Some games just lift your mood!

I can't say this was my best game on Chess.com. However it was definitely one of the most pleasing wins I have had since I started playing on Chess.com three months ago. It was Sicilian Najdorf (which reminds me of Pradeep Paranjape), and I was playing white against C Arindam from India. Here's how it went:

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Be2 Be7 8. Qd2 O-O 9. O-O Nbd7 10. f4 b5 11. Rae1 Qc7 12. Kh1 Bb7 13. Bf3 Rfe8

At this point I thought for about 6 minutes in this 10 minute blitz. Just like my old days - during my tournament years, I would frequently spend an hour thinking 2 or 3 moves at the start of middle game! After long thought, I played

14. e5

When I get computer analysis of the game tomorrow, I will know whether this was a correct move. Although not sure of the merit of the move, I took the risk with it. And the game continued -

14. ... dxe5 15. fxe5 Bxf3 16. Nxf3 Nd5 17. Nxd5 exd5 18. Qxd5 Bxg5 19. Nxg5 Nxe5

I had not analyzed the position till here, when I played 14. e5. However, we had reached this position, and it allowed me to play an exchange sac with

20. Rxe5

He accepted the sacrifice.

20. ... Qxe5

That quickly brought the matter to close with -

21. Qxf7+ Kh8 22. Qh5

(22. ... h6 23. Nf7+ followed by Nxe5)

1 - 0

Cute little victory! :-)

Behold this audacious liar!

It just amazes me how low Manmohan Singh can stoop to stay in power. No other Indian politician could have the audacity to be such a shameless liar! How many more do we have to hear from this crook before the people of our nation kick him out of his chair?

When the whole world knows that he won 2008 No Confidence motion by bribing MPs, our disrespected Prime Minister continues to lie brazenly! And this is not the first time he has done this. He lied to the nation on CWG scam. It was he who sanctioned the escalated costs, knowing fully well where the money is going. He lied on 2G scam, that he was unaware of massive corruption that was going on (Is it even possible? Such massive corruption happening under his nose, and he smells nothing fishy?). He lied on ISRO-Devas deal, which he signed, and no one else.

Every day he continues to lie shamelessly. His lies are now becoming an insult to the nation's intelligence, an insult to the nation's self-respect, and a challenge to citizens' potency.

Finally resolved issue with synchronizing gmail Contacts with my Android phone

I finally figured out the link between my Nexus S mobile phone contacts and my gmail contacts. Ever since I synced my cell phone and my gmail contacts, I had been bewildered by disappearing contacts! I would create and save a contact on my cell phone, and it would just disappear. I wouldn't show up on my contacts after I saved it. I was miffed at the way Contacts app on my cell phone was behaving. I had to open my gmail contacts on my computer and the Contacts on my cell phone, and check them side-by-side to finally figure out the link. Whatever contacts I add to my cell phone get saved to "My Contacts" contact list in gmail. So to make cell phone Contacts app work correctly, I have to display "My Contacts" contact list on my cell phone. That setting can be done from Contacts -> Display Options -> Gmail account -> My Contacts menu path.

It was a huge relief to resolve the problem with Contacts function on my Android phone. This was the only issue with my otherwise lovely phone that was bothering me.

Cold weather in Seattle

A cold wave has swept Seattle last few days. This is what I woke up to on Thursday.

So it was work from home on Thu. On Friday the temperature was sub-zero throughout the day. Cleaning the ice off the car was grueling, because the snow from previous day had turned into hard ice! I saw some interesting icicles hanging from cars.

By evening this is how the surroundings looked like:

Blogging from my new phone!

Here I am blogging from my new Android phone, Nexus S ... when I ought to be sleeping! It's 12:30 a.m. and I an alarm set for 5 a.m. But this new phone is so addictive, I just can't keep it down!

A visit to library

I spent a few hours in the library this afternoon. I really enjoyed it. Just being among all the books makes one feel elated! It was not easy for me, even in the quiet ambiance of the library, to focus fully on my study. The habit of studying is kind of broken. Yet, between the distractions that I indulged into, I was able to spend some time reading what I wanted to. I want to make it a habit to visit the library often. Let's see how it happens.

Installed Chrome

And one of the first things I did on the laptop was to download and install Google Chrome. I browsed the Net for sometime on IE, but couldn't live with it for long. So, I quickly downloaded Chrome. I am writing this blog on Chrome. The previous one was written on IE.

The excitement of new laptop

Yesterday we purchased our first laptop - HP G62-372US. It has an i3-370M processor, 4GB memory, 320GB hard disk, 15.5 inch screen and a built-in webcam. I think this has become a standard configuration at present. This is our first personal laptop. Hence it was very exciting to unpack it today and to use it.

This is also my first brush with Windows 7 operating system. It seems more jazzy that Windows XP, which I am used to. And that's adding to the excitement. The 15.6 inch screen is larger than my present laptop, and the resolution much better. The new laptop is also considerably faster than the laptops I have used to working with. In fact, it is probably the fastest laptop I have worked on. I am really enjoying using our first laptop.

Manmohan Singh loses his clean image with 2G scam

Here's a good article on ExpressIndia website about 2G scam: PM’s ultimate humiliation

A wasted weekend?

There were several important tasks to be done this weekend, and I didn't do any of those. I was so bored that I just whiled away the weekend doing nothing. By Sunday evening I was bored to death. Finally, in the evening Poornima and I went out to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I. That proved to be a silver lining to the otherwise dark weekend.

