Google's Next Center!

Google is hiring people crazy!!!

Not suprised! Then you have company.

Google has plans to build a massive center in the very near future. Based on a working model constructed by Google co-founder Larry Page from Lego® Mindstorms™, the facility features compact living quarters and a state of the art server farm that are co-mingled to maintain a delicate bio-technical balance. The design and location itself would represent Google's reach in the search engine industry.

The complex will house 35 engineers, 27,000 low cost web servers, 2 massage therapists and a sushi chef formerly employed by the pop group Hanson.

Google says "This center will provide a unique platform from which Google will leapfrog current terrestrial-based technologies and bring information access to new heights of utility."

The Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering (G.C.H.E.E.S.E.) is a fully integrated research, development and technology facility at which Google will be conducting experiments in entropized information filtering, high-density high-delivery hosting (HiDeHiDeHo).

Inside sources reveal "Once the facility is built, the real work begins. Google will be exploring a number of exciting research projects that have the potential to advance search science to a new frontier."

The good news for all of us is that Google Copernicus Center is hiring! and they are hiring crazy. So you may very well be the next person that Google has ``found''.

Now for those of you who are wondering as to where this new center is and how should I apply for it here are the details.

Regarding the location, all I can say it is not a strange location. I'm sure you must have already seen the place atleast once. No... it is not our very own India but some place we were transported as a little kid while having "nelachoru" every night. If you still have not guessed it then you are not fit to work in Google's new center in the Moon! Thats right 'The Moon'.



Google says it is interviewing candidates for engineering positions at its lunar hosting and research center, opening late in the spring of 2007. It later added that this unique opportunity is available only to highly-qualified individuals who are willing to relocate for an extended period of time, are in top physical condition and are capable of surviving with limited access to such modern conveniences as soy low-fat lattes, The Sopranos and a steady supply of oxygen.

With the establishment of the Copernicus Center, Google's mission has grown beyond "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful." Google says its new goal is to "organize all the useful information in the universe and serve it to you on a lightly salted cracker." Isin't that wonderful news for us Earthlings.

With this step we can clearly say that "Google has gone where no search engine has gone before". We wish Google the very best of luck.

FULL STORY

A year that was

This day, last year was my first day at office.

It was a wonderful experience to know and feel that a part of you has grown up, that you are no more a ``KiD'', that you carry responsibilities now and that you have entered the next stage of life.

The journey till date has been amazing! The two-month training at Trivandrum is definitely a highlight. Had loads of fun there... every body did. Nicknamed "paid-vacation", some called it a "paid-honeymoon", the training was more like college than corporate. If songs, dances, mid-night birthday bashes dominated the weekday programme, it was vacation time every weekend. Munnar, kovalam, Kanya Kumari (Cape Comarin) are some of the places we have been to. Classes and tutorials were more often "who is gonna sing next" sessions. The excitement of a first job was written in every face I saw and in every mirror I saw.

It was followed by a dream project with an amazing scope to learn and grow. What more can a fresher ask for? Office was not as fun-filled as during the training but I still enjoyed it. With many hurdles in the path and equal number of people to lend me a helping hand I knew I can only move up! My biggest achievement was when I gave a presentation to the CEO of my organization.

With one year passing by, I stand reflecting the many memories I have had. Some unforgettable, some otherwise but all equally enlighting.

Thank you God for everything you have given. Thank you for everything.

Mumbai Xpress to Baba

Warning : This is not a movie review nor does it have anything to so with cine actors!

For those who are not aware, my work for the past ten months is on Indian Language Computing. We (moi team) develop tools to facilitate computing in Indic languages with primary focus on Telugu. There are many such teams all over the world that are working to provide computing support for their language and all are bound by the common passion... Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS).

Indic Developers Meet
A meet of the FLOSS developers from India was held at the Homi Baba Center for Scientific Education (HBCSE), Mumbai from the 12th to 15th September. A couple of my team mates and I were scheduled to attend the conference to share our experience and learn from the experiences of others.

