Cycling Trip to Kovalam

Last weekend, June 28th Sunday to be precise, I went on a cycling trip to Kovalam, along with few friends. All were either interns or employees at my workplace and many of us had connections to IITM which made the logistics of trip bit easier.

We rented cycles from a shop at Saidapet the previous night itself. On the day of the trip we assembled at Velachery bus stand little before 0500 hours and took off. The map with trip details from RunKeeper is on the right. It was mostly straight ECR trip. In total we covered >70kms that day.


Some observations here:

• Early morning trip was really nice. No sun, little traffic and city actually looked beautiful.
• We could see other riding cycles in groups, in both directions.
• I had music playing on one ear and kept the other open for hearing ambient sound. Cycling to western classical is good. :)
• Chennai could do better with roads. There is basically zero consideration for pedestrians or cyclists even within city limits.
• I used both RunKeeper and Strava to keep track using the later during return trip. I found each lacking certain features I liked, with RunKeeper doing better, especially for cycling. Paid version of Strava will be equivalent to RunKeeper I guess, but considering it is not one time payment but a monthly subscription I don't think that's worth it.
• I would be willing to pay RunKeeper for one time if they implemented a better interface and made it easy to embed or share the activity in other places. Basically I think these apps should decouple payment for app features & UX development, and subscription for continued support like fitness coaching or more detailed stats storage etc that they offer. I understand the latter can't be provided with one time fee.
• Strava linked two way with my Fitbit account but RunKeeper has only one way link. That's a minus. I have a Fitbit Charge HR device if you are curious.

• The beach could really use some attention from the tourism board.
• It was filthy everywhere.
• There were hardly any dust bins.
• So many people visiting but no decent restaurants.
• I had to search the entire town(village?) to find a water bottle that is trust worthy. 'Aquapinana' brand was more common. :)
• We spent there until noon playing around in the beach with cycles close by since they did not have locks.
• Return journey was split with first leg to Muttukadu in the hopes of boating.
• The rates were so exorbitant, we decided not to. I went to Kerala few months back and similar setup costed a fourth or fifth of this. TN tourism board let down again.
  
• Then we reached Lydie's and ate a good vegetarian food. Usually non veg options are limited by veg members of the office group but this time we had a vegan as well! Double whammy. :p The ambience was good, the food tasty with big enough portions. Give it a try if you happen to be nearby.
• From there it was straight to IITM and Gurunath for rest and celebration of trip completion. We expected some leg pain but that never happened(next day was fine too ). What did happen was literal pain in the ass. Those seats need to be more comfortable!
• Then from there to Saidapet again. Felt how unfriendly Chennai was to cyclists again.
• The last time I drank so much liquid in my life was when I participated in 25km race walking representing my college. In went bottles after bottles of water which all just evaporated.

At the end of the day, it was a nice trip, an exhilarating and fun experience. As I spied a 'Welcome to Chennai' board on ECR on return trip, Kingsroad from A Game of Thrones started playing, followed by The King's Arrival; it couldn't get any better. :-) Should try Mahabalipuram next.

PS: Photos here are copyright Rakend (our official photographer. :p).

The next books update

This time I haven't read as many books as last one. I haven't found time for the promised re-read of The Last Lecture either.

I have read the third and final volume of Dork. A good book for those who are looking for subtle comedy.

I started reading Managing Humans by Lopp but didn't find it interesting to finish. Started reading How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland and the progress has been slow mostly because of the melancholy of subject matter. I'm hoping to finish it soon.

The Summons by John Grisham has been read too. Not as good as his other books but worth a read. I had guessed the 'twist' long before it came and that didn't help.

Currently reading: India Unbound by Gurcharan Das

I and My Books This Year

These are the books I have read this year so far and managed to remember the titles:

• The Last Lecture by Randy Paush
• Dork by Sidin Vadukut
• God save the Dork by Sidin Vadukut
• The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
• A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey
• The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey ^[1]
• Tales of Beedle the Bard by J K Rowling
• The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
• All three The Tales of Dunk and Egg series of novellas by George R R Martin
• The Princess and The Queen novella by GRRM, part of Dangerous Women anthology

I bought The Last Lecture like 10 months ago and managed to read it only now. Got too lazy last year on reading books front. One reason for writing this is to publicly shame myself into reading more. If I don't write about books here going further, assume that I haven't read anything those weeks. One more motivation is that this provides some material for the blog, which I have managed to ignore for so long.

