A communications/negotiations game

If you are anything like me and browsing around with no real purpose in mind (easy ;-) ) read on..
If you have seen and enjoyed movies like Enemy at the Gates, Schindlers List and old Bond movies you had better read on.

Oh and also required is a passing interest in European history and geography during the early 20th century i.e the period of the world wars.

Diplomacy is a game set in Europe, with 7 players representing the 7 major powers of that time i.e UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Russia and Turkey. The entire rule set is beyond the scope of this blog and can be found here, instead i am going to just give you a brief overview of the game to get you all excited about it.

Diplomacy begins with all 7 powers equally poised, i.e they all have 3 army or fleet units. And every unit is equal in strength so there is no scope for individual heroics or (hollywood like!) one man armies who can defeat everybody else.

The only way for a unit to defeat another unit and the game to progress is when 2 or more units collaboratively attack a single unit (If 3 units fight against 2 units the side with 3 units wins and so on).

The beauty of the game is that initially none of the powers have enough units to launch offensive attacks by themselves, thus begin pacts, counter-pacts horse trading and back stabbings.

The game progresses with the 7 great powers expanding there region of influence and ends when one power obtains control of 18 units out of the initial 34 units ( 3 into 7 plus 12 neutral plus R gets one extra unit).

Diplomacy can be played as a board game or online (at www.phpdiplomacy.net) with players spread all over the internet and the only way to contact the other players is via the inbuilt message system.

Do not expect any exciting animations or gut wrenching action on this site, the beauty of the game is that every move (representing 6 months of actual time) takes 24 hours. So basically you get that much time to make pacts and talk to other players and finalize your moves.

So go on! here is your chance to make history its free and fun.

Oh and before i forget the legal stuff, a company called Avalon hill holds the copyright for this. game. There are plenty of other sites offering this game, you are free to explore.

Skyscraping Singapore

At 704.0 km² (272 sq mi), Singapore is one of the few remaining city-states in the world and the smallest country in Southeast Asia.

Singapore gained independence in 1963 from British rule. A fact which would lead any self respecting Indian to shame. The pace of development brings it close to any developed US city. Public transportation, Roads, Airways, Housing.. all point to an increasing standard of living.

Exports, Manufacturing, petrochemicals, tourism, Real Estate and financial services.. are all booming and the Economy is flourishing, with the Singaporean Stock exchange SGX a strong indicator of South Asian Economy.
Situated just 137 Km away from the Equator the climate is horribly hot and humid. This has its advantages too, with t-shirts and shorts being the national attire.
Singapore is a mixture of an indigenous Malay population with a third generation Chinese majority(yum!) , as well as Indian and Arab immigrants with some intermarriages.

But the most most striking feature of Singapore is the rampant commercialization. Eg. a mundane forest barely 20 km² has been converted into an exotic Night Safari. A pretty ordinary offshore island has been made into a tourist hot spot with cable car rides, downhill skating type rides, horizontal giant wheels covering most of the island, exotic boating and fishing, and you get the idea. Everywhere you'll see cameraman ready to take your pictures for free. Beware! they are professionals and the pics usually come out pretty nice and you have to pay to take those pictures ;-)

The only distressing thing about Singapore is that it is over popluated but perhaps that is to be expected with its mix of Indian and Chinese people.

Barriers break when people talk

Rarely have i seen a better advertisement.

Summary
Two kids from diff countries, cross borders to play football / Cross barbed wire boundary lines on either side and play between the boundaries / VO -There's no war or barrier that can keep people apart if only they can talk / Airtel signature tune / Barriers break when people talk.

Two kids from diff countries, cross borders to play football / Cross barbed wire boundary lines on either side and play between the boundaries / VO -There's no war or barrier that can keep people apart if only they can talk / Airtel signature tune / Barriers break when people talk

The one with the truth about US aka Which country II

Names have been avoided to protect the identity of some of the people involved

So here it comes, the unfortunate details of the case leading to the arrest of one of my friends on our recent Mt View trip. Many of you may have heard variations of this story depending on just how embarrassed i was when telling you the story, but what follows is the absolute truth.

