What are we !! Resources or professionals?

About a week ago, I read an article on workaholic personalities. (Times of India : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/work/Workaholic-are-you/articleshow/32540955.cms) People are so involved in their work that they can hardly vacant their mind from daily office talks. Their personal life and professional life are imbalanced. These people work for days and late nights, even on weekends and stretch themselves to do lots and lots of work. Ultimately they end up with frustration, Insomnia or depression. I was wondering why people do like this? How they can become workaholic? I got my answer.

I am currently working in one of the best MNC in the world (so called). As an IT sector employee, we have little more mantle pressure then other professions. We have tight deadlines and frequent urgent work. We need to complete all task assigned in given time frame by any means (This is what our boss tells us). But I think there is a huge difference between a real urgency and a so called created urgency. I have observed 85 to 90 % cases are of second type. Due to constant hammering of pretended criticality of projects, most of us think, we are working on a mission critical project (even critical then out health and mental state of peace). If we will not complete our task (which mostly have unrealistic time bounds - they think we are superhuman) by stretching our selves out of our limit this so called critical projects will collapse. We start feeling guilty if we do not work till 9 in the evening/night (Dude, How can you be guilty ! Its 8.30 PM. and you were not watching movies all the day) or weekends. Even, environment in these so called corporate MNCs are so pathetic that, people used to see at a guy leaving at 8 like he has done some serious crime.

I want to say that there is a difference between a dedication and slavery. You should be dedicated to your work and must complete all crucial work, but at the same time you should have guts to say no to your boss sometimes. Guys, If you think I am this kind of (full of guts) a person then I am not. But I know I want to be like this and I will. Lets try together to not to be workaholic. Lets try to be perfect professionals and not a resource.

"Complain Registry Using Speech Recognition" - A turning point Project

Our Project on Speech and Signal Processing , "Complain Registry Using Speech Recognition" was selected as one of the top 10 projects at IIT Bombay last Year.We got a warm support from "Tej Gujarat" weekly newspaper. Thank You.

Holy Nature : Char Dham

When I was leaving for Uttarakhand with parents for Char Dham, a question was asked by many that, Go Goa again man, why are you going on "YATRA" at this age? Though I read about the natural beauty of Uttarakhand and it was sure that i am going with mom for her yatra,this question put me in doubt, WILL I ENJOY THERE?

But, when I reached, the "?" (Question mark) turned to the "!" (Exclamatory mark) behind the WOW!!!

Extraordinary combination of religious importance and natural magnificence makes Char Dham real paradise on earth.

Yamnotree- the origin of river Yamuna, is 6 km away from the last point for vehicles Janki Chati.But this walking way is entirely full of the energetic sound of Yamuna, elegant view of green carpet covered mountains and vibrant chattering of birds. You can see the yamuna directly coming on earth from the glaciers of ice and fog like heaven. You have seen raindrops falling from the sky. But here, you can see Entire River coming from the sky!!

Kedarnath, one of the 12 Jyotirling is 14 km walking way to reach, but this is even a better way to feel the nature. You will enjoy the cold atmosphere of Himalayas at approximately 11000 feet . Here, the carpet of mountain changes color to pure white of snow.

Serpentine roads to the Gangotree with Ganga as a company make journey exceptional. And when you take a bath in cold shivering water of holy Ganga at minus temperature, I don't know how but you feel energy within and freshness.

The last, Badrinath is at Indo-Tibet border in upper Himalaya .Nearby located MANA is a last village of India. You can have "Bhajiya" and "coffee" at "Hindustan ki aakhri Dukan" at Mana. Even an exciting way to the Vasundhra Falls from the roots of river Saraswati is a good option for youngsters to go for tracking from Mana.

In short, a nature lover whether a youngster or any other should visit Char Dham for sure. It will not even cost you that in compare to a premium trip to Goa or Manali . The entire tour can be managed within pocket that a youngistani wants.  

Debut in Rajyasabha - Sachin Tendulkar

As per the constitution’s article no 80, the president can nominate 12 members of Rajyasabha directly and the cricket icon – Sachin R. Tendulkar is one of them for this term. His name was advised by UPA government. Cricket maestro accepted the invitation and he is going to be the first ever active cricketer to be a “MP”.

Many have criticized Sachin’s decision to join. This entire issue is being seen as his joining politics, but It should not been taken in political way. Sachin has just been invited by the President, on congress’s nomination and this doesn’t mean he is joining any party. It is a great honor to the sportsman that he is nominated for the upper house .We can hope that not just cricket but all other sports will be encouraged in similar manner in future.

Other way around it can also be consider as congress’s mind game to use the fame of cricket and popularity of Sachin to divert attention from the problems plaguing the UPA recently.   

Sachin is known for his calm, honest and a gentleman image. He is playing for our nation for about 20 years without a spot on collar.

It is hoped that the presence of “The God of gentlemen’s game”-Sachin in politically polished Rajyasabha may create some difference.

As Sachin pads up for House of Elders, the obvious question is how he will manage his time for both- cricket and assembly sessions?

Feedbacks welcomed. 

What is ADSL !!

Broadband is one of the primary ways in which a majority of us access the Internet today. But what very few of us know is that it works on a technique called ADSL. Let us take a look at what it is.

Digital Subsriber Line is a broadband connection technology which enables computers to connect to each other over Internet using existing copper wired telephone networks. The main idea of DSL technology is that it works by splitting the existing telephone line signal into two: one for voice and the other for data. “A” stands for Asymmetric DSL which indicates that the data can flow faster in one direction than the other. This is the reason why the download speed is much higher than the upload speed. One of the other characteristics of ADSL is that it is an always ON connection which is automatically established once the PC and modem are switched on. This takes about a minute or two and is the reason why we need to wait for the yellow LED (on the modem) to stop blinking before we can access the Internet. In addition, ADSL reserves bandwidth so that a telephonic line can be simultaneously used with the data access service.

ADSL can be visualized in the following manner:

The splitter in reality is a digital signal processor that works equivalent of 250 QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulated) Modems operated in parallel. The task of the splitter is to separate (low frequency) voice signals from the (high frequencies) data. The splitter although small plays a very important role. 

One of the other important terminologies that we should be aware of is contention ratio. To provide a cost effective service - all ADSL services are contended (shared). These contention ratios are applied in the backbone and international part of the network. A commonly applied contention rate is 50: 1. All customers are guaranteed the plan rate up to the local exchange or the ADSL equipment to which they are connected. On the shared part of the network (meaning the part of the network from the telephone exchange to your premises) a 50:1 contention ratio would mean that a 2 Mbps connection would be shared by 49 other users around us. In reality this is very unlikely to happen and the customer would find the connection much faster than dial-up modems. ADSL relies on individual users not making unreasonable traffic demands on the network to provide fast access speeds for all. Contention ratio is one of the reasons we are not able to avail the download rate as promised by the ISP. 

A newer variant called ADSL2 provides higher downstream rates of up to 12 Mbit/s for spans of less than 2.5 km (8000 ft). Higher symbol rates and more advanced noise shaping are responsible for these increased speeds.

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