It kinda struck me today while driving my bike … The beggars in the city all look in the pink of health. None looks starved. They are quite decently dressed … nothing to show that they are deprived. Their bowls always seem to have money just enough to make one feel that they should be given more.
February 16, 2009
September 8, 2008
SamePage in Techcrunch50 DemoPit
The crunchies are here and we are right in it. After all the ups and downs of product development we have got the product in some shape( I think we could do lot better) where we can start getting feedback on our new real time collaboration platform Same Page. This is not the real time collaboration application that one would expect doing video conferencing ,blah and etc. This is a very lightweight platform that can be extended with newer applications. The idea is that there is a lot of productivity that can happen using simple ,small and targetted applications by throwing them all into a real time collaborative paradigm.
We are using plain ole Javascript and the server push technology which recently got rechristened as comet. We have used python and twisted for our serverside. Other client side technologies (flash , silverlight) can be exploited but they are in our list of “coming soonz”.
The apps that we have right now are pretty basic but we are working hard to add more. I personally like the note taking and task management applications that we currently have. Its a major departure from the prevading approach to task management and capturing notes during conversations. But then its a new way therefore I am keen to know what the users think. We have also introduced a new concept called “Gestures” which would infact be completely new to real time collaborative platforms. We have tried to incorporate the same non verbal communication pattern that exists among humans to applications. Although the implementation is currently basic, this would start manifesting in a big way helping our users get on the samepage intuitively. More on gestures later..
I have been reading a lot about the pitfalls of product development. It is so easy to loose track of the users. We just swerved through that and I think the best way forward for us would be just put it out there and brace ourselves for the feedback. May be the product would be trashed by a few .. may be it will appreciated by a few .. maybe it wouldn’t be understood at all. But I guess its better to find it out now than later.
The ability to scale up has been one of the main concerns that I have had for a while. Its time that we have been running out off but we finally decided to experiment a private beta approach where we could slow down the number new of users hopping on board so that it will give us time to scale. The application cannot be scaled horizontally easily as we have live user networks whose presence information we utilize in our applications but I guess I have my task cut out.
Finally here is the listing of the company on crunchbase. I will give an update soon about the event and the kind of user traction that we have begun to get on the site.
August 23, 2008
Inflatable bag monsters
Somethings can be outrageously creative. I wonder how he could engineer the monsters to blow up this way.
August 10, 2008
Photography - part 1
I just upgraded my digital equipment inventory with a Canon Rebel XTi. Being not much of a photographer I have started tinkering and I guess the rebel is not a bad start at all. The online resources for learning photography has got me confused. The problem is of the plenty. Therefore I have decided to be eclectic and will try to add to the vast repository of knowledge which the internet is with yet_another_resource on photography. So first of my topics that I chosen to explore is ISO:
ISO is a measure of light sensitivity of the image sensor in a DSLR. The higher the ISO level the brighter the image gets. So you need to be have a sense of the light conditions to choose the level. For example a bright sunny day would mean that ISO level should be lower whereas a cloudy setting calls for a higher ISO. I have tried these variations and it made quite a difference.
An interesting thing I discovered was that ISO helped me reduce the blur. Since the shutter speed did not change in the manual mode, I could adjust it to a high speed but still take cool shots. So a high speed and high ISO meant quick shots with greater light sensitivity which yielded a good snapshot of things in motion.
There is lot more that I need to explore and discover about my camera and photography in general. More of it soon…
June 19, 2008
How to break your bum in a day - 500 Kms on a Bike
Last sunday I decided to go on a biking trip with the “Highway Nawabs” group. Armin had asked me to wake him up at 4.30 in the morning. I set my mobile to give me an alarm and as usual 4.30 came and went, the alarm rang and I kept denying its existence till Armin decided to wake me up :). After kicking the pillow,crashing back a couple of times and cursing myself for screwing up a cozy sunday morning I finally got up and got ready for the ride. I had made an unsuccessful attempt at getting hold of an enfield bullet the previous evenning and had to be content with my old Yamaha Fazer 125cc.
The majority of the group was at the meeting point near paradise by the time I reached. It was 5.45 am and we were still waiting for few other vehicles to join us. By 6.30 am we were ready for the launch. The vehicles revved up and we all started in a procession. The scene was nothing I had ever experienced in my life and being part of it made it even more special. The morning blues disappeared in jiffy and I realized the reason motorcycle riding is such a passion for the guys in the group.
The monsoon has come to hyderabad and the night before there was a good amount of rain. It has cleared up the skies for the day. Its amazing to see the hues that the sky takes during the change of season. Its magnificence can only be experienced during the dawn and the dusk. I was in the right place … doing the right thing at the right time to experience the artistry of nature.
A tiffin center near bhongir was our first stop. The whole group divided into the most natural formations. People who knew other people sat together. People who did not know anybody sat together and people who did not want to know anybody sat together as well :). I ordered for Vadas and a coffee. I was in for a gustatory delight. The vadas there were one of the most delicious I have savoured in my life. It only ranked next to a shoddy joint in Tirupati.
Everybody had their “tanks full” before we started on the next phase of our journey to Hanumakonda. The ride was almost 150 kms long and pleasant. We hit a few magnificent roadways, the greenery you miss when in city blossoms during the ride. The farther you get away, the nearer the beauty of the country side appears.
