Life in Balance: Amit Chaudhary’s Blog
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Below are some Programming & Software Engineering Podcasts which I listen to during my commute

• Software Engineering Radio

This is one of my current favorites, topics tend to be general programming and at other times on Scalability, Architecture or New trends. Note: iTunes does not show all episodes due to an issue they are working on. Some episodes:

Episode 165: NoSQL and MongoDB with Dwight Merriman

Episode 162: Project Voldemort with Jay Kreps

Episode 160: AspectJ and Spring AOP with Ramnivas Laddad

• Teach Me to Code

A general programming podcast with more dynamic\web bend, topics covered include Agile Development, Python, Ruby on Rails, Design principles such as DRY & interviews. Some episodes:

TMTC 29 – Ron Stephens from python411

RC 16 – The DRY Principle (Don’t Repeat Yourself)

• JavaWorld’s Java Technology Insider

Not updated for an year, but still good one, topics tend to be Java focused. Some episodes:

High scalability and Javawith Todd Hoff

Grails 1.1: A conversation with Graeme Rocher

• Java Posse

A Java focused podcast, more of panel discussion on current Java topics. Regularly updated.

• Stack OverFlow

The creators are from Windows background, the topics vary, the episodes are mix of discussion, news & interviews, and there are at times some good indepth interviews.

Podcast #59 had Damien Katz on CouchDB & Erlang.

More Podcasts:

• The Ruby on Rails Podcast. On Rails
  

• Herding Code. Windows Focus

• FLOSS. All about Free Libre Open Source Software

A similar list, Accidental Technologist: My Updated Developer Podcast List.

Complete Photo album: Paris Dec 2009

We visited Paris in Dec 2009 for a short stay, about 4 days on the way to India. We absolutely loved it, it is a beautiful place, nice people and a city with history visible everywhere.

These are Notes, Memories and Tips from the trip.

Staying in an apartment.

Traveling as a family of four including a 1 year old, we found the hotel rooms to be too small or expensive, $400-500 per night kind. Instead, we rented an apartment in Latin Quarters\Old Paris through http://www.nyhabitat.com/

It was a great decision, we got the live as Parisians, had a kitchen with a refrigerator and microwave. The fabulous and large Park, Parc Luxemborg was close by.

It is a different kind of dealing as trust is involved, communication takes longer and do confirm there is a local phone for taxis, etc.

Tour Eiffel

Is beautiful as expected. Worth going to the top, specially to the simple Cafe on level one. And to watch from the river after the sun sets.
Cruise along Seine River

Definitely the highlight for us, much better than the river shuttle, the last one in the night allowed seeing paris in the night lights. Goes beyond Notre Dame.
Church Notre Dame de Paris

Was very beautiful. We went at the most crowded moment, so it was jam packed. A nice location with another church near by and along the river Seine.
Louvre Museum

Louvre was my wife’s idea, we have to see Mona Lisa and it turned out to be a great one. We did go and enjoyed it. Because we went early, 9 am on a weekend I think, we got in free.

Champs Elysees & Arc de Triomphe

A upscale shopping area with many designer shops, how you pronounce it shows for most non-French if you have been there.
The Arc at the end was beautiful, reminding me of Delhi’s India Gate.

Weather

Was cold, Fleece jacket kind and the days were shorter. But it was still worth it.
Bus & Subway

Use the bus in addition to the subway, though slower and more expensive, it made us see Paris life & people up close.

Food

The pastries were very good, beyond that, not too many options for a non-meat eater.

People

The people of Paris are very nice, polite which was not what the general idea seems to be. Many of them tend to be well dressed too.

In closing, definitely a place to visit and see and we joined many who love it.

Bright Eyes by Catherine Guthrie, Yoga Journal

The top tips

• Reduce burn, redness, irritation in eyes with milk-soaked cotton balls

If they burn or are bloodshot or light sensitive, an excess of pitta may be to blame. To counter it, lie down for 15 minutes with milk-soaked cotton balls on your closed lids. Cucumber slices will also do the trick.

My own experience, this works particularly well for me, making them feel much better. I have not tried the rest yet.

• Vitamin C, vitamin E, and lutein as the best antioxidants for eye health

To infuse your diet with these nutrients, dish up spinach, broccoli, corn, strawberries and nuts. The researchers suggest at least 250 milligrams (mg) of vitamin C, 90 mg of vitamin E, and 3 mg of lutein daily.# These levels are higher than the government’s recommended dietary intake; hedge your bets with a daily multivitamin.

