Seattle & Microsoft

Recently Microsoft and I mutually chose each other for employment, I moved to Seattle area and joined them exactly a month ago. I must say it has been a very different experience as compared to my other first months at work.

Seattle first,  I am not really a "city-boy", I love the calm and peace of suburbs and beyond, however I am also married now, hence bowing to the demands of my other half my humble abode shall be situated in the city for at least the next one year. On the positive side Seattle is possibly the only city in United States where I can possibly think about affording a decent apartment in the vicinity of downtown. Seriously if you have spare money then invest it in Seattle real-estate, it seems to be under-valued for a major city. The city does still has that white-hippy vibe to it, and from first impressions I am liking it (except the rain of course). It does rain a lot, but it doesn't pour, it's just something a little more than drizzling so life doesn't stop or get affected much for that matter.

As an experiment we are also trying a life without cable TV, it seems a lot of people across this country have cut cable cords so I figured why not. To be honest, it's more about Comcast's pricing, customer "focus" etc. that made me decide that I don't want cable TV. So for now I am going to depend on Internet and Xbox for entertainment.

More to come on Life in Seattle in future...

Hyderabad and the Future

WAS STUCK IN DRAFTS, POSTED LATE

    I moved to Hyderabad in November 2012 and the last one year has been very close to being a simple and satisfactory phase of life. However as they say the calm is only a prelude to the brewing storm, Hyderabad has just been that kind of calm for me, for I am getting married in May. Beginning tomorrow I have exactly ten days left in Hyderabad.

    I don't mean to call marriage a storm in a negative sense (just in case my fiancee read this I need a strong defense :D ), but it is definitely a big step in life and there is no denying life is going to change in a lot of big ways. For starters in the last four years I had never needed to think of monetary debts in any form, I had never needed to think twice about applying for a job opening in Antarctica and most importantly I had never needed to feel so loaded with responsibilities of the future. Soon though I will have to take into account another human being when thinking about any major life decision.

    In Hyderabad I am living at about 15 minutes (20 mins in traffic) driving distance from work, I was making good progress with my fitness, professional life was paying well monetarily and ambitions were becoming (albeit a little slowly) a reality. For those who have never seen Hyderabad, it's a slow city, people are (mostly) nice and is definitely not one of the expensive cities in India. It does get very hot from March to May but other than that for the remaining nine months it has very close to ideal weather. In last one year and four months I have come to realize for most part Hyderabad has all the benefits of a big Indian city and very few drawbacks. For instance Delhi is definitely livelier, I have friends and family in Delhi but the traffic, the pollution, the crime and the cost of living of the current Delhi does not make me want to go back to Delhi. I have come to realize I enjoyed my life in Hyderabad much more than my three years in Delhi for life is much more comfortable, calm and peaceful in Hyderabad.

Hitched !!

Apple

Lexus made this in 2003, well to be precise the company they hired to design the advertisement made it but nevertheless I am sure Lexus can claim the ownership of the slogan,

In 2010 Apple made this, or at least they will claim the ownership of the slogan because of the money they paid,

Anybody who knows even basic English will tell you that by far "changes" and "everything" are the two most important words in both those sentences. For my taste the similarities in those two slogans are way too striking specially for a company who is hell bent on using it's economic power to sue every form of major competition. They should probably first look into their own backyard before accusing everybody of stealing from them.

I solemnly swear

A guy who is coming back to India to perform the last rites of his father is left stranded at Paris airport by Air France just because he was Indian.

http://jayharishshah.blogspot.sg/2013/10/one-night-in-paris.html


After having had seen such racial discrimination with my own eyes and heart by European Airlines (Finn Air and KLM) I vow to avoid flying European Airlines even if I have to take a longer flight or pay some extra money to avoid them.

IOS 7

Till IOS 6 generating a genius playlist from a song used to be one click process (fast and useful).

(Unless I am missing some other shortcut) IOS 7 onwards its “redesigned” to a two-step process, Create -> Genius Playlist, the menu after pressing Create BTW has just two options 1. Genius Playlist 2.Cancel

It is beyond me that what UI design principle says this is an improvement.

I can go on and on about the "redesign" of IOS but I guess I can find better ways to waste my time. IOS7 has made me believe Apple Inc. has robbed me of my money and Steve Jobs was "Apple Inc.".

This World is going up in flames

Solitary

     One of those days when I am sick, lonely, dull and left alone by everybody around me.

I just want to get a bike and go riding on PCH to clear my head and heart.

Org Chart

Disclaimer : I do not own this image, the copyrights are held by it's owners. 

Calm

   About ten months ago (Sept-Oct 2012) I was using the Delhi Metro for the major part of my two hour commute to work, since I took it around noon from one of the early stops and got down very near to one of the last stops I was always assured a preferred seat for the entire journey.

