Silicon Valley Diary

Welcoming my good friend Suvid Nadkarni to the blogging world. Do visit Suvid's blog
Straight from the heart for some thought provoking posts.

Also this weekend I took part in the Vibha 10k Run. It was an event to help raise money for underprivileged children in India. Visit their website here.

Pay It Forward



I cried today. Movies rarely bring tears to my eyes. But luckily for me, I watched a masterpiece that evoked such an emotion in me. "Pay it forward" is a movie about a class assignment that social studies teacher Eugene Simonet (played by Kevin Spacey) sets his students. Mr Simonet asks his 11-year old students to come up with an idea to change the world. Quite a daunting demand to make of his 6th grade class, isn't it? What's even more interesting is that one of his students actually manages to come up with a revolutionary idea.

While some people decide to use the power of exponentiation to make money, Trevor McKinney (played by Haley Joel Osmont) comes up with a different pyramid scheme to make the world a better place. May be I was not blessed with such brilliant mathematics teachers when I was 11, but the whole concept itself sounds too extraordinary for a child to invent. Trevor decides to help three people with some serious problem in their lives. The three people in turn should now play good samaritan to 3 more people. The rule is that you don't expect anything in return.

Now I admit the movie is predictable in parts and is really dark in others. Some others might find the whole idea too quixotic, but do give this movie a try. I saw it on TBS on a Saturday afternoon, so they'll likely show it again sometime. I feel motivated to read other books written by Catherine Ryan Hyde. This story does have a Paulo Coehlo-sque touch to it. Kevin Spacey, Haley Joel Osmont and Helen Hunt do a fine job with their acting too. So now because you heard of this movie from me, you have to pay it forward and tell 3 more people about it. Carpe Diem!

Book Review: Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track



Thanks to the Santa Clara City Library, I read the latest book about Richard Feynman no sooner than I heard about it. The book is a collection of letters from/to Richard Feynman compiled by Michelle Feynman. I read a lot of the letters from Feynmans MIT, Princeton and Los Alamos days. Michelle also talks about her father in the prologue and his absent-mindedness.

His love letters to Arlene reveal a side of Richard that's hard to imagine in the other books. Some of the missives to his mother trying to explain the reasons for marrying Arlene, dying from tuberculosis, are also included. The most moving letter is the one Richard Feynman writes to his dead wife. It is probably the saddest letter I have read.

Another surprising thing I noted was the number of Indian students who wrote to Richard Feynman. I counted around 10 letters in a very quick scan. The Feynman Lectures in Physics seem to have made an impact on the lives of students the world over.

Although email has improved the speed of communication across the globe, somehow there is a bigger loss hidden behind this agility. Seems to me email isn't as conducive for collection/storage. I remember losing atleast two email addresses in the past. One hotmail address that I never accessed for about 5 years now and the wisc.edu addresses which I lost on leaving UW. Also I tend to delete email right away on most occassions, to avoid clutter. Arguably I haven't recieved any email worth cherishing in the past many years. I think if one sees somebody's handwriting, it makes you want to keep communication more than reading Times New Roman's creations.

Photo-Blog

Found this link on Hob's blog.
http://test.weblogs.us/

Also while you're at it, you might wanna look at photos I took here.
http://community.webshots.com/user/saketjamkar

I don't take pictures half as well as the guy above.

Don't I know you from somewhere??!!

"Hey! Don't I know you from somewhere? Aren't you from Bombay?" an over-excited voice says behind me at the bookstore. I turn back and look at an Indian guy I've never seen before and never really want to see again either. "Well actually I'm from Poona...", I say. The other guy goes "Oh okay... you know you look exactly like this friend of mine from Bombay called Rajeev. What's your name?" I am all befuddled and go "Saket". "You're not going to believe this I have this friend called Saket who works at Intel. Where do you work?"....

The conversation goes on and the stranger tries to make random connections with you, trying to rouse a feeling of kinship in your heart. Another of his friends comes around and then both keep talkng about things. People ask you a lot of questions. If you're naive you might end up thinking, "What nice people, and such a small world! There were so many things I had in common with them." Ofcourse if you kind of have an inkling what this could be about, you just bolt and run away from anyone super-friendly.

Amway, Quickstar,... the names change but the fundamental concept remains the same. Some really smart guy who understands human psychology uses certain human weaknesses to make money. People get fooled for a while and things work fine. Each person who gets duped, tries just enough to recover the money they spent on becoming a franchisee. Occasionally some people try much harder and take up fleecing gullible people as a profession.

This oft-repeated ploy has been tried on me at every big store I visit. IKEA, Borders and many others. I am totally sickened by these non-Egyptians trying to make a pyramid. Money as an end in itself is the worst motivation a human being can have. Luckily I haven't been dumb enough not to fall for this stupidity in the past and hope to keep it that way in the future.

Bombay Rains

Mumbai(Bombay) lashed by rains. Found an image from NASA that shows the rate of precipitation. Looks scary doesn't it?

Check this webpage from NASA Tropical Rain Measuring Mission.