How *not* to organise a picnic

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. - Thomas A. Edison

Here is my confession...

What's this new assignment all about? Well, it was time for me to fill some pages on my personal development plans. Right on time came this new assignment to organize the picnic for a bunch of nerds and geeks with their family. Initial plan was to create a hype among the audience and so we circulated a mail on what they could expect in a month. Then the a small team was formed for each category. I was the first one hired into this team. Other smaller teams were formed for Transportation, Accommodation, Food and Entertainment.

Play the cards in the hands, than the cards in the deck is something that I hymn many a times to myself. This was no good exception. We had a very big crowd to manage. In a worst case there would be around 100-130 people who will be participating in the picnic was the result of the survey. So at the best we should be ready to handle the worst. After ringing up so many resorts there was only one resort (mudumalai) that gave us a head up for accepting an offer. All other resorts din give us multiple reasons to reject us, answer was straight. We cannot handle such a big crowd. So when ever I got an opportunity I spoke good about the resort that we had chosen, Though it was repeated place for few I tried convincing that it would be more exiting this time. Thanks.

You cannot satisfy all. There are bachelors, Married men, Spinsters, married women and kids. (This order is written based on the head count that we got). Each one had their own requirements. But I would say plan an event such that it targets one small group of people. Like the campfire game could be of interest for kids and families. The next day forest walk was well appreciated by young crowd, who dared to enter into the freezing water.

Don plan just execute. I burned the late night oil for preparing the whole set of games for two days. All print outs taken, folded and planned. But nothing worked out since each one had their own plans on both days. Do not try to hold the crowd together for a game, it would rather not impress them. Still I guess people had fun. But the plan was not a waste, I just acted wise when I was in the bus of using those games during the return journey. Did you know? It was a grand success. The crowd just simple enjoyed them. I wish I was on the crowd, still making someone enjoy is a pleasure. The photos speaks it all.

Do not accept, just question. Be it a planning meeting a week before the picnic or high tea towards the end of the journey! Being the youngest member in the organizing committee I had objections and questions. Good that I got out them, we were able to refine those thought and present them well. Breakfast was decided after so many debates and discussions. It came out well. (At least I cherished it. :))

Energy Conservation - Update

I wonder if the Infrastructure maintenance team here in Novell, Bangalore just read my blog post on Energy Conservation. OMG - There was a complete black out in our office around 6:45 :-) First the lights went off, then bamm every system, monitor, phone got powered off. Every inch was dark.

I could hear everyone cursing! I can hear ppl saying, "Oh God - I din save it. Finally I can stop working. Go home. You cant even call anyone, even the Phone is gone!" When things resumed and went off again think what my neighbor would do! :-)

But still, "To Err is Human..."

Energy Conservation

Here is a mail that hit my mailbox this afternoon. With prior permission from its owner taking it online. Thanks Harshad for taking effort and sending this across. We will do our part! As a part of this, I will create a notification program initially to remind people to switch of their work stations during evening hours by sending out an email. Just in case you want to be on the list, just drop me a comment or mail - kvijesh at gmail dot com

>>> Harshad Sovani 10/25/07 12:17 PM >>>
Hi folks,

You may have heard about the global warming process umpteen times. But, now these words have become so common that we turn a deaf ear to the appeals made to us to conserve energy.

I routinely come across so many systems in our office where our colleagues keep their systems and monitors turned on when they've left office. I've been turning off all the monitors I come across on the way to the exit. Sometimes, I'm tempted to just press the power button and just switch off the systems, but obviously cant do that! I'm amazed at how ignorant and careless we could be! I asked one of our colleagues why he wont shut off the system as left office for the weekend, and pat came the reply 'Ah.. who will do that man? Why should I do it? I've to anyway use it on Monday!! '

Would we do the same had it been in our homes? Definitely not! Why? To cut down on our electricity bills. So, why not here? Electricity bills will be cut down definitely, but more than that it should be done as a part of an effort towards conserving energy.

