Subramanyan » thoughts

Highs and Lows

Guhan — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:06:22 +0000

The last 2 months have taken me on a joy ride with lot of highs and lows! It all started off when certain plans did not materialize and I was at a all time low, I even started writing up a very negative blog post, but decided not to. After all, I did not need more negativity. But all of that changed when I participated in the University hack day and got to meet up with a lot of students. Its always a rush when you can have a good discussion with students. And I think coming from a big company helps, they always tend to listen to you more eagerly :-)
Then there was another high, I won an award in office. But the bigger high was when loads of friends, colleagues and family wished me the best and told me I deserved it. The family making it to the award function was icing on the cake.
My profile made it to Yahoo! careers site and was also the photo for Yahoo! technology in the careers site, another high.
Me and my wife love traveling, and a holiday together is pending for a long time now. We have just been planning the last couple of months, but nothing finalized as yet. Another low.
Then in my cricket, I had a good start to the year, scoring a good 50 in a corporate tournament match. Then a series of low scores and again I started feeling low about my game. Recently, i seem to have found my form back, and it was a thrill winning the match against Wipro this weekend, and I am happy i contributed.
Its that time of the year when all salaried slaves expect their increments. The industry has not been doing good, and last year, there were no hikes. This year, the appraisal was again a low. Was really disappointed with whole thing. Another low.
I tweeted that may be the outcome of all this has to be “change”. Time will tell

When it comes to travel, there is always more than one place I have to be !

Guhan — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:43:32 +0000

I have had a fair share of travel, personally and professionally. I love traveling and seeing new places. But I have come to realize that when it comes to travel, there is always some other place I have to be at the same time.
This week, kicks off another travel and events bonanza !! First I head out to IISc Bangalore today evening for the Hack U kick off there. I am going to talk about how “Every resource on the web is a data source”. I get back late night, and have a early morning flight to Hyderabad, to start off the University Hack day at IIIT H . Its going to be 3 days of innovation, talks, discussions, ideas, creativity and coding fun. I get back on 24th and will have to decide between going to Mysore for a event and going to Chennai to attend 2 weddings. The coming weekend, I head out to Nandi Hills for a company off-site aimed at making better leaders out of the members of the group :-) Immediately after getting back, I need to be in Mysore to play the first match of the 1st division league cricket match. The weekend after that, I need to choose between going to another company off-site or to another friends wedding in Calicut. The 2nd week of Feb, I head off to Delhi to speak at the Techshare India 2010 Barrier break conference. During the same time, I need to decide whether to head off for a day to Ludhiana to attend another good friends wedding!
There are a couple of training sessions in office which I need to juggle in between all of this, ton of deliverables for the project I am working on, a couple of design proposals to make and couple of dinners to go out with my wife :-)

This is not the first time this is happening, last time I traveled to USA on business, I was forced to decide between attending a conference there and attending a close friends wedding back home. When I was in Jordan on business, I almost missed my dads 60th Birthday celebrations, managed to land up in Mysore a day before the event.
May be its just coincidence or may be its just that I notice these things more when there are many things to do and places to be.
Guess all this will just help me improve my time management and delegation skills. Experience ++
Wish me luck

Death and Violence

Guhan — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:51:01 +0000

The end of 2009 saw the passing of one of Kannada movie’s favorite stars, Vishnuvaradhan. A close friend of mine, Vijay (Twitter Vijay) has brilliantly expressed the sentiments of a true fan of his blog post. Having been one of the most versatile, talented, stylish and popular actors in the Kannada film industry, he also acted in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films also.

Vishnuvardhan was born in Mysore and he also breathed his last in Mysore. His body was shifted to National College grounds for the people to pay their last respects. The final cremation was done in Abhimaan Studio located on Mysore Road. The actor was given a grand state funeral attended by his family members, film personalities political leaders and thousands of his fans.
Earlier, another popular kannada film actor and an icon in Karnataka, Dr. RajKumar passed away. Dr. Raj was titled “Natasarvabhouma” meaning “emperor of acting” or lovingly called Annavaru meaning Elder brother.

It sure was a loss to the film fraternity but the other thing common in their deaths was the riots and mob violence that followed. It is just sad that despite both of these legends being well known for their peace loving nature and respect for calm, their so called fans choose to show their grief through mindless violence and damage to property. It is hard to comprehend the rationale behind such acts. News channels covering the events showed mobs in thousands throwing stones, laughing and having a stupidly good time. Dr. Raj’s death had precipitated a city-wide reaction. Following the news of his death, there was major unrest in the city of Bangalore. The then Chief Minister, H.D.Kumaraswamy, later claimed that the violence was instigated by vested political interests. And as always the opposition blamed it on lack of timely arrangements by responsible organizations. Even an unofficial bandh was announced. More than 100 vehicles were burnt and many people killed in mob attacks and police firing.

