Dave Hitz on Engineering and Management

Just about the time when NetApp ranked first on Fortune's Best Companies to Work For:2009, I came across this video of Dave Hitz. In a short talk at Princeton, Dave talks about his experience from founding the company to being VP of Engineering.

Dave talks about his becoming a manager despite being involved in a technical capacity for more than a decade, and the rationale behind Dan Warmenhoven in choosing him for the job. Giving (sometimes humorous) examples of various clients, he talks about technological simplicity, company values and culture.

What I liked most was a quote about engineers. "The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says it is half empty. The engineer says that glass is twice as large as it needs to be to hold the fluid it contains." 

Full video here. 

The Cricketer Under Cover

The Fake IPL Player has been evoking a lot of interest. I have been seeing the rate at which he attracts comments, and I must admit, I have seen such frenzied hits on one site only during online contests like Klueless.

Part of the reason for his popularity is that he is in uncharted territory. Given the importance attached to this game in the country, and the way lobbies work their way through the system, any little detail leaked to the public will go a long way, polarising many in its wake. The players know this, and therefore what happens in and around the dressing room, is largely kept to themselves, rarely coming out from under the honey-coated, politically correct blanket. 

Take for example any development in the recent past - senior players not wanting to play under Dhoni, Dravid resigning as captain, the coaches who came and went, the Ganguly-Chappell emails - all exhibited signs of dissent and conflict of interests. Rather than being a cohesive unit, the team sought to be content to co-exist in an environment of mutual exclusivity. 

In that respect, Fake IPL Player (if he is a player), is blowing a very loud whistle.

Part of the reason is also that he gives a tiny window into the other life of these demi-Gods. A life which spans five-star hotels, uptown nightclubs and flashy discotheques around the world. A life where an inebriated star making small talk with a local chick suddenly brings him down from his lofty pedestal to something not very different from what you and me see or do. 

In their defence, tours abroad may be the only chance the stars get to let their guard down, especially coming from a land where all it takes is a single photograph for the media to proclaim a cricketer and a movie starlet as a couple. Still, you get the drift.

However, the biggest reason contributing to the player's popularity is that he is under cover. He is a mole. A double agent. No one knows who he is. He leaks their secrets. He gives words to the steely stares. The team management is determined to snuff him out. The owner is having sleepless nights (unless of course he has conjured this up, in which case we may have to doff our hats, all this muck and mudslinging notwithstanding). There have been attempts to ban internet, laptops etc in the hotels, but this guy manages to stay a step ahead, blogging via SMS etc.

Like the backbencher kid who cracks jokes while his headmaster berates him, he takes on the mighty cricket establishment and pokes fun at it. He mocks the system that tries to unsuccessfully stifle him. 

It is this in-your-face irreverence that the masses are cheering.

The Spotlight Series

Having been associated with it for some time now, I take pride in bringing Blogbharti's latest offering - the Spotlight Series - where guest writers muse on issues that are relevant today.

Go have a look, will you?

bewDon ka woh aDDa

You ask me where I was all these days? I tell you I was at the bar. You gawk?

So I was hopping here and there, bored and yawning, and I came across this cozy bar via Adi.

(This takes our score to 2-1 in his favour. How you ask? Like Adi carries my post on Mysore here - Adi 1 - Viky 0, Like I beat him for the GOLD on this post - 1-1)

I'm lucky to generally have some spare time in office, which I book under "Non-project Activity". Much of this is reading blogs, checking out gadget reviews, drawing up comparison sheets to help friends buy some goods, checking my account balance in the hope that some good samaritan may have transferred some money, reading trivia on sports or film stars on Wikipedia - the stuff. I always enjoy posts of Indian students and professionals living abroad - their life, the kind of things they come across, the slight fear of being alone in a distant, unfamiliar environment, the tingling excitement of explaining your native habits and culture - you know, the works. I keep coming back and read them, often discuss anecdotes of the scores of NRI blogs I read, but none were so captivating that I had to reschedule the other NPAs. After Thought Raker and Waiter Rant, this was one blog which beckoned me to keep coming back.

And I'm left with the same feeling which I had after Waiter Rant. It's like finishing a good book. Like one of my trainers said - I'm sad that you have never read Harry Potter, but I'm also happily jealous, because you can experience the joy of reading them for the first time, while I can't. When you finish lapping up all the archived stuff, you are glad, but there is this hunger for more. Hunger, which will not satiate at one post. Which is why I read the waiter once in four-five weeks, when there is enough on my plate. I thought I'd never find anything which would feed my hunger for short-storyesque prose like ThoughtRaker, but I found Waiter Rant. I thought the same about Waiter Rant, but found Sayeshaz.

Which prompted me to tweak Hariharan's ghazal and put it as my debut comment on her bar - "maikade band karein laakh zamane waale, shehar mein kam nahin blogon se pilane waale".

And the day after

Eighteen hours after the first bomb ripped through strategic points of the western line, which connects Churchgate to Virar, Mumbai has bounced back admirably. Schools, Colleges and Offices remain open, and people are keen to put the tragedy behind them and resume their routine.

Once again, the spirit of Mumbai triumphs over the tragedy, and like in the floods last year, people did not care or wait till the government machinery started rolling its wheels. One for all, and all for one, they showed the human face of Mumbai, televisions were flooded with images of people offering biscuits and water, volunteers were searching high and low for information which might help the persons next to them, citizens rallied around donating and appealing for others to donate blood, and for once, the media is not showing the gruesome tragedy, but the way the people overcame it.

