Overload!

I originally intended this to be sort of a sequel to my last post on Online living because I later realized there was so much I didn’t do it much justice – and as some people pointed out; maybe there is more to life than the internet.

But brings us to another point: overload of the stuff we love and hold on to everyday.

Apart from my work Email and office phone (which keep me busy nearly the entire day five days a week) I also have 3 other personal Email accounts which demand checking a few times a day. And then there is orkut – the single biggest service I use on the internet next only to google search.
To complicate things, I recently discovered a whole lot of my high-school buddies on facebook and joined in. And then there is Linked-In to keep in touch with old colleagues from work who neither fit in orkut or facebook.

And this does not even take into account the free sign-up offers I turn down everyday from places named Hi5, friendster, WAYN, Shelfari, RupeeMail, Yaari… and this list gets long.

 Add to this is the sweet chaos of blogging and checking out the regular blogs I read, joining in the discussion forum I comment on regularly (which I will not mention here) and a crazy service called My Blog Log – which I have no idea why the devil I signed up for.

Picasa and Flickr where I stash my pix online.

And then there is twitter; which I don’t use all that much either and just signed up because it felt like a good idea at the time (and because the guys from CommonCraft did a great marketing job with Twitter in Plain English!)

 It suddenly dawned on me that I have way too many things to keep track of online. Maybe it is time to switch all things off for a while and stay disconnected from all things electronic.

 

And when that day comes; I’ll do another post on it ;-)

Online Living

A friend of mine recently lamented on how she nearly quit blogging because she thought she “ran out of stuff to say to the world” and I disagree.

I, for one, feel lost without access to the online stuff I love and cherish; which for the most part include Email, chat, blogging, socializing on orkut (and Facebook too, now that I’ve discovered it!), participating on discussion forums, scribbling nonsense on twitter and writing comments on YouTube videos – all of which are stuff you want to say to the people who care to listen.

And in doing so, I guess we sometimes tend to forget how much of our lives is really out there in the unknown, at the whim of anyone who chooses to use it.

Friendly comments and tags aside, I’ve had my share of abuse too. I’ve had spammers trash my blog, received rude comments on everything from blog comments to news articles and video reviews; I even had unknown people question my faith.
And in having all this; we sometimes tend to get emotional over the content we sometimes need to deal with. I once blew my top over a nut who argued over the existence of God and it took me a couple of cups of tea to calm down.

YouTube’s “report abuse” section has some helpful advice though. They say you need to realize there’s life beyond the internet, and move on. And if that doesn’t help, to try staying away from the computer for a while.

In short, realize that your life online is pretty much the same as in real life – from the friends to foes, there’s plenty of people; thoughts and opinions. And yours doesn’t always go with everyone. But that doesn’t mean you have to be mum about it.
Because there really is so much to say.

Trust me.

Lost

This morning a colleague of mine took a wrong short cut thru the woods on his way to work and ended up hopelessly lost on the Autobahn; finally requiring a couple of police officers to pick him up and drop him off at the office with a friendly warning.

While we were joking about it a few hours later, it reminded me of the first time I got lost: in second grade on the busy streets of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
And now that I think about it, kinda strikes me weird because there really were a million things that could have gone wrong that night and it was nothing short of a miracle that I made it home.

I was just your regular second grade, smart alec, know-it-all kid who one day decided to walk home from school because my dad was held up at a meeting and couldn’t make it on time to pick me up from school like he did everyday.
Needless to say, within no time I was lost, and I knew it.
Now this was way before mobile phones (we didn’t even have a phone at home!) and all I knew was to keep walking.
I guess it was purely in the Plan of The Creator that I accidentally stumbled upon a garage where at that exact time, the guy who ran the restaurant across the street from my house, chose to come to fix his car.

He recognized me as ‘that kid from our street’ and borrowed another car to drive me two blocks to my home; and offered me dinner while we waited for mom and dad (who were of course, freaking out from searching all over town and finally came back home hopeless, to call the police!)
Needless to say, that night I didn’t feel a thing; and so, went to sleep and went back to school the next day.

17 years later, the memories of that night, haunt me to this day.
There is a lot in life we take for granted.

5 reasons why I don’t do Linux

…or FreeBSD or MacX Leopard or Solaris, and stick to plain old windows.

1. Too much effort
True, Windows is not the most straightforward operating system in the world, but at least it’s the most familiar one in the world. Click a file to select. Double click to open. Right-click to modify. How much simpler can it get?
Compare this with everything else. You need to mount drives before you can use them (and dismount them afterwards), manually install applications, change settings for pretty much everything and in short, have an idea of how the whole thing actually works before you can do something on it.

2. Too much geek talk
Normally, you don’t hear too many people talking about modifying binary keys on the Windows Registry…and that’s about as geeky as it gets.
For Linux users, the day routinely involves tweaking the Kernel, swapping drives, compiling programs, or simply doing itsy-bitsy things to make your machine a tad bit leaner and faster.

3. Too many versions
For 7yrs, Windows xp was just one thing. And now you have Vista. And even though they do come in lots of flavors, the basic package is pretty much the same thing; give or take a few additional features. Nothing more, nothing less.

Linux, on the other hand, comes in so many distributions, its easy to get lost in there. You have popular commercial versions such as SUSE and Red Hat, you have ‘community’ versions like Ubuntu and Fedora; and then you have those little versions someone decided to make for themselves…like Arch Linux. To top things, with a little know-how, you can make your own distro…sometimes small enough to fit on a USB stick. Why would anyone wanna do that is beyond me. I prefer to take my entire notebook along, not just the operating system.

4. Apply the Applications
I’m sorry to say this, but when you take the list of applications in the world available for windows, and compare it with everything else; things just don’t add up. Now you can scream all you want on how popular software is always available for Mac and Linux, but its usually more difficult to find unless its in your job to do so.
The rest of us happy-go-lucky computer users prefer to walk into a store and walk out with the DVD, without having to ask too many questions on compatibility and whatever.

5. Getting the job done.
For people like me, at the end of the day it’s all about how much I get done “on” my computer and not “for” my computer.

Tweaking system settings for the hell of it is fun when that’s all you have to do. But when you’re at work and running multiple server-side production environments, an interface monitor and an Email client, the last thing you'd care about is how much processing your workstation is using and how you can tweak the whatever to speed it up. Nor do you care to compile and manually install that tiny little file-zip application.

You need something that’s easy, and doesn’t demand learning the operating core to get your job done. And that’s what windows gives me.

After all, it’s the applications that run on it that I’m interested in.

p.s.
Boy, I know I made some enemies up there…to all the penguin fans reading this; sorry you guys. But I couldn’t help myself :)

New Delhi and the bombs

Shortly after 6:30pm IST, a series of 5 bombs rocked the Indian capital of New Delhi, killing around 2 dozen people and wounding around a hundred others.

On behalf of everyone here, we extend our deepest sympathies and condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones…for no fault of theirs. And at the same time, curse the wrecked freaks who caused this; killing innocent people in their mindless wake.

And it makes me angry thinking about it. This is not the first time this has happened, and probably is not the last. So in between when it happened for the first time and now; what has changed and what hasn’t?

As ever, the President, Prime Minister, Other Ministers, and all the guys up in Parliament, issued their standard statement expressing their “deepest concerns” and “appeal for calm and peace”.

On the face of it, it sounds like a good idea. Keep calm. And let the authorities do their job.

But as history bears witness, this does not really happen. What does happen is a series of routine tasks:

1)       The police ‘investigates’ and makes random arrests around the city of ‘suspects’…as if terrorists just hang around waiting for the police to grab them.

2)       Security gets ‘beefed up’ (whatever the hell that means) around airports, train stations and other ‘strategic locations’…as if terrorists are stupid enough to attack the most obvious places just hours after a major attack.

3)       Barricades are put up, and a major part of the public that had nothing to do with this is agonized by not being able to visit their loved ones in hospital or move away from hot spots.

4)       News channels, magazines and news sites go into overdrive on how to deal with the menace.

5)       The government reiterates its commitment to fighting violent attacks and acts of terror.

6)       The opposition party organizes rallies on how the current administration is doing such a sloppy job.

7)       Two weeks later, everyone forgets the whole thing. And life goes on as usual.

