Toyota \m/

Well, I was collecting all the facts n figures about Toyota and its ill-fated 2011 and ended up reading up reviews of luscious Lexus LF-LC. And thats Toyota's answer to earthquakes, floods and court-hearings. Check it out (Beware, your eyeballs may just popout):

Book Review: Andy Grove

I have recently completed reading a book by Richard S. Tedlow. It is titled: 'The Life and Times of an American - Andy Grove', not quite aptly though. I came across this book in the Top 10 reads of Business Standard and found it(luckily) with my roommate. I definitely achieved a milestone by reading this book as it is: 1.) my first book which is only published as hardcover edition 2.) the first biography that i ve read. Hence, my opinion might be a bit naive and to some extent prejudiced (towards autobiographies and against biographies).

The book starts in Hungary where Mr. Andras Istvan Grof is born in a Jewish family. It takes a slow pace in describing how he evades Hitler and his minions to reach America. After putting himself through college and graduate school and getting 'Americanized' to Andy Grove, the book revs up its pace after he joins Fairchild (a start up into manufacturing memory chips). At this juncture, the book introduces us to two new people: Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore (yes, the same guy who proposed Moore's law). The trinity is formed. And soon, Intel. Henceforth, the book bleeds blue.

Frankly, i was expecting much more of 'life and times of Andy Grove if not an American'. But the author takes its readers through the complete journey of Intel, and its mercurial rise, and talks intermittently of the main subject. Although the book is very informative, at times i found it very boring when author took up some point and stuck to it for pages.

Ironically, i did love reading it but i would suggest readers not to expect too much of Mr. Grove in it. One would definitely, slowly know what this man is all about. But i would suggest the publishers to publish the next reprint with a * marked statutory warning: Intel Inside.

I would like to share an excerpt from the book. This poem was posted by somebody (addressed to Andy Grove) on internet, when it(internet) was still infantile. And Pentium was Launched and almost, almost drowned.

When in the future we wish to deride
A CEO whose disastrous pride
Causes spokesmen to lie
And sales streams to dry
We'll say he's got Intel Inside(TM).

The Encrypted Email and a much more Encrypted Education

Year 2018,

On a warm afternoon, i was working in my office, sitting beside my window that affords a "beautiful" view of the congested roads outside our apartment, when a message popped up notifying me of a new mail(obviously an e-mail as everything has become 'e' now, it goes by default). In fact its been long since insecure 'e-mails' have become obsolete. But there was a time when they were not, it was 2008:

"Studying for the exam of Network Security, or rather i should say the 'Nonstop Slogging' because of its large syllabus. I took a break to practically look into a few of the concepts i had read until then. One of them was, PGP, abbreviation of Pretty Good Privacy. The motive of choosing this topic was that the book was all praise for 'the man', Zimmermann, who had invented this concept. A laudatory excerpt from the book goes like this...

Bless the man who man who made it,
And pray he ain't dead.
....
He gave it out for free,
Now every common man has PGP.

I do not remember the complete poem, but this is how i got enthused and chose to dig deeper into the concept. Googled PGP (to google then, was to use the highly illustrious search engine, Google), followed simple instructions to download the software. Perplexed by the simplicity of the procedure, i quickly became familiar with it which made me realize the extent of superficiality in the knowledge imparted by the forceful memorization of the permutations and combinations of letters. Sitting on the chair, my book kept on the table, i could visualize each and every friend of mine rote-learning PGP and preparing to 'throw up' in a manner so as to maximize the score.

With scores of ideas frothing up in the brain, while contemplating on each of them one by one, the Mac-book said "Its twenty hours". With a note of thanks to Steve Jobs, i realized that i had challenged Anuja to beat her. Giving up the thought with a pitiful conclusion that the 'whole system is flawed and stubborn', the 'other' thoughts instantly purged out of mind. A transition took place from self 'less' to 'fish' thoughts, setting aside the laptop, getting back to the book, the next topic to memorize was - Message Authentication And Hash Functions."

I am grateful to my interest in the subject per se that today, i at least remember the names of a few topics i had learned while graduating in 'Computer Engg'. But i am pretty sure, these memorized permutations and combinations of letters of english alphabet will fade away soon.

2 States

The IIT graduate who was a below average student, who was goofing around with a 5-point something score has matured into a man head over heels in love with the putatively most beautiful girl at IIMA. The grades, the love life, goes perfectly, and is all that matters. He even gets into one of the most aspired jobs there. Ironically, he doesnt want it this time and it is more by force than by choice; it sums up the first hundred odd pages that are fraught mostly with romance at his new college.

And the author realises that life goes beyond college, gets even more mature. The struggle starts now, and the struggle is not as much for the characters as it is for the reader, who has to bear with the sluggish pace that the book acquires and maintains it to the last page.

The book hovers around the family of the girl and how the guy tries to entice them, choosing the harder way and not eloping. The happy-go-lucky-boy is successful in whatever he does. But it doesn't end there, the struggle keeps him at bay. The readers are in for a dramatic climax.

Although the book is a bit on the slower side, add to it, the drama it is fraught with. I would still give two thumbs up to this book. Chetan Bhagat has created a new genre which symbolises the GenNext. He tries to give a strong message to this generation and, i believe, is very successful in doing so. The blend of fiction and reality is just about perfect. I would say that if at all the other books that i have read were to be Hollywood movies then this one is one of those they make in Bollywood, having a new style, a very different one (he could have even put one or two songs in there). All in all, it is a must read if you are an Indian and if you enjoy Bollywood movies, you will love it.

The First One...

Well, frankly its been a while since i have been contemplating to write a blog. And i have scribbled a lot in my laptop, but somehow dint know how to start with the first one. And i have come to realise that you dont think, you just decide and start off. So here it goes...

Hmm..as i write this, i realise that i havent really written a lot of stuff and writing the first blog makes me very apprehensive and selective about whatever i write. But i would like to share a little something about me in this first one. :)

I have been working in a software company for past five months (i am sure you dont want to know which one, they are all same) and since then i have been vis-a-vis my destiny a lot of times. What i find on the other side, is an array of doors, not able to resolve as to which one should i open. And i have a gut feeling that blogging might help me resolve my mystery.

In hindsight, i have done most of my schooling from Indore and then engineering from Pune where i made an amazing bunch of friends. Its really hard not to miss them when your life is going for a toss but i am sure each one of my friend, in fact, each human being goes through the same phase. Some call it adolescent crisis or quarter-life crisis, i like to call it 20-something adventure. :)

And as it goes, adventure reminds me of my hobbies, most of them being adventurous. I like to travel, trek and play all kinds of sports. Apart from that, i am an avid reader and a big fan of classical rock music (hail floyds n hail roses). One of favourite pass times is to take out any challenging math problem, and solve it to death. I love to play around with puzzles.

Thats about it. On the last note, i want you all to know that my future blogs are mostly gonna be either travel blogs (intermittently filled with snaps) or book reviews. And the next one is coming pretty soon.

Keep reading..:)