This independence let’s do something special.

December 2008 we had a Blogging contest and all the programmers complained that this is something that content team will win, eventually it was Vikram from Tech team who won the first prize.  We have another opportunity now; another idea (not a brilliant idea). This time let’s have a programming competition. It is open to everyone in Veda who believes they are a tis-maar-kha programmer.

So here’s how we begin…

Competition

1. Conceptualize - Think what you want to develop. It can be a complete website, a small utility or tool or a framework class or a module that can be contributed to Drupal or Joomla.
2. Decide architecture / Technology - Preferably open source technology, however if you develop something in MS, feel free to do so.
3. Development - While developing something that is useful and unique, you cannot forget all the wonderful processes i.e. coding standards etc. If we find that you have copied Java Script or any part of the code from somewhere, your entry will be disqualified. Use of open source is allowed however more weight will be given to original implementation.
   1. You will have to design it yourself; please do not overload the design team with requests (At least not officially).
   2. Same goes for testing; whatever you develop test it yourself.
4. Launch is on Veda demo server

Voting

1. Once your program is ready, you will get 5 minutes to present it to everyone. People will of course review it and evaluate it themselves for however long they want.
2. We will go through a code review process as well to give points on standards.
3. Everyone will be allowed to use it, test it and vote
4. Everyone in office can vote

Prize

1. Like last time it will be based on participation.
2. First prize:
   1. Number of participants * X. ( Value of X will be same as or little higher than last time.).
   2. Instant fame in Veda and bragging points.
   3. Will not have to attend team meetings and update LLP for 3 days (Subject to approval by LLP administrator, who is this LLP administrator anyway?)
3. Second prize
   1. Two Tickets for PVR Gold class
4. Third, Fourth, Fifth prize are pats on the back by Piyush (Back - The posterior part of a human (or animal) body from the neck to the end of the spine).

Dates:

• Competition Begins: August 15^th 2009
• All Entries (code submitted on Demo server): September 15th 2009
• Voting Begins: Sept 15th^st
• Prize announced: Sept 20th

While writing this post, this time I was telling my egotistic brain to refrain from self praise. You guys can decide how successful I was in my attempt.  I didn’t talk about this being my brilliant idea. I am not saying me and my friends are the only people capable of being judges. I am launching the competition on Independence Day and not my Birthday. Enough about me…

Happy coding guys!

Cricket Fans will remember March 11 2009 a Holi-day for one more reason. Sehwag’s slam bang century. New Zealand scored 279 in 47 overs losing 5 wickets. Not a bad target for a game that was marred by rain; but Sehwag had other plans. The par score after 23.3 overs was 117. India were 84 ahead of that par score. India won by a considerable margin. I captured the magic of Sehwag using some interesting comments from commentators and viewers of cricinfo. Interesting and entertaining comments if you missed todays play..

Over 1.5 - Thompson to Sehwag, FOUR, slightly short in length and Sehwag plonks his front foot out and crashes it over short midwicket.

Over 7.3 - O’Brien to Sehwag, FOUR, Oh dear oh dear . Sehwag almost decapitated O’Brien here. It was a full length delivery, he thrashed it on the up and the ball flew past the startled bowler

Over 7.6 - O’Brien to Sehwag, FOUR, Oh my… Sehwag is gone bonkers. It was short-pitched delivery and Sehwag cleared the front foot and clouted it over mid-on and to the long-on boundary

Sujay: “O’Brien in his blog wrote….Sehwag has scored 42 runs of 21 balls from him….guess Sehwag now wants it to be 84 from 21 balls!! Hope the blogger continues to blog…i mean bowl though!”

Over 14.3 - Srikanth: “Sehwag Vs NZ reminds me of Obelix against the Romans! O’Brien must be wondering what magic potion Sehwag’s Ma {mother] fed him as a baby.

