Fail camp

Was at fail camp sterday and my thoughts thereby...

I had a pretty busy last week and hence was not very keen about going out on a sunday to a unconference!!! to discuss serious stuff like failure n all...especially since the event was to start at 9.00. But then somehow decided on attending the thing...told wife on the saturday evening that i have to get up 7.30!! must have seen the look on her face she was like "after a busy week u wanna get up at 7.30 on a sunday n go to some conference".

Made it to the fail camp and as with bar camp 2 the even was cool. The people were cool the food was nice the venue nice and the best part was our host Kumaran,CEO of 10th planet was one hell of a guy. Wish i could peep into that brain of his.... well i have a relatively small social circle and hence may be this might sound exagerated but at 35 he has such clarity of thought and idea.....mind blowing.

The whole thing about all these events is U get to meet some remarkable people, in fail camp i met quite a few of those. One ofcourse is Kumaran. Then there was Suresh of Orangescape...again great knowledge and understanding of technology business in general. Kalyan of Quads group, apart from being one of the event sponsors he was also a young enterprenuer....though there were some things on which I could not connect with him but still he is a impressive guy.

There were quite a few others like the cool graduate student cum Enterpreneur....who is facing extra ordinary challenges and confusions. I just loved the guy (and iam straight :-) )....

and ofcourse as always there is the Kiruba factor to all these meets and events....he has a way of making the whole setting and environment so confortable and free flowing...something very special and unique about him. Great chap and a wonderful organisor....hats of to U...and thanks on a Sunday well spent.

BSNL Still sucks

All i wanted to do is Get a Prepaid mobile connection with a level 3 number (official name for "fancy number" at BSNL). The procedure requires me to fill in a standard form, select a number and pay the premium amount (10K). Ideally this should be done in about half hour even by BSNLs standards. Which is commendable for sure....but on my fine day....I had to wait 3hours to get this done!!!! and all because the operator who was entering the details selected some wrong option on her computer... the procedure to rectify this takes about 15mins....provided the operator is willing to leave the comfort of the A/C office and get to an adjoining room where the "IT" department is. But instead she choses to make call after call to the "IT" people in the next room... I lost track of how many calls she made.

The IT people on the other hand seem too busy to help this lady... busy with what???? thats where BSNL sucks.....busy with coffee....for how long 45Mins!!!!!!!!!!!! In 45mins U could drink coffee and pass it out in the toilet too.....but at BSNL they just drink it for 45Mins.

Having said that....some serious thought into this functioning brought me two conclusions....first that I have become more short tempered and impatient over the years.....second....the compleceny at BSNL comes from the complecent working culture of BSNL which is a generation old. This will go only when the current generation at BSNL goes. All the operators at BSNL are atleast nearing 40s... not sure thats the age people should be entering details of customers on computers.

Diwali and all the anticipation

Its Diwali time again and I am kinda excited about it....but I have no clue why!! Apart from the Half hour puja (I dont even believe in Gods) we do on Diwali and possibly some fire works....what is the big deal about Diwali?

When we were young the fireworks was all that mattered and it was reason enough to be excited about diwali...but what now? What is all this excitement and anticipation about?

I can understand for IT people...it means a rather long break from work and may be thats a reason they wait for diwali....but I dont have even that factor!!! I can take a break any day I want...

Its almost 4 days to diwali and I have already gone into the holiday mood... doing nothing...reading some article on Sachin n just relaxing. Not good. I am gonna give this a serious thought when next Diwali is round the corner....right now its just relaxin

Chandrayan 1 and DD coverage

Woke up early on a weekday morning (6 AM) in spite of watching a movie till 1.30AM...to witness the launch of India's first lunar mission the Chandrayan 1. Felt nice and proud that we have our own shuttle, which will plant a Tri Color on moon.

The launch went perfectly and it was nice watching the coverage on NDTV and CNN IBN....but the disappointing thing about the whole coverage was that all the channels were getting live video feed from ...guess who....DD National. The feeds that DD was giving was so pathetic that I started doubting was it really worth the effort to wake up at 6 and watch this piss poor coverage. I was so outraged and disgusted....I mean for a national channel, of the nation which can venture to the moon.....it shuldnt be that difficult to do a quatily coverage of such a significant moment in the nations technical history!!!

Seriously DD should....in the intrest of the nation discontinue service....every thing in that coverage was ridiculous....from the technical aspects like white balance and sharpness to the asthetic aspects like commentary.

Wish I could do something about it.

Bar camp 2 chennai

I've never been to any such conference or rather unconference... i was very impressed with the format of the whole thing. Very casual and no frills attached discussions...made me wonder...about how old and rather stale my idea of socializing and interacting is!! also made me wonder for the first time in 5years - is it because i am not really in the "corporate IT" circle that i am missing out on something? donno....but it was very refreshing.

Thanks largely to Sukumar Sir for showing me the path hitherto unknow to me....

Though the turnout and to some extent the content was also a let down, being my first time i liked it a lot.

The sessions that I liked were

Indianphotothief by Dilip Muralidharan - Awesome info on the legal aspects of copyrights for art works

Global economy meltdown - Rupiya ganesh, Sukumar, Syed....with inputs from others....awesome info on Y and how USA ruined it for all of us.

There were other intresting things too but these two stand out as what i got from the Bar Camp 2.

Joining the heard...

This is my first post and Iam not really very clear abt this blogging and how it serves any purpose... hope people who have a better understanding will enlighten me with that part. A good friend told me that it has many advantages but i dint really grasp what those were. Anyways this is me joining the millions of folks doing what iam doing now....blogging. i am joining this heard in the sole hope that this heard must be headed towards a sensible purpose or at least a purpose worthy of the time and the effort.