Here's feedback/opinions/ideas with regard to the previous post. A big thanks to SG, Hari Om,Hari Sundararajan, Bhargav Ranganath, Sridevi, Kruthi and Varun Agrawal for taking time out and putting down your thoughts here. Highly appreciate it!
SG:
The first problem that I see with this solution is scalability. Given that Bangalore is the third most populous city, by the time people fill out the forms (which they take forever) and these are ingested and sorted out, the power consumption issue may actually be obsolete. Let us assume that this is planned in advance. The second issue I see with this is prioritization. Given that there are businesses (some probably with the promise of uninterrupted power supply), schools, hospitals and residential areas in the same place (and possibly connected to one or more common grids). Assuming that this is sorted out (using some parallel circuits), the third issue is people agreeing on a common slot. Even if the Govt. offers you only 3 choices, I am sure the distribution will be almost equal that the slot chosen will leave the remaining 66.6% unsatisfied. I am not trying to beat your suggestion down but I very much fear that implementing such a convenient solution will lead us all to not take the energy conservation issue seriously. I would think coming up with 'greener' solutions (like the Google power meter that speaks in a language people understand - money) could be the best approach, given that developed countries are already breathing down our necks (without any concern as to what they have been doing all these days !)...oh..dear, I should probably made this a post instead of a comment !
clarification: I misunderstood a part of your post, I was assuming that the Govt. will turn off a grid and I think that a couple of houses turning off the power (while the rest do not) will not help as much since they should power the plant/transformer supplying those grids in any case. But I do like the idea of a 'device' that monitors power supply - exactly the idea behind google power meter.
Hari Om:
In gujarat the power is controlled by "Torrent power" a private player.
He promises more than 99% of uptime and actually he delivers it.
Now the good thing is no power cut and the baad thing is less business for inverters and DG sets.This reminds me one more thing, people who need power doesn't care how they get it. for example if there is a power cut the "garuda" mall wont be shut down. it will glow using a powerful Generator suited on its roof or underground. a local store will run on inverter.we people are habitual of being at ease and we will pay for it.one more thing, producing electricity locally by DG sets and etc is cheaper than buying it from government under industrial tariff.
Anyway whenever we (The people) thinks and decide something we always CAN...
now-a-days we just need a "jagoo-re" campaign for enlightenment...
Hari Sundararajan:
The first question is, why is the power cut happening?
If my guess is correct in that the power cuts are happening to save power/ reduce power usage, your "I go out from 3pm to 6pm and will cut power for that time" kind of totally defeats the purpose. Your lights are anyway going to be off etc etc, and the current company isn't really saving a lot. However, if they take off power during the times the usage is at its peak, they tend to save more.
It's like saying "I don't like watching advertisements, so I will have the advertisements on TV play from 1 in the night to 8 in the morning when I am not watching TV, and then the rest of the day I can watch commercial-free content" ..
Speaking of paying off the fine, the only way I can think of is increasing the fine exponentially. In other words, you come within one hour after the curfew hour, you pay 50 but you come within two hours, you pay more and then even more, and so on with the electricity situation as well.
If, on the other hand, you want to take it one step further, you could establish incentives. For every 1 week you return to the hostel on time, you could spend the next 3 days out late. Or, ensure your power consumption is within so many watts, and you have got yourself some free electricity now.
Bhargav Ranganath:
The idea is good. However, the issue is how much power is saved when you are out and not using it compared to when you badly needed it. May be I should give it more though if the power cuts are serving the purpose when it comes to residential services. If the power cuts are scheduled ones, people will definitely work around them and the peak consumption shifts to a different time. Whereas, power cuts make sense with small businesses as they can't really work around the scheduled cuts, and end up using generators.
Also, to the point that operating diesel generators (assuming DG stands for diesel generators) being cheaper - diesel fuel is subsidised by the Government. Its worth to take that into consideration too.
Sridevi:
Nice idea, but both SG and Hari have a point too.
Anyway, something I observed at NITJ. The new warden made a rule that those girls that came into the hostel after curfew had to pay 50 bucks fine. So what many girls did was pay the fine daily and hang out with their boyfriends till late night. Same way, if the turning of power was in our hands, many would prefer to leave it on and pay the fine later, just because they can afford to do so.
But yeah, you could look on the bright side, the power cut is only 3 hours. In the Ungra village (when I was living at ASTRA centre of IISc), we had power supply only from 7pm till 2-3am in the morning, and even lesser sometimes!
Kruthi P:
I think that's a good idea, if used rightfully and honestly. The problem here is the "Attitude" of people. You should make sure that everyone does right. If one person fails to do it, there is a high chance of his/her neighbour to follow the footsteps and have lesser time of power cuts. People are used to work around the law here, and the fines are sometimes not fair to either sides.
The other point would be peak hours of power consumption. There are times of the day noted to be the peak times of consumption of power. You will have to work out some balance for that too.