As usual of course, except for those who lost their loved ones in the attack. And then those ‘suspects’ who were rounded up just to make the police look good, and languish in dungeons with no charges laid against them.

Conveniently forget; is sadly what our country seems to do best.

Chrome comes to Google!

Yup, it’s finally here! The long awaited browser from the most popular name on the internet – Google, with the launch of its fabled ‘Chrome’ web browser.

And like most internet junkies, I scrambled to be among the first to download and use it – and I have one thing to say about it:

It’s brilliant!
Not beautiful – there’s no eye-catching colors, fancy design or anything, but it’s just brilliant.

And although people who are used to Safari’s fluid interface may not be too thrilled with the bare-minimalist design, most of the common folks who’ve been stuck with Microsoft IE might choose to move, thanks to automatic import of bookmarks, favorites and all your settings right from your old browser into Chrome.

And that’s not all; there are several features that are leap years ahead of anything on Mozilla Firefox, Safari and (is it even worth mentioning?) IE. For instance, the tabs automatically open with your most recently visited pages, and you can just click on where you want to go. Searches are direct from the address bar, and Chrome automatically gives spelling suggestions for misspelt words – pretty much like Google itself.

There are also nifty well-thought features like the status bar that automatically disappears after loading, downloads that are tied to the page itself without launching a separate pop-up and so on.

You can also do a lot of extras – like dragging out tabs to make them into a separate window or joining multiple windows into one single window, right-click a phrase and search for it and so on.

Of course, it’s only beta, and there’s bound to be improvements; as well as bugs in the current version. Right now, I’m just trying this out and am really excited…and now that I read back what I’ve written, it almost sounds like a promotion campaign for Chrome.

But I really think this is one download that’s worth trying out. And let me know what’s your take on it.

The CEO’s Ticket

If Corporate Politics and Mismanagement were an Olympic sport, I guess this incident would probably take the Gold this year.

Some CEO’s stupid e-ticket inadvertently got voided when it was not supposed to and needed to be re-issued manually. Now, things like this happen all the time due to system glitches (this is the part where the guy at the check-in counter gives you a blank look and tells you have to wait for a while because of some ‘computer error’), but anyway, stuff like this happen all the time in a normal working day, to normal folks worldwide.

Unfortunately for us, this time, it had to be a CEO.
As usual, the half the management jumped us and drove us crazy to resolve the issue, but then I wonder:

Do CEOs stand in line at those obnoxious check-in queues and get told, “Sorry mac, but your ticket’s no good” like the rest of us?
What do they do then; call up the office and ask to waitlisted on the next available plane…and then sit at a waiting lounge for their name to be called?
Do they then call up their other CEO buddies and play online Monopoly or something?

Its all good for the imagination, but I’m willing to bet none of the above happened and Mr. CEO probably didn’t even have an idea that something was wrong with his ticket. If anything, he was probably just informed of a ‘small mishap on the system’.

Which means my entire week-long data analysis of what exactly happened to his ticket and the technical reasons for the untimely void, is worth nothing.

The max that can happen is that it ends up as a report on his desk, waiting to be tossed in the trash along with yesterday’s newspaper when Mr. CEO comes back from his trip!

TouchType

This may not be a topic that’s discussed all that often but, even though almost everyone I know spends a good part of their day looking at a computer; not many people I know can touch-type.

Doing a random you-don’t-know-I’m-doing-this-survey at work the other day, I found most of my colleagues – all of them skilled programmers – hopelessly poking at the keyboard with their forefingers while concentrating on what they are writing. Some of the more experienced people used up to two fingers per hand but that was it.
In fact, the only people I really did see touch-type (at a remarkable speed too, I must add) were the secretaries.

I don’t know why this really bothers me enough to do a post on it, but it kind of reflects on the skill-set we take pride in not having. I mean, even though we no longer concerned about handwriting (I mean, the only times I seem to hold a pen anymore are only to sign something), in a world where the only difference between someone crossing their “f”s and dotting their “i”s depends on the font used, the least we can do is take a little more concern in how we run our fingers on the one surface that’s become the standard means of getting the message across…from Email to fax, printed letters, IMs, social networking and of course, blogging!

Chennai Chronicles

Yup, I’m back!
And boy, are vacations good; we really should have more of these in a year.

Coming to terms with the updates, I’m back at work again, from a long (and thoroughly deserved) vacation in Dubai/Chennai/Cuddalore. And having lived away from home for a while it almost felt weird, because there was a lot about Chennai I really couldn’t place. So, I present my take, on my city.

Chennai on…EVERYTHING.

…eating out:
Bad. Because most ‘normal’ restaurants (the ones that are usually named with a something Bhavan) are so crowded you get the service of a refugee camp, so you end up at the more up-town places throwing away good money on the dumb extras like plush seating and the flower pots.


…the little things that matter:
Like eating hot bajjis at a roadside tea-shop under a tree while sheltering from the rain. Some things just can’t get any better than this, even in Europe!


…internet connectivity:
Totally sucks.
I complain that my PCI here isn’t fast enough… at 2Mbps, what I have on wireless here is faster than most cable broadband setups in Chennai. And we call ourselves the IT hub of the planet.


…people:
I think the nicest thing about Chennai.
Everyone’s ready to help a lost guy, give directions, buy train tickets for the ladies, and is willing to share, even with perfect strangers. I once met a guy at a bus-stop who spontaneously starting speaking about how he got late because he had to pay the electricity bill and missed his bus! Its really amazing how much people talk to someone they don’t even know!


…hassle-free shopping:
Or rather the lack of it.
I can’t remember the last time I walked into a store and was by myself. Even the most hip outlets in Chennai hire people who nag you crazy about your size, color, material of choice before you come to a conclusion. And when you tell them you’re “just looking” it translates into a sorry-I’m-not-here-to-buy statement and you don’t get any service anyway.


…the weather:
Whoever thinks Chennai is too hot obviously never lived in the Middle-East. Just a day in Dubai was enough to nearly give me a heat stroke and I think Chennai is okay. Maybe a bit warm but okay. If you think Chennai is bad, please take a trip to somewhere really hot.


…electricity:
Shocking. Every single day had a power outage lasting an hour exactly. So it wasn’t much of an outage as it was a serious shortage of electricity. Wonder where all our tax-payers’ money went?


…flyovers:
Every major area has at least one under construction now; places like T-Nagar have two, heck even the airport has one right over it!
Now that’s what I call progress. Not long before we have a city that’s zipping way overhead!


…change:
As in small change. I hate 500 rupee bills. Everyone in Chennai gives you a dirty look if you ask change for a 500…unless you make a purchase of over 350. Sometimes I wonder why can’t they come up with a 200 rupee bill instead?


May not totally sum up the city, but if you’ve been away from it for a while, kinda sums up what you feel about it; or at least, what I did.

We'll be right back....in three weeks

I'm sorry if you've been coming here for the past while, expecting something new and went back disappointed; I'm on vacation now and trying to stay as far away from computers as I can.
I must say, for a guy who works, loves and lives online this is quite a change, but I'm getting to enjoy my-found freedom now.

I am currently working on different ideas in my head, I'll be back online in the third week of July and promise something worthwhile then.

“Smokers are brainless idiots!”

I’m sorry if you’re smoker and just read this, but I’m not taking it back. This is exactly how I feel about every single person who lights up a cigarette during the course of his day.
Brainless idiots.
So there!

Now, I don’t want to go into all the already-well-published details on the why’s and how’s of smoking being bad and all that – I guess anyone with the intelligence of a humming bird knows that smoking kills. But that’s not my problem.

My problem is, people’s attitude towards smoking and smokers.
Despite it being the most universal of ‘undesirable’ habits (of course in my book, alcoholism, drug abuse and indiscriminate sexual behavior also top the lists but I guess different cultures have different levels of tolerances towards these), I count around 65% of young people here in Hessen with a cigarette in hand and not a care in the world.

And, no one’s saying much either. Last October, Germany passed a law making it a crime to smoke in public buildings – such as restaurants, hotel lobbies and offices. But while anti-smoking advocates were high-fiving each other, the lobbyists made sure that what made the final bill was the word “public buildings” and not “public” – which meant that you could smoke anywhere as long as you weren’t inside anyplace.

