WYSIWYG Dreamz: Jayanth.Krupanidhi@Sun.COM

Two years and a week. And my dream journey at Sun comes to an end, as all good things must come to!

I should say this journey has been pleasant for most of the time, thanks to the employee-friendly work culture and great co-workers, who'd been amazingly co-operative and supportive! These were halcyon times indeed!

I'd have made an another 100 posts to this blog, but life seems to give its sweetest surprises only when they are least expected!

Nevertheless, the dreamz would continue, but somewhere else!

I've been on broadband internet for quite some time now & had always wished for a "meter-like" kind of contraption to measure the actual bandwidth of my connection whenever my download speeds dropped below fairly acceptable levels. My ISP claims that he's providing me 256 KBPS bandwidth, but how do I know and affirm that? I could call up my ISP's customer care and say that I wasn't receiving the claimed bandwidth, but how could I corroborate my stance?

If you think you're sailing on the same boat as me and feel that you're actually being "cheated" by your ISP, here's how you check whether you're right.

1. Go to http://www.testmy.net
2. Choose the type of test you want to take - download, upload or both.
3. Wait for a few seconds while your speeds are tested.

The results of the test will appear on the page along with comparisons to speeds provided by other internet connection options like Cable, DSL, ISDN, Dialup etc. Apart from rating your connection on a 5-point scale, it also gives a diagnosis description saying how much slower or faster your connection is than the average.

I was particularly impressed by the "Convert results into an image" option for convenient storage of results. See the below image.

And the best part is that all these features are available for free!

You have PROOF now! You know your ISP's Customer care number! You know what to do next!

In my last post, I'd touched upon the theme of knowing Carnatic music, in order to appreciate it better. In this post, I'd like to explicate the math behind the theory of Carnatic music for the benefit of all those who are passionate about knowing Carnatic music.

Indian Carnatic music is a seemingly complex theory that has raaga & thaala as its cornerstones. A raaga is basically the melody(scale) and the thaala is basically the rhythm(beat). The seven basic notes (or Saptha Swaras) that comprise every raaga are Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha & Ni. These could be thought of as the Carnatic music counterparts of Western music's Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La & Ti respectively. Henceforth, I shall use the term swara to refer to a musical note.

Whereas the swaras Sa and Pa are always fixed (meaning, they do not have sharp or flat variants), the swaras Re, Ga, Dha & Ni have three variants apiece & the swara Ma has two variants. The below illustration shows the different swaras as laid out on a musical keyboard's C-scale. Note that the swara R2 is the same as G1 & the swara R3 is the same as G2. Similarly, the swara D2 is the same as N1 & the swara D3 is the same as N2. For reasons of lack of space and easy understanding, the names of the swaras have been represented using their first letters alone.

The variants of the swaras R & G can be used to create 6 different combinations which are R1-G1, R1-G2, R1-G3, R2-G2, R2-G3 & R3-G3 respectively. Similarly, the variants of the swaras D & N can be used to create 6 different combinations, thereby resulting in 6*6=36 combinations for the 4 swaras R, G, D & N. These 36 combinations, when multiplied by the available two variants of the swara M, produces a total of 36*2=72 combinations, for all the available 5 variable swaras. These 72 combinations are referred to as the Melakartha raagas. Of them, the first 36 raagas that use the first variant of the swara M are called Shuddha-Madhyama raagas & the next (or last) 36 raagas that use the second variant of the swara M are called Prathi-Madhyama raagas.

Every raaga is a pattern of swaras and is defined by the way it flows from one swara to the other. The ascending pattern is called as aarohana & the descending pattern is called the avarohana. For the 72 Melakartha ragas, the aarohana & avarohana have the same swaras, meaning that the avarohana is just a simple reversal of the aarohana.

Though the basic Melakartha raagas are only 72 in number, Indian Carnatic music gives you the flexibility and freedom to experiment with the swaras and create as many raagas from them, by omitting one or more swaras (note that the swara S cannot be omitted). Another fine flexibility allowed is that these omissions can be done separately for the aarohana & the avarohana. i.e., any swara that is omitted in the aarohana can be included in the avarohana & vice-versa, thereby provisioning the gamut of raagas for futher extensibility.

Hmmm.. so, how do you feel? Having started to taste Carnatic music theory, feel like hogging more? Here's a goodie that I'd like to offer you to get started with practising all the theory. I've come up with a list of all the 72 Melakartha raagas along with their aarohanas & avarohanas. The best method to familiarise yourselves with these raagas would be by trying these swaras on a musical keyboard. The list of the 72 Melakartha raagas in PDF format, can be downloaded here.