In all tragedies, waiting is worse than knowing. Knowledge breaks the heart, so that it may begin to heal, but waiting rends the heart over and over again. And in order to counter this, Mumbai Help came up with a mindblowing idea. They set up this post, which served as a forum, and people all over posted their name and number as well as the name and number of the persons they wanted to contact. Mumbai Help contacted these persons as and when they could, and reverted to the next of kin who posted the messages. More than a hundred fears were laid to rest this way. They used all the means they could - telephones, cellphones, texting, and sometimes in person.

They have now set up a wiki for the same, and a train schedule as well.

Try as we might, we cannot fill the void left in the lives of those who lost their loved ones, but we pray for their souls to rest in peace. We wish the injured well, and hope they get back on their feet soon, and let the scars heal. Bravo!!! Mumbai Help and Thank you, you have contributed in ways more than one, to help Mumbai bounce back the way it did from the face of tragedy.

Update: Hospital-wise list of dead and injured people here.

MBA anyone?

An old post, but a good one.

Came across this checklist for MBA preparation. Do visit.
And yes, all the best.

Bangalored

Some of you may feel that an undying horse is being flogged again (borrowed the line from Magnolic) but nevertheless, an interesting conversation going on here.

That Was The Week That Was

For the long-ishness of the previous post, it is but justified that I take a long break.

Anyway, last Saturday saw Rupa flying to Ipswich, and Rakshith will be flying some time next week.

Had been to Mumbai to see Rupa off, and for what little time I was there, and for what little I saw of the city, I fell in love with it. The power it exudes, the pace at which it moves...makes me shake my head in awe. Not that I dislike Pune, but Mumbai is Mumbai. Pune is incomparable. Its like comparing Mysore to Bangalore. One is a cultural stronghold, the other is the moolah-machine.

More on that in another post. Coming back home, we sacked our maid, and got a new one in her place. The old maid's lethargy had made us so bluntly tolerant, that now, the new one's routine work seems like a luxury.

And since afternoon, I am happy, because work-wise, there is nothing for me to finish before proceeding on leave. So all I did for the later half of the day was read her. I came across the link via desipundit, and I am not getting enough. Do read her stories. They are short, sweet, and leave you with your head tilted, saying "Awww".

And I am a part of Pune Bloggers now.

Jammy's April Fool Prank

Ouchmytoe is back on its heels, or rather, toes again.

Jammy had put up a prank on April Fools Day, he blocked his own blog site, giving his readers a big shock. Not this one, of course...

He had "replaced Ouchmytoe blog's code with that of Rediffblogs. This was done after I had saved Ouchmytoe's code (both in "my documents" and in the Gmail server). Now my Blog looked like Rediffblog home. But there was something missing "how would I know who got fooled and who didnt" I definitely had to bring in a feature that would allow visitors to leave comments - documented proof that the prank had worked. The presence of this feature wouldn't have worked by itself. I needed to build a story around why I could have been blocked. Which is why I left the first comment - This is such a flimsy reason to block my site. I didn't agree to write for you because you don't pay well...and that was it. I didn't realize you would go to the extent of blocking my site! This is the heights...."

But he left too many loose ends...first of all, he gave everyone a warning two days beforehand that he was planning some prank. And on D-Day, instead of getting redirected to Rediff page, the browser was still showing the ouchmytoe address, and thirdly he had left his hit counter in a remote corner of the page, visible only when scrolled down.

Nevertheless, the prank was a good one, going by the number of horrified comments "You should have shifted to blogspot when you had the time","This is eerie" and all, it had hit the bull's eye.

Full Circle

I guess this is what you call coming around a full circle.

Some time in the past, I had created an account in Orkut. I even added a few friends, and scrapped here and there, to get a hang of it. But then I realised, it was getting painstakingly difficult to reach out to everyone at once, I have had to scrap the same things in quite a few scrapbooks...

Moreover, firewalls blocked Orkut, and I switched to blogs. When a very close friend visited me recently, she said all our school friends could be reached through Orkut, and said she had added my name, but rarely saw me operational on Orkut.

That did it. Now I want to be on Orkut, but can't. That's because I forgot my username. Now I am searching high and low for my old username, but I am not finding it. Even Orkut is not helping me out :((

Anyway, now that the firewalls have been relaxed, I have created a new profile on Orkut and all you people out there on Orkut, add the newer profile...there are two profiles, don't get confused, both are ME only.

Also, I created a new blog on blogspot, for my literary side. Named Starlit Nights, this blog will carry my poems, and the little bit of fiction I have managed to write. The link is http://undertheshiningstars.blogspot.com.

Adios

Pride or Shame

March 13 will be a landmark day for the Indian armed forces. For the first time in its history, a lady officer will command the Passing Out Parade at Armed Forces Medical College here. 34-year-old Wahida Prizm from Jammu & Kashmir is the daughter of a teacher in Rajouri who was gunned down by militants in 2001. Born in a middle-class family at village Thanna Mandi on March 11, 1972, she was commissioned into the Indian Navy on November 10, 1997, after passing her MBBS from Jammu Medical College. Their saga of valour does not end there, in fact, it runs in the family. Her husband Major M F F Khan is a former short-service commission officer, and her sister is an inspector with the J&K police force. Read the full story here.

The double murder of a lawyer Anuratha Mahajan, and her mother Swarana Mahajan, who was also a lawyer, has once again triggered debate on Delhi being a safe city for single women. Swarana was a widow, while Anuratha had separated from her husband, and both women were living together in the flat in which they were murdered. The commercial capital Mumbai too saw the rape of a 52 year old woman, on the pretext of offering her a lift.

Is it just a coincidence that whenever we have reason to hold our head high in pride, an equally or more disastrous act weighs it down in shame.