Bangalore Autowallah's

Every time I step out of my place in Bangalore to go somewhere, it might invariably lead to a war of words with an auto-wallah for the exorbitant amounts they charge for a ride in their precious(read made of gold) auto's. Having been here for almost two years now, it now comes as second nature to argue with an auto-wallah. Some of the reasons that that they give are downright funny and it’s sometimes hard to maintain a straight face while arguing with them.

A few years back Star One used to air a game show, "Family Fortunes". In the same format I give you "Top 10 stupid reasons given by Autowallah's for charging high"(arranged from most common to rarer)

10) Mujhe akaele aana hoga(I've to come alone)
9) Meter nahi chalta hai(Meter doesnt work)
8) Bahut traffic hoga (Traffic will be high at this time)
7) Mein wahan nahi jaata (I dont go that way)
6) Petrol ka daam bad gaya, jante ho?(Petrol prices have increased)
5) Mein Wahan se akele aaya hoon. (I've come alone till here)
4) De do saab. 10 baaje ke baad one half lega(Give sir. After 10 we charge one and half (meter) (this at 9, when he is almost asking double))
3) Meri gaadi naayi hai.(My vehicle is new)
2) Kya saab, aapke paas toh paise hai. (Why (are you penny-pinching) sir, you have money)

The last and the one that takes the cake along with the icing and also the box that it came in...
1) Bahut thand hai saab.(Its cold)

Got any more?

I've some very sarcastic replies(and i know you have too) for all of the above, but will save that for some other time. In the meanwhile keep arguing, lest the autowallah's swindle you of your hard-earned money..

Teenage Google

Today our dear know-it-all friend, Google, celebrates its 13th birthday. Thus officially we can call it a teenager now. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Google. :)

As it takes its first steps into adolescence or what is called as the "troubled teens", here are a few things that can happen while it passes through from 13 to 18:
1) There will be significatng increase in size(meaning more storage sapce in google in Gmail).
2) It will suffer from violent mood swings(will depict using doodles).
3) It will start hiding things from you in your search results.
4) It will suffer from drastic mood swings and the search results will vary in accordance with the mood.
5) It can be influenced by its peer group.
6) It can decide to be a rebel and revel all our personal data.
7) It can go into depression and stop replying to anyone, whatever be the query.
8) It will be come more curious and start poking its noses into others business. Like finishing our search query way before we type the first word.
9) It will be grounded but will find ways and means to break out(US Govt. trying to clip Google's wings).
10) Last but not least, Now that its old enough it will sign up for a Facebook account(it already has one, but with a false DOB).

Anyways for now, Enjoy you special day.

Value of a Rupee!

After reading the title don't think that 'm gonna give a long drawn post about the value of a rupee. its just some basic facts which we all love to ignore.

Its not just 1/(whatever the value of a $$). Our Rupee coin is so much more than that. Its

1 Caramel Eclairs.
2 coffee bites.
4 Soft Spots (Whatever happened to them?!)
16 village peppermints!
60 seconds from the Yellow Box.
100 SMSes for some.
The topping to the 100,500 or 1000 in an envelope at a ceremony.
The savior from a ceremonial kick from the bus conductor.
An hour for the homeless.
A house for an Eritrean. :)
An ugly jingle to your stride.
An embarrassment to a '7-figurer'.
The trophy of a grocery store bargain.
A decider at an auction.
A Gem for a Romanian numismatist.
Horrible worthlessness at the Mall.
A well-deserved tip for The Cocky Waiter.
An extra Sweet Puri at the chaat place.
A MASSIVE 2 more MB of web usage for BSNL (ask any DATAONE user, had to put this one in)
What else?!
Fill in more :)

Another Project!!

With another project looming large i was scouring the net for possible things that i could make. My team always try to make something ambitious so i too was trying to get an ambitious project topic. Thats when i found this picture. take a look. :)

Saas-Bahu Soap Operas

No matter how many times they have featured on 'Things I Hate The Most' on Slam-Books and personality questionnaires, I have always been awed by the rich variety of 'saas-bahu' teleserials aired during prime-time.
Why?

