Shivanasamudra Trip

Recently South India was seeing a very strong monsoon. This made all the water falls in the western ghats much more beautiful. So my friends and myself decided to visit some waterfalls near Bangalore. We could not go for the Jog falls, India's highest water falls, since visiting them would entail a journey of over 6 hrs, which would be difficult in a 2 day visit. So we decided to go for Shivanasamudra waterfalls.

Praveen and myself started on Friday evening by train to bangalore. The Kacheguda railway station was marked by heavy security with sniffer dogs and metal detectors. But nevertheless instead of making us feel better, we felt more conscious of the fact that we are potential targets. But I digress.. After boarding the train and getting down at bangalore, Our friends AJ and Balaji picked us up in a Chevrolet Tavera at 7:00AM and we were off to sivasamudram.

Initially we went to one place where we could see the waterfalls. The waterfalls were in full force owning to the monsoon. We took a lot of pictures and then climbed down the hill to come closer to the water. We arrived at the banks, but the water was flowing at a very furious pace, and we could not actually get into the water, since a slip might earn us a ticket across the waterfall. After spending some time taking pictures we set off to another place at the base of the waterfall.

In this place, to reach the river, we had to climb down a lot of steps. The water was relatively much calmer, but still flowing fast. We got down into the water and lazed around for about 2 hours. The water was not too cold, and we were able to enjoy by sitting on the riverbed which was hardly 2 feet deep. There were a lot of people, but the excellent weather and the beautiful river with its waterfall backdrop made it more than worth it.

After getting out of water we had hot chilli bajji, and then started climbing up the steps, which was a drag. Then we headed back to bangalore, and after getting stuck in the traffic for a very long time, we reached home at around 8PM.

On Sunday we went GoKarting at Torq03 at E-Zone in Marthalli. The karts were in excellent condition, although it was pricey at Rs 150/- for 6 laps. We went on 18 laps total, and the track was also very nicely designed. The karts were skidding nicely too, which helped us go extra fast. Overall it was a very enjoyable trip.

The Afghan - Review

I had been a very close follower of the global terrorism scene long before even 9/11 happened. I still remember the days while watching "The World This Week" program on TV, showing the Taliban tanks rolling into Kabul in 1996. I also could not forget the day Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Afghan Nothern Alliance warlord, was assassinated on Sept 9th 2001, two days before 9/11. I still vividly recall thinking "this is very bad". For someone who follows terrorism so closely, I was extremely happy when I could get my hands on a copy of The Afghan by Frederick Forsyth.The novel was very gripping, and is styled like a documentary. It given a very interesting bird's eye view into the global war on terror, not to mention giving glimpses of the Soviet-Afghan war, the resulting Civil War and the NATO Invasion post 9/11.

The Afghan starts out with the MI5 and CIA getting a lead about something major being cooked up by "The Sheik" (as Osama Bin Laden is reportedly called), and then it proceeds into a gripping tale about the guts of a terrorist operation, styled on the lines of the USS Cole Incident - only on a much grander scale. The CIA & MI5 try to infiltrate the Al Queda using a SAS operative. The novel is very well laid out, albeit for one minor sequence of events where a Fighter Jet crashes into a log cabin in the woods, setting free a prisinor in highly improbable circumstances. Other than this one incident, the entire novel was very good. Four Stars!

SFO-Hyd on Jet Airways

I had taken the Jet Airways itinerary for flying from Hyd to SFO and back. Jet's level of service was pretty impressive, especially so since I was flying on the Boeing 777-300. The service was good. The economy class seats with the big LCD screens were even better.

However for someone flying from Hyderabad, by taking a Domestic Jet Flight between Hyd and Mumbai, the itinerary, especially the return journey part, is pathetic. I would say this is mainly due to the long and unnecessary stopover in Mumbai lasting about 9 hours. The worst part was that after alighting the SFO-BOM flight, a 22 hour journey, The domestic transit passengers were forced to wait standing for 3 hours for a combination of collecting luggage, customs, domestic terminal transfer etc. Then it was a wait for 6 hours at the domestic terminal. I could rant about the airport's "services" - like water dripping on people INSIDE the airport, but it would not be anything new for someone who used Indian airports.

Overall, although I hate to say this, this itinerary was the worst even though Jet Airlines was very good. I would prefer waiting a much longer time in Singapore airport while flying singapore airlines any day, than deal with the shitty Mumbai airport on any airlines. For someone flying out of Mumbai though, this is one of the best options they have got.

The new bubble - Oil

Most people here in India, do not know whats going on with Oil Prices. All they know is that their Petrol costs 10% more. And they are pissed off. Driving 20 miles daily on my Bike, I am too. But the distubing part is that - the Indian govt flush with the recent huge tax revenue increases and under the influence of the coming national elections in 2009, has blatantly increased the Oil Subsidy - causing huge long term problems for the Indian economy, and will result in downgrading of its Investment grade rating.

Anyway, this article tries to focus on the reason why Oil prices are increasing on a global scale. What most people do not get is simply this - If the oil demand and supply have not changed, then the simple law of demand and supply should dictate at most a marginal increase in prices to account for inflation maybe. But why are we seeing a 350% increase in under 4 years? Its not like the demand jumped suddenly, or the supply got throttled. (For all those who believe that emerging economies are contributing to the demand increase, note that both china and India consume only a fraction of the world's Oil supply. In fact, in face of the rise in prices, demand has come down multiple percentage points.)