Varun Agrawal: That is not the idea. If you do this the way you said that you will know that i timings for which you are ready to let go your power will coincide with a lot of people. It will be very immature to think power supply as a cookie box where you have your share. Its done more on prioritizing, by that i mean in the peak hours electricity department has to prioritize on where to send the power and not on how to distribute it to some guy at some time. Also power distribution happens through grids. Which are area dependent and not user dependent. So your alone cutting power will not make sense unless everybody else do that and grid can direct the supply to the other node ..
Friday, February 26, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Controlled power cuts
For the last couple of weeks, Bangalore is under power cuts: 2-3 hours a day. Now I know that this is nothing compared to many other parts of India where it’s more like 9 to 10 hours daily. So what I say here may not really apply or make much sense if you’ve got more than, let's say 5 hours of power cut in a day. 5 hours is the maximum number for this idea to have any relevance.
At the first place, it’s even embarrassing that I’m thinking along the lines of power cut convenience instead of coming up with ways to increase our power output. But forgive me, if you will, this one time. So here’s the point, folks: there’s no power in my house every morning for one hour, every afternoon for one hour, and every evening for one hour. The trouble with this, as you know, is that power cuts usually happen when electricity is most needed. So in the end, knowing that we can’t do much about it anyways, we end up planning our work around the dark hours. Like you might take an early bath, or finish off the paper work before sunset, or any of those. And kids in school are having it tight these days with exams around the corner.
We end up scheduling our work around power cuts. How about the other way round? Why not plan the cuts around our schedule? This means, the local electricity board gives every household the option to choose which 2 or 3 hours in a day they can stay without power. These hours could be broken apart, or done in one shot. The minimum duration for a one time switch off however, can be set at say 15 minutes. So I take it that there’s the main switch and plugged in along with it is a device that records the time of power cuts initiated by the household (just like the meter records units of power consumed, or a punch card that records times of 'in' and 'out').
For example, I might decide to go out between 3 and 6 in the evening. So I might as well have the ‘power cut’ at that time. As I leave, I turn off the main and the ‘device’ records the start-time of the power cut. I’m back at 6 and turn on the mains, the device records the end-time of the power cut. A condition attached here would be that if every household is required to cut 3 hours of power per day, they do not get any additional benefits for cutting it for a longer time. Going back to the above case, suppose I leave home at 3 and I turn off the power as I leave, and return at 7, that makes it 4 hours of the power-cut. But only 3 hours were stipulated by the electricity board. Then, I don’t get to adjust the extra one hour of today by reducing one hour from another day. Cutting power for less than the stipulated hours can attract a fine leading up to disconnection in cases of regular faltering. I mean, the policies could look like this.
It strikes as a convenient and a win-win solution to a problem that's not going away anywhere in the near future. Now obviously, it’s very linearly thought out without taking a whole lot of other factors into account. But what do you think of this idea?
At the first place, it’s even embarrassing that I’m thinking along the lines of power cut convenience instead of coming up with ways to increase our power output. But forgive me, if you will, this one time. So here’s the point, folks: there’s no power in my house every morning for one hour, every afternoon for one hour, and every evening for one hour. The trouble with this, as you know, is that power cuts usually happen when electricity is most needed. So in the end, knowing that we can’t do much about it anyways, we end up planning our work around the dark hours. Like you might take an early bath, or finish off the paper work before sunset, or any of those. And kids in school are having it tight these days with exams around the corner.
We end up scheduling our work around power cuts. How about the other way round? Why not plan the cuts around our schedule? This means, the local electricity board gives every household the option to choose which 2 or 3 hours in a day they can stay without power. These hours could be broken apart, or done in one shot. The minimum duration for a one time switch off however, can be set at say 15 minutes. So I take it that there’s the main switch and plugged in along with it is a device that records the time of power cuts initiated by the household (just like the meter records units of power consumed, or a punch card that records times of 'in' and 'out').
For example, I might decide to go out between 3 and 6 in the evening. So I might as well have the ‘power cut’ at that time. As I leave, I turn off the main and the ‘device’ records the start-time of the power cut. I’m back at 6 and turn on the mains, the device records the end-time of the power cut. A condition attached here would be that if every household is required to cut 3 hours of power per day, they do not get any additional benefits for cutting it for a longer time. Going back to the above case, suppose I leave home at 3 and I turn off the power as I leave, and return at 7, that makes it 4 hours of the power-cut. But only 3 hours were stipulated by the electricity board. Then, I don’t get to adjust the extra one hour of today by reducing one hour from another day. Cutting power for less than the stipulated hours can attract a fine leading up to disconnection in cases of regular faltering. I mean, the policies could look like this.
It strikes as a convenient and a win-win solution to a problem that's not going away anywhere in the near future. Now obviously, it’s very linearly thought out without taking a whole lot of other factors into account. But what do you think of this idea?
