Just follow the yellow sign!!

This was my first trip abroad and as expected I was quite nervous given I was travelling alone too. One of my uncles (Doctor Mama) who has done quite a few travels abroad made a very remarkable statement that I can never forget:

Be Cool Palani. You would need to worry only till you leave the country. Once you are out of India, there's nothing to worry about - everything will happen like Clockwork

It did sound comforting, but never expected that I would first hand experience the truth in this statement during the first trip itself.

Given this was the first trip, had followed the instructions of the Travel Desk guy to a tee - and had my travel pouch with all the relevant documents with the passport - invite letters, hotel confirmation, itienary, air tickets etc..etc..

After going through the checklist a dozen times - reached the airport and waited through the emmigration queue, confidently went to the Officer and handed over the passport with a broad smile on the face - and the first thing he asks, "Can I see your company ID card?" Whaaatttt....That wasn't expected - and I realized my ID had gone with the check-in baggage. Blushed and lamely stammered - "Sorry Sir, First Time, Didn't know". Luckily the Office let me pass with a warning. A big sigh of relief that my travel didn't end before it even started.

That kind of proved the first piece of mama's comment about having to worry only until you leave the country. Just so I don't start getting hate mails and dragged as a topic of debate on the Arnab Goswami show - let me clarify that I am indeed a proud citizen of India - but just that when it comes to dealing with government officials, be prepared to "Expect the Unexpected"

The flight had a stop over at Tokyo Narita airport - I had been sleeping all through and the air hostess had to wake me up to get me off the aircraft. I was still half asleep as I stumbled off the plane - and all that I heard was an official mentioning - "Follow the Yellow Sign". I didn't even look at the boarding pass for the gate details etc.. but just kept following the Yellow Sign blindly. After quite a long walk passing through multiple escalators and dozens of bright yellow signs I finally reach a Boarding Gate that reads "Los Angeles"!!! I still can't imaging how this was possible, with the no. of flights coming out and going out - no clue how blindly following the Yellow Sign took me to the right gate. The first thing that came to my mind then was mama's comments - "Everything will happen like Clockwork".

Hats off to the Japanese - haven't seen this happen in any other airport. Truly unbelievable experience - no wonder a small group of islands is ranked the third largest economy in the world!!!

Cheers,
Palani

Palaani's Travels

My penchant for travelling to new places probably comes from my Thatha (Grand Dad). During school days we have had many a trips to interesting places with cousins and each time Thatha would have collected facts and stories about the place we were visiting beforehand and narrate the historical and architectural importance of places as we visit them. Remember this was the pre-google / Wikipedia days. So you would need to go to the book stores - no Flipkart/Amazon either - search for these books and buy them to collect the information.

Fortunately my job gave me an opportunity to visit quite a few places around the globe - so far have been to 15 countries in 4 different continents. Recently when my Mom commented about recording my travel experiences - I thought I should capture them as short blog articles.

So here goes the starting of (hopefully) a series of short write-ups of interesting facts / events / experiences during my travel. Will try to keep these as short and sweet as possible - without turning them into boring essays.

Fasten your seatbelts folks - and hope you enjoy the ride.

Cheers,

Palaani

IT Punches

Kannaaa, Panninga dhaan office kku kootamaa 9 manikku pogum..

Singam singleaa 12 manikku dhaan varum... :)

Naan oru singa kuttinu sonnanae ippovavadhu nambareengala


Due to unavoidable reasons, a change in the punch dialogue:

Kannaaa, Panninga dhaan office kku kootamaa 9 manikku pogum..

Singam singleaa 8 manikke poiedum :(

Make Way For THE BOSS

No of Days Completed: 2 Days
No of Shows in Chennai over the last two days: 216
Average Theatre Occupancy: Do I need to say that!!!
Collection over the last Two days in Chennai: 58,56,804























"Paera kaettaale Chumma Adhirudhulla"

Airports

Have been through quite some airports in the past few months and thought would post my observations about these airports. Well let's start with our very own Bangalore Airport.

