27th December, 2006

Identify the child in this picture. Hint: He grew up to become a very famous figure. Even got himself on the cover of times magazine.

26th December 2006

Identify the cricketer.

22nd December, 2006

Identify the concept / place in the picture.

21st December, 2006

Here is a Google Trend. Identify what / who was searched to give this trend.

20th December 2006

Connect.

SMS Contests II

As i brought the topic of 'SMS contests' over lunch, there were mixed reactions from colleagues. Here are some of perspectives from them.

The SMS contests and their responses could be used to assess the popularity rating of a radio station and therefore could be used as a fund raising tool. The explanation here is that the more popular the channel, the easier it would be to woo investors.

A stream of Revenue. Each channel could potentially tie up with mobile service providers so that they earn a % of SMS revenue generated through these 'contests'.

If, "The simpler the contest, the greater the participation" maxim is applied, then the contest could be used as a tool to gain more people to tune into the channel.

Looks like, Whoever the winner be, the broadcaster would laugh his way to the bank, always!!.

SMS Contests

On my way back from office, today, i turned the radio on and listened to one of the anchors conduct a "SMS contest", the contest is about sending whatever the anchor uttered, ( "twinkle twinkle little star, radio mirchi hot star") verbatim back as SMS to a number.

On one hand, the anchor has to do a lot of research of provide informative content (often trivia), however, on the other i wonder if they have numbers to meet on the SMS contests?.

That said, here are a couple of ideas for the anchors.

a. Send the numbers from 1 to 5 in a SMS ( ofcourse, the catch there you need to get the spelling right!!)
b. Send the color of the shirts, they are wearing, the ones that send the right color win!!
right color? yeah right color man, don't you know?

you too can contribute your ideas, send an SMS to 8x8x, ooops!!! am not an anchor, so, leave your comment here.

Kamesh

Name Changes

I wonder if politicians in India have an imaginary rating system, so that when they meet over an official dinner / meeting, they could exchange notes on who does well and whether they have earned their stripes as far as contemporariness goes. One contemporary parameter is championing a name change, i guess.

Here is a list (not in any specific order),

Bombay - Mumbai
Madras - Chennai
Bangalore - Bangalooru
..................
Recently, Pondicherry government brought in a resolution to rename the union territory to Puducherry.

I believe that the government machinery could spend the time and money on better projects ( Primary Education, Infrastructure building et al).

One change i like though is the announcement from the Jabber Software Foundation to rename the Jabber Extension Proposals as XMPP Extensions. Atleast, this name change would help remove certain confusion.

Madras Day Celebrations

My Madras Day celebrations were eventful, Consider the following,

1. About 15 of us @ office wore the last year's 'Namma chennai' T-Shirt on August 22nd to work. My bit on spreading the message and doing our own thing!!
2. Took part in the Fort St.George walk on Aug 20th. We were awed at the wonderful insights shared by Mr.Suresh, our guide for the occassion. ( Vincent D'souza from the organiser's did all the hassling and heckling, but then he had a job to do too.)
3. Took part in the Madras Day Quiz with Balaji ( brother) and cheered Rajaram & Joshi , watched Ramanan V.V and his partner answer most of the questions with consummate ease and ofcourse win the Quiz.
4. The Quiz was generally well researched ( Avinash Mudaliar, the quiz master did a good job). The scoring left something to be desired.
5. Won a Quiz on Madras conducted by the UnWind Center , Adyar. The Prize was food coupons from Cascade / Lotus Pond a coupon worth Rs.500.
6. Took Anush, Abishek along with Sujatha to Lotuspond for a lunch for Rs.15 ( If only Eating out becomes this inexpensive, i would eat out more often!!!.

Quite an Eventful, you betcha!!

GTalk with FileTransfer, Voicemail and Music Status Display

Google has announced support for the following features in GTalk, File Transfer, Voicemail and Music status Display.

Here are the new features in Gtalk.

Support for FileTransfer has been there in libjingle, the library that Google released to the open source community for quite sometime. The implementation in Gtalk has taken a while, however the good news is it is there now.



Voicemail is a cool new feature in Gtalk. When you try to call a contact in Gtalk and the contact doesn't answer the call, you get to record a voice message for the contact. The message is then delivered to the contact's gmail id as a Mp3 file. I like the Voice mail greeting message, "The person you are calling is not available, please leave a message at the meep, meeeeep".



Music Status Display allows you to show your contacts the album that you are currently listening to in your windows media player. For some reason, Gtalk seems to support display of title from windows media player and not from real media player.