An hour of Yoga 5 times a week should help those sitting in front of monitors

Essentially, we become zombies in front of a glowing screen, blinking only three times a minute instead of the normal 20. The result? Dry eyes.

The class included asana, pranayama, and guided relaxation. Those in the other group spent equal time in the company’s recreation center talking to friends, working out, and watching TV. By study’s end, the yogis reported a 30 percent decline in eye problems like dry eye; eye complaints increased in the other group.

More tips which might work better for others

• Refresh your eyes with water

No matter what your dominant dosha, you can refresh your eyes by splashing them gently with cool water, blinking seven times (once for each chakra, or energy center in the body), and rotating them in all directions.

• Rose water for tired or crusty eyes

If you awaken to eyes that feel tired or more crusty than usual, a kapha imbalance may be to blame, says Malhotra, the author of Inner Beauty: Discover Natural Beauty and Well-Being with the Traditions of Ayurveda. To quell kapha, she suggests sprinkling the eyes with rose water. You can look for rose water in health food stores or Middle Eastern markets, or make your own by soaking an organically grown rose in filtered water overnight

• Ghee (Clarified Butter) for Dry, itchy eyes

Dry, itchy eyes may signal that your vata is out of balance. To restore them, Malhotra recommends a home version of an Ayurvedic treatment called netra basti. To start, warm a quarter cup of ghee (clarified butter) over medium heat, cool it to room temperature, pour half the liquid into an eyecup (sold at drugstores), lean your head back, and bathe the eye for five to seven minutes. Repeat on the other eye using the remaining ghee. (This treatment can be messy, so do it in a bathroom, in clothes that can handle a few drops of ghee.)

What’s more, it’s a good idea to save this self-care routine until just before bedtime, because your vision will be clouded for a few minutes afterward.

Highlights from The Way I Work: Paul English, Co-founder Kayak

• Up everyday at 6:00, Email & then Yoga. Has a meditation room.

• We work really hard for 40 to 45 hours a week, but we believe in people having strong personal lives. Over the past six years, there have been maybe five times I’ve spoken with Steve before 8 a.m., after 5 p.m., or on the weekend.

• Always drives kid to school.

• We have offices in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and California. We started with the first two because my co-founder, Steve Hafner, lives in Connecticut, I live in Boston, and neither one of us wanted to move.

• We have an open office environment. our general philosophy is that an open environment facilitates intellectual intensity. Most engineers are introverted. Here, when people overhear a discussion, we encourage them to walk over and say, “There’s another way to do that.”

• The engineers and I handle customer support. If you make the engineers answer e-mails and phone calls from the customers, the second or third time they get the same question, they’ll actually stop what they’re doing and fix the code. Then we don’t have those questions anymore.

• Real time datamining and support information. We have four monitors in the office where you can see real-time streaming information about the site — how many visitors, how many click throughs. It also displays the last customer e-mail that came in and the photo of the employee who answered it. So you’re walking by and you see, “Oh, Dan just answered a question.” We developed our own customer support software. One of the things it does is randomly select an employee response to a customer and send that response out to the entire company and to all of our investors each day. It keeps us on our toes.

• I keep noon to 2 p.m. open, because I like going out to lunch. It’s also a time for me to socialize. We have a very active work force.

• I do all of the firing. At times, I’ve fired maybe one out of every three people I’ve hired. That might make people think I’m bad at hiring, but I think I’m quite good at hiring. The only way 100 people can ever build a larger company than one that has more than 8,000 people — that’s what Expedia has — is by hiring Olympic-quality, unbelievable all stars of technology.

• Every Tuesday night, I have an open dinner at my house. Anywhere between four and 15 of my relatives will show up for dinner. I’m not a great cook, but it’s fun to have people over.

• I read for an hour every night before going to bed. I love reading books by Indian authors. I’ll also read books about global health and Africa, as well as a murder mystery now and then. But I don’t like business books. There are so many things in life that are more interesting than business.

Recently during my Yoga Ashram stay and when visiting in India, I read the Bhagavad Gita, translated by Swami Sivananda. Following are my highlights.

