tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61890502011-10-11T13:12:34.257+05:30Just random stuff that I think off - could be work , hobby , state of mind , etc , etc , etcMridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.comBlogger2941100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-30598837608247721282011-06-06T02:48:00.001+05:302011-06-06T02:51:20.621+05:30

For a company making a lot of hype and noise around GPGPU computing AMD/ATI has done a piss poor job at it. AMD has been going to press a lot about OpenCL and how it is next best thing to sliced bread : and yet their own drivers are functionally neutered. Some of the primary benefits of OpenCL are lost due to lack of support for concurrent kernel execution ! I am told that this is a purely driver

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-53731110805346491922010-12-21T04:18:00.000+05:302010-12-21T04:18:03.779+05:30

I adore this pic :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-77590745663935728712010-10-20T06:00:00.002+05:302010-10-20T06:43:08.556+05:30

So I attempt to try out the 'call phone' option on gmail.Attempting to make an outbound call, tried the 'add credits' option. EPIC FAIL - According to google, Karnataka is not a valid state in India, and apparently 6 digit zip codes are invalid :-PBefore you ask, yes, I had selected 'India' as my country. I can understand a layperson in US having a very US centric view and the various tv "news"

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-6836439429492234062010-08-24T16:16:00.004+05:302010-08-24T16:44:15.470+05:30

Pathetic situation, I really wish some domestic or even an international player came along and offered some good solutions in this space : they will sweep the market. I have no hope from the government or its agencies doing something to clear this mess up.We have idiots running around giving 'unlimited' connections which are essentially bandwidth capped.From the latest mail I got from Airtel, the

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-70736773424596817392010-07-10T03:27:00.004+05:302010-07-10T03:43:58.534+05:30

I always wondered why there is a restriction saying that 'finalize' can be invoked only once on an object. To clarify, on a dead object, it must be invoked only once : but what if the object gets resurrected (for whatever reason) in the finalize and become 'live' again ? (ref here [1] for more)Yes, it is bad practise, that is not what I am getting at though.Speaking of which, I assume the 'state'

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-38176912711251491852010-06-28T01:35:00.003+05:302010-06-28T01:42:02.144+05:30

... seems to be to aggressively loose the market share they have built up.With some brilliantly unstable versions pushed out as updates/upgrades !Putting all eggs in the html5 basket is one thing, but irrespective of philosophical leanings, breaking existing pages and apps (flash support for example) while trying to emulate other browsers (plugin-container.exe sic) is not going to make things

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-88108611298692247402010-04-11T21:27:00.002+05:302010-04-11T21:36:38.694+05:30

I have been waiting for a while now for this site to come up : and it is finally here (http://www.collateralmurder.org/) - a couple of weeks back.It is pretty chilling to watch the video ... for a variety of reasons - which I dont want to get into.What is more shocking was the coverage which happened in the aftermath (and it was scarey to see the initial complete silence of the US media about it

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-52090244079268466992010-03-01T02:54:00.004+05:302010-03-01T03:50:11.712+05:30

When I started programming, things were nuts - every day was an adventure, I would discover things, try out things, learn some more, break things, destroy things ! And yet, continue on ... I would scribble on paper, write games, explore graphics (graphics is an excellent way to keep a young chap interested in programming !), learn physics just so that I can code it in to see results !In college,

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-56122995591568255242010-02-03T01:22:00.002+05:302010-02-03T02:54:58.683+05:30

When we used to be in college 8+ years back, when they kicked us off the computer centres, we used to relax in the D hostel common room and listen to music till wee hours of the morning. Good music in the background, while chatting up on inane random stuff, passionately arguing about something or just plain ragging each other.It usually used to be Surya music - though there were other contenders

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-8314916003154773422009-12-24T05:05:00.003+05:302009-12-24T05:09:09.316+05:30

As I have probably already mentioned here, I have had an extraordinarily lucky life.A lot of things just fell into place quite by chance, some of the most important decisions I made were purely based on chance (and could have gone either way) - at times, they were highly contrived situations !I continue to be lucky both in personal and professional life .... and obviously, I want it to last

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-43306981877439269792009-08-31T05:21:00.003+05:302009-08-31T05:26:22.652+05:30

Off late, I have come to the sad realization that I dont have much free-time anymore.Dont get me wrong, I do relax, watch the occasional movie and sleep just fine ... but the sort of sustained hacking I could do earlier, the really long hours spent in playing some game, following up movies from a director/actor, or even chipping away at the huge pile of movies I own - that is "lost".Cant even

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-1296145822153203382009-08-12T23:13:00.003+05:302009-08-12T23:26:58.585+05:30