Tuesdays were always stressful for me, what with early morning meetings 9 AM to 12 noon and that day was even worse with some deadline pressures, and on the personal side had to shift my home as well. After a horribly tiring day at office and packing all my worldly wealth i set out for a drive to my new home. Its around 1 AM and i think hey a few drinks would be nice and stop by a friends place. This friend bores me by working from home even at that ungodly hour and i decide to drink by myself while watching him work. I spend the hour trying to make a radiohead cd, and by that time i am done he is done too and has started his first peg. While i am on my third.

Now people have got to stop listening to me when i am drunk, here's why. So this god forsaken idea of going on a mid night quick drive with radiohead blasting outta the speakers enters my head. As soon i step into the cold icy night i realize i am to wasted to even open the car doors and the bright stud i am i let my unlicensed friend into the drivers seat.

Now this friend is no ordinary person, he can drive almost straight with no alcohol inside him and an he is an expert nfs player to boot. Well he was probably tired from all the work as well, so he decides to check out what the 2.0 L Turbo LNF I4 has under her bonnet. Well the road lights keep changing to green as soon as we reach them and there is not a soul in sight at that hour.

To his credit the Cobalt has a horribly smooth pickup and without warning we are cruising at 70 MPH, and the first warning escapes my lips as i watch a road light shrinking absurdly fast in my rear view. This warning was lost out in the mesmerizing lyrics of where i end and you begin. To our discredit, i had even rolled my window down to enjoy the icy wind in my hair and the screaming wind should have given us an idea how fast we were going.

And suddenly the shrinking road lights in my rear view are not the only problem any more, i see a weird sight, i see 2-3 police cars right behind us..... tailing as they may a multiple homicide suspect. I switch off the cd player and the blasting sirens hit us with that sinking feeling in the stomach.

Now i have never had single cop behind me in my 3-4 years of illustrious driving history and i have to pinch myself to believe i am not dreaming. Now totally to my discredit i advise my friend to keep driving at a slow pace, hoping against hope that the cops overtake us and are actually on a real suspect chase. After a couple of blocks we know its after us and pull over on the side.

As soon as we get out in the now freezing night the chilling tone, 'suspect apprehended' mixed with radio static enters our ears and i am ready to pass out. After allowing us to freeze for 10 minutes they start the questioning, we are grilled as to what our motives for over speeding and not stopping immediately when tailed by a cop at that hour were. My friend is made to perform various types of maneuverer's and subject to a breath analyzer to check if he is drunk or not, luckily he passes all those.

Actually had we just been over speeding i think the cop would have let us go, but what pissed him off was that we didn't stop immediately and my friends had left his license back in India. Actually that was not all, I even had an open bottle in my hand which i did not know was such a big deal. In my tiny mind i kept thinking whats wrong if i am drinking as long as i am not driving. But apparently as per California laws, even the pillion can not drink.

I hear the chilling words, please turn around and keep your hands together addressed to my friend. Unfortunately, my car was towed away. Leaving me quite alone in the freezing cold in an unfamiliar city, with no money in my pocket. Actually not quite alone, remember i was shifting houses, so all my luggage in the boot is strewed on the street along with me. I could not even begin to comprehend what must have been going on in my friends mind, sped away in a police car to an unknown destination as he was.

The rest of the night is spent in calling relatives and 911 to find out how to get him back, and then later on how to find a lawyer in case he is not freed immediately. Finally he is let out with a court date and charges of reckless driving, attempting to evade arrest, driving while unlicensed, and driving with an open container in the car

Later we fight our case in court and as it turns out the lawyer finds fault with the prosecution's case on every charge except the open container, and the fine is reduced from $2500 to just $270.
The case is not closed yet as the fine has not yet been paid, we can still appeal against the open container charge, however we decide to pay the fine and get the ordeal done and over with.

Whew!!! so lesson learnt, never drink and drive, its a surefire way to end up in trouble.

