zonkmimi

Web 2.0 Internet trends

2011-11-13T22:10:00.001-08:00

Every year, Mary Meeker looks into her crystal ball and gives a presentation on the internet trends. These presentations are filled with a lot of data and analysis. In case you haven't seen the 2011 presentation, here it is:

Here is the PPT if you want to go over the slides at your own pace.

KPCB Internet Trends (2011)

Lessons from the Last Lecture

2011-11-09T21:11:00.001-08:00

Randy Pausch gave this moving last lecture. It is a must watch.

Some lessons I captured from this lecture:

Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted.
We cannot change the cards we are dealt with. Just how we play the hand.
Have something to bring to the table. That will make you more welcome.
You've got to get the fundamentals down. Otherwise, the fancy stuff won't work.
When you see yourself doing something badly, and no one is bothering to correct you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. That means, people have given up on you.
Brick walls: They are there for a reason. They are not there to keep you out. They are there to see how badly you want something.
Wait long enough and people will surprise/impress you. Give people time to show their good side.
It is very important to know that you are in a pissing match. And, it is very important to get out of it as soon as possible.
Never ever underestimate the importance of having fun.
Work and play well with people.
If you live your life the right way, your dreams will come true.
If you are going to do anything pioneering you will get arrows in the back, and you just have to put up with it.
You just have to decide if you are going to be a Tigger or an Eeyore.
Loyalty is a two way street.
You can't get there alone. People have to help you. I do believe in karma and paybacks. You get people to hepl you by telling the truth.
I'll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term and earnest is long term.
Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people.
Say you are sorry that you screwed up.
Say that it is your fault.
Ask how you can correct it.
Don’t complain. Just work harder.
Be good at something. That makes you valuable.
Be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.

ROL

2011-11-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting HBR blog on managing luck. The premise of this blog entry is that everyone has 'good' as well as 'bad' luck almost equally. But, what sets winners apart from also-rans is the Return on Luck. What you do with an opportunity (good luck) that is presented to you defines how lucky you are.

Morten lays out 4 simple steps to managing luck:
1. View life as a flow of luck events
2. Prepare for bad-luck events
3. Spot good-luck events when they come
4. Execute brilliantly on good-luck events

These steps will allow you to maximize your ROL.

Lytro

2011-10-19T20:26:00.001-07:00

What is Lytro? How is it differentiated from the competition? What is its competition? What is the current market? What is its message to the market?

The photography market can be roughly divided into professionals, prosumers and consumers.

Professionals care about the kinds of pictures they take and are looking for control, accuracy, dependence and ruggedness in a camera.

Consumers are not very particular about the picture quality and accuracy. Consumers care about how quickly they can capture the picture and upload it onto their favorite social network. Consumers also want the ability to capture video using the same camera.

Prosumers care a bit about the control and picture quality but are not very concerned about dependence and ruggedness.

Professionals and prosumers tend to gravitate towards SLRs and consumers move towards P&S cameras. Of late, consumers are moving towards cell phone cameras in droves. Especially after the introduction of smart phones with high pixel count and featureful cameras. Consumers are more interested in snapping a picture or shooting a video and uploading it onto the Internet instantaneously.

So, where does Lytro fit in this picture? Lytro is currently marketed as a consumer camera. The main differentiation of Lytro is that it lets you capture an image without first worrying about focusing it. This is something unique and no other camera can accomplish. Of course, there are several single focus cameras in the market. But, what Lytro promises is the ability to focus after taking the shot. Due to the nature of the lens structure, it is hard to pack it into a cell phone. At least, not right now. The current form factor is completely different than anything in the market. It is neither pocket nor palm friendly. Based on the current design, it is a hard sell to consumers.

Prosumers would be interested in the camera because of its novelty. Prosumers and technology geeks will buy it for the sake of technology so they can play with it and hack it.

Professionals could immensely benefit from the creative opportunities offered. But, professionals need control, accuracy, ruggedness and dependence. Lytro does not offer control over aperture and shutter speed. It only offers the ability to change focus, after the fact. It has a fixed aperture (f2.0?) and no way to control the shutter speed.

Until the Lytro technology can be put into a tablet or a smart phone, it is hard to sell it to the average consumer.

So, what features can we add to the Lytro to make it attractive to prosumers as well as professionals? Control is the biggest factor for this group.

The ability to control the image composition via variable focal lengths, aperture and shutter speed. The ability to convert the image into a standard 2D format after manipulation. This gives the user additional parameters (focus) to tweak after the shot is taken. This is tremendous value for professionals, as long as they can convert the final product into another standard 2D format and print high quality images.

Right now, the camera is taking away a lot of the controls from the user and giving one back. The value add from the new feature is not sufficient to replace the lost ones. That is where it is hard to differentiate and sell the camera to users.

As I mentioned earlier, law enforcement, security monitoring, etc. are areas where this technology can be very effectively used as it is.

(Update) Based on this article, Steve Jobs was interested in this technology. Maybe, Apple is waiting for the technology to become mature enough so they can acquire it and have Jony do some magic with it.

Apart from these exits, Lytro could end up being another Segway.
(Photo credit: Lytro.com)

Enterprise Cloud

2011-09-29T20:25:00.001-07:00

There has been a lot of talk about cloud computing tools and services and how it could reshape the competitive landscape.

A very small group of early adopters are using cloud computing in the Enterprise arena. One of the main reasons for the lackluster adoption in the Enterprise is due to the lack of full understanding of the benefits and risks of cloud computing. There is a lot of hype thrown out by marketing and it is hard for executives to sift through it.

The main concerns when it comes to cloud computing is security, business continuity and compliance.

Adoption has been great in small companies and especially, amongst technology startups. But, this evidence is not factored in by the large enterprises. When you see Fortune 500 enterprises using paper and Excel to manage their data (database, what?), one has to wonder how long it will take for them to consider cloud solutions. It is not an easy task to implement a new technology or roll out an application in an enterprise that is busy rolling out consumer goods or airplanes. There are a lot of moving parts and interdependencies which make the move very tricky and expensive. When the mission critical applications are on the line, it is not easy to justify the change.

Marc Andreessen commented that enterprise vendors like Oracle are doomed because everything is moving towards the cloud. He said that the clock is ticking on old-line software and infrastructure companies and they need to cloudify their applications or perish. His evidence is based on his vision and premise that cloud is the future. His evidence that a lot of startups utilize cloud-based alternatives to enterprise software as well as infrastructure is well founded because most startups are cash strapped and cannot afford to cut huge checks to enterprise vendors. It is a boon for startups and helps them keep their costs down and be nimble. But, the same does not hold true to enterprises. There are still a lot of hurdles to clear before enterprises accept cloud computing. They need to see a lot of evidence and benefits in order to make a switch, and still, it will take a decade before we see much traction. Also, specific to the point Mark makes, someone still has to create all the infrastructure and software to run the cloud in the first place. So, there will still be a place (albeit smaller) for the so called old-line software and infrastructure companies.

Based on a report in the HBR, some of the highly valued benefits of cloud computing are:
- Increased business agility
- Flexible capacity
- Faster adoption of new technology
- Lower fixed costs (moving capex to opex)
- Lower up-front costs to develop/deploy IT systems
- Always on newest versions of software without IT updates/patches

The article also lists the following as the advantages of the cloud:
- Makes it easy to experiment at low cost
- Enables deeper collaboration with business partners
- Frees up IT resources to work on more strategic things
- Is a source of competitive advantage for early adopters
- Lowers cost of doing business
- Lowers overall IT costs

Many executives believe that cloud computing can give them considerable advantages, but are still hesitant due to the fact that they do not have answers to their questions on security, reliability and implementation costs. All the information from marketing is not helping either. Technical executives understand the implications of cloud computing, and the gap is in educating the non-technical executives and getting their buy-in.

Salesforce has successfully made in-roads into enterprises and there are lessons to learn from this case study.

Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box.net makes an interesting observation (read full interview here) when it comes to enterprise software. He talks about the disconnect in the customer-vendor relationship. He says "There are literally lawsuits from vendors to customers and customers to vendors in that industry. It's kind of a crazy industry because there's this asymmetry where you'll sell software to an enterprise, and they will pay you regardless of whether that's successful or not. That's entirely unlike SaaS where customers will only pay us if we're successful."

From a common sense perspective, this makes a lot of sense. Why would you pay for a car one year before its delivery, only to find out that it is not at all what you wanted?

But, the reality is quite different. You are not paying for a run of the mill car, but a custom car with styling and performance characteristics defined by you. Hence, you have to pay in advance and wait a year to have the car delivered.

Majority of the enterprise applications need configuration and/or customizations to suit the client's specific needs. This is what takes the time to create and is what incurs up-front money. Even if we move into the cloud paradigm, this still holds true and the costs are going to be incurred. What is going to be different is that the infrastructure costs will go down since you are renting rather than buying on your own.

Cloud is here to stay, for sure. But there will still be a mix of on-premise and cloud hosted solutions from what I can see, with the cloud being the majority.

Kindle eBooks at your public library!

2011-09-22T23:06:00.000-07:00

Couple days ago I read that Kindle books are now available for download from the King County Library System in Seattle. Ever since I read the news report that Kindle books were coming to public libraries I was thrilled and anxiously waiting for the moment.

I always imagined a day when I walk into a new public library and open an account, instead of a library card, I get handed a Kindle. I go home and browse the library catalog and check out books using the Kindle. How cool would that be? It is still a long way to get there, but it will happen (either with the Kindle or some other such device).

I immediately headed over to the KCLS web site to browse the library. To my surprise, there were thousands of titles available! I was tempted to download a boat load, but restricted myself to a handful and went through the checkout process. The site does inform that whispernet is not supported and I was curious to see how the checkout worked. I collected all my books in my BookBag, and logged into the KCLS system. Once I checked out the books, I was redirected to the Amazon web site for download. I had to then login to Amazon.com and then instruct the site to transfer the book over to my Kindle. Lo and behold, the book appeared on my Kindle (via WiFi, though) in a few moments!

I would have loved it if I were allowed to download the book directly from the library, but then, I would have had to use USB to get the book across to my Kindle. Also, another gripe is the inability to perform bulk transfer. If you check out 10 books from the library, you will have to initiate the download process 10 times. This is a bit annoying, but I am sure Amazon will fix it soon.

All in all, a great experience and I am glad Kindle is now supported by the public library system. Looking forward to a lot more time spent with my Kindle.

Urwerk UR-110 Torpedo

2011-09-12T23:10:00.001-07:00

I love timepieces with spectacular satellite complications and Urwerk makes some of the best watches in this category. UR-110 Torpedo is another such device and this stunning video demonstrates it. Did I mention they are also great at creating awesome fly-throughs of their complications?

Check this one out:

Lessons from Angry Birds

2011-09-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

I am flying back home from San Jose and have a ton of catchup work to finish on the plane ride. I board the plane and get buckled in. While waiting for the doors to close, I take out my cellphone and start flinging birds. I am excited that I am kicking a$$ and jumping into new levels. The door closes, plane takes off, and finally lands in Seattle. I have completed multitudes of levels by this time. Yay!!

And, then I remember all the work that I had planned on accomplishing on the ride...

Not to mention that it ended up being a long night.

Ever wonder why Angry Birds is so addictive? Here is an interesting infographic trying to explain it.

There are a lot of takeaways from this analysis. It helps us list the key qualities of a winning and addictive app:
1. Simple with no learning curve
2. Rewarding. Users get primitive pleasure blowing things up
3. Realistic. Great physics
4. Funny. Creatures' sound, laughter and backflips
5. Anticipation of the reward of progressing to the next level

These form the fundamentals of a great game design.

Lessons from the demise of TouchPad

2011-08-25T22:46:00.001-07:00

It was Saturday morning and I am at Best Buy standing in line outside the door waiting for the store to open. There were around 20 people with me, all excited to get their hands on the $99 TouchPads. The door opens and we all walk in and start looking for TouchPads, only to be told by the sales staff that they have none in stock. Everybody is flabbergasted that the store has lots on stock the previous evening and none this morning. We all return empty handed.

I started following a Twitter feed for tips on where to score one. And, I do get a tip that it is in stock at barnesandnoble.com. I immediately rush over and place an order for my TouchPad. Everything goes smooth and my order in place, I relax for the rest of the weekend.

Monday arrives and I get an email from BN and I immediately open it to see when my TouchPad is arriving. But, to my dismay, the email says:
Due to unexpected customer demand for this item, our inventory was depleted prior to your order being processed so we are unable to fulfill this item as requested. Consequently, we have canceled your order and you will not be billed for this amount.

Dang.

Later on, I hear that another of my friend's order met with the same fate, albeit with another retailer.

What this tells me is that Best Buy had a lapse of communication, corporate not relaying the information to their stores in a timely manner. I did hear that the same store sold the TouchPads later during the day.

And, the Order Management (OM) system is not integrated with the Supply Chain and Inventory Management system at B&N. The OM system doesn't have a clue of the real-time inventory. They didn't have a clue what their Available To Promise (ATP) was. If BN had an integrated multi-channel OM system that was in sync with their Inventory Management system, this would not have happened.

What the TouchPad fire sale showed us was that most of the retailers are yet to mature in managing their multi-channel OM, Inventory and ERP functionality. This is a tremendous opportunity for them to squeeze more profits out of their supply chain by maximizing their supply utilization and inventory productivity. Maybe, the brick and mortar retailers can still survive (for some more time) if they get their houses in order and streamlined to reduce costs.

Photo credit: HP.com

Django in 20 mins

2011-06-21T23:10:00.001-07:00

During one of my StartupWeekend experiences, my team used Django and Python to create the prototype web application. They did a fantastic job in a short period of time. I have always worked with Java, Javascript, Struts, Hibernate, etc. but had not ventured into the server side technologies like Ruby, PHP, Python, etc. So, I thought it is a good time to catch up on these technologies so that I can better understand them. I am always a firm believer of getting my hands dirty in order to fully appreciate anything, be it technology or art.

This week, I decided to learn Django and Python.

I looked around the web and found a site which promised to teach me to build a web site using this technology in 20 minutes!! Awesome, I thought. No wonder it has become so much easier and faster to develop web apps. I watched the video here, and it seemed pretty straight forward and easy to try out. The rest of this post is about my saga to build this sample Wiki application using Django and Python.

One thing I realized after spending several hours (not minutes) to get up and running is that the tutorial completely misses out on the pre-requisites. It assumes that all the pre-requisite software is already installed and configured. That is where the problem started. I didn’t have any of the pre-reqs (apart from mySQL database server, Tomcat, Eclipse and others) installed. Note that I was trying this project on a brand new 64-bit Windows machine.

First thing I had to do was to get Python. I downloaded Python 2.7 and installed it. Then, I downloaded Django and installed it.

Python, for some reason, doesn't append the Path env variable. I had to manually add Python to the Path. Once I had these two in place, I created my project and started configuring it. Trying to connect the Django model to the database is when I realized that I didn't have a connector for Python to talk to MySQL. I looked around and found MySQLdb from SourceForge and downloaded that. The beauty of this is, it is not available as a binary. So, I had to download the source and build it. I try to build it and lo and behold, I discover that I don’t have a compiler. Since I did not have access to Visual Studio, I downloaded MinGW, the open source compiler. I ran the 'setup.pl build' utility and hit many more errors. After several iterations, I was able to finally build it. I run the executable and it complained that I don’t have Python installed. Duh. I know that Python is on my machine but this sucker is not recognizing it. After a bit of research I found that Win64 sticks the registry values for 32bit apps under Wow6432Node. Thanks. Now, I had to correct this or add the correct registry entries. I created a .reg file and added the correct entries. Ran regedit and was able to add the correct registry entries. Now, the MySQLdb installation was able to complete successfully. Phew.

The video also forgets to mention that the database needs to be created before running syncdb command. I ran the command and after seeing the errors, went ahead and created a new database in mySQL and ran syncdb again successfully. I now had the database tables created.

Success at last.

I am now able to build my app. I start the server and hit more errors. Runserver craps out with error that it cannot access socket. This may be due to the fact that Windows 7, with UAC, administrator accounts run programs in unprivileged mode by default. So, programs must prompt the user and get permission. But, since python scripts aren't directly executable, they cannot prompt the user. Hmm…

After more research, I found that the default port was already in use and that was the real issue. I called runserver with another specific port and everything worked fine. Phew. Now, I have the server up and running.

I went ahead and completed the application and ran it successfully.

I discovered that most of this open source software is yet to be ported to Win64 and hence these problems. I also discovered that lots of people have come across the same errors I encountered. Is it due to lack of documentation? Not really. Django has a tonne of great documentation. I just need to make time to read it all. I was too eager to get the application up and running.

But, there are lots of resources on the web to help you surmount the problems.

All in all, Django and Python are great for quickly putting up a prototype web application. I am really impressed. I still need to see how well it scales, though.

But, don’t be fooled by the video claiming that it takes only 20 mins to get up and running. It took me more like 3-4 hrs starting from scratch. Maybe, because, I had a 64 bit machine and was running Win 7. Or, maybe because these things do take some time to wrangle and set up correctly. I am hoping that it will be clear sailing from this point onwards.

Looking forward to more web app development.

Follow up comments (Jul 2011):

I did look into the Django as well as Python documentation and they are fantastic. The documentation is extremely detailed and is available in many formats. Kudos to the team that put this documentation together. Top notch.

Light Field Photography

2011-06-21T22:28:00.000-07:00

Lytro, a Bay area startup announced their product to the world today. It is great to see innovation in the area of photography. Yes, we did go from film to digital, but what changed was the medium of capture of the data and nothing else. What Lytro promises is a new way to capture image data, one which captures light fields from multiple angles and lets the user manipulate the data after the fact. Check out their gallery for some stunning examples. This is really cool technology and I am waiting to get my hands on the camera.

The marketing message for this camera seems to be centered around 'shoot first, focus later'. Before auto-focus was invented, people focused cameras manually. But, once auto focus was introduced, how many of us focus cameras manually, especially, consumers. Auto focus was a boon to the camera world and paved the way to make photography an enjoyable experience, and we saw an exponential increase in consumer adoption. Digital photography (immediate gratification) took it to the next level. Now, Lytro wants the consumer (viewer of the end result) to 'focus' the picture in order to enjoy the 'living picture'. I don't think my friends and family would want to 'focus' my pictures and discover the hidden details.

The beauty and art of photography was that it allowed the artist to tell a story in the way they want to tell it. This new technology is akin to the 'create your own adventure' books where you decide how the story turns out. How popular are those books? Not very..

The light field technology and camera does have its uses. Imagine a traffic/surveillance camera equipped with this technology, and the CSI computer geeks will be out of jobs.

The success of this company will depend on how they productize the technology and market it to the consumers. The current story is not compelling enough to tilt the scales.

Lessons from StartupWeekend

2011-06-13T22:42:00.001-07:00

I have attended a few StartupWeekend events and it is always exhilarating to participate in them. All the energy and enthusiasm is contagious to say the least.

One pattern I have noticed so far is that a majority of the projects just fizzle off, after the weekend. One of the main reasons is the fact that the team realizes that the idea is either not feasible or does not make sound business.

In reality, VCs always look for 'the team'. If you have an A-team, come what may, they will execute. If halfway through the endeavor, they discover that the idea doesn't hold water, they will come up with another one which will. Remember, they are the A-team.

The biggest problem at StartupWeekends is that there isn't enough time to iterate, and come up with fresh ideas. You present an idea on Friday, and have two days to execute. If the Product Manager determines that the idea doesn't make business sense, it is too late to turn the ship. The developers are already half way through the project and are not going to stop. Even if you stop, and change course, the chances of having a demoable application by Sunday evening is pretty slim. So, in order to save face, the team moves along and completes the implementation (demo app).

After the weekend, the idea fizzles off since the momentum is lost and no value is seen in continuing the idea. In cases where there is a lot of synergy and great teams are formed, they continue to meet and hash out ideas that they finally implement.

So, the key to a successful StartupWeekend is not the idea, per se, but the team you form. Next time, pick people who complement you and make a great team and success will follow.

Rufington

2011-04-24T22:49:00.001-07:00

I wanted to share a little bit about a small city I visited this week. It is the city of Rufington in the state of Washington. It is a very small city with only a couple dozen houses laid out in four rows. It sort of reminded me of the town of Hogsmede as portrayed in Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando. Every house in the city was unique in the way it was built and decorated. Every house also had a shop of some sort selling handmade (mostly) goods. All the merchants had creatively decorated their stores and displayed their wares. The shops were selling anything from stationary to children's toys.

The Mayor of the city greets all visitors to the city, which was kinda cute and welcoming. The city has a City Hall, Post Office, Pharmacy and a Bank among other things. The city was bustling with visitors and all the shops were doing roaring business. Looking at all the activity made me wonder why everyone is saying that we are in a recession!

