All posts by haikvr

philosophy

The One vs The Many Heroes

1 Comment

I started reading a Sci Fi novel – Dune by Frank Herbert. I have not even crossed 30 pages and already the characters in the book are analyzing if the hero ( a kid as of now ) is the one? It kind of put me off a bit..but I will persist with the book. Curious to know if he is the one 😉

Coming from an eastern civilization where there is really no “one hero” it does sound a bit funny initially. There are 1+ million Gods, in Mahabharata there are 5 heros, and there is a hero who is part of the dark side too ( Karna ), in Ramayana actually the bad guy is projected to be on the good side ( Rama – who else.. haha 😉 he plots the downfall of one of the monkey kings, suspects poor Deepika…better known as Sita and burns her etc. ).

Switch to the Western world – there is Matrix. After snazzy graphics, exploding cars and trucks, and 3 parts – it is determined that Neo is the One. In Lord of the rings the ring chooses a sad looking Elijah Woods as the One. In the latest movie too, Avatar, there is some legend among the Pandorites and our hero happens to be – not surprisingly – the One.

Its fun – being part of both worlds. I grew up fascinated with the Mahabaratha, and Ramayana – it  helped me identify shades of grey in the world, and that there is not one, but many heroes – and they are on both sides.

Then Hollywood movies and American politics showed how things are really not as complicated as we Easterners think – but it is quite simple – as either a red or blue pill/vote and how there can be “the One”.

I can sense there is something deep here – but I am a superficial blogger so I won’t bother digging deep. Like the Inception ending, I will let you draw your own conclusions on what impresses you the most – The One vs Many heroes concept.
common cold

Cure for the Common Cold

Leave a comment

“If you take medicine the cold will go away in 7 days, if you do not it will go away in 1 week” – My 12th Std Biology teacher. That was the only time I smiled in his class, rest of the time I would be sleeping or keeping myself awake dreaming of college just a few months away and how liberating it would be.

Anyway this post is about my cold. It always hits me when I least want ( as if anyone will want to get cold ). A big release, an important interview, a vacation, a family get together – it is always there to give me company.  I have tinnitus ( like everyone’s hero Guy Kawasaki ) and it gets worse during cold – meaning – 1.5 of my hearing will be out of service for this period.

I have tried all things. Pranayama, Running, Walking, Japanese shower, Orange juice, Nuts, Fruits, quit smoking ( even though I don’t smoke 😉 ) – and also doing none of these – still the cold gives me a visit without fail. I have been fighting this battle since my earliest memory – still no respite.

I have decided what legacy I want to leave behind to this world. You would have guessed it by now. I will create this wonder drug. I have even named it : HAWT ( hawt always work terrifically – recursive name 😉 ). However it will not fight cold – it is useless to fight cold. It is like writing a software to replace Excel.

Instead, HAWT will fight all the symptoms cold brings – headache, loss of apetite, stuffy nose, runny nose, itchy nose, mild cough, dry cough, teary eyes, sore throat, mild fever. HAWT is designed to do precisely drugs are not supposed to do : that is to just take care of the symptom.

So where do I download cold APIs – want to start working on my legacy.

philosophy

IQ, EQ, CQ, PQ

Leave a comment

After reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book – Outliers – I have started looking at things with a different perspective. Here is my hypothesis on the elements that can make one successful in life. 
IQ
Whenever we see someone who has “arrived in life” we presume they have a high IQ – but this is not the only criteria. Having cart loads of IQ is good to have, but it does not guarantee success if the below 3 are not present in good measure
EQ 
Emotional Quotient :  The person who laughs at the face of danger; the one who lost badly but has the courage to try once again, or take a different path; the go-to guy at work when the experts give up and report sick on crisis situations; this is the guy every project manager wants in his team. EQ is a must have – not just a good to have. 
CQ
Creative Quotient :  The guys with a high CQ spruce up dull meetings; their emails are all a joy to read; their stand-up updates are fun – and the team tries hard to match him – and the whole team bonds & has fun day in and day out. When our man does not turn up for work – the project feels like a funeral home ( ok I am over stretching a bit here 🙂 ) – but I guess you get the picture.

