God Catch

Fast Forward to 2011

2011-01-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

Its a new year and its a new beginning for me - I AM BACK TO INDIA - yes, its true!!

Voila..what a ride it has been for the past 5+ years in Amrikka. First the education, then the internship, followed by dozens of job interviews across US, finally settling down in NetApp and enjoying every bit of work there. And just when I was entering my comfort zone, I rock the boat again - by paying a tangent visit to Pune and then moving to Bengaluru - the IT hub of India.

After all variety is the spice of life and I am not afraid of change..am I?

blog "abhi" baki hai mere dost

2009-11-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

I am still alive.

Life is going on. not much to write about. the same old stuff.

Personal life is full of play viz table tennis (I entered the advanced bracket of NetApp Singles Tournament 09), cricket every weekend (i got named as the WALL in batting and highest wickets taken in NetApp Premier League), lawn tennis (at least as good as last year with the killer drop shots and chop/spin).

professional life is merry, NTAP seems to be beating the competition. stock's up 150% in last 6 months.

Namaste 2009

2009-01-10T16:00:00.000-08:00

Let me first wish each and every reader of this blog a very happy and prosperous New Year!!

What should I say about the year 2008? Should it be any different from what other people think? For the most part, I agree with the experts that 2008 was a tough year. But isn't it true that adversity reveals character? Or so I believe. How will 2009 be? better than 2008, worse or just status quo? I dont have the answer to these questions.

As an individual in this world, our job remains to stay focused on what we can do, what we can control. We shouldn't be too bothered about what happens externally or at least try not to.

Too often, we try to learn new things and explore new options. 2009 is the year to start refocusing on your strengths, what can you do best, being creative. How can you become a 80/20 individual? What value do you bring to your organization?

Let me end by a few nice quotes to start off the new year:

Give me a single place to stand, and a lever, and I will move the Earth - Archimedes

Take away our 20 most important people and I tell you we would become an unimportant company - Bill Gates

Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell - Sir John Templeton

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest - Benjamin Franklin

Markets in Turmoil

2008-09-21T19:03:00.000-07:00

Last week there were some unexpected events in the stock market landscape. I am witness to one of the biggest kind of collapse of financial companies in US, something which is said can happen only once a century..definitely triggered the blogging side of my life which was dry for long.

It started on Monday when Lehman Brothers, one of the big companies on Wall St decided to file for bankruptcy. Well, that was just a drop in the ocean, other banks soon followed suit. AIG was on the verge of doing the same when the Federal govt decided it needed to rescue AIG. Had it not been so, we could have seen numbers as high as $1 trillion in debt. Next, Merill Lynch said it was out of the game too and BoA, my bank around the corner decided to swallow it saying "opportunity that cannot be missed".

Uncle Sam was watching fun from White House and then decided that to prevent his approval ratings from dipping further and help the "taxpayers", govt had to do something. Thus the entry of the SEC which has promised to pump-in $700bn to rescue Wall Street. This news set the stock market soaring 300 pts.

And while all this is happening, Obama and McCain, the presidential candidates are doing blame game to garner votes. While me, I am watching on sidelines looking at my stocks go south day after day. Just happy enough to not have invested in Lehmann.
After all they say Goldman is the gold standard, then why settle for silver?

What am i upto?

2008-06-29T16:39:00.001-07:00

As few of you might have observed, I was lazy about blogging for the past quarter. I got engaged in something really neat - yes, reading! Its been a while that I had read a book beyond the academia. This caused a bit of unrest within myself as i realized too much time was being spent watching TV and surfing the web and I would rather use that time fruitfuly. Some of u may ask what i have been reading that got me so engrossed?

It all started one day in office when I told my manager to suggest me some book to read as I was really bored on weekends and we walked to his cube (yes thats right, managers at NetApp have cubes, not offices). He handed me a book 'Execution The Discipline of Getting Things Done'. Wow, i thought, i never realized there would be an entire book dedicated to how to get work done. Thus started my reading journey.

I read the book in about 1 months time and that stimulated interest in management books. I immediately enrolled in the County library and borrowed couple more books. I am happy to have read some good books over these past few months including 'Built to Last: successful habits of visionary companies', 'Good to Great: why some companies make the leap and others dont', "Winning - by the maestro Jack Welch", 'Six Sigma Breakthrough Strategy', 'How to Get Rich - by Donald Trump' and 'What (really) works' to name a few.

All of these have shown me some new paths to think, analyze, measure, improve and manage my day to day tasks better than before. i highly recommend readers to grab one of these whenever they get a chance.

So now i have informed u of my current activities - u know what I am upto!!

Recent Developments

2008-03-12T17:51:00.000-07:00

Past 2 months have flown fast, so fast that I forgot blogging. But hey, i m still here.
So what should I talk about?..India trip ? US Presidential Elections? Economy? Recession or maybe stick to the tech industry in general.

Trip to amchi Pune was nice. It all started with a good long Continental flight to Mumbai's Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport. The airport has been significantly revamped, streamlined immigration process, cleaner toilets and now comparable to airports in the US. The experience in working at Symphony office was good, met a few people, some ex-Calsoft buddies. Biking - thats one thing i miss here and it was a delight to drive down the Pune Banglore bypass highway on my Splendor. Also attended cousin's marriages and ate a lot of food - as usual grew fat. Celebrating my 25th birthday in the serene abode of Lord Keshavraj in the Konkan region, a few kms from the Arabian sea - boy, I like that.

Coming to presidential elections - hmm Obama seems to have a slight edge over Hillary at this time and I am all excited to see who gets nominated. For the republican side, McCain had a cake-walk defeating Mike Huckabee by a huge margin. In the process of following CNN coverage, I atleast have basic knowledge of the election process here - something like US Politics 101.

Economy - this is my hot topic of discussion these days at lunch tables. I see the dollar weakening each day and think of what would happen tomorrow. The scene is scary when they talk of job cuts in manufacturing companies and some tech companies too. Stock prices have fallen and Google broke its 52-week low - is that the end of glamorous Google stock? well maybe, maybe not. Unless M$ and Yahoo! work up something really fast!

Recession - ya i think its here, but would not last too long. I do see fewer crowds at restaurants. 2009 should show signs of recovery.

Tech Industry - Macworld was a disaster as far as i am concerned. Apple failed to click this time. VMware is unable to sustain its growth rates in the 1st quarter of listing its IPO - how bad is that ? stocks have fallen 50%.
NetApp - yes thats our new official name now. My company launched a new branding exercise to increase our footprint in the storage industry. That should help us get into more data centers. Personally I liked the new logo, looks like the Gateway of India and a gateway to growth for companies. Go further, faster NetApp, i am with you.

manatle bolu kahi

2008-01-22T20:05:00.001-08:00

ह्या वरशीची आस्ट्रेलियन ओपन ग्रान्डसलाम स्पर्धा फारच चुर्शिची होत आहे. रोज संध्याकाली मारिया शरापोवा, आना इवानोविक, रॉजर फेदेरेर, कोह्ल्स्बेर्गेर ह्या सारखे अनेक दिग्गज स्पर्धक खेल्तात अणि आमच्या सारख्या सोफ्त्वारे एन्गिनीर्स साथी टी एक मेज्वानिच असते. विशेष म्हणजे विल्लिंस भगिनी दोघिही एकाच फेरित हर्ल्या. अनद्य रोद्दीक्क ची ५ सेट मधे रंग्लेलेई मैच बघून अत्यानंद झाला. शिवाय नोवाक जोकोविक ची शरापोवा वर केलेली नक्कल तर बघ्न्यसर्खी आहे. इतकी हुबेहूब करतो टू, की कही विचारो नका..यौतुबे.कॉम वर कदाचित असेलच.

साध्य टीवी वर चालू अस्लालाए अन्किन एक अवद्ता कार्यक्रम म्हणजे "ट्वो एंड अ हाफ मेन". हयात दोन भवन्दा एंड एक भावाचा मुलगा ह्यांचे लोस एंजेलेस जवाल्च्या बीच वर असलेले घर ह्यावर चित्रीकरण केले आहे. ही कॉमेडी सीरियल बघित्ल्यावर मन अतिप्रसंना होते व स्वय्पक करायला जोश येतो, असो.

माझी लड़की कम्पनी नेत्वोर्क अप्प्लिंस ही फोर्तुने मसिकत्ल्या १०० बेस्ट कोम्पनिएस मधे १४व्य क्रमंकावर अली. इतक्या चान वतावार्नत काम करायला मिलते आहे हे नशीब वाटते. बाकि सर्व क्षेम. कलावे , आपला अभिजित.

pahila marathi blog

2008-01-13T19:27:00.001-08:00

माझ्या ब्लॉग चाह्त्यान्ना अभीजीत देव्धार्चा सप्रेम नमस्कार. नवीन वर्षाची सुरुवात आपण एक छान मराठी पत्राने करावी ही इच्छा होती. संगय्चे विशेष म्हणजे पुढील महिन्यात मी पुन्यनागारित जाणार आहे. घरी आई व पप्पा खुप दिवस पासून वाट पाहत आहेत. त्यांना भेटायला मी ही आतुर झालो आहे.

आज अजुन कही सांगत नही, फार झोप आली आहे. पुन्हा लवकरच भेटू. कलावे, आपला अभीजीत.

Sporty Sporty

2007-10-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

Better late than never, i have understood the importance of physical exercise in life. Thats given rise to my n number of outdoor activities since I graduated. It all started one day during my MS when a friend invited me for a game of tennis at VT. Since I was almost done with thesis (this topic often haunts me even now), I accepted the invite. I did not even have a racket to play. Inspite of playing it for the first time, I instantly liked the game. Then when I moved to Raleigh, I made it a point to search for a tennis court and an opponent, who also happens to be my roomate.

Thus started the era of evenings full of tennis. Occasionally, other friends joined in for a game of doubles. Then some fine day, I observed that we had a table tennis aka ping-pong table in our office breakroom. So we started that too. Friday's Beer bash was devoted to 2 hrs of TT from 3.30pm to 5.30pm - the beer + the food.
I also tried my hand at foosball, which I am not good at yet!

One fine day, my good old friend invited me for Basketball. And then i tried that too, although got too tired too fast.

The regular game sessions are helping me to keep mind fresh from the otherwise mundane computer activity or senseless surfing on the Internet. Bye for now as i need to go to play my next game!!

Exploring Sunnyvale

2007-09-23T17:52:00.000-07:00

Past two weeks I had a hell lot of fun. I flew in to San Jose, CA for company training along with 10 other fellow engineers from RTP. We stayed at Sunnyvale right behind Netapp campus.

