SadDam <--> DamSad Ending

Saddam was murdered while the whole world watched.
MeThinks this act was nothing short of Cold-Blooded murder.

• He was head of a Sovereign Nation(i know iknow.... i re-phrase "almost sovereign nation" ) which was wrongfully accused of having Nuclear Weapons rather Nukes for the 'Initiated'
• The so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction were not recovered after the attack over Iraq.
• He was hounded till he was caught and Finally terminated.

This just proves that UN and such bodies are mere showcases of Bull Shit.

Like the Americans say "Shit happens" (like it happened to Japan and Vietnam ?)

Hegemony continues un-abated wherez the end to it all ?

It Ironically appears that the Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) word assumes a new meaning.
WMD are the people who finished Saddam . no prizes for guessing :-)

Damn Sad happening this...!

Well what if Saddam's Body double had been caught and hanged ?
oopsy... I ain't talking ill of the dead ! [ jus my wishful thinking ;-) @ work again]
Reminds me of the Bob Marley song

Oh, now, I shot the sheriff
but I swear it was in selfdefence.

Oh, no! yeah!I say: I shot the sheriff
(and they say it is a capital offence. not in 2006 though ;-) and not for the Prez of the world )
Yeah! (ooh, ooh, oo-oh) yeah!

~P

Small steps before the Big 1s

I started evening walk in the park near my residence.

Believe me, I' ve never been so alive.

I have been putting on weight since my last korea trip. I thot about this for some time and thot i will put an end toi this pot belly which is slowly surfacing :).
Not that I am new to Exercise regimen. I used to be a slim n trim fella back in college. Was a hearthrob for many a femme fatales in college :).
But in between i kind of lost myself to the "Work" phenomenon. Now I think I shud get back into shape.
I don't believe or keep resolutions but this time around. I want to lose some weight 2 fast 2 soon.
But that ain't gonna happen I know. So I will stick with the exercise regimen as far as possible.

I am taking on the hidden entity called Flab head on :D

~P.

[QOTD]

"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism by those who have not got it."

- George Bernard Shaw

Jaytalking :)

After I get back home from Office I have got addicted to this jaytalking of Jay Leno from the Tonite show. His show is just the right stuff to end your day on a hilarious note. His show puts my mind in the right perspective so that I can hit the bed with some lighter vein.

In side story
Had been to Hubli/Dharwad my native last week and believe me it was a very refreshing experience to visit Ancestral roots. In short I was among people who speak my native language day in and day out. I could really connect to the people and the language as Dharwad kannada is my Mother Tongue. Had been to my Native after 9 years which made this a special moment.

but the unfortunate thing this region faces is Zero development and growth. The State Government is too very Bangalore/Mysore/Mandya/Hassan centric and North Karntaka is a Majorly neglected lot. The IT Park built there gathers dust even as Millions are spent only in this small Concrete village called Bangalore.
For north karnataka people bangalore is the only place to hit for jobs. Real Estate prices are a dampner for other kannadigas in bangalore. I don't see a change in the future also as Politicians are Bangalore centric and all that matters is a quick buck for them as long as the Colaition government continues. Nobody thinks beyond bangalore or maybe even beyond a radius 100/200 kms.
Till then North Karnataka people have to bear the high costs of living here and survive in bangalore. Though there are many(many) North karnataka people in Bangalore nobody can start a company in Hubli due to lack of Infrastructure support and political will @ the Vidhan Soudha.

~P.

[Qotm] December

"For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils."

- William Wordsworth.

Wish I had a Camera in my mind

Sometimes on my way back from Office in the company bus I get time to watch things I have never noticed though I might have passed by the street hajaar times. Traffic Jams are the Eye-Openers ;-). You sometimes notice rare things.
Someone or the other keeps honking and you r forced to look around. Its at moments like this you tend to notice things probably your Eye has missed almost 99% of the times.
Jams are like the quintessential recipe for observing life in any city. One can observe people loading their bikes/scooters with 3 people and juggling away into the streets. Funniest part is all wear helmets :D
Traffic jams also help in discussing politiks, Work, Sport. Well I wonder if I am not caught in a Traffic Jam daily I would be missing the Grapevine :-)

~P

Miss u in every Heart Beat....

I have stayed in Germany for six Man Months in the past year. I have actually got some *Germs* into me now!. not a day passes by without me learning a new word in German. I simply get enough of Rosenstolz songs. These dayz I wait to get home and read some german online papers. Sometimes I wonder whats with me, me being in India(Home Sweet Home).

