Too Comfortable
Posted on: January 20, 2013
For the uninitiated l moved to Microsoft redmond about an year ago. To be honest I have been very happy till now. Coming from a middle class family with debts I have always been short on money. The new found economic freedom was enticing and enchanting. I have enjoyed this as much I can in past one year this includes partying, Splurge shopping on clothes and random gadgets , arguably the best Car on the block, sateen Sheets and So on. But now I realize the Side effect of this lifestyle. I have no incentive to grow, nothing. also this comfort seemed to have created a black cloud over my soul. I feel dirty, corrupted. Running with no vision. No foresight, a blind man This is not me. Cheating myself for having no goals and vision. I must get over it. I Must
so these are the changes I am making to make myself humble again
1. Sleep on ground for al least two days a week.
2. No eating once a week. To feel the hunger. Also no eating in expensive places and no desserts More then once a week.
3. No shopping unless its really required.
4. Read about great people or cleansing literature daily.. So You don’t lose vision of what’s important in life.
S. Make an habit of challenging Yourself in Life. Always Challenge Yourself.
I any of you has faced Similar problems do let me know. Also let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas to and to list.
adieu.
A simple but useful Coding tip
Posted on: November 10, 2009
I discovered this while doing CR for a team mate and now I use it almost always. Though it might not be new for the “pro’s” 😛 but I like it so here it is in the form of a advertisement 😉
Do u always insert a lot of print statements in your code , which might not be useful output ?
Do u use a lot of print statements while debugging ?
Do u find yourself commenting/deleting those printfs after the code is done and reading them when required again ?
Fear no more enjoy the new -debug option !!!
All u need to do is to check for -debug in the command line options and if its there u print all your print statements (use if(debug){} ) else u don’t 😀 😀 😀 nice ain’t it 😉
adieu
In my 6 months in Microsoft (3 as intern and 3+ as an sde) I have worked on two projects which were developed by me only from scratch. one was a stand alone tool and another is a feature for addition. The most prominent learning I take back from these two projects is the importance of designing and planning. I always underestimated planning and designing (P&D henceforth) but now I know there worth. Ideally I think one should spend about 70%+ time in P&D , it makes the actual task of coding so easy and beside you are assured of a better quality product which meets all the norms. Few things which one must take care of while P&D:
1.) Customer feedback (give prototypes)
2.) Accommodate room for future additions.
3.) Always know that specs can change at the last instant 😛
4.) Research your project well , what r u doing? what is it supposed to do ? Is it necessary ? Can there be a better/easier method ? Is it worth doing it? Are the changes scalable or might cause regression ? ask and find out all these questions.
I will explain from experience. The feature I am supposed to make should work for all supported languages in xp, (24 precisely ). So I had to do a lot of bookkeeping and stuff and it was a pain in a!@ to do that. Finally when I am done and I sent the code for Cr. I realized that the tool in which I am adding a feature spawns different process for each language, so I didn’t need to do all the bookkeeping 😦 :'(. So basically now I will cut short the code which I wrote so painstakingly ( heartache ouch, I re factored that code thrice to make sure its good). So I hope everybody understands the importance of P&D
adieu
Five new categories
Posted on: October 29, 2009
- In: Books | comics | Computer Science | computers(hardware) | Diary | Microsoft
- 2 Comments
It has been a long time since I last posted but then I never intended to be regular blogger, a post once in every 2-3 months kept me happy until now, things have changed and I have decided to blog regularly, reason:
1.) It can be used to track my progress.
hence I have added five new categories
Computer Science: Well I was never into computer science as such but I guess there is no escape (at least I don’t any in short term ) and besides I seem to have developed a slight liking to it. Hence the new category.)
Microsoft: Last three months were my first in a corporate environment and I feel like I am still not ready :P, anyhow I have learned a few things in these days and I will like to make a note of them. This might overlap a lot with computer science but will contain information on how to work in such an environment.
Books: Review of books I read, I forget very easily so a good review or summary will help.
Computers(hardware): I am a bit of computers hardware enthusiast and I thought will share if I found anything interesting.
Comics: Links to my fav comic strips across the web 😀
Will post soon in each category.
My Experience with Microsoft.
