Scratch

Bangalore is a crowded place and therefore traffic is a killer. Today when I was coming to the office, I overtook a car guy right on the side. I took the at-most care in not touching his vehicle. The guy comes out after a couple of minutes and blasts me. He says that I had scratched his vehicle, 2 times ! I start think when I had done so and if I had done it wouldn't I know ? He goes back after lecturing me about responsibility and stuff and I take it. After I overtook him, there was a guy on an old bike, who came in quite fast. He had also overtook me, took his bike on the pavement and had gone further. The guy must have probably scratched him and then taken it further to avoid a clash.

To the car guy:
It was good that you were very calm during the whole incident. But before you start giving lectures and blaming people, you would want to make sure that you have got the right person. You would also want to check your eyes.

Inception

I and Jayasurian went for 'Inception' yesterday. We reached 10 minutes early and watched all those people, you know what I mean, going around all excited about watching the movie. The movie started off confusing. Where are these guys, what are they trying to do. Why is there so much chaos ? Then as the story slowly starts to reveal itself, the complexity of the script is exposed. Wonderfully crafted and nicely told. It closely knits to the stuff that we have experienced. Like waking up in the middle of a dream when you life is threatened.

Adding other people to a dream is like social networking :) . Some parts where confusing as well. Like the part where Arthur constructs a loop to defeat an assassin when he is not even in his dream. But those things are trivial when you consider the effort put in for the movie. Visually it was a treat, it made you think.

Joseph Gordon Levitt was awesome. I loved him from the days of '3rd Rock from the Sun'. Ellen Page was ok. Ken Watanabe was great as always. Leo did justice to his part. A surprise was Tom Hardy, who I thought did a nice work.

Memento is still a better movie !

World Cup Frenzy Too

The Germany - England match was a treat to watch. Germany played a fast paced attacking game and England helped them with having very little defending. The Argentina - Mexico game was also tight. But Argentina came out all guns blazing with a smashing second goal from the right foot of Tevez. Yesterday's Brazil - Chile game was wonderful as well. Chile really played great even though they were 3 goals behind. They played aggressive and attacked. But the Brazilians were too much for them. A great team performance complimented with extravagant passing and finishing saw Brazil win by 3 goals to nil. Im eagerly waiting for the Spain - Portugal match today. Torres would want to come out and exhibit his skills, period.

Back after a wait

Its been some time since my last post. And frankly I had a lot of work. Getting systems to work in Yahoo is a tough job. To understand a system, evaluate and determine the best approach ought to be a highly paid job. I have been thinking about the growth and progress of my career and Im still uncertain. 

We, in the BTM house, have been discussing a lot about investments in land and real estate. Tourism is an industry which is starting to catch up in parts of Kerala aand having some land and setting up a small tourist spot is an ideal way to earn a return. 

The personal life is starting to suck a bit and ideas are hard to come by. Telling stories to Binil has been something that I have been doing for some time. It might pay off one day and probably I would publish a story.

Vella Kuuraan

It was at a very young age that I had first witnessed what an after death ceremony looks like. My grand mother had passed away while she was washing her face. She fell on my mother and ma tried desperately tried to wake here up. Dad was working in Dubai and had started from there along with his brothers when he heard the news. I still remember the blood shot eyes that my Dad had when he came in the big room where grand ma laid. He did not cry aloud like all the women did but the eyes told a lot.

The second time was when Dad's brother, Unni Krishnan Kunjachan, died. He had high blood pressure and tensions of his own when he passed away. I dont actually remember where I was when he passed away. The one thing I remember clearly was Prasanth walking around with the 'sheesham' tied around his waist. Dad was there taking over all the after death rituals and their setups.

The third time was shocking. It was my own Uncle's death. He was one of the best guys I had seen so strong with the english language. He had the capability of doing stuff of on his own. He would help you no matter what and you could trust your life with him. His life was full of desperation and loneliness. This might be the reason why he thought to go to God on his own. My youngest uncle had taken the phone and started crying on hearing this. Mom could you keep it to herself and started crying aloud. Everyone but me when to Chalakudy where the body was supposed to come. Dad had gone to take the hanging body from the hotel as the hotel authorities did not want to touch the body. I remember Murali Uncle, pretty drunk at that point of time, telling me that after seeing the half degraded body that he had to get drunk as he could he forget the scene.

