!ShekeTimes

'Bus' kar yaar, rulayega kya?

2018-12-05T14:47:00.004-08:00

This has to be one of very few heart touching stories that involve a mighty, rugged, jumbo bus! BUS, of all! I mean, how could I have an emotional attachment with something that's so machinelike!

It all happened yesterday morning when I was driving to work during the peak hours, when, near the Mountain View - 101 junction, a city-bus made a super aggressive free-right turn, thereby slowing me down and eventually making me stop as the signal turned red!

Honestly, that was my right-of-way and I was genuinely pissed off at that bus. I wouldn't expect a responsible, government bus driver to do that sort of a maneuver. California DMV would fail him/her for this in the DMV test!

Despite being an absurdist that believes in doing good for just doing good's sake, I said “Karma is a bitch” as just a moment later I saw the same bus being blocked by a long line of cars in our path. At the Green signal, I accelerated towards the bus just so I could switch the lane and get past him!

But as I drove and stopped just behind the bus, much to my surprise, the bus displayed at me a “SORRY” message via the digital board on its back! I was startled. And in a jiffy, realized the driver is a human too and maybe we should cut them some slack. Who knows, he/she might be driving it all night for what I know! A moment later, the “SORRY” message blinked twice, as if the driver really wanted me to notice it. I was not just glad that world has become so civilized where people don't think an apology is the sign of surrender but was angry on myself for losing my calm at such a minuscule act of aggression. I somehow felt an “inter-vehicular connection” with that bus. After the blinking stopped and the message disappeared a second later, I said “Bus kar yaar, rulayega kya?”, and sighed with an Aloknath-esque expression. Never in my life before had I felt so good about another vehicle on road!

For a split second, I even thought all vehicles - cars, buses, and trucks, should have these 'digital boards' on their rear side so they could interact with the fellow drivers on road!

Switched a lane without using indicators? Post “SORRY” on the board! On a Tesla, about to accelerate like a rocket? Flaunt “SEE YA” on the board. See a cop ahead? Warn the drivers behind you with a “COPS” message on the board. Inter-vehicular nexus somehow seems missing at the moment. ;)

All these thoughts, and the same board displayed a moving text - ”OUT OF SERVICE”, that blinked, vanished and then displayed 'SORRY' again.

-- Anoop Dixith

FB to add new feature to temporarily unfriend users who're likely to post GoT spoilers

2016-05-08T17:52:00.004-07:00

Facebook.com has yesterday announced a much needed new feature where it lets users automatically unfriend their friends who its machine learning algorithm suspects as probable candidates to post the Game Of Throne spoilers. Game Of Thrones show, particularly its second episode where Jon S...err, no spoilers, has been a tricky thing to handle for giant social media companies like Facebook and Twitter where it's so easy for anyone to play a spoilsport.

Peter Schorick, the head of Facebook's Recommendation and Relevance division updated in the company's engineering blog that “Game Of Thrones has been a big platform for sadists to piss their friends off online by broadcasting spoilers. We at Facebook take users' sentiments very seriously. We don't tolerate sadism of any kind. Facebook was built for narcissists and it shall remain so.”

He added that the Machine Learning team at Facebook has worked hard in coming up with an algorithm that finds people who're most likely to post spoilers about the show.
“I would like to assure you”, he continued, “we have all the data about everyone. For once, we have decided to use it for the betterment of humanity by allowing users to temporarily unfriend troublemakers in their friend-list. We know who are most likely to post spoilers. These psychopaths tend to have easily deducible habits - their incognito window patterns, the way they edit the text multiple times before they post a status, deceiving hashtag history and many more such. We have taken all these into account.”

As of now, this has only been activated for Game Of Thrones, but Facebook mentioned they have plans to extend this to other major events in future, including blockbuster movies.

Lanes

2015-08-27T22:04:00.003-07:00

Lanes:

So, cities grow. New localities bloom. New roads come to life. While most streets that branch out of a main street linking residences are just numbered, the ‘main’ street itself needs a name.

And while naming them, instead of going with mundane names that don’t really represent anything, like, Wright Avenue or Englewood Avenue or of the kind that nobody knows why, the government entities could make a bit of money by ‘auctioning’ road-names. Capitalism, you know.

Who will bid? And why would they?

If it’s a majorly residential locality, the apartment builders/ realty owners whose apartments and houses are being built for sale/rent in the locality, bid.

Because, competition, promotion and making a statement. It’s like going to be there forever. Everyone will recognize them by the street name.

If it’s a part residence, part commercial locality, then the opportunities are more. Business units / corporate houses/ commercial establishments that are located or going to be setup there could be asked to bid for the street name.

Imagine a McD Avenue in the neighborhood. Or, a DQ Street.

Corporations bid to quench competition. McD would like to have the road named on it because they want people to recognize the street by their brand instead of another, say Dunkin Doughnuts.

The scheme might also include some limited liberty for those entities after whom the roads are named to advertise themselves and restrict their competition to some extent.

Incidentally, this could also be an indication for outsiders and travelers that the entity that’s part of the road name does exist somewhere on that road.

How does it help the government?

Not just government make money by allocating the names for a corporation (for a long term, say 20 years or so), but also, once allocated, it becomes that entity’s responsibility to, if not repair or maintain, take the first initiative to raise a concern or nudge the government if the road is in a bad condition - which could include, but not limited to, extreme traffic conditions, pot-holes and other side-walk repairs, garbage etc. If they don’t, well, remember, people now associate the street with the brand/commercial entity.

Now imagine brands or chains of commercial units using locality-specific nicknames to identify ‘that particular’ location. If the habit grows, there will probably be a bunch of McD Avenues, a few AMC Streets, maybe half a dozen Wells Fargo Avenues etc, at which stage it becomes quite a bit confusing because the only way to distinguish will be through the city name (sometimes locality is possible as well) or the ZIP code or such.