Everyday for almost all of the one and a half hours of that journey I had Bach, Mozart and Beethoven blasting through my ears, an equally polished novel in my hands, the almost perfect cold air of the air conditioning on my skin and my mind totally immersed in the characters of the story. In July 2013 I am really really missing the calm and soothe of those one and a half hours in my life.

Ciao

This is how I feel about IOS7

When it comes to making the best phone in the market Apple has really lost it to Android this time and going by IOS7 I think they have accepted that (they can no longer)/(they don't want to) compete with the pace of innovation/improvements of Android or the companies making Android phones. They have ruled and milked the market of the smartphone money as much as they could and now probably it is better to move onto a new product line, the obvious guess is wearable computing. No matter how good they make the "design" on Iphone 5S/6 they have lost the battle of innovation in software and hardware specifications wise Apple has always been lacking with respect to it's competitors. Their biggest advantage had been "Design" and the strength of rock solid fundamentals in the execution of the design. But six years after Apple launched it's first Iphone almost every company has developed a good/better phone, a phone which offers much more value for money than a Iphone (even if it's the best design). Their app store advantage counts for nothing now that all the apps 99.99% people use are available even on Blackberry's platform. Of course, those idiots at CNET.com (who mistake themselves for being nerds/geeks just because they are all ugly) will still tell you that Iphone is the single most important piece of Engineering marvel the world has ever seen, but either they are stupid fan boys or paid propagandists. Either way the truth will remain that Iphone is no longer the best smartphone in the market, sure it will compete among all other good smartphones but it surely isn't the king anymore. 

In no way should Apple as a company be written off, they have made impressive come backs several times in their history, this time around they even have the advantage of possessing a war chest of billions of dollars. Any wise man from the technology industry will make a bet confidently that mostly behind the scenes they are investing their money on developing a newer dimension to everyday computing. But in all probability their current proof of excellence the Iphone is probably nearing it's retirement as the work horse of the company.

Ciao 

Taken !

har kise di koi shart si

ve main sare ghumm ke vekhia,
amrika , roos, malaysia,
kittey vi koi fark si,
har kise di koi shart si....


Ciao

Nostalgia

Reminds me of the countless nights spent at Link Hall, Syracuse University.



http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/02/23/1946247/minix-321-released

Facebook Graph Search

A couple of weeks back Mark Zuckerberg presented the latest feature in the Facebook arsenal Graph Search to the world. My question(s) is(are), REALLY? Actually when i saw parts of the presentation and read about it on various blogs I got several questions in my head,

1. The Chairman and CEO of a company which has current market valuation of about 100 billion USD gives a presentation from his Macbook on two tine-tiny projector screens, really? That is not CEO/Chairman mentality, that is not a presenter's mentality, that is a hacker's mentality at best. Though this hacker mentality might be a good thing for Facebook technically but it's downright stupid when it comes to the business world. But I am sure MZ is smart enough to know all this and yet do what he feels is good for the company or maybe it's just him satisfying his developer/designer ego. Either way Kudos to him for not caring about the money people and showing them their true place. Wall street has far too much control on American technology companies, I think that should stop at once for the good of humanity. If it doesn't stop at once the day is not far when some corporation will come up with desalination of sea-water and water will be more expensive than blood and oil for the sake of capitalism.

2. The feature itself, again really?? This is where I am not sure what is he trying to show the world, that is not really a feature, at least not a one that Facebook invented or has come up with anytime in the near past. That whole presentation is about running SQL like queries on a database albeit in English. All Facebook has done is make the world familiarized with SQL in layman terms, in terms of attributes and objects specific to Facebook. If this is innovation at Facebook and a new feature worth holding a press conference at your campus then companies like IBM, Intel, Apple, Sony, Qualcomm will have to hold press conferences on a daily basis to announce their daily work as "groundbreaking contribution to science". Come on MZ, you can do better than this, at least the computer science literates know very well you were selling such processed information to advertisers already and it is kid's (Computer Science kid) play to get that information from the database, now you are just throwing the common public an already eaten piece of meat and expecting them to relish it. The irony is collectively Facebook users are going to spend millions of hours using this "feature" to stalk, investigate, scan, scam, exploit and in occasional cases productive and/or meaningful use of this feature to gather information. If you look at Google's products or listen to Sergey Brin's interviews, intent is always on making human lives better whereas in my honest opinion Facebook's intents are not even remotely close to being so noble , for a company of such valuations and impact it can (should) do way better with its power and money.

