My Ego search

After a long time I was just looking at the stats of my blog. I found out few search texts  brought people to my blog. I became curious to see try out the same key words to and see what happens. First I tried “Greek monkey script”, one of my blog entry related to Grease Monkey Script listed First. Myself did not know that my entry that famous, felt something is fishy here, How can I this entry becomes First when there are lot of users the Mozilla add on site should have been listed first. Then I realized that I had misspelled “Grease” as “Greece” and who ever enters incorrect key word would have ended up coming to my blog. I never knew misspelling also gives us benefits like this

My mood turned to check how famous I am in web. I tried to search my name Karthik Ananth – Some 5 results in first page were related to me. Linkedin profile listed top. Then I hit “Karthik Jcecs” which I normally use as Id for all accounts – It gave only 24 results out of which 20 were related to me.  I became happy that I am recognized in web to this extent. I was always having a feeling that results related to me would be somewhere after 10 th page of the result which proved false.

Skandagiri Trek

It was Friday the 13 Nov 2009 when my friend Lakshmi initiated a plan to skandagiri Trek. It was very short duration so we could not call all of our group, so we decided for a quick plan with limited numbers. Started to read reviews and came to know that it is the night trek and will be tremendous if it is a full moon day. Unfortunately 14 Nov was close to a new moon day (16 Nov was new moon day), so we could not even think of it. We decided to have an early morning trek, start here by 6:30 and return by evening. Lakshmi accepted to bring her car and our meeting point was decided as hebbal

At 6:30 am

Gowtham and me meet up at hebbal were on time, Lakshmi and Navya reached there at 6:45, we all got into car and headed towards Devanahalli. No one was visited before so no one knew the route exactly. I had taken print out of directions given by google and was freqently confusing about the route. All others were trusting local help than lifeless google server. We kept on asking people about the route. We finally reached by taking route, Hebbal->Devahalli->towards chickkaballapur, left deviation after a railway level crossing around 5-6 km before chikkaballapur. The deviation took us to village “Thinahalli” and then muddenahalli road to get into village “Kalavar”, yes skandagiri hills lies in village Kalavar, local peolple would usually identify it as Kalavar than skandagiri.

At 8:30

We reached base of hills. It was covered with mist and peak was not at all visible, we were so exited to start climbing and reach the peak before mist goes off. When we are about to park our vehicle, we heard the shocking news by one guy there. The news was that “TREKKING PROHIBITED FROM YESTERDAY”…… Hey how can this happen, no ways,,, Are we not climbing this exiting hills?? I had seen wikipeadia and it was updated on 9th Nov 2009 , which is so pretty latest but “Ban from yesterday??” how unlucky we are… Alternate feelings were there in the group like if it is prohibited why taking risk and others, let take risk and start climbing lets see what happens… Also he might be bluffing, we decided to talk to police and confirm it. We headed towards starting point in search of police. On the way other people also told it is prohibited and he would take us to a different route which is safer. We disagreed and continued to meet up police and know what the exact situation is. Two guys were coming back from the trek which gave us a ray of hope and asked them whether it is safe, they told we can go just half way but not allowed to go to peak. Finally reached starting point and everyone’s face became like this – by seeing the board “Prohibited area, No entry”.  We asked someone there that where can we find police, he replied, police will be there only till 6am and if we want to climb he would guide us half way through. We decided not to take risk and headed back. Just came one furlong and stopped to have breakfast which Lakshmi managed to prepare early in the morning and bring it for us. Viewing hills and just imagining how it would have been if we were on the top now we had our breakfast. Started back again still in dilemma. A small mud road gave us the break for the day. We stopped and went inside the path, a man was doing something and I asked if we can go on trek in this way, he told there is a way and we can go. I called up all others, parked the car there itself and started marching, we thought that man is not knowing about prohibition.