As some of you might know, I have been trying to get audio/video from my comp onto my tv - except I dont want to clutter the house with wires.I checked out wireless HDMI, and even contemplated writing something over wifi to do streaming ... but gave up considering the cost and other aspects of it (not to mention, a naive impl [which is what I can afford to do] will require quite a bit of

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-26689082978291740012009-07-26T17:38:00.003+05:302009-07-26T17:39:51.675+05:30

I have been watching it for a while now ... but off late, I find that when I am watching tv, it is mostly this channel (and Zee Movies to lesser extent).It has 'officially' become my fav channel !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-27181202921186959222009-04-29T12:46:00.003+05:302009-04-29T13:30:17.048+05:30

It all started with a small observation last friday night ... was randomly sampling some data I had generated and noticed a mismatch : was too pissed, so just logged out and did not check anything till Sunday.So come Sunday and the week starts off with one potential bug, one 'crazy idea' in the mail, a new clarification issue and one pending task. Being the procrastinator that I am, and because

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-32113345675171358672009-03-30T12:11:00.002+05:302009-03-30T12:51:10.273+05:30

After insistent pestering by google fanboy friends of mine (yeah, you !), I gave google chrome a whirl for a few months now. After todays crash of about 3 days of browsing state I am finally uninstalling it. Thought I will publish my observations till date (and no, it is not colored by current angry state of mind - this was written a while back :-) )Some observations :Unstable. Inspite of the

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-56656785469048129272009-03-23T19:37:00.000+05:302009-03-23T19:38:44.338+05:30

Waiting for this order to arrive from amazon :-)---Delivery estimate: March 25, 2009 - March 27, 2009    Shipping estimate: March 23, 20091 of: Kung Fu Panda (+BD Live) [Blu-ray]Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC1 of: Dark City (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray]Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC1 of: The Girl Who Leapt Through TimeSold by: Amazon.com, LLC1 of: Avatar - The Last Airbender: The Complete Book 3 CollectionSold

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-27026274796993620742009-03-14T04:07:00.002+05:302009-03-14T04:14:02.073+05:30

I regularly watch Daily show online ... but yesterdays episode was something else !Watch the full interview with Jim Cramer here - it is just too good. I wish there were more interviews of this sort in main stream media. IMO there are two kind of journalists - the idiots who know nothing (the usual regulars on tv - about 95% of out there) and the ones who know & understand what the hell is

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-91043783298905619282009-02-28T09:43:00.002+05:302009-02-28T09:50:04.436+05:30

From next month onwards (march 2009), unlimited connections in airtel are not unlimited anymore - atleast the 1MBps connection I have is not going to be so (I was told all their unlimited plans are impacted).But this is subtext of the plan and not spelled out very visibly (for example - it is still called unlimited !) - essentially they have set a 'threshold', and if you exceed this arbitrary

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-1365901478806041592009-01-03T05:36:00.002+05:302009-01-03T06:13:43.556+05:30

One of the few processes in Sun I used to feel good about was the stress on backward compatibility - and sanctity of exposed interfaces.But of late, particularly with xml on java - looks like incompatibilities are creeping in quite a bit. I do understand the complexities of writing robust, performent and secure xml parsing libraries ... and the pitfalls which exists there : but breaking basic

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-57814324225108612912008-12-15T04:46:00.002+05:302008-12-15T04:57:02.933+05:30

is programming my GPU - using nVidia's CUDA :-)Quite interesting to try out things ... in an env which strips out most of the things I take for granted, while changing the execution environment quite a bit.For example, my XFX alphadog 8800 GT has 112 stream procs ... other than while hacking on a borrowed niagara box (which had 32 cores iirc : and that was a core + ht env, as opposed to just

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-80348854894492301272008-11-03T08:22:00.001+05:302008-11-03T08:24:56.839+05:30

How it came to an end ... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0750324/quotes. Why the hell am I watching "endings" this past few weeks, no wonder feeling moody !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-70419309807960055762008-11-01T01:31:00.004+05:302008-11-01T01:44:22.646+05:30

For one, they do almost no policing (and when they do, it is pretty arbitrary from what I was told).Second, they expect people to raise issues - fair enough, not expecting arbitrarily large networks to be spam/offense/etc free ... but it is the attitude with which they respond to the compliants which is galling.You point out very very clear violation of terms of use - because that profile is

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-63651693183993745772008-10-30T15:31:00.002+05:302008-10-30T15:48:20.092+05:30

Came across this recently ... brought tears to my eyes : history was made that day !You might be interested in this too - pretty inspiring IMO :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-62776540871124730582008-09-02T20:43:00.002+05:302008-09-03T04:39:17.135+05:30

