Top Cat 200

Rain Drops Keep Jamming up the Traffic

2009-08-28T23:05:00.000-07:00

In this blog we try to demystify the correlation between rain and traffic jams.

According to a Traffic Analysis Survey the usual mix of vehicles on the road are 30% being 2 wheelers, 40% public transport and the rest private 4 wheelers.

The 2 wheelers follow the same pattern as do the movement of an army of ants whose nest has just been disturbed. They oscillate from one side of the road to the other, into the foot path, over tree roots, under electric posts etc. When the traffic halts, they will even stop in their tracks, take a U turn and go around other vehicles if required under a truck and over a sitting cow all this to arrive at a new stationary position which happens to be 5.5 inches ahead of their prior stationary position.

Now when it rains everything bordering the road becomes a bunch of slush and muck. So all our two-wheeler folks abandon their otherwise used paths and land up on the road.

Next the pedestrians, on a normal day a pedestrian would walk almost in a straight line looking out and avoiding stepping on the filth and scum on the road. This is an easy mental calculation which gets processed in the brain and the brain jots out the route the legs have to take to avoid all of this.

However when it rains.. the same road gets flooded, and all of this dirt n scum comes to life and starts floating around. Now it becomes like a video game. You have all of this muck moving in random shapes at various speeds and heading towards you. The brain now has to double its processing capacity mapping and re-routing against moving targets. The result .. people also move in a haphazard manner occasionally entering the road once every 20 seconds causing traffic to swerve in order to avoid them which again cause a chain reaction to other vehicles adjacent to it.

The next significant factor are the buses. By default buses move in a straight line in the middle of the road. Unless there is a cow sleeping in the middle in which case the bus will climb onto the footpath and over the sidewalk to avoid the cow. Once it arrives at the bus stop, the bus stops right in its tracks in the middle of the road.

Due to the rain, everyone who alights first pauses for 2 seconds to open his /her umbrella and only then steps out. After stepping out with the umbrella open, the entire land below the circumference of the umbrella is blocked and off limits to fellow passengers. This in turn results in the entire bus having to wait for more than double the time at each stop. And since the bus waits right in the middle of the road. This blocks up all the traffic behind it for double the time.

Next coming to the IT culture in Bangalore, at any point of time 30 - 35 % of the people would be working from home. Now out of these people who are working from home, 80% would be working from home without even being at home.

The day it rains, all these Work From Home people realize that they would have to remain at home anyways due to the rain and cannot complete their errands so what’s the point in Working from Home? , might as well go to the office.

So now we have 100% of the workforce all on the road suddenly headed in the same direction at peak time.

The road is burdened with 3 additional classes

Pedestrians who have abandoned the footpath
All the adventurous 2 wheelers who would have otherwise been everywhere except on the road
All the Work From Home people who are now heading to office

With the additional load on the same road, there is now a mad rush for space.

Picture this scene, 2 people riding on a 2 wheeler. The pillion rider would initially be sitting in a comfortable position elbows bent with his hands resting on his waist. Now suddenly he wants to scratch his back so he takes out his right hand from this position. After this he would have to continue to sit in the new position, because the free space that was earlier occupied by his elbow would now be occupied by a vehicle that just pulled into the free gap. With such a mad rush for space. the average distance maintained between 2 vehicles becomes around 1.25mm.

With such tightly packed traffic how fast can you move?

The traffic has now come to a stand still, This causes boredom and the easiest thing to do when you are board is pull out your mobile phone. While on the phone your driving reflexes automatically slow down there by causing you to maneuver your vehicle in a lethargic manner. Again this chain reaction, further slows down of the entire grid.

Put all this together and any average Joe with a normal brain will understand why traffic halts when it rains. Unless of course if you are a Six Sigma certified black belt. Then you will not understand this until you do a full blown Six Sigma Project using Minitab.

The dog that chased your car

2009-04-30T23:15:00.000-07:00

While driving your car how many times have you been chased by street dogs?
Even if this did not happen to you, I am sure you must have observed this phenomenon on the road many times.

This post will unravel the mystery behind this bizarre behavior that dogs exhibit.

Last weekend my wife wanted me to drive her around to do some personal shopping. Thanks to the excellent parking facilities available in Bangalore I was forced to remain seated in the car while she went off to get her work done.

With nothing much to do I observed the following scene unfold in front of our car. There was another car parked at the curb around the corner. In came a street dog strolling along, It sniffed the front bumper of the car, and then proceeded to do what dogs normally do on 3 legs. After which it went about its usual business.

Couple of seconds later in came another dog, this one apparently was a good breed Labrador on a leash. The lab also stops at the same car, investigates the bumper and is soon also taking a pee on the bumper. The owner of the lab didn’t seem to find anything wrong in this. Apparently to him a lamppost, a tree trunk and a car are all one and the same. After the job was done, the dog and owner in tow walked away.

Another 10 minutes pass by and in strolls another street dog. Sniffing along it heads straight for the same bumper, after its bit of investigation it then proceeds to execute the same ritual. Now our good-looking car, has 3 coats of fresh Saturday evening pee sprayed all over it.

This got me thinking on what would happen next. Apparently the owner of the car would come by sooner or later, and blissfully unaware of what happened to his car he will drive home. The next day, he or whoever has the task of washing the car will come along with a bucket of water and a cloth.

The usual car washing ritual involves dipping the cloth in the water and wiping it on the car, after which the cloth will go back into the bucket to get soaked once more and then the process would get repeated until the entire car is cleaned.

To the untrained eye washing is what appears to be done, but in reality the person cleaning the car would be transferring the 3 different specimens of pee, uniformly all over the car. By the time the washing is complete, to a human being the car would appear to be clean. But for a dog it’s an entirely different story. Dogs have scent glands that are 1,000 times more powerful than man’s. So to a dog this car would be like a pickled block on wheels marinated in dogs pee.

The next time you drive by in one such car, You will find some dogs bark and chase you. Now why is this ?

