Variety is the spice of life

How to setup a Block Chain? The term Block Chain is often bandied with various other terms like “distributed ledger”, “smart contracts”, “mining”, “crypto currencies”. What do they mean? What will happen to incorrect data, accidentally stored? How to correct the immutable chain? If there is a way to fix the data, wouldn’t it be in contradiction to the concept of immutability? Let’s try to get some answers around these queries. When cars were first invented, they were called as horseless carriages. Any invention, in its initial release state, is often compared with the nearest service that it would be rivalling or replacing. Likewise, Block chain, if at all can be renamed, could well be called as “Ledger on the net”. With the ever rising rates of BitCoin, one particular area where Block chain can be implemented is already well renowned. But other than crypto currencies, there are lot many areas where the concept of Block chain is creating revolutionary ripples, having far reachin...

Ever since I read this post https://www.marketsimplified.com/disrupting-fintech-blockchain/ by mister Goku, have been fascinated by the concept of cypto-currencies and block chain and have long wanted to do a post on them. Have tried my hand a bit with whatever little info that I could understand from the materials online. Feel free to pitch-in to correct anything contrary to what is stated below. How critical it is in current world to create “trust”, considering we’ve companies that solely run on them – Airbnb, Etsy, Uber, Facebook. These are the current generation’s super giants, who go by the concept of not owning any inventory, but selling the concept of a better user interface. Reputation and trust which their clients have on them is very critical for their existence and survival. How important it is to verify contents when reputations are at stake with fake news taking on MSM? One wrong or false information on the net, with conspiratorial tone, can cause irreparable damage to t...

There is a clichéd thought process in IT world, where “senior” developers often tell their “juniors” that how coding used to be much tougher during “their times” as compared to spoon feeding GUI’s at present. Especially the coders from pre-google era who often complain that developers these days have to learn only one skill – “how to search for codes in google” whereas they had to actually type in the code. When I was watching “Dheeran – Adhigaram ondru” I was acutely reminded of the above fact. Especially during the scenes where Karthik, painstakingly gathers file after file on the dacoits and when the forensics expert, checks each and every finger print manually. To me, if anyone can understand the enormity of the content of these scenes, they would be able to appreciate the movie better. Police investigation, as against what is shown on most of the movies and drama series, is often tedious, boring, monotonous, painstakingly irritating job, wherein you’ve to labor through volumes an...

Just finished reading the third book on the trot of Keigo Higashino. Probably the least thrilling of the three one can say upfront. What kept me hooked till the end was, again the simplicity of the thought process and the sheer logical approach towards making the perfect crime. And above all, the audacity with which the story had been lifted and made into a tamil movie – Sarabham. When I saw the movie, without knowing about the book, I was stunned by the twists and turns in the screenplay and the movie was quite a watch. The least the director could’ve done was a nod to the book. (If the mention was really made but I only missed out, it’s my bad) While movie is a page to page lift off from the story with minor twists, it did really was well “translated” onto the screen. Same can’t be said about the book though. Unlike the first two novels, which made the English version as good as any written in English, the effort on translating the content is literally visible in this book. At many...

As junior takes baby steps towards schooling, all those dormant fears about that “place” raises its ugly head again. Reading books like “Malice” which talks about bullying in school didn’t quite discourage that thought process and the more I read news, more scary it becomes as to the kind of world my kid would be entering into. The more I observe school going kids, the more I get confused that where is the innocence that is usually associated with childhood!! Words that were once taboo for us as kids, are style statements for present generations and nothing seems to be sacred. As news about pollution causing institutions to shutdown, rains causing havoc and summer getting more and more intense, the next decade could very well be witnessing scenes from sci-fi movies I guess. We may soon start living in underground bunkers. With ever increasing trend of greedy and imbecile people lining up for usurping powerful posts in politics, anarchy is just around the corner. The biggest challenge...

My list of favorite authors went up by one ever since I read “Devotion of suspect X” by Keigo Higashino. If at all there was an investigative thriller with such an exquisitely simple premise, I would be really surprised if it would be a shade on the book mentioned. Such was the mastery of the author that, had it been a poker game, he played with all his cards turned upfront and yet won the bet!! “Malice” his other novel may not be in the same category of “Devotion”, yet it stands out on its own merits. And yes, in this book also, the murder happens within twenty pages and the killer is identified in the next score of pages. Yet the book which is over 200 pages long, almost never lags in its pace and seldom loses its hold on the reader, keeping them hooked till the end. One similarity between both the books being, the relatively lesser mention about local culture, cuisine or setup, but for the names of the characters. It not just makes the theme universal, but also easier to follow...

When I started with the book, I had so many prejudices that any discussion on the reason why would’ve been sub-judice. I’ve a tough time following storylines involving any country other than American or British and even in them the number of characters can’t be more than 5 for I would be confused with each of them. European novels with Baltic/Nordic setup’s and Japanese ones come with even tougher nomenclature and almost every setup would feel alien and difficult to read at the basic level. Even if the scene involves a restaurant, the kind of food the characters eat, right from that, it would be off-putting, for the lines wouldn’t be as simple as “took a bite of a burger or pizza” but something like “quiche” or “Sashimi”’ or “Nigiri”. I would get distracted to imagine how those dishes would look like or whether they are juices? It might sound absurdly trivial, but if I am unable to visualize I pretty much lose interest in the story line. I never had high hopes for this book but had bee...