Karthik Kastury

"Adventure without risk is Disneyland."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:46:29 +0530

“Adventure without risk is Disneyland.”

- Douglas Coupland (via itbeginsatmidnight)

The Changing Face of Education

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:38:00 +0530

It’s been almost two years since I’ve been out of college (experiences), and more than two years since I’ve actually sat in classes listening to lectures. What gives? No I wasn’t the spoilt college kid, who roamed around corridors, sat in the cafeteria watching people pass by! If anything my college life was a brilliant experience of learning something new everyday, and that has become a habit that continues to this date.

It is just that as a part of the ~~early adopter~~ culture, I skipped a few of the traditional ways of doing things back in college.

Education has for a very long time, been always about teacher/student relationship. In 2010 when I was in my final year, many places across India the way the knowledge was imparted to Students remained fairly the same as it was in the 1980’s. Yes! The invention of computers has impacted the world of technology. So much, that in 30 years the face of technology has changed to the extent that today no longer resembles what it was in the early 80’s.

But how much of this rapidly changing technology has transformed the way Teachers teach Students? Not much I’d say. Or rather not much, not yet! And the reason is simply because till date there were no tools by which students could experience complete interactivity while learning. All of that is about to change in the next 10 years. When we look back in 2020, our kids are gonna come back to us and say “You went to a school, sat in a class to learn things?”. Classroom teaching as we know may no longer exist by the time we get there.

Apple with the iPad, and iBooks is fulfilling that vision. But it is going to take more than Apple, to change the face of education as it exists today. People today fail to realize that Technology has the potential to change the face of education. Today in India internet is slowly starting to be an ubiquitous commodity. India in the past has always been a generation behind our western friends. I think this time we have a major opportunity to jump ahead, and unleash in a new era of education.

Projects like the Aakash tablet is not the answer. It really is the baby steps for us to get there. Indian Government should not be looking at low cost solutions, but should rather be looking at highly functional solutions. The way the markets work, falling price is just a question of when, and not if.

Growing up as a kid, my parents always aspired to have me study at the IITs. I never fulfilled that dream for them. And there are scores of Indians who every year fail to realize this dream. But should high quality education be restricted to the elite few of the IITs and MITs of the World? I don’t think so. Education should never be the comfort of a elite few.

The world has a limited number of inspiring and brilliant teachers. For Humanity to progress, every aspiring student should be able to connect to these teachers. I think Technology will bridge that gap in the coming years. Today Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseware are sowing the seeds for what will be a brighter future for tomorrow’s generation.

The Day is not very far off, when quality education and information is not very far off from the reach of every individual on this planet. Technology will fast blur the lines, between who can and who can’t access knowledge.

If you are in your twenties today, your kids will grow up to an entirely new system of education. As parents you need to step up to the new rules of the game!

P.S : Thanks to Divya for inspiring me to write something!

"Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the..."

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:09:36 +0530

“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.”

- Eddie Cantor (via kari-shma)

"Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without..."

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:44:47 +0530

“Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without regret or reservation.”

- William H. Sheldon (via kari-shma)

"Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go."

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:44:36 +0530

“Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go.”

- Daniel Stern, The Wonder Years (via kari-shma)

"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:21:33 +0530

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (via myquotelibrary)

kari-shma: Good Night, Travel Well. (by Pedro Silvares)

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:18:20 +0530

kari-shma:

Good Night, Travel Well. (by Pedro Silvares)

"In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can..."

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:18:06 +0530

“In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can finish each other’s sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week.”

- Douglas Coupland (via kari-shma)

"Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more..."

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:15:21 +0530

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

- Ray Bradbury (via kari-shma)

An Year Gone by at Chennai

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:29:00 +0530

The Beginning of Last November, saw me pack my bags, and head out to the land of anna’s and kutti’s. Chennai. It was hard bidding goodbye to Manipal, and it remains the one place I always want to go back to. Who knew that fate would bring me back to the place, where I grew from a kid to an young adult. Life has its own many ways of saying things you’d never hear otherwise. The 3rd of November last year, me, Kenneth, Raison and Rathan, set out for what was our first day at TCS. What we didn’t know, fast forward a year, we wouldn’t be sharing the same roof, nor be working at TCS.

The first few months at Anna Nagar, were a blur. Times at Anna Nagar S2, Birthdays, Walking in the rain and flooded roads, eating out every night, roaming around on 2nd Avenue almost every other day, friday night eatouts with an extended Nitte gang, making some new awesome friends during the ILP Days. Looking back I still can’t believe we stayed at a place, that was so tiny as Anna Nagar was. It was fun, great fun at that. And I miss it more so, because post college those were the only moments like college. And that’s the kicker.

