Wednesday, November 29, 2006

laptops n injuries

Laptops, which are becoming increasingly popular (their sales growing at faster pace than desktops), are endangering injuries.

Injuries for shoulders, wrists , spine, and even fertility !

For spine - read here
For fertility - read here
For wrists - read here

For avoiding injuries, check this out - click here and here

I hated when my previous employer gave me laptop. I hated it when I had to put in 2100 $ in order to buy a laptop. It does not have facility for another keyboard which is ergonomically better. Dayyuuuum...I could not buy the $10 deal on wireless ergonomic keyboards because it will help me stay healthy. Laptops are similar to fastfoods - instant gratification - however, unhealthy !

This is sheerly driven by mindsets of some capitalists who want to extract your money away from you ! Sounds cynical but analyze this - Employers give you laptops so they can extract more from you. Manufacturers make it because they make more margins on these ! Lenovo makes decent margins on the laptops !

Do you want to fall for it?

Saturday, November 25, 2006

parody

...HILARIOUS...

Sepiamutiny had this link posted.....its a parody of the Christmas Carol 12 Days of Christmas !
Check the video here

As of now, I am listening to O Preguicoso from the CD collection Elemental Chill.
...

thanksgiving

This year, I was fortunate to get to attend Thanksgiving with an American family - well, I will correct myself, Indo-American family. Bal-n-Val (from Carnegie Mellon) have been great friends and they invited me for the Thanksgiving dinner. The decoration and the efforts put in by the couple was admirable!

Darn-it-car-battery failed in the afternoon while I was in ShadySide on Thanksgivings. I was scheduled to go to the temple before the dinner event. Thanks to Bal who came to my rescue and picked me up from Squirrel Hill.

In contrast with last year's dishes, and thanks to Val that the meals were a vegetarian's delight !!! Tofurky - yummmmmmmmmy....... deliiiiciiiiiious ...I asked for the seasoning and I have to pick that one from Williams Sonoma. Bal tasted it and mentioned that there was barely any difference between the Turkey and the Tofurky - (I think I got a perfect substitute then). I have all the leftovers which will continue with me till Sunday.

To share with my readers, I took a picture of the sight at the table (above). The family sat around the table and we had a small prayer before we could start.

Post-dinner, we sat reading the ads in the handouts and I made a quick shopping list. The hosts were kind enough to offer me a shelter for the night and also, Bal was awesomely hospitable to take me back to my home for a quick pick up of my stuff for the stayover. I cannot thank the hosts enough !

Next day, early morning I woke up for the shopping - yay ! By the time we reached BestBuy, I had anticipated that the lines must've disappeared but Best Buy's line was fairly long and hence, I moved on to Circuit City. I got some stuff at Circuit City and was standing in the 90 minute atrocious queue for checking out the items. I should've made an intelligent choice to opt out of the queue without checking out. It wasn't worth it....anyways, my items are missing when I came back - I am unable to recall if I didn't get them inside the door and left them on my porch.

Later, I met Myers & Co (Val n her family) at Target and I bought some stuff there as per my list. We moved to Kohl's and I felt - daayuuumm, I should've come here before :) Kohl's had quite a bit of trendy variety - no wonder it was so crowded. I got quite a bit of stuff there. Following Kohls', we drove to downtown to get a shot at Saks and Macy's. I got a Nautica topcoat which Val had pointed out last night - great deal ! Thus, the theme this year undoubtedly was building up my winter collection unlike last year which was building up my shirts' section. Val's sister got her Louis Vuitton bag at Saks/Macy's. Right after, I got my John Ashford gift tie :) - Thanks !!!

Finally, we went to an Italian place for lunch - Girasole in Shadyside. They had delicious dishes and entremets out there. Salad was great - pretty different from the Olive Garden regular I've got used to ! We went around in some shops for checking out the stuff in ShadySide shops.