Deathly Hallows - Part I was a very engrossing movie. I am a fan of Harry Potter books. I haven't enjoyed each of the Harry Potter movies equally. I liked this one was better than most others. I am glad I watched it. It would have been even better if I had watched it in IMAX.

Journalists as "Dalals"

Bad web design - 2

I am quite sensitive to user-friendliness (or unfriendliness) of software, and of web pages in particular. I am really annoyed, when I come across poorly designed web pages. I find it very surprising that even popular websites that receive crores of hits everyday make some poor design decisions. For instance, let's look at the Amazon home page. It looks clean and convenient. However there are some annoying flaws in its design.

Let's say I want to buy eBooks for my Kindle. I will have to navigate to Kindle on the LHS pane, which would open up new menu options, and the click on eBooks.



The red line shows the natural path for my cursor to navigate from Kindle to eBooks. Unfortunately, that won't work. Because the moment cursor my crosses the line into Computers & Office, Kindle menu options would close and options for Computers & Office would open up. Ugh! :-( I will have to go back, and try to follow the green path. Unfortunately for me, following the green trajectory is not as easy as designers of Amazon like to believe. I keep crossing the line into Computers & Office, or Digital Downloads, with obvious results.

I once told a friend of mine who works at Amazon (and is involved in the design of their homepage) how irritating this is. He told me many users have complained about this and other quirky features on Amazon homepage, but the company is adamant about its design, and refuses to make changes. He also narrated that many people find the absence of Sign Out link confusing. Instead they have a Not user name link. Many users (including me) find this annoying. But it seems that Amazon has some ideological belief in support of it, and refuses to listen to its customers.

When do you switch off your car stereo?

If you have traveled in private buses in India you might have noticed this - the driver switches off music or video several minutes before reaching the destination. With entertainment switched off, those last few minutes of a tiring journey become even more restless. I had always wondered why they switch off the music too soon.

Recently I have observed that the car radio becomes extremely distracting in the last few minutes of my drive. My concentration and alertness are considerably increased if the radio is switched off before I reach my destination. Even when I am driving a very familiar route, like commuting home from office, I find that it makes a big difference to my concentration if I switch off the radio a few minutes before reaching home. It seems as if I have to make greater mental effort when I am close to my destination, than in the middle of my journey. I don't know why it is so. I also don't understand why I had never realized this earlier.

Have you also observed this?

And we danced to the stars!

I had a wonderful evening yesterday. I came home after a long day at work, so hectic that I had to skip lunch. After I had my dinner, when I learnt that Vedika had been unusually peevish that day, I thought it was time for us to have some well-deserved fun.

I switched off the lights in the room and switched on the new lamp we have bought that projected stars and moon on the ceiling and walls of the room. On iPod docking station we had playing Celine Dion's "A new day has come", and then Chris de Burgh's "Lady in Red". Then I held her in my arms and we danced to the music. And all the while she stared wide-eyed at the spectacle of stars all around us!!

At 8 weeks, Vedika is the most interesting person I have ever met in my life!

Less News from Times of India

About 8 months ago, I had written about not being to customize Google News to exclude news from bogus news sources. I had done some workarounds to achieve that. But I wished there were some easy way to do it.

Today, when I clicked on News Settings, I was delighted to see options to personalize Google to have more or less news from certain sources. It did not take me long to update and save my settings.

Quote for the day

Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run - in the long-run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.

- Viktor Frankl
Psychotherapist, Holocaust survivor, and author of Man's Search for Meaning

"Secularists" stoking fire

Swapan Dasgupta is one of few sensible intellectuals in our country. His articles are balanced, and well thought of, unlike those of the "secular" (read anti-Hindu) intellectuals of the country. It is on such sensible thinkers like Swapan that our hopes of Indian intelligentsia guiding the country on the right path of justice, peace, progress and self-respect rest.

The Sunday Pioneer published a good article by Swapan Dasgupta on how the "secular" intellectuals are whipping up Muslim passions against the High Court verdict. Instead of putting end to the dispute, the so-called secularists are stoking fire against a popular and reasonable verdict, which the common man - both Hindu and Muslim alike - has accepted peacefully.

Here is a brief excerpt from the excellent article:

For two days and courtesy some TV channels, the "secular" modernists attempted to whip up Muslim opinion against the judgement and use the community's apparent displeasure to force the Government into using its proverbial 'good offices' with the Supreme Court. The overall idea is to build up an intellectual climate so forceful that the Supreme Court would think it prudent to overturn the HC judgement.

Historic Ayodhya Verdict - time to construct and move on

Yesterday's historic verdict by Allahabad High Court on the Ramjanmabhoomi case should pave way for a process of reconciliation and construction of a temple on the birthplace of Lord Ram. Some Hindus might be disappointed by the decree to give away a third of the Ramjanmabhoomi land to Muslims. However, it would suit Hindus to be magnanimous at this point, and accept the verdict with an intent at rapprochement.

The verdict gives a feeling of justice being done to the case to the extent that it accepts the garbhgriha as the true birthplace of Lord Ram. It also asserts that the ASI research findings from the site conclusively prove that the disputed structure was built on top of a demolished Hindu temple.

Here are the key excerpts from the Ayodya verdict from the BBC website.

Here's how Ramjanmabhoomi will be divided:

The happiest day of my life!!

It was the happiest day of my life. Our cute little angel - Vedika - arrived, bringing with her indescribable joy to our lives! I had never imagined what an amazing feeling it would be to hold my little baby in my hands. I can look at her and talk to her for hours. And when I see her smile, it is a moment of ecstasy!