Recently I have been travelling a lot and always been looking for good sites to find the best air fare and schedule which suites my needs.
In this field, I would advise folks not to use www.makemytrip.com in case they are booking the tickets from behind a corp net or a firewall. It appears to me that their servers caches a IP-Address to request mapping, possibly in the cookie and doesnt clear it even after you clean up your browser cache or change your browser or machine altogether. So, dont be surprised if you go to this site, ask for Flights from Delhi to Mumbai and you end up seeing results for Cochin to Kolkata. This is because somebody in your corpnet might have used this site to search for flights for these locations and you and your colleague sharing the same IP Address for the external world, would screw up each other queries.
I would suggest, use travelguru.com which doesnt seem to have this problem and by far cleaner than previous site I mentioned. But I found that the air fares on this site were comparably higher than the actual fares one can find on the airline site. This could be because of two reasons:
1) Either the travelguru site takes extra commision from the airline (unlikely),
2) Fares have been dropping since last two months, and hence airlines have updates their sites but travel sites haven't.
I am yet to try other good sites in this business but by far I am not satisfied with the quality they deliver, specially when you are entrusted to pin your credit card number on such sites.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Blogging from home....a different experience...
For long I have been a strong proponent of keeping the PCs and laptops out of personal life. But blame it on "work-load" these days or sheer solitude that I decided to carry over my office laptop to my room. I would have never applied for a broadband connection, but then I realised I can plug my phone into the laptop and use it as modem. Being EGPRS, its giving me almost 4 times the bandwidth of a GPRS.
Ok, with all this infrastructure in place, I thought weekend is the time you can sit and comtemplate on where you are heading towards..working all these weekdays. I have been reading "Maximum City" or rather sipping this book gradually as its a kind of "non-fiction" which has chunks which can tie you tightly and then some chunks when you put down the book because you realised that you have more interesting things to do just because the "interest-grade" of this part of the book has suddenly fallen down. But then you cant help to figure out the next interesting section of this book and so you carry on with it..in the hope of hitting on another one. This being a serial access model from File I/O as opposed to "random" access.
Forgot to mention this book was recommended to me by my good "old" friend and colleague - Sanjib.
Today being the World something AIDS day, I saw few red ribbon ads on TV, asking you to take precautions of all sorts. There have been several reports recently that number of AIDS effected patients have been hiped by some NGOs and agencies which can gain as middlemen by collecting larger funds on the name of supporting the patients.
This whole AIDS thing has not only hijacked other diseases but other causes too. Global warming seems to have been the worst effected. I think unlike AIDS, Global warming has never been projected as an individualistic dimension. You, as a person, can prevent from getting HIV positive but noone tells you clearly that you, as a person, can help to save the humanity on this planet. Whenever it comes to Global Warming, people only talk about environment conferences in some part of Europe, mostly Switzerland (by the way...least likely to be effected by sea leve rise. A good place to have a conference on Environment would be Hawaii!!!) or developing country versus developed country debate in WTO etc. Noone takes it at individual level. Granted that there is a world environment day too on 5th of June..but planting a croton in your backyard on a single day doesnt help much. Everyday you keep the lights on, charge your phone, drive your car to work. Everyone knows that all this matters. Anyway, central or state governments in India..seem to be more worried about Aaaja Nachle songs these days or who fuelled gujarat riots some n years back or when should Sanjay Dutt go in and come out of jail.
I hope things will change soon and there will be more plant-trees and save-electricity ads. As usual everyone waits for the last day before the deadline to finish the work, I think this needs a slighter better approach than Just-In-Time.
Ok, with all this infrastructure in place, I thought weekend is the time you can sit and comtemplate on where you are heading towards..working all these weekdays. I have been reading "Maximum City" or rather sipping this book gradually as its a kind of "non-fiction" which has chunks which can tie you tightly and then some chunks when you put down the book because you realised that you have more interesting things to do just because the "interest-grade" of this part of the book has suddenly fallen down. But then you cant help to figure out the next interesting section of this book and so you carry on with it..in the hope of hitting on another one. This being a serial access model from File I/O as opposed to "random" access.
Forgot to mention this book was recommended to me by my good "old" friend and colleague - Sanjib.
Today being the World something AIDS day, I saw few red ribbon ads on TV, asking you to take precautions of all sorts. There have been several reports recently that number of AIDS effected patients have been hiped by some NGOs and agencies which can gain as middlemen by collecting larger funds on the name of supporting the patients.
