Parking lot

Wondering, what data structure can be used?

Traffic Jam - Bangalore

Here is an article that hit my mail from an unknown author. I wish I can buy him a coffee for this hilarious compose.

JAM...IT..

Over these last few years of living in Bangalore, I have slowly grown to like the jams, which this city provides in abundance.

These jams do build your patience and character. Is it a coincidence that India's most patient cricketers, Dravid and Kumble, hail from this city of jams? (Dravid is even nicknamed "Jammy"). Does it tell you something? Sri Sri Ravishankar...does he get his daily dose of spiritual inspiration while in a jam?? And will I also get a halo after a few more years of this "character building"?? There are, I am sure, thousands of future stars stuck in the Adugodis and Anand Rao circles, who are plotting their moves against future Kramniks... those poor little Kramniks stand no chance. And if you see a professor-like guy prancing around the Palace road jam, you can deduce that a postulate in Physics has just been proved.

A few days back, I had a thought - If we can have reviews of movies, which occupy only a few hours of our life in a month, why not reviews of traffic jams, which takes up significant hours of our day?? So here is my review of some of Bangalore's famous and not-so-famous jams(in no particular order).

But before that, a general comment - As they say, the taste of food in a restaurant is dependent on the ambience ; similarly, the way I see jams, cozy inside the office shuttle or public transport, is different from the way the owner of the swank new SUV sees it. (btw, if you are the owner of the swank new SUV, don't run me down).

1. The Hosur Road Jam - Unarguably, the mother of all jams.People proud of being associated with a great companies, are equally proud of contributing in no small extent to this jam. This jam gives a great glimpse of the Other India - colorful music-blaring
interstate buses, garment factory workers, highway trucks, smoke spewing lorries and such. Provides ample food for thought for socialist minds.
(Rating: ***1/2)

2. The jams around K'mangala/Forum mall - Definitely the best jams in town. PYTs (Pretty young things), fancy cars, and fancy restaurants; this has it all. But you can't afford any of those. Never mind!! Your sadistic brain can take pleasure in the fact that the guy in the fancy car next to you is cruising around for a parking space, feasting his eyes on the PYTs , while his family is having dinner in one of the fancy restaurants. (Rating: ****1/2)

3. The KG Road jam - To be experienced in the evenings before a long weekend. Every auto/taxi in town seems to be stuck while going towards the City railway station - your hair stands on end, you start sweating, the heart beats faster, and you get the rush that a Michael Schumachaer gets on his last lap. And just as the auto moves, a movie show ends and a few hundred more vehicles pour out... Which was the train that hooted
just now?? (Rating: ***1/2)

4. The Jayanagar jam - The puzzle-lovers jam; Jayanagar is maze of bylanes, one-way streets, no right-turns, no left-turns, traffic signals and whatnot. It is an establised fact that Point A to point B, in Jayanagar, can be reached in 6436 distinct ways. But whichever way you take, you are left with a hollow feeling that another route had a better and bigger jam? (Rating: **1/2)

5. The jams around Marathahalli/Whitefield - The IT professional's dream jam; As she sits in the office shuttle looking at other office buses, she can make her career plans. A typical evening in this jam goes thus: Voice from Company A bus : "Any J2EE developers in your bus?". Three guys from Company B bus respond "Yeah" and get down. By the time, the bus crosses the Marathahalli bridge, the first guy is hired as a J2EE developer. The second guy, who didn't know what J2EE meant, is hired as a project manager and the third guy is rejected as he realised late that he has already worked for Company A last year.
(Rating: ****)

6. The Airport Road jam - Similar in taste and character like the Koramangala jam but has socialist twist. This jam treats the rich businessman, who will later travel business class on Jet, the same as a poor programmer, who had unusually come to office early in the morning, 3 months back, to buy one of those cheap airline tickets.
(Rating ***)

7. The BTM 7th Main x 7 Cross jam - Close to my home, so close to my heart. But alas, the spoilsports at BDA finished the flyover at the Jayadeva circle and brought an end to this jam. But for a couple of years, this jam used to give me pure joy as vehicles of all types created a tangle in the small bylanes of BTM layout. The BDA is now
planning a new flyover at the Udupi Garden junction; so there is still hope
(Rating ***1/2).

8. KR puram Jam- EverGreen Jam.Come what may.. Who can stop this!!! Sorta daily dose.. Nothing to think..about..only sleep..ZZzzzzzzzzzzz.... We jam lovers - have petitioned the government to protect and preserve traffic jams as a cultural asset of Bangalore. Just so that traffic jams are not endangered in the future, we have these suggestions:

1. Build more flyovers - Flyovers do not reduce jams. They just transfer it to the next junction. And in the 2 years that it takes to build them, you are assured of some joyous jams. I am drooling...

2. No public buses - If everybody goes by buses, where will our culture go?

3. Make Tata's 1-Lakh car cheaper by making it tax free - Imagine every two wheeler replaced by a car...The prospects are mouth-watering.

Barcamp Bangalore version 5.0

Barcamp Bangalore version 5.0 was yet another success. I was there live and kicking. Even before the kickoff, I wanted to volunteer few tasks. But then you got your priority work.