The Last Lecture is as good as it gets. Anyone who has watched Randy Paush's Last Lecture knows what the book is about. If you haven't, it' is about time you did. Go watch it. It's free and worth your time. I shall write a detailed blog sometime later. I intend to reread it.

Sidin's novels are good fun and I liked the subtle humour in the novels set around the lives of modern management consultants.

The Daughter of Time is an excellent novel that's old enough to be in public domain. All her novels are old enough to talk about calling exchange to connect the telephone, but are enjoyable any time.

Tales of Beedle the Bard is a children's book by J K Rowling, an offshoot from Harry Potter universe. As entertaining and stimulating as a children's book can be. ;-)

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a fictional story trying to clarify (or make sense of) another fictional story. ;-) Expertly done if you ask me.

The other four works by GRRM are set in the famous world of A Song of Ice and Fire - more popularly known as Game of Thrones - universe. As excellent as fantasy novels go. P&Q has lots of fantasy elements like dragons fighting etc; Dunk & Egg novellas are pretty thin on fantasy elements but have the same expert story telling and complex characters that GRRM is famous for.

[1] All her works are in public domain & available for free download here.

PS: Hat tip to Yuvi Panda for the idea for this entry.

The Letter by Students of MIT, Anna University, to the Vice Chancellor

This is an edited version of the letter written by Students of Madras Institute of Technology, Anna University, to the Vice Chancellor. Thanks to Gaurav and Mohan for editing it. This was originally posted in Facebook group, but since it is a closed space requiring login I'm parking it here.

It is very clear that the dean has been functioning in an autocratic and stupid fashion. All emphasis in text are mine. I hope my alma matter will get rid of her.

To the Respected Vice-Chancellor,

We the students of Anna University, MIT Campus are going to protest by staying inside our hostels until the Dean of MIT Campus is replaced. We will not come out of our hostels until our demands are fully accepted. We are subject to constant mental agony ever since the new Dean was sworn in. She has absolutely no idea about the traditions of MIT that have transcended the decades since when the institution was established. Our mental distress is so terrible that some of us are thinking about quitting our courses; some of us are even considering quitting the university since our career post Anna University has become a question mark. We feel that, with the college being an autonomous institution, the authorities feel they have every right to be dictatorial in their approach, especially our dean Dr. Thamarai Selvi. We wish to express displeasure with regard to the following things regarding our current dean:-
1) We are not treated like students in a professional degree course. Instead we are treated in a draconian manner not befitting even school students. A search for intellectual excellence through independent thinking cannot happen when we're treated with utmost disrespect and disdain.
2) Dean is only concerned about her image and not about the students.
3) Thanks to the autonomy of the institute, our views are fully suppressed.
4) Even when our parents are called for any inquiries, they are treated rather poorly and our Dean has the habit of using unparliamentary words not befitting a head of such a prestigious institution. Not only was it totally uncalled for, it also tarnished the reputation of our university.
5) Our calls for proper treatment were met with threats of fines and arrears in exams. As a result, the unwritten rule in college is not to even clarify doubts in class taken by even the most unqualified faculty.
6) The Dean has also indulged in activities like entering boys hostels in person and disturbing students suffering from illnesses. Further infringement of our rights include the Dean actually entering the gents’ toilet under the pretext of catching rulebreakers. How can we function when we're treated worse than inmates in a prison and our rights to such basic privacy aren't guaranteed?
7) The Dean has threatened the first year students and asked them to readily lodge false complaints against their seniors even though there were no ragging incidents per se.
The Dean does not respect our rich college traditions such as the Junior-Senior relationship. Instead of allowing supervised interactions to prevent any instances of ragging, she has totally banned any mere act of even talking by putting it under the banner of 'ragging' in a move that would totally destroy what makes MIT so unique.
9) The hostel gates are locked every morning from 8.45 to 11.45 am. This is not specified anywhere in the university rules. As a result, even the students with legitimate excuses are not allowed into the hostel.
10) We are not allowed to use our mobiles and laptops after 9pm till morning (when classes aren't even in session). Not every parent who wants to talk to their children away from home gets back after work before 9pm. What kind of technological institution bans laptops which are vital to any kind of research and studying that we need to do? This again is a rule that is not specified anywhere by the university in its regulations.
11. Students are excessively fined, for trivial issues, including and not limited to eating at college canteens (as opposed to the mess), not locking their rooms when they go even to a nearby restroom, for staying in their rooms when ill etc. The only gain from this is to those authorities at college who like seeing their bank balances go up.
12. The choice of the new Dean of MIT Campus, Anna University Chennai has also not been as per seniority. Money has certainly played a huge role apart from influence in making her dean. This is what’s happening at Anna University, MIT Campus and we’re fed up with many more such problems which we feel ashamed to reveal in detail for fear of the institution’s reputation taking a beating. We are however ready to share our grievances to a competent authority if given a forum where our views will actually be heard without malice from the people in power.
We hate seeing the culture of MIT taking a beating, a culture of seniors helping juniors they’ve never even met, helping them as if they were members of the same family. MIT’s fame and reputation are being degraded year by year by those with money and power. We conclude by affirming that we will not leave our hostels until the Dean, whose ill-will towards the students and inconsiderate actions that put a question mark on our careers, is changed. We are engineering students well on our way to becoming professionals, future builders of our nation’s infrastructure and would like to be treated with dignity.