In my future posts, I shall talk more about thaalas, popular composers, veterans, famous artistes, instrumental music & a lot more. As always, keep the comments & suggestions pouring in!

Thanks to Vasanth Vaidyanathan's recent blog, I now have a topic to blog about!

More than once, I'd felt quite lost trying to look out for driving instructions to a particular place in Bangalore, until I discovered Wikimapia. Just click on the city and you can search at a building-level to zero in on the exact coordinates.

Found the coordinates for a place that you think is popular? Wikimapia provides you with an option to mark that place with a name. But, going by personal experience, for a city like Bangalore, it's less likely that a popular place's coordinates is not already marked!

By the way, sorry if I had deprived the in-house cartographic talents of a chance to showcase their skills!

It all started with one introspective question: How conspicuous am I in the World Wide Web? The fame-hungry devil in me wouldn't let me brush it off as just a silly thought, so I opened up my browser (of course, it's Firefox!) and searched for my full name. I somehow believed that my full name was a unique one, and nobody else (at least in the tech community) would have it. Lo & behold! The results were unexpectedly flattering! Google returned me around 200 results for my name.

Struck partly with awe & partly with curiosity, I quickly riffled through the results and found the secrets for "visibility".
1. Blogs: The more you blog, the more you're visible.
2. Personal Home Pages: A personal web page that has your name as part of the url could be the page that loads when you hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button on Google.
3. Forums: Register with as many forums as possible. Choosing a universal username for all of them and specifying the same first name & last name for every forum sure does help boost the "search results" figures. The figures also proportionally increase with the number of replies you get for your posts. Too good, eh?

Is it really as easy as it sounds to improve our visibility? I bet, it is! Try it and see for yourself! But, I'm not the one to blame if you've got a very common name!

Dictionary.com defines music as "any sweet, pleasing or harmonious sound or sounds". Well, that's just the dictionary meaning of it! I would rather go a step further and complete the definition by adding "... that penetrates your senses and touches your soul". Music, as such, without the "soul factor", doesn't make much sense to me.

I'm neither a musician, nor one of those self-proclaimed authorities in the subject matter of music, though I've tried my hands at composing a few times and have even succeeded fairly in creating notes & tunes that were at the least, impressive to me. But I'm a music-lover, a fan of good music, whose rights transcend even those of a musician! Not because being just a music-lover is convenient and less painstaking than being a musician, but more because of that inexplicably sublime feeling that I experience every time I listen to a piece of something that I call "music"!

Born in a musical family, I fortunately had that innate quality to relate so well with the nuances of Indian Carnatic music, a quality that only got better and more refined with age. I had my initial lessons of vocal Carnatic music under a "guru" named Devasahayam, whose methodology encouraged me and eventually drew me towards the notion of "swaras", which comprised every "raga". Also, being the regular film-song-fanatic, getting lulled to sleep listening to the countless melodies of Ilayaraja & Rahman was almost a daily affair. I do not remember a single day in those years, when I'd slept without listening to a good song. It was almost impossible, with all the good music in the world, from "gaanas" to "ghazals" & "keerthanas" to "symphonies", piled up as a cassette-collection, a collection that I took great pride in possessing! That those cassettes were replaced by audio & MP3 CDs and got even bigger by the years is a different story, but nevertheless, still a matter of pride.

I was also lucky enough to find friends who shared similar musical interests with me. Ravishankar is one such friend, who has accompanied me for many scintillating Carnatic music concerts. Most of our interesting conversations, both spoken and unspoken, have revolved around the topic of music & continues to do so even today. Raghavendran is another friend, with whom I'd spent countless minutes with, listening to Ilayaraja & A.R.Rahman's songs and analyzing their compositions. So much was our craze for these composers, that when any of their compositions didn't top the charts, we went to the extent of taking it as a "personal failure"!

Knowing about "swaras" and "ragas" not only encouraged me to appreciate Carnatic music more, but also appreciate the similarities in foundation between different kinds of music. That's when I realized the true advantage of actually "knowing" music. I found it to be true that listening to any other form of music after knowing the basics of one form makes you appreciate the other form even better. It's something like watching a famous foreign language movie that's dubbed in your local regional language.

