Ashok Vemuri’s Blog

Mess of One’s Own Making

Posted by: Ashok on: July 19, 2007

United States is not the only country these days to have made a big mess and then desperately trying to find a face-saving way out of it. Here comes Pakistan!

I have been following the recent events in Pakistan - the Lal Masjid shootout in Islamabad and subsequent suicide attacks by religious fundamentalists on Pakistani army. While I am certainly not rejoicing the loss of innocent lives anywhere, I can’t help but hope it opens the eyes of Pakistani establishment in a way.

For years, Pakistan has funded and armed these religious fundamentalists in Kashmir, under the pretext of providing only moral support. We called them “terrorists” in India, but Pakistan chose to call them “Freedom Fighters” instead. According to media reports, lot of those so called freedom fighters were holed up in Lal Masjid and fighting their own army last week. Now if you look at the attacks on Pakistani army after the Lal Masjid incident, it’s easy to realize what a folly it was of Pakistani establishment to create this mess in the first place.

Call me a daydreamer, but I hope that Indian and Pakistani governments will one day fight this common enemy together!

Most Bizzare Way To Rob A Bank

Posted by: Ashok on: July 13, 2007

I recently read a news article about a very interesting way to rob a bank. Some guy in Manchester, New Hampshire, robbed a bank in the funniest way you could ever imagine. He covered himself in tree branches (yes, that’s right, in tree branches), duct-taped to his body and head. The poor soul behind the cash counter was scared to death seeing this “moving tree” in the bank and gave away all the money to the robber.

But the bank’s security cameras did catch a glimpse of this guy’s face, which was then made public. A “friendly” neighbor of this robber tipped off the police who promptly arrested him!! The police must have had a good laugh about this whole incident, but they better treat this guy well — because trees are, after all, good for earth. :-)

This link has a photo of the robber in the bank. Check it out!

Too Much Of Ads In Life

Posted by: Ashok on: June 25, 2007

Did you ever wish for the electricity to go out when you’re in an elevator? Or ever felt like running away from your car when filling up gas?

It seems to me that advertisement-supported/enhanced business models are pushing the line a bit too far. Almost to the point of no concern for consumer’s privacy and choice. I had a couple of experiences recently that bugged me to no end.

One of them happened today at the Shell gas station in Mountain View, near El Camino Real and 85 North intersection. They recently installed video screens on gas pumps that are showing ads (with very loud volume) the moment I started filling the gas. As if I am not already paying a fortune for the gas, I didn’t have a choice to _not_hear_ those annoying ads. They promptly stopped as soon as I was done filling up the gas.

The other incident was when I visited a friend at his office in San Jose downtown the other day. He works on the 7th floor of his office building, so I took the elevator to get there. And there was a monitor in the elevator that started showing me ads about some hotel/resort chain. You can’t do anything but watch those ads in the elevator.

As brilliant as these “business ideas” might be, I didn’t like the fact that there was no choice for me to avoid those ads. I felt trapped between my necessity and someone else’s greed. So for the gas station, I decided to do the ultimate thing I could as a consumer - I will not go to them again until they stop forcing ads on me. Now, that’s easier than convincing my friend to quit his job and join some company on his office building’s first floor!!

Stickies For Windows

Posted by: Ashok on: June 11, 2007

If you ever used a Mac, you’d know what a nice tool Stickies is. I find it very useful to quickly jot down any notes, to-do lists etc. that get autosaved. I recently came across something similar for Windows too — Stickies For Windows.

It comes with keyboard shortcuts for creating/deleting stickies. Would have been much nicer if they had a shortcut for viewing *ALL* stickies too, but check it out nevertheless. It’s a handy little app!

If You’re A Friend Of Mine…

Posted by: Ashok on: June 7, 2007

…and live in San Francisco bay area, and planning to have kids some time soon — I have a request for you — could you please please “deliver” babies in second half of the year? Any time between July through December would be great!

Well, the reason is, we have so many friends here, and almost all their kids were born in first half of the year. That’s a lot of birthday parties to attend really! April & May are the busiest months for us in fact, with at least one birthday party every weekend! These parties are fun, but I think it gets boring after a while. You keep running into the same crowd for every party, eat the same kind of food (cheese pizza, anyone!?), and the same party places too!

What scares me even more is the fact that we started getting invitations from my daughter’s pre-school classmates now. I guess the kids don’t mind, but what about me !!??

Golden Quadrilateral — Almost Golden!

Posted by: Ashok on: March 5, 2007

I’ve been to India recently, after a looooong gap. Lot of things have changed back home, both good and bad. My favorite among the good things are the brand new highways now connecting the four corners of the country (also called “Golden Quadrilateral”). If you happen to live close to those highways, or use them often for travel, you would really appreciate how much they’ve made life easier for folks. I remember very well, back when I was growing up in India, it used to take at least an hour and half to travel from my hometown to the nearest district headquarters. The same distance now takes less than 45 minutes, and you’d barely get tired! Same thing with travel to a lot of places that people normally go to for work/business/pleasure. It’s just so convenient these days — you can’t help but wonder why it took the government so long to have these roads!!