Since college days (second year or so ?) when Alok used to play this song in the lab, I used to absolutely adore it - it is melodious and meaningful at so many levels, it is breathtaking at times.And then yesterday I came across this page explaining the song to people who did not get it ... and there were bits I did not know of too ! Good read.If you want to listen to the song, I found this link

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-52331405581001118212008-08-31T18:42:00.004+05:302008-08-31T18:58:34.512+05:30

One of the advantages, for me, of working in Yahoo! Research is that I get exposed to quite a wide variety of things ... and though I focus on only a few things which interest me, nonetheless it is quite stimulating ! The other obvious advantage is that I get to work with positively brilliant people.Consider current project - PSOX - on which I have been working on since I joined ... the variety

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-60210636321384312102008-08-06T15:03:00.003+05:302008-08-06T15:09:28.839+05:30

After a couple of friends insisted that I try to replace the 'damaged' harddisk, I went ahead, backed everything up, and reinstalled the whole rig.As part of getting the hard disks (two GB and one 1TB), I saw another "thing" which took my fancy .... AMD Phenom 9750 :-DSince my mobo was supposed to be compatible with it, I got that one along with the disks and viola - 4 core box now !! (There is

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-67727968031325051332008-07-31T14:11:00.004+05:302008-07-31T14:52:08.276+05:30

And so, I was back to Quake3 demo again - trying to finish it off in nightmare mode : after a few weeks of sporadic attempts and I succeeded finally at 3am day before y'day night !Little did I know that end of the game was beginning of another nightmare ....The victory screen was uncharacteristically 'slow and sluggish' - I was gloating too much to observe : and then quake3 crashed ... ok, this

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-26063974687172071472008-07-23T16:27:00.002+05:302008-07-23T16:31:23.599+05:30

Sood is now the founder of a startup - Idea Device !All the very best for the venture - I am sure he will go places :-)The first enterpreuner from my college whom I know ....Now I brag - I know famous people :-D

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-12877615087510619792008-07-22T04:07:00.003+05:302008-07-22T04:10:37.823+05:30

This was an anti-climax .... I wish they had had a showdown - irrespective of the result, it would have been decisive.Now, the charade will go on for much longer (given Carl Icahn's track record, it *will* continue).

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-73972512281876971972008-07-07T05:42:00.001+05:302008-07-07T06:43:32.387+05:30

Slept off early to miss one hell of a Wimbledon final !Cant wait to catch the re-run :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-8322010699302332922008-06-19T16:57:00.001+05:302008-06-19T17:01:30.136+05:30

Check this list out ... kind of sad.Courtesy of a person I will not doubt ... ever :-P

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-53244117411253349862008-05-28T12:33:00.003+05:302008-05-28T12:38:00.447+05:30

For quite a while now, whenever I am "forced" to attend meeting (and I tend to get out of most btw), and I find it boring, I tend to fix bugs or add new features. I used to imagine this was an anomaly until I heard of others who do the same !Today, a friend of mine mentioned - while still in a meeting - about how he has just fixed 2 bugs and checked it in, and the marathon meeting was still going

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-91563975268442341522008-05-15T15:13:00.004+05:302008-05-15T15:20:09.414+05:30

Waiting and waiting and waiting .... :-DAnd it is mine, all mine !! Muhahahaha !!Shipping Details : (order will arrive in 1 shipment)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-90715623147094633672008-05-14T15:42:00.006+05:302008-05-15T13:27:52.010+05:30

She is too good ! Particularly in my latest obsession House M.D. (thanks to Ajay !) :-DOfcourse, the main reason I love the show is 'cos of Hugh Laurie ! He is just absolutely brilliant - I loved his performance as Prince and George in Black Adder, and now as Dr. House he takes it to a different level in a totally different direction !!Btw, an old write up of the project I am working on : a bit

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-18223307427911942652008-05-08T19:20:00.002+05:302008-05-08T19:22:56.461+05:30

Came across the press release for Glue today - check it out here : www.yahoo.in !The search result page looks really impressive ... and no, this is not a shameless plug :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-68848073562186554102008-04-07T04:35:00.002+05:302008-04-07T04:39:32.982+05:30

Try to catch it if possible - thoroughly enjoyed it ! Ryan Gosling was way too good in it ...... this is becoming to resemble a movie review site : so will stop harping about the movies I loved watching I guess :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-88578881207478395982008-04-06T01:19:00.005+05:302008-04-06T01:39:48.081+05:30