Posted on: July 6, 2009
- In: Diary
- 4 Comments
Microsoft boooked me a flight ticket on kingfisher as a part of teh relocation programme. I reached the delhi airport about 2 hours before the flight. ( I have heard that its a place full of beauty and wished to enjoy the same to the max). For the first time in my life the rumours fell short of the reality. I mean the place ( specially teh kingfisher lounge was full of stunning beauties ;). After enjoying the ‘view’ 😛 for about 2 hours I boarded the plane, a fair looking air hostess with a beautiful smile caught my attention. Since I was on the emergency seat she explained me how to operate the same in case of emergency, and being a curious guy I had a hell lot of questions (pun intented). I tried flirting with her and it felt like she is responding, but then I also thought she might be just being nice (its a part of her job afterall ). While I was still unsure about the same the flight took off. I fideled around with the telivision screen for some time ( the in flight entertainment system). Watched “just for laughs” and “CC2C” for sometime while eating breakfast. Finally I decided to listen to in flight radio and started peeking out the window, till now it the vision was not clear and all I could see was a whitish smoke but just now the most beautiful painting I ever saw was spread in front of me.
We were flying above clouds at a height of abt 11000 feet. Somehow sipping coffee and listening to ‘Stairway to heaven” took my mind completly of the air hostess and I decided to focus outside. There was clear blue sky above me, the roundness of earth seemed obvious form such height. Below me was a beautiful carpet of clouds, they were not the same clouds as we see from the ground, they didn’t seem fluffy but rather very solid, like made of white concrete and they were so thick that it was impoosible to see earth. It was beautiful beyond words. It was like each cloud was telling a story, his own saga. There were demons and gods in there, fighting with the alliance of animals and men to gain dominance in this magical kingdom. There were sorceresses waving a slow magic upon me and I was left enachanted, unable to blink an eyelid.
Two hours passed by in a jiffy ( law of relativity 😛 ). Even more beautiful was the landing. While above the clouds the plane tilted and started approaching the clouds slowly. the closer I got the fluffier got the clouds. Till I was in a white mist and then I saw after what seemed like an eternity beautiful mother earth. The view was similar to how it is in google earth. Houses looked like matchboxes slowely and steadily the plane took some turns in air and then starting decsecending steepily. A few more minutes and my first flight ended with a ” c ya” from that ‘airhostess’.
I collected my luggage and came out to find a driver waiting in the reception witha placard with the words “Ojasvi Rajpal” on it. The kingfisher jingle “fly into the good times” rang into my ears
to be cotinnued…
adieu
P.S.
This too will pass
Must learn
Posted on: April 29, 2009
- In: Diary
- Leave a Comment
1.) Must learn to question . Learn how to ask good questions
2.) Am I too blinded by my faith in science. Is that blinding too ? ref My response to Anthwal’s presentation, Anger at dr. deb’s take on evolution.
Must learn to question and must learn to question the very school of thought I am following.
Must learn must grow 😀
May God help me 🙂
Carpe Diem
Posted on: April 27, 2009
A few days back, I grew a bit nostalgic and started thinking about my 4 years here in IIIT. A little thinking made me feel like my B.tech. was a complete failure. Specifically cause I think I haven’t grown in any aspect of my life in past four years, except I guess I understand people better now and I am emotionally more stable. Analysis and logical thinking has been my forte over the years, applying the same to this situation revealed the mistake. For some reasons ( known and understood 😛 ) I stopped living when I came here. I used to be a person who lived every moment , its not that I don’t now but I stopped seizing the day. I stopped and it feels like it has been ages, and like all stationery things I started to stink. So what do I learn from all this. I learn one thing from last 4 years and that is Carpe Diem: seize the day. I promise myself that I will Carpe Diem form this day onwards. I will:
1.) Argue and discuss when I think somebody is being stupid.
2.) Will speak out my mind , when I feel like.
3.) Will do what I wanna do and not live in resignation ever again.
( will add to the list when if I notice myself doing something against the spirit of Carpe Diem)
Last but not the least.
I hereby initiate the dead poet’s society. ( yes yes the idea if taken from the movie ). Will tag people inviting them to join the dead poet’s society and will have a meeting before I leave campus.
” I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived … I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
P.S.