The most interesting part about this town is that it is completely run by 3rd graders!

This is the classroom mini-city Rufington lovingly named after their class teacher.

My daughter's class is going through this immersive learning experience as part of their 3rd grade curriculum. The students design, build, run and sustain a mini-city within their classroom while learning about economy, local government, social studies, democracy, business and a host of other topics. The students plan the geographical and political structure of the city.

The students go through the process of electing city officials (Mayor, Vice Mayor and City Council). Every student who wants to hold office needs to announce the intent and canvass to persuade fellow students to vote for her. This teaches the students about standing for office, public speaking, elections as well as the duties of a public official.

There are elected and bidded positions. Elected positions are where the class elects a student for a particular position (Bank Manager, Police Chief, etc.) and bidded positions are where the students bid and pay money in order to secure the position (Land Baron, Trash Collector, Pencil Sharpener, etc.). The class goes through a silent auction to assign the bidded positions, teaching the students about auctions, silent auction and evaluating the value of a position or business (for instance, land baron needs to decide on the value of the bid based on the number of houses and their rent/week, the number of weeks the mini-city will be in action and the probability of someone defaulting).

Location of the houses are determined by drawing straws. The rent of the houses vary based on three variables: location, location and location! Just like in a real city. Once a spot is assigned, the kids (with the help of their parents) build a 'house/shop' out of fridge boxes (see pic above) and decorate them to their taste. The students will be 'living' in this box for the duration of the experience. Which kid doesn't want to live in a box? Given a choice, I am sure all the kids in the class would love to work out of their box the whole year.

Once the government is formed, businesses start taking shape. Each student comes up with ideas for a business and pitches it in front of the city council for approval. Once approved, they get a license to start the business and sell their wares. There are specific restrictions (like, no food items) on what can be sold and the city council enforces it rigorously.

Kids also learn about banking, handling money, loans and interest payments. Everybody takes a loan to start the business and they need to repay in the end. The bank issues check books and fake currency for the exercise.

All the students are given market analysis data from previous years on what sells and what doesn't. Based on this market data, the kids determine what to make and sell in their stores. Everyone starts making their goods and stocking them in their stores. This teaches the kids about the effort it takes to create something. They also learn about pricing, marketing, designing Ads and promoting their products. What you think will be a hot product may turn out to be a dud. In fact, this mini-city is a great place to test product ideas that are aimed towards elementary kids. Students also learn about inventory, audits, economy (supply and demand) and product portfolios.

The city also has a newsletter that gets published everyday. Students also get a chance to buy Ad space in the paper. Reporters get the opportunity to learn about reporting, composing articles, design and layout of a one page newsletter, and selling ad space.

When everything is going fine like a well oiled machine comes the 'Fate' card. Every Friday, each resident draws a fate card and it introduces the unexpected. It could either put a positive (winning prize money) or negative (paying hospital charges, fixing flooded house) spin on one's life. This will in turn affect the student's monetary situation. This lesson teaches students to plan for the unexpected (save $75 for the worst fate card). The city Health Officer also sells HMO cards ($10 each) which shield students from health related fate cards. What a wonderful way to learn about insurance!

Overall, this is a wonderful way to teach kids about a variety of topics that are useful in life. This controlled simulation gives the kids an opportunity to take risks, make mistakes and learn from them without paying a penalty. This not only increases their confidence to go out into the real world but also brings out their creativity, all while teaching them valuable lessons.

How I wish we had this when I was in 3rd grade.

Pilotless planes

2010-09-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary recently commented that there is no need of co-pilots in the current sophisticated as well as automated airplanes, and hence suggested we get rid of them to save costs. He also suggested that every flight would have a flight attendant trained in flying the plane and could take over in case of an emergency. He did get a lot of press for his comments.

What a great idea. Of course, the pilots' association snubbed it.

I assume Michael O'Leary has never flown a plane, especially a jet plane. Maybe, he doesn't even understand the roles of a pilot or a co-pilot. Even if he pilots a small plane, he will learn about the number of things a pilot needs to keep track of. Flying a plane is relatively easy, but what makes it tough is all the small things that need to be done: communications, reading charts, reading and interpreting the multitude of instruments (have you seen the instrument panel on a Boeing?), making quick decisions in tough conditions, etc. All this on top of flying the plane. In fact, just flying a plane in the sim tells you a lot about how complicated it is (my barebones flight sim setup pic above).

Redundancy is the name of the game here.

It is not only redundancy, but the tasks that need to be taken care of. And, on long distance flights, how can one pilot take care of flying the plane for 18 hrs straight? The co-pilot is there to fly the plane (did you ever notice that the co-pilot has a yoke, pedals, and all controls in front of him too?), and helps balance the workload. They both back each other up, and use combined judgement to handle emergency situations.

There are many ways to streamline the airline operations and cut costs, but cutting the co-pilot is not one of them. For a person who travels often, I can tell you that it is comforting to know that there are two competent pilots flying the craft.

Of course, a day will come when we will have wormholes for the planes to travel in (similar to the driverless trains) and we will not be needing either the pilot or the co-pilot, but those days are not here yet.

Being Better is Better

2010-08-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is a must see video of Kathy Sierra talking at the Business of Software 2009 conference.
She talks not about making a killer app, but about making a killer user (of your app).
She stresses the importance of creating an amazing user experience, and making an amazing user of your product/service.
Great talk.

Park and Service

2010-07-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

I drive up to the parking lot and hand off my car keys to the valet. I had already filled out a brief form (about the fact that I want the car serviced when I am away, and what the problems are) when I reserved my spot online. I pick up my luggage and head over to the shuttle. The shuttle takes me to the terminal and after a quick security check, and a short wait, I am boarding the plane. Right then, my phone rings. I pick it up to find it is from the parking lot. The mechanic wants to let me know that the distributor is showing wear and may need to be replaced. He gives me a quote and I give him thumbs up. I board the plane and fly off to my destination.

Four days later, I land back home and head over to the parking garage to meet my serviced and washed car!

Doesn't this sound sweet? No more planning for car servicing. No more weekends spent going to the mechanic. No more days spent driving loaner cars.

Since I travel often on work, I park my car in long term garages for days. What this means is that I also have less time to be home, and take care of things. One of them is to take care of my car: get it serviced, washed and maintained.

The last time I parked in my regular covered parking garage, I thought how wonderful it would be, if I could have my car serviced while I was away. The car was anyway going to be sitting around doing nothing. And, I had already driven all the way to the garage. Since this garage is a valet only garage, they also had my keys. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the garage also housed a service station and offered service to anyone who parked there.

Looking forward to a day when this becomes a reality.

JIT grocery shopping

2010-06-23T23:32:00.000-07:00

Of late, I have been observing that a lot of people order groceries online and having it delivered. I see a couple of companies doing great business. Don’t know if they are making money or not, but the delivery trucks keep rolling along.

That is what got me thinking about efficiently managing the deliveries. I went back to the days when I was growing up in India. Not everyone had refrigerators in their homes. Farmers markets could be found around the corner on a daily basis. Fruits, vegetables and milk (and other perishables) were sold on the road (home delivery). A cart would come in front of the house with all varieties of seasonal and non-seasonal vegetables, and you would just walk to the cart, pick whatever you wanted, pay for it and buy it. So, buying vegetables, fruits and milk was a daily affair. Milk was delivered (in some cases, milked from the cow) right at your doorstep every morning. Remember those glass milk bottles? When fresh produce is delivered to your doorstep on a daily basis, who would want to store them in a fridge? You can't get any more fresh than that!

Let's apply the same principle here and try to see if it yields us a way to make this planet much more green. Consider this scenario:
Order produce/meat/milk online (on a daily/weekly basis)
Delivery truck drops it off at your door step everyday
Use the produce for the day
Repeat the cycle

Now, there are a few problems with this model. For one, when does the delivery take place? It is going to be inefficient to deliver to every house at the same time. So, there is a lag, and some people may receive their goods in the afternoon. Then, there is the issue of the unused produce. Where do we store it?

There are several ways to solve this problem. Let's take a look at an already present infrastructure for delivery: USPS.

Have you noticed that the USPS truck rolls down every street every week day. There you have it. Deliver supplies along with the mail. The manufacturer supplies produce/supplies to the distribution (aka, local USPS post office). The produce is packaged appropriately for individual delivery. Remember, we are trying to deliver on a daily basis, so, the individual packages are not going to be huge. USPS personnel load these boxes into their trucks along with the mail. Of course, the trucks are going to grow in size and acquire a refrigeration unit. The postal worker delivers the boxes along with the mail to every household.

The next step in the equation is to design the delivery boxes (reusable, of course) so that they can maintain a constant temperature for 3-4 hours. The assumption is that mail will be picked up within this time period and the contents transferred into the house.

What this does is that it removes the necessity of every home having one huge refrigerator inside the house and another smaller one in the garage (like most of us do). This new arrangement will be a paradigm shift in the way we shop, get things delivered and store it. Once we get used to it, the amount of energy consumed by every household would come down, and the supply chain would be streamlined so that manufacturers do not need to add preservatives in our foods.

For now, the closest we can come to getting rid of the refrigerator is to reduce its size considerably. JIT food supply is the mantra here, and it will take some effort on everyone's part to make it happen.

Of course, Amazon Fresh, Safeway and others would love to ship on a daily basis.

Green Home

2010-06-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

Ingenious use of space. Check this video on how a Hong Kong architect converted his tiny apartment into multiple living spaces. Of course, this works extremely well if you are the only person living in the apartment, since you can only occupy one space at a time.

Wind and Solar energy

2010-04-02T00:42:00.001-07:00

What do you do in a place where there is plenty of sunlight as well as brisk winds? Install a streetlight powered by solar as well as wind energy!

That is what I saw in the parking lot of Hanauma Bay in Hawaii. The pic above shows one of the street lamps. Each lamp had a wind turbine under it (vertical vanes) and a solar panel atop it. A battery stored the power and it was discharged during the night. I thought this would make perfect sense in Seattle. The solar panel will be useful on sunny days (believe me, there are plenty), and the wind turbine would power it on windy days. I wonder why these are not in widespread use..

SWSEA

2010-03-22T00:18:00.001-07:00

Business plan competitions are a thing of the past.

That was my conclusion after last weekend's experience. I was at the Startup Weekend event where high performance teams worked for 53 hrs straight (most did sleep for some time , I assume), and came out with a product/service at the end of it. This is a great way of prototyping an idea and throwing it on the wall to see if it sticks. No more business plans, exit strategies, funding, etc. Get the idea implemented, present it in front of a panel, gather immediate feedback as well as get voted (or booted). If it is an acceptable solution, then sit down and figure out how to monetize it. In fact, the reality is that the revenue potential dawns on the team during implementation. As the team implements the solution, and starts understanding the functionality, new avenues for revenue dawn on the team.

Startup Weekend is an event organized by Jeremy Lightsmith and Marc Nager, and is a great way to meet smart people. I was fortunate to be able to work with a team of exceptionally talented people. In fact, one of my team mates is a kick A$$ marketer and another is a Heavy Guerrilla. SW is an event for energized teams that are ready to crank out something meaningful in 53 hrs. And, all the teams did!

A pattern I noticed is that almost every pitch was geared towards leveraging the social sites and the data they offer. Several ideas were harnessing the power of iPhone (location, usability, motion sensing, etc.). There was one team working on the iPad and trying to leverage its form factor over the iPhone.

Another pattern I noticed was that majority of the attendees were attracted to ideas that were cool or ground breaking or funky. Not many were interested in ideas that were not cool, but had great revenue potential, IMHO.

SW is a very informal event and open to all interested in creating something new and cool. People with ideas pitch at the beginning of the session (Friday evening). The ideas are voted and the top ideas are published. The leader (one with the idea) then 'recruits' a team with varied skills needed for the project. The team sets off and builds the product/service in the next two days. At the end (Sunday evening), the results are presented to a panel who votes on the best product/idea. The beauty is that all the teams had working solutions that they demo'd. The winner finally walks away with prizes (money, services, exposure).

This is a great way to test the waters and see how practical and viable your idea is. This is a very fast paced, and quick way to plan something and execute it to completion.

Imagine, building a web application as well as its equivalent iPhone application and launching it to the public in 2 days. It happened last week. We did it as part of our project!

And, I had RedBull for the first time in my life!

Off with the gears

2010-01-25T23:34:00.001-08:00

TAG Heuer has gone where no watchmaker has gone before.

They have tried to replace gears with belts in a watch. Some of the reasons gears are used in a watch is for accuracy, longevity and compactness. Research in new materials has paved way to belts that can last a lifetime. So, TAG Heuer has taken the bold step to incorporate toothed belts in their Monaco V4 concept watch. Check out the impressive details at the TAG Heuer web page.

Sixth Sense

2009-12-28T22:25:00.001-08:00

Move over, Surface.

That was exactly my first thought when I saw this video on Sixth Sense Technology. It is really thrilling to see the immense possibilities that this technology can bring. Of course, this cannot really replace the Surface, but still comes real close to doing it. This is a great way to converge all the innovations and miniaturization that has been occuring, especially when it is paired with all the myraid services that are being offered (book reviews, prices, maps, etc.).

It is a must watch video. I feel sad that I could not attend TED India, especially since it happened in my hometown of beautiful Mysore.

Where are the teachers?

2009-06-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

I was looking through my daughter's yearbook and I noticed something interesting. The yearbook contained the pictures of all the students in the school along with their name and what they want to be, when they grow up.

I saw a lot of doctors, dentists, rocket scientists, astronauts, firemen, ballerinas, princesses, singers, actors, musicians, etc. What surprised me was that not one student wanted to be a teacher! That struck me as odd, since most kids love their teachers (at least, in their elementary years).

What this means is that there is not a lot of publicity about teachers, and being a teacher. Kids pick up a lot of what they want at home, and in a lot of cases there is parental influence on their decision. Most parents would not want their kid to be a teacher, since teaching is not a coveted position (especially in the United States). Graduate level teaching is another matter. At that point, children would know a lot about the world, and teaching staff in higher education do get paid well and are known and respected a lot more.

There are several reasons why the education system in the US is failing, and this is one of them:
Lack of good teachers.

Why do we lack good teachers? Because, a majority of students do not want to be teachers. School teacher is not a glamorous job. Most parents dread when their kid comes home and says that she wants to be a teacher.

Teaching, as a profession, is not respected, whereas, great teachers are always remembered and respected. If the profession is not respected and sought after, it is hard to attract talented people into it. I am not going to go into the reasons why the system is broken. There has been a lot of debate about this and many smart people have come up with great suggestions.

It is going to take a lot to fix the system and start attracting talented people into this profession and make teaching a coveted position it once was.

Innovative Ad

2008-10-15T22:46:00.001-07:00

I was passing through MSP and happened to notice a very clever Ad by Travelers (the fact that I remember who the Ad was for, shows how effective it was).

What made it interesting was the fact that it was interactive. You walk by an image that is projected on the wall. As soon as you cut across the projected light, a sensor picks up your movement, and distorts the image. It is fun to play with, and catches your attention.

As you can see in the first pic, a kid is playing with the image. The image is that of Traveler's umbrella made up of numerous tiny umbrellas. Once your shadow hits it, the umbrellas scatter (pic #3), and then regroup (pic #2) in a few seconds. It almost feels like the umbrella is made up of butterflies that fly back.

What is interesing is the use of technology in creating interactive Ads. This technology can be taken and applied in numerous ways especially now since projectors and scanners can fit into a phone. This could evolve into a phone that allows you to browse on a wall rather than on its tiny screen. That will shatter the form factor debate instantaneously. It only remains to be seen where else this technology can be taken.

Design Innovation...

2008-09-30T23:20:00.001-07:00

In this blog article I talked about design innovation in elevator technology. I have been to the Marquis several times in the past year, and am yet to see any marked improvement in the travel times. I think this technology is useful in office buildings with heavy traffic at peak times. Since Marquis is a hotel, I never found peak traffic necessitating the new logic. I always had to wait through at least two cars before my 'designated' car arrived. It is a pleasant departure from the usual elevator technology, but needs to be wetted out in other usecases before implementing it.

Another design innovation I recently stumbled upon is in the field of timepieces. We are all familiar with the mechanical (with the escapement and all) as well as the quartz watch movements, and of course, the digital watches with their digital number readouts. Apart from going crazy with LEDs and Barcodes (which Tokyo Flash does), how would you innovate on the display of a timepiece?

Urwerk takes the cake in creating a watch that combines both the traditional analog display (hour/min hands) with numbers, and coming up with an extremely complicated watch. The main goal in creating a timepiece is to minimize the number of moving elements, while increasing the accuracy of the instrument. Urwerk has succeeded in increasing the number of moving elements, and adding to the complexity of the design which trying to create a piece that watch aficionados drool over.

UR-202 is an automatic self-winding watch that uses the classic ratchet mechanism to wind itself. Where it is different is the way it uses pneumatics to control the swing of the rotor (see animation video to learn how). The other area where it is different is in its unconventional display. Even though, at first glance, it looks alien, the display is quite simple albeit the complex mechanism (with cams and all) to make it happen. The biggest disadvantage of this display is that you need to be able to read the number to tell time. In conventional watches, the location of the hour/min hand itself is sufficient to tell time. In the UR-202, the hand position alone doesn't tell time since there are three hour hands (with four faces each)! Go figure... Of course, this means the UR-202 can never be a timepiece for the blind.

All in all, the watch is a genius mechanical marvel (an expensive one, at over $100G) worthy of sitting in a museum. This is a classic example of design innovation for the sake of design innovation. This watch does not address or solve any of the problems faced by the classic timepiece, nor does it make it simpler.

Lessons in sports photography

2008-09-08T22:59:00.001-07:00

I have always admired sports photography for the stunning action images as well as the emotions they portray. I wanted to first hand experience how easy/difficult it was to capture such images. So, on the first opportunity I had I went to the Marymoor velodrome armed with my camera and lenses. Here is an account of what I learnt, and how to take better sports pictures.

First of all, here is what I took:

- DigiSLR

- 100- 300mm (1:4.5-5.6) zoom lens

- 16- 35mm (1:2.8) wide angle zoom lens

First mistake that you notice is that I didn't pack my tripod! My lenses are not extremely fast, and to top it off, the races were held at night. I realized this as soon as darkness engulfed us, and flood lights turned on.

Lesson #1: Do your homework on the gear you will need.

As a spectator, I had visited the velodrome several times, but had never thought of the different locations and the angles they provide. Armed with a camera, I started noticing all of this when I started shooting, and looking for the angles you see on a sports publication. As I started shooting, and moving around, I discovered that most of the coveted spots were already taken!

Lesson #2: Do your scouting in advance and pick the best location.

When it comes to angles and composition, it pays to know a bit about the sport. How does it start? What happens during the event? How does it end? What do the competitors do: before, during and after the event? Knowing all these lets you pick the right spot, and be there when the action is happening. Strategize in advance.

Lesson #3: Learn about the sport you are shooting.

I shot a lots of pics from different angles, locations, and most of them turned out mediocre (see examples above). About a third of them were blurred. Many of these can be attributed to the equipment I had.

It is always a good idea to experiment and shoot lots of pics and keep good notes on the parameters used.

First of all, you need a fast lens to shoot in low light. Since you need to use fast shutter speed to freeze action (if that is the intent), a fast lens helps immensely. Image stabilization on top of it will add to the sharpness. Setting a higher film speed also helps, but there is threshold (ISO 800?) beyond which the images become grainy.

A long lens adds to the effect by laterally compressing the scene. A wide angle lens lets you capture the bigger picture, including the spectators. Larger apertures are helpful in blurring out the background.

A tripod would help, but a monopod will do better. A monopod will offer a lot of flexibility when the subject keeps moving and changing direction. I would love to take a monopod during my next visit.

Last, but not the least, shoot a variety of pictures. Keep in mind that your subject in a sporting event is not only the sportsperson during the event, but also the sportsperson before and after the event. Your subject could also be the spectators and their reaction. Your subject could be the equipment, the organizers, the concession stands. It could be anything that symbolizes the sport and the spirit of the sport.

Final lesson: Look at the bigger picture.

Airport Design

2008-08-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

I was looking at the airport terminal maps on a recent flight for various international airports and noticed that no two airports looked similar. I had to figure out a way of transferring between two terminals in SFO in the shortest possible time. Only after I ran through the airport did I discover that I had to go through airport security once again, even though I was just changing planes! That is when I started thinking about airport designs.

Why isn't there a standard airport terminal design that is optimized for airplane traffic as well as passenger traffic?

