Roots

On a recent trip to Bangalore, I sat with my parents and opened up Google maps to identify and locate the villages they were born and bought up in.

My Dad's home is in the village of Mylanahalli. We found the unmarked village of my dad, and as is our vaunt, marked all the land he owns. I tried to be as detailed as possible with the land, and made sure all the little juts and extensions are marked as well.


View Mylanahalli in a larger map


Locating my mom's house in the village of Akkur Hosahalli was relatively easier as there are plenty of marked landmarks around that area. The hospital shown in the map was actually built on land given away by my grandfather's family and is right next to the house. I have spent many summer vacations in this house and the village, and have so many memories of this place.


View Akkur Hosahalli in a larger map

Memorable Wins #Indian-Cricket

1. Worldcup 1983 @England
# kapil's devils upstage the world

2. Worldcup 2011 @India
# favourites, home crowd, under pressure

3. India-Australia, 2nd test@Eden Gardens, 2000/01
# laxman 281, dravid, eden gardens, epic

4. Perth Test after sydney-gate 2008 @Australia
# acrimony after sydney-gate and redemption at perth

5. World Series 1985 @Australia
# shastri, audi, one of the all time great one day teams

6. World/Tri Series 2008 @Australia
# winning the world-series against aus in aus

7. Natwest series win@Lords, 2002
# ganguly, shirtless, enuff said

8. T20 WC win@South Africa, 2007
# dhoni's magic begins

9. India in WI 1971 (1-0 test series)

# first away series victory, enter gavaskar and the spin quartet

10. India in Eng 1971 (1-0 test series)
# chandra, solkar, india not a one-hit wonder

Squaw and Alpine

The map above outlines Squaw and Alpine ski resorts in Lake Tahoe, California.
(photo courtesy:http://www.powdork.com/2011/squalppinwolf-born-to-be-wild/) squaw=blue, whitewolf=purple (privately owned resort), alpine=red, possible-additional-terrain=yellow.

The merger of squaw and alpine could mean that we have one of North America's largest resort right here in Tahoe, with around 6,400 acres of skiable terrrain when combined. (For reference: heavenly = 4,800 acres, kirkwood = 2,300 acres, whistler blackcomb = 8,171 acres, vail = 5,289 acres). My colleague, an avid squaw fan, told me once that squaw has lots of accessible terrain that it can expand into.

Possible Expansions & White Wolf: A third neighbor to the two is the much smaller White Wolf (private) resort with about 400 acres of skiable terrain. Its owner, Troy Caldwell, told the San Francisco Chronicle this in March 2008: "If my dream were totally brought to fruition, White Wolf Mountain would become an inter-connect between Alpine and Squaw. A skier could ski from the Squaw side all the way to the Alpine Meadows ski area."

Future: Squaw did host the 1960 Olympics that some say transformed Lake Tahoe area. There are already rumours around the 2022 Winter Olympics bid and the host is not picked until 2015. There is some worry on how all this affects lift ticket and pass prices and whether Tahoe is on it's way to be the ski-vacation alternative to the fancier colorado resorts. We have already seen some consolidation in Tahoe with Vail (owns Heavenly) buying North Star resort last season. It will be interesting to see how all these consolidations affect Tahoe area economy.

Under the Covers: KSL Capital Partners owns Squaw (which they bought from the Cushing family) and now majority stake holder in the merger, JMA ventures owned Alpine and now are minority stake holders. JMA also owns Homewood. JMA recently teamed up with 49ers to buy Great America theme park. Not sure if they will be involved in the new 49ers stadium.

Taxes: Lessons for a civil society

(some excerpts were swiped, reworded and added here from a cnn article).

It's surprising to me that many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Lets break this assumption a bit. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Agreed, no debate there. However, voting for our government to use guns and force people to give money (in the form of taxes) to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. I know, this might sound shocking. Please read on.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them (voluntarily), but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

People try to argue that government isn't really force and forcing you to pay taxes isn't what it is. You believe that? Try not paying your taxes. (This is only a "thought experiment" -- suggesting that someone not pay his or her taxes is probably a federal offense, so not to be taken seriously). When they come to get you for not paying your taxes, try not going to court. Guns will be drawn. Government is force -- literally, not figuratively.

We are always asked to submit to any tax increase silently and we are expected to never question why such tax increases are necessary. Rachel Maddow, the political analyst said recently, "we have 2 great wars in the last 10 years, but no tax increase!". So, here we are, justifying tax increases so as to fund wars half-way around the world. If we do object to it, we are playing politics, hindering progress, allowing the terrorists to win and letting old people die. It is never a good time to question anything.

The problem I have with taxes is that I don't have control over how government uses it. If it is used to fight unjust wars and unending welfare schemes, I want no part of it. It is not government's god given right to collect money from the citizens to fund all their mis-adventures. Sure, we can pay for the services we use, and a reasonable tax seems acceptable for allowing basic functioning of a civil society. I also believe in charity, out of one's own free will ofcourse. Please don't be under this delusion that there is no charity possible if not for taxes.  Case in point: the annual american private humanitarian aid is higher than the US govt humanitarian aid (citation needed).

