The "Other" Reason.

I read Rajesh Shetty's Life Beyond Code a month back. I must say it has influenced me in more than one way. The book explains in a very fluid manner, 9 different ways to distinguish oneself and how!

Hats of to you Rajesh, you can't get it more simple and effective than that!

One of the thing Rajesh explains in his book and also in his blog is the "Second reason". He says, for any activity(apart from building relationships) to do he needs a second reason, however significant or insignificant it is.

Since reading the book, i have rather unconsiously started thinking about the second reason for most of my decisions i make!
One of those decision was coming back to Tokyo. Apart from the learning you gain at work, i think 2 reasons have prompted me to come back to Square one!

One of them is to learn Japanese!. As soon as i arrived in tokyo, i signed up for the classes and have been slogging out the past 3 weeks! Must say its fun tho' tough!

So far this "other" reason has also been a catalyst for my primary reason and the effect has been great! One keeps pushing the other.

As far as the other "other" reason goes, well, thats for another day's discussion!
Well, there are some books that you read and move on and there are some books which stay with you for life..Life beyond code will stay!

Thanks Raj!

-Karth

Sorry!(Gomenasai!)

SORRY!! Yeah for all the 6 of you(or maybe 3 of you now..) who have been checking out this blog..a BIG SORRY!
Thanks to my relocation to Tokyo(yeah!) and no internet connection at home, i have not been able to write as much as i would want. But i do have a lot to say !!

Hang on people and Karth inc will be back!

Meanwhile check out this post from one of favourite blogger's- Digital Inspiration.

Must accept, This is also ONE of the reason why i want to keep this going..even though there are just 3 of you!!

The Sultan of Spin

Being an Indian and that too an ardent Cricket fan, its very hard not to have a post on the "gentleman's game".
One of the game's greatest showman, the sultan of spin Shane Warne has decided to hang his boots after the sydney ashes test. The english must have been a releived lot. With another of the game's greatest also deciding to quit, the english cricket team must have been a relived lot.

Must have been a difficult decision, considering the fact that he was on top of his game. With a mind boggling 999 international wickets and all set to race to 1000+ wickets,this genius has left an indelible mark on the millions following this game.
The memories of Gatting getting a ripper of a delivery is still fresh in mind.

Check out this amazing video of the magician weaving his magic.



We miss you warney!!

The Japanese Connection!

On my recent trip to Chennai and Coimbatore, i was amazed to find a lot of Japanese language and cultural schools. In Tokyo too, i could find a fair share of Japanese speaking tamilians(folks from Tamilnadu).

Probably, since the IT industry is big in Japan(2nd biggest IT market for India), cities like Chennai being host to a lot of IT companies , the demand-supply effect should have come into picture. Obviously right? But wait a minute, Bangalore(ok,bengalooru) is a bigger IT market, so going by that line of thought, there should be a lot more Japanese language schools as well.

However that does not seem to be the case. Just spending couple of days in Chennai, i stumbled upon lot more japanese language schools than what i have seen in Bangalore in the last 6 months. Also a quick search on this site reveals that there are more japanese language teachers in Chennai than Bangalore.

Interesting.

Why are the tamil people folk more attracted to the japanese language? Are they genetically attracted to the language?

Thats what it seems, if you go by Susumu Ohno-san's "THE GENEOLOGY OF THE JAPANESE LANGUGAGE'Ohno san's extensive research on this area has established the connection between Nihongo and Tamil.

But why Tamil? Why not other Dravidan languages? say Telugu or Kannada
Ohno-san reasons out like this-
First, it is a language spoken by a large group of over 48 million. Second, it is a very old language; 2,500 Cañkam verses, written in ancient Tam ii between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D., are preserved. Third, a detailed grammar of ancient Tamil survives, the Tolkãppiyam, written around the third century B.C. (Among other Dravidian languages, literature in the Kannada language can be traced back only as far as 1100 A.D., and that of Telugu, to 1200 A.D.,)

Makes sense. He also lists some words which have same meanings and similiar sounds.