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Fights Fought: 50. Clash
One of the greatest conspiracies of the 20th century was the creation and the eventual popularity of the World Wrestling Federation, or WWF. Kids that grew up on fresh air and love had their appetites filled with a perennial flow of wrestling shows on cable TV. When WWF first started beaming into Indian homes in the early 90s, it must have been a shocker. Most parents then never really had a hold on the phrase Parental Guidance or PG, and as a 12 year old, you got away watching flicks on Star Movies that were meant for older folks – like 15 and above.
But besides Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood movies set in Switzerland
We played them all the time. We woke up thinking about Shawn Michaels, went through the day talking about Royal Rumble and Summer Slam, spent the evening looking at Tatanka’s poster, went to bed thinking about Razor Ramon’s numbers and cursing why you didn’t say ‘clash’ earlier. And while asleep we dreamt about Mr. Perfect’s biceps when we didn’t really know what biceps meant. Some part of the body, but who cares?(ad lib. A sentence has been excluded at this point since the pun sounds obnoxiously strong for most of the readers’ liking. But if you don’t mind a dirty joke, write to me. I’ll mail you the line.)
WWF was mostly a show of odd balls. Hulk Hogan (rank 1) was like a professor of mine in college: you could never say how old he was and he never seemed to get older than that. And for some reason, he (not my professor) hardly fought fights and yet managed to retain rank 1 for as long as they printed Trump cards. Rank 2, the legendary Shawn Michaels, many kids claimed was the only wrestler who was trained professionally. The rest were junkies off the streets. The Undertaker was rank 3. As one can expect, anything said of The Undertaker will eventually measure up as undertone. To start with, my Aunt thought he was 100taker. This dude gave cats a run for their money. The guy had more lives than the demographic department could keep a track of. To top that, there was this short, stout ‘soul-keeper’ assistant of his who carried an urn to all the fights, which, as the story goes contained 100taker’s ashes from his previous life. Remember those douche-bag stories? No one could defeat The Undertaker. Not even Ranks 1 and 2. But the hero is never without his nemesis, is he?. For Rank 3 had his spokes loosened whenever he took on Repo Man. Repo Man was this i-got-no-life-so-I’m-here-in-WWF wrestler ranked No. 83. But he did prove to be a handful for The Undertaker. Surprising, you may say. But that was part of the conspiracy.
The ranks went on, and every time a card game came down to the wire, the losing kid started saying ‘clash’ for the most un-clashable things in the hope of salvaging some last bones. That kid eventually lost. It was good fun playing these cards, and following the matches on TV. Especially the part when the gruff voice came which announced “Ladies and Gentlemen, coming in at a magnificent 480 pounds to set the stage on fire, here’s Bam Bam Bigalo.” And the crowds would go into frenzy and hold up placards that said “Bam Bam, my girl loves you more than me.”
The newspapers said some kid nearly killed his younger brother trying to work the choke slam. But here are a couple of things I gleamed from WWF many years later:
- That aspiring to make it to the WWF wasn’t nearly as wise a career choice as engineering.
- That kids who took WWF too seriously could actually end up hurting each other.
- That my Grandpa still remembers British Bulldog was ranked 11.
- That it’s probably not a good idea to refer to The Encyclopedia of names of WWF champs: Past, Present and Future to find a name for your new born. They’ve got pretty cool names like Beefcake Barber, Andre the Giant and Lex Luger “Hands of Steel” in it. I’m not sure if I’d want my kid to be any of those.
For years, everyone stared in awe believing the fight was for real. Then one day, some person sparked off a debate about the sense of showing such violence to young kids. It all went great for a while. And then, we fucked up the end game by calling it Entertainment.
Monday, February 15, 2010
When Sting came to town
If you like 60’s and 70’s rock, the place to visit is a popular corner in Kathmandu called Thamel. Kathmandu is a place of several shades. The city is an old one but is fairly young in terms of development. The kingdom of Nepal as such sees a vibrant mix of Hinduism and Buddhism. You could think of it as the place where India meets China, since the heavy influence of both these countries is very evident all over. But the city of Kathmandu retains the air of an ancient capital, untouched by the British, as it can be experienced when you go to Patan, the old part of the city. At the same time, being very active on the tourist radar, it’s a great place to spend a few days and meet new people from many different countries.
During my stay here for close to ten days, Pratik and I went down to Thamel almost every other evening. The place is abuzz with pubs, most of which have bands playing some of the best music from the golden age of Rock. As you walk through the narrow and crowded lanes of this area, it’s often hard to separate the beats of Seven Nation Army from Send me an angle coming from adjacent joints. The music is here and there and everywhere. This is where the nightlife of the city unfolds. No place in India comes even remotely close to the ambiance Thamel carries.
Though you get Carlsberg and Tuborg at most of the sit-ins, the beer to try here is the locally brewed Gorkha beer. You might begin to question the authenticity of Budweiser as the king of beers. In the midst of music, beer, fries and talks we got chatting up about the several hikes around the city. In due course, my friend was charting out the route to Lhasa in Tibet from Kathmandu on a paper napkin; and how this course can be done on an Enfield. But as the night came to a close and we were driving back, he told me the story of a man.