Finally took a serious look at Project Euler as a treat to myself ... and I just solved problem 51 :-DThe very very hacky solution is available here (search for mridul), and took under 5 seconds to run to completion on my box.My initial thoughts on the problem were totally wrong ... but the final solution was surprisingly simple ! Onwards to other problems solved by less than 1000 people at

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-31881680767180783822008-04-05T15:12:00.002+05:302008-04-05T15:15:30.211+05:30

Kaze no tani no Naushika and Mononoke-hime : especially the latter - I cant describe it well enough ... it is something to be experienced !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-59396236669740327712008-03-29T17:05:00.002+05:302008-03-29T17:08:42.115+05:30

... a bit of alone time in a beach !Was listening to this song and it made things worse :-(Varkala, Palolem .... I wish .....

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-63818171825056317852008-03-01T21:47:00.004+05:302008-11-15T15:07:47.062+05:30

The cub is finally here, and the tiger is one exhausted woman :-)Congrats to Aaditya and Vaishali on Sood 2.0 !!IIRC, she is about 2.5 kg ... mom was exhausted, kid sleepy most of the time ... and Sood was not bothering about his laptop or the net connection ! For the record : for the first time I have known him :-)Passtime of the parents - poking her to try to wake her up :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-86749419503829272442008-02-27T14:23:00.000+05:302008-02-27T14:24:03.635+05:30

Check this out :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-42975132056047203052008-02-20T10:16:00.003+05:302008-02-20T10:24:37.533+05:30

Had a good time watching this British sitcom.I preferred the first season to the second (the finale was ok ok) ... but there were some really good laughs in both :-)Definitely enjoyable !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-30438944339992823442008-02-18T10:01:00.003+05:302008-02-18T10:03:38.307+05:30

This is an absolutely fun read !If you can relate it to your phirang, ABC or NRI friends, it will be even more hilarious :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-76301370605326597392008-02-09T08:31:00.000+05:302008-02-09T08:32:48.034+05:30

3 weeks ... a bit too long imo ;-)Glad to start journey back home tomorrow !Trip was fun ... though cold :-DTo anyone I missed out meeting ... sorry !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-53331718886028127202008-01-27T15:58:00.000+05:302008-01-27T16:01:57.767+05:30

Miserably cold weather (and add to it rain & storms !) but friends are making the trip really enjoyable ! Inspite of it all, looking forward to getting back to Bangalore ... 2 more weeks to go :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-32645012988828205212008-01-11T02:38:00.000+05:302008-01-11T02:39:40.550+05:30

Leaving coming wed night ... and should be back in 3 weeks.If you are in Santa Clara or nearby, drop me a note and we can meet sometime in between !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-88792214829069571562007-12-30T19:21:00.000+05:302007-12-30T19:40:10.312+05:30

I have travelled with pandi quite a lot of times while he has been driving ... and trust me, it is scary at times. But boy, he is nothing compared to Neeraj - the weirdo in Mumbai !I saw hell and nearly got there - 10 minutes of my life which seemed to stretch on for infinity.I dont care if he has ridden for 100k km on his bike all around India - word of advice, never ever be Neeraj's pillion

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-59418867575635450442007-12-03T02:55:00.000+05:302007-12-03T03:17:54.368+05:30

I have a weird feeling that I had written something similar in the past too ... not sure if I have posted it here.One of the things I have noticed is that, when I was expected to study something : be it courses at school/college, or elsewhere, my motivation for doing it was substantially lower ... and at times, even for subjects I would otherwise like and enjoy !On the flip side, I have and

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-88341123501867598382007-11-18T23:40:00.000+05:302007-11-18T23:57:02.553+05:30

This weekend we had a heavy dose of gaming - quake 3 demo multiplayer ... and tell you, it is an excellent form of stress buster ! At the end of first session y'day morning, I was fired up to make my previous engine parallel ... and so we have it now : Yet Another Parallel Chess Program - and before you ask, no that is not what it is called :-)It has been almost 10 months since I did chess

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-76603586756924536262007-11-16T00:42:00.000+05:302007-11-16T00:44:34.499+05:30

Absolutely brilliant series at xkcd - which starts here.The 'mom' is allegedly introduced here initially : btw, this is a problem most programs do suffer from :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-41983561127680538212007-11-10T10:31:00.000+05:302007-11-10T10:37:34.846+05:30

Listen to songs on youtube : the ones which rarely come on tv nowadays.I spend many a night drifting away to contentment, listening to songs from yesteryears ... when melody, lyrics and music were oh so vital ... like songs from Sargam for instance.That, and the occasional gem of a video which some friend forwards :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-12636593905083702542007-11-02T21:31:00.000+05:302007-11-02T21:40:06.280+05:30

