Slumdog Millionaire

After waiting for a month, finally I watched this movie today. It is well known that this movie bagged lot of awards in the global film arena even before its worldwide release that created lot of expectations about it. The most captivating factor to me in this movie apart from the storyline is the music of a.r.rahman. After watching this film, I felt that both the music and the movie as a whole lived upto its expectations. It starts with a title track "O Saiya" which takes you to a virtual tour through the slums of Mumbai. The title track alone will stand for the greatness of music in rest of the film. I would love to hear it again and again. There are few scenes where I felt somewhat awkward. i. Anil Kapoor's sarcasm about chai-wala ii. Accusing Jamaal for cheating just because he has reached the penultimate question being a slumdog. Also, slum people speaking English limits one's involvement with the story to some extent. But ofcourse, it has to be in that way as the movie itself is a English movie. And the screenplay and characterization overcomes such limitations. The background score in the scenes where Jamaal and his brother escapes from the goondas and the last 20 minutes including the credits were awesome. As a icing on the cake, the movie ends with a bollywood style song with Jamaal and Latika dancing in the lead. Hope few Oscar awards are waiting for this movie. Congrats Danny and team! A special congrats to Rahman!

Give it to the Keeper

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/375341.html - Read this article of Ian Chappel in cricinfo. Its about continuing with Dhoni as the captain for the rest of the ongoing Ind Vs Aus test series. As a whole, the article sounded reasonably well. But there is an anology at the end of the article that made me to post this article here. I haven't come across such an anology so far. Here is the excerpt of that anology from the actual article.

"It has been said that good captaincy is like pornography - it's hard to define but you know it when you see it. Usually when you do see it, a victory soon follows and after Dhoni's great performance at Mohali, it might be the right time to ask Healy if he still thinks good captaincy doesn't affect the result of a match."

As we grow up . . .

Recently I read an article about Diwali by Dr. Sukisivam. It was part of his regular "Intha naal iniya naal" program. He speaks about how human mind, especially its expectations changes as one grows. A perfect example quoted by Dr.Suki follows here. New dresses and crackers for diwali was an exhilarating factor to us when we were kids. Simple birthday gift such as a pen, shoe etc... used to make us feel good. But even if we get a brand new apparels nowadays, does that still brings the same level of happiness to us now? Certainly, it doesn't. Why? Is it because that we have grown? Have we lost anything? All such questions can be answered in one word. Mind, period. The thing that we wanted to achieve, that we felt sad for not to achieve that, does not tastes sweet when we actually achieve that. He carries his article further with some more short stories and ends on a perfect note to say "intha naal mattum alla.. varudathil entha naalum Deepavali naal than" (not only this day but every day will be a Diwali).

This article led my mind to another thought related to the above topic. I strongly feel that it is prevalent among many of us nowadays. I heard from my friends and friends of friends who are doing Masters in US that many of them had problems with their fellow roommates. I would say 'frequency mismatch' would be a better fit here than the word 'problems'. Living with friends is not new to us. When we moved to a new middle school or high school, especially into hostel we almost never had any issues in acclimatizing with the new environment. There might be few differences here and there. But they would get sorted out sooner or later. In my personal life, when I entered into my undergraduation, 35/40 guys were hostelers and geographic distribution was also pretty good. Initially, we were divided into groups in the first year. But that split was just because lack of interaction between us as we were living with other department guys in our first year. But the next three years was simply awesome. Everyone had their own style and way of living but we were united at all circumstances. When it is possible to live amicably with 40 persons, why do we find lot of differences in living with just 4 people now? Our self expectations and expecatations on others now is far lesser than what it was in our college and school days. All the bonding and friendship in our undergraduation happened on its own. We didn't expect anything from our fellow mates expect friendship. But now? As we grow up, the relationship with strangers goes more professionally than friendly. The persons with whom we don't feel comfortable now might had been comfortable few years back and vice versa. How many life time friendships in this world starts from our professional life? Obviously, a friendship which blossoms from childhood or adulthood lasts longer than that starts from our professional life. I intentionally used the word 'blossoms' in the last statement as I felt the need to stress the beauty and happiness in the former one. Our personal likes and dislikes grow exponentially as we grow. But will that keep our happiness as same forever? Sounds like no to me.

