janak's mus·ing and con·tem·pla·tion

I have been observing steady decline in google products.
specially in gmail, picasa, orkut etc.
One such specimen here

The FBI has surrounded the headquarters of the Norne corporation. There are n people in the building. Each person is either an engineer or a manager. All computer files have been deleted, and all documents have been shredded by the managers. The problem confronting the FBI interrogation team is to separate the people into these two classes, so that all the managers can be locked up and all the engineers can be freed. Each of the n people knows the status of all the others. The interrogation consists entirely of asking person i if person j is an engineer or a manager. The engineers always tell the truth. What makes it hard is that the managers may not tell the truth. In fact, the managers are evil geniuses who are conspiring to confuse the interrogators.

1. Under the assumption that more than half of the people are engineers, can you find a strategy for the FBI to find one engineer with at most n-1 questions?
2. Is this possible in any number of questions if half the people are managers?
3. Once an engineer is found, he/she can classify everybody else. Is there a way to classify everybody in fewer questions?

RBS is trying to enter global financial service market since quite a while now.
Being one of the oldest bank in the world, they are well poised in Scotland and UK in general. Their current image is more of national bank than global institute.

RBS entered India with Sachin as brand ambassador, advertisement here: http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=lX9MloTRndM
They have hogged all business channel advt. time along with cricket series.
When I first saw the advertisement, I though its reid and taylor :P
In the end, people still keep wondering whats the ad is all about.

Also, See the timing they have choose in the middle of financial crisis. People are keeping all the money close to their heard and scared from many national (and reliable bank). it would be really hard to convince people to invest in new name at this time.

It would be interesting to see how it goes..

This may sound like wake-up alarm for G!
I have observed some problem with google calendar reminders.
These days, it does not send me email reminder at all!
I missed couple of deadlines and searched for some alternatives.
Found this http://www.rememberthemilk.com/, seems to be cool thing.
The only pain is, I have to migrate plenty of things from google. Lets see how it goes..

Too good..
NOTE: he just 12 years old!

Found this pretty interesting:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/

Very well designed and active groups there.
Way to go.. Y!

Population..
Too many people..

Found it on flickr..
Too good to describe..

Loved it just like that..

Lots of things are ending after 3 long year.

Federer losing his Rank-1 after 237 weeks :O
I finished my Master after 150+ weeks :) and joining corporate world.
changing fields from wireless to database :|

Many more to follow..

Found this in one forward.
Really funny.
Read fully.

---------------------------------------------


What to Do With Hotel Soap

The following letters are taken from an actual incident between a London hotel and one of its guests. The Hotel ended up submitting the letters to the London Sunday Times!

Dear Maid,

Please do not leave any more of those little bars of soap in my bathroom since I have brought my own bath-sized Dial. Please remove the six unopened little bars from the shelf under the medicine chest and another three in the shower soap dish. They are in my way.

Thank you,
S. Berman

Dear Room 635,

I am not your regular maid. She will be back tomorrow, Thursday, from her day off. I took the 3 hotel soaps out of the shower soap dish as you requested. The 6 bars on your shelf I took out of your way and put on top of your Kleenex dispenser in case you should change your mind. This leaves only the 3 bars I left today which my instructions from the management is to leave 3 soaps daily. I hope this is satisfactory.

Kathy,
Relief Maid

Dear Maid - I hope you are my regular maid.

Apparently Kathy did not tell you about my note to her concerning the little bars of soap. When I got back to my room this evening I found you had added 3 little Camays to the shelf under my medicine cabinet. I am going to be here in the hotel for two weeks and have brought my own bath-size Dial so I won't need those 6 little Camays which are on the shelf. They are in my way when shaving, brushing teeth, etc. Please remove them.

S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

My day off was last Wed. so the relief maid left 3 hotel soaps which we are instructed by the management. I took the 6 soaps which were in your way on the shelf and put them in the soap dish where your Dial was. I put the Dial in the medicine cabinet for your convenience. I didn't remove the 3 complimentary soaps which are always placed inside the medicine cabinet for all new check-ins and which you did not object to when you checked in last Monday. Please let me know if I can of further assistance.

Your regular maid,
Dotty

Dear Mr. Berman,

The assistant manager, Mr. Kensedder, informed me this morning that you called him last evening and said you were unhappy with your maid service. I have assigned a new girl to your room. I hope you will accept my apologies for any past inconvenience. If you have any future complaints please contact me so I can give it my personal attention. Call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you.

Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper

Dear Miss Carmen,

It is impossible to contact you by phone since I leave the hotel for business at 7:45 AM and don't get back before 5:30 or 6PM. That's the reason I called Mr. Kensedder last night. You were already off duty. I only asked Mr. Kensedder if he could do anything about those little bars of soap. The new maid you assigned me must have thought I was a new check-in today, since she left another 3 bars of hotel soap in my medicine cabinet along with her regular delivery of 3 bars on the bath-room shelf. In just 5 days here I have accumulated 24 little bars of soap. Why are you doing this to me?

S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

Your maid, Kathy, has been instructed to stop delivering soap to your room and remove the extra soaps. If I can be of further assistance, please call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM.Thank you,

Elaine Carmen,
Housekeeper

Dear Mr. Kensedder,

My bath-size Dial is missing. Every bar of soap was taken from my room including my own bath-size Dial. I came in late last night and had to call the bellhop to bring me 4 little Cashmere Bouquets.

S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

I have informed our housekeeper, Elaine Carmen, of your soap problem. I cannot understand why there was no soap in your room since our maids are instructed to leave 3 bars of soap each time they service a room. The situation will be rectified immediately. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.

Martin L. Kensedder
Assistant Manager

Dear Mrs. Carmen,

Who the hell left 54 little bars of Camay in my room? I came in last night and found 54 little bars of soap. I don't want 54 little bars of Camay. I want my one damn bar of bath-size Dial. Do you realize I have 54 bars of soap in here. All I want is my bath size Dial. Please give me back my bath-size Dial.

S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

You complained of too much soap in your room so I had them removed. Then you complained to Mr. Kensedder that all your soap was missing so I personally returned them. The 24 Camays which had been taken and the 3 Camays you are supposed to receive daily. I don't know anything about the 4 Cashmere Bouquets. Obviously your maid, Kathy, did not know I had returned your soaps so she also brought 24 Camays plus the 3 daily Camays. I don't know where you got the idea this hotel issues bath-size Dial. I was able to locate some bath-size Ivory which I left in your room.

Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper

Dear Mrs. Carmen,

Just a short note to bring you up-to-date on my latest soap inventory. As of today I possess:

* On the shelf under medicine cabinet - 18 Camay in 4 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
* On the Kleenex dispenser - 11 Camay in 2 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 3.
* On the bedroom dresser - 1 stack of 3 Cashmere Bouquet, - 1 stack of 4 hotel-size Ivory, and 8 Camay in 2 stacks of 4.
* Inside the medicine cabinet - 14 Camay in 3 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
* In the shower soap dish - 6 Camay, very moist.
* On the northeast corner of tub - 1 Cashmere Bouquet, slightly used.
* On the northwest corner of tub - 6 Camays in 2 stacks of 3.

Please ask Kathy when she services my room to make sure the stacks are neatly piled and dusted. Also, please advise her that stacks of more than 4 have a tendency to tip. May I suggest that my bedroom window sill is not in use and will make an excellent spot for future soap deliveries. One more item, I have purchased another bar of bath-sized Dial which I am keeping in the hotel vault in order to avoid further misunderstandings.

S. Berman

Its the time of year in mumbai which was eagerly waited by everyone.
We had season's first rain this week and If we believe weather department, its pre-monsoon shower :O
Actual monsoon will start from 10th.

Lots of traveling this month. Few pics from new bangalore airport.





Looks good. Isn't it?

Common airport for domestic as well as international  flights.
duty free shopping in departure area (very similar to heathrow)
No separate scanning for check-in baggages.

Its almost 55km from city. It took me more than 3 hours to reach my place.
Thankfully, I had cab pick-up otherwise, it would have been big pain.

T20 fever continues, as Vijay Mallya says, there is a corporate side to it.
CEO sacked, owner is big mouth and captain is helpless :O
God bless Royally challenged Bangalore side.


As we are nearing to end, most of the semi-finalist are fixed. Last one spot and plenty of takers. Interesting !!

We had our share of IPL last week in Mumbai.
DY Patil stadium for M.I. vs R.R.
Match was disaster but we had fun.

Found this in flickr just like that.
Interesting shape for both the rings.
It might be called girly in India but not there.

And your code as well !

Almost last whole month was jam packed with codesode for MTP. Being student, I don't care much about backup of code, versioning and all that. Once a while we take backup, called MVS. I mean, manual versioning system :P

Well, my requirements are simple:
1. I don't want to loose my code just because of disk crash/ machine failure.
2. If I get little bit of versioning, it would be helpful to rollback if required.

