Tag: life

Power of Language

Prasad Ajinkya6 Comments

I never realized how powerful a medium could be, until today … this realization may be incomplete as well, but just a small wow was enough for me to dash of a quick post.

I talk to my soon-to-be fiance a lot … telephone is the only sahara to breach the long distance between Hyderabad and Mumbai. Believe me, a lot. Reliance ki jai ho jai ho jai ho.

Although my cabin sees a lot of people throughout the day, I do not mind talking to her on phone since very few people understand our common language. Marathi. Matrubhasha rocks!! So, one fine day, after talking I kept the phone down … only to realize that one of the employees in our retail department was smiling at me. I smiled back. Today, I recieve a mail from him regarding some work … I see his name, Deepraj Bhise. Great!! Gone is the awesome privacy that language can offer you in a foreign land.

A straight forward application of this we see in our daily lives …. encryption.

Sacred Underworld

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Well, I downloaded the expansion pack as well … and the installation of the same nearly killed my machine!! But the refined game is much better, the item drops are much more … with 2 more character classes and more missions and more areas. I want longer weekends where I could play this game!! I also want to play this on Multiplayer!! I wonder if I could get my fiance hooked onto it, so that post marriage, we can play this on the LAN!!!

Please honey?!? – The trials and tribulations of an over-aged gamer and his family :-)

Knowledge Value Cycle

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I was reading a friend’s blog about how he has decided to have a mission for his blog. Immediately in the comments, I put in that along with a mission, one should also have a vision to know where the mission is going. Now, while suggesting a good looking and smart sounding mission and vision, I came up with this term – Knowledge Value Chain (I wont edit the comment on Biggie’s blog). I do not claim to have invented this, since a quick google showed me that the term is already used and abused many times over. So heres one more to the count.

Small explanation:
The cycle is divided into six stages, with the ultimate stage or goal of knowledge is to be the guru, the one, the yin on that subject. Look at our education system for example, that should tell us how this process goes … initially we do only rote (remember those horrid 10th and 12th exams??) … as we go into graduation, the awareness increases, we start listening and finally understand that theres more to knowledge than rote (try doing Hearn & Baker of graphics or Algorithms by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest and Clifford Stein or any other thick book for that matter) … next comes the phase where you actually start learning yourself (that would be during your post graduation or job where there is no one there to teach you or learn from) … post which you become comfortable at internalizing a lot of information in a go … once it is internalized, you say … “hey, this stuff is awesome!!” … you want to spread the word … write blogs, talk with friends about it … you become an evangelist. People start looking up at you … they start saying … “yeah! he knows stuff” … you become a teacher.

Of course the process can be extended into a heightened form of knowledge cycle … thats when the teacher learns from his students. Interaction.

Diablo 3: The thing I have been waiting for

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When I was doing my engineering (way back in 1999), one of my very good friends, Choxy told me of this original game CDs that his friend had gotten from the US. Now trust me, back then an original game CD was a big thing (it still is, but now you have torrents :-) ), and needless to say, Choxy with his awesome networking capability had those cds with him.

After meeting with him and getting those CDs, I was excited … heck, I was jumping up and down and aching to just play the game. But how to make the game run without those CDs… that was the question. After much soul searching, I found the right crack (had to install the game twice before I got the exact crack!!). By this time it was night and my mother was heckling me to go to sleep (yeah, it was so back that I actually listened to my folks). You could say that this was the turning point … once, the game started running, I said bye bye to a normal life, and the next 3 years of my engineering life were spent late-nights, surfing, playing, days – sleeping, eating.

I was hooked, and how!?! One of my best friends also got hooked to the game, so much that he used to visit my place just to play the game … and boy he was a good player. During my CAT preps, I took his help in occupying the machine so that I would not play Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction instead!! So part of my MBA’s credit is also due to Kombdi!!

After almost 5 years, Diablo2 is completely out of my system. Or so I thought, yesterday I learned about Blizzard announcing Diablo3 :-)

The craze is on.

Internet Addiction

Prasad Ajinkya6 Comments

This just in. Internet Addiction is a clinical disorder.

I think I am infected. What about you? Chances are, that if you are reading this, you would be :-)

Welcome to the club!

The article says,

The relationship is with the computer. It becomes a significant other to them. They exhaust emotions that they could experience in the real world on the computer through any number of mechanisms: emailing, gaming, porn.

I can certainly identify with emailing and gaming :-)

You know you are in 2008 when …

Prasad Ajinkya5 Comments
  1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
  2. You haven’t played Solitaire with real cards in years.
  3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
  4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
  5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don’t have e-mail addresses.
  6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
  7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
  8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
  9. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
  10. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
  11. You’re reading this and nodding and laughing.
  12. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
  13. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
  14. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn’t#9 on this list
  15. You desperately want to post this somewhere, on a blog or a tweet perhaps!!

I know, its a little bit old and a forward, but couldn’t help it.

Biryani at Bawarchi’s

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Our intern at eYantra, Mitesh(IIM-Indore Batch of 2009) is having his last days here, he has had a blast till now (or so I would like myself to believe). Today he gave us all a treat at Bawarchi’s, for lunch. Having never been there, I obviously was excited to go there for lunch. Taking 2 bikes, the party of four left for the place … sadly, the place was closed. All the great plans were dashed … why was it closed?? Because of some strike against the hike in petrol prices!!

Fortunately the indominatable Indian spirit came to the rescue; We noticed a man standing besides an alley infront of the popular restaurant. He was gesturing towards us to follow him. He led us through a back door, into the kitchen of the restaurant and finally into the restaurant itself!! The place had so high an opportunity cost of being closed, that they were opening it despite the strike. How awesome is that.

The Bawarchi biryani is really famous for its taste and the clean, soft chicken. The portions are aplenty, and it takes a huge stomach and a healthy apetite to finish off an entire plate. Burrpp!!

Afterthought – We need to have more interns like Mitesh here!!

PS – 100th post!!