It would be nice if it could pick it up from any media player, like for example, real media player and show the status. Or could it be that Gtalk has drawn the direction and open source developers can value add by providing enhancements that would provide status from any media player?





If you think the above are cool features in Gtalk, then upgrade to 1.0.0.95. Here is the catch, the suggested way does not work. The update it downloads is 1.0.0.92 as against the requisite 1.0.0.95. You can download it here.

Here are some Predictions

Gtalk would support PSTN calling in a later incarnation. Can it be free worldwide?

Gtalk would introduce a loyalty free version of their open source library, currently the voice transport is based on a proprietary Gips Media Engine. This media engine could be based on such open source libraries as speex, iLBC or the G7XX family.

Skype would now be under pressure to make their voice mail service a subscription free service, as a natural extension to this. This is just to retain all of those subscribers who have opted to subscribe this service.

well, you may even call the above a wish list :-)

Competition to intensify for IITs and IIMs seats

Competition for seats to get into the premier Technology and Management institutes of India, it is learnt is going to get more intense in the coming year(s). The latest spur on the competition is from governments renewed vigour to implement Mandal's recommendations. One in every two seats would be taken by quota or reservation, leaving behind a meagre number in the open category which is consumed by merit.

I just fear the day, when the reservation system would be extended to infringe fundamental rights of all citizens.

Platform Ticket Dispensers

Recently i wrote about the design of the hot water dispensers in offices, which are functional but are not pragmatic. Here's another example of a bad design

After some years, i went to the railway reservation office in central station, chennai to book travel tickets for self and family. I also wanted to see my brother who is employed with southern railways, his work place that day was situated inside the platform, the access to which is normally, either with a valid travel ticket / platform ticket. Since i did not have a valid ticket for that day, i decided to buy a platform ticket, when i approachedd the counter, there was a queue of about 6-7 people, i also saw a little box titled automatic platform ticket issuing machine, the tender for the platform ticket was Rs.3/=. I promptly dropped a two rupee coin and a one rupee coin, then waited for the ticket, ticket did not come, i gently tapped the machine, hoping it would realise its folly and issue a ticket, then saw the display, to my dismay, it showed only Rs.2/, I had to part with another rupee. so here i was paying Rs.4 for a Rs.3/= ticket and because someone had designed the machine that way.

Things that could have been better.

1. The facility could have been designed to take in various rupee tenders into account.
2. In the absence of such design, which would have been known during the design / testing phase, atleast put up a notice of what constitutes a valid tender on the machine.

Parental Pride

We(self and wife) had the privilege of observing our 3 year old son Anush in school today. It is an experience that would be etched in our memory for a long time. There were mixed emotions for me.

The class Duration is for about 3.00 hours (8.30 AM to 11:30 AM).

Everything about the class was interesting and in a sense intriguing to us.The way the teacher engaged the class, the way the toddlers hung on to everything their teacher said or did. It reminded me of an observation a friend made a while ago, "Almost Every virtue a person needs to lead a good life is taught in the kinder garden /primary education, - Respect Elders, Cleanliness, eat & sleep at appointed times, help others in need, say thank you, be polite, say the truth...". I realised how true our observation was today, as the class teacher, in her stride, taught her pupil to thank, to respect, to wish.

The Session was packed with activities galore, Kids learnt to say something is on the table, something is under the table., however i was astonished when the teacher introduced 'Abra-ca-dabra' to the class in a game on finding missing items. The teacher and her support staff do an admirable job of keeping this bubbly, energetic, enthusiastic kids engaged for three hours. I have always had a special place for teachers in my heart, they play such an important role in imparting priceless traits year after year to the society.


For most of the session, my eyes and attention remained fixated on Anush and his teacher, occasionally batting my lid. I noticed that the pride in me rose with every correct thing that anush did /said. To his credit, Anush kept the pride at dizzying heights.

C'mmon Parents, how about not loading your mind with expectations and then goading your ward about it?

Hot water Dispensers

Have you noticed that the ubiquitous drinking water dispensers in offices have an intriguing element of design in them?. The Hot water that these dispensers provide are ridiculously hot !! While am not ridiculing the process of heating water before consumption, unsuspecting consumers could burn their tongues by this design fault ( feature?) of the water dispensers.

