Bangalored? Not anymore
So Bangalore is not going to be Bangalore anymore! What I mean is that the city is going to be changing it’s name to *shudders* Bengaluru *horrors* :-(
And why? Because the old name, Bangalore, represents the city’s colonial history, and Bengaluru represents the real Kannada history. Horse-cr*p.
I recently was in Kolkata for a marriage and while travelling it’s road, was amazed at the names of the streets there and absolutely loved it. Names like “Hungerford Street”, “Ho Chi Minh Sarai” etc, gave it an amazing flavor and rememebrance of the time when it was under British Rule. :-)
It’s one fact that the colonial occupation of India was not a well-liked, but it’s another fact to try and ignore it, forget about it by erasing it’s influences, it’s vestiges. It was, in my opinion one of the most important periods in the history of our country and one which has left an impression, an effect forever.
Though I am not in support of the name change, I unfortunately am disappointed in it and would much prefer the old name Bangalore!
Edit:
Bangalored, the word itself means to lose one’s job, get laid off, and have the job outsourced, mostly to Bangalore due to it’s extreme popularity as a global IT outsourcing center.
Infatuation with foreign degrees
I was recently returning from work and I noticed a car with it’s rear licence plate carrying a message. Being dark, initially guessed it to be one of the “Jesus Saves”, “God is Great” slogans and paid no attention to it. But co-incidentally, I happened to stop behind the same car. At that point, being in better light, I could clearly read the plate. It said,
Alumni
Ka 04 MM 6606
University of Illinois
Now come on! Alright so you have studied abroad, studied in University of Illinoi !!(I will assume the guy was referring to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign since it is one of the top universities in the US)
SO? You are not the first one nor are you going to be the last one.
But he (Again I assume it was a guy) is not the only one to do this. I have come across numerous relatives who are solely referred to as “he is the one who did his engineering in the US”, or “he is the one who is married and settled in the US” and it irritates me to no end. Why is studying abroad, more particularly in the US considered some sort of nirvana, something which if one does, he immediately rises up in the eyes of all around him. Just to stress on the the opposite, the CAT for the Indian Institute of Managements and various other management exams, the JEE for the Indian Institute of Technology, the GATE for Post Graduate studies in India are _much_ more tougher than the Sats and the Gmat/Gre.
Bah!
Note: I plan to pursue my Master’s degree in Business in the US for reasons which I will not go into here since it would seem like defensive excuse giving which I don’t want to or have to. I only state what I felt about the person in the car with the alumni plates. But that said, I take pride in my country and what it has to offer! :-)
Xprss It Finally Live
Well Xprss It is finally released. It is a RSS aggregator. But it’s not just the normal aggregator but also a community site where you can share content with others, have contacts and contact groups as well as publish your own Blog!
And this is only a preview release. We, at Applibase, have worked for quite sometime on it and are quite proud of it. We hope to add _tons_ of features before the next beta release which should be quite soon. But till then, please try it out and give us feedback as well as criticism on how to improve it :)
Warning: It is a Preview Release so things are bound to break. But worry not for we are working harder than ever to make sure things get fixed before you notice them. And if you do notice them, tell us and we will fix it before you know it ;-)
Foss.In 2005 – The Bangalore Open Source Conference
So I attended the Linux conference, Foss.In being held in Bangalore. I wanted to attent PHP, mainly the ones to be given by Rasmus Lerdorf
The guy is brilliant. I sat through the talk cursing myself for not attending his earlier talks. I am a big fan of PHP and really wanted to attend all the talks on PHP at Foss.In. But work pressures and requirements caused me to be unable to do so.
However, the talk was about large scale PHP. In it Lerdof speaks about the recently release PHP 5.1 and the upcoming PHP 6. He also showed the new features in 5.1 and how they can all be used to create large scale, well managed applications in PHP.
An excellent talk which I’ll remember for quite sometime :-)
I’m Alive
Ok.. I know I’ve been away far too long. It was all a combination of a hectic work schedule, a few other priorities in life and generally being a little messed up in the top floor.
In the past few weeks I’ve had a product release come up, postponed and also been away to Kolkata(Calcutta) for a cousin sister’s wedding. The wedding was awesome fun but I was darn sad to see my sis leave. She is one of my favorite sisters after all :-(
Well I’ll try to be a little lot more active from now on! I also have a couple of issues which I want to write about.. :-)
Continuation on the Airlines Post
Another mail which gave a bit of a laugh! Again, I cannot verify it’s authenticity!
EXCHANGES BETWEEN PILOTS AND CONTROL TOWERS
Here are some conversations that airline passengers normally will never hear. The following are accounts of actual exchanges between airline pilots and control towers around the world.
Radical Phone design?
Ok this is radical design. No I dont think it is an official Nokia design but who knows if someday they might create a phone like this.
Not only does it look supremely cool, it would be fun to play around with it as well :-D
Of course, it should be robust enough to handle daily and a bit of rough use, though I can’t see many guys using this one. Would probably be considered as too girlish by the Macho Men ;-) :-P
The phone concept is viewable here. And dont forget the watch the animation!
Thus speaketh