Theoretical Joker

Exporting Arugula

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 15:13:00 +0000

Q: How do Arugula exporters transport their wares?

A: On Rocketships

Mixing Metaphors

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:17:00 +0000

Watch this old video all the way to the end to hear Condi Rice say "I will stay on top of it till I get to the bottom of it".

Why..

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 06:22:00 +0000

Here's a fun exercise: start typing in a commonly used keyword in the google search box, and look at the auto suggestions that come up! If you're lucky, you will get ridiculous suggestions like "why is there a dead Pakistani on my couch" & "Why did I get married" (of course, both of these questions are from the world of entertainment, but it's fun looking at them out of context). Enjoy!

Separation of Church & State

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:24:00 +0000

There seem to be at least 10 American cities that don't believe in the separation of Church & State:

What's your theme music?

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:16:00 +0000

In the opening sequence of Farhan Akhtar's Don, Don is sitting in a cafe in Paris, and his phone rings. He picks up his sleek Razor and spits out his name into it: Don! And then, magically, Don's theme music starts playing.

Imagine how cool it would be if you could do this in real life - every trime you introduce yourself, your theme music started playing in the background. I was hanging out with some friends yesterday, and my question to them was: if you could do this, what theme music would you pick? Their answers ranged from the Pink Panther theme to classical and operatic music (I am not making this up), reflecting the personality of the individual.

So go ahead and tell me something about yourself - what's your theme music?

Can the tip melt the iceberg?

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 09:56:00 +0000

I was amused to see the headline of this Washington Post article: Global Warming is Just the Tip of the Iceberg - in other words, "global warming, which is melting all icebergs, is just the tip of the iceberg":)

New year's resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:34:00 +0000

A very happy 2009 to everyone. In case you haven't made up your new year's resolutions yet, you'd do well to read these gems from Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes:

Apple to launch iPhone shuffle at Macworld

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:24:00 +0000

Many phone calls you receive might soon start with the called shouting "who's this?", instead of the more customary "hi" or "hello". And that's because Apple is all set to launch a phone version of its popular iPod shuffle at the Macworld expo, according to a senior executive who contacted this blog. The iPhone shuffle seeks to answer the eternal dilemma of "who should I talk with today", by making all your calls randomized. The phone will randomly pick one of your contacts and call them, whenever you hit the call button.

This is being touted as the new social revolution by Apple. While several social networking applications have opened up social interaction on the web, the mobile telephony world hasn't experienced this phenomenon so far. According to an analyst at Forrester Research, 83% of cell-phone users call no more than 3.7 contacts every month. The iPhone shuffle aims to change that by introducing its users to the joys of serendipitous calling.

We're told that it shuffle be available for free with a subscription AT&T voice plans starting at $69.99. AT&T is betting that if the shuffle takes off in a big way, the company might be able to do away with expensive infrastructure for caller ID.

Mumbai Terror Reaction: Don't equate Homeland Security with the Religious Right

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:52:00 +0000

For the last several days the eyes of the world have been watching what were perhaps the most audacious terrorist attacks anywhere. Several people have called it India's 9/11.

Despite having grown up in Delhi, I consider Mumbai to be my home now. My parents moved to the city a few years ago, a few years after I moved there for college. Between college (IIT Powai) and work (McKinsey), I spent a total of 8 years living in Mumbai before moving to the United States four years ago. I used to work in Express Towers, right opposite the Oberoi Hotel, one of the prime targets of the attack. I also remember the trip to India that I and a couple of fellow Indian students organized for almost 100 of our classmates from Harvard Business School. On the Mumbai leg of our trip, we'd stayed at the Taj Mahal, the other major target of the attack; I can't help thinking that if the attacks had happened then, many in my group would have been targeted for holding British or American passports.

Doubtless, many of you have similar close connections to these spots in Mumbai, or know friends who used to enjoy hanging out at Leopold. Many of the readers of this blog doubtless know people who were among the dead or the injured. And almost all of you have surely followed the stories from Mumbai over the last few days, watching the horror unfold, be it through Aaj Tak, CNN or twitter.