There are a number of articles out there on the web on global warming and energy conservation. Just to list a couple of them:

Natures-Switch
How-Your-Computer-and-TV-Add-to-Your-Energy-Bills
Wiki

Some of the many things that we can do, we must do:

• Switch off your monitor when you dont require - when going out for meetings, when going for lunch, when checking out of office. An easier solution is to use power management in your system to switch off monitor automatically after inactivity of 2 to 5 minutes.
• Hibernate your systems / put them in sleep mode when you leave office.
• Switch off monitors in other cubes when you see that there's nobody occupying the cube (doesnt matter whose cube it is, wont do any harm!).
• Try to conserve energy everywhere.. not just in office.. but at homes.. yours and others.. switch off fans, lights, TVs when not in use.
• Spread the word and follow it religiously
  

I hope none of us will simply ignore this mail, and will do our bit as a responsible human being to save our planet from meltdown.

Cheers!
~ harshad

I'm a Mafia

Not a real mafia :). But play a game called - Mafia. In my own words, its a personality game were a group of people take up undisclosed roles (Mafia (bad guy), police, doctor, villagers). They brainstorm and create conversation within the group in eliminating the Mafia. This would involve lots of logistics in finding out who the bad guy is. The way you speak, the way you react, your gestures everything counts. Collect fact and infer upon to find bad guys. I got a great set of expert Mafia's in my office. I promise you, its addictive.

A game with average of 9-12 people would run for several hours. This wiki page, makes you learn more. Even Princeton is addicted. Google around to find more links. Got a question, or wanna to become Mafia. Shoot back...

Awake

No! I was not sleeping or forgot the fact that I need to write something here. Every week I tried to post and I was not able to. Held up on certain things! Lots to write from my side of the month. But to begin with here is a coffee code conversation with one of my colleague here. He marched to the white board and wrote this,

{
printf("suresh\0kumar");
printf("12345\06789");
}

doesn't it look simple. try your C skills on this. Solution at the end.

In my office one can see the friendly chameleon sketches stuck in many walls. Some even started coloring them with their own style. :) The SUSE hack week started this Monday (June 25th). Look this video of how it really started :). I was just reading & listening to some of the ideas. They looked cool hacks.

An interesting thought struck me yesterday night. Most corporate citizens have X allowance and Y allowance, so here is one to include in that boring list. "Auto Allowance" - applicable for Bangalore makkal alone. But now the question arises how will you reclaim this allowance, since the Finance dept will ask for the bills. I have a suggestion for that too. Install prepaid tickets issuing counters at very close proximity (say every BMTC Bus stop). Let it be automated, where we type in and get the ticket. Also pay the autowala with the prepaid amount. But how will you be sure of the genuineness of the tickets. Suggestions?

Next bloggers around me were really active and wrote many. Out of them few I found interesting like this and this and this. I had been very dormant when compared.

I saw Shivaji on the 3rd day, Our Super Star is back at his best. A through full time entertainment of 180 mins. Vivek's comedy, Music, screenplay, dialog, theme everything was good. For a fan its eternity after watching this film. A nice review was here and here

solution: suresh12345789
because 067 is ascii equivalent of 7 in octet.

P.S: Suggestions/Feedback/Critics/Anything else ↴ leave a comment

Balancing Act

Its early sunshine. Humm get out of the bed with the least interest. Brush up and get ready for you cab/auto/bike etc. Once you reach your office, coffee/breakfast/fresh juice go to your cubicle. Switch on that same old PC you have spending more time with than anyone else. Now phone calls/meetings/coding that makes your neurons work than anytime before. Next is what you call that a Lunch some cucumber/carrot/rice/chapathi's. Then continue impulsing your neurons and get brain drained by the end of the day. You return home without dropping a sweat from your body, but more tired than an athlete. Switch off your light and get back to bed.

The above is put into and iterative loop, until you exhaust. In between all these, suddenly your mobile rings with a nice polyphonic ring tone. You look at the display it says "Home Calling..." Now you remember them. As usual say the same old dialog "hi mom, tell me...". you tend to spend more time with a mobiles customer care number than you spend on this "Home Calling..." number. Like wise we miss many, our dear most friend whose name remains deep in the heart. A sudden mail pop at the right bottom of the screen saying "Mail from XYZ". Our elders in the family, pets, lots and lots.

So start the "Balancing Act". We don realize it until the time is up!