10 Signs that you work in Walt Disney World

10 Signs that you work in Walt Disney World

10 :  When one does not simply go to California and not go to Disneyland

9 : Your weekend plans always include going to DAK, MK, DHS or Epcot

8 : You go for ‘Planes’ movie but cannot say it to anyone       , for fear of being asked how was it

7 : You go to a restaurant and ask if they have a cast member discount

6 : Your production server names are snow white, evil queen and sleepy

5 : Your coffee mug has a mouse depicted on it

4 : You get excited about battling traffic for two hours to go and stand in queue for       another 2 two hours to get a glimpse of a man in seem weird costume       ( yaa villain’s night in your face )

3 : You think it is reasonable to pay 25$ for lunch and 7-8$ for a glass of beer

2 : You cannot understand why someone does not know every single       detail about every single attraction in every single Disney park

1 : Your lunch conversation includes things like, top 10 restrooms in WDW

New Chrome Look

I have often stated that I get excited about new things in computers and technology in general, from Amazon's matchbook program to Apple's new iOs7 ( even though I don't own any apple device ) . This time I am psyched about new chrome update. Google all the way !!

So what has changed :

If you notice, the black bar on top giving instant access to other Google products is gone and instead we got a grid on top right side. When we click this grid, we can see various Google products from Youtube to Google news. I do hate the fact that now Google news is two clicks away instead of one. But hopefully I can workaround it.

Also, Google's premium product 'Gmail' has its one click access. So does Google +, I expect this to increase Google plus use considerably.  The grid shows off Icons similar to Android app icons, so you can sense Google is trying to give us consistent look whether we use, Android, Chrome browser or Chrome OS .

This interface is lot more Google like, with bright colors against white background. Also Google seems to have flattened its logo, which I am not sure why they had to change. 

Overall, This is not just cosmetic change. I expect that we should now be able to see notification on Google page just like we get in our phones . So a new mail or a new Google+ post will instantly ring the bell . You will now be more connected to Google products than before.

It will take time to see how all these changes pan out, but the one change that seems to me of most immediate use is 'I'm feeling lucky button '. When you hover over it, you also get an option of 'I'm feeling playful','puzzled','confused'..and many others. Clicking 'I'm feeling artistic' opened up random painting in Google galleries, which I immediately wanted to explore . Clicking 'I'm feeling playful' opens up various games which you would have seen in past on Google, like google packman. 

Following came up on saying I feel puzzled. Expect spending more time on google bar than you intended to or I guess at least that is what Google is hoping for

I am off , exploring more about google page. Adios !

UPDATE : Turns out that changes to 'I'm feeling lucky' had rolled out somewhere in last year only. But I noticed it only now :(. Well better late than never.

MatchBook

Amazon’s matchbook –

I am someone who often gets psyched about upcoming technologies or gadgets. Sometimes even for no reason, like I was super psyched about Google Glass, Moto X (yes I am a Google fan boi ) , possible new nexus 7 , kindle fire . Most of them turn out to be a damper. But this one has me completely psyched.

Many readers like me were wondering when would this happen; well now we know the answer – Starting this October.

So as part of the program –

“

For thousands of qualifying books, your past, present and future print-edition purchases will soon allow you to buy the Kindle edition for $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free.

“

I was always torn apart between buying ebook and print books. One offers familiarity and old world charm other offers portability and benefit of applying computing power on it (search for a string, definition of word etc). Thanks to this program, now I can enjoy best of both worlds without having to compromise at all. I would most definitely want to order a physical book and read it but if I want to search something or preserve it for future read it I can store it in my kindle account.

Though sadly enough, this program does not announce discounted print books if you have already bought ebooks. I guess they are trying to push ebooks on people who are prone to reading physical books. This would enhance sales of their device and hook people completely to the Amazon ecosystem. It will also have a minor reversal effect on few people like me. I was thinking of moving towards ebook world, now I don’t need to.

