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Thursday, November 2nd, 2006
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9:14 am - Murphy's law
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The law states that - things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance. Why am I writing about it? Simply because Murphy's this very law has been flirting with me for last 5-6 months.
Think about it this way. Every time you decide to do some thing - be it house improvement, be it getting internet at home, or any other thing - you have a lot of choices. Having so many choices means there are definitely more ways than 1 to do it, and most of the times, atleast one of the choices will lead you into some kind of trouble. This is the necessary condition for Murphy's Law - read here.
The next question that comes up is - if there is a way for things to get screwed up, does it mean that a screw-up will happen every time with you? Well - not really. There is a certain luck factor associated with success, failure and you getting into trouble. Also, there is a certain amount of research that one needs to do before choosing an alternative. This research, however, can be very frustrating if you need to carry it out for very basic necessities in life. Some times, inspite of doing all the research, some one else might screw up. At such times, you can only attribute your tryst with Murphy's law to pure bad luck.
Since I have a tryst with Murphy's laws on a daily basis, I have developed a kind of antidote for Murphy-like situations. I asked myself - what should I do to avoid Murphy like situations. Here is a list of what you can do -
Do not get into some thing where you have to make a committment for long term,
Do not pay in advance. Never never never.
Do not compromise on quality - even if it means you have to shell out some extra bucks.
Do not do a task which should not have been done in the first place.
Do your research right before getting into any damn thing.
Inspite of this, if Murphy's law comes to haunt you, then do not panic. Negotiate with who ever is involved. Most situations are repairable. Talk talk and talk.
Hope you have a Murphy-free time.
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| Saturday, October 7th, 2006
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10:04 am - SaReGaMaPa sucks - contd...
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SaReGaMaPa suffers from the same deficiencies as any contest which decides the best candidate based on the number of votes. There are some very fundamental flaws in this process -
This process ensures that the crown goes to the most popular candidate and not necessarily the best candidate.
Voting is not completely impartial. There is always a bias of community, religion, state, city, gender, colour, looks and so many other things.
The most astonishing that I saw last night was that each contestant was being asked - "Who do you think will get eliminated this time"? Some of the contestants did the wise thing by skirting the question. The channel people then asked the same question to their parents.
I sincerely do not think such questions should be asked when the competition is going on; and specially not to contestants and their parents. The job of the contestants is to perform to the best of their abilities, and leave the rest to the judges. It is not their job to comment on who is strong, who is weak, and who will get eliminated.
The question that now comes up is - are the channels really promoting music? This opens up another topic for a vote.
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9:44 am - SaReGaMaPa sucks
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Last night, I was watching SaReGaMaPa Little Champs kids special. Since the contestants and the judges are household names, I would not like to get into the business of giving anonymity to them.
There was a dispute between the judges Abhijeet and Bappi Lahiri regarding grades given to two of the contenstants, one Abhrokanti and one Diwakar. Considering that its a show on music, it would be common sense to imagine that any dispute would remain within the realm of music. However, the dispute which started with technicalities of music (scale, range etc) digressed to -
You are so heavy that nobody can even lift you.
You had insulted R. D. Burman. What are you trying to tell me.
You had even insulted Lakshmikant Pyarelal.
You are prejudiced about candidates. You pre-decide what grade to give to whom.
Since the entire country knows it, Abhijeet was the one who was utterring all this trash; and Bappi Lahiri was more or less silent and showed enough common sense. My verdict on this episode is that these people are not professional enough. The argument should have been restricted to music and only music. There was no need to get personal.
My teacher, Dr Moghe, had once said - You can disagree without being disagreeable to each other. So apt it is in this context.
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| Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
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9:41 am - Beware of Tata Indicom
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On June 17th, from god-knows-where, I decided to take a broadband connection, and selected Tata Indicom. This I guess is the biggest mistake I have ever committed.
It does not work as of 19th Sept, 2006. The thing that amazes me is the level of shamelessness these folks are blessed with. They are equally incompetent too. The top management of Tata Indicom must realize this simple fact that just by having a so called customer care (in fact - its a customer scare) center, the difficulties of their customers wont go away. You need people who want to work, who want to solve problems. If you have pin-heads who think that "packet loss occurs because you have inserted the RJ45 connector in your network card with a bit more force which leads to metal scraping off some metal from the network card", you have a perfect recipe for disaster...