PQ

Political Quotient : Bite your lower lip & accept the fact – you have to play the game ( there is a better term for this – hehe). In large organizations – PQ determines if you get a cubicle near the window or a seat next to your boss’s boss – it is a hard life and it gets harder for the ones with zero PQ.

In startups politics is non existent – who has time for such games anyway – however having a good PQ is essential for customer relationship management – and also to see the team through during some tough times.

In summary – the schooling taught and measured our IQ – post schooling – the real world expects EQ, CQ & PQ – in some combination or the other – and this will decide how far one can go in life.

Success = a(IQ) + b(EQ) + c(CQ) + d(PQ)

And the above formula is open sourced under GPL – use it freely, improve the a, b, c & ds  and enjoy sweet success. You are welcome 🙂

[Img courtesy : http://malefis.u-strasbg.fr/site/images/homer-brain.jpg ]

linux, vista

Penguin Zindaabaad – Ubuntu 10.04 review

Leave a comment
They : Is this Apple?
Me : No. This is Ubuntu !
They : Huh? 
Me : Yep! 
The above conversation happened yesterday when I had gone to give a demo to an Association Committee.  Half an hour we were discussing on Ubuntu and then I realized I have come here to sell my product and not Ubuntu – and went on with the demo! 

That’s the screenshot of my desktop – on Ubuntu 10.04. Very minimal, OS Xish, smooth, fast, snappy, extremely responsive – and a conversation piece at every demo.

In May 2009 – a year back I installed Ubuntu 9.04 with dual boot with Vista ( http://venkat2.blogspot.com/2009/05/finally-switched-from-vista-to-ubuntu-9.html). Now after a year – in may 2010 – I clean formatted the laptop and have gifted the entire hard drive, boot sector et all to Ubuntu 10.04. I am confident / convinced that Windows is not needed any more.

In fact I am very grateful to Microsoft for having produced a crappy OS. If Vista was a little better I would have lived with it – how I lived through Win 98, Win ME, Win XP ( truly the best of the lot ). But Vista is a class apart – bloated, slow, buggy, random, restrictive, frustrating….!

Here is my take on the new Ubuntu.

Speed


The new one boots fast ( however not the 10 second boot time everyone is raving ) – I count 15 dots in the new bootup screen everytime – and by the time I login – the system has picked up the wireless, I click on Chrome – one jump on the dock and Chrome shows up. Not the same with firefox though – man it is bloated.

Almost all the applications ( Open Office, Filezilla, Gimp ) open up really fast.



Dock


I missed the OS X Tray. In the earlier avatars I tried Gnome Do and few other hacks – but nothing came close to the OS X dock. Now the new Docky has come pretty close to the real thing. It is included in the repository – just apt-get install it.

Ubuntu Software Center


Earlier I had to google and then learn about an app, then search in synaptics package manager. All that is gone – the new software center kicks ass. If you had used Fink Commander for OS X you will love using this. My only gripe is there should be a more button – minimal is nice – but once in a while it is a pain.

Compiz 

The wobble, desktop cube, cover flow view on ALT-TAB – all are very smooth. In fact when I use Windows ( 7 of course )  it looks pedestrian. Moving the windows gives me a stiff back – why are they so rigid?

Expose ( we call it scale ) works perfectly. I have most of the head spinning effects disabled – perhaps will leave them on before demos and get a few oohs and aahs for the OS also ( apart from the oohs and aahs for the apartmentadda demo 🙂 )

Copy dialog


The copy dialog goes and sits at the top right corner – double click and you get the copy window – neat.

Switch user


Works. In 9.04 the OS will hang. However it is not as fast as “fast user switching” in OS X – when they released this feature in 2004 or something.

