Thought Stream Catcher

hideously ugly side of bangalore & karnataka

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:15:42 GMT

Spread the word... Better still, if you have "connections", do something to bring the wrong-doers to justice.
The entire city ought to protest this outrage... and the lack of protection from the law.

http://stuffireadrandomly.blogspot.com/2009/02/taliban-lives-in-india.html
http://bangalore.praja.in/blog/murali772/2009/02/17/face-goons
http://muthu-booksandbeyond.blogspot.com/

Ram Sena

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:41:51 GMT

Just one note: Apologies to these wonderful creatures for the unfair association
(thanks to allposters.com for the image)

Prasoon Joshi Lyrics are a class apart

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 13:29:04 GMT

After some phenomenal lyrics in TZP, Prasoon has done it again in Ghajini. Its great that we have a terrific addition to the lyricist pool (joining Javed Akhtar). Power to the Indian Light Music scene!!.

Some excerpts from Ghajini:

Kaise Mujhe Tu Mil Gayi:
......
Mein to yeh sochta tha ki aaj kal,
Upar wale ko fursat nahi,
Phir bhi tumhe bana ke woh,
Meri nazar mein chadh gaya,
........

Guzarish:
......
Sheeshe ke khwab leke,
Raton mein chal raha hu,
Takra naa jaun kahin,
Aasha ki lau hai roshan,
Phir bhi toofan ka darr hai,
Lau bujh naa jaaye kahin,
.....

Out of the world!

peace conference petition

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 02:23:06 GMT

Please sign and spread the word if you agree http://www.petitiononline.com/pakindpc/petition.html

cops & robbers: same difference?

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:02:21 GMT

It was quite disgusting to hear this story from our driver. His house got robbed. Police have tracked down the robbers
and the articles (electronics etc). Now the police are asking for 10K from the robbers if they want to avoid jail,
and 10K from the driver if he wants his things back!!. Ugh. It is one thing to pump money from the rich, but from a
driver????.

His helplessness is saddening. Any ideas from you all?. Is there free or low-cost legal help?. Is there an anti-corruption
forum that might help?. How about a sting operation and then approaching the press? - is that a good idea?.
Any contacts, advice, pointers will be appreciated.

Tata shows its colours again

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:12:04 GMT

Lost my wireless modem. Called Tata and blocked the account. Luckily, found it before spending a huge chunk of money to replace it.

Called Tata hoping to unblock the account, which should involve setting a checkbox and saying 'go'. But not on Tata's customer management systems.

They inform me that I HAVE to go to a store and BUY a new sim card - Inconvenience & Cost thrust upon a customer.

Steers me away from any Tata service or product in the future!.

beware of scamsters watching ebay.com

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:01:00 GMT

Bought something on ebay.com.

I get an email from mikedean35@gmail.com to the email address registered on ebay, stating that the payment must be processed outside paypal as ebay has informed him that there's a problem with using his paypal account.
Initially, I trusted this sender because the email came to my official ebay-registered address, which is normally
private (obviously, ebay has a hole somewhere).

Then I get another email from this guy saying that ebay tells him that just one time, they'll offer free protection for this transaction, and that ebay will directly email me with the "steps" to follow. He asked for my address & name so that he can move the processing forward. It felt fishy, but I sent the shipping address anyway.

I get an email from "ebay@safety-trust.com" that looks like an authentic ebay email.. asking me to transfer money to
a guy in Romania!!. (ADRIAN UTA, Street Cocorilor, Rm Valcea 1000, Romania) who is an "ebay agent".
The requested payment method was WESTERN UNION. This made it
fairly obvious that a scam was in progress.

I've reported mikedean35@gmail.com to google.
I wonder if safety-trust.com should be reported, or it was just a random domain name the scamster is abusing.
I don't know how to report the romanian address & name.

Anyway, thought I'd let people know so they don't get bitten by such a scam.

Everyday!

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:29:35 GMT

A motivational/inspirational video clip was sent on a CD by a good friend, but then I found it on youtube. Here it is. It is one of the finest clips I've ever seen - moving, piercing, inspiring. I was once asked to name a few individuals I admire a lot. Three names quickly came to mind, and co-incidentally, two of them are on this clip - Kapil Dev, Pele (the third was Mother Theresa).

