Monthly Archives: January 2009

Eat, Opine

Moets, Defence Colony, Delhi – Review

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Couple of weeks back I was at Moets, Defence Colony and I thought that I would write a small note on what we experienced there. Moets is one of those old, very popular hang-out zones which are still doing very good in terms of overall business. On any evening, though its not very hard to find a place but usually the place is full.

We were a large group and we did a long lunch there at the basement of main Moets, which serves Mughlai line of food along with drinks. There is another Moet, just across the road, called ‘Moet Sizzlers’. Most of us had a drink there, all sorts, some snacks and the regular lunch.

Location - Very well located, in a plush neighborhood market. Well connected since it can be access from the ring road. The address is “50, Main Market, Defence Colony, Delhi”
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Tech

Google Labs Juggernaut feels the economic pinch

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I wanted to limit the content at this website to software development related stuff, but it was difficut to not share the latest developments at the big brother Google. As we know, Google has this plethora of products which are listed here. Whether its the modest ‘Translate’ or ‘Youtube’ or ‘Picasa’, the offerings are really very rich. While most of the industry is looking at cost cutting, Google with its vast cash chest was seen as someone who would and can sustain for a long time. Well, it seems the finally Google Juggernaut is feeling the pinch.

Here’s a story from the official blog which talks about a reduction of 100 positions from the recruiting organization. Mind you, almost all the external contractors who help Google in recruiting have already been asked to discontinue their services. Read more here.

Reduction in force (RIF) is not a uncommon thing with US based companies but the other news was a bigger one where Google has identified a set of tools/products which would be closed down. This includes ones like stopping uploads to Google Video, Google Catalog Search and more.
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Opine

Resume Tips in Bad times

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The economy is so uncertain that we dont know whether it has bottomed-out or it can go further down. While in US, folks are looking up to Obama to inject 1 Trillion USD in the right place, read software, back here in India, we had the biggest IT scam. Satyam Software, part of Fab Four of The Great Indian Software Story, has bungled. The last I read was that the new CEO, Ram, is fearing that they might not have enough cash for the 50K workforce. With so many RIF (Reduction in Workforce) across the globe, I came across this great article by Joel, which might be useful for fellow readers at Valify. (Cute little name for Validate and Verify)

Another resume tip - By Joel Spolsky
Are you a software developer applying to a small company?

Here’s a tip from someone who has read thousands of resumes. When you’re applying to a startup, or a software company with less than, say, 100 employees, you may want to highlight the Banging Out Code parts of your experience, while deemphasizing the Middle Management parts of your experience.

When a startup CTO sees a resume that says things like:

* Responsible for $30m line of business
* Architected new ERP platform
* Managed team of 25 developers
* Optimized business processes

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Eat

What is ‘Cask Strength’ or ‘Barrel Proof’ of a Whiskey ?

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‘Cask strength’ or ‘barrel proof’ is the strength of whisky while its maturing in the cask. As we all know that when Whisky is taken out of Cask, its diluted with Water, typically spring water. The dilution is not necessarily done to decrease the strength but also to bring out the flavor.

Bottled Whiskey is usually at 40% Alcohol-By-Volume so you can imagine that the strength of Alcohol while its in the Cask is more than that. Its not very common to find bottles which are directly from Cask but sometime you do get one, for a very niche segment. But this is not very common, for variety of reasons. Probably one of the reasons is around the laws where you would need to mention the exact % of Alcohol and you would not want to print a new set of labels for every cask.

Also as the Whiskey ages in a Cask, its strength decreases and it may make more sense to not dilute it further if the strength has already gone down.

I could find this link - http://www.maltwhiskydistilleries.com/Distilleries/CaskStrengthEditions/tabid/99/Default.aspx, which has a mention of some of the popular ‘Cask Strength’ Whiskeys which have been released in market. By the way, I do not how much aged the above link is.

Enjoy your drink and have a good day.