Tata Photon


It shows up in the networking setup screen > mobile broadband – chose defaults – and it connected.

Laptop runs cool

With Ubuntu 9 it used to get really hot. I have the processor tray on my top panel and now it is like a placid ocean. Shoots up only when I start an application. I am not sure if it is the new Linux Kernel or there was a buggy app in the old release.

The Bad stuff


Penguin lovers close your eyes and ears.. Here are my gripes

Social media integration

Why are they wasting everyone’s time?  Linux is for serious users – the Canonical developers are just wasting time trying to build such stuff – which no one will use. In my opinion linux will not get widespread adoption because of such social stuff – but will get accepted if it is as usable as an OS X.

Window buttons on the left


Horror of horrors – why will they do that? Just by copying a small OS X style they are not going to get a usable OS. A google search solved it – it is a simple configuration change – need not even reboot.

Lack of a good iTunes alternative


There is none. zilch. I tried Amarok, rhythmbox – Sorry Mark Shuttleworthji – I will never recommend Linux to my friends for this very reason. Songbird has ditched Linux – and we are left with no options. I am seriously thinking of starting an open source project which will be a true iTunes alternative for linux.

I don’t know what beer the developers of Amarok and rhythmbox are drinking – guys – if you want to beat Windows / OS X – we need a better jukebox – or atleast bribe or feed the ego of the Wine guys to make iTunes run in Linux. Sheesh – I am appalled.

Only good thing out of this is it makes me more productive. I do not waste time downloading, playing, dissecting songs on the laptop – my trusty iPod classic has all the stuff and I update it occasionally on my iMac.

Anyway – bottom line – I am one happy linux geek. 10.04 is truly the most awesomest OS Canonical has ever produced. I am hoping that, with 10.10 they will release Gnome 3 – and there will be no looking back. I will put Ubuntu on my 5 year old iMac ( damn chrome does not run on it because it is a power PC )

Penguin Zindaabaad !

books, inspiration

After reading Outliers I write a time-travel letter to myself

Leave a comment

I finished reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell a couple of days back and lots of thoughts have been churning in my head. Putting them down as a letter to myself – a letter I would write to the 20 year old Venkat whose career is just beginning ( also applicable to anyone who is in college right now ).

Hi Venkat,

How are you doing? How is your new college? Here are some tips for you.

1. Eat Breakfast. 

This is not from Outliers – but my personal advice. I never ate breakfast in college – slept late, woke up late and would miss breakfast. Just by eating your breakfast daily you will get a better grade. Trust me.

2. Work hard.

You see your class topper ace in all the subjects. You think he has got an extra chunk of grey matter. Take a peek into his life – he works hard and works effectively. Takes notes in class, brushes through the chapter before coming to class, and he practices the problems. His parents taught him the right methodology to study, perhaps he had a cousin who taught him early in his school days how to present answers attractively – so he always scored higher than his peers.

Why do, on an average, Asian kids ( Singapore, Korea, Hongkong ) consistently score higher than US/European kids in Mathematics? – It is because they work hard. It takes 20 mins to an hour to crack some concepts – like fractions,probability,calculus etc. They spend that time and effort – it is in their culture to work hard. The kids from Western nations do not have the patience to understand the concept – they never get the fundamentals right – and the hatred towards Mathematics carries on. This is just a crude generalization – however – the finalists in Maths Olympiads from all the countries are all at the same level – all these kids are hard workers.

The yield from a small match box size Rice paddy field is higher than a hectare of wheat field. The rice farmer wakes up very early before the sun rises, makes sure the water level is just right, when sun comes out and water gets hot he should drain away the water, he plucks the weeds one at a time, the harvesting has to happen quick and has to be done with utmost care. Wheat on the other hand needs very little care, can be automated using large farm equipment – and yield is considerably less.

The same happens with the brain. The more effort and more energy you will spend on your brain – the more yield you will get.

