5/28 ?

This impossible photo was clicked near Trafalgar Square in Central London. No digital retouching, I swear. I was taking the Tour of London when I clicked this photo!

Out-of-Service ATMs and the Monkey-Gets-Electric-Shock-If-He-Grabs-Banana Experiment

My version of the Monkey Experiment goes like this:
There was this experiment conducted on Monkeys.
A group of monkeys were placed in a cage with a basket of banana.
Whenever any monkey wandered near the basket and grabbed a banana, he received an electric shock. Slowly, other monkeys tried and learnt the hard way that these bananas were off-limit.

The scientists now moved to the second phase of their experiments. They switched a monkey with a new monkey. The new monkey, being new (pun intended), did not know about the wired bananas. But whenever it went near the basket for a banana, the other monkeys screeched and violently denied the newcomer a banana meal! As time went by, the newcomer learnt to accept the code of the group.

The scientists went ahead and replaced yet another monkey in the group with a new one. Again the same thing happened. The newest monkey did not get its banana either.

Soon none in the group of monkeys in the cage had ever experienced a shock, though they shunned the basket like a live electric wire! The electric current to the bananas where turned off but the monkeys were none the wiser!

Now what this story has to do with defunct ATMs? Everything!

I am sure some of you might have experienced this:

Two ATMs stand side-by-side. There’s a long winding queue at one. None at all at the other one. Whenever a newcomer (naively!) goes near the dysfunctional ATM, somebody at the longer queue quips “Buddy! It’s out-of-order!” The guy (or gal) dutifully joins the long queue to make it a longer queue!

You grit your teeth. Two more guys before me! Just as you are prepared to wait for another dreadful ten minutes, a guy coolly walks up to the defunct ATM, whips out his card – quietly ignoring the “out-of-order” hints from those in the queue, and hits pay dirt! Well… Well… his own money!

Instantly the queue becomes two and you’re still at place three while the guy ten places behind you walk away with the money before you!

I was the cool dude the first time around (in India)… Second time, in UK my friend was the victim while I was the helpful quipper! ;)

Cadbury's Recalls in UK & Corporate Accountability in India

Cadbury's has withdrawn a million bar of chocolates in UK (According to a BBC report today) because of Salmonella bacteria found in the chocolates produced in one of their plants. A search on the web shows that "glitches" like these are not new to Cadbury's.

I remember the worm scandal in India, though I don't remember any recalls.

Also, there's one in Canada when hard plastic was found in one of their chocolates.

The same goes for Pepsi when a condom, yes, you've read it right, condom was found in a sealed bottle of Pepsi.

Earlier there was a controversy about pesticides found in soft drinks (We used to joke: Hey, what did you drink? Pepsicide or Cokicide?) in India.

Another was the Coke plant drawing too much ground water in Kerala. The court allowed the company to start drawing water, after it decided that despite the company not drawing ground water for a year, the ground water levels continued to drop!

Now, what do all these point to? That human lives mean so little in India? And with money, everything that can be bent / broken (including the law) will be bent / broken? Hm... could be...

Am I a Gentleman?

SJ had pointed me to the "Are you a Gentleman" Quiz...
Here's my result:

You Are 40% Gentleman

You tend to think that etiquette is crap, and you pretty much act however you please. And while this does please you, it pretty much offends everyone else.

Are You A Gentleman?

Of abondoned sites

I virtually never visit one of my earliest sites (for which there were more than a lac of visitors in 6 years). It's amazing how I never got around to managing and updating it. Guess I have given up writing poems (I got married, you see . The inspiration died. My wife would have a fit if she reads this ;)).
Group site dead, long live blogging!

Editor's Choice!

A poem(!) I had written about 5 years ago (and published about the same time at boloji.com) has been picked "Editor's choice" on June 11, 2006. Amazed! It's a nice feeling though. Thanks Mr.Editor & Boloji.com. :)

You can access my poem, My Eyes, here

Other poems of mine at boloji: here

தமிழில்...

ஆங்கிலத்தில் விசைப்பலகை இருக்க தமிழில் பதிவு செய்ய கடினமாக இருக்கிறது என்றாலும், உற்சாகமாக இருக்கிறது. முதலில் கடினமாக இருந்தாலும், கூடிய விரைவில் மிக விரைவாக பதிவு செய்ய இயலும் எனத் தோன்றுகிறது.

Mandal II: Where are those Engineers?

I feel too strongly, perhaps, a bit too strongly about the proposed reservation in India for the OBC community, that I hadn't recorded my thoughts on the same.

Today, I happen to look at the Times Of India headlines (I am currently in UK, far away from the maddening happenings), and wondered whether it should be as it is now ("Docs vs. Govt: Who will win?").

Is it the docs who have to fight the lonely battle? Are we software engineers, and the IT industry as a whole, have no responsibility to side with the doctors to fight this issue?

Every sane person would think that Merit would be sole criterion in life!
Man, I'm an English Literature graduate who is working for a top Indian IT company just because I'm good at what I do i.e. write computer programs that work! Have I been neglected because of my caste (I belong to the so called "forward community" while my father is a Machine Operator!)? The answer is a resounding NO! I'm here where I am today because of my ability. Where would likes of me in India, if Merit only gets a lip-service? Nowhere.