I am sure they will take the goodwill generated by JRD Tata down the drain. If Tatas have some common sense, they better shut down the business of broadband.
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| Thursday, August 10th, 2006
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3:30 pm - Signalling system in US
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Signalling system for roads in US is a master piece in itself. However, with one major and one minor flaw. Apart from these two flaws that I have noticed, I find it to be a very very smart piece of work. Let me explain the flaws -
On some of the internal roads (not freeways), vehicles from one side can turn left and go straight. However, the flaw is that people from the opposite side can also go straight and turn to their left. It is completely possible for you to be turning left, and a car coming straight at you. It has happenned with me once, and thats what prompted me to study this particular anomaly very closely.
Since US is a right hand drive, most right turns are free. However, the principle to follow is YIELD - which means if you do not obstruct or impede someone else by taking the right turn, you can infact take the right turn. This in itself is not a flaw. However, the world YIELD tells me to give the right-of-way to others. The flaw here is the improper use of a verb. I guess it should have been GRAB instead of YIELD. I was following the literal meaning of YIELD for quite some time and found people honking on me on many occassions.
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3:19 pm - CNN and Aaj Tak
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I have been following the CNN's coverage of the middle east crisis. I have also followed the coverage of various events by Aaj-Tak. There are quite a few similarities and I guess only a few differences. Let me elaborate on the similarities first.
Both provide the same news content over and over again till you have completely internalized whats happenning around you. Both show the same set of visuals again and again. No matter what is happenning on the battle field or for that matter anywhere, the same set of visuals are shown again and again. They ask almost similar set of questions to the people who are supposed to answer them, and these very people manage to skirt all the questions by neither confirming nor denying them.
The only difference that I have noticed is that CNN does not show animations at all. Aaj Tak is a champion of animations. For things as simple as how a batsman got out, Aaj tak has animations. In India, practically every body understands cricket, and those who dont are anyways not interested in the news piece itself. Why make silly animations, and invite dozens of people to act as robots and swing the bat, and show how to hold the ball? Beats me.
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| Monday, July 10th, 2006
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10:41 am - Lost
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It was a day I can never forget. Probably the title gives away a lot than it should, but its the most appropriate title as well. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I and Siddharth had decided to go to the Great Mall at Milpitas. We did a lot of research on google maps, and finally started in our Chevrolet Malibu.
Some heads up on the roads and general driving rules over here. The great thing about roads here is that you have to drive in lanes, and you just cant indiscriminately switch lanes unless you are a super hero from an action movie. You also cant stop on the roads, especially on the freeways, and the expressways. That excludes the possibility of asking anybody for directions. There are exits on a freeway (expressway) which one is supposed to take to go off the road to some other place. And there are freeway entry points which one is supposed to take to get onto a freeway.
People here talk in terms of North, South etc; which is the weirdest thing for an Indian. Btw, when the roads name is 280 N, it doesnt necessarily mean that you are going towards North.
The road suggested by google was something like this: Saratoga, 280 North, 880 South, Montague, East Capitol, Great Mall.
We were already on Saratoga, so we took the 280N entry point. After driving some distance, we saw the 880S entry point, but missed it because we were in the wrong lane. We had to circle a long way back to our starting point. This time, the traffic was a bit heavy, and I could not take the 280N entry point. This happened 3 times. Yes, it happens here. If you cant switch the lane, you have to go straight and come back after taking a legitimate U, or find some other way to come back.
Finally, I managed to take the 280N, and by remaining in the correct lane, took the 880S freeway. I thought, well I have done things right finally. We then had to take the Montague exit, but which one; east or west? I took the west one and came to know about 20 minutes later that I should have taken the east one. Such run time decisions cant be accurately taken in US, simply because you cant park the car and ask somebody on the road; or for that matter, there is nobody whom you can ask on the road.
Our mistake led us to a place called Lick Mill which is a very up-scale place in Santa Clara. We parked our car in front of a cafe and asked the owner for directions to the Great Mall. Following his directions, we reached the place we had started for. I was tired by now, but slightly jubilant that we had managed to find our way.
Something about the Great Mall - its not great at all. It was about to close by the time we reached there. It was only 6 pm by then. May be it was because of 4th of July - the God Bless America day. We could just buy shoes for Siddharth, and we had to come back.
Coming back was more of a fun than going. The road for coming back was - take 880S, take 280N, take Saratoga exit.