Unlike most other terror attacks in the past, we saw the militants openly engaging in combat over a prolonged period of tim. The only previous incidents that come to mind are terror attacks involving the siege of a religious shrine - e.g., the siege of the Akshardham temple in Gujarat in 2002. But the Akshardham siege was widely perceived as a victory for the NSG commandos who managed to diffuse the situation quickly. This time around, defying the expectations of all observers, the reign of terror lasted longer.

Hours after the end of the siege, as Mumbai limps back to normal, one of the big questions on everyone's minds is "what will be the aftermath?" or "how would India and Indians react?". The obvious answers are, well, obvious - some symbolic sacrifices would be made (Union Home Minster Shivraj Patil has already resigned, under presure; and just a few minutes ago Maharashtra's deputy Chief Minister R R Patil has also submitted his resignation); Pakistan would be accused of sponsoring terror; and politicians would engage in grandstanding in the wake of the upcoming elections.

What would be more interesting to see, however, would be the reaction of the common people. Irrational anger against Muslims has often been one of the reactions to such an episode in the past. While many have suggested that the reaction within India could be violent, so far, there have been few expressions of rage. Buses haven't been burnt and provocations for riots are missing. A similar sense of calm prevailed after the Akshardham attacks. Coming a year after the Godhra riots, it would have been natural to expect that violence would break out again. But as this Indian Express article points out, politicians like Narendra Modi did not provoke a similar reactions out of their own interest.

While it's admirable that India hasn't yet given in to irrational rage, what worries this author more is the tendency towards irrational fear. Even though the Akshardham siege did not provoke any violence in the streets, it might have subtly made the case that Hindu fundamentalists were making all along - that the Hindus are a besieged community and that they need to align behind political leaders with similar beliefs. Indeed, Narendra Modi rode to power two months later, with the BJP winning 126 of 182 seats. Irrational fear was as effective as irrational rage in promoting divisive politics.

While a political agenda based on security and anti-terrorism is admirable, too often the proponents of such an agenda have been religious hardliners whose real agenda is uniting one community against the other. General elections in India are due to be held before May 2009, leaving less than 6 months for the dust to settle on the Mumbai attacks. Will Indians repeat the history of Gujarat in 2002, and vote for a religious-right agenda in the guise of national security? Will the majority Hindus allow themselves to be tricked into believing once again that they're beseiged and that their only hope is to align with hardliners?

Such reactions are not unusual, and even the United States has succumbed to an extreme right wing agenda after the 9/11 attacks. Bush won his second term with sufficient popular support despite having taken measures to curb civil liberties (e.g., wire tappings) in the name of national security. "Muslim" became a bad word in America, and it took someone of the stature of Colin Powell to try and put tose ghosts to rest when he addressed the issue squarely in his endorsement of Obama. Fear created the climate in which this kind of politics could succeed and the administration granted itself sweeping powers in the name of ensuring security.

In India, a similar agenda would almost surely involve a reincarnation of the dreaded POTA. Indeed, LK Advani, the leader of the opposition has repeatedly called for the revival of POTA (note: Amnesty International reported in 2006 that even two years after the repeal of the act, the Indian Govt had continued to detain 265-400 suspects under PoTA without trial). It would involve turning a blind eye to the massacre of innocents, just like what happened in the post-Godhra riots.

Despite the precedents in India and abroad for voting on fear, I am optimistic that this time things would be different. One doesn't have to look further then the U.S. elections, where a message of hope triumphed over a message of fear. In India too, throughout the siege and since, I've heard people use their Facebook status or Twitter messages to express that this is no time for people like Modi. Are these people a majority? I don't know, but I sure see more signs of hope than ever before.