Another lesson, while out of desh, do not try any funny stuff, you never know when Big brother is watching you. Tell me really which cop in desh pulls you over for overspeeding at 3 in the night ? and if so actually ends up arresting you.... I guess we are so used to the fact the greasing his palm will get us out of trouble that we never think that an arrest may be made, the only trouble in our minds is that he would ask for too much money and how we would have to negotiate.

Insomnia

Grrr. Cant sleep again. This used to happen all the time in 2006 but 2007 was much better.
So here i am at 7 AM giving up all hope of ever being able to sleep again , yawnnn!!!

So what did i do the day before to deserve this, first i cooked us some yummy schezwan rice, then i made myself a nice cocktail with coke, black label, and some everest chat masala ;-)... it was exotic. while still high on it i did the cardinal sin of watching some yummy gals on the net... twice, blissfuly went of to sleep at arnd 5 PM, only to be rudely woken up at 5:30 to meet a jogging appointment, excersised a bit and was expecting to sleep really sound. After that i didnt eat any dinner, but had some soup, fruits and juice instead along with roadies 5.0.

So why cant i sleeeeppp.. am i too stressed out or what ?? huh
have written this crap and still not an ounce of sleep, let me try writing a really long blog.

The Orkut profile.

Al rite i am a self confessed Orkut addict, i love to roam from profile to profile and check out what the gals scrapped the guy and vice versa. I love to check out totally random guys and their pics.

And the more profiles i see the more i wonder what is the point people try to prove using their profiles. They range from downright stupid to weird and ..

Take for example the solo pictures guys put on their main introductory page.
Some people put real dude types pics with goggles or displaying biceps or on a harley davidson or simply smiling 19 to the dozen.
My heart really goes out to these people wondering exactly what type of gals they will be able to attract using Orkut. (That is their primary purpose i assume)

Then there are the people who use their names as constant status updates...

XYZ will be back to India on So and so date, or ABC.. hhmm enjoying first snowfall.

Dudes if any of you reading that has a name like this, any one who needs to know your travel plans will just ask you and if you need to broadcast your interests well thats just pathetic.

Its bad enough that people post their telephone numbers in their names, as if the whole world just needs to know their numbers and cant wait to read the number posted inside the profile.

Then, I bet you've seen this
Place:- Bombay> Bangalore> Paris> San Francisco California.
As if it isn't bad enough that Orkut makes you fill in your birth place and current location separately in your profile these guys need to advertise every single place they have ever been to. Dudes get a life.

The funniest are guys (and gals are guilty of this too) who post their personal intimate romantic pictures on their Orkut albums, (and then you say Orkut is full of stalkers). People will pull all stops to put their marriage pics or honeymoon pics on their public albums. The last (and one i am guilty of myself) are ppl who put nature pics, ie mountains seas and forests as if they are all Columbuses' reborn.

Dont even get me started on About me's and passions, i have seen everything from
Looks no less than a Movie star to Passionate about making girlfriends.

Hmmm I could do this forever, visiting profiles i mean not writing ;-)

Giggling Girls!

The context:-
Me saying good bye to my Bhua as i step out of their home at the university housing complex. A strange giggling voice fills the corridor as if a thousand girls have suddenly found something very funny.

Bhua:- Uh Oh its the Giggling Girls (GG)
Me:- Huh whats that.
Bhua:- Bunch of College girls mainly studying nursing and living in local hostels.
Me:- Hmm Nurses...
Bhua:- Arre tum bachke rehna these gals drink a lot on weekends and have been known to create a nuisance.
Phupaji:- Arre kyuun dara rahi ho, atleast he has a better chance, let him enjoy, those gals are fun
Bhua:- (Experience se keh rahen hain)

By this time i see one of them wearing mini's and a shining top and giggling away 9 to 11. Does this girls have st vitus' dance or what. By now I am reasonably scared and walk as slowly as possible to the lift giving them enough time to close the door. As i hear their demented shrieks descend i am reasonably certain i have seen the last of them...