So, brands/chains could introduce ‘nicknames’ for a particular location to identify more precisely. For example, if there’re three Wells Fargo Avenues in a big city, they could be Wells Fargo Freedom Avenue, Wells Fargo Liberty Avenue and Wells Fargo Business Street. Or, three McD Star Street, McD Main Avenue, McD Happy Street.

Now imagine renaming the already existing main streets with boring/irrelevant/outdated names. It actually IS a considerable overhead, but not something that has never been done.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/tabloid/mumbai-road-named-after-priyanka-chopra-s-father/article1-1227581.aspx

http://nypost.com/2011/08/17/11-year-old-mayor-renames-texas-street-after-justin-bieber/

Matchmaking

2014-07-08T15:34:00.001-07:00

Me and my husband were always divided whenever we discussed how many kids we should have. As a progressive, ultra-modem woman, I've always felt that my opinion must be respected and more so when it's about having kids because after all, I'm the one who's gonna carry them for months and then take care of them mostly for many more years. And since I don't really believe that I will enjoy motherhood as much as it is cherished by the rest of my gender mates, to be honest, I don't want to have kids. Or at most, for the sake of my husband and his family, one. But zero is still my preferred number.

But my husband who hails from quite an orthodox family with conventional norms, wants kids. Three, that's his number. Or more, it seems.

Fed up of the never ending arguments between us regarding this, we decided we'll leave it to chance. "Let's toss a coin", I said, "Head we'll have no kids and tail we'll make one". It didn't take him long to realize it was too much biased on my side. He countered, "Oh yeah? Why not roll a die? We'll have as many kids as it shows up". We knew both were unfair.

Finally he proposed a great solution. "Listen", he put forth, "Germany-Brazil match is coming up. Semi-finals. Both are terrific teams as we know. Ignoring the penalty shoot-out in case it reaches that stage, we'll have as many kids as the number of goals scored in total in that match in 90 minutes. Let's not even consider the extra 30 minutes time in case the game extends".

"Hmmm", I thought, "Interesting proposition. Lemme ponder over the probabilities a bit". Both are strong - there'll hardly be any goal in the first 90 at least. Or at most, one. In the worst possible outcome, two. Yet, I assumed there mostly won't be any goal at all and the match will be decided with the shoot-out just because it was fu**ing FIFA WC semi-finals between Brazil and Germany, the first and the second favorites respectively to win the tournament.

After contemplating a bit, I told okay and we signed the deal.

Now he wants one kid a year for 8 years straight, till the contract is complete.

Sharapova doesn't know...

2014-07-04T20:23:00.001-07:00

Well, as it must be quite obvious by now with those hundreds of online articles defending the tennis star, Sharapova doesn't have to know Tendulkar. I'm pretty sure Tendulkar wouldn't know greatest NFL players or the highest goal-scorer in ice-hockey.
But, in various other parallel universes...
=====================================================================
Sharapova says she doesn't know Linked List.
Gets rejected by Amazon,Cisco,Facebook,Google,Microsoft and all other software companies.

===
Sharapova says she doesn't know Virat Kohli.
Next day, asks her secretary to find out what MC,BC mean.
===
Sharapova says she doesn't know the movie Inception.
Wakes up and realizes she was just dreaming.
===
Sharapova says she doesn't know NSA.
NSA agents celebrate.

===
Sharapova says she doesn't know Linux.
Fedora and Ubuntu send her "3 sets" of free installation CDs.
===
Sharapova says she doesn't know Sasha Vujacic.
Oh move on guys, break-up's a thing with everyone.
===
Sharapova says she doesn't know Sagarika Ghose.
Sagarika labels her communal.
===
Sharapova says she doesn't know Akhilesh Yadav.
Russian police department appreciates her civic sense.
===
Sharapova says she doesn't know Arvind Kejriwal.
Took a U-turn immediately and clarified of reading about him.

Laws of Physics topple as sound waves from Arnab's commentary penetrate vacuum.

2014-05-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

Top physicists and scientists from all corners of the world were found awestruck and dumbfounded on Saturday evening as the news about an Indian journalist who managed to create sound waves that traveled in vacuum broke out.

Dr.Peter Heinsel, one of Stanford's eminent physicists and a renowned experimental scientist confirmed that the sound waves created by Indian journalist Arnab Goswami's voice have indeed breached the medium-barrier and traveled in vacuum thereby toppling all the fundamental laws of Physics to leave the scientific world in a huge fix.

"I mean, even Einstein couldn't prove it theoretically, but now we have experimental results that show sound can indeed travel in vacuum, thanks to that audacious Indian journalist Mr.Arnab Goswami", said a baffled Dr.Gerome Smith from Rosalind Institute, London.

Arnab Goswami was giving live commentary about the Indian election counting process on Saturday when millions of extremely high-frequency sound waves that came out of his mouth in gaps of under a nano-second bursts created a sort of positive interference, known in the scientific community by the term "Positive Wavelet Coherence", that made the waves travel even in vacuum thereby proving the axiom that stated sound travels a medium to travel, wrong.

Multiple experiments confirmed the phenomenon but not one scientist gave a satisfactory explanation for it. Many scientist are already in their lab doing further research on this issue which is termed by the scientists at CERN as the "biggest surprise in the history of this universe".

NASA satellite "AVX-1" that's orbiting the planet well above the atmospheric limit confirmed that it indeed has received the sound wave from some part of India, proving beyond doubt that sound waves have traveled in vacuum. The satellite recordings stated that the sound waves were deciphered to - "One minute one minute....".

While the scientific community is busy trying to come up with a logical explanation to this rarest of the rare phenomenon, Arnab Goswami's sound waves are on their way to our nearest star after sun, Alpha Centauri.

Political parties file tons of patents as EC and PTO start allowing political patents for the first time

2014-05-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

In a historical move, the Election Commission (EC) and the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), two independent bodies have made constitutional provisions that allows political parties and politicians to apply for patents and trademarks, to restrict parties from taking credit for someone else's ideas.