The Journey
My organization was sponsoring our travel expenses and so gave us our train tickets for the journey. We were scheduled to leave Hyderabad on Sunday 11th afternoon to reach Mumbai the next day. But things did not go as it was planned. To cut the long story short, let me just say there was a lot of miscommunication and as a result we missed our train to Mumbai. This despite the fact that we reached the railway station more than an hour before the time of departure! But what's the point being early if the train is not gonna stop in that station!!!

We later managed to get a partial refund of our tickets and booked a "Volvo Semi-sleeper A/C" bus to Mumbai leaving that evening. It's not the same as a A/C Sleeper in a Train but we did not complain too much... well not until we saw our seats!

While booking our tickets the agent listed all the features of the bus... "Its Volvo saar... semi-sleeper with A/C saar... this is the bus saar (pointing to a picture of the bus; like we give a damn of how it looks from the outside)". But at the end he added something like a fine print "Its the last row saar". Hey, as long as the bus has all the features you (the agent) say it has then last row will not be an issue, we felt. It was only when we saw our seats we realized that we were cheated. It was a Volvo-Semi-sleeper-A/C bus alright, all of it but for our seats. The seats lacked almost everything that the others had, no leg rest, very little push back and little leg space. On picking up an argument with the agent, we were told that it is "common knowledge" that last row seats are always like so. When things looked like it will not calm down he offered a Rs.50 refund per ticket and we felt we have had enough for one day and called things off.

The Meet
The 4-day meet saw a confluence of minds. People from Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Oriya, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi and Telugu (represented by my team) localization teams were there. There was also a team for Nepal representing Nepali language. The entire group was a mixture of students (one or two), free software enthusiasts and professionals from TCS, IBM, Redhat, Novell, CDAC, HBCSE, Sarai-IndLinux and so on.

Full-size with names

I think I will skip the technical details in this blog but I must say it was a wonderful experience to share knowledge with some ``freaks''. The only sad point was that the meet extended well past 8pm every day and since we were quite far from the central Mumbai, we did not get an opportunity to go for ''site-seeing''. Still we managed to go out one day, about seven of us went to a restaurant-cum-bar close by and while everyone had beer I settled for a Sprite!
Hey.. Free Software is more about philosophy and so is my abstinence, I argued.

I must definitely compliment the facilities at HBCSE. Good accommodation, great food and wonderful facilities made us feel at home. We concluded the meet with a roadmap for the future.

It was time to say good-bye and after all the formalities we made sure we were at the right place (read railway station) at the right time.

Mumbai Trains
I have heard before about the sub-urban trains in Mumbai but seeing is believing, trust me. I boarded a sub-urban train form HBCSE to Mumbai Coastal. The train was packed but nothing new for a guy who has been in tighter spots (read Chennai city busses). It was only when the train stopped at one of its major stop that warning about these trains flashed before me. People around me warned that the crowds would literally carry you in or our of the train and that's what happened. When the train was about to stop (but still moving though) one could hear screams of tens of people. The screams grew louder as the trains speed dropped slowly like a omen foretelling what is to come. And all of a sudden the entire crowd started moving out of the train like water exiting fire-man's hose. They had to. The train stopped only for a few seconds and more than half of the train's passengers had to exit. I was happy that this was not my stop; it would have been very difficult especially with all the luggage.

Home Sweet Home
Though I miss Mumbai a lot, I am happy to be back in Hyderabad. A lot of work that was started or discussed in the meet now must be completed. With renewed enthusiasm I begin my work here.. but not before writing me blog ;-)

My Date with the CEO !

It was by far one of the biggest achievements for me in my short career so far. On Saturday 3rd September 2005, I had the opportunity and the privilege to meet the people in the top most rung of the corporate ladder.