The last rites for both of them was marred by large scale violence and protests by unruly mobs. Family members pleaded in vain in both occasions. It was very sad to see how Dr. Raj’s sons literally begging for the mobs to calm down. Vishnuvardhan’s wife kept saying how much Vishnu loved peace and would have wished to have a quiet non violent passing. But all this fell on deaf years on both occasions.

For many, I think its just a reason to vent their frustrations. Mob mentality takes over and one stupid act cascades into a full scale riot, loss of property and closing of business. Hapless police trying to control the crowds are targeted. There is absolutely no reason for the riots, its almost assumed that nothing will function in any such event. Every one in the city stay home in fear of violence. Family fear the return of their loved ones. Such state of fear for one persons death is not justified and is the sad reality we all have been forced to tolerate. Icons are remembered for their charm, mass appeal and personality. But circumstances forces us to relate violence and discomfort to the passing of such icons. May their soul rest in peace.

Yahoo! University Hack day gets Bangalored!

Guhan — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:10:00 +0000

This was my 3rd University hack day, this time in my home town, Bangalore. Earlier this year I was at IIT Delhi and IIT Mumbai for the other 2 Hack U’s
Its amazing how much the students think Hacking is a negative thing. In every college we first had to establish the difference between Hacking and cracking.
Bangalore has always been a place where you expect students to be technically savy and modern, and sure that was the case in IIIT Bangalore. They have an amazing campus and it was a good thing that they offered only computer science and Information science courses. Their education system is more industry driven and being in electronic city, close to Infosys, the equipment and infrastructure in the college was very good. They had every thing from well organized projectors in class rooms to smart boards and comfortable seating.

The Hack U in Bangalore in terms of student response was much greater than the other 2 IITs. Enthusiastic students turned out in large numbers for our initial kick off sessions and the DJ night. This was not the case in IITs where the Rock night had a very poor response. But again, its expected from a Bangalore crowd :-)
More details about the event on my YDN blog post.
I spoke about YQL, Pipes, YUI and how every resource in the internet can be considered a Data source. My presentation can be found on slideshare, and is titled Get me my data!

Over all for Yahoo! it was a successful event. The hack demos were not as great as we wanted it to be, but there were some bright students who had crazy ideas. Guess given little more opportunity, some even greater ideas will come up. There was one idea which particularly caught my attention. Couple of students wanted to pull video data from cameras on the street and identify patterns in vehicle movement and crimes if any. Their idea was to gather information about a vehicle in one camera and then to see if the same vehicle shows up in a different camera. Using this information, they wanted to predict traffic flow, congestion etc. Interesting idea I thought
Next year have a couple more Hack U’s, first in IIIT Hyderabad .

A new ‘Avatar’ for movie going experience ?

Guhan — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:59:11 +0000

I managed to see the paid preview show of James Cameron’s much talked about, much hyped mega budget movie ‘Avatar’ and I was not Disappointed. As the protagonist says when he tries out his ‘Avatar’, “This is great!”, I had the exact same excitement. The movie is a visual treat. 3D movie experience has been given a whole new meaning. Most of the 3D or 4D movies I have seen the illusion being used to scare the audience. For the first time, I have seen a movie which has used technology to take the audience on a journey through fantastic landscapes and immense scale of an imaginary land.
But more I think about it, the movie is a bit too long and the story isnt special like ‘Terminator’ or the ‘Matrix’ movies.
I was glad it moved away from the cliche “Aliens attack helpless humans” SciFi formula. It the year 2154 when Humans are the more powerful and arrogant race, looking to plunder a peace loving world.
The movie is a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message complete with a Pig headed Military head (no prizes for guessing !! ).
All the hype about the new language is lost in the visuals of the movie. As a matter of fact, the length of the movie and mediocre story line is also completely covered up by the sheer magnitude and brilliance of story telling and movie wizardry. Gamers will relate to the visuals and would like being in control of a character in Pandora.
“Avatar” stretches the bounds of the cinematic imagination. It shows us something we’ve never seen before: an entire alien world, a new and complex ecosystem rendered in three dimensions with dazzling fluidity and detail.

I am going to watch it again for sure, and I am definitely a fan of ‘Avatar’

Starting blogging all over again !

Guhan — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:45:58 +0000

It has been a long time since I blogged, time to start things off again. I have all these random thoughts. I think its time I put them on the web.