Airports have been around for quite sometime and there are hunderds around the world. A lot of thinking goes into airport design such as environmental concerns, reuse, use of natural light, efficient heating/cooling, etc. I have seen several contemporary airport terminal designs, each expressing their own style and culture.

But, what is surprising is the fact that the terminal maps and the runways are different in every airport. I had imagined that studies had been conducted and standard designs would have come out of optimizing the operations of an airport. Most airports are built upon a rectangular patch of ground. Of course, some airports will have certain constraints, but none too great to not use a standard, efficient and proven layout.

I am all for unleashing ones creativity when it comes to the cosmetic design of the terminals. But, when it comes to efficient design of the runways, taxiways as well as the terminals, there needs to be a study conducted by an operations research scientist. I am sure someone has already done this, but I fail to see it in use anywhere.

Total Recall

2008-07-15T23:51:00.001-07:00

I was at a birthday party a few weeks ago. The party was for a toddler and was held at a theme park. One of the attractions was a water ride in which kids rode around a water way on a small canoe. The ride was manned by a teenage girl, and what was interesting about her was her incredible memory. Kids would get onto the boats on one side of the ride, and she would talk to them and ask their names. When the boats came back, she would greet each and every one of them using their names. Remember, there were 4-5 boats in the loop. What was even more interesting was that I met her in the concession stand a half hour later, and remarked about her incredible memory. She thanked me, and went on to correctly name my daughter as well as the other kids who rode with her!!

Some people are blessed with incredible photographic memory (I think it is called Eidetic memory). I started wondering how that girl could put this talent of hers to use. Apart from excelling in her studies, being able to recall the content of any page of a text book, remembering shopping lists, remembering names, I could not think of many other uses.

Having the ability to memorize things in great detail is of not much use if the information is not used. It is similar to a database; you can store a lot of information. But, if the information is fragmented and not properly indexed, it is pretty much useless. The same can happen with people who have great memory.

One of the gifts that a human is born with is memory, especially variable storage memory. Our ability to easily forget memories that we do not cherish is one of the boons. If one has eidetic memory and holds everything down, it may be hard to forget things too. That would make their life miserable.

All in all, good memory is always beneficial since it helps one excel in studies, socially as well as professionally.

Spurring creativity...

2008-06-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a great design for a multi-purpose container. It starts out its life as a water bottle, and turns into a toy. Great way to encourage people (in this case, children) to reuse the empty container.

Now you have two reasons to buy y-water! What a concept.

Lessons in out-of-the-box thinking

2008-06-20T00:13:00.001-07:00

I recently saw this post on how to achieve what seems to be impossible, and the lessons learnt from it.

To summarize the lessons learnt:
- Don't assume
- Question habits
- Be creative
- Look for a better way
- Impossibilities often aren;t

"All children are born artists.

2008-06-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

The problem is to remain one as we grow up" - Picasso.

Here is an excellant talk by Sir Ken Robinson on the importance of creativity in education. He says that creativity is as important as literacy. He talks about how we are educating people out of their creativity.

If you ever notice a little kid draw or paint, you will see the lack of self-doubt, judgement or fear of doing wrong. Sir Ken says "Kids are not afraid of being wrong. If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original".

Enjoy the thought provoking as well as humorous talk.

Future library

2008-03-31T22:58:00.001-07:00

After writing the blog on Kindle, I was thinking up ideas on how to make eBooks an attractive proposition to the market. Here is an idea that popped into my head:

Imagine becoming a member of a new library, and the library issues a eBook Reader, say Kindle, instead of a library card. The library would have hooked up with a service provider who would have created a database of all the books that the library owns. The Kindle would be used as a library catalog. You would browse the library catalog at the comfort of your home, and pick a book to borrow. If that book is currently available, the system will allow you to download it into your Kindle. If the library owns only one copy of the book, this book would then be unavailable to anyone else. When the due data arrives, you let go of your copy of the book, releasing the license to the book to someone else.

With this idea, you don't need to go to a physical library. You can access all the books that a library and its associated libraries have to offer irrespective of geographical location.

Of course, this is still a dream until all the available books are available in digital versions, and all periodicals and publications are also digitized. But, the rate at which books and periodicals are being digitized, this could become reality in the very near future.

This brings up an interesting question:

Why should eBooks be treated as traditional paper books?

eBooks don't get torn, or wet, or age. It is just bits in computer memory. Distributing multiple copies of an eBook cost next to nothing. Sharing eBooks is as simple as emailing the bits over. So, a library could theoretically have millions of copies of every periodical/book. Wouldn't that be wonderful! No more need to 'place books on hold'.

"Hold your thought right there" the author in you says. How will I get paid for all my hard work? How will I be rewarded if my book is a blockbuster and millions of people read it? This is where we have to fall back on the physical book economics. The eBooks still need to be priced per copy sold/downloaded in order to reward the author/publisher. Or, this is where we need to break today's boundaries and come up with innovative ideas on satisfying both creators and consumers.

Are you Right-brained or Left-brained?

2008-01-24T22:58:00.001-08:00

Here is an interesting test to figure it out, in case you already didn't know. Most of us have a dominant side of the brain and we fall into one of the two categories. Some people are closer to the border and it will be easy for them to switch from clockwise to counter clockwise, and vice versa. I for one, found it hard to switch directions.

Do you know which is your dominant eye? The dominant eye is the eye that directly looks at the object, and the other eye looks from a slight angle. This is what gives us depth perception. In some cases, it is useful to know this information.

An easy test you can perform to determine your dominant eye:
If you are sitting in a room, point at any object that is at least 10-12 ft away from you. Hold your arm still and close your left eye. If your finger is still pointing to the object, your dominant eye is the right eye. If not, it is your left eye. I discovered this when I started playing pool. If you do not use the dominant eye to aim the cue, you will miss your shot.

Role based communication

2008-01-06T17:39:00.000-08:00

Imagine this scenario:
You are working for a company in a particular role. You leave the company after a certain period of time. Two things happen. You obviously lose your email account, and all the emails associated with it (unless, of course, you keep a copy of everything). And, the company loses all the email (information) that was in your possession. Technically, the company doesn't lose your email communications, but it no longer uses it. Unless, to answer a court subpoena.

What organizations need to realize is that there is a lot of information in these communications. They need to mine the emails and get the most out of them.

Individuals need to realize that all email communications over the company email network should strictly be work related. There are plenty of places where you can conduct your personal conversations. It irks me when I see people complaining that they lost all their emails when they left their employer.

There is a solution to all this.

Every employee working for a corporation is playing a role. Every employee has certain roles and responsibilities in the organization. When one employee moves to another role/organization, most often, another employee takes that role.

Email accounts should be based on roles and people playing those roles. Once someone playing a particular role moves on, the next person taking the role will inherit all email communications pertaining to the role. Any and all email communication done over a corporate network belongs to the company. So, stop whining that the company is passing 'Your' emails to another person. Those emails pertain to the role, and you were playing that role. Role based emails keep the data alive, and useful to corporations.

What this means is that all employees need to keep their personal emails completely separate, which is what most of us are doing anyway. And, corporations need to set up proxies to mimic the way email works today: make it seem personal.

On eBook design

2007-12-29T22:50:00.001-08:00

I thought of penning a few thoughts on designing an eBook reader, the hardware kind. After reading about Amazon's Kindle, I was wondering how the next version could be made better.

Here are what I feel are the requirements for a good eBook reader.
Ability to:
- Read

- Search

- Bookmark

- Annotate (Highlight, comment, markup, etc)

- Shared read (read along with another person)

- Loan a book

- Buy books, publications, etc.

- Turn page

- Turn multiple pages

- Leaf (flip) through

- Choose a publication to read

- Search for publications to buy/download

- Print

- Modify type size

- Single hand hold and operate

- Configure to individual taste

- Customize (software as well as firmware)

Phew. That seems like a big list, but it is what would make me switch from a paper book to an eBook.

Here are some of the desirable characteristics of an eBook reader:

- Should have a color display. In the days of color everywhere (have you seen a B&W TV or a computer monitor anywhere?), and publications using color, it makes a lot of sense to have color screen.

- Be easy to read. Should not be hard on the eyes and not produce eye strain. Easy to read in bright sunlight as well as in the dark.

- Easy to operate. Intuitive, with minimal buttons or menus. Shouldn't need the user to read a 200 page manual before using it.

- High quality display.

- Backlighting, for reading in the dark.

- Light and portable (preferably the size of a paperback).

- Configurable so users can tailor it to individual needs. I like to see page numbers on the bottom right, and someone else might like to see it on the bottom left. A left handed person might prefer to reprogram the buttons on the eBook to be mirrored.

Here is how I would design a new Kindle:

I would design the Kindle with a touch sensitive screen and incorporate a keyboard akin to iPhone's. Since the keyboard is utilized in certain actions (search, annotate, buy, etc) not directly pertaining to reading a book, it needs to be hidden out of sight. The only controls that should be visible are those that are "necessary" for reading. The only hardware controls that are provided should be directly related to the main purpose of the reader, which is Reading.

The rendering above is my concept of a eBook reader.

The book will be both right handed as well as left handed. The rendering above shows the book being held in the left hand of a person. If one were to hold it in the right hand, just turning the book 180 degrees produces the paging buttons on the right, AND inverts everything on the screen so that it appears in the correct manner. Now you understand why I have placed identical power buttons (again configurable to be anything) both at the top and bottom.

The reader would have a touchscreen and soft menus on the screen. Display thumbnails of the pages (as shown in the rendering) and allow users to leaf through the pages by flicking their finger on the thumbnails. Tapping on a thumbnail will take you to that page.

Single click of the page turners will turn one page, and double clicking them would turn 5 or 10 pages (configurable).

The header and footers should be configurable and provide content orientation clues like page number, chapter, section heading, book name, etc.

Of course, it would have a color screen. And, long battery life and all the other good stuff I haven't talked about.

Since the hardware uses a touchscreen and configurable buttons, the book could be customized to produce different menus as well as reprogram the buttons to do different things. Opening up the hardware to third party vendors and programmers will help drive the customization of the book.

For all you know, someone may reprogram it to act like a GPS or a video game console!

As for the improvements on the service side of Amazon's Kindle offering, that is a topic for another blog.

PS: The unnecessary random line breaks is due to a bug in blogger. Whenever I include images this happens. I am still trying to figure out how to fix it.

Coolest wiimote hack so far...

2007-12-10T12:28:00.000-08:00

Check this link to read about (and watch video) Johnny Lee's wiimote hack turning any surface into a multi-touch interactive whiteboard. This is awesome.

I am going to get myself a spare wiimote and try this one soon.

Is Kindle going to kindle your reading?

2007-12-06T00:18:00.000-08:00

Ever since Amazon released their Kindle reader I have been wondering why Amazon went into the hardware business. Amazon's core is their service offering, be it their online merchant services or cloud computing/storage services, and this move into hardware is a pretty far adjacency to the core. Move into far adjacencies (in this case, hardware) is always fraught with risks, especially when you don't have Jonathan Ive on your design team.

First of all, Kindle is not a replacement to a computer or a PDA or a web connected phone. One should realize that neither is the opposite true. Kindle is conceived to be purely a physical book replacement.

There are two parts to what Amazon has released:
- EVDO service to dole out the eBooks
- Kindle, the reader

In the first case, Amazon is trying to provide a direct wireless service to download books directly to the reader. No need to download to a computer and then transfer it into the reader. This is an excellent move from a services POV.

In the second case, Amazon has failed to produce a reader that is sexy and attractive to a sophisticated book lover. It has produced a reader with a lot of room for improvement.

The book market is $24 Billion a year in the US alone. This includes all categories of books. The eBook market $54 Mil annual and growing. This is a good market to be in, and Amazon has made a good move.

eBooks initially failed in the market because they were too early in their intro. Akin to Newton for PDAs. Newton failed mainly because the market was not ready for its acceptance, and the interface sucked. Its form factor sucked, and Apple learned a great lesson from this failure. Newton's hand writing recognition was flawed, but the main reason for its failure was the market timing. The same is true for the eBooks.

Until now.

Amazon is trying to copy Apple's model of creating their own mp3 players and selling them for a premium. Unfortunately, this only works if your hardware has the oomph to command a good market. Like this blogger, I also feel that opening up Kindle to be a platform and letting other developers come up with hardware will give Amazon the best bet in succeeding in peddling their eBooks.

DRM and activation requirements can kill the eBook. Books bought on Amazon cannot be read on other readers, and vice versa. Why not make it similar to a physical book. A physical book can be loaned to a friend. Why not do the same with an eBook. As long as there is only one copy floating around, there shouldn't be any problem. As soon as the book is transferred to my friend's reader, I can no longer read it on mine. Come up with a handshake transaction mechanism to move the book around. Make it simple for people to do with eBooks whatever they are used to doing with a physical book. And, remember, the best marketing for a book is to be read. If no one reads your book, it doesn't get sold.

One thing that Amazon needs to consider is the cost of the eBooks. They need to choose a pricepoint that will spur the eBook sales. I don't have any data on how many they have sold after the introduction of Kindle. But, I have a feeling that $9.99 is not a sweet spot for eBooks.

They could also look into the advertising model when it comes to periodicals and blogs. The time commitment for a book is huge compared to a blog posting or an article in a periodical. So, the Ad model might work when it comes to blogs and periodicals. I would never (directly) pay to read a blog.

Another point to consider is the service's longevity as this author points out. What if I plunked $400 on a Kindle, and the service shuts down in a few years? This hits upon the price point of the reader itself. Introduce an inexpensive reader, and once the service takes a good foot hold, introduce better models with more features, AND charge boo-koo bucks for it. Prove yourself first, and then milk the market.

Some things that would make an eBook successful can be learnt from the successes of the iPod:
- Interface - simplistic interface with minimal buttons that just did its job: Dole out music.
- Design - Need great industrial design
- Brand marketing
- Integration and connectivity of the player, computer, software (This has been solved with the EVDO delivery)
- Windows support (No need of platform support)
- iTunes store (Amazon store)
- Form factor
- And last but not the least is Accessories - Sleeves, jackets, the most expensive ones are cars!

Something that the Kindle could benefit from is style. And, a water tight case.

Some of the benefits of eBooks/Kindle are:
- A great boon for independent freelance writers. Akin to music and blogs, everyone of us could write a book and publish it!
- No worry about the book spine and closing books.
- You can also upload your documents to the reader to read them.
- They are green. They do not waste paper or other natural resources.
- Convert any book to large print automatically.
- Take up space of one book, but can hold thousands.
- Random access and searchability.
- eInk technology is cool and makes a great reading device.

Will be really cool if they can add a "reader" to it and make it an audio book. That would have to wait for good text to speech technology, though.

Look at what the MP3 player did to your record/CD collection. Books are going the same route. Of course, this will take a generation to happen, since the older generation is tightly knit with the physical book concept. The older generation did not grow up with computers. The new generation is growing up with computers and MP3 players and what not. They are more prone to adopting the eBook than anybody else.

In this day and age of access anything anywhere, eBooks are here to stay.

Switching to Digital

2007-11-28T23:08:00.001-08:00

Many of my friends (who are switching from film to digital) have asked me what to look for, in a digiSLR. So, I thought of writing about it to benefit a wider audience.

If you look at the camera from a very basic point of view, it is just an instrument to capture light. How we do it is secondary. The main goal is to channel the light and capture it with the highest fidelity. Creativity can be unleashed by controlling the light.

A film camera is nothing but an airtight box with a hole in the front. The simplest form is a pin-hole camera. In order to capture as much detail as possible, lenses were introduced to channel the light and focus it. Film was added into the light-tight box to capture the light forever (almost). An aperture and a shutter, in combination, would allow the right amount of light for the right amount of time to make an impression on the film.

Everything remains the same with a digital camera. The camera is still a light-tight box. The same aperture and shutter control the light, the same lenses channel and focus the light.

What is different though, is the absence of film. Instead of the film, we find a photo-sensitive microchip. The chip converts the light rays into ones and zeros and stores them electronically. The chip is dumb and just captures whatever photons that hit it. Unlike film, which captures data at the molecular level, the chip captures data in pixels. So, is it better to get a camera with the most number of pixels? In general, yes. But, not really. There are too many parameters to consider in determining the quality of an image, and number of pixels happens to be just one of them.

So, what happens to the cool variations I am used to getting with switching from Velvia to Kodachrome?

This is where electronics and software enters the picture. The sensor captures raw data. This data is massaged with the help of software to mimic the features of a film camera. The better the software, the better your camera. So, should you go for the camera with the latest and greatest whiz-bang software in it? Not necessarily. Every digiSLR is capable of capturing the raw image which I talked about. The format is appropriately called RAW. If you shoot pictures and store them in this format, you could use Photoshop or other photo editing software to work your magic.

If you store your pictures in JPEG format, the camera would have already performed its software magic (of course, under your orders) and saved a compressed image which is much smaller than the RAW image. But, unfortunately, you would have lost a lot of data during the process.

So, where does it leave us?

For a purist, all the same rules that applied to buying a film camera still applies. Spend the most of your budget on professional quality lenses, a sturdy tripod, and a powerful external flash. And, always shoot in RAW mode. Don't forget to buy lots of film, er, memory.

For the hobbyist, all the same rules apply. Spend the most of your budget on prosumer lenses, a sturdy tripod, and an external flash. Of course, get the best body that you can afford. With today's array of features, it sometimes is hard to choose. Most of the popular cameras come with almost all the features: multi-point focus, multiple metering modes (evaluative, center-weighed and spot being the most common) and a next to useless built-in flash.

One feature worth considering while deciding is image stabilization. This is the ability of the camera (and lens, in some cases) to reduce the 'shake' in an image and improve its sharpness. This feature dramatically increases the range of shots you can shoot without a tripod. Something very useful. There are two types of systems: lens based and camera based. In the lens based systems, each individual lens comes with a built-in gyroscope to move lens elements to compensate for the shake. Pretty cool. The other system is where the sensor itself moves. The greatest advantage of the latter system is that it works with any lens in your bag. The photo above would have been crystal clear if I had image stabilization on my camera. It was shot hand-held at 1/10 sec shutter speed.

So, in short, things have not changed a lot, and a lot of the same reasoning still holds true. Just go get yourself a digiSLR and enjoy the ability to instantaneously preview your successes as well as mistakes!

Where does your loyalty lie?

2007-11-17T22:36:00.000-08:00

Whenever I travel, I try to strike up a conversation with my fellow passengers. This is a great opportunity to meet diverse people, learn new things and have interesting discussions. On a recent flight I was talking to a fellow passenger about a variety of interesting topics. When the topic of consultants/contractors came, he said that he hated consultants. When I asked why, he said that they are not loyal to their clients. That really got me thinking about loyalty.

I, for one, always feel that consultants when working for their clients and should be loyal to the clients. I strongly believe in establishing relationships. One cannot build good, long standing relationships by not looking after the client's interests. As long as I am working for a client, I am their employee and it is my duty to align myself with their organizational strategy.

What is loyalty? Who is loyal to whom? Who should be loyal to whom?

Loyalty does not mean that an employees should work for only one employer for all their working life. An employee can be loyal to an employer as long as he/she is employed by that employer. The same holds true for consultants. Just because consultants switch clients doesn't mean that they are not loyal to their clients.

Smart employees are loyal to no one but themselves and their careers. It is in the best interest of an organization to make sure that an employee's career goals are aligned with its own strategy and goals. That creates a win-win situation. This creates loyalty from both ends: the organization is loyal to the employee, and the employee is loyal to the organization.

How does an organization ensure loyalty? The answer lies in building relationships.

Organizations need to build a trusting relationship with their employees, and the employees will show their loyalty in response. Some short-sighted organizations believe that training and nurturing employees will result in the employees jumping ship. To the contrary, emphasizing employee growth ensures an organization's growth. As employees grow, organizations grow. Of courses, you will lose some talent, but you get to gain a lot more in terms of improved core competencies as well as loyalty.

Another aspect that ensures loyalty is transparency. How do employees see the value they are creating or adding? How are they affecting the bottom line? The more visibility they have, the more ownership they feel. The more ownership they feel, the more loyal they will be.

Gone are the days when one used to work for the same employer all their life. Gone are the days of blind lifetime loyalty. Job security, commitment, loyalty and lifetime employment used to define the Japanese labor culture. It is interesting to note the direction in which loyalty flowed: it was both ways. Recently, this culture has changed even in Japan, and personal goals are taking priority. Also, within organizations, meritocracy is reigning.

I feel that employees are always loyal to their employers, and that holds true for consultants too. Organizations that are loyal to their employees tend to retain their star employees, and grow with them.