Check this out.On the face of it : I have this normal tendency to hate aligning with MSFT; but in this context, I would prefer if facebook won this battle.For a while now, Google is trying to behave like a school yard bully and often tries to use its marketing muscle and not innovation to drive business ... most of the 'products' that google has come up with of late, have been way too mediocre

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-37244535942006250392007-10-29T06:11:00.000+05:302007-10-29T06:16:24.581+05:30

... with a bad case of fever !Climate change ? Getting wet in the rain ? Not eating properly last couple of days ?... in any case, should be one heck of a way to begin a new job :-)Left Sun on friday, and joining Yahoo! today ... two days later - I really wish I had a break to unwind.And thanks for all the wishes - appreciate them !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-85928911574947260592007-10-08T23:58:00.000+05:302007-10-09T00:02:17.081+05:30

... for me for now.Leaving my first job at Sun Microsystems after 6 long years - in about two weeks or so from now.Thanks to my friends for making this happen !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-46872296703975598252007-10-08T01:50:00.000+05:302007-10-08T02:00:22.406+05:30

A batchmate of mine from college, Jishnu, acted in this movie ... and unfortunately, I never got to watch it until now. It was a mixed bag ... parts of it were good, parts of it sucked really bad, and rest were so-so.Being a college story, the story tends to appeal to a wider audience ... though it looks like a really 'simple' college ! The one aspect where something good could have been done was

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-25382055391700583822007-10-03T04:32:00.000+05:302007-10-03T04:37:18.433+05:30

For a PG movie, this movie is one of the best I have seen in recent years ! In retrospect, a relatively 'normal' story - but it totally sucks you into it with some amazing portrayal, and pretty much brilliant story telling.Only at the end of watching it, I came to know of one more fact - it was written and directed by 'M. Night Shyamalan'. In my book, his best creation to date :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-67097170757408706782007-10-03T00:48:00.000+05:302007-10-03T00:55:02.466+05:30

... of a job well done, of achieving goals, of leaving things at a much better shape than you started off with - of being able to say : yes I have made a change for the better, and to see visible effects of those efforts.At the end of the day, this would be every persons dream ...--And now I wish this bloody backache will go away ! I have a long week ahead of me, and my back is killing me -

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-36162102444565022182007-09-30T00:39:00.000+05:302007-09-30T00:40:57.921+05:30

... tend to suck :-(higher resolution, high refresh rate ... and you end up with a headache.

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-76914013382891601812007-09-29T04:11:00.000+05:302007-09-29T04:20:15.866+05:30

I found out today, that some really really cool engineers and architects, have been RIF'ed from Sun. Some of whose work I have come to respect over the past 6 years I have been here ... I dont know many of them personally, but their work has resulted in me learning and understanding things better; steering not just future of Sun products, but also the domains they have been working in by

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-66185937900356673202007-09-22T18:33:00.000+05:302007-09-22T18:38:11.608+05:30

And I assumed that all dual core chips would fit the a same motherboard if it already runs one ... so stupid of me.I ended up getting a amd 64 x2 6000 ... for the nearly 70% or so gain compared to my current chip (amd 64 x2 4200) - just change the chip me thought ! Now, have to buy the rest of the box ... will get a kvm switch, so that I dont end up buy the peripherals ...Basic research should

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-70716987173718209022007-09-19T02:02:00.000+05:302007-09-19T02:20:24.630+05:30

A friend of mine mentioned about generator's in java.I took a look at the infomancers-collections which claims to implement this for java.Neat package - would love to play with it for passtime, not sure if I will ever touch it for production code.The basic essential idea is simple :a) use the bytecode instrumentation hooks in vm to modify the class loaded at runtime so as to inject code into

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-14120533033577350102007-09-08T09:42:00.000+05:302007-09-08T09:52:46.289+05:30

Facebook has this application called movies (Flixster Movies) - and it has a "Movie Compatibility Report". Essentially asks your opinion about a bunch of movies on some scale, and compares it against your friends to find out how well the tastes match (the usual social networking thing).What I found interesting about this was not the app itself - but about my bloody friends.Some people whose

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-81945369181615684902007-09-06T19:16:00.000+05:302008-11-15T15:07:47.840+05:30

This is a test post .... Could get removed later

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-49091080134927662382007-09-05T10:10:00.000+05:302007-09-05T10:14:01.366+05:30

I missed this movie when it came to Bangalore (did it ?), bought the dvd with paramp recently, and just finished watching it.It is a really good movie - and I am left with a mixed bag of feelings after watching it (not about the movie, due to the movie !).That girl Abigail Breslin is really really awesome !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-8688546935130212722007-08-17T21:21:00.000+05:302007-08-17T21:27:38.708+05:30