Enjoy.

HSBC bank: big form, little substance

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:51:30 GMT

While I was reading a post venting about poor banking experiences, I realized I have some unvented angst as well. When it comes to banking, I'm always seeking the ones that have good online solutions which minimizes the need to call them. Calling a bank to get some service comes close to a torture technique that sadistic autocrats would have loved to use. Wrong published numbers, frequently changing numbers, byzantine menus, long holds, clueless service reps, cookie-cutter responses, dumb-as-a-doorknob procedures etc etc..

HSBC looks and sounds shiny, and it was the bank my previous employer used, and given that I had tried most other "global" banks before, and hadn't found the holy grail, I gave it a shot. I opened a personal account, and the experience was mostly ok - no worse than the others, but not significantly better either.

It is when I opened a business account with them that the troubles began, starting with the "welcome package". It took 35 days to get it! (took only 5 days with HDFC that I opened around the same time). The explanation was that the first time, it was "lost in transit" (and bluedart was the courier, no less). Still doesn't explain 35 days!.

The online services are quite deficient, and the relationship manager had to have someone call me atleast 3 times to walk me through strange menus to accomplish simple things such as transfer funds, and view opened FDs. And as if that wasn't enough trouble, I had to support that with paper applications that I had to fill and send. To cancel a cashier's check that was issued online, I had to send a written request on paper!!. When an new FD is created, the system makes assumptions instead of giving choices online... and to change the default choice, send an email request or call!. HDFC provides these choices as part of the FD creation process. The info I get from HSBC folks isn't always reliable. For example, I was told there was no limit on hsbc a/c to hsbc a/c transfers, but the system imposed the same limits applicable to out of bank transfers...

Enough said. Still looking for an icon for good service in india... Open to suggestions from friends.

HP Pavilion laptop busted, and service - even more

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 05:50:38 GMT

Bought the Pavilion DV2601TU 3 months ago. An automatic HP software upgrade happens, which includes a BIOS upgrade. Machine cannot boot after that - there are 4 beeps and the power button blinks.

Took it to a walk-in HP customer care center. After an hour of narrowing down the source of the problem, they conclude the motherboard is faulty. I get an SMS in an hour saying part is not in stock and they'll send the ETA "shortly". 48 hours are gone and there's no ETA, despite going to the center again and explaining to the folks how difficult life is when your work depends on the laptop and its in the shop. I requested a way to atleast get some of my data from the drive, but nope there was no help.

I've been promised an ETA for the part on monday. After that, X days of waiting for the part, and then a day (hopefully not more) to install.

SOmething is seriously wrong if a marquee brand like HP cannot get an ETA for a common part like the motherboard... Either the logistics network is busted or there's too many motherboard failures??.

Yahoo Mail delivery problems

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 05:36:55 GMT

I know its not just me. I know several yahoo mail account holders going through several ISPs whose email is getting delivered after hours or days or not at all!. This has been happening for the last couple of weeks.

Is anyone else experiencing similar problems?. I've reported this on getsatisfaction and yahoo answers. I've tried to get help before through yahoo's online support maze and got nowhere, so I won't try again.

The yahoo email address has been my permanent address for over 10 years... I'm sad to be getting nudged closer to changing my address. Will give it a few more weeks before taking the plunge.

Rusty Ethics & Competence

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 06:14:59 GMT

The 3rd test between India & Australia has been remarkably dirty.

There's the umpires. 5 wrong decisions against India, and 1 wrong one against australia (so far, there's still some play left). Has Bucknor just achieved new levels of incompetence or is he plain ethically twisted?. And there's Baffling Benson. He is consulting a player (clarke) to confirm if he indeed took Ganguly's catch (the same player who after being caught off a thick edge waited at the crease!). Is Benson too stupid to realize there is a 3rd umpire?. Thanks to replay technology, it was clear that clarke grounded the ball in the act of catching it.. so it was clearly not out.

And then the australian team. Just this morning, 3 instances of unfair appealing. Gilchrist when it was clear that Dravid just padded the ball. Ponting when he had grounded the ball while catching it. And Clarke who too grounded the ball while catching it.

The australian press isn't helping, by contributing speculative, divisive, negative, ignorant articles about the caste composition of the Indian team.