The day ended when I was dropped out at my place ( I was shopped out !) - this reminded me of my Dusherra days in Mumbai till 2002 .....they were just like this - having lunches and dinners with family and running around the town with family for shopping - this one will be a memorable Thanksgiving day for me !

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

salary value cities

This concept makes sense - "Salary value" cities !

A friend of mine chose to live in a small town in southern IL cos it saved money for her - a lots of it. moreover, it was convenient 35 min train ride from work to home and precision timing from home to train stn and work to train stn of 2.5 mins. She earns a package similar to what a Big 4 is offering me but can save more because cost of living at her place is so low. Smart lady !

More savings imply - higher disposable income later. Convenient travel to airport also implies better conditions to live. Moreover, money is well-spent. Time is well spent on weekends for productive causes.

Trade-off is that there is barely any socialisation ! Also, possibility for seeking opportunities is less. However, if one has decided to stick out with the firm for several years, then this kind of salary is a huge plus.

...considering whether i should take up this offer and change my location or go ahead with this and think of jumping ?

Saturday, November 18, 2006

opera

Last night, I went through a rollercoaster of emotions.

Romeo n Juliet was the one I watched at Pittsburgh Opera. Balcony seats were subsidized for CMU students.

I wasn't a great fan of this production - however, they did well. Juliet role was played by a good actress - however, Romeo's character could've been played better. Juliet's father wasn't as effective as well. Other Montagues were just fine.

We (myself and 4 other CMU colleagues) arrived at the opera by 8:10 pm - Delay can be attributed to parking spots being unavailable in downtown due to the lightshow. huhh- talk about parking issues in Pgh downtown.

After Doc's Place party for Heinz school, we drove down to downtown. I had wrong directions but fortunately, someone knew about it. I parked the car at a spot which I didn't note down and then we were running (all dressed up) around downtown to find the Opera - finally, when we reached there - the show had just started - so, didn't miss much.

While the show was on, I reminsced the song by Mary Chapin Carpenter - I'll never fall in love again. At the same time, the recently read book's thoughts flashed in front of my eyes; those of the book- The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck.

As Romeo starts falling for Juliet and she says to him - if this is a lighthearted love, then let me remain in my grief and tears and he need not meet her again. Juliet questions his motivations in a style that reminds me of the OST by Bryan Ferry - Will you love me tomorrow?

When cruel sorrow of separation hits them, both are in despair. Again, the Hindi song of Wo Lamhe started running in my head - I should get it out of my CD tracks in my car. Bee, are you reading this?

The book mentioned above mentions falling in love as dissolution of ego-boundaries. After a while, when love subsides (what I call as - when honeymoon period is over....after say 5-10 years) ego boundaries emerge again. She may not like his friends and/or vice-versa. He may want to make love but she may not and/or vice-versa at different points in time.

While searching for partner, it has to be based more than that of perishable attributes. It has to be based on whether the partners are leading to each other's spiritual growth. My Dronacharya-type guru also recently left his long-lived marriage and married another lady - yea, I am talking about Warren Buffet - the sage from Omaha.

Bossa Nova - a nice lounge recommended by a fellow CMU person was a nice place to explore after the opera. While heading back home, I had to search my car- as I had forgotten where I parked it. On the way back home, a colleague had to check out India Garden; unfortunately, it was just closed by 1:15 am, when we reached there.

Life's a bittersweet symphony !
I should not watch tragedies after all.
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It is not worth $17 :-P

offer

I haven't blogged this since a while... I have an offer ....Its for the position of Consultant at one of the Big 4 - not an Analyst, not a Sr Analyst - but a Consultant.

The recruiter at the Firm's Pgh office called me 2 weeks back to give me the good news. Later, she referred me to the NYC office recruiter because NYC office was my first preference.

Unless they have a reasonable creative solution for the same....

As Le Chiffre says in the bond movie......
Freedom Fighter: "Do you believe in God, Mr. Le Chiffre."
Le Chiffre: "No. I believe in Reasonable Rate of Return."

Carnegie Mellon Racing !