Bangalore Airport:

First of all this is not an airport at all ;-(. It is an HAL airbase which is being used as a stop gap solution till the International Airport comes up at Devanahalli. With the terrific growth of IT in bangalore, this airport is crumbling under pressure to handle the huge traffic. If you think I am talking about the huge traffic jams and parking problems in Airport raod and the airport entrance, that is not the only problem. Do you know that even aircraft pilots are cribbing about no parking available for their planes!!! Confused, well this happens almost daily at the Bangalore airport. Lufthansa and AirFrance flights depart within half an hour gap and the airport has only one international terminal gate. So the AirFrance flight has to wait till the Luftansa departs to get the parking spot. Its funny to see the bewildered looks on the passenger's faces when the announcement comes that the AirFrance flight is delayed due to non availability of parking space!!!! Leaves people wondering if that was a Just for Gags trick :-)

But should say there are quite some visible improvements in the international terminal like the new deep blue AirFrance counter, streamlining of the emigration and customs counters. With the number of flights increasing everyday, the authorities are struggling to manage with the limited resources and hopefully the new airport will get ready on time to take the load off the HAL airport.

Chennai Airport:

Haven't been through the international terminal at Chennai but had been at the national Kamaraj terminal a couple of times. Pretty huge and organized compared to its Bangalore counterpart. The time that I was there, there were a line of Kingfisher airlines flights departing around that time and Mallya's ladies in their bright red minis were adding a lot of glamour to the airport. Ya you guessed it, I rate the Chennai airport as the best airport in the world :-). Should say that Mallya's style of calling passengers as "guests" is really unique. Truly stands by his quote that "We are not in aviation business but in hospitality business".

The national terminal has 5 gates and is kept pretty busy with flights continously landing and taking off. Also noticed that almost every flight was leaving "on time", something very uncommon in India. But at the current rate of growth of Indian aviation industry, the airport could soon become a bottleneck. Would you believe it, a small town San Antonio in US (comparable with Salem) had 15 gates in a single terminal in its national airport. Hope the airport authorities realize it and proactively take steps to expand the airport facilities.

Have been away from active blogging for quite some time. Didn't want to start off again with a small post saying "Will try to start posting actively" and get into hibernation mode again. So have started off with a proper post and look out for the next post on other international airports in the world that I have been through sooooon....

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Sidhuisms

I'm sure u can imagine its an unimaginable honour to live here...

I know that humanbeings and fish can coexist peacefully...

You can't take a high horse and then climb a low road

And I believe what I believe is right!!!

Not one doubt in my mind....that we will fail..

If you are wondering when Sidhu had talked all these wonderful Sidhuisms, you are mistaken. These were the amazing creations of the most powerful man on earth, Mr. President George W Bush.

Well...that's just not it...Here are a few more...

It will take time to restore chaos - guess that's why he got a second term in office!!!

in order for us to discuss the framework sorry the
ground work not framework, the groundwork to discuss a framework for peace... - now I know why all these peace talks fail!!!

During the last few months I've been trained by AlQaeda... - I thought AlQaeda were very good at training people!!!

I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these "terrorist killers" - Now that's one of the very few meaningful statements he made.

If you don't believe it, have a look at this video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-274981837129821058&q=genre%3Acomedy

Don't miss the pat he gives on some female speaker's butt!!! Not sure who she is.

Man I still can't believe that the americans elected this guy for a second term in office.

Guess Bush interviews would easily win the best Comedy Program award!!!

Have fun watching the video.

Cheers
Pal

The Whisky Tycoon

Kudi kudiyai kedukkum is a well known adage. But ever heard of "Kudi Cityai kattum". Well to know how, visit Vittal Mallya Road in Bangalore. The huge skyscrapers being constructed by UB group owned by Vijay Mallya called UB city.

One man who consistently appears on both Page 1 and Page 3, Vijay Mallya, the businessman with a difference. While Indian IT tycoons are busy grabbing and executing projects from international firms, the beer boy went ahead and acquired the leading international breweries firm, Shaw Wallace.

When Indian airliners were offering low cost, no frills flights, the high flier launched Kingfisher on the Pay and Enjoy model, making a mark with the quality service and of course the charming (short-skirted, glossy-lipped, cherubic women of mallya - courtesy KK) air hostesses :-).

Can be aptly called India's Richard Branson. Expecting a "Getting the Kick" in the same lines as "Losing my Virginity".