On day 1, we had a meeting with our top executives. There we got a chance to interact with Netapp founders, CEO's. It was good to know their views about the company, the growth strategy and a chance to ask lots of questions too. Later in the day, we visited the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk and then Stanford university followed by amazing Hyderabaadi cuisine in Palo Alto.

Then from the following day, came the real test of our patience. We had back to back training sessions starting from 8.30am to 5pm with hardly any breaks in between. The worst part was this kindof day was going to be for 2 weeks. There was no way I could survive the loads of information.

After a couple of days, the sessions seemed better as we dived deep into the internals of netapp technolgoies, products, etc. It suddenly became interesting as we were been trained by engineers who had actually iimplemented these technologies.

We also got a chance to roam around the bay area and meet old time friends mostly Calsoftians who were now in the bay area too. On the weekend, we went to the Mystery point, Napa valley, San Francisco downtown, 17 mile drive and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The training was a wonderful experience and it helped us in team building as well. Hope to get more of such west coast trips and have more and more fun each time.

Jai Ganesh!!

Elaborate Dinners

2007-08-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

This might not really be a blog topic..but who cares.
These days we are having quite elaborate dinner menus. Its as if the 2 years during MS were not enough to explore all cooking skills. We roomies take turns alternately.

The process starts with switching on the 37 inch television with either Everybody Loves Raymond or Friends in the background.
1) Then we wash utensils. (5 min)
2) Cutting the onion and chopping tomatoes and chilly (3 min)
3) Heating oil and tadka (2 min)
4) Mixing up the vegetables and garnish + cooking, etc (20 min)
5) Rice cooks simultaneously (see we use parallel processing concepts here too)
6) Yummy, foods ready..well not yet
7) Heating the tava and baking rotis (8 min)
8) Hmm..lemon on the side, lemonade in the glass
9) and sit back, relax and enjoy the dinner.....(30 min...ya i am slow everyone knows that by now)
10) Whats in today for dessert?..cake, ice-cream, cookies (10 min)
11) End it with Masala supari and sauf...wow eat like a king!

Total time spent: almost 2 hrs..who really cares when i have all the time in the life after office...after all "paapi pet ka sawal hai"

watching myself grow in size day by day!

Past 2 months

2007-07-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

The past two months have been a whirlwind. I had a number of experiences.

Before relocating to North Carolina, we had to move our stuff, clean the apartment, etc. We rented a 17'' U-Haul and drove down 220 miles each way. It was a wonderful experience - getting to know how the huge truck operators drive daily numerous miles to supply goods throughout the country.

The next day, I then drove my Civic from Blacksburg. I immediately noticed the comforts of driving a car as opposed to a U-Haul. Having a car in US makes life so easy - suddenly going to the grocery, getting to office daily, going places seems a lot more enjoyable - especially when you own a Civic.

Moving is a big pain and we tried to settle down as fast as possible. We bought a couch and cute coffee tables for our hall, lamps for the perfect lighting, grocery to feed the stomach, and on top of all, tennis gear to get started on serious fun!

Daily routines are now much better than college life..evenings seem more productive than just studying or working on thesis or merely surfing Internet. Instead, there is a whole gamut of things which we can do - gym, tennis, dining outside frequently, hanging out with friends and watching a movie over tea are some of the options.
This is the real world.. the 9 - 5 job and then fullto dhamal..

Soon we will fly to California for our training and then job life will pickup more pace with the project transforming from prototype to release phase coding. Looking fwd to lots of learning at NetApp .. have fun!

I m done!

2007-06-01T06:24:00.000-07:00

I defended my Masters thesis on May 14, 2007. Friends immediately asked whether that means I have graduated....but I always had some other task still at hand. I had to do revisions to my thesis draft, which seemed endless.

Then finally, on May 25, I battled to meet the thesis submission deadline and at 4.59pm, I managed to drop it. Then family members asked..am i done now?

And my answer again was..no, the graduate school needs to approve the work before issuing the degree. So i waited for Memorial Day weekend to pass. In the meantime, I passionately searched for a car and found my true love - the Honda Civic Sedan. I drove home my "power of dreams".

Then, I went for long drives, listened to music and caught up on other activities such as swimming. My parents arrived in Blacksburg after their 18 day whirlwind tour of the United States.

And now, on May 31, I received email from the Grad School conveying me the good news that the thesis had been accepted without any changes. I couldnt believe it.
I immediately ran to the university to collect my degree...the one dream i have been pursuing for the past 2 years.

I came home and rejoiced with parents - "maa mai BA pass ho gaya...wah beta..maine tere liye gajar ka halwa banaya hai"

Finally, I must say that I m done !!!

Preparing a Talk

2007-04-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

Many people – especially technical folks like me – focus way too much on the data that they want to present to their audience. Tom always asks me how I want the audience to feel after my talk. Before I learned his technique, my answer would be something like, “I want them to feel that they understand the design goals and architectural details of ?”

At this point Tom would interrupt: “Feelings are one word. Angry. Proud. You know – emotions.” You can have a small phrase describing what the feeling is about. “Disappointed in our performance.” “Proud of our new release.”

Next, Tom would ask what I wanted people to do differently after my presentation. He argued: “If you don’t want them to do anything different, why are you wasting your time talking with them?” If you’ve reached an important milestone in a project, like a key code-freeze date, you might want people to feel proud of what they’ve accomplished so far, but to keep working hard until they’re done. If a project is way off track, the feeling of disappointment in the progress so far could motivate people to accept and engage a new approach. If a competitor is beating you, perhaps anger will help drive action. Part of the trick is to choose actions and emotions that naturally reinforce each other.

When you are clear on the feelings and actions that you hope to inspire with your presentation, then, and only then, should you start to worry about the content – about what data to share to inspire those feelings. You can say, “I want you to feel excited about what you did,” but it might work better to show the sales figures or benchmark results that prove people did a good job. Then the audience will naturally be excited. Or if the results are bad, naturally disappointed.

When I start with feelings and actions, it makes my presentations much better. Good content is important, but it’s only a tool. Feelings and actions are the goal.

At first, I struggled with Tom’s method because I wanted to share too much information. Now, I’ve learned to appreciate the elegance of finding the smallest amount of data required to drive the feelings and actions I want. For exhaustive detail, a web site or white paper is a much better communication tool. Sometimes go read the white paper is the action I want to inspire. Even in a classroom setting, lectures don’t replace textbooks.

I used to worry that removing details would result in over-simplified presentations. Now I believe that my job as a public speaker is to over-simplify.

But I still try not to over-over-simplify.

-- reference: http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/

We are Virginia Tech

2007-04-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

~ Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor, poet, activist

Tragedy at Virginia Tech

2007-04-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

This incident that happened today at Virginia Tech would go in US history, albeit in a wrong way and I am sad to be a part of this.

I was boarding the Blacksburg Transit (BT) bus today morning and we were just about to move; when the BT radio cracked with a siren to stop all buses going to campus. Apparently, there was a gunman loose on campus. I immediately returned home to log on to the internet and check the status. Within minutes, we got an email from the university saying all campus was in lock-down mode. Our local news channel confirmed the death of one person in the shooting. News slowly trickled in of more casualties initially starting with 7 and moving to 32 by the end of the day; all caused because of a shooting by a guy who reportedly shot 40 shots. Dateline NBC aired interviews of 2 students who witnessed the incident and luckily survived this tragedy.

This shootout surpasses all previous records and VT is now part of history for the worst ever campus shootings. We all are shocked to find all this happening in such a "safe" town of Blacksburg. It will take a long time in healing and regaining VT's pride as a great educational institution. Let us all pray for those victims and hope such a thing never happens again anywhere.

Past 2 months

2007-04-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

Followers of this blog will notice a long gap. Worry not friends, i m still alive. The last two months have been a flyer, literally. I travelled coast to coast a couple of times. But all that has settled down now - the patience has 'paid' off, again literally. I have decided to join NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), a leading storage software company. I am all excited to be a part of this great company which ranks in the top 10 Fortune Best Places to Work For, even above the likes of Microsoft!

Ok, that was the journey till mid-March. I was in Blacksburg for the entire last month (i cant believe it myself). Had to catch up on my thesis implementation. Once things began to work and experiments gave success, i moved to writing. I have almost finished writing a draft at this point and passed it on to my advisor for reviews. Today, is the 1st time in last two months that I dont have anything to work on ( i expect to get more work tomorrow after my meeting; but this very moment needs to be enjoyed to the fullest). Ate loads of Kaju -draksh icecream that we got from an Indian store, followed by rasgullas!...Blogging seems to have actually helped me in writing skills - thank you Blogger!

Meet my Valentine

2007-02-14T12:47:00.000-08:00

This year's V-day is going to be a memorable one. I am going to introduce u to my valentine..take a guess..who might it be..bolo bolo, socho , socho..accha chalo bata hi deta huun..its Washington DC airport!!

Now listen up..heres what happened...i am returning from San Diego and I land safely in DC. Then i come to know that the weather is real bad here with lots of snow making it unsafe for flight departure..so my flight to Roanoke gets cancelled.
I try to pacify myself a bit saying its ok, u r not the only person affected by this..there are thousands of others here who have even missed international flights due to this....i wait in the United Customer service queue for 2 hrs only to be given the boarding flight for my flight for Feb 14, ya V-day.

I promptly book a hotel in DC and spend the night there. Then i come back on V-day to board my morning flight, but since conditions havent improved, i am rebooked for a flight for 10pm that night...now this is no more fun...i decide to make some plans for the day at the airport only hoping that the flight will depart at night...

Firstly, i purchase internet for a day costing $10 out of my pocket and do my emails quickly. But i realize that, emails wont keep me busy for the day, so I make up my mind to catch up on thesis work...yes coding at the airport, grab a coffee and some cookies and code for food..drink, code, drink, code..ok its lunch time and i am caught up in a strange coding issue. i eat a hearty meal at Subway, order a Hot Chai Latte and sit back...the tea immediately helps to solve my problem and i realize i have done enough for the day!!

So now, i get into serious orkutting, blogging (which is why you r reading this one)..probably destiny wanted me to experience V-day with Washington airport...wish me luck so that i reach BBurg safely by today!

Finding Neverland

2007-02-10T13:12:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of places i have visited so far:
Blacksburg, Roanoke, Washington DC, Boston, Tampa, Gainesville, Orlando, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Raleigh, Santa Ana, Irvine, Malibu, Bakersfield, Houston, Atlanta.