The story of a man called Sting. The singer. Sting was in Kathmandu a couple of years ago. He had checked into one of the hotels in the city under a pseudonym. He came into the hotel with a scarf around his head, and heavy stubble. He wasn’t in the city to perform. Later that evening, Sting went into one of the pubs and sat unassumingly in a corner sipping his bottle of beer and listening to the band play. A few songs into the evening, the band began to play Every breath you take. Sting sat and listened to his song being played. Not one person but Sting himself was aware that the guy who wrote this song many years ago was in the audience.
As the story goes, Sting took off his headgear and made his way to the stage as the band finished playing the song. He borrowed the guitar from the lead guitarist and went on to replay Every breath you take. He was doing this because the guitarist had apparently got some notes wrong, and Sting was correcting him. Before long, the whole place knew who the visitor was. In a couple of minutes, the entire press of Kathmandu had flocked on the road. And Sting gave interviews.
During my stay here for close to ten days, Pratik and I went down to Thamel almost every other evening. The place is abuzz with pubs, most of which have bands playing some of the best music from the golden age of Rock. As you walk through the narrow and crowded lanes of this area, it’s often hard to separate the beats of Seven Nation Army from Send me an angle coming from adjacent joints. The music is here and there and everywhere. This is where the nightlife of the city unfolds. No place in India comes even remotely close to the ambiance Thamel carries.
Though you get Carlsberg and Tuborg at most of the sit-ins, the beer to try here is the locally brewed Gorkha beer. You might begin to question the authenticity of Budweiser as the king of beers. In the midst of music, beer, fries and talks we got chatting up about the several hikes around the city. In due course, my friend was charting out the route to Lhasa in Tibet from Kathmandu on a paper napkin; and how this course can be done on an Enfield. But as the night came to a close and we were driving back, he told me the story of a man.
The story of a man called Sting. The singer. Sting was in Kathmandu a couple of years ago. He had checked into one of the hotels in the city under a pseudonym. He came into the hotel with a scarf around his head, and heavy stubble. He wasn’t in the city to perform. Later that evening, Sting went into one of the pubs and sat unassumingly in a corner sipping his bottle of beer and listening to the band play. A few songs into the evening, the band began to play Every breath you take. Sting sat and listened to his song being played. Not one person but Sting himself was aware that the guy who wrote this song many years ago was in the audience.
As the story goes, Sting took off his headgear and made his way to the stage as the band finished playing the song. He borrowed the guitar from the lead guitarist and went on to replay Every breath you take. He was doing this because the guitarist had apparently got some notes wrong, and Sting was correcting him. Before long, the whole place knew who the visitor was. In a couple of minutes, the entire press of Kathmandu had flocked on the road. And Sting gave interviews.
Before sending the next forward
The baby boomer generation can be forgiven for their gaucherie at handling e-mails and surfing the web in general. Now obviously, there are the exceptional few from that day and age who are far more adroit than my beer drinking pal from college at choosing the message they pass around in cyberspace. Without singling out any particular person or meaning offense to anyone, I’d like to take a step back and say that seeing my inbox flooded with forwards isn’t really something I enjoy. I might open and check a few; but if all eleven are from the same sender, you know where they’re going: to the trash can.
But more than the volume of forwards that can piss people off, it’s their content that’s a bigger turn off. Look at it this way. I get a forward this morning saying that a ten year old boy contacted AIDS when he ate a pineapple from the street vendor. The forward says things like the pineapple seller was a victim of AIDS, and while cutting the fruit blood stains from his fingers remained on the pulp which in turn affected the boy when he ate it. If I’m not a student of science, or my general awareness is not remarkably high, my first reaction would be to believe the content in the forward. And since I caught my teenage cousin buying mangoes from the street vendor last week, I’m keen to let him know how dangerous that can be. So I forward this mail to him. Now, he respects me and looks up to me, and so coming from a trust worthy source, the lad is going to believe that buying fruits from stalls on the street can cause AIDS. He’s going to go and educate his friends about it the next time; or worse still he’ll forward it to his friends.
But truth remains that there was no ten year old that got AIDS by eating pineapple. As an adult, by sending out unverified information, I’m responsible for teaching wrong stuff to people. Sure, I didn’t come up with the content in the forward. But sending it out without verification doesn’t excuse me either. So how do i verify forwards?
Snopes.com is a great website that validates popular forwards that we receive. The website is maintained by a couple in their late 40’s and their story was featured in Reader’s Digest in 2009. The website tells you whether a post is "true," "false," or "undetermined”. Every one of these verdicts is backed by thorough research and a full text explanation and references.
So how do I work through snopes.com? Simple; follow these steps:
1) Google snopes + title of the forward or a portion of the text from the forward.