1.) A part of me died 4 years back. Its time to raise it again, better, stronger. Hope I can. Hope I can live deep again. 🙂
Good Times
Posted on: April 14, 2009
It all started with chatty forcing me to buy a gift for my birthday ( he didn’t knew my shirt size so had to ask :P). I in turned convinced him that we buy 4 shirts one for each of us (him, me , jhotu and khanna). We set out on Sat ( 11th April ) at abt 6.30 (we were late due to unexpected dbms tute). Khanna and jhotu couldn’t join the bandwagon :(, though on the bright side golu jumped in at the last moment. We entered Koutons about half an hour later. It was easy for me a pick a shirt, found one which I loved from the first moment, but I wished for a different tie. Finally was able to convince the shopkeeper to change it for me ( good soul 😀 ). Golu picked up a cargo for him, but what we didn’t knew was how difficult it is to choose clothes for chatty. The smallest shirt in Man’s section was too big for him, hence moved on to kids section ( thanks to his 28 waist and he still thinks he is getting fat 😀 😛 ). Found a medium sized shirt but it was not a “perfect fit ” specially around the waist. Choose a “small” shirt but it was too small at parts 😉 (thanks to his awesome bench press routine). Finally went with the medium shirt. Ate at Macd ( again 😐 ) and came back.
Did BC in chatty’s room till It was about 2.30 Am in the morning and then jhotu said he is hungry. Now me and chatty are ever hungry kinda people. ( ate 13 maggi packs among us last night was great fun :D).
Decided to go to a midnight buffet, goggled for buffets but all of them closed before 3 ( which was the approx. time by then ). Searched for maggi fanatically but could only find about 3 packs ( no good ). Buzzed Nihar in desperation and pop came the reply ” me too dying from hunger “. Great, we don’t get any food but there is an addition to the list of hungry 😦 :X. Asked dandu if he knew any place which is open this time, he in turn told us to contact mathur and that he is hungry too :O.. WTF!!. Finally after about half and hour of phone calls we get address of a place in Mehndipatnam which serves biryani all night :D. But how to get out of the campus? Decided that one of us will faint illness and would tell the guard that going out for medicine :P. Chatty and Nihar were chosen for the act and they returned with hot sizzling biryani at about 4.15 AM. Decided to climb up to the top of construction site in front of library and ate biryani there ( 5 of us , me , chatty , khanna , nihar , jhotu). Hot biryani , great company and cool breeze .. AWESOME. Watched sunrise from there and chatted till about 6.30. Came down and then went out for tea. By then we had decided to have a “Super Sunday” :P. After lot of planning we decided to sleep in the noon hours ( chatty and dhi studied though ) and leave for Osmania Sagar in the eve at abt 5.00 :D. Since Nihar got up early and went out :X couldn’t make sandwiches as planned. Compensated fot it by buy buying samosas , kachories , chips and coke. The ride till osman and back is one hell of a story which I will tell at a later time. ( included me , dhi , khanna , chatty , nihar and jhotu).
The day ended with birthday bums , dozens of phone calls and cake smeared all over my head. Had great fun the following eve with another birthday celebration :D.
thank you Chatty, Dhi for everything and the 23 cards.
thank you Patro for the awesome mirror 🙂
thank you everybody for the gifts and the cake 😀
thank you nihar for the awesome biryani and “super sunday”.
thank you pankaj for the cake.
thank you sachin for the hug that ruined your T :).
thank you everybody for the fun filled time.
thank you pooja for calling half an hour in advance and not putting down the phone till it
was 12.00 😉 ( was a bit inconvenient though :P,thank God had two phones 😀 )
no thanks for the bums ( it still hurts :X)
PS
1.) This too will pass.
2.) Check out the orkut album for the pictures.
3.) Only a few more days to go 😦
4.) will like to end this awesome week by eating at our fav eating joint “Barbecue Nation”. Hope things work out 😀
Hell yeah !!
Posted on: March 2, 2009
Jogged fro IIIT main till lingumpally railway station and about half the way while coming back ( walked the rest.)
one side approx 6 kms.
forward journey: 37 min ( two stops first 25 sec , second abt 10 sec)
coming back: 60 min
Happy 🙂
Plagrisim !!!
Posted on: February 17, 2009
Was browsing through the profiles of recent visitors of my orkut profile and I came across this
..
http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Profile.aspx?uid=18209567447502549078
This guy copied one of my poems Me as his “about me” by his own name !!. Ewwe I am so angry.
I scrapped the guy hope he mentions the origin correctly or change his about me
An Untold Saga 
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