Just heard on the news about a free gas card promotion that was sponsored by Verizon Yellow Pages at 25 locations in the US. The first 200 cars to line up at each of these locations received a free $40 gas card today.
People started lining up at around 10 PM last night to be able to receive the free gas money. In an age where people camp out for hours to get hold of a gaming console, why I am not surprised?
I have nothing but praise for Google’s Summer of Code initiative. This has been going on for a few years now. Basically, Google supports various open source projects by giving them a miniscule financial assistance, but paid developers for about two months in the summer. Everyone benefits. The mentors get project recognition and talent; the students get a well paid ($4500 currently) summer job and Google’s seal of approval for their skills.
I wish something like this existed when I was a financially struggling graduate student at a time when the economy was near its worst in the not-so-distant past. That would have saved me from slaving for unappreciative educators in the university system who take pride in misguiding their students with fake promises of an assistantship in the next semester. I could have used those summers, instead, to do what I love doing – write code, and get paid doing it.
Check out this year’s wonderful projects at Google Code.
3 days on site with a company client, and I get asked this question. Not to be taken lightly, yet, with no reason to even consider the offer, seeing that I am happy with my current employment situation, I jokingly asked, ‘Sure, are you willing to offer me twice my current salary?’. The Director asks me about my current salary, but since I am not really even negotiating, I shoot back with ‘How about start with 1000x my current billing rate per year?’. At this point, they realize that I am not an IT consultant for no reason (for novices, the industry standard is paying an employee 1000x their current hourly rate a year; so if someone is billed at $100 an hour, they should be paid $100k a year).
I love my job.
In times when Indians take amazing pride in giving up their culture and values, I find it amazing that most people I meet in DC are heavily influenced by both Bollywood as well as its cuisine. Nearly everyone I meet (through various meetups, random public transportation encounters, etc.) is keen to learn more about at least Indian cuisine. In fact, a Japanese person I met at a meetup.com outing went so far as to say that Bollywood movies were the next American craze, after Japanese Anime.
Even on yelp.com, I regularly see events at Indian restuarants/movies, and seldom even a cooking class.
I, personally, just love Indian food, and even though I don’t cook, I eat it at least once every two days. No other cuisine offers such a deep and varied assortment of flavors in a meal.
अभी अभी पता चला कि OSX में हिन्दी में लिखना कितना अासान है। यह पूरी एन्ट्री मेरे साधारण कीबोर्ड के द्वारा लिखी गयी है।
इतना अासान होगा कभी सोचा न था!
– सौरभ
I drive a fair amount for leisure and recreation. In fact, most of the miles on my car are from driving from one state to another, or just cruising on the highway. Now, I might not be the best driver in the world, but I try my best to be considerate and adhering towards the written and unwritten rules of highway driving. Every so often, I have to share the highway with drivers who have no business driving. Some of my pet peeves:
1. Driving in the fastest lane at 5 or more mph below the speed limit, and not even realizing that they are holding up the entire traffic flow.
2. Carelessly changing lanes to get on the slower lane just because a trailer truck had to get on the faster lane to overtake someone slow. A truck is HUGE, and needs more length to change lanes. Stop being impatient and let the truck driver move back to the slower lane. If people keep passing him/her on the right, the truck would forever remain on the faster lane. Use common sense.
3. Changing lanes without using an indicator. You’re not slick because you think you got away without using an indicator. You’re an asshole, and never really learned anything from your driving test – always use your indicators.
4. Tailgating. Do it some more when I am driving at 70mph, and I wouldn’t think twice about hitting the brakes just to give you a heart attack. Asshole.
5. Going more than 15 mph over the speed limit. You lack experience, and your car deserves a better driver.
6. Driving with the high beams on when behind me.
7. Not knowing highway merging etiquette. If you’re going fast, don’t slow down to a crawl just to give the merging car a whole minute to merge. Only brake if you can’t change lanes safely, and/or the merging car is almost out of road.
8. Matching speed with the faster lane when driving in the slower lane, just so that everyone behind them is held up until this person gets some common sense.
I think that is all.
…is the enormous amount of freedom for creativity. I am currently somewhat involved with a third startup since I graduated from school, and every time I get together with other contributors, it reminds me of how ideas and personal conviction are the keys to doing great things.
This startup is definitely going to be big!
Just checked out the Forbes Billionaires list, and 4 out of the top 10 are Indian. Their names:
1. Lakshmi Mittal
2. Mukesh Ambani
3. Anil Ambani
4. KP Singh
Read the list and the article here.
This was the tagline at the bottom of the screen as I was watching CNN. The story was about how middle class people are unable to pay their home mortgages any longer because they were duped by subprime lenders who promised them an affordable home.
Now, this story featured a ‘middle-class’ woman who earned about $43k a year, bought a $710,000 home, and her monthly payments are $7k a month. I am sure I am not the only person who sees the absurdity of the situation. If you buy a $700k home on that salary, you’re not only middle class, but also retarded.
Good thing the Government is using taxpayer money to bail these people out of their housing woes.
The year 2008 is here, finally. Even though a lot of significant things happened in 2007, here’s how I would remember it:
1. India got her first female President.
2. Television got some really great new shows.
3. The US still tried to force-feed its way of life and governance to countries worldwide, only at the cost of national pride, credibility, and the economy.
4. Lots of school shootings, including one in India.
5. The resurgence of Apple Inc. as a dominant force in the computing industry.
6. The year of the iPhone. (This needed special mention)
7. India got some leeway from the insurgency efforts of neighboring Pakistan, who was busy trying to clean its own mess.
8. The job market actually improved a lot.
9. USCIS messed up and people got their GCs in record time for a month.
10. The year it started being really cool to be an Indian.
And then:
1. The year I changed my attitude towards people and ideas.
2. The year I realized I could do anything I wanted.
3. The year that actually made me a whole lot wiser.
4. The year I got rid of the mildew on my friends list.
5. The year I added a tame 19,000 miles to my car’s odometer.
I am sure there’s more I could think of, but this is all my sleep-deprived-shindig-stricken mind could come up with this early Tuesday morning.
Have a Wonderful New Year ’08 !