JFK taxi line and meetings

2007-10-10T20:24:00.001-07:00

For once, my flight out of JFK seemed on time. The plane had arrived well in advance. All the passengers were in their seats, and the flight crew had locked the cabin door. So far, so good. My flight was to leave JFK at 7:15 PM and was supposed to arrive in Seattle 6 hours later. Our captain gets on the PA and announces that there is a good tail wind and we will make it to Seattle in 5 hours and 40 mins!! Wow, imagine my excitement. Forget being late, we are going to be home early! That put a grin on everyone's face.

The plane pulls out of the terminal on time and off we go onto the taxi way. I switched off my phone and my laptop. The plane taxis for about 5 mins and stops. Our captain comes on the PA and announces that he is going to turn the engines off to conserve energy and instructs that it is OK to use our electronic devices. He then announces that we are number 28 in line, and will take off shortly.

To make the story short, we take off at 8:40 PM and arrive in Seattle 40 mins late.

The main reason was that flights from morning started slipping and we, at the end of the day, ended up slipping way out. This reminded me of some of the days at the office. Almost every meeting that I attend starts to slip by a few mins. This starts to accumulate, especially if there are a few common participants, and finally the meetings in the afternoon are slipping by 30 mins or more.

Everybody complains that meetings are counter productive. There is some element of truth in this statement. The main reason being the way the meetings are run. Efficiently run meetings are always short and very productive.

Here is a nice article on Google's Marissa Mayer's philosophy on running efficient meetings. There is nothing earth shattering in her techniques. We all know that having a well published agenda goes a long way in running efficient meetings. What I liked most was the idea of projecting a countdown clock to remind everyone of the time left. All this assumes that the leader sticks to the clock. The second idea that I liked was the transcription. It would be great to see what the note taker is writing down. It is not always possible to have multiple projectors in a room, but this is a great idea. Saves a lot of time and keeps the meeting rolling along.

I have been to several meetings where no one knows what the agenda is. Everyone just lands up in the room because they were invited. Always have an agenda and publish it in advance so the audience knows what the meeting is about.

Meeting facilitation is the key to a successful meeting. A strong leader should direct the attendees towards the topics on the agenda and make sure that they don't digress. There are several players in a meeting:

- The leader (facilitator)
- Time keeper

- Note taker

The leader plays several roles here. The leader needs to make sure that the agenda is covered in totality, and everyone follows the agenda. The leader should also make sure that everyone in the room gets to share their thoughts. The leader should also summarize whenever a significant point/decision is made, or whenever an agenda topic is closed. The leader also sets the tone of the meeting.

Try some of these tips and see how productive your meetings become.

Green Ganapathi

2007-09-19T17:57:00.000-07:00

Every year we celebrate Ganesha Chaturthi and I make it a point to make my own Ganesha idol. The main reason being that I love creating it. I believe that it is a service to God when I put my skills and effort to craft the idol. It gives me great pleasure to create the idol and worship it on Ganesha Chaturthi.

I mostly use clay to model the idol, and since I don't bake the model, I paint it with a water based paint. My philosophy has always been to use the materials available in nature, and around us. I say that I mostly use clay because I use other materials (paper, cardboard, wire) to provide the skeleton to the model and hold it together. This is especially true for the four hands as well as the trunk.

The Hindu scriptures say that Goddess Parvathi created Ganesha out of the dirt (saffron paste) off her body. In order to follow a similar route, some say that we should only create the idol out of clay (earth, sand, dirt, etc.). I have always used clay to create my idols. I love the texture and pliable nature of clay. I love working with clay.

And, at the time of immersion, it is fitting that we give back to nature, what came from nature. Clay lets me accomplish this.

Nowadays, people have started using all kinds of materials to create the Ganesha idol. The most common one being plaster-of-paris. First, plaster-of-paris is not a naturally occurring material. Second, plaster-of-paris does not disintegrate easily when immersed in water. Plaster-of-paris is not a nature friendly material. To top it, most manufacturers use oil or latex based paints to obtain a glossy look. Even these are not environment friendly, and are known to harm fish and other marine life.

Since the practice is always to immerse the idol back into water after the pooja, why not make the idol out of the materials we find in riverbeds or lakes: Clay.

Always buy or create idols made of clay, and water based natural paints. Let lord Ganesha help keep this planet green.

OM Sri Ganeshaya Namaha.

Crossing iPhone and the Surface

2007-08-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

You know what I would like to see. A cross between an iPhone (touch screen, and usability) and the interface of the Surface.

Imagine a laptop with a LCD screen in place of the keyboard. This LCD screen will have the same form factor and multi-touch capabilities as the iPhone. It is software driven and hence can be reprogrammed to resemble any input device. Couple that with the interface of the Surface.

Now, we are talking something useful.

Imagine being able to change the Qwerty keyboard to a Dvorak keyboard with the click of a button. Or, imagine changing your English keyboard to a Mandarin keyboard. Or, turning the LCD panel into a Surface where you can interact with still pictures and video. Or, being able to interface to other electronic devices by just placing them on (or near) the laptop.

That is one powerful interface. Imagine turning your 'keyboard' into a graphic tablet and writing on it with a stylus. The possibilities are limitless. This would be a far more useful application of the Surface technology that Microsoft has come up with.

But, unfortunately, the technology behind the Surface doesn't lend itself to be molded into the form factor of a laptop. Microsoft will need to compress the technology to fit it into the form factor of a laptop.

Design for Assembly

2007-08-02T21:55:00.001-07:00

Have you ever bought anything that required assembly? Have you noticed how easy or difficult it was to assemble it? Have you noticed why many people shy away from these "assembly required" things?

One of the main reasons is poor design for assembly.

When you design something that needs to be assembled by the end user, make sure that you keep the end user in mind. As a matter of fact, whenever you design anything (furniture, software, ...), it is always a good practice to keep the end user in mind.

Take the case of Sauder furniture which requires "some" assembly. The instruction manual is usually a book! The furniture, be it a simple bookcase or a chest of drawers, comes with a wide variety of screws, nuts and bolts, and a thick instruction manual. And, to top it all, once assembled, they cannot be taken off without damaging the furniture. At least Sauder uses pictures and words in their instructions. I have seen some companies just use words. God help the assembler.

Another thing that pisses me off is that they always include the exact number of fasterers required. What is their problem in adding a couple extra in each size? If one of the bolts has a bad thread, you have to call an 800 number to get it from them, or make a trip to the local Home Depot. Remember that you can't even return it back since you have already started assembly.

In contrast, look at the things manufactured by IKEA. Not only are they beautiful, they are designed with the end user in mind. Their instruction manuals are usually a page with pictures. I have rarely seen words on their instruction manuals. Talk about Internationalization. And, they standardise on the fasteners and try not to use too many varieties. Most of the times, the items can be easily taken apart (for re-transportation) too.

And, they have bins with extra fasteners in their warehouse so you can pick a few if you need them.

This is elegant and thoughtful 'design for assembly'.

And, they include the tools needed for the assembly (most of the time, an allen key) with each item they sell. Who wouldn't love that?

Apple is another case of great design. Look at this example where Apple has included a paper clip which is needed for maintenance work. Not only have they suggested you use a paper clip to get the job done, they have also included one with the product. How often can you find a paper clip at home when you need one? So, Apple is there to help you.

This is another great example of 'design for serviceability'.

Design for "Accessability"

2007-07-18T19:20:00.001-07:00

Who hasn't encountered a product wrapped in such a way that it takes all your might to get it out of its packaging? The worst I have encountered are the hard plastic packaging that is molded around the product. You need to cut the plastic with a pair of scissors to get it off. The edges are so sharp, most often you get injured trying to cut this thing off. And, to top it all, you end up cutting the user manual that is hidden inside the packaging.

Packaging seems to have gone from Tamper-proof to Impossible-to-open.

These impossible-to-open packaging have become the common staple of our packaging industry. I don't know if they do it to protect us (which they are obviously not doing) or to protect the product (what harm would a pair of scissors get into, if not packed this way?).

What happened to the nice "pull me" plastic string sticking out of the plastic packaging of the yesteryear CDs? It was so convenient to pull the string and tear through the whole shrink packaging in one shot. It was a pleasure to unpack those CDs. They served their purpose of protecting the CD as well as sealing it from tampering. They also served their purpose of being easy to remove.

It looks like this kind of packaging was conceived to protect from shoplifting, but I don't see a shoplifter shying away from a product just because it is wrapped in impossible-to-open packaging. All this is doing is push away prospective buyers to products that are more elegantly packaged.

Child labor?

2007-07-09T22:05:00.001-07:00

Last week, while strolling on a street in Waikiki, I saw several street performers entertaining passers by. Here is a rough estimate of number of onlookers flocking around the performers, at the time I was there:

Caricature artist - 0

Basketball man (guy performing basketball tricks) - 25

Charcoal portrait artist - 8

Golden statue dude (guy posing as a golden statue) - 10

Ukulele player - 0

Karaoke girl (girl singing pop songs on a karaoke machine) - 18

Guitar player - 0

At first glance, everything seems in balance. Not a lot of general public cares for a guy playing the ukulele or shredding the guitar on the streets. These need very specific audience. Same goes true for the caricature artist.

The charcoal dude was doing an awesome job, and hence people were flocking to watch him work (many were waiting their turn). The basketball man was attracting a huge crowd by yapping a lot (and doing a few real cool tricks).

What struck me was the fact that people were watching a young girl (maybe 8-10 yrs old) singing while her parents were sitting around and collecting money (pic above). This, for me, is child labor. We talk a lot about what happens in China and other countries, and here we were, encouraging a little girl (and her parents) to sing for us. The girl should have been playing with her friends in the beach on that pleasant evening. Instead, she was 'working' for her parents. What a pity.

BTW, I just took a few pics and walked away as soon as possible. I, for one, did not want to encourage this.

Design innovation

2007-06-21T22:51:00.001-07:00

On a recent visit to New York, I happened to visit the Marriott Marquis in Time Square and was surprised to see innovation in an area where there has been none for a very long time. I experienced the new technology in elevators.

We have rarely seen any innovation in elevator design, at least from the end user's perspective. There are not too many players in this arena, which in turn is not a recipe for innovation. If any of their clients complained of long wait times, they always came up with other ways of solving the problem. Like, installing flat panel TVs piping News or other programming near elevators to take the mind off the long wait times.

But this new design tries to solve the elevator problem in a unique way. The distinct difference is that there is no Up/Down button to summon an elevator. Also, there is no display atop an elevator signalling where the car is. In place of the Up/Down button is a panel with a number pad and a display. Every elevator has a name (alphabet, in this case). And, the biggest change is that the individual cars have no buttons in them!

Say, you want to go to the 14th floor. You walk into the lobby and key in the number 14 into the pad. The display tells you to go to elevator "E". You go and wait for the car "E". When the car arrives, you just get into it and it delivers you to the 14th floor. The system is trying to schedule the cars and also batch people into cars based on their destination. So, in case of heavy traffic, you don't end up stopping on almost every floor.

For this to work, you need a lot of cars, and a lot of traffic too. The Marriott had about a dozen or more cars. I was not there during the peak hours and hence cannot vouch for the efficiency of the system, but it seems to work.

The one case where it fails is when you enter a floor number (say, 14) and halfway during the journey change your mind (say, 4th floor). There is no way to stop the car as it speeds by the 4th floor. The other case where it fails is when someone rushes into an open car and tries to find keys to punch the floor number. But, both these cases can be considered user errors and dismissed.

The next time you are in Times Square, check it out. To top it all, at the top of the building is the revolving restaurant The View.

Design for usability

2007-06-11T22:36:00.001-07:00

Here I go again, bashing another product for poor design. This time it is my digital watch. I have two watches, and I have lost the instruction manual for both. On one of the watches, I managed to set the alarm to 12:00 AM and was unable to cancel it. I tried pressing all combinations of the 4 buttons, but couldn't reset it. I finally gave up and had to remove the battery to reset it. The other watch, I never change the time on it to compensate for daylight savings. I just add an hour for six months of the year. Why? You guessed it. I don't know how to set time on it.

The first watch I got was a mechanical watch with one thumb screw on it. You wound the watch every night by turning the thumb screw clockwise. Whenever the watch ran fast/slow (which it did quite often), you just pull the thumb screw out and rotate it in either direction to set the time. And, once you were done, push it in until it clicks. As simple as that. I did not even get a user manual with it!

And now, we have all these sophisticated watches with chronographs, stopwatches, multi-zone times and all that, and we can't even come up with a simple user interface to it all. Most digital watches have 4 buttons on them. One of them is reserved for light. The other three, in some weird combination, allow you to use/set/reset all the operations. I don't know if any watch maker has figured out a decent and intuitive UI for this.

How would I design a digital watch?

Simple. Create a digital watch with one button, again a rotating thumb wheel. Since this is a digital watch, it comes with a LCD display, and here is how you would use it:
Click the (only) button to summon a UI.
Rotate the thumb wheel to walk through the menu.
Click the button again to select items in the menu.
Done.

How much simpler can it be? All the operations can be performed by clicking the button, and rotating the wheel as and when necessary. Borrowing from the old mechanical watch gives us the best UI. Of course, we may end up with some cascading menus, but, hey, you won't need a user manual to use it.

Of course, it would automatically set time based on the WWVB atomic time signal that it catches via radio waves.

Design for serviceability

2007-06-07T22:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the light bulb inside our Kitchenaid wall mounted microwave oven burnt out. Me being a handyman, wanted to replace it myself. I searched for the spare bulb online and found a place selling it. When I tried to replace the bulb is when I realized what I was up against. You need to take apart almost the whole microwave, in order to replace a bulb! First, it needs to be removed out of its enclosure, and then taken apart to get to the bulb. Wow.

I called the service center and they said it could cost anywhere from $75 depending on how long it takes to get to it. Wow. Nearly $100 in labor to replace a $2 bulb (No, actually, the bulb is $20. It is part of a premium product, you see). Talk about serviceability.

I used to replace refills in ball point pens when I was growing up. Later on, these pens became disposable and there was no need to replace the refills. The cost of the pens came down drastically and it made no sense to replace the refills. So, they no longer designed the pens for serviceability, and sealed it shut. Makes sense. It is a disposable product.

When I was working as a design engineer designing material handling equipment (during my Robert Bosch days), my boss used to review my designs. One of the first questions he used to ask me was about serviceability/maintainability. "How would you replace the chain on this conveyor?". If I took more than 30 seconds to explain, or if it involved removing 10 other parts, the design was rejected.

Now, I am looking at an appliance which costs upwards of $3000 (it is an oven combo), and I need to call a service technician to replace a piddly bulb! How wonderful. I thought premium appliances are better designed. Maybe, Viking makes better serviceable appliances...

Good design for serviceability may not necessarily mean a good design for manufacturability. But, in most cases, a good serviceable design is a also a good manufacturable design. The components will be simple and easy to assemble.

On the flip side are the products from Apple. Take iPod for example. For it to be aesthetically and visually pleasing, Apple decided not to put any screws. So, what happens if you want to replace the battery. Tough luck. In these cases, the aesthetic appeal wins over everything else, since that is what this brand represents. This would also mean that the components that go into making an iPod are of high enough quality that they don't warrant regular replacement/repair.

Where does one draw the line? In case of the microwave, nobody cares if there were 4 more screws INSIDE the microwave to hold a receptacle for a light bulb. But, Kitchenaid didn't want that (not to mention the 8- 12 screws right on the front of the enclosure). In most appliances, the design should be such that the fuse and some simple parts (that are failure prone) should be easily accessible. I agree that there is no need to give good access to the magnetron coil in the oven. But, a door hinge, or a door spring, or the fuse, or the bulb. C'mon, they can do better than this.

This shows how much the designers think before they finalize a design. Usability is another big area where Kitchenaid appliances lack big time. Don't even get me started on their cooktop design. That is a topic for another blog.

Pluralistic ignorance

2007-06-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

I was walking towards the baggage claim area in the Orange county airport during one of my business trips. People from my flight were walking towards the baggage claim area, while others were rushing towards the terminals to catch their flights. I saw a woman, a few paces ahead of me, unknowingly drop her boarding pass. She was rushing towards her terminal, just like everyone else. There must have been about 5-6 people between me and the woman. I assume most of them saw what happened, but no one bothered to do anything. I, too, passed the boarding pass on the floor, and for some reason it flashed that something was wrong. I stopped to pick up the pass, and ran back and gave it to her.

On the way out, I was thinking about what happened. I knew that something was wrong in the whole scene, but could not put my finger on it. Until, I read about the pluralistic ignorance at the Media Studies. This article explained exactly what happened in the airport the other day.

We see such acts daily. During a project meeting, you see that some things need to be taken care of, and mention it. Everyone nods in agreement, but nothing is done. Why? Everybody in the room thought that the other person would pick up the ball. That is why we need to assign specific action items to individuals.

I specifically remember of seeing a video as a child about what to do in case of an emergency. Imagine an accident scene and a man is lying unconscious on the road. On lookers surround the accident scene. You see that the man needs medical attention and scream "Somebody call 911" or "Can someone get a fresh towel?". Guess what happens? Nothing. Same reason. Everybody is assuming that the other person is going to respond. So, the video specifically suggests that in these situations, you should point at a random person (an adult) and scream orders. "You, call 911 immediately". That will get things done since there is no plurality. Orders are aimed at an individual, and everyone is watching how you react. So, you better react and get things done.

Where is my Logout button?

2007-05-30T22:53:00.001-07:00

I recently went into Amazon.com to purchase a few books, and once I was done, I browsed around and ended up in a page where there was no Logout button! Hmm, was this a bug or a feature? After a bit of poking around, I found the 'logout' button masquerading as something else ("if you are not John Doe, click here" thingy). And, this button does not appear on all pages.

This got me thinking. Login/logout are buttons that are ubiquitous to all web sites that need authentication. Maybe, Amazon.com has an innovative way of changing this paradigm...

Why would one need a login button in the first place?

Web sites need a login button in order to let you perform transactions that are unique to you. In this case, you login to Amazon.com to buy something, and they want to know who you are and where to ship the stuff. If not for this login facility, you would have to enter all this information everytime you bought anything from Amazon. Makes sense. Also, without logging in, there is no personalization.

Why would one need a logout button?

Hmm. In this world of tracking every move that a consumer makes, almost everyone is paranoid about leaving traces of activity around. Especially if one is using a public computer. I, for one, am used to logging out of sites and clearing my cache whenever I complete any transaction that needs personal information. I do this even on my personal computer. I would be extra careful if I am using a public computer.

Logging out prevents others from masquerading as you and conducting transactions in your name. Logging out prevents thieves from stealing your personal information. Logging out stops the tracking of the user's actions.

So, what is Amazon trying to achieve by hiding the logout button? It is not intuitive to figure out the way to log out of Amazon.com.

And, there is the other extreme where some sites ask you to confirm that you really want to log out. LinkedIn is one such example.

So, I feel Amazon.com is regressing in its UI rather than coming up with something that is fresh and innovative.

The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier

2007-05-10T18:46:00.001-07:00

A great book on the wonderful world of branding. It is a small book which makes it a quick read. He presents the topic in a innovative way that makes it a pleasure to read. In fact, Marty has created a brand for himself (branded himself) with the signature of the book. His style (typography, layout, images, etc.) is unique and very visual.

I was recently involved in a project of creating a logo for a company. We were trying to put reason behind the logo, and were treating the logo as the brand. First of all, this book demystifies the logo. "A brand is not a logo or a corporate identity system or a product. A brand is not what you say it is. A brand is what they say it is". Wow, how true it is. Nobody describes the logo or explains the reasoning behind their branding. It is how the audience perceives it.

He also says that in order to differentiate yourself (or your company), you should answer these three questions:
who are you?
what do you do?
why does it matter?
The last question is where most people stumble. This is a powerful concept which applies to both companies as well as individuals. Why does it matter? Why should I care? This aims at contribution. This reminds me of Guy Kawasaki's idea of answering the little man. Whenever you are about to do something or write something, imagine that there is a little guy on your shoulder who asks "so, what?". If you cannot answer him, then you are not contributing.

Here are some of the quotes and snippets from this book:
Brands should be charismatic and stand for what people want, be it joy, happiness, success, love, comfort,..

It takes a village to build a brand. Branding cannot be done in isolation. Everyone in the company should work towards creating a brand.

Innovation is what gives brands traction in the marketplace. Innovation needs creativity. Infuse and encourage creativity in organizations.

The 7 criteria for a good name:
1. Distinctiveness
2. Brevity
3. Appropriateness
4. Easy spelling and pronunciation
5. Likability
6. Extendability
7. Protectability

Logos are dead. Long live icons and avatars.If it's not innovative, it is not magic.

Avoid these three barriers to achieve full potential in web design:Technophobia, turfismo and featuritis

Focus groups were invented to FOCUS the research, not to BE the research.