Yours Sincerely,
The students of Madras Institute of Technology

Google Plus

Google Plus has completed 100 days now, and it has many users but the problem is there are no posts! Well, at least not as much as Facebook. This post started as a switching guide for those who wanted to use Google+ instead of FB but are not doing it since there's isn't much happening here^[1]. But now, to celebrate it's open to all feature, it contains another part first. :-)

The New Features in Google Plus

The initial version of G+ itself was better, but now has even more options that makes it truly awesome.

• The Hangout has become much more than leisurely hanging out. It is now a full featured collaborative tool. You can edit Google docs while watching a video and talking with a group of people. And not just YouTube videos; you can share any window -including VLC- or just your whole monitor. And it works from an Android phone too. :) I mean, you can make presentation to bore people to death, remotely.
• The photo sharing is just cool. If one views using G+ interface, it's great from a social view, for commenting, controlling who can view, resharing etc. If one views from Picasa, it's photographer's pleasure with very good editing features, mass upload etc; Not to mention integration with offline Picasa tool. Changes made in one interface reflects on the other(it's the same photo;-). FB + Flickr + less maintenance.
• It's accessible. Check this to see how people who can't speak can use Hangout with sign language. :-)
• It's open to all now. :-)

Let's now get back to original task.

Being an early adopter is an awesome stoke for a geek's ego and usually works out fine. I can recall my own experience when I got a gmail id.

Unless it's a social thing. That simply doesn't work unless there are more people adopting it. But there's a catch, a recursive one at that. People won't adopt unless early adopters use it more and go ga ga over it. But early adopters can't use it without people joining it. But, er.., you get the point, right?

The solution is to keep using it even though only small number of people are there. This is awkward for social stuff, but no other go. Tips to improve the situation:

• Almost everyone using Buzz is in Google+. So better to use +. But bloody Google is not enabling automatic posting in + like it is in Buzz. @SRR: Can you suggest this feature for Plus?
• Do not post anything in FB. How else do you expect friends to come to Plus for info about you if you post it in both places? I like & comment on other's posts but don't post anything on my own.

PS: Other suggestions are welcome.

PPS: why I go to this extent? I don't trust FB with my data. That's why.

PPPS: I hate the bloody Blogger interface. It sucks even when I copy paste HTML from WordPress. Can't Google do better?

---

[1] No, this is not addressed to people who do not want to switch. :-)

Mylapore Middle Street

Recently I went to Mylapore for a work and I reached too early. Not knowing how to spend nearly two hours, I roamed around the place. One could spot pristine, upper middle class houses on one side of the road and slum on the other! I have never before seen so much difference on two sides of the road.

எங்க குடியிருக்கீங்க?
நடுத்தெருவுல சார்!

