Anish's Blogs

Try to answer the below questions (without looking at hints before). What is the water temperature at the bottom of an ocean or a deep lake? Assume surface air temperature at -20C. Which is colder -25C or -25F? Which is colder -55C or -55F? How many liters of water does the Earth have? Don’t need an exact number, just an order of magnitude. (Hint: Solve it as a Fermi problem. Estimate a complex, seemingly unanswerable quantity using logical assumptions, known values and basic math) We all know the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Which places on the Earth see the Sun rising from/setting in the North (or South) and when? On Dec 21, 2020, Saturn and Jupiter appeared in the sky to have a conjunction. They were in the same sign/rashi.  Saturn takes 30 years to go around the Sun, while Jupiter takes 12 years. After how many years will they appear to be in the same sign again (not necessarily as close to have the conjunction we witnessed last December)?  There are 2 possi...

A lot of fiction novels, sci-fi movies, and even religious mythologies have predicted End of the World. Variety of causes including a deluge, super volcano, asteroids, devastating natural disasters, pandemics and war could be blamed for this annihilation.  While the Earth went through multiple rounds of destruction of the entire life like the Great Dying and End of the Dinosaur Era, how plausible is a similar situation in the modern world? With the technological power that humankind has now, any natural disaster causing a total destruction, looks a little far fetched! Even a worldwide pandemic as we experienced this year, one of the possible causes of apocalypse, is far from causing the amount of destruction that could be considered apocalyptic.  The pandemic did affect all the countries, but the total number of infections is about 1% of the world population, while only about 0.02% perished in the disease so far. Compare that to the pandemics of the previous centuries, where 1...

“What did you expect about America that wasn’t true?” It was a loaded question; Brian wanted to ask me about the lifestyle, culture and the behavior of the people I met in my first 3-4 weeks of my stay in the USA. Brian was an employee of the client company that TCS deputed me to in Florida. I could not answer the question directly, but gave a political answer, “I expected skyscrapers in the USA, but here in Melbourne, I don't see structures taller than 2-3 stories”. Brian went on to become a good friend of mine. In fact, when my parents visited Niagara Falls, his father, a retired Buffalo city cop showed them around in his big Impala. Brian used to discuss how American history is bloody and how steak is the staple diet for all Americans during dinnertime. He had a couple of complaints about me, one that I can't truly pronounce a “w” and a “v” separately and that my English was more formal than his colloquial language. The day I landed in Melbourne was a cool winter day; yes ev...

Today marks the second anniversary of the availability of vaccines for COVID-19! What a tumultuous 3+ year period it was. The first phase of denials, followed by lockdowns, then partial reopenings, and a cautious sense of normalcy, marked the distinct phases of this pandemic. Everything changed after the vaccine was available though. Humanity had finally won the war against this invisible enemy. But it took more than 6 months for the vaccine to be made available to the general public, only doctors and healthcare workers got it in the first phase. After general availability though there was the same chaos which we experienced during early phases of the pandemic where people hoarded stuff, and essentials like disinfectant wipes were not available for months together. There was a beeline of folks wanting to get vaccinated. After about 4 months of patiently waiting, my family finally got the immunity through vaccination. A lot of things have changed during this journey forever. Man...

Day 5 of my mandatory Working From Home (WFH)! My company followed suit of other area companies and mandated a 2-week WFH in the wake of COVID-19. At first, I thought no big deal; after all we are used to WFH in the tech industry, but for 1-2 days, not extended periods. Soon the reality is kicking in. You don’t get to see your colleagues at office and friends and relatives outside. Human beings are social animals and now I feel like we are self imprisoned, well I meant self quarantined! You cannot go to restaurants, theaters, malls, vacation; life appears to be at a standstill. And now the schools have decided to close too! The dark, gloomy, rainy weather is not helping either. If this is the mental state after just 5 days, imagine folks in Italy where the entire country is on lockdown and what about Wuhan where 11 million people are in quarantine for nearly two months! I am sure the initial 2 weeks of self quarantine can easily turn into 2 month long mandate by the autho...

While taking a stroll through our neighborhood mall last week, we realized that one of the anchor stores, Sears, is closed down. Oh yeah! It’s one of the 1500 Sears stores closed since 2013! A retail giant, Amazon of the 20th century is on death bed. A company which at one point enjoyed a revenue equivalent to 1% of US GDP, which pioneered services like the mail-order catalog has lost its luster in the wake of the new online shopping spree! A stark reminder of the fact that businesses not only need strength and stamina but they equally need flexibility. Microsoft on the other hand was faltering in the early part of this decade, but under Satya Nadella’s leadership, they showed the flexibility to invest in the Cloud Business and are now seeing its fruition.  Startups on the other side are very flexible, but without core product strength and the stamina to showcase quarter over quarter growth, many of them don’t see the IPO light. The trio, strength, stamina and fle...