Daily Blogs!

This one made my day (from the InterWebs!):

It is said that once Russi Mody was on an official trip to (the then) Bombay. Even though it was a Sunday morning, Russi had to visit Bombay House, the Corporate Head Quarters of the Tata Group.

Russi was driving a Mercedes himself as it was a Sunday and there was very little traffic and also it was the chauffeur’s day off. Russi was wearing simple shorts and a T shirt.

Knowing that he would take just a few minutes to finish his work in Bombay House and that it was a non-working day in the business district with very low traffic, he decided to take liberties to park his Merc in an other-wise no parking zone.

A conscientious traffic cop noticed all this and he immediately rushed to Russi who had started sauntering towards the Bombay House entrance.

In a gruff voice the Pandu Havaldar asked Russi.

“Kyun bhidu, baap kaa sadak samajh kay gaadi rakha hai kya?”

Russi very non-chalantly replied: “Haan kuchh aisa hi hai.” “Aapko English padhna aata hai kya?”

Then he gently held the Pandu’s arm and walked him to the kerbside and pointed to the metal signage of the road.

He asked the cop “Kya Likha Hai?”

The cop said “Sir Homi Mody Street”.

A mischievously smiling Russi discloses: “Woh Mera Baap Tha”.

Russi was allowed to leave his car parked in the “No Parking” Zone that Sunday morning.

Some history (feel free to skip the first para as it isn’t really relevant): As a kid, I don’t think I ever took exercise seriously. I don’t think I was too much of an outdoorsy person either. Not many sports, except swimming, but that was largely confined to summer vacations and company in the form of cousins. During my early teens, I put on weight and was forced to join the gym, if nothing else. I don’t remember taking that too seriously either. A bout of  typhoid killed all the extra fat, and as I passed out of school, I actually was as “healthy” as I could get. And then during graduation, I decided to join the gym seriously.

So after the first day in the gym, muscles that I never knew existed made their presence felt. I suffered intense pain. These set of muscles were probably never flexed before, and the first week was unbearable. No wonder the instructor asked me to skip a day before repeating my sets; we had to let the muscles recover. But over time, the pain subsided. And I had to do increasingly larger number of sets, or use heavier weights to, um, “exercise”. I really don’t think anything helped me as much as the very first week – the muscles probably were more exercised in that first week than ever later.

I didn’t continue gym for very long – commitments, lack of time, boredom, lack of motivation – excuses galore! So the muscles returned back to their original state, possibly following exactly the same path as they took on their way up – they must have regressed the most in the later phases, than if I had skipped the gym for a day or two.

So, what’s the point I’m trying to make, and why now? I’ll answer the later part first: I restarted “basic exercises” many times between that time and now, the most recent being two weeks back. And the first few days are exactly the same – aching muscles. I wonder if this is indeed a case of marginal returns. Is it really true that the first “painful” days are the best stimulants for the muscles, and if so, why continue? Of course, my premise could be completely flawed: Pain may not necessarily equate to gain, and this stopping and starting is probably more damaging than anything else.

I will admit, that the “kick” one derives from the first few days of exercising after a prolonged break far surpassed the felling one derives from continual exercise. One actually feels bubbly and chirpy. Maybe some hormonal reaction / response to the exercise – but that’s a fact. In a sense, this is similar to alcohol – casual drinkers tend to get the “kick” faster than routine drinkers, who must also consumer ever-increasing quantities to get “high”.

So, is it habit? Is it moderation? “Stop-and-go”? If this is really a case of marginal returns, then how do we ensure optimality? What is your take?

You may ask: For what?

The answer is: For everything.

For example, it could be for your tasks. Even for a student, there are multiple sources that generate tasks. They could come from notices put up by the school, requests for meetings by the study group, gyaan-sessions for juniors, credit card payments, stock market pursuits, birthdays, anniversaries and just about anything. The media is varied as well: extranet, email, internet, notice boards, announcements, informal chats et al. And these could be pushed (someone requests / commands / demands) or pulled (your choice to do something).