After all, we start our life as a kid and end our life as grown up kid. We need to be pampered both in our childhood and in our dotage. Thats why dotage time is rightly referred as a second childhood. Lets live the intermediate period also as childish as possible and enjoy our life! (not literal childish of course :) )

Learn Intuitively ??

At last, all of my classes started and going on well as of now. First week classes were pretty introductory and hence no big assignments were given yet. But there were some learnings for sure. In one of the classes of Network Security, we discussed about the Birthday Paradox problem. The prof just touched on it and gave the rest as homework. Later I googled about this paradox and learnt (real learning) two more things which I have been using since my school days.  I hope all of us would have used the constant e and the natural algorithm ln lot of times in our math subjects.  And, most of us would answer ln(e) = 1 when and whereever if someone asks us. I don't know how many of us would really know the meaning behind these terms and their actual usage. At least, I have never thought intuitively about these stuff so far. Thats why I used the term 'used' rather than learnt. 

This problem, birthday paradox, involves some derivations using ln and e. Fortunately google directed me to a site called www.betterexplained.com where the author has explained about this problem, the constant e and ln in very simple terms.  This is the first time that I enjoyed learning some math stuff and understood something intuitively. The website name certainly stands for its content. The author is not math professsional. He is just a computer science undergrad and working somewhere now.  Many thanks to him for his brilliant work and few to Google for giving me the link to this site. :)

If you wanna know more about e and ln, go through the below links. I am sure it would be useful by some means.

http://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-the-birthday-paradox/

http://betterexplained.com/articles/demystifying-the-natural-logarithm-ln/

There are lot more math and other general stuff posted on this website. Have to go through them in my leisure time.

p.s.  Still I have a hunch that tells me at least 2 or 3 guys from my class would know ln and e very well in our undergraduation itself if not in schoolings.  One of my probable for this list is Shankar. Hope my hunch would be true.

back to student life

Again back to my blog after a short (supposedly loooooong ;-) ) gap. And this gap is to accustom myself back to Student life from a software guy. Now I am stepping into the next stage of my life as a Grad student. I am somewhat happy that I am back to student life. But will I get the same joy and happiness that I got in my undergrad? What golden time those four years were? I don't think I will ever get such environment again in my life. :-(. Thats the only downside in this new student life. I am sure all of @zteczians in US would vouch for that. Gone are the days when I used to go for classes just for fun with my dear friends rather for any learning. For the next two years, I will have to learn as much as I could and graduate with good grades. Won't I? Hope I will.

Starting my first semester with three courses. Advanced Parallel Computation, User Interface Software and Network Security. Though these are not my favorite courses, I don't have much choice to choose from. will get to know more on these courses in forthcoming classes. Esp while working on assignments and projects. Expecting exciting moments !! (one thing is for sure. velai bend a nimitha poguthu :) )

yemmadi !!! evlo money !!!

When the so called cash-rich, money-spinning IPL started, there was lot of buzz around the money offered for players. And, that buzz is obvious as the money offered is not in peanuts like what we used to get from our companies. ;-) I was dumbfounded when i heard that players like Robin Uthappa and Ishant Sharma were bought around Rs.3.5 crores. konjam nanjama ?? it will take decades for us to earn such amount of money. That also would not be a easy task. patha kuraiku, they have removed salary cap on players frm next year onwards. but anyways, that is applicable to new players who will be drafted in next two years. Existing players won't be able to negotiate with their salary.