Being “gifted” does not guarantee success. They have done a 20 year study on a bunch of high IQ kids in California. They followed their career. What they found is that they did not do any better than the average IQ kids.

So work hard – yes, all the proverbs about working hard are all true.

3. 10,000 hours

After you pass out of college, you will get inspired by Jimmie Hendrix and Santana – and go join a guitar class. But you will drop out after a few months. You cannot give up just like that. Any art, talent takes time. Researchers have found that it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated practice before you can become an expert. They have analyzed the school years of high school music teachers and talented artists who play in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.  The successful artists would have spent 20-30 hours every week of their school life playing their instrument.

Mozart became famous only after 10 years into his career. Beatles played 8 hours at a stretch 7 days week in a shady bar for 3 years before they became world famous. Almost all the famous authors would have produced numerous works before they would have had a best seller. Whatever profession you are choosing – put in the hours – long hours, weekends – so you can quickly reach the 10,000 hours – and then magic will happen – and success will come along with it.

So good luck on your career. Life is hard and complex – and therein lies the beauty of it. If your life is simple or easy – then it will become boring. Whenever you find that your job / career has become easy and you are not learning anything – change your job. Try to keep searching for complexity – you can enjoy life a lot.

PS : I know you are curious to know who your life partner will be – sorry the time travel protocol does not allow me to reveal that 🙂

zone

Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Leave a comment

This is a very interesting book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Have you ever wondered the difference between pleasure and enjoyment?

Pleasure : 

When you are involved in a pleasurable activity – it takes your mind out of the worries you are having ( watching TV to escape from stress ) and satisfies the needs of the moment ( drinking coke to quench thirst ).

Enjoyment : 

An “enjoyable” activity, not only gives you pleasure – but gives you the feeling of fulfilment, the feeling of joy and living life.

You need to put some effort to “enjoy”. Playing a guitar, compiling linux, playing badminton – all these are very enjoyable activities. It takes effort, requires skill, practise and is extremely rewarding in the end.

There needs to be clear goals and feedback in such activities. 0 errors, 0 warnings is the reward in the end – till then you should keep tweaking,do more research, try different approaches.

You lose your self-consciousness and sense of time. Your entire concentration is on the job at hand – and will give you immense enjoyment.

Autotelic Experience

When you have really enjoyed an activity – you had just had an autotelic experience. 

When you solve a sudoko puzzle – you really do not gain anything in the end. The boxes get filled – so what? It is the time you spent solving the puzzle that gives the maximum enjoyment. This is an example of Autotelic experience. The reward is the activity itself.

There are some who can derive this experience on all the activities they do in a day – watering plants, washing the car, answering customer support emails. These autotelic personalities can go from one task to the other – and their mind is always in the “zone” – they are happy throughout the day – they are immersed in the “now” and they enjoy their life.

There are lot of by-products – the task gets completed perfectly. There is a sense of peacefulness around this person – which affects everyone else in a positive way. It is a joy to work along side such people.

So how can one cultivate an Autotelic personality? :

The suggestion given by Mihaly is quite simple – for any activity :

Set a goal
Become immersed in that activity
Pay attention to what is happening
Learn to enjoy the immediate experience.

In Conclusion :

I started observing that I go into the “zone” when I code or when I write a blog post. I have talked about it here – http://venkat2.blogspot.com/2009/08/getting-into-zone.html.

This book just opened my inner brain – there are so many activities that we do in a day – exercise, playing with a kid, washing the car, cooking – what if we aim to go into the “zone” in all these activities? Thats when we will get “flow” in our life.

Then life would be more enjoyable – and more meaningful.

Peace.

developer

How to handle Developers!

Leave a comment

Here are a few tips if you get pushed to managing a team of code monkeys..err..developers.

1. Deadline is 8 hours away and they are whiling away time by reading Joel Sposky or watching a South Indian actor dancing in a superman costume.

Ignore this – they are just warming up.

2. After the above intellectual stimulation they go for coffee.

Again, be patient. They are refueling.

