A pair class. Nothing special. And of course, bits and pieces taken from other people’s code.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Monthly Archive for April, 2010
Let me start by asserting that I am an Atheist, a naive one, but one none the less. I call myself naive because if you were to have a debate about atheism with me, I probably will not be able to argue giving definite theories or concepts, but I will definitely be able to justify my beliefs with my logic.
Logic, I think is a very powerful tool that we intelligent human beings have, and animals lack. We have the ability of reasoning, to question the events occurring in our surroundings, and then to learn from the process of questioning. And yet when you think about it, we do not really question every belief of ours. Why?
I do not believe in god, because no one was able to prove me his existence.
People say god is omnipresent. Well, let us consider this opinion. If the god exists, and if he is indeed omnipresent, then he should be all around us, and within each of us. In that case, I do not need to go to a church or a temple or whatever to pray. I could as well pray considering my brother as the god. Extending the same argument, I can claim that there should be a god within me too! So everyday, if I were to close my eyes for a minute, and make a pledge with myself that I will go out and complete all my objectives for the day and also contribute towards the welfare of society in whatever small manner, the god within me will be pleased.
And this is my point. If there indeed is a god, why do we need to show him our affection by praying? What good does that do to the society? Instead, if we rather utilized the same time helping a poor child, I see the world becoming a much better place to live in. But if you insist on reciting lines of texts from supposedly holy scriptures, then again answer to me what good does it do to you? Reciting is completely different from following. As Williams Shakespeare writes,
The devil can cite scripture for his own purpose! An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek.
[Merchant Of Venice]
And I beg you not to give the oft recited excuse of calming ones mind by recital of holy scriptures. Our brain is the biggest fool you can ever hope to run into and psychology works either ways. It can be tricked into believing anything. If you have read the book Phantoms in the Brain by V S Ramachandran, you’ll know exactly what I am saying. Some people who have lost an arm, have been tricked by their brains into believing that they still have the arm, and in fact they sometimes feel excruciating pain in the same severed phantom arm. Sometimes, your brain can be tricked into seeing and yet not seeing. In a rare malfunction of visual nerve cells, it could happen that you cannot visualize the object in front you, i.e, cannot see it, and yet perceive it. As an example, if the person, with this disorder, was made to stand in front of a board which has a huge C written on it, the person will say he cannot see the letter. The brain will trick him into believing that there is nothing in front of him, which is opposed to being blind. And now if you were to ask the same person to write the letter on a piece of paper, he will most certainly be able to! You may want to read the above book if you don’t believe me.
As I was saying, our brain can be tricked into believing anything. The society has fooled it into believing that prayers have a calming effect on us, but we can very easily, by practice, rid ourselves of that notion.
Those scriptures have their purpose, I do not argue that point. Their sole purpose is to teach us morality. We should adopt the good in those stories and try influence the society to do the same. Instead, all we do is to learn the texts by heart and never follow the principles it preaches. I respect Ramji as a good person, but I refuse to bow before an idol of his and think of him as a god. I learnt from Ramayan a few good stories, but never that Ram is our god and that only through his prayers can I lead a happy life.
I have a very simple rule of life, question everything. So if you were to tell me that your religion professes some theory, I am definitely going to question the theory until you can convince me of the logic behind it.
I was having a discussion with a friend who told me that his religion professes nothing but the truth and how to distinguish the right from wrong. To this my obvious question was – Is Truth, Right and Wrong absolute or relative? And please do not tell me that they are absolute. I will get into another debate with you then. Truth is nothing but an interpretation of our observations. And since interpretation is not absolute, truth cannot be. In fact, I doubt if even observation is absolute. Right and Wrong are the two domains divided by an imaginary line, the definition of which is different for different people.
All I want to tell people is that blindly following anything is a crime. By doing so, we give a lot of authority and power to these preachers, and history is proof that these maniacs with power want only one thing – more power. Instead, if we were to question every thing that they tell us to follow, if we were to ask for the logical justification of every action, our society would be much better served.
But since the society consists of more followers than leaders, this is going to be an extremely difficult goal to achieve.
Popularity: 2% [?]
The Research and Development team also had a skit for the first All Hands Meet. Here is the script.