It is because Dogs are territorial animals and will detect the smell from your car as that of 3 other intruder dogs entering their territory. Instinct tells them that they need to chase these dogs away, and this is why they chase your car manically barking.

Now that the blocks have fallen in place you now know why dogs chase cars. So the next time you find 3 - 4 dogs barking and chasing your car. Well buddy you know what your car must smell like !!!

For a dog You are perhaps sitting in a Sulabh complex on wheels.

The Considerate Manager

2009-03-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

Recently when driving down to work I happened to enjoy the company of a Manager. Mind you a very busy manager at the same time one who is very considerate to his/her employees. For convenience sake let us assume it’s a ‘she’.

A few minutes down the road and she had to make a few calls. All Managers have to make phone calls when they are sitting idle. It’s a manager thing. If they don’t do that, then they are not true managers.

Its 9:00 am, and the call goes to a poor soul who I presume was a developer in a support team. The conversation went like ..Hello ! , a quick check on some status followed by some other instructions. Then she asked. Did you check you email? He said no , Some more instructions after which the call ended.

Subsequent to the call I came to know that this guy’s working hours are from 1pm to 9pm, since he works on a shift. Of course a person whose regular working hours are for 8 hours starting at 1pm, would check his mail at 9am. This is a fact that only managers know.

Going by the same yardstick it would imply that anyone who starts work at 9am would always check his or her email by 5am. If you are not doing this, you are lucky your Manager doesn't know it yet.

After the call the developer probably would have heaved a sigh of relief wondering what to do, now that his sleep was ruined. But not for long, because don’t forget, our Manager is a very concerned people oriented person. So she calls back to enquire about the health of the same guy.

Apparently from the conversation it appeared that this guy was slightly ill suffering from a minor ligament related ailment. In rolls the next words of advice..
How are you feeling? Oh.. ahem .. hmm Oh no .. if that’s the case you should take rest. Don’t bother to come to office. Long Pause .. You can work from home.

Work From Home !! Of course yes, we don’t want you to waste time getting to office with that injury.

I thought the call was done.. but apparently not. The conversation continues..
If you are not well, Then you should take care .. take the day off today, don’t bother about work. You know you can always finish the work on Saturday and Sunday.

Me thinking ..Saturday and Sunday!!!. Phew .. thank god I don’t have a considerate manager.

Now this is what I call having the knack of being all so considerate and yet getting all the work done at the same time. This does not mean that managers should not be considerate. Just try not to be over considerate by helping your employees plan their Saturdays and Sundays too.

Enough of flaming managers, because not too long ago I too was a manager for 5 years. But not anymore. Given this I know how difficult it can be as a manager. You have to deal with a wide flavor of employees. While some are excellent in their work, others believe they are gods gift to the Organization.

So a tip to all Managers ,When all else fails, Use the old "Mule rule"

i.e. Some you can stand in front of and coax them along with a carrot. Some you have to stand behind and kick them in the a**.

The key to management is knowing which mules are which.

The Wedding Lunch

2009-03-14T02:13:00.000-07:00

When was the last time you were invited for a wedding thali lunch? Served on a plantain leaf. Here are some of my experiences, which many of you may have experienced.

It all starts with the washing of the leaf once its placed in front of you. All the servers would insist that you first wash the leaf. The definition of washing here is sprinkling a few drops of water on it and wiping it with your bare hands. How clean can this make it? Imagine you asking your maid to wash the plates at home in the same way!! i.e. sprinkle 14 drops of water over the plate and wipe it. But here this is considered a perfect way to wash the leaf.

All now settled down and the food supervisor signals to start the serving. In marches the congregation of servers. All our lady friends have a beaming smirk on their faces, cause turns out that today’s group of male servers are all topless.

However with changing times and importance given to hygiene demand for the topless battalions are dwindling. It shouldn’t be long before caterers realize this and get their topless servers shaved and waxed before every meal.

The next puzzle is when the serving starts. Most of the time side dishes are served in minuscule quantities. You feel like you are a wine sampler on the job. The suspense is that you are never sure of how many more dishes are on their way.

Because of this you either eat too much in the beginning and are stuffed by the time the rest of the dishes arrive. Or you eat too less expecting the best ones to turn up later, only to find that the meal has ended.

I think an Electronic board should be installed which would give the current live status of the meal. A sample would read

Item: status
---------------
Papad: Served
Pickle: Served
Rice: In progress
Sambar: In progress
Lemon Rice: Scheduled
Curd Rice : Available on request
Sweet: Scheduled
Ice Cream: Scheduled
Paan: Self service (Age proof required)
Coconut: (Take away..., only 1 per family, Proxy collection strictly prohibited)

This way one can perfectly plan the quantities of portions to eat.

Lunch over, now its time to thank the host. Here again there is only one standard question to which there is a standard answer. Deviating from this standard would be a violation of the 1965 veg thali Act.

Question asked by the host
How was the food? Did you eat well?

Answer that you are supposed to give:
Ya the food was excellent, In fact I am so full that I feel like going home and taking a nap.

Although what you are thinking may be:
huh' I could’ve gone and had that Biryani I was thinking about.

Life in a Tempo Traveler

2009-03-08T04:30:00.000-07:00

With the growth in outsourcing & offshore development, the volume of traffic has increased by leaps and bounds. However the development of roads and parking space could not keep pace. The net result, utter chaos on the road.

This forced all corporates to get thinking on the transport problem. They had to invent a means of conveyance, which would carry more people than a car, be smaller than a bus and yet have the maneuverability akin to a small boy riding a bicycle. Thus the Tempo Traveler (TT) was born.

Looks-wise the TT may be a little smaller than a bus, but when it comes to maneuverability it can pass through the narrowest of narrow lanes where even a Maruti 800 would not pass through.

Meet the TT drivers, one of the drivers I've seen always has his eyes half closed. With this half an eyelid vision our dude can zip between cars, lamp-posts, cows, dogs, buses, pedestrians and fellow motorists. All this while keeping an average space of 2.5 millimeters between the vehicles he brushes past at breakneck speed.