Balanced & Free from pair of opposites
2.45 Free from pair of opposites and acquisition. 2.48 Balanced in success and failure, evenness of mind is called Yoga **
2.50 yoga is skill in action.  **

Meditation
2.66 with no meditation, no peace and hence no joy. 18.50-52. dwelling in solitude, eating but little, with speech (silence), body and mind subdued, always engaged in meditation and concentration, resorting to dispassion. *
5.21. Engaged in meditation, attains endless peace and hapiness. *
5.27. Meditate, looking inwards. Equalize incoming and outgoing breath.**
6.10 Constant practice of meditation, in solitude.* *
6.14. Meditation steps incl sitting neither high or low.
6.15. Moderation. In eating, actions and sleep.
6.25. Little by little, quiet comes to the mind.*
6.26. Whenever mind wanders, bring it back under control.*
8.10. Fix whole life breath in the middle of eyebrows. **
8.12. Withdraw senses, gazing inwards, focusing.
8.13. Uttering OM and remembering me. **
12.8-10. Otherwise focus on me, practice Yoga constantly or do actions for my sake and you will reach siddhi (me). *
12.12. Knowledge is better than Practice. Meditation is next. Then renunciation of fruits of action. Then peace follows.**

Yoga, Pranayama & other practices
4.28, 29, 30. Yoga, Pranayama (equal breath for in & out) and moderate diet as tapas.**
4.38. Perfection in Yoga leads to knowledge within self in time.
6.40-44. A former Yogi eventually returns to his practice.
6.44. Who merely wishes to know Yoga goes beyond the written word of Brahman.*
17.6. Senseless austerities and torture of body and thereby me, are of demoniacal resolve.

Sense control, Pratyahara
3.6. Control senses during action.*
3.37. Desire leads to Anger. It is the Foe. Both in turn lead to Sin.
3.40. Desire sits in senses, mind and intellect, clouding wisdom.*
3.41. Hence control senses.
5.20. For Brahman knower, No joy from pleasant events, no agitation on unpleasant.*
12.15. He by whom the world is not agitated and who cannot be agitated by the world is dear to me.**
12.17. He who is not attached to good and evil, who is full of devotion is dear to me.*
12.19. He to whom censure and praise are equal, who is silence oriented, homeless is dear to me. *

Conduct, Actions & Gunas (Qualities)
2.42 flowery speeches by unwise *
3.5. Action always happens due to our nature. Swayed by gunas.*
3.25. Do actions without attachment for welfare of world.*
3.27. All actions due to nature. Delusion to think I am doer.
3.42. Senses are greater than Body. Mind > Senses. Intellect > Mind. The Self, the Witness, He > Intellect.**
9.1. To you who is not jealous, I will give knowledge which combined with experience will set you free. **
12.8-10. Otherwise focus on me, practice Yoga constantly or do actions for my sake and you will reach siddhi (me). *
12.12. Knowledge is better than Practice. Meditation is next. Then renunciation of fruits of action. Then peace follows.**
14.5. Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, these qualities, born of nature, bind fast in the body, the undestructable.
14.6. Sattva, which is stainless, binds by attachment to knowledge and happiness. Comparing to others.*
14.10. Each of these dominant at different times.*
14.11. When light shines through every gate in the body, Sattva is predominant.
14.22. When one transcends the three qualities, he is neither carried away nor upset when any of the gunas is dominant.
17.8-10. Food which increase life are dear to sattvic, excessive hot to rajasic and stale to tamasic.
18.48. All undertakings have some fault as fire has smoke.*

God in all, Universe    
4.35. With truth, see all beings in yourself and in me.**
5.16. Ignorance is destroyed by knowledge of self, sheding light on the highest knowledge.*
9.4. All this world is pervaded by me in my unmanifested form. *
9.6. As the wind rests in the sky, all beings rest in God. *

Devotion
7. 22. Whatever one seeks with devotion is given.*
17.3. As a man’s faith, so is he.*
17.23. Om Tat Sat, is declared to be triple designation of Brahman.
17.24. Therefore, Om is uttered by Brahman students before Tapas and Charity.

I came across a very interesting podcast (basically mp3 files recorded by an Author or company) covering Health, Weight loss, Exercise, Motivation, Stress control, Visualization and Personal Development. It has been a revelation and I recommend you try it.
Inside Out Weight Loss: Aligning Mind, Body and Spirit for Lasting Change by Renee Stephens

Caveat: One has to be patient as it has ads and Renee has a slow pace.

Here are a few gems:

-Set a goal everyday. Small or big. From Melinda Gates. Renee’s inside out weight loss, #19: Success journal

 -My journey to health is with ease and enjoyment. Visualize the journey, not just the destination. Renee’s inside out weight loss.

-Move from saying and thinking I am tired, to expanding it. Feel it and say I am sleepy, I have pain, I am hungry. These are steps to awareness and what needs to be done. Renee’s inside out weight loss. Simple Snoozing techniques #1