Years rolled by & I found myself unconsciously decoding every song and every piece of music I heard into "swaras". I'd have to mention that 14th December, 1997 is one date that I'd love to remember forever, for it was the day my dad bought me my Yamaha PSR26 keyboard. After a few days of practising with "swaras", my fingers acquired reasonable agility and I could play any melody that had a normal tempo. Even today, the immediate involuntary action that I do when I come across a catchy tune is to play them as notes with my fingers on an imaginary keyboard.

Let me pause here. I know I have all the time in the world to talk about music and my musings about it. So, why do it all at once? More musings would follow in my future posts...

One hundred and fifty days!

Before you start to think of it as some countdown to a spectacular event of international importance, let me put it straight. It's just the time that has elapsed since my last blog post. Seems to have gone in a jiffy! Yet, it's quite interesting to realize that so much could actually happen in so little time.

First and foremost, I became a dad! And, that too, on my own birthday! My wife couldn't have given me a better birthday present. Though we share the same zodiac signs, I secretly pray that we share only the good times and fortune and not the bad times. To all those who come and say things like "Hey look, he's got exactly your nose!" & "He sleeps just like you, with both arms stretched upwards!", I invariably say only this - "Like father, like son!", of course, with a self-effacing smile

Just a month and a day after his birth, my son has a cute little cousin to play with in my nephew. Birth of a child in a family always brings a great deal of joy along with it & I'm really thankful to the Lord Almighty for blessing us with two bundles of hallmarked innocence as a double bonanza.

A few other important things that happened during this time that I wanted to blog about

* Ganguly getting back into the Indian ODI and Test cricket teams, with a bang.
* The Cauvery Water Tribunal finally giving a verdict.
* Catching up with old friends after a long time.

and on, goes the list..

Now that I've ended the prolonged thought-drought, I'd sleep a relieved man tonight!

See ya in my next post!

Okay, it isn't as much fun as it sounds from the title, especially when you're losing a manager whom you'd felt so comfortable working under for about a year. As they say, all good things must come to an end. So, why get sullen, thinking about things you cannot change?

We decided to do it big and unanimously decided to have some fun before wishing Ram, our manager, a warm farewell. Our team, being a small one, didn't have much difficulty in deciding the farewell gift: a 2.5 gm gold coin.

St.Mark's Hotel was walkable from our office & I'd already been there once to attend a workshop a couple of months before. After a sumptuous lunch there, we had a cake cut for him and presented him the memento that we'd bought for him.

Post lunch, we proceeded to "Amoeba" @ Church Street, a bowling & games court, where we played a game of bowling. I'd never imagined bowling could be a game as beguiling as it actually turned out to be, probably becoz I hadn't tried my hands at it before. The first round was enough for me to get a hang of the game, and much to my own surprise, I was soon bowling like a pro. In 10 rounds, I'd wiped the board clean 5 times, one of them, clearing the board in a single attempt!

And this is how the final score looked like after Ram, myself, Rajkumar, Kaarthik & Swapna had finished 10 rounds

At the end of it all, even that slight tinge of sadness, which is usually present when parting with someone who'd been close to you, was alleviated by all the fun we had that day!

Farewell, Ram! Hope you continue to be the same approachable, empathizing & friendly manager that you've been, in the future too! Thanks for all the good things that you've done to us. You'll be missed a lot!

"My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets"

Does the above mnemonic ring a bell? Yeah, you got it right! This is the famous mnemonic that we as children used to remember the nine planets in our solar system.

The news is that this very educated mother will hereafter just show us "Nine". The recent decision of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to give Pluto the pink slip can be truly considered as a significant event in the astronomical chronology. And Pluto's offence that caused to lose its "planet" status? Its oblong orbit intersects the orbit of Neptune, which is non-conformant to the new minimum requirements for a planet.

Astronomers may have stripped off the status of a planet from Pluto, but astrologers would still continue to be unswerving about their beliefs about the planet and its effect on earthly events. Both astronomy and astrology have been subjects that are closely related to each other, and there are so many people who believe in astrology just because it has a solid and scientific foundation in astronomy. And decisions such as this one by IAU would not only widen the gap between these two subjects, but also shake many people's faith and belief in astrology.

Big deal..! Should you really worry? Not necessary, unless you're a Scorpio, which is supposed to be ruled by planet Pluto. I'm not interested to do an impact analysis of this "official exclusion of Pluto from the solar system", with respect to the fate of astrology, but it would be interesting to see the children of future generations read about the "8 planets of the solar system".

Children of the future might still be able to relate to Pluto, if not as a planet of the solar system, at least as the faithful friend of Walt Disney's character, Mickey Mouse!