I have come to associate Will Ferrell with comedy - not just because of his movies, but 'cos of his shows, videos, association with Fratpack, and the like.While watching Stranger Than Fiction, I was not expecting anything different .. than from a regular Will Ferrell fare - but boy was I wrong ! Let me correct it, I was pleasantly wrong :-)Dustin Hoffman and Will Ferrell give a really good

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-66404061845965277222007-08-15T10:10:00.000+05:302007-08-15T10:11:41.008+05:30

Watch it ! The movie is way too funny =))

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-65220871377806378052007-08-14T17:15:00.001+05:302007-08-14T20:36:15.107+05:30

rant mode = onFor quite a while now, I have been evangelizing netbeans - partly because I used to work on studio (which was built on top of netbeans), partly because it showed a lot of promise ... but of late, I am getting seriously pissed with it. When really simple things dont work after so many years of development - I think it is time to stop using the ide.I am not going to list all the past

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-39024643853794647442007-08-13T22:01:00.001+05:302007-08-13T22:05:04.030+05:30

Finally got the two tee-shirt's I ordered from xkcd.They are based on this and this.I already had the "Online Communities Poster" and "Map of the Internet" (based on this) delivered a while back from the store.

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-39204942564358780482007-08-13T21:52:00.000+05:302007-08-13T21:59:05.232+05:30

This is so much like me ! I totally suck at remembering things - particularly names and relatives (& relationships). Not so long ago, I once forgot my sisters name ....Usually as a last ditch effort, I ask for the person's full name :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-33644807685961792192007-08-10T04:50:00.000+05:302007-08-10T05:03:21.583+05:30

I was watching a bunch of movies the last few weeks - not only the famous, but the offbeat, not-so-famous to downright boring stuff ... essentially to drown all other thoughts.What I found interesting was that, in some of the movies, some of the young actors & actresses play their part surprisingly well - and looking up their career in imdb tends to be very instructive - most of the interesting

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-54523199517112062612007-07-28T23:54:00.000+05:302007-07-29T00:00:45.653+05:30

We started work on submitting this last december ... but thanks to my laziness in documenting things, it dragged on for ages ! (I have not apologized enough to Rahul :-( ).But finally, a few weeks back, everything was done ... and we sent it across to Peter Saint Andre to be considered as proposals for submission as xep's. Now we wait for the council to decide on them ...

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-2684862856435044172007-07-12T10:40:00.000+05:302007-07-12T10:42:10.906+05:30

Did I mention that she is really cute and hot ?! She is :-)Brain dead movie, gorgeous girl ...

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-44898333114263550432007-07-09T08:53:00.000+05:302007-07-09T09:06:33.937+05:30

For almost 6 months now, I have done almost no hacking at home - except for work that is.The reasons were two fold I guess, I had some really cool stuff to do for our server and also there was nothing super hot that I could do at home - the particle engine VM just kind of stuck in my head and I did want to do it, but also could not think of anything else to do :-)Now thanks to Vipin, all that is

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-83481934250122542832007-07-02T17:10:00.000+05:302007-07-02T17:23:58.069+05:30

Of late, I have been reading and going through the archives of Steve Yegge - both his new blog and his old one.He has a very entertaining style of writing, and he makes a lot of sense in a no-nonsense way : though like all google employees, the expected google fanboyism and fawning is present in liberal measure :-)One of the things he mentioned was to take a look at the Poignant Guide to Ruby.I

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-78490632767049517682007-07-02T03:04:00.000+05:302007-07-02T03:13:22.025+05:30

This is the second time I am watching this movie - and it is as moving as ever.Primarily a love story of a septuagenarian and his wife ... but it encompasses so many aspects of their life in such a simple story line.Really brilliant performance ... easily one of the most touching movies I have ever seen.The IMBD entry is here, though it is sadly devoid of any details.