Check this out - this happens over weekends in front of Hamburg Hall !

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

...SFO...



Here's a small post on my memorable trip to SFO !

I flew on Thursday evening from Pittsburgh at 16:30 ET and with a 2-hour stop at Denver, flew to SFO. At Denver, I met a fantastic lady, Ms. Brooke Peterson. She was sitting down on the floor because there was just one switch and I was seated in the chair near it (charging up my laptop). I offered her the seat because my charger was extensible. With a gradual small talk, I got to know that SFO was home to her (man, she stays near the Golden Gate bridge - if I get a lottery house there - I will never leave it) and that she travelled for job. Distinct part of her job was that she could negotiate only a 4-day work week because she has 2 kids. Most interesting part of the lady's persona was that she had travelled Asia, Europe, etc. Multi-cultural exposure gave her a fairly open mind and a warm personality. Her hubby was Persian (Iran) and studied in UCal Berkeley for architecture. WoW ! She reminded me of Bee - pretty much.

The hotel room was simply awesome.
Check out my room's 3-D view at: http://www.hotelvitale.com/hotel/tours.php and click on "Superior Water View room."
Pictures of the room are on the link above and hence, I will not post them here.

I was impressed !

At 6:30 am next morning, the dawn breaks and I see this exotic view of sunrise with the Bay Bridge in between. It was so surreal. I woke up despite of the splitting headache and went out of my room. In the elevator, I met this lady and we talked about how beautiful the morning was and then we started walking and jogging together along Embarcadero ! Some of the pictures are:

Once the whole college-day affair was over, we (SalesForce team and candidates) had a dinner at Amici's near AT&T Park. Myself and Danielle (the smarty pants Berk candidate) walked down from near my hotel to this place. Nice evening! Later, I called up my high school buddy and he was kindda tired. As soon as I hit the room, I hit the bed and slept. TV was on and I woke up at 1:30 am to realise that I was knocked down by the whole exhausting journey and the busy day.

On Saturday, I wake up and call up my friend, who eventually lands up at 11:30 am. Meanwhile, I walk down some of the places on Embarcadero and explored our terrace and the view from the terrace was awesome !


So, here's what I captured. We went to Piers, took a one hour boat ride around Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge. Some more pictures.....

Yogesh's place was kindda cool - it was in San Jose. His roommate was warm and friendly - a recent MBA grad working for E&Y. Its Boston less all its things I dont like ! A few complaints though would be that there is no metro.




Main issue is with the expensive housing ! If only housing was cheaper here....reminds me of bbay ! but then Bbay was bigger than this.








Rest of the pictures can be checked out on Flickr

Trip to China ....

I am contemplating about this trip.....

click here

It will be a good tour for sure. If I go to India - I will probably spend as much and barely any benefit. Instead, if I go here, I will get to learn something worth a course load. Most of the courses are valued at about this price - about 2-3k.

I will have to make up my mind by tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Rendezvous with a Silicon Valley scientist !

An interesting rendezvous occured while I was flying back from SFO. An extremely eclectic company - an IBM IT Specialist who was earlier an researcher in one of the Silicon valley firms. He was my co-seat passenger!

It started off with him cautioning me about my coffee and helping me with something. Random small talk started...from why I was in SFO and then it moved on to his background and an arbitrary mention of Knowledge Management (KM) from me sparked the talk. He found the idea really interesting and wanted it to be implemented for his group.

Initially, when I got to know that he is from IBM and asking me more details, I thought he was testing me or something and I became cynical. Here's person in his late 50s, early 60s - travelling as an IT specialist for the Big Blue - and asking me help with implementation concepts on KM. Extremely eloquent, and articulate scientist - he exposed me to what he used to do 25 years ago in IT !


He suddenly asked me to elaborate on the KM idea and asked for an estimate. I said - it is difficult to estimate without details. I used my probing skills to gather high level requirements. While getting requirements from him he elaborated on how the Big Blue was organized and structured. He also mentioned how his group was structured. I clarified that his scope must be limited to making business plan and needs emergence rather than implementation details. He must mention requirements to management and design, engineering, etc will be done by other specialists. I gave him the usual house-building analogy !