This whole AIDS thing has not only hijacked other diseases but other causes too. Global warming seems to have been the worst effected. I think unlike AIDS, Global warming has never been projected as an individualistic dimension. You, as a person, can prevent from getting HIV positive but noone tells you clearly that you, as a person, can help to save the humanity on this planet. Whenever it comes to Global Warming, people only talk about environment conferences in some part of Europe, mostly Switzerland (by the way...least likely to be effected by sea leve rise. A good place to have a conference on Environment would be Hawaii!!!) or developing country versus developed country debate in WTO etc. Noone takes it at individual level. Granted that there is a world environment day too on 5th of June..but planting a croton in your backyard on a single day doesnt help much. Everyday you keep the lights on, charge your phone, drive your car to work. Everyone knows that all this matters. Anyway, central or state governments in India..seem to be more worried about Aaaja Nachle songs these days or who fuelled gujarat riots some n years back or when should Sanjay Dutt go in and come out of jail.
I hope things will change soon and there will be more plant-trees and save-electricity ads. As usual everyone waits for the last day before the deadline to finish the work, I think this needs a slighter better approach than Just-In-Time.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Learning and hard times...
When was the last time you consciously took an effort to change the way your life is going? Changing jobs , getting married or divorced, having babies are too big changes and lets keep them out of the spectrum I am talking about.
One of the changes I am talking about is learning new things or new ways of doing things you have been doing so far. Lets say learning to drive a car, to play a guitar, to work out to get a 6 pack etc etc. I realised that when you pick up these things, there are several roadblocks which you have to hit.
Age-factor?? Nah..
-----------------------
When people say they are too old to learn certain things, they are not exactly talking about their diminishing learning power with age. I think in any age, a man will be man and he will be better than a monkey. If monkey can learn things, then a man too can. So what is that hold people back and give such excuses when it comes to learning new stuff. I think the first and foremost thing is ego. It really needs attitude to sit with 8 year olds and learn guitar when may be the 8 year old is playing better than you. Another reason could be sheer lack of motivation. I think you shouldnt do things unless you are passionate about them. Since passion is the next stage of motivation, you'll never hit this roadblock.
Not-getting-right Phase
-----------------------
Then there is a phase when people try hard and get frustated when things dont go in the right direction as they had planned. For instance, you might have done all 150 kms of driving classes but when it comes to taking the driving test, you fail.
I believe there is a "Not-getting-right" phase in every learning process which is actually testing you back. It tests your patience, your character and your attitude.
Remember, last time you gave up something like playing guitar when you couldnt play a bar chord. I think thats the most crucial part of learning anything. This is the phase which really needs focus and dedication. If you drop out of this point, then you probably learnt few skills but you actually failed in what you wanted to achieve.
So, try to mark this phase clearly in the mind when you go through a learning process next time and remember to stay focussed at least during this phase. You'll definitely achieve what you started off for.
One of the changes I am talking about is learning new things or new ways of doing things you have been doing so far. Lets say learning to drive a car, to play a guitar, to work out to get a 6 pack etc etc. I realised that when you pick up these things, there are several roadblocks which you have to hit.
Age-factor?? Nah..
-----------------------
When people say they are too old to learn certain things, they are not exactly talking about their diminishing learning power with age. I think in any age, a man will be man and he will be better than a monkey. If monkey can learn things, then a man too can. So what is that hold people back and give such excuses when it comes to learning new stuff. I think the first and foremost thing is ego. It really needs attitude to sit with 8 year olds and learn guitar when may be the 8 year old is playing better than you. Another reason could be sheer lack of motivation. I think you shouldnt do things unless you are passionate about them. Since passion is the next stage of motivation, you'll never hit this roadblock.
Not-getting-right Phase
-----------------------
Then there is a phase when people try hard and get frustated when things dont go in the right direction as they had planned. For instance, you might have done all 150 kms of driving classes but when it comes to taking the driving test, you fail.
I believe there is a "Not-getting-right" phase in every learning process which is actually testing you back. It tests your patience, your character and your attitude.
Remember, last time you gave up something like playing guitar when you couldnt play a bar chord. I think thats the most crucial part of learning anything. This is the phase which really needs focus and dedication. If you drop out of this point, then you probably learnt few skills but you actually failed in what you wanted to achieve.
