Monthly Archive

16th Dec was a special day. It was the inauguration day of the Chennai Chapter of our College Alumni Association. A decent number had turned up. It was fun meeting each other after a long time. The formal agenda was over soon and we spent about an hour after lunch interacting. By 4 in the evening, we started to leave. I with a handful of friends headed towards the Besant Nagar Beach. We werent aware of the naval exercises that were going on. It was a pleasant surprise. The Eastern Naval Command was exercising a 90 minute show @ the Marina as part of the Naval Week. Here are a few snaps [courtesy: keerthi]:

It was indeed a breathtaking show of technological prowess. The airmen seemed flawless when they pierced through the skies making uniform patterns with colored smoke. A helicopter cruised past us within 100 mts from the ground. I saw a submarine for the first time in life :). The troop carrier INS Jalashwa was on show.

Premjith, a senior to me in College who turned up for the Alumni Meet flies Chetak helicoptors for the Indian Navy. Our college has representations in all 3 Armed Forces. Proud I am !!

The couple of videos below were also made @ the same time.

It was indeed disturbing to watch a kid struggling for a living when she ought to be safe and free in school. It reminded me of Suresh (a school drop-out whom we, a few friends in college tried to bring back on track to school but failed). The best thing I could feel good about was the attitude of this lil girl. She seemed to enjoy doing the feat (walking on a rope is by no means a simple task) with ease. Her eyes were poised and her balance was just perfect. It was on par with the manoeuvre of the airmen in the cockpit. Perhaps she’s even better. I dropped Rs.20 in the ‘money-collection-plate’ and walked away. She deserves something else. A better childhood. Proud, I am not.

WHY WE NEED YAHOO PIPES:

In an increasingly information rich world where everything on the web (your blog entries, comments on your blog, photos on flickr/picasaweb,…) is available as a ‘feed’ / convertible to a ‘feed’, its good to know how to create and use them.

I’ve a couple of simple examples demonstrating how to use Yahoo Pipes, the tool to aggregate, manipulate and mash information on the web aka ‘feeds’.

1. A FOOD PIPE:

I subscribe to a few yummy blogs (see the list in the yahoo search box below). I want to make Avial, a South Indian dish. I remember a couple of these bloggers writing about it long back. I dont remember when. I dont want to search the whole internet, but only in these bloggers’ sites. What do I do?

a. I go to http://pipes.yahoo.com. Login with my Yahoo Id.

b. Click on ‘Create a pipe’

c. I insert the following controls from the left hand side:
i. User Input -> Text Input
ii. Sources -> Yahoo Search

 

d. I add the sites to which the search should be limited using the ’site restriction’ option in the Yahoo Search box. I join the controls as below.

e. I save and run the pipe to get this. The pipe’s ready now. Now, I can search for ‘Avial’ /’Jamun’ /any other recipe.

The pipe results are also available as a ‘feed’. Look out for ‘Get as RSS’ under ‘More Options’.

2. A TRANSLATED NEWS PIPE:

I want to read news about a select few Indian personalities in French Dailies. How do I do that? And an important note is that I dont read French really well. I prefer to read the articles in English.

a. I go to http://pipes.yahoo.com and login with my yahoo id.

b. I go to http://news.google.com. I select France in the Top Stories list.

c. I copy the link of the RSS feed. (Look out for RSS on the left hand side)

d. I insert the following controls and fill in details:

[Insert the RSS Feed url here]

[Insert 2 Loop Controls and drag translators into them. One set each for description and title respectively. Choose French to English in the boxes]

[Insert a filter to permit only the articles which match the keywords below]

e. Join them all, Save and publish. I get all the relevant translated articles here in a pipe.

You can see a list of pipes that I’ve created here.

There is lot of documentation and working examples on the Yahoo Pipes page. If you wish to know more on Pipes and are in Chennai, bother attending India’s first ever Pipescamp on December 23rd. Visit http://pipescamp.pbwiki.com.

I want to own this misbehaving pet. It’s an alarm clock that runs away and hides to get you out of bed. Clocky gives you one chance to get up. But if you snooze, Clocky will jump off your nightstand and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide, beeping all the while.

It was designed by a student @ the MIT Media Lab - Gauri Nanda. Here is an article about it. Click here to buy it.

Update Dec 18:

Kamesh, the guy above who is a friend of mine has promised to get me one. Yahoooo !!!

I was chatting with Karthik, a good friend from bangalore when he made me come up with a new character in life. Here goes the conv..

