Been There, Done That?

The day this blog celebrates its Birthday, the author of this blog celebrates too, apparently for his birthday and not for Sashi Tharoor's birthday! But inline with Sashi's tradition of sharing anything and everything online, here is something that I wanted to share in my blog too.

The 2010 edition of my Birthday was widely anticipated, because the 2009 edition had missus gifting me a Bean Bag, that was very cozy and comfortable for watching the IPL matches! So this time, just like how expectations grew wild from the 2009 to 2010 editions of the IPL, my expectations were wild too :) But with just a week to go, work place dropped a bomb-shell by requesting me to spend couple of weeks away from home-town on a deputation. With both of our faces looking like that winking Vodafone Zuzu, I was pulling my bags out of our home.

And the D-Day was one of the uneventful compared to its past editions, but just until then. Around the wake of the afternoon, when I was dozing my way debugging the If's and For's, the surprise came as a small pop-up balloon. Missus dropped in a mail, that totally caught me off guard! I was blinking and smiling my way reading through the mail. It read..

Though miles apart, you stay closer to my heart
Whenever i think of you, I hear the word 'Never Depart'
On this Birthday, my sweet heart
I wish you a wonderful start
We know Life is an Art
And I am sure you have mastered it a Lot

It has always been right when said, women are the best to throw you surprises! In fact, every time I wanted to give a surprise, I would either blabber and break the surprise before hand or would hype it up in such a way that it ends up like 'Oh, is that it'? ;) So, if there's something that I can at least half-neatly pull off, it must be that fitting reply. So after frantic search across Shakespearean Literature, and some contemporary Google crawling, I shot back!

Meters and Miles will never get us Apart
Forever you think of me, you never will hear the word Depart
Since the Day we met at the Mart
We had a wonderful head Start
For the Life we know as Art,
And What better day to remember it, you smart!

This might sound silly, but when it just mattered, this was a revelation and later gave good moments to giggle and ponder, especially since it marked our first attempt to write a (so called) Kavidhai (poetry):)

Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya - A cultural cocktail cross-over?

Two rounds of listening and here is the initial reaction.

Loads of Rahmanic tunes and beats, fine blend of violin and cello medley, shaked up with Chinmayi and Shreya Ghosal vocals, pepped up with Blazee Rap, mixed up with some amount of Thirukkural and Hindu marriage songs, a garrulous yet splendid never-before full Malayalam number, iced up with Titanisque sound tracks, borderlined with notes that sits right on the Palakkad border moving sinusoidally between Classical Tamil Nadu and Catholican Kerala with a mouth wateringly delicious Bilahari on the Nadhaswaram......

Huh.. In Vadivel's term.. "Only you Possible" :)

But this is pure offbeat! My guesses, very few chart busters here (Hosanna may be an exception), but should go on well with the movie. May piss of those ardent lovers of Goutham-Harris combination. But there is a wave of fresh air, and get ready for the cultural cocktail cross-over!

P.S: For me, had there been a full version of "Omana Penney" instrumental on Nadhaswaram, that itself should be worth the price of the CD/Cassette. Forget those yesteryear classic from the KB - Illayaraja combo sculpting Bilahari Marthandam Pillai and Bilahari JKB, this might have been the era of Bilahari Litlle Superstar :)

நன்றே செய்யும் நிலை வருமா !!

Disci: My tamil writing stopped way long back and I was behind the 80 percentile on tamil papers in school.. So patiently correct me for the spelling and lyrical errors.

போர் செய்ய புது ஆயுதமும்

ஆள் கொல்ல தினம் ஓர் சதியும்

நேர்விக்கும் பெறு நாடுகளும்

ஏதென்று நிஜமுலகரியும்

நின்றே கொல்லும் தெய்வங்களும்

இன்றே கொல்லும் மத பூசல்களும்

நிலை வருமா,நிலை வருமா

நிலை வருமா,நிலை வருமா

உடன் வருமா,உடன் வருமா

தலைமைகள் வர வர திரிந்திடுமா !

