I stumbled upon the BBC's new (beta!) home page and my immediate reaction was to look up into heavens and shout “Why? Why? Why?”

BBC website is known for it’s great design. This new avatar – in my opinion - is definitely a step (or two) backwards. People look up to BBC for setting new standards - and BBC is trying to mimic thousands of other such Web 2.0 designs out there. This is just so lame. The rounded corners. The ‘BETA’ tag alongside the logo. The flashy bright colours. The huge typefaces. The gradients. I’m not sure if I understand how it’s all relevant. And lastly, can sometime tell me what’s that clock doing there on the top right? For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.

There’s an entry in their blog’s section on the new design. Frankly, I’m surprised to see so many positive comments. Maybe I’m wrong in my initial judgment but something tells me it’ll be a sad day when they finally make the switchover.

To be honest, for me the most important aspect of any news related websites is how much of news can I scan through quickly just by giving a glance on the home page. Just compare their regular and beta sites and you’ll know what I mean. There’s hardly anything to read on their beta page.

Maybe BBC can learn a thing or two from the New York Times.

I'm SO glad 2007 is over. Happy 2008 everyone.

Sand is overrated. It's just tiny, little rocks.
- Joel Barish, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

One of the most adorable movies ever made. And as time went by, surpassed Vanilla Sky to become my all-time favorite.

This happened almost six weeks ago. Thought writing about it back then but somehow it skipped my mind. Anyway, here it is.

I decided to catch up a movie at the PVR Cinemas at the Metropolitan Mall in Gurgaon. So my friend and I bought the tickets and headed for the entrance as it was just about five minutes for the movie to start. At the entrance, the omnipresent security personnel stopped me for a check. After the usual screening, one of the guards spotted my bag and asked "What's inside it?"

Generally - almost 95% of the time - I carry my backpack along. It's mainly to carry my DSLR camera (and some additional lenses depending on the situation/mood). Also, tons of other 'essential' things like a small notepad, contact lens kit, a mini-tripod, my laptop, an iPod, id proofs and the list goes on. Yes, I do consider that entire stuff essential - although my friends insist that it's a total annoying thing altogether.

Coming back to the night at the PVR, I just had my camera with me - as it was a casual evening walk that I set out for in the first place. So when the guard asked what's in my bag, I replied "I have my camera with me" and took it out in case he wanted to inspect it personally. The guard immediately says "You can't carry it in there. Please deposit your bag at the package section on the ground floor (which was actually the floor of the parking basement). WTF moment # 1. I felt a bit irritated because of two things. First, why didn't the guy issuing the tickets (at the ground floor) mention it in the first place? Second, the cinema halls were on the fourth floor and now I had to go all the way down to deposit my stuff and the movie was about to start barely in a minute or two. After convincing myself that I should have been early and that it's not entirely management's fault, I walked down to the baggage section.

The guy at the baggage section looks at my backpack and asks, "What's in it?" I reply saying that I have my camera in it. The guy immediately says, "I'm sorry, we can't keep that stuff here. Please take it with you!". WTF moment#2. Then I explain the situation and mention that I'm not being allowed inside the theater because I can't carry the camera along with me. The guy refuses to budge. Seeing that I was getting pretty annoyed at the whole thing, the guy adds "You can talk to the management. They'll help you out." Seeing no other option, I head back to level 4 with my camera still with me.

I go back and explain to the security guards what just happened at the baggage counter. The guard then says "Ok. Keep it in your car then". I tell him that I don't have one and my friend (who's painfully watching the proceeding all this while) only had his bike with him. He replies without even looking at me, "Just hang the camera on your bike! No one will take it." WTF Moment #3. With all due respect to the his security concerns, hanging an expensive camera on a bike for two and half hours - assuming it's going to be "safe" - was something more than what I could digest. This is where my yelling starts and I insist on seeing the manager. When the guard looked reluctant, "NOW!" I protested.

The manager arrived. I repeat the whole story. The manager says "I'm sorry sir. The instructions are clearly written on the back of the tickets saying that we can't allow any electronic items except a mobile phone inside the auditorium. We can't allow you in until you deposit your camera somewhere." After giving it a thought and having already missed first ten minutes of the movie, I decided to junk the whole idea of the movie. I said, "That's fine. I'll watch the movie some other day. I want to return the tickets for a refund". "No, we don't have a return ticket policy", pat came the reply from the manager. WTF moment #4.

So there it was. An awkward situation of the highest order. I was holding movie tickets in my hand but I can't get inside the hall. There was a baggage section down there but I couldn't deposit my bag. I wanted to return the tickets but I couldn't get a refund. I wanted to sell the tickets to some other people in line but there was no line! I had ruined the evening of my poor friend who was patiently waiting for the mess to get cleared so that he could go watch the movie. And to top it all, I didn't know what to do next.

( And how it all ended... )

...in Hyderabad. An iPhone!

And that means:
1. I sucked into the temptation.
2. I'm back home. And it feels darn good.

P.S: All comments screened on this post by default.