Mist covered peak at 8:30

At 9:10 am

We decided to go for a very short distance and come back. We just wanted to have feel of trek at least. Navya was very scared and denying even to go for short distance, we somehow convinced her and started. We climbed for 20 mins and found some people were getting down. We asked them and came to know that we are allowed to trek after 6 am that is the reason they started trek at 6 am. Wow!! great, we can go till top, but still worried a bit, worry went off when see another 2 groups coming down. We understood why police goes back after 6 am, the guy there was just bluffing to act a guide and make some money by taking night prohibition as advantage. We were clear that we are going till the peak but we realized that we do not have anything except 2 small bottles of water. Luckily weather was cloudy and breakfast had give good energy to climb.

While climbing

At 10:00 am

The peak is still covered with mist, a hope in our corners that there is a chance that mist still be there while we reach, we kept on seeing the mist covered peak and climbing, the scene around us was awesome, photography was banned by Lakshmi on our onward journey to save time and it was opened on return journey.

At 10:30 am

Mist went off , peak is clearly visible but the route was not, yeah we lost our way. But it was like okay we could manage to climb steps kind of support engraved on rocks. We reached one fort kind of thing which was one level. From there we could see the actual path and realized that we came through some other bit difficult path

At 11:00 am

Guess what?? Yesss you are right, we are on the peak,… Wow!! it was so exciting, weather was still cloudy but no mist. Scenes around us, weather, cool breeze made us forgot about the mist and cloud. What next – yes, its photography time.. Started to take artistic photographs, took few hundreds of photos. Gowtham experimented his photography ideas we being his test dummies. We started giving all kind of expressions, poses for photos, I went up on a small stone roof for posing to photos.

On the peak

Me over the roof at the peak

At 12:00 pm

It become even colder weather turned misty, I think the peak was not visible from the base and we could not see it as we are close, far way hills were covered with mist. We convinced ourselves that we are inside the mist and achieved what we dreamt.

Other hills covered with mist

At 12:15 pm

Its time to get back. Just missed the way a bit and finally reached the base at 2:15

While coming back

At 2:15 pm at the car

Gowtham: Everything went well. We would have missed this assuming it is banned. Great that we completed!!

Me: If the car is proper then we are done!!

We all had the left out breakfast, drank 2 bottles of water. Me and Gowtham waiting outside expecting car will be reversed and we will get in, but heard shocking news again by a voice inside the car… You already guessed it right – yes “Hey, its not starting, kanro”.. Oh no!! what happened, someone here did something to it, did anyone stole battery as it was unattended for more than 4 hours. Opened the bonnet to see battery there, one doubt is solved. We asked some two guys over there for any mechanics, they themselves came to see what has happened. He told by just seeing the batter that the battery has discharged completely and it is not charging because of the dust that came out of the battery and the connection to battery was lost. He asked us to pour water on it and remove the dust using a stick. He was a driver which helped us, very thanks to him. They also pushed and it ignited. Oh yes!! we did not take risk kill the engine till we reach a restaurant on the way. By this time battery was charged and was getting started. Had good lunch and drove back to Bangalore by 5:30…

Hey what are you waiting for?? We reached Bangalore and that is the end of this story yaar…

Adding to the list of videos

I had forgot to add one interesting video in my previous entry

Wedding (Kannada)

Have a break, have a fun video and enjoy

When you feel that you are bored of working OR when you feel like you need entertainment and do not have time OR when you feel that you have forgot how to laugh OR when you look back and say “There is no fun after I quit college days”, then you should definately check out these videos. This short video makes you laugh without breaks.

1. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (English)

2. Sachka Samna Part 1 (Hindi)

3. Sachka Samna Part 2 (Hindi)

4. Babruvahana as Saivahana (Kannada)

5. Udaya TV Bad time (Kannada)

All these videos are done by my close friends in college. They have proved that you can achieve, whatever is your passion without affecting day work. Great that these guys managed to direction till light boy works. Only team of 3 have done these things and also in a vision to do lot more. Really happy to share this with you all.

Liked the videos?
Follow Mugulnage team in you tube Or keep looking at my updates in Vodpod in right pane of my blog

All about controlling diabetes

We had been to Diacon which is one of the popular Diabetic specialty hospital in bangalore, which has its name since 20 years. The reason for the visit is for the routine check up for my mother who is a Diabetic. There was a class of about 2 hours for all the first time visit patients and their attendants, we marched in and learnt lot of things about Diabetes and controlling measures. I am just capturing all those stuffs along with knowledge gained by speaking to doctors there.