நின்றே கொல்லும் தெய்வங்களும்

இன்றே கொல்லும் மத பூசல்களும்

அன்றே செய்யும் என உணரும்

நன்றே செய்யும் நிலை வருமா

நிலை வருமா,

நிலை வருமா

உடன் வருமா,

தலைமைகள் வர வர திரிந்திடுமா !!

*******************************

I'm head over heals for this song currently. Perfect vocals by BJ and KH ! Perfect execution by Shruti. And the lyrics a perfect wow !!! Is this Manushyaputran's work? Can somebody confirm?

For the clueless, here you go.. the first song - http://www.raaga.com/channels/tamil/album/T0002007.html

My guess.. this song will go right to the end of the movie for the closing credits. I can already imagine me standing up and feeling the moment holding the hands tight!!

Shortest Path between the US and UK

Now wait. Are we here for a shortest path Dijikstra's algorithm, Geography, Flight dynamics/kinetics, Psychology, SQL 2008 Spatial Data Type or something? Well almost all but everything in part :)

Longtime back, I had a doubt running on the back of my mind which nobody seemed to completely answer. Why does a flight-path from UK to US or vice-versa go along an elliptical path in a planar map covering Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and then to USA and instead not go in a straight line moving Trans-Atlantic thereby saving a lot of time and fuel?

(The Red Line is what I expect, but the Black line is how it goes. You.. You.. Damn airline.. Its our money and our time !! )

I have got a variety of unsatisfactory answers but the closest till date which I thought right was - 'The aircraft wants to travel close to the shore as much as possible to force an emergency landing if at all necessary'. That was given by one of my Managers during a chit-chat, and seemed to satisfy me until today when I found what the original reason was!

I was randomly looking into Spatial Data Types in SQL Server 2008 for a reason i-don't-know-why and there I saw the answer right in front of my eyes. Mouth wateringly delicious ! Why didn't I even think about this in perspective!? Lifting it straight from there.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But, a straight line on a flat-earth model is far different than a straight line on an ellipsoidal model. To demonstrate, consider the shortest path from Redmond, WA, USA to Cambridge, England, UK:

On this planar projection, it certainly looks like the shortest path. Even when examined on a 3D model, it looks correct:

But, if the camera is moved towards the North Pole, then the error becomes apparent:

In the ellipsoidal model, the shortest path between the points is not the red line, which roughly parallels the lines of Latitude, but rather the black arrow! Converted back to a planar projection, this actual shortest path appears curved:

(in this view, the black curve was [hastily] plotted by hand)

Original Source Credit: http://jasonfollas.com/blog/archive/2008/05/16/sql-server-2008-spatial-data-part-7.aspx

Is it time for number 14?

Stay close for the answer...

Going Green !

As we enter the new year, we would see lot of people asking what's your resolution for the year? It's a pretty disturbing question and I have been thinking for sometime to come up with the same disturbing answer. For all of you who asked me what my resolution was, it was 1280 * 1024 at work, and 1280 * 960 at home ! But that was the last year's answer. So for this year, since I have a growing responsibility for the environment we live in, my resolution is going to be - "Going Green".

Here's a list of things I mean by saying Going Green !

1. Board the oldest metro bus to commute between places. That is the one which is currently green in color. The new buses are blue, red, yellow or white colored which does not stick to the go 'green' rules, and not to forget those AC Volvo's - CFC emission, I say.

2. Use the bicycle to commute locally instead of bikes/cars/auto. And the reason is pretty much self explanatory - the cycle is dark green in color.

3. Shop the Pondy, Sathya, Burma and every shady bazzar in town to find a nice professional looking pair of green slippers (Kili pachai preferred), as I already have a pair of green looking woodlands look-alike sneaker.

4. Carry a plantain leaf to work, to have the daily lunch over a pleasant green leafy spread.

5. Start the day after consulting parrot astrology. They don't only give an advantage to know the boss's mood in advance, but the sheer beauty of a green parrot will make the heart light.