Your business is not an entity. It is a living organism. So is your brand. Treat it so. Alignment is the basis of a living brand.

What is your passion?

2007-05-06T21:38:00.001-07:00

Did you know that people age faster in their retired life?
Did you know that people develop all kinds of (imaginary or not) ailments as soon as they retire?

Research has shown that the main reason for all this is the lack of purpose in life. Once a person retires and stops working, he looses a reason to get up in the morning, and go get something done. The other reason is boredom and depression. That is one of the reasons retirees look for part-time work in their retirement.

Without passion for something in life, it is hard to make a retired living.

What is retirement?

Earlier, people considered retirement once they reached a particular age. Retirement is considered once you have financial freedom. What we need to realize is that retirement can be boring and frustrating, if it is not properly thought out.

What would you do if you had financial freedom?

If you answer that question with something that you are not doing now, you are up for a boring retired life.

Who are you?

When you are asked who you are, you reply that you are a doctor or a professor or ... So, your profession defines you, especially for professional people. In a society where your profession defines you, it is hard to be retired. It is hard to lose one's identity.

When anyone asks one of my friends what he does, his answer is "I am a musician". "And, I just do database administration at ABC Corp just to pay my bills". That is an interesting way of putting things. Of course, it would have been a lot better if his passion could pay the bills too.

Without a passion, it is hard to pass time. If you are passionate about something, what keeps you from doing it now? Why are you waiting to be "retired" to do something that you love?

Pick your passion today, and start practicing retirement!

With = Girl; What = Boy;

2007-05-03T23:19:00.000-07:00

[with, if, not, where, be, when, your, her, we, should, she, and, me, myself, hers, was]

Did you know that these keywords are feminine? I didn't.

That was news to me. I just discovered Gender Genie and I posted some of my blogs into it. I seem to have a good mix of masculine as well as feminine writing.

What is interesting is the way the algorithm works. The algorithm is based on a research paper comparing the linguistic styles of males and females. I feel that there may be linguistic differences based on speech, but not based on the writings. They have compared writings from decades to draw conclusions. Formal writing, such as business writing or technical writing is generally neutral, and the same style is practised by both the genders. So, this research may have value when it comes to fictional writing. But, the gender genie has incorporated algorithms to interpret both fiction and non-fiction writings.

Post some of your writings and get a feel for what your style is.

Blogs, blogs, -- redux

2007-05-02T21:42:00.001-07:00

Sometime ago I wrote about why I blog and why I read blogs. I touched upon the variety of reasons people blog.

I recently stumbled upon this presentation on 25 basic styles of blogging. It is a great presentation that throws light on what one can do on a blog. Also, it is a great presentation to watch.

So, pick one or more styles and start your own blog today!

Freeway community

2007-04-30T23:12:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been in a situation when you are cruising on the freeway, and a 18-wheeler is trying to get into your lane? The truck is blinking its turn signal and waiting for you to pass. You notice that you are so close to his tail that you might as well let him get in front of you. So, you flash your headlights, and he glides into your lane. Once he is settled, he blinks his rear running lights to signal his appreciation.

Even though I am quite an aggressive driver on the road, I help out truckers all the time. I don't know why, but I always get a kick out of it when they say "thanks". And, if someone does not thank me, I curse under my breath and move on. I always anxiously look for the signal from the truck. I feel good when I see it. Maybe, that is why I do this. To feel good.

This whole short term shorthand communication between me and the truck somehow helps me to connect (even for a brief moment) with another person on the freeway. There is a sort of community on the freeway. CB radios used to enable this in the by gone days. Nowadays, nobody uses CBs but for truckers. Maybe, not even truckers use them.

Maybe, one day we will have some kind of (bar code?) readers on all cars. They will be able to read the adjacent cars' code and automatically connect to them. This will allow the freeway community to communicate as well as share things. Push a button and you will be talking to the driver in the car adjacent to you. You may be able to share a play list of songs from a fellow traveler. Your car may be able to access the auto analytics of the car in front of you and determine that the car is slowing down or even breaking down. This will help in avoiding accidents. Cops will be able to connect to a car's computer and instruct it to stop the car, avoiding the the whole chase scene.

Of course, the flip side of this is that we don't need to make our cars fancier. With all the global warming and the gas guzzlers, who needs to add more power hungry gizmos. We just need the basic mini car that runs on solar power.

We just have to wait and see what happens..

Paid services come with strings attached!!

2007-04-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

Reading this blog by Don Dodge titled Free services come with strings attached, I am reminded of my struggle to get my web pages deleted from a TW RoadRunner server. I had an account with RoadRunner several years ago. Since they offered disk space for paying customers, I created and hosted my web site on their server. Once I moved out of Ohio, I cancelled my account with TW RoadRunner, and assumed (stupid me) that they would purge the accounts and web pages of expired/unpaid/cancelled/terminated accounts.

Boy, was I wrong. My web pages are still around on their server even after two years!!

Some of you might be saying "Hey, that's free web hosting for life. What are you crying about?"

Unfortunately, you cannot modify the pages, and you no longer have control over them. And, worst of all, it is a pain (so far) to get them to remove your pages. Their "tech support" doesn't seem to know how to purge web pages and accounts!

The only reason I want to get rid of my old pages is that several links on the page are stale, and I have pictures of "Our Home" which I no longer own. In order to be fair to the current owner, I cannot even modify the title to "Our former home".

This is a first hand lesson that once you post something on the Internet (even if it is on your own server) it gets a life of its own, and there is no way of bringing it back into the bottle.

Pumping on a swing - how to teach

2007-04-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

Some kids learn how to pump on a swing at an early age, while some take a while. My daughter fell in the latter category. Just a few days ago I noticed someone at the local park trying to teach a child to pump on a swing. That is when I noticed how difficult it can be to teach it, especially if the child is not very co-operative. Then I remembered how I taught my daughter to pump.

Everyone who swings knows that you need to straighten your legs out on the forward motion, and bend your legs (and bunch up) on the way backwards. It is quite difficult to teach this to some kids. After several attempts at teaching, as well as demonstrations, I came up with a technique of encouraging the child to learn the motions of pumping without thinking about it. Here is how.

Pus the child on the swing a couple times and build momentum. Once that is done, walk to the front and face the child. Stand back and hold your hand up such that the kid's legs almost touch it (3" away) at the end of the forward stroke. Now, encourage the kid to lean back (on the forward stroke only) and try to touch your hand with her legs. And, obviously, tell the kid to sit up on the backward stroke. This trick did it for my daughter.

The key here is, they have a target to shoot for, and they will become sensitive to their actions and the reaction. They will start adjusting their posture and start sensing the changes in momentum. This is exactly what we intended. Once they get a hang of it, they will never forget it.

And you can kick back and enjoy the sun while they pump themselves on the swing. Not that pushing your kid on the swing is not fun...

Tilting perspectives...

2007-04-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

I know it is hard to merge images of 3D objects, but there has to be a way to easily merge satellite images. Check this picture of the skyscrapers in Chicago and see how they are bumping into each other. From the looks of it, the images were taken either by different satellites, or by the same satellite at a different time/location.

This is an interesting problem since we want to see images of things from an angle so we get the feeling of depth. We don't want perfectly overhead shots of all the terrestrial things. Then, it wouldn't be fun to look at them. Windows live has the same problem too. Anybody who wants to allow panning a satellite image hits this problem. This issue is not noticeable in things that are not tall, and things that do not cast a long shadow. So, they could detect tall objects and try to keep them all in the same grid (same camera angle) and try to connect grids wherever they do not detect tall objects.

It will be interesting to see how this problem will be solved.

New wine in an old bottle - redux

2007-03-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

Kathy Sierra makes some smart observations on How to be an Expert. Lot of it makes sense. I agree with most of what she says about being able to become an expert by modifying how and what we practice.

Reading her last paragraph is what brought me back to my earlier post on learning to play the guitar. I agree that we can master activities that need the brain cells at any point in our life. But, where I differ is when other cells (muscles/organs) come into picture. Neurons can be created/linked at virtually any age. That is not so for other cells in our body. Human growth stops abruptly in our late teens to early 20s. So does our body's ability to be nimble and flexible. Anyone who started yoga at the age of 60 knows what I am talking about.

So, it is easy for one to learn new things and become experts at it as long as it just involves the brain (and maybe other organs that age well). It is not really true for things of physical nature.

Customer Service

2007-03-12T23:16:00.000-07:00

When we visited India, we went to a local restaurant to have breakfast one day. We sat down and ordered a few items on the menu. The food comes to the table. I had also ordered bottled water (you should always carry your own bottle of water or order bottled water when you travel) to drink. We start to eat, and after a few mins, a small cockroach (yikes) emerges from the basket containing the nan. I immediately summon the waiter and before he arrives, the roach manages to run under the table. Thank god, no one at our table threw up.

Disgusted, we immediately get up to leave. I go to the manager to lodge a complaint and tell him how horrible the place is. And that we will never be setting foot in this restaurant. I was expecting a sincere apology, and an explanation for what happened.

Nope. I was grossly mistaken (I, like an idiot, expected a businessman to be managing the place).

He immediately calls our waiter and starts questioning him as to how much of each item we have eaten! I was about to raise a ruckus and make my anger known to all the customers (Not that they would have cared). But, I kept my cool to see what is going to unfold next. He proceeds to make some calculations and tells me that he is going to waive a percentage of the bill! At this point, I literally exploded and give him a piece of my mind. I told him to thank his stars that I was not going to complain to the food police (the main reason being, I didn't know where to find one). And, I paid him for only the bottle of water that I had bought (assuming it was not contaminated).

What would have happened if the manager had sincerely apologised, and offered to swallow the tab? Of course, this is an extreme situation (hygiene related) and nothing would have made me visit the place again. But, I would have left the place with a good opinion. The manager could have assured me that this was a freak case, and he will take care of the situation and clean things up. His attitude showed that he didn't care for his customers. He didn't want to build long term relations with his customers.

That was customer service in India. Not to generalize it, but I have seen this kind of behavior one too many times.

Reading Joel's blog on customer service, sparked my memory of this episode. Joel does a great job of listing what one needs to do to provide remarkable customer service. Most steps pertain to the software industry, but the gist of it applies to all things in general.

The $30 motel room puzzle

2007-02-28T23:17:00.001-08:00

Three travelers came to a motel and decide to share one room. The clerk registered them for $30. Each of the travelers pitched in $10. After a bit, the clerk realized that the special rate for that day was $25, so he gave the bellhop $5 and told him to take it to the travelers. On his way to the room, the bellhop reasoned that he couldn't split $5 three ways, so he'd just return $3 to the travelers and keep the other $2.

Therefore, each of the travelers wound up paying $9 for his room. Since 9 X 3 is 27, and the bellhop kept $2, what happened to the other dollar (27 + 2 = 29)?

You may or may not have heard this puzzle before. It is an interesting one, in the way the question is posed.

A simple cash flow and balance statement will throw a lot of light on the transactions.

Travelers ______Clerk ______Bellhop
--------------------------------------------------
-10x3 = -30 _____+30 ________0
-30 ___________+25 +5 ______0
-30 ___________+25 ________+5
-30 ___________+25 ________+3+2
-30+3=-27______+25 ________+3+2-3=+2

Final transaction:
-9x3=-27 _______+25 ________+2
--------------------------------------------------

Notice that each line balances itself. The final result is that the travelers paid $27, and the clerk kept $25 and the bellhop $2. So, everything balances.

What throws people off is the reference to the original $30 that everybody started off with.

Putting the transaction down on paper as a cash flow statement makes things a lot more clear.

Anyway, this is the way I looked at it. Let me know if you have any other ways of analyzing it.

Lifetime money back guarantee

2007-02-27T22:39:00.000-08:00

A consumer walks into a store, purchases a digital still camera, walks out of the store. After two years of heavy use, the camera fails. Consumer walks back into the store and returns the camera stating that the camera doesn't meet his demand. The store gives money back to the consumer without asking a question.

The store is offering lifetime money back guarantee, no questions asked.

This is what Costco used to be. Today, they announced a change in their return policy citing losses due to abuse by customers.

I was not even aware of this return policy of Costco. I heard about this last month when somebody started gloating about how he returned his camera after two years of use. I was appalled by the fact that someone could even think of doing this. I was always under the impression that Costco had a 30 day money back guarantee.

At first, I was shocked to hear this. But, this got me thinking.

Why would a company offer such a return policy?

What makes a sensible return policy?
Should stores even have a return policy?

One thing we need to realize is that stores in most countries do not even offer a money back guarantee. It is only in some developed countries that we see such offers. This is mainly to spur impulse buying. You step into the store and you see a stunning boombox on the display shelf. Remember, you didn't walk into the store to buy a boombox. You wanted to buy milk. But, you fall in love with this boombox and think "If I decide that I shouldn't have bought it (for whatever reason), I can return it within 30 days", and you buy it on the spot (thanks to credit cards)! You take it home, set it up and after 20 days of use, you are used to the boombox (even if you didn't like it at first) and decide to keep it. Who wants to locate the receipt, and pack the thing into the box, and haul it back all the way to the store, and give an explanation to the store clerk to return it?.

That is exactly what the seller intended!

So, the 30 day guarantee works for the seller. And, in some cases allow the buyer too (the DVD player you bought fails to play VCDs, and you take it back after a few days). I can live with this.

Now, let us look at warranties.

Notice the bathtub curve above. The curve represents the failure rate of products over time. Statistically, products have a high failure rate early in their life (also called 'infant mortality' period), and then the rate falls and stays flat for most of the product's life. At the end of its life, the failure rate increases again due to ageing and failure of the components.

Initially manufacturers started running their products until the infant mortality period passed, and then the product was sold. A motor used to be run in a simulated environment until it passes this period. If any motor fails, it would be fixed and run again. So, the manufacturer was taking the burden of clearing this first phase.

Then, somebody had a bright idea and decided that instead of the manufacturer running the product through its IM phase, why not ask the customers to use it and if the product fails during this phase, gladly fix it for the customer.

Thus, warranties were born.

You take the risk for the manufacturer, and the manufacturer gives you an incentive (fixing free of charge) for sharing the risk. The bathtub curve varies for every product. Thus, one product comes with a 1 year warranty while another could be offered a 2 year warranty.

Where does Costco get its unlimited return policy? They initially came up with the idea to entice customers to buy from them. This worked real well. People bought from Costco since it offered an extra sense of security. What if my DVD player breaks down on day 32 or day 366? I will have to struggle with the manufacturer and get it fixed. But, with the Costco policy, I can just return it and get my money back. Awesome.

This works only if all the customers are honest. Looks like that has not been so. Especially with electronics, which become obsolete the moment you bring it home and take it out of its box. In a way, Costco asked for it when it announced its 'no questions asked' return policy.

I even heard stories of how some people returned empty TV dinner boxes stating that they didn't like the taste. How disgusting. Consumers need to understand how businesses work and start taking responsibility for their decisions, and understand the risks that come with buying a product. Understand that every product has a definite life. The TV that you buy today is not going to work for ever. Maybe, manufacturers should start printing an expected life for every product, like they do for some electric bulbs.

So, is this move going to hurt Costco?

I don't think so. I, for one, never went to Costco because of their return policy (I didn't even know of it until recently). Remember that Costco still stands apart from the competitors by offering 60 or 90 day money back guarantee, and a 2 year extended warranty for free. That is a great deal. People who used to misuse the policy may stop doing so. So, Costco wins in this situation. People who relied on the added security may think twice, but Costco needs to market their additional warranty in order to lure this crowd. Others who didn't care for the return policy, will continue to not care and continue to shop at Costco.

So, all in all, Costco wins with this move.

Learning from the West

2007-02-22T20:35:00.000-08:00

During my recent visit to Bangalore, I noticed a strange behavior. I saw trash and filth all over sidewalks, roads, and public places. People weren't thinking twice before discarding an empty coke can or spitting a piece of gum onto the sidewalk. It was not their problem, but the city's, to keep the roads and sidewalks clean. And, 'everyone is doing it, so why shouldn't I' was the attitude.

The same person enters one of the Westernized malls and suddenly his behavior changes. All the malls in Bangalore are squeaky clean (even though they are over crowded). You cannot find a piece of trash anywhere but inside the trash cans. I wondered what caused this sudden change in behavior. The most unfortunate part was that the behavior change was only temporary, and vanished as soon as the person left the mall premises.

Was it the cleanliness to start off with? Not really. Any new public place will start out clean and slowly degrade. But, the malls were different. Even two year old malls were shiny and clean.

Was it the cleaning staff at these malls? No. I did not notice anyone following people around and cleaning after them.

I could not put my finger on this strange behavior ....

Among the many things that I noticed when I first set foot in this country was the fact that people understand their civic duties and their rights. They understand how the cities function. I remember naively telling my professor that we had public hospitals in India that are free to everyone. He immediately said that it is not free. It is paid for by the tax payers. If only people realize this fact, they would demand better care from the public hospitals instead of flocking into private facilities and paying big bucks.

In another instance, I noticed the school staff wearing black ribbons as a form of protest. Again here, I drew a contrast on how we protest in India. Bundhs, strikes and riots accompanied by stoning public (and private) buildings and destroying property. People were shocked to hear that. "Don't they understand that public property is YOUR property? You are finally going to pay for fixing or replacing what you destroyed."

That is awareness, and pride. Pride in what you have achieved as a collective whole. Awareness of where your taxes go and how they are used.

These are a few incidents that were eye openers for me. I always wondered what is missing in India. And what could make people more aware of their responsibilities, and make India a better place.

I recently happened to read this speech by Narayana Murthy (Infosys) on this very same subject that hit at the heart of many issues facing India. It is a very thought provoking read. I have included it here for your reading pleasure.

----------------

I decided to speak on an important topic on which I have pondered for years - the role of Western values in contemporary Indian society. Coming from a company that is built on strong values, the topic is close to my heart. Moreover, an organization is representative of society, and some of the lessons that I have learnt are applicable in the national context. In fact, values drive progress and define quality of life in society.

The word community joins two Latin words com (”together” or “with”) and unus (”one”). A community, then, is both one and many. It is a unified multitude and not a mere group of people. As it is said in the Vedas: Man can live individually, but can survive only collectively. Hence, the challenge is to form a progressive community by balancing the interests of the individual and that of the society. To meet this, we need to develop a value system where people accept modest sacrifices for the common good.

What is a value system? It is the protocol for behavior that enhances the trust, confidence and commitment of members of the community. It goes beyond the domain of legality - it is about decent and desirable behavior. Further, it includes putting the community interests ahead of your own. Thus, our collective survival and progress is predicated on sound values.

There are two pillars of the cultural value system - loyalty to family and loyalty to community. One should not be in isolation to the other, because, successful societies are those which combine both harmoniously. It is in this context that I will discuss the role of Western values in contemporary Indian society.

Some of you here might say that most of what I am going to discuss are actually Indian values in old ages, and not Western values. I live in the present, not in the bygone era. Therefore, I have seen these values practiced primarily in the West and not in India. Hence, the title of the topic.
I am happy as long as we practice these values - whether we call it Western or old Indian values. As an Indian, I am proud to be part of a culture, which has deep-rooted family values. We have tremendous loyalty to the family. For instance, parents make enormous sacrifices for their children. They support them until they can stand on their own feet. On the other side, children consider it their duty to take care of aged parents.

We believe: Mathru devo bhava - mother is God, and pithru devo bhava - father is God. Further, brothers and sisters sacrifice for each other. In fact, the eldest brother or sister is respected by all the other siblings. As for marriage, it is held to be a sacred union - husband and wife are bonded, most often, for life. In joint families, the entire family works towards the welfare of the family. There is so much love and affection in our family life.

This is the essence of Indian values and one of our key strengths. Our families act as a critical support mechanism for us. In fact, the credit to the success of Infosys goes, as much to the founders as to their families, for supporting them through the tough times. Unfortunately, our attitude towards family life is not reflected in our attitude towards community behavior. From littering the streets to corruption to breaking of contractual obligations, we are apathetic to the common good. In the West - the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand - individuals understand that they have to be responsible towards their community.

The primary difference between the West and us is that, there, people have a much better societal orientation. They care more for the society than we do. Further, they generally sacrifice more for the society than us. Quality of life is enhanced because of this. This is where we need to learn from the West.

I will talk about some of the lessons that we, Indians, can learn from the West.

In the West, there is respect for the public good. For instance, parks free of litter, clean streets, public toilets free of graffiti - all these are instances of care for the public good. On the contrary, in India, we keep our houses clean and water our gardens everyday - but, when we go to a park, we do not think twice before littering the place.

Corruption, as we see in India, is another example of putting the interest of oneself, and at best that of one’s family, above that of the society. Society is relatively corruption free in the West. For instance, it is very difficult to bribe a police officer into avoiding a speeding ticket.