This provides me more of an incentive to buy Amazon’s Kindle fire HD. But I am pretty sure they are going to introduce a new one sometime this year. So hold back on that for now.

It is ironic that, though I am a google fan boi and downplay most of its competitors like Apple and Microsoft.  I absolutely love Amazon  which is probably the competitor which has had most direct impact on Google's revenue .

Creatures of Esrevinu

Creatures of Esrevinu;

Life evolves differently in different places, based on the stimulus and survival conditions there. You can imagine different universes (Yes, different universes) as different labs where different projects are going on and different products are built. 

The closest brother to our universe has is called Eservinu, most of our laws of physics still holds good but with minor variations. This week I had an opportunity of going there and witness their life form, thanks a do dear friend of mine **Ragij who resides in Eservinu

It was of course all too much to digest so I kept a narrow eye sight and started off with just observing predominant life form there.

n  Roll –o –Pollo

o   It had never occurred to me, but when I watched roll- o-pollo it was rather very clear.  All our automobiles use wheels to move and they seem to be doing pretty good job. So it is kind of weird that none of our organism uses that for locomotion.

o   So Roll-o-pollo has basically 8 legs, only two of which touch ground at any given time. Legs are fashioned around his body to make him look like a wheel. Surrounded by the legs in the centre he has a body with rather large and freaky looking eyes on both side of his face.

o   Watching him walk is quite fun but watching them run is bound to leave you with a jaw dropping expression every time. They start walking quickly putting one leg on ground after another soon they start picking up speed and then curl on retracing their legs so that now no space is visible between their legs and their height seem to drop from its original 120 cm to about 60 cm then curl up like a sphere and just go around crashing from one place to another.

o   They don’t mind colliding against any obstacle and sometime even seem to be able to climb wall I guess because of their sheer pace with which they run.  Anyway it is all quite intriguing, I have received drinks invitation from one guy next time I visit their planet so maybe I will get to know more about them

n  Eearie : Stay with me here now , Earie’s don’t have any sense of voice they can neither listen nor emit sound. They communicate by emitting some kind of light which coincidentally human eyes can’t see .They emit a light in globe surrounding them for general communication like shouting or point to someone and emit light like laser  (or so I have heard) their entire body is made up of receptors so in a sense entire body is a ear. Interestingly they also consume a kind of light for their meal and emit out waste product in form of dark light which smells, I don’t know why light should smell or maybe it is a gas which you can see either it is weird . I have not been exactly able to see how they look because they are always surrounded by some kind of light which they cannot see. Sometime I lay awake at night and think what if they are just intelligent light , and there is nothing in them.  I tried to touch one of them but fortunately a sharp and poking light hit me on my stomach as a warning, turns out they are so inside the light that if you were to put your hand in them it might just melt.  So in essence, I have only seen random structure of lights moving randomly.

n  Integrator: This interesting thing again has no one single specific shape but I have been given to understand they can take up to 306 different shapes with detachable body parts . They are always detaching and reorganize themselves for one thing or other. It looks like a broken robot trying to repair itself with all combinations and failing again and again.  I have absolutely no idea how it communicates or if at .....oops gotta go guys  Now Ragij wants to see creatures of earth and I am going to falter on questions just like he did when he asks me how do trees talk to each other

**Ragij -- Met him on chees site, apparently he was fascinated with the game and soon one thing let to another ..I will apprise you guys about him soon.Ciao !

Weekend

Jobs –

--Not a review only rants

I am not a big Steve Jobs or apple fan (go Google J ) .  So going into the movie I knew I would like movie that much. But then I had same feeling when I went for Social Network and was completely blown by the movie. However Matt Something is no Aaron Sorkin .  Having already seen Pirates of Silicion Valley I had a fair insight about Jobs’s life. What I was hoping was that Jobs would carry on from where pirates left and walk us through his rise and introduction of iPhone.  Which in a way this movie does so while Pirates end with Bill clouding over Steve, Jobs ends with Steve Jobs in full control.