Chief Election Commissioner Brahma said, "Since we have often seen political parties indulge in non-original promises, copied propaganda and plagiarized speeches on political concepts, we, with the assistance of Patent and Trademark Office, have decided to include a special category for political patents".

"Political parties", he continued, "or individual politicians can now patent their innovations and can also trademark their specialties."

Arun Jaitley immediately tweeted "this shows EC is biased. I don't know why yet, but it's biased. As soon as v find out y, we'll file a patent".

Seizing the opportunity, Rahul Gandhi immediately rushed to the Patent and Trademark Office and filed his first patent on "Model for Women Empowerment". He also registered his first trademark for "RTI" on behalf of Congress. He was not late in filing his next patent on "Algorithm to bring democracy to every home".

There was an immediate tussle between Arvind Kejriwal and Mulayam Singh Yadav regarding trademarking the concept of "CORRUPTION". Nobody appeared to back off until Arvind Kejriwal clarified that he was actually talking about trademarking the concept of "Fighting Corruption", on listening to which Mulayam

immediately stepped back saying , "Saala... Pehle bolna tha na.. I'm not against corruption. Boys make mistake. What's wrong in it?"

Kejriwal went on to patent his research paper on "Doing Dharnas and other inefficient methodologies to fight corruption".

EC and PTO decided to dismiss Modi's patent application on "Development" saying it was too generic and abstract. However, Modi's "Gujarat Model and its extension to India" was given green signal. Amit Shah was banned from filing any patent for 165 years as he contemplated, according to trusted sources, on filing a patent on "Novel approaches for non-Arithmetic Division and non-Physics Polarization".

Amidst all these, EC and PTO received an application that was completely blank. EC correctly recognized it to be from Manmohan Singh and threw it into the dustbin.

Mamata Bannerjee was declined a patent on "Approaches to ensure the welfare of illegal Bangladeshi migrants" as Congress claimed that they invented it before Mamata in the state of Assam.

Arvind Kejriwal, meanwhile got a patent immediately granted for his innovative concept of "Using artificial cough to buy time to answer a reporter's question".

It's yet to be seen how many patents would be filed in total during its debut year but EC is hopeful about raking in huge monetary benefits as part of application fee with this innovative idea.

Bollywood's Programming Connection!

2014-04-02T09:43:00.001-07:00

Some deadly PJs below!
Statutory Warning: READ AT OWN RISK!

Bollywood's Programming Connection!

1. Why can't you put all the movies of Shahrukh Khan in a set??

A. Because, a set cannot contain a "Duplicate"

2. Which data structure is Madhuri Dixit most afraid of??

A. Arrays. She sang 'Array re Array yeh kya hua, maine toh nahin jaana'

3. Why doesn't Salman Khan's version control software need a proper rollback?

A. Because he said "Ek baar jo maine COMMITment kar di, fir main apne aap ki bhi nahi sunta"

4. How do you know Shahrukh Khan has no problem with hackers?

A. He sang 'Jadoo teri nazar, Khushboo tera badan... Tu hacker, ya knocker, tu hain meri Kiran'

5. Which is Aamir Khan's favorite design pattern??

A. Memento, of course (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_pattern)

Feel free to add your own in the comments ;-)

After the interview with Arnab, RaGa participates in a quiz show

2014-01-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

RaGa, after attempting to face the unstoppable Arnab, decided to participate in a quiz show. He not only wanted to participate in it but aimed at winning an episode of the renowned quiz show hosted by India’s greatest quizmaster, Mr.Siddhartha Basu. The quiz show "Grand Indian Quiz Show" gets aired in the channel “Star ++” (an open source version of Star Plus, with added features) every Sunday at 10:00 A.M owing to its incredibly high TRP value.

When Sonia Gandhi laid it out to the quizmaster sternly that he (Siddhartha Basu, the quizmaster) had only two options to choose from, which were either to make his son win an episode of the quiz or to have a face to face conversation with RaGa for an hour, Mr.Basu confirmed that it was a no big deal to make RaGa win an episode of his show and he could swimmingly make it happen, err , fake it happen.

“Its not a mammoth problem Soniaji. I’ll ask your son the easiest of the questions and also, I’ll make sure that other 2 participants face the toughest questions and your son ‘ll emerge the winner, no doubt.”

“ No that’s not possible. My son doesn’t even know the ABC of general knowledge, so no matter what questions you ask, however easy they are, he’ll fail to answer”.

“Oh , that’s ok still. I‘ll give him the questions prior to the show , may be a week before that, and let him collect the answer and get prepared.”

“No Mr.Basu, you are not getting me. Even if you give him the questions, he will not be able to find the answers, he doesn’t know how to.”

“Oh ok. In that case, I myself will provide him with the answers. That should suffice”.

“No no Mr.Basu, even if you give him the answers, he cannot memorize the correct question-answer pair and will mess up the show entirely.”

“So what do you want me to do? We can’t literally fake it in front of the audience and other contestants”.

“What you are going to do is up to you, but my son must win.That’s it. You've noticed from the recent interview that he can answer the same thing to whatever question you ask. It's a gift not many people possess. All he knows about quizzes is that participants say pass when they don’t know the answer and nothing else. Yes, it's very true that he has almost zero general knowledge, zero common sense and negative reasoning skill. Yet, I don’t want to disappoint him, he must win ”, madamji orders.

And the quiz started. There was almost a miracle there, the show proved to be a wholesome stunner as RaGa literally won that episode. While the questions asked to other two participants were something of the sort, ‘Who was the fourth president of Mozanbique?’, ‘Who won the bronze in 100 m running race in 1952 Asian games’, ‘Which is the 31st movie of Shilpa Shetty?’…et cetera, the questions asked by the quizmaster to raGa were these.

1. In professional Ice Hockey, what do you call the movement of the puck from one player to another ?

2. What do you call that portion of a restaurant, which is traditionally a counter or an area separating kitchen and "front of house" where dishes are expedited and made ready for delivery to diners are placed by the kitchen for collection by wait staff ?

