Innovation: Buzz (?)

This should be most abused word, everyone is talking, from presidential candidate's to blue chip's and to your boss. By sheer happenstance i tuned to a presidential debate when american addiction to foreign oil was being discussed, two words i heard from many, one is innovation and other was hybrid. Personally i don't believe there is not going to be a ground breaking innovation (or invention?) in next decade and half, its going to be efficient engines, alternative fuels (not that ethanol crap) till a invention (fuel cell?) is mature for wide use. I did find a sore point in current hybrids "No cord to plug-in" is marketed as a feature; IMHO if its a electric it has to be plug-in.

Some of the big corporates expect innovation a big thing, which i totally agree, but they shouldn't expect few big innovations with million dollar savings but appreciate 1000+ small innovations. This reminds me Toyota production system and lean manufacturing, which aims at reducing waste's in the process using various concepts and continuous improvement. Concepts like Poka-Yoke, SPF, SMED and Kaizen wouldn't have come straight from drawing board, its all very simple innovations, improving efficiency and eliminating waste in the total value stream. பல துளி(யே) பெரு வெள்ளம்.

I strongly believe everyone has innovative ideas but most neglect it. I can fondly recollect old days, when i joined my first project it was 3 member team supporting an ERP application from offshore and client will log issues in a web based system and team used to hit IE refresh button every 5 mins to check if there is any issues logged. Innovations are born for need (and greed?), my unwillingness to do that mundane job, i used autorefresh meta tag and made the page self refreshing every 60 seconds. And there was a satirical comment, why do i even look at the screen; those were days i was just learning VB. Exactly 5 days later i was running a small VB program that will notify updates thro' mail, which was later coded to send SMS notification to support cellphone (though it was not implemented due to costs). Few days back i was able to share the same idea to team here and send SMS notification of prod issues and avoid staring at mailbox. Here is list of email-to-sms mail addresses for US carriers.

உலகத்துல உன்னை விட பெரியவன் யாரும் இல்லை அதனால யாருக்கும் பயப்படாதே அதே மாதிரி உன்னை விட சின்னவன் யாரும் இல்லை அதனால நீ யாரையும் தாழ்வா நினைக்காதே!!!
-அய்யம்பேட்டை அறிவுடை நம்பி கலியபெருமாள் சந்திரன்
(Ctrl-C/V from vettipayal)

Top 3 LIA luxuries!

Today, one of my friend was telling me a list of things he loves in american life. It sparked my thoughts and i was wondering what would be things that i get here which i'll miss back home. Here is that short count down

3. Water
A sound proof what a person who lived 27+ yrs in Chennai dreams of. Back @ home, can i imagine a day taking 30 mins shower; hmmm after r2i, i should put it in a box and bury it 100 miles deep. I hope i can atleast get a couple of buckets of non-saline and some what clear water to take bath.

2. Interstate
As a guy who commuted entire part of his life in public transportation, this is something beyond luxury. Recollecting days in 18J and 47D, no question on India's population. But i see there is some hope on getting better road.

1. Long evenings & Nature
I don't know if this two should be split, but may be these two are some what related and hence shares number one position. I can easily count the number of times i reached home in day light; from there to a place with daylight till 9 PM, there is no words to express. Either it be a national park or city park next door, there is very little i happen to visit in chennai, probably there are places out there but either not easily accessible or known, but i highly doubt i'd have got a chance to walk in knee deep snow or drive on a frozen lake, hike a nature trail in deep woods, 1000 color fall season or tour an underground cave.

How much i'm going to miss these? quite a bit, but i lived in Chennai for most part of my life and i can go back taking these pleasant memories. There will be days where we have a kaakaa kuliyal and rush(!) to office in 1+ hr, get back home after sunset and switch on "Good nite" mat and wake up with 10 kosu kadi's; did i mention we also try to live a life in between.

"Veni, Vidi, Vici" -Julius Caesar

Fall colors @ Great Smoky Mountains

2007 smoky mountains fall season ...

David Blaine Street Magic ;-)

If you have seen Blaine's street magic earlier, here is a funny parody... PG13



here is the sequel ...

Chennai real-estate: Boom or Bubble ?

I don't have any property as of now and i might be speculating on few things here. I keep hearing this "bubble" theory for quite a few years (little more than 4 yrs in my case) in potlucks, parties, media, ... i really like to know where this goes in chennai.

I was under assumption for a long time that this market is more end user driven with very little investor forces playing. But now a days i see lot of people esp NRI, IT folks looking it as a investment option. Is the surge mainly fueled by NRI, IT and investors or is there a genuine rise in demand for housing? I can't believe something getting appreciated by 300+% in matter of 4 or 5 years while there is no change in facilities; and one thing i hear in many instances is properties are shifting hands and nothing is built upon them, no idea how much of it is true.

If i R2I in couple of years, one thing that worries us is whether w'll be able to secure a piece of land close to my work, other will be the dollar dip (i'm sure you heard the scary story of 35 rupees exchange rate), which i leave it to Nilekani and Premji to worry for now.

Evolution or Intelligent design ?

After reading a lot on both sides of the controversy for past few months, i question myself where i stand? And i realize that I'm still standing right on the line. Hmm, i ought to rest the question for a while.

Darwin's theory of natural selection is a scientific fact, but i do find pockets of grey areas (or i didn't get to know much) like, origin of an organic life form from a "primeval soup" and i'm truly not convinced of the counter argument against Irreducible complexity's flagellum example. On other hand in ID (just as a concept and not as a theory) i see a thread of theistic creationism running beneath, which is a dark area I'm not comfortable to enter.

I unequivocally agree that Evolution is a science and ID isn't, but i should say its far better than creationism. There is no way church and science going to get to a mutually agreeable point, so this one should linger around for quiiite a while. Till then i better worry about getting the bread to the table.

Wallpapers

It was kind of boring for a while with my desktop wallpapers, one of my friend sent me a link to this site, i checked out some nature ones, really beautiful wallpapers, though not high res.

Real time flight data and tracker

flightstats.com

real time flight details and tracking. requires free registration for email alerts and extended details.

YouTube >> iPod

Unlike google video, youtube doesn't provide option to download video, one of my friend forwarded me link to Stephen Hawking's Origin of the Universe lecture at Berkley, i wasn't able to control my urge to download to my pod, after few mins of search ended up using this site to download youtube video in mp4 format. I'd highly recommend the site, just for its simplicity of doing all with no software to install in my machine.

Ahem... Dr. Ilayathalapthi

What happen when politician run universities ...




Ooookkkkk... Who's next? ....
((god damnit doesn't shreya deserve one))