To groom or not to?

I was at this interview drive on Saturday for almost 5 odd hours. Candidates kept coming in, and it was kinda fun (or may be I just tried to enjoy myself!) talking to and having discussions with seemingly potential candidates.

By the end of the day, rather by mid-day I actually started feeling sad for the IT population that I have been grilling for the last few years. In fact, one of the candidates from one of the most popular IT state of southern India, had come in with a 3+ years of experience to show on paper, but was one really ungroomed chap. With an unshaven face, donning a pair of sandals, and nothing much (in fact nothing at all!) to show off technically, he seemed like a person straight out of exile :-)

I felt kinda sad for such population, coming from a small hamlet, and getting a sneak into the IT industry they probably never underwent any grooming sessions or even cared for such a thing.
At least a couple of times, I thought about sharing my email address with him so as to help him groom a little, of course only if he showed any willingness to, and even help him with some technical skills. This could have helped him cracked future interviews, and I'd have gained myself some karmic points too :-)

Not sure if my professional obligations allow me to share contact details with a rejected candidate, if it does, I would love to get into this path to voluntarily help groom people.
Am sure it'd give immense satisfaction to help groom people from where they are, to a point where they could stride on their own...

Geeky ergonomics

Got this via email from a chum.

He believes, that this would be apt for me to buy and use. I guess if this is manufactured, it would appear in one of those late night tele-shopping programs. And probably, I'd offer to endorse it too :)

Upgraded my Nokia...

... after a long stint of time, and lot of criticisms from wifey on my old Nokia classic phone, I finally 'upgraded' a few weeks back. The reason for upgrade was not criticisms from wifey or close friends, but because the Nokia was conked to such an extent that every time I tried opening a message in the inbox, it used to re-boot.
It was a nice phone, and worked for me quite well especially with the Opera Mini I'd installed on it for browsing FB and occasionally checking GMail at work.

The 'upgrade' is a much better one with a few features more than on the Nokia. It is the best that could come at that price and can beat some big players hands down in the segment.

Here is what I have now! :)

Travelogue - Bhuleshwar near Pune

It was quite some time, we had been on an outing over a weekend. Most of the time, weekends are kept aside, just like almost every working couple does, to run errands, stock up groceries, browsing and occasionally  watching an odd movie from the pile of downloaded movies.














Browsing for places to visit around pune for the 139th time, I had very less hope that I would get an unexplored place to visit, till I came across a place 'Bhuleshwar' - It's an old temple on top of a hill about 8Kms off Yavat on Pune-Solapur highway.



















The place also has a mention on this page of Wikipedia. It is about 60 Kms from Pune and a decent place to capture some nice pictures of mother nature, be in a serene surroundings, away from the noise and rush of the city. More importantly, not being too far, it can be done in half a day leaving time for the activities I mentioned earlier.


Post the trip, someone told me it's even nicer during the monsoon when a wide variety of birds can be seen... Probably, we would visit the place yet again.






Hope you like the pictures :)

New wine in old bottle

Pun intended on that of course...

And that is what I call, when you get a new lease of life at an old place. I cannot be more specific here for professional reasons, but it has something to do with my recent post.

Wishing myself lot of luck as I turn onto some new wine in an older bottle...

'Healthily Unwealthy'

Had some good sizzlers yesterday for dinner along with some good friends and poor jokes as 'side-dishes'.
Though the Sizzlers that we ordered were good for health, rather relatively better than other options while eating out, the check that came by wasn't correspondingly good for wealth.

Just made me wonder if there is a term like 'Healthily Unwealthy' or may be 'Unwealthily healthy' which means something is good for your health, but not so good for your wealth.

If something bad for your health is unhealthy, why can't something bad for your wealth be coined as 'unwealthy'? :-)

Don't fear the code, fear the licensing terms!

I was trying to modify some open source Javascript library today, when I realized that even if I modify and make it work as per my needs, that is only half the job well-done.

The product which uses the library might not be still shippable because of the library's licensing terms. And eventually, all the smart work done to modify the library would be just SHIFT-DELETED down a small recycle bin  :(

Just something to beware of when one takes up ambitious things like library modification.

On the lines of a popular bollywood dialogue, I'd say - "Code se darr nahi lagta sir, License se lagta hai..." :)

Toilet water put to good use by Google!

Yes, that's true, they use it for cooling the heat generated by their data centers.
Came across this interesting piece of information as I was browsing through some of my routine reads.

Of course, the objective might be to save money, but still that deed must be doing quite some good to save the natural resource.

May be I will not use regular water for my car's battery and wash-wipe system anymore, instead will ask the service guys to pour some toilet water... !!

Source: Arstechnica

Why make a remake?

Watched the new(?) Agneepath over the last weekend, and found it just annoying and nowhere close to the original one. Hrithik seemed nowhere close to how BigB had enacted in the original one, the story line was just the same without any twist to keep me engrossed or entertained.
In fact, I would say the original version had a much superior screenplay especially during the climax when BigB walks through fire as bombs are hurled in his path, and that too during a time when technology was not as much a part of Bollywood as it is today.

The character of Mithun ('Krishnan Iyer M.A, NarialPaaniwala') who added a nice tinge of humor to the original movie is badly missed, and to me this remake just seemed to be an futile attempt at cashing in on 2 things - 1) Hrithik's fan following and 2) The fact that a lot of the current movie going lot hasn't watched the original classic.

Yes, I know am too late to write this, now that the movie has already moved out of most cinema houses, but then am not a movie buff to watch remakes on the first day/week/month of the release!

I know, but still I don't know!

It has happened more than a couple of times with me, and it continues to!
Every now and then, when I think am getting into some kinda messy situation, someone just like a messiah comes and gives me a piece of advice, which seems just logical and right to do at the moment.

A fast friend just gave that to me today and voila`, it worked!
I am no more thinking about what I was thinking... and I realize that there are somethings you have to just take in your stride and move on. Unimportant things which bother you, if thought about too much, can just lead to negativity and frustration, just ignore them!

Simple fundas of life - some of which I know, but still I don't seem to know :)

My dear friend, you are wonderful, thanks for giving me that talk - you have done it, once again!