There is no honour in the way Australia is playing the game. Its boorish. Its hollow. Its shame-worthy. The respect for their past laurels is fast disappearing from my mind.

Microcredit

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 03:35:57 GMT

Check out BillionBanks.org . If you or anyone you know wants to participate in brainstorming and/or solution building, please let me know.

James Watson the Nobel Laureate : Foot in Mouth Disease

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 03:22:12 GMT

In an interview to the Sunday Times in London, James Watson apparently claimed that blacks are less intelligent than whites. Given his fame & credentials, this statement is perhaps as powerfully damaging as crop-dusting our society with carcinogens. One of my first thoughts was whether he has any scientific basis for such a belief, given that scientific endeavour is his demonstrated area of strength. This question was quickly answered in his apology that came soon after, where he states quite explicitly “That is not what I meant. More importantly, there is no scientific basis for such a belief". Reading through the whole article, one can see that making prejudicial statements has been a pattern in his behaviour - clearly, he has an unhealthy habit to get rid of. As a result of his outrageous statements, the speaking engagement at the Science Museum in London was cancelled by the Museum. Some journalists expressed disagreement [1, 2] with this decision, stating that Dr Watson should have got the opportunity to explain himself in the spotlight of public debate. I agree.

While the apology is a step in the right direction, he has unwittingly caused damage that cannot be undone, by providing some folks additional ammunition for promoting racist agendas. Sigh.

My main intent in writing this post is to express something that bothers me - namely that as a society we don't pay nearly enough attention to Emotional Intelligence (EQ) as we do to "traditional" intelligence - the one that's measured by IQ tests. It can be argued that EQ can matter more than IQ in making a person "successful". Daniel Goleman has done pioneering work in promoting the understanding of the role of Emotional Intelligence. In his book "Working with Emotional Intelligence", he has argued that Emotional Intelligence plays a huge role in Exceptional Performance in the workplace, and that companies must pay attention to developing EQ in the workplace (In my long career in corporates, sadly, I have not seen any such effort). His recent book "Social Intelligence" takes EQ from a personal level to an inter-personal level.

Now, coming back to Dr Watson, everyone knows that he was recognized for his outstanding IQ in 1962 by the Nobel Foundation (whether his IQ has the same lustre as 45 years ago is an open question). As for his EQ, it is yet to be determined. I, personally, would give him a failing grade. How about you?.

Let's also ponder about "Spiritual Intelligence" (SQ) [aka Conscience] that another favourite author of mine - Stephen Covey - defines in his book "The 8th Habit" as the inward moral sense of what is right and what is wrong, the drive toward meaning and contribution. It is the guiding force to vision, discipline and passion. When Conscience governs vision, discipline and passion, leadership endures and changes the world for good... The words "for good" means that it "lifts" and also that it "lasts".

Another failing grade for Dr Watson from me!!

babajob - innovative startup for the job seeking poor

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:01:56 GMT

This weekend, I chanced to see an article on babajob.com. If you've ever hired home help, you know how it works. You tell your neighbours, their staff, the security guys, watchman etc and they sort of spread the word. If you're lucky, someone shows up at your door, and if you're luckier still, they have good references and their track record alleviates the discomfort of hiring someone totally unknown. This is clunky at best.

Babajob brings that whole mechanism online, and very innovatively!. The best part of the brilliant model is that the job seekers don't need to be computer savvy - they just need to know someone who is!!. The "mentors" not only bring the job seekers and the jobs together, but they also bring in a dose of credibility to a job seeker. Also, the incentive structures are setup in such a way that everyone comes out ahead and it encourages use of the system. Model aside, the implementation is great too!. Maps & Mobile are used very effectively, and their search interface is awesome (can refine on many attributes such as gender, languages, religion, eating habits, locality etc). They launched recently and are in beta, but I already found a lot of good results when I tried out a search for drivers in my area (which is the boonies to an average banglorean).

A former Microsoft employee, Sean Blagsvedt joined hands with his stepfather (and former Microsoft colleague) Ira Weise to start babajob to "connect the yuppies of Bangalore with its wage laborers". The beta product is focussed on bangalore. Do check it out.