Problem arises when the vocal majority take this to the next level. I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone. The fact that the majority thinks they have a way to do good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don't want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun and force people to pay up, I don't believe you really are getting the point. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid and trampling his individual rights. People who trumpet democractic values need some lessons on the idea of the Republic.

Republic and Democracy: Lessons for a civil society

It is terrible misconception that US and India are just Democracies. They are Republics too. In a Republic the minority is protected from the tyranny of the majority because majority always gangs-up and muffles the voice of the minority so as to get things done "their way". We should understand what "republic" means. We seem to be under this illusion that we are a democracy only and the view of the majority always trumps. It is incorrect.

Anyone remember why we have a bicameral parliament/congress (2 houses)? Lower house is the voice of people (democracy in action) as they represent the people, the upper house is the voice of reason composed of thinkers. Lower house, representing the people, can recommend things from the citizen's point of view but upper house needs to consider the bigger picture. The upper house needs to deliberate it from all angles and decide whether a tabled proposal is good for the country, and whether it upholds individual rights and liberty. Did you know that the US senate is considered the world's most deliberative body for exactly that reason? But a rational debate of any issue based on this framework is dismissed as partisan politics and a hindrance to progress. The majority always wants us to be an "Yes Man" for everything.

One might say that societies have become way too corrupt for such idealistic thinking. Then, it is the duty of citizens to correct these mistakes rather than exacerbate the situation with more draconian measures. That is when we slip into authoritarian rule. This is not a movie where the hero cleans up the whole system by beating everyone left and right. People should limit dependence on government and stop considering the government to be the "One" that will will solve all problems. If you rely on the government for everything you tend to give it unprecedented powers and resources, and they are invariably wasted and misused. To prevent this misuse you then create another body of governance fitted with a massive bureaucratic machinery granting it even more power. But there is insufficient guarantee that this new body won't be influenced and infiltrated by politicians and their vested interests eventually (think long term). So now you have two problems instead of one.

So next time, someone touts democracy and asks you to fall in line with the majority, it is time to explain the idea of the republic and let your opinion be heard.

The Legend of Curds with Sugar

In South India, it is common practice to finish a meal with curds (plain yogurt) or buttermilk. The way it is done is to mix rice with curds which gives "curd rice" and then add a touch of salt for light seasoning.

There is also a variation to this simple dish. Instead of mixing curds with rice, we can just take curds in a bowl and add sugar. That's it! Now, it is very important to ensure that we use the right ingredients. The main ingredient is curds and it should be curdy, and not watery like butter milk. Also, cane sugar is better than one of those sweetener substitutes.

There has been some controversy as to who actually came up with this idea of having curds with sugar. Some have claimed that they have had this dish in the MTRs and Kamat Hotels of the world since time immemorial. While that may be true, I would like to make this claim that I independently came up with this recipe when I was a kid.

I distinctly remember that when I was 6-7 years of age, I noticed others in the family having this dish of curds+rice. Now, I disliked salty taste back then, so I substituted salt with sugar. I liked it, but after a few days, I realized that the reason I liked this dish was not because of the rice, but actually curds and sugar. That moment was when this legendary curds+sugar dish was born. Even now (some 25 years after this dish was invented), it is quite customary in my family circles (immediate as well as extended) to offer me this special dish after I finish a meal.

I don't like controversy myself, and I can't possibly defend my claim against those made by the pezzonovante of the culinary world, but I just wanted to get the truth out there.

Technology Tipping Point

They used to say, "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow", as a nod to West Bengal's standing as India's intellectual capital in the 20th century. Silicon Valley can claim that "What technology it uses today, the world uses tomorrow".

In 2003, I used to work in Gandiva, a start up, where I had to use HTML, Http in the context of web-applications. Now there was this one issue that we were particularly frustrated with. A small change/update anywhere in a dynamically generated web page meant that you had to regenerate the whole page with all of the page-data which was sub-optimal. Little did I know that there was already a solution in the form of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) wherein web applications can send data to, and retrieve data from, a server asynchronously without interfering with the display and behavior of the rest of the page.

Back then, I used to use Yahoo messenger quite a bit to keep in touch with friends and family. Sometimes, I had this habit of putting up status messages (as did others) and would receive the odd IM from someone I know on how they felt about it. Fast forward a couple of years, and Twitter takes this to the next level as one of the first micro-blogging site.

In 2004-2005, as I bought my first laptop in my grad days, some of us friends had this observation that we rarely seem to use any software other than a browser and a ssh client. We now see that cloud computing, net-books have become the hottest buzz words.

Now, in 2011, I have begun to notice a drastic change in the type of messages I receive in my email account. A majority of the emails I receive these days are from social networking sites such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn updating me with messages from friends and family. These sites have become the de-facto place for all my social interactions and messaging needs. This makes me think that in a few years, we might see an end to email as it is used now and will completely embrace social-networking services. The only issue is that these sites are heavily siloed and don't inter-operate well.