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Cm11 nightly. Android 4.4.2. New rescue rom. And the phone rings again. FOSS FTW!

Moved my HTC One S to Cyanogenmod. Freedom at last. Out with HTC Sense UI, in with Trebuchet.

Only one minor issue. The ringer doesn't work any more. Reminds me of the 80s fridge ad: 'bas aawaaz nahin karta'.

Rahul Gandhi managed to get tremendous publicity for Congress Party through the interview. I didn't see the interview, but by talking on and on about it, people are encouraging others to view it and talk about it. Rahul has never cared about negative or positive publicity... at least he is the news. The way things are going for Congress right now, even being in the news had become impossible for it.

You have all been trolled by giving any importance to Rahul or his interview.

कविन: पानीपत का नाम पानीपत इसलिए है क्योंकि दुनिया में पहली बार वहां पर एक आदमी ने पानी पर पत्ता तैराया।

Ankur Jain, Rachna Jain, bet you didn't know that.

Namita wasn't allowed in after dark. The boys felt bad for her and rushed back.

Toy joy

We missed the jhankis :(

Kavin wants me to fast forward the republic day parade!

We were gonna view the parade in person but got late. Wonder if he would have held his patience there :-)

Absolutely love CapitalOne's online portal and customer service. I've never had to call them for anything; all kinds of services are available online. And they are super prompt. Their fraud protection is also awesome. And they give a straight 1% cashback while doing all this. They were also the only ones to give me a credit card in the US without a credit history... online.

Wish I could continue to use them. But I ran out of USD long back and must use Indian cards now.

America can deal with Al Qaeda, can't deal with the NRA.

Is this an inherent breakage in democracy?

Good fun. Must read more of this blog...

http://www.dangerousdabbs.com/who-exactly-is-kejriwal/

There is a positive correlation between the USD-INR exchange rate and the amount of USD Thinvent needs to purchase. I positively hate the situation.

Day 2. We got some much needed technical support from our trusted servicemen.

Day 1 at Convergence India, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. Delighted with the response.

Will you be visiting us?

As if the weather wasn't miserable enough in Delhi, now its raining too. Haven't seen the Sun in days. If you call someone in Delhi and they sound crabby, now you know why.

Isn't rain this time of the year really bad for crops? I just hope there aren't people sleeping out in the open tonight. I once saw a poor family with young kids huddling from the rain in Colaba. I'd just stepped out after a hearty meal and was headed to my warm hotel. That moment will stay with me forever.

No reason to cheer today. Now I know why the English go on and on about the sun. Living without it is a curse.

Random things we do to entertain/engage our kids...

The kids made me model their bunk bed in 3D for them. They measured the whole bed. They have a future in reverse engineering!

Here is a photo of us painting the bed back in November 2011.

Thinvent is looking for rented space in Thane, Mumbai to serve as a guest house and office. Even a single room with attached bath is fine. If you or someone you know has space available for rent, please do share.

The Thinvent team had fun this weekend at BluO.

Ess Kay, Shalini, Namita, Rakesh, Gaurav, Purnendu, Vinish, Sowndarya, Pradeep, Shubham, we should do this again soon!

I haven't even had dinner and these boys are busy burning up good food

Naughty rice

The six degrees of separation of news:

Last week: Indian bureaucrat says no on dies of cold: http://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/nobody-has-died-of-cold-in-muzaffarnagar-up-principal-secretary-113122700555_1.html

This week: Digg is covered with stories about cold and death: http://www.digg.com

Banks, of all people, should not be sending spam (mass mailers). Even a single important announcement email from them, misclassified as spam, can lead to disaster.

I'm sure spam filter engineers have a hard time differentiating between mass mailers, statements, and important security announcements from banks.

I updated my LinkedIn profile recently. Added a patent. This (probably) triggered a flood of recruiter emails.

What is a recruiter trying to convey to a candidate when they say that the opening is most urgent? In general, I've seen that most recruiter emails don't even make sense to me. They are filled with all kinds of jargon and acronyms.

I'm sure some of my own technical emails are equally confusing to readers. I've learnt a lesson in not being carried away by your own problems, and focus on the reader and what they want to know when writing an email.

I think the recruitment industry is totally broken. I wonder how these people hire any mid to senior level guys. I personally haven't been hired through a recruiter, even for consulting gigs, since 2005. How do they survive, given that fresher hiring is also not done through recruiters.