And that makes me mad because what this shows is tolerance towards this despicable habit. I don’t know about most other people but I have zero-tolerance towards anyone who smokes.
I yank cigarettes out of my friends’ hands and crush them underfoot.
I make rude remarks at smokers at restaurants.
When in a group, I refuse to pay for anyone’s cigarettes.

And I guess everyone needs to do their part.
Maybe by hanging a board at the door that says, “Smokers and dogs not welcome here”, you’re not helping the guy quit; but at least by letting them know we don’t like it, and maybe, just maybe it might make a difference.

And for all the smokers reading this; I’ve just two words to say to you:
Go quit.

Because the rest of us think you’re brainless idiots!

Generation 'Why'

Note: This is going to be a controversial issue, so if you don’t like controversies, you’re probably not going to like this. Just a disclaimer before we start.

I don’t watch MTV all that often (heck I don’t even watch much TV anymore but that’s a different story) but being one of only 3 English channels my run-down satellite receiver picks – the rest being in Deutsch, Italiano, Francias and Espanol – I am forced to watch it, especially after a hard day’s work when you don’t feel like touching a computer again.

And apparently MTV wants us to believe that there are only three things worth living for:
Sex.
The opposite sex.
And more sex.

I don’t mean to advertise, but here’s a list of some popular programs you find…and an explanation of what they’re all about:

1. Next
Five guys competing for one girl (or the other way around) trying to win their hearts (or in any case money – a dollar for every minute you last on the date) before their prospective date ditches them and calls for “next”.

2. Date my Mom
Simply put, this is the most disgusting show I’ve ever seen. Guy wants girl, so he tries to ‘size her up’ by dating her mom to get a feel for what the girl would be like. If he’s lucky, he strikes two.

3. Parental Control
The guy’s folks don’t like his girlfriend (or the other way around with girl’s folks hating her boyfriend) so they decide to ‘find’ someone better and set them up on a date. Two dates later, the guy chooses if he wants to a) switch girls or b) keep his girl or c) ditch them all.

4. A shot at love
This show takes gross to a whole new sick height. Without going into the details, I’d just like to mention that in this show, the term “couple” does not necessarily mean people of the opposite gender…or just ‘two’ people. I leave the rest to your imagination.

5. Flavor of Love
Flavor of sensuality is more like it. This is another sick show where girls attend a ‘school’ where they ‘learn’ the tricks of the trade. You get it, right?


I’ll stop it now.
Reading back at the stuff I’ve written above; it almost sounds like porn. And I really wonder because all this isn’t stuff you get off dirty DVDs; they show this on prime time television all hours of the day (of course after eleven it gets worse…I don’t even wanna write about it)

Which brings me to an important question. Why is all of this happening?
The answer I got was simple: Why not?

Because when you remove the limitations set by God or by society or even by yourself; you don’t even have to answer that question anymore…you don’t have to ask, ‘why’? You just do it.
This is the future:
Generation ‘Why Not’

And it doesn’t look pretty.

The things you hear...

Overhead at my office recently:

"Oh, no I don't need to know any of that. You see, I'm a manager."

Of men and women

In today’s world of miniaturization and micro-everything, men are the real experts:
While women still lug around 5 pound hand bags containing “stuff they need”, men manage to fit everything they’ll ever need into a wallet some 30 times smaller.

Women on the other hand, are the masters of multitasking. Our guy still has trouble reading the newspaper while watching the ball game. The secretary at my office however, can reply to Email when on the phone, holding the person in person in front of her while handing me the forms and still managing to smile at the boss who just entered – all at the same time!

A walk in the woods

Even though I currently live in a quiet suburb at the edge of a large woods, I never really bothered to walk through it; either because its been too cold or I’ve been too lazy for a long while now.
Anyway, late this afternoon, I was on my way home from the mosque and decided to take the uncharted route (literally!) home, by cutting straight through the woods.

I did not regret my decision.
Slowly strolling through a peaceful forest, with a soft breeze gently rustling your hair amid dense green vegetation, watching squirrels run up the trees – and watch you from behind the branches; and seeing the rays of the afternoon sunshine from a beautiful spring day filter through the tall trees above, the fresh scent of pine, the feel of crisp leaves and twigs snapping underfoot while listening to the birds chirping above…

It has to be one of the most beautiful experiences in the world.

Manage-mental Issues

I don’t usually talk about my work life, but the past couple of days were a roller coaster ride that so rocked the management – something that went live the day before brought half the system down and we for the life of it couldn’t figure out what the heck was going wrong.

The entire corporation met to discuss this in endless meetings and I had the privilege of being in one such meeting with the top of the top management. The following are excerpts from that meeting.

(The statements in quotes were made by one of the morons managers. The italics are my thoughts at the time.)

“We need to fix this as soon as possible”
Tell me something I don’t know!

“I’m starting to lose my patience here with this problem”
You moron, I lost sleep last night, had to skip lunch and breaking my skull over this, you think I’m having fun here?

“The way I see it, there are two things that could have gone wrong”
The way you see it? Dude, when was the last time you looked at code. There’s a zillion things that can go wrong.

“You guys go ahead with your work, we’ll take care of the management issues”
So why the heck’d you bring me to this meeting? This isn’t exactly a technical discussion.

To another person on a call:
“Don’t worry; we have our people working on this as we speak”
No you’re not! I’m right here - listening to this stupid call.

“Do you require our assistance here any longer”
Any longer? Since when did you help us with to begin with? And what are you gonna do, compile a couple of programs for us? Maybe load a library?

“If we have to work over the weekend, then we will work over the weekend”
We? You mean “I” am going to work over the weekend. You’re probably gonna be sitting home watching TV asking me for a status every half hour.


Now, everybody has told me top managers are a waste of time, but after that call, I was convinced! How do these guys run the business without a clue of what’s going on!

Snoopy

In his own inimitable way, Charlie Brown once said to Snoopy:
“When a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it still make a sound”

Now unlike Snoopy, I’m guessing most of us never really give it much thought, but when I equated this with problems in our own lives, I found myself in a bit of a sticky situation:

Is it still a bug in my program when no one knows there’s a bug in my program?

Do I still owe Bob the €15 if he doesn’t remember I owe him money?

Do I still have to be in office at 9 o clock when no one will see there at 9 o clock?
.
.
The list goes on.

And unfortunately, I’m not too sure we answer ‘yes’ all the time. I don’t wanna go into deeper philosophical or moral consequences of the answers, but I’d just like to say that sometimes, there’s more to it.

After all, that tree did make a crash, whether you heard it or not!

Apple TV

Yup, I’m back again with another round of Apple-bashing…and this time, it’s the not-so-hyped-up AppleTV.

I 'm not sure why this caught my attention, but I guess there were two main reasons:
a) I’ve heard about it but wasn’t sure what it was and
b) because of the recent price slash Apple made

For the uninitiated, AppleTV is a device that allows you to seamlessly connect your existing tv to the internet and take advantage of Apple’s Online store to purchase or rent movies, tv shows, podcasts, even music, and play them out on your very own big screen. Watch what you want to from the comfort of your couch: the wide world of online content was no longer tied to your PC or the 3” screen of your iPod.

At least, that was the idea.

I think the biggest flaw developers failed to overlook is the fact that apart from bringing online content onto a TV screen (which is quite readily available on your PC without all this); it doesn’t do much else….at least, not enough to justify its €229 (slashed from € 299) price tag.

To top things off, you are paying for the broadband separately. Remember, the AppleTV is just hardware – to get it to work, you’d also have to subscribe to high-speed broadband.
Of course, this may not be a huge problem for most people, but the idea of needing something additional just to get something else to work is annoying me.
I mean, I have wireless broadband that gives me 5gigs a month…which is okay for most of my needs but why would I wanna get something that eats up my bandwidth AND needs my credit card to work too? Which brings me to my other point:

Apart from the videos on YouTube, there isn’t much you could see for free. And even though movie rentals are priced quite sensibly, no one really wants to swipe their credit cards every time they wanna watch TV.

And judging by the way the sales figures are looking, I’m not wrong. So while this might have been a good idea in theory, bringing online content on TV is an idea that just doesn’t seem to ‘click’ with the customers.

Boot me up, faster

I don’t hear many people complaining about this, but to this day, computers take up way too much time to boot up and become ready for working on.