On 30th May 2007, at D5 conference, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs shared a stage after a long time for an interview. Oddly enough, I was looking forward to it much before the event began. It's not because I had too much time on my hands and that I had nothing better to do (I see many nodding heads here) or that I was interested to know what their respective companies were up to. I was interested to know what goes on in their mind. And what makes them think the way they do. Just for the heck of it.

Needless to say, I actually kinda liked the interview. Liked it enough to have watched the whole thing three or four times. I feel sad for all those news agencies, which were only focused in extracting future releases and were eventually disappointed to find nothing was "announced" in the interview.

So here's my take on the interview - on Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (and NOT on Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp.)

1. Articulation
If you've ever watched a keynote of Steve Jobs (find some here), you know how immaculate his verbal, articulation and presentation skills are. His keynote slides aren't made up with company 'templates' with silly headers and footers. In fact, the slides don't even have an Apple Logo on them. He wears a T-shirt and Jeans to all his keynotes; even to this interview as well (Bill was in formals). His emphasis on simplicity and style not just reflects on the way he carries himself but also on most of the Apple products as well. Even their packaging is the most sleek I've ever seen - none of their packaging (barring the new iPhone) lists any of the fine print stuff we see on literally every packaging. Anyway, coming back to articulation, there was a little moment in the interview where Bill was trying to explain history about Microsoft software in Apple II. Steve realizes he's not doing it well and interrupts by saying "Let me tell the story" - breaking the crowd into laughter. Read that transcript below and notice the difference of articulation between the two.

Bill: Yeah. There had been the Altair and a few other companies–actually, about 24–that had done various machines, but the ‘77 group included the PET, TRS-80 … the Commodore PET, TRS-80 and the Apple II. The original Apple II BASIC, the Integer BASIC, we had nothing to do with. But then there was a floating-point one where–and I mostly worked with Woz on that…
Steve: Let me tell the story. [laughter] My partner we started out with, this guy named Steve Wozniak. Brilliant, brilliant guy. He writes this BASIC that is, like, the best BASIC on the planet. It does stuff that no other BASIC’s ever done. You don’t have to run it to find your error messages. It finds them when you type it in and stuff. It’s perfect in every way, except for one thing, which is its just fixed-point, right? It’s not floating-point.

2.Taste
An extension to the earlier point, Steve also takes the cake in terms of having a great taste for people and products. When Bill was asked what he liked in Steve, he told the exact same thing.

Bill: I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste. [laughter] He has natural–it’s not a joke at all. I think in terms of intuitive taste, both for people and products, you know, we sat in Mac product reviews where there were questions about software choices, how things would be done that I viewed as an engineering question [laughter], you know, and that’s just how my mind works. And I’d see Steve make the decision based on a sense of people and product that, you know, is even hard for me to explain.

Notice how Bill uses the phrase "you know" a lot. Steve does it too, but not that frequently. And I believe it happens when you've got a lot to say about something but are not good in expressing it. I've noticed that with many people who're not good at explaining stuff (including myself). You just hope the people listening to you are following it, you know!

3.Secretive
Another difference that is clearly visible between the two is that unlike Bill, Steve is very choosy and conscious about what he speaks. In my personal opinion Steve is more of a business-head (relatively) and Bill is more of a tech-head (Of course, no denying that both have passion for what they do). Bill loves to talk about technology. In fact, throughout the interview when a question was asked to both of them, Bill was usually the guy who answered first. Steve on the other hand would take his time, compose the reply in his brain and only then answer. Sometimes Steve is blunt in saying he can't talk about it.

Steve: I think so, too. There’s a lot of things that are risky right now, which is always a good sign, and you can see through them, you can see to the other side and go, yes, this could be huge, but there’s a period of risk that, you know, nobody’s ever done it before.
Kara: Do you have an example?
Steve: I do, but I can’t say.

( Some more observations and Interview Highlights video )
I'm often asked by my friends, "So who's your favorite of the two?"

Steve is an amazing believer. I feel he's still like a young teen who feels he has lot to achieve yet (and answer his critics maybe). He's still ambitious and he's running after something. He believes Apple is still an unfinished business. On the other hand, Bill has been through the complete cycle. As a teen, he was ambitious. As a CEO of a company, he was a ruthless businessman – to an extent of crushing his peers with anti-competitive tactics. As the richest man on Earth, he's become the greatest philanthropist to live on the earth. There was a question from the audience that kind of summarized what I (and I'm sure many) think of Bill now. Here it goes:

Bill, even your harshest critic would have to admit that your philanthropy work is planet-shaking, incredible, and could be, if you make it, a second act so amazing that it would dwarf what you’ve actually done at Microsoft.

Whoa! Couldn't have put it better. I think the phrase "Been there, done that" applies perfectly to Bill Gates in every sense of the word. I think he's more mature now than he's ever been. And that's what makes him my favorite of the two.

Just when everyone concluded I've abandoned by journal for good, here I am.

So where did I disappear then? I don't think I have a precise answer to that. But what I do know is that I got lost somewhere in aligning my priorities. Anyway.

• It's already halfway through this calendar year and it's time to take stock of things. 2007 - so far - has been unbelievably disappointing. To cut things short, I wasted 6 precious months of my life for nothing. Hopefully, the second half is going to be a lot better that the first.