This week witnessed yet another loss in the form of the loving Ganga uncle, Dad's 2nd brother. He was the silent type, who will not complain even if you hit him with a pole. The calm and down to earth person who would help even if he were sick. Dad had just undergone a minor operation and we needed to go to the hospital. As we did not have a vehicle, we called Uncle. He still came even though he had fever. It was by evening that we understood this and by night he had to be admitted in the hospital. It was by 5:30 the next morning that he passed away due to a heart failure. He was analyzed with pneumonia and it had spread very bad to his lungs and heart. I remember every time I used to visit him that he would come down the stairs and say hi and then say nothing at all unless I spoke to him. He used to stay with us when we were in Dubai and he used to make fun of this north Indian friend of mine who was very fair. HE used to call him 'VELLA KUURAAN'.

Lists

50 Lists to Write to Lift Your Spirits from http://demandingjoy.com/?p=1027


1. People who have influenced or inspired you
Dad, Mom, Sis, Ravindra Sir, Sony

2. Things you are grateful for
Health, All the things that my parents gave me including education, love and life.

3. Places you have been
Dubai, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu, Kerala, Bangalore, Trichy.

4. Places you want to go
Europe, Leh-Ladakh

5. Books you’ve read
Just the one I remember clearly is Dirty Harry

6. Your favorite things – what brings you joy?
Spending time with friends and having a good time.

7. Good things that happened this week
NONE

8. The best things that happened in the last year
I loved.

9. The best days of your life.
June 21 2006 - Sept 4 2009

10. The songs for the soundtrack of your life
take it easy - eagles.

11. Acts of kindness you’ve committed
Helped Sony and Teddy.

12. Things you want your children to know about you
That I love them very much.

13. Reasons why you love your significant other
Unknown

14. The high points for your autobiography
I tried to become what people want but failed miserably.

15. People who love you
Dad and Mom

16. The cutest things your kids ever said
Waiting

17. Everything you would do if money were no object
I would travel.

18. Favorite gifts you’ve ever received
A coffee Mug from Gitesh and Srinath.

19. Favorite gifts you’ve ever given
A perfume to Shilpi

20. Occupations that you have ever wanted to have (including when you were a child)
Being a pilot

21. The best advice you’ve gotten.
Learn to say 'No' from Srinivas

22. The worst advice you’ve gotten.
Try to do this another way from many people.

23. Things you’re procrastinating
Getting the bike to my name.

24. Ways you calm yourself down when you’re angry.
Think of something else.

25. The best ideas you’ve ever had
Take a short movie

26. The best projects or organizations you’ve ever been involved with
Globallogic.

27. The ways you have grown since your early 20’s
Intellectually, physically.

28. The most beautiful things you’ve ever seen
Snow @ Patni Top

29. The greatest lessons you have learned
You cant change who you are but you could adjust to other people.

30. Life’s lessons that you learned the hard way
People are not what they seem to be.

31. Things that have mad you laugh until you cried.
None

32. Qualities you most admire in others
Patience, openness.

33. Qualities others most admire in you
None

34. The elements of an ideal year
No mental tortures, no allegations and no health problems

35. All the compliments you’ve ever gotten
None

36. Foods that you have eaten that are so good that others could hear you enjoying them
None

37. The times you have asserted yourself
Many.

38. Things that inspire and energize you
Work, games and short talks.

39. The places where you feel completely comfortable to be yourself
Home.

40. The most important turning points in your life
Getting admitted to NITC

41. Times when you looked and felt your absolute best
None.

42. The things you’re good at
None

43. What you would do with the power of invisibility
Cant say.

44. Things you want to teach your children
To be independent and learn stuff the hard way.

45. Things you still want to do in life
Travel.

46. Bits of trivia that most people don’t know about you
I love to walk.

47. The things you love about your body
I could exert myself.

48. Accomplishments you are most proud of
Performance award from GL.

49. The things you love about your home
Dad and Mom's there.

50. Who (living or dead) you would invite to your dream dinner party
Everyone who understands me.

Something that I stumbled Upon

I've Learned. . .
Author Unknown

I've learned. . . that we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
I've learned. . . that no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
I've learned. . . that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.
I've learned. . . that you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.
I've learned. . . that it's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.
I've learned. . . that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
I've learned. . . that you can keep going long after you can't.
I've learned. . . that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
I've learned. . . that either you control your attitude or it controls you.
I've learned. . . that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades and there had better be something else to take its place.

Rough Waves

The past month has been the worst ever. Previously I have been very confident of the code I write or even what I say. But now, the confidence has gone haywire. I create atleast 4 bugs for every line of code I write.  Its very depressing and I feel lost now. A very much needed revival is necessary. Let me see what I can do about it. Leaving the past behind and enjoying the work may be a way to go.