Here's whats left (interestingly, this list is short!!):
New York, Chicago, Grand Canyon, Pittsburg, Salt Lake City Utah....this shouldnt take long if history is an indicator.

Catching up!

2007-02-05T20:12:00.000-08:00

hmm..its been almost 2 months since my last blog and its time to catch up to events in life...bro got married, everyone's happy back home and things are finally settling down in Blacksburg aka Kalewadi, Virginia. The semester started on a fine note with lots of desi home made sweets to relish...and Chitale's bakarwadi too!

Then i had my first meeting with my advisor and it started heating up, although BBurg shows -7 degrees Fahrenheit currently..
need to get some real work done in a short span of time...interviews have picked up some pace as well and i have started my usual habit of going places...my hidden success i wud term it..akki wud understand this better...

hope to reenter the blogging world..lets Go Bloggers..lets go Hokies!

The day arrives

2006-12-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

At last, after a really long wait, its december 12th today..and my journey to Swades begins right now..cant express how excited i am..really looking forward to things i missed during my stay in BBurg. Thats how life is..no pain, no pleasure..and pain always comes first!

Like the nice Roanoke airport..checkin took 10 min and we have free internet here..so grabbed the chance to catchup on some blogging..as i sit here..memories of home flash in my head..and i say..just wait for another 36 hrs for homecoming..i assume home must be all set to welcome me..there has been a lot of renovation and the marriage preps make the atmosphere all the more exciting and merry...my blogs will be infrequent for a month from now on.but who cares..watched swades the other day and i cud connect to the story much better now..Ashutosh Gowariker has done a gr8 job in making such a film...and surprisingly, SK lives upto the expectations by not introducing his "hehhhheeeeee" ishtyle..
Anyways..bye bye blogger..

Exam week

2006-12-03T20:04:00.000-08:00

and now comes the climax of the Fall semester..exam time folks..wear the Orange Effect t-shirt which says "Time to go to Work". The Reading Day concept out here is totally different compared to the month-long PL we get in Pune..boy i remember studying 10-12 hrs in PL and watching my favorite sit-coms in breaks..in fact thats the time i used to pick up on long lost serials and aai used to say that I "adjust" breaks in the serial times..so am i really studying?..well that was 1 way to relax i guess getting involved in saas-bahu types and enjoying studies as a side-dish.

Now i have a REALLY BIG CARROT at the end of exams..my trip to Swades..plan to watch the film immediately after exams so that i get a feel of homeland. I tried my hand at some new recipes like Pohe, Omlette..we ran out of groceries and I had to put on my thinking cap to make use of the best available resources without spending time to go to Walmart..that reminds me i need to buy loads of "Kisses" and "Harshe"..have packing to do as well..havent touched my bags since internship time..in short a happening week and looking fwd to spin the earth faster!

On your mark

2006-11-14T18:34:00.000-08:00

hmm...its 14 november today - whats so special abt it?..well for some it might be their birthday, for some it is World Usability Day and for me its 30 days from homecoming....14 december ki chai hum Pune me piyenge!!...and interestingly, these 30 days are crucial for me in many ways..lot of work to be done, deadlines to meet and jobs to be searched, besides Thanksgiving turkey at my host's place. I just have 1 more written exam at Virginia Tech, probably the last one in my career, in my life (does that sound too farfetched??).. i m just being optimistic...exams in VT guve me nightmares.

We screwed our software engg project and a lot of time had to be spent in damage control. It gave insights to real world scenario and helped me learn a lot..after all isnt failure the stepping stone to success..but does failure HAVE TO be a stepping stone?.. i mean cant we always get it right the first time..i guess its not a perfect world..even Windows had its own problems initially, rather still has..so maybe there is nothing like perfect..each failure is an OFI - opportunity for improvement..hmm..sounds like positive attitude...get ready boy.. u have a long road ahead!

Cassata

2006-11-04T15:04:00.000-08:00

dont have anything specific to write abt in this blog, but still i want to write something..you know its a good way to spend time after all, i dont want the 15 days since my last blog go missing in history just because i was too lazy to write anything today!

life is as it should be for a graduate student studying Computer Science - study, study and more study..did i say study??.
2nd midterms are round the corner as is dada's engagement, but being here i cant do much except call and say a big HI....
i had a fight with the linux kernel last week and since then, it has failed to behave as expected..it becomes nervous and doesnt respond..looks like i will have to take him for a ride to get its mood right!!
Algorithms course sounds more interesting as exams approach, its just the sheer pressure that makes u love the subject; besides its helping me in other ways too. We had a nice photo session at the university "Class of 2007"..hmm looks like i will graduate finally next semester.. or at least the authorities tell me i will..time to be kicked out soon..better get back to work.

Friday eve

2006-10-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

This friday evening made it upto my blog...havent had so much fun in a past few weeks. I had a gift coupon for Buffalo Wild wings, courtesy Scion car test ride which gave me a free T-shirt too. Now, the question was how to use the coupon effectively and before expiry?..Lab mates at VBI - Dipti, Sanket and Farid were interested in eating out..and so the plan was made. We ate some nice appetizers followed by wings. Our waitress Michelle, oh what shud i say abt her..she deserved a life better than that!
During the dinner, the plan was made for a movie at NRV Mall. We drove around 8pm, but unfortunately tickets were sold out for Departed. Then we decided to roam around and shop for my Pune trip..and suddenly everyone wanted something from the mall. We spent an hour at JC Penney. Then again, we thought maybe we could watch the next show for Departed and immediately went ahead and booked the tickets. Now the question was to spend the rest of our time. An idea although not very suitable for that occasion popped up - grocery shopping at Walmart!..ok it started off wtih buying a few essentials but ended up in a cart full of items. Then we drove back to the theatre, enjoyed the movie...i was surprised that it was full show and lots of popcorn here and there..

Came back home at 1am..long evening indeed!

Lets get Nerdy

2006-10-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

If you want to attract nerds, you need more than a town with personality. You need a town with the right personality. Nerds are a distinct subset of the creative class, with different tastes from the rest. You can see this most clearly in New York, which attracts a lot of creative people, but few nerds. [5]

What nerds like is the kind of town where people walk around smiling. This excludes LA, where no one walks at all, and also New York, where people walk, but not smiling. When I was in grad school in Boston, a friend came to visit from New York. On the subway back from the airport she asked "Why is everyone smiling?" I looked and they weren't smiling. They just looked like they were compared to the facial expressions she was used to.

If you've lived in New York, you know where these facial expressions come from. It's the kind of place where your mind may be excited, but your body knows it's having a bad time. People don't so much enjoy living there as endure it for the sake of the excitement. And if you like certain kinds of excitement, New York is incomparable. It's a hub of glamour, a magnet for all the shorter half-life isotopes of style and fame.

Nerds don't care about glamour, so to them the appeal of New York is a mystery. People who like New York will pay a fortune for a small, dark, noisy apartment in order to live in a town where the cool people are really cool. A nerd looks at that deal and sees only: pay a fortune for a small, dark, noisy apartment.

Nerds will pay a premium to live in a town where the smart people are really smart, but you don't have to pay as much for that. It's supply and demand: glamour is popular, so you have to pay a lot for it.

Most nerds like quieter pleasures. They like cafes instead of clubs; used bookshops instead of fashionable clothing shops; hiking instead of dancing; sunlight instead of tall buildings. A nerd's idea of paradise is Berkeley or Boulder.

(extracted from my previous post..this deserved special mention)

Wanna create Silicon valley?

2006-10-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

Could you reproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is there something unique about it?

It wouldn't be surprising if it were hard to reproduce in other countries, because you couldn't reproduce it in most of the US either. What does it take to make a silicon valley even here?

What it takes is the right people. If you could get the right ten thousand people to move from Silicon Valley to Buffalo, Buffalo would become Silicon Valley. [1]

That's a striking departure from the past. Up till a couple decades ago, geography was destiny for cities. All great cities were located on waterways, because cities made money by trade, and water was the only economical way to ship.

Now you could make a great city anywhere, if you could get the right people to move there. So the question of how to make a silicon valley becomes: who are the right people, and how do you get them to move?

Two Types

I think you only need two kinds of people to create a technology hub: rich people and nerds. They're the limiting reagents in the reaction that produces startups, because they're the only ones present when startups get started. Everyone else will move.

Observation bears this out: within the US, towns have become startup hubs if and only if they have both rich people and nerds. Few startups happen in Miami, for example, because although it's full of rich people, it has few nerds. It's not the kind of place nerds like.

Whereas Pittsburgh has the opposite problem: plenty of nerds, but no rich people. The top US Computer Science departments are said to be MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Carnegie-Mellon. MIT yielded Route 128. Stanford and Berkeley yielded Silicon Valley. But Carnegie-Mellon? The record skips at that point. Lower down the list, the University of Washington yielded a high-tech community in Seattle, and the University of Texas at Austin yielded one in Austin. But what happened in Pittsburgh? And in Ithaca, home of Cornell, which is also high on the list?

I grew up in Pittsburgh and went to college at Cornell, so I can answer for both. The weather is terrible, particularly in winter, and there's no interesting old city to make up for it, as there is in Boston. Rich people don't want to live in Pittsburgh or Ithaca. So while there are plenty of hackers who could start startups, there's no one to invest in them.

Not Bureaucrats

Do you really need the rich people? Wouldn't it work to have the government invest in the nerds? No, it would not. Startup investors are a distinct type of rich people. They tend to have a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. This (a) helps them pick the right startups, and (b) means they can supply advice and connections as well as money. And the fact that they have a personal stake in the outcome makes them really pay attention.

Bureaucrats by their nature are the exact opposite sort of people from startup investors. The idea of them making startup investments is comic. It would be like mathematicians running Vogue-- or perhaps more accurately, Vogue editors running a math journal. [2]

Though indeed, most things bureaucrats do, they do badly. We just don't notice usually, because they only have to compete against other bureaucrats. But as startup investors they'd have to compete against pros with a great deal more experience and motivation.

Even corporations that have in-house VC groups generally forbid them to make their own investment decisions. Most are only allowed to invest in deals where some reputable private VC firm is willing to act as lead investor.

Not Buildings

If you go to see Silicon Valley, what you'll see are buildings. But it's the people that make it Silicon Valley, not the buildings. I read occasionally about attempts to set up "technology parks" in other places, as if the active ingredient of Silicon Valley were the office space. An article about Sophia Antipolis bragged that companies there included Cisco, Compaq, IBM, NCR, and Nortel. Don't the French realize these aren't startups?