Over 17.6 - “Watching sehwag bat is like watching the movie KILL BILL , he just massacres anyone and everyone who comes in his way.” …. As the character Hattori Hanzo said, “Revenge is never a straight line. It’s a forest, And like a forest it’s easy to lose your way… To get lost… To forget where you came in”

Over 18.4 - Vettori to Sehwag, SIX, Catch catch was Vettori’s cry of plea but that has been sucked over long-off boundary by the fans. He waltzed down the track and got under the ball. Initially, one thought he got more elevation than distance but it kept going. 100 up for Virender Sehwag. 7th fastest in the ODI history.

vamsi Krishna: “Sehwag seems to have short term memory loss ,ala Ghajini,[ a movie inspired from Memento] and seems to be thinking of only next 5 overs! Great stuff from him. This rate, India will wrap up in 25-30 overs.” …. “I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning. Even if I can’t remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world’s still here. Do I believe the world’s still here? Is it still out there?” At least Sehwag is still out there.

Vinod: “Well, Sehwag is not suffering from any short term memory… He knows exactly what needs to be done in a rain curtailed match and he is just chasing the rains to get a result/win for India! Hats off to his smart thinking.”

Over 23.2 - Oram to Sehwag, SIX, The end is nigh. 200 of the partnership is up in style. It was a short delivery, Sehwag pulled it off the front foot and over deep midwicket and the ball sailed towards raucous fans

Anil: “Would anyone believe Gambhir is batting faster than a run-a-ball?? With Sehwag down the other end, everything seems so slow in comparison.”

After launching the Blogging Contest, it was not possible for me to duck out of it, especially after making fun of “big boss” and how he will not be able to write the blog on time, etc. I knew it would be a disaster to not submit a blog at all. This was evident immediately after I missed the first milestone of submitting the blog… he already started taunting me. Old married couples do that sometimes; I mean taunting. Don’t get any ideas! All I mean is that he is old and he has been married long enough to pick up some bad habits from the institution. (Must be some Nerd who coined the phrase ‘marriage is an institution’… Nerds hate institutions!).

Now, the real question was about writing…

So far, whatever contribution I have made to Veranda or the Veda Blog, I was never under pressure to perform i.e. to think about a topic and write. This was my first time (I am talking about writing). So, just before the last date of submitting the topic I selected a topic i.e. ‘My Friends and Me’ or ‘Me and My Friends.’ I don’t even remember what the topic was. I thought I would write about our college days and bring in some angle of social networking, etc. Phhhsss!… that didn’t work at all! When I actually started writing, I could not go beyond one paragraph. Not that my school or college days were uneventful, but I am not very proud of anything meaningful that happened You know what I mean… Eh? (I know what you are thinking… you are Bad!).

Kudos to the content team! I wonder how they do it everyday; take a topic and just write about it. Another question that I always had about the content team was, why is it that girls are more successful content writers than boys?  After much thinking I was able to put 2 + 2 together and the answer was obviously 5. The content team mostly has girls and any married MAN will agree that girls are good at cooking… or to make it more clear… in “cooking up.” I mean I hardly remember any incident that my wife is very confident took place in our first few years of marriage. So, obviously some cooking of stories is taking place.

Anyway! I was not able to write on the topic I selected. So I am back to square one and now I don’t have a blog or a topic.

On a philosophical note, the need to perform is created by oneself, isn’t it? If I stop thinking about what others will think, pressure goes away and after that everything you do, every decision you make is made with a clear mind. No pressure!

“All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction. You have a class of young strong men and women and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don’t need. Generations have been working in Jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they really don’t need.”

“We don’t have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.’

Above is an excerpt from a novel I recently finished reading, ‘Fight Club’ by Chuck Palahniuk. I knew about the movie that was based on the book, starring Brad Pit and Edward Nortan, however I had not thought about reading it until a friend highly recommended it. It was in my ‘To read’ list for a long time, I guess almost two years, but It was not available in stores, finally found it in Reliance books and music store in Ambiance mall, Gurgaon.