Anyways, as good as these roads are, I noticed that most of the vehicles still drive right in the middle of the road, rather than in the assigned lane. I used to wonder why they do that…I mean, you have these nice 2-lane roads, with clear markings between the lanes…and they still drive on both lanes! Why?? Well, I didn’t have to wait too long to know why.

We were driving on the highway one day. There was this big truck ahead of us, driving, as usual, down the middle line. And my car driver couldn’t squeeze into the right lane to pass that truck. So he tried all the usual tricks — honking, tailgating, yelling at the truck driver using colorful expletives…everything. But nothing worked. So my driver tried to pass the truck on the left side, which’s not really the smartest thing to do. As we almost pulled ahead, we saw a couple of cows, less than 50 feet away, “resting” in the left lane. The fact that I am sitting before my computer typing this now obviously means my car’s breaks were working extremely well that day!

Even though the roads are nice, there are still issues like this — animals, and in some cases, even people, getting knocked over by the vehicles on these roads. Nobody wanted to be involved in such freak accidents, and so they tend to drive away from the left lane as far as possible. I hope they do something about it…like constructing tall walls separating highways and the houses by the roadside…or something more practical.

Immigration Debate

Posted by: Ashok on: January 4, 2007

I was reading this article on Business Week a while ago - it argues US should make it easier for skilled immigrants to settle down here, and that argument is backed by well-researched data.

Anyways, what caught my attention was a comment posted by one of its readers, someone named “Steve”. He says “I would warn those eager immigrant enterpreneurs to protect their own children and grandchildren from the same fate as those of so many of the last century’s immigrants: Struggling with a culture of mediocrity in urban/suburban America.“.

This Steve represents the mindset of so many others in this country, who think that the immigrants take jobs away from the Americans. I think they’re not being fair by looking at only one side of the coin. True, some of these immigrants take up jobs that, had they not been here in this country, would have been done by locals. But at the end of the day, these legal/skilled immigrants add jobs - hundreds of thousands of them, in fact, to the economy here.

One only needs to look at a company like Google. It’s co-founder Sergey Brin happens to be the son of a Russian immigrant. Now his company has close to 10,000 employees, most of those jobs are taken by the children and grandchildren of last century’s immigrants, so to say. If at least 1 in 10,000 of today’s prospective immigrants go on to replicate Sergey Brin’s success, this country would still end up with a net gain of jobs.

I myself am a potential legal/skilled immigrant in US. I’ve been working here for close to 8 years. I dream of having my own company some day and be able to offer jobs to people here. I can’t do that now, because my “temporary” immigration status wouldn’t let me do that. My application for permanent residency has been pending for close to 4 years, with another 5-6 years of wait a very realistic scenario unless the immigration laws change.

If my company has 10 jobs, at least half of those would be located in this country, even after assuming I would “ship away” the other half by outsourcing. The point is, I can still create five new jobs here, which wouldn’t even exist if I can’t start my company in the first place! That, to me, is the other side of the coin all these Steves should see.

Airtel Calling Cards To India

Posted by: Ashok on: December 31, 2006

Selling calling cards to India has been such a booming business of late, with the Indian population in US growing at a staggering pace in the last few years. There have been so many service providers offering calling cards these days, the latest of whom is Airtel - by Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunications company in India.

I’ve been using Reliance for calling India and their service has been very good. However, I got lured by the low per-minute price being offered by Airtel as part of their promotional offer (7.9 cents a minute, compared to Reliance’s 12.9 cents). I first opened my account with just 5 dollars, as I only wanted to check out their quality. I managed to sign up on their ridiculously dysfunctional website and even made a few test calls to India. I thought the voice quality was decent; so I decided to bite the bullet and recharged my account with another 50 bucks. And they were offering double talk time on the first recharge, and it wasn’t a bad choice either — or so I thought!

All troubles started after I made my first recharge, which is probably a coincidence. Their 1-800 number to initiate the call wouldn’t work, their “supposedly 24X7″ customer service line always gives busy tone, and their online feedback form won’t let you submit a complaint! Even if you manage to connect a call successfully, it would drop within a few minutes.

Airtel really had nothing in place to offer the service. I think they just rushed into it to meet the holidays deadline without really planning their launch - which I am sure had made a lot of newly signed customers pull their hair out in frustration. I’ve heard similar complaints from a few friends of mine too. I’m now just trying to use up at least my 50 dollars I’d put in for the first recharge - forget about their bonus double talk time - once that is done, I am going back to Reliance. Quality and reliability of service is far more important than lower price. Unfortunately, Airtel’s service had none of these working for them right now.

Saddam - out and over!

Posted by: Ashok on: December 29, 2006

Just read the news about Saddam Hussein’s death by hanging. What immediately came to my mind was a feeling of pity and irony. This guy is no saint, but what a fall it is for someone who once lived a royal life! And the irony is because such a fate was brought upon him by George Bush, who himself is probably responsible for deaths of thousands of people, including at least three thousands of his own countrymen todate, in a needless war in Iraq. I wonder if one of these two is any better than the other…only time will tell!