So, try to mark this phase clearly in the mind when you go through a learning process next time and remember to stay focussed at least during this phase. You'll definitely achieve what you started off for.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Freedom....
Today, I figured out a new way to reach this blog (Thanks to Live.com):
Type "madhur dixit" on your IE address bar (yes address bar!!). It will take you to Live.com search results for "madhur dixit". Now scroll down at the last result, it should be this blog.
Its not long ago when we had our independence day holiday and we were asked to stay away from office,as coming to office on that day would be a violation of some weird act known as Shops & Establishments Act. What an irony, on independence day, you need to follow some law which prohibits you from going to a very usual place like your work.
Anyway, I sat back at home and listened to Rehman's JaiHe on almost all TV channels performed by highly esteemed singers and instrumentalists (is it the right name for these folks?? dont know). To do my part, I tried playing Jan-Gan-Man, on my guitar and failed miserably. It turned out that I started to contemplate on what is the degree of freedom we all enjoy and what all are the parameters it depends on:
Parameter # 1: Money (and Fame):
I dont want to keep fame as a separate parameter because people who are famous but not rich hardly enjoy any freedom. For example, you'll find Medha Patkar mostly in jail rather than out in the open. She is famous but not rich.
On the other hand, you have Abhishek Bachhan, who has all the freedom to speak his mind. Recently, I read his quote on TOI -" babies shouldnt be planned, they should just happen". If we had a strict family planning law which would prosecute people who publicly encourage having large familiies, Abhishek would have been bars right now. Dude, enjoy your freedom. He is both Rich and Famous.
Parameter # 2: Political backing:
I could have written something separately on this, but turns out that all politicians are rich and famous anyway. Besides, they have all the liberty to throw chairs and mics on their colleagues in parliament. Ever wondered, if you and I had thrown chairs on our colleagues, we would have been laid off by now for violating standards of business conduct.
Parameter # n: Break the law guts:
This is the nth parameter as I am not aware of all parameters from 3 to (n-1). But the nth parameter deserves a special mention. There are folks who knowingly break the law, and get away with it. There would be so many aspiring Telgis, who would like to make thousands of crores at the cost of spending some 10-13 years in jail. Isn't this too less for a multi-billion scam. Specially when majority of the people in Indian work for whole of their life to earn few thousands/lakhs of rupees.
So much for free India, while I crib about not being able to enter most pubs in Hyderabad because they dont "allow" singles in, there are folks in this country, who work day and nite to earn their bread, in coal mines, begging on traffic signals, breaking stones etc. [So mean here to write etc]. Good news is that there are some professions like maid servants, cook, driver which have started to pay really good sum of money.
Type "madhur dixit" on your IE address bar (yes address bar!!). It will take you to Live.com search results for "madhur dixit". Now scroll down at the last result, it should be this blog.
Its not long ago when we had our independence day holiday and we were asked to stay away from office,as coming to office on that day would be a violation of some weird act known as Shops & Establishments Act. What an irony, on independence day, you need to follow some law which prohibits you from going to a very usual place like your work.
Anyway, I sat back at home and listened to Rehman's JaiHe on almost all TV channels performed by highly esteemed singers and instrumentalists (is it the right name for these folks?? dont know). To do my part, I tried playing Jan-Gan-Man, on my guitar and failed miserably. It turned out that I started to contemplate on what is the degree of freedom we all enjoy and what all are the parameters it depends on:
Parameter # 1: Money (and Fame):
I dont want to keep fame as a separate parameter because people who are famous but not rich hardly enjoy any freedom. For example, you'll find Medha Patkar mostly in jail rather than out in the open. She is famous but not rich.
On the other hand, you have Abhishek Bachhan, who has all the freedom to speak his mind. Recently, I read his quote on TOI -" babies shouldnt be planned, they should just happen". If we had a strict family planning law which would prosecute people who publicly encourage having large familiies, Abhishek would have been bars right now. Dude, enjoy your freedom. He is both Rich and Famous.
Parameter # 2: Political backing:
I could have written something separately on this, but turns out that all politicians are rich and famous anyway. Besides, they have all the liberty to throw chairs and mics on their colleagues in parliament. Ever wondered, if you and I had thrown chairs on our colleagues, we would have been laid off by now for violating standards of business conduct.