Today, India needs people who can DO things and solve problems that plague our society:

1. How do you control our population?
2. How do you preserve our fast depleting forests?
3. How do the PWD (Public Works Department) relay a road without having the telephone guys dig a hole and ruin the same the very next day?
4. How do you control dust and pollution?
5. How do we cleanup Ganges, Yamuna and ALL other indian rivers?
6. How do we provide clean drinking water, electricity and job opportunities (by sheer economic growth and not by handouts)?
7. How do you empower our laws (Look at Jessica Lal Murder case, Salmon Khan's drunken driving and killing case etc. etc. ad infinitum)?
8. How do you check corruption?
9. How do you fight populist politics?
10. How do you check the politician-criminals-police nexus?
11. How do you speed up trials in our courts?
12. How do we come out of power crisis facing us today and give China a run for its money?

Already, in my opinion, Indians still need to attain the attitude to innovate. We are good at doing what we are told to. Our industry currently is more focused on getting the volume and showing big numbers (A billion dollar run rate is what Indian IT companies are after these days).
While there's an argument that lots of R&D work is being done in India (Google News is once such innovation), as an insider I think I can safely assert that 90% of the work our IT companies are doing doesn't require ANY innovation. It's routine and mundane.

I read a IT outsourcing paper from Russia that says "while Russia is far behind India in terms of sheer volume of software exports, the quality and the complexity of work that Russia can handle is far above than that of India". Yeah, we can rubbish the paper and say it's not true. Remember, we have been crying that Kashmir is an "integral" part of India for quite sometime with no takers. Again as an insider, I can say that unless India moves up the value chain (read Indian IT companies), most probably we would be losing our low end work to China.

So what does it have to with reservation that is proposed? Damn, everything.
May be I've read too much Iyn Rand but the truth is this: Merit should be everything that you consider. Generally, we do not have color issues: Black (or) White. (Hey, some might challenge this: Lighter colored are favored!). These guys have a manageable number (White, Black, Red, Brown and Yellow). But we have N-number of castes! So what you do? Bucket them into FC, BC, OBC, SC & ST (Some states have MBC also).The fittest and the most able MUST be given priority as in the rest of the world. That is the way it should be in mental arena at least. We are moving towards a "Knowledge Society", remember? The only thing we would lack is "Knowledge", if we allow this "dance of democracy" to go on.

Why? Because the guys who can learn and top exams are not given a chance.
Whereas guys who, just because they are born in a particular caste, get to get into an educational institution (or a top-notch Indian company, if these swines - at our parliament - have their way. Pardon my language, as I said, I feel too strongly about this).

The pro-reservationists might say that I am not justified in denying them their QUOTA.
Hey, what about reservations your fathers got? Has any survey been done on WHO is getting the reservations? A Government employee's son? Or a top official in a public limited company? Have we quantified this number? Have we denied these persons an undue advantage?

You're a first generation graduate and you need the crutches of QUOTA? Heck, I'm a first generation graduate of my family and what did I get? I'm not trying to make this personal, okay? I am only trying to highlight a point.

Higher education in US is NOT free. Affirmative Action in US top Universities are not to be confused with the QUOTA system that we have in place and that is being made permanent.

WHO will have the political will to undo the damage done? The original reservations, if I remember correctly were for 30 years. It's being quietly renewed these days every 10 (?) years.

In a global arena (where "global delivery models" are often the norm), where quality matters, India stands to lose (and lose big) by the populist misadventures of our politicians.

If I cannot get the education in India, I'll go elsewhere (My daughter would do it and so would millions of others). How many Indians going abroad for studies are coming back? We would be begging, borrowing and stealing technology that an Indian had invented at NASA. Hey, the whole world beckons the skilled (கற்றவருக்கு சென்றவிடமெல்லாம் சிறப்பு -The learned one gets welcomed everywhere). And the boastings of "Reverse Brian-drain" would be a thing of past.

I did not hear much about protests from Engineers. That has led me to wonder:
1. The Southern states have most engineering colleges
2. Most reservation too. Tamil Nadu, for example, has 69% reservations.
3. Conclusion: 60-70% of the Engineers today are pro-reservationists as they were the ones who got the chance!

I know this is ludicrous. The same logic should apply to doctors also. So why haven't we be hearing about spontaneous support of Engineers to this cause? Software guys live with mediocrity everyday (because this profession makes it so easy to identify the under skilled just like a surgeon! If the system is a mission-critical system a software engineer could as well end lives just as an incompetent surgeon can!).

Finally, it's not between doctors and others. It's between Merit & Demerit. It's between the Innovators and the Second Handers (I've seen umpteen in my 10+ years of exp. I assure you). So all the like minded should be with the doctors.

I think all IT companies (at least at first) should start registering the protest by wearing a black ribbon at least in support of the doctors.

A constitutional amendment in US is the most difficult thing to accomplish.

Tomorrow, these goons at our parliament would make such an amendment to our constitution that cannot be legally challenged! Hey, end of democracy starts here! Anarchy and rule of the mob have started this way... Let's do something about it.

Note: I would provide links and evidence wherever I can later.

Why Should Vyas Ponder?

I've been blogging at my Software Ponders (Should be understood as Software Thoughts) and suddenly I've thought that I've been straying away from my passion i.e. Software. I had to start this multi-lingual (Two is multi, no? ;)) blog, Vyas Ponders (Should be equated with Vyas' Musings ;)), where I would be posting primarily in English and in Tamil.

So welcome myself. :)