The obvious benefits of the internet - open, instant, scalable - are brought to bear beautifully on a problem a lot of people face everyday!. I'm overflowing with admiration for the founders of babajob - I think it is the best startup I've seen in many years.

While babajob caters to the job seekers at the bottom of the pyramid, what about those who want to be entrepreneurs?. I believe an opportunity exists to create a "babaloan" to help such aspiring folks with access to microfinance. For a fact, there are poor people paying loan sharks 5-10% interest PER MONTH on loans which are their only means to running their small business (which is their only means to basic survival).

SmartCrowds Software Pvt Ltd!!!!

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:45:12 GMT

A little tiny victory on the long & winding road to creating value. After only 1 round of resubmission to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the name in the Subject above was approved for the company I aspire to take somewhere. I hope to "drive the company to creating platforms, tools, applications, and web services that facilitate the harnessing of opinions and ideas of people in order to benefit communities, organizations & society as a whole" (lifted from my LinkedIn profile).

Wish me tons of luck please :).

And if there's hands-on architect types, passionate internet-consumer-services product manager types, UED maestros, or passionate software developers out there, looking for adventure, please holler - I'd love to talk to you.

Unbeleivable Tata Indicom

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:10:31 GMT

Got a USB modem over a month ago. Its a neat little pendrive-sized device and its my pipe to the net when I'm on the move. It has worked like a charm. Until about 2 days ago. The device is all paid for. The previous bill was paid for, the outstanding balance is zero. And wonder of wonders, the account is blocked for "address verification" - over a month into getting the account, after submitting all sorts of paperwork for id & address proof, and after receiving a bill at this address and paying it!!!!!. I hope the head of logic-defying operations at Tata Indicom is aware of this and is working on improvements.

hardships of the not-so-wealthy college goers

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:22:05 GMT

Over the weekend, I was talking to some of the scholars of Pragati Educational Foundation who are pursuing graduate studies in bangalore colleges. The college they get admission to, and the fees they pay to these colleges is largely dependent on the rank they obtained in the CET exam. The net is that they have very little control on the proximity of the college to their home, and a lot of them are actually spend 3-4 hours every day going to-and-fro. I also chanced to talk to a lecturer in a college, who also validated the fact that a lot of students do spend a lot of time commuting.

When the commute is on a cycle, motorcycle or a crowded bus, it can be physically draining, besides being nearly impossible to use productively.

It is indeed sad to see precious cycles of our young and future torch bearers getting wasted like this. Now, it is a complex problem to solve, and I'm sure there are many many things that can be done to alleviate the bite. I'm not about to delve into a complex analysis of causes & effects & possible solutions. But traffic congestion stands out as a huge factor to me. And there's one little thing we can all do and encourage others to do, which may make a palpable impact - and that is to stay off the roads to the extent possible. If you have 4 errands to run, try to do them on a single trip rather than four trips. And try to get out there in the least intrusive way possible - on foot, on a bicycle, a motor bike, a bus, a car - in that order. Try and get as much done on the telephone or internet as possible. Use a courier in favour of personally delivering things, etc etc. If not to keep the roads less clogged, the personal economic [time & money] benefit alone, of each of the above ways, will make it worthwhile.

Scary experience with hosting on adps

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 16:51:54 GMT

The site pragati-edu.org is hosted at http://adps-domain.com, along with some email accounts. For the last 3 days, the mail server wasn't reachable and the site was down. I finally emailed support enquiring about it. Turns out that there was a "technical problem" and this technical problem wiped out the site files, and the email accounts!!. I pretty much have to start from scratch restoring the site to where it was.

I think it is unacceptable for a site host to have a customer face this kind of a problem, and for this long. I will concede however that technical problems are a reality, but the kicker here was there was no effort on the part of adps to restore my site - by default, it was my burden to carry!. Is this normal?.

Should Search Be Open

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 08:55:42 GMT

http://www.rahulmatthan.com/metalstirrup/2007/07/30/should-search-be-open/

Darjeeling Trip, in Short

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:28:32 GMT

If you want to view the first rays of the sun on the Himalayas, and go river rafting on the same day, then Darjeeling is your cup of tea!. It’ll be a long day mind you, as you need to be at the viewing station on Tiger Hill at about 4am, lest the throngs of tourists rob you of a nice spot to enjoy the spectacular sunrise. Getting to Darjeeling is no easy jaunt either – from Bangalore, it takes a flight to Calcutta, and then a flight to Bagdogra, and finally a 5 hour road trip that gets you there in the shortest possible time. Stay there for a few days and you will be glad you endured the travel blues.