Parameter # n: Break the law guts:
This is the nth parameter as I am not aware of all parameters from 3 to (n-1). But the nth parameter deserves a special mention. There are folks who knowingly break the law, and get away with it. There would be so many aspiring Telgis, who would like to make thousands of crores at the cost of spending some 10-13 years in jail. Isn't this too less for a multi-billion scam. Specially when majority of the people in Indian work for whole of their life to earn few thousands/lakhs of rupees.
So much for free India, while I crib about not being able to enter most pubs in Hyderabad because they dont "allow" singles in, there are folks in this country, who work day and nite to earn their bread, in coal mines, begging on traffic signals, breaking stones etc. [So mean here to write etc]. Good news is that there are some professions like maid servants, cook, driver which have started to pay really good sum of money.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Amitabha Bagchi...way Above Average
First of all thanks to Vinil, my colleague at Microsoft who reminded me that I have a blog which I realised I haven't touched for quite a while. Last week I read Amitabha Bagchi's Above Average. The decision to pick this book for reading was solely driven by the fact that it was lying on Crosswords's Best sellers of the month. I flipped around the pages of the book in the store and saw some reference of IIT, Computer Science ...I said thats it...thats what I came here for, to relive the memories of IIT. I picked the book and paid close to two fifty bucks and got it home. After reading the book, I think that book was worth every penny.
Amitabha though was narrating his own story, named the protagonist Arindam instead of Amitabha. I guess the fact that he was very candid in his language and exposing the "dark" secrets of his life drove him to at least change his name. Though in the beginning I thought its meant only for IITians who did graduation in CS but that would have made the target audience to few thousand people in this world, but as the story grew and I tried to imagine how different any other college life would have been, I agreed that any college student would have gone through most of all "this".
But I must confess his story was way more glamorous than most IITians would agree to. If thats not true I can at least talk on behalf of most IIT Madras folks who would probably concur to my point. Another interesting thing is that all the macho action in the story is happening to people around Arindam(the protagonist). Our man is mostly a silent spectator and an observor to all that is happening around him, except for the kiss he took part in.
The story doesnt have a really happy ending but its quite realistic.
In terms of clarity and detail, I would compare Amitabha with the stand-up comedian Raju Shrivastav. Amitabha has used each and every detail specially around IIT life to create humour which makes you laugh or feel pity on IITians at times.
Hats off to Amitabha for such a pleasant reading on anybody's college life.
Amitabha though was narrating his own story, named the protagonist Arindam instead of Amitabha. I guess the fact that he was very candid in his language and exposing the "dark" secrets of his life drove him to at least change his name. Though in the beginning I thought its meant only for IITians who did graduation in CS but that would have made the target audience to few thousand people in this world, but as the story grew and I tried to imagine how different any other college life would have been, I agreed that any college student would have gone through most of all "this".
But I must confess his story was way more glamorous than most IITians would agree to. If thats not true I can at least talk on behalf of most IIT Madras folks who would probably concur to my point. Another interesting thing is that all the macho action in the story is happening to people around Arindam(the protagonist). Our man is mostly a silent spectator and an observor to all that is happening around him, except for the kiss he took part in.
The story doesnt have a really happy ending but its quite realistic.
In terms of clarity and detail, I would compare Amitabha with the stand-up comedian Raju Shrivastav. Amitabha has used each and every detail specially around IIT life to create humour which makes you laugh or feel pity on IITians at times.
Hats off to Amitabha for such a pleasant reading on anybody's college life.
Monday, May 28, 2007
How far can positive thinking take you??
Its been a long time ... and I've also grown up a little bit in this month :) . Whatever comes out my "philo bag" (Teena's coined word), is now more justified. I've been planning to write loads of things while I am at home during the weekend, but since I still believe that internet can stay away from me for at least 2 days of the week (Its better to be called as a citizen than a netizen). When I am at office, I just cant spare time to write and the miraculous thoughts just wane away. But I just pulled myself, shunned the laziness after working out in the gym, and started writing this over...after a long time indeed.
Now coming back to what I wanted to write. There has been a lot of research going around on human brain , not just in medical science but in computer science as well. The first field is more concerned with improving the brain , and the second more to imitate it!!. Nevertheless, I wont write how neurons and synapse work together here. The idea is more spiritual and abstract. Think of brain as a state machine, just like a Turing machine or your computer.