6. Use cold running water for bathing and drinking purposes even on a comparatively cold month like Maargazhi(the Dec - Jan months), as it considerably saves energy bills on water heaters, gas stoves etc and also giving an additional satisfaction of using pachai thanni (green water).

7. Unwind for the weekend, on a stress free outing to the Greenways Road.

8. Always set the status message on Office Communicator, GTalk, Live Messenger, Skype etc to available, even when really busy or while attending meetings.

9. Stop the cycle abruptly and close the eyes very tight if happen to stop by a signal. Open the eyes only when there are loud horns around, or abusive shouting using green green words by the locals.

10. Do all of the day to day work using Microsoft Office Excel only. Even if it is about preparing a document, doing a presentation do it within excel. Send a mail with all contents in excel attachment. And convince mangers, clients and business to use excel macro and VBA for programming.

I'm curious to know about your 'Go Green' or 'Go Red' mantra or anything else you got to say. The comments section is wide open.

Shame on me, Shane

Ricky: Hello, Shane. Its Ricky here.
Shane: Ricky(.)(!), which Ricky?
Ricky: Your ex-mate.
Shane: What? I don't hear you properly? You said check-mate?
Ricky: No.. No. Ex-Kangaroo mate. Captain, Cricket Au..... (disturbance)
Shane: Oh still!? Sorry I heard it Ex-Captain, Cricket Atrotia. Anyways it matters only for a short while. What's up?
Ricky: I need your help. Need you back as the front line leg spin bowler.
Shane: Oh, but.. I thought you would take Glen's help perhaps.
Ricky: Glen is now old, and has lost it.
Shane: But it was the same thing you told me, about myself sometime back.
Ricky: That was then (like the Vadivel styled - 'adhu pona maasam')
Shane: But I'm getting close to my 40.
Ricky: So what? so does Matty. But I plan to have him for 5 more years.
Shane: I don't think I'm interested.
Ricky: No, No.. You should not say that. Its not anymore about you and me. Its the pride of our nation's Cricket at International level. Its Ashes next, and we can't afford to miss.
Shane: Hmm. But I'm out of touch.
Ricky: No way. I find you more tougher than me, more quicker than Brett and more fitter than Symo and more experienced than anybody else out there.
Shane: That means, I call all the shots? I rule the forest, and you just remain as a H(P)unter?
Ricky: Err.. Well.. But.. You are out of touch there.
Shane: Have you heard of IPL 20-20?
Ricky: That's not test cricket. 20-20 is brute force. No tactics. And it was played at India which does not count as a good place to win. Below Par.
Shane: That was one of your recent outing for a complete white-wash. Remember?
Ricky: Ok. Freea vudu.. But, the captain's seat is..
Shane: No problem Ricky. I have better personal work to do. Can we hang up?
Ricky: No wait. I can even promise you that. But what if, CA board or selectors have some problem?
Shane: I don't think they have any problem getting away with you !
Ricky: Oh, but Matty is a long time senior? We need to respect that.
Shane: So what, I was a senior when you were a captain. Did that bother you ever?
Ricky: Symo would be really angry.. You know about his temperament and all..
Shane: What role fisherman got to play here?
Ricky: Mike. Mr.Cricket. He has great standard. He long deserves something.
Shane: You should have thought about it lot before. Not now..
Ricky: But Clarkey is our promising hero. He is the future of CA. He is young and energetic.
Shane: Oh, that's something good that you have learnt to respect some youngsters now.
Ricky: Well, Shane. Lets make it for the spirit of it. You now stand a chance to become No.1 wicket taker in Tests yet again, good enough to surpass that wicked off-chucking eye popper from a Ravana territory.
Shane: Enough of these. I'm not one of those dumb media. I know you more than these words.
Ricky: Fine. What exactly is your ultimate demand for this game of cat and rat?
Shane: Your mount sized Ego!