3. Call them for a meeting to explain how grave the situation is. Only 6 hours is left.

Stop stop. Don’t call them for a meeting now, it will just drain the warm up and caffeine effect they are having now. They are about to enter their “zone” where things will start “flowing”.

4. How to know what the status is?

Hmm..it is a difficult thing. If you send an IM or an email it will interrupt their flow which will make them very angry, or they might mistake you for micro managing things. Wait for one of the developers to go for a bathroom break and follow them there. Of course you should be of the same gender.

There you ask – hi hows it going you are aware of the deadline today right? If the specimen nonchalantly asks – “what deadline” – don’t panic. He is just messing with you. In fact the developers are very conscious of not being fired / or not getting the next hike – they usually would have a mammoth credit card bill – because of a 3G iPhone, or a flight ticket to Ladakh..

So don’t worry..patiently explain to him that the clients want this by EOD – so it will be great if we can deliver it. He will just say a hmm and will take his own sweet time to comb his hair, or gargle, or one of the thousand things he can do to frustrate you – so do not wait for him but move back to your seat. Things are going smooth – if there was any problem or the deadline cannot be met he would have told you – trust me on this.

5. You see a few developers packing their bags

Time to go ask your QA team if everything is fine. If you had not troubled the developers throughout the day there is a good chance the stuff is done well and your team has met the deadline. Now you can prepare for the telecon with the clients and draft the congratulatory email to the team.

Of course it is not this cut and dry. Use your judgement – you will get better at it as you go. Understanding the developers mindset is having half the battle won.

environment

Earth hour is a sick joke on us

1 Comment
So you participated in the Earth Hour? Good for you – this will encourage Bescom ( or TNEB or whatever entity ) to give more power cuts – Oh so our customers don’t want power – lets cut some more. 

There are so many power cuts in a day for varying durations. Our office UPS beeps almost the entire day – and I have started getting “flow” when I hear the beeps. At times when the beep stops ( because power is back ) I start browsing and cannot concentrate on my work.

We have placed an order for one more home and lighting UPS – Jan Feb we were able to manage without a fan, but now it is unbearably hot. The term “sweat equity” takes a different meaning for us! 

Anyway, I applaud the western world to interrupt the power for an hour in a year. Great. I wish they do it every week. And also they switch off the AC and lighting on weekends when they leave office. 

And we Indians – let us see how to increase power production. I initially thought I will go with the flow and participate in Earth Hour – but later realised we are kicking ourselves in the butt – why will I sit in darkness – let me enjoy the little power Bescom had blessed us with. 

With the nuclear technology US is going to give us ( thanks to Manmohanjee risking his turban et all ) , I am waiting for some enterprising hackers from national market to  come up with a desk top mini nuclear fission reactor to ease our power woes. I will buy one – even if it is going to mutate me into an ogre!





inspiration, occ, startup

Sharad Sharma’s talk in Bangalore OCC – Mar 21

1 Comment
Today I attended the Bangalore Open Coffee Club’s meeting in an interesting venue called Jaaga. Before I  jump into Mr.Sharad Sharma’s speech / adrenaline shot – will talk a little about Jaaga. It is spear headed by Freeman Murray and Archana Prasad. They have identified an unused piece of land – and has built this structure with minimal and eco-friendly materials. This space can be used by NGOs or communities who want a place to get together, startups can come and plug in etc.  They call it the Urban Community Art Architecutre Experiment – http://jaaga.wikidot.com/start. Brilliant concept and I am sure you will be visiting this place sometime in future – it is going to take off well. 
Now to the Orbit Change Catalyst’s lecture ( thats his twitter bio  http://twitter.com/sharads ) 
Mr.Sharad Sharma took us through his entrepreneurial journey and kept giving his insights and his learning peppered with lot of interesting anecdotes.
1. Innovation Blow back