Director and writer: Yogish
Assistant Director and screenplay: Anshumali [He prefers Deputy title though 
]
A little background first:
A couple of days before the meet, Navin lets us know that he, Prasun and Palla will be on leave!!! As a result Yogish had to alter the script slightly, and we also had to draft in Abhinav Kishore, who has come to FICO from Infosys Chandigarh on a contract.
Act 1
<Kishore sitting in a cubicle filled with a decision tree. Trying to read it with a magnifying glass>
<Anuvrat enters>
Kishore to Anuvrat: I have to give a presentation outlining our strategy to the clients in one week, but I can’t make head or tail of this <Points to strategy>.
Anuvrat: But don’t you know about this wonderful product called Strategy Designer.
Kishore: No what is it?
Anuvrat: Wait let me call my roommate working in the Research team of FICO who designed it. He will explain it to you.
<Whips out a phone and makes a call>
Act 2:
<Mali and Yogish are sitting in the cafe>
Mali to Yogish: Arre, did you hear that the Large Hadron Collider is finally up and running.
Yogish: Yeah, I can’t wait to find out if the Higgs boson is real or not.
Mali : I hope it creates a black hole which swallows all of earth.
Yogish: ha ha, In that case I’d better take my power nap.
Mali: What ?! Are you going to sleep in the office?
Yogish: Well actually people may think I am sleeping but I am actually thinking.
Mali: Oh, ok …So you are one of those Kekule type of guys who thought of the structure of benzene in his dream.
Yogish: How do you think we have so many patents filed from our team after all? You should start sleeping at work as well….
<Mali gets call from Anuvrat and picks up the phone>
Mali: Hello.
Anuvrat: Hi, where are you ?
Mali: In the cafe, drinking coffee.
Anuvrat: And discussing quantum physics, no doubt ?
Mali: Hey, how did you know ?
Anuvrat: <Rolls eyes> Nerds!!
Anuvrat: Anyway, I want you to talk to my friend here in Citigroup and explain what you did to turn decision trees to graphs.
Mali: Ok
<Kishore takes the phone from Anuvrat>
Kishore: Hi
Mali: Hi
Kishore: Hey, I have this massive decision tree with 40000 nodes. I was told that you guys have a product which can help me figure this out.
Mali: Oh yes. What we do is simply find an EDAG that is functionally isomorphic with the decision tree.
Kishore: What ?
Mali: <Makes a face> EDAG…. Exception based directed acyclic graph
Kishore: What is that ? It sounds intimidating
Mali: Oh no. We have made it so simple that even the guys at AIG could understand it …. HaHa..
Kishore: I used to work at AIG.
Mali: Oh! <Coughs> …… <Coughs again> ….. I think I have an idea. Why don’t you get your bank to buy Triad 2.0 ? It is Strategy Designer with more intuitive icons for the user.
[[ -- This part was edited out due to Navin's unavailability -- ]]
<Navin comes into the cafe>
Navin: Hey, Shafi just came and told us to prepare a skit for the all hands meeting on the 6th.
Mali : <Looks relieved> Hey Kishore, I’ll call you back in a while. Have some work. Bye!!
Yogish: Skit! Do they think we have nothing better to do ?
<Navin also sits down to have coffee>
Navin: <Shrugs> Yeah, those guys are always either in the cafe or taking a nap at their seat….. They obviously have all the time in the world.
Yogish and Mali in unison: Hmmm…..
Popularity: 4% [?]
On the 9th of April, the FICO Bangalore office had its first All Hands Meet under the new VP Anindo Roy. Us freshers performed a skit, expressing our first year experiences. Below is the script along with the people who played the characters.
Scene 1: News Studio
News Reporter :: Lucky Wankhede
News Reporter: Kitne mite kitne lute is IT ke chakkar mein, kitnon ke ghar phute, kitne jali is IT ke chakkar mein. Par kya yahi sach hai? Is se parda uthane ke liye hamari team pahunchi “Champu Ki Kahani” aap tak laane.
Par suru karne se pehle, mai aap sabko ye bata dun ki “is kahani ki saari ghatnaye aur patra kisi na kisi fresher ke sach se judi hai, par TRP ke chakkar mein hame bhi kuch masala to add karna hi pada. Ab kya teekha masala hai aur kya kadwa sach, ye hum viewers ke interpretation par chor dete hain.”
To aayiye, camera man Praful ke saath, mai Deepak Chaurasiya, le chalte hian aapko sunane Champu Ki Kahani Usi Ki Jubani.