3. By what name would you call the personal safety device used by fire-fighters entering a hazardous environment ?

4. Which island is a former community on the southern shore of Newfoundland and Labrador, whose most settlers were resettled to the communities of Hermitage-Sandyville and Harbour Breton ?

5. What was the brand name formerly used by the Bank of Ireland for ATM cards ?

.

for all of which, RaGa confidently had answered, “PASS” ………, which was indeed the perfect, impeccable answer ;)

(Answers are here for readers’ verification : Question 1 , Question 3, Question 4, Question 2,5 ).

Future legend Virat Kohli's emotional speech when he retires after 18 years from now:

2013-11-16T08:36:00.000-08:00

Future legend Virat Kohli's emotional speech when he retires after 18 years from now:
Match: Last match of the "23 ODI Series" between India and Sri Lanka.
Venue: Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru.

Presentation ceremony:

Ravi Shastri: (Yes, it's still him :-D): Now I'd like to invite the living legend, man who has played for India for over 20 years, Viraaaaat Kohli! (Kohli walks up to the stage).

Mic is all yours!

Virat Kohli: All my friends and foes, settle down, I will get more and more aggressive talking (crowd cheers louder. This frustrates Kohli). I said shut the f**k up. I'd like to thank a few people who stood by me all these years, supported me, understood that it's just the way I'm every time I showed them middle-finger and gracefully moved on. I've created a list also (he chuckles), but if I forget someone, please understand that it IS deliberate, intentional and you deserve to be ignored.

First of all, I thank my mom and dad. Next I thank all women I had affairs with, which continuously motivated me to play well, both on and off the field. I thank all the brands like Pepsi, Royal Challenge, Fastrack and more who believed in me and offered me crores of money for a small bullsh** 10 second ad. Seriously, thank you guys, you boosted my morale. Most important of all, I thank BCCI for setting up SO MANY India-Sri Lanka matches all through my career without which, my century count would be half as much. I thank all the Sri Lankan bowlers for making my journey so memorable.

During my illustrious career, I played with some incredible bowlers like Nehra and Ishanth who helped the opposition set up huge targets so I could chase them down and hit more centuries. So, I thank all those bowlers who are indirectly, actually directly, responsible for me being a legend today.

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, and also say that time has flown by rather quickly, but the memories you have left with me will always be with me forever and ever, especially, that "Kohli Kohli" and that "boooooo" which will reverberate in my ears till I stop breathing. Thank you very much. If I've missed something, I hope you understand that it's intentional. Thank you!

(PS: I'm a fan of Virat Kohli's talent and have nothing against him! This piece should be taken lightly)

UPLIFTER - a pathetic idea ;-)

2013-09-20T08:15:00.001-07:00

Ok! This is one of my worse ideas that I pitched in on Quora's "Crazy Ideas" Community! Please forgive me after reading this, for reading this ;-)

I always thought transportation itself could be made less expensive by utilizing the power of earth's gravity to make stuff move down on their own. For example, imagine you have a path 2 km long and a truck has to travel that. Now imagine a special "UPLIFTER" machine (basically a big, electrically powered, mechanical floor) at the beginning of that path which, when the truck is on it, lifts it up to a height of say 200 meter and then leaves it on a slope to slide through that 2 km path without spending any energy/fuel, just leaving everything to gravity. My point was that it would cost lesser to lift a vehicle to 200 meter height than spending on the fuel needed for the vehicle to travel that distance. Now imagine all the two-way highways have such 'UPLIFTER's at 2 km stretch which continuously uplift the vehicles to a height and then the vehicles come down travelling on the slope on their own with their engines turned off till the next 'UPLIFTER"!! I know I know, forgive me! :-D

Why is our calendar so complicated?!?!

2013-09-04T08:05:00.001-07:00

Seriously? How could someone make one of the most used entities of anyone's life so much convoluted? Calendars! Gregorian calendar specifically, is one thing that pisses me off every time I see at it! Come on, organizing time and scheduling events are such important things; you can't mess up with that and make it exceptionally disorganized!
It's, after all, dividing 365 days (sometimes 366) in a logical way! So you are telling me we have 12 months (it's proper till this point) and each month may have 30 days or 31? And one of them has 28 or 29?! I mean, what the hell? How did you come up with those numbers? 30 - okay. But for extra days you just made it 31? And that without any rule as to who should have 30 and who gets 3. And well, how the hell did this February end up with only 28? Such a bad way of dividing days! And have you ever wondered about their names? "January", "February"!! Damn, does anyone in the English world know what it means?! I know, I know. They have some old Latin and Roman shit in their etymology. But my point is, the calendars haven't evolved! I wonder what happened to Americans in this regard. They've everything of their own - their own measurement system, their own set of games, then why didn't they come up with their own version of Gregorian Calendar - 'The Modern American Almanac' where they removed these complicated and ridiculous names and replaced them with some sane, easy-to-remember names. "March". Did the Romans have a long march during that time? And 'May'. Guys it's so 'certain' that every damn year this 'May' comes and it's not that it may come! Going further, Octo means eight and Sept means seven. Right? Wrong - because October is the 10th month and September is 9th. How's that for a roll! Anyway,chuck it. Let's move on. Now a month has typically 4 weeks of 7 days each! Stupidity again! "7" days a week! damn it, 7 doesn't divide any popular round number which makes it hard to exactly divide the month into weeks. 31 days a month - 7 days a week - weirdest numbers I've ever seen working in a combination. Don't you think it could have been better organized? How often have you asked questions like 'hey, what day is August 15th this year?', 'how many weekends in this month', 'what day is that function, yeah the May 1st one?' etc etc? Why? Because the days (and hence weeks) don't start properly at the beginning of a month (and hence the year).

Let's see if there's an easier way of organizing days.

I'm gonna first split 365 as 360 + 5. (I know... I know... I haven't ignored the leap year. I'll consider it soon).