Chatting Inside Yahoo Mail

Posted by: Ashok on: November 9, 2006

Just read the news that Yahoo is going to integrate instant messaging with their email — CNET has this screenshot on their website.

I’ve been expecting Yahoo to introduce this feature, given the fact that their new email interface (currently in beta) uses tabs to display multiple messages in the same window. Google’s Gmail also has integrated chat, but from what I see in the above screenshot, Yahoo’s looks way better.

I wonder if Yahoo would let users make voice calls from this integrated email/chat interface. That would be really cool, but probably difficult to implement.

I almost stopped using my Yahoo email a few months ago in favor of the slick Gmail — until Yahoo allowed me to use their new beta, which was a vast improvement over the previous one. There is still few things I really like about Gmail, but it’s nice to see Yahoo making an attempt to catch up with, or even better, Google in some aspects. Competition is a beautiful thing!!

Want To Buy Hell, Anyone!?

Posted by: Ashok on: October 27, 2006

The online version, that is! And it might set you back by a fortune too. :-)

The domain name Hell.com is up for sale, and is expected to go for more than a million US dollars in auction! Whoever buys this domain will have an opportunity to “redefine what Hell is”, according to Moniker, the firm conducting the auction. If you’re rich (and a bit whacky too), you can probably buy it as a perfect Haloween gift for that special someone in your life!

It’s actually interesting how much some of these domain names get sold for. Here’s a few examples (source: this article on Wall Street Journal):

  • Sex.com - $12 mil.
  • Diamond.com - $7.5 mil.
  • Business.com - $7.5 mil.

The above WSJ article also mentions that Heaven, after all, is not as popular as Hell. The owner of domain name Heaven.com says the site nets him only 5 to 6 dollars a day in advertising revenues! The saving grace is that he didn’t pay millions to own that domain name — he got it for free from his former employer!

UN Security Council - Not Full Yet!

Posted by: Ashok on: October 25, 2006

Just read this news article about the still-ongoing contest between Venezuela and Guatemala to fill the final seat on United Nations Security Council — neither country has been able to muster the necessary two-thirds majority to win, even after 36 rounds of voting!! The latest vote count is Guatemala’s 109 versus Venezuela’s 72 (the magic number to hit — 121).

If you’re thinking 36 rounds of inconclusive voting is ridiculous (which it is, obviously), you should know that they have long ways to go before breaking the existing record — 155 (yes, a full one hundred and fifty five!) ballots before Mexico won the Security Council seat, back in 1979-80!

Given the effectiveness (or lack there of) of UN Security Council in addressing any of the world’s pressing issues these days, you’d think it’s really a waste of resources for both contestants to fight it out for so long. Wish they had better process in place to break such deadlocks — but again, we’re talking of UN Security Council here, sigh!

Update (Nov 02, 2006)

After 47 rounds of fun, Venezuela and Guatemala finally decided to back off and support Panama as the compromise candidate. End of a farse, finally! Morale of the story, for Hugo Chavez especially, is that there is still something called “decency” about how a Head of State should talk on international stage, regardless of how badly he disagrees with other Heads of State. He really blew it up for his country when he foul-mouthed George Bush in United Nations General Assembly a few weeks ago, possibly turning off a few fence-sitters who might have voted for Venezuela otherwise!

Explore Australia

Posted by: Ashok on: October 24, 2006

I watched the program “Atlas - Explore A Nation” on Discovery Channel the other day. They covered Australia and its culture in that program. Boy, it sure looked like an amazing country! The program was full of breathtaking visuals and the photography was superb.

One of the things that really caught my attention was the vastness of ocean shores the Australian Navy is responsible for. Apparently, Australia owns about 10% of the world’s oceans, and yet there was only one occasion when the country’s coast line was breached by enemies - during the second world war - by Japanese. Pretty impressive.

They also covered Australian tribals in great detail. I liked the paintings they make - with bright yellow and red dots on a canvas. And there were a few clips from Australian Navy’s training program, where the candidates need to climb up from the submarine (immersed 6 floors deep in water) to the water surface - without breathing. They even put clips on their noses to make sure they don’t breathe!

All in all, it’s a beautiful introduction to Australian culture and people and I certainly recommend watching it if you get a chance. If you’re interested, here is the link to the Discovery Channel’s website.

Tata Steel’s Bid For Glory

Posted by: Ashok on: October 20, 2006

Finally, Globalization is a 2-way road for Indian companies!

Tata Steel’s $8 billion purchase of its Anglo-Dutch rival Corus would mean a lot to the Indian companies. After years of being at the receiving end of Globalization and fighting to survive and improve their competitiveness, they are slowly beginning to open up. This deal is by far the biggest overseas acquisition by an Indian company and is a sure sign of things to come!

According to this article in Economist, the combined company is likely to be the sixth largest steel manufacturer in the world, catapulting Tata Steel from its current 56th position.

It’d be interesting to see if Mittal would be interested in buying Tata Steel at some point!

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