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Showing posts from July, 2009

The extinction of IT Architects

If you are as old as me, you would have stood in line in front of a ‘Printer Room’ with your ID card to collect your print outs from Printer Admins aka people who thought they ruled the world. If you are slightly older, you would have traveled with Lift Operators who had a control over your life for those few minutes. If you are as old as your father (hehehe) you might have thought a career as a Telegraph Operator would get you the fattest dowry and a gorgeous girl. And if you have survived the medieval period, you might have come across wood cutters, armor smiths, hostlers, furriers, shoe polishers … Simply, these jobs are extinct now. And jobs keep becoming extinct as I am typing this now. I am reading about Cloud Computing these days and I am beginning to think that my job - the IT Architect , would become extinct in another 5 years too. For my non IT friends - IT Architects design how a group of machines and software can be put together to run a business. These are nerdy, un-pr

The loin cloth philosophy

Once, a wealthy and a powerful family man decided to embrace the Zen way of life. So he renounced everything – except for his loin cloth. But the rats in his hut were prying on the loin cloth (good that those were not squirrels) and hence he brought a cat to take care of the rats. Now, the cat needed milk, so he had to bring a cow. The cow needed to be attended, so he brought in a maiden. Shortly, he fell in love with the maiden and went back to square one. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I remembered the ‘simple life’ days when we used to hop rental homes. All that mattered would be 2 sky bags and a taxi. This time home moving was a few bruises, a sore back and shoulders, a loss of 2 kgs of body weight and a week’s time off from work. Mentally, it was like moving Mount Kinabalu. All the time, I had been wondering about how junk got accumulated. And that’s when the story above came to mind. I consulted Sujatha’s thick yellow

The Zen of Shifting Home

If I have not informed you earlier, I have moved out of Pasir Ris. The primary motive was to get closer to Trisha’s school. The other objectives include sniffing, if not rejoicing, some finer things in life. You know, like most filial Eastern men, I had dedicated half my life for others. So I shall make my ‘fine list’ now before its time to make the ‘bucket list’ soon. This house was love at first sight and my mind refused to even flirt with the other choices. Its bigger, brighter, windier, has sea views AND fits my thin wallet. After all, finesse is directly proportional to how much one can pay through his nose. So we bought this house and the rest of the story is me fulfilling my artistic quest. I drew inspirations from cubism, Zen interior design and minimalism. Cubism is Picasso’s post modern response to breaking traditional patterns in painting. It is simplification of natural forms into cubes, cylinders, spheres, and cones (And there is a lot more to it. Beer session topic!). I h