It’s not uncommon to see other motorists who after almost having a rub with our TT losing their calm and yelling at the TT driver. Our driver however remains calm and raises an eyebrow at max as he continues in his path. He is in a state of mind that is free from craving, anger and other afflictive states, one with the road, the footpath and the mud patch beside the footpath. There is no terrain beyond limit

Now lets step inside the TT and meet the esteemed folks in it. We have Rip van winkle who will get in and go to sleep only to wake up at the office gate (I envy these types, as I can never sleep in a TT), Then the "thinkers" who like to be left alone.

The Droid from Star wars who would stare into thin air and keep talking on his blu-tooth. Folks who are immersed in their cell phones, unfortunately they do not keep the conversation to themselves, but speak at a volume which everyone in a radius of half a kilometer can hear. To them it seems every other person in the TT is just an inanimate object that happens to be traveling in the same direction. Not to mention the far too many stupid ringtones you hear in there.

Some people travel light, while others don’t mind lugging a desktop, CRT monitor and a UPS in their backpacks. Then we always have the handful of people who for some reason could not make it into CNN-IBN, nevertheless they do the same task in the TT making sure they are audible to everyone. Like usual sitcom comedies they sprinkle their conversation with hilarious laughter at the end of every alternate sentence. This is so you know which were supposed to be the funny parts.

At dusk, with the days work done you are now on your way home in the TT. Here you see another beauty about the TT. You can alight just about anywhere you please. .

It’s not uncommon to find some celebrities who have to be dropped at an exact latitude and longitude. It does not matter if this spot happens to fall right in the middle of a major ring road intersection, and at the precise moment when the color of the signal light there has turned from a red to a green. The TT driver has to manage this stop, and wait till out esteemed friend alights. This is irrespective of the fact that there would be one million other motorists behind him honking the hell out.

All in all the good thing is unlike the folks who were assigned to your team, here more often than not you have a fair opportunity to choose the person you would like to sit with.

To sum it up I would say its a wonderful experience. We should be thankful to the TT driver because of whose skill we reach the office in the fastest time possible.

Its Shutterbug day

2008-03-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

This blog has been written exclusively for all the budding photographers around.

Gone are the days when you would buy a film role of 36 photos.
With the digital age there is no limit on the number of photos one can take.

Now is this a bad thing? Lets check out.

Today every Tom, Dick and Sally has a digital camera in his hand. Yes ‘his’ applies to all the three. At every function people are more interested in capturing the moment rather than living it.

Here we come across some of our new age irritants.

At a wedding, often times its someone like the bride or grooms brother, who owns a Nikon digi-cam but is too pre-occupied with other things to take pics on his own. He comes and hands over his camera to you and says .. Hey I'm very busy please go ahead and click some snaps.

Dude !!! If I wanted to click snaps I would have brought my own camera.

Mind you they would have already hired a professional photographer for the event and he would be on the job. Just because You don't have the time or patience to click your own snaps, Why me ???

Next time someone does this to you, Here’s what you do. Click away to glory. The floor , peoples feet , the wall, the windows , heads cut-off, Pics taken at 60 degree angles.
Do this once, and there will be one less person who will approach you with this kind of a request in future.

After the the pics are taken. It’s now time to view the results.

Here we come across the next set of irritants.

The first kind send their digital photos, each file minimum 1mb in size attached in an email to your official work mail id. This freakin mail comes before some important work related email and jams up your entire in-box.

Then we have the “Internet literate” folks who know how to use a photo sharing website.

A decade ago in the age of film roles, you were normally subjected to viewing only 36 photos that anyone clicked.
Today with memory sticks costing a dime; the 36 photos have become a minimum of 360 photos.

The flexibility of the digital era is that you can check the results of the pic you captured and delete the ones that don’t stand out. Useful feature eh ?

Well not really. Looks like most folks are not aware that they can do this. So they end up uploading all the 360 pics they clicked.

They send you this link to their album, where the concentration of images is more than that at Google Earth.

Its not uncommon to find 5 pics of the same person all taken within an interval of 10 milliseconds. You click the first picture and it’s the brides brother in the blue shirt, click Next and it’s the brides brother in the blue shirt. This time his face has moved about 0.05 inches to the left. Click next and it’s the brides brother in the blue shirt his face has now moved 0.10 inches to the left. Next click and wow this time it’s the brides bother in the blue shirt his face has moved a full 0.15 inches when compared to the first pic of him.
If its your lucky day then you will also find pics of the wall, doors and windows uploaded.

A note of advice to our friends who upload these gazillion pics. Remember these 360 photos are not images of Eva Longoria Or Kathrina Kaif in skimpy outfits. Rather they are photos of your retired uncle, his 4 married children in their 30’s, the neighbour Mr Rammurthy and his oversized wife, their maid and their pesky 2 kids whose mission for the day seems to be to destroy all the balloons and the other decorations in the hall.

Think people are going to view all these 360 images?. You would be lucky if they glanced through all the thumbnails.

My advice to all. Pick out your best photos and upload not more than 20 - 25 images .
Have another link on the page which says 'More photos…'. People who want to view all the pics will click on this link and do so.

The Holiday

2008-02-26T02:13:00.000-08:00

Time for some travel, this time with my wife n the little new addition to the family.

Got some cheap air tickets and found myself staring at the TV screen in the airport-waiting lounge.

Kept wondering what It would be like appearing on TV. Well surely I would not want to appear on the dimwitted regional channel being aired. These days its always some song or dance reality show that is being broadcasted.

Maybe one of the international channels Discovery or Nat Geo might not be a bad idea. Nat Geo.. very cool, but on second thoughts I wouldn’t want to appear on ’20 seconds to disaster’ on Nat Geo.I am here waiting to catch a flight, Hope I don’t turn up on ‘Air Crash Investigations’ either.

Anyways time to board and sooner than expected we are seated in the plane.

Welcome to Air Fisher, I'm your pilot Jack speaking and with me I have our first officer Arkadi Khruschev. (Russian Air crew come cheap by the dozen these days).