What is diabetes?
Increase in sugar level in blood is diabetes. This happens because of decreased Insulin in blood. Insulin is responsible for shipping sugar from blood into cells. If the Insulin level gets decreased shipping of sugar from blood to cells also decreases resulting in increased sugar level in blood. There are two kinds of Diabetes based on the reason for lowered level of Insulin viz Type 1 and Type 2. In Type 1, There will be no Insulin generated at all in the body. In Type 2, insulin will be generated in lesser quantity and/or generated Insulin in not so active. Type 1 will usually seen in children whereas Type 2 is most commonly seen in elders.

How to control?
Note: Whatever the food you takes get converted into sugar
If you want me to tell in one sentence, “Control the food intake such that, Insulin content of your body should be capable of shipping all the converted sugar to cells”. Pretty simple huh? But the complicated part is how do you get to know how much food to take? how much insulin you have? This highly depends upon the individual, these has to be understood by closely monitoring of sugar level for a sufficient time duration. To help to monitor there are few guidelines to follow, here are those

Food habbits
Limit your food. You can eat anything except few.

Vegetables to be avoided:
1. Potato
2. Beetroot
3. Pumpkin
4. Sweet potato
5. Suvarna Gedde (Kannada word, I do not know what in english)

Dangerous fruits, should not touch at all:
1. Banana (Any kind)
2. Jack fruit
3. Mango (Stay away, very dangerous)
4. Custard Apple
5. Green Grapes

Fruits can be taken (Only if sugar level is normal)
1. Orange
2. Papaya
3. Back grapes
4. Musambi
5. Pomegranate

Strict timing and quantity of food habbits
Ideal suggestion for taking food:
Coffee : 7:30 (No sugar)
Breakfast : 9:00 am
Fillers (120ml Coffee or Buttermilk ) : 11:30 am
Lunch : 1:00 pm
Snack : 4:30 pm
Dinner : 9:00pm
Milk (120ml) : 10:30pm

Walking and excise
This is a must. At least 45 minutes walk per day. Walking helps to activate the insulin to work properly and also helps in burning calories. Walking should be brisk, uniform and continuous. If walking cannot be done continuously because of knee pain or any other reason should try to walk inside home itself giving frequent breaks.

Maintaining sugar level
The sugar level should be less than 120 at fasting and below 180 after exactly one and half hours taking food.

Insulin
Many believe that taking Insulin has lot of side effects and its not good. But the truth is, it is the best solution because Insulin is not a medicine. It is just a protein. Taking Insulin directly will have a supportive action. It is simple to take now, the technology offers painless, hassle less injections which can be taken by the patient and does not take more than 30 sec. Only drawback is once started then should be taken regularly and should maintain strict timing of injection

Synthesis of Insulin
Even though its very complicated process, I will just brief here. Its by fermentation of human Insulin using yeast and separation of yeast from Insulin. There are misconception that Insulin is extracted from animals. Animal Insulin cannot be given to humans at all.

History of Insulin
The first successful experiment was extraction of insulin from dog pancreas(Organ which generates Insulin) and injected to a diabetic dog. The dog survived and the Insulin was born. Inventors involved in the research were Dr. Fredrick Banting, Charles Best (a medical student at the time of the discovery), Professor J. J. R. Macleod and Dr. James Collip. They got noble award in the year 1923. In January, 1922, a diabetic teenager in a Toronto hospital named Leonard Thompson became the first person to receive an injection of insulin.

DISCLAIMER: All the information above are subject to understanding of the author and general information. Author is not medical consultant. Please consult your doctor before taking any action.

Trip to hebbe falls

I had been to lingadahalli(My native) last weekend (17/05/09) for an annual function called Ramotsava. This happens every year and I do not miss this at any cost. Almost all related to village comes and attends this function. It runs for 9/10 days and the last 2 days is of so prominent and there will be seeta kalyana, Rama Pattabhisheka also Utasava (we carry god idol and roam all over the village with lot of bhajans) in the evening.