I remember how things were over 10 years ago when my dad got us our first computer back in 1997, with probably the first Pentium processor ever made and less memory than my phone has today.
And I remember timing it: it took 2min and 32sec to boot up Windows98 at the time.

Over a decade later, my Core2Duo powered workstation supposedly clocks at over 2Ghz, has 2gigs of memory and all the fireworks. But still takes it over a minute to boot into the OS, setup everything and in short, become useful.

Leaving aside all the facts and jargon about all the advancements in computing technology, memory management and the boot sequence; for the average guy on the street who doesn’t give a hoot about all this, it’s still a long shot.

Once when I was showing off my new laptop, my brother (who’s not too much into technology) remarked,
”Yeah I’m sure its got the fastest processor on the market, but can’t this stupid thing turn itself on any faster than that? When are they gonna make ‘em like a TV so you can just pop it on and get to it right away?”

And coming to think about it, I don’t think that was ever on any manufacturer’s mind. True, you have blazing graphics, real surround sound and enormous number-crunching capabilities. But a computer that just boots instantly?
We are still waiting...

World Autism Day

Today on the second of April, just a day after fooling the wits out of everyone, the world unites together to create awareness on Autism.

News channels here have been going into overdrive, bringing stories upon success stories from families who are coping with children with this condition.

Even though I personally do not know anyone with this condition, I would like to take a moment to pause, and spread this concern.
Autism has no known medical cause, can affect children in one of several bizarre ways, and so far, does not have a proven medical or therapeutic cure. But recent advances in therapy can assist in rehabilitating the person, and help them lead a better, if not complete life.

But one thing still bothers me…most of those ‘success’ stories on TV were from the United States. And as long as everyone knows the kid is autistic and is getting help, things are okay.

But what about the millions of others with this condition, who need help just as bad; but have no access to proper facilities? Have no money? Are stuck in a war zone?
CNN does not cover that.
Guess it’s up to each one of us to take this up and give a hand to those who we might know with this condition.

God save us all!

Calling all "bimbos"

Yes, you heard right…and don’t be offended by the choice of words here. That is exactly what a new website is calling for – to compete for the world’s hottest ‘bimbo’.

For those of you who came in late, I’m talking about the latest addictions to spring up on the net, this time with a sizable amount of protest against it: the Miss Bimbo contest.

Created by two London-based entrepreneurs, the game encourages young girls to select an avatar, accessorize them with sexy outfits and crash diets to compete against other real people to be crowned the world’s hottest bimbo.
And if you thought that was crazy; check out some of the details: you not only select outfits and stuff (most of which by the way are some forms of lingerie), you also get to give your avatar breast implants and face-lifts; even hook up with a billionaire.

And why is everyone complaining? Because apparently the site attracts a lot of nine-year olds. And it’s only okay to think this is alright if you’re over 18.

Which makes me wonder on where their moral standards are headed…
Is this game okay for ‘above 18s’
…to think appearances, sexuality and money are the only things in life that matter?
…to worship celebrities and their less-than-pathetic lifestyles just because they’re famous?
…for craving to be famous and loved to be more important than anything else?

Its funny you know…when religion said the same thing about modesty, the world called us backward.
When TV soaps and magazines are full of glamour and sex; that’s liberation.
Yet when some poor weirdo on the internet tries to cash in on this, all of a sudden it becomes offensive.

I don’t blame them; I blame the culture that feeds this trash… and sets a double standard later.

Airframe

I guess everyone with a finger on the tech side of things would have heard of Apple’s newest toy in the lineup of lean, mean workplace machines – the MacBook Air.
(In case you haven’t, check out the video ad here)


At less than quarter of an inch high at its thinnest and weighing just under 3lbs, this is by far the lightest and thinnest notebook on the planet!


But while the folks at Apple boast at how their marvelous creation still manages to have a 13.3 inch screen, a full-sized, backlit(!), qwerty keyboard, gesture based track-pad (like the one found on the iPhone), built-in video camera and the works, I for one, still find some of the basics missing.


For starters, this only comes with an 1.8”, 80GB hard drive, same as the one found on an iPod. And by any standard, 80gigs won’t get you too far these days. And if you thought that was bad, get a load of the biggest blow to computing: no optical drive!
For the life of it, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to buy a notebook you can’t put a DVD in.
Of course, you do have the option of buying a separately sold wireless disk drive and transfer files to the notebook via wireless or Bluetooth, but not something everyone’s gonna be happy about.


Made me wonder on what kind of audiences exactly are they hoping to cash in on anyway. You can rule out average users – at $1,800, I guess it’s not something a college student is looking for.
No drive means no video games, no movies and not much else. There goes the second huge chunk of the market.
And with a sluggish 4,500rpm 80GB drive clocking at a miserable 1.8Ghz, performance users can look the other way.
Which leaves us with only one thing left: business users. You know, those serious-looking, time-zone hopping executives whose only excuse for even touching a computer are presentations, spreadsheets and nothing much else other than looking important and carrying the fancied gizmo around.
These bad boys can have a field day with this. The rest of us can go spend our money on something useful!

Scum of the cyberworld

I don’t usually get all personal and paranoid over some moron who’s lost his way in the world; but earlier this evening I (my blog to be exact) was attacked by a worthless, low-life scum who chose my blog to voice his pathetic opinion of the world.

Later when I was cleaning up the mess he left; it suddenly dawned on me as so how easy it is for anyone to get away with anything online!
You don’t need an identity, an address or even a name – just as long as you have a wee bit of skill and some creativity, the world is your canvas. Whether you want to create a masterpiece or mess up someone else’s using your graffiti is just a matter of choice.

And that’s a scary thought. But we’re not gonna take this lying down. Scum, you’ve just been tagged-out!

The Apple of my eye

Okay, I will shamelessly admit it:

Less than a year after writing about why I absolutely hate the iPod and everything around it (read the original post here), I became a proud owner of the shiny little player from Apple last week.

Don’t hate me just yet; I guess we are all infallible to human error.

Yes it sings, it swings, and burns a hole through your wallet. But what caught my attention is the sheer marketing brilliance the iPod really is. Actually I learned a lot about marketing from having an iPod than what I thought I knew.

For starters, I guess everyone who’s ever heard of it also knows about the iTunes bundle that the pod can’t do without. Not only is iTunes able to seamlessly connect to the online store for purchase of legal music (which, by the way, is a marketing brilliance on its own) it also allows you to subscribe to Podcasts, TV shows, Audiobooks and even Games right from the store.

Now here’s the real catch:
No matter who owns it, the podcast can only sync through your iTunes account. Games only get into the ‘Games’ folder if purchased off iTunes Store.
And even ID3 Tags can be automatically updated, but only via the store.

Of course, there’s always a way to work around it; for instance 3rd party games can be shoved into your pod via the notes folder using a hack, but then most people wouldn’t wanna do that.
And you can always update ID3 manually, but that kinda takes away the convenience of automatic update.

I take back everything I said against it.
With the product running into the 6th generation and beating Microsoft’s Zune hands down, love it or leave it, this is one pod that’s here to stay.

ThankGod!

This is again something a lot of us don’t usually think about a lot, so I decided to put it down in black and white.

Last night, after simply wandering all over downtown Constablerwache just for a heck of it and having an amazing dinner, I curled up in my easy chair with a steaming cup warming my hands watching reruns of Die Hard. And I realized, God, I have a good life!

Actually just yesterday, I was watching a special on CNN on how Congo’s “Tin soldiers” slave through the nation’s mines, barely clothed, digging with their bare hands and carrying sacks of the ore through a dense forest…just for food.
Yup, you read right, these guys don’t even get paid – they literally work in return for food. The only other option is to go hungry.

And when you connect the two sides together, it doesn’t even seem to make sense anymore. I mean, on one hand you have us guys cribbin about how work’s so lousy, the boss so mean, and not getting paid enough when we have enough money to…well not needing to care about going hungry for even one meal!!
On the other hand you have people like the ones you see on tv, working maybe ten times as hard as you or me and still having to wonder where lunch is gonna come from.

Unfortunately a lot of us don’t realize it but we are a very fortunate lot. And being so, means social obligations to people around us. Help for a needy, food for the poor, clothing for the less fortunate.

We have a lot to be thankful for.