Path to follow

This post, after along time, is long time pending. I have been traveling constantly through a road without any aim. I just traveled the way the road goes. Some times the road diverts leading to a road with shades and comfort. Taking that road may not be upto the liking of your parents, but you still wander through these roads. We divert back to the main path because we are afraid of the consequences / we dont know what waits for us. I would have preferred to have taken this road. Now I understand that the shades are unreliable and dont care for the traveler.

Procedure

The initial weeks @ Yahoo was nice. Lots of things to understand and lots of basic stuff to know. There are many things that happen in an organization like Yahoo. The first thing is that no one explains things to you unless you trouble them. There are manuals and other docs that let you learn.

The levels of filtering that a web page access goes through is extensive. Performance is another thing. Your users would stop using your application if it has not been configured for great performance. Integration with the rest of the applications and single sign on implementation is another highlight. Load balancing and routing of requests has been done wonderfully.

Rest to come after I learn something !

Phew - Learning is hard

The last month had a learning curve to it. I had to learn and understand quite a bit of stuff. General http was one. These interview sessions require that you have the basic knowledge of stuff. The web is some thing that I thought I was comfortable with, but the sessions proved me wrong.

Javascript was some thing that I studied. I have used normal Javascript functions but not to the level as Closures. "Everyone uses closures, knowingly and unknowingly" was the statement of a friend of mine. Cross Side Scripting was another thing that I understood.

What are Sessions ? What are Cookies ? What are the different types of Cookies ? What do you do to maintain Sessions if Cookies are not accepted by your browser ? What is the access policy for a Cookie ?

Alternate Ajax techniques was also another topic that I went through. What happens if the Javascript in the browser is deactivated ? What is Accessibility and whats its importance ? What is Reverse Ajax ? Polling and Pushing ? What are iFrames used for and what are its disadvantages ? Whats JSONP ? What are the security issues ?

What are Javascript Events and how do you handle Cross Browser Event Handling problems ? What is Capturing and Bubbling ?

Why are CSS said to be Cascading ? What is the priority set by the CSS selectors ?

How would you improve the performance of a page ? What are Http Caches ? What are the Http Status Codes ? How would I track errors if accessed using Ajax ?

Why do I use Doctypes ? What are Semantic Markups used for ?

What is a Proxy ? What is a Reverse Proxy ?

Theres a vast array of questions but these troubled me a lot lately.

A Collection of Interviews

The last two weeks have been tiring. I was asked to look into the avatar system and see if an html implementation is possible. Now the complexity is not with the creation of the main avatar. This could be done using the combine command available with Image Magick. The problem is that the technique does not give you a perfect image. The preview is also a problem. Either we could create static images with all the possible combinations (eye style one, face style three etc.). Adding of another part is something that creates a problem.

Cartoonizing an image is also something that I was looking into. This is possible by various transformation using Image Magick, but the results where not upto industrial standards. Rotoscope is an application which facilitates the creation of an image which looks like a cartoon. But this does not have a command interface. I went through many algorithms as well which mae this conversation possible. I then stumbled upon an application which used the Open Source Gimp, called GMIC. I did all the required dependency installations using mac ports. But the main installation of GMIC got stuck because of the Imagick++ extension in C++. This comes with Graphics Magick, a C++ extension for Image Magick. The configure did not work even after this installation. I am still not able to compile it. Help required for this.

The other task was to take interviews. Generally for Ruby on Rails and implementation aspects of a architecture. Conducting interviews is a fun thing to do. I got to learn a lot from the interviewees as well. Interaction with people, when to say what, great intellectual conversations etc. Its a little tiring to talk continuously for more than an hour, but its worth it.

The South Side

3 years and 2 months after I joined Globallogic, I decided to change for the better. Bangalore is my destination. Being idle for some time makes you grumpy and dull and thats what is happening to me now. Being in a big company also matters. Its different when you get up from your seat and you find people sitting around you working their butt off.

Now the environment is much more quiet. Too quiet actually and some what lonely. Changes happen for the best and getting over it is an art. An art people try to perfect. I still feel sad that GL did not even ask to me stay. They did not offer me anything coz they said they could not offer anything concrete. They are in a hiring spree now and they have nothing concrete ?

