3 Idiots

I had absolutely no expectations when I bought the tickets for this movie. Neither did I know that it’s from the Munnabhai series director. All I knew is that Amir khan stars in the movie. I went to this movie because my wife wanted to and I’m happy I heeded to her once :-). Another humane movie from the director who has nicely adapted the Five point someone novel by Chetan Bhagat. I was told that this movie is an adaptation of this book when the movie had just started and was kind of taken back by that. Though I liked the dark humor in the book, I had read it just 2 weeks before incidentally and didn’t want to go through it again. I was in for a pleasant surprise.

Rajkumar Hirani had given his usual positive touch to the original story and I really liked the movie overall. Except for the length of the movie and too many emotional scenes, movie was fun. Men drop their pants, open the flies and pee everywhere all through the movie. I could stand it, but if you are sensitive about these you may hate the movie. Another negative about the movie is the cast. Though Madavan and Amir have done their roles extremely well, they are in their 40s (Shouldn’t they stop acting as college students, like Vivek in Tamil Film industry who stopped acting in such roles deliberately).  And the pencil lined moustache of Madhavan looked awful. Other than that the movie is a must-watch, especially for all those indian parents who try to make their off springs live the life they couldn’t.

Technorati Tags: 3 Idiots,Five point someone,Rajkumar Hirani

Sartre for beginners

Just finished reading this book. Now I’m not trying to pose as a pseudo-intellectual here… :-)

Works of Jean-Paul Sartre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-paul_sartre) are interesting to say the least. I had very little idea if any about Sartre before reading this book and have heard of existentialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism) a few times around. Well after reading the book, I wouldn’t say that I’m familiar with existentialism as such. For the simple reason that appears to be no authoritative definition for the term itself and existentialists are so diverse and varied in terms of demographics as well as nature/characteristics.

In short I learnt that while existentialism is all about human individuality and freedom it also emphasizes on responsibility. “No Excuses” – quoted from the book as the 2 word summary of existentialism. You can’t excuse even your birth :-). Now, that’s what spirituality calls ‘Karma’ and you even have control over your birth by definition of Karma. I found several other similarities between existentialism and spirituality but ultimately they diverge from the common points. Even Sartre himself “converted” to Marxism and then dumped that too.

Though I was scratching my head several times during the initial pages of the book, it really was a good read and provided deep insights on beer, homosexuality and voyeurism. ;-) . Jokes apart, this book gives a simple overview of existentialism with a touch of humor and is a good read.      

Technorati Tags: Sartre,Existentialism,Philosophy,Jean-Paul Sartre,Being and Nothingness

D-Link DIR-625

I decided buy a wireless router to replace my existing Netgear WGR64, which required me to reboot everyday.  I don’t have any devices that are 802.11N Draft capable. I do have 3 Laptops/computers, a Wii (which rarely uses the WiFi connection) and a Vonage adapter in my network.

Buying another 802.11g device seemed like going backwards. But I didn’t need a router for $100+ with all the bells and whistles.

I did some research on http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/ and on dailywireless.com. I found smallnetbuilder particularly useful with the comparison charts and reviews.

I don’t really need a Gigabit router (atleast at this time). With N Draft 2.0 support, dual bandwidth (works only with N-draft devices), 2 antennas, automatic QoS, good throughput/routing performance and reasonable price; DIR-625 was good enough for me. I purchased this from Amazon for around $50 and the router arrived within 4 days(free shipping).

I have used the router for nearly a month and quite satisfied with the performance. No more reboots everyday and dropped connections. Occasionally pages do not load completely and I have to reload them, but I’m not sure whether it’s a router issue and happens only once or twice a day.

But I found it really annoying the way Web site filtering/blocking is implemented. It never works for me. You have to enter the URL or domain that you want to block or allow. There’s no keyword filtering which I had been used to with Netgear. Once you define the filter then you have to create an access control policy and apply the filter over there. But you can not create more than one filter, just one and that is applied to any policy that you create. Sounds really stupid !!! On top of all this pain, filtering doesn’t work at all. When I enter a domain to be blocked such as youtube.com router happily ignores the rule. D-Link probably wants everyone to subscribe to their SecureSpot ( a subscription based parental control and security service) that costs around $60 a year.