This time campers that came from our office was considerably increased Jumbo, Natraj & Raghu (quiz winners), Suresh, Prem. I started camping by tying the front gate banner. The stickers were cool, I stuck one on my t-shirt (like all) and one on my pant. Audi was not available this time around. :( Right away the sessions started and I was in Web analytics session. Then jumped to a hot discussion on pair programming. It was interesting though. On listening from suresh a collective on adhoc wireless network was also interesting. Then a strange collective on "Generic guys & gals".

Day2 was pretty much deserted when compared to Day1. I organizers should have not given the t-shirts on the previous day! :) Indic languages was good, heard that some sessions on bloggers collective was good. But was not able to pitch in because of a confused (confusing) collective on semantic web. Missed two interesting sessions on Photography & Designing Barcamp. The SMS that hit made me excited that I should have been there. Lose one get one, was finally able to grab my new mobile, A Nokia 6300. It fits my pocket well.

Overall I rate this barcamp lower than the best barcampbangalore4. BCB4 had more interesting sessions and were organized. Also the SMS that floated were minimal. But IIM and its food it getting better and better. I liked the food they served.

Desktop

Desktop has many interpretations. Here I refer to the graphical home page when every operating system boots up. Literally, its the first screen from which the users starts using the system and will the last screen from where the user stops using the system. A desktop would contain a background, few icons, taskbar and few widgets (occasionally). Have a look at what one of my colleague's desktop.

Its an art to maintain a Desktop. Just ask your friends to send their desktop snapshots, you can keep on enjoying it for hours. There are so many different kind of desktops that are around us, some I have observed are, Default desktops are ones those have their default wallpaper and settings when they are shipped. There would be icons flooding around the screen. Many project managers and HR's would be having this (You can wonder why... :)). Default - but changed desktops they are those where the wallpaper of the desktop would be changed but set to some of the default set provided already. I guess managers would have this kind of desktop. Plain desktops are those with a plain background (may be a selected color is filled, usually would be a dark color) and few set of icons will be are present. This gives a clear visibility of the icons that are present. I guess technical lead would have such desktops. Next would be some self portrait desktop where a picture of yourself that came around good in the last picnic or last family party would be seen. Come on no guesses, only a girls desktop would look like this. Some times they keep flower occupying the screen, cute puppies and kittens also get a place. A guys desktop would have a cool sports car or a freighting bike poster else a sports person or some latest bollywood heroine. Mr.Organized desktop, this is some kind of professional desktop that has things organized. Like similar icons are grouped and pushed to one end of the screen. Recycle bin in bottom right corner and few set of application launches are at one corner. These kind of desktops can be seen with some experienced software engineers who are slight geeks who doesn't want to waste time in searching. Also many are launched using keyboard shortcuts, since mouse clicks are costly. What a mess desktop, ah ahh here is the famous category of desktops. They can be spotted at developers pc's. :)

There are lot of tools available to organize them and give a new look and feel often. But only a few are using them. Finally if at all these 2D desktops are bored, try looking at future desktops like bumptop

You got some more interesting desktops, write back to me!

kannada kali

In spite of my Kannada & Tamil classes happening in my office. I got an interesting article on "Learn Kannada". It seems to cover good basics. Take time to read it.

Article link here.

P.S. I'm not responsible of the contents on the document or rather don know who authored it. If it doesn't comply cc, get back to me!

Barcamp Bangalore 5

Date: Nov 17th - 18th, 2007
Venue: IIMB
Registration: open
Know more

Nov 1st - Testimonial

Here a short sweet summary of what people got to say! They are extracts from internal mail thread.

Vignesh
First of all Thanks to Peeps who made the initiative for the Trip.
He was the one who kept alive "the thread" regarding the Trip.
Also thanks to Jayakumar for Cab Arrangements.
Spl thanks to Santy for Choosing the place and making required arrangements for the same (Also thanks for his Shoes)
Thanks to Daams and Tom for bringing their Cool Hi fi Cameras which captured the moments of the Most Exiting day
Thanks to Vijesh for Capturing those Unforgettable Moments and breathtaking Snaps During the whole day ... Great Skill Vijesh
Thanks to my class guys Prashanth, Vinodh, Kishore, esp Tom(Who came directly from cbe and came for the trip) , Jayakumar who all made the trip the most unforgettable day in Bangalore
Enjoyed to the core...

Srihari
It was great fun. All the 3 paintball activity , swimming , food & not but the least volley ball was great
So to keep this going we need to arrange such trip atleast once a month :-)

Arun Rag
Thanks 2 all guys!! It was a great show yesterday..
@Santy
Thanks for suggesting the place... (don't forget to include other company names during the next trip... ;) )

Jaya Kumar
Trip super ah irunthuchu....
But Kaal vali thaan thaanga mudiyala.....
;( ;(
Thanks all for arranging a great great trip.

Krishnan
Nice Pics da... I missed it... but great that u guys rocked yesterday... will not miss any next time

Kishore
Had a very nice time and enjoyed a lot yesterday.. thanks for all the guys who made the trip a memorable one..