While coming back, we made a mistake at every turn. Instead of taking the 880S exit, we took the 880N exit. How on earth am I to know if its a South exit or a North exit if it is written in extremely small, invisible letters. I just saw 880 and took the turn, and then came to know that it was 880N. Finally, I managed to take the 880S. I thought my problems are over now, but that wasnt the case. I saw an exit to a familiar street, but I did not take it because the map did not say so. I waited for the 280N road to show up; but it never did. We kept going straight into unknown territory; there was no turn in sight. When we came to civilization of some sort, I took the turn and went to a petrol pump (gas station - name changed) and asked an Indian for directions. By now, I had absolutely given up hopes of reaching home. And when Murphy strikes, it strikes real bad. I was running low on gas (petrol - name changed), and decided to fill in a lot of it just to cancel Murphy effect.
The Indian told us to follow some road which led us to (because of our mistake again) to San Jose Intl Airport. I could heave a sigh of relief, because I knew for sure that you could get any road you wanted from here. I circled the airport twice before I parked in a rental car section and asked a security officer for directions to Stevens Creek Blvd - the familiar road. He gave us the right directions; and we managed to reach our hotel safe and sound; although extremely tired mentally.
Many thanks to all those who gave me directions that day.
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| Thursday, July 6th, 2006
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8:53 am - Korean script is not hieroglyphic
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On the way to SFO, the seat next to me was occupied by a Korean guy who worked in HP in Cupertino. We got talking with each other. He was asking me questions about the kind of food we eat in India, and other stuff. I was asking him about the Korean food, and stuff like that. I got a bit interested in the Korean language - at least what did it look like.
It came to me as a surprise that Korean language is not hieroglyphic. All along, I was under the impression that it is a picture based language. He then showed me the correspondence between English and Korean alphabets. He said that Japanse and Chinese (both hieroglyphic) are pretty hard to learn, so although Korean language has borrowed some symbols, it was consciously made like English.
Good for them.
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8:42 am - At the Incheon Intl Airport
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The first thought that comes to your mind is - Wow! This airport is good. Its big, and not too many people. Also, the no. of people who are manning the counters/booths are pretty less. Seems like everybody knows his/her jobs.
The airport is phenomenally clean. Quite a lot of it is carpetted too. There are small electric scooters which double up as floor cleaners. The airport staff moves around on these scooters. Even the luggage trolleys are put back in their place using these scooters. Everywhere, you will find LG, Samsung, Daewoo and Hyudai equipment.
Against popular belief (rather misconception), the airport is rather easy to figure out. All signs are properly laid out in English and Korean. And all directions are very clearly marked. Not at all a difficult airport to comprehend.
The shops at the airport mostly sell cosmetics, chocolotes, cigaretters, liquors etc. One thing that interested me very much was a tripod at an electronics shop which was available for 12$. I guess thats around Rs. 500/-, and as per my estimates, its quite cheap. J J Mehta sells the same one for around 35$ or Rs. 1400/-. I might just buy one on my way back.
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| Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
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3:08 pm - Mumbai to SFO - 2
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The typical routine on an internatioal flight is to provide the passengers with some food, and put them to sleep. Its like giving a small baby with some food and putting the baby to sleep so that it cant create too much trouble. After a long delay, the food was served. It was the only Indian meal I was going to get for quite some time to come. I ate it; rather relished it; drank a glass of red wine along with it; and went off to sleep at 5 am in the morning.
I must have had a good 4 hours sleep, after which I was fairly fresh. One of the most interesting, and challenging things ofcourse is to visit the lavatory in flight. The challenge stems from the differences in procedures between various cultures. One must experience such challenges at leats once in their lifetime.
In another hours time, we were given food again, and this time it was some Korean food. It said beef and rice and some other stuff. Then there was omlette too. I asked the air-hostess; whose understanding of English is comparable to my understanding of Bengali or Tamil, as to whose eggs they were. I meant hen or duck, but I did not specify it in such great details. Fortunately, she did not understand the question, and I decided not to push further. I drank some Sea Weed Soup which was good, and ate some beef free rice with some hot korean paste and turnip pickle.