• The only saving grace so far in the year has been my (lesser known) short trip to India - and attending two very important weddings. First being my sister's wedding. And second being my best friend Sachin's wedding.


• Also, I'll be finishing my current assignment in the US by mid-August, so hope to return to India for good. Yay :)


• I've put on (more) weight. Yuck!


• It's been a while I bought some geek maal - the last thing I remember was a Nikon 70-300/4.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR Lens (quiet a mouthful name, isn't it?). Don't know what to buy next - iPhone? Too bad it's locked into AT&T - I seriously wish Apple had released an unlocked version of iPhone.


• The movie buff in me is highly dampened right now. Just watched barely few movies this year so far. Last year I watched over 200+ movies.


• It's been 14 months since I bought my MacBook Pro. And it's been a great companion so far and probably the best thing I've bought in a long time. Paisa vasool!.


• I finally started to like sandwiches from Subway. So much so that I prefer them over other junk food.

I think I've sobered down. Significantly.

Today one of my colleagues remarked that the work I do is a 'joke'.

*chuckles*

I've been traveling a lot off late. And while I was traveling across all these US cities, something was going at the back of my head - a broad sense of familiar feeling, to be precise. Funny as it may sound, I would invariably correlate US cities to the cities back in India. Here are a few.

Disclaimer: This is not a direct comparison between the mentioned cities; they're too diverse to be compared. This is only MY correlation between the cities as part of my traveling in these two nations.

New York City :: Bombay (Mumbai, if you like that name)
This was an easy one, isn't it? The sheer number of people (and their rush, if I might add), the fun, the glamour, the glitz, the stock markets, city-never-sleeps thing, et al. Every time I go to New York city, memories of Bombay come right back. Both cities have far too many things in common - the skyscrapers, known for being a land of employment opportunities, a target for terror attacks, a hub of cultures and communities and so on. For me though, what connects these two cities the most is the fact that I can find my solitude and peace in the middle of all the madness; thanks to the fact the people mind their own business. And it's the very reason I find Bombay and New York City incredibly attractive.

Washington, D.C. :: New Delhi
Serving as the capital cities of their respective countries is not the only reason I've paired them together; it's one of the reason. White House reminds me of Parliament, and Washington Monument reminds me of India Gate. Before you jump at me, I'm talking about the experience of visiting these landmarks and not about the structures per se. Broad roads, administrative offices at every nook and corner of the city, the aura of politics which is omnipresent, and the sheer history behind the cities - all just adds up to how similar I find these cities. Of course, not to forget the fact that most people living in these cities are power & money oriented (the rich cities that they are) more than glitz & glamour - unlike New Yorkers ... err... Mumbaikers?

Miami :: Panaji (Goa)
Another no-brainer. If you ask what's the best place to chill out and have fun, it's got be Miami in the US and Goa in India. Traveling across Miami was party all the time; just like my days spent in Goa. The famous beaches, finding tourists at every other block, the liquor, late night parties and a 365-days-on-a-holiday attitude - all these are the very symbols for these cities. Probably the only places where you can roam around everywhere in Hawaiian shirts and beach shorts and still look cool.

Chicago :: Bangalore
I'm sure people have different opinion on this one. Correlating Bangalore to something like - let's say - San Jose because of the Silicon Valley and all, is a standard argument I hear. Naah... for me, Bangalore reminds me of Chicago more than any other city in US. Why? Well, it's the people! The cool and friendly attitude of the people. I've always believed that these two cities are defined by the people who live there and not vice-versa. And more than that, these cities have come out of shadows of other bigger (area and population wise) cities and have created their own identity. Bangalore and Chicago don't play second fiddle anymore; they're mega-cities in their own way. And lastly on a lighter note, Chicago natives tend to disagree that New York is a much hip place. Just like the way you'd hear Bangalorians say, “Mumbai might be happening. But Bangalore is where the action is!”

Philadelphia :: Chennai
Debatable again, but I find them rather similar. The top-most reason being the complex nature of these cities. I find Chennai and Philadelphia mostly traditional and they do have a certain amount of rigidity in the way they function. Despite all that, you'll be amazed how happening and cool these cities are. From a superficial level, they look pretty conservative but dig a little deep and you'll know they're on par with the best. Maybe it's just me, but one another thing I find similar is that the people of Philly and Chennai are die-hard loyalists to their homeland - to an extent that they simply refuse to believe there are better cities out there.

Cleveland :: Hyderabad
Hyderabad is my home. And for me - any city which makes me feel home - is Hyderabad for me. Of all the places I've been, Cleveland comes pretty close to that feeling. I've found Cleveland to be laid-back and easygoing city. Also a city which once had it glory (it still does but unlike past) but then the best of the people over there moved to bigger cities for greener pastures - a very similar characteristic of Hyderabad as well. And did I mention Lake Erie reminds me of Hussain Sagar Lake? Again, it's got nothing to do with the size and nature of the lakes - just the feeling of a nice lake in the heart of the city where you can hang out. And yes, it does feel home.


As I've said earlier, it's weird to compare cities so diverse. This is only MY correlation between the cities as part of my traveling in these two countries.