What have i been ???

I am on Twitter now (@khopadi). Its nice.

Michelle Porter and her subordinates at the Carnegie Mellon parking services (which oversees both visitor parking as well as student/staff parking) might be running a scam.

Couple of months back (haven't had the time to blog about it till now), during the CMU Spring Carnival week, one of the parking services personnel mis-directed me to park in a handicapped spot since the parking lot i was allotted parking in was full. After being mis-directed by parking services, another one of their personnel wrote a ticket to me for parking in that spot.

Michelle, who is supposed to oversee this operation, wouldn't accept it as a case of mis-communication among her staff. Makes me wonder if it was a scam all along. After the episode, its very easy for the two different employees (the one who mis-directed me and the one who wrote the ticket) to easily claim that they were just doing their job. Hence they were not at fault.

For all practical purposes, the parking services scammed me into paying for the heavy work that Spring Carnival week generates for them.

In anycase, parking services runs in kind of autonomous mode in CMU. So its hard to bring them under scrutiny. All i can do at this time is caution other students and visitors to CMU to be very careful and explicitly clarify any direction given to avoid falling into this trap. Good luck.

Labels: carnegie mellon, cmu, parking, pittsburgh, visitor

Long overdue on the list of movies i had to catch up with, i saw Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist today.

There are some days when you just wanna get high. I think. But may be there are things that happen that day which make you wanna get high. Good things. Things that remind you of the best of times. So well, while that time is gone (and may be there are better ones yet to come), for now...

Watching this movie is one of those good things for me. The other movie that made me feel this way was Almost Famous.

I have an idea. May be i should make a collection of these movies. So that one day when i finally decide to light that dubie... i will be prepared.

Labels: almost famous, infinite playlist

Indie 103.1 FM was the best radio station i have ever listened to in the United States. Its morning commute programming was just the best there can be.

Since i moved back to Pittsburgh, i have been catching up on my dose of Indie 103.1 online and actually on the east coast it works out much better timing wise because now i get to listen to the 9pm music at Noon which is typically when i get to listen to music in my office.

I came to know today that Indie 103.1 FM is stopping its "terrestial" broadcasting in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas quoting "corporate" reasons! The announcement that went along with this stop says they are will "take an alternative course" moving to the Internet, "a place where rules do not apply and where new music thrives".

It seems, for now, their content is automated online too as its going through pretty much the same songs. But hopefully, they would be back soon enough.

BTW: If you go through their history (as per Wikipedia), these kinds of transitions are not new. The attempt to move to the internet from an earlier version of this station called Channel103.1 doesnt seem to be any good (didnt work for me!).

Lets see how far this alternative course takes Indie103.1 FM. I most sincerely hope that their format of radio gets to survives in the US.

Labels: indie, los angeles, music, radio

I have a problem with General Mills. The guys who make all the breakfast cereal in the world (pretty much!)

Their Cocoa Puffs Milk & Cereal Bars are the best. But the only way they seem to be available is by purchasing a combination box of Milk & Cereals bars which have 2 bars each of Cocoa Puffs, Honey Nut Cherios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch like here. Honey Nut Cherios are not so bad, but the Cinnamon things are not so good at all.

So, now i have to buy a box of 6 bars really to enjoy the 2 bars of Cocoa Puffs in them. Isnt that very much like some Software company bundling a (supposedly) undesirable software with another software that people do want (like i want those Cocoa Puff Milk & Cereal bars). Is this analogy grounds for a suit?

Why cant General Mills just sell a pack 6 Cocoa Puffs Cereal Bars??

Labels: cereal bars, general mills, snack

Hippo Water Roller
A solution for collection and transportation of water
http://www.hipporoller.org/why.php

What i really like about this solution is the realism that they have used to come up with this solution.

Instead of building billion dollar plans for laying pipelines and pumps, this approach is fundamentally what we (at the company i am interning at this fall) call as the incremental approach to problem solving.

In situations where an existing solution is being used by a ton of people and we realize that the solution is not the best, the incremental approach suggests making the largest possible change without having to ask the users to mend their ways except for just the one aspect which involves the switching from existing solution to the new solution.

In the specific case of the hippo water roller, the users can still go about their lives as usual except making the one aspect of life that this project deals with i.e. collecting and transporting water in a easier/safer way. Benefits by the use of new solution are good, but the new solution doesnt require the people to come up solutions to other new problems (except may be having to think about what to do with the saved time and energy).

The incremental approach to technology based solutions for real world problems solves problems without creating new ones. And thats why i like this project.

Labels: development, hippo water roller, technology

I love this song!



I try to fit its many similarities to earlier records, but then i think- Who cares, Just enjoy.

The YouTube video is here.

Labels: just dance, lady gaga, madonna