27 January 2006

Republic patriotism

en veedu thaai tamil nadu endrae sollada
en naamam indian endrae endrum nillada

{ lyrics-Vairamuthu, Music-A.R.Rahman, Singer-"God" Hariharan Movie-Roja }
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 2:27 PM 1 comments

24 January 2006

Peer To Peer

This company has come out with a software for enabling voice over peer to peer networks.
Now the million dollar question is : Has anyone tried tunnelling voice over secure http connections behind firewalls ? I would like to hear from someone who has tried or who is attempting to try. I can with all modesty claim to have a thorough knowledge of HTTP protocol and would like to try out something on those lins. My initial guess is that it is do-able. Encapsulating voice data in a HTTP packet might not be all that dificult is what i think !
Ah so why all this effort you might ask ? Well this is to see if this can be used behind behind those bat-shit corporate firewalls ;-)
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 11:48 AM 2 comments

19 January 2006

SMS Thattuvam

Bus-la nee yerinalum, Bus un-mela yerinalum, ticket vanga poradhu nee dhan.
{ Translation : If you get onto the bus or the bus gets onto you, ultimatley you will get the ticket. Getting ticket in tamil slang means, dying ;-) }
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 8:46 PM 3 comments

18 January 2006

IIM-B

The recent news item that IIM-B was denied permission to open a campus in singapore has met with much flak both from the print media and from some political dignitary from singapore itself, who claimed that it was India's loss.
Firstly, to the political dignitary from singapore, you have no buisness to be telling that it is India's loss and other things when you are here in Indian soil. You can express any kind of opinion you want when you are there in your land, not here. India's loss is it ? My foot !
Now coming back to the bigger question, does IIM-B really need a campus in singapore ? IIM's are funded by the tax payers blood, sweat and tears. So even if the IIM's claim that they will fund themselves, is such a campus in singapore really necessary ? What is IIM-B going to achieve by that ? Any buisness must have a clear and well defined objective. Brand building by opening a campus in singapore is not at all an objective. It is more of a chest thumping and egoistic activity. And secondly while all other IIM's including the one at Ahmedabad are keeping quiet why is the one at bangalore alone trying to act smart here ? And education is not a buisness ! I am surprised that the same guys who go and talk against commercialization of education, are supporting this move. While there is no clear objective in opening a campus in singapore, every Tom, Dick and Harry is going about town expressing his/her opinion that higher education must be freed from government clutches. This includes that self-styled messiah/moron Narayana Moorthy.
The wise men may ask that BITS-Pilani has some campus in Dubai, Symbiosis has campus in Dubai then why not IIM's in singapore. The answer is pretty simple ! Those institutes are not funded by the government.
The IIM's mandate was pretty simple. It was established and funded to meet the demand for managers within the country. That mandate has been clearly and conveniently forgotten with no course aimed at letting the people know the buisness culture and dynamics of doing buisenss within the country. I am not letting out hot air on this issue, but i am just quoting a fully researched article that appeared in the Indian Express a few months back. Firstly management is nothing but common sense ! So when you spend two years in a B-School, you are suposed to learn the nitty gritty details of building large buisnesses that pertain the local economy. How many graduates of IIM are aware of the policies and the frameworks to build buisness within India ? IIM's shamefully school or rather spoon-feed the students mostly in the capitalist way of doing buisness. Thus they end up as Student-Export-Processing-Zones rather than anything else.
So i think there is nothing wrong in the government asking IIM's to stay back and meet the home grown demand and then look for other pastures later.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 9:58 AM 0 comments