I read an article in Bangalore Mirror which added fuel to this burning flame. Yes, It was about earnings of various sportsmen across the globe. When to compared to these sportsmen, I don't think IPL players will even find a place in the top 50. Check the below list of top 10 highest earning sportsmen. panam la marathula kaikuthu pola iruku ..

1. Tiger Woods (Golf) - $112M / Rs.470 Cr
2. Oscar De La Hoya (Boxing) - $43 M / Rs. 180 Cr
3. Phil Mickelson (Golf) - $42 M / Rs.176 cr
4. Kimi Raikonen (F1) - $40M / Rs. 168 cr
5. Michael Schumacher (F1) - $36M / Rs. 151 Cr
6. David Beckham ( Football) - $33M / Rs. 139 Cr
7. Kobe Bryant - $33M / Rs. 139 Cr
8. Shaquille O'neal - $32M / Rs. 134 Cr
9. Ronaldinho - $31M / Rs.130 Cr
10. Michael Jordan - $31M / Rs. 130 Cr

Few interesting facts are,
1. Schumacher and Jordan are earning so much money even though they have retired from their career.
2. Schumacher has earned $650 M throughout his career from his salary alone
3. no one in the list are earning 50% of Tiger Woods' .

Hope IPL also would reach this level at some point of time.

velaya kamichitomla :-)

back to blogging after nearly 3 months!!! Like any other habit, I stopped this habit also in the middle way. was little busy with application & visa stuff. apdinu stupid reasons solla mudiyathu .. true reason is my laziness. :) .. eppa than intha pazhakam nammala vittu pogumo??? gym pogalam nu pona 2-3 months la stop pannidaren .. sari lalbagh than romba pakkathula irukey .. daily um jogging polam nu pona athuvum 1 or 2 weeks continuous ah poga mudiyuthu .. oru nalla habit continuous ah follow pannalam na mudiya matenguthey!!! moonu velai nalla thinnu thinnu thoppai valarthathu than micham .. enna kodumai saravanan ithu !!! :-(

i am taking a resolution here that I will post at least one per week. huhum ..no chance ! the moment I say resolution, it will dissolve. ;-) .. so no resolution. will try my best to keep this blog alive.

Bharat Ratna for Ilayaraja

A kinda surprising news!!! Not sure whether it is true or not. But really wish to happen!!!
btw, i heard this news from a blog.

http://sumanasa.blogspot.com/2008/02/bharat-ratna-for-illyaraaja.html

Femto Cell

Femto Cell - an upcoming technology in mobile world. Got to know about this from a newsletter. It also plays a big role in ongoing Mobile World Congress at Barcelona. Femto Cell technology includes a home access point akin to GSM base station. Femto Cell's home access point is connected, plug-and-play, to any existing IP backhaul network, and the end user's mobile phone will switch to the indoor radio base station automatically as he or she walks through the door. Since voice calls through Femto Cell are transmitted through broadband/IP network, subscribers can get still lower mobile tariff than the present ones. A single access point device can support 5 to 6 users simultaneously. This device is also capable of amplifying the carrier signal which provides better connectivity to the users even when signal strength is low. Like any other technology, this one also has its own downsides. It requires a broadband connection apart from the device, a base station can support only one service provider, cost benefit depends on the service provider tariff etc.. Few companies like Ericson, Vodafone, Sprint are already testing their Femto Cell services and many such companies are in the pipeline. As service providers are already upgrading their network day by day and consistently looking forward to further their network reachability, i am little skeptical about the reach of this technology. Have to wait and see!!!

A Femto Cell from 3Way Networks ...

