Choices

Life twists and turns in odd ways. The pitch is usually flat and the bat makes contact with the ball and there is an occasional boundary interspersed with a dot here and there. But more often than not, there are ugly curve balls and random speed spurts. How do you deal with these? Do you hold your breath before every throw and hope against hope that it flies straight? Do you cross your fingers and fervently appeal to the pitch-god to spare you this time? Or do you swing your bat at it with all your might, hoping-praying-wishing that you will connect? Of course, if you do not, there is that long lonely walk to the pavillion. And as you walk, you wonder whether you could have swung another way and would that have been your century.

I have played. I have missed. And as I walk back home I contemplate. What mistakes did I make? Can I change? Can I perfect my stroke for the next time around? But that is the deal. Life is full of choices. And you make these choices in the split second when the ball, dislodging itself from the bowler's grasp, makes its way to the stumps at breakneck speed. And as the ball approaches, you think of all the balls you have faced and make a choice. As the ball comes hurtling-shearing through the wind, spinning-hissing through the air, the choice is made, and the bat, as if it had a life of it own, takes control of your arm and weaves and heaves in a hook towards the far end of the field. The bat does not know whether the choice is right or wrong, good or bad... it only knows the choice as it rushes towards the ball.

Maybe it is only possible to make choices and destiny casts the die of right-wrong. Maybe the choice is the prelude to your destiny. It is the old chicken-egg run ... ah well.

...and back

Been gone for a long time. But am finally back... and getting into the rut called life.

Four weeks in Bombay sped by, like it was never there. Life in Bombay was familiar. Same place, same people, same crowds, all same. Just a different perspective. It was like seeing the past twenty years of your life in a new light. Be as it may, it was very refreshing.

So now? Back in State College. And the grind has begun. Only consolation? This grind comes with a paycheck (finally!). Will be back with more interesting stories soon. Until then... drink hard, drive safe and don't miss the SuperBowl.

How does it smell like?

Smells like iamgoinghome!!!

san diego seaworld

san diego seaworld
Originally uploaded by vijitvnair.

We went down to San Diego during thanks giving. This photo is from the "Journey to Atlantis" ride @ Seaworld. I have a theory about adventure parks. You can only enjoy this shit when you are not earning and can't pay for it. Once you start earning, and you can actually buy the tickets, your life becomes worth something (you think) and you just can't bear to be yanked to death by gravity.

San Jose

SJ downtown sunset 02
Originally uploaded by DPTRONZ.

This is where I am right now. Thanksgiving break! Happy Holidays... and a short sojourn from blogging.

Customize right-click menu

I installed the Konfabulator! (Yahoo) to fiddle around with their widgets. The thing was pathetic. You have to download a new widget for every RSS feed you want. Then there was the analog clock where you had the choice of making the second's hand visible/invisible(??!!). And then Yahoo proceeded to add useless shortcuts to my right-click menu. WTF? I right-click on an email-link and I see Yahoo Maps! ... how does that make any sense? Just like popups and flashy ads are obsolete, so also is putting crap on the users short-cut menu without authorization. Anyway I found a way to take that shit out...

regedit
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Internet Explorer > MenuExt
and delete the offending folders. If you are using any other browser, I suspect that you will see corresponding folders in "Software". Don't go screwing around with the registry if you don't know what you are doing.

Go here if you want to know more about customizing your right-click menu.

technorati tags: right-click shorcut menu regedit

SUN dives into Niagara

Had the opportunity of listening to Kunle Olukotun’s talk on Chip Multi Processors (CMP) last Friday. Dr. Kunle is one of the founders of Afara Websystems where Niagara was conceived. And SUN, having acquired Afara in 2002, is hoping to make a comeback with Niagara.

With 8 multiprocessor cores and speeds of upto 32Gbps, Niagara is poised to take over the as an extremely powerful and "cool" server. These servers will realise their full potential when they are utilised by highly pipelined function calls with parallel processing needs. Sequential programming will soon be an artifact and parallel programming will emerge as the norm.

technorati tags: Kunle Olukotun SUN vlsi