Odyssey Quiz 2006

Though not an avid quizzer, i went to this years' edition of Odyssey Quiz 2006. An annual event held on republic day every year at chennai, the event was well conceived and well conducted (spare the delays and initial hiccups in getting the seating done and repeated announcements of starting the quiz in about 'five' minutes for about 5 times).

Once the quiz started, the quiz master, Dr. Praveen Goday had the participants in rapt attention. Prelims consisted of a written round of 35 questions (Opened with, "If M in M. S. Subbulaksmi stands for Madurai, what does the M in M.L.Vasantha kumari stand for?") . During the discussion of answers, it was refreshing to see the quiz master identify young boys and girls and give them a chance. However, the organizers forgot to involve participants seated in the mini hall during the discussion.

Once the discussions were over, the best team name price was announced, a lot of imaginative names were on display( "ra ra Odysee-kku ra ra...", "Al-Quizda from quizakisthan", "virginial geniasis"), the best judged team name was "Jab thak samosa me aaloo rahe ga thab thak odyssey quiz chaloo rahega". Honestly, I was disappointed that our team name "B2K" an improvisation on B2B, B2C and the like ( with Balaji, Bhupender and Kamesh) was not even mentioned in the list.

"No Questions Asked" finished at number three, Metaquizzics, over came their infatuation with the 'ozone layer' in time, to be ranked second, but as far as Odyssey quiz 2006 edition goes, it was them all the way, wonder who? "They who shall not be named". Here is a moment from the Prize distribution




"They who shall not be named" are the winners of the Odyssey quiz 2006. (Pic Courtesy: Bhupender)




Thought the audience could have stayed a touch longer to appreciate and applaud the winners.

UnReal Estate

I recently read about moon treaty, and Assuming that the International space faring nations sign the treaty,

1. Who will operate the first 3 days and 2 night trip to moon?
2. what would happen to inhabitants of moon on a new moon day? ( would they not be there or would they not be visible)
3. would international passports issued by world countries be valid for the trip in point 1 ?
4. who would issues visas to moon?
5. Who will do the on arrival immigration clearance in moon?
6. What would be the currency in moon?

Google Whack

Google whack is about getting google to return exactly one page for a two word query. ( for details http://www.googlewhack.com/tally.pl). I did it with 'Windowsill beedies'.

Choosing your next book made easy

Ever had a problem of choosing your next book to read? Now the selection is made a little easy, just log on to this site and it gives you a list you could choose from. I tried it with books i have read and the results were encouraging. Happy Reading!!!

http://whatshouldireadnext.com/

A Victory in a Draw

The first Test between india and pakistan has ended in a tame draw. Much was said before the start of the indian innings on how the indian quicks could not be effective on a flat surface while their pakistani counterparts have a superior air-speed and can get to reverse the ball, speculations apart, the surface proved to be a batting paradise and a bowler's nightmare. Lets look at the gains of the teams from this tame draw.

Batting Gains

Pakistan.

The top order and middle order have had some useful hit in the middle barring Inzy that is. While the likes of younis khan, mohammed yousuf, Afridi, Akmal running into the kind of form they have augurs well for the pakistan team, Not much can be read into Inzy's cheap dismissal, he has been in excellent form throughout the english series.

India

Phenomenal is the word for the efforts of sehwag & Dravid in blunting the likes of Akthar, Rana Naved, Sami, Kaneria et al. The Batting efforts augurs well and might have gained them the pscyhological edge over pakistan. That said, its demoralising for any bowling attack to be kept on the field for so long with so less to show for their efforts.

Bowling

Neither side has bowled the other once, so pretty much even stevens as most pakistani wickets were hara-kiri than great bowling save the faster one from kumble to Inzy.

In the end

While the match ended in a draw, India has definetely won the psychological battle.

Men of the match

Curator and groundsmen.

Dravid Leading from the Front

Openers job is to see the shine off the ball, tire the front line bowlers and then build an innings of substance. With Dravid opening the innings, each one of them - see the shine off, tire the front line bowlers and build an innings, each one of those things is possible, so its in the interest of the team he is leading, that dravid has opened. On the contrary, one could speculate, if Ganguly went out in the middle to open, it would have been a morale booster for the opening bowlers ( they already know the line and length - on the leg above the rib), and dravid would have walked sooner, this time with a wicket on the score board and the bowlers pscyhed up since they would only have to take 9 more wickets.

By giving Ganguly his regular slot in the middle order, Dravid has put the team interest above any thing else...

Wish the weather held steady and our batsmen kept the opponents on the field longer than they themselves have been, that would mean a moral victory for the men in blue.