Par sawal ye uthata hai ki “Aakhir Champu Hai Kaun”?
Scene 2: Classroom in Campus
Prof :: Atul Kumar
Champu :: Vipin Gupta
Chimpoo :: Sumeet Kataria
Singer :: Padmini Pasumarthi
[Everybody has to give his project presentation today. Champu is sleeping in the class, lost in his dreams.]
[Background Score: Mere Sapnon Ki Ranmi Kab Aayegi Tu ... ]
Prof: Champu, Champu
Chimpoo: Abe Champu, uthaja. Tera presentation hai.
Champu: Abe, sone de naa yaar. Ash ke sapne dekh raha hun.
Prof: You stupid Champu. You duffer is sleeping in the class. You cannot do anything good with your life. Go give your presentation now. What’s the topic?
Champu: [Confused] Sir, wo, sir, …
Prof: C’mon, c’mon. Do not waste my time.
Champu: [Starts] Sir, I have an idea that if we can provide some useful software to the business people to manage their rules …
Prof: Yahan idea dene aye ho ya hum logon ka time pass karne? Useless fellow. Just go away, you are useless, and nothing better can you do in life. Just get out of the class, and I am only giving you a “F”.
News Reporter: To dekha aapne ki hamara Champu, knowledge to poora hai, par pata hi nahi ki use kaise kare. Ye Champu apne knowledge ke dam par FICO mein select to ho gaya, par bhi apni asaliyat se duur nahi jaa saka. Kya FICO ise change kar paayegi? Dekhte hain aageki kahani.
Scene 3: Champu Reaches Out To His Buddy At FICO
Buddy :: Anuvrat Singh
Manager :: Greeshma Olety
Employee :: Ankit Jain
[The scene consists of two parallel plays. Champu has a conversation with his buddy. The parallel scene shows what was happening in the office then.]
Buddy: Hey, I am your buddy. What’s up?
Champu: Sir, ever since I got selected for FICO, I have immersed myself into java books. I am also learning jsp, servlet, hibernation …
Buddy: Hey, hey, there now … slow down buddy. Chillax. Enjoy your time, we’ll teach you the rest when you get over here. And don’t call me Sir/ Just call me BOSS.
By the way, do you have any doubts about the “scary” stuffs that we do over here?
Champu: Well, to begin with, we have flexible timings, don’t we?
Buddy: Of course, I come for lunch and leave before snacks. If you get your work done in time, no one cares about your number of hours.
[Parallel Scene Starts]
[Employee enter's the office at 1230]
Manager: What’s the time Ankit?
Employee: Sorry mam, wo late ho gaya. We had a party till late night, and I was unable to get up early.
Manager: I do not want any lame excuses. You people are too young to come later than 10 in the morning. I want you at your desk by 9 everyday. And converse only in English.
Employee: Ji Behenji .. Err Yes Ma’am.
Manager: Abe Hindi nahi … English !!
[Parallel Scene Ends]
Champu: And what is the dress code for our office?
Buddy: (Hehe …) Strictly formal. A tie would be very appropriate. Blazers are ok in winter only though.
[Parallel Scene Starts]
Employee: Hey! Where did you buy this jeans?
Manager: Oh, from Spykers. Isn’t it great?
Employee: It’s awesome. I love my company just because we have the freedom to wear anything we want to.
[Parallel Scene Ends]
Champu: Ok Sir. Thanks so much for your help Boss.
[Buddy disconnects the connection.]
Buddy: Kaisa chaman aadmi hai. I wonder how he cleared the HR interview. [Look towards Pooja Mehra, who is our HR]. I bet he must be handsome.
Scene 4 : First Day At Office : The Training Room
Manoj :: Atul Kumar
Debashish :: Anuvrat Singh
Chimpoo :: Sumeet Kataria
[It's the first day at FICO for Champu. He walks into the training room with all the chairs occupied. He searches for his name tag and finds it right in the front row. ]
Champu: Curse my starts! First Row!
[The instructor Manoj walks in.]
Manoj: I am Manoj and I’ll be taking a session on XML today.
[Monotonous, low volume, blah blah blah from Manoj].
Manoj: You can all take 5 minutes break now.
[Manoj leaves the room.]
Champu: Damn! I cannot sit here another minute. Chimpoo, I am sitting beside you in the last row.
[Champu drags his chair to the last row.]
Champu: Now this feels like home baby!