T is for Torture

Let’s suspend the fun stuff for a bit and talk something serious.
I guess most of us don’t think about stuff like this quite often and I’ll have to admit, what really got me going was while I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and got to the part where Hermione gets crucioed by Bellatrix. That kind of spooked the daylights out of me, so I started to wonder on the real-life implications and applications of torture and brutal interrogation techniques.

I didn’t have to look too far.
All you have to do is spell it out on Google, YouTube or any major portal and there you have it: hundreds of thousands of first-person accounts, pictures and videos of people – in many cases innocent civilians – being tortured on the pretext of accusations; and in many cases confessing to a crime they did not commit.
And if you think I’m stretching this issue, check it out for yourself. A UN report once openly claimed that almost as many as 2 % of the entire population on earth has at one point been a victim of torture.

What really hits me hard is that several governments accept this as a form of maintaining security. The now famous Taser (which was in the news recently) is one such device United States law enforcement would swear by, maintaining that they wouldn’t have been able to capture a lot of crooks without it.

And you don’t even have to imagine what goes on inside war-zones.
While Israel approved of using ‘mild pressure’ on detainees, more infamous places like Guantanamo Bay have CIA approved ‘techniques’ to interrogate POW – many of whom have been detained without specific reason. Without going into the specifics of the horrors recounted by them and others like the fortunate ones to make out of Abu Ghraib, I’d just like to mention: this isn’t just about them.

This is about every single one of us. Every one of us rational, free thinking, citizen needs to stand up and shout it out loud…coz it might not be long before we wake up one morning and find a guy pointing a wand at you and say “Cruicio”.

Happy New Year?

A few years back, former first lady of the United States , Hillary Rodham Clinton signed off her greetings with a “Happy New Year?” and for once, I’d like to agree with her.
Yes, it is a whole year that has gone by and all that, but formalities aside, what’s so happy about the new year anyway?

People in Iraq don’t have much to celebrate; just more bombs and killings to follow..
Come to think of it, people in Lebanon , Palestine , Somalia , Kashmir and lots of other places don’t have much to celebrate either.
So why celebrate a new year anyway?

Astronomically it doesn’t make much sense; its just the earth making a revolution of the sun (from where, there are no markers in space!)…
Job-wise it makes little sense; we’ll still be stuck with the same problems at office in spite of the greetings you get…
Theologically it makes no sense; most major religions of the world happen to have their own calendars and festivals (none of which fall on Jan 1st)…
Academically it makes no sense; the new ‘Academic’ year starts somewhere in April…
Financially it makes no sense; the new ‘Financial’ year starts on 1st May…

So who’s New Year is this anyway?
The only people for whom this makes sense is the marketers who promote their products with a New Year tag, discounts and gifts – and with good reason too. New Year purchases increase revenue by over 200% in the 2-3 weeks that precede it. That’s some sale!

For the rest of us, New Year is just an excuse to go empty our pockets.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

I dunno if you guys’ve been watching the stuff they show on CNN lately. No, I’m not talking about the US Presidential Elections or the War on Terror. Something fiendishly paler:Fairness creams.
Yup, you heard right. Apparently some of the stuff on the shelves that’s supposed to make you the ‘fairest of them all’ do just a little more than that…and can get you killed. The report also featured several serious-looking doctors lamenting on how Sodium-whatever-oxide can get inside your body, poison your liver and stop your kidneys.

That really got me thinking; apparently fairness creams are big business…and why is that? Simple.

Everyone wants to look a little bit better than they really are. If you think that’s lame, look closely the next time you see one of those fairness cream commercials (yes they’re on TV even in Europe, for whatever reason).
The fair girl gets the hunk or the job or the promotion.
It’s always the same story on the other side too; prince charming always falls for the fairest maiden.
I don’t know what they were thinking when they made those commercials, but I know what they want us to think: success is nothing more than looking good. Good-looking people are more successful. In other words, if you’re ugly, you ain’t going nowhere.
That is so pathetic.

But again, I’m surprised by the sheer number of people who fall for this gag. Because if they didn’t, well it wouldn’t have made the headlines. It’s about time someone put a cork on it.
And lightened things up!

Ground Zero

Call me naïve, gullible or just plain childish.
But I guess it’s a special moment, in its own crazy way, when you see the thermometer hit home base at zero degrees just outside your house. Of course people who’ve lived in cold places before, can laugh out about this, but for the rest of us hot-heads who’re used to around 40 degrees (yes we are talking Celsius) in the tropics of Southern India or the Middle East; we don’t exactly find this…er…cool.

And, I am told, this is just the beginning. Hell, we haven’t even seen snowfall yet. And I’m not exactly looking forward to it. But from the looks of it, we have a long way to go…

A "loner" strikes again!

I don’t mean to be insensitive, but all I can say is – Yup, there it is again.
For those of you wondering what’s this all about, here’s an insight. Yesterday, on the 7th of November an 18 year old ‘gunman’ walked in and opened fire in an otherwise quiet town in Finland, killing 8 people before turning the gun on himself.
And that’s not all. Further investigation revealed that at the time of his death, the guy still had over 320 bullets and lots of inflammable liquids in possession; and I bet my baloney sandwich he probably planned on using them!
Which brings to mind an important question: how does a teenager end up with around 400 bullets (by the way, each of his victims took at least two bullets) anyway?

Somehow, it feels just like just yesterday when the same thing happened at Virginia Tech University in the United States.
And once again, it’s the same story all over again; the kid was a ‘loner’, hated people, was bullied at school, and somehow figured out a way to end it all.
And just like the last time, people light candles, flags fly at half-mast, news channels go into overdrive, and in two weeks everything will be forgotten and back to normal.

And once again; NO ONE called him a terrorist!

Almost makes me wonder who the hell a terrorist is exactly. Does it really take a middle-eastern-looking guy wearing a turban and waving an AK-47 to be called a terrorist? Or would you have kill people on a plane or train rather than a school to qualify as one?

I believe terrorism has no religion. And I also believe pre-planned, calculated, cold-blooded mass murder of innocent school-children amounts to terror.

It’s about time we did away with the stereotypes, and called a terrorist a terrorist; loner or not!

Fear off, death!

Yesterday, having nothing better to do on a Saturday night (well, that’s been the case ever since I’ve landed up here in Raunheim but that’s a different story!), me and the guys decided to have some fun and check out some neat horror flicks. One thing led to another and we ended up watching a couple of Omen and Final Destination titles back to back. Now, they maybe just movies but watching them at 2 o clock in the morning does sometimes get, well, spooky.

So I lay in bed and started wondering on the common theme that unites horror: the fear of dying. Maybe alone, maybe in a graveyard, roller coaster or airplane, but then all the same; going kaput!

And that got me going. Every single day we go through our lives minding our (own?) business, doing stuff, taking care of tomorrow, except that we may not make it there. I don’t wanna sound paranoid but the basic reality of life is this: you can work all your life to have that one special something and then when everything is ready, all can go blank ~snap~ just like that.

What comes afterwards is not for me to answer; I turn to religion to give me an answer to that and if I were you; I’d do the same thing.

Call me paranoid or even plain crazy but I guess there is no denying the fact that we are all gonna go one day. Before that happens, you better be ready for a few basic questions on what happens then and if you aren’t, then you better start searching for some really good answers today.

Because it’s a one way trip, and it ain’t going to be on your calendar of upcoming events.

Makes no cents!

When I was still in Chennai last month, I used to lament no end at the seemingly worthlessness of the 25paise and 50paise coins. In fact, there was once a time when I even argued that we ban the entire paise episode and started dealing in whole rupees instead. And with good reason too; I mean after all, apart from bus tickets and the occasional kick-knack at your roadside store, there really is nothing you can do with coins less than 1 rupee; even beggars scoff at you for tossing them something so pitiful!

Now some 3 weeks later, here in Germany, things are no better; only this time, it’s in cents. I don’t know if it’s just me but almost everything I seem to buy has an annoying 2 or 3 cents attached to it. A stupid bar of soap would cost me 98cents. So I give the guy a 1 Euro coin for which he politely and dutifully returns me two 1cent coins.

Now the question is, what do I do with this anyway? My wallet is full of at least a dozen such 1, 2 and 5 cent coins and I have to admit, it does look like of ridiculous fumbling for 98cents at the cash counter.