2) Hit Enter.
3) The first link in the search results should usually take you to the page that gives you a call on whether what you just received is true or otherwise.
Have a fun time browsing through snopes.com. And by the way, here’s the link to the pineapple story: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/pineapple.asp
Use e-mail responsibly.
But more than the volume of forwards that can piss people off, it’s their content that’s a bigger turn off. Look at it this way. I get a forward this morning saying that a ten year old boy contacted AIDS when he ate a pineapple from the street vendor. The forward says things like the pineapple seller was a victim of AIDS, and while cutting the fruit blood stains from his fingers remained on the pulp which in turn affected the boy when he ate it. If I’m not a student of science, or my general awareness is not remarkably high, my first reaction would be to believe the content in the forward. And since I caught my teenage cousin buying mangoes from the street vendor last week, I’m keen to let him know how dangerous that can be. So I forward this mail to him. Now, he respects me and looks up to me, and so coming from a trust worthy source, the lad is going to believe that buying fruits from stalls on the street can cause AIDS. He’s going to go and educate his friends about it the next time; or worse still he’ll forward it to his friends.
But truth remains that there was no ten year old that got AIDS by eating pineapple. As an adult, by sending out unverified information, I’m responsible for teaching wrong stuff to people. Sure, I didn’t come up with the content in the forward. But sending it out without verification doesn’t excuse me either. So how do i verify forwards?
Snopes.com is a great website that validates popular forwards that we receive. The website is maintained by a couple in their late 40’s and their story was featured in Reader’s Digest in 2009. The website tells you whether a post is "true," "false," or "undetermined”. Every one of these verdicts is backed by thorough research and a full text explanation and references.
So how do I work through snopes.com? Simple; follow these steps:
1) Google snopes + title of the forward or a portion of the text from the forward.
2) Hit Enter.
3) The first link in the search results should usually take you to the page that gives you a call on whether what you just received is true or otherwise.
Have a fun time browsing through snopes.com. And by the way, here’s the link to the pineapple story: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/pineapple.asp
Use e-mail responsibly.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Another duck in the hall
Well, we’d all like to keep a blog and let the world know what our gray cells are processing this day and the next. But most of my friends I've spoken to who’ve tried a hand at blogging, and me too, in my early days of blogging had a stiff challenge to overcome. What do I write about? I mean, telling my audience fifteen reasons why I’m so cool is out. The “Sorry guys, I’ve been away for a while and haven’t been able to post” post doesn’t exactly get a rouse up; you realize that no one really misses you anyways. Most of us are no good at consistent diary entries either. Besides, you don’t want to be reading “I hit the loo 47 times today”.
Check out this article if you’re interested in building a blog that can potentially deliver a high impact with each post – something every blogger dreams about:
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/how-to-deliver-the-highest-impact-with-each-post/
On a side note however, I was talking to Sri today. She was telling me how this Chinese guy got deported from the Netherlands because he shot a duck in a public pond and took it home to fix a meal. The cops didn’t think it was cool. So, dear reader, buy a dead duck from the supermarket the next time you’re hungry in Amsterdam. And leave that air-gun at home.
But coming back to the topic of blog posts. For a long while, the way I came up with blog posts was I would keep my eyes and ears open anyplace I went. Anytime, anything sounded catchy, or I felt that I could milk 500 words out of a situation, you bore the pain of reading it here on One of Side of a Sandwich. Times have changed since then. Things are done a little differently these days. The task now is to come up with a phrase that can be a title for a post. My antennae are now tuned to identifying a set of words that can grab your attention. And 500 words on that phrase are a by-product. Well, at least 400.
I was at Hard Rock Café this evening, and they played Another Brick in the Wall (Pink Floyd). So you take the phrase “Another brick in the wall”, throw in some pedestrian creativity, and you come with a title for a blog post called “Another duck in the hall.”
Check out this article if you’re interested in building a blog that can potentially deliver a high impact with each post – something every blogger dreams about:
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/how-to-deliver-the-highest-impact-with-each-post/
On a side note however, I was talking to Sri today. She was telling me how this Chinese guy got deported from the Netherlands because he shot a duck in a public pond and took it home to fix a meal. The cops didn’t think it was cool. So, dear reader, buy a dead duck from the supermarket the next time you’re hungry in Amsterdam. And leave that air-gun at home.
But coming back to the topic of blog posts. For a long while, the way I came up with blog posts was I would keep my eyes and ears open anyplace I went. Anytime, anything sounded catchy, or I felt that I could milk 500 words out of a situation, you bore the pain of reading it here on One of Side of a Sandwich. Times have changed since then. Things are done a little differently these days. The task now is to come up with a phrase that can be a title for a post. My antennae are now tuned to identifying a set of words that can grab your attention. And 500 words on that phrase are a by-product. Well, at least 400.
