acatnamedtofu

[acatnamedtofu]

February, 2017

[acatnamedtofu]

Good to see self-actualization needs on the very top. Usually the pyramid ends with esteem / luxury needs for most.

Christmas List 2016

[acatnamedtofu]

Target reached!

[acatnamedtofu]

Two ways of playing the stock market

[acatnamedtofu]

9th August, 2016

Lets say you are in charge of a group within a company that is interested in doing some predictive analysis. They want to predict with reasonable accuracy a key parameter. Given all the talks about AI and the advances in this field, any person not familiar with the matter would assume, it is possible. What are some companies / start ups that provide this service. 

Let me be clear about what specific services I am looking for. 

1. Understand your motivations for requiring predictions.

2. Define expectations: Explain what is possible, to what extent is it accurate and what are some limitations

3. Infrastructure assessment: What are some tools and skills that will be needed. Investments that would need to be made

4. Timeline: How long does it take to come up with an answer.

5. Evolution: How robust is this solution and whether it can be expanded if it works fine. 

Other questions of interest are what is their pricing in general? Comparable to standard IT firms or do they charge more for this service. What is the business model they operate on (Is it just people, Is it a combination of business intelligence tools  and people etc. 

[acatnamedtofu]

1st August, 2016

1. Have an opinion: I started watching Newsroom yesterday. One thing that stood out that I should remember is the importance of having an opinion. In my job, as much as anywhere else, you only add value when you feel strongly about something and work towards making it happen.

When you spend time thinking, think about things that bother you.  

2. Physical Health: The new diet seems to be going great. I haven’t felt this light and fit in a while. I gave in to temptation and ate something very unhealthy in the morning but if I keep my calories in check, I hope my body forgives me. 

Overall, by the weekend, I would like to see my body in the 80 kg category again. 

3. Mental Health: I feel calm in general, though the strain of not having Toral around hurts like an ever existing pain that just will not go away. Working hard to keep my anger in check. (Did you get angry last week - No)

4. Work:  It is shaping out to be an interesting week. I am going to be monitoring progress on three separate work streams, and I would like to see myself accomplishing these well.

Personally, by the end of the week, 

I would like to have the dashboard running to some extent.

I would like to have a clear understanding of how the network model works

Be ready for the Monday meeting for BDT next week, that would require making some slides. 

5. Things to definitely do this week: Focus this week is on getting stuff for Tofu (Monday), Establishing discipline in house (Ongoing), communicating well with Toral, make her feel loved (Getting flowers), Getting my license renewed, Filing the paperwork for the passport, Hitting 5 day active work-week and resuming cooking at home. 

Also very important, Book two appointments - 1 with psychiatrist, 1 for regular screening. 

Hope its a good week ahead. 

[acatnamedtofu]

25th July, 2016

Target 1 - Weight Loss - 4 Months timeframe

My calculated Basal Metabolic rate says I need 2943 calories per day. This is based on the assumption that I work out at least 3 - 5 times a week. I am setting a target to reach a weight of 75kg or 165 pounds from my current weight of 83kg in 4 months around Thanksgiving. This translates to a loss of 18 pounds in 4 months. This is not very ambitious and something that can be tracked easily. 

What do I need to do for this

1. Data recording - Myfitnesspal app tells me I need to restrict my daily calorie intake to 1960 calories to be able to reach this goal. So the first thing I need to make sure is I enter my daily food intake in whatever form I can. It is not a very hard thing to do, but given my past experience, I tend to slack off after a week of diligent data entry. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen this time. 

I also need to track my weight periodically. Currently I think weekly check in is a good idea. 

2. Alcohol intake - If you plan to have any alcohol, make sure you restrict other portions of calorie intake during that day. Even a glass of wine / cocktail is at least 300 calories, that need to be cut off from elsewhere

3. Exercise - Try to work out 4 days a week at the very least. This includes 2 days over the weekend. Keep the exercises simple, 1 hour affairs. with maybe 15 minutes of cardio thrown in. 

4. Workout focus - The focus is on getting lean more than getting muscular. Hence the workout should be centered on abs, biceps and back rather than chest, shoulders and arms. 

5. Meals - Now we are beginning to get into ambitious goals territory but it would be very helpful to initiate the day with a smoothie. Preferably protein smoothie to give that metabolism boost. 

Something else that can be included on a regular basis in the diet is some kind of energy bar during late afternoon to make sure you don’t go extended interval without eating anything. 