3. I am not sure how to put this out there in the industry, but I think most CEOs should stop making presentations, keynotes and what not. Not all of you are Steve Jobs, hell none of you are Steve Jobs. Instead get a presenter who is really passionate about technology you are presenting (or can at least pretend well), who is really able to communicate to every (at least 60%) individual in the crowd and at least 60% of the people who are going to watch that video on Youtube. With a bad introductory presentation you have already killed the product in the eyes of the consumers and the technology journalists (ahem absolute dumbasses, pretend geeks/nerds) who sadly are going to influence the end consumers with their impressions of your presentations . When I look at presentations from CEOs of Mobile phone industry I can count at least a dozen disasters

       a. Sanjay Jha (Motorola Mobility)
       b. Steve Ballmer (Microsoft)
       c. Peter Chou (HTC)
       d. Stephen Elop (Nokia)
       e. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
       e. Jeff Bezos (Amazon) (probably the only guy with some quotient of saving grace in a list of failures)

And the list can just go on and on for a long time...

Ciao ...

America

I feel this is so true about American universities.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20756247


Ciao 

Mission 2013

Do For Sure
-----------------------

1. Now that I am at a company and team of my choice, work really really hard.

2. Regular and hard gym schedule, first get back to May 2012 shape and then go beyond.

3. Buy a Kindle and read more.

4. Visit at least one new country, hopefully for a vacation.


Maybe
-----------------------

1. Start a three month no alcohol regime on 1st Jan 2013.

2. Spend at least two hours a week with my Playstation.

3. Make at least two safe investments.

4. Bring back the college days and grow my hair long, like really long. Maybe even the beard though Hyderabad doesn't seem to have the weather for a beard.


Outrageous
-----------------------

1. Join a self defense class.

2. Try learning a musical instrument on my own.

3. Move to VimDiff from Araxis Merge.

4. Truthfully complete at least one Salman Rushdie Novel

Back

I am back at Mothership, now just need to get back to motherland.

Ciao ...

The Dark Knight Rises recap and review

================================SPOILER ALERT - This entry is a complete spoiler if you have not seen the movie, but then if you have not seen it already then you are not really a Batman or Nolan fan and you may as well read it. ==========================================


The first scene of the movie is absolutely mind blowing, a big plane on top of a small plane, people jumping out of the big plane onto the small plane and ultimately crashing the small plane, it is all very much Nolan like unbelievable unprecedented and yet looks as realistic as it ever can get. From here on it is all Dark Knight like where Bruce Wayne is lured back from leaving his dull life as a super rich eccentric billionaire to once again cleaning up the underbelly of Gotham.

The first scene where Batman shows up is quite awesome too, it happens in the middle of a chase sequence and at that point you are too busy comprehending the persona and raw magnetism of Bane, you are just not expecting Batman in that part of the movie and suddenly the lights go off in the underground motorway and the theme of the music changes from automobile sounds to BATMAN music and for the next five seconds all you hear is the cheers from the other people watching the movie along with you even more so if there are batman fanatics and fanboys around.

The music of the movie is extremely good, Hans Zimmer is at his usual best, every chase sequence, every build up, every twist and every sighting of the dark knight is accompanied with equally engrossing and apt music themes in the background. Then right around the half time of the movie is the one on one fight between Batman and Bane which again has been done very much in the "The Dark Knight"  fashion. Through out the movie The Dark Knight Joker seems to be on top of things and the audience seem to think that this time around the Batman is definitely going to loose to the Joker but the vigilante always comes on top in each of those instance. Not so much with Bane, Bane is just too big and raw for the Batman, in the one on one fight Batman's supremacy is crushed to death and the body left to rot with a broken backbone. In my honest opinion this is the best scene of the movie, Nolan has put it as majestically and as "dark knightly" as possible.

Up until the end of the scene of the game of  American football everything is well thought, well written, well planned and well executed just the usual Nolan way. But that is when the dark knight movie from Nolan ends and Batman from DC Comics begins and of course it gets all shitty and childish. A nuclear bomb/reactor of the size of a car, batman and bane cheap-fighting on the streets in broad daylight, Gordon running behind trucks like a Bollywood movie, are you freaking kidding me. All of it seems so lame, so shallow and so NOT  Dark Knight like. It is like suddenly some dumbass from the studio started making the movie instead of the mighty and the great. The ending is even more pathetic, it seems to be written for one and one purpose only, so that DC Comics and the the movie studio can make more movies and mint more money. Nolan I am begging on my knees please release an alternate ending in the DVDs/Blu-Ray of TDKR.

Nolan's movies have one particular aspect about their endings, they will make you think "Oh fack, now I will have to watch it again". Not so with TDKR, I have already seen it twice and even on the second watch I did not find anything new, to be honest after the Bane and Batman fight scene I felt the movie was such a drag, though to be fair to Hans Zimmer just the background score is enough to keep you glued to your seats till the very end of credits.

In all I am not sure of the word extremely but I am sure of the word disappointed for at least the last quarter of  TDKR.

First 3/4 Good to Amazing
Last 1/4  Disappointing to Lame.


Ciao

It has begun

I think this is where it will start to go all downhill for the foreseeable future.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18993308

With Facebook expected to come up with disappointing numbers in it's quarterly results on Thursday I think the time has come for Silicon Valley to take a hit just like I thought here


Ciao.