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| Wednesday, June 28th, 2006
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7:47 am - Mumbai to SFO - 1
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The Korean Air flight from Mumbai to SFO was scheduled to depart at 3:30 am. I was quite apprehensive of the quality of Korean Air as I was travelling by it for the first time. We (me and my colleague) were waiting in the boarding area of the Mumbai airport and watching Argentina Vs Mexico. It was a thrilling contest, and neither of us were willing to pay any attention to the repeated calls to board the aircraft. In the first half of extra time, Maxi Rodriguez scored a blinder and I, an ardent Argentina fan, took a sigh of relief. It was some 5 mins in the second half of extra time that we had to abandon the match and board the flight.
The flight looked very well done from inside, and the air-hostesses were beautiful. I have had apprehensions regarding Koreans in the past, but these girls were simply very beautiful. Courtesy is an art that goes with the profession of being an air hostess, and Koreans are very good at it. This is in stark contrast with the German ones who lack all courtesy and the reluctance just shows on their face.
My apprehensions which had reduced a bit by now, were raised by the fact that the aircraft was making funny noises while taxi-ing on the runway. I have travelled before in international flights and have never heard any thing like that. I was hoping that all this was normal and the pilot could hear what I was hearing. As is my usual practice before embarking on any major journey, I prayed to God and said good-bye to India - just for 50 days.
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| Friday, March 24th, 2006
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10:29 am - Bought an Indica Xeta GLS
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Finallie, after a lot of haggling over loan interest rates and cost of vehicle, I have booked my car - an Indica Xeta GLS Euro III. It will come in a rich Salsa Red colour, and will sport the new beige interiors. It will take approximately 10 days for the car to come as the TATA plant is undergoing expansion and will remain closed for some 6 days. Till then, I will have to wait and watch.
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| Monday, March 20th, 2006
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10:19 am - Loans - how they make a fool of us
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Now-a-days, I am evaluating car loans and car insurnace as I am on the verge of buying my first car. The way a loan company makes a fool of us is very interesting. One such way is by taking your EMI in advance. Let me explain in detail.
Suppose you are buying a car worth Rs 2 L. You also are taking a loan of Rs 1 L, for which your EMI is Rs. 5000. The loan company will ask you to make a down payment of 1, 05, 000 - which consists of 1 L of down payment and first EMI. You will ask me - whats wrong with that? If you notice carefully, the loan company is giving you a loan of 95,000 only and charging you for a loan of 1L.
Next way of extracting money is the processing charges - which are unusually high - as high as 3500/- for a loan of approx 2.5L. You ask them for a break-up of this cost, and they will simply deny it. Let me tell you its components - 0.25% or 0.5% are the actual stamp charges which goes to the govt. For a 2.5L loan, it comes to around 625 or 1250. The rest goes into the pockets of the loan company.
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| Monday, March 6th, 2006
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12:08 pm - mini-ADM get together
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It was over-due for quite some time. I had asked the ADM guys to come over to my place for a dinner. Aldrin, Ajay, and Shyam turned up at my place.
In one of our conversations, I was telling Shyam how Aldrin manages to attract more and more blog-fans. I dont think anybody will question me as to why I said this. I have been meeting Aldrin's blog-fans for quite some time, and everybody keeps telling me that Aldrin is a very well-read person. Aldrin, being the modest guy he is, started denying that he is a well-read person, and in pursuit of doing so, was again making it amply clear to everybody out there - the breadth and depth of his knowledge. After some time, he was irritated, and then came his usual line - Haan theek hai... Bakwaass band kar.
After having a simple dinner, it was time for the customary ADM stuff - play cards. Shyam had brought a pack of cards - just in case I did not have any. He just did not want to miss out on playing cards. We played the game we love so much - GKB - and had a great time. I was as usual partnering Aldrin, and was indulging in face reading. We as a pair lost quite a few games, and our relative score was -16; however we made a strong comeback and won our duel against Shyam and Ajay, thanks to my face reading skills and some good hands to me and Aldrin.
Manti, you seriously missed out on the GKB rounds.
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| Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
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2:20 pm - Addi-isms unveiled
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Here is an interesting post that one of my very dear friends, Alistair D'souza, has attributed to me. You can read it here.
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| Wednesday, March 1st, 2006
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12:26 pm - If it aint broken, dont fix it
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If I have to give my humble opinion, this is how I will sum up Budget 2006. An interesting article that appeared in Indian Express today is here.
On a more personal note, I am not too happy with the excise duty reduction being limited to 1200cc petrol cars only. I was hoping that cost of Tata Indica XETA, which has only a petrol variant, will come down after the budget. Doesn't seem so, unless Tata Motors decides to slash the prices to maintain its competitive edge. Hope that happens.