Table 1. Word Correspondence (Jap. F: Tam. p., pp)

J. Far-u (to swell, expand)
T. Par-u (to swell {DEDR 3972])

J. Far-uka (to be far off)
T. par-a (to be far, wide [DEDR 3949])

J. Fat-u (to end, perish, die)
T. pat-u (to perish, die {DEDR 3852])

J. Fir-o (wide, great)
T. per-u (great, large [DEDR 4411])

J. Fo:k-u (to eulogize, praise)
T. puk-aJ (eulogy [DEDR 4235])

J. Fot-o (time)
T. pot-u (time [DEDR 4559])

J. Far-u (to become bulky)
T. par-u (to be bulky [DEDR 3972])

J. Far-a (field of sky)
T. par-am (heaven {T.L.2499])

J. Fat-u (first, new of the season)
T. pat-u (to appear for the first time (DEDR 3852])

J. Fuk-asu (to smoke, steam)
T. pok-ai (to smoke, vapor [DEDR 4240])

J. För-ö (cloth cover)
T. por-vai (covering [DEDR 4590])

J. Fut-a (cover, lid)
T. put-ai (to bury, hide, cover [DEDR 4509])

J. Fur-c (village)
T. pul-am (village, place [DEDR 4303])

J. Fun-c (ship)
T. puri-ai (raft, boat [DEDR 4321])

J. FOr-ö (tumor, abscess)
T. purr-u (scrofulous, scurby one [DEDR 4336]

J. taF-uru (to die)
T. tap-u (to perish, die (DEDR 3068])

J. öF-ö (big, to flourish)
T. upp-u (to become big, bloat [DEDR 666])

J. aF-u (to meet, be fit)
T. opp-u (to agree, be fit [DEDR 924])

J. köF-u (to beg)
T. kupp-u (to join hand as in worship [DEDR 1894])

J. tuF-a (spittle)
T. tupp-al (saliva [DEDR 3323])

J. suF-u (to suck)
T. cüpp-u (to suck, sip [DEDR 2621])

I am not sure of the Japanese words, but most of the tamil words in the list seem to be colloqial, but yeah the connection cannot be dismissed.

No wonder, tamil actor "superstar" Rajanikanth is pretty well known among Japanese film aficionados!

Convert your PC game to a PS2(or PS3)!!

For all you hardcore gaming fans who are in dire need of a PS3 or even a PS2, but do not want to dig deep into your pockets, here is a tried and tested way of simulating the fun!
Minimum requirements:
A decent laptop with a s-video output
A S-video dongle-Either S-video to S-video, if your TV has a S-video port or a S-video to RCA cable.
A logitech dual action gamepad
A TV(HD TV?,even better!!)
and of course a PC game.

Now for the conversion...
Step 1: Take a deep breath..(yeah right!)
Step 2: Use your S-Video dongle to hook up your TV and Laptop.
Step 3: Connect the game pad to your laptop.
Step 4: Change your laptop display settings to either clone your laptop or dual view.(Right click desktop-->properties-->display settings-->advanced)
Step 5: Rev up your game and there you go! the display is on your TV and you can get going with your gamepad!!
Step 6: Get some beer and get your game going!

Easy isnt it? If you really want to enhance this setup..Get yourself a good sound sytem(preferably a creative sound blaster) and a gamepad with the shocker and rock on!

The best part-All this at 15% the cost of your PS2 and less than 5% the cost of your PS3!!

Let me know if you need any more info.

License to Kill!

"Thou Shall Not Drive on the Left Side,but on Whatever is left"
Thanks to this, this and most recently this, the Indian Road transport system is changing the rules for issuing driving license.

Oz gotta wait!

“Here I am,This is me, There's nowhere else on earth I'd rather be
Here I am,It's just me and you; Tonight we make our dreams come true

It's a new world,It's a new start; It's alive with the beating of young hearts
It's a new day,It's a new plan; I've been waiting for you
Here I am”….

H-Hullo? Karth here…

The sinister voice on the other side growls…”What took you so long to answer your phone? Master has given the orders…its time now, Make sure the task is completed”

Click

Shaken more by the tone rather than the order, I manage to mumble…”y-yes” and hang up the phone.

The Master has given the orders finally, the task has to be done, no matter how difficult the path leading up to it..i am the ONE, the CHOSEN ONE...there is no one else better than me to do this gruesome task…the master has smiled upon me….

The End does justify the means finally…

I step into the swanky new Airbus A380 plane that will take me to “THE” destination, the “FATEFUL” destination.

The plane and the plan is about to take off….Suddenly,

“Here I am, This is me, There's nowhere else on earth I'd rather be
Here I am, It’s just me and you; Tonight we make our dreams come true

It's a ...Hello?!..Karth-on-the-plane here….

The same “Sinister-voice-on-the-other-side-of-the-phone” growls….”ABORT MISSION”

Click

Trrrrrrrrring..Trrrrrrrrring..Trrrrrrrrrring.. I see the casio next to my bed..8.45 AM..Just when i was sitting on my bed and thinking whether it was a dream or a nightmare..the phone rings.........
"Karthik, this is your manager calling from Sydney, Dude your trip to Oz Gotta wait!"
Click!

