A peek at the difference

Its not always you come across sites that look and feel different....get to see the work of some great minds...they are definitely worth a peek!...these are two of 'em that I came across today

This is AKAI's site ...very interesting the way it works...select the disk like things on their home page and watch, one of the marketing gals at my workplace passed it on http://www.akai.com/index.asp#

Qualcomm's home page....keep watching the page and move your mouse arnd...u'll find out...every page has something that makes browsing through exciting.
http://www.qualcomm.com/

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

It was yesterday when ashutosh ..my colleague..stopped me and mentioned "the date this friday is 13th" .... uoh!!!!thats the lst thing on earth i wanted.....cmon I have a demo to give this friday!!!
Paraskevidekatriaphobia(fear of 13th Friday) is what its called....named by Dr. Donald Dossey ...a morbid..irrational fear of this day..
The superstition associated with this day has early origins .... innumerable folklores narrate the evils omens, witchcraft, magic that can cause considerable uneasiness...many of us have used this day as an example to explain how bad the day is....I have seen people freak out on its very mention!!!
What is with these two factors that makes this day so dreadful and eerie...
Friday happens to be the 6th day of the week...which is apparently not a good day...friday rarely has been the day that has seen the advent of something good....
The aversion to number 13 is common...people prefer not numbering a 13th floor as such, of a tall building, till modern times houses have been numbered 121/2 instead of 13......no new ventures or journeys are embarked upon on 13th.....infact people go to the extreme of not venturing out of their houses on 13th....

But this fear is not completely unexplained...its has rather compelling roots...
According to the Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki...he arranged the killing of the god of joy and gladness..the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day....
In ancient Rome, witches reportedly gathered in groups of 12. The 13th was believed to be the devil.
Judas, who betrayed Christ was the 13th person to arrive for the the Last Supper....Jesus was crucified on Friday...its also believed the Great Flood started on a Friday
Numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus....
One extra that is 13 causes restlessness...
Also the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13....is attributed by 13
This sounds crazy!!!!!
And to add to all there are series of movies called "Friday the 13th" (with varaitions of course)... picturizing horrors ...
Today the the fear has much more to do with personal experience. Backed by such evidences people suppose that the day is bad and unlucky for whatever reason...Anything that happens abnormally on this day will probably stay for long.... But if you think about it, bad things, big and small, happen all the time. If you're looking for bad luck on Friday the 13th, you'll probably find it anyways!
As for me I guess its TGIF.....thats enough to make my day!!!!!! oh but this fridays a 13th...sigh!!!
courtesy
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/friday_the_13th.htm

Maiden one of the New Year

Been thinking of posting this one since the new year started...little did I know my first day at office this new year will welcome me with a colossal pile of work...my PM just returned after a week long hiatus....that explains how I ended up with that much work...quite a start to the new year...
The week seemed pretty long coz of the work...we had a new HR guy joining us...n he has assumed the role of mailing all of us quote of the day...at 9 sharp...his first quote of the year
"Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence"
....lets see what he has in store for the remaining 360 days...maybe I'll come up with a list of them soon....
We have a "belated" new year party coming up this weekend at the company...looking foward to some fun....whether that happens is yet to be seen...

I guess I should end by hoping that this year will have all dreams coming true...n with a prayer to the lord almighty ..that this year should see less of human suffering....more of peace and laughter ...

BREWing

The maiden assignment given to me at my first job....my PM came over and said "soumya we got to start researching on bru"..... I was a fresher....but what the hell was "bru" ???...."ya..ok...." went my reply still recovering from the initial discomfiture....
I turned to my monitor .... opened www.google.com ... n slowly typed in bru...still unsure of what would appear....after a half hour ordeal and trying all possible permutations(brue, bru, brooo) that probably would help me in finding a "bru" SDK....I typed in Qualcomm bru.....bingo I had hit the nail....It was the BREW(Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) SDK.....brew eh??
Anyways still not too sure...I finally downloaded the SDK......now I have been working in BREW since the last 6 months....guess its as exciting as brewing a good pint of beer (though I havnt tried the latter!)
BREW is not known to many here in India.....in short it is a platform to develop mobile applications...can be programmed in C/C++/Java..but somehow I felt it is quite Cish....very exciting and gripping....the APIs give you freedom to program with quite some flexibility...
In my view its here to stay and will catch the wireless market..with 3G and CDMA being seen as the future of wireless technologies.....specially with the latest Brew SDK that offers many additional APIs....maybe after a while.....coz of limitations like... it being a proprietary of qualcomm..and very few developers working with it.....but if you wanna play around with the SDK ..which I feel will be worth the while....its available for free download on the Qualcomm site...
Here are some useful links...just in case....
http://brew.qualcomm.com/brew/en/
http://www.developer.com/ws/brew/article.php/1478061
Meanwhile I am trying my best to brew some good useful code.....

"Busy"

I call the it the "busy" fever...could be a fad.....which has gripped most of my batchmates(most of 'em like me tasting the bitter sweet task of earning their bread n butter since very recently)....including me for that matter... our lives have supposedly zeroed down to being busy.... the entire lot now claim themselves to be "busy" having time only for work(I am kinda disputed on this particular word!).....the term "busy".... has got itself on the first position of the list of our new found corporate jargon...as u might call it....
A patent reply to the question" Hi hows u?"...now by this Im expecting a fine.. a good....but what I eventually see in reply.... a single word "busy"....too bad I recall using "busy" as a reply myself not very long ago.....
Lately I do think twice before pinging anybody on my messenger.....lest I get "busy" as a reply!
As for me...since "busy" sounds too cliched....if I am really too bogged down by work....I find myself opting out of using "busy".....

this is my debut

Hi!
I finally managed to get myself a place at the blogspot...wonder what took me so long......but they say better late than never! took quite a bit of inspiration....but afterall why have a blog of your own...maybe its a longing desire to be heard....maybe i just have nothing much worthwhile to do......in fact i was questioned by my frnd on this sudden hookup with blogging... maybe its exhibitionism......
Its quite a dull afternoon today.....its friday...last day of the week finally....the day seems to be longer.....I guess I should get back to finishing the piece of leftover code I have been working on.....
Hopefully many more of my writings will see the light of the day....till then adios...
Heres wishing happy writing to me....n reading to u guys!