Midway through the flight, the plane starts to wobble a bit. The pilot finds the Air speed indicator oscillating more than required. The plane seems to be losing altitude.

Now how important is documentation for any product? . Turns out, in the Aircraft industry - Very Important.

If you have watched Nat Geo’s ‘Air Crash Investigations’, I’m sure you must have come across episodes where pilots scan through pages of the flight manual to troubleshoot unexpected situations in mid flight.

I am still not sure why they rely on the flight manuals when its much easier to do a search and find using a laptop or Comp rather than browsing through a book page by page ?

Anyways since there was no .pdf manual they had to rely on the book.

Jack asks Khruschev to fetch the in-fight reference manuals. Khruschev opens the overhead cabin and finds 3 books.

- Microsoft flight simulator

- Flying for Dummies

- 737 Flight manual

It does not take much time for both to settle for the 737 Flight manual

Soon they spot the situation they are facing, which is covered under Troubleshooting Issue A-493. Flip to the troubleshooting index and both stare in horror.

It so happened that the book that they were carrying was the basic edition. Section A-493 is included only in the Enterprise edition of the manual.

But hang on, no cause for worries. The fine print below says
You can call our 24 x 7 customer care center number. Its a 1800 toll free number (outsourced of course to keep costs low).

Finally they get through and reach the customer care system.
This no different from other systems, the all-familiar message starts off.

You have reached the Boeing customer service department.

Press 1 for English, 2 for French, 3 for Russian, 4 for German ...
for those who have a videophone we also have instructions in sign language to assist the hearing impaired.

Suddenly Jack can no longer follow what’s going on. Our good old friend Khruschev pressed 3, and the instructions are now in Russian.

What the heck !!! backup on the menu and select 1 for English otherwise we are all going down.

A few anxious moments backtracking and back to the English menu. Next sub menu.

Press 1 if your aircraft is a Boeing 737, press 2 if your aircraft is a 747, press 3 if it’s a 767.
If you are not able to identify the model then press 0

The choice is made, 1 it is. A few more anxious moments and the next message streams through.

Please wait as all our executives are attending to other customers, You are the 2nd in queue your call is very dear to us. We thank you for your patience.

Finally a real human voice. Thank you for holding sir, you are speaking to the Boeing 27 x 7 customer support division, how may I help you?

The pilot blabbers out May day May day the engines are failing bla bla bla ..
A long pause at the other end is broken by a, Thank you for your patience, But before we proceed we need to authenticate your aircraft. Please tell me the Aircraft serial number.

Ok Damn it hurry up and tell me where do I find the serial number?
It can be found etched on the left window panel on the cockpit.
Please repeat the 15 digit serial number followed by the month and year of manufacture.

Khruschev rattles off the serial number. The operator goes hmm ok thank you .. hmm ummm.. 4234008.. ok , looks fine. One more pause and ..

Are you sure below the serial number it does not say 'Made in China' anywhere?

No !! For the love of god, there is no ‘Made in China’ written anywhere.

Thank you sir, this confirms that the plane was indeed manufactured by The Everett, Washington factory.

Could you please call the Airhostess? And pass on the headphones to her?

The pilot goes What!! Are you sure this is the right time for this? We don’t have time to play games.

Yes I know what I am doing. You have to trust me.
The Airhostess is summoned and she listens to the instructions from Customer Support, she goes .. umm hmm, aha .. Oh .. ok

She then disappears.

The headphones are handed back to the pilot. Things should return to normal in a short while, meanwhile may I place you on hold, as I have two other airplanes in queue.

Then the pilot is put on to the all-familiar elevator music.

A few minutes trickle by and suddenly everything on the plane is back to normal.

Darn !! what was the problem that the Air Hostess could solve ?
Turned out that someone left the lavatory door unlocked and the whiff from the lavatory was knocking the pilot’s out of their senses.

With the door shut tight everything returned to normal.

So we didn’t make it to Nat Geo Air crash investigation after all. Back at our destination and off to continue another normal day.

A day in the life of a software engineer

2007-03-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: This article is meant only for software engineers working in core development. People from other professions might not find any humor in it. Reading this blog for them would only mean throwing away the next 10 minutes of your life.

Great !! since you are reading it anyways, either you are software engineer or a person who has all the time in the world.

Here’s how a typical day would turn out for a software engineering team. The subtle difference being that unlike the usual applications development teams, this team works for a gaming company. They develop products for the ever-expanding game market.

We have our all-important Development Manager Veedol (name changed to protect identity) and his hard working team members. Reggie, Sunny and an outsourced developer from another team Kris (All these names also have been changed to protect their identities) .

The morning starts off with a team meeting. The manager shares the goals ahead. The team is fresh and attentive, they listen with rapt attention.. Given that the core development is completed, what is pending now is the Unit Testing. So the Manager announces “Its time we all got serious and start playing games.” Sunny and Kris have to play all the games from start upto level 5. Reggie being a senior member in the team has to play from Level 6 upto the grand finale of the game.

Being one of the most hardworking teams on the planet, our team does their dedicated work playing games all morning. However its 10:15 am and Kris has not turned up yet. Veedol is furious and confronts him as soon as he enters. Where the hell have you been? Reggie and Sunny have been playing games all morning and look at you? Kris soon settles down and grabs his game pad.

An hour and half passes by and its time for the next meeting which includes a status update. Kris has a grievance here. Unlike Reggie and Sunny he has to come to the office to start his games. However Reggie and Sunny have been given Playstation2’s which are portable and can be carried home in a laptop bag. However as per corporate policy only some people can get a Playstation2 others have to make do with the all bulky xBox360 consoles in office. Another disadvantage was that, those who have Playstation2’s can choose the ‘Play from home’ on some days. However most managers do not prefer giving this option to their team mates, because you are never sure if the guy is Playing games all day sitting at home or just whiling his time away reading some documentation on the web.