Prasanth
besting outing for me in bangalore so far....

Jaya Kumar again
Solla maranthuttaen...Yesterday wen i closed my eyes after going to bed, I was able to feel somebody shooting at my eyes...takkunu muzhichutaen...
:)
Cant identify who shooted... Summa sallunu straight ah kannukae vanthuruchu...

Dams
am enjoying at home.
trip super da. as sri said, lets go often. peeps vidave illiye, vida muyarchi :)
ellorume vara mudincha mathiri, place, time/date, budget ku suggest/arrange panna santy ku oru O.
paint ball game, volleyball, vijesh photography skills, meen varuval
ellam mention pannungo.
advance happy deepavalli wishes to you all :)

Finally Vijesh
Others who were there are tom, pradeep, santy, vinod who were not able to send in their testimonials due to tight schedule at work! :P Due course I might silently push them in. Well for me...
peeps held the plan together.. santy nailed the execution.. with JK pitching in with his managerial skills for the transportation.. the shouting in the field of paint ball (my throat is still recovering).. arguments off the field.. peeps & myself head on head shooting.. nice take away coffee mugs.. swimming pool & santy.. TT.. shuttle.. lunch & ice cream.. awesome volley ball, credit goes to all esp tom, kishore, santy.. not last by least Canon powershot S5 IS..

Then I went home, took a bath and silently slept :P

Hathway WTF

Good news is that we have got a new Sony Vega for our home. :-) A Diwali purchase planned long back. But the bad news is that we need to get a Hathway cable connection. Why bad news, whats with it?

I stay in the Koramangala area! Today morning, got the hathway agent number and dialed him. Zoom he was right there in the next 10th min installing the cable connection to us. On having a conversation with one of the guy who came to installation, I was surprised with what he said. Here is their tarrif,

Installation charges - Rs 500
Non refundable deposit - Rs 1000
Monthly rental - Rs 275

The second component was interesting, this will be used to register the customer name for paid channels, but we need to repay this amount if we need a change of address. The deposit amount is valid only for Koramangala area. Say if we move to Indra nagar, repay and re-register. I did not understand what the system is. Also I asking others, it seems that this area is monopolized with Hathway! Seems that there are multiple private cable operators co-exist in the same area. Do a Google, you can find ppls love towards hathway! Can you do something...

Don argue with a fool, he will bring you down to his level and beat you with his experience!

Paint ball Yuyutsa

Wow it doesn't get better than this! On Nov 1st I went with my friends for playing paint ball game in yuyutsa. Its an adventurous, physical and a strategic game of two teams who are put into a military training field like with guns (that shoots paint balls). Its about defeating other gunman's team.

We were a bunch of 13 guys! The instructor gave us the safety instructions on how to play. We geared with minimal protection gear and a face mask. We were given a gun that fire based on compressed CO2. The range the gun covers is good. But takes an elliptical path when shot for a long distance. The so called pellets are soft biodegradable plastic balls filled with vegetable oil. The pellets when hit a rigid target it splats and the color spreads on the target. There are two mode of guns available automatic and manual. We went for the manual mode. Here you need to load the pellet into the feeder and then fire. We were ready to go!

Now its time for some action.

Game1: Shoot out Aim of each troop is to shoot out the opponents and kill them. A player is killed if the pellet splats on the player anywhere spreading the color. Each team needs to start from their bunkers which are on the opposite end. Simple strategy to play is attack from second one. Kill and get killed. Spread across the field and attack. Have one guy as your last man standing by conservative game.

Game2: Center flag A flag will be placed on the center of the field. Each troops objective would be take the flag from center and hoist it on your enemies bunker! When carrying the flag, if you are killed keep the flag in the place where you killed. Its left to your troop or enemies troop to recover it. Winning tip for this game is capturing the flag from the center. You take the flag first, there are more chances of winning.

Game3: Double flag This is the exciting game of all, Aim of each troop would be to go and pick the opponents flag and bring it back to your territory and hoist it. In case you want to recover your stolen flag, you need to get the flag and make a run to your bunker. You are not supposed to hide and shoot when you are recovering your flag. Play slow, play a conservative game. Let the enemy make the move and enter your territory. Kill one by one and strengthen your troop. When the enemy is weakened attack on his bunker.


Altogether it was terrific fun. Running, Sliding, Crouching, Shouting, Shooting, being in stealth mode and the fear about the enemy's standpoints. Its a good team building activity on the field. But it can even become a team breaking activity if discussed off the field. :-) I think a good spot of a team outing including all those resort facilities. Lots of Tips & Tricks are learned like making an empty fire to scare the enemy without wasting pellets. Share pellets when other member needs it. Worth for the money!

Then we moved to the resort summing pool and then for some large scale chess. We had a good lunch and the post lunch starting with some portraits pose for Orkut gallery. Then relaxing out with card games and few with badminton. Grand finale with some volley ball. Lot other options will include TT, cricket, football, snooker etc. Had our evening snack with tea and start back.

P.S. Flash enabled browser is needed, else goto the album directly here.