Innovations are happening right now in India; a few being cataract surgeries, cardiac operations at low cost and better success rates, bio technology startups, products on cloud computing, and so on. These technologies / businesses will now start out of the emerging markets like India and will become global. This is the innovation blow back.
He also asked the crowd to look out for the “Inflexion points” – Oil crisis is one, Systems biology is one ( where probability / mathematics is needed to take Biology to the next level ), Cloud computing being another. He advised to identify the inflexion point that excites you – “pick the one that tickles you to death”.
Some interesting anecdotes:
* CDMA technology – first showed up in Korea ( because they could not penetrate US, Europe market where GSM was entrenched ) – and now it is percolating to the other regions.
* Airtel is having a return of 38% ARPU – Additional Revenue Per User. Whereas Verizon’s return is only 12%. IBM, who consulted Airtel,  is now taking this business model outside India.
* AT&T approached Infosys in 1993 for a buy out. Mr.Narayanan Murthy politely declined – and today Infosys has 3 times market cap than AT&T.
*It took $89 Million to launch Chandrayaan. Ning has so far obtained $140 Million as investment.
He also touched upon Early Adopters Vs Pragmatic Adopters and how today with the recession – the market is left with only Pragmatic Adopters ( who make the purchase decision only after they are convinced of the ROI and expect a whole product unlike the early adopter who makes quick decision after a view of the part product itself) – and Indian market always had only Pragmatic Adopters. He hit it right on the head; if you have sold to Indian customers you will know this first hand. 
He credited Guy Kawasaki for starting this “Bootstrap movement” – where the startup has to think of making money from day 1 – unlike the startups during the dot com boom.
2. Essence of Entrepreneurship

It’s a state of mind and there are a few important things
Be comfortable to be the underdog
Hold a contrarian point of view
Ability to influence without control
Ability to tell stories.
3. Rules for personal conduct

He said 7, but I missed one of them 🙂
Give more than what you take
Set up people for success
Say what you mean. Do what you say
Share good news and bad news
Cultivate a learning mindset.
Cultivate internal drive for excellence 
Some books he suggested during his lecture that I will be adding to my reading list.
1. Getting to Plan B by Randy Komisar and John Mullins 
2. Crossing the Chasm – Geoffrey A Moore
3. Whole new mind – Daniel Pink
Towards the end he conducted a role play of how VC money, Investor (LP) and Startup funding works and why it is essential to pitch for only the amount a Startup really needs. 
This post is definitely not a complete record of the speech. Please add more if you were also at the event.
Finally it was great networking with lot of enthusiastic people – the next google / apple is brewing somewhere in them! Thanks to Amarinder, Ramjee, Vaibav and other organizers of the OCC for this event. 
cricket, ipl

What the doctor ordered!

Leave a comment

AI – Ad Industry
Doc – The Wise Doc

AI : Doc – we need a way to show ads on prime time.
Doc : Ok?

AI : We need to show ads every 2 minutes
Doc : Hmm.

AI : Is it even possible or are we greedy?
Doc : Any thing is possible my dear AI. There is a religion worshipped by Indians that we can exploit. It is called Cricket. Let us come up with a 20 over format and force the players to play fast – so you can show ads every 2 minutes – between the overs. Also encourage the batsmen to treat their wickets with scant respect – so they will get out quicker – and you can show more ads during that time.

AI : What about replays?
Doc : Screw the replays – no one will care how the batsman got out – either he will be clean bowled or caught somewhere on the boundary line.

AI : That is wonderful. God bless your wisdom tooth.
Doc : You are welcome my dear friend. Even though you did not ask I will give you one more opportunity to show more ads – introduce a “strategic time-out”. The viewer will now wait eagerly and guess the new strategy – and meanwhile he will watch all the ads you throw at him.

AI : Brilliant.

And so happened IPL1, IPL2, IPL3…. and so the soap mobile soda sellers became rich, the cricketainers become richer, the worshippers wasted their prime years watching cricket and tweeting and blogging.. err..hmm..ok bye 🙂