Most of Mylapore was bit like my old residential place(Chromepet) with very smallish streets and women fighting at water taps (To subject any Tamil learner to the ultimate test of language proficiency, ask him/her to decipher women-at-metro-tap fights. :D)

The most interesting thing that I spotted (and the namesake of this post) was the street in the photo; I was literally laughing on the road with people giving me strange looks!!

The Trek to Tada Falls

On the way to forest office

On Sunday, 9^th Jan, I and 6 more friends from IITM went to Tada falls (aka Ubbalamadugu Falls - 13° 36′ 35″ N, 79° 50′ 34″ E) near Nellore in Andra Pradesh.^[1] We took a bus from CMBT to Tada (busses to Nellore & Sri Kalahasti go via Tada), where we reached by 11.30; had food at a Tamil Mess (irony! We used to eat @ Andhra Mess near IIT when bored of our mess.) Then we rode in an open share auto till the forest office gate.

Base Camp 1.(Yes, we could have come till here in auto; But we walked 4 kms)

Then we walked for about 4 kms to the base of the hillocks.(Base Camp 1) There I saw the clearest rivulet water I have ever seen. It was so clean that it became difficult to find if water was there or not!

The main falls is located in a hill at a height of about 7000 feet. We started walking after a while and split into two groups. Till a Shiva temple(Base camp 2) the path was, though uphill, mostly sandy and kinda ok with small stones. There we got some guava fruit and crossed the brook again and got into more rocky path.

Climbing rocks!

After that I was enjoying the nature so much that I stopped taking photos. :-( The rocky path went somewhat parallel to the brook and sometimes we had to cross small sub-brooks. We reached the small falls and spent some time admiring nature. Then the path(the non-path) became very hilly and we had to climb high rocks to reach the main falls.

I was thoroughly enjoying it so far and the sight there made me sad. There were quite few youngsters who were swimming and drinking; Beer bottles, both new and broken, could be found around the water pool; The place was filled with so much trash of all kinds(polythene, plastic tumblers, soft drink bottles...).
[Rant: If those idiots wanted to drink, why not go to some pub and drink to their heart's content? Why spoil such a place? Indians exhibit worst behavior when it comes to things like this.]

Along the brook.

We spent few minutes there and decided to return.(I could not stand in that place with all those things going around me.:-( ) We three felt a little elated and adventurous after the climb that we decided to take not the path by which we came, but the downstream of brook itself.

Destiny! [Caption by Mandar ;-) ]

It was not only rocky, but slippery too this time, since algae had grown over rocks due to water. It was exhilarating, and sometimes fearful that we might not take correct route when brook sub-divides and end up roaming till death. :p We finally managed to reach Shiva temple where the brook intersected the pathway and we switched to it. Thereafter downhill was simply sandy cum stony path. :-) Overall I felt happy and elated about the whole affair. :-) A nice experience!


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubbalamadugu_Falls

Discovery Of The Day

Mess food tastes like real food at 12 o`clock. ;-)

Note to self: Somehow make it mess at 12 every day!

Bias Against Women

A new study demonstrates that how women musicians dress alters the perception of how they play:

...in an attempt to overcome biases in hiring, most orchestras changed their audition policy, and began using screens to conceal the identity of the candidate.
Female musicians in the top five US symphony orchestras rose from 5% in the 1970s to around 25%. This could have been due to wider societal shifts, so Goldin and Rouse conducted a very elegant study, Orchestrating Impartality: they compared the number of women being hired at auditions with and without screens, and found women were several times more likely to be hired when nobody could see that they were a woman

Via Stallman.org

QOTD

Don’t Judge people by what you have seen in them. Remember… What you have seen in them is only what they have chosen to show you.

-- I don't know(came in an email)

Net Neutrality in Danger?

The news item Google and Verizon Near Deal on Pay Tiers for Web seems to indicate so:

Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.

The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.

Such an agreement could overthrow a once-sacred tenet of Internet policy known as net neutrality, in which no form of content is favored over another.[Emphasis mine]

I think net neutrality is still sacred. Is Google being evil?