Here is ,in no way an exhaustive list of their achievements( Due to obvious reasons I consider all the saas-bahu dramas to be a single identity) :


The net worth of the jewellery in one scene overtakes the GDP of Eritrea(ask google uncle about Eritrea).

The costumes worn by a single person on one show beats the lifetime wardrobe of an average, sane mortal.

The Bindis of a lucky select compete in size with Kosovo.

The only set-up , fiction,non-fiction or whatever, where an older person plays the daughter if not grand-daughter of the younger one.

The wiliness of the average bahu puts to shame even the most dangerous KGB spy.

The make-up used for one complete episode can is more than that used by any mortal.

The only family probably in the history of time to have 8 generations in one frame.

Edna Parker who?.Compete with our very own Baa.

The only shows on planet that can make a 5 minute real-life scene go on for an hour.How?
Here are a few ways :

• The camera zooms into and out of the bahu's face 5-6 times,accompanied by thunderous sounds,prefferably from different angles.
• Then,the above repeats for the other 8-9 subjects in the scene.
• This done,there are various combinations to capture reactions.
• Then we bring in components just one color.
• The list is so ingeniously long,hence I skip here(phew).

Those were but just a few.
And how did I become such an 'expert' at this,well , "Mums" the Word!!

Programmer Excuses

These are the most frequently used 20 replies by programmers when their programs do not work:

20. "That's weird..."
19. "It's never done that before."
18. "It worked yesterday."
17. "How is that possible?"
16. "It must be a hardware problem."
15. "What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?"
14. "There is something funky in your data."
13. "I haven't touched that module in weeks!"
12. "You must have the wrong version."
11. "It's just some unlucky coincidence."
10. "I can't test everything!"
9. "THIS can't be the source of THAT."
8. "It works, but it hasn't been tested."
7. "Somebody must have changed my code."
6. "Did you check for a virus on your system?"
5. "Even though it doesn't work, how does it feel?
4. "You can't use that version on your system."
3. "Why do you want to do it that way?"
2. "Where were you when the program blew up?"

And the award for the Number One reply goes to :

1. "It works on my machine."


To be frank i have used some of the excuses myself many times :) and i know many people will agree with me on that fact :D

As i matured!!!!!!!!

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you.
All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in. :)

I've learned that one good turn doesn't necessarily get you another,
other than getting u into hot water.

I've learned that no matter how much I care,
some people are just just dont share the same feeling.

I've learned that it takes years to build up trust,
and only suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.

I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to others...
they are more screwed up than you think.

I've learned that depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

I've learned that I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it.

I've learned that we are responsible for what we do,
unless we are celebrities or have very rich parents.

I've learned that artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

I've learned that there is a fine line between genius and insanity.

I've learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon
and all the less important ones just never go away.
And the real pains in the ass are permanent. :)

I've learned that Yesterday is history, Tomorrow a mystery,
Today is a gift, Cherish it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sledging in Cricket

Sledging is the practice in cricket of insulting opponents to break their concentration and cause them to make mistakes. The recent India's tour of Australia was marred by sledging controversies among others. But sledging has been a part of the game for a long time that its a huge task to completely weed it out of the game. Here are some of the legendary sledges(some good ones some are censored...hope it does not offend the readers)

Rod Marsh & Ian Botham: When Botham took guard in an Ashes match, Marsh welcomed him to the wicket with the immortal words: "So how's your wife & my kids?"

Daryll Cullinan & Shane Warne: As Cullinan was on his way to the wicket, Warne told him he had been waiting 2 years for another chance to humiliate him. "Looks like you spent it eating," Cullinan retorted.

Robin Smith & Merv Hughes: During 1989 Lords Test Hughes said to Smith after he played & missed:"You can't f**king bat". Smith to Hughes after he smacked him to the boundary: "Hey Merv, we make a fine pair. I can't f**king bat & you can't f**king bowl."

Merv Hughes & Javed Miandad: During 1991 Adelaide Test, Javed called Merv a fat bus conductor. A few balls later Merv dismissed Javed: "Tickets please", Merv called out as he ran past the departing batsman.