The traffic is a killer in Bangalore. It normally takes 10 minutes to reach my place. Due to the traffic it takes 30 minutes or more. Everybody is busy and no one even pauses for a second. I have not been able to find out a decent and cost effective place to eat yet and that troubles me a lot. Noida had its problems with the weather but I never felt alone.

Lets see how this works out !

Talent

Off late the topic has been puzzling me. Three years of work and I still wonder sometimes that I have done nothing substantial. Somebody asks me something that I understood years back and I stutter and stammer. I had a couple of face to faces and it seems that I get confused when I encounter a question. It has a lot to do with attitude and skill. Does a resume successfully convey the type of person you really are ? Resumes just give a overall view. What you are is what you do. My presence on the net, the things I have done showcases the willingness to learn.

If a single face to face is enough to determine the talent that you have, then I would just have to go through every interview questions to get through an interview. But I feel that I learn from an interview and I am doing justice to the firm only by telling them what I really did. My style and my rules.

A Dedication

I didn't think twice to decide that I needed to write something for dear Shilpi. It was her last day yesterday and we had a nice get together in caffiiaa in the night. Just the usual dinner with coffee. The hookka was a bonus item which happened to be available. We smoked the damn thing using our mouth and even the nose after which it started giving out raw coal taste. Swati was still adement and wanted to smoke the thing. She gave up after she coughed her guts out.

It was nice to know what all the people who gathered - Gitesh, Swati, KD, Srinath, Manisha, Vineeth, me n' and Shilpi - thought about Shilpi (exculding Shilpi ofcourse). We went on saying the good and bad qualities that we thought we had. We were in total agreement that she was a decision maked and a situation handler. I thought about those times when she puked inside a car, I said I would come to play with her but did not etc. She talked sensible stuff and was not girly about it through out our friendship. Really nice friend to have.

Dedications are all for you Shilpi. Hope you lead a great life ahead. Ciao

Long Break

March 10th was the last day I blogged. It has been a month now. Mostly because of the roaming around that I do and partially because of the work. I managed to convince my manager that I had to go home even though I had no leaves. Ravindra was lenient enough to give me some leaves. I went home on the 27th of March. As usual the visit was mainly concentrated on meeting family members and relatives. I also managed to celebrate the retirement of a close family friend. The weather in Kerala was trying. Very humid and dry. I managed to play some badminton with some elderly guys but was pathetic at it. We celebrated Surbhi's birthday with style after reaching the office. It was a smooth month anyway !!!

Holi @ the office

The previous year we were on our way to Mukhteshwar when it was 'Holi'. This time around I celebrated the day before holi at the office !!

Dull Times

These are dull times and therefore the urge to write posts just faded away. The month of February was a very dim one except my birthday part. I thoroughly enjoyed the party and the temple visit. By work caught up as usual. The economy is going through a bad time and companies, including mine, have shown this adverse effect affecting them. Still you will have to work to stay alive and as for me I honestly do not know any thing else to do. The project seems to be going smooth and we certainly seem to be delivering more than is expected. The SVG stuff and the javascript associated with it sometimes makes me go a little crazy but overall it was a learning experience. I managed to catch up some Selenium stuff which I liked doing. I also had the good fortune to interview a 6 year experienced person ! Overall Life's OK.

Memories ..

The guys from my school days, Don Bosco High School Irinjalakuda Thrissur, had a small get together on the 26th of December 2008. I could not go because of the work here and most of my leaves are taken. I generally take 5 leaves at a go as travelling from Noida to Kerala with lesser number of leaves would be foolish. But after seeing the pics from the party bash they had, I wished I were there. To see all those faces, old ones but changed ones, were great. Some of them are here posted by Nikhil. Some of them are also in Jibi's/Jerils's Orkut Albums.

One hell of a day

This one I have to say was one of the worst days ever.

Gitesh gave me him iPod to format yesterday night. I was trying to get the thing done in iTunes, but the option never came up. The word format literally confused me and I started thining about formatting the whole drive. I did format the drive yesterday and today morning Gitesh told me that the iPod stoped working. He then later went on to an Apple iStore where he was told that nothing could be done. This meant that I had lost 16 k !

I went on to do my work not thinking of the iPod much, before I had got the call at about 3ish. I got stuck with some javascript that had to be done in the project. It took me 5 damn hours to figure out that XHTML does not allow element.innerHTML to be assigned. This meant that prototype and Yahoo tree will not work. This pissed me off.

Then came the shuttle matches. I generally go and play some for relief. And I get pretty mad when I play bad. Well I played very bad today. NO shots went right and I was furious.

Well that makes today a screwy day.