But I feel like I am kind of slave to the Germanic way of life ! :)
Just can;t get enuffff :D

Auf Wiedersehen!

Doc a day keeps High tea away....!

Our Wireless division as part of its employee satisfaction effort had invited upon a noted doctor today to give a small talk on Life/Work/Creativity et al.

The Last time such an event was organised I found it to be a Total letdown!. Some Ad agency director had been invited.He started explaining some things about creativity but it appeared to be His-Side of the story (dumb talk).

He also tried to be funny when he was remotely nowhere near. Then he tried to kind of bring in Religion into Humour and Life. Started singing Christian songs.

Now I am not against any religion but I do hate (or is it despise ? ) ppl who mix this and think its Funny. Believe me half the crowd left the instant he started it. The rest were there just there for the sake of it. A stiff upper lip was maintained as the Guest had to be honoured but it was no good show.

Having learnt from this nasty experience I decided that I will skip this Doctor for toDay.
And as I was sipping my Tea I was wondering as Doc can be more /Humane/ and could have provided some better insight towards Life! I was asking myself did i make a mistake ?

But then the feedback was that this doctor also did cut a sorry figure. Folks did not like it a wee bit. At least I got some time to learn the Najdorf meanwhile ;-)

ALOHA!

The Yin and Yang @ work

Sometimes in our daily course of debugging@work we get strange issues. I work for a team which debugs Anamolous Mobile Handset behaviour. Many of the times these are in software and we are able to pin point them accurately to the last instruction which faulted.

Also hardware happens to be the culprit sometimes. But there happen to be some cases which are kind of un-explained in software. Such as a mov instruction leading to software reset.

Normally we hit the Software angle first & considerable hours spent in debugging from a purely software perspective is invested. Then we try to examine the hardware. And if we still draw a blank that is the time we are in a dilemma. Recently i saw one issue where the ARM Processor program counter became zero all of a sudden. How this could happen in the circumstances the handset was executing is still a Mystery. While I was caught in the The Yin and Yang I chanced upon some old bug which was due to bad SDRAM read/writes. Well to detect such faults is a big pain in the neck(believe me).

And to say for certain that the above issue is due to faulty read/write requires an efficient debug mechanism which is rarely present with us. Thus some issues intrigue us no end. However I am still debugging the above said bug. Lets see whether its the Yin or the Yang ;-)

~P

ADIDAS

Hey,
me back in Bengaluru last saturday morning. Today I have been troubled by the Jet lag. I am just not able to keep my eyes Open. The Time Zone change has really got to me.

And right now All Day I Dream And Sleep ;-) ADIDAS.

So that being the case I better pull out of this Tomfoolery and rush back home and catch some quality sleep ha ha ha :)

Aloha!

Trip to Paris.

Dear Reader...
Apologies for my blogging absence. I have just returned from a vacation - a really great vacation exploring the City called Paris. THough it happens to be in France, I was wondering whether I had been to Africa or Asia ;-).
Paris is home to all the people from the world and equal representation exists for all. I saw many Srilankans there which made me wonder about their state. Here(france) they are offered all that any French born citizen can lay hands on to. Still they labour to get back their original terriroty in Sri Lanka. Such is the love of Motherland.

gettin back to Paris. The Subways are amazing. The Eiffiel Tower is one Marvel nobody will or shud miss if they happen to tresspass Paris. on my Flight back I managed to spot the Eiffiel Tower from the window and it was a very good experience.

My friends Kiran and Rajendra made my trip @ Paris a memorable one. Without whom i cud have lost Myself in the beautiful streets of Paris. Though Paris is not as clean compared to Frankfurt. The Charisma the city has is what sets it apart from any City i have ever been to.

In fact bangalore resembles Paris in many ways except that tall structures are replaced by IT bldgs in bangalore :)/

Overall.....It was great to be away and take that break and it is great to be back.

~P.

Qotm : November

There are 10 types of people in the world:those who understand binary, and
those who don't.

-Anonymouse ;-)

Since I am in the business of post mortem analysis of mobile crashes- this above quote makes it more apt to what we really do @ work...i.e.,make sense out of the gibberish thrown by the device @ us before dying. And we try and explain the same after removing the chaff.

DON Quixotic stuff !!!

DON II was released with much fanfare but it turns out to be 'Much Ado about Nothin'.
It appears to be quixotic stuff. Farhan Akhtar has insulted the establishment of FilmStory Writers. All he has done is a Copy paste of the original and ended up screwing so badly that people are not able to stand even a mention of the remade flick.