Chimpoo: Saala kya nautanki kar raha hai ye instructor. Oye Champu, let’s play NFS, network pe.
Champu: Sure, let me download it from torrent.
[After trying a few times, Champu calls up DD from the TSI.]
Champu: Hi, I am trying to download stuffs from torrent and it doesn’t seem to be working.
Debashish: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? i AM DEBASHISH AND I AM NOT THE GUY WHO MENDS YOUR COMPUTER! I AM A BUSY MAN, UNIT TESTING THIS CRAPPY PIECE OF CODE WRITTEN BY ANUVRAT. IF YOU DARE CALL ME AGAIN, I WILL HAVE YOU THROWN OUT OF THE OFFICE.
[Champu puts down the phone. Oops, wrong number.]
Chimpoo: Koi naa, Rapidshare jindabaad.
News Reporter: Poori office ko pareshaan karne ke baad, pahunche apne Champu Graduation party mein.
Scene 5 : FICO Graduation Party
Senior Director :: Anuvrat Singh
Singer :: Padmini Pasumarthi
[Background score : Kajra re, kajra re ...]
[Senior Director walks in.]
Senior Director: Hello friends. I would like to welcome all of you to our family …
[Chimpoo pukes.]
Senior Director: [Disgusted] Get this man out of here.
Champu: Abe kamine Itani kyun pee lii yaar.
Chimpoo: Are mat puch yar, Paro ka gam, Job ki khushi, aur free ki daaru … aur kya chahiye zindagi mein.
Champu: Abe kal savere ki soch, jab loose motions honge.
Chimpoo: You know what I have a Newton’s 4th law, Tujhe pata hai? Loose motions cannot be done in slow motion!
Scene 6 : Meeting Room
Manager :: Greeshma Olety
Singer :: Sumeet Kataria
News Reporter: To iss tarah Champu ne apani fresher party aur loose motions ko kiya enjoy, par bat yahi khatam nahi hoti, kyuki picture abhi baki hai mere dost, picture abhi bakki hai …
[A meeting is going on with Champu, his colleagues and his manager]
Manager: So everybody what the status of everyone.
Chimpoo: Ma’am I have written and working on the module assigned to me.
Champu: Ma’am wo ma’am wo….
Manager: Yes Champu whats your status.
Champu: Ma’am wo its not yet completed ma’am,
Manager: What the hell, why you haven’t completed your task, team is dependent on your task.
Champu: Sorry ma’am.
Manager: Sorry doesn’t make money Champu, work does. I want to talk personally to you. Meeting over guys, Champu stay back.
Manager: [Funda Session] Champu this is not the way you behave and work in office, its no more college, you should be more professional, you should take ownership of your work, Success is not getting a big job but it’s about performing best, always and recurring. You are young and dynamic person company have lot of expectations from you. So think about it, if you need help let me know.
[Manger left the meeting]
[Champu’s transformation to Chiarg]
Champu: What the hell am I doing, I’ve got talent ,I’ve got potential, I’ve knowledge. And FICO is providing me good opportunity . I need to comcentrate. I need to be more professional , I need to change, yes I will change..
[Background Score: Hota hai jab aadmi ko, apna gyan, kehlaya wo, "Chironji laal"]
News Reporter: Champu transform to a confident Chirag. He has now been assigned the task of meeting the clients and unveiling the latest product FICO Blaze Advisor v69.
Scene 6: Meri Shaadi Karwao
Amma :: Padmini Pasumarthi
[Champu, who now is Chirag, calls his family to tell about his success]
Chirag: Hi Mumma, I got spot award today, my manager is very much impressed with me, And I am doing great in life.
Amma: This is very great news beta ki you making us proud. We have a good news also for you.
Chirag: What is the good news amma.
Amma: Beta tumhari, Jaipur wali mausi ke devar ki delhi wali sali ki bahan wo Australia se kuch kuch khelkar India waapas ayi hai, wo Bangalore me hi ruki hai.Usake rishta tereliye aya hai. To mai no de deti hu, mu dikhayi ki rasam puri kar le.
Chirag: Name kya bataya amma.
Amama: Saniya
News Reporter: To dekha apane ki kaise ek bevkuf, bindas, aur lethargic college student “Champu” independent, confident, responsible Chirag bana FICO ne.Kaise bana wo ek looser se ek successful person.
Popularity: 14% [?]