When I got the news that the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of my organization, Tata Consultancy Services, Mr. S. Ramadorai was going to visit my office and my department (Advanced Technology Center, ATC) in particular, I was very excited. My team was informed by my PL that our project has 30 minutes with the CEO and we should make the best use of it. A CEO does not go around checking on every project in his company, especially if its as big as mine. So naturally we were upbeat.

A couple of days after the news was delivered, I called for a team meet and discussed the plans with my team. I did not want to assume anything for the big day, I wanted clarifications from my project seniors about all aspects of the presentation that we were planning for Mr. Ramadorai.

We started our work the next day, preparing a complete PC to showcase our work in Indian Language Computing (my project). While we were working on that, we also had a discussion with our PL. That was when the important question came up, "Who is going to take the presentation?" I volunteered immediately; I was confident of doing it and the pressure did not affect me too much, well, at least not at that time anyway!

With that I started my preparation for the presentation cum demo. Starting a few days before the big day, I was giving a demo-presentation every day to everyone from a senior associate at ATC, my PL to the Executive Vice President, who heads my department ATC.

My preparation was in full gear, they also gave me a laptop (I will have to return it today :-( ) to prepare for the presentation. I had already given about two informal and one semi-formal demo-presentation before the big day, all this only increased my confidence level.

D-Day
Reached office early... well my PL was already there before me but 8.20am read early in my watch. While exchanging greetings and pleasantries with him, he told me that I will have to give another presentation before the actual one. This time it was to an Executive Vice President for Bombay who will be with the CEO.

I asked my team mate to start up the laptop and set it up, and while he was doing that I thought I might practice my presentation one last time but this time all alone. So I went into the men's room, stood in front of the giant mirror and began my speech a la "Mudalvan" (the movie) style.

The presentation with the EVP from Bombay stretched for a longish duration. Mostly because he was examing every inch of it and assessing every possible business potential in it. When that was over my PL and the whole team just relaxed ourselves with some coffee and a bit of humor.

The time I begin my presentation, 12 noon, was fast approaching. Only then I realized I had not had a proper break-fast. The trouble with me is that when I become hungry my ears get blocked and it would be really irritating for me, especially if I want to listen or speak to some one else. I had only 15 minutes left, ran hurriedly to the nearest snack bar only to find nothing was available, not even biscuits. Settled for a cup of coffee, which did not solve anything; but something was better than nothing.

The Presentation

Inside, the conference room was not very big. I was big enough to seat a dozen people (a lot more if the expensive furniture are removed). It had a huge V-shaped table with a screen a few feet from the edge of the "V". After setting up laptop, we were ready to go. My PL started off first with a short "Impress" (Powerpoint) presentation. His whole 10-minute presentation was split equally into two parts one before my demo-presentation and the other after. He completed the first part and enter Khader Abbeb.

The audience, apart from a three of my team members, consisted of the CEO and MD, Mr. Ramadorai and seven Executive Vice Presidents!!! Whew... This is the top-most, decision making and highly powerful people in TCS.

My presentation went great... It was fabul-o-awesome. During most of the presentation, I was looking directly at the CEO. All I can say is he is a careful listener. There were a few questions from the EVPs present and the whole presentation was quite interactive.

The whole presentation (my PL's and mine) finished on time. Checked my watch which showed the smaller hand past 12 and the longer one exactly vertical and pointing downwards. These guys value every minute and we did not want to piss them off.

From the body language of the audience, I can emphatically say that they were very impressed. And surely they were, as most of the EVPs came up to my team and said that the presentation was really good. One of the EVPs actually came to me and said "Your presentation was really good". I replied with a warm "Thank you, sir" and a smile but inside I was jumping around and pumping fists much like Brett Lee... "Yes, Yes, Yes!!!"

Coming out the conference room, team members and my PL said that my presentation was perfect and had a good flow. My PL then invited the whole team for lunch and we left office, all 6 of us including my PL, cramped into a small car to taste some special Hyderbadi Biriyani.

I was still tasting something else... "Yes, Yes, Yes!!!"