The Story of DON II is ditto same as DON I. Which puts you off if ur having great expectations.
Shahrukh has acted coyly and the effort is not worth anybody who has paid a dime wud like to watch. Dialogue delivery is cavalier compared to AMitabh. Overall this showcases why Amitabh still rules and rocks. Shahrukh;s performance is pedestrian compared to AMitabh's performance in the original flick. At the end of the movie. It was obvious.

DON ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin na
mumkin bhi hain.
Waise hi..
DON ka kirdar ada karna mushkil hi
nahin Namumkin bhi hain [;-)]

~P

[MRSNWKMECSTBH] ;-)

Mere Saamne wali khidki mein ek chandsa Tukda baitha hain.
Mere Saamne wali khidki mein ek chandsa Tukda baitha hain. [MRSNWKMECSTRH]
............................................
Afsos ye hain ki woh humse kuch ukhda ukdha rehti hain [ german gal :) ]
Jis roj se dekha hain usko hum blinds draw karna bhool gaye [ i mean german khidkiyaan dost :) ]
............................................
Ab aat peheyr in aakhon mein woh german mukhda rehta hain.
Thand bhi aajkal chali gayi...badal bhi garajkar chale gaye !
............................................
Par uski ek jhalak ko hum husna ke malik taras gaye.... :(
kab pyaas bujhegi aakhoan ki...din raat ye dukhda rehta hain.
............................................

I have modified this padosan song to my discretion :). Basically there is this "Dow Jones" office
next to our Samsung office in Frankfurt. And from our khidki we can see some Cubicles of these DowJoners. And therez this lovely gal whom we all ogle at ( I remmember my friend Sandy :) )
Sometime back she noticed us in the ogling act AND shut the blinds on the windows....

Now we rarely see the chanchal mukhda these days...thats the Dukhda :).

~P

on Un-Buttoning oneself...

Hey this is not a blog about undressing or something....read on...I promise it will be boring to the hilt ;-).

I am blogging-in @ 5 am in the morning. Was able to solve a linker issue with the counterpart in San Diego. This had consumed my whole night and at dawn it was solved. As I lay typing here my room mate grew extremely restless as he was losing sleep due to my typing(erratic typing rather). Every hour on the hour i used to assure him its gonna take some time only.
Now that the issue is resolved I was wondering about how we cannot leave in this present day world without pressing a few buttons. Be it on the key board or the door bell or the Light switch in your room to your Idiot box control gadget.
Everywhere Buttons seemed to have overtaken Humans.

Can I imagine living without pressing a single button for a whole single day ?
... whoa! is such a thing possible... :) ?

Well our ancestors lived life that way. We certainly need to un-learn our Urban habits and lean into the rural side of humanity and see how less buttons they encounter. I guess the words "Panic Buttons" are more of an urban Legend than a Rural phenomenon. Living in a City imposes these buttons on us, on whom we sometimes take out our anger on. May it be the pedestrian who crossed the street at the nth moment or the Auto which expectedly does an unexpected act.
Buttons get pressed ... well the fact is Buttons are here to stay.

Even as I type this blog. I feel the keyboard buttons twitching and feel that I should go back to the rural living once in a while to enthuse life and stay away from these buttons through which we control our living.
In Retrospect these buttons end up controlling us.

~:)
Prasanna.

MOTD : Right Said Fred

I try not to predict the future. I’m not a big believer in fortune telling. The best way to predict the future is to implement it.

- David Heinemeier Hansson

Aviator - Sequel to Bugsy or how do i put it ?? Bugsy II

I watched Aviator today. yeah its an achivement as I have a hectic sckedule these dayz.

(Yes this is a movie review Ladies n Gentlemen. This is kind of a Writer Review). I had watched one Hollywood Classic Bugsy sometime back. And this movie Aviator seems to be similar in many respects to Bugsy.

The Protagonist happens to be a Baddie with striking Personality and a Great Will power. He dreams Big and the un-imaginable. Meet the Aviator or Benjamin Bugsy as it appears to me.
While Bugsy was based on a True Life incident. Aviator has no parallels in history AFAIK ( or are there any ?? ;-) )well the Story writer it appears did not like the ending of Bugsy. In Bugsy Warren Beatty as the Bad Guy turned Hotelier has a craze for one Woman who ultimately steals all money from him.
Bugsy is a Movie about how Las Vegas was born. The Gambling industry started in the USA.
His hotel Flamingo is supposed to be the biggest Legal Gambling Jaunt ever.
Where Bugsy stops Aviator takes off. I mean Bugsy is resigned to his fate when all hell breaks loose and all the people he ever knew or did not know Turn against him. In Aviator the Story Writer paints his character with some physical disabilitys from the start.The movie proceeds on the same Lines as Bugsy but Deviates at the place Leonardo di caprio is down in the Dumps.