One fine day, almost a week ago, one machine was down.
Fortunately, we had CVS copy weekly to backup server; and MVS copy plenty of time :)
The lost code was not more than 5-10 lines (which wasn't CVSed :|)

Plenty of new things around; more on that later :)

Last week, I was coming from Ahm-Mumbai Shatabdi. As my luck was good (!!), got the coach C-2. That was the coach having small TV screens in front of you. It just remind me Kingfisher/British Air flights :D

Apparently, Indian rail has started this service as pilot project and to get some feedback from aam junta (read us). While 3rd party contract was given to some XYZ company, person came in the coach, inserted old-looking video cassette (Yes, it was that old VCR type); small screens started to blink like dainty gadget.

Ultimate aim of this might be to get good advertisement for IR and free(?) entertainment to travelers, none of them has been achieved though. XYZ company could only convince 3 parties to agree for advertisement while they had very little entertainment to offer.
We saw:
1. Na tum jaano na hum (with ad break every 5 mins, same 3 parties advertisement)
2. Some sa-re-ga-ma type reality show for kids
3. Sreeman Sreemati (of old DD-2 days)

As most of us staring at TV and figuring out that how can we switch it off, it turns out that you can't!

There was no power to keep laptop battery alive but (TV) show must go on :(
Anyway... My suggestions ..
1. Give few options to users (atleast 3-4 channels, and option to switch off! )
2. Don't repeat same advertisement within 15 minutes. It irritates lot..
3. Something like video on demand would work really well.
4. Any plan for live broadcast ? (like kingfisher)  

saw this movie.
How can somebody write such story?
Just watch first 15 minutes and its kinda..  all sci-fi fiction around..
Should have read this before watching movie.


PS: Don't even bother to watch it without subtitles :P

It was good.
details here

Went to Jagjit singh gazal.
It was so hyped from beginning.
Standing in queue for 1 hour and waiting for entry :|

And.. then... this whole group of band arrives, keep on tuning their instruments.
Never got them working correctly though !!
We thought.. they will have some rock show sort of thing before gazals..
and..  In between all these chaos, jagjit singh arrives, sings his trademark gazals without any enthu in his heart.
Dominant part was competition between violin and guitar :O
Total time-pass for 30 mins and we are back :D

Among other noticeable things around,
MoodI had all weired possible questions in Quiz. Couldn't get answers even after googling :(

Saw this movie:  Matrubhoomi.  Some true reality which we haven't seen in our part of world.
Felt this in IIT sometimes though :P

Modi is back to CM chair and BJP's confidence is all time high !!

Is IIT/IIM better than MIT/stan?
Its like asking...
Mumbai local train is better than London underground tube ?

Ask me "Why?"
Its hard to get in !!

:D

Found from here: http://skthewimp.livejournal.com/
pretty Interesting stuff :D

• Throw - you throw the ball, don't bowl it
  
• No stumps. How often have you played gully cricket where you have three stones for stumps, and a bowled is almost as complicated as a LBW!
  
• Strike out - in cases as mentioned above, sometimes you dispense with the bowled (too hard to judge) and put in the rule that if the batsman gets beaten thrice (or in some cases, twice in consecutive balls) he is out.
  
• Current stumping. So how do you run someone out in gully cricket when you don't have the stumps? You do what is called a current stumping. One foot on one of the stones representing the stumps, and you need to catch the ball cleanly. Isn't this what always happens in baseball?
• (my personal favorite) No back runs - when you are playing with a limited number of fielders, you "make it fairer" by eliminating back runs. You have to score in front of the wicket. It's worse in baseball. You have to hit it between extra cover and midwicket.
  
• Deflected catches - in some versions of gully cricket (not all), a batsman is out if the ball bounces off some "externality" such as a tree or a wall. Similarly, in baseball, catches taken off the boundary wall are legal.
  
• (ok this is total fraud) Catching with one hand. I must admit this isn't exactly similar. In baseball you always catch with one hand. In some versions of gully cricket you have the "one pitch one hand out". If you can catch the ball clean with one hand after it has bounced once, the batsman is out. This rule is usually used in order to make the game fairer for the bowlers.
• Running without the bat - Typically there is only one bat so the non-striker doesn't have one. And in order to save time in handing over the bat after a run, the batsman sometimes drops the bat and runs. Just like in baseball. And I've always wondered if it's a rule in baseball. Why don't the batsmen run with the bat and try ground it in?
  
• No concept of overs - in a large number of instances of gully cricket, there is no concept of overs. And the bowler bowls as long as he pleases and you have to actually fight with him to allow you to bowl.