Building office buildings for technology companies won't get you a silicon valley, because the key stage in the life of a startup happens before they want that kind of space. The key stage is when they're three guys operating out of an apartment. Wherever the startup is when it gets funded, it will stay. The defining quality of Silicon Valley is not that Intel or Apple or Google have offices there, but that they were started there.

So if you want to reproduce Silicon Valley, what you need to reproduce is those two or three founders sitting around a kitchen table deciding to start a company. And to reproduce that you need those people.

Universities

The exciting thing is, all you need are the people. If you could attract a critical mass of nerds and investors to live somewhere, you could reproduce Silicon Valley. And both groups are highly mobile. They'll go where life is good. So what makes a place good to them?

What nerds like is other nerds. Smart people will go wherever other smart people are. And in particular, to great universities. In theory there could be other ways to attract them, but so far universities seem to be indispensable. Within the US, there are no technology hubs without first-rate universities-- or at least, first-rate computer science departments.

So if you want to make a silicon valley, you not only need a university, but one of the top handful in the world. It has to be good enough to act as a magnet, drawing the best people from thousands of miles away. And that means it has to stand up to existing magnets like MIT and Stanford.

This sounds hard. Actually it might be easy. My professor friends, when they're deciding where they'd like to work, consider one thing above all: the quality of the other faculty. What attracts professors is good colleagues. So if you managed to recruit, en masse, a significant number of the best young researchers, you could create a first-rate university from nothing overnight. And you could do that for surprisingly little. If you paid 200 people hiring bonuses of $3 million apiece, you could put together a faculty that would bear comparison with any in the world. And from that point the chain reaction would be self-sustaining. So whatever it costs to establish a mediocre university, for an additional half billion or so you could have a great one. [3]

Personality

However, merely creating a new university would not be enough to start a silicon valley. The university is just the seed. It has to be planted in the right soil, or it won't germinate. Plant it in the wrong place, and you just create Carnegie-Mellon.

To spawn startups, your university has to be in a town that has attractions other than the university. It has to be a place where investors want to live, and students want to stay after they graduate.

The two like much the same things, because most startup investors are nerds themselves. So what do nerds look for in a town? Their tastes aren't completely different from other people's, because a lot of the towns they like most in the US are also big tourist destinations: San Francisco, Boston, Seattle. But their tastes can't be quite mainstream either, because they dislike other big tourist destinations, like New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.

There has been a lot written lately about the "creative class." The thesis seems to be that as wealth derives increasingly from ideas, cities will prosper only if they attract those who have them. That is certainly true; in fact it was the basis of Amsterdam's prosperity 400 years ago.

A lot of nerd tastes they share with the creative class in general. For example, they like well-preserved old neighborhoods instead of cookie-cutter suburbs, and locally-owned shops and restaurants instead of national chains. Like the rest of the creative class, they want to live somewhere with personality.

What exactly is personality? I think it's the feeling that each building is the work of a distinct group of people. A town with personality is one that doesn't feel mass-produced. So if you want to make a startup hub-- or any town to attract the "creative class"-- you probably have to ban large development projects. When a large tract has been developed by a single organization, you can always tell. [4]

Most towns with personality are old, but they don't have to be. Old towns have two advantages: they're denser, because they were laid out before cars, and they're more varied, because they were built one building at a time. You could have both now. Just have building codes that ensure density, and ban large scale developments.

A corollary is that you have to keep out the biggest developer of all: the government. A government that asks "How can we build a silicon valley?" has probably ensured failure by the way they framed the question. You don't build a silicon valley; you let one grow.

Nerds

If you want to attract nerds, you need more than a town with personality. You need a town with the right personality. Nerds are a distinct subset of the creative class, with different tastes from the rest. You can see this most clearly in New York, which attracts a lot of creative people, but few nerds. [5]

What nerds like is the kind of town where people walk around smiling. This excludes LA, where no one walks at all, and also New York, where people walk, but not smiling. When I was in grad school in Boston, a friend came to visit from New York. On the subway back from the airport she asked "Why is everyone smiling?" I looked and they weren't smiling. They just looked like they were compared to the facial expressions she was used to.

If you've lived in New York, you know where these facial expressions come from. It's the kind of place where your mind may be excited, but your body knows it's having a bad time. People don't so much enjoy living there as endure it for the sake of the excitement. And if you like certain kinds of excitement, New York is incomparable. It's a hub of glamour, a magnet for all the shorter half-life isotopes of style and fame.

Nerds don't care about glamour, so to them the appeal of New York is a mystery. People who like New York will pay a fortune for a small, dark, noisy apartment in order to live in a town where the cool people are really cool. A nerd looks at that deal and sees only: pay a fortune for a small, dark, noisy apartment.

Nerds will pay a premium to live in a town where the smart people are really smart, but you don't have to pay as much for that. It's supply and demand: glamour is popular, so you have to pay a lot for it.

Most nerds like quieter pleasures. They like cafes instead of clubs; used bookshops instead of fashionable clothing shops; hiking instead of dancing; sunlight instead of tall buildings. A nerd's idea of paradise is Berkeley or Boulder.

Youth

It's the young nerds who start startups, so it's those specifically the city has to appeal to. The startup hubs in the US are all young-feeling towns. This doesn't mean they have to be new. Cambridge has the oldest town plan in America, but it feels young because it's full of students.

What you can't have, if you want to create a silicon valley, is a large, existing population of stodgy people. It would be a waste of time to try to reverse the fortunes of a declining industrial town like Detroit or Philadelphia by trying to encourage startups. Those places have too much momentum in the wrong direction. You're better off starting with a blank slate in the form of a small town. Or better still, if there's a town young people already flock to, that one.

The Bay Area was a magnet for the young and optimistic for decades before it was associated with technology. It was a place people went in search of something new. And so it became synonymous with California nuttiness. There's still a lot of that there. If you wanted to start a new fad-- a new way to focus one's "energy," for example, or a new category of things not to eat-- the Bay Area would be the place to do it. But a place that tolerates oddness in the search for the new is exactly what you want in a startup hub, because economically that's what startups are. Most good startup ideas seem a little crazy; if they were obviously good ideas, someone would have done them already.

(How many people are going to want computers in their houses? What, another search engine?)

That's the connection between technology and liberalism. Without exception the high-tech cities in the US are also the most liberal. But it's not because liberals are smarter that this is so. It's because liberal cities tolerate odd ideas, and smart people by definition have odd ideas.

Conversely, a town that gets praised for being "solid" or representing "traditional values" may be a fine place to live, but it's never going to succeed as a startup hub. The 2004 presidential election, though a disaster in other respects, conveniently supplied us with a county-by-county map of such places. [6]

To attract the young, a town must have an intact center. In most American cities the center has been abandoned, and the growth, if any, is in the suburbs. Most American cities have been turned inside out. But none of the startup hubs has: not San Francisco, or Boston, or Seattle. They all have intact centers. [7] My guess is that no city with a dead center could be turned into a startup hub. Young people don't want to live in the suburbs.

Within the US, the two cities I think could most easily be turned into new silicon valleys are Boulder and Portland. Both have the kind of effervescent feel that attracts the young. They're each only a great university short of becoming a silicon valley, if they wanted to.

Time

A great university near an attractive town. Is that all it takes? That was all it took to make the original Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley traces its origins to William Shockley, one of the inventors of the transistor. He did the research that won him the Nobel Prize at Bell Labs, but when he started his own company in 1956 he moved to Palo Alto to do it. At the time that was an odd thing to do. Why did he? Because he had grown up there and remembered how nice it was. Now Palo Alto is suburbia, but then it was a charming college town-- a charming college town with perfect weather and San Francisco only an hour away.

The companies that rule Silicon Valley now are all descended in various ways from Shockley Semiconductor. Shockley was a difficult man, and in 1957 his top people-- "the traitorous eight"-- left to start a new company, Fairchild Semiconductor. Among them were Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, who went on to found Intel, and Eugene Kleiner, who founded the VC firm Kleiner Perkins. Forty-two years later, Kleiner Perkins funded Google, and the partner responsible for the deal was John Doerr, who came to Silicon Valley in 1974 to work for Intel.

So although a lot of the newest companies in Silicon Valley don't make anything out of silicon, there always seem to be multiple links back to Shockley. There's a lesson here: startups beget startups. People who work for startups start their own. People who get rich from startups fund new ones. I suspect this kind of organic growth is the only way to produce a startup hub, because it's the only way to grow the expertise you need.

That has two important implications. The first is that you need time to grow a silicon valley. The university you could create in a couple years, but the startup community around it has to grow organically. The cycle time is limited by the time it takes a company to succeed, which probably averages about five years.

The other implication of the organic growth hypothesis is that you can't be somewhat of a startup hub. You either have a self-sustaining chain reaction, or not. Observation confirms this too: cities either have a startup scene, or they don't. There is no middle ground. Chicago has the third largest metropolitan area in America. As source of startups it's negligible compared to Seattle, number 15.

The good news is that the initial seed can be quite small. Shockley Semiconductor, though itself not very successful, was big enough. It brought a critical mass of experts in an important new technology together in a place they liked enough to stay.

Competing

Of course, a would-be silicon valley faces an obstacle the original one didn't: it has to compete with Silicon Valley. Can that be done? Probably.

One of Silicon Valley's biggest advantages is its venture capital firms. This was not a factor in Shockley's day, because VC funds didn't exist. In fact, Shockley Semiconductor and Fairchild Semiconductor were not startups at all in our sense. They were subsidiaries-- of Beckman Instruments and Fairchild Camera and Instrument respectively. Those companies were apparently willing to establish subsidiaries wherever the experts wanted to live.

Venture investors, however, prefer to fund startups within an hour's drive. For one, they're more likely to notice startups nearby. But when they do notice startups in other towns they prefer them to move. They don't want to have to travel to attend board meetings, and in any case the odds of succeeding are higher in a startup hub.

The centralizing effect of venture firms is a double one: they cause startups to form around them, and those draw in more startups through acquisitions. And although the first may be weakening because it's now so cheap to start some startups, the second seems as strong as ever. Three of the most admired "Web 2.0" companies were started outside the usual startup hubs, but two of them have already been reeled in through acquisitions.

Such centralizing forces make it harder for new silicon valleys to get started. But by no means impossible. Ultimately power rests with the founders. A startup with the best people will beat one with funding from famous VCs, and a startup that was sufficiently successful would never have to move. So a town that could exert enough pull over the right people could resist and perhaps even surpass Silicon Valley.