Merv Hughes & Viv Richards: During a test match in the West Indies, Hughes didn't say a word to Viv, but continued to stare at him after deliveries. "This is my island, my culture. Don't you be staring at me. In my culture we just bowl." Merv didn't reply, but after he dismissed him he announced to the batsman: "In my culture we just say f**k *ff."

You can't forget Ian Healy's legendary comment which was picked up by the Channel 9 microphones when Arjuna Ranatunga called for a runner on a particularly hot night during a one dayer in Sydney... "You don't get a runner for being an overweight, unfit, fat c**t!!!"

James Ormond had just come out to bat on an ashes tour and was greeted by Mark Waugh....... MW : "F*ck me, look who it is. Mate, what are you doing out here, there's no way you're good enough to play for England" JO : "Maybe not, but at least I'm the best player in my family"

Malcolm Marshall was bowling to David Boon who had played and missed a couple of times. Marshall : "Now David, Are you going to get out now or am I going to have to bowl around the wicket and kill you?"

Fred Trueman who when faced with two poor decisions from the umpire, (leg before decision and caught behind to an obvious knick) clean bowled his opponent with his next delivery and turned to the umpire and uttered, “That’s got to be bloody close, hasn’t it?”

This involves Steve Waugh and Parthiv Patel.....Steve Waugh...Last Test...comes up to bat...PArthiv-"so this is your last test...show us some of that famous sledging of yours." Steve-"Respect Me...For when i made my test debut You were still in your nappies"

This is the one and only javed miandad vs dilip doshi...javed bhai at the crease, doshi bowling...the players' hotel was quite near the stadium...
javed: "arre doshi apna room number to bataa"
nothing from doshi
next ball, javed asks again...still nothing when the over ends..."arre ab to over khatam ho gaya, ab to bataa de"
doshi finally relents.."216" (or watever)
Miandad - "agle over mein ball wahin maaroonga"

Ravi shastri v/s the aussie 12th man (don't remember who, and don't want to slander anyone ) shastri hits it to this guy and looks for a single...this guy gets the ball in and says "if you leave the crease i'll break your head"
shastri: "if you could bat as well as you can talk you wouldn't be the 12th man"

Ricky Ponting & Shaun Pollock: After going past the outside edge with a couple of deliveries, Pollock told Ponting: "It's red, round & weighs about 5 ounces." Unfortunately for Pollock, the next ball was hammered out of the ground.
Ponting to Pollock: "you know what it looks like, now go find it."

Freddie Flintoff to Tino Best: After playing numerous defensive shots against Ashley Giles Flintof muttered to Best "Mind the windows Tino". Next ball Tino charged down the track and got stumped.

Merv was bowling to Hansie Cronje during a tour game in South Africa. It was an especially flat wicket and Cronje was hitting Hughes for fours and sixes all over the place.
After the umpteenth boundary, Hughes headed down the pitch, stood near Cronje, let out a fart and said: "Try hitting that for six." It was five minutes before the guffawing stopped and play could resume.

Porky Sri Lankan batsman Arjuna Ranatunga the victim here.
Shane Warne, trying to tempt the batsman out of his crease mused what it took to get the plump character to get out of his crease and drive. Wicketkeeper Ian Healy piped up,
"Put a Mars Bar on a good length. That should do it."

Hope u had a good laugh after reading though them... pls do post if u have more.

A Panchatantra Story(with a Difference)

Information Technology is quite a stressful field to be in. In spite of that, the creativity of engineers has been irrepressible. One of the most unusual outlets that it has acquired is through the refinement of old Panchatantra moral stories that our elders used to narrate to us, the Indian equivalent of Aesop's fables.The most famous among them is the variant of the wood cutter's story doing the rounds. It even has an exciting and very true moral at the end.
The original Panchatantra story :
One day, while a woodcutter was cutting a branch of a tree above a river, his axe fell into the river.When he cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "Why are you crying?" The woodcutter replied that his axe has fallen into water. The Lord went down into the water and reappeared with a golden axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.
The woodcutter replied, "No."
The Lord again went down and came up with a silver axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.
Again, the woodcutter replied, "No."The Lord went down again and came up with an iron axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.The woodcutter replied, "Yes."
The Lord was pleased with the man's honesty and gave him all three axes to keep, and the woodcutter went home happily.