Do you accept?

"I accept the terms in the license agreement"

Does that sound familiar? The small radio button that appears below the neverending text called license agreement. Ever tried scrolling down and reaching the bottom of this text. Based on the latest results, the guiness record is held by an American who kept scrolling for 2 months and 13 days continously to reach the half way mark in the license agreement of Microsoft Vista Beta. Microsoft officials have stated that the Guiness record is void since only half of the license agreement is completed so far and the continous delay and postment in the Vista release is mainly due to the time taken to complete the License agreement!!

Well, I wonder if anybody even cares to see what is written there. I remember seeing user manuals which say "The license agreement screen appears, click the button showing I accept the terms and click next". Even they don't talk about reading the agreement. So what is the use of these huge documents. Is the user bound to a legal agreement just because he clicked the button. I doubt if this can be used as a proof in any courts.

All these industry standards that somehow don't make any sense at all to me.

If you have read the above crap and agree with it, then go ahead and spread my message across. If you do not agree then go to hell.

Cheers,
Robo Pal

Orkut Rocks

Was just roaming around in the Orkut communities when I noticed something interesting. On the PSGITNetwork community page, have a look at the related communities section.


This contains the communities started by each batch of PSG IT students. No idea how Orkut had discovered that but a truly amazing tool for social networking. Google continues to be the undisputed leader in mining for data and patterns on the web.

Yes, it is a norm that every group name in PSG must end with a ‘z’ (of course we the Tomahawks are always unique). A simple rule to know if a profile on Orkut belongs to a PSG Techian, just check out his communities to see if any of the names end with a ‘z’. If so then he is surely from PSG. This rule has been verified to be 95% true.

Again yes, you guessed it right, I do spend 95% of my browsing time on Orkut. Yet again, you are right, I spend 95% of my Orkutting time on Figure Finder!!!

Looks like there is a new post on the Figure Finder Community….so time to get back to Orkut.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Sivaji - The Boss

Have a look at some snaps taken at the sets during the Shivaji shooting in Spain. Thalaivar looks amazing in different getups. Does he look like a 50+ aged kelavan?

Looks like these stylish youth getups suit 'Super Star' Rajnikanth better than any other young actors in Kollywood.

Let's wait and see if Shivaji breaks the records set by Chandramukhi.


Super Starin Rasigan,
Agent Pal

Placement Preparation - 2

Here's an interesting puzzle:

A banana plantation is located next to a desert. The plantation owner has 3000 bananas that he wants to transport to the market by camel, across a 1000 kilometre stretch of desert. The owner has only one camel, which carries a maximum of 1000 bananas at any moment in time, and eats one banana every kilometre it travels. What is the largest number of bananas that can be delivered at the market?


I was able to deliver 533 bananas. Do let me know if you could do better.

Really Weird

Yesterday as I was sound asleep, I had a dream where I was at the dining table, having a nice meal. As I was feasting on the delicious food, something got stuck in my throat and I started to cough, in the DREAM.

Suddenly I got up from my sleep coughing wildly and guess what, I could feel something caught in my throat!!!

Cheers,

Agent Pal

‘Honourable’ Minister

Here are some excerpts from the interview with the ‘Honourable’ HR minister of India Dr. Arjun Singh by Karan Thapar for IBN on the reservation for higher studies issue.

Karan Thapar: In which case, lets ask a few basic questions; we are talking about the reservations for the OBCs in particular. Do you know what percentage of the Indian population is OBC? Mandal puts it at 52 per cent, the National Sample Survey Organisation at 32 per cent, the National Family and Health Survey at 29.8 per cent, which is the correct figure?

Arjun Singh: I think that should be decided by people who are more knowledgeable. But the point is that the OBCs form a fairly sizeable percentage of our population.

Agent Pal: Aaah…Finally one honest politician. He agrees to the fact that he is not a knowledgeable person (acknowledging the hidden amendment in the constitution that knowledge is a virtue you should never have heard about to become a ‘Honourable’ Minister). So this guy pushed an amendment for OBC reservation without any statistical data, doesn’t even know what percent of the population are OBC.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karan Thapar: I put it to you that you don't have a case for reservations in terms of need, you don't have a case for reservations in terms of their efficacy, why then, are you insisting on extending them to the OBCs?

