Phoenix

It's been a long time since I've updated my blog; four and a half months to be exact! A lot has changed. I left Raleigh, NC; moved to San Diego, CA; joined Qualcomm as a full time employee; Schumacher joined McLaren; Sania wed Shoaib (not that I care!); Facebook suddenly became the new bad-guy-on-the-block... Boy! So much has changed since I last blogged. It seems like a whole new world! Summers will be here in San Diego in a couple of days. The weather is beautiful now. Long weekend's round the corner. Aaah... I admit it. I have nothing to post. This is probably the most "scattered-idea" post of mine, ever! This marks the birth of a new tag for my posts - 'Bullshit'! PS: How can I miss this! Lucid Lynx was released recently and it broke some parts of Mac4Lin. I am working on the fixes, albeit slowly. I don't find much time due to my full-time job; but I am trying my best!

Another year has gone by. 2009 sped away; like the gusty winds of North Carolina! As with every year, here's a new year quote: May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions! -- Joey Adams That is one more reason NOT to make a new year resolution! The year started with my second semester at NC State, then an internship at Qualcomm in San Diego and then a feverish third semester. Of course with four courses in the last semester, it was bound to be meteoric! After a laborious one-and-half years, here I am with a Master's degree in Computer Engineering. It is so satisfying to see the hard work reflected on the degree :) It really feels strange though, when I think that I no longer have projects, assignments, exams! The very next day after my exams ended I followed the routine to check the course webpage for any new projects/assignments. It was then that I realized that my MS is over and I've graduated! It's a strange feeling... no project deadlines, ...

Yes, "long time no see". I've been way too busy with my final semester of Master's. Projects, exams, assignments and sometimes classes... I'm stuck in this infinite loop! I wish like running away. Sigh! I have no choice but to endure these. After all, there's this consolation that I'll be earning my Master's degree in a month from now. So, with those elements in the infinite loop, what's the one thing that's "loop invariant"? Music , of course! I've been hooked to The Fray's How to save a life since quite sometime now. Not a new song (released sometime around September 2006, first version), but the lyrics are touching. The lead singer, Isaac Slade, (though has some vocabulary problems :D... weird pronunciation I must say!), says he was influenced by his experience while working as a mentor at a camp for troubled teens . You can listen to this song here . But the song that gets to be the cherry on the cake is " Iktara ...

To start with, let me clarify that this post is not meant to be a job search guide! It is intended to only give some pointers in choosing the right courses. If you are in the field of computing, you would know that these days the mantra is Multi-core CPUs rather than Blazingly fast single-core CPUs. Gone are the days of clock-cranking where you would see a jump in the CPU clock speed every fortnight or so. In a way, the computing industry has reached a theoretical barrier of cranking the clock speed. The focus is now on inclusion of multiple cores on the same die. No wonder you see the "dual-core, tri-core, quad-core and soon octa-core CPU" ads. Unless there is a breakthrough in the field of microelectronics and cooling solutions, this "stuffing-of-more-cores-on-the-same-die" will continue. From a normal computer user's perspective, it may seem like "Wow! Two cores, double performance!". Nope...Thats not entirely true, in fact not even half true! The...

This is a song from Enrique's album - Seven. The song is apt for this post. Landed in San Diego, California yesterday. San Diego is the second largest city in CA and rated as the finest city of the US. Well, I could see that yesterday, why! The San Diego International Airport is located just by the bay. So when the flight lands or takes off you can see the harbor along the side. Magnificent view! The photo expresses the details stronger than words (Click to enlarge. Photo courtesy: Google) I wasn't able to click any pics as it was just too cloudy yesterday. This airport is the busiest single runway airport in the US. Its astonishing to see how every take-off and landing is managed in this single-runway airport. Flights are seldom delayed. The city is beautiful with palm trees all over the sides on every road. High rise buildings dot the city. The place I live in is called La Jolla. Its a suburb of San Diego. The place is pronounced 'lə-HOY-ə'. This place has a lot of Sp...

Its election time in India and polls are held state-wise. Being in the US I neither had the opportunity to vote nor to nullify my vote (well, if not for me I'm sure noticing my absence at the polling booth some smart@ss must've cast a vote in my name!). I remember the last time I got my finger 'inked'. I'd voted when in Bangalore just a month before I left for Raleigh. This time I'm eager to see what the results would be since its a 'bigger' poll. Did you cast your vote? If yes, then what was the scene like at the polling booth? If not, then what was the reason for the abstinence? Did you not wanna vote or were you unable to? If you didn't wanna vote, did you know that you could nullify your vote? You can leave your comments to this post :) On a lighter note, here is something which I couldn't resist posting. Haf a look at the Bachchan family in the pic... I fell off my chair when I first saw it! :P Source: The Hindu