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-32369263168497788142007-06-30T07:21:00.000+05:302007-06-30T16:12:45.100+05:30

I have been reading back issues of xkcd quite a bit whenever I get time ...(I would recommend going to the first page and start from there.)Some of them are really funny - in a geeky way, while some of the others are really melancholic ... sometimes I get reminded me of Calvin - though not in the same way actually.And ... of late I am guilty of this ... deserve the stare :-(

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-40807380032050771542007-06-23T19:05:00.000+05:302007-06-23T19:15:16.032+05:30

Vivek posted about Flight of the Concords, and /me been trawling youtube for more on them !And boy are they fun to listen to :-DCheck these out :Hiphopopotamus vs. RhymenocerosShe's so hot...BOOM!IssuesBusiness timeJennyThe humans are deadBowie songCheck this out too.Hope you have fun :-)

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-33878243623513373422007-06-19T11:48:00.000+05:302007-06-19T12:02:15.387+05:30

Details :Apple MacBook Pro 15.4”Specifications:• 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (Santa Rosa)• 4MB shared L2 Cache running at full processor speed• 800MHz frontside system bus• 2GB (2x1GB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM- (PC2-5300) supports up to 4GB• 120GB Serial ATA; 5400-rpm HDD• Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)• NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT Graphics with 128MB of GDDR3 SDRAM and Duallink

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-53111076687996283202007-06-17T21:52:00.000+05:302007-06-17T23:55:30.659+05:30

Have you read "aliens cause global warming" ?It is totally brilliant, and worth reading simply for the intellectual exercise - even if you do not buy what is said (I do buy it btw :) ), it is very though provoking.Update: I have not read of the works of Michael Crichton, but he seems like an very well read & intelligent person. Check this interview out.

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-63941340216154005112007-06-16T15:46:00.000+05:302007-06-16T16:05:29.298+05:30

Its been well over 5 years since I looked at NSS/JSS, and while recently visiting devloper.mozilla.org I found it weird that most of the NSS/JSS related documentation seems to be 'geared' towards Redhat !How are both of these related to redhat products in any way ?! They are infrastructure frameworks & libraries and other products depend on them (as do a lot of other products including many from

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-50831395555379692462007-06-13T09:43:00.000+05:302007-06-13T11:02:20.831+05:30

Anoop visited Bali and the pics he has taken are simply amazing. Check them out here.Btw, just saw Heung joh chow heung yau chow (turn left, turn right) on HBO.I dont like mush movies (except for rare exceptions), but somehow this one was different ... story is not really unique, but the movie was 'interesting'.

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-65673603660160958832007-06-11T03:17:00.000+05:302007-06-11T03:19:47.866+05:30

Vipin pointed me to this site recently - and I must say, it is something even I have wondered a lot !What do cats do ? :-) Now you know !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-83039840482783568902007-06-08T23:04:00.000+05:302007-06-09T00:17:06.489+05:30

Just finished watching Ran, amazing visuals and really depressing movie.I dont remember King Lear, but this is an adaption of the shakespearean play by Akira Kurosawa ...Amazing portrayal, the movie is too good.And for some fun, check this out.And when you are done, check this and this out too. Each should get a smile to your face ... for different reasons :-)If you want something more funny

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-63415259132460909562007-05-26T16:58:00.000+05:302007-05-26T17:29:30.526+05:30

Call centers and customer care directly deals with a companies consumers - and so deals directly with the most important part of any business. Keeping the consumers happy should obviously be of paramount important and considering that most calls to customer care come in when consumer needs some help or are otherwise distressed about the companies services - it is all the more reason to treat them

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-60559053367840941132007-05-25T02:39:00.000+05:302007-05-25T03:11:12.553+05:30

I am on a roll ... watching some really amazing movies lately !In last couple of days I saw :Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (Spirited Away)Mind blowing would just barely describe it.This is the best animated movie I have seen ... ever !Kakushi-toride no san-akunin (The hidden fortress)Pretty interesting movie - acknowledged as primary influence on George Lucas' Star Wars.Monty Python and the Holy

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-8651153891889237632007-05-23T00:47:00.000+05:302007-05-23T01:00:58.274+05:30

I seriously hope other governments through out the world follow the example set by the current Kerala government w.r.t environmental concerns [1].A drive has been initiated to remove all illegal constructions [2]; and Munnar has been declared a special zone where construction has been frozen.Munnar is part of the delicate ecology of south India - particularly Kerala. In expectation of the

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-73861325104758602112007-05-17T01:16:00.000+05:302007-05-17T01:29:02.225+05:30

For sometime now, I have been a major fan of Japanese movies ... and the number of posts on this or related topics in the past in this blog should attest to this :-)And one of the most depressing Samurai movies I have seen to date is what I just finished watching : 'Samurai Assasin' - really remarkable movie in most respects !I still have about 6 movies to go before I have to get some of these

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-15515894515864922362007-05-13T11:16:00.000+05:302007-05-13T11:25:12.158+05:30

... presentation is available here ! (I tracked it online today - someone fwd'ed it to me a while back).... that Manoj is married ? (Happened on friday ... there he goes ladies !).... that scala is an extremely intriguing language ? I am still reading up, it looks really interesting.... that Calicut has awesome food ? Ah well, any foodie who loves fish would :-) (and I am not even a foodie, much