…
X: then, what’s special
Me: nothing spl.. life’s rolling on..
Me: i might come to bengaluru next month
X: coming for any interview ?
Me: nope, jus like that. to see b’lore
X: yenkittayeva, tell the truth
Me: hey, my sis is there, my aunt is there and a lot of friends too
X: erkanave kadhu kuthiyachu.
X: tell the truth. who is that lucky person?
Me: hmm..
X: wht’s name… where is she
Me: in fact she’s in mumbai
X: farrrrr
Me: yeah, she comes to bengaluru during the mid of next month
X: she is working there?
[oh! so, u've started believing. ]
Me: yeah part time, she is doing her masters in political sciences in Mumbai University
[god knows y i thought that]
X: periya aala thaan pidichirukeenga, MLA ponna? from coimbatore?
Me: no, she’s from bangalore
X: how did u get her. same class/internet/schoolmate/relative sdlfdalk;
Me: nope, we met @ an art museum in bangalore. heard of chitra kala parishad?
X: seriously!!!!
Me: there was an art festival. we met there almost a year back
[so romantic, isnt it?]
X: gr8 to hear, then phone development…..chat in google
[enna sonnalum nambaranga-pa. ]
Me: no gchat, she would never be online, phone - yeah once a week
X: then always in dream ..
Me:
Me: hey catchya later, going out for a coffee. cya

Hey gal friend from mumbai university, if u ever read this post, gimme a call. And Karthik, spare my life for lying

The corollary of the above equation holds good. I cleared my software-quality-certification examination without knowing that people named Pareto and Juran ever lived in this world (one of the two mandatory tests that my comp wants me to clear before this year ends). The next one happens tomorrow. Keep tuned.

Update (12th Dec 2007 11 AM):

At times, few theories and equations prove to be wrong practically. I got some proof today.

In the lines of tehelka, a sting operation resulted in this video:

Update:

As per Pradeep’s request, I make this post public (it was password protected earlier).

In the December’s issue of Pragati, Rohit Pradhan suggests a solution for dealing with the emigration of trained medical experts from the country.

Instead of subsidising higher education and then attempting to curb emigration, the emphasis and the resources must be directed where state intervention is directly required: rural areas and primary health care. Similarly, by creating conditions conducive for operation of free markets in medical education, the India can hope to exploit the immense arbitrage opportunities of migration and globalisation.

Harsh Pant writes on Indian Universities:

Indian universities, which should have been hubs of intellectual activity are more in the news for political machinations than for research excellence.

Read more in the magazine below:

Here are two interesting blogs that I came across.

SPDK is the blog of the Superintendant of Police Dakshina Kannada District, Mangalore, Karnataka.

The blog entries are in English, well classified (see this entry) and readable. Active since November 2005. In the last few months, I find that there is one post per day. Daily status is promptly being updated.

Barmer Police is the Official Blog of District Police Barmer, Rajasthan.

This is a relatively younger blog. Active since May 2007. All entries are in Hindi. Links on the blog to helplines, police priority documents, photographs are uploaded on geocities/flicr. It is also a frequently updated blog (25 entries in November alone).

I understand and appreciate this initiative by the police. The intentions are clear as expressed in the phrase in the ‘About’ section of the blog.

This weblog has been created by the Dakshina Kannada Police with the purpose of disseminating police news of the district to those interested. Authentic and official information of DK Police will be posted here regularly. This is just an attempt to create an interface with the press and the public at large. Your views and suggestions are welcome. - Superintendent of Police Dakshina Kannada District MANGALORE Karnataka

It is definitely a step forward. Kudos for their effort !! And watch out for ‘Best Conistable of the Month’ on the Barmer Police Blog.

P.S.:

I am skeptic about hosting Government Of India related sites (& their supporting files) on 3rd party servers like blogger/wordpress/geocities/flickr. NIC should come up with a solution for this soon.

I just finished V. Srinivasan’s book on present-day management concepts in the light of the Thirukkural. It is a worthy read. He correlates kurals with business situations in simple words. It is an enlightener. Here are a few passages that give an essence of the book

Meetings and Meetings without Decisions:
In today’s business, we waste valuable time in endless discussions. Most of the meetings are postponed without any decisions. Quite often even when a decision is taken, the execution is postponed indefinitely. This subjects finds its place in the Thirukural in a chapter relating to the conduct of affairs:

” The end of all deliberation is to arrive at a decision; and when the decision is reached, it is wrong to delay its execution ” - 671

If only modern-day managers follow this principle, we would see tremendous gains.

Choosing Right Sales and Marketing Heads:
The Thirukural lays down the essential qualities of ambassadors (sales and marketing executives) as under:

“Conciseness of speech, sweetness of tongue and a careful eschewing of all disagreeable language are the most essential by which an ambassador(salesperson) can work towards his master’s (organisation’s) profit ” - 685
“Let the man go on embassies who possesses common sense, learning and a commanding presence” - 684.

I managed to find the kurals on the web. Thanks to Muthu. Clicking on the kural numbers above would lead you to the kurals in Tamil.

Click here for the Book’s website.

To read the book on the web (Courtesy Google Books) - Click here

The author is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, 3i Infotech. He was a Member of the Technology Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and has been a member of several other committees constituted by governmental bodies.
To read more on him see the 3i-Infotech website

This is my new address on the web. I used to blog earlier (t)here. WordPress offers a cleaner look, a lot of themes and assists easy customisation. I am impressed. Here I come..