And I for the life of it seriously can’t understand why they price everything with a 69 cents or 36 cents attached to it. I mean does it really take the fun out of selling if those guys stuck to round numbers, say 70 cents, instead?
Call it culture shock, adaptation or whatever, but the way things are, guess I would be walking around with a pocket full of change for quite a long time..

It's a free world...

Firstly, I must say, it has been quite a while now; I know I’ve been a bit silent these days and I really must say: Thank you. For all your thoughts, comments and the sheer nag that’s keeping me going.

Coming to terms with my current update, I’ve now relocated from the warm, sunny sands of Chennai to Raunheim, a quiet village near Frankfurt in Germany. After the initial ‘wow, this place looks awesome’ thing died down; reality strikes as the beautiful but intimidating place this is.

One of the first things I’ve noticed is that nothing; absolutely nothing here is free. Those of us who’ve lived in Chennai or the Middle East will swear by the huge amount of freebies you get with your goodies. Okay skip that; who needs freebies anyway, but at least you get used to getting at least a bit more than you bargain for. Who doesn’t like the little cute helicopter you get with your pasta?

But that’s a different story all together. I walk into a supermarket here to buy stuff and that’s when I realized you not only pay for your stuff, but also for each of the plastic carry-bags you take. Of course, probably that’s why a lot of the folks here carry their own bags to the stores. And oh yes, bottles are extra too.

In line with this doctrine, restaurants here don’t serve water either, leaving you to decide if you really want to drink water at all. (Of course on the up side, you do get to choose between Regular, Sparkling or Classic water, whatever the hell they all are, so there’s no lack of choice here)
And with bottled water being priced only 20cents below a regular coke, no winners for guessing what most of us drink here.

But then, I guess that’s what the choice is really about. After all, it’s a free country isn’t it?

A new product "Surface"s

After Apple blew the world away with the multi-touch interface in the much-touted iPhone, everyone was now talking about the next greatest thing in computing – the multi-touch interface.

Not wanting to be left out, Microsoft embarked on its own touchy endeavor (pun intended) to bring out the next big thing to woo the prosumer market – the Microsoft Surface.
You probably heard all about Surface; it’s been all over the news and splashed on computer magazines, even on TV. So much so that you’d run the risk of being such a dinosaur for not having even known it. Hailed as one of the biggest things to happen to computers, the Surface promises (like all good things) to make your interaction more fluid than ever by using hand gestures and touch to display, organize and view photos and other graphic media, giving you the impression of actually touching your data.
According to the demo shown, the system is so neat it automatically recognizes a camera placed on top of it, and downloads the pictures to its ‘surface’, after which you can probably view them by waving your hand at it or dragging it to the center. Impressive, huh?

Now here’s where the fun ends: okay so you’ve got your pictures and stuff, now what? Unfortunately we can’t answer that one because frankly no one seems to know. Beneath the swanky touch-sensitive screen and multitude of mini-cameras that make up the gesture processing unit, there doesn’t seem to be much save a very ordinary computer. I’m hoping someone will prove I’m wrong here because if it really is just this much, this doesn’t seem to be much more than an interface.

And let’s face it; touching or typing it, interfaces are only part of the system – they don’t make up the complete thing. But that remains to be seen. For now, at the rate Surface is gaining momentum, it probably wont be long before you shake your pc screen to wake it and ‘Touch here to continue’

Civilian Deaths

Apparently not enough civilians are getting killed in Iraq these days.

The Economic Times reported last Monday that ‘only’ 1,700 odd civilians got ‘killed violently’ in Iraq last month, which happens to be the lowest in the past 5 months with a 36% drop. Now this tells us two things;
One, for the past 3 years or so (when did the pre-emptive strikes begin?), more than 2,400 civilians have been dying every month. Now remember, we’re not talking about terrorists, militants or soldiers, we’re talking about people living in their homes, children going to school, people going to work, who don’t know if they will wake up the next morning.

I really don’t know if you can appreciate the gravity of the situation but working out the math, that means some poor innocent guy in Iraq, minding his own business, gets killed EVERY 20 MINUTES!

Secondly, there’s something else. Why isn’t anybody doing anything about this? We hear about social welfare, women’s welfare, child welfare and even animal welfare all the time, but what about welfare for innocent people who get killed for no reason at all?

Maybe we don’t know

Or we don’t care.

But closing our eyes to this isn’t making anything better; so at least when we go to sleep tonight, let us say a little prayer for those who won’t wake up tomorrow morning.

Give us Thou a new Vista!

I don’t like Windows Vista.
Wait, I’m not going to launch into a debate about why Linux or Mac or whatever is better, but here are some facts:
1. Its expensive (in countries like India, make that VERY expensive)
2. Its hungry. In fact, I estimate over 75% of PCs in existence right now don’t have enough juice to run it.
3. Inspite of all this, it doesn’t give you much.

Lets take a look.
If your PC is over a year old, don’t even imagine installing vista on it. And even on much acclaimed ‘Vista Ready’ PCs that came a while ago it feels like running Need For Speed Carbon on a 486! It's simply not fast enough.

Okay so probably all good things come at a price. And the price for Vista is having a ultra-high config PC that will eventually slow down. So what are the good things?

Well, even though Microsoft is riding high on the claim of Vista being ‘secure’ and ‘immune to attacks’ (heck, they even feature Bit-Locker™ for encrypting entire hard drives and secure online storage of passwords) we’ll have to admit that most of the apparent changes are in the looks. True, the API has been re-built from scratch, FAT is history and “Save My Search” abilities bring new methods of data retrieval. But boot it up and the first things everyone will notice are the color schemes, the new start menu and a bunch of nonsense on the desktop called a ‘side bar’.

Clearly, Vista is a newbie heaven, but it seems to insult more advanced users. The ‘live search’ all over the place seems to imply the user doesn’t even know what he’s looking for anymore. I mean, we love to search – especially with data flowing into terabytes – but do we really need to search for everything everywhere?
And what kind of an idiot would leave a tiny slideshow of pictures running in a corner of your desktop all the time?

Almost makes me wonder if the whole thing was designed to eat away your resources while simply sitting there and looking pretty. I mean good-looks aside, does anyone really need the 3D flip while Alt-Tabbing multiple windows?

Don’t get me wrong: I love advancements. And when Vista (codenamed ‘Longhorn’ back then) was still in the labs, it was a dream beyond its years. Longhorn was originally designed to ship with a brand new SQL-based file system called Win FS that promised to send FAT and NTFS back to the stone-age! Unfortunately none of that happened (it still runs on NTFS) and the only new things are the bells and whistles!

A meter Matter

I don’t know how many people realize this (or even care to bother), but come 26th and it would be exactly 5 months to the day when autorickshaw meters were made “mandatory and non-negotiable” on the streets of Chennai.
5 months and several pot holes later, things are no different.

For those of you who don’t live in Chennai (or wondering what the hell an autorickshaw meter is), here’s some update:I guess it is safe to declare auto drivers as the most despicable, hated, and rude people in all of Chennai (since how much you pay depends on various factors like what language you speak, what you wear, and how lost you look) and anyway, someone decided to bring back order by revising tariff and making meters on autorickshaws mandatory. Of course, passing a law is only one side of the story. The other side, is implementing it.
Surprisingly, that went on pretty well too. Every auto rickshaw (can we just call them ‘autos’?; I’m getting tired of typing ‘autorickshaw’ all the time) fitted with a mechanical meter was given a revised fare-sheet and a deadline to go digital. Any auto already fitted with a digital meter had to get recalibrated and re-certified.

Then, they figured, things would 'auto'matically (pun intended!) fall into place with auto drivers charging you by the meter - not a rupee more, not a rupee less. They would benefit from the transparent system and we would go home happy knowing we didn't pay 30bucks more than the other guy for the same distance. Too good to be true?

Yeah, right. For the rest of us its a different story. Ask any auto driver to charge you by the meter, and you get laughed in your face. Or maybe insulted. In fact one guy went as far as to explain why they couldn’t use digi-meters: Apparently the IC goes haywire after a few potholes and ends up running crazy. Now that’s an answer worth an electronics engineer!

Anyway jokes apart, the law is still in place, meters still run but we still pay by their own rules.

And unless something concrete is done soon, the Meter is still a mile away!