Aviator is about a guy who wants to build a Mighty Airplane which is Fast and Carry what a present day Boeing Jumbo Jet can carry. The film is set in the Post world war II 1947 Era. He also loves one of the leading ladies of his time and She comes to revive him out of his Sorry State of affairs. His Plane project is in trouble once he crash lands a plane in a Civilian area.

But The most amazing part is when the Committee formed to Try him for his crimes is outwitted by the Aviator. This seems to be the highlight of the movie. THis is where Bugsy was having a sad tale. I feel the 'Aviator' is the same wine in new bottle. Just the Ending has changed. Aviator Manages to outwit his rivals and comes out clean. Though Leonardo Di Capio manages to live upto the Aviator character. Somehow his dialogue delivery does not come any close to Warren Beatty.

The Story writer seems to have made a movie by just changing the last few Scenes from Bugsy :)

All said n done...Finally I wud rate the movie 5 on a scale of 10. And as to the Movie Writer. No Marks for him ;-)

~P.

Map file from ELF.

If you want to generate the Map file for a particular ELF file,
with the ARM tool chain use Fromelf tool.
It can be used like below at the command prompt.

$fromelf -text -zvts .elf -o .map


~P

Salzburg-Austria! It happens to be Mozart's birthplace.
 

QOTM: OctoberFest :)

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Happy Birthday Func1....its been nice maintaining u

My Blog celebrated its birthday 2 days bak and I could not even write up something :-(
had been quite bzee lately!
Func1 celebrated its birthday on Sept 27th. I hope i have Many Many Happy returns of the day I created Func1. That was the very day Func1 did a Hello World [:)]
Its like Wilson in the movie castaway. I really really really relate Wilson and Func1.
AND I don;t wanna lose Func1 like Tom hanks loses Wilson in the Movie (LOL).
Well...lets see....

Adios for now :)

Whatz an Equal opportunity employer ??

Last week I met a Bangalorean in Frankfurt. had an interesting discussion over tea with him.
He told me he quit his former company Philips because it was just not

An Equal Opportunity Employer.

Hell I always heard this phrase and never knew what it meant. over the course of the discussion I came to know that he was not being treated on par with employees from Philips parent office.

He explained how good Texas Instruments(his current employer) is in that respect.
He tells me there is no discrimination at all in treatment of employees across geographies.
Now that is something I was interested to know.
The arrangement and treatment for employees on travel to subsidiary offices would be equal through out the world. So an employee of TI from say Timbuktoo would stay in the same hotel as an employee of Ti US office :-).

Medical benefits, Commuting expenses are same across the length and breadth of the company. Except of course senior management. I have worked with two MNCs before my current employer and had observed pretty much these things before. Not that I miss those services in the current place I call home :-).
But yes these are good things to have. Also this friend of mine said he would not leave Ti as he would never find a better place than this.
Well Itz what appears to be the place to be :)). That apart, my experience teaches me that someone gives you respect demands respect and thats what equal opportunity is all about.
Somebody treats you fair enough, nobody would ever wanna leave such a work place.
Most causes of attrition are disparity between Managers and Developers.
Well I don't read much into www.joelonsoftware.com since those are not right in the context India is in. But then Joel says everybody should get a private cubicle for creative work. That might be true in the US or Europe. But in india it simply boils down to a small private cubicle.
What joel says might be far fetched in India. But like my friend said who does not like some respect for a job well done.
In my experience Asian companies tend to think of short term gains and have make shift office spaces. Getting into the market before anyone has them pushing the Panic Buttons. This leaves them with very little scope for some after thought about Employees.

Huh...Talk about Creativity ! All that goes straight out of the window!

Disclaimer :These are my Opinions only and subject to change if things go sour :))

~P.

QOTM : September

Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. -- James Bryant Conant

RammStein !

Nowadays there are very few bugs reported in our system software. And sometimes I wait for bugs to be reported listlessly. But these depend on the Testers Might also :) . Anyways sometimes I get agitated when no bugs are reported (needless to say) which means the Testing effort has not been good enough. Today was no different with zero Handset (protocol related ) crashes reported.

So on one such listless days today, I was listening to the german band Rammsteins music. I had always liked the music since I first heard their songs in Engg first year. I googled a little about their history and came upto a Tragic Event.