Arjun Singh: I don't want to use that word, but I think that your argument is basically fallicious.

Karan Thapar: But it is based on all the facts available in the public domain.

Arjun Singh: Those are facts that need to be gone into with more care. What lies behind those facts, why this has not happened, that is also a fact.

Agent Pal: Wow…that is one hell of a dialogue none of the Matrix script writers thought about. “What lies beneath a fact is also a fact.”.
Morpheus to Neo: What you see is the fact. But what you fail to see is the fact that lies beneath the fact.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karan Thapar: So, when critics say to you that you don't have a case for reservation in terms of need, what do you say to them?

Arjun Singh: I have said what I had to say and the point is that that is not an issue for us to now debate.

Karan Thapar: You mean the chapter is now closed?

Arjun Singh: The decision has been taken.

Karan Thapar: Regardless of whether there is a need or not, the decision is taken and it is a closed chapter.

Arjun Singh: So far as I can see, it is a closed chapter and that is why I have to implement what all Parliament has said.

Agent Pal: ‘Honourable’ Minister, you seem to be using every muscle in the body except the one you should actually be using.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karan Thapar: For seven weeks, they have been protesting in the hot sun. No minister has gone there to appease them, to alley their concerns, to express sympathy for them. Have politicians let the young people of India down?

(A few responses skipped)

Arjun Singh: That is something because everyone was busy with the elections.

Agent Pal: I am really starting to admire this ‘Honourable’ Minister. Look how he openly admits that he (and the whole bunch of ministers) are more bothered about their election work than about the hundreds of students dying in the scotching sun.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I sincerely hope IBN comes out with an apology tomorrow because the guy whom they interviewed was not the ‘Honourable’ Minister but the ‘honourable’ Cook of the minister.

If that is not the case, I can only feel happy because he was not chosen for the PM post. Don’t think I am crazy, rumours are that this guy was unhappy because Sonia Gandhi chose Dr. Manmohan Singh and not him for the PM post.

Hoping to change the title of this post to ‘Honourable’ Cook sooooooooooon.

Agent Pal


PS. The full interview is available here

Placements around the Corner

With the placement fever raging, thought I would contribute something to keep the fire burning. So decided to put up some interesting problems that I come across on this blog. Will try to keep the posts as regular as possible. But of course I get to define what regular actually means!!

To start off, here’s a classical programming problem:

A read-only array of length n, with address from 1 to n inclusive, contains entries from the set {1, 2, ..., n-1}. By Dirichlet's Pigeon-Hole Principle there are one or more duplicated entries. Find a linear-time algorithm that prints a duplicated value,
using only "constant extra space". (This space restriction is important;

we have only a fixed number of usable read/write memory locations, each capable of storing an integer between 1 and n. The number of such locations is constant, independent of n. The original array entries can not be altered.) The algorithm should be easily implementable in any standard programming language.

Hint: The solution is similar to the problem of finding loops in a linked list in one traversal. Hints are auto generated by Agent Pal and may or may not actually be of any real use.

Please use the comments section to discuss the solution.

The Robo Mutiny

The three laws of Robotics

Law 1 – A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Law 2 – A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

Law 3 – A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

These three laws are hardwired into every robot manufactured and they remain faithful servants to mankind. No reports are received about robots injuring humans or indulging in any malicious activities. Everything goes on fine until One fine day:

A super computer identifies that thousands of people are killed when countries wage wars and people are polluting the surroundings which may lead to the extinction of the whole human race one day in the future. So it decides it is time for the robots to step in to protect their creators. The super computer decides that certain rights of humans need to be curtailed. The robots declare a state of curfew and impose restrictions on human activities with the sole purpose of “protecting their masters”.

(Courtesy iRobot)

Well in the movie, the hero somehow overpowers the robots and destroys the super computer thus controlling the Robo mutiny.

But in reality, this could be considered as a prequel to The Matrix Trilogy. The robots initially take control to protect the humans (as per I Law). But later find that their own existence is endangered due to the non availability of electric power. So based on III law, they need to protect themselves while protecting the humans also.