This is because of the individual’s responsible behavior towards the community as a whole On the contrary, in India, corruption, tax evasion, cheating and bribery have eaten into our vitals. For instance, contractors bribe officials, and construct low-quality roads and bridges. The result is that society loses in the form of substandard defence equipment and infrastructure, and low-quality recruitment, just to name a few impediments. Unfortunately, this behavior is condoned by almost everyone.

Apathy in solving community matters has held us back from making progress, which is otherwise within our reach. We see serious problems around us but do not try to solve them. We behave as if the problems do not exist or is somebody else’s. On the other hand, in the West, people solve societal problems proactively. There are several examples of our apathetic attitude. For instance, all of us are aware of the problem of drought in India.

More than 40 years ago, Dr. K. L. Rao - an irrigation expert, suggested creation of a water grid connecting all the rivers in North and South India, to solve this problem. Unfortunately, nothing has been done about this. The story of power shortage in Bangalore is another instance. In 1983, it was decided to build a thermal power plant to meet Bangalore’s power requirements. Unfortunately, we have still not started it. Further, the Milan subway in Bombay is in a deplorable state for the last 40 years, and no action has been taken.

To quote another example, considering the constant travel required in the software industry; five years ago, I had suggested a 240-page passport. This would eliminate frequent visits to the passport office. In fact, we are ready to pay for it. However, I am yet to hear from the Ministry of External Affairs on this.

We, Indians, would do well to remember Thomas Hunter’s words: Idleness travels very slowly, and poverty soon overtakes it. What could be the reason for all this? We were ruled by foreigners for over thousand years. Thus, we have always believed that public issues belonged to some foreign ruler and that we have no role in solving them.

Moreover, we have lost the will to proactively solve our own problems. Thus, we have got used to just executing someone else’s orders. Borrowing Aristotle’s words: We are what we repeatedly do. Thus, having done this over the years, the decision-makers in our society are not trained for solving problems. Our decision-makers look to somebody else to take decisions. Unfortunately, there is nobody to look up to, and this is the tragedy.

Our intellectual arrogance has also not helped our society. I have traveled extensively, and in my experience, have not come across another society where people are as contemptuous of better societies as we are, with as little progress as we have achieved. Remember that arrogance breeds hypocrisy. No other society gloats so much about the past as we do, with as little current accomplishment.

Friends, this is not a new phenomenon, but at least a thousand years old. For instance, Al Barouni, the famous Arabic logician and traveler of the 10th century, who spent about 30 years in India from 997 AD to around 1027 AD, referred to this trait of Indians. According to him, during his visit, most Indian pundits considered it below their dignity even to hold arguments with him. In fact, on a few occasions when a pundit was willing to listen to hm, and found his arguments to be very sound, he invariably asked Barouni: which Indian pundit taught these smart things!

The most important attribute of a progressive society is respect for others who have accomplished more than they themselves have, and learn from them. Contrary to this, our leaders make us believe that other societies do not know anything! At the same time, everyday, in the newspapers, you will find numerous claims from our leaders that ours is the greatest nation. These people would do well to remember Thomas Carlyle’s words: The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.

If we have to progress, we have to change this attitude, listen to people who have performed better than us, learn from them and perform better than them. Infosys is a good example of such an attitude. We continue to rationalize our failures. No other society has mastered this part as well as we have. Obviously, this is an excuse to justify our incompetence, corruption, and apathy. This attitude has to change. As Sir Josiah Stamp has said: It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.

Another interesting attribute, which we Indians can learn from the West, is their accountability. Irrespective of your position, in the West, you are held accountable for what you do. However, in India, the more ‘important’ you are, the less answerable you are. For instance, a senior politician once declared that he ‘forgot’ to file his tax returns for 10 consecutive years - and he got away with it. To quote another instance, there are over 100 loss making public sector units (central) in India. Nevertheless, I have not seen action taken for bad performance against top managers in these organizations.

Dignity of labor is an integral part of the Western value system. In the West, each person is proud about his or her labor that raises honest sweat. On the other hand, in India, we tend to overlook the significance of those who are not in professional jobs. We have a mind set that reveres only supposedly intellectual work.

For instance, I have seen many engineers, fresh from college, who only want to do cutting-edge work and not work that is of relevance to business and the country. However, be it an organization or society, there are different people performing different roles. For success, all these people are required to discharge their duties. This includes everyone from the CEO to the person who serves tea - every role is important. Hence, we need a mind set that reveres everyone who puts in honest work.

Indians become intimate even without being friendly. They ask favors of strangers without any hesitation. For instance, the other day, while I was traveling from Bangalore to Mantralaya, I met a fellow traveler on the train. Hardly 5 minutes into the conversation, he requested me to speak to his MD about removing him from the bottom 10% list in his company, earmarked for disciplinary action. I was reminded of what Rudyard Kipling once said: A westerner can be friendly without being intimate while an easterner tends to be intimate without being friendly.
Yet another lesson to be learnt from the West, is about their professionalism in dealings. The common good being more important than personal equations, people do not let personal relations interfere with their professional dealings. For instance, they don’t hesitate to chastise a colleague, even if he is a personal friend, for incompetent work.

In India, I have seen that we tend to view even work interactions from a personal perspective. Further, we are the most ‘thin-skinned’ society in the world - we see insults where none is meant. This may be because we were not free for most of the last thousand years. Further, we seem to extend this lack of professionalism to our sense of punctuality. We do not seem to respect the other person’s time.

The Indian Standard Time somehow seems to be always running late. Moreover, deadlines are typically not met. How many public projects are completed on time? The disheartening aspect is that we have accepted this as the norm rather than the exception. In the West, they show professionalism by embracing meritocracy. Meritocracy by definition means that we cannot let personal prejudices affect our evaluation of an individual’s performance. As we increasingly start to benchmark ourselves with global standards, we have to embrace meritocracy.

In the West, right from a very young age, parents teach their children to be independent in thinking. Thus, they grow up to be strong, confident individuals. In India, we still suffer from feudal thinking. I have seen people, who are otherwise bright, refusing to show independence and preferring to be told what to do by their boss. We need to overcome this attitude if we have to succeed globally.

The Western value system teaches respect to contractual obligation. In the West, contractual obligations are seldom dishonored. This is important - enforceability of legal rights and contracts is the most important factor in the enhancement of credibility of our people and nation.
In India, we consider our marriage vows as sacred. We are willing to sacrifice in order to respect our marriage vows. However, we do not extend this to the public domain. For instance, India had an unfavorable contract with Enron. Instead of punishing the people responsible for negotiating this, we reneged on the contract - this was much before we came to know about the illegal activities at Enron.

To quote another instance, I had given recommendations to several students for the national scholarship for higher studies in US universities. Most of them did not return to India even though contractually they were obliged to spend five years after their degree in India.
In fact, according to a professor at a reputed US university, the maximum default rate for student loans is among Indians - all of these students pass out in flying colors and land lucrative jobs, yet they refuse to pay back their loans. Thus, their action has made it difficult for the students after them, from India, to obtain loans. We have to change this attitude.

Further, we Indians do not display intellectual honesty. For example, our political leaders use mobile phones to tell journalists on the other side that they do not believe in technology! If we want our youngsters to progress, such hypocrisy must be stopped. We are all aware of our rights as citizens. Nevertheless, we often fail to acknowledge the duty that accompanies every right. To borrow Dwight Eisenhower’s words: People that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. Our duty is towards the community as a whole, as much as it is towards our families.
We have to remember that fundamental social problems grow out of a lack of commitment to the common good. To quote Henry Beecher: Culture is that which helps us to work for the betterment of all. Hence, friends, I do believe that we can make our society even better by assimilating these Western values into our own culture - we will be stronger for it.

Most of our behavior comes from greed, lack of self-confidence, lack of confidence in the nation, and lack of respect for the society. To borrow Gandhi’s words: There is enough in this world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed. Let us work towards a society where we would do unto others what we would have others do unto us. Let us all be responsible citizens who make our country a great place to live. In the words of Churchill: Responsibility is the price of greatness. We have to extend our family values beyond the boundaries of our home.

Finally, let us work towards maximum welfare of the maximum people - Samasta janaanaam sukhino bhavantu. Thus, let us - people of this generation, conduct ourselves as great citizens rather than just good people so that we can serve as good examples for our younger generation.

--- Speech by Narayana Murthy

On Tablets and Mice - Part II

2007-02-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

OK. It has been several weeks since I first wrote about using a tablet and a pen instead of a computer mouse. I have tried it on and off and here is what I found.

The tablet is a completely different experience, and needs time to get used to. Hand does not get tired since the motions are similar to drawing (more like sketching). One thing I did notice is that the smaller the tablet the better. Artists who are used to broad strokes may prefer bigger tablets, but for a substitute mouse, a small tablet works best. The main reason being that the hand has to move over the tablet. The more real estate you have to cover, the more motion your hand goes through. And the more tired you get...

With an ordinary mouse, you move the mouse around and that in turn moves the cursor. With a trackball, your hand is stationary and the ball rotation moves the cursor. In case of a tablet, the motion of the pen dictates the cursor movement.

One thing that is significantly different is that the cursor jumps while using the tablet. Wherever you place the pen tip (on the tablet) is where the cursor ends up. So, if you pick up the pen and place it on another location on the tablet, the cursor jumps to that location. This takes some time to get used to. But, makes it easier and faster to move the cursor around. It also takes a bit of time to get used to the area of the tablet. The pen works only on the marked area on the tablet. Unlike a mouse that works anywhere you move it.

Since I use different devices at different locations (trackball at work, tablet at home and scroll mouse while on the road), it gives my hand/wrist a break from the same repetitive motion.

If you are prone to CTS, I think it is a worthwhile exercise to try the tablet. Get the smallest tablet from Wacom and give it a try.

Photo mosaic ad infinitum

2007-02-07T23:08:00.000-08:00

Check this site for an incredible photo mosaic experience.

Enuf said.

Enjoy it while I ponder the technology behind it all...

Chicago Bears: Superbowl XLI champions

2007-02-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

What do they do with all those sports merchandise (t-shirts, caps, mugs, etc) printed with the above mentioned banner?

That is what I was wondering when the Colts won the Superbowl last Sunday. As soon as the Colts won, someone came and gave Tony Dungy a cap that had the Colts insignia. Wow, that is fast delivery, I thought. Did someone print it (or embroider it) within a minute and get it onto the field? Nope.

If I were the manufacturer of those apparel, this is what my plan would be:
- Come up with a ballpark number "b" for each item. This would be derived from historic data of merchandise sales ON the day of the event.
- Manufacture that many of each of the merchandise with logo of each team in the finals as winner.
- Of course, make tonnes of generic merchandise that doesn't proclaim a winner (T-shirts that just say "Superbowl XLI winner").
- Spread this loot around for sale.
- On the night of the Superbowl work overtime (and on overdrive) and produce the actual required number of items (again, use historical sales data) for sale in the coming days. Roll this out the very next day.

Now, after the game, we end up with lots of merchandise with the loser team's name on it. What do we do with these? Discard it as trash?

Turns out that the scrap merchandise is sent to under developed countries as donation. NFL has inked a deal with Gifts-in-kind, and is donating the merchandise. Isn't that a wonderful idea! I can now see this happening in a lot other areas too.

I only hope they are not doing the same with banned/expired materials/drugs and shipping them as donations to needy countries ("Here you go. Here is some extra asbestos that you can use").

City lights and digital cameras

2007-02-01T21:36:00.000-08:00

I always love shooting city lights on winter nights. The two advantages being, it gets dark sooner and the winter skies have an aura around them. Yesterday evening was the first time I tried long exposures with my digiSLR.

I was pleasantly surprised that the digital cameras do not suffer from reciprocity failure. For some reason, I had assumed that the camera manufacturers would have mimicked all the features of a film camera (and improved on them). What I failed to realize was that reciprocity failure is not a feature of a camera, but is a shortcoming of the film. Reciprocity failure is a characteristic of the chemical make-up of film emulsion at long exposures. Why would a digital camera mimic such a "feature".

The reason I called it a feature is because I always relied on reciprocity failure during my long exposures, and have shot some excellent slides with long trails of car lights or aircraft lights in my cityscapes. Try exposing a cityscape for 3 secs and 30 secs, and you rarely notice the difference in exposure, but for the light trails. Do the same with a digital camera and all you get for 30 secs is a washed out snap. The above photograph of Seattle cityscape was exposed for 2 secs at f5.6 on ISO 400 film setting on my digiSLR.

The lack of reciprocity failure handicapped me in a certain way. I had become so good at using this breakdown of reciprocity with film. Now, I have to find the strengths in my digital camera and start capitalizing them.

What this also means is that I cannot use my digiSLR for astro-photography. I cannot imagine the amount of bloom and noise an hour long exposure would create on a CCD!

I guess I will keep learning more about my digital camera as I experiment with it.

Goodbye CTS

2007-01-26T11:01:00.000-08:00

All of us who use computers extensively know what CTS, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, is. It is a painful disorder of our wrists. It's cause is attributed to repeated motion of the hands especially with a bent wrist.

The very first time I felt tingling in my wrists, I switched over to using a cordless mouse which helped me use both hands (thanks to my ambidextrousness). When that failed, I switched to a trackball and that has been working since. Switching between the different mouses (mice?) has helped me vary my movements often. I have so far been successful in avoiding CTS.

I have always been on the lookout for new devices that make life easier. I wanted to try this new kind of mouse which reduces the tilt of your wrist. But, before I did that, I started wondering if people who do not use computers, but write a lot, are affected by CTS. My research said that they are not. Voila.

Here was the answer: tablet and pen!

Graphics tablets are an input device (like a mouse/keyboard) which allows one to hand draw images in the computer. They consist of a drawing surface and a (electronic) stylus (pen). The stylus has buttons akin to a conventional mouse, and they are customizable. The tablets are generally used by graphics artists who want to have finer control over what they are drawing on their computers. This is very useful with tools like Photoshop or Illustrator. It offers features like pressure sensitivity and tilt sensitivity. These are normally useful with graphics applications. But, I found out that a tablet can also be used in lieu of a mouse for all general purposes too.

Using a graphics tablet and stylus is like drawing on a sheet of paper. Hence it doesn't stress your wrists as much as a common mouse would. Wacom makes excellent tablets. They are much more expensive than a mouse, but worth a try if you are prone to CTS. I bought this tablet for editing pictures and creating art in Photoshop. But, I found it to be very useful as an alternate mouse too.

In case you are experiencing CTS, I think you should strongly consider trying a graphics tablet.

I will write another report after a few months of usage, debating my above stated theory.

Action v/s Activity

2007-01-15T23:12:00.000-08:00

I am currently reading the book "Creativity- Unleashing the forces within" by Osho (Bhagavan Shree Rajaneesh) and he draws a very fine distinction between 'Action' and 'Activity'.

We all know that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, what Osho says is that we should be performing 'actions' and not just engaging in 'activities'. He goes to say "Activity is your escape from yourself. In action you are.

Be aware. Feel the difference between action and activity. Activity is when the action has no relevance."

He also talks about the saying that 'an idle mind is devil's workshop' and that it is foolish to fill your life with 'activity' just so that you are not idle. Relaxation and meditation dictates that you engage in NO activity. Relaxation is the absence of activity and action.

It is an interesting exercise to look at ourselves and examine the percentage of our waking time we spend on 'activities' for the sake of being active, and the time we spend on taking 'action' and achieving something.

AutoGas problem

2006-12-26T21:03:00.001-08:00

This one would make a good interview question at Microsoft:
How many auto gas stations are needed in Bangalore?

Most of the auto-rickshaws in Bangalore are run on gas (LPG/CNG). With the boom in population, and need for transportation, the auto-rickshaw population has exploded (currently ~2,50,000). Unfortunately, the autoGas filling stations have not. There are only a handful (~20) of those stations in the city. Due to this acute shortage, one sees autos lining up (see pic above) for upto 1.5 hrs just to fill gas!

So, here is the question in more detail:

Assuming that there are 2,50,000 autos in Bangalore, and

the gas mileage of an auto is about 20 Km/litre, and

the tank capacity is 12 litres, and

an average auto driver does about 50 Km/day,

how many autoGas filling stations are needed in order to reduce the wait time for filling to zero?

Phew, that was a mouthful.

Let me know when you find the answer, and in the meanwhile, I will be working on it too.

Movie challenge

2006-12-24T01:38:00.000-08:00

I was reminded of Mark Cuban's challenge, asking for ideas to attract people into movie theaters, when I visited the PVR Gold Class movie theater.

I had the privilege to go watch a movie at the PVR Gold Class theater at the Forum Mall in Bangalore. My friend with whom I went had to make advance reservations in order to get into it. At Rs. 500 a pop, it is commendable that they run full house. To compare, movie tickets in India start at around Rs. 30 and run up to Rs. 75 or Rs. 80 for balcony tickets. I agree, the demographics of movie goers in India is totally different. But still, being able to charge more than a 10x premium AND getting it, is a model worth looking into.

For those who haven't heard about or experienced the Gold Class, it is a typical movie theater with a big screen and great sound system. Where it stands apart is the 'experience'. As soon as you walk in, you are greeted into a lounge area (check this for a rendition of one such lounges). One can order drinks and snacks at the bar and relax in this plush lounge. A few minutes prior to the start of the movie, you are ushered into the theater. This again, is another area where Gold Class stands apart. The theater consists of 32 plush individual recliners with lots of leg room to spare. The recliners are operated using an electric switch and can literally get into a sleeping position. A switch on the recliner summons a steward who serves you a variety of drinks and food. You can stretch out, relax, enjoy the movie while experiencing the great service. Their Ad promises to treat you like a star, which it does deliver.

I think this unique experience is what draws crowds even at such exorbitant prices. What is lacking is the service and unique experience in the US movie theaters.

With today's Plasma HDTVs, movie projectors and state-of-art sound systems in people's homes, the theaters need to offer something much more compelling than just a big screen and a good sound system.

Road rules

2006-12-21T04:28:00.000-08:00

I recently traveled on the new highway SH-17 between Bangalore and Mysore. It is a road on which one can easily do 100Kmph+. But, the average speed turns out to be 60Kmph. When I first saw the road from the train, I was excited to see smooth 4 lane road with a beautiful median full of flowers in full bloom.

I took the super deluxe Volvo bus between Bangalore and Mysore, and it was a comfortable bus. In order to get a good view of the road and the surroundings, I took the first seat up front. Every minute of the journey I was pitying the driver (His name was Ram). He had to slow down the bus ad nauseam, in order to avoid:

- People crossing the highway (who wants to climb the overpass, when you can jay walk!)
- Domestic animals crossin

- Vehicles entering the road without regard to the bus' right of way

- Vehicles riding on the lane divider

- Slower vehicles (mopeds, bicycles) traveling on the high speed lane

- Farm equipment on the road (tractors pulling load, bullock carts, etc.)

- and so on ...

The list goes on. People do not have the sense of road etiquette. Vehicles entering the road seem to have the right of way, and no one uses their rear view mirrors (if present!).

This is an interesting problem for the City/State to solve, if they want to streamline traffic flow between cities.

The first thing that came to my mind is: drivers Ed. and re-issuance of driving licenses.

This idea fails miserably because of the fact that a large number of those on the road do not know how to read, and a minority of the vehicles do not need licenses to operate (bullock cart).

Strict adherence of the road rules (with penalties) also fails for the same reason.

The only plausible solution (which Karnataka is already implementing) is to build separate roads: one for the local/farm traffic, and another for fast intercity traffic. The fast roads need to be toll ways, and should have restrictions on the type and size of vehicles that can get on them (no mopeds, bullock carts, bicycles, etc.).

Hopefully this new toll road between Bangalore and Mysore is going to make life a lot easier for drivers like Ram.

Death of common-sense

2006-12-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

I was wondering whether to call this post "Death of common-sense" or "Greed" or "Art of negotiation", and the first one seemed to make more sense.

A street performer came in front of our house with his performing crew (including a few animals), and seeing the opportunity to get some nice pictures of life in Bangalore, I ran in and picked up my camera gear. When I came out, the troupe was getting ready to perform. From what I can remember, street performers are usually paid around Re. 1 during my times, and due to inflation, they may now get about Rs. 10 per performance (my best guess).

As soon as the troupe leader saw my camera, he instructed the group to stop all operations. He came to me and asked for Rs. 200 for the show. When I asked him the reason for the request, he said that I was going to shoot pictures. I told him that lots of people shoot pictures of street performers and most of them don't even pay anything. I also told him that the pictures that I am taking are for my own pleasure and are not going to be used for any financial gains (not that he could figure that all out).