We go on a one day trip to near by place after Ramotsava finishes. Going trip has become almost like a culture. The trip is very different and interesting. Around 100+ people go on Tractors. This time we have many people so that we had 3 Tractors. A very different experience traveling on a vehicle without Shocks and on a mountain trail. We planned to hebbe falls this time. Hebbe is situated near kemmangundi range. Its about 20 km from Kemmangundi. Roads are horrible over there, full of stones (iron ore) on the roads. There is Govt jeep service to Hebbe falls from kemmandundi and they charge around Rs 600 per trip. But we had a even better vehicle . We crosses kemmangundi playing antyakshari inside Tractor, lot of jokes and joy. After around 5 km form Kemmangundi Tractor stopped and told that it cannot take all the load as roads are very narrow and downhill. So only age old people and children got the chance to sit inside Tractor and we (the young warm blooded strong guys) are forced to trek till the falls. I started to search my slipper inside tractor(where I had kept while entering), unfortunately found only one , other was missed somewhere. I just wore one and telling myself that I am very strong, I can do it without slippers. We took a short cut trek even though there was clear road. After a while I started feeling the pain, the path was full of stones, but there was no other go, I made it. It was a nice 10km Trek. Finally saw the water falls (Wow!! I am big fan of falls, water, swimming). I Dived without thinking anything. I did not come out of water for 2 and half hours. We sat against the falls and its like free body massage. Also taught swimming to new buddies over there. Finally without willingly came out of water on instruction of our co coordinators. I was the last guy to come out. There was food being cooked for us (Yammiee), eat like anything, also had black coffee as there was no milk left out to prepare coffee. Started our return journey at around 6:30pm and this is really late to walk in such place. It is inside the coffee estate, it became complete dark at around 7pm. Still we have to cover around 8km and I am on bare foot, roads not visible, my god it was horrible. Finally managed to reach the top at 9:20pm. Tractor was waiting for us, occupied our seats and reached our village at 10:30. I was like sleeping whole day but an auto was booked at 12:30 for us to come to Birur where we get bus to Bangalore. In a dilemma I decided to go come back to bang. Reached bang at 6am with complete body pain

PS: There are two hebbe falls, one main falls for which trek is a must to read. Another is lower falls (Which we had visited) which you can reach very close to falls in Jeeps(only Jeeps).

These tourist spots are Karnantaka govt recognized places and its painful to see the connectivity to this. It can be improved and collect toll charges, it can attract lakhs of tourists.

New Cat eye strada

Finally got my cyclo computer by travelling  all the way from Amazon.com to Davenport to Pune to Bangalore. There was not hassle for installation. It is working fine till now, readings are quite accurate and consistent, water resistant, easy to change mode while riding as it has only one button to change mode. Speedometer is displayed in large font and easy to read. It gives total pedling time, using it you can find out the total idle time in your trip. I wanted this feature to know total time I spend in signlas, believe it or not it will be less than 5 min (in my 15 ride) and the best case was 1min. Such a small idle time can never happen in motor bike/car. This is the major time saving as I feel. My friends wonder about how I can cover 15km in 55mins, I simply give this reading

Cateye mounted on stem

Current reading
Total distance: 183 Km
Avg speed: 15.8 (had even crossed 16.2)
Max speed: 44.6 (Do not get shocked, its in a downhill, not my effort)


Few drawbacks

1. Display cannot not be easily dismantled
2. No light so it requires street light help to know the readings at night

Finally purchased Trek 4300

It was my dream since I came to bangalore to buy a good cycle and use it in place of my two wheeler to commute inside bangalore. After experimenting with BSA mach for about 8 months finally purchased my dream bike Trek 4300 on 21/03/2009 from BOTS. After a huge analysis of various models and brands finally went the one I had in my heart initially. Some times you cannot come out of intuition.