The modern Panchatantra story :
Once upon a time, there was a software engineer who used to develop Programs on his Pentium machine (of course a lap top),sitting under a tree on the banks of a river. He used to earn his bread by selling those programs in the Friday market.
One day, while he was working, his machine tumbled off from his lap and fell in the river. Encouraged by the Panchatantra story of his childhood (the woodcutter and the axe), he started praying to the River Goddess.The River Goddess wanted to test him and so appeared only after one month of rigorous prayers. Poor Engineer, he waited for a long time and at last Goddess came!
The engineer told her that he had lost his computer in the river. As usual, the Goddess wanted to test his honesty.She showed him a match box and asked, "Is this your computer?" Disappointed by the Goddess' lack of computer awareness, the engineer replied, "No." She next showed him a pocket-sized calculator and asked if that was his.Annoyed, the engineer said "No, not at all!!"Finally, she came up with his own Pentium machine and asked if it was his. The engineer, left with no option, sighed and said "Yes." The River Goddess was happy with his honesty.

She was about to give him all three items, but before she could make the offer, the engineer asked her, "Don't you know that you're supposed to show me some better computers before bringing up my own?"The River Goddess, angered at this, replied, "I know that, you stupid donkey! The first two things I showed you were the the latest computers from IBM!"

So saying, she disappeared with his Computer!

Moral for Information Technology Professionals(and also for would be professionals):
If you're not up-to-date with technology trends, its better keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Indian Cricket !!!!

Do you want to know why people are so crazy about cricket in india and never miss a match even if they are traveling. here is the reason- See the picture.

For all the wannabe IT company professionals

As i am an IT student and as most of the youngsters want to get placed in IT companies i just want them to read this post so that they can know some of the ways and the tricks in IT companies. Its better to be prepared beforehand .So here goes....

If you are preparing for a career in IT or are new to IT, many of the “dirty little secrets” listed below may surprise you because we don’t usually talk about them out loud. If you are an IT veteran, you’ve probably encountered most of these issues and have a few of your own to add — and please, by all means, take a moment to add them to the comments. You are welcome. Most of these secrets are aimed at network administrators, IT managers, and desktop support professionals. This list is not aimed at developers and programmers — they have their own set of additional dirty little secrets — but some of these will apply to them as well.

10.) The pay in IT is good compared to many other professions, but since they pay you well, they often think they own you

Although the pay for IT professionals is not as great as it was before the dot-com flameout and the IT backlash in 2001-2002, IT workers still make very good money compared to many other professions (at least the ones that require only an associate’s or bachelor’s degree). And there is every reason to believe that IT pros will continue to be in demand in the coming decades, as technology continues to play a growing role in business and society. However, because IT professionals can be so expensive, some companies treat IT pros like they own them. If you have to answer a tech call at 9:00 PM because someone is working late, you hear, “That’s just part of the job.” If you need to work six hours on a Saturday to deploy a software update to avoid downtime during business hours, you get, “There’s no comp time for that since you’re on salary. That’s why we pay you the big bucks!”

9.) It will be your fault when users make silly errors

Some users will angrily snap at you when they are frustrated. They will yell, “What’s wrong with this thing?” or “This computer is NOT working!” or (my personal favorite), “What did you do to the computers?” In fact, the problem is that they accidentally deleted the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop, or unplugged the mouse from the back of the computer with their foot, or spilled their coffee on the keyboard.

8.) You will go from goat to hero and back again multiple times within any given day

When you miraculously fix something that had been keeping multiple employees from being able to work for the past 10 minutes — and they don’t realize how simple the fix really was — you will become the hero of the moment and everyone’s favorite employee. But they will conveniently forget about your hero anointment a few hours later when they have trouble printing because of a network slowdown — you will be enemy No. 1 at that moment. But if you show users a handy little Microsoft Outlook trick before the end of the day, you’ll soon return to hero status.