On a side note – I always wonder how they estimate selling price of books? ‘Fight club’ a small novel around 270 pages is priced at Rs. 450. On the other hand J.K. Rowlings latest book ‘Tales of Beedle the Bard’ is merely a 100 page book is also priced at Rs. 495. Some big novels like Shantaram, Atlas shrugged and all are almost 1000 pagers and are available for Rs 300-400. Movie tickets are always priced same, regardless of who is starring in it, what the budget of the movie is etc, why are books priced differently? It is definitely not based on effort like we do in software, otherwise bigger books would  be priced more than smaller ones. It will be intresting to know, how they decide that this particular Novel will be sold at a certain price, Rs 495 to be precise, not 500, not 480 but Rs 495?

Coming back to Fight club - The protagonist in this books is anonymous. He hates his job, his life and has a severe case of insomnia. His doctor suggests that his insomnia problem is not a big deal and there could be worse things in life than insomnia, to prove this point his doctor advises the protagonist to attend a support group of people suffering with testicular cancer. He soon becomes addicted to attending such support groups of people who have terminal illness. In one such support group he meets another faker (not dying of any ailment and attends these groups for amusement) like himself, a woman by the name of Marla Singer.

Other than the protagonist and Marla the third and most important character in the novel is Tyler Durden. Shortly after meeting Marla, while vacationing on the Beach he meets Tyler Durden. He soon gets influenced by Tyler and his philosophy which is anti consumerism, anti establishment can be explained in his own words..

“Tyler says - Getting God’s attention for being bad was better than getting no attention at all.
Maybe because God’s hate is better than His indifference.
If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?”

At one other instance he says

“We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that some day we will be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won’t. And we are just learning that fact. So don’t fuck with us.”

A wired sequence of events starts after he meets Tyler. Someone blows up his apartment with almost clinical precision, He has no place to stay so he requests Tyler if he could move into Tyler’s apartment. Tyler’s condition for allowing him to move into his apartment is that the protagonist needs to hit Tyler on his face, bare knuckled. Tyler hits him back. This is how the first Fight club starts. Fight club gets established with following rules.
1. You do not talk about fight club.
2. You DO NOT talk about fight club.
3. When someone says stop, goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
4. Only two guys to a fight.
5. One fight at a time.
6. No shirts or shoes.
7. Fights will go on as long as they have to.
8. If this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight.

Memberships of fight clubs starts growing exponentially and soon there are fight clubs all over America all operating under the same rules set by Tyler. Tyler later on take devoted volunteers from Fight club and start ‘Project Mayhem’. Members of Project Mayhem are involved in more destructive activities. Project Mayhem becomes a cult that is against modern civilization, they would rather have jungle everywhere, no roads, no electricity, no government, no laws. Laws of Project Mayhem are simple..
1. You do not ask questions.
2. You do not ask questions.
3. No excuses.
4. No lies.
5. You have to trust Tyler.

DON’T Read this para if you plan to read the book - Narrator becomes disillusioned with Fight club and Project Mayhem because of the destruction and the growing attacks on corporate establishments. Narrator wants to stop it but soon realizes that it cannot be stopped without killing Tyler. Tyler cannot be killed because Tyler is not a different person but his own different personality i.e. Him and Tyler share the same Body. While the Narrator is sleeping Tyler is awake and using hid body to grow Fight club and Project Mayhem.

Beyond the basic plot, which is quite thrilling, Fight Club is full of Anti Consumerism sentiment. For example at one point narrator says. “You Buy furniture. You tell yourself this is the last Sofa I will ever need in my life. Buye the sofa, then for couple of years you are satisfiedthat no matter what goes wrong, at least you got the sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. The perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you are trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”

One take away from this book is - At fight club they don’t fight for money, they don’t fight each other, they fight everything they hate in life.

Looking at the enormous response to the Veranda Blog, a brilliant idea occurred to me. (All my ideas are brilliant ideas until proven otherwise!). It was almost like a Eureka moment! Just that I was not in a bath tub and I didn’t shout Eureka! Eureka!

What is the IDEA?
The idea is to have a blogging contest for everyone in the content team and anyone who wants to participate from the Tech team, SEO team and other supposedly useful people in the organization like PMs, Management team, etc… In short, anyone can participate.