That said, India does need a more competent handling of national security. Intelligence and security would need to be beefed up, and law enforcement agencies would need to train themselves to react to similar situations more rapidly. India would have to use both the carrot and the stick with Pakistan to reduce the incidence of violence originating from across the border. And the Indian Government would need to engage more closely with other countries engaged in combating terrorism, in gathering intelligence and in choking the supply lines of terrorists.

All of this does require a more competent government. And the Indian voter should certainly go to polls with security as an issue on her mind. But it would be a grave mistake to let divisive politics succeed in the name of security.

--

P.S. This post isn't an endorsement for any political party.

P.P.S. Yes, I know, this blog isn't supposed to be about more fun stuff. But I hope you don't mind if I make an occasional exception:)

Daylight Robbery?

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:37:00 +0000

We're about to switch out of Daylight Savings time this coming Sunday. According to Wikipedia, Daylight Saving Time is the practice of "advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less".

Would you say that by doing this, the Government robs our mornings of one hour of Daylight? In other words, this is Daylight Robbery.

Like Robin Hood, these modern day robbers take from the daylight rich mornings and give to the daylight poor afternoons.

Buzzword Bingo

noreply@blogger.com (Vijay) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:54:00 +0000

I was amused to read the news about Obama's latest ad which takes on McCain for not mentioning the middle class even once in the 90 minute debate. Given that it was a foreign policy debate, one would imagine that there weren't a lot of opportunities to, er, mention the middle class. In fact I am surprised how Obama himself managed to do that; my recollection of the debate must be hazy, but I imagine it went something like this:

LEHRER: Two minutes, how you see the lessons of Iraq, Senator Obama?
OBAMA: First of all, it has to be about the middle class...
LEHRER: New lead question. What is your reading on the threat to Iran right now to the security of the United States?
OBAMA: I think the middle class feels very threatened...

You can read the real transcript of the debate on cnn's website.

One would imagine that Sarah Palin would have been more than obliging in playing this bingo. In response to a question from Katie Couric about the bailout, she managed to score hits on "healthcare reform", "job creation", "reducing taxes", "trade", "taxpayers", "reigning in spending" and a lot more; of course she failed on the most important one, viz. "middle class".

Watch her here, using all these buzzwords:

What's your bet on how many times Palin will mention "healthcare" and "middle class" in the upcoming VP debate? I am sure that it'll be something Obama can't beat.

Disheartened and Outraged???

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:11:00 +0000

Check out this AOL article on an Obama Effigy hung from a college tree.

Does he look "disheartened and outraged" by any stretch of imagination??

The reports of their deaths were greatly exaggerated

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:36:00 +0000

When Bloomberg inadvertently pushed out Steve Jobs' obituary, he became the latest in the line of famous people whose obituaries have been published prematurely. While Bloomber has retracted the story, you can still read it on gawker.com

Mark Twain is perhaps the most famous of these, especially for the message he sent in a telegram to refute these claims: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated".

Another famous story goes that Rudyard Kipling read the account of his death in a magazine, and wrote to them saying "I've just read that I am dead. Please remove me from your subscription list."

It's common practice for news agencies to keep stock obituaries for most leaders and celebrities. In 2003, technical glitches on cnn.com allowed the public to access their premature obituaries without a password. It turned out that several obituaries were written using fragments from others' templates - e.g., Dick Cheney became "UK's favorite grandmother" while Fidel Castro became a "lifeguard, athlete and movie star" (after Ronald Reagan).

The number of such incidents in fairly large and Wikipedia maintains a pretty comprehensive list of premature obituaries. Perhaps some of these premature obituaries turn out to be for the good; it is speculated (though not confirmed) that Alfred Nobel instituted the Nobel Prize after reading a rather unflattering premature obituary describing him as the merchant of death.