I was at Hard Rock Café this evening, and they played Another Brick in the Wall (Pink Floyd). So you take the phrase “Another brick in the wall”, throw in some pedestrian creativity, and you come with a title for a blog post called “Another duck in the hall.”
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Houston, we have a solution
The United States National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has put out the top 14 engineering challenges for the 21st century.
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/
Close to two weeks back, Dr. Charles Vest, President Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was speaking at the Faculty Hall of the main building at IISc, Bangalore. He is currently the President of the NAE. The topic of the lecture was ‘Engineering Education in the 21st century'. What caught all of us by surprise at the very outset of his talk was the statement that he made, which said “the world is actually getting better.” This was a refreshing change from the common handout that the world has taken a nightmare pill. The world is actually getting better.
Part of this talk covered the 14 greatest challenges you saw above, and how solving them could render a great impact to tens of millions of lives around the world. However, a cursory glance at the list will tell you that there are many other challenges that are equally important if not more, but haven’t made it to the list. For example, the issues of recycling the world’s waste or space exploration don’t feature on that list. But the 14 we have here are big enough to keep our heads and hands occupied for the next 100 years.
I’ve been spending time over the last few weeks meeting with people in academia, government and industries trying to gleam an understanding of where technology, especially enabling ones like nanotech (which I hold rather dear to me) are moving us towards. Invariably in each of these discussions, the topic gets derailed from the technology per se, to the fact that the world is beating inroads to the Indo-China region; and how everybody wants to be a part of the growth story. In my discussion earlier today with Ms. Indira Samarasekara, President of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, it became abundantly clear that policy makers and influencers of tomorrow will need to root themselves in one particular 'center of gravity' of a technology/science/engineering issue, and bring forth an economical or societal or legal understanding of the same problem.
This points out to two steps the Indian government ought to consider. Firstly, the issue of Brain Drain that so famously filled debate topics during the 90’s is now not on the radar. And as Dr. Vest pointed out in his talk too, we’re now on our way to Brain Circulation from Brain Drain. This is but a passing phase where we should in all eventuality end up talking about Brain Integration. I can’t get a grip on the third phrase yet. However, brain circulation seems like a logical extension of a globalized world. I can now grow, harvest and sell my ideas to the world while living in my own country, thanks to so many other enabling technologies that could require an entirely new post to talk about.
Secondly, we’re looking at integrating the micro-technologies of info, bio and nano and bridge the gap on to the macro systems like energy, healthcare, defense and so on. India has a huge slice of this pie, and we’re only getting started. That will call on technocrats to draw on multi-disciplinary skills. We need more programmes at the masters level at Indian science and engineering institutes to implement this.
There’s never really been a better time to live and grow in this country. Houston, we have a solution!
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/
Close to two weeks back, Dr. Charles Vest, President Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was speaking at the Faculty Hall of the main building at IISc, Bangalore. He is currently the President of the NAE. The topic of the lecture was ‘Engineering Education in the 21st century'. What caught all of us by surprise at the very outset of his talk was the statement that he made, which said “the world is actually getting better.” This was a refreshing change from the common handout that the world has taken a nightmare pill. The world is actually getting better.
Part of this talk covered the 14 greatest challenges you saw above, and how solving them could render a great impact to tens of millions of lives around the world. However, a cursory glance at the list will tell you that there are many other challenges that are equally important if not more, but haven’t made it to the list. For example, the issues of recycling the world’s waste or space exploration don’t feature on that list. But the 14 we have here are big enough to keep our heads and hands occupied for the next 100 years.
I’ve been spending time over the last few weeks meeting with people in academia, government and industries trying to gleam an understanding of where technology, especially enabling ones like nanotech (which I hold rather dear to me) are moving us towards. Invariably in each of these discussions, the topic gets derailed from the technology per se, to the fact that the world is beating inroads to the Indo-China region; and how everybody wants to be a part of the growth story. In my discussion earlier today with Ms. Indira Samarasekara, President of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, it became abundantly clear that policy makers and influencers of tomorrow will need to root themselves in one particular 'center of gravity' of a technology/science/engineering issue, and bring forth an economical or societal or legal understanding of the same problem.
This points out to two steps the Indian government ought to consider. Firstly, the issue of Brain Drain that so famously filled debate topics during the 90’s is now not on the radar. And as Dr. Vest pointed out in his talk too, we’re now on our way to Brain Circulation from Brain Drain. This is but a passing phase where we should in all eventuality end up talking about Brain Integration. I can’t get a grip on the third phrase yet. However, brain circulation seems like a logical extension of a globalized world. I can now grow, harvest and sell my ideas to the world while living in my own country, thanks to so many other enabling technologies that could require an entirely new post to talk about.
Secondly, we’re looking at integrating the micro-technologies of info, bio and nano and bridge the gap on to the macro systems like energy, healthcare, defense and so on. India has a huge slice of this pie, and we’re only getting started. That will call on technocrats to draw on multi-disciplinary skills. We need more programmes at the masters level at Indian science and engineering institutes to implement this.