Coming to Chennai One, post our times at Anna Nagar/Ambattur, was hard. It was finally time to start working, time to be billable(industry lingo!). After a little bit of deliberation I decided to move in with these guys to Kottivakkam(PJP, F14 hereafter) and not in with my family which is also in Chennai, albeit pretty far off from the Offices. The reason was simple. I knew that it was a simple thing to do, because nobody knows where our careers are going to take us. F14 was comfortable, spacious. It was the perfect place to be, post an horrible day at Office. Which helped ofcourse, because times at Chennai One had many of those. Moving to F14 also meant, that everyone had to go to different offices, leave at different times. That was pretty sad. We hardly got to spend more time together. At S2, we quite literally lived under the same roof, at F14 it wasn’t the same anymore. And to add to that was the fact that I’d go home almost every weekend. I absolutely enjoyed the weekends, relaxing and taking time off, because the Office was exhausting, and killing. And you can’t complain when you have mom cooked dinners and lunches, and a decent internet connection right?

After what felt like an eternity on Bench, I finally got a project, but it ended up being the one thing that I knew was definitely not what I wanted to do. If I remember correctly, almost immediately after my project, I started to look out for greener pastures. Office went from boring, to politicized and unprofessional later. Work wasn’t interesting, but it was hectic, and the tight schedules had me hanging on.

Fast forward to August 2011, I resigned from TCS. It was finally time to bid goodbye. It was an important decision, and a lot of people, specially family were skeptical on that call. I am now working at PayPal India, which happens to be the best place that you’d want to work at. Atleast in Chennai if I may add. :D At around the same time Raison also started looking around for Greener land, and landed at Sourcebits Bangalore in September. That simply meant that S2, and then F14 was no longer the same as before. A few weeks later in October Rathan also got transferred to Bangalore. I bid goodbye to TCS on the last day of September, and that was that, a chapter written in the history books. I decided to move back home, and travel to Office daily.

Raison spent most of October travelling back and forth, Chennai, Mangalore, Bangalore. I was sick for a better part of the month. And here we are; October was technically the last month at F14. It’s hard to believe that an year has gone by. A lot has changed, life is kinda moving at pace, where it no longer is predictable. The 3rd of November, this year(a couple of days back), looking back at the times was a day well spent doing nothing. To sum it up, I am glad I moved to F14, with the guys, and also glad that the TCS Story is over. I get to play a part in shaping the future of Money at PayPal. Everything is a part of the ever changing world.

About 60 of us from #Nitte came to Chennai last year. 14 of us became really good friends, and now you have folks getting married, getting engaged, prepping for higher ed, frustrated with life at TCS, moving to greener pastures. And of course split between Chennai and Bangalore. It’s just a 5 hour drive away, but we never get to live the same life again. So much changes in one year, doesn’t it?

To the times well spent… An year is gone by… At Chennai.

Footnotes:

The most amount of fun was obviously because of #ShitRaisonSays and did.
S2, is the tiny apartment in Anna Nagar, where we living through the training at ILP.
F14 is the more spacious apartment that we lived at, in Kottivakkam.
Chennai, also made me a bunch of new friends. But there’s a charm to itself, when you have friends from college.

Now I need to catch up with a lot of people, what’s been happening in their lives. It’s been an year and half since we left #Nitte.

kari-shma: cliché, i know. (by Kristine May.)

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:19:07 +0530

kari-shma:

cliché, i know. (by Kristine May.)

"Avoiding problems you need to face is avoiding the life you need to live."

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:18:55 +0530

“Avoiding problems you need to face is avoiding the life you need to live.”

- Paulo Coelho (via kari-shma)

Steve Jobs - A Tribute to the one man who changed the World

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 09:28:33 +0530

I first heard of Steve, back in 2005. Back then iPod was the gadget everyone wanted to have, and not many did. I was in high school back then, and when I first hit the Apple website, they just came across as an arrogant American Corporation, overcharging for what was a simple Music Player. Those were the days I would flaunt an Sony Discman, and carry a bunch of Audio CD’s everywhere I went.

Apple as a company, and Steve as a person never appealed to me back then. When I first got into blogging in early 2006, I discovered the existence of the fanboys. I loathed them, everywhere I saw them. Mind you the Internet back then was a very small place.

Fast forward to 2007, the morning of January 10th I was just reading my RSS Feeds, like I did every morning back then. Apple had just announced the iPhone. Yes the very first iPhone. I instantly realized what a game changer it was to the Mobile Phone industry, like the rest of the world did, or went on to realize. I watched Steve deliver the Keynote, and I was instantly amazed by this man. I instantly admired him, and the way he talked, sending emotions deep into you. The fact that he made a phone something you desired, to the point of lust, was something I was shocked about!

If I remember correctly the next few months, were spent on reading the Apple story, and how Steve resurrected Apple, from the brink of a collapse. As time went by, my admiration for Apple, and Steve only grew.

