Chronicles of Nikhil Baliga

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " The grand unification theory is nought but analogies connecting seemingly unrelated things " When you drive through Bangalore traffic, more often than not, you are not driving... You are probably waiting at traffic junctions or trying to wiggle through evanescent worm holes. The strange fact about driving is that it becomes automatic after some time - You don't even pay attention while changing gears or switching between the accelerator and the brake. And since that frees up your mind, it tends to wander into the realm of contemplation... As I watched vehicles around me, I drew some parallels that I wanted to list out in this post. 1) Among motorbikes, cars and buses, bikes are the fastest when it comes to rate of picking up speed or accelerating while buses are the slowest. However, once all vehicles start accelerating, bikes soon get left behind as cars and buses zoom past them. Companies are also of these types small caps (start-u...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " Think like a child " The problem with most techies is that we tend to seek out tech solutions for all problems. I don't blame technologists for this - I think this is a general problem. Just to explain in a clearer fashion, here is an old story I had read a long time back. There was a soap factory that had large machines that would do everything end to end - from manufacturing soaps, to making bars of them and putting them in boxes. They would run over conveyor belts. Now it so happened that occasionally there would be one empty box that would slip into the lot and that would create problems - You can't sell an empty box. Now where was this error? And how would you exactly debug and fix this? I actually asked this question to a bunch of people and typically you would approach this like a tech issue - Probably some counter was wrong, or try to figure out and see if there is a pattern in the empty boxes - that would give you a clue. Ho...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " When in a game, play... " I have won several lotteries organised by Shell, Coca Cola and other companies. Each prize was no less than 500,000 GBP. And I have also been fortunate to share my surname with super rich heirless millionaires, facilitating unscrupulous lawyers to wire their enormous funds into my account so that I can send them their share for making it happen. Considering the number of lotteries I have won and number of inheritances in my name, I am richer than Bill Gates ten times over. But alas, we are aware of how scams work. Some of us, at least. So I continue to be penniless as before. Recently, I got an email - The brevity of which prompted me to reply, and then began an interesting conversation. from: Robert Adair to: r-adair@hotmail.co.uk date: 17 October 2013 21:29 subject: Your revert awaited having a proposal to discuss with you To which I replied, with equal conciseness... Regarding what And I got ...

Swami Gulagulaananda heard: " Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional " [Ok, I could have sworn that I knew the English equivalent of the Kannada Girgitle once upon a time... I think it's called Paper Wind Turbine?] In this post, I want to show you how to make a Girgitle . It's basically a simple paper toy which turns around a pointed pencil or pen when wind blows. See the video at the end of the post to see it in action. Step 1: Tear out three thin (about 1.5 cm) equal sized vertical strips that are about 16 cm long Step 2: Fold the strips along the middle. Step 3: Hold one folded strip (called 1 ) horizontally such that the fold comes on the left. Now, hold one of the other strips (called 2 ) such that the fold comes on the top and slide it between the two legs of 1 . So basically the two legs of 1  should be around the two legs of 2 . Hold the third strip (called 3 ) such that the fold comes down. The two legs of 3  should come aro...

Baba Gyani Triviani said: " Auto-rickshaws and auto-drivers are unstable, the former because of three wheels, the latter because, well, that's the way they are... What? " " There is one, go and ask him ". " Do I have to? Alright alright, stop poking my ribs " I said. I looked at the auto-driver again. The uncouth man with a shabby shirt and unshaved face was sitting idly, looking at nothing in particular. He scratched his face with all five fingers of his hand, for he didn't have any more to spare. Then he stuck his little finger into his ear and drilled it for a few seconds, pulled it out and without much thought took it to his nose and sniffed at it. I made a face and turned to look at my wife. " What? Stop staring and ask him! " she said again. I began walking towards him, being deliberately slow, hoping against all hopes that he would suddenly start his vehicle and ride away. But no such thing happened and I eventually covered th...

Baba Gyani Triviani said: " I wonder if it is better to be fruitier than a nut-cake or nuttier than a fruitcake " The boring drivel continued unabated. My chum on my left was busy doodling what I could only imagine to be a grotesque version of a rabbit. Or was it a witch? I rest my case. " This bally lecture seems to be unending " I said through clenched teeth " It's not like anyone's listening ". He continued shading some areas carefully. " What do you think of it? I drew ginger " he said proudly. " Nice " I said to avoid the topic. Ginger? It looked like a dead rat. " You won't believe what happened to me yesterday " I told him. " I got an e-card from this girl I happened to meet recently. I don't know how to respond to it. What do you reckon I should do? " He made a face. But it seemed like I had finally caught his attention. " What ho! A girl you say? To you? Surely you didn't conco...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " Horn, ok... pleeze! " [In this post, I am making an attempt to mimic The Local Tea Party , which by the way, is not a site to be missed.] This English no, it is a funny language. I know, I know you will say it is one old cliche. Look at that word, cliche. It is written like niche, but both are pronounced so differently. Not to worry, I am not going to bore you with some good old lines that I ripped off a bunch of sites ok ma? I am going to talk about some experiences I myself had, and some experiences my friends had. Let me start with one that my friend had. It seems she and her fiance and some friends went to this restaurant somewhere in Bangalore. The waiter came and asked what you want? This fiance guy told it seems, ' Bring me one mo h ito... ' Waiter gave one dirty look, then smugly told ' Saar, it's pronounced mo j ito '. See what happened there? Fiance was right in pronouncing mojito as mo h ito . But he seemed ...

