Steve Waugh on winning and role of a leader - Always inspirational.

This is an excerpt from Steve Waugh's autobiography, his thoughts after the record breaking winning streak in test matches.

"To win so many in a row we must have been doing something right. Winning at test level requires an ability to handle pressure for sustained periods at a time and more consistently than your opponents. You have to seize the moment before it presents itself, which comes back to being able to recognize when that moment is upon you. You have to know when to retreat and stem the damage, and when to up the intensity as you sense weakness in your adversary. Each team member must know his game and prepare accordingly, with bowlers generally tapering off leading into a big game while the batsmen tend to up the tempo. The captain has to pull together 10 different individuals with contrasting personalities and character traits and get them all going in the same direction by treating them equally but differently. He also has to keep the team's reserves energized and filled with a sense of being part of the big picture. He must build morale in a way that leads to everyone believing in each other, even when those outside the team have doubts, and empower players to get outside of their comfort zone to fulfil not just their obvious potential, but also to awaken the dormant skills they might not even know about. He has to strive to continually improve his own game by recharging the batteries, clearing the mind, improving physical fitness to strengthen the body and maintaining the technique to ensure consistency, while also massaging and suppressing egos that may otherwise cause damage to the karma of the team. No one can rest on their laurels - the hunger has to be real and the intent clear."

Need I say any more about the man's thought process and man-management skills. I finished reading the autobiography long ago, and I have to admit he is the greatest of them all. The ultimate sporting idol.

For the Computer Geeks

This quote was part of the signature of one of the matlab toolbox developers.

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan

A more professional Spam

Got this mail today,

Barr.Bernett Stevenson.(Esq.)
For B.Stevenson Chambers & Advocates
Tel : + 44-702-4060982

Good day,

I am Barrister Bernett Stevenson personal Attorney to Ronald Lake and
Joyce Lake who used to work with Frank Howard Allen Realtors. On the
31st of January 2000, my client and his wife were involved in a Plane
Crash (Alaska Airlines Flight 261) all passengers unfortunately lost their
lives, since then I have made several enquiries to locate any of my
client’s extended relatives but this proved unsuccessful.

You can read more about there death on this website below:

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/

After all these several unsuccessful attempts, since it's not
compulsory that the next-of-kin must be a blood relation to the deceased, hence
I contacted you because you are from the same country with my late
client, Be informed that a next-of-kin can be anybody, friends or
organization.

Presently, the Bank where the deceased (my client) had a Deposit valued
at US$21, 437, 000.00 Million issued me a notice to provide the
next-of-kin to my client to receive its benefit or have the account
confiscated, so I have contacted you to assist me in repatriating this benefit
left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared
unserviceable by the Bank.

To this effect, I now seek your consent to present you to the Bank as
the next of kin of the deceased (my Client) so that the proceeds of this
Deposit valued at US$21, 437, 000.00 Million can be paid to you and
then you and I can share the money; 50% to me and 40% to you, while 10%
should be given to any Orphanage Home.

I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement
that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please get in touch
with me viaE-mail:bernett002@yahoo.co.uk with the below details
immediately you acknowledge the good receipt of this message.

Full Name:
Full Address:
Telephone Number:
Fax Number:
Mobile Number:
Private Email:
Age:
Occupation:
Country of Origin:
Sex:
Marital Status:

Your prompt response is highly imperative.

Yours sincerely,

Bar. Bernett Stevenson (Esq.)

Any takers???

The most inspiring speech ever

I am sure most of you have read this speech by Steve Jobs, which he gave at Stanford University. Read it if you haven't. I read it sometime last year, came across it again today. I really like the connecting the dots story, I can almost relate to it. It is like the hindsight quote on my blog, you can connect the dots only looking back.

"Stay hungry. Stay foolsih".

Is it inevitable?

Last Sunday I went to drop challa to the airport, he walked in to a duty free shop and the lady at the front desk said I couldn't walk in since I wasn't traveling. I waited outside and had a small chat with the lady. She must have been about 65 years old or so. Here is how the conversation went,

Lady: Are you his brother?
Me: No, he is friend of mine
Lady: You from India though?
Me: Yes, and where are you from?
Lady: I am from Denmark. When did you come to US?
Me: About 2 years, not so long ago. How about you?
Lady: Oh! I came here a long time ago, I came here around 1960 for my bachelors. Never went back. You can't go back after you come here.
Me: Why would you say so?
Lady: I wanted to go back, but you get caught in two worlds. You want the freedom, your own country. When you are here you want to go back and when you get back you want to come here. You get caught in between, you can almost never make up your mind.
Me: Hmm, may be!!

And then challa came back, so had to leave.

What scares me is the way she spoke, there was almost an air of inevitability about it. At this point of time I am not thinking about when to go back, simply because it's just too far ahead in time to plan, I am just concentrating on my PhD.

But like I said, the lady almost made it sound like its a decision that's already been made, its inevitable, is it?

Ever talked to a corpse head, had a bullet through your brain ...

Those are just some of the dreams that I have had over the last year or so.

- A man who was switching personality between neville (my friend and roommate) and Bruce Willis along with another huge guy were after my life, of course I killed the puny neville and just as I was about to kill this huge guy he pulled out his gun and shot me down and I swear to god I had a distinct feeling of my brain leaking out as I collapsed, it was almost real. Next thing, I woke up.

- I was talking to head who later told me he died because the jaggery I used to make some sweet in a party I threw at my place had poison in it.

- Ben the dude who lives in the apartment below us and is terribly pissed with us for making too much noise once came up to our door and forgot what he wanted to say.

- my house maid in banglore yelled at me for not cleaning up my closet.

- I was dreaming and was at a really weird place, but then in my dream this is what my thought process went - "what am I doing here, I need to wake up Nithya" :(, for people who don't know her, she is a big bully and I am gonna get my butt kicked for writing this.

These are the only things that I can come up with right now or in other words my computer is free now, need to go have a look at the results.

Ramble on

This is something what I do as a full time job, ramble on without making any sense. An (f)art I learnt back in the IIT days. But that is besides the point, which makes this whole post an oxymoron coz the idea is not to make a point. Ever seen Monty Python, I so much relate to them. For the past few months it's been a craze in my house, some of my jobless friends and me have been ruined if I may call it. "You know what I mean, eh? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more"

And now for something comletely different, the bug at the back of my house tripped over a rice grain and broke his leg.

P.S. I apologize for such a horrible post, but someone else is running my experiment on the other computer and I have nothing else to do.

The title should have been general updates

Its been a long time since I have written anything. Ideally, its a general update time. I have no enthu to write anything now, but I will leave you with a couple of pics that I saw on yahoo mail homepage.