A year later, I went on to buy my first iPhone(3G) and then the First Generation Unibody MacBook Pro. Those were expensive toys for a College Student in India to own in those years. I was ridiculed, almost by everyone I knew for buying a Mac, and even more an iPhone.

But a lot has changed since then. The world has literally changed itself so much, that it has little resemblance to how things were back in 2007. A lot of people discredit Apple for the innovation that they put through the pieces of everything they create. Regardless of what you might think, the fact is the world of computing would probably not be as exciting as it is today.

Without the courage and conviction that Steve is known for, this is probably how the world would look like today:

There would be no smartphones. There would be no Android. Do you really think Google would have brought Android if it wasn’t for the iPhone?
Touch Screens, which have now become the defacto choice for building the next generation devices would not have existed, if not for Steve and the iPhone.
Apple is known, to be a walled garden for its App Store, but there were no mobile apps back in 2007.
Microsoft would probably be still dominating the world, but as we speak, Microsoft is busy looking for answers.

In one fell swoop, over the past few years, Apple is now more indispensable in the world than any other company. You can go on argue about Google, Microsoft and the rest of the folk. If it wasn’t for Steve’s courage, the industry today would have been stale and boring.

I realized this before a lot of people did. A lot of people are still ignorant of Apple, and more specifically to Steve’s contribution to this world. If you don’t know what Steve means to this industry, then please go read it. It’s just about everywhere on the Internet today.

Steve was there, when this Industry started. Steve is leaving us, at a time when this Industry is rewriting itself. Yes we are in the Post PC era. It was Steve who gave us the PC, it is Steve who is giving us the Post PC era.

You might not realize this, but this one man has changed the course of the history, more often than anyone else. And that is why I love Steve. That’s why I have respect for this Man.

The world owes Steve, something that I don’t think we’ll ever to pay. Apple is now entering another phase in its colorful history, without Steve at the time. But this time, its different. Steve Jobs has built Apple, brick by brick. Put years of handwork, and wisdom in the pillars of Apple.

Apple today, is in the hands of Tim Cook. I for sure don’t doubt Apple’s success going forward, but Steve will be missed. The team that Steve built in the years at Apple, will definitely see Apple through.

But you cannot replace Steve. He is irreplaceable. His heart will forever be ingrained in Apple.

He will continue with Apple, as the chairman of the board. I’m sure he will continue to guide Apple.

With the resignation of Steve Jobs from Apple, he not only reminds us of his mortality, but of our own.

Here I am, wishing you the best of health. I hope you live many many years, fight the Cancer, and come back strong, like you always have in your life.

Thank you very much Steve, for making the world a better place.

rameshsrivats
Mac, Pixar, iPod, iPhone, iPad. Creating even one of these would’ve made a man a legend. Creating all. God. #ProudToBeAMactard #stevejobs
25/08/11 7:53 AM

"I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For..."

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 08:42:52 +0530

“I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”

- L. Frank Baum (The Land of Oz)

"1. I’m anti-corruption. 2. I’m anti-Anna Hazare. 3. Hazare is a sanctimonious..."

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 00:57:43 +0530

“1. I’m anti-corruption.
2. I’m anti-Anna Hazare.
3. Hazare is a sanctimonious right-wing tyrant so cloaked in his own virtue that he believes he is above the law.
4. The law is frequently an ass.
5. Nevertheless, the law is frequently our only hope.
6. Better the elected asses than the dictatorial unelected.
7. The government is playing into Hazare’s hands with its idiocy.
8. Yes, these views can be held simultaneously.”

- Peter Griffin

"Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high, look it..."

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:46:29 +0530

“Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.”

- Ann Landers (via kari-shma)

"Live the life you wish to, date the man you wish to date, and stop looking to your family for..."

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:45:58 +0530

“Live the life you wish to, date the man you wish to date, and stop looking to your family for affirmation for the choices that you make. Life is full of risks. You can’t live your life in fear of how people will judge you for following your dreams.”

- David Sullivan

"You never fail until you stop trying."

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 01:31:40 +0530

“You never fail until you stop trying.”

- Albert Einstein (via kari-shma)

The iPad is 99% more open than any other computer

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:32:00 +0530

The iPad is 99% more open than any other computer:

roboteti:

As you may or may not know, this is my 8th grade year. My school goes to 8th grade, so this is my gaduation year. It would be worth mentioning that I don’t have any nerdy friends at school. I’m the only nerd in the whole 8th grade. I have an iPad. I’m the only person in my class who has one (at…

I’d for one want to see future versions of OSX Branch Out to Developer friendly, and Consumer friendly..

2020 is gonna be wild.

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:13:19 +0530

2020 is gonna be wild.