Since the past couple of days I've been wondering about the '0 comments' phenomenon on my blog. It didn't strike to me till date that the recent posts were starving for comments. I guess many of you must've noticed that the ability to leave comments on my blog was completely non-functional since sometime. I dug into the template code and could find absolutely nothing. After much head-breaking, it hit on me that I'd enabled the option to embed comments in the posts which was causing the 'kirik' (Bangaloreans will understand this :P) Finally its back to normal. You can now leave your comments on my blog. A handy pop-up window will help you abuse me now :)

I'm sure everyone of you must've noticed the 'new, improved' TwitterBook, err... I mean Facebook. I personally do not like Twitter and keep away from it. Facebook is a nice platform (for the public as well as the web developers, I'm sure the latter will in no way disagree with me!). But the new Facebook is bad, really bad. A complete Twitter rip off and also tries to act smart by integrating Twitter. Why, oh Why did you haf to do this, Facebook? The main interface is a complete mess now, worser than my trash can. The Wall is hidden behind another 'wall', all the 'cool and innovative' Facebook features are now lost in the oblivion and all I can see on the homepage is now garbage! What do you all think? Do you like the new Facebook?

Holi, also known as the Festival of colors is celebrated by Indians on the full moon day of the Phalguna month (usually falls in the month of March in Georgian calender). People put colors on each other to celebrate holi. While there are about 2 theories behind the origin of the festival, it is best known as the 'Spring Festival' to all. Interested in knowing more about Holi? Head here . We, at NC State are celebrating Holi on 15th March, 2009. Here's wishing everybody a Happy and Safe Holi :)

Oscars 2009, a big event as always. Well I guess everybody had predicted that Slumdog Millionaire would win awards, but not as many as it won! There was no doubt that Heath "The Joker" Ledger would win an award. In fact, I liked his acting in the movie "The Dark Knight" so much that IMHO he should've been nominated for Best Actor instead of Best Supporting Actor. He was simply amazing in the movie. The award for "Make up" should've surely gone for The Dark Knight. I feel Heath Ledger's make up was the best of all times. Kate Winslet was good in the movie The Reader and I guess she deserved. I don't see any reason why Penelope Cruz was awarded the Best Supporting Actress! As for "our" Slumdog Millionaire, I suppose it was nominated for 10 categories out of which it won 8! Thats an amazing feat that too by a "semi-Indian" movie. I've seen the movie and feel the movie was good but not an exceptional one. A.R.Rahman sure...

Its been movie time for me surrounded by exams. Saw Billu Barber last week. An average movie I must say. But Irrfan Khan has acted well. Lara Dutta was hopeless! This week (actually just back sometime ago) I saw Delhi-6. Now I'm assuming (in fact, sure) that everyone reading this would haf seen Rang de Basanti. After such a movie the expectations from Rakeysh Mehra would surely be high. Delhi-6 falls in a different category. While its not a nation-awakening movie or such its like any other videsh-se-returned-love-your-country kind of movie. The plot is good. But I think the picturization could've been better. The movie has so many "cut-to"s that one may lose track of whats happening ( a la Ghajni, eh? :D ). Oh one interesting snippet: The movie is called Delhi-6 because it is picturized in Chandi Chowk, Delhi whose postal code is 110 006; hence the name Delhi - 6. I guess its become a fad these days in Bollywood movies to include a couple of Hindi abuses and Delhi-6 ...

What is the value of a cent? Well.. actually nothing in the US, but certainly something in India. Just like drops fill up a bucket, cents collectively mean a lot. In their own words: The Power of Cents - "Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, and the pleasant land." Two Cents of Hope (TCH) is all about creating a responsible and self-sustaining society. A society like this can be created by imparting education to the aspiring children and youth. TCH focuses on providing educational opportunities to deserving children and youth who crave to learn but cannot because of financial constraints and other such factors. The organization supports such deserving students against the harsh realities of life and makes an effort to help make their dreams come true. Committed volunteers across the globe work closely in order to ensure that resources reach deserving students and monitor the progress of the student ensuring fairness and proper utilization of fu...

Its a well known fact that Karnataka Government slaps the highest taxes compared to any other state/UT on petroleum based fuels. Thats the reason why the people in Karnataka pay the highest for a litre of petrol/diesel throughout India. News that would bring some relief to consumers, at least for the time being: Karnataka government slashes sales tax on petroleum based fuels! Yes, thats right! The Karnataka government reduced sales tax by 3 pc on petrol and 2 pc on diesel. It has also reduced value added tax (VAT) on domestic liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from 4 pc to 1 pc. As a result of the reduction in tax on petrol from 28 to 25 pc, retail price of the fuel in Bangalore will be Rs.57.15 per litre as against Rs.58.89 and that of diesel will be Rs.39.15 per litre as against Rs.39.80 after the reduction of tax from 20 pc to 18 pc. The price of LPG has been reduced to Rs.348.08 from Rs.358.42. Time to cheer?? Its just the beginning of the BJP-led Govt. Will this tax relief hold good fo...