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| Monday, February 27th, 2006
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1:44 pm - Kerala...
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The moment you start flying over Kerala, the thing that strikes you is the greenery. Millions of coconut trees, lots of paddy fields, and all its waterways. Its extremely picturesque.
The thing that I liked about this place is most people know English. Our driver was better at English than some of my English teachers. There is hardly a communication problem. There are hardly any beggars. I did not see any. Everybody is employed in some activity or the other. People look happy over there - they may - may not be, but atleast they look happy. The cost of living is pretty low too. I went to a hotel in Munnar, hogged and hogged, and even packed something for dinner, and the total bill was a mere 54/-. No wonder people are happy.
Roads are so-so, not great; but still better than Pune roads. In fact, anything is better than Pune roads. Even Bangalore roads are better than Pune roads. They are only a bit too narrow for the burgeoning traffic in Bangalore.
One more thing is the cleanliness. These people have a good sense of personal and community hygene. All stations are amazingly clean. Nobody shits here and there. All toilets are clean - all pay and use - the way they should be. One noticeable thing about south originating trains is that the trains too are clean. People do eat in the train, but they throw everything in the dustbins - the way it should be. Buses too look clean, and look as if they are washed everyday - unlike those of Pune - which look as if they are coming out of a dust-mine.
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1:38 pm - India's west coast
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I took a Jet Airways flight from Bombay to Kochi. First thing that I noticed about Jet was its service was crisp. Right from the check-in counter till the time I collected my baggage, Jet representatives were there to help me out. Most importantly, the flight took-off on time.
The best thing about the flight was that starting from Goa, or northern part of Karnataka, it hugged the west coast of India. I could see below me land and sea meeting each other. I could see rivers flowing into the sea, deltas, lagoons, estuaries etc etc - all that I had studied in geography. Its a wonderful sight, and I missed my digicam a lot (unfortunately, it was in my checked in baggage). This went on for about an hour, and I was quiet spectator all the while - enjoying the gift of nature and Jet Airways.
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9:26 am - Air Deccan Sucks
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I recently took an Air Deccan flight from Nagpur to Bombay. There are several things that I can write about Air Deccan, some good and some bad. Lets start with the good things first.
They serve some good Cafe Coffee Day coffee for 20/-.
Air hostesses are decent++, and not the Air Moms that I was used to when flying by Indian Airlines.
They flew an Airbus A320, and not an ATR - and they fly well.
I got a ticket for 1000/- per head.
And now the negatives -
It was scheduled at 10:30 in the night on 10th of Feb. On 8th evening, I got a call and then an sms from Air Deccan that it has been re-scheduled, and it will fly at 1:30 pm on 10th of Feb. It threw my schedule completely out of gear.
The flight was late by a good 1 hour.
It tells you to check-in 2 and half hours before the departure.
The limit for allowable luggage is only 15 kgs per person. Normally, it is 20kgs per person.
They mis-inform passengers and try to recover as much baggage money as they can.
Although they are flying a jet-plane, their mentality is that of a tempo-driver. Fill in as many as possible, and wait for it if you have to.
One thing I wonder about Air Deccan in particular is - why will corporates ever fly by Air Deccan if it doesnt fly on time. Who cares for some 2000/- if you are sure that you will miss an important meeting?
My verdict - if you want to reach some place in time, avoid Air Deccan. In case you dont want to spend too much money on your travel, and time is of little concern, you can opt for it.
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| Wednesday, February 1st, 2006
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3:38 pm - My 1st PANTA Anniversary
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I have completed 1 year at PANTA Systems, Pune. So far, it has been a very enjoyable 1 year. I have worked hard, learnt a lot, earned a good deal, and indulged in lot of gossip. Company is doing reasonably well. There seems to be a good flow of quality work to India operations. Every thing is going as per plan and as per expectations.
We had gone to celebrate a release to a new place called Curry On the Roof. Its a fantastic place. Done up mostly in Rajasthani style, but has a modern touch to it. The food is superb, and connossieurs of fish would love this place. Overall - food quality is superb, and the price is comparable to any decent place. However, what tilts the balance in favour of this place is its ambience, food, price, and its quick service with a smile. Definitely a go go for our next ADM birthday bash.
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