So where’s the deal about fail-safe systems? Well, soon one can be overwhelmed with the number of tasks one needs to track. If one has a system that uses the philosophy of immediate execution of every task that comes along, it too can get overwhelmed. There are only so many things that one can hold in their head, and far too many things vying for one’s attention. Lapses become frequent, with increasingly potent consequences. Hence the need for a fail-safe system.

It could be simply a diary, or a to-do list. However, it is the process that is important. Everything, however small or trivial should also be recorded, and ticked on completion. Sure, this has overheads and requires discipline, but is fail-safe. The additional advantage is that this gives you a neat little mechanism to track how you are spending your time, check on your productivity and perhaps improve those quintessential time management skills.

But fail-safe systems are not only at a macro level such as the above. They are also required for very specific activities, such as waking up in the morning. Sometimes, one alarm simply isn’t enough. Or two, either. One needs to leverage their neighbors, friends and just about anyone else who can be recruited for the cause to wake one up. This redundancy ensures that one does get up in the morning and be present wherever needed. The point is, the redundancy brings fail-safeness. It may not be the most efficient, but it works. Being disciplined works better, but it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

There could be a zillion similar examples. The core of this rambling is that having systems is fine, possibly a given. Having fail-safe systems is far more important. A system that fails is probably worse than not having one, simply because it brings a sense of false complacency, and one tends to rely on something that is fundamentally unreliable. So, give me my fail-safe systems. Required.

—

I missed a class today, because I didn’t wake up. Despite the alarm. This is the first time this term, and the safety net of attendance requirements affords my missing this particular class. But, I forgot to set up the usual fail-safe: Somehow, in the grand scheme of things, I forgot to tell my fellow classmates to wake me up. FML.

Also from A Momentary Lapse of Reason:

If you throw a New Year’s Party, the worst thing that you can do would be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to say they had a nice time. Now you’ll be be expected to throw another party next year. What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they’ve been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one… If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that they don’t arrest anybody. Or if they’re dead set on arresting someone, your job is to make sure it isn’t you…

The following came up on A Momentary Lapse of Reason on our IIM Calcutta extranet:

It was over in a flash. The neutron bombs were delivered with so little warning, none of the government officials were able to get to their shelters in time. But the neutron bombs were designed to wipe out only people, and they were designed well. Buildings stood and petunias blossomed. Somehow, Dave had survived. The last boy on Earth. AS he sat down in his room, reading a Frederic Brown novel, the phone rang. With- out thinking, Dave picked it up. “Dave, this is Kevin. Are you going to be at the SF club meeting tonight?” Suddenly realizing what was happening, Dave reacted. “Kevin? But I thought I was the last person alive!” “Nah, the whole group’s still going strong!” “But…how?” “Same as you. You read a lot, don’t you?” “A novel a day.” “So, your walls are lined with books, aren’t they?” “Sure.” “Best radiation absorbers ever. Hardly a fan got burned, world- wide. Anyway, the meeting’s at the usual place. 7:30. See you there” And that’s how fandom took over the world.

Source unknown.

I had two of the weirdest of dreams today; I will blame the fried maggi and double mixed fruit juice overdose, or maybe The Men Who Stare at Goats. Either way, they were absolutely strange in the sense that my behaviour in them was not in line with my real world self.

I do not remember the first one, but I do remember waking up after that one, seeing that it is still only 9am, and going back to sleep again. The second one caused me to wake up as well, but neither were really nightmares. It is also entirely possible that I got the causality wrong; the dream may have stopped because I got up. Anyway, here goes the second dream:

Scene is a road-facing consumer shop, where you can buy electronics, stationery and for some reason, also book travel tickets. I was merely observing some people transact business. Then, my mom tells me to go check if tickets to place X were available. I go there, and tell them to give me a form – apparently the booking and availability checking form is the same. Also, it’s some sort of a hi-tech form, in the sense that you need to tap the buttons and menu options for them to work; maybe it is a tablet or something. So I fill up the details and the overenthusiastic counter salesperson wants to know if I need his help, and where would I like to go. I tell him that I’m just checking availability and will let him know if I need his help. He sort of snubs at me!