Baba Gyani Triviani said: " By the end of this post, don't wonder if YOU are Jack... You most likely aren't. I learnt this trick from that book I have mentioned at the end... " I recently had the misfortune of speaking to a 'hyper-sensitive narcissist' - Let's call this person Jack (Although John Doe or John Smith are more standard). Now let's assume you have met this person Jack and you are having a conversation. As the conversation proceeds, you start noticing that Jack has all the qualities of a megalomaniac but not actual qualities... Just grandiose notions about himself. But in the conversation, Jack also mentions that he is extremely sensitive, which you notice when you made a crack which was taken very seriously. Now we come to an interesting juncture - The narcissism reaches such annoying heights that it makes you barf, and yet you cannot say anything on this person's face because, well, because you aren't Dr. House and because ...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " I definitely know what you are thinking... " When I used to hear the term "Out of the box" and many similar terms, I used to immediately dismiss them as management jargon. I still believe that most people who do use these terms are using it just because it has a nice ring to it - not because they truly understand it. The truth is, however, that very few people actually  think very differently. I'll give you a simple example. This is a trick I learnt ages ago, from whom, I remember not. But go ahead and try this on others, and you will find this to be true. Now I am going to perform this trick with you, so play along, ok? Here goes... Think of a number between 1 and 9 Multiply that number by 9 Add the digits of the two digit number that you got. Now that you have a single digit, subtract 5 from it If the answer is 1, letter is 'A'. If the answer is 2, letter is 'B'. If the answer is 3, letter is 'C...

Baba Gyani Triviani said: " Coincidences can screw you sometimes... big time :P " The reason I like the sitcom Seinfeld is because of the fantastic way in which coincidences screw their lives. And how the action of one greatly affects someone else in an unexpected manner. Today I had one such experience. I was sitting in a bus going someplace when I saw a bunch of teenage boys, I guess around 16, standing next to me and talking amongst themselves. "Look, this petrol bank is always filled with vehicles" said one boy. "I thought it was called a petrol bunk " said another. "Dude, it's a petrol bank because they store petrol." replied the first boy. I was grinning to myself when the conductor shouted "Bank!" Now interestingly when you look outside the window, the most prominent sight that catches your eyes is a petrol bunk on the main road, right opposite the bus stop. The "bank" actually refers to a small branch whi...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " You can tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to mess with people's lives " Here is a funny scenario that you can assume to have happened. There was once a review meeting. And, in the review meeting, the reviewer told the superiors " Well, today Raj has come to office without drinking ". What are the repercussions? The superior will naturally think that Raj is a guy who drinks and comes to office habitually, and today happens to be  a one-off day where he has come to office without drinking. Raj, in reality was a teetotaler. And this statement told by the reviewer is indeed factually correct. And yet, the superior takes it in the wrong sense. Is the superior wrong? Not really, because normally, we tend to read between the lines, and draw conclusions because we hard wired to think in those lines. Like, if you talk a lot on the phone, and get less marks, parents would put two and two and make five - You talk ...

Swami Nikhilaananda wondered: " You either pick a girl at a really cool bar, Or pick her from anywhere with a really fancy car The problem is not where you pick her up my friend, Starting to talk is the issue, simple is the end " Very often, when watching any one of the typical American shows, one sees that a guy liked a girl while sitting in a bar, and then decides to send over a drink to her. She accepts it, the waiter says " A drink from the gentleman over there " and the guy smiles looking at her. If she smiles back, then he walks over to her, engages her in a conversation, and if they hit it off, exchange numbers and start dating. Sounds so simple, right? Well, here in India, things are not all the time as simple and smooth. If you are a guy who drinks, and the girl also drinks, perhaps you can employ similar tactics. But what if you actually come across a girl you like in some other place? Maybe a bus stop, or your college, or maybe a movie theatre, a rest...