7.) Certifications won’t always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise

Headhunters and human resources departments love IT certifications. They make it easy to match up job candidates with job openings. They also make it easy for HR to screen candidates. You’ll hear a lot of veteran IT pros whine about techies who were hired based on certifications but who don’t have the experience to effectively do the job. They are often right. That has happened in plenty of places. But the fact is that certifications open up your career options. They show that you are organized and ambitious and have a desire to educate yourself and expand your skills. If you are an experienced IT pro and have certifications to match your experience, you will find yourself to be extremely marketable. Tech certifications are simply a way to prove your baseline knowledge and to market yourself as a professional. However, most of them are not a good indicator of how good you will be at the job.

6.) Your nontechnical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their home PCs

Your co-workers (in addition to your friends, family, and neighbors) will view you as their personal tech support department for their home PCs and home networks. They will e-mail you, call you, and/or stop by your office to talk about how to deal with the virus that took over their home PC or the wireless router that stopped working after the last power outage and to ask you how to put their photos and videos on the Web so their grandparents in Iowa can view them. Some of them might even ask you if they can bring their home PC to the office for you to fix it. The polite ones will offer to pay you, but some of them will just hope or expect you can help them for free. Helping these folks can be very rewarding, but you have to be careful about where to draw the line and know when to decline.

5.) Vendors and consultants will take all the credit when things work well and will blame you when things go wrong

Working with IT consultants is an important part of the job and can be one of the more challenging things to manage. Consultants bring niche expertise to help you deploy specialized systems, and when everything works right, it’s a great partnership. But you have to be careful. When things go wrong, some consultants will try to push the blame off on you by arguing that their solution works great everywhere else so it must be a problem with the local IT infrastructure. Conversely, when a project is wildly successful, there are consultants who will try to take all of the credit and ignore the substantial work you did to customize and implement the solution for your company.

4.) You’ll spend far more time babysitting old technologies than implementing new ones

One of the most attractive things about working in IT is the idea that we’ll get to play with the latest cutting edge technologies. However, that’s not usually the case in most IT jobs. The truth is that IT professionals typically spend far more time maintaining, babysitting, and nursing established technologies than implementing new ones. Even IT consultants, who work with more of the latest and greatest technologies, still tend to work primarily with established, proven solutions rather than the real cutting edge stuff.

3.) Veteran IT professionals are often the biggest roadblock to implementing new technologies

A lot of companies could implement more cutting edge stuff than they do. There are plenty of times when upgrading or replacing software or infrastructure can potentially save money and/or increase productivity and profitability. However, it’s often the case that one of the largest roadblocks to migrating to new technologies is not budget constraints or management objections; it’s the veteran techies in the IT department. Once they have something up and running, they are reluctant to change it. This can be a good thing because their jobs depend on keeping the infrastructure stable, but they also use that as an excuse to not spend the time to learn new things or stretch themselves in new directions. They get lazy, complacent, and self-satisfied.

2.) Some IT professionals deploy technologies that do more to consolidate their own power than to help the business

Another subtle but blameworthy thing that some IT professionals do is select and implement technologies based on how well those technologies make the business dependent on the IT pros to run them, rather than which ones are truly best for the business itself. For example, IT pros might select a solution that requires specialized skills to maintain instead of a more turnkey solution. Or an IT manager might have more of a Linux/UNIX background and so chooses a Linux-based solution over a Windows solution, even though the Windows solution is a better business decision (or, vice versa, a Windows admin might bypass a Linux-based appliance, for example). There are often excuses and justifications given for this type of behavior, but most of them are disingenuous.

1.) IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse nontechnical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up

All IT pros — even the very best — screw things up once in a while. This is a profession where a lot is at stake and the systems that are being managed are complex and often difficult to integrate. However, not all IT pros are good at admitting when they make a mistake. Many of them take advantage of the fact that business managers (and even some high-level technical managers) don’t have a good understanding of technology, and so the techies will use jargon to confuse them (and cover up the truth) when explaining why a problem or an outage occurred. For example, to tell a business manager why a financial application went down for three hours, the techie might say, “We had a blue screen of death on the SQL Server that runs that app. Damn Microsoft!” What the techie would fail to mention was that the BSOD was caused by a driver update he applied to the server without first testing it on a staging machine.

Post your comments about what you feel after reading this post. Thanks for Techrepublic for posting this.

Happy Independence Day

This is a funny pic that i found when i was surfing on the net(which i'm doing whenever i'm at home)

Happy Independence Day