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-3607755131201948372007-05-01T01:29:00.000+05:302007-05-01T01:45:13.165+05:30

I am not too much into RPG's - not because I dont enjoy them, simply because they consume huge amounts of time ... and so have not played any in a long time now.So, when Vipin suggested this game, I was not sure if I will be able to do justice to it.First thing that did strike me was ... it has been a bit too long since I played RPGs :-) The gameplay experience has improved significantly (or this

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-84358978123886162812007-04-22T03:23:00.000+05:302007-04-22T04:27:00.016+05:30

A while back, one of my ex-manager (who is in USA) was mentioning about how shallow the news reporting there was. An example he cited was of a cat being stuck in the tree becoming national news.This was around 2003-2004 : and the Indian news 'industry' was shifting into full gear. Even though we had a whole bunch of 24 hour news channels mushrooming all over the airways - yet the quality of

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-45592170459610439562007-04-19T02:26:00.000+05:302007-04-19T02:39:03.521+05:30

I recently got all the dvd's available for this tv series (more info here) that I could order - I was pretty impressed with it when I saw a few episodes of it on nick ... quite different from the normal crap that comes on tv nowadays.Just finished 5 dvd's which constitute the first 'book' : pretty engrossing stuff :-)The only irritating part is the first couple of chapter's in the dvd which

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-70613229825101023492007-04-18T11:29:00.000+05:302007-04-18T11:42:33.801+05:30

Some spec's are marvelously defined - neither too strict, nor too loose : not sure how they do it : it has just the right amount of abstractions and constraints. Same with some well designed api's.A common way to identify this would be if both the power user and a novice can both work well with it.But from what I see, they are a rare breed.From a spec point of view (which is what triggered this

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-66082731866682724082007-04-16T11:52:00.000+05:302007-04-16T11:57:33.198+05:30

It is so painful to buy things online ... pay the price, wait for delivery and since they (amazon here) happen to deliver it from outside India (which is not always mentioned), I get screwed by a pretty insane duty - 40+ % for movie dvd's ?!I have had these sort of things delivered before ... and only when it comes through DHL do I get shafted so badly. One thing for sure ... probably no more

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-55282183741745885342007-04-16T00:09:00.000+05:302007-04-16T00:12:08.504+05:30

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous Vishu !All I can say is, feast at grandparent's place was phenomenally good !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-49429354689889968842007-04-14T10:17:00.000+05:302007-04-14T10:18:56.616+05:30

James Clark, has touched most of our lives ... usually without us knowing it, in more ways than one. Going down his bio makes me let out a WOW !(We use his xp parser in our server btw).

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-1744490315653739052007-04-07T03:39:00.000+05:302007-04-07T03:57:02.803+05:30

At times, I am known to make provocative, ill thought out/ill conceived, controversial statements.Though I rarely regret making them, friends definitely do have a blast having me around and picking holes at what I say :-) (What are friends for eh ?!)One of the 'golden oldies' is something I said in first year of college within the first couple of months I think : and this has been repeated,

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-14085298648871680912007-04-05T00:48:00.000+05:302007-04-05T00:58:49.768+05:30

Watch these : 1 , 2 read this.How stupid can people become.This and similar stuff is what is getting taught in USA in schools it seems !!I used to think that the debates in Scott Adam's blog about intelligent design vs evolution was all for fun and the people concerned knew that.Never in my wildest dreams did I really believe that there would be 'perfectly sane people' with a scientific bent of

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-52494613676448950002007-03-31T22:16:00.000+05:302007-03-31T22:48:53.149+05:30

Last week, Chris Newman was at our office here - who is also senior architect of messaging server team. I got to chat and discuss things with him - it was just amazing !He gave a few short talks (had to wake up at 10 am daily last week :-( ), and listening to him share his views & experiences and getting his opinion on some of the things we planned to do (am I glad I had that chat !) was really

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-80336283579021159832007-03-24T07:43:00.000+05:302007-03-24T07:44:29.503+05:30

This is one heck of a house to live and grow up in !

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6189050.post-9323481909268854792007-03-23T04:31:00.000+05:302007-03-23T04:47:08.885+05:30

Maybe sadism is too strong a word.I am referring to Malayalam movies here (excluding the current generation of largely unwatchable crap that comes out) .There are a lot of them where the very last few scenes of the movie, the viewer is left with the final twist for the worse - that too after things have supposedly become 'fine and dandy'.If you dont catch it, you will still have a good enough

Mridulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13469547248015674480noreply@blogger.com0