Reggie has found a bug in the game. At level 7 when Batman swings with Batgirl, Evil Vadmin succeeds in surrounding Batman with the help of his Men in Black pants. Batman is not able to escape in spite of shooting back. However Sunny analyzes it and determines that the bug is in the gun which was supplied by the ATG team. So he suggests they transfer the bug to ATG. Veedol reviews the test plans and decides that level 9 can be tested only by himself, this is because level 9 has partial nudity which might not be suitable for Kris or Sunny.

The product is then released, and the team celebrates with a release party. However the joy of the release is short lived as the market results do not meet the estimated sales targets. The higher up’s in the company attribute this to poor functional design. So they get one more chance to revamp the game in Release 2.

Headcount is approved to hire 3 Product Managers who would lay down the roadmap for the game. Areas that need to improve are fight strategy and Car chases. To give it a blend of a ancient Rome there will be a section where the hero enters the era of CIV BC, which involves some Arena fights with animals.

The HR department of the company schedules a walk-in interview for the posts of the functional experts. After series of rounds two people are short listed for the post of "Functional Lead - Fight Sequences". A quick look at them and the HR head realizes that it was a good decision taken by the company not to enforce any dress code. The candidate finally selected has over 10+ years domain experience in the field. He started off as a roadside thug and then graduated into inter-gang fights, Has 2 on-site experiences serving prison terms outside the country. In a nutshell our candidate is a perfect fit to sketch out all the fight sequences for the game.

For the next post ‘Functional Lead – Automobile Chases’ There are 3 candidates short-listed. The first is a retired Formula – 1 driver. Comes in with a lot of experience. To name a few he knows every turn and cub on the Melbourne, Indianapolis, Monaco, Montreal tracks like the back of his hand.

The second has an equally impressive profile. He was a highway patrol cop in LA for 4 years, then joined the New York Fire department and served as a Fire Truck driver for another 3 years. This man can handle pressure and still make it through peak traffic. The choice is tough for the interview panel.

However one look at the third profile, and there is no doubt on anyone’s mind as to who gets the job. Our third contender has floored all the selectors. In addition to having immense driving skills he is a hard worker and works 2 shifts. He started off as an auto driver in Bangalore, After putting in an impressive 5 years on the auto track he now takes on two shifts in a day. Early mornings and late evenings he drives a z series Tata Indica Citi Cab. During the day he drives a BTS bus. This allows him to unwind and relax from the pressures of driving the City Cab, since driving a BTS does not require much concentration or monitoring as to where you are heading on the road.

Ps: our esteemed friend does not drive a BTS Volvo (Volvo’s are for wimps), Real drivers drive the BTS manual stick shift, which has the individuality of the driver, etched on its chassis. The Original mould that was put by Ashok Leyland has long lost its identity. Over time the driver has dented and re-dented the chassis reflecting his flamboyance and carving out an identity of his own.

It’s been a good day for the recruiting team, 2 positions filled in and one more to go. The third Product Manager position is for ‘Function Lead – Animal Combats’. This is for a new section in the game, which will introduce a roman arena fight sequence. Unfortunately there were no walk-in candidates for this position given the unique nature of the skill set.

However since the company had tie-ups with leading consulting agencies in the city, An agency has scheduled a telephonic interview at 4pm with a candidate. At 4, the call starts. Our candidate makes it clear that he is currently offering consulting services for a high profile project and can only devote 15 minutes for the interview. A few questions asked and our candidate is selected. He is a senior dog catcher at the Bengalooru Mhanagara Palike (BMP) department.

The HR and PFO head whisper something among themselves and all nod in agreement. Our 3 Product Managers are taken and introduced to the Group 4 Security, So they know that these 3 are indeed employed by the company and should be let in.

A bright start to a new series of gaming.. Let the Games Begin.

The Matrimony Site

2006-11-17T23:40:00.000-08:00

The other day I was browsing through my yahoo mail when I came across an Ad for Indian Matrimonies. This was clearly directed to NRI’s with a bold sign that said ‘Attention NRI’s’

It was obvious that these Advertisers were trying to ape some American Advertisement company. The site kept flipping picture of attractive males and females with quotes and characteristics of their ‘Available Life partners’

The first Ad rolled by with a female’s picture saying

She paints rocks
She watched DDLJ 16 times
She has a mutt called Bob,
She dances a mean tango
She loves her steaks rare

Painting rocks does seem interesting, although I have never come across any female so far who had this hobby.

Then the next one about watching DDLJ 16 times.

Also pretty good given that they got a very popular Hindi Movie and used it .. good going.. Now it’s a totally different matter that someone who watches a movie like DDLJ 16 times is obviously a nut case living in a fantasy world. But let us not get into that.

Then our good friends go off-track...

She has a mutt called Bob,

A Mutt called Bob? Our NRI friend Venkatswamy might rake his brains cause the only mutt he has heard of is the Ramakrishna Mutt.

She dances a mean Tango.

Most of the NRI’s who scan this site do so because they were not capable of finding a partner themselves. So irrespective of the fact that they are living in a western country, when it comes to marriage what they want is a typical Sati Savitari types. Let alone one who dances a mean tango.

The last quote however is the one, which takes the cake

She likes her steaks rare

Now this will make all the guys flock around her.

First of all Steaks are synonymous with Beef, though you get it in other variants these are not so popular. And to add to it rare.

Then rolled the Ad for the next female.

She has a Phd
She likes to collect Ganesha's
She is writing a Cookbook.
She likes to have a pet turtl

Whats having a Phd got to do with getting married? Its just a note saying. Be ready to do all the house work yourself.

Writing a Cookbook.. hmm that’s another interesting trait. So if you marry her be ready to take the role of the guinea pig who has to try out all those recipes before they go into the Cookbook.

She likes to have a pet turtle

A very interesting hobby indeed. Perhaps before putting this Ad they should have checked if keeping a turtle in captivity would amount to the violation of any Wildlife regulation. Coming back to reality did u ever come across a girl who has a pet turtle? I have seen guys with tiny pet turtle's in aquaruiums. But yet to come across a girl who shares similar interest.