Swami Nikhilaananda said: " The chances of me knowing Brahman is higher than me understanding girls " A very funny story that happened in real life, and reminds me a lot of a particular scene from Friends involving Chandler. But let me narrate it to you as it happened. Let's call the guy as Raj and the girl as Ria. Raj and Ria go to a coffee place, and are sipping coffee... and Raj is having a pleasant conversation with Ria about something, when suddenly Ria tells Raj - " Look at that girl, she looks so pretty ". Raj instinctively turns around, looks at the girl for a second, turns back and says " Yeah, she's nice... so as I was saying...... " and stops looking at the smouldering glare coming out of Ria's eyes. " Ummm something wrong? " he asked, and she said - " You looked? I can't believe you looked!! ". And Raj said - " Uh didn't YOU ask me to look? I wasn't even looking in that direction til...

Just in case some of you are interested to solve some Data Interpretation type of questions, here's a graph I prepared... DI Question: Study the graph ( click here to enlarge ) and answer the question... After studying the graph, who according to you got screwed between the years 1991 and 2011?

Swami Nikhilaananda said: " *face-palm* " This is a mail I got from VMWare - Mother's Day Savings....... for VMWare workstation. Blah! What the hell does Mother's Day and VMWare Workstation have to do with each other? These days I am noticing people string a whole lot of crap together for the heck of it. I have highlighted the two ridiculous things I found in this image with red rectangles and that is not part of the ad :P

Swami Nikhilaananda said: " Applied Technology is my favourite " Today was an interesting day because it started with me realising that Vodafone screwed with my GPRS settings and I was not able to shut net off and apps on my phone were downloading and refreshing and updating all night resulting in a lot of currency going *poof* . So I decided to go for a great plan that they offer, with 2GB download for Rs. 95. My tryst with technology Yeah, I knew most of these things before - but to actually use them together was great fun. I normally used wi-fi with my phone. But today I went full on with GPRS. I was chatting with two friends - Pavan and Narayan from my phone, when Narayan told me he was traveling. He was using Google Chat from his phone. So I asked him to turn on Google Latitude. Once he did that, I could see where he was on my phone. With a simple touch, I could also get a route - following which I could go meet him. I could see Pavan was lazing in his house. The next ap...

Swami Nikhilaananda said: "Sometimes, little stories are really funny... and have a certain amount of truth hidden in them " The following is an email forward that I got... I found it quite witty and worth of sharing. So, here goes. An Indian tourist walks into a curio shop in San Francisco. Looking around at the exotica, he notices a very life-like, life-sized bronze statue of a rat. It has no price tag, but is so striking he decides he must have it. He takes it to the owner: "How much for the bronze rat?" "Twelve dollars for the rat, one hundred dollars for the story," says the owner. The tourist gives the man twelve dollars. "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story." As he walks down the street carrying his bronze rat, he notices that a few real rats crawl out of the alleys and sewers and begin following him down the street. This is disconcerting; he begins walking faster. But within a couple blocks, the herd of rats behind him grow...

Baba Gyani Triviani said: " They say that a picture is worth a thousand words... It's true! " Whenever I find some time, I draw a random doodle on the whiteboard in my office place... This one was dedicated to one of my friends who was really excited and happy. So, I decided to draw a happy picture. This is not exactly the original one (that one was colourless and drawn only by me) and this one is slightly modified by others two - hence the erasing marks. However, someone found this picture giving them so much joy that they also shared. So, here I am, sharing this happy picture for whatever it is worth... Yeah, it's a worthless doodle in the absolute sense, but for a guy who is really truly happy, it perfectly captured his mood. --- Original unmodified pic (but looks like the camera was shaken during capture)

Swami Nikhilaananda tweeted: " @VodafoneIN - *face-palm* " When you are using some service online, there is normally a checkbox before you hit submit where you agree to receive mails "Special Offers" and other newsletters. A good web site is one that has this checkbox disabled by default, and before hitting submit, if the user wants to receive it, he will check the box. However, most people don't like getting unwanted mails flooding their inboxes, and end up not selecting this box. So, what some services do is that they keep this checked by default. This is not a good system for the end-user because a lot of them just hit submit without seeing that they are unknowingly authorsing the service to send them mails. Unchecking it each time I perform an operation is tedious, tiresome, arduous, labourious and what not.... So good systems should not enable this. Vodafone has one such checkbox that is enabled by default. So, every time I recharge my phone online, I ha...

Baba Gyani Triviani said: " Copy cat, kill the rat, tell your mother to make you fat " Click on the image below to view it in full size. This photo was taken on Mysore road - Two movie posters "Rama Rama Raghu Rama" (Left most) and "Vaa Re Vaa" (Right most) have been picked from the main photo shown above and zoomed into, to show them to you next to each other. Notice that the style employed is the same. As nice as the idea is, it is a turn off to see identical posters next to each other. Incidentally, Vaa Re Vaa was the one to appear there first, making the other a copycat