But whats this i hear them rising again, the girls just took the lift down for fun and now they are coming back up.I'm not sure what for! I swallow and nervously press the lift button. Reasoning after all what could a bunch of college gals do to harm me. I take my wallet and put it in my jacket pocket.

The door opens to a medley of colors, mellifluous chirping and the strong smell of alcohol. Looking around nervously (which i do very well) I manage to enter the lift without once letting my gaze meet theirs.

I can count 7-8 pair of heels and a million smirks. I feel as if they are all gazing at the new found bakra... Twitching i look up to see mostly oriental features, 2 of them at least 6 feet but thankfully the rest much smaller.

I try to give a benign smile to no one in particular hoping they will take this as a sign of boldness and back off. But no one seems to notice and certainly no one reciprocated.

At the ground i hurry to the nearby muni (San Fransisco local train) stop, the gals waver just a bit seeing they would each need to cough up $1.50 to entrain behind me. I never waited for a train so frantically wondering why the hell didn't the gals go back to their old game of up an down on the elevator. Maybe they had to go somewhere too!

I see them from the corner of my eye collecting all the loose change they have and all the while talking in some strange foreign language. From what i could get they had only $3.00 between them which meant only 2 of them could enter the train. Thanks god i decide, once again prematurely.I notice i have left my bag on the seat while buying the ticket and the gigglers have surrounded it leaving me no choice but to go close to them.

When i try to excuse myself towards the bag the gals seem to concentrate near my point of entry supposedly chatting excitedly in their own language and not stopping giggling even for a second.

Now, I am in panic thinking is this a game, how do i get my bag. I am all alone in the cold at 10 in the night with these nut cases. In a state of daze i hear the incoming train approaching. Feeling exactly what Abhimanu must have felt like while entering the ChakraVhuya. I decide to physically shove one of the gals and retrieve my bag..

Scarcely have i touched her that she recoils back in horror as if i have molested her looking hurt. I mumble my apologies at which the gang bursts into fits of laughter.

Being surrounded by drunk gals may seem like a scene straight from my fantasies but then i just duck my way out clutching on to my bag like a trophy.
I run and enter the train, cherishing the warmth within. But alas now the one i had touched enters the train behind me with a grimace on her face. She is soon joined by the rest of her gang. Wow! now a bunch of gals has hopped on a train without tickets just to chase me, i flatter myself.. Talk about nuisance!

Why does this frickin country have so many trains and so few people that i am again all alone on the train coach now . I desperately try to look as innocent and naive as possible. What if the gal calls the cops saying i assaulted her. But then i reason she is so drunk that the cop would probably arrest her first.

The hawks keep closing in on their prey, then one of them gives a discreet smile and pulls out a smoke. Her pal pokes her in the ribs pointing to the no smoking sign and i am spared the ignominy of having to inhale smoke.

After 10 minutes of loneliness finally the train reaches its destination and i jump out and reach for the Interstate train. The girls still hot on my heals!
Thankfully as i enter the platform gates a TT finally checks my ticket and lets me through.
Behind me i hear the oh so delicious words "Tickets please" and some confused babbling.

I look behind to see them waving heir hands and shaking their faces at me and i so wish i had a camera with me then, but the pic above comes pretty close to what they looked like.

Moral of the story.. never drink it makes you do things you would never do otherwise!

Fight Club!

This blog is about FC the movie starring Brad Pitt And Edward Norton. Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 wins & 14 nominations
Rated 8.7/10 (221,497 votes) on imdb.com

Few movies come and shape you as a person, FC is one of the movies which has closely influenced me on a very personal level (Positively i hope).

To me the movie is all about discovering who you really are and what drives you as a person what are your dreams and what would you classify as an achievement and what are your biggest failures.

The Dialogues are mind blowing to qoute a few..

We are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place We have no great war, or great depression. The great war is a spiritual war. The great depression is our lives.

My father never went to college, so it was really important that I go. After I graduated, I called him long distance and asked, "Now what?" He said, "Get a job." When I turned twenty-five, I called him and asked, "Now what?" He said, "I don't know. Get married." A generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is the answer we really need.