Now lets take a look at some of our Male counterparts AD's

He's adopted a village
He's met the Dalai Lama
He plans to climb Kilimanjaro
Hi's trekked in China
And he hugs trees

Amazing.. Just have one question. Does this guy do any real work?

Wonder what he did after adopting a village.

It would also be interesting to know what was the topic of discussion between him and the Dalai Lama.

Plans to climb Kilimanjaro, Great indeed. Guess Everest was not good enough for our friend. But in all fairness it makes much more sense to climb Kilimanjaro than Everest. Given the inhospitable terrain at Everest, unless you are a professional climber or have a lot of willpower, training and sophisticated equipment, attempting to climb Everest would be foolishness.

He Trekked in China
Now this is a great quality. Our friend has also become much wiser after his trek in China, next time he visits any country he will make sure to find out what time is the last bus back to town.
But this is an experience he will never regret. Thanks to the trek he is now in a position to open a consulting firm. This firm will give advice on where to go in China to find a cheap manufacturer for any kind of pirated goods.

The last one however beats me. He hugs trees.
To the normal man this would mean he is mentally deranged. There is a subtle difference between loving trees and actually going and hugging trees.

A note of caution to any girl who is planning to respond to this guy. Visualise the following. You and your partner decide to pay a visit to your friends place and your friend comes out to greet you. Your partner is going to shake hands with your friend and then proceed to hug the tree in his yard. LOL :-)

The bottom line is that there are a lot of interesting people available for you to select as a partner in this site. However if you are looking for a regular plain Joe, then you are not going to find one here.

On the other hand if you plan to upload your profile make sure you have a hobby that is on par with the ones posted here. If you don’t then I strongly suggest you take up a new hobby like designing aero-planes or Tornado chasing. For a pet you could consider keeping a Green Iguana, if space is a constraint a Tarantula might just be fine

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Ad's

The Prince of Shahabad

2006-07-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

On July 21^st a young lad of 5 years named Prince fell into a 53 foot deep and 1.5 ft wide shaft dug for a submersible well. The rescue effort was clumsy if I must say which resulted in the ordeal of this young kid to stretch to a painful 48 hours. Hats off to Prince however who put up a brave front and survived the two nights and two days alone in the horrific pit.

Now lets take a look at the other jokers in the deck that cashed in at the expense of Prince. All the TV news channels had some interesting stuff to broadcast and most of them had live feeds at the final stage of the rescue effort. People no doubt came whole heartedly to help out the boy. The army was called in and they did their bit to rescue the kid. Once he got out, the goodies started flowing in from all sides. The local Sub Inspector was awarded Rs 20,000/-, the Army was awarded 51,000/- . Its good that everyone helped. But wasn’t it while on their line of duty that the Army rescued this boy? Its not that they rescued him in 2 or 3 hours. Had they delayed for some more time perhaps the rainy season would have started and they could have thrown in a life jacket for the kid to float up.

Unfortunately not much importance was given on what other rescue attempts were made that failed?

The Ministers are all out still awarding the people involved in the rescue. No one has time to analyze the following… Why was the Fire Department not able to undertake the rescue? In what respects were they ill equipped and have they taken any measures to deal with such situations in the future?

Another week passes by and the euphoria continues. The chief minister has announced a grant of 20 lakh rupees to develop this village. In addition to Prince’s getting Rs 2 Lakh the Govt has announced that they will sponsor his education. Now aren’t we getting a bit carried away by all this? I have nothing against Prince but then why all the fuss for a kid who fell into a well? We have hundreds of other street kids whom no one bothers to help.

With the development in the village after Prince’s fall the contractor who was responsible for leaving the well open is now in great demand. He has got tenders to dig other wells in neighboring villages. His only grouse is how come he was not given any award. if this guy had not dug the hole Prince would not have fallen and the village would still be underdeveloped. Doesn’t he deserve some recognition?

The TV channels all praised the efforts of the people who were involved in the rescue but no one bothered to look into who was responsible for leaving this well open or how to prevent such tragedies. Above all, the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism Award should go to the Moronic reporter at popular new channel. His statement when the boy was being rescued was ‘Can someone find out what religion does Prince belong to?‘ That’s the most absurd thing anyone could say in such a situation.

All the kids now have a different prospective about falling into a well. Its only a matter of time before another budding Prince lands himself into a similar situation. Of course falling in a well will no longer bring in as much publicity to the kid and the Village. Perhaps climbing a 53 feet tree this time and getting stuck might just do the trick. I hope the army does not consider constructing a building parallel to the tree and rescuing the kid.

Chain Mails

2006-07-11T23:10:00.000-07:00

When was the last time you forwarded a chain mail? Haven’t we all participated in a chain mail at some time or the other? The first mail we got we probably thought ‘that we must do our part to save this poor soul’ and promptly forwarded the mail. Its time we use our common sense (which is not so common in the chain mailing community) and put an end to these spam mails.

What are the kinds of chain mails that spam the world? There are mails that bring you good luck and a fortune in cash. ‘Send this mail to 20 people within the next 24 hours and you will get good luck’. What are these people trying to do? No doubt everyone could do with a little extra cash, but some people think they are doing a big favor by distributing these good luck - good fortune mails. How can forwarding a stupid mail bring you good fortune? If this were true there would be no poverty in the world. There would be "Good Luck Mail Agencies" doing enormous business. Just pay us $50 and we will send you a good luck mail. Once you get this mail and send it to 20 people you are fixed for the rest of your life. James Smith from Florida sent this mail to 100 people and he won a lottery for a million dollars. All you need is this mail.

Lets take a look at the different flavors these mails come in

First we have the Sponsored mail.
You just keep forwarding this mail and for every 3 people you send it to the official sponsor will pay 5 cents each. These sponsor’s are mainly AOL ,American Cancer Society, GE, Nokia , Ericsson .. the list goes on. Bill Gates himself said in the mail that Microsoft will pay 5 cents for every 3 mails forwarded. So there you go, and what’s more! it also says that Richard Brown sent it to as many people he knew and in 3 weeks time he got a cheque in the mail. Now how can Microsoft or AOL keep track of who is sending how many mails to whom? Ah they must have installed ‘Email Exchange Tracker Plus’.

