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.

Windies

I love the West Indies, always have. Never been there though.

As a kid, I didn't quite understand what this "entity" meant, I mean, it wasn't a country but they had a cricket team. How? Michael Holding, the great fast bowler, once mentioned that since the end of colonial rule, these islands in the Caribbean have tried numerous political and economic associations, but nothing ever worked. The only unifying force was cricket which brought these West Indians together. As the years passed, my love for watching and following cricket in the West Indies only grew. I enjoyed the flamboyance of their batsmen, aggression of their bowlers and the general look of casualness in their approach. But they were intense, mind you! They were also considered genuine sportsmen. Gavaskar always said that while their fast bowlers intimidated the batsman with short stuff and hostile stares, there were no personal attacks and they never ever crossed the line. They dominated world cricket but were still admired by everyone, unlike the world champion Australian team of recent times.

You see they always had these great players. A certain Sunil Gavaskar enamoured by the great Rohan Kanhai names his son after him, Umpire Dickie Bird was surprised with the quiet, smooth action of the devastating Michael Holding running upto bowl that he nicknamed him "Whispering Death", the swagger of Viv Richards which unnerved even the great Imran Khan, the deadly Ambrose who was implored with calls of "Up the nose Amby!" from his fielders when a new batsman walked in.

It is sad to see such a mighty cricket team fall to such lows. But, I sense a great disturbance in the force. They have in their midst a young batsman Darren Bravo who is an out-n-out Lara clone, his mannerism, those exaggerated cover drives is indeed of that great Trinidadian. Sammy, their current captain, said that he couldn't sleep the whole night after he dropped Dravid in the 1st test. Poor performances such as these should hurt and hurt deep. It is time West Indies cricket stop reminiscing about the past glories, and build a team afresh.

Wally Grout, the Australian wicketkeeper, once remarked, "Whenever I saw Ken Barrington coming to the wicket I thought a Union Jack was trailing behind him". West Indies Cricket team need a flag of their own -- the pride flag.

Notes from B'lore

It has been a while since I was in namma bengaluru in the summer.

- Traffic sucked for the initial 2-3 days, but felt really good to drive after that. All my dormant Bangalore driving instincts were back in full force. I probably honked more than anyone else out there. "Waat? you won't let me pass on your left? blaaaahorrrn!", "Only idiots wait for the traffic light to turn green".

- Bangalore rains are incredible. They come in thick and fast and roads are flooded in a matter of minutes. Oh, the sight of those mighty rivers and lakes on the streets of bangalore. But the power-cuts are irritating (really? KEB?? even now???)

- Wish 'Ganesh Fruit juice center' can go and teach Jamba juice on how to make juices, shakes and smoothies.

- Constant 85-95 F in Apr-May. Maybe better than other places in India but still quite hot.

- Masala Dosa made here is unbeatable. Others (other cities, states and countries), please learn.

- Sub-tropical fruits are the heaven. Move over boring apples and oranges, bring on the delicious mangoes and jackfruit.

- Economy is booming, shops and malls are thriving, people seem to be hungry for success/money, jobs galore, everything is expensive, money flow is evident. So many Bimmers and Mercs.

- Nothing on T.V! Missed my fix of 30 Rock, Community, Family Guy, South Park, The Office and Conan/Letterman.

- BIA airport is so much better than the old HAL airport, but put on your glasses and you can see that it is essentially one large cow shed.

- Talwalkar gym rocks!