Some critics have described FC as a vent to male aggression, and i reluctantly agree but it is so in a very aesthetic sort of way, the violence wherever it is lends strength to the plot and the inevitable (oh so hot) scenes between Marla Singer and Brad Pitt border between the sensual and artistic. They are by no means lewd and very watchable (although maybe not with ur grandmom)

To set the context Edward and Brad Pitt live together and find out that they have a lot of interests in common and move on to form a fight club as a recreation event in the weekends.

The movie moves inexorably to a gut wrenching suspense... Is Tyler misusing Edward Norton, and the fight Club...? Does he have ends of his own to serve?

The Climax slowly unfolds as complex relationships emerge.

Radiohead for dummies

This blog is about my favourite rock band.If you were looking for something else (like maybe a radio with a head!) just go away now.

Now Radiohead is a kind of band which grows on you, not like Linkin Park or Rammstein which you like instantaneously and keep listening until you grow tired.

With Radiohead it was never love at first sight for me, but theirs is the kind of music which you have to develop a taste for. Its the kind of music you can just keep on hearing forever and each time you hear it again you find a new reason to love it...
With their unique blend of dark, brooding and soulful music there is a serious risk of addiction.
Soft romantic types can step away too now..

I am sure many sites exist on them and list out their best albums, but if you are like me you just want to get the best 1-2 songs from their top 3 albums listed out for you.. (You lazy a**holes)

So sit back and relax I'm gonna link their best 4 songs for you to enjoy. And if you still dont like any them well then like i said you gotta have taste for it!!


It is frickin impossible to select 1-2 songs from "In Rainbows" with beautiful tracks like Bodysnatchers and 15 steps, Reckoner.

Check out the mesmerizing guitar performance in Jigsaw falling into place-



Reckoner with its mind blowing use of the Guitar comes next



Numero Uno is a no brainer for me

Street Spirit (Fade out) from The Bends Album is a journey into your Soul. Just listen to it with your eyes closed on a decent audio device. Also FYI at the time of writing this video has an average rating of 5/5 based on 4500 ratings on youtube!




If that was too slow or depressing for you (i actually find it inspirational) coming up is the upbeat Where I End And You Begin (from Hail to the Thief)


I am deliberately leaving out Creep as its lyrics can get too depressing to unaccustemed Radiohead listeners, a beautiful song no doubt i believe it is way overhyped..

Which Country!

Who says imitation isn't the best form of flattery..
From now on i am gonna write 2-3 liners blogs daily on anything that catches my fancy..

So back to the topic.. Picture this

An overworked security official (over as in doing everything from receiving mails/guest/arranging cabs.. in short everything except security) taking calls from 3-4 employees and jotting down their transport requirements (Yipee we get free cabs) and trying to optimize the cabs at his disposal.
Do i need to say which country i am talking about

Contrast this with..

A Security chap with a Suite and Tie uniform which would put SRK to shame, with a farely British Accent mumbling, "Please call up the Khab(Cab) service and ask for a pikhup".
After opening the yellow pages and calling all friends i finally manage to get a cab. But wait i can see two cabs waiting for me. In panic i relive the incidents of the night trying to make sure i haven't called cabs from two different companies. However one chap walks up briskly to me and escorts me to the cab...

After i reach the hotel i notice the same second cab screeching to a halt right next to me and another desi bhai flaunting his Google jacket walking into the hotel...

Now tell me which country is using its resources most optimally !!??

Sky Diving Experience.. Jump from 15K feet!!

Some facts:-
At 15000 feet (=~4.5Km)
Temperature = -14 'C
Atmospheric Pressure is about 50% of pressure at the surface.

Birds fly at 500 feet.
Eagles fly at 10000 feet (Max)
Manned hot air balloons fly at 1000-3000feet
Aircraft's fly at 30000 feet.

Oxygen is needed for all crew and passengers for any flight that reaches and exceeds an altitude of 12,500 feet.

Now the story..
If you are anything like me you have no idea just how high is 15K feet, and what you can see and what you can not see from up there.