For all its power, Silicon Valley has a great weakness: the paradise Shockley found in 1956 is now one giant parking lot. San Francisco and Berkeley are great, but they're forty miles away. Silicon Valley proper is soul-crushing suburban sprawl. It has fabulous weather, which makes it significantly better than the soul-crushing sprawl of most other American cities. But a competitor that managed to avoid sprawl would have real leverage. All a city needs is to be the kind of place the next traitorous eight look at and say "I want to stay here," and that would be enough to get the chain reaction started.

(taken from http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html)

Pleasure in Pain?

2006-10-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

These days I have been caught in a weird emotional state. Whenever a thought about home passes in my mind, I feel like listening to songs in my native language Marathi. The more I hear them, the more I like them, but at the same time it gives me a feeling of pain. However, the urge to listen to them is so strong, that I still go ahead and try to overcome the pain. A similar feeling arises when I listen to Swades "ye jo des hai tera, swades hai tera, tuze hai pukaraaaa..and the pain goes "aaa", "mai vapas aungaaa again the "aaa" from Border". I think i am thinking too much..but cant help it..can I?

Anyways, trying some meditation to soothen my nerves and take control of emotions..its indeed a game of nerves!

Heart beats faster

2006-10-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

hmm..long time since I actually sat down and wrote a blog on my own. This blog is different because I am writing it from my lab - why?..because I am stuck in a mess of C++ code which is hard to debug and I have no help in sight. Imagine having a unite testing frameowrk wrapped by another and now I am adding another layer to it..hundreds of files and tests to be integrated..and the bottomline..it should finally be automated with minimal changes to existing code.

That aside, its some 70 days for "homecoming" and i am all excited about it. These days i keep dreaming of what will happen when I visit home, how i will spend my "quality" time, etc. Shopping has already started with gifts coming from all over - online, Walmart, Google.com. My heart beats faster as each day passes.

College has started becoming monotonous - its the middle of the semester u see. Need to do something interesting to keep up, i wish i can enjoy a bit in the Fall break. To top it all, we dont have Algorithms class the entire next week, nor do i have thesis meeting..so i m gonna be free. God, take me to good sunny California once again..let me visit the beach, eat at the best hotels in So-Cal..

The Career Fair marked the beginning of the Fall interview season. Hope to make the most out of it this time..at least preparing better. Had a cool tailgate party with my host..ate lots of apple pie cake and fruit punch.
Loads of good food at my home sweet home, good ole Pune!

Why Indians are US's best immigrants

2006-09-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

1. Education. The Census Bureau says that 63.9% of Indians over 25 hold at least a bachelor's degree, compared with the national average of 24.4%. Media reports routinely profile graduates from one Indian college -- the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

This is a great school, but most successful Indians I know aren't IIT graduates. Neither are the doctors, journalists, motel owners, or the majority of technology executives. Their education comes from a broad range of colleges in India and the U.S. They believe that education is the best way to rise above poverty and hardship.

2. Upbringing. For my generation, what was most socially acceptable was to become a doctor, engineer, or businessperson. Therefore, the emphasis was on either learning science or math or becoming an entrepreneur.

3. Hard work. With India's competitive and rote-based education system, children are forced to spend the majority of their time on their schooling. For better or for worse, it's work, work, and more work for anyone with access to education.

4. Determination to overcome obstacles. In a land of over a billion people with a corrupt government, weak infrastructure, and limited opportunities, it takes a lot to simply survive, let alone get ahead.

Indians learn to be resilient, battle endless obstacles, and make the most of what they have. In India, you're on your own and learn to work around the problems that the state and society create for you.

5. Entrepreneurial spirit. As corporate strategist C K Prahalad notes in his interview with BusinessWeek's Pete Engardio, amidst the poverty, hustle, and bustle of overcrowded India is a "beehive of entrepreneurialism and creativity." After observing street markets, Prahalad says that "every individual is engaged in a business of some kind -- whether it is selling single cloves of garlic, squeezing sugar cane juice for pennies a glass, or hauling TVs." This entrepreneurial sprit is something that most Indians grow up with.

6. Recognizing diversity. Indians hold many ethnic, racial, gender, and caste biases. But to succeed, they learn to overlook or adapt these biases when necessary. There are six major religions in India, and the Indian constitution recognizes 22 regional languages. Every region in the country has its own customs and character.

7. Humility. Talk to almost any immigrant, regardless of origin, and he will share stories about leaving social status behind in his home country and working his way up from the bottom of the ladder in his adopted land. It's a humbling process, but humility is an asset in entrepreneurship. You learn many valuable lessons when you start from scratch and work your way to success.

8. Family support/values. In the absence of a social safety net, the family takes on a very important role in Indian culture. Family members provide all kinds of support and guidance to those in need.

9. Financial management. Indians generally pride themselves on being fiscally conservative. Their businesses usually watch every penny and spend within their means.

10. Forming and leveraging networks. Indians immigrants found that one of the secrets to success was to learn from those who had paved the trails.

Some examples: Successful Indian technologists in Silicon Valley formed an organization called The Indus Entrepreneurs to mentor other entrepreneurs and provide a forum for networking. TiE is reputed to have helped launch hundreds of startups, some of which achieved billions in market capitalization. This was a group I turned to when I needed help.

Top Indian journalists and academics created the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) to provide networking and assistance to newcomers. SAJA runs journalism conferences and workshops, and provides scholarships to aspiring South-Asian student journalists.

In the entertainment industry, fledgling filmmakers formed the South Asian American Films and Arts Association (SAAFA). Their mission is the promotion of South Asian cinematic and artistic endeavors, and mentoring newcomers.

11. Giving back. The most successful entrepreneurs I know believe in giving back to the community and society that has given them so much opportunity. TiE founders invested great effort to ensure that their organization was open, inclusive, and integrated with mainstream American society. Their No. 1 rule was that their charter members would give without taking. SAJA officers work for top publications and universities, yet they volunteer their evenings and weekends to run an organization to assist newcomers.

12. Integration and acceptance. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, which conducts worldwide public opinion surveys, has shown that Indians predominantly hold favorable opinions of the U.S. When Indians immigrate to the U.S, they usually come to share the American dream and work hard to integrate.

Indians have achieved more overall business success in less time in the U.S. than any other recent immigrant group. They have shown what can be achieved by integrating themselves into U.S. society and taking advantage of all the opportunities the country offers.

Disclaimer: This article is taken from Rediff.com dated Sept 20, 2006.

Mixed bag

2006-09-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

Last week passed by real quick. The courses have got the pace now, i am loaded with work. Our Software Engg project looks intersting..designing a plant sale software for our Horticulture club. It involved a lot of real-life expereinces like meeting the client to collect requirements, validating them. This looks even good when our clients are 2 blondes - u know what i mean!
Algorithms as usual seems scary..lot of maths and proofs which i dont seem to be in touch for a long time. Then I watched FlightPlan on Friday night and Lage raho Munnabhai today. Decent films both of them..Friends season 2 is about to finish (on my DVD)..with Feebies "smelly cat"...had a hearty laugh there!
Kary called up and informed me abt Reliance India call website being hacked..the phone has been ringing since then. Tomorrow will be spent working on assignments and some thesis stuff to do. 100 days to India trip!

The ball is rolling

2006-08-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

Its the end of first week of classes at VT. Hmm..enough excitement has been built up and the initial inertia is gone. Party season is back in town; we had a CS department freshers party, this time its a huge Indian student population all worried abt survival without funding, but hopefuly situation will ease out in the coming months. Then we had the ISA Freshers party today; all rocking Indians dancing to the tunes of Himesh Reshmaiyya's muzic. Relished food at India Garden. Coinicidentally, today is the start of Ganesh festival here at VT. Similar to last year, we have a enthu public with ex-students driving from DC to be a part of pooja. The next ten days are gonna be enjoyable with aarti every evening and some "prasad"; wow i miss the modak; i wish i cud be home just for some time to eat modaks dipped in shuddh desi ghee; my mouth waters, cant describe it any more.
Days will soon start rolling as semester progresses and there is lots of work to be done..

What a day!

2006-08-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

It was supposed to be the first day at Fall semester classes for 26000 VT students here in Blacksburg. But the day marked history. A suspect fled from police custody, was armed and dangerous. He was believed to be hiding near VT campus. It began with an email in the morning advising employees at CRC to stay away from work; the spot where he was spotted. Rumor then spread to campus and our student center was evacuated. Armed police officers were all around campus searching for him. It didnt look different than a war situation; with SWAT forces, sharp shooters on top of univ buildings. The entire university was evacuated and classes cancelled for the day due to the tense and potentially hostile nature. As the day progressed, i sat at home glued to latest television updates. Soon the news was on national media including CNN ; this was indeed big for a small and otherwise safe town. At around 4pm, the guy was arrested in the bushes near the Rugby stadium of VT. That eased out a lot of pressure and classes will begin from tomorrow.

Not a very good thing to happen at the start of the semester; except that we got an extra holiday; but who wants it anyways now after enjoying 3 months to the fullest!

The great divide

2006-08-18T20:14:00.000-07:00

Its been almost a week after coming back to my old little town Blacksburg, located in the Appalachian mountain range in Virginia. And now after seeing a lot of places in US, I can better judge the regional divide here - how people in the East differ from those on the West coast. Life on the West seems like the fast and the furious - its a much more happening place, partially bcoz I stayed in the city as against the town here. People there are generally the working class - mid aged who spend weekends partying and slog during the weekdays. They also tend to take a lot of risks and seem to be engaged in outdoor activities. Converse to that, life on the East is slow-paced, everything takes its own sweet time. People generally stick in their homes especially due to the colder temperatures. Its a retirees paradise here with living costs much more affordable than on the West. Gas prices too differ by almost a dollar. But i must mention that such an atmosphere is good for academics and research - no doubt Virginia Tech has such great research work (pun intended - there's not much one can do here!) a breeding ground for PhD's.

Feels nice to get back to school next week, with 2 courses to go and the atmosphere all charged up - Go Hokies!!

Time to look back

2006-08-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me congratulate myself on successfully completing a year in US and more importantly, away from homeland amchi Pune. Might seem a small leap in this world, but believe me, its not. Its different to stay in a different city in India, and coming here across the globe - u really feel the distance; especially when you call home and get a response after a time lag. Its a good time to look back at what I have achieved and what still needs to be done. I came here with some ambitions - to gain decent knowledge. On that front, truly worth it - hats off to Virginia Tech professors for giving me all that and yes, friends at the university who always helped, especially my seniors. Getting an assistantship (thru some exhaustive search...cud publish a book on this!) right from the 1st semester is a gr8 achievement i feel. I kept repeating each night that I deserved it, and yes, self affirmations helped..after all didnt have any shoulder to cry on!