Apparently, from the scope, cost, and schedule, I came up with a figure and he was taken aback - so much !? I said - this is if you get it done from a team at US costs and including license costs. If he did it using IBM systems and manhours, I was not sure what will be his estimates. However, he mentioned an instance regarding how cost-charging is done internally and blue-dollars move at a very costly rate.

Clearly, in my recommendations, I had also included the org-feasibility aspect because this had a slightly heavy political interaction in various groups.

Finally, we came to a point where we discussed about how he got to the Bay Area because he had done his PhD from SUNY Buffalo. He was working in SFO since 25 years. In the first 5 years, he rented apartments and later, got his own house. Man, he was lucky !(I wondered if I would ever be able to buy a house in that area. My SFO tour had some interesting insights which I will blog in a separate post !)

He gave me his visiting card and I gave him mine. My attire was misleading(too casual) and may have initially made him think that I was another young punk. Soon to realise that he needed me for helping him with his business case to his executives. I tried getting it in form of a final semester project - however, somehow, he was reluctant because it wasn't in his hands ! Well, I was ready to help him anyways - I just tried negotiating something which will help both of us.

Finally, I suggested him to consult one of his teams internally before we could even discuss further. We departed on a great note to contact each other and that was it for my rendezvous with a Silicon Valley scientist - a whole 4 hours of stimulating discussion!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Google =WalMart?

There was an interesting discussion of me with my friends. It was partially driven by something I had seen 2 years ago - EPIC

I teased the thought whether Google was becoming the WalMart of the cyberspace. The parallels are being drawn from the fact that Google is shattering the traditional myths, consolidating businesses to create economies of scale, and entering in various businesses with disruptive models.

There will come a time when there will be mass-protests against Google too....just like there are right now against WalMart, in general, and while Wal-Mart was trying to enter banking and financial services industry.

The whole thought process was triggered by the fact that Google is making headlines everyday and the recent proposal to dip their toes in the waters of radio industry was simply awesome !
Click here to read the story. It also decided to get into print media.

Under such conditions, will a career @ Google make sense? One, they dont have a career path defined (that's not required), and second they will try to exert pressure on their suppliers - for instance, the universities for the labor. Google has significant presence on Carnegie Mellon campus and is doing whatever it takes to woo the students, even if it involves their reps cursing the rivals Microsoft (I was taken aback when two of their reps ripped off Microsoft...and these were kids - just 6-8 months experience...clearly indicating their immaturity and arrogance). However, I think that the crowd at CMU is discerning enough to understand the whole deal....especially the management students.

Disclaimer: I have no grudges with Google...but the whole disruptive mindset is worth a critic - I may post something in details later (which will focus towards the fact that disruptive mindset is good in some arenas and not all.)

Verizon near content deal with YouTube

click here

The article just manifests one of the aspects mentioned in the IPTV paper made for Telecom Management course.

This is one of the business models emerging: sourcing content for the IPTV paradigm.
Other business models will include partnerships, JVs, and buyouts.

Just recently, YouTube signed up with Universal, BMG, Sony, and CBS.
Its coming and its BiG !!!

Friday, November 03, 2006

HBO on IP... !

IPTV surges ahead !
Read this story to know HBO and the likes are moving towards the web ....and rankle the cable industry !


At times, I get a feeling that I have to drop out of school and execute my plans. This is THE TIME. Till 2010, battle will be sorted out. Not that I will wrestle with the biggies..but huge money to be made in the next couple of years in this space !

SalesForce onsite interview

Yes....finally, made it to final rounds of SalesForce onsite interview !

Onsite interview with a whole day event on Friday, Nov 10th at SFO. So, next weekend is pretty much travelling.

Their growth figures are tremendous and that's what attracts me in this company ! CA is another reason.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006