So, I finish filling up the details, and hesitate for a second trying to locate the button for check availability, because it is between the buttons for check fare, book et al. One other salesperson looks over my shoulder and says: The button is there. The first salesperson says: No, he doesn’t want to book the tickets, only check availability. I just ignore them, and click the check availability button. The screen pointer indicates that the button has been hit, but nothing happens. The second salesperson says: No, you didn’t hit it hard enough. Let me do it. I hit it again, and give him a look.

The page opens and I get the data; I have no clue what it actually said. A third salesperson comes along, and says: May I have a look? I’ll book these tickets for you. He even started poking his head between mine and the form, and tried to pull the form away from me. This is when I lost it: I DON’T WANT TO BOOK TICKETS. HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT I AM ONLY CHECKING AVAILABILITY. DON’T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND. $#%^%$^%@#!

The third guy is now appalled. The first two look at him. I wouldn’t stop: You guys do not know how to do business or treat customers. (At this point I’m not sure if any tried to placate me, and if they did, it only worsened things.) I shot back: I have been a long-time customer here. I just bought 3 mobile phones from this store. (I swear during the dream I was thinking of what would be a fair number to put in here, because I had not actually purchased any mobile phones from the store before.) I AM NEVER GOING TO COME BACK HERE AGAIN. YOU HAVE JUST LOST A PAYING CUSTOMER.

By this time everyone in the store is staring at me and at the counter, and the salespeople are now genuinely concerned with sheepish looks on their faces. As I left the shop, I could hear their manager and the first two salespeople berating the third salesperson: What did you do? What did you do? Why did you have to ask him? Now who will recover these lost sales? You have single handed increased all of our workload…

[So far, I can see a mixture of Anupam stores in Mumbai, my Latitude XT, IRCTC website, Rocket Singh, a disgruntled me, observed customers who give pain to the salespeople, all coming together in this dream-streak. Of course, this is completely contrary to how I’d react in real life. But it doesn’t end there.]

Outside the shop, my mom and dad are waiting in an ordinary Mumbai rickshaw; dad is actually outside. I walk to them, all angry, and without any dialogue, get inside the rickshaw. Dad climbs in after me, and the rickshaw is off, possibly going home. I don’t recall any dialogue, but the rickshaw climbs to some height, and it looks like a derelict building terrace, with one edge facing the railway lines. I’m playing the incident back in my head, when the rickshaw-walla bhaiya simply drives off the edge of the building, over the railway tracks and I go: OH! WTF? WHY HAS HE JUMPED US ALL OFF THE BUILDING. Dad simply says: The angle isn’t right; you should have taken off at a higher angle.

My dream mind is numb. Taken-off? WTF? We start coming down, but we’ve now crossed the railway lines, and are passing over some buildings. The rickshaw-walla bhaiya says: It’s that pink building, right? Dad: Yes. Rickshaw-walla bhaiya: Oh, that’s going to be a tough one. Me: WTF? What do you mean it’s going to be a tough one? What were you even thinking when you “took-off” the other building? This is insane. This must be a dream.

The next few things happen quite fast in the dream. The rickshaw-walla bhaiya starts shouting, possibly to himself: The antenna, the antenna, we are too low, too low. He does some insane driving actions, more like that of a pilot trying to fly a single engine plane with the joystick – he was doing that with the steering bar of the rickshaw. Then: Look out for the cylinder, the cylinder. And then we float, and land on to the terrace of what I now assume, was our building. This is when I notice that Bana, my aaya from childhood days and now a family member, is also with us, and she was absolutely scared to death with all this flying.

I have no clue what the cylinder was, and my real world building is not pink. It does have a cellular tower on its terrace, so maybe that was the antenna. And this is where I get up. I tried hard to recollect if there was any flying gear connected to the rickshaw, but I can’t remember. Possibly there were two or three big white silk balloons, but I am not sure.

[I don’t even know what is the inspiration for all this – flying rickshaws and what not! What a crazy dream, really!]

—

Ed: Minor edits made, and link to IRCTC fixed. Thanks, Vidyadhar.