After 40 odd kms further and few enquiries for the way to pakaal lake we reached the magnificent water body with a small island at its heart. The approach road to the lake was the first of the rough tracks we hit. The group stopped for a while smoking , joking and poking around. You suddenly notice that every biker takes care of his bike like a baby. Their knowledge and understanding about the bike is fascinating and to understand the symptoms by just cursory examination and listening to the “sound” it makes is intriguing. I guess that comes to you naturally after you become a “biker”.
We started from the lake at 2 pm in the afternoon and decided to explore the surroundings of the lake hoping to find a stream that fed into the lake. So off we went onto the most challenging terrains of the journey. It almost seemed like a racing competition when the guys decided to put the vehicles to test on that track. I was amazed to see my Fazer not only keeping up to the other bikes but also allowing me the balance and stability at a high speed. Some of the enfields got into a few mechanical problems because of the rocks. The benefit of having a mechanic from the royal enfield showroom became obvious when he got us back on track by fixing the issues.
After a brief while searching for the stream we decided to call off the pursuit and return. It started raining by the time we reached Hanumakonda. We had a fiesty lunch at Hotel Kalinga and let the bikes bathe in the rain clearing the dust of the travel. The sun rose brilliantly clearing the skies of the remaining traces of the nimbus. By now my confidence on the fazer was soaring and I decided to zoom. The whole of my return I ended up doing 90 kph. I broke up from the rest of the crowd before I reached Uppal. The traffic jams seemed to be blurr with all the riding I had been doing the day. I breezed through it and was back home by 8.00 pm. The ride took almost 12 hrs.
The most painful part of the ride was not actually the part of it but after it. As much as home is sweet home … rest after such a ride show how your back and bum can get f..ked up without your knowledge. The revelation dawned on me when I sat on the sofa after the ride :D.
Lingerie and The Indian Salesman
Profound but funny, the observation made by Kishore Biyani.
Biyani: I think it’s beginning to happen. I saw a Wal-Mart store two years ago and I found it to be a very insipid store. Everything was in the backend, while at the front end there was no emotion, it’s like a machine.
So, I do not think an Indian would like to deal with a machine, we are used to sales staff. I have a very interesting example of the lingerie business, which we are just getting into. Lingerie here are sold by men in this country, They know the woman they deal with, they talk about the new stocks which comes in and they have one on one equation in terms of relationship.
We have never been able to sell lingerie off the racks so well as we can sell off the counter. So, I think we are all discovering new things in this country at the moment.
May 4, 2008
March 30, 2008
A day
Blue blue sky …. rain drops caged in the grass … the shy sun hiding behind the passing clouds displayed its brilliance once in a while. As I lay on my back in the field, I remembered the days of my childhood. They were full of innocent fun and simple delights. Life was never an incessant chore. Everyday brought something new or maybe just the idea of something new made it exciting. There were the times we waited for the rain to stop and the sun to shine back to resume playing. The wet grass tingled and cushioned my bare feet. Ah .. it felt so good. The memory of my feelings started seeping into me as I closed my eyes to hear the insects going about their daily chores. The smell of rain evokes a strange emotion within me. I feel happy and lonely at the same time. “Beautiful” is the only word that describes it.
Rabbit! .. I heard a shout from behind. It shook me out of my sojourn and I leapt to my feet to notice nothing. The rabbit had returned to its wonderful world underneath before I could catch a glimpse of it…. I got back to my car and drove home. It was a strange day. A quiet day. A beautiful day.
March 24, 2008
Pervez Musharraff - A political cockroach
People have conspiracy theories. I have mine and it is too irresistable to keep. So here I go.
Pakistan has a new political setup. Yousuf Raza Gilani, of the PPP ( Bhutto loyalist ) is the prime minister which the combined opposition has been able to put up. He has begun by making the right noises like releasing the principal crusader against Musharraf, The Deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikar Chaudhry and other members of the judiciary. The people of Pakistan have found the answer to the unpopular rule of Musharraff in this new setup, since its not a government lead by him but his die hard opposition.
In all of this try figuring out what happenned to Musharraf or what might happen to him in the future. … my guess is .. “Nothing”. He cannot be challenged in the new setup as he is not answerable to the political system. This has always been the case with the army of Pakistan. They have their own writ and they stand united behind their leader. A hard lesson learnt from the war of 1972. Even if anything happens, it will take time. As is the case within a democratic setup, atleast in this part of the world.
Musharraff knows that he cannot run the country with the army alone. He failed doing that. So lets look at what he tried doing.
Plan 1: A government was setup with a quasi political party full of his comrades running the government. But soon people saw through the plan and it backfired. He needed a credible government in the eyes of the people of pakistan and the world in general. At the same time he needed some form of control on the government as it could pose a risk to his continuity in power. Any government could not come from his stable else its credibility will be questioned. The next plan :).
Plan 2: He tried selectively bringing in Benazir Bhutto into the political arrangement. But suddenly realized that her credibility was compromised and may not yield the kind alternative he wanted. So he allowed Nawaz Sharif back. But allowing him back only increased popularity of Nawaz’s party and that would have been too uncomfortable for him. The only alternative was to get back credibility to Bhutto’s party. How could he do that? .. rest is history. Benazir’s assassination created a gaint sympathy wave and enabled Bhutto’s PPP to have more seats than Nawaz’s PML in the parliament. Thus by not allowing any of them to get a majority he succeeded in decreasing the ability of any unilateral action by each of the political parties. So now the “government” is a people’s government which has people who are opposed to him but also opposed to each other in power.
What else could have been better for him? A master mind, a shrewd political strategist. I have never seen or heard or read about man like this before. The title “Cockroach” begets him as cockroaches are deemed to survive nuclear disasters.