What's all this buzz about the flower show that's going on at the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, Bangalore?

I decided to check this out myself personally last Saturday and set out for the Lalbagh after breakfast. And my experience for the next three hours were purely exhilarating as I was completely mesmerized by all the floral beauty that was showcased in various manifestations there.

Hundreds of flowers, each unique in its own way either in shape or size or color, competed fiercely to grab the attention of the crowd. Of all the floral arrangements, the giraffes and the globe (all arranged with roses of various colors) stood out as extraordinary from the rest.

Exquisite and rare flowers like the orchids, blue roses & wild dahlias provided a feast for every camera / camcorder, much to the delight of the photo-savvy section of the crowd (of which, I'm a humble part). There was so much to capture and anyone who had a passion for photography and a taste for nature & beauty would have wanted to go clicking the whole day long. But, the camera batteries that were drying up at lightning speed, rendered my photo-thirst temporarily insatiable!

Ever since I discovered my passion for an engrossing hobby in photography, I'd always dreamt of an opportunity, such a one as this, to unleash my creative instincts and go clicking with my Olympus C500 till my fingers would beg for rest. And, this flower show proved to be quite too much of a treat for me!

The photos can be viewed here

So, if you live in Bangalore, and happen to be one of the 'localites', who dread Bangalore for its maddening traffic jams and alarming pollution levels, there's nothing more refreshing that I can suggest than a visit to the flower show @ Lalbagh!

A couple of days ago, I was helping my wife clean my room, when she accidentally bumped her head against mine. Bothered by something, she immediately asked me to bump heads with her for a second time. No sooner did this happen, a wave of nostalgia swept over me, carrying me down the memory lane all the way to my primary school days. That you would grow horns in your head, if you don't bump your head a second time with the person whom you just bumped your head with, was only one of the many superstitions that I (and many of my friends) had quite resolutely observed and followed!

If that one had something to do with the fear of growing something, there was also this fear of not growing something again. A cavity created by a just-fallen tooth would not grow another tooth if the fallen tooth were not buried under the ground without exposing it to the skies. So much strong was the belief that everytime a tooth got shaky, I kept reminding myself that the tooth ought to be buried the royal way, until the tooth finally gave way.

Another commonly widespread notion among kids, for many ages, has been that of peacock feathers multiplying when kept inside a book for a long period. Interestingly, if you question them about the credibility of their beliefs, chances are you could end up being cold-shouldered by them for doubting the obvious.

Superstitions like these get rooted in ourselves so deeply that many a time we don't act like the rationalist whom we think we are. You could never explain that silly thing we do when we accidentally stamp on other people's feet - touch them and kiss our fingers. How many of us don't do that? Most of us do that just because we've seen so many others do it. It'd be funny to imagine how it would be if soccer players too had a similar superstition. Players touching and kissing their fingers whenever they trip and fall on the ground!

Every superstition would initially have an origin in a rumour. A casual rumour gradually grows in stature on passing through every ear and mouth and finally becomes a superstition. Superstitions could be fun as long as they are confined to those blissful years of ignorance - childhood. The kids of modern day are in increasing danger of growing more superstitions, since they are being bombarded with overmuch amount of information every minute. Accepting and nurturing a superstition without reasoning could even have a negative impact on a child's cognitive abilities.

Statistics reveal that about 50% of the total knowledge that an average human being gains in a lifetime is during his/her first fifteen years. A child's inquisitive nature is what makes it learn all that it does. While many of the parents find this learning process amusing in the early years of their children's growth, they tend to snub the quizzing instincts of their kids as they grow up, mostly because of lack of patience to give an explanation or because they find incessant questioning irritating.

Given the ample scope today that one has for accessing information about anything & everything, it becomes quite necessary for us to instill a rational bent-up of mind in our children so that they grow into individuals devoid of superstitions, who know and understand the reason behind everything they do and the rationale behind everything they believe.

Bangalore is a safe and peaceful city to live in. At least, that's what any software professional who'd migrated to the city to work would have believed to be true... until the sudden demise of the veteran Kannada actor Rajkumar.

The incident unleashed the real color and nature of the film-fanatics, who, blindfolded by their own insanity, indulged in various felonious activities like pelting stones at the glass panes of buildings and damaging public property, desensitized to the fact that they were causing harm to their own fellow citizens. And all these under the pretext of grief! The damages caused to the government summed up to many crores of rupees, not to mention the loss of a few precious lives! One death causing many deaths! All these acts of savagery would have been justified at least partly, had the death of the actor been a contrived or an unnatural one.

