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Our jobs, our salaries & us

nirav — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:23:48 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I was speaking to an old friend of mine, who’s currently in Delhi. She’s working as a Project Manager with an IT major there. Though she already has a couple of big client products & a large team to manage, she was grumbling over being overloaded by her company with [...]

Traffic woes, no one listens

nirav — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:00:40 +0000

I’d sent this e-mail on 26th Oct 2009 to the Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Bangalore City (currently Commissioner Praveen Sood) – to highlight the lack of regulatory efforts to improve the traffic situation in Bangalore. There has been no response till date (11th Feb 2010)… Well kinda expected, you’d say. There’s little that we [...]

Which car to buy: Petrol or Diesel?

nirav — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:53:03 +0000

Have you pondered over this question?

While buying a car these days, a majority of us prefer to buy the diesel variant of the car of our choice (if its available), as compared to the petrol one. Even though the diesel variant comes:

at a higher purchase cost than the petrol variant (atleast sets you back by [...]

Expensive celebrity endorsements & inflation

nirav — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:39:58 +0000

Q1. Have you ever bought something just because your favourite celebrity was endorsing it? Q2. Have you *not* bought something that *you wanted*, because a celebrity you disliked, was endorsing it?

If you said a “YES” for any of the questions above, you can go back to what you were doing before coming to this article; sorry [...]

3idiots and Five Point Someone

nirav — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:14:27 +0000

I started reading Five Point Someone last week and finished it yesterday (17th Jan). In-between, I saw the movie 3idiots on Wednesday 13th Jan, when I had partially read through the book. That probably makes me one of the few (rare?) persons who partially read the book, saw the movie in-between & then completed reading the rest [...]

Terror in Mumbai – 26 Nov 2008

nirav — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:30:24 +0000

** Dispatches – Terror in Mumbai (Video Documentary – ~350 MB) ** The untold story of 2008′s terrorist attack on Mumbai, in the words of its victims and the gunmen. The programme contains graphic images and descriptions of the atrocity which may upset some viewers. Produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker Dan Reed, Terror in Mumbai tells the story of [...]

Skewed web-browser market shares?

nirav — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:47:42 +0000

After reading: http://webtips.dan.info/brand-x/useragent.html, its clear that the web-browser shares are not 100% accurate… rather they cannot be 100% accurate.

Also see: http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2003/02/properly-measuring-msie (a little old, however could still be relevant)

So how accurate are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers and other “browser usage reports”?

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Whodunnit: Fictional Relief of Frustration – Part V (Last)

nirav — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:05:27 +0000

Part V: Continued from Part IV:

Recap: Five auto-rickshaw drivers are mysteriously killed on the road over a week. The passenger of the first auto-rickshaw, Maanvi Sharma, potentially provided a clue of a bike driver being the potential suspect. The investigating police sub-inspector D. K. Gowda had received a note from the supposed killer which explained the [...]

Whodunnit: Fictional Relief of Frustration – Part IV

nirav — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:04:32 +0000

Part IV: Continued from Part III:

Whodunnit: Fictional Relief of Frustration – Part III

nirav — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:28:59 +0000

Part III: Continued from Part II:

Recap: Two auto-rickshaw drivers are mysteriously killed on the road over a period of two days. They both were driving at crowded places when they were killed & lost control over their respective vehicles. The passenger of the first auto-rickshaw, Maanvi Sharma, potentially provided a clue of a bike driver being [...]

Whodunnit: Fictional Relief of Frustration – Part II

nirav — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:35:21 +0000

Part II: Continued from Part I:

Recap: An auto-rickshaw driver is shot dead by a mysterious killer near the Adugodi signal, while he was driving his passenger, Maanvi Sharma, to the Forum Mall. Though there’s a bad accident after the driver loses control, Maanvi escapes without any major injuries & informs the investigating police sub-inspector D. K. [...]

Whodunnit: Fictional Relief of Frustration – Part I

nirav — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:11:09 +0000

The shocked passenger was nervously happy to be alive with some injuries, after a close brush with possible death. The auto-rickshaw she was riding in, had suddenly swerved to the right & hit the median, causing the vehicle to topple to the left. Luckily for her, within a few seconds of the accident, some people [...]

“KINGFISHER Coach”

nirav — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:42:23 +0000

This is a picture I took on my way to the office today morning. Check it out, the auto-rickshaw is a “KINGFISHER Coach“, probably owned by Mallya’s gardener. (Actual picture)

And the main thing – there’s something (horribly + terribly) poetic written above it, which reads as below (copying the punctuation as well):

—————————————— Yes Kyoz [...]

Honk India Honk!

nirav — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:08:28 +0000

I know, we have quite a few (virtual) reality shows on TV with a similar name. This one is a unique pure reality show, though!

Welcome to THE SHOW OF THE 3rd MILLENIUM! We’ve had contestants from the 2nd MILLENIUM as well, right from the time the vehicle horn was invented. The show wasn’t [...]

WordPress Bug: Incorrect count of comments? – Solution

nirav — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:28:47 +0000

Yeah, I’d been noticing it over the last few days that the count of comments for the posts was incorrect. And it was consistently missing out later posts. I was unsure if the ‘bug’ existed in WordPress or it was due to the theme that I use (if that mattered).

I first thought, it [...]

Vande Mataram: One Day, Maa Tere Hum

nirav — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:18:42 +0000

When was the last time you saw the Independence day flag hoisting or Republic day parade, live, or on TV?

Me: I seriously don’t even remember seeing it in the news – later in the evening – for the last few years.

When was the last time you sung (or even hummed on) the national [...]

Controls & restrictions at the workplace

nirav — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 07:10:29 +0000

All offices have numerous controls & restrictions in place, to avoid/reduce the obvious misuse of the facilities offered for work. Access restrictions to hardware device(s) (like CD/DVD Drives, USB ports), restrictions accessing the internet, blocking/limiting uploads & downloads, to only allow restricted software to be installed, and likewise; are very common. Deploying & administering such controls [...]

My south-Indian “dhosths”!

nirav — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:57:37 +0000

After about 6 years in Bengaluru, I am now well conversant with the English pronounciations & “Hinglish” spellings (i.e. Indian/Hindi spellings in English!). Never understood the *logic* and never got any satisfying reason about: Why are English spellings of Indian words (Hindi, Sanskrit, etc.) spelt differently in south-India, so much that the words lose their actual pronounciations altogether?

Listing some [...]

The Gladiators: Google & Microsoft

nirav — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:54:19 +0000

Background: The recently announced Google Chrome Operating System! Don’t pull out your wallets yet – there’s time before they launch it… and it might also be available as FOSS!

In HK Sir’s recent blog, he puts forth his thoughts about why he thinks the recently announced Google Chrome OS might not give Microsoft a run for [...]

Microsoft .NET is like James Bond’s cars

nirav — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:35:20 +0000

An odd comparison?…

“What exactly is the Microsoft .NET Framework?” (Tip: Read .NET as “dot net” – stands for Microsoft .NET Framework (Fx)) => A typical (basic) interview question you might’ve asked/been-asked, or as a non .NET techie, you would’ve pondered about this question, isn’t it? A curious layman – think of an octogenarian relative/contact (grandpa!) – [...]