The main problem here is the rampart speculation in the Oil Futures market. Money from Institutional Investors (like Hedge funds) needs to be invested in areas which give good returns. Until the 2001 recession, it was the technology firms, which resulted in the the dotcom bubble and the subsequent slowdown. That money shifted to the next best thing - Real Estate. But when real estate did not give the required returns, the Sub Prime mortgage market with its high risk, high returns profile was tapped, eventually resulting in the Subprime Crisis, which has still not completely blow over. Now the money is looking for a new place to be invested - and Oil is the answer.

So when the amount of money put into the futures market increases 31 fold from $9 billion to $280 billion in 8 years, you know where the problem is coming from. Too much money, giving an illusion of demand.

So what happens next? My guess is as soon as the rate of returns starts to slow down (when the most basic law of economics catches up), money start flowing out to the next area which gets a high rate of return. This will result in a slump in the Oil prices, back to the $80 a barrel level. Unfortunately though, this market is slightly unlike others, in that Oil has a very inelastic demand curve. But with the current prices, the demand will go down, eventually leaving many casualties like the Oil suppliers. (The last time this happened after 1970s Oil crisis - the 8 year Iran-Iraq war broke out, followed by the 1991 Gulf war)

The only silver lining is that - hopefully this crisis will bring to the fore the alternative fuel technologies. But if the US Govt behaves in a shortsighted way, like it did after the 1970s oil crisis, then we set the stage open for another bubble in the future.

Why I hate Indian movies - The Formula

Yesterday, I was able to watch the movie Dasavataram. Kamal was at his usual best. The 10 roles he played were in some form and degree related to the ten avataras taken by Vishu in Hindu mythology. The movie had a couple of mass elements in it. Although they were necessary to make it palatable to the masses, it is a pity that the movie had to stoop to those levels. It had potential. I know that to make any amount of money back, it has to do it. Every big budget movie that gets made in India has to follow the "formula" - a derogatory term for standard fare with different packaging - different people, same formula.

Lets see the formula for most telugu movies
- one or two mass songs (read as songs with busty babe(s))
- four or five fighting sequences (hero kicking ass)
- couple of sentimental scenes (hero feeling senti)
- hero is invincible, villan is evil
- Feel good factor

Although most hollywood big budgets are mostly mindless action packed fares, Sometimes you get to see some really good movies (Syriana comes to mind), played by good actors. There is a uniqueness to most movies. This is seriously missing with the typical Indian fare.

Another scourge of the Indian cinema is the "image". For an actor in the Indian industry, image is everything. A hero is a hero - he should be invincible in every movie... For the Indian movies, the word "protagonist" can be used interchangeably with the word, "hero". So most good actors do not get to do any roles other than those they have the "image" for. And those roles are always the macho man roles, because others carry the liability of at best addressing only a part of the market, and at worst destroying the image - rendering him "untouchable" in a bad way.

With respect to Indian movies, I see a beacon of hope in the Parallel cinema revolution that has arrived in Bollywood. These movies are sustained by the spreading multiplex culture in the Indian metros. But south Indian movie industry still has a long way to go, before big actors start acting in good movies.

T61 - The Thinkpad Chronicles Part II

There are some things, you never expect would happen, but they do anyway, leaving you spellbound...

The fingerprint reader on my Thinkpad is one such thing. I have never expected that it would have a proper driver in Linux at all, leave alone be of any proper use. It all changed after I found out about the thinkfinger package. After installing the package and editing some files thanks to www.thinkwiki.org, I ran "su -" and got this prompt - "Password or swipe finger:". It blew me away... Never had I thought that this would happen.

The other surprise was the BlueTooth. I tried to enable bluetooth manually and failed miserably. Then I found out about KBlueTooh. And things were never the same again! I no longer use my cellphone's data cable. I just select files in my phone and do a send via Bluetooth and it immediately starts downloading to my PC. Great!

The next biggest surprize was KPowersave. One I started it, I saw that it had all these fancy options like Hibernate and Sleep. I thought that this is one feature which would never work because you need tons of devices, to work together and go to sleep or wake up across PCI/USB etc buses. Needless to say, They worked like a charm.

For the windows user, the above stuff means nothing. It just works and it always did. But for someone like me who has not kept up with Linux since FC3, this is truly amazing stuff!

The Weather Man

I recently saw this movie called "The Weather Man". The movie is a beautiful piece of art. It stars Nicholas Cage as David Spritz, a successful weather guy, who desperately keeps trying to get his personal life back in order. Cage's character suffers from Low self esteem which is reflected in various scenarios. The movie is a slightly dark comedy, and has a motif of random people on the street throwing fast food at him. The archery theme is also very well done. It has pearls of wisdom strewn all over. Some of them seem to be so correct, that it both frightens and enlightens at the same time

- "In Life you will have to chuck some things"

- "When you are young, you have this view of yourself in the future with many positive qualities. With each passing year, the qualities keep on decreasing, until you are left with - yourself."