Chamunda Devi stampede

Its happened again - another stampede at the foot of the Gods. Its not the people to blame, or the Gods. It's the temple trustees, who have such poor crowd control mechanisms and terrible disaster management systems.
I did ask the question then - When will we ever learn.
Never.

Madaross strikes (a match) again

40% of India's health problems linked to smoking: Ramadoss

Remaining 60% are linked to Ramadoss

Mr Patil does it again

While people get blown to bits almost every fortnight, our be-luv-da Home Minister, Mr Shivraj Patil, is busy changing clothes like a model on catwalk.

What the fuck!

STAY OFF THE STOCK MARKETS

This is more about reminding me than anyone - THINGS WILL GET A LOT WORSE BEFORE THET BECOME BETTER.

 

The bottom is no where in sight and there is no point surmising that the market is fallen a lot and so stocks valuations look attractive.

 

No, they don't, not in the current scenario. More bad news will come, most definitely. If we are talking a recession of 12-18 months in the Western world, then, then it will be after that, that markets really stabilize in India.

 

So, STAY OFF THE STOCK MARKETS. Else, you will make a killing - yours.

 

Masumeh, Masumi etc

I am not sure, but I think I first saw Masumi as a participant on Antakshari, where - and this was like 10 years ago - she wasn't particularly good. I mean, in her knowledge of songs and stuff.

Would be great if someone extracted those episodes out
1. to confirm whether I am right or not. and
2. do a compare with how she looks now- she looked extradionarily average then.

Run baby run

By the by, just for the record, I have a nice paunch whose arrival coincided with my daughter's arrival, and I believe at the exact moment that she was born (why should I just thank her for all the happiness in my life, my problems are her courtesy too).

I am trying to get rid of it, one paunch at a time. Have started running.


P.S. - Its incredible how the body (not the mind) remembers. How to breathe, how to pace, I could just go on and on, and I am not talking about praising the body, but about being able to run for a long time, in spite some really really slothful couple of months.

Away from DWH

After a career of more than 7 years in pure data warehousing and BI technologies, I am finally out of the space. No, if that sentence reads like a sigh of relief, it is not.

It's just that it was difficult getting any work in that space after my stint up in York, and this new one is a good opportunity, if not better. Working in Solution design space, with the same client, though now, for a different technological unit. I have come to like the solution design space, you learn about stuff, propose how to improve it (with due diligence, cost benefit analysis, feasibility etc), write the overall design and move on to the next piece. Don't really involve with the deliveries themselves, which invariably tend to get messed up with poor management, budget and time constraints, and lack of good technical resources.

But no longer doing DWH, hope the separation doesn't last too long

Bata ke joote

Yes sir, Bata is a multinational. It is NOT an Indian company and the owner is NOT a Parsi.

CBIP certified professional - third paper update

Finally gave my third paper - data management. And guess what, I passed. Just missed the mastery level by a whisker. But its fine. Overall, I think the exam was tough and I did well.

I took the exam by remote proctoring. I am not sure of the extent of control of your laptop that the proctor has, I mean, to what extent he checks on programs open on your laptop/pc. I played it safe and didn't have any reading material on the laptop or paper. Anyway, there is hardly any time to refer to notes as you have to answer 110 questions in 90 minutes. That's less than a minute for a question.

Some of the questions didn't make sense, but overall the exam did test your knowledge of the domain quite rigorously. I have jotted down areas that are not that common but brought about a lot of questions. Will write in subsequent posts.

Previous Post

Kosi breaks banks and lives

The river is the people.


I don't think we have seen the end of such catastrophes. India has one of the poorest defences against natural disasters and ZILCH understanding about environmental matters.

More and more of this will happen. It's inevitable.

Update-Great article in rediff showing a litany of fatal mistakes regarding the Kosi embankement management strategy.