One fact that is proved beyond doubt is that there's a beast within every human, a cannibal within every cosmopolitan, which keeps telling to itself that normal is boring and havoc is fun. Every incident that happens around us triggers off a tussle between the human and the beast. They start to continuously contradict each other and whoever wins, takes control of the mind. The beast wakes up at the slightest hint of a crisis and the first thing it does is to eclipse common-sense. Like every egoistic human being craving for fame and recognition, the beast too craves for notoriety and recognition. It is the same beast which enjoys and encourages every ill-feeling like anger, jealousy, lust, malice etc. It requires a special kind of skill to identify the beast and tame it, before it wakes up and takes control of our senses.

Every one of us like to do things of our own free will. It just has to be decided if the free will is that of the human or the beast!

It does feel really satisfying when you actually DO something that you had always wanted to do for a long time, but had conveniently delayed to get started on it. Not that you wanted to deliberate the delay, but it's just that it wasn't destined to happen then. As the popular adage goes, "The best happens to those who wait", my first blog is destined to be written now! It's a special one for me, coz it's packed with a few thoughts that I had nurtured for quite some time in the deepest neuron chambers of my brain.

And now, having started to blog, I'm faced with probably the same question that almost every blogger on earth would have faced initially, and every aspiring blogger would be facing - What to blog about? I'm sure there are still thousands of people out there who have so far been suppressing their blogging instincts just due to lack of a title compelling enough to make them get started on this interesting and addictive activity that has evolved to become a "hobby" that entices both the tech-savvy and the non-techies alike. Finally, I've come to the conclusion that there could not be a better topic for a first-time blogger than the topic of blogging itself.

Ever wondered why we aren't able to do everything that we'd always wanted to do in life? It would be unfair to blame incompetence to do something as the reason for this. For it may be true in quite a few cases, it's just the problem of "getting started" for many. I remember having read long before about habits and what it takes for someone to convert a one-time activity into a habit: doing it 21 consecutive times. People who have tried doing this would concur with me that it's not as simple as it sounds. What it means is that if you've started to script (or scribble) blogs, and you've already done that for a good 21 times, chances are that you'd be a blogger forever. And I'm quite strong 'n' serious on my conviction of not being just a one-time blogger. Coz I know that all it takes to keep me going on this would be to keep myself loaded with barrels of motivation, keep doing things that make me happy, look out for things that inspire me, and most importantly, overcome the tendency to commit the most common sin: procrastination.

Talking about inspiration, I wonder what is it that has really inspired me to write my first blog. Well, it's not just one. My friends inspire me.. and so do books. It could even be the fear of being left-out as the only non-blogger in the software community! Ah.. and books! None can undermine the level of satisfaction and companionship that one could possibly derive out of reading a book. Every book is usually the result of hours of careful compilation of innumerable thoughts, experiences, fantasies and views of and by an author. Hence, by reading a book, you indirectly add a fair amount of all those mentioned above to your own warehouse of thoughts, experiences, fantasies and views. However, many people read books just for the pleasure of reading, though! More than mere assimilation of information, it's the sheer pleasure of reading, the pleasure of holding on to a "tangible" source of pleasure, which keeps readers addicted to them for a lifetime. I've somehow found that missing in "e-books"!

Again, to get started on reading books also wasn't quite easy for me. It was almost a challenge for any book to make me get involved in it and provide me with the interest to hold on to it and read it till the last page. I used to look at some of my friends with awe, who'd complete reading a 600-odd page novel in no time and even recommend it for me to read. But then, I never believed I could ever complete reading even one such book in my lifetime. Finally, it took one great effort from Dan Brown, The DaVinci Code, to get me started on reading. One hell of a book that was, which made the world stand up on its feet. It also made me realize that nothing captivates and thrills a reader more than iconoclasm, not even science-fiction and horror. The author somehow, seems to have understood that well, which is quite evident from his plots circling around similar themes in his other books too.

There's been no looking back since I completed reading The DaVinci Code. I'd read quite a number of books after that, most of them annoyingly mediocre, except the most recent one that I read - "God's Debris" by Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame). The book is a "thought experiment" that provides explanations (and most of them, convincing) to some of the "all-time mysteries", which mankind has unsuccessfully dealt with and has passed on as a legacy for generations. I'm sure this is one must-read for anyone who'd dare to delve into the depths of his / her mind and throw a challenge at the beliefs that had been lying underneath for years - beliefs fortified partly by their own experience and partly by superstitions!