Bollywood's new Noir

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:16:00 +0000

I have been very impressed with a lot of Bollywood movies from the last five odd years that have been make use of several elements of the film noir style. Some of the most impressive ones that I have seen include Manorama Six Feet Under, Ek Hasina Thi, Being Cyrus, Mithya, and Ek Chalis Ki Last Local (If you see any significant omission here, it's more likely because I haven't seen the movie, than that I didn't deem it worthy of this list:)

I'd be happy to recommend most of these movies to any audience, irrespective of their familiarity with Bollywood movies. In that way, these movies are made for a wider audience. However, if you look at their popularity within the Indian market, most of them fail to make themselves huge commercial successes. As this post on naachgana.com points out, the key to success for many of these movies is keeping costs down.

It's refreshing to see that some actors and directors like Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey, Abhay Deol, Neha Dhupia, Rajat Kapoor and others investing a lot of their career into this genre and to making great movies.

It's surprising that most of these films haven't gotten their due from the Government. For instance, India's Oscar picks continue to disappoint (with rare exceptions). Recognition at that scale could potentially prompt some of the good films that are being made to up their budget, and do an even better job (which's not to say that more money will necessarily lead to better films being made).

I'd love to hear from you on any noir movies you'd recommend from Hollywood, Bollywood of your neck of the woods:)

24 hours is 3 days!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:16:00 +0000

Arrived in Mumbai yesterday, on a brief visit home. One of the first issues I'd to deal with was that my ISP had not activated my internet connection. I repeatedly called them about this, and each time I'd be told that it'd be done in 24 hours. So obviously, I sort of lost my patience after a while; but the agent I was speaking with, instead of being ruffled, explained to me that it's "24 WORKING hours", and that each working day is 8 hours!!

I think it's very disingenuous to say that something will get done in 24 working hours (and even casually dropping the operative word "working" most of the time) when you really mean that it'd take 3 days, even if the numbers add up to the same. What do you think?

If James Joyce had access to Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:17:00 +0000

I just started checking out Twitter over the last couple of days. It had always seemed like an interesting service to me, but somehow I always resisted it thinking that it took too much effort.

Anyway, so now that I am on it, and have gotten a chance to follow others' tweets, I had this random thought: when will we see the first "twitter novel" (when we do, remember that this idea originated here first!!). The idea is simple: create a fictional character and set him/her/it up with a twitter account which you (the author) controls. Start twittering and convert the tweet stream over a year or two to a Stream of Consciousness novel. You could also befriend other real and fictional folks, created by you or by others to make this more interesting.

Sounds like fun?

Places named after people

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:38:00 +0000

One of the interesting bits of trivia I learned from William at the Barstow station (ref: my previous post on chasing trains) was that the city of Barstow was named after William Barstow Strong, at that time the President of Santa De Railway. It was one of the many railway towns that came up around that time, and Barstow's main function was to connect to the mining rich Mojave.

Apparently, they wanted to name the town "Strong", but Strong City in Kansas had already done that, and hence they settled on Barstow.

While I know a lot of places named after people (and Wikipedia even has a massive list), I don't know of business figures who got even one city named after them, leave alone 2.

I wonder what modern entrepreneurs and CEOs will get cities named after them (the town of Brin or Page, anyone?). Also, I wonder how many years it'll be before railroads become completely redundant (as humans invent better modes of transport) - and William Barstow Strong will become another Ozymandias.

Train chasing, and other fun stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:27:00 +0000

Last weekend (the extended 4 day July 4th weekend - I took Monday off), I traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico's historic capital, with Janaki, a high school friend who's doing a PhD at Berkeley. She's into Amtrak trips, and convinced me that the right way to get to Santa Fe was to take the train out, though we'd have to take the flight on the way back due to time constraints.

Thus it was that I found myself driving down to the Emeryville Amtrak station on Friday morning, trying to catch a catch a train that I believed was departing at 8. The reality was that the train was to leave at 7.40. The plan was for us to meet at the station at 7.15, but as usual I was late, believing that it'd be perfectly fine toe there a little later since the train didn't leave till 8.

I managed to reach the station by 7.35, got the parking permit and put it on my car, and by this time it was like 7.39. We hear the sound of a train, and Janaki tells me that this is our train. We quickly make our way to the platform, where we see the train, but we also see a mass of people on the platform. She tells me that we have to wait to board, which makes perfect sense to me since I am still planning for an 8 am departure.

