Author Archives: Jerry

About Jerry

Jerry has been a technical person all his life. He started blogging from 2006. An active barcamper and lover of web technologies, he loves to code and hack for fun. His current work profile is in the Middleware portfolio where he is mainly dealing with XML and security.

What would You do and Why?

Posted on by
1

A long winding road. The kind of road that is perfect for driving, with fields on one side and a water body on the other. Trees adorn the sides of the road with intermittent patches of shade and sunshine. The kind of road that you love to slow cruise on your vehicle rather than set the next land speed record. Other vehicles seldom pass through this road. Public transportation is close to non existent.

You are driving on that road, on a summer afternoon. Catching a break from the buzz of the city life.

Scenario 1 : You spot an elderly woman, alone by the side of the road. Her are close to rags. They have signs that tells you that she could have been working in the fields. She looks tired. She spots you on the road, approaching and signs that she needs a lift in the direction you are going.

Scenario 2 : You spot a young girl, shades, shorts and tees, alone by the side of road. There is no hint of her being out on the road for long. She looks fantastic and great curves. She spots you on the road, approaching and signs that she needs a lift in the direction you are going.

Question : Whom would you give the lift to and why did you decide not to stop for the other person?

P.S. Ladies, if you are reading this then change the characters to an old man and a handsome chap. icon wink What would You do and Why?  

Out of Ideas

Posted on by
Reply

Just one of those days, when you stare at the laptop screen and have nothing to write about.

It’s not that i have totally and completely ran out of topics for the day. It’s just that the topics that i have are still half baked and needs a bit more work before i can post them online.

So, in the mean time, here is a cat video for you ..

Beating Procrastination!

Posted on by
1

The other day, i read this article about “How to Beat Procrastination“. What interested me was that, the article outlined a procrastination equation,

procrastination equation Beating Procrastination!

This was followed by couple of steps on how to beat procrastination. It looked at factors in the equation that you can control – Expectancy, Value and Impulsiveness (Please read the article of more details). The article goes on to state that -

… Once you know the procrastination equation, our general strategy is obvious. Since there is usually little you can do about the delay of a task’s reward, we’ll focus on the three terms of the procrastination equation over which we have some control. To beat procrastination, we need to:

1. Increase your expectancy of success.

2. Increase the task’s value (make it more pleasant and rewarding).

3. Decrease your impulsiveness.

Then there was this article, that explained what the author had in place to beat procrastination. The article is aptly titled as “My Algorithm for Beating Procrastination“. It gives a step-by-step approach to be productive and beat procrastination.

Step 1: Notice I’m procrastinating.

Step 2: Guess which unattacked part of the equation is causing me the most trouble.

Step 3: Try several methods for attacking that specific problem.

Step 4: If I’m still procrastinating, return to step 2.

The trick here is to realize that Delay is the only fact that you don’t have control over.With that enlightenment, i decided to take myself through the steps when ever i find myself procrastinating.

Need less to say, it didn’t last very long. It simply failed at the very fist task. Or to give the benefit of the doubt to the equation, the task was not a well chosen one.

The Task :  To wake up in the morning.

Result : FAILED

I wake up everyday my snoozing the alarm as many times as i can. Just prolonging the sleep 10 more minutes and that goes on and on, till i’m really late for work.

The alarm went off as usual. 7:30 AM, the alarm read. The hand moved voluntarily to tap on the mobile and snooze the alarm. Now it was the long and tiresome process of getting my ass of the bed.

Then, in that state of semi-consciousness, i thought about the 4 steps. But all i could remember was step 1 and 2. I realized that i was at step 1 – i’m procrastinating.

Now to step 2 and answer the question – what would be the benefit of waking up early? I could be in office early, i could finish work more because of the less distractions. I could feel fresh all day. I would be … would be … would … wou .. zzz…

(It never works!)

How ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3′ should have ended…

Posted on by
Reply

*** Spoiler Warning ***

“If you haven’t played Call of Duty then you shouldn’t call yourself a gamer… ” – Anon

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 box art How Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 should have ended...As a gamer Modern Warfare 1 (MW1) and Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) were games that redefined gaming for me. It had the same effect that Quake3 and Half-Life had in the way i play games and evaluate them.

What makes Modern Warfare series stand apart is the game play, graphics and how deeply the game gets you involved in the game. I’m not going to talk about what makes MW series so special, because that is not why i’m writing this post.

The release of MW3 was something i was looking forward to. It was purely because of the impact that the previous two had. MW2 ended in the most classic, dramatic and original way possible. MW2 is the only game that got me to the brink of tears. Once when Ghost and Roach was mercilessly shot and killed by Shepherd and the second the classic ending. So i’m not lying when i say i wanted the game so badly.

A delay with a faulty laptop and work pressure meant that i had to wait two months to get my hands on the game. Finally in January 2012, i played the game once, twice and thrice. But in terms of plot, MW3 didn’t quite reach the levels that MW2 had set. There were some excellent missions and sequences, but the plot was not quite up to the mark.

After my brother too had finished playing the game, we talked about all the three games. He too felt that when compared to MW2, MW3 plot was a not up to the mark. Nevertheless MW3 in itself is a good game. He the went on to tell me how the game should have been.

Here is how the game should have been -

MW3 introduces Yuri. He is playing alongside Price, Soap and Nikolai while they run from Makarov’s men. In the Prague mission, it is revealed that Makarov knew Yuri before. Upon questioning by Price, Yuri confesses that he changes sides. The game ends with Makarov killing Yuri and Price killing Makarov eventually.

But, think about this, what if Yuri was the actual criminal mind. What if it was Yuri, who had joined Nikolai’s men, infiltrated into TaskForce 141 just so that he could ‘tie up loose ends’ by killing Makarov and remain hidden for ever. The game should have progressed in this manner, with Price, Soap and Nikolai eventually uncovering the truth.