6. Sleep - 42 hours of sleep in a week. Simple. Make it happen. 

Hopefully this thing works out. It would be good to be lean and fresh again. 

[acatnamedtofu]

15th July, 2016

Driving License:

Managed to go to DPS to renew my license. Though it did not work out. Still not sure what the problem was.

1. Could be the passport - seeing that it expires in a couple of weeks

2. Recently obtained H1B. Maybe the details are not updated at Immigration.

Either case have to wait for a couple of weeks for a letter from DHS to receive a decision on license renewal.

Note to self for future - Anything up for renewal in the future. Get it sorted out months before.

Upcoming renewals -

1. Passport

2. Apartment Lease

3. Insurance Policy

Cat Plans

If I get a cat, I will name him / her Tofu!

[acatnamedtofu]

13th July 2016

Dashboards

1. Do not wait for them to tell you what they need. Everybody will ask for something different. Instead show them what is useful and how to use the tool you have built for them

2. Structure it simply. Keep the views consistent and simple. For e.g. Global -> Country -> Asset etc. 

[acatnamedtofu]

Quora : What is the most awesome way to die

[My Answer]

"And then he [Ignotus Peverell] greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, as equals, they departed this life."—Tale of the Three Brothers, The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Well there can be nothing awesome in death, can there? Because satisified as much as you might be, living more is always better right. But what can be awesome is if you do not give Death the satisfaction that It has stopped you short. What is awesome is if you die smiling, feeling the pain, relishing in the glory of the past battles, the conquered difficulties lying behind you, saluting you! Everyone thought these obstacles to be unconquerable, They WERE unconquerable, created to be so and yet you lie in death's lap, laughing at how little those people knew. I would pick two deaths from history that come close to this level of awesomeness. They don't come more inspiring than these. First is of Abhimanyu, Son of Arjun from the battle of Mahabharat A 16 year old, dying in an epic battle towering well above the giants who butchered him. He might have been pierced by over a 1000 arrows and yet I can  only imagine the joy he might have felt as he lay on the battlefield facing death, smiling at these so called stalwarts, who had to join together to beat this 'boy'. Everyone had said, "Only Arjun can penetrate the Chakravyuh" "You just cannot fight the likes of Karna, Dronachary & Duryodhan" and yet there lay this "boy" having famously slaughtered 1 Akshauhini of an army, defeated each of the above mentioned stellar warriors separately and then proceeded to mock them as he faced their arrows with just the wheel of his chariot. [A single  Akshauhini consisted of  21,870 chariots, 21,870 elephants; 65,610  cavalry and 109,350 infantry - Akshauhini]

Expectations can be sky high when you are the son of Arjun, but to not only exceed those expectations but rather have a day in the 18 day epic war dedicated to you, you can definitely afford to smile at death even if you are bidding adieu to this world after just 16 years. The other death which is as epic if not more, is that of Spartacus, The Roman "Slave" leader, Third Servile War The rebellion threatened the Roman Senate. Now while the Romans had their fare share of enemies, The last set of people they would have had a reason to be afraid from were their own slaves right? Well as history has shown, Spartacus and his rag tag band of fierce gladiators not only managed to break free of their masters, but also exponentially grew their numbers from 70 to 70,000. While it is difficult just hiding these large bunch of people from their masters who are actively pursuing them, being able to lead this group into a fighting force capable of defeating two Roman praetors and capturing cities is outrightly awesome.

  I have never felt this way before, I really treasure my life, but sometime while watching Spartacus, the TV show, I began to feel that it does not even matter now if any of these men even die. I mean, they were just slaves, and look at how they rose to become Gods. Staring at death everyday in the face for 2 full years, and yet being able to move something as mighty as Rome, Death becomes just another event.

The most awesome way to die would be to die fighting for an idea I initiated. With the power to effect and change generations. Killed by the same forces this idea goes against. Killed after I have made the idea effective. Killed after the seed has matured into a tree. Because then I shall die knowing that the only part of me they can kill is this body, something very insignificant.

[acatnamedtofu]

Consulting (or NOT !) in a Service Organization

My organization touts itself as a mobile consultancy. It helps large public and private enterprises embrace the 'Mobility' challenge. Come on, It isn't easy for large main frame and old legacy system users to understand the finer nuances of deploying solutions for huge workforces on something so tiny as a mobile device. It comes with its own problems of security (Yes everyone loses mobile phones), form factors ( I have lost count of the various sizes of screens smart phones are offering), weak computing power and lightweight databases. Add to that the ever changing mobile scenarios and organizations have their hands full trying to solve the mobility puzzle. That's where my good organization comes into the picture.