Anyway, to cut the long story short(er), we were horrified an instant later to see the train depart. We rushed to ask the ticket agent about the next train, but apparently if we took the next one, we'd miss our connecting train in LA and then our entire tightly planned weekend would be messed up.

So we decided to chase the train down!! After all, my car was parked right outside. By this time we'd already wasted 10 minutes arguing with the ticket agents. Our target was Stockton, 75 miles away.

So we drove like crazy, assisted with nifty directions from google maps on my phone, and managed to arrive in Stockton 10 minutes before the train, effectively going faster than the train by 20 minutes despite the hassles of getting on and off the highway, and mixing up our directions.

But the story ain't over yet!! At Stockton, we discover that the Amtrak station doesn't have overnight parking! I rush to ask around, and finally decide to drive out from the station to a spot a few mins away, which allows public parking.

By the time we run back, we can see the train again leaving in front of our eyes. Despite our heroic efforts, we've missed the train twice!!

However, all is not lost. The Stockton stationmaster, a friendlier soul and a more knowledgeable person than the Amtrak reps in Emeryville, figures out that we could take the next train and take the connection to Barstow, CA instead of going to LA. This is not a "guaranteed connection" (i.e., the train to Santa Fe wouldn't wait for us if our train to Bakersfield or our bus from Bakersfield to Barstow got delayed). But it seems like a reasonable chance to take, and we end up changing our tickets to go to Barstow.

Turns out that the Amtrak station in Barstow is totally godforsaken - once a bustling station, it's now been converted to a Museum, and is totally unmanned outside of Museum hours. So we found ourselves alone at the platform (pics below)

Our only companion during the next several hours was a gentleman by the name of William, a retiree, who happened to be into trainspotting. We eventually got the train which arrived a little more than an hour late, and in the interim learned a fair bit about the history of Barstow from William.

Santa Fe was great! The adobe houses and the Spanish architecture, and the spicy New Mexican food make it a memorable city.

But even more interesting for us was the trip to the Taos Pueblo, believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in the United States.

On the way there, we stopped at Chimayo, home to a Church whose soil is believed to have magical healing properties, Nambe Falls, and the gorge in the Rio Grande near Taos. We camped at the Rancheros Campground, which was conveniently located a few miles away from the heart of Santa Fe.

All in all, a fun trip made more interesting by missing the train, and meeting some interesting people. Couldn't have asked more of a 4 day trip.

Destroy the web!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:28:00 +0000

You absolutely have to check out this really fun site: http://netdisaster.com

Do try the Demonstration feature, which's especially clever!!

Superheroes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:27:00 +0000

A very happy new year to everyone! I have been lax writing recently, so I thought I'd post this one random thought about superheroes: many of them derive supposedly animal like powers, but I was wondering if they also inherit those shortcomings.

For instance, why don't we hear the expression "blind as batman"? Or why doesn't catwoman always suffer upset stomachs from swallowing hairballs?

And why, oh why, doesn't any of Spiderman's enemies simply swat him with a newspaper? (In fact I'd love to see a cartoon strip where Garfield takes a swipe at Spiderman with a giant rolled up newspaper).

Muse over this, and I'll share more fun thoughts in this new year.

Chuck Norris Facts Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:07:00 +0000

Check out the daily Fred Thompson Facts over at IMAO (in my arrogant opinion)

Absolutely hilarious! My favorites are:

1. Fred Thompson is above any law, even those of thermodynamics.

2. If you even attempt to question Fred Thompson's patriotism, you will die instantly.

3. The House recently voted on a resolution expressing their fear of Fred Thompson. It passed 427 to 0 with 8 not voting since Fred Thompson had killed them.

4. If you look up "Fred Thompson," the dictionary says, "How the hell do you not know who Fred Thompson is?!" Then the dictionary gets so mad that it clamps on to your face and smothers you to death

5. Knowing is half the battle. The other half? Fred Thompson.

What's your favorite?