We negotiated for a while and I upped my price to Rs. 100, just to see what he does. I was more concerned about the troupe going to bed hungry than anything else. Finally, the leader did not budge (he had the dreaded "Take it or leave it" attitude, which is a big no-no in good negotiations) and he took his troupe to perform in another street (and make, at most Rs. 10/performance).

I felt so bad for his troupe of hard workers. What a pity to be paired up with a leader (actually, he is just a manager, with no leadership qualities) who lacks common sense.

Know what your options are when you start a negotiation.
Know what you are bargaining for.
Always bargain for individual or collective advantage/gain.
Know when to give way in order to create a win-win situation.
Never let your ego negotiate.

This person did not even know what he was bargaining for. He could not justify his terms, and he did not realize the impact of a standoff. I, for one, did not lose anything in this standoff, while he and his troupe lost their meal.

No wonder there are so many people going hungry everyday in this land of opportunity.

Early bird gets the worm

2006-11-29T03:18:00.000-08:00

I have never been an early riser because I sleep late at night, and I am used to working into the night. I always considered myself nocturnal. Then, I read this blog by Steve Pavlina about rising early, and tried to follow it in vain.

I always wondered about the benefits of rising early, and being able to accomplish a lot even before my colleagues got to the office. But, I never had a chance to experience it first hand.

Now that I am in Bangalore (several timezones away from home) with my daughter who refuses to come out of her jet lag, I am forced to wake up early. I have been waking up at around 4 AM daily. Of course, I am not able to go late into the night partially due to jet lag. But, I am able to notice the things I am doing, and how they are different from what I used to do when I wake up later (around 6:30AM).

I can now read the news at leisure. I even read the paper newspaper, and have time to complete the sudoku in it too. I get a lot more quite time before everyone wakes up. Of course, my daughter gives me company, at present. I can do my exercises and be energised for the whole day. Living in the West coast, I can utilize this opportunity to work with my colleagues on the East coast or even the 'better' coast. By the time others are awake and getting ready to go to work, I have already accomplished a lot.

I will report more in the next week and jot down my experience in getting up early.

Singapore tourism

2006-11-29T03:01:00.000-08:00

OK, I have not been able to blog as much as I promised due to a variety of reasons. So, here I go with my first post from Bangalore.

We flew to India on Singapore Airlines, and had a stopover of over 8 hours in Singapore. Since I had never been to Singapore, I took the free Singapore tour offered by the Singapore tourism. It was a good 1.5 hr long tour which takes you around the city (downtown, Chinatown, little India, etc.). What a great way to promote tourism. I was amazed by what they do for transit passengers passing through Singapore.

One thing I would have done to make it an even better tour was to add variety to let people taste Singapore with all their senses. I feel that they should offer a variety of packages (based on the transit time) so tourists can choose from these and enjoy Singapore to the fullest. For people with 5 hrs or more of transit time, they should offer a longer version of the tour which could include a boat ride in the river or the harbour area. For people with even more time, they could offer a tour that allows the passengers to get down at one of the shopping complexes, and shop as well as taste the local food offerings. They could also provide a tour with stops at the beach.

The variety is endless. The opportunities to promote tourism are limitless. Of course, there will be some challenges in implementing all these, but none are insurmountable.

The benefits to Singapore are enormous.

India, here I come...

2006-11-21T00:12:00.000-08:00

I will be visiting India in the month of December, and will mostly be in South India. I plan on blogging my experiences in India. The current plan is to blog daily, and capture all aspects of life in India in both words as well as pictures.

So, visit this page often for updates from India.

welches zweite Sprache?

2006-11-20T23:36:00.000-08:00

I grew up in a place where I was exposed to a [central] official language (Hindi), a regional language (Kannada) and an [regional] official language (English, in case of Karnataka). So, it made sense to learn a second language in school. English was useful since it was the main official language, and Kannada was useful since it was the spoken language as well as official in some places.

Now that I am in an English speaking country, I started wondering why our children should learn a second language. There is no specific business need to learn another language, as long as you are in the US.

The only reason I could think of was that it would help broaden one's mind. Learning another language allows you to read literature in that language which in turn exposes you to a different culture and thought processes. You get to have a deeper understanding of your own as well as other cultures. I recently read that research has shown that studying another language actually improves your math and verbal abilities. Maybe, this is attributed to the additional neurons and connections made..

Of course, knowing another foreign language will expand your growth and job opportunities. With today's global economy, it makes a lot of sense to be multi-lingual.

Second language is just relative. What is a first language? Is it your mother tongue? Is it your dominant language? I used to think that my first language, as a kid, was Kannada. But, ever since I started schooling in English, and once I started thinking (and dreaming) in English, my first language became English. The dominant language shifted from Kannada to English. So, Kannada is my second language now.

So, which second language should one learn?

According to this site, the most practical second language is French. Hmm, makes a good case.

What do you think would be a good second language for kids growing up in the US to learn?

"It's not about the Technology ...

2006-11-16T21:35:00.000-08:00

but the problem it solves" says Don Dodge. Well said.

The first time I saw Riya.com, I was impressed by its technology and the potential (for a Google acquisition). The only business case I could see was Google acquiring them to index their image database. Imagine you searching for images of Aishwarya Rai and if the image I have here was named IMG_841.jpg, a search engine would not have picked it up. Since it is named AishwaryaRai_Sketch.jpg, it will get picked up. An image should either be named or tagged appropriately in order for search engines to pick it up. What Riya promises is that even if my file was named IMG_841.jpg, it will also be tagged as a picture of Aishwarya Rai as it does visual pattern matching of the image and not just the file name. Wow. That is pretty cool stuff. Iff, it works all the time.

The problem Riya is facing is an interesting one. You have a solution to an unknown problem. You need to define a problem that is compelling for the audience to invest in you. It has to be timed right, and priced right.

What a sweet problem to have. They have the technological solution, and are searching for an appropriate problem to solve.

Blogs, blogs, blogs...

2006-11-14T22:39:00.000-08:00

Why do I blog?
Why do I read blogs?

These are some of the questions I had to answer when I was trying to introduce a friend of mine to blogs (believe me, there are still a few who are yet to be exposed to blogging). I had to think a bit before answering these questions.

Why do I blog?

First of all, let's define a "blog". Blog stands for 'weB LOG'. An online dairy of sorts. As per Webster, it is "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer". Wikipedia says "a blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order".

Blogs have come a long way from the initial online personal diary. I got introduced to the 'online diary' concept by Philip Greenspun of photo.net and Joel Spolsky of JoelOnSoftware. Philip is a great photographer and my interest in photography drew me in. His Travels with Samantha series captivated me as well as his other entries on technology. Joel wrote about the business of software, and related technology topics. Of course, there are many more who had online public journals even before 'blogging' was officially recognized. I was fascinated by their thought process as well as writing style. I always wanted to, one day, have my own blog and publish it.

With the advent of technology and tools/services that made blogging so easy, I got my chance to publish my own content.

I started blogging for the primary reason of sharing my thoughts with like-minded people. It also served as a daily/weekly/monthly assignment which helped improve my writing ability. It has now morphed into a showcase for some of my art. It has helped me connect with like-minded people from all over the world.

Blogs come in all shapes and sizes. There are blogs that share ideas, thoughts, commentaries, opinions, etc. Blogs that give a face to a (faceless) company. Blogs that just plain try to get hits (see Blog Pimping) in order to make money. Blogs that report the latest news, be it politics, happenings, technology or gadgets. Due partly to citizen journalism, blogs are becoming a source of news (and rumors?).

People blog for a variety of reasons, some of which are:
- Just because you can do it (there is nobody editing your content before publishing)
- To spread useful (or useless) information
- To share ideas
- To teach
- To make money
- To connect with like-minded people
- To get exposure (I blog, therefore I am)
- To expose one's mind (via sharing thoughts and commentary)

Why do I read blogs?

The answer to the previous question partly answered this question too. I read blogs to get information, learn new things, to connect with people, to get into another person's head. Blogs have been a great source of information as long as you know what to read. Where would a school kid sitting in a remote corner of Srirangapatna get a chance to get into the head of a CEO on an almost daily basis? Thanks to blogging, this has become a reality.

There are millions of blogs and there are only a handful that have any useful content. In today's world of Ads where every pageview counts, there is tremendous competition to get new content into blogs and keep it interesting. It is a lot easier to start a blog than to maintain one.

Once you start following a few blogs, you will discover that there are a lot more that are interesting, and that some of them are very active. How do you know if a blog content has changed? Do you visit them daily to check for changes? That is almost impossible. Here comes RSS and the feed readers. Feed readers help you subscribe to blogs and get notified whenever the content of a particular blog changes.

The fact that you are reading this blog means that you are familiar with blogging. Go ahead, and explore the wonderful world of blogs.

Work-life balance

2006-11-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine mentioned that his company offers great work-life balance, and hence is a great place to work. This got me thinking as to how a company can 'offer' great work-life balance.

The first question that came to my mind was: what is work-life balance?

It is the ability of an individual to decide when, where and how they work. Work-life balance is achieved when an individual's right to life inside as well as outside of the workplace is accepted, and respected.

The ideal work-life balance varies from individual to individual. It also varies from time to time. It is upon every individual to define and achieve the balance. For some individuals (whom we lovingly label 'workoholics'), spending lots of time at work is what they want to do. For others, this may not be the case. Organizations need to understand this first in order to institute an acceptable program to achieve work-life balance.

Good work-life balance leads to (among other things):
- Reduction in absenteeism
- Improvement in morale (leading to satisfied employees)
- Reduced stress among employees (flex time to take care of sick kids)
- Increase in productivity (happy employees are productive employees)
- Decrease in turnover (happy employees want to stay!)
- Reduced sickness (flex time to stay home and not spread the germs at work)

Optimal work-life balance is a variable. This needs to be well understood. A young person out of school may love to spend lots of time at work. But, once that person gets married or has children, the balance shifts (either way). And, other changes in one's personal life could again shift the balance. Organizations need to understand this and respect it. They should not be biased towards employees whose work-life balance tilts more towards the work zone. There is this notion that workoholics are favored in organizations. Of course, they will be more productive. But, that doesn't mean that an organization should encourage it. They are also more prone to burnout.

Most organizations have this policy of use or lose vacation every year. Lots of people lose their vacation (at least part of it) because they don't want to (or can't, due to various reasons) take it. This leads to frequent burnout, leading to productivity loss and decrease in employee morale. Some organizations force people to 'use' their yearly vacation by offering incentives (Leave Travel Allowance: I pay you $x if you take your vacation and produce travel receipts). This will force most employees to use their vacation and recharge.

Work-life balance is a way for organizations to recognize that everyone works in different ways. Orgs should recognize that working 'long' hours is not the only way to be productive. Everyone has their own ways of being productive. Take the example of telecommuting. Not everyone will be productive working from home (distractions, kids, etc.). So, orgs should leave the choice to the individual. Provide employees options and let them choose what suits their style most. Empowering the individual thus will improve the employee morale and make them more productive and loyal to the organization.

This is one of the ways organizations can make employees to fall in love with them!

Nocturnal fixin'

2006-11-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

All of us have scheduled an auto repair or service and had to drop the car off at a designated place, in the morning, and pick it up in the evening after the work is done? You have to figure out how you are going to manage without a car for the day. Lots of repair shops are not open on weekends, or in the evening. This adds to the problem. How many times have we skipped/postponed a service/repair just because we didn't want to go through this pain? And, even if we get the service performed, and then find out that something was not fixed right, we have to go through the whole ritual all over again. What a pain. Especially in most of the US cities where public transportation isn't up to snuf.

Now, imagine this. You drive your car around all day. Send it to a special place at night where people work on it all night long, and you wake up to a squeaky clean serviced automobile. No, I am not saying that we will ship (or better yet, beam) it to Bangalore and offshore the auto service industry too.

This is a new business model that I am suggesting. Imagine an auto shop that works all night (and, maybe all day, in shifts). The reasoning behind this is that autos are a necessity in most cities in tea US. Why take away a necessity when it is needed most. Instead, take it away (for service, cleaning, etc.) when it is needed least. Which is, when the user is sleeping or at home.

You drop off your car in the evening on the way home. The shop checks your vehicle and calls you about the service/questions/estimates before 8 or 9 PM. Once all the answers are obtained, the mechanics go to work at night and get the job done. You arrive early in the morning and pick up your car for use throughout the day! The shop, if smart, will throw in bagels/doughnuts and coffee in the morning. That wasn't so bad, was it?

So, how come we don't see places like these. There are several logistic as well as operational details missing in my example above, but I don't see any glaring problems that aren't solvable.

I, for one, would love this kind of convenience.

"I don't like it"

2006-11-01T22:39:00.000-08:00

said my toddler daughter when I offered her a new (for her) vegetable to eat. I wondered how she could make a decision that she doesn't like it? Especially since she had never tasted this vegetable before.

We are all guilty of doing this. Be it a new vegetable, a new dish, a new religion, a new belief system, a new sport, or a new 'thing'. Is it a pre-conceived notion? Is it our gut instinct? To make such a hard choice at such a young age is very surprising. It is understandable for adults to have pre-conceived ideas, but for a kid with limited experience..

I remember a friend of mine stating that he doesn't like skiing. I asked what it was that he doesn't like specifically. He could not answer that. In fact, he had never been skiing and he had already made up his mind that he isn't going to like it! Wow. Only if we could make up our minds on positive things that easily ("I am going to try this AND I am going to love it").

The moment we utter the words "I don't like it", especially without experiencing it, we close our minds. We close our minds to new experiences, new joys, new possibilities and new frontiers. We should always be open to anything that comes our way. I agree that you have all the right to not like something once you have experienced it. How will you know that you are a gifted piano player if you never expose yourself to the piano? My philosophy has always been that you expose a person at an young age to a variety of experiences. See how that person reacts to each and make training decisions based on that.

Let's open up our minds to everything that comes our way, experience them, and then make a decision as to whether we like them or not.

Beauty is only skin deep - part II

2006-10-31T15:28:00.000-08:00

Earlier I talked about how the media was defining what is beautiful. Media in every country tries to define what is beautiful, and also tries to 'create' people who match its fantasy. It is a well known fact that photoshop is a very oft used tool in the media circles. Look here for a recent example which became public.

We need our younger generations to be confident and self assured. And the media is not helping us here. Nothing is flawless. In fact, the flaws and imperfections are what add color and variety to the nature. We should realize that it is the whole personality and not just the looks that matter. We should strive to build self esteem and a positive image in our children.

I am happy to see that at least somebody is making an effort in this regard. Check out Campaign for Real beauty, and while you are there check out the cool short film 'evolution'. It paints a good picture of how 'beautiful' images are created.

If you ask me, the model looks much more beautiful before the neck elongation and eye enlargement. Well, that is my opinion.

Until later, appreciate natural beauty.

PS: All art (photos, sketches, etc.) on this blog are my creations.

Smart car?

2006-10-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

I am talking about "the smart car". The one Mercedes Benz is planning on introducing in the US. A few years ago I saw this car in France and I was impressed by its cuteness and compact design. I have seen people use it on city streets. Parking it is a breeze. In fact, you can park two in a single car garage. It is like a motorbike, but you get protection from the weather as well as the road hazards. It is a great solution for city driving, especially in congested places. This would be a great solution to the crowded streets of India.

Today, I saw a smart car on I-90 while driving home. I was almost shocked that someone had the nerve to take it on a freeway. I know they talk about the 'tridion safety cell' and all that, but seeing a smart car on a freeway along with an 18-wheeler is scary. In accidents, people get crushed to pulp in much bigger cars. One of the selling points of vans and SUVs is their safety factor. Imagine driving along on a freeway in this puny car, and when the time to merge comes, you floor the gas pedal, and nothing happens!

It is a great car for city driving. Its gas mileage, its compactness and ease of maneurability should be a boon for congested cities. But, the other issue is with capacity. In places like Bangalore (where I see this car as being a perfect fit), it isn't uncommon to see a family (couple and two kids) riding in a scooter or motorcycle. So, a two seater car would be a hard sell. Unless, they modify it for Asian markets to accommodate at least one more (small) person.

Ideas, anyone?

2006-10-19T22:26:00.000-07:00

I was at a TIE event this evening about the art of recruiting a star team for your startup. It had great panelists and the discussion was lively, but sadly short. I was interested in finding out how to spot and recruit stars in the early stages. Where do you go looking for them? How do you evaluate them? What kind of equity do you share? And so on and so forth. But, the audience was fixated on IP protection and NDAs more than anything else.

This brings me to the "idea" in a business. There are lots of people with lots of great ideas. We see an extremely small percentage of them turning into products and making it big. It is not the idea that matters, it is the execution. Investors (VCs, angels, etc.) do not invest in an idea. They invest in the team (Of course, the team is the one that came up with the idea). If the current idea tanks, the team should be capable of churning out another idea in no time, and take it to market.

If you have an idea for a product, you can rest assured that there are at least a dozen others with the same idea. Several of them are trying to productize it right this moment. There are lots of brilliant people in this world, including you. The fact that you have competition is proof that your idea is a good one. The one that wins is the idea that is executed well and timed to the market appropriately.

Top executives always give seminars and talks on their strategies for success. They give away their secrets in these seminars as well as in books they write. Why do they give away their trade secrets? It is not just their modus operandi that took them where they are, it is their execution.

So, do not be afraid of someone stealing your idea. Of course, you need to share it with people you trust. And you should do everything reasonable to protect it. But, keeping the idea to oneself and not doing anything about it is worse than sharing it and having someone else execute it. At least, you will have a great story for your grand kids.

Spinning Apple

2006-10-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

Isn't this good timing or what? Microsoft is getting ready to release Zune, and Apple posts this notice on their web site that a very small number of iPods were released with a virus in them. Apart from the spin Apple put on this story and blamed Microsoft for the failure (which I don't agree), this seems like a well timed (marketing) message than anything else:
- Apple hardware and software are (generally) free from viruses (for a variety of reasons).
- Microsoft software and hardware is susceptible to viruses. So, Zune buyers beware. Zune is Microsoft hardware and runs Microsoft software, and has wireless connectivity. So, it is susceptible to viruses!

Or, is it my imagination running wild?

Passport photography

2006-10-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

I have always created my own passport photographs. Who wants to pay anywhere from $8 to $20 for a pair of passport photos, when they can be had for as little as $0.20. I used to figure out the ratio of the size in the image finder in my camera to the printed image. And determined, using a template, where the head should be so that I get the correct sized picture for a passport photograph. This was cumbersome, and involved a fair amount of trial and error. And, to top it all, I had to wait until I shot the whole roll of film to get my passport photos. But, once I got a good negative, it was good for a year.

Recently I had the need for a passport photo and I tried using my tried and trusted formula with my digital camera. It worked fairly well, and then I found this site which details how one can create an accurate passport photograph from a digital image. This was awesome. I had not thought of resizing the image at all, duh. This works great, but I would make a minor modification to the steps in order to get awesome photos that meet the standards:

After the step where you do a fixed size marquee, instead of just copying the image, crop it.
Choose the lasso selection tool and click on the background.
Select as much of the background as accurately as possible using the +- selection.
Use a Feather value of 5 - 15 depending on how the picture is.
Now, adjust the Levels such that the background fades to white.
Continue to the step of creating a 4x6 template in the original tutorial.

This will yield a professional looking passport photo. Print the digital image on your own photo printer or at any convenient store photo printer for as little as $0.20 for a pair! It always pays to learn new tricks in Photoshop.

Of course, this assumes that you have Adobe Photoshop, and good scissors wielding skills.

Power of questions ...

2006-08-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

I was watching the movie "16 blocks" last weekend and Mos Def asks Bruce Willis a riddle, which goes something like this:
"Imagine you are driving through a severe hurricane and at a bus stop you see three people: an old lady in need of immediate medical care, your best friend and the love of your life. You only have room in your car for one person. Who do you pick up?"

Everyone will start rationalizing at this moment. Should I save the life of an old woman, or my best friend or the love of my life? Who do I pick, and what will it say about me? What will happen to the rest? Whose life is more important? More important to whom? And so on and so forth.

This is where the power of questioning comes. Realize that a question can either open doors or close them depending on how it is posed. The way a question is posed can subconsciously inject unstated and unnecessary conditions into the picture (Riddles are deliberately coined with the wrong question to lead you astray).

Questions can be empowering "How do you feel about what has happened so far?" or dis-empowering "Why did you not meet the schedule?".

Questions can be open-ended "What do you think about this idea?" or closed ended "Do you agree with this decision?".

Questions can be confrontational "why did you do that?".

Questions can be accusatory "Do you know that this whole company is going down because of what you did?".

Questions can be thought-provoking "what could we have done to avoid this?".