Donkey Days

***RANT ALERT***

Please stop this nonsense called friendship day and its wishes. Understand that all these friend/mother/women/lover/dog/donkey days are created by these greeting-card/gift/cell phone companies to make more money. Since number of people who got fooled for this 'frandship' day increased year-by-year, I had to pay 50 paise for every SMS today. :-( AFAIK last year this was not in paid-SMS days list. And AFAIK only Diwali, Pongal and New Year were originally paid-SMS days. Thanks to increasing number of fools every year, this paid-SMS days also went up and now it stands at 10 days. :-(

PS: You don't become my close friend just because you sent an 'advance'(read free) 'frandship' day wish/forward. And my friends are always my friends no matter they wished or not. The only day I expect a wish and make a point to wish others is the birthday.

Gender Gap in Earning

From Men Don't Have it Easy Either:[Emphasis mine]

6. Women earn less for the same work than men.
False: For the same work, women earn, on average, the same. According to the book, Why Men Earn More, based on a decade of analysis of government and other statistics, reasons for the "women earn 80 cents on the dollar" figure include that men more often choose careers that are more dangerous (e.g., police and firefighter), uncomfortable (from sewer repairer to crop duster), isolating and difficult (e.g., engineer and programmer) and work longer hours. The average man who says he works full-time works more than six hours a week longer than the average woman who says she works full-time. In addition, men are more likely to work evenings and weekends. For a promotion, more men are willing to move to places that fewer people desire. An offshore oil rig in Montgomery, Alabama, anyone?
Even comparing salaries in the same career tends to be biased against men. For example the Bureau of Labor Statistics lumps together all medical doctors but men are more likely to pursue higher-stress specializations with unpredictable hours such as surgeon whereas women are more likely to be a lower-stress pediatrician, and thus women physician salaries are lower.
Despite all this, today, unmarried women who have never had a child earn 113% of what men earn. That suggests that for the same nature, quantity, and quality of work, women likely earn more than men, and only when a woman makes the choice to have children and thus, on average, is less focused on her work life, does that woman's overpayment dissipate.
The good news for women is that when they make the same career choices as men, they can earn at least as much.

The article has much more info on how the world is getting difficult for men as opposed to women. A must read. [Via Ben]

Close Friends

From Ben Casnocha's recent blogpost:

I just told a friend I was writing this post. She said, "This is a litmus test I use for how close I am with a friend. If s/he doesn't tell me anything bad about their life, I assume we're not very good friends."

Very true. I have been using the same test for many years. :)

Forecasting Apple vs Microsoft

Paul Graham told in his cult classic Hackers and Painters [2004]:

And it [Apple] hasn’t lost yet. If Apple were to grow the iPod into a cell phone with a web browser, Microsoft would be in big trouble.

Aha!

From http://blog.oddhead.com/2010/07/15/most-prescient-footnote-ever/ via O'rielly radar.

Links

The physical basis for humanity - II: The genesis:

A nice analysis of Eastern vs Western cultures.

If Linux was the most used system in the world…

Most of the Linux is hard statements from people are due to the fact that they are accustomed to the Windows way of doing things. Not because Windows is better designed for usability. A little humorous take on it.
   -Via Kanchilug Newsletter.

The Funniest Bus Travel

This happened while I was traveling from Taramani to Velachery two days ago. A man(hereinafter called 'X'), who was visibly drunk, boarded the bus in next stop.

[Translated from Tamil]
[Conductor sounds a whistle]

X: You rascal. How dare u whistle at the ladies sitting before you? Who allowed you to sit in ladies side?

Conductor: How else do you expect me to stop and start the bus?

X: Doesn't driver knows where stops are? Or you stand near him and say these things.

[Conductor gives him a ticket to Velachery and sounds whistle at next stop]

X: Won't you listen to me? I'll give petition about you to Kalaingar.
[He comes near conductor and starts shouting after he gives another whistle to start the bus]
I'll complaint to police, MTC and I know minister. What's your name?

Conductor got irritated and sounded a whistle to stop the bus and told him that Velachery has come. He got down in the middle of nowhere, still scolding the conductor. :-D

Sema comedy. I was laughing till I got to bed that day. :-D :-D

I Became an Engineer

Well, Sort of. :p Yet to get PC.

A Chat With St.iGNUsius

Had a nice interactive session with Richard Matthew Stallman today at Carte Blanche. It was a time well spent. :) And fast. :(

Flight Website is Online

This year's Flight website is online. The site is built and maintained by me, using the great Wordpress software.

Its my dream to run a website. I'm happy. :-)