I’m just back from a three-month-long exchange programme (STEP) from ESC Toulouse in France. And I was fortunate enough to roam most of Europe, barring the eastern fringe. So what if it was more like city-hopping and living like the nomads – there’re great many stories to tell! So presenting for your reading pleasure, “The Dummy’s Guide to Getting Ripped-Off in Europe!” (*)

• Lose your baggage. Lose your baggage with currency in it. Lose your baggage with currency and irreplaceable EURail pass. Lose your baggage with currency, irreplaceable EURail pass and laptop. Lose our baggage with currency, irreplaceable EURail pass, laptop AND passport. Possibly even spend the night in jail as you were drunk, drugged and crossing the border when this happened.
• Get your loaded EURO Travel Card stolen from the front pack of your jacket that you were wearing in the night train; discovering this early in the morning, but not reporting the theft to either the bank or the police only to have the entire card cleaned off by the thief by the time you report it in the night – because hey, sightseeing comes first!
• Give a 100 Euro note to the waitress as tip. Because she was hot. And you have no concept of spreading out your expenses over the entire duration of the trip.
• Give four 50 cent coins to the well-dressed lady request “change” for 2 Euro, when all she was really doing was begging. And realizing what just happened after she has made-off with your “change” and the original 2 Euro. Repeat twice.
• Nice suited businessman driving a decent mid-sized car asking you for directions. You have a map. You show him the way. Said businessman is happy, decides to give you a tee-shirt as a present. “Hey, whatever man! You are awesome!” Business man is an Italian fashion designed based out of Paris, on a business trip to Rome. Small talk about how Italian fashion is hot back home. He decides that you need more presents – gives you a nice leather jacket that supposedly costs 1000 Euro. Even warns you not to sell it. Because it is a present, after all. And now that you have so many presents, he gently asks if you would like to give him some hard cash to buy some gasoline, as he gambled all his money away last night at the casino! I mean, he’s practically giving you 1000 Euro merchandise for only a 100 Euro. Alright, you don’t have that much? Well, maybe 50 Euro? No? Damn you tourists! Give me my presents back!
• Travel by train to a country where the EURail pass is not valid. Despite knowing this in advance. Pay the hefty fine. Maybe buy a ticket on-board after paying the fine. Or just bribe the ticket controller!
• Buy a lot of souvenirs in the best looking shop that says it is running a 50% off sale. Only to discover later that the store next door is selling the same souvenir at half the price – before the discount!
• Pay 100 Euro donation for the development of street children to a random guy on the street carrying a pad and a faded letter identifying him as the competent authority for collecting said donation. Or maybe for the cause of the blind and the deaf. Or maybe for AIDS awareness? What? You have no heart? This for a good cause!
• Give your passport to the friendly policeman on the deserted street without checking for any ID. Then give 400 Euro to said “policeman” to get your passport back!
• Book train tickets and make hostel reservations, but don’t travel. Alright, book non-refundable train tickets and one-night charges for cancellation hostel reservation, but don’t travel.

And many many more! When you send me one million Euro for the unabridged full version book. 90% discount on orders received within one minute of your reading this post. Come on, pay up. I know you want to!

(*) = Many of these stories are real. Of course, I was fortunate enough that none of them happened to me. Well except for the very last one. Don’t ask!

I am currently in Toulouse, at the ESC Toulouse Business School for an exchange term, studying International Business. Due to these sudden developments, the classes, new environment, parties, new people, the consequent touring in and around France (and Europe) and the sudden bombardment of Prachett’s Discworld series, I seem to have even lesser time than usual; thus the lack of updates on the blog. Sometimes, I wonder if the Daily part of it even makes any sense.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of pictures (by lot, I mean 4000+ at last count, and rising) here.

Also, two of my “thought pieces” have been put up on Strat.in:

• Windows 7 – Make or Break for Microsoft?
• An Overview of Online Privacy and Security (With a Focus on Google)

Other than that, things are sailing smooth, more or less. I’ll try to squeeze in updates as and when they possible. Feel free to check out my homepage, and follow me on various social networking tools.

Oh and, high speeds trains are fun.

The problem with him was that he was an always regret boy. He regretted everything to the extent that he couldn’t enjoy anything anymore. The only real thing stopping him from depression was that he’d regret that as well. And that people expected him to not be depressed. But this always-regret psychology had ever-lasting repercussions on all that he did.