Here’s some news for all those people still waiting for their "free cheques" to arrive. Turns out that ‘Email Exchange Tracker Plus’ could not keep count of how many email id’s belong to the same person. But no worries cause their Enterprise Edition has this plug-in. AOL and Microsoft are working on the implementation of the Enterprise Edition, that’s what is delaying your cheque. Its only a matter of time before we have a whole lot of Richard Browns walking around with their free cheques.

The second category is managed by this Omnipotent tracker
You forward it and an invincible supreme being will track it automatically. This class has a dual tracking mechanism. In the sense that if you do not forward the mail then it has its side effects. You forward the mail to 20 people and you get good fortune in the next 7 days. Smith Jones from Denver thought this was a hoax and did not forward it. The next day he fell ill and got Cancer. Luckily he changed his mind and forwarded it to 20 people the following day, after which he found out that the illness was because he had eaten a dead frog in his bucket of Kentucky Friend Chicken and it was not Cancer after all.

Of course just to clarify he did not eat this at an exotic restaurant, cause in these places frog delicacies are more expensive than fried chicken. Please note these mails are more potent since it’s not some earthly company like AOL or Nokia that is tracking the mails. This is one good reason why a lot of Chain Mail enthusiasts forward it just to be safe from the side effects of its ‘If you do not forward this mail...’ Part.

Then you have this third category of ‘The not so Automatic’ mails.
Here you have a mail about a person who suddenly woke up and found that his Kidneys are missing. The mail has a listing of people who want to spread the awareness of missing Kidneys. You are supposed to append your name to the existing list of names in the mail before sending it off. Note that the list will have a serial number against each name, and don’t forget to increment the running sequence against your name. Apparently the folks who run this chain mail are a bit understaffed so we should help them out in their book keeping. They have not invested in any software that does “Automatic tracking and counting of mails”. They are more of a people oriented company and don’t have a flair for automation.

These kind of mails often have a note saying ‘if the count has reached 500 please send it to ACS@AOL.com’ and they will promptly shoot off a cheque to the American Kidney Research Centre so that they can continue their research in the field of vanishing kidneys.

We also have the Good Luck mails that have absolutely no ambiguity in them. They are accompanied with crystal clear metrics and flawless statistics. You send the mail to 20 people and you have ‘Good Luck’, you send it to 10 people and you just get ‘Okay Luck’ but if you send it to less than 10 people then your going to have ‘Bad Luck for Seven Years’. Its all been scientifically proved, our folks who are forwarding these mails know it.

If it’s not about Luck it’s about a 4 year old boy who is dying of cancer and his last wish is to get a post card from everyone across the world. Just think of it, A post card from everyone across the world? We are talking about 6,600,000,000+ post cards. What does this guy have against the Postal Department? He is going anyways and is he also planning to take the entire postal department with him? The local post office employees are going to work themselves to death delivering all these post cards.

I personally always had my doubts on the sets of laws governing these mails. We have the sizable population of Business tycoons who have secretaries to manage and respond to their mails since they are too busy working other things. Now if a secretary does not forward the mail to 10 people then who gets the bad luck? The secretary or the Business Man in whose name the mail was addressed to? Well I guess that will probably listed on the FAQ section of these mails.

People who devotedly forward such mails have absolutely no clue of geometric progression. If you forward a mail to 20 people asking each of them to do the same. The first set of forwards we have 20 * 20 = 400 mails, the second set will have 400 * 20 = 8000 mails, the third forward will have 8000 * 20 = 160,000 mails and in the forth cycle we have 3,200,000 mails, floating this idiotic garbage.

All that these peoples brains process is - Please send this to everyone you know... or don’t know, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you just send it. Frank Wilson sent this to 500 people!!!! So what? If Frank Wilson is a nut does it mean you too need to do the same?
Most of these mails also have the all familiar last line that says 'Send this mail to as many people including the one who sent it to you, This shows you care!!'. The moron who forwarded you this mail wants to be spammed in return. Now if you send it back he will read it and since it says send it to all including the one who sent it to you. Tada !!.. you again get a copy. Are we playing Ping Pong here ??

How much time does it take to google out and check if an email is a Hoax? Hardly 30 seconds. But people don’t do this. If its come in an email it has to be true.

We have these super enthusiastic people who want to save others from a non-existent virus. You get warning chain mails saying Do not open any email with the subject ‘JOIN THE CREW’ This is a virus which will erase your entire ‘C’ drive and send out mails to anonymous people using your email id asking them to refrain from purchasing gasoline on April 7th as a mark of protest and to kick the butts of Oil companies. Let us on 7th April use the bus to support Aden who while traveling by bus got jabbed with an HIV infected needle wrapped in a note that said ‘Welcome to the world of Aids’. But if you are one of those few people who loaded all your software on you ‘D’ drive then there is no cause of panic as you will not be affected. Please pass this on to as many people as possible.

The next time you get such an email, First go to McAfee.com or Symantec.com and confirm if its indeed listed as a virus. If the folks at Symantec and McAfee did not think it necessary to inform the world about this virus, then there is no need for you to take up this crusade. Remember that by forwarding a standard chain letter to someone, you are saying, in effect, "If you don't do what I tell you to do, something bad will happen to you." Would you not be upset if someone else made such a threat to you?

Refuse to become a victim of these false Bad Luck threats. Do not propagate the chain.

- Cd

Flying Domestic.

2006-06-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

[Note: This blog is in context to Flying in India only.]

With the rise in income levels and low flight fares, Flying has become the in-thing. Airlines trying to out beat each other with fabulous offers starting from the Re 1/- ticket (getting this ticket however is a totally different ball game so let’s not get into that). At the rate it’s going very soon they may even start taking standing passengers like a bus.