The first semester mid-sem exam was a bummer - i was totally lost and didnt know what to do. I remember talking to Kary and Gud and they had similar experience. Then felt a little better and we decided to do well in the finals. Although, the damage cud not be completely undone, I got a decent grade to keep me in good standing. And how can i forget the wonderful new year vacation in Florida and then our unique get-together with Viv in Texas..ah these moments will be cherished for life.

Start of sem 2, now i am better prepared, and luckily have lesser courses. And this time, it went really smooth. My thesis is also taking shape slowly. Come february and i celebrated my 1st birthday away from home. friends made it special with a cake ceremony at 12 midnight. Then i start looking out for internships - with high hopes. Soon i find that all's not going well. i got a few emails exchanged but nothing fruitful. As time passes, i become desperate, sometimes missing sleep with nightmares of having to be in Blacksburg for the summer. But then God is merciful and I suddenly have 2 offers, which is even bad because now i have to "choose". Some advice from knowledgable ppl solves my dilemma.

Oh, how can i forget the day i got my US drivers licence - thanks to Seth. I can now rent a car and roam independently, it was one of my happiest moments in US. And here I am, right in the heart of southern California, working as a Linux kernel developer cum hacker for Broadcom...relaxing on the couch in Lake forest, writing this blog after exactly 1 year.

Definitely gained a lot of experience, knowledge. I have a broader perspective towards things, have become independent, can manage the house as well as finances. On the other side, miss family a lot, those Sunday eve outings, daily evening walks, the new house in Pune, friends, the "Splendorous Hoodibabaa" bike ride, mom's love, a hug with Dad, fun moments with dada.
Hope to meet all of them pretty soon...thanks all for supporting me and thank you Lord for keeping me fit, healthy and emotionally strong throughout.

Las Vegazzed

2006-07-23T19:18:00.000-07:00

This Friday night will remain in my memory in years to come. I teamed up with friends Billya, Dhavlya and Baptya to go to the gambling capital of the world - yes indeed Las Vegas. All was well planned with finishing off work at office a day earlir so that we cud start early. We cruised (in PT Cruiser) at 95mph on the road to Vegas. As we entered Nevada, there lied stretches of land with no habitat, vegetation and to top it all - the desert heat. Clicked some beautiful snaps of the Zzyzx road exit and the cacti. As we approached Vegas, the excitement kept growing and voila - there we were on Las Vegas Blvd. The Fountain show at Belagio was awesome. We then walked on "the strip", visiting different casinos. We then realized that we needed to gamble here or else it wudn't be a gr8 trip. After observing the different bets, we decided to go for the Russian roulette. Initially, we lost some money, but soon recovered from the loss as we kept betting more and more. And then again started losing..thats the pt we had to stop to avoid bankruptcy. I liked the interiors at Paris Casino. We had a breath taking roller coaster ride at New York New York. The lion at MGM Grand was inviting us to play some more, but we managed to resist the temptation. Had a quick sub and clicked some good snaps. Billya drove us back thru the night with the loud muzic keeping him awake. We reached Los Angeles at 7am, dropped Baptya for his conference (which I assume he must have attended in deep sleep) and returned to Irvine for a hearty breakfast and coffee. There is one more thing that also happened ..but which is a suspense...after all What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!!

Mumbai blasts: An NRI's view

2006-07-11T13:33:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer:
This has been taken from rediff.com
http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/12nri.htm?q=tp&file=.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you live and work in the US, but were born and raised in Mumbai, you may understand my feelings.

Death is never pretty. But, when it comes in the form of seven bombs that rip through passenger trains at rush hour in your hometown, the word 'gory' takes on new meaning.

The blasts occurred between 6 and 6.30 pm in Mumbai. Latest estimates indicate 150 dead, with several hundred injured, most of whom are critical. Train services have shut down and local telephone lines are jammed. The day may have ended, but the trauma has just begun.

As a Non-Resident Indian, this is a strange feeling. You want to help, but the only thing you can do is make a few phone calls. You want to feel sad, but you are too far away to know what it's like for an official standing in the middle of mangled bodies at dinnertime. You want to curse the 'system', but it is no longer yours to curse. In essence, you feel helpless.

I know I do.

There is nothing I can do, and it hurts. Perhaps this could have been prevented, perhaps not.

Having said that, who am I to blame anybody, considering I no longer live in my own country? I have no authority anymore to criticize the way things work in Mumbai, because I now watch events on CNN and only check rediff.com once in a while. I admit -- I can't remember the last time I saw a Hindi movie or cooked a traditional Indian meal. I live like a foreigner and do not know what is going on in my city. The only time I sit up and take notice is on a day like today.

It is sad and, perhaps, shameful. It fosters a feeling of guilt. All these feelings exploded today and made me realize that you can take a man away from his city, but you cannot take the city out of the man. I speak for myself when I say that, as an NRI, Mumbai is an integral part of who I am, regardless of where I live.

Mahatma Gandhi once said "A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, nothing else".

If there is anything you or I can do to ease the pain for Mumbai, we should. If that means taking some time off from work to call or e-mail old friends and relatives today, so be it. If that means sitting still and praying for the dead and dying, so be it. If it means recognizing the simple things we take for granted every day, so be it.

And, if it means remembering you are an Indian, and should feel India's pain (just as you have enjoyed India's nurture and education before moving to another country), so be it.

Interactions

2006-06-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

For the past few days, i have been interacting with a lot of techie colleagues at Broadcom, people with 10-15 years of experience in industry. We had discussions on various topics ranging from : how to start a "startup",IT, cultures, economy, war, Indo-US nuclear deal, spiritual, etc. It has definitely given me a new perspective to look at things. Here I have met people from all over the world, in fact true amru's are in a minority. It helped me to see how different people look at the world politics and state of affairs. One of my colleagues is deep into spirituality; he knows more than me regarding Hinduism, meditation, yoga and the vedas. I was amazed and a bit ashamed too! The talk on US economy, federal interest rates ,etc enlightened me. One of them is deeply interested in academic work and what we learn in our Masters program.

Looking at all this, i am getting some good inputs here, ..abhijit..welcome to the real-world!

Ghum jao

2006-06-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

The past 2-3 weeks have been pretty good at work and at home too. I managed to learn some good concepts from my internship at Broadcom and I am slowly getting a feel of things. It was just 6-7 months back when I ventured into the kernel space, I thought this is the core work i wanna do...i possibly cant go deeper than the kernel...but here at Broadcom, i realized that the kernel came to life much later..there was a whole lot of hardware and board level bootloader which then transferred the control to the kernel...good to see how bare metal (silicon as they call it) comes to LIFE.. I saw the entire process from board bootup to an actual video being played on the HDTV using our board and it was amazing. Embedded definitely seems to be an intersting arena to venture in..

I also visited a few places around Irvine. The most striking among it being Beverly Hills, It was like heaven with all the goodies spread around...a must visit if u plan to goto LA. Every street has countless Merks, BMWs and all the exotic cars running around. The scenic beauty is enjoyable. Shopping here can drill a big hole in the pocket though!
The week before, I visited the Wild Animal Park @ San Diego. It was a perfect 1-day trip...drive for 80 miles on I-5 and enjoy the entire day at the park. We also did a Balloon safari, the balloon takes us 400ft above ground to get an aerial view of the park span. The train ride along the park was informative.
I also visited Laguna beach, Huntington beach over the weekend. Plan to learn surfing if time permits.

A lot of time was also spent in watching sports - we had a wonderful NBA season with Miami heats stealing it from the Mavericks. World Cup fever is heating up and my favorites are Argentina this time..they seem to be playing well so far. Ghana struck a surprise and secured place in the 2nd round...lets see what they have to offer..

Overall, fan(aa) in California

All set and rocking

2006-05-31T22:45:00.000-07:00

The busy days are back with the first week of internship starting a new period in life.. my first corporate experience in america. Its been good and I am enjoying the work so far..ah..this kernel programming is sehr gut! The long weekend was spent by a short visit to Los Angeles and parts near Hollywood. I must mention that it was my first long drive of 100 miles, and I enjoyed the car drive thru the mountains. Had a good Maharashtrian lunch and went to Walmart for some shopping. The rest of the weekend, I just relaxed at home watching some good English movies like The Terminal and Minority Report. Bachelors party in Vegas has given the perfect setting to plan a visit to Las Vegas in the near future.

Orange, continued...

2006-05-20T19:57:00.000-07:00

Just landed in my dream county, Orange which also is the 2nd most expensive county in United States. Things are settling down and I enjoyed the 4 hr Delta flight. Feels good to be on the West coast, close to San Diego, Las Vegas and Los Angeles and yes the Rocky Mountains. I had a glimpse during my flight and it was an awesome sight. Oh and I was all alone on the 3 seats, it was a sparsely populated crowd .. so enjoyed my space. Watched Hoodwinked on the flight and ate some excellent cookies. I recently rented a car here and my driving experience has been good so far. While searching for a parking spot, I landed on the San diego freeway and had no clue of what was going on. Suddenly, vehicles in full speed and I had to step on the pedal to maintain...then found an exit and came back to Tustin, only to land right in front of an Indian restaurant - Haveli.
Ate some delicious gulabjamuns, Paneer, Pakodas and delicious fruit salad. Then drove back to my home and finally found parking much closer to my house.

There ends my 1st day of enjoyment in Irvine..lots to do on weekend - a visit to the beach maybe.

Orange, CA

2006-05-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

Ha ha.. a perfect plan to spend the summer at Orange county, California. A 10 mile drive and i step into office, work hard for 8 hrs and then spend the evening at Laguna beach..with the pacific ocean. Eat some sea food and drive back home..sounds too good..and after all its in line with my CA dream. There's Disney around to spend a weekend. Los Angeles and Hollywood are close too. As one of the movies says..nobody comes from LA, everybody goes to LA. I think the summer will be just gr8 and will pass out soon too, just as all good days fly and then I will be back to school, my own little Blacksburg (kalewadi, as we marathi crowd call it). Hope to spend some quality time and have fun...abhi...CA se bulawa aya hai!!

Corporate America

2006-05-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

The last week has been pretty hectic for me trying to step in the world of corporate america. Some tough decisions have been made and i have tried to follow moral standards in making them. A lot of people including me were hurt in this issue of principles, but finally I think its the right decision. Its only a glimpse of what might happen before I graduate, and I already have some lessons learnt out of this experience. Jaan jaie, par vachan na jai!..ppl who track me closely will mostly understand what all this is about, others can keep wondering or drop me a email to find out !