There’s never really been a better time to live and grow in this country. Houston, we have a solution!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Read this if you're engaged. What the heck! Read it even if you aren't
I don’t usually think of such stuff (I mean, I do, but not aloud), but today we’re going to swing it (forgive the pun) and see where this goes. This one is about love. Any moron like me who can write so much as two sentences that makes the slightest sense hopes to write on the topic of love some day. Chetan Bhagat too vouched for this in an interview when Two States was released. And you thought I was lying about the moron part?
At my previous work place, I was one of the youngest people in the team. Most of my team mates were in their mid and late twenties. To us lads who were fresh out of college, we didn’t really connect with the old-timers. Every once in a while an engagement or a wedding invite would land up on my desk. Sometimes, it would be an e-mail invite. To know what that meant, read this post that I wrote to let the world know how exactly I felt about e-mail invites (that aren’t at least followed up with a phone call). If you happen to be one of them who sent me an e-mail invite at anytime, don’t feel embarrassed about it. I wasn’t referring to you. I’m only taking it out on the others who send such stuff.
So, further to a somewhat lengthy title and introduction, here’s what appeared to be happening to people once they got engaged. They fell in love. Only recently, my friend and I were having a talk about this: the whole premise of falling in love after being engaged. (It’s funny how guys can have very chickish conversations and live in complete denial about it.) Love-after-engagement must be a different experience compared to getting engaged after falling in love. In the second scenario, when two people fall in love (in the traditional sense), the situation is still vulnerable. It is love that is based on the assumption that things might work out as planned, but with a relatively less degree of surety. You and she are still rowing a boat with an oar that may go one direction now and another direction later. You may or may not make it to the shore. Things may or may not work out. In the love-after-engagement situation, two people (who in most cases haven’t met before) are thrust into a ferry with an engine. Their chances of making it to the shore are far greater than the people in the boat with the oar.
Any couple that is engaged has a vision of what their married life would look like. They’re thinking beyond planning the next sneak-away trip to the sea-shore or the hills that their parents won't know about. As time rolls by, this vision crystallizes and strengthens to a point where the two partners overlook any immediate flaws in the other that might potentially lead to any kind of a disruptive misunderstanding at that stage. (I borrow this concept from Dr. Scott M. Peck’s legendary book The Road Less Traveled. The second chapter on Love is probably the best 100 pages anyone has written about on this topic.)
To wrap it all up, falling in love the way we know it is certainly an adventure in its own end: a story with several opening ends where anything could happen, or anything could go wrong as Murphians like to say it. One of these endings could be getting engaged. But from what I see, the story of love that develops after getting engaged is bound to be more mature and softer simply because it grows between two people who know they can’t turn any which way from here.
My apologies for the analytical and serious undertone this write-up contains. I wish I could have given a Wodehousian touch of humor to this theme. But that would mean I’ll have to be in love with a girl to do so. Only then can you make fun of it, right? See, they weren’t entirely wrong when they said that a person is like a tea-bag; his true color comes out only when he’s put in hot water.
Love being analogous to the hot water, in case you didn’t catch up to that joke.
At my previous work place, I was one of the youngest people in the team. Most of my team mates were in their mid and late twenties. To us lads who were fresh out of college, we didn’t really connect with the old-timers. Every once in a while an engagement or a wedding invite would land up on my desk. Sometimes, it would be an e-mail invite. To know what that meant, read this post that I wrote to let the world know how exactly I felt about e-mail invites (that aren’t at least followed up with a phone call). If you happen to be one of them who sent me an e-mail invite at anytime, don’t feel embarrassed about it. I wasn’t referring to you. I’m only taking it out on the others who send such stuff.
So, further to a somewhat lengthy title and introduction, here’s what appeared to be happening to people once they got engaged. They fell in love. Only recently, my friend and I were having a talk about this: the whole premise of falling in love after being engaged. (It’s funny how guys can have very chickish conversations and live in complete denial about it.) Love-after-engagement must be a different experience compared to getting engaged after falling in love. In the second scenario, when two people fall in love (in the traditional sense), the situation is still vulnerable. It is love that is based on the assumption that things might work out as planned, but with a relatively less degree of surety. You and she are still rowing a boat with an oar that may go one direction now and another direction later. You may or may not make it to the shore. Things may or may not work out. In the love-after-engagement situation, two people (who in most cases haven’t met before) are thrust into a ferry with an engine. Their chances of making it to the shore are far greater than the people in the boat with the oar.
Any couple that is engaged has a vision of what their married life would look like. They’re thinking beyond planning the next sneak-away trip to the sea-shore or the hills that their parents won't know about. As time rolls by, this vision crystallizes and strengthens to a point where the two partners overlook any immediate flaws in the other that might potentially lead to any kind of a disruptive misunderstanding at that stage. (I borrow this concept from Dr. Scott M. Peck’s legendary book The Road Less Traveled. The second chapter on Love is probably the best 100 pages anyone has written about on this topic.)