The most awesome museum I've been to in a long time. Absolutely amazing; sets a standard for modern museums

Nalin Mittal would love to DJ for free for your party. If you're throwing a New Year bash in Bangalore and haven't tied up a DJ yet, this is a good time to call him.

Please recommend a good manufacturing ERP solution for India. It should be suitable for a small scale electronics manufacturing unit.

Does anyone know of a tax attorney or CA who can help me file my US income tax from India?

Friends, today I live in a true democracy, and I'm loving every moment of it.

AAP - Congress ka pehle chhatis ka ankda tha.

AAP - Congress ka ab chhatis ka ankda hai.

Street food festival

Bubble tea oye! Now I don't need to travel to California or Taiwan for this.

Raahgiri Gurgaon

Nilay's turn to impress

Yoga with naughty expressions

Engineering chips in to ensure we meet our deadlines and quality standards.

Thinvent moved to a new facility in Gurgaon this month. The electric wiring is badly done, so some of the technicians are busy getting power in order. The R&D guys are helping clear the glut of orders.

If you're one of the customers waiting for your order... these are the boys and girls quite literally burning the midnight oil to get you your shiny new hardware.

Kavin discovers a source of great curiosity.

So many good Italian places coming up next to my home

Engineers at work, solving the world's problems ;-)

Winter time fun in the Sun

Nilay has declared umbilical blood banking a ridiculous, far - fetched idea.

After painstakingly understanding the whole thing quite scientifically, of course.

What a time to be in Delhi

http://eciresults.nic.in

Kudos to the people behind this site. Simple and fast interface. Very effective at the job it does. Rare example of a government site that just works, by avoiding fancy shmancy and focusing on function.

In this moment of ecstatic joy, let the common man be graceful. Let us not throw mud on Sheila and Manmohan (soon to fall).

They have tirelessly served the nation. They are senior citizens. They operated within the constraints imposed on them by the feudal politics created by the Gandhi family.

I would hardly call them victims of the system. But they were cogs in the machinery. If it weren't for them, it would have been someone else from Congress being remote controlled. Someone like Kalmadi,maybe.

AAP has given us options. But what were our options before that? When Sheila or Manmohan came to power, what were our alternatives. But they have overstayed their welcome. Out with the old, in with the new.

Pink Floyd randomly turned up on my phone.

Remembering Pondy.

Did you guys know that I argued with him to be in the seat he was in? He didn't budge. I escaped with minor bruised to tell the tale. He was impaled.

Let's all make our lives meaningful. That's all he wanted to do with his.

Sheila, please make my day. Please accuse Arvind of booth capturing, vote stuffing, distributing liquor, exceeding his poll budget, etc.

Shazia paid the price of the fake sting against her. Just a small number may have been swayed away by it, enough to give her the slim margin of loss she lost by. We have a long way to go in cleaning up our politics and media... and I hope she leads the fight from outside the assembly.

Aah, stupid facebook app loses my post, forces me to retype, then resurrects the post from the dead.

But I've outdone myself. "Politics of जात and ख़ैरात" it seems. जाति/धर्म/divisive politics - all parties. ख़ैरात/subsidy/dole - Congress. Get it? Get it?

Towers towers everywhere
But not a drop of 3G

Rural AP, Y U No get 3G even with so many mobile and electric towers? I'm missing me some AAP victory news

Aajo saare

Attending Unpluggd by NextBigWhat. Let's catch up if you're here too.

Goodbyes

Someone just send me an entire report rendered in Comic Sans.

The horror!!!

My eyes. They burn.

जागो दिल्ली! Go vote.

Remind me of Russel Peters. "Be a (wo)man. Do the right thing."

At Bangalore again. Should be here for a few days. Who wants to catch up?

Tarun Jain आप महान हो। आपने मेरे जैसे को भी लौकी खिला दी।

Great meeting you and your wife. You have a beautiful house. I look forward to visiting Hyderabad again and spending more time with you guys

Caught up with Anantha Nag after a decade. Two fat fellows gorged on copious quantities of biriyani.

Still in Hyderabad. कौन कौन मिलेगा? Headed to Banjara hills now. Then to ISB

Hyde rocks!

Took a suite at the Secunderabad Station retiring room. Had problems all night.

Moved into the Rs. 150 a day dormitory at 5am. Slept like a log.

HostelsRule AlwaysACamper

I'm in Hyderabad after seven years. Anyone wanna meet up?

Biriyani for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

The path ahead is hard. But persevere we must. True democracy can only be achieved through decentralisation, local self government.

http://m.indianexpress.com/news/misunderstanding-decentralisation/1200925/