People try to catch god! and god catch says catch me if u can!

Memorable evening

2006-04-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

I am just coming back from a party arranged by my prof Dr.Madhav Marathe and his wife Achla. It was a really memorable evening. Originally planned a pizza party, but we students decided to add some spice to it and prepared the famous "Bombay Bhel", Chicken and Pudding to top it all. The Amrus and Germans just enjoyed this Indian stuff and believe me they hardly ate any pizza. In fact, we had to prepare another round of bhel due to excessive demand. We also got a few gifts for the kids and I was amazed to see the kids singing "Kal ho na ho" and playing it on the Piano as well....i always repent not learning to play any musical instrument in my life.. its just so simple to impress everyone in a party like that!

The house was decorated well and in a pretty serene locality..felt like we were in UK for a while with the mountains just behind us.. i felt i shud have a house like that.. and a laptop to work on my thesis in such awesome conditions.

The desserts like cake, pudding and ice-cream were different too and I had loads of it! Achla also prepared tradiitonal Indian chai, which i cudnt deny at all.. after all its my ekach pyala.. the 1 cup keeps me going day in and day out.

In the end, lot of pictures taken and lot of enjoyment. Hope to have some more parties like that next week after the semester ends!

Orkutting

2006-04-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

The Orkut fever has been rising for quite some time now and the time had to come to break it - orkut recently introduced a new feature called profile views.
Boon or a bane?

Well, the smart guys at Google wanted users to know who is viewing their profile and it will no longer be a secret. There is an option to disable it - but then it comes with a penalty for you too - fair enough! even the refresh time has been set to a day to avoid ppl from changing this setting often! - a well crafted plan indeed..

On one hand, it prevents u from simply surfing on orkut for obvious reasons :-)
But as Karyzma and me discussed this the other day, we can always have a secondary profile created exclusively for surf purposes - smarter than the Googleites thought!!
I personally feel this move is to promote the Google romance stuff they released on April 1. They now want the serious users to shift to that product rather than hanging around on Orkut.

Happy aur kut!

Phases of life

2006-04-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

I just received an email from a prospective VT student...and the thought passed by my mind.. i was sending similar emails last year to my seniors here..nice to see the cycle repeat and being on the other side of the world this time. Its so beautiful to find that the same month can mean so many different things to each person like--

for a baby - all days are the same.. enjoyment throughout
for a school going kid - mid-April is holiday season and again lots of fun
for a college guy - hmm,, engineering exams, submission and PL round the corner
prospective grads - funding milega kya??
for 1st year Grad students - internship hunt?
for 2nd year Grads - job search and thesis completion?
for PhD studs - qualifier exam; paper publish hoga kya?
for a construction worker in US - time to get to work, these sunny days dont last long!
for employed guys - will I get a promotion?

the list could go on.. what phase r u in currently??

Patchy

2006-04-03T20:17:00.000-07:00

Dont be surprised to see another blog from me in a span of 2-3 days, but things are going in such ugly manners and beyond my controls that I cant help it. Just another glimpse in the life of a self-proclaimed "kernel programmer". Its been a week now that I am debugging this matter of spinlock recursion and all efforts to solve this problem have proved futile. Even after implementing some debug tricks suggested by "Sweet Hit" (email me to find out what this means as i cant disclose this in public), spinlocks keep troubling me and giving me sleepless nights and sleepy days! This is a second blow to my dreams of becoming a kernel programmer - the first being when I took an entire semester to port the VTRR patch on 2.6 kernel. Mailing lists dont seem to help either - confusing me more ...and as i write this blog, dont think i am doing timepass bcoz the kernel is undergoing another brutal compilation in parallel...to end up hopelessly in failure again!

Why?

2006-04-01T15:51:00.000-08:00

This ones gonna be a bit abstract and a mixture of random thoughts - so beware!!

Sometimes, I keep wondering why ? - for everything like why am I in this world?, what is the purpose of life?, why are we supposed to earn money? , why did I land up in America?, why am I doing masters?

So many questions and no concrete answers really..i also wonder how man cries over petty things - if u take the bird's eye view -> we have a huge solar system with Earth being just 1 small planet, India being such a small country and above all myself being just a small individual in this whole Solar system!!.. and then we men wake up everyday, perform our daily activities in life and go to sleep each night ..waking up the next morning to do almost the same stuff..i sometimes feel there is some external entity governing our actions -> who indirectly treats mankind as Robots -> and we try to invent robots ourselves leading to a recursion!

I know that i dont want to sound like a saint delivering sermons, neither do i want to be one, but i mean is that all we HAVE to do in life? If you guys reading this .now understand that u have been fooled by me in this unique way. could answer some of my questions or at least agree to my thoughts, plz dont hesitate to post your comments.

Industry vs Academia

2006-03-25T17:31:00.000-08:00

Its taken me a while to realize this....but better late than never ..i found quite a bit of similarities between Industry and the academia. The calendar for a typical industry would look like hire, train, design, develop and sell your product. At each stage we have deadlines and targets. The academia has similar stuff - admit new students, teach them courses and get them engaged in research .. u might wonder well whats the output.. here it is -> lots of publications in renowned journals. The calendar of academia for any Prof is lined up with various conferences and workshops for that year and which ones to target for publishing research. Coming to targets -> masters students have fewer publishing requirements - typically 1 to 2, whereas PhD's cant graduate without at least 5 publications. Isnt this similar to giving a new joinee a small target and the people at the top a higher goal?
Academia runs like a corporate powerhouse too, with promotions for Professors based on their research output, number of students who graduate under them and so on.
It feels great to have experienced both sides of this equally for almost a year now!
I coin a new term here - the Duality of academia and industry.

Anubhav vikat ghetla

2006-03-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

Today I really got to know the meaning of the Marathi proverb - "anubhav vikat ghyaycha asto". I wanted to try something fundu after my midterm, so walked straight to the most expensive on campus food court - Sbarro. Didnt want to eat the regular cheese pizza, neither wanted to try non-veg stuff - although all this is excellent at Sbarro! I ordered a "Spinach Strombolli" - just thought of Popeye the sailor man, thought of gaining some instant strength with this. But alas, it tasted horrible - i couldnt eat more than 2 morsels, the accompanying sauce was much better ..

At the end of day, I had shedded $5 (Rs.200 approx, cant resist this conversion even after 7 months in Amrika - passing thought -> cud have had a great Gujarati thali with sweet dish at Bhola near my house) and I remained hungry - thanks to Sbarro!

Lesson of the day -> u need to buy experiences , hope it is not that costly in the future!!

Live at Blacksburg

2006-03-18T14:10:00.000-08:00

The last week has been pretty normal, life picking up after a week long Spring Break - a refreshing one indeed!
The weathers been good in general, with Amrus leaving no chance to wear skimpy clothes when Sun God is out.
My research continues at a slow pace.. i can best describe it as the TCP congestion window algorithm, where it grows exponentially until I reach a point where i am stuck (the congestion phase) and then I drop down to half of my original enthu, sometimes even forget about it for a day (like the TCP Tahoe)..a typical saw tooth curve!!
The Holi Hungama organized by ISA is the upcoming event this weekend - i really appreciate the organizers for finding time to do all this and keep the Indianness alive!
Midterms round the corner and i can smell that the questions are gonna be tough.. better get going and improve my throughput..

Ich lerne Java

2006-03-10T17:55:00.000-08:00

I finally got the motivation to learn Java programming - our Networks project!
Socket pogamming in C was done ages back and I wanted some real take aways from the project besides learning about network parameters and its working. That drove me to explore Java APIs for networks - and they are amazing. Java beautifully has everything to make a programmers life easy - one liner statements (use Eclipse and u dont even need to type one line completely).
The outcome - faster development cycle and GodCatch ends up learning Java, adding one more arrow to his resume.
Its the feel good factor, i "finally" have "synchronized" with the "thread" called Java!

Friends - happy coding!

Techie wars

2006-03-05T16:29:00.000-08:00

Every morning in Seattle, Bill Gates awakens. He has only one thought on his mind: To be able to earn faster than the fastest competitor - Google. If he cannot, then he will be eaten.

Every morning in California, Larry Page awakens. He has only one thought on his mind: To be able to earn faster than the fierce competitor - Microsoft. If he cannot, he will be eaten.

Whether you choose to be with Microsoft or Google is of no consequence. It is enough to know that with the rising of the sun, you must code and earn. And you must code better and earn more than you did yesterday or you will die (ur job will be Banglored).

"This is the race of money."

Spring Break

2006-03-02T18:12:00.000-08:00

Hurray! its time for Spring break - which means half of the semester is gone..can u believe it!
U ask me plans for the break - definitely not Florida again, though this is the ideal time to be sun basking and bird watching on Miami beach. For me, the break will be much better than the Thanksgiving one I had in Fall, when there were 3 courses and 2 projects due and lots of other stuff like writing a paper on my research, etc.

This ones surely a bit relaxed - might plan a cricket match with desis in Blacksburg, plan to go to my favorite research space VBI - its a lot of fun when all friends like Lele ( i actually call him "aho Lele" bcoz he is a typical Mumbaikar), our annadata - Seth (aka HokieSam aka Sameer Tupe) - who has made VBI his first home due to thesis overload or shud I call hotel with eatables like chakli, khakra, wafers, donuts, etc specially from his India trip) and Farid, Kash and Aseem who hang around occasionally. As you all might have imagined, I am the one disturbing all these guys by dropping in to say hi and eating up their precious time by talking nonsense.

Other plans include doing a Networks project, thesis and Advanced systems paper reading. Hope to spend a decent break in Blacksburg and hope i dont have to spend the summer here ( those who know me will get this)!

Enjoy Hokies!

GodCatch - Caught on the wrong foot!

2006-02-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

Today I interviewed with the world's no 1 software giant - Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT). Feels awesome to blog this on Google's own - Blogspot!

As the title of the blog goes, I was "caught" on the wrong foot. Mera bad luck hi bad tha! I messed up the once in a lifetime opportunity. All my hard work on preparation for the interview went in vain; even my thesis stuff didnt seem to click this time and I was unable to impress him. It was one of those evil days in my life.

The evening was spent drinking Dr.Pepper to add "jale pe namak" (already have a sore throat still). The night was wonderful though, with a call from NetApp for an informal session at PK's.

My resolve now is stronger..i will complete the scheduler this year. going at this rate, the file system, memory management, drivers and UI wud take another 4 yrs. Including the time to integrate all this together, I will be ready with my GodCatchOS in 5 years from now..and maybe will do this as my PhD from Berkeley or Stanford!