Loose Control!

Just when i was on a "auto-pilot' cruise mode, certain developments have ensured that i stop slacking and get back to business.
Interesting things have happened in the last few days...
Bangalore is out and BENGALOORU is in---I dont think it is a great idea to rechristen it, more than the name Bangalore is a brand and changing the brand name is akin to destroying all the hard work that went into building brand bangalore.
One thing the change of name shows is our way of going back in time instead of going forward. The city is deteriorating day by day and all it takes for the entire city to come to a standstill is a single drop of rain! So out goes bangalore the city dressed up like a village and in comes bengalooru the village trying to transform to a city.
One other exciting stuff and the one that is keeping me away from Blog is my travel to Sydney!!
Co-incidentally the English cricket team will also be travelling over for the ashes and i have a feeling its going to be one hell of a season!!

Indians Game enough?

K has a very interesting post on Gaming, Xbox and India. Incidentally, today i was at E-zone(the consumer appliances store by Pantaloons) and there was this demo of X-box out there. Having been a proud owner of the console whilst i was in Tokyo, i went ahead to check out if there were any differences in the "desi" version. So while i was checking out the NFS Most Wanted, i observed a bemused 30 something couple staring at me probably thinking "bacche ke park ka jhoola mein yeh kyon baita hai??!!" and had that "Kids-these-days-look-overgrown" look. Also sadly in the store apart from a few curious kids the demo setup hardly generated any interest. In contrast a Phillips home theater system had a more audience :-(
I wanted to know how much it had sold and Ezone, but couldnt get hold of the sales guy there(there was no one!)
In stark contrast, when the Xbox was released in Japan, it did generate tremendous interest and of course the console sales were disappointing but i remember seeing long queues in front of Game parlours and stores. When i did buy one, my Indian colleagues were offering ideas on what better products could one buy for 35,000 JPY and few japanese friends were like "Sugoi desu ne"!!!(Is it cool or what!!!).

Gaming in India, especially of the console type is still in a very nascent stage compared to US and Japan where it is a much more evolved and mature industry(around $35-50 billion dollars). We are still in the PC games era, even though console gaming is getting a good exposure thanks to places like Reliance Web world, it still is a question of affordability and more importantly acceptance!

Orkuttin' can get you a job!

Orkut is BIG and is a fast catching trend out here in India(and i suppose in Brazil too). More and more users are signing in to orkut every day, to network,connect with lost links, dating and also building communities.
However one interesting set of people are viewing this avenue as a tool to recruit people in thier organization-the talent scourers and the recruiters.
Off late, i seem to be getting more and more "scraps" from such recruiting firms and also direct companies.
Interesting, apart from being a free and huge database of prospective employees, it also gives a good insight into the person's interests, likes, attitude and yeah, links to other prospective employees.
So if you are looking for a job and have an Orkut account, you might want to refine your "about me" section and refrain from having stuff like "Corporate whore at day..." , "Insanity is my girl friend..." :-)
Web 2.o is ON and i need to scrap!

Okonomi Yaki!

Okonomi Yaki!
This sure is an interesting place! I havent tried a lot of japanese restaurents, but among the restuarents i have been, this one sure rocks!

Wiki says "Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き, Okonomiyaki^?) is a type of Japanese pan-fried batter cake with various ingredients".

The Uniqueness of this place is, they dont serve you hot food here, you got to cook it for yourself! Yeah thats right..every table has a stove and huge pan.We get the vegetables,shrimps, meat and chizu(Cheese!) all raw..and then well what are you waiting for..get cooking!

Apart from the stove , the table had a few other interesting useful stuffs, like oil, Pepper, salt,typical japanese soya sauce, but by far the coolest thing was a small Hour glass! yeah each turn is for 3 minutes...why 3 mins? Coz thats the time it takes for the okonomi yaki to fry nicely!
You can never complain about the food coz hey..you cooked it!!

Wondering if this kind of concept will work in India,because back home we go out to break the monotonous routine of cooking..the last thing you would want to do is cook your food at the restaurent too!

Another interesting thing..i asked my Sensei(Japanese teacher) whether she cooks at home..prompt came the reply "eh...I dont have a kitchen"!! That sure was a hard thing to digest!

More information of okanomiyaki here reminds of DOSA...Ssslurp!

Cheers
Karth!