Well it is much higher than some of the clouds, thus in the video you can clearly see a shot with us caught in between the clouds and the sun. From up there we could see the santa cruz beach on the one side and the Carmel valley on the other...

As soon as we jumped we were in a free fall for about 1.5 minutes, which is where most of the video is shot. Nothing i can say here compares to the hollowness you first feel in your stomach when you are off the plane, for the first 10 seconds i was scared like hell and all i could do was scream and clutch the safety straps around me. This is the closest un-winged mortals can get to anti gravity and flying i guess.

After the first shock we held hands with the cameraman and made several interesting formations.

Luckily for me my cameraman and instructor (the guy tied to me) were best pals, had done many jumps together and had perfect co-ordination. Thats why we were able to make all those mid air formations and the camera captured my expressions so closely.

It is an experience like no other, i would say everyone must try it once it is just too much..
The link to the video is here

Life at Google

Finally a blog i have waited 2 long months to start writing. Not because i am lazy but because i did not want to write about my new job while i was still in the honeymoon period.

Well first of all a lot of people ask me to compare Google to other companies, and while i don't know much about other companies, Google has a different way with employees which i haven't seen in any other company as i shall try to explain in the remainder of this blog.

Like a lot of people i had heard a lot about Googly and the cynic i am the more i heard the less i believed. But this is one case where i think reality is not far from the hype.

Firstly and most importantly is the work culture which is very flat and agile, nice words but what do they mean and what's the catch you may ask, Glad you asked! What that means is that engineers here enjoy a great degree of freedom when it comes to actual design and project planning. The philosophy here is they hire selectively and then make the engineers directly responsible for the success of a project, and then they have to decide what it takes to do that.
These decisions could range from actually defining what needs to be done, how to do it and more importantly the resources required to do it. Managerial supervision is minimal and is often restricted to reviews.

Another thing which i like here is the emphasis on continuous education built into the policy framework ( there was actually a talk a few days back about what it takes to reach top managerial schools!). Most important technical talks are videotaped and made available for employees to watch and learn, these talks vary in content from Google specific technologies to a host of open topics and technologies. There are tutorials available for almost all internal work flows(some of them could use improvement, but at least they are there).

Third, there are no rigid project specific boundaries, if someone finds that a technology they use has some bugs or could be done in a better way they are expected to do it themselves !!! And given the fact that most of us use Google products in a big way even before joining here there are a lot of interesting things to be done!!

Fourth, engineers can spend 20% of their time working on something that they care about. I am not to sure of this exactly but i think that people use this 20% time to do stuff identified in the Third point.

Fifth, and probably the most hyped are the Google perks!!
The snacks and food variety is simply path breaking, in break rooms you can find stuff from Mars bars, Snickers, Lays, Pringles (Yes in Bangalore) to fruits, dry fruits, 5-6 types of juices, milk (regular, skimmed, and a few other varieties), yogurt, cheese, butter, pasta, noodles, eggs, cookies, chikki, kurkure, sevral types of Cornflakes, Muesseli ( i don't even know what that is!), Coconut Water and several other goodies.
For snacks you have patties, pastries, samosas, CCD cakes, Subway Sub's and some other stuff.
Breakfast sometimes has Alu ka Parathas, sometimes idli-vadas, sometimes dosas's sometimes omelletes.
Dinner is also nice, one thing which i did not like much was the lunch! The food taste is not that great although the variety is still fairly diverse, with non veg 4 days a week, and ethnic cuisines once in a while!

Company transport during working days is almost like you have a chauffeur driven Indica at your beck and call!

The break room has a Foosball table and a giant sized synthesizer other than the tt and carrom, we do not have gym right now but we will be getting one pretty soon.

The HR and fincance seems to be stil finding its footing in India and One thing Google is not good at is compensation, earlier they over payed and in recovery mode right now they are not paying as much as some other companies like Microsoft and Adobe. However if the Stock keeps appreciating at the same rate as it has done in the past few months that should not be a problem!

Keep checking back, coming up next life in the Silicon Valley!