To wrap it all up, falling in love the way we know it is certainly an adventure in its own end: a story with several opening ends where anything could happen, or anything could go wrong as Murphians like to say it. One of these endings could be getting engaged. But from what I see, the story of love that develops after getting engaged is bound to be more mature and softer simply because it grows between two people who know they can’t turn any which way from here.
My apologies for the analytical and serious undertone this write-up contains. I wish I could have given a Wodehousian touch of humor to this theme. But that would mean I’ll have to be in love with a girl to do so. Only then can you make fun of it, right? See, they weren’t entirely wrong when they said that a person is like a tea-bag; his true color comes out only when he’s put in hot water.
Love being analogous to the hot water, in case you didn’t catch up to that joke.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Appealing to a higher cause
We got free passes through a friend to attend yesterday’s Parikrama and Saif Ali Khan’s concert at Palace Grounds. Once we reached and the opening band got playing, only then did it dawn on us that this wasn’t actually a concert for a concert’s sake. This was a concert for the launch of a car brand. We did see Chevy’s name splashed all over the place. They must be the principal sponsors, I guessed. But soon enough, the host for the evening (with questionable compeering skills) kept raving on about the ‘heart beat, sexy beat and smart beat’ of the Chevy Beat. Not until the show troupe of dancers and jugglers were on stage did it become apparent that the star of the show was not really Parikrama or Saif; but it was the Beat. They had the corporate triangles (meaning the top guys) of Chevrolet come to say ‘a few words’ to a stoned audience.
To say the least, it showcased some poor PR work by the company. One of the triangles went to the extent of saying “Please endorse our product.” You never say please to a potential customer. You’d like them to buy your stuff, but not to the extent where you say ‘please’. Saif’s stage presence was average. But the applause rained for Parikrama from the open skies above them. Good job, fellas!
Advertisements today need to appeal to a higher cause of the buyer. At least if not directly, every customer on a sub-conscious level needs to feel like he is associated with a brand that has a cause beyond selling products and straightening its bottom line. Vulgar marketing of this age will mean telling the world what your product is through a celeb and jingle and blatantly asking for the crowds to endorse it. Like what Chevy did at the concert. The smart advertiser of today is the one who can take a product and sell it to the world by embedding it as part of a bigger cause.
Let me quote two instances here.
Funnily, both of these examples come from the telecom world. Idea Cellular’s ad sells the idea of conserving forests and reducing the use of paper by using more phones instead. Similarly, Aircel’s ad features Baichung Bhutia saying that he’s now a part of the Tiger Conservation project in India. In both these cases, the celebrities employed to endorse the brand end up speaking about the larger community issue of forest conservation and tiger conservation respectively; and the brand name slipstreams into the ad towards the end as a matter-of-fact. To an average customer like me, who is fairly concerned about both the social problems, I now perceive that my involvement with the brand could potentially help solve the larger issue. Again at a subconscious level, I’m now buying a role in saving a tiger’s life and not just buying a sim card.
This approach has a better chance to pay off for companies adopting them rather than the direct approach of tell-and-sell, for at a logical level it’s a win-win situation: higher profits, more awareness and marketing mileage for the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) matters.
To say the least, it showcased some poor PR work by the company. One of the triangles went to the extent of saying “Please endorse our product.” You never say please to a potential customer. You’d like them to buy your stuff, but not to the extent where you say ‘please’. Saif’s stage presence was average. But the applause rained for Parikrama from the open skies above them. Good job, fellas!
Advertisements today need to appeal to a higher cause of the buyer. At least if not directly, every customer on a sub-conscious level needs to feel like he is associated with a brand that has a cause beyond selling products and straightening its bottom line. Vulgar marketing of this age will mean telling the world what your product is through a celeb and jingle and blatantly asking for the crowds to endorse it. Like what Chevy did at the concert. The smart advertiser of today is the one who can take a product and sell it to the world by embedding it as part of a bigger cause.
Let me quote two instances here.
Funnily, both of these examples come from the telecom world. Idea Cellular’s ad sells the idea of conserving forests and reducing the use of paper by using more phones instead. Similarly, Aircel’s ad features Baichung Bhutia saying that he’s now a part of the Tiger Conservation project in India. In both these cases, the celebrities employed to endorse the brand end up speaking about the larger community issue of forest conservation and tiger conservation respectively; and the brand name slipstreams into the ad towards the end as a matter-of-fact. To an average customer like me, who is fairly concerned about both the social problems, I now perceive that my involvement with the brand could potentially help solve the larger issue. Again at a subconscious level, I’m now buying a role in saving a tiger’s life and not just buying a sim card.
This approach has a better chance to pay off for companies adopting them rather than the direct approach of tell-and-sell, for at a logical level it’s a win-win situation: higher profits, more awareness and marketing mileage for the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) matters.
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