However, Jobs is not able to stay completely true to depicting Steve completely or being entertaining. I think that is where the movie falls short. It would have had more punch if it revealed little known facts about jobs like firing employees without any notice or severance, asking questions like when you lost your virginity in an interview.

 To movie’s credit it does get many things right, Including the game woz and jobs developed for Atari, His denial and finally acceptance of his daughter. I watched Planes just prior to watching jobs. So I enjoyed it, because planes was kind of a drag.  I would recommend watching Pirates over Jobs.

Inferno

I am a Dan Brown fan so to all those say that he is not a good writer, - I don’t care as long as he is entertaining.

However, even his ardent fans wills admit that his formula was getting little old. Langdon gets a call, meets a pretty, intelligent and accomplished girl, and discovers a secret that involves a secret society of kind (NSA, Illuminati, Priori of Sion, and Vatican City.), girl and Langdon try to escape the bad guys while Langdon throws on interesting factoids around. Then a friend who was helping them turns to be the antagonist.

Fortunately, this time even though the story is similar it does not start like in other books. Often the interesting piece of writing in Brown’s book has to do with history of some particular thing and this time it is Dante (as is evident from the book name) and Botticelli’s map of hell which is intriguing enough to make you want to read Dante’s divine comedy . For me though, it was ######### (well I believe it would be tantamount to spoiler so not mentioning it).

 Verdict:   The Lost Symbol < Inferno << Angel’s and Demons.

Always be Happy ??

People say happiness comes from within, it might be true. But let us look at other side of the coin also.

Imagine you win a lottery of 300 million dollar you will be super happy that moment, that day, next day, next week, next month, and next year but after that you will probably be less happy. It is because no matter what you get in life; your mind will always want to return to state of being at rest or its original position. In essence it is similar to principle of minimum energy.

It is therefore not that easy to always be happy because there is something working actively against it.It doesn't seem to be true for being sad though. You can be sad throughout your life and never be able to come to original state.(Depression )

Another analogy we can take is, when an electron absorbs photon, its energy level increases and electron jumps to higher orbit. But after some time it would release that photon and go back to its original orbit. Similarly we get excited temporarily but come back to our original state soon. 

Again I could not find a parallel for sadness.

So, to people who say you should always be happy. My reply – Nah ..my default state is of melancholy and I think something or other would always bring me there .