Hel (met) of a Law!

This just in:
The latest crime spree doing the streets of Chennai is not flicking wallets or cell phones; it’s something much ridiculous – helmets. Yup you heard right, the latest fashion accessory sporting everyone’s head ever since the helmet law came in two days ago was reported to be the most frequently stolen item. And that’s just in two days!

For the uninitiated, Chennai’s just taken the plunge to make roads much er…safer by re-introducing the compulsory helmet-for-everyone law since June 1. That means, every single person – rider or passenger – on a bike will have to either wear one or risk getting caught red handed (not to mention bare-headed! :-0) .

Now on the face of it, this sounds like a pretty good idea. But when you get down to it, Chennai’s not exactly known for its one-person-per-bike phenomenon. That means either the bike owner buys a couple of spare helmets for the occasional backseat rider or everyone in town buys (and carries) one since you never know when you might need a lift and if the other guy has a helmet or not.

And oh yes, we’re forgetting something else. What about whole families that sometimes travel together? Yup, the wife, kids and sometimes the mother-in-law, all on the same bike (trust me, this really happens in Chennai) with helmets on them…kind of crams up the headroom.

Don’t get me wrong: Helmets are a great invention. Yes, helmets save lives; more than people think. A cousin of mine owes his life to a helmet that saved him in a bike accident a couple of years ago.
But with any invention, forcing a law onto people is not gonna make things safer. It has to come from within.

iSmell Trouble!

Not exactly the most recent of developments, but in line with the happenings on the net; quite a while ago in 1999, a company called DigiScent Inc. invented the iSmell, a smell synthesizer that would be used to involve more of our senses on the net.

Hey and since we’re already in the frontiers of virtual reality and augmented reality, why not get our noses too involved in this battle of the senses? Or so they thought. But here’s where things start to smell fishy (pun intended!)

The main problem is, unlike light and sound, smell is not something that can be instantly or precisely controlled. For instance you can accurately control brightness and volume, and the best part is they both cease to exist once the source is switched off – in our case pull the plug and you can plunge the room into silent darkness. But with smell, being organic molecules, they tend to waft around long after the source is removed.

The other problem is direction: With sound you can precisely direct it – whether it is to a 71. Surround system or a tiny pair of headphones to the individual. What about iSmell? Turn it on and the whole house starts to smell. Of course, our human senses are partly to blame for this as well – unlike hearing, we humans can’t accurately judge the direction a smell is coming from. (By the way, bumble bees can!)

And the other thing is something called ‘olfactory fatigue’ which means that after a while, our noses get used to a certain smell and don’t recognize it anymore.

iSmell might’ve been a good idea; but with the issues at hand I guess we’ll have to agree that this is one concept that in reality, just stinks!

Playstaion 3? No way!

Yes it’s finally here; after much speculation, Sony’s much awaited and talked about Playstation 3 has just been launched in India today!

And boy did it come with a bang! Not to mention an unforgivable price tag of Rs 39,000! That’s enough to get a decent laptop! Or even a PC with greatest graphics card on the market.

But they’re not selling just a ‘gaming console’ anymore. The PS3 offers to play games, music, DVDs, pix and even store stuff on a 60GB hard drive. But that’s not what’s sky-rocketing the price tag. After all, any dumb computer can do this. The big deal is in HD graphics (and support for Sony’s exclusive Blu-Ray™ DVD) for real hi-res pictures. Again, this is what Microsoft brought with its Xbox360™ earlier this year, minus the HD-DVD support.

Now here’s the real problem; you can’t do anything with HD graphics unless you have a High Definition TV to see them on. That means, unless you already have one, you need to throw away another 80,000 bucks on an LCD HDTV.

Oh yeah and one more thing, the console isn’t enough – you need games to play. And every gaming title is sold separately for Rs 2,799.

So lets see now if I wanna play the PS3 with around 3 games, (just 3 games okay, let’s be modest) I’ll have to shell out around

39,000 + (2,799 x 3) + 80,000

Rs.148,000!

I don’t know if you realize this, but THAT’S A LOT OF MONEY!

PS3 means serious business for serious gamers.

Guess the rest of us will just have to stick to Tetris for now.

Video my format!

I don’t know why its like this but there doesn’t seem to be a standard format for video files…

If you haven’t noticed, we have basically two formats for audio/music files: .mp3 and .wma – both of which play almost anywhere; well anywhere as long as you have windows that is, but being the universal OS that it is, I guess it is safe to say anywhere.

Of course, you do have the stupid .ra/.raw formats which only play on a Real Player and Apple’s ridiculous .au format which plays on God-knows-what; but the point is, if you’re looking for music, you’ll most probably end up with an mp3.

Now compare this with video:

Take any random computer and chances are you’ll find a healthy mixture of

.wmv

.mpg/.mpeg

.avi

.mp4

.mov

.dat

.3gp

…each of which seem prefer its own sweet player.

The trouble is not the format, it’s the creation of that format. Any digital imaging device captures still photographs only as a JPEG, but when it comes to video… a digital camera gives you a .mov (Apple’s QuickTime™ Movie) while a phone camera makes a .3gp (which so far, seems to play only on weird players you download off the net) and a Muvee™ autoproducer which makes a .wmv

So all in all, if you wanna play all your videos, you have 2 choices:

1. Get a good collection of Windows Media Player, QuickTime, Real, Nokia Multimedia Player, and other players or

2. Download a weird player off the net that claims to play everything and risk an attack on your system.

Its your call, and the videos are waiting…

The Real Terrorist

For those of you who came in late, three days ago on the 16^th of April, a masked gunman stormed into a classroom at Virginia Tech University and opened fire, killing 32 of his fellow students and a professor.

Worldwide condemnations of this shoot-out occurred instantly and while every news-channel and publication worth its name ran headlines of the “horrific” incident and the “worst violence since the Columbine High School massacre” and all that jazz, in case you haven’t noticed, NO ONE called him a terrorist.

And he wasn’t. He was just a South Korean student, your everyday boy-next-door who was a “loner” and “disturbed by the rich kids” so he decided to take them out.

You know, when I heard the news, the first thing that came into my mind was, please don’t let him be Arab.
Hypothetically, assuming that he had been somebody else, say some guy named Muhammed-Al-Something or Ahmed-bin-Something-Else, the news would have been dramatically different.

Everyone would have been talking about the ‘latest terror attack against America’…

President Bush would have made statements to continue the War on Terror…

The news channels and papers would have published long and scary articles on the spread of religious terror and why it wasn’t safe for anyone anymore…

Yup, things would’ve been so different. But they aren’t. Why? Because the guy involved was a South Korean instead of an Arab, so we can go to sleep tonight thinking this is just an isolated incident about a ‘disturbed’ kid instead of a worldwide plot to spread fundamentalist terror.

Double standards for terror? I don’t know.

But guess that kind of makes the terrorist feel like a “loner” too…

Pirates of the Software Industry

Yes, I will shamelessly admit it: I use mostly pirated and counterfeit software. If not for anything else, for two very simple facts:

1. Everyone needs software

2. Not everyone can afford original software

In fact, the only reason I have a Genuine Microsoft Windows, genuine AntiVirus from Symantec and other genuine junk I never use is because they kind of came along with my laptop. I figured, now that I have some original software to begin with, let’s kick the piracy bucket and turn over a new leaf. So I went to purchase my obsession: Need for Speed: Underground2.

The man behind the counter gave me a confused look, almost like something we’d give a pitiable mad man, as he pulled out the package with the price tag of Rs1,700.

For 2 CDs, a booklet containing some cheats and a cardboard box. 1,700 bucks.

Needless to say, I simply walked out into Richie Street and got the same thing (minus the cardboard box) for around 50 bucks.

And if you thought that was bad, check out a few more:

Microsoft Window Vista Home Premium is priced at Rs.22,500

Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Edition is priced at Rs.14,500

Now, I agree that it must’ve taken those folks a lot of time and money to develop all this, but then what’s the point in putting a price tag that most people will just laugh at.

And the other thing I don’t see why software manufacturers don’t understand is, what advantage do they provide to people who buy and use original software over those who don’t? I mean, if you use a counterfeit hardware product, you get cheap quality; but with software it’s virtually the same!