I'll divide this 360 part into 12 months of 30 days each. Plain as hell, no hassles. Every month gets 30 days, equality at its best. I really want to change the names of these months but let's keep them for now. And then this extra 5 days is "Holiday time" of total shutdown at the end of these 12 months! So, you get 5 days (and 6 days once in four years) after every year to just chill out and enjoy! This doesn't belong to any month, it's just 'Shutdown time', much like Christmas time. We can actually make the beginning of this 'Holiday time' coincide with Christmas by starting this "Hassle-free Calendar" on January 3rd. So, January 3rd becomes the first day of our calendar year and of the first month of 30 days. Going further, I would really like to fix this 'week' stuff. We now have flat '30 day' months. Why not divide these into 5 weeks of 6 days each? This way, every first day of every month starts with the same day. Every year, August 3rd (in this new calendar) is on the same day. Your birthday falls on the same day every single year (is that boring?? ;-) well, probably, but it's okay). There's no question of getting confused between days and dates. January 18th in our new calendar will always be the last day of the third week of the first month, no confusion. And if it's decided that last day of every week is a holiday, then every multiple of 6 is an off-day.

Well, I'm not saying everything should be converted now to this new version of the calendar. I know nobody cares ;-). I'm just wondering how easy it'd have been if this was how we had it initially. I don't see a single advantage with the current version of the Gregorian calendar we are using!

Left-handed Cricketers vs Right-handed Cricketers T20 playoff!

2013-05-29T00:27:00.001-07:00

Alright, at the outset, I'd like to make it clear that I do agree that IPL is an overkill. I mean, one and a half month of continuous unclassy, pompous cricket is certainly an overdose for a cricket fan (That is even if we completely ignore the spot-fixing scandal. With the scam included, IPL was a loathsome vomiting sensation). However, after the finals, I couldn't help but notice a slight void in my evenings! Cricinfo traffic plummeted, no Jumping Japang on TV (thankfully), no Gaylestorm and the serene environment of my living room was pronouncing again. But the day after the grand tournament ended or for two, there was a sense of blankness!

That's where I imagined of having a fun match two days after the finals! A match played just for the fun element of it, no real competition and a place to see all the IPL superstars of the current season playing in the same match, on the same ground!

A 'Left-handed Cricketers vs Right-handed Cricketers' T20 match! I do understand the fact that it's illogical to have a side that comprises of all right-handed or left-handed players and know that classic Test Cricket fans get browned off and are gonna breath fire at me for this! Nevertheless, this is just a concept and I'm gonna put it forward no matter what. And moreover, this is IPL and anything that entertains works!

So, now we decided we are gonna have a single T20 play-off between two teams - 'Left-handed players' vs 'Right-handed players' , two days after the finals! Well, the rules are fairly simple!

1. Every cricketer playing for the 'Right-handed Cricketers' team MUST be a Right-handed batsman! However, he CAN be a left-handed bowler but if he is, he CANNOT bowl! Similar is the case for 'Left-handed Cricketers' team. (Everyone among them MUST be a left-handed batsman and if he bowls in right-hand, he CAN'T bowl). This rule exists because of the fact that everyone might get into a situation where he MUST have to bat in an innings, but not everyone needs to bowl!

2. Every cricketer who BOWLS for 'Right-handed Cricketers' team MUST be a Right-arm bowler. Similar is the case for the other team.

Because of the these rules, some really good bowlers like Zaheer Khan and Sunil Narine fit nowhere! Zaheer Khan can't be in Left-handed squad because he bats right-handed! Right-handed squad won't pick him because he's not a great right-handed batsmen ;-)

So, the teams now! Obviously, I'm gonna pick the best performers for both the sides!

So, here are my 15 men squad and then their team!

RIGHT-HANDED SQUAD:	LEFT-HANDED SQUAD
15-men-team:	15-men-team:
Bowlers:	Bowlers:
1. Dale Steyn	1. Mitchell Johnson
2. Lasith Malinga	2. Pragyan Ojha
3. Vinay Kumar	3. Murali Karthik
4. Harbhajan Singh	4. Daniel Vettori
5. Ravichandran Ashwin	5. (Didn't have another great choice, just have to get some local uncapped player)
Allrounders	Allrounders
1. Shane Watson	1. Ravindra Jadeja
2. Dyawne Bravo	2. Irfan Pathan
3. Keiron Pollard	3. Yuvraj Singh
4. Jacques Kallis	4. (Didn't have another great choice, just have to get some local uncapped player)
Wicket-keeper:	Wicket-keeper:
1. MS Dhoni (captain)	1. Kumar Sangakkara (captain)
Batsmen:	Batsmen:
1. Virat Kohli	1. Michael Hussey
2. Rohit Sharma	2. Chris Gayle
3. Dwayne Smith	3. Suresh Raina
4. AB De villiers	4. David Warner
5. Mahela Jayawardene	5. Gautam Gambhir

'Playing 11' - teams, in batting order!

RIGHT-HANDED TEAM	LEFT-HANDED TEAM
Shane Watson	Chris Gayle
Dwayne Smith	Michael Hussey
Virat Kohli	Suresh Raina
Rohit Sharma	Kumar Sangakkara (c) (wk)
AB de Villiers	Yuvraj Singh
MS Dhoni (c) (wk)	David Warner
Keiron Pollard	Ravindra Jadeja
Harbhajan Singh	Irfan Pathan
Dale Steyn	Daniel Vettori
Vinay Kumar	Mitchell Johnson
Lasith Malinga	Pragyan Ojha

Honestly, I'm not biased (and not that I'm ambidextrous), but the Right-handed squad looks more solid! It's really because of lack of some great 'Left-arm bowlers who bat left-handed'. They're a rare species! And looking at the teams, for the spirit of the game, the match should be played on a spinning track! ;-) Suggestions on team, squad and the concept welcome :-)

Using corporate scrip to fix the problem of giving/receiving the exact change in buses

2013-04-17T03:10:00.001-07:00

Using corporate scrip to fix the problem of giving/receiving the exact change in buses:

Abstract:

This is an approach to tackle the problem of commuters and conductor of the buses alike in giving/receiving the exact change. Since the problem is mostly very evident in city buses, this essay is going to stick to the problem of rendering exact change in city buses (I’ll limit it to Bengaluru city buses, whose woes I’ve seen enough) although the problem itself has to be dealt with a broader range.