For tea connoiseurs, fresh, world-famous Darjeeling leaf tea of the premium kind might alone be worth the trip. For the rest, spectacular views of the 3^rd highest peak on the planet, stunning green mountain scenery, walks on scenic ledges through the moody clouds that drift in and out, might provide the draw. For the foodies, thukpa – a soup with fresh handmade noodles, and momos – stuffed, steamed dumplings are worth a try. For the Bangalore beer brats, there’s the “ultra super strong” He-Man beer to relish. And, not to forget the Shopaholics, there’s tea, pashmina shawls, sweaters, and Feng Shui trinklets to load up on. For those that want to shop “abroad”, border shopping in Nepal is just a short ride away.

Civil engineering in mountainous towns like Darjeeling is a tough art. Flat areas are hard to come by, and so most of the construction is on fairly steep slopes. Imagine your next door neighbour being 100 – 200 feet above or below you. A walk to school or a store is quite a trek. Rain water gushes down like shooting swords that cuts through anything on its path – rain water drainage is tricky and challenging. Despite frequent bouts of rain, Darjeeling lives under the cloud of a water crisis. A bulk of the traffic through town is that of water tankers which is a good business for those enterprising enough to harvest the rain water. Many people wake up early in the morning to ferry water to their homes from a few scattered taps.

The locals were warm and cheerful, and showed a love for flowers – nearly every house had a row of pots with colourful geraniums, petunias etc. Gardens were refreshing with a variety of flora neatly landscaped. There were some unique varieties of lilies and orchids to the delight of greenthumbs.

Regardless of what you’re going to look for in Darjeeling, one thing’s for sure – you’re closer to the heavens!.

NGO in need of web dev help

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:36:16 GMT

Pragati Educational Foundation's (NGO) website needs an administrative section for volunteers to be able to manage student & volunteer data on the web. What's needed is simple:

password based authentication
a UI for 2 DB tables - students, volunteers
CRUD options
Sort option on certain fields
technology : LAMP stack in use

This should be a small bite for someone who has written some DB apps for the web. If anyone can donate some time to make this happen, please contact me. Thanks!!.

Hello Planet!

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:35:42 GMT

This is my first sentence ever on a blog.

I have been encouraged by co-workers many times to start, but a combination of inertia & bloggers block kept me from it until now. There are two things that prompted me to start now. Ever since I switched from paper to EverNote for my work & personal notes, I find myself making a lot more notes. The keyboard is mightier than the pen I guess :) (BTW, EverNote is an outstanding free tool - check it out). The other is that I'm starting up a project (a company really but its name is TBD) that has to do with harnessing the wisdom of the crowds. I think, therefore, that it is necessary for me to participate in the various forms of expression online, to deepen my understanding of dynamics around community behavior.

Why trimtab?. The inspiration is from 'The 8th Habit' by Stephen Covey. Before I explain trim tab, I must state that Stephen Covey is a superstar sage when it comes to matters of Human Development. I find his advice is extremely practical, inspiring, and packed with the potential to transform lives!.

A trim tab is a small rudder that turns the big rudder that turns an entire ship or a plane. Stephen goes on to say that Gandhi was a trim tab. The wikipedia page on trim tab states that Buckminster Fuller often used trim tab as a metaphor for Leadership and Personal Empowerment. Inspires the thought that even a small change one makes can lead to a big impact.

Talking of change brings me to what's been bugging me for the last couple of days. A talented foodie who baked a cake for my son's birthday party (the cake drew a lot of oohs, aahs and yums from guests) aspires to grow into big business, but first needs to obtain a "food license". The official fee for the license is Rs 292, but he's been asked to cough up around 30-40K under the table. What would be your advice to him on the best way to handle the situation?. How can he fight this unscrupulous choke-hold on his progress?. Any good grievance forums out there?.

This has been way too long a Hello. More later, hopefully soon. Greetings to all!