As usual, it seems less structured on paper than it did on my mind .But - meh

 ~~~

It is matter of perception, I can look at my life as 

Without any major deviations or unfortunate incidents/events, I might be able to afford things I like to eat, books that I want to read for quite some time ( exceptions being if I get diabetes or lose my eye or something )  without doing physical labor or necessarily having a very hard life. So all in all it doesn't seem a bad a life to lead

On the other hand, I sometimes have profound sadness that without any major deviations I would never amount to anything, I would be a lowly computer operator /engineer who would become obsolete after few years and would not have achieved anything in my life. I mean if someone asked me what was the greatest thing you ever did, I still might not be able to come up with anything . So it doesn't seem to be a very good life . Also, I can think I have had best of life already, eating whatever I want ( well not exactly coz am veg ) , drinking whatever I want, ordering pizza whenever I want . I think my life can only go downhill from here ..

So there you have it a good and not so good life to lead. 

Chennai Express

Chennai Express

           I am suffering from bout of depression these days so trying to distract myself by writing something. Unable to figure out what to write, I decided to rant about the movies I saw on weekend

Now I would call this a review except I am more interested in rambling about it randomly rather than making a genuine attempt of reviewing it.

Spoiler Alert

I would mention spoiler alert here, However I feel if you have ever seen any hindi movie you already know the story so need of mentioning the alert.

About the movie:

                I think if you are alive and stay in Hindi speaking part of India then you pretty much know the story and events that happen in movie either by subconsciously deducing it from the trailer or by name or just by gut feeling.

                As for story (for lack of better word L) Its goes like this : Boy meets a girl on train. Girl is being kidnapped or rather brought back to her hometown by her father’s goon. Father obviously wants girl to get married to a political ally (another local don) to increase his power. Girl being in hindi movie had to run away from house. Now that she is being brought back, she figures it is probably best to lie to her dad that she wants to get married to this random stranger she met on train.  On account of language barrier, unavailability of google translator and it being hindi movie, guy gets involved in all mess and before he know he has to fight a guy twice his size to marry a girl whom he doesn't want to . Anyway story goes on likes this for a while till they realize they are nearing movie end time and then decide to fall in love and stay happily for ever.

Movies reminds me of son of sardar, jab we met and may be 100 other movies and ‘2 states’ and ‘Anything for you ma’am’ book it has some not so novel elements from all these literature

Now let’s go to my favorite Q&A session

Q: How is it different from 1000’s of other movies we have seen

A: Well it is not actually, but usually we see guy ending up in closely knit Punjabi family with overprotective father and brothers (a la jab we met, son of sardar ) this time it is closely knit Tamil family with overprotective father and brothers . Just like in son of sardar family is pretty fond of violence .

Q: How does Shahrukh khan perform?

A: His performance is actually quite terrible, in a sense that he does not look his part and always reminds you of him being baadshah of bollywood. But self deprecating humor makes it works. There is some satisfaction in seeing a very, rich successful guy in hapless, helpful and funny situations.

Q:  Deepika ?

A: She plays a tamilian and therefore people going to see her sexy long legs can give it a miss.

Q:  Is it a funny movie?

A: I did laugh couple of times in first half of the movie ( I paid 12$ for it , better try to get as many laughs as possible ). Second half was more of a drag.

Q: Overall, Is it an entertaining movie?

A: Nothing new, but not as bad as recent SRK movies.

Q: Highlight of the movie

A: No mention of USA,London,Europe,Australia.. (Finally something desi J )

 North vs South (Actually it is West vs south of India but whatever) is not something we see daily in hindi movies. It might be nice idea to actually have movies which people throughout the country can identify with; south style fights scenes, bollywood actors and lame humor.

What else ?

..1Q84..

These days I am reading a book called 1Q84. I was really excited about starting it because, well why not ..I like reading novels, It is good book and I had time to enjoy it.

I think sometimes I like more to boast about having completed a novel ( to myself or others ) more than I like to actually reading . In such cases book like 1Q84 doesn't really help, because it a 1200 pages long book and you have to spend quite some time to read it and after all that you have just completed reading one book, which does not impress anyone .

Anyway, I digress, my point is that it is a very big book and I wanted to read it quickly, So I started reading it really fast and I realized that my eyes can scan the words very fast but than my brain takes a lot more time trying to process it. So it slows down my reading pace. However we all know that we can speak much faster than we can read. So it takes more time to consume information than to generate it ( may be what we say is too dumb and therefore can speak very fast but that doesn't matter ) . Now leading on from the same argument that we can generate information at much faster rate than we can consume, I should theoretically be able to complete writing a book at faster than I can read a book.

So if I can read a book in a day, theoretically I should also be able to write the first draft version of it in a day . Pretty interesting don't you think ? . No, me neither . But it is something.

Note : I know we speak faster than we can write so writing a book may not necessarily be as fast but still it can be at least if not faster than reading book.

