.30am in the morning.No im not saying this.The marathon winners are saying it.

Posted by Unknown at 12:44 PM 0 comments

09 May 2005

Oh ya was so long away from this world of blogging ! Sorry folks was quite busy with too many a thing.Ya i could have found time to scribble out a line or two.Its ok i guess.
Anyway quite a lot of things have happened over the past 10 or so days.Firstly i turned 28. { It's ok.I can't remain at 20 for 7 long years u know. ;-) } And i get this message from my friend who says 28 is the age to get the girls da macchan.Huh ! Me thinks he is consoling me.Ah but well am i still behind the girls ? There in lies a tale to this which will be a part of some other post.{ Ok Ok jumping to the most obvious conclusions are strongly encouraged :-) }.And so where is the party you may ask.Well i have *never* ever celebrated my birthday before this one.Something tells me im not only going to celebrate birthdays from now on but also life too ! It used to come over in school holidays and i escaped standing in front of the class with the whole class singing "Happy birthday" and me giving out choclates.College hostel was more fun with all and sundry to whom i had given a good kick on their backsides for their birthdays, coming out with their best and hardest shoes ! Ok i could have had the softies { If you dont know what a softie is heh heh i can't help u out ;-) }

Mother's day came and went.What is all this hype about ? Can't quite get a grip on it.Ten years ago where was all this crap ? Ah but then the wise men might say that ten years ago we did not have this kind of an economy.Does advancement in economy mean that we must have this kind of silly stuff ? Dunno.Can't digest these kind of silly and stupid crap.What more days are we going to have ? Younger brother's day ? Ex-girlfriend or Ex-boyfriend's day ? Baby diaper changing day ? Total bat shit. A mother does her work.It is upto you to make every day your mother's day by just obeying her and if you have any disagreement making your point gently.What more is needed ? I think husband day and wife day is not far off.

Oh ya on a more saddening note i blew up an entire 10pack cd into coasters.And since i dont have / like a dinner table i have no use for those coasters :-).Why all this trouble you might ask.Well my laptop's cd writer is giving me some strange kinds of problems.Well this week i dont think i have time to check on that problem.Probably next week !
And i have a new addition to my tech gadgetery.A 160gb external hard disk.The only sad part is that beast demand external power source.I was hoping i would have one without an external power source one.Anyway ! Now to get all those dvd's ripped !
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 12:06 PM 6 comments