Shud I dare to say this: Microsoft, u have another Google coming in the next 5 years.. BEWARE!

God Catches Cold!

2006-02-15T20:54:00.000-08:00

I caught a bad cold and even worse sore throat infection yesterday. That too when I had a thesis meeting with my prof and another paper discussion and research at VBI and HW due the next day and IBM info session and my cooking turn. Oh what a bad timing to fall ill!

I somehow managed to go to campus and do ALL of this pretty well in fact. But at the end of the day, I fell in bed at 10pm, too early as compared to my normal standards these days. I got up today morning felt a bit better and as the day passed, I almost forgot that I was sick at all.

Was this bcoz of Valentine's day effect?

Cooking is Fun!

2006-02-07T20:13:00.000-08:00

One good thing I learnt here is cooking is fun!! I dont see the reason why most females (especially wives) complain about the pain of cooking. Well i agree, its a bit difficult in India, bcoz you need to actually cut vegetables, knead the dough, etc. In the Americas, everything is packed and frozen..(may not necessarily be healthy, but who cares when u r already eating a lot of cheese and chicken to compensate)so much easier to just cut the packet and ur done!

I have become an expert in most Indian recipes like the famous Maharashtrian zunka eat it with tortilla and u will keep eating, rajma, moong dal are my other delicacies. Want something real quick, fried rice and Maggi taste awesome.

I must admit that i havent tried a lot many breakfast recipes like upma, pohe...so thats still an OFI.

Happy Cooking guys.. enjoy it and u'll like it!!

Beautiful February

2006-02-05T06:31:00.000-08:00

Its a beautiful Saturday morning in February, my favorite month of the year. I feel like going out for a long walk, but assignments which are due next week hold me back. I start working on them and soon find them pretty interesting. I am solving this Networks problems and one of them was "whats the width of a bit in meters?" and i am like what??, am i reading it correctly?..i confirm that thats what is asked and soon find out what it means intuitively.

I had a voice chat with kary and we had fun using traceroute finding where the common web servers were "physically" located. I had a cup full of Butter Pecan icecream too. The night ended with a movie "From here to eternity" one of the oldies (black and white) based on Pearl Harbor. It was enuf to put me to sleep.

More when I wake up!

Life of a Systems Programmer

2006-01-30T07:24:00.000-08:00

I have started working on my Masters thesis these days. It involves a lot of changes to the 2.6 O(1) scheduler and I am having a few (rather many) nightmares.The kernel has been compiled 140 times already and my laptop hard disk has to bear all the heat. I fear it shud not crash; its making all kinds of weird noises when i run my scheduler. It would be nice to have a simple way to try out changes in the kernel instead of a full recompile each time; any takers for this project?

My Windows XP machine too seems to be behaving oddly these days with crashes being the norm rather than the exception. It failed to detect a LAN connection and running 2 VM's (out of which 1 was doing fsck) on top of a meagre 1GB memory put the final nail in the coffin. I tried using Ubuntu (one of the freebies i got), and it failed to install wireless connection, so dumb of it.

As you can see, life is currently full of pain handling all different types of s/w and Operating systems. Wait for the launch of GodCatch-OS, thats what i say to pacify myself; after all thats what is every system programmer;s dream!!

Happy Republic Day

2006-01-26T06:56:00.001-08:00

Today, we celebrated the Indian Republic Day at Virginia Tech. The Indian Students Association had organized a flag hoisting ceremony. It felt great to sing the national anthem after a long time. The flag fluttered beautiful over the Tech winds..awesome sight to watch. It was good to see Indian students (grads and undergrads) coming in good numbers.. just shows how much everyone loves India and misses it. We also had a few Indian families who have settled in Blacksburg come for this event.

The event was followed a a speech by Dr.Dutta, who is involved with International Affairs at the University. I also enjoyed the coffee (which was needed badly due to the cold out here), and muffins.

This event was also the first to be organized by the new ISA members and they indeed did their HW well. it was well organized.. hats off to them! Hope we get to enjoy many more events under their tenure.

Racket Ball

2006-01-21T19:14:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I found time to play racket ball at War Memorial Hall, Virginia Tech for the first time . Its a game similar to squash. Me and Aseem teamed up versus Vikrant and Vivek. I played pretty well and in fact we defeated our opponents in 2/3 sets. I remembered the time when I used to play a home version of squash with Akki (my brother). I used to always corner him and the similar techniques could be applied in racket ball. I have always felt that I am pretty good in doubles tactics. We had a badminton tournament organized when I was in CalSoft and I had teamed up with George, our HR who is in his 60's. To my surprise, we gave a very tough fight to our opponents. I must admit that we lost that game, but putting up a good fight was important.

I plan to find time for racket ball at least once a week. Its a good exercise and teaches you team player skills like court coverage and co-ordination.

First week at Classes

2006-01-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

The first week turned out pretty good. My body seems to be slowly adjusting to the new schedule, wakeup at 8am instead of 10, sleep at 12 midnight instead of 2am. The exercise routine is on its way too and I hope I will get time (if not, find time) to continue this.

Classes have been interesting too - meeting new Professors and discussing technology again..its fun u see! I am also actively trying to make some American friends in class - u see it helps to get a ride to Walmart!! Assignments dont seem to be pouring in as yet, but as they call it, its the silence b4 the storm!!
I have started my first attempt to learn Java, which seems decent upto this point. Surroundings have forced me to learn this, u see Survival of the fittest is the mantra in the Software industry and Java is surely HOT.

Time to cool off.

Google AdSense

2006-01-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

Guys, I just thought of earning some money based on my web presence (my website).

i have signed up for Google Adsense and included the code on my webpages. So now Google displays some relevant ads on my webpages and I earn few pennies for every click from my website.

Do take a look at http://filebox.vt.edu/users/adeodhar

Good to learn how Google might be earning its revenue and if luck has it, some might flow into my account!!

Plz remember to click at least one and donate generously to me!..

On your mark, Get set, GO!

2006-01-15T16:03:00.000-08:00

The Spring semester is about to begin in a couple of days.

You can imagine my situation after having a good 1 month break!
Classes have to be attended, assignments have to be done on time again, marks have to be earned CONSISTENTLY to keep up good grades. Its a lot of work for a kid like me. dont know how my tini little brain handles all that.

But once the semester begins, its really a lot of fun. The campus is all full with ... and a lot of activity all around. Occasional snowfall changes the landscape entirely and I love to play in the snow. Days start flying.. Monday and Friday seem to coalesce and Sat, Sun are spent doing projects with friends.. thats a lot of fun again. Life suddenly has meaning as against vacation where time literally has to be killed.

Hope i get time to blog during this semester.

Search is ON

2006-01-15T15:55:00.000-08:00

Its the end of the 1st semester of my Masters program and an ideal time to look out for internships beginning in the Summer. Resumes have been sent across and now I keep waiting for interview calls. Hopefully, the mail box will be full soon with lot of opportunities. I really need to catch God for this!!

I would love to be in a position where I can choose where I want to go. My ideal location would be of course in the heart of Silicon Valley, California. The reason being simple - i would get to see another part of the US, especially the West coast. Besides, a software engineer's life is a waste if he doesnt go to Calif at least once in his career (thats what I feel sincerely, plz ignore if u disagree).

More on the progress as days pass!

Houston Retreat

2006-01-06T15:29:00.000-08:00

It was a perfect way to celebrate 5 months in US.. a gettogether of DYPCIans who had come for MS in Fall 2005.

We (I, Kary, Guddya) met at Vivek's place in Houston, Texas. Amit flew from Maryland, me from Florida and Gud from Kansas. It was one of the dreams come true - things which we had imagined before departure in India were finally taking shape.

The first day was marked by Munich , the new Spielberg movie we watched at AMC theatre. We later went Ice skating at the Galleria. Not to mention how many times I fell, i was falling more than skating - an utter shame for me. All others did pretty well especially Gud and Viv who picked up quite fast. But it was fun indeed.. hope to improve next time!

How can one miss NASA or shud i call it "nasha"? The Johnson space center was good and it gave an educational angle to this trip. Clicking photos was fun there. We also went on a Tram tour where we met (oh cant mention the name)....
It was interesting to watch Gud and Kary chat with her for minutes.. on all topics related to NASA ... dont know why they cudnt gather enuf courage for a photo session with her!

On the third day, we went to Hermen Brown Park.. again cant miss the snaps we took there thanks to Kary's ideas from DCH. The food at Souper Salad was delicioius..

I must mention the mehmaan navazi by Vivek and his parents - this trip wudnt be possible without it.

In all, a well planned and enjoyable vacation.

Florida trip

2006-01-03T06:50:00.000-08:00

I'll talk today about my Florida trip.

Plans started early December when i could see that I had a whole month ahead with not much to do after my exams.

Internet has made things very easy indeed. Just chatted with my friend Sachin in Gainesville who was excited about it. Tickets were booked via Orbitz too.

We rented a car in Gainseville and set off with 2 other friends for Orlando, Florida. Hotel bookings had been done via online bidding for Courtyard Marriott near Orlando Airport.

We visited the 2 theme parks - Universal Studios and Universal Studios - Islands of Adventure.
It was amazing. the rides made us really crazy especially the Hulk, Mummy and the Duelling dragons.

We then drove to St.Pete, one of the beaches in Tampa, Florida. The waters were really cold. It was good to visit a beach in US, my first one indeed. Besides, it was Gulf of Mexico alike the oceans seen in India. I really enjoyed a mile long walk on the beach.

We came back fully refreshed for tackling the coming Spring semester.

4 months in US

2005-12-03T17:12:00.000-08:00

I just realized today that I completed 4 months of stay in Virginia, USA.

Days have really gone fast.. not much time to roam around.. but I am desperately looking forward to the month-long December vacation.

Plans have been made to visit Florida and Washington + maryland. Houston is on the cards too.

I hope at least 2 of these materialize and make my vacation a memorable one!

My Website

2005-12-03T17:05:00.001-08:00

Today it gives me great pleasure to launch my own website.

Heres a link to it: http://filebox.vt.edu/users/adeodhar

Maintaining a good website is important for a Grad student. It helps to make your work public so that you get comments and critique on it.

feel free to comment on my website.

For Prospective employers: I am actively looking out for Internship position in Summer 2006.

bye for now,
Abhijit Deodhar.

Hello World!

2005-03-16T03:08:00.000-08:00

This is my first Blog ever.
Hence i name it as Hello World! , similar to learning a new computer language.
I started this blog today to give a vent to all my thoughts about the world around me.

Lets see how it goes!