He was not sure when he started behaving this way. Was it because of some unaddressed insecurity? Or was it that he was not capable of rational thought – putting down the pros and cons and deciding on the basis of the maximization of pros? He ran the same arguments in his head, over and over again, and yet again, till his head metaphorically exploded, probably giving him an aneurysm.

He spent much of his time regretting, instead of constructive investments in studies, partying and the other usual things that people of his age did. He was more efficient, while not intelligent or street-smart in the strictest sense, he was capable of manipulating the environment to his liking without really being manipulative; this was a fortunate thing, because it meant that he actually did and achieved above-average in life.

But if he didn’t regret, and for once trusted his decisions, without second-guessing, stood up for them and just let the iterative (and often wrong, but that didn’t matter, everyone thinks wrong, most of the time) thinking machine in his head let go, he probably would have been a completely different person. Possibly more successful, and infinitely happier.

—-

I wanted to put in some examples, but it just became too sad.

I own a Dell Latitude XT (yeah, it’s a really cool covertible tablet, and yes, it cost a nuclear bomb). In a class today, I depressed the stylus in its housing to release the stylus and sort of misjudged the rebound, whereby the stylus flew from it’s housing and landed on the ground, a good three feet below. Now, this has happened before, but I don’t know if it was the angle or what, but the stylus buttons have stopped working. They won’t get pressed, and so I have no right click and erase functionality any more. (Dell should consider a redesign to prevent this from happening in the first place.)

So, after the class, I call up Dell Support (because for some weird reason their chat isn’t working, and email takes ages) and had to wait for all of six minutes before my call was answered by someone who was noting down people’s details so that the real tech guys can call them later (an arrangement as they were experiencing a large volume of calls at the moment; still better than dropping my call – am looking at you, Nokia).

15 minutes later I get a call, and I tell the chap truthfully that the stylus fell and it won’t work anymore; needs replacement. He takes a minute to figure out if they can replace it, and probably misunderstood me thinking that the screen was broken. Clarified. He said that he’ll get back in an hours time after checking inventories.

2 hours later, the local service provider from Kolkata calls: “Sir, we have received a call from Dell. Your part is here, but because there’s a bandh in Kolkata, we cannot deliver it to you tomorrow.”

“It’s here? Already? How is that even possible? No problem, send it across on Saturday then.”

“Thank you sir, for understanding [as if i had a choice]. Please return the defective piece to the technician.”

“Sure.”

Now that’s some service! Kudos, Dell.

I don’t know how Dell does it, because this isn’t a standard part, and I’m sure you don’t just have them lying around everywhere, given that there must be single digit XT machines in the country! Pretty cool.

—-

Also 1: You get what you pay for. I paid some 12k extra for the ProSupport and Dell Complete Care for 3 years. But totally worth it.

Also 2: No, I don’t get paid for this, but I wish I did.

—-

UPDATE: Received the stylus today. The retail price is Rs.1744.62/- Of course, the warranty meant I didn’t have to pay for it. The delivery guy from Dell said that they had the stylus in stock, which is why they were able to get it in such short a time. Even if they didn’t have it, they’ve got in within a day. So I can now erase and right click!

They also took the broken stylus away, as part of their policy. I understand that they refurbish it and reuse, which is cool. Also used to study what went wrong and thus improve the product.

The fun thing is that the stylus came in a relatively BIG carton box, and had the usual add-ons of nibs and the princer to pull nibs out, and the teether, all of which was packed in a nice plastic case which was loaded on a foam package which in turn was in the BIG carton. Funny to see something so small come off that big a package. Such waste!

The foam packaging is actually “Sealed Air” Instapak. It has toll free numbers on it for return and disposal locations, including a cell number for India. These custom packs are designed with requirements in mind, so lesser material is required. The polyurathane foam is covered with a polyehtylene film that can be resued as a carton filler or disposed off with ordinary waste. The packaging material can also be processed in municipal waste-to-energy facilities. It also compresses to 10% of its original volume in a landfill, complying with international legislation restricting the presence of heavy metals. It will not degrade to pollute air or groundwater. It also conforms to 94/62/EC = European Packaging Directive, and will be accepted by third-party collection organizations in Germany and throughout Europe.

All of the above is detailed on the packaging itself.