Probably in a short time to come you may hear the airline executive tell you. ‘Sorry sir Business Class and Economy Class are full, however we do have the Rod Class if you like’. You go , ‘Great!! How many seats do you have in Rod Class?’ Uh.. no Sir there are no seats in the ‘Rod Class’ we can take as many standing passengers as long as its possible to close the aircraft door. But till then we have to stick to our seats.

Here’s how a typical experience would be on one of these domestic flights. You rush into the Airport get your boarding pass and complete your security check, and then you get showed to boarding area. Once you reach here there is a dramatic change in the environment. It appears like the rush hour is over and you have all the time in the world. Often staring at those typical revolving showcases with laptops and shirts pinned inside.

Then comes the long awaited announcement that flight xyz is ready for boarding. Within a split second Boom!! you have a line of about 15-20 people in the line. Where the hell did they come from? Where they para dropped ?? And what’s the big hurry? Your boarding pass has your seat number so no one’s going to sit on it anyways. Why are these people so concerned about reaching first? The reason is everyone wants to reach the overhead luggage rack first. Because no matter what the number or size of the baggage people assume It will fit in the Overhead rack. Who checks in baggage anyways? Checking in baggage is for wimps.

Who cares anyways the right thing is you join the line somewhere at the 20^th position. Here’s why, on comes the fancy Airport Bus which will drop you from the terminal to the aircraft. By the time your turn comes to enter the bus all the seats are full and you have to stand by the door. Bus pushes off and reaches the aircraft. And Viola !!! You are the first person to get down from the bus and thereby the first one to enter the Aircraft, not the 20 smart people who were in the line ahead of you.

The scuffle for baggage space in the overboard compartment is over and everyone’s settled down. Except for the odd 1 or 2 people who always have to ping the airhostess for water to drink. Probably they would die if they don’t get their water before the plane can take off. At least one representative of this water-drinking club has to be there on every flight. That’s the rule.

Then comes the Hostess with a tray of candy or sweets whatever you call it. We now witness the next in-explainable thing. People go all out eagerly grabbing as many sweets as they can. What for I’ll never understand. Its not like she is distributing Swiss liquor chocolates or $75 per pound Donnelly's chocolate. C'mon People !!! these are ordinary sweets that you find at every other paan seller. What’s the big deal? If these people can afford the airline ticket what’s with these sweets? Can’t you get them anywhere outside? But that’s the way it is. Unless you grab the candy what’s the point of flying?

All this done we are ready for take off and the pilot announces some gibberish, which is almost incomprehensible. For some reason all pilots’ talk in a fumbled voice. Probably they teach this tone in flying school.

Time for landing, the seat belt signs are on and announcement for landing made. Then we have our representative from the ‘before landing must go to the loo’ club who suddenly wakes up and makes a dash for the rest room. Only to be sent back by the Airhostess. No sooner does the plan touch down. Everyone is on their feet rushing to get hold of their bags. Plane comes to a halt and the same story is repeated. But now you know the rule. i.e. let the others out of the plane and into the bus, You go at the right time such that you’re the nearest to the bus door. (However in case of an aerobridge this does not apply).

What a relief you have reached your destination.

-Cd

Driving in India

2006-06-22T07:10:00.000-07:00

Driving in India is an experience by itself. You will be amazed to find that everything you thought was a fundamental driving rule ceases to exist here. It all starts with the honking. Its not necessary for someone to be obstructing your path to honk. Cab drivers honk at random. Its like they have a frequency for honking. If they don’t do it at the right interval perhaps they feel choked, like a smoker who needs a smoke after a meal.

Then comes the variety of horns. Have you come across a reverse horn? Someone needs a tune to be played every time he reverses his car. Fancy no one came up with a melody every time you switch on your indicators. If you think this was the darnedest thing. Along comes a bike and guess what? This person has a melody tune attached to his brake. Every time he hits the brakes a tune is played. Someone came up with this bizarre idea and put it into production. Who would have thought there would be takers for it?

I am yet to come across anyone who has attached a melody brake horn to his or her car. It’s totally baffling why someone would need a tune to be played every time they hit the brakes? Can’t people behind them see that they are slowing down? Are they trying to help the Blind? Did they expect blind people to be driving? Maybe they reasoned out what if a blind man is driving right behind? he hears the tune and goes.. Oh the guy in front of me is slowing down I too need to slow down too. Won’t be surprised if one day you suddenly hear an Orchestra being played right in the middle of the road. Surprised you look out of your window and turns out the signal just turned red, so all our friends with their melody horns just hit their brakes.

The next big surprise is Cattle on the roads. Now don’t jump to conclusions, we are talking about ‘Indian’ cattle and that’s not the same as cattle anywhere else in the world. Picture a cow on the road in a western country. It goes all berserk running mad like the world is coming to an end. Its an incident that gets covered on the local TV channel, Traffic comes to a complete halt. In India it’s a different story, Cattle know how to handle themselves irrespective of the volume of traffic. They walk graciously at their own pace going wherever they are headed. Similar to pedestrians in the west, where the pedestrian is king and traffic stops for him if he wants to cross the road. The cows in India think the same way. They just cross when they want to cross and traffic stops to let them pass. But if you’re a pedestrian in India and try the same, then either you have some nerve or are totally nuts.

Driving in India is considered a privileged task. There are people who just drive, they don’t do anything other than drive. If you happen to notice a courier delivery van. It will have a driver and a fellow employee sitting next to the driver. Now why do we need two people here? can’t the driver deliver the courier and collect the acknowledgment ? Is that too complex a task? If that’s a complex task then how come a person who has the intelligence to deliver the courier cannot drive the van? Must be that driving in India is like flying a 747 jet, which the courier delivery guy cannot do, and its below the dignity of the driver to do the deliveries.

In a nutshell you need 3 things to drive in India. A loud horn, plenty of sense and a lot of luck. If you happen to bump right into someone while driving, It does not matter if you were on the right and the other person was on the wrong side of the road. The first thing the cop will ask you is, Did you blow your horn? If you didn’t then its simply your fault, how could you not blow your horn?

-Cd