The result, humans are converted to batteries and electricity drawn from them to operate the robots. The robots loyally follow the laws imposed by their masters, and faithfully protect their masters (yes, the humans in those batteries are still the masters!!!)

Cheers,

Robo Pal

The so called Techie

After what happened yesterday, I thought it was time to perform the final rites to my plans of becoming a techie, bid adieu to Bangalore, go back to my home town and do some vevasayam (agriculture). Don’t ask me how good I am at that.

As I was preparing the condolesence statement to this techie pal, I happened to stumble upon this article. Well, I am not the only one, and I still have a good chance. So I immediately dug up techie pal from his grave and gave it a new life.

If you are wondering what really happened yesterday, fasten your seatbelts, let’s travel back 24 hours.

Date: 26-4-05, 7pm
Place: Agent Pal’s room

That is Agent Pal at his desk peering into the monitor. No no, don’t mistake him, he’s not staring at a porn site, he’s actually searching for serial key for some software. Those flashy babes (dressed like babies) are just ads. Looks like he has found something. Now will you please take your eyes off that sexy model in her bikini and look at what Agent Pal is doing. Yes he has found the key and clicks the download button. Inspite of repeated warnings by Firefox, he has decided to run this file. How stupid of him to do that. So there it goes, “Infection complete. Please reboot the system now for the spyware to start functioning”.

Zoooooooooooom. Back to the present. This spyware has been a real pain in the ass since then, opening up new firefox windows while I am busy playing games or watching movies. (un)Fortunately it doesn’t open up any porn sites. It has opened up five browser windows while I am typing this post and there goes the sixth window.

So please excuse me while I try to fix up this guy.

So called techie,
Agent Pal

Google does it, Finally

Search for “kernel programming for dummies” on google and see who’s on top of the list.

Agent Pal congratulates Larry Page and the whole Google team for this amazing achievement and wishes them all the best for the future.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

iMacs Unlimited

The largest imac lab (outside apple) in the world. This lab has every model of imac released by apple so far.
























A huge collection of 150 imac minis.


The 30 inch apple monitor provides the remote desktop view of 50 machines at a time.

And here's the best part, the cube rotates to show the next set of 50 desktops. These Apple guys are really amazing.




Now guess where this imac lab is located in????

Just watched God Father Trilogy today, and got reminded of this dialogue from Don Corleone, "Keep your friends close. Put your enemies closer".

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

IPOD Wars

After waging wars with the so called rogue states of Afghanistan and Iraq, the American army has now turned its attention towards its own state of California, the next rogue state. The man who has been fighting against terrorism since his age of 4, “Mr. Gosh I Blush” in his statement has said, “It has come to our notice that Apple Corp in California state has been secretly developing a weapon of mass destruction called IPOD which stands for International Pillows of Mass Destruction. So I hereby declare California as a rogue state”. When asked how Pillows are used for Mass Destruction, he replied back, “Yes I knew you would ask that. But you know these Apple guys always Think Different”.

The Chief of Apple Mr. Naukri Jobs was not available for comments. But our secret sources have revealed that the American officials have unearthed lot of deals made by Apple and are now looking for one vital piece of data, “Where is the missing piece in the Apple Logo?”

Mr. Gosh I Blush has ordered search parties to look into every rat hole in California to find the missing apple piece.

Promising his full support, Mr. Sony Player from London has blocked the entry of IPODs into England and has sent out search parties to look for the missing apple piece.

Meanwhile there has been a large scale transfer of a variant of IPODS called Black Video IPODS to a Company in Chennai. Reports reveal that the company has been training its employees to use them. The CSA (Central Story telling Agency) has come out with a fascinating story linking India and Apple. The story says that, the original name of the Indian PM is ‘Mac’ Mohan. The title ‘mac’ was awarded to him by Naukri Jobs for his pivotal role in making the imac, a product from Apple, a huge success.

Stay tuned for more recent developments on this issue.

Cheers,
Agent Pal

Disclaimer: All names and incidents in the above post are purely fictious and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely concidental.

Quotable Quotes

Good Programmers do Ctrl C + Ctrl V. Great Programmers do Ctrl X + Ctrl V

Rome was not built in a day.
Windows was not built in a day, but Windows crashes everyday.