Run Run Run

Or rather it was walk/walk/walk ;-) Phew finally i vanquished the marathon beast yet again !
Yes folks. As my friends say, i am still walking and oh yeah i am still alive after trudging through 40+kms of bombay roads and heat and traffic !
It was bombay through my running shoes.
The start was actually not that good. Come on you moronic organizers of mumbai marathon, 8 am is *not* a convenient time for amateurs like me.
Sathish, Jacob and myself started in right earnest. While Jacob was gunning for a sub 3hr timing and sathish for a 4 to 4.5hr timing, i was more intrested in just completing it ! Coz i did hear of horror stories about the heat and humidity !
By the 10km mark, sathish was raring to go and off he went. I was more sedate in my approach, coz i had practised for doing the 20km in 120 minutes and i wanted to stick to it. My gameplan was pretty simple. First 20km in 120 minutes and the remaining 20km in 180 minutes !
By the 20km mark it was around 135 minutes and i was almost there. However i knew that the remaining 20km in 180 minutes was practically not possible, with a huge electronic board gleaming "85%" humidity.
And to digress a bit here i would like to give a resounding kick to that moron from bombay who asked me as to how people live in madras which is so hot ! You duffer, both bombay and madras are on the coast and the humidity will always be the same ! If i ever catch you again, there are going to be just two things. Either i wring your neck, or you run the marathon ;-)
So by the 24km mark, i started trudging ocassionaly giving company to Mr.Vijay, a 45yr old guy who was also hell bent on completing it, and a madam from Dubai who i think dropped out !
By about 36km mark i finally caught up with sathish, who in spite of my repeated warnings not to speed up, did so and finally was derailed by the heat and injuries ;-)
And finally summoning the last bit of whatever was left inside us, we ambled across to the finishing line in 6+ hrs, and collected the medal !
One important thing here was the people support. That madame Ms.Anuradha { or Mrs.Anuradha whatever it is } deserves nothing short of a huge prize. She indulged in a selfless act of encouraging the last pack of runners, by waiting for us at every km mark with choclates and egging us on ! What spirit that was. Thank you Madame. I mean it was a sunday and instead of staying at home and relaxing, here she was waiting for we pack of 10 or so guys at every km mark, giving away choclates !
So after struggling to complete this marathon, am i giving up ? You bet not ;-). There is a small idea that has germinated inside me after reading a news clipping about a lady who has completed 75 marathons. Why can't i do 100 ? Practically speaking if there are people who run at the age of 45 and 60 why cant i do so ? So here goes. Someday i hope to do 100 marathons. If you think about it, every year there are about 5 marathons held in India itself. Assuming i run it for the next 20yrs i am done right ? So someday, someday i shall do it.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 9:38 AM 4 comments

13 January 2006

Bombay Here i Come

Folks;
i am off to bombay to try my hand at the mumbai marathon ! ya ya there is loads of work to be done, and all sorts of very very important things to be taken care of.But what the heck ?? There is always a tomorrow ;-)
Yen iniya tamizh makkalae, ungal anaivarukkum yenadhu pongal nal vazhthukkal ;-) { read it as barathiraja would say ! }
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 5:48 PM 3 comments

12 January 2006

Faux Pass!

And then again the Slime of India proved it that they are indeed that !
I was indeed wondering that how can it be when the bastion of investigative journalism had no news about the Jet-Sahara deal, how on earth did Slime of India get the news ?
Turns out that it might be just a hoax after all. And then again the media these days is running towards too much of sensationalism and thrusting out their opinions on the general public, instead of reporting news !. "Dog" Prannoy Roy is one such notable example. And to think of NDTV keeps advertising that they are the No1 News channel ! Nonsense channel might just be more appropriate.
I think that if you or me turn out in our underpants on the terraces of our houses, we might be a "breaking news" in one of these channels! Such morons.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 9:40 AM 6 comments

11 January 2006

For Once

For once, surprisingly the Slime of India was an early bird in reporting the fact that Jet Airways was taking over Air Sahara!
We shall forgive them for this shall we ? ;-)
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 2:45 PM 0 comments

10 January 2006

Biting off more than one can chew

The recent controversey between the commies and the yogic godman "baba" ramdev raises more than one question.
Firstly as we see it, yoga is something that is gaining popularity among quite a large number of people. Now are the commies trying to catch eyeballs among them by doing this ?
Now the fact that any kind of medicines may contain blood samples, etc is pretty known. However the strength of ayurveda has always been that, you can opt for the kind of medicines that you want. You can specify that you want a "complete vegetarian" medicine. That being the case, it does not seem to be pretty strange that there are "non vegetarian" pieces in the medicines as one can ask for such medicines.
Secondly if we think of this as a political move by the commies to barge into the "bimarau" belt, well they could not have been more shortsighted ! The godman, as it is has been propounding theories like dont eat fast foods, and extolling the people to look deeper into the virtues of yoga. Hence a tirade against him would only constitute to antagonize a majority sentiment and as a direct impact, loose whatever political strength that has been gained !
In all this what is more amusing is that Brinda Karat has been virtually sidelined with no commie coming out in support of her. Why even her husband the head honcho of the commies has not come out in support of her.
Ultimately by the act of a single individual, the commies end up getting eggs on their faces. Then again there is nothing new about it right ? ;-)
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 11:09 AM 2 comments

02 January 2006

Future Potential

As This article shows, i had always believed that motherland { madras what else duffer ? ;-) } has great potential. Oh ok before you point your gun at me, let me clarify that my motherland will always be madras and my country, always India.
Now for my first new year wish, "Amma" must be returned to power at any cost. I think another five years under her, and things would definitely improve !
I am planning to canvas for votes for "Amma" through this blog. If any reader has done such things previously or know of someone who has done, i would be happy to hear from them as to how they went about doing it. A mojority of people who are educated, do not vote. Something must be done to get them to vote. Ideas anyone ? Now please dont flame me saying things like, even if i vote things are not going to improve etc etc. First give it a try and then see.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 4:26 PM 5 comments