Every day , thousands of people use BMTC buses to commute to various places and the most widely prevailing problem with that is the issue of giving the exact change to the bus conductor (from a passenger’s point of reference). Most of the time, people won’t have the exact change and the tariffs mostly aren’t one of those amounts of which we have a ready note in INR (Indian National Rupees). Currently, when he doesn’t have change, the conductor writes the amount he has to give back on backside of the ticket, which is to be asked for by the passenger while alighting at his stop. Works but not at all efficient. Most buses are heavily crowded all the time and is very difficult to reach out to the conductor while getting down. Many a times, the passenger just forgets or ignores it. Moreover, this abruptly makes the passenger unhappy and even the conductor is annoyed if he has to give back a change of say, Rs.7 or Rs.4, which is actually an arduous task if he really doesn’t have change. Also, during early mornings, giving back Re.1 or Rs.2 change to all passengers who give Rs.10 or Rs.20 notes can be a nightmare for the conductor. This essay proposes the introduction of a corporate scrip ( a corporation wide local currency) that can effectively solve this problem. We already have a system in BMTC buses which is quite similar to this – the daily passes, redeemable in any city bus for a day (ignore the AC buses for a moment).

Working:

Throughout this essay, this currency will be called by the name – “BMTC Rupee” abbreviated as BR. This is a centralized currency and the BMTC has the exclusive authority in regulating it. The BR is issued by BMTC and can used by the BMTC passengers in any city bus. BMTC conductors have the right to give it to passengers when they do not have the exact change. But there are a certain rules which are given below:

1. The BMTC Rupee introduction is to solve the ‘exact change’ problem when the change amount is less than Rs.10. It is NOT to solve the big amount i.e when a passenger gives Rs.100 note for a Rs.7 ticket. In this case, Rs.90 MUST be given in INR and only Rs.3 can be given in BR if there is no change.

2. At a time, a conductor can give a passenger a maximum of only 2 BR notes (or coins) of any denomination. Same way, a passenger can give a conductor a maximum of 2 BR coins/notes of any denomination at a time (i.e. per journey).

3. The BMTC Rupee comes in 4 denominations – of Rs.1 , Rs.2 , Rs.3 and Rs.6. The denominations are chosen so that all the amounts between Re.1 and Rs.9 are covered and the maximum amount a conductor or a passenger gives each other doesn’t go beyond Rs.9 (since only two BR notes/coins are allowed at a time, maximum is 6+3 =9).

4. Except in the city buses, the BMTC Rupee notes cannot be used anywhere else.

5. At the start of his day, a conductor gets an agreed upon amount of BMTC Currency (say equivalent to that of Rs.500 and in all BMTC Rupee denominations (I,2,3,6)) to which they are accountable at the end of the day. Over the course of the day, since they get it back from passengers, the assumption is that they don’t run out of it. However, if they do, they should get it again from the nearest depot. The whole idea is they should never say they don’t have change to a passenger.

Examples:

For Re.1 – BR 1

For Rs.2 – BR 2

For Rs.3 – BR 3

For Rs.4 – BR 1 + BR 3 or 2 BR 2

Etc.

How Ghajini's Sanjay Singhania manages his gmail account.

2013-03-31T02:53:00.002-07:00

I hope you all remember Sanjay Singhania (or Sanjay Ramaswamy), our beloved CEO of Air Voice mobile. And if you don't, well I'd have to say your memory is no better than his! Yes, we are talking about our own Sanjay Singhania of Hindi Ghajini movie played by Aamir Khan (or Sanjay Ramaswamy of its Tamil original version which itself was based on Memento). This is a story about engineers at Google responding to Sanjay Singhania's question on accessing his gmail account! I'm gonna stick to the Hindi version's Sanjay Singhania and Ghajini movie for I feel it was a bit more coherent than its Tamil edition.

Here's the transcript of the original email of Sanjay Singhania to the Google Accounts' Support Team! Sent to: support.gmail@googleaccounts.com

The email was sent after all the vengeance story of Sanjay-Ghajini was over!

From,

Sanjay Singhania,

Former CEO of AirVoice Mobile,

Mumbai, India.

To,

Support Team,

Accounts Access.

Subject: Need clarification about accessing my gmail account.

Dear engineers at Google,

I'm Sanjay Singhania, former CEO of AirVoice, a Mumbai based telecom company. I have to tell you that I suffer from Anterograde amnesia, commonly referred as 'Short Term Memory Loss' due to which I can't create new memories that can last for more than 15 minutes, although I do remember old ones. With this background, I want to tell you that I now want to create a new gmail account for my personal use, which is actually going to be my first gmail account. I also got to mention that I do NOT have any other email address to provide as an alternate email for I always used my official id to which I don't have access now as I no longer work for AirVoice. Now, your "Password Policies" clearly mention that I should NOT write down or share my password anywhere or with anyone. But since I can't remember my password for more than 15 minutes, I fear I will not be able to access my own account again! I can write down my email address as it is public but do not know what how to access it without my password. I can say "Remember Me" but it's not a great option either. For security reasons, I often delete my cookies and cache. So can't have a forever-session of gmail. I could as well give my mobile number and ask to send a new password every time but I keep travelling globally and do not stick to one number. And even to change my mobile number when I'm using a different sim card, I got to first log-in but I wouldn't know the password! Moreover, even if I stay in one place, I can't possibly recover my gmail account at all if I lose my sim card for some reason some day! So, choosing mobile as the primary password-recovery mode is not a recommended way either. I request you to help me out of this fix!