Matte Orange color

cyclo computer

Motivation:

Bicycle is best suited for Bangalore traffic as it takes almost the same time that of two wheeler and far less time compared to four wheeler. My office is 18km from my home and I take between 55 min to 1:05 mins. In my two wheeler best case is 40 mins and worst case would be 1:10 mins. In a four wheeler less than one hour is really a miracle.  It gives way to appreciate your intelligence rather than scolding Bangalore traffic at the time of traffic jams/clogging. I do not prefer to spend time in gym or park to have physical exercise (I am sure it works not more than 3 day ). Why not find a easy, enjoyable way to commute along with having a very good physical exorcise.

About the bicycle:

It is not the right time to write a review  but would like to share few happy findings of my bike. I am very happy to say that my bike climbed a overpass at windsor mannor bridge WITHOUT EVEN A SINGLE PEDDAL by picking up the speed in the previous downhill. Same thing happened in Mekri circle under pass. Its very good and enjoyable on it. Initial ride gave pain in some parts but after few adjustment to suite my physic, all is well.

Cateye Strada:

Cyclo computer, which gives speed, odometer, trip meter and so on. Ordered one from Amazon.com and my friend is will be bringing it in first week of april. I did not investigate much on this, just stick on to few reviews, I had bad expirience by purchasing some non branded wireless cyclo computer,  so this time just blindly ordered a well known brand.

Thanks to all who helped to making decision and buying it.

Java Interfaces versus Abstract Class

I had not understood clearly why exactly interfaces are required while I was in college. Put it in different way, I had not seen real applications of interfaces. Now I know the applications of interfaces and I want to help newbies of  java  to better understand.

The first thing that comes to mind when you hear about interfaces is that why cannot it be done as an “abstract class”(As by definition interfaces are set of abstract methods).  Usually new comers to java will be having background of C++ and would have better understood about abstract classes. Let me explain you where and how the interfaces fits in by considering a real world scenario.

Consider you are designing a “Car” object. So what is the hirerchacy of “Car” object? Okay, at top level is “Vehicle”, then it is a “Four Wheeler” as shown below

Vehicle

|

Four Wheeler

|

Car

Note: Do not get confused about what methods will be there in these Classes or what field will be present or how these objects are used. Keep in mind while designing objects the real world entities should be mapped to objects.

Now, a company manufactures a car, say Benz. So Benz car inherts from the “Car” Class,

Car

|

Benz Car

Suppose Benz car gives a feature of “Auto Drive”. Think a bit how can you model this feature using just inheritance ? Our aim is to show Benz Car has got “Auto Drive” feature to external world. One way to do it is make Benz Car to inhert from both “Car” Class and “Auto Drive” Class (Considering we create a class for “Auto Drive”) . This we cannot do as Java does not support multiple inheritance.  Suppose multipule inheritance is supported in Java, would you desing in this way? Think about it, is it good idea to have “Auto Drive” as a class? A class should be mapped to real world entity, “Auto Drive” cannot be an entity but its a feature that any “Car” can provide. Interfaces are applied to model the statement in italics. Define “Auto Drive” as an interface but not as a Class, whoever wishes to provide “Auto Drive” feature would implement this interface i.e., tommorrow “Ford Car” offers “Auto Drive” will implement this interface. Interfaces helps us in having strict hierarchy which in turn leads to better modelling. Now go ahead and read definitions of interfaces and start using it. There are still more applications of interfaces like defining specifications, I do not go in deep and confuse at the first shot.

I hope this entry is easily understandable, if not, post comments. I am happy to clarify but not happy if you leave the page without understanding

email notification for feeds using FeedBurner

I wanted to get email notifications when someone writes a comment for my blog. I did the following steps to achieve it.
1. Took the rss feed link for the comments of my blog.
2. Added the feed in FeedBruner . Also created one FeedBurner account as I was not having one
3. In publicize tab of FeedBurner selected email Subscriptions
4. It gave a widget code which I can add it to my blog so that others can subscribe for e mail notifications for my blog comments. Also it gave a link which I can post anywhere, others can subscribe for email notification upon clicking on the link
5. As I was not interested to offer subscription to others but wanted to subscribe myself, so I copy pasted just the link on to the browser address bar. Page appeared asking for the email address, gave my email address. And its done after receiving a confirmation mail