And NO, I DO NOT agree with Microsoft’s scary claim that “counterfeit software can have critical bits of code missing which can compromise the security of your infrastructure”

Boy, that’s a good one! Apparently some “bits of code” get left out when you copy a CD! We believe it!

But one thing I’d appreciate Microsoft for is the Genuine Software Advantage which gives you special upgrades like Internet Explorer 7 and Media Player 11 (both of which install only on Genuine Windows), not to mention Windows Live Updates and Security Center for original software.

And unless other manufacturers do something like this too, pirated software will thrive. And I for one, will continue to swear by it!

I, Professional

We all pride ourselves on being professionals.

 

And, we claim, we’ve rights to. After all, we wear crisply pressed formals and polished shoes to work everyday; a suit and tie on occasions; speak flawlessly accented languages; not to mention extensive etiquettes at the dinner table and rules on handling the fork.

 

Then we step out on to the streets of Chennai, and it’s another world altogether. From cursing the auto-rickshaw driver who just overtook you to jumping red lights because ‘there was no one there’ and traveling on the wrong side of the road to cut a turn, we the ‘professionals’ do it all. And it doesn’t end in the streets. We jump queues (provided there is one, to begin with), rush into moving buses or trains, arrive 15-20 minutes late for just about anything And it doesn’t end with us.

 

We do it because everyone around us does it, and besides, you can’t expect to survive in the big city unless you join in and yell with rest of the crowd.

And crowd is right. How many of us have actually seen a polite traffic policeman?

Or how about courteous bus conductors?

Maybe a smiling face behind a counter?

And don’t even think about auto rickshaw drivers; I think it can be safe to declare auto drivers as the most despicable, loathsome and hated people in all of Chennai.

 

But skip all that. That’s on the street. Even on the job when was the last time a professional, any professional for that matter, acted such?

The other day I saw a hospital receptionist yak endlessly on the phone about some new sari she bought, blissfully unaware of the people waiting…

A banker behind the counter not sure of how to boot his computer or check the customer’s request…

Customer Care executives who don’t know what facilities their bank/telephone company/credit card company offers…

Software people engaged in a 3 hr call with their spouse/fiancé/boyfriend in spite of the pending work to be done…

Sales people in showrooms who don’t know about the discount coupon the customer is holding…

 

 

Sounds familiar? It should; after all, we are that face in the crowd. And from the looks of it, not a very professional face. Time we cleaned up our act and professionalize our professions.

Iron Maiden - Live in Concert!

Calling all Heavy Metal Fans! Iron Maiden is performing live in Bangalore.

 

Palace Grounds, - 17^th March 2007. Where will you be?

 

iPod madness

To begin with, lemme say I’m not against the cute white devil from Apple. Nor am I a fan of Microsoft Zune or Creative Vision:M or anything else for that matter. But what I really can’t understand is why the apple iPod, though remarkable an invention it may be, is such a flare all over the world.

To fully understand this madness, we must first understand the underlying technologies and market base which led to this. The market is fairly simple to understand, people wanted something to carry around and play their music. Okay, so people wanted something to carry and play ALL their music. And then photos. And videos.
Apple seized this opportunity to make the all in one device that everyone loved.But wait, wasn’t Sony already doing this? As was Creative, Panasonic, Samsung and virtually every other electronics giant worth its salt? And after Sony failed flat on its face with its Network Walkman® (which, incidentally, was the first portable music player which held tracks in a Sony proprietary ATARC format) you’d think no one else would try.

Here’s where the technology part came in: Apple made not just proprietary formats for storage, it also made the equally famous iTunes software to go with it, and the online store to purchase legal music…and it was a huge hit. So the customers were happy, record companies were happy, anti-piracy guys were happy and the anti-peer-to-peer-sharing guys from the state department were happy. But that’s were the happiness ends.

I personally hate it not because of its shortcomings; there are lots of them starting with the fact that they don’t even provide a charger – leaving you to charge with your pc USB. And the fact that I can’t transfer my music from one pc to another or need purchase music online (come on, how many of us in India would do that?)

I hate it because of its over-hyped-up status.
Something like a class act, where many advertisements featuring a cool dude wears an iPod.

Levi jeans for launching the “iPod Jeans” to carry an iPod with all its accessories.

All those stupid car audio systems like Pioneer which boast to be “iPod Ready”.

Data comparisons which used to claim that something was so large that it would fit on a such and such stack of books, it now said to fit on so many iPods!

Even NASDAQ launched a nonsensical new index called the “iPod Index” which, like the Big-Mac® index, compares the growth rate of a currency based on the price of the player there.

Even an I-have-too-much-money builder in Dubai who’s constructing an iPod shaped apartment building called The iPad.

My point is, isn’t there any other music player in the world? Or is the Pod the only thing people see?

It’s not about a great music player. It’s about something bigger called mass marketing.
And one thing’s for sure: iPod will rule as long as it is hyped up. Remember, sheep only follow the herd.

Happy Women’s Day!

No offense to the ladies, but can someone tell me er…why exactly are we celebrating this?

Now relax, there’s no need to get all worked up about this one guy who can’t even appreciate the wonders of womanhood or whatever, but seriously, I fail to see the point.

True, women are now doctors, teachers, engineers (not to mention software architects ;-), even nuclear scientists and astronauts.

But when it comes to the glamorous world of entertainment, women today are more than ever, being projected as worth nothing more than an object. Check out the fashion industry (watch FTV with your family, for instance), check out the music industry, how about advertisement, or a steamy movie…
I really will not agree that Britney Spears or Shakira are famous because they can sing.
Not will I agree that Mallika Sharawat or Pamela Anderson is a brilliant actor

The fact is that freedom can be brainwashing, everyone thinks that liberation means to be someone else’s plaything.

If this is the real liberation of women, then I guess the feminists still have a long way to go

Tax this!

Yes, it’s that time of the year again when the budget is out and as usual, we are disappointed. “We” is the middle class, the working section, those morons in the IT industry, the scapegoats of the economy, whatever you choose to call it.

I don’t know when it came about but historically, its always been like this. Poor people don’t have much to worry about; the only problem is that they are poor, and there are lots of government schemes to help out farmers, the ‘backward castes’ (I’m ashamed to even write the word), poor students, poor widows and poor everyone else. Rations give the privileged poor provisions; reservation gives the privileged poor positions. And if there’s no better income, Professional begging is also a big hit. And by the way, there’s no tax on begging.

On the other hand, very rich people don’t have much to worry about either: There’re lots of loop-holes to jump into to evade taxation if you’re really big in business (we’re talking big as in over hundreds of crores). You can always leave the country to get NRI status, or like many rich folks, ‘blacken’ your money. And if you have a few friends in high places here and push a few bank notes there, you’re still rocking no matter you how much income you have.

So who’s the real idiot? We the people, those pathetic, job-dependent, salary-based, dimwits who slog long hours of the day and night in front of a computer to make an ‘enviable’ salary and end up paying a third of it to taxes.

Scapegoat or concerned citizen? You decide.

Whoa, Cocoa!

I don’t know if I ever mentioned that I'm a great fan of high coca chocolates, more commonly known as Dark or bitter chocolates. Recently a friend abroad bought me a bar of an amazing (and terribly expensive at 4 Euro a bar) chocolate, the “Lindt Excellence Cocoa” with over 80% cocoa and I relished every bit of it. Now it so happens that our regular bar of chocolate contains not more than 5-10% cocoa so you can understand how rich this was.

So once again when another friend asked me what I wanted, I was not undecided: Lindt Excellence with as much cocoa content as available. So he got me the Mother of all Dark Chocolates; the Lindt Excellence Noirissime with 99% pure virgin cocoa, and I was only too delighted.

I was a bit surprised though, because even though the elaborate packing (with pull-out tray and flavor-lock sealing) was expected, this was the first I’ve seen with a “Tasting Advice” on the peel-up foil cover. It soberly stated that in order to ‘fully appreciate all the flavors and bouquet of aromas’, we had to ‘progressively develop our palate through the tasting of other high cocoa ranges’ and taste with ‘a small piece left to melt in the mouth’. Humph, some build up for a miserable chocolate, I decided and popped in a piece in my mouth.

The next few minutes were kind of hard to describe.

The next day I threw out the rest of it out the window and vowed never to touch bitter chocolate again.