Btw, for those who don't know about Chuck Norris facts, check out this site or the Wikipedia article.

Bush vetoes SCHIP

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:11:00 +0000

What can I say when the President vetoes a plan to tax cigarettes to fund healthcare for poor children? I think Jon Stewart summed it appropriately when he said "I thought something like that is only done by cartoon villains".

Starbucks and More

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:43:00 +0000

These pics were forwarded by a friend, who in turn got it from someone working at Reuters.

Btw, random semi-relevant trivia: Starbucks is, well, sort of, named after a character in Moby Dick. I didn't quite know the nuances of the story before, so do click through on that link even if you think you know this well.

Another random digression: A little over two years ago, I got a tour of the Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. I was road-tripping (is that a legit phrase? Who cares!) from LA to Seattle on the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway, and one of my fellow road-trippers had a good friend at Starbucks. Our contact at Starbucks talked us through their marketing strategy, and mentioned that Starbucks wants to "own the color green" (sort of like UPS and brown), at which point my banker friend got really confused and went: "When you say 'own' the color green, how exactly do you guys plan to own it?". He's right; it's not ownership, just a 100-year lease!

Chak De, India! - not a movie review

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 22:54:00 +0000

Apologies, but this post will make sense only to the desi readers of this blog.

I recently watched the Shahrukh Khan starrer Chak De India. A very atypical bollywood movie, Chak De tells the story of how Shahrukh's character Kabir Khan trains a motley bunch of Indian field-hockey players to win the world championship. This group of 16 girls has never played together, and has been assembled by picking the top players from state teams. The coach's challenge is to teach his players, some of them full of individual brilliance, to play as a team. And that's not easy with egos running high, and the different cultural backgrounds of the team members. Coach Khan also has to deal with skeptical administrators and regionally biased selectors.

Shahrukh's biggest challenge perhaps is Bindiya Naik, the most experienced player in the team, but also the toughest to work with. But for team India to win, Shahrukh realizes that he needs Bindiya. Other interesting characters include Balbir, a Punjabi girl who can't control her anger, and Preeti and Komal, the two forwards who would rather miss out on scoring a goal than pass the ball to each other. Watch the movie to see how coach Khan deals with each of them.

Now, I am not into writing movie reviews on this blog. So why am I doing this? Because soon after I saw the movie, I also saw that the Indian cricket team is looking for a coach. And that made me think: this might just be the right opportunity to bring together India's two "religions", Bollywood and Cricket. Make Shahrukh the coach!

Of course, he'll have to deal with Saurav Ganguly, India's tempestuous ex-captain, who doesn't submit to authority (reminds you of Bindiya Naik?). And with cricketing genius Sachin Tendulkar, who can't seem to get the team to win however brilliantly he plays. And yes, with Sreeshant's anger, with "state quotas" for selections, with the general unwillingness to work on fielding, and many other challenges.

But Shahrukh will have one very powerful mantra for the players to deal with all the problems: Chak De, India!

What do you feel?

Dyslexics of the world, Untie!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 22:40:00 +0000

I am increasingly noticing that some parts of some of my emails are incoherent gibberish. I realize this when I get a reply to my email and I have a chance to look at what I wrote. So far I have been lucky that it's only 1-2 sentences in the whole email, and the message still comes through clearly in the rest of the email.

I think I know the reason why this happens. I am often multitasking. And I often go back and change some words in my email. The multi-tasking implies that I leave a mail I am composing halfway to go to another task. And then I come back to the email and change a few words that I wrote before and add some more. And I also plan to make some more changes before I switch to another task. By the time I get back to the email again, I've forgotten those changes and started on a new set. And this cycle happens a few times before I send the email out.

The end result is that I make changes that don't coherently fit the rest of the sentence or the of again making going that mistakje here nowl as you can see.

Has anyone else faced this problem?