So after I complete this book I can just try and write some crap like this post :-)

Work From Home ??

Work From Home ?

I usually do not blog on current events or anything that is not absolutely abstract. But I read a blog post recently which tried to show benefits and utility of Working From Home. I started writing a comment but then realized it would be too big, so instead expressing my opinion in a blog post.

Marissa Mayer received lot of flak for removing WFH option for yahoo employees. Many people also commended her for the bold step. I felt couple of points need to be highlighted here .

• Some people do not work . Period.
• Personally I take WFH when I know I do not have much work to do. Because I am a bachelor not extremely dedicated to my work , so when I am working from home, I am bound to have some sitcom or movie playing on my laptop which obviously does not bring about very high productivity. 
• I understand you may work hard because you are dedicated but what if there are people like me for whom WFH absolutely brings down productivity.Yahoo had many such people who stayed home day after day and wanted to collect there salary on payday 
• Synergy 
• People communicate differently on chat /phone and in person. Sometimes great ideas are built during water cooler conversations. If you are working from home you are going to open conversation only if you need something and you are more likely to discuss only that point. Whereas in personal interaction just seeing someone can lead to  1 hour conversation which can end up in great product idea. I remember how while having a sudoku solving competition we got an idea to build a program which would do it rather instantaneously. Obviously it was very small thing but it would have never have occurred to me if I was solving puzzle on my own. But because my friend was there we came up with competition and built a program around it. Point is sometimes whole is greater than sum of its parts.
• Communication
• Yes I know all about webex, live meeting ,lynx, communicator but sometimes you just cannot achieve same level of communication. I remember exchanging 30 mails with some guy trying to understand an issue. Finally I decided to walk over to his desk and in flat 5 min we had issue categorized, root cause identified and ETA for solution.
• Relationships 
• I met a guy in a team meeting later, we had a short conversation ,later he invited me for review sessions of his software design, I gave him some inputs which I would like to believe helped implement solution much faster. Today he is good friend and product is stable and n number of times I have taken help from him and vice versa. This would never have happened if I WFH daily.
• Personally for me I do not usually WFH because my client pays my company 3 times the money for my physical presence and not having same work being done by someone in India, Also I like my morning spiced caramel coffee which I cannot make at home, nor the spinach garden vegetable wrap I have for lunch :)

There are 100's of similar point here, WFH has its own advantages but they more specific to certain kind of individuals .Now lets looks at advantages WFH offers

• Work comes second 
• You have a highly talented logistic manager but she is a mom and does not want to leave her kid to nanny. So unless you give her WFH you lose her.
• Commutation Time 
• Few people would actually put in extra time and effort if they can save on commute time.
• Away from Chaos
• If I am doing something that is extremely complex and needs lot of thought process than I would definitely want to work from home without any distraction.. One eureka moment is equal to weeks of works in chaotic office. 
• Simply does not matter
• Some mundane and routine work can be done literally from any place on earth and you would not want to rob someone of pleasure of working in their underwear with a full refrigerator at their home  

So if hypothetically I was to become a CEO or HR head of the company ( which I know would never happen ) what would I do. 

I would like to give people fix number of days(50 or so)  they can WFH like we have leaves or if there is a genuine need but frown upon it on daily basis .Other way is to make certain days of WFH for everyone. 

~~Ciao 

Books and Movies

Books :

The book that does not exist

When I bought nexus -7 I wanted to read a good book on tablet to see how I would like reading digital books ( not pdfs..:P ). So I went ahead and bought kindle version of the book ' The book does not exist' as it had good reviews.

Book is new age fiction book with heavy presence of social networking sites like facebook and twitter, it also has a link to youtube video, which is part of the story. (This was a definite plus of having a kindle version of book, video got embedded and had to use just one click to watch it. I would have ignored it if I had the paperback edition ).

I found presence of social networking sites bit annoying, and being from different background then the intended audience of this book ( Americans and Europeans ) I missed lot of references to pop culture. But overall book is refreshing .

If I would have written a book, I could imagine it to be very much on the same lines as this book. It depicts everything in a very surreal manner, and since it has so many references including a video, it makes you feel as if you are reading story or blog by your friend and not a fiction novel. 10/10 to author for creativity on that front.

Ending was little bland , but overall I can give it 7.5 of 10.

Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy 

As I had mentioned in my another blog, the movie which I always wanted to see but could not for long time.
This was a similar instance, this being one book which I wanted to read sicne long time but could never quite get around it.

I finished Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy and am reading second part of the series, ' The restaurant at end of the universe' , book is exactly as I had expected . Sci -Fi, crazy logic , funny and overall just plain weird with the story.

I would write final review on it, once I finish the entire series.

[TO BE EDITED]