Now we have this government organization, lets call it ORG X. It wanted to jump on to the mobile bandwagon and quickly employed the services of a small setup of mobile developers (can be called a startup) and rolled out an iOS and Android application in no time. It did not even cost them as much as it would have had they employed an organization as ours. We belong to the expensive category as we come with all the ISO certifications and the CMM certifications and what not.

Fast forward 2 months, The application on the app store starts getting really negative reviews and there are even reports of application crash and slow performance. The very app which was designed to generate revenues by attracting more people is starting to shoo them away. Having paid the startup guys, ORG X is now stuck with a sucky application and only one way out. Consult the experienced people (Read 'US') and fix the bugs.

Our Engineers look at the existing code, analyze the structure, list out the bugs and brainstorm on the best way forward. Apparently, no framework has been used while designing the architecture and as a result the bugs can't be solved on an ad-hoc basis. Since there is no MVP / MVC, fixing one bug might well disturb the other code and create other bugs. The engineers submit their report with the recommendation to either re-design the entire application or not take up the project for the fear of delivering a sub quality app.

A simple enough recommendation that the project manager can take to the client with a detailed report as to how this conclusion was reached. This report is already available with him. Simple Enough right? Wrong! Lets now throw in the real world dynamics and as always is the case, the 'Manager' complicates the problem.

This 'Manager' is under tremendous pressure as he is falling short of his Q3 / Q4 target. So he can choose to preserve the quality of his deliverable and risk losing the project or agree to fix minor bugs and risk exposing the project to further bugs. All the time being discreet, because if the client gets to know about this, the whole plan can blow up on his face. While this not only compromises the delivery credentials of the company, it also forces junior employees (like myself :-/) to work on a not-so-optimum solution when we might as well have worked a little bit more and solved the problem outright. This is how, in a service level organization, the dynamics of conventional targets and pressure of meeting delivery deadlines undermines innovation even in a research lab as ours.

Truly pathetic.

[acatnamedtofu]

The Bridge Crossing Problem

Hi Guys,

A simple brain teaser to start the day. Post your answers in the comments.

There are 4 people waiting at the end of a bridge. They take the following time to cross the bridge.

Person # 1 - 1 Minute

Person # 2 - 2 Minutes

Person # 3 - 7 Minutes

Person # 4 - 9 Minutes

Now The only problem is that these guys have just one torch and You cannot cross the bridge without a torch.

Also, at a time, only two or less persons can cross the bridge, else the bridge will collapse.

Tell me the least time these people will take to cross the bridge.

[acatnamedtofu]

Tasks for the week ahead (April 8th - April 14th)

1. Get up before 9 - I know even 9 is late but seeing how my last 3 - 4 months have gone down, I need to get my sleep cycle back on track. Targeting a 6-7 hour sleep, this means I need to sleep by 3 latest. A very difficult task if you ask me.

2. Be in office by 10 - A natural progression to task 1, but something equally difficult because of its dependence on the first task. Also my average time of reaching office this last week was 11 30. You can guess how difficult its going to be.

3. Be able to count 6 dedicated hours of work at office - Now this sounds weird, but I have been finding my concentration span getting shorter. That coupled with the fact that I am reaching office later than usual means I am not being entirely productive at work. I need to quantify exactly how many hours I am putting in to get back on track.

4. Learn 2 songs to perfection - I need to build a list of songs I can sing at Karaokes and group outings. I listen to more songs than most and yet I seem to remember none when actually called upon to do so. Every weekend from now on, I would make it a point to record 1 song at the least.

5. Complete a review of The Shiva Trilogy - I know lots of people have done it before, But I would like to analyze where Amish hit it off with the Indian audience and why despite a pedestrian writing style, there is something in the books for the readers.

6. Answer 1 question in detail on Quora - In keeping with my slightly long term goal of increasing my Quora credits, I would make it a practice to participate more actively on Quora.

Note that I would continue to update my progress as I edit this post over the week. I find myself to be very distracted these days and I need to put the fragments back together. Good luck to me yo!

[acatnamedtofu]

WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER WHEN YOU ARE IN A BAD MOOD?

In order of preference,

1. Tea (with Milk, Ginger and Cardamom)

2. Good Music

3. Good Book

and if all else fails, SLEEP!