Rammstein gets its name from the German town of Ramstein, which was the site of an airshow disaster in 1988. The band's signature song, the eponymous "Rammstein", is a commemoration of the tragedy that took place at the Ramstein Air Base. Then I went on to check about the Rammstein airshow disaster.

Looks like one of those unfortunate air shows. The pictures explain the Pilot error which caused him to ram into the other planes in the heart formation.
I think that explains the sad tones in Rammstein muzik.My Heart and Thoughts go to the people who lost dear ones to the Air Show tragedy.

signing off on a sombre note!

~P

Sunny side down...:(

The Sun Marketing team planned to stop work on the UltraSparcIIIi to focus on other servers which are making money. They want to focus on AMD based Servers which are have got better sales. After numerous lay-offs and product repositioning they still seem to be in Red.
The illustrious company which gave the Tech world numerous Firsts such a Solaris OS, Java and Applet technology just could not market the products right. Maybe Vinod Khosla who was one of the founders and MBA from Stanford could have given shape to the listless behaviour of Sun.
It has a linux strategy which actually appears to be conflicting with its Solaris OS based servers.
It also has AMD based servers which are in direct competition against its Sparc based processors.
Hope it stalls the redundancys.

~P

Orkut : The Monster Magnet

Since 2 months I have been glued to Orkut. Its that online community with which we can catch up with old pals of yesteryears.
Whoa ... its like Maggy(Hot_n_Sweet_n_ChilliSauce)...its Different!

You can find out about a person his tastes. What he is upto currently....all and sundry you would ever wanna know about ur friends.
It also has a Todays Fortune section which is bit funny. Like say my Todays Fortune cookie says

Today's fortune:You are going to have a very comfortable old age

Now what the Hell does that mean ?....how can todays fortune speak of my old age. Still no hard feelings for orkut...it does a monstrous service for FREE ( Free as in Free Beer :) ) .

Also Funny are orkut error messages...If there is a page loading error it simply says...

Bad Server No Donut for you !

When was the last time any website gave you some humour on some internal error :). Orkut is proving to be a Magnet to many people with which they can stay in touch with their kinda people even though being Miles away. I have seen one particular person with 1000 connections which is the max noof friends orkut network allows ( after all its freeware ! ).

Keep the good work going orkut.

~P

M$ shown the door @ home...(kerala)

This article details how the kerala government has shown the M$ products the door.
It says schools and public offices across the state are being encouraged to install free software systems instead of purchasing Microsoft's Windows programs. "It is well-known that Microsoft wants to have a monopoly in the field of computer technology. Naturally, being a democratic and progressive government, we want to encourage the spread of free software," M. A. Baby, the state's education minister, said by telephone.' The government is not banning Microsoft, but it is actively encouraging all 12,500 public schools in the state to install Linux."

At least one instance where the government ensures that Baby is not thrown with the bathwater :-)

Everyday is a Winding Road!

German Railways have special coaches for Bi-Cycles.
Separate Tickets are available for Cyclists. U can get ur cycle with you on your journey.
Ain't that cool ?
~P

BackTracking to Frankfurt!

Sleeping Beauties :) Ranganath/Ashish/Nisanth ! 

Havens Gate Cultists :)

Heavens Gate Cultists Ranganath n Nisanth :) 

I-J-A-D-I-P

Its Just Another Day In Paradise!

Residenz Palace as seen from the Marienberg Fort!

 

Princely view!

Phantom City !

 

Wanna go Downhill

wanna go downhill on this beautiful slopes! 

Gardenia_Delight!

 

best View just got better!

 

Finally king's private garden

 

Citi Bank

 

chat ke upar!

 

1 of the Wonderful Moments captured by S3iS

 

Khopche main se liya hua foto

This point of the Fort I feel the king used to have a look of the entire Wurzburg City.

Newly Wed Couple!

The Sparkle in their eyes was too much and I had to request them for a Quick Snap :) 

Hole of Fear

There is a Hole in this tower. Prioseners were thrown into the Dungeon through this Tower.
Also known as the "Hole of fear", This tower leads a long way downwards to a Dungeon.
The hole was scary as hell.


 

MarienbergTopDome

 

Mareinberg Top Dome!

 

LiveLifeQUEENSize

 

Centre of the Fort Marienberg

 

Benefits of a High Zoom Kamera!

 

Hadh kar di !

Duniya banane wale kya tere mann mein samayi?
Badhiya jagah hain banayi .... tune!