♥ Happy Valentines Day ♥

Feb - 14:- Whole world is celebrating Valentines day today. But for me it is yet another Thursday. irunthalum intha day a celebrate pannanum nu, we played few songs. First song came to my mind is Kathal Kasakuthaiyaa from Aan Pavam. Sutham !! first song eh ippadi thoniduchey nu yosikum pothuthan innoru idea thonuchu . why shouldn't I play some anti-valentine songs?? namaku enna kathala kandraviya .. :-) . .so i did a search in song database and enqueued the below songs ..

kan pesum varthaigal
varugirai from Ah Aah (one of my all time favorite)
chinna chinnathai penne
venmathi venmathi
vennilave (sad version)
minnale from May Madham (one of my recent favorite. past one month la mattum i hve heard it nearly 100 times)
kathal enbathu pothu udumai
... and few more ..

ippadiye pona namakulam valentine day kalyanathuku appuram than nenaikaren.. :-)

explosions!!

It was yet another boring Saturday. I could not find anything interesting in tv also. Logged into youtube to see some videos. evlo naal than verum songs and comedy aave parkarathu. konjam unusual videos parkalamnu thonuchu. There was an article about nuclear research in Hindu that day. So thought to see some nuclear and other explosions videos. I have only read about these explosions and hardly seen any videos. I was dumbstruck on seeing few of the videos. Really awesome!!! At the same time, it is sad that most of the nuclear research are done for the destructive purpose rather than for constructive ways. ;-( 4 bomba iruntha pothum, India vaye gaali pannidalam ..

Few of the videos here..

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3105197211596464745 -- Don't miss this one even though u miss the below videos. Couldn't embed this as the option disabled in google videos.

a bulb that costed Rs.800

Don't think of a electric bulb. Its about a big mokkai i got at Palika Bazaar, Delhi. I bought a 8GB Transcend pen drive in a shop inside Palika bazaar. Initially they told me that price of an 8GB pen drive is 1400 rupees. I vaguely remembered that even 2GB pen drive cost Rs.600 in Bangalore and was wondering how come they are giving 8GB for just Rs.1400. I thought they might be getting in wholesale and since there many such shops they might be selling at competitive prices. I checked in few more shops also and finally got one such for Rs.800 after some bargaining. I even put that pen drive in a laptop in that shop and checked the size also. I was quite happy that I got an 8GB at such a low price and was about to buy one more for my brother. But my intuition told me that let me try this first and if it works good then i can go for one more. I tried it immediately when i returned to room. Then, I came to know that I was cheated. ;-( .. I did google many times and finally found that these are fake drives widely under circulation in these kinda markets. They will show the drive size as 8GB and u will be able to copy data sized that much. But the actual storage is just 128 MB. If you try to read the data u copied just now, u will be able to read only the initial data copied upto 128MB mark in the drive. Rest will show some crap values in the file name. ;-) At the end, I paid Rs.800 for just 128 Mb pen drive.

Please pass this info to your friends and others ppl whom u know. Though it is not possible for us to eradicate these fake products, at least we can alert our friends by passing this piece of info.

People Care Center

When I was on my way to office yesterday, I happened to see sewage water flowing out of broken cap. Its a quite busy road as it is on the way to a hospital. The entire stretch of road smelt foul that i was not even able to breath properly. It looked like it would had been flowing since the previous evening. Such things happens very often at various places. Why not our govt can have People Care Center (similar to customer care centers in private companies) to address these kinda issues? Few people who are living in that area or passing the road would have thought to inform the concerned official to repair the broken cap but wouldn't have informed as most of them are not aware of the respective numbers. (including me). Had there been a customer care and people are well informed about it, then at least someone would have raised the complaint that evening itself and this inconvenience could have been avoided. If a customer care system is adopted to address our daily issues and followed efficiently (a herculean task ;) ) , it would make our environment a far better place than any other country. Wouldn't it be??

Relax time ...

At last I m done with my applications and stuff. Will come to know the results in another 3 months. After a long time, watched few of my favorite comedy scenes, esp goundar's comedies. I always enjoy those comedies no matter how many times i have seen. Though many comedians has come today, goundamani-senthil pair is unbeatable. their timing and dialogue delivery are chimbly chanceless ..

few of the videos which i watched yday ..