What will you write about?
You can write about anything that you are passionate about, but you will have to get the topic approved by the judges. This is to ensure two things 1) there is no repetition of topic 2) We have an even enough criterion to judge. You might argue that it is almost like what Henry Ford once said – “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black. “ Well, there cannot be any argument about this because.. I am the one who gets to set the rules because I am the one who had the brilliant Idea.

Topic can be in following areas( These are just suggestions.):

1. Social media marketing
2. Content writing –Passion or ART or Job
3. Tips for writing tips etc
4. Content management systems Drupal Vs Joomla etc

Other rules -

1. All the blogs that you write will be published on Veda Blog
2. Judges will look at a) How interesting your topic is b) How comprehensively you have covered the topic c) Of course, grammar and other content writing principals will be looked at d) Copy pasting will immediately disqualify your blog entry. We will check it through copyscape. e) You blog post is interesting enough that we read it completely etc. f) Size DOES matter!
3. Judging criterion will also have your say in it i.e. everyone will be allowed to select their three blog posts (other than their own). Posts that get maximum votes as number 1 etc will be preferred by judges.
4. Last date for topic submission is Jan 21. Last date for Blog post submission will be announced on Jan 21st.
5. Judges are

• Harish ( Man with the brilliant idea gets to be the judge)
• Vikrant ( Friend of man with the brilliant idea/ He also has a choice of participating instead of judging)
• Piyush ( Man with the brilliant idea has many friends and he keeps all his friends happy, besides I know Piyush will never write a Blog post by the last date)

6.)    Prizes are

• Winners will be instantly famous
• 100% salary hike promised (read the fine print if you can find it..)
• Beyond this
  • First prize – Will be announced on Jan 21 - 2009
  • Second prize – Will be announced on Jan 21- 2009
  • Third prize – 2 Gold class tickets at PVR for movie of your choice (Gold class is only available at Select Citiwalk - Saket and Ambiance mall Gurgaon)

I could have announced this contest in fewer words but the idea of the contest is about creative writing, and I wanted to increase the word count also I didn’t want to sound boring. I am open to other ideas etc. You can comment on this post with any ideas that you have.

“My philosophy is mine,
It may not be “right”;
To me it is a sign,
Not visible to sight.

It is a feeling in my heart,
About how life should be;
People need to be apart,
To love, according to me.

People need their space,
And to learn to slow down;
For life isn’t a race,
Around this huge town.

Live life to the most,
And have no fear;
Don’t be afraid to boast,
Or show that tear.

Life will not be the same,
The next time around;
Don’t feel any shame,
You have been found.

This is my life philosophy,
So hitch your wagon upon that star;
I am happy to be me,
Because what you feel is what you are.”

(c) 1999 Camry Alexis

Sometimes reality can be very terrifying. ‘A Bend in the River’ is a brilliant novel V.S. Naipaul. I thought I would share some excerpts form the book. This book is a must read.

“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it. “

“Life ends for most people, who stiffen in the attitude they adopt to make themselves suitable for the jobs and lives that other people have laid out for them.”

“We make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities. I would have hidden in my hole and been crippled by my sentimentalities, doing what I was doing, and doing it well, but always looking for the wailing wall. And I would never have seen the world as the rich place that it is.”

“People like me have to make their own jobs. It isn’t going to come to you in a brown envelope. The job is there, waiting. But it doesn’t exist for you or anyone until you discover it, and you discover it because it’s for you and you alone.”

“My value is the value I place on myself”

“In this world beggars are the only  people who can be choosers. Everyone else has a side chosen for him. The world is a Rich place. It all depends upon what you choose in it. You can be sentimental and embrace the idea of your own defeat. We have been clinging to the idea of defeat and forgetting that we are men like everybody else. We have been choosing the wrong side. I am tired of being on the loosing side. I don’t want to pass. I know exactly who I am and where I stand in the world. But now I want to win and win and win”