Now anything you see, listen, taste, hear and touch acts as an input to this state machine. There are other inputs to your brain , one from your subconscious (essentially gathered and mangled from the external senses listed earlier) and another from your unconscious (wanted to call it sub-sub-conscious), which is pretty much dependent on your previous incarnation (here comes the karma). Now, any input to brain from all these sources is packaged into one thing - The Thought. This thought goes over iterations in the brain to change brain's state and its own state several times over. While this process is going on, the ALU of brain i.e. cereberal, evaluates this thought and directly effects usual the body functions like digestion, blood circulation, cell creation and destruction. While the thought is being churned in celebral, you are very much conscious, because only conscious mind has the power to change the thought which is fed externally/internally to it. This is also the reason , why you get nightmares or sweet dreams, as you just cant control them. At this conscious stage, it is now very important that you take things in the most positive way and modify and shun the thoughts which could possibly take a toll on your physical health. So, remember every thought is directly connected to your physical health. The mediatation makes your brain strong enough to control your body through modifying your thoughts the way you want it. Thats also the gist of yoga and ayurveda in some sense, which believes in well being of the mind as well as body.
Now coming back to what I wanted to write. There has been a lot of research going around on human brain , not just in medical science but in computer science as well. The first field is more concerned with improving the brain , and the second more to imitate it!!. Nevertheless, I wont write how neurons and synapse work together here. The idea is more spiritual and abstract. Think of brain as a state machine, just like a Turing machine or your computer.
Now anything you see, listen, taste, hear and touch acts as an input to this state machine. There are other inputs to your brain , one from your subconscious (essentially gathered and mangled from the external senses listed earlier) and another from your unconscious (wanted to call it sub-sub-conscious), which is pretty much dependent on your previous incarnation (here comes the karma). Now, any input to brain from all these sources is packaged into one thing - The Thought. This thought goes over iterations in the brain to change brain's state and its own state several times over. While this process is going on, the ALU of brain i.e. cereberal, evaluates this thought and directly effects usual the body functions like digestion, blood circulation, cell creation and destruction. While the thought is being churned in celebral, you are very much conscious, because only conscious mind has the power to change the thought which is fed externally/internally to it. This is also the reason , why you get nightmares or sweet dreams, as you just cant control them. At this conscious stage, it is now very important that you take things in the most positive way and modify and shun the thoughts which could possibly take a toll on your physical health. So, remember every thought is directly connected to your physical health. The mediatation makes your brain strong enough to control your body through modifying your thoughts the way you want it. Thats also the gist of yoga and ayurveda in some sense, which believes in well being of the mind as well as body.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Indian Idol is back.......
Indian Idol is back on TV with its 3rd season. The fact that I am a music lover doesnt pull me so much to this show as my interest in the display of human emotions and idiosyncrasies which makes me a follower.
People can argue that most "reality" shows are "made up". But I guess at least the audition rounds can always be interesting to quench your reality desires. As far as talent hunt is concerned, it looks like they have done a good job this time. Rather than people approaching them, they have tried pro-active search for singers across big cities by going around and asking people - "do you know anybody who sings well?". Besides this season, the judge panel has changed. There are now 2 singers , one musician and one lyricist as compared to one singer, one choreographer and one musician last time around.
On the show, I look for the dream-come-true stories which are really inspiring although the people who are kicked out are always in majority but I believe there is always a next season and another talent hunt on another channel, so if you are good, there is no need to be disheartened. In fact, most good singers dont aspire to be any channel's idol. They all sing for themselves!!!.
Unfortunately, I couldnt watch the whole of 1st episode as I reached my home little late after a hectic friday.
People can argue that most "reality" shows are "made up". But I guess at least the audition rounds can always be interesting to quench your reality desires. As far as talent hunt is concerned, it looks like they have done a good job this time. Rather than people approaching them, they have tried pro-active search for singers across big cities by going around and asking people - "do you know anybody who sings well?". Besides this season, the judge panel has changed. There are now 2 singers , one musician and one lyricist as compared to one singer, one choreographer and one musician last time around.
On the show, I look for the dream-come-true stories which are really inspiring although the people who are kicked out are always in majority but I believe there is always a next season and another talent hunt on another channel, so if you are good, there is no need to be disheartened. In fact, most good singers dont aspire to be any channel's idol. They all sing for themselves!!!.
Unfortunately, I couldnt watch the whole of 1st episode as I reached my home little late after a hectic friday.
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