After some googling, I found that I can use OpenDNS (www.opendns.com) or DynDNS (www.dyndns.com) to implement website filtering. Here is what I did:

I created an account with DynDNS and setup my access control rules for website filtering, which was simple enough. You can block entire categories and also add specific domains to block/allow list.

Then go to D-Link Console. Select Setup on the to menu and choose Internet on the Left menu. Provide the Primary and secondary DNS Server IPs (for OpenDNS or DynDNS)under the Dynamic IP (DHCP) Internet Connection Type table.

There you go. I had setup website filtering without shelling out more green and I can manage it from anywhere.

Other than that I’m not going to bother to return the DIR-625 and spend more hours on researching for the next router. I would rather wait till 802.11n specs are finalized and there are some solid products based on that.

Technorati Tags: D-Link,D-Link DIR-625,Wireless N,802.11n,Wireless router,Wireless N router,Router review,DIR-625 review

To Get More Done at Work, Slow Down

I had read this article a few months ago but it slipped my mind. Stumbled upon it again while searching for something else. This is so very true for all of us. Many a times, we go through our movements so fast that we don’t even know what we are doing. “If you want to do anything challenging and sustain it over a long period of time. A few moderate days, one hard day, and a day or two of complete rest.” – Sounds absolutely compelling.

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/aug2009/ca20090818_229017.htm

Here is the gist of the article - “This life is a marathon, not a sprint. Most of us don't go to work for 20 minutes a day, run as fast as we can, and then rest until the next race, so we need to rethink our approach “

On the same note let me talk about “Hurry Sickness”. “Type A” individuals as defined by Friedman and Rosenman (Though their theory is criticized for several reasons) have "hurry sickness." Type A persons’ lives are oriented around goals, deadlines, and objectives, which they seem to react to in a driven fashion. They are unable to approach a task in a healthy, balanced way, but in extreme cases seem almost consumed by a need to accomplish and achieve. Here are a few typical symptoms of  hurry sickness which made me burst with laughter (Because I have quite a few of them and am ashamed of it)  :

I rush to be first in line, even when it doesn't matter (for example, getting off an airplane first in order to stand at Baggage Claim longer).

If I have to wait over a few minutes for service in a store or restaurant, I get impatient and leave or demand service. To me time is money!

I generally view as less capable those who may be slower to speak act or decide. I admire people who move at my speedy pace! I pride myself on my speed, efficiency, and punctuality.

I view "hanging out" as a waste of time.

I pride myself on getting things done on time, and will sacrifice the chance to improve a product if it means being late.

I often rush or hurry my children and/or spouse.

Spirituality is one definite cure for the hurry sickness. It makes you slow down and watch yourself as you run. Here’s an article that talks about dealing with hurry sickness.

http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/features.php?id=16794 

 

Technorati Tags: Life,Hurry Sickness,Slow down,Spirituality,Meditate,Yoga,Type A

Which MBA

Just went through the Economist’s Ranking of Full time MBA programs worldwide.

http://www.economist.com/business-education/whichmba/

I can’t help thinking of the often said thing about B-School rankings, “You should take any such ranking with a pinch of salt”.  Of course the ranking methodology is explained and debated too. But Cornell Johnson is ranked well behind Darden and INSEAD ranked at 24th and the list goes on. But what was really ridiculous was that one B-School which offered admission to one of my friends even without an interview because he had a very high GMAT score is ranked well ahead of several reputed ones.

I love reading Economist’s articles and learn a lot about international happenings from them. But I would definitely recommend staying away from the MBA rankings.  All rankings are superficial anyway, and it pays to do complete research about a specific target group of schools to narrow down the choices.

 

Technorati Tags: MBA,B-School,MBA Ranking,B-School Ranking