Regards,

Sanjay Singhania.

To his surprise, Sanjay did get a response from Google!

Dear Sanjay Singhania,

Thank you for your mail. We appreciate the fact that you respect our Password Policies. Since we understand your medical condition, our engineers have figured out a workaround for your problem. This is what we need you to do to access your account every time. This workaround is based on the assumption that you DO REMEMBER your old memories as you mentioned in your mail.

Step 1. Create a new gmail account: Provide any valid password at this time. You need NOT have to remember this.

Step 2: Once the mail is created, go to 'Security' from the Gear and choose 'Password and Recovery Options'.

Step 3: Click on "Edit" in the Security Question to set choose your question. Now this is where our assumption that you can remember old things about your life comes into picture. Pick from the list such a question which is somehow related to your old life and to which you remember the answer. Please note that you should NOT WRITE YOUR OWN QUESTION as we do NOT mention what question you have written while recovering the password if its your own question. You will not be able to remember your question as well.

For example, you should probably be able to answer questions like "What was your first phone number" or "What was the name of your first teacher" etc. Choose one of those which you think others do not likely know the answer to and answer it. Please understand that this is NOT the foolproof way because the answer to the security question you have chosen is not something that ONLY you know. To make the answer more obscure, please choose the answer in a way that only YOU would know it. For instance, if you choose the question - "What is the name of your best friend from childhood?", answer it using his nickname (which mostly only you or just a couple of other close friends know) or a combination of his full name and nickname so a hacker who has figured out you are using this approach to manage your email doesn't know how you have answered it even if he/she goes to your school and locality, finds out who your best childhood friend was and tries to answer it (Highly unlikely, but not impossible). This way, you can create a pseudo-password of sorts! Use your best judgement while answering.

Step 4:

Every time when you want to login, say "Forgot Password" and answer this security question that you've chosen and create a new password for one-time login again! (Of course, you need NOT have to remember this new password at all). Hope this solves your problem.

Indeed, you will never remember that you have to use this technique. And of course, we do NOT condone you taking a print-out of this email and stick it to your wall. However, logically also, it's possible for you to go to the "Forgot Password" link the next time you log-in. This is how it is! You write your email id on your wall and may be a small note beside it saying "created very recently". Now you look at the id and the message and try to login but don't know the password. There are two things you can probably do that time. First, since you KNOW you can never remember the password, you give up logging-in. (You don't keep thinking forever for the password because you know you can't remember it). Second, since you notice the "created very recently" message and since you know your medical condition doesn't allow you to remember the password, you understand there must be some way to get into it otherwise you wouldn't have created it in the first place very recently! You try the recovery options!

Regards,

Google Accounts Recovery Team!

Reportedly, Sanjay Singhania is using this tactic to access his gmail account. Good luck hackers :-) .

How managers don’t compare but compare!

2013-02-02T11:56:00.004-08:00

“Sir, how are these two guys?”, asks an HR to Nolan, the manager of the data analysis team.

“You want me to compare them against one another?!!”

“Yes sir. That’s what I want. For the appraisal stuff that’s coming up for your team real soon”.

“But I don’t believe in comparing people”.

“I’m afraid you got to do it now, without believing maybe. Please sir, John and Bob, in order”.

“Look, comparing these two employees John and Bob isn’t fair. Two apples should be compared. Not an apple and a….tamarind. Sorry I can't”.

"Okay sir, thanks for the comparison".

Acquiring more resources!

2013-01-30T02:26:00.000-08:00

Divisional Manager of a software firm interviewing a candidate for the post of an Associate Manager:

D.M: On a scale of 0 to 10, how do you rate yourself at acquiring more resources for a project? Integer answer only, no fractions. And don’t say 10 out of 10; I won’t buy that.

Candidate: Well, you should give me more than just 3 points to choose from. Just 0, 1 and 10 don’t make a great range!

D.M: Oh! Ahaa. Using binary? Okay, between 0 and 100?

Candidate: Well, I’m back to decimals. I’ll rate myself at 99.

D.M: You’re hired.

Extra bits:

On a scale of 0 to 10, how do you rate your self-confidence?

11.

On a scale of 2 to 11, how do you rate your knowledge on prime numbers?

On a scale of a to b, how do you rate your algebraic skills?

b – {(b-a)/10}

On a scale of 0 to 10, how do you rate your rating ability?

??!!

Blackboard Wiper

2013-01-05T12:29:00.003-08:00

So last month, I got an idea, it was a mediocre one.

It popped up when I was in a training here.

The trainer had a lot of things to write on the small board we had and I observed him rubbing the board over n over again to make room for the new stuff.

It was like he spent 20% of the time rubbing the board!

So I thought of this “Duster-Wiper” thing! The way we have water wipers on windshield of 4 wheelers, why can’t we have a “Board-Wiper” for blackboards (and whiteboards)? (But unlike windshield wipers that run repeatedly, this runs just once per button press).

They have the regular (but longer) dusters at their wiping-end and on press of a button that’s beside the board, the wipers take that semi-circular arc path and rub the board!

However, to rub the board completely, we need 3 such wipers working in sync.

They can be installed mainly in universities n schools as well as in the training/meeting rooms of corporate offices! It’s pretty inexpensive as it just needs a small electrically powered motor!

It’s not a game changer I know, but probably it would look ‘cool’ having this with the blackboards (and whiteboards).

WC

2012-12-08T23:04:00.000-08:00

Well, that was my first ever foreign trip within an onsite travel – SWEETzerland, it was. We four of us - me, my manager and his wife, and an architect finally decided to temporarily come out of the entrenched mode shedding our parsimonies as we headed to the mesmerizing town of Lucerne in the scenic Switzerland. I remind you again, that was my first trip abroad and I hardly knew Swiss etiquettes and their way of life. In fact, I was quite new to the cosmopolitan culture itself and the European colloquialism was well way beyond my comprehension.