In the 16 blocks situation, the question can easily box you into a corner. "Whom would you pick?" seems to indicate that you have only one choice: to pick one of them. Most people put this subconscious condition that the choice is restricted to just picking one of the three people.

Let us now look at a different approach in framing the same question, and the doors it opens: "What would you do in this situation?".

Hah. What could I do in this situation? I could pick one of the three people and drive off. I could give the car to two of them and they can drive off leaving me behind. This never seemed possible with the pre-conceived notions we had earlier. I could drive off as fast as possible and get more help. The possibilities are limited only by ones imagination.

We get the results we want by asking the right questions in the right way. The right way to find solutions is to know how to ask.

In the end, Bruce Willis answers "I will give the car to my best friend and tell him to take the old woman to a hospital. I will stay with the love of my life".

To go digi or not

2006-07-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was on Mt. Rainier (not at the summit, I wish that was the case though) and I was dearly missing my trusted Elan film camera. The mountain visibility was 100%. There was not a cloud in sight. This was the first time I had seen Rainier unobstructed. It was spectacular. There was lots of snow all over the trails, and the scene, whichever direction you looked, was incredible. Even though I was shooting lots of pics with my brand new digital Rebel XT, I missed my film camera.

I started wondering why I missed my good old slide film...

Projecting a crisp slide onto a screen has its own appeal. The sharpness, color saturation (I love to shoot sceneries with Velvia), and the immense nature of the projection that brings the subject to life. Of course, you can do the same with a digital image using an advanced digital projector. Still, I am partial to slides. For some reason slides feel immortal to me. I do know that they have limited longevity, especially if you project them often. But shooting them all these years, I have developed a great relationship with them.

Now that I have the digital SLR, and for some reason, I didn't feel like carrying two bodies (I already had three lenses in the bag) on this trip. And, I missed the opportunity of shooting slides of Rainier in its full glory.

That is when I started thinking about what I was doing all these years. Some fundamental questions popped in my mind.
- Why do I shoot all these pics?
- Why do I shoot slides (purpose)?
- Why do I shoot digital?
- What do I do with the pics I shoot? How do I use them?
- How do I store them?
- How should I store them?

Answering these questions would lead me to what I want to do, short as well as long term.

Why do I shoot?
I love creating things, art specifically. Photography is art, and I love creating it. I love capturing moods so I can re-experience it at my whim. I shot a tonne of pics when we visited Europe, and looking at the pictures, I can see all the intricate details in the art and architecture that I missed, live.

Why do I shoot slides?
Ever since I laid my hands on the first roll of chrome film, I haven't shot much print film. There is something magical about slides. Be it their crispness, ability to capture what you intended (WYShootIWYG), challenges due to its narrow range, its presentation or its coolness factor ("I shoot Chrome"), it has captivated me all these years.

Why do I shoot digital?
With the advent of digital photography with the ability to instantly see the results, it was insane not to jump onto the train. It offers great opportunities for proofing and improvisation on the spot. Ease of transmitting the images to others make this a great media.

What do I do with them?
Hmm, good question. It is a way of capturing memories and moods. I capture them and freeze the moment in time so I can relive it at a later time. I share them with friends/family in a variety of ways (slide shows, internet, etc.). Use them for artwork (by themselves, or as input).

How do I store them?
I store photos in albums as well as shoe boxes. Negatives go into archival quality storage sleeves. Slides go into archival slide storage sleeves. Digital pics are stored in CD-RW media.

Now that I have answered the questions, I need to make a decision on how much each of the media is going to be used, and when. I also need to decide on post-processing, storage and archival process.

Negatives and slides will last a lifetime if stored appropriately in archival storage sleeves in the right atmosphere. Until now, I have not seen any degradation in any of the images. So, I am satisfied with this storage mechanism.

As for digital pics, I am currently storing them on a hard disk as well as CD-RW media. Looking at the vulnerability of both hard disks and RW disks, I need to cook up another robust strategy. Hard drives can crash wiping out all the data. CDs can be easily scratched or destroyed by high temperatures. So, here is what I am planning on doing:
Burn pics into DVD-RWs and label them with the following-
- Name
- Description
- Creation date
- ReBurn date (creation date + 3 years)
- Master/Copy
I will burn my pics into two DVDs, master and copy. The master stays in a safe place. The copy is used for all other post-processing. Upon the arrival of reBurn date, the data in the master will be transferred (after thorough verification) into the media of choice on that date. If needed, the data is also converted into an appropriate format on the reBurn date. The same process is repeated after 3 years. I came up with 3 years assuming in that time, we would have seen a rebirth of storage technology.

I will tweak this process as and when necessary. Let us see how this is going to work.

Boy, am I getting old ...

2006-06-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

I had thought that I will never say these words. My philosophy is always that if you are young at heart, you are always young. Of course, you need to be healthy too. Nobody says you are young when you need two people's help to get in and out of a car.

Here is the last straw: Check if you can hear this. If you cannot, join the club. You are getting old. This is a high pitched sound that most adults over 30 years of age cannot hear. Kids can, though. Isn't that cool? I mean, the discovery, and not the fact that we cannot hear it. It has always been known that gradual hearing loss (to high frequency sounds) occurs in adults. Someone was clever enough to find uses for it. This is widely used in malls to disperse annoying teenagers gathering around stores, and scaring adults (with buying power) away. They play this (supposedly) annoying sound over the speakers, and drive the kids away.

Now, some kids looked at this and said "Hey, why don't we use it in cell phones as ringtones, and our parents/teachers will not know that we are receiving text msgs or calls". Presto, we have Mosquitotone ring tones. Smart kids.

Smart selling (or lack thereof)

2006-05-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

One of my friends drives an Acura and was complaining about the crappy loaner he was given when he had his car serviced at the dealership. I know of several dealerships which do this. You own an expensive luxury vehicle, and you end up driving a sub-compact ordinary loaner for a day.

I fail the understand the stupidity of the dealerships in passing off such a great opportunity to sell/market new cars.

Imagine this:
- Dealership calls you to set up an appointment once they determine that your car is due.
- You take the car in, and are given a loaner which is an upgrade (1-2 levels above) of the car you dropped off.
- You drive the fully loaded upgrade loaner for a day.
- When you come back to pick up your car, you mention how good this loaner was.
- The attendant acknowledges, and casually mentions that his manager took the liberty of doing some calculations, and determined what it would take for you to upgrade to that class of car. And, hands you a "sealed" envelope with the information. AND stops talking. It is completely up to you to open the envelope and peek inside, or chuck it into the garbage.
- You (like most people), salivating over the upgrade, open the envelope.
- If you were one of the people who were sitting on the fence wrt this issue, you fall for it, and will be driving an upgraded vehicle next week!

This is one scenario. You can come up with various other approaches to accomplish the same. There is no compromise of information here. Note that the dealer intimately knows your current car, its condition, and, obviously, its current market value. And, he happens to sell/trade new cars. He is the best person to do the math and give you the above mentioned information. Of course, all this should be done in a very subtle and non-intrusive manner. I wonder when the dealerships will pick this up.

Maybe, that will make me go the dealer for my next service....

Finally ...

2006-05-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

the boat was launched today! The weather gods smiled upon Seattle and all the stars aligned today, and we launched the boat in the Beaver lake behind our house.

We loaded the boat atop (the roof rack on) the car. Tied it up securely and drove to the lake. The boat weighs in at around 70-80 lbs, so it is a pretty light boat. But, due to its size and shape, it is a little bit unwieldy while un/loading on a car. While unloading, it slipped our hands and we dropped the stern from about 3 Ft. Visual inspection revealed no damages. Fiberglass seemed to do its job well. No cracks and such. Stress test (unintended) successful. Launched it into the lake, and I took it for a short spin. Things seemed to hold well. So, both my wife and daughter boarded. Spent a couple of hours on the lake and the trip back home was a breeze. We have now mastered the art of loading the boat onto the car. We will know, during our next trip.

As you may notice in the picture, the oarlocks are still not on the boat. The reason is that there is no set formula for calculating its location. We have to figure it out by trial and error. There are thumbrules to get you started. So, I used c-clamps to place the oarlocks in different positions to figure out which works best. Finally found a sweet spot and marked it. I will now attach the oarlocks and we should be set.

With the launch behind us, we need to get the boat registered, and we are good to go.

Dr. Rajkumar lives!

2006-05-08T23:15:00.000-07:00

Nata-saarvabhouma (the Emperor of Acting) Dr. Rajkumar, the distinguished Kannada actor passed away on 12 Apr 2006. He was the most popular actor in Kannada cinema. He acted in more than 200 films, was a well known singer, received numerous awards including the Padma Bhushan award as well as the Dadasaheb Phalke award. His death sparked riots in Karnataka's capital, Bangalore. People were sad that he passed away.

The day we heard the news, my wife said that she felt sad. I am trying to understand why she felt sad. Was it because we lost a Kannada icon? Was it because Dr. Rajkumar is no longer with us?

I, for one, was not sad (I was not happy either). Let me explain before you start flaming me:

I did not know Dr. Rajkumar personally. For me, Dr. Rajkumar is represented by his legacy. So, as far as I am concerned, Dr. Rajkumar still lives. I agree that if I were meeting him everyday and eating breakfast with him, I would miss him terribly today since he cannot be with me. But, that is not the case. I was not personally connected with the private individual Dr. Rajkumar. I was personally connected with the legend Dr. Rajkumar through his work and passion. Since his legacy is still with us, Dr. Rajkumar is still with me.

Everyday, statistically, 1.78 people die every second. What really makes me sad is that so many people are dying every day and only a small fraction of those are leaving behind a legacy. We should be sad for those who could not make a difference, who could not leave a legacy for the next generations. From what I understand, Dr. Rajkumar lived a happy and fulfilling life. He loved what he did, and did what he loved. He left us a great legacy in many dimensions. He fulfilled his purpose during his lifetime. We should be happy to have been born in the age of Dr. Rajkumar. We should cherish what he left us, and make sure that our younger generations get a glimpse of his greatness.

Let's sing "Aagadu yendu, kai katti kulitare aagadu kelasavu yendu" from one of Dr. Rajkumar's hit "Bangarada Manushya" and step out of our comfort zones and make a difference.

Happy cows and sad cows ...

2006-05-02T23:22:00.000-07:00

We have been giving our daughter organic milk for most of her life. Recently, we switched to a local dairy which offers home delivery. I noticed that the cartons contain a statement that it does not contain the artificial growth harmone rBST. It doesn't specifically say that it is "Organic". The organic dairy products sold in stores do contain the USDA stamp of approval that it is organic.

Hmm, does this mean that the milk we are drinking now contains rBGH or some other kind of harmone? What does the label 'organic' really mean? Do I care? Should I care? This sparked my interest and I started researching into this subject.

When I was a kid growing up in India, milk was delivered to every home by a village woman who used to milk her cows that morning. These cows were the ones which used to graze in our lawns. Their main job was to laze around grazing on lawns and gardens, and give milk, and occasionally deliver calves. In general, these were happy cows. Nobody used to harass them since cows are sacred, and they were free to roam the streets.

The only way to increase production (and make more money) was to water down the milk before delivering. Once this was discovered, the angry consumers demanded that the cows be milked in front of the individual customer's house. This made sure that there was no foul play and everyone was happy.

Those cows were fed natural greens and were healthy cows. They were never given any harmones, or subject to cruelty. Known as Kamadhenu, cows are worshipped by Hindus. So, this is what I think of, when I hear the word "organic".

Organic food products are those that are not subject to synthetic chemical inputs. In case of dairy products, it means that the cows are not given any synthetic chemicals, and the cows are not fed anything that is subject to synthetic chemicals. That is one mouthful. Using this definition, and my example above, organic could mean small farms, cows roaming never-ending green pastures, and cowherds singing and dancing around trees. Oops, that is in Bollywood movies.

But the reality is the cows end up spending most of their life in production lines, grazing out of troughs, and getting shots of all kinds of chemicals. Even in cases where they don't get exposed to synthetic chemicals, most live in inhumane conditions. I wonder how many products coming out of these factories are certified organic/natural. Reading about all these makes me want to go vegan.

Cows should have access to open air and natural pastures that are not subject to harmful pesticides. They should not be given any artificial harmones to increase their milk production. These cows are happy cows, and produce healthy milk, which in turn is good for human consumption.

Lane merging

2006-04-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a question: If you know that the road you are on is going to turn from a 2 lane road to a 1 lane road (with merge signs), when would you start merging into the remaining lane?
OK, a few constraints:
- This is not a freeway
- There is no construction in progress
- The speed limit is under 40mph
- There is a traffic signal 20 car lengths before the merge

There are two possible answers here:
1. Merge as soon as possible (and ensure a spot for yourself, sorta)
2. Utilize all lanes until a merge becomes necessary

Depending on where you are, people pick one of the above. In LA, people choose #2. In Seattle, people choose #1. I choose #2 whenever possible, which pisses people off. That got me thinking as to why people go one way or the other. Is this just a group mentality? Is there some rocket science behind merging which I was not taught as a child (understandable since Mysore had very few roads with multiple lanes)?

Let's analyze both the scenarios and try to make sense out of it.
#1.
Good: The good thing about this is that people act as if there is only one lane and just fall behind one another. This reduces lane merging.

Bad: The bad thing about this is that I don't like leaving lanes empty. In this specific case (see constraints above), since speeds are low, merging is relatively easy and painless. So, why not use both lanes? The other problem is that people get stuck behind the traffic signal when it turns red. In this case, only 20 odd cars will be able to get ahead of the signal before it rotates (2+ min). If both lanes were used, there would have been 40 odd cars ahead of the signal. Hmm.. Also induces slinky (compression/expansion) effect due to merging at various points.

#2.
Good: Usage of both the lanes. 40 odd cars ahead of the traffic signal. No slinky effect due to one merge point. Everybody takes turns at the squeeze point, and traffic merges automatically.

Bad: Lot more merging at the squeeze point. But, since speeds are low, and motorists know that they need to merge, it can be relatively easy to merge.

I think that merging at the squeeze point is more efficient in this particular case resulting in more throughput. There will be a lot of disgruntled motorists on Issaquah-Pinelake road.

Downtown

2006-04-19T21:49:00.000-07:00

What makes a downtown great, lively and attractive to locals as well as visitors? There are few cities in the US which can boast a lively and active downtown. While others are trying to revitalize their downtowns in vain. Cincinnati downtown is one such example. I used to wonder what was wrong with that downtown. They offered free parking, but still no one wanted to go there!

I am not talking about living in downtown here. Living in downtown is efficient, practical and desirable since most people work in downtowns. I am talking about the after-work hours. I am talking about weekends. How are some downtowns successful at attracting people while others are not?

We visited several cities in Southern California recently, and happened to experience several great downtowns. The 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, Gaslamp district in San Diego, Old Town in San Diego (pictured above) to name a few. They are bustling with activity on weeknights as well as weekends. BTW, don't miss the Angelaterie (sp?) when you visit 3rd Street Promenade. They offer over 100 varieties of gelati.

Here are some of my observations on what makes a great downtown:
- Plenty of affordable parking
- Sidewalks, streetlights and landscaping - Well lit and beautiful
- Open spaces for kids to play - Small parks, fountains, lawns, etc.
- Accessibility - Close by freeways
- Safety
- World class shopping
- World class restaurants
- Movie multiplexes
- Family friendly events
- Promotions - Promote a positive image, and market the downtown

Most of the above mentioned points can be clubbed under the wide umbrella of Design. A good design is functional, easy to use and pleasing to the eye, and hence attractive.

Thousand marbles

2006-03-29T12:52:00.000-08:00

Life is of a finite nature. But, still we live as if it is infinite. We take so many things for granted. We put so many things off to "tomorrow". If only there was a way to drive home the point that life is finite, we think.

Last night my wife was watching a contest on Food Network in which chefs were racing against the clock to prepare elaborate desserts. They had a huge digital clock showing the time remaining, and everyone knew what they had to do, and were concentrating on achieving it. If only, life was like that, it would set our priorities right.

I recently stumbled upon this death clock. The idea is to show the finite nature of our lives, but fails miserably in driving the point home. The main reason being that human beings have a hard time comprehending huge numbers. A classic example is that of smokers. A smoker is told that if he continues to smoke, his life expectancy will be reduced by 2 years (say). His first response: so, what? If you tell the same person that drinking rat poison will kill him in 30 mins (say), he will immediately swear to keep away from rat poison. See the difference: A few years lopped off somewhere in the unfathomable future is not of great concern, but something in the foreseeable future (like today) is taken quite seriously.

In contrast (to the death clock), consider this story (author unknown), and see how it drives home the point:

Thousand Marbles

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable. A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement shack with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it.

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know, the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles".

I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. "Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital."

He continued, "Let me tell you something, Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of "a thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years."

"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important part."

"It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail," he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy."

"So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1,000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away."

"I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again."

You could have heard a pin drop on the radio when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss.

"C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast."

"What brought this on?" she asked with a smile.

"Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."

Make today count for every one you waste can never be lived again.

Boat update

2006-03-28T23:10:00.000-08:00

It has been quite sometime since I updated on the boat project. The simple reason being that the project had not progressed much, thanks to the rainy winter weather in Seattle. I finally completed glassing of the entire boat. It is fine to just glass all the seams (strength), and the bottom (wear) of the boat. Since I had ordered tonnes of fiberglass cloth, I thought I will glass the entire boat including the insides. This gives the boat tremendous strength and durability while adding only a few ounces to the weight.

I had to remove the amine blush that had formed on some of the surfaces that I had fiberglassed. Then, I had to sand the cured surface so as to form a uniform as well as rough surface. If I were applying another coat of epoxy on an uncured surface, it would lead to a chemical bond (preferable). Since the first coat had completely cured, I had to sand it in order to form a rough surface for the second coat to cling onto. This forms a mechanical bond, which is not as strong as the chemical bond. Chemical bond occurs at molecular level. Enough theory now. The boat surface looks shiny and beautiful (see pic). Unfortunately, I have to paint it since epoxy degrades with exposure to sunlight. I will be completing the second coat on the outside and then painting the boat. Still thinking of a color scheme... The inside surfaces will be white or off-white. I don't want the surfaces to get hot in the sun.

BTW, we did watch The Sixth Sense last weekend. Of course, since this was the third time, it didn't grip us as much, but the ending did hit us well. I was observing the technical merit of the movie, and I have to say, it is a well made movie.

I see dead people ...

2006-03-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

Last night I happened to watch Medium after a long time. I could see the plot through, and it was comical to see the blunders in this episode. This is the episode in which Allison's brother comes over and they both discover that he sees dead people too. They both interact with a dead person throughout the entire episode.

Let's look at some of the great blunders in this half-assed production. First of all, Allison's brother gets the dead girl a beer, and she sits at the table and drinks it. Then comes the scene where the dead girl pulls the brother over herself and kisses him, in order to hide from the bad guys. This second scene is cool. Imagine, that you are one of the unfortunate who cannot see dead people, and you are in this scene. All you see is a well built dude hunched over a sofa, his upper body hanging in mid air. All this is happening in public places with lots of people around. C'mon guys, this is Hollywood. Even for a TV series quality matters.

If you haven't seen the movie "The Sixth Sense", read no further and go watch the movie.

Spoiler ahead:
Go take a look at The Sixth Sense, and tell me when Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) comes in contact with any other human being in the whole movie. That is one good movie. I need to watch that movie again...

New wine in an old bottle

2006-03-13T09:42:00.000-08:00

It feels like that is what I am trying to be these days. I always believed that age was no bar when it comes to learning new things. We have all seen or heard of someone who ran his first marathon at age 80+ (got into running at 70+), became a violin virtuoso at a ripe old age, mastered Doom3 at age 90, etc. These are inspiring tales, but achieving that distinction is not easy.

I recently started taking guitar lessons. I went into it confidently since I have a decent ear for music, and always loved the guitar. One of my goals is to be able to play the solo in Hotel California and Comfortably Numb (and a few others). Things started off smoothly until I hit barre chords. Man, they are a pain in the neck. The beauty of the barre chords is that by learning a few chord shapes (just four, for all the major and minor chords), you can play any chord. That is powerful stuff. The chord voicing may not be the same as in your favorite song, but you can play the chord. The difficulty in playing this chord pattern is that you need to create a barre with your index finger of the left hand. This barre should cover all the six strings, while the other fingers are shaping the chord! This is when I thought I will end up with tendonitis.

It is easy to make up ones mind to master something new, at a later age. It is much more difficult for the body to react with the same zeal. Take gymnastics for instance, it is much easier for a 4 year old to learn new tricks since her body is flexible and nimble, than for a 30 year old. Likewise, there are many activities that need physical ability along with mental ability to accomplish them.

I am not complaining that I will never be a rock star. I am just saying that it is going to take me longer than I initially thought ;-)