Coming back to the point, Lucerne was a spellbinding beauty, with serene lakes everywhere and the ambiance so pristine. The pure water in the natural water bodies, the pollution free atmosphere, and white cloudy sky - everything made it look trancelike. We visited most of its tourist attractions and at last, all of us leisurely parked ourselves on a park bench outside a hill-restaurant when the architect I said of earlier left to buy a bottle of water. The manager and his wife left too and told they were going to the water closet nearby. Honestly, I did not know what a water closet was. I thought it must be yet another one of those gazillion attractions in Lucerne that’s somehow related to water, like a water theme park or a water spring. After all, that’s what Lucerne was renowned for, lakes and river streams and tourism based on it.

When the architect returned, I told him, so candidly: “Come fast, there’s something called water closet nearby. Sounds like a nice place to visit, we better be visiting it before leaving to Zurich. I’m so excited to see the water closet!!”

And that architect had the laughter of his lifetime and I stood palely with a stupid smile on my face!

PS: In case you don’t know what a water closet is either, I’m glad I was not the only one :)

'The Green Mile' Experiment !!

2012-11-26T00:10:00.001-08:00

An experiment to bolster creativity, supposedly!

Let me come straight to the point. This weekend, I did a bizarre experiment that primarily aimed at strengthening the right hemisphere of my brain, the concierge of creativity and the processor of spatial, perceptual and intuitive information. The exercise was unassuming and so much fun!

The experiment demands you to pick a movie of your choice which you haven't watched, whose plot you aren’t aware of, whose cast you don't know either and best if you have no clue on what kind movie it is.

I chose 'The Green Mile'. (Yes, please go ahead and call me a retard for not having watched it till then)

All I knew about the movie was that it was critically well received upon release and Tom Hanks played a major role in it. The healthier part was its name is so convoluted that it doesn't give out anything about the movie genre.

Then, I started playing the movie and began watching it without the video. Turned the monitor off, lied down on my cot and listened to only the dialogues and the background score, imagining my own stuff that would correlate and make some sense with the ongoing audio-scene! I tried to reconstruct the sets through the background score, imagined my own characters based on their voice, sometimes partial description that spills over and intonation, and knitted an own story based on what I heard all along.

And then watched the movie to see how close I was!

Damn, nowhere in the vicinity of the actual plot was mine!!! :D

Nevertheless, it was fun and a gratifying brain exercise which I’ll indeed repeat with a different movie.

Oronym!

2012-11-20T22:51:00.003-08:00

Somewhere in France:

Girl1: Wow, who’s that?? (pointing to a handsome guy)

Girl2: He? Bruce.

Girl1: Oh I see. What does he do?

Girl2: He brews.

Girl1: Ah. What does he speak?

Girl2: Hebrew.

Girl1: Umm. Where does he stay?

Girl2: Heeb Rue. (Rue is street in French)

Apple Inc Dominates Camera Market in a Parallel Universe!

2012-11-16T05:19:00.002-08:00

In one of the infinite parallel universes, AppleCams and LinuxCams were the two firms that pioneered the research on analog cameras. When they both simultaneously started working on it independently, the cost of building one camera and that of the reel they needed was so high that each of them could only afford to take one single picture with the cameras they built! Given this pitiable plight, they both decided to take that one picture of each other’s camera!

While LinuxCams mostly concentrated on internal mechanism, performance and features of the camera neglecting the aesthetics, AppleCams prioritized look and feel and outer aesthetics over the rest. And when they finally both built their cameras and took one picture of each other’s camera, LinuxCams, which had the better mechanism took a splendid, impeccably clear picture of the AppleCams’ camera. To add to that, AppleCams had an impressive, glistening outer body and an overall photogenic appearance.

Then it was AppleCams’ turn to click the LinuxCams’ camera. AppleCams sucked in its performance and quality against LinuxCams and took a rather blurred, hazy and dark picture of LinuxCams’ camera. Moreover, since AppleCams did not give much importance to features, they lacked picture-quality-enhancement suite to boost the quality of the image taken. To add to the burns, LinuxCams had never given any importance to their camera’s look and feel or its appearance.

The two pictures taken, one of AppleCams’ camera that looked majestic and extremely impressive in the picture and the other, pale and unimposing LinuxCams’ camera, were presented to the public! 90% of the world that ‘wowed’ at AppleCams’ camera instantly pre-ordered it.

The Weirdest Debate Competition!

2012-11-15T00:19:00.002-08:00

Because 'The American Debate Council', who had organized a nationwide debate for grad students chose a topic that was so intellectually stimulating as well as seemed like one of those that appeared to influence the overall result, an elite panel of judges had to be selected.

The participants, to whom the topic was revealed just on spot, evidently looked baffled. It was indeed tough. After all, which side would you choose if the topic is “Neglecting the case that they can be equal, participants who choose to argue against the topic in a typical debate competition generally have better chances of winning”.

Participants who agreed, argued for those who went against the topic in a typical debate while those who thought it wasn't the case and advocated against, argued for the people who argued for the topic.

A UI Designer Wishes Everyone Happy Diwali

2012-11-11T09:30:00.001-08:00

A UI Designer Wishes Everyone Happy Diwali this way:
#India

Logitech Launches Unique ‘Zynga Mouse’ that Clicks 10 times per Click:

2012-11-03T06:41:00.001-07:00

Social gaming giant Zynga might be having its stock price at an abysmal level, but the company still maintains a fervent fan base, particularly in its classic cow-clicking games on the browser - FarmVille, CityVille and recently their sequels. Based on this fact, Logitech, the firm that’s renowned for manufacturing computer keyboard, mouse and other accessories is betting on these cow clicking games with their new mouse that’s designed especially for gamers who play Zynga ville games. Games like Farmville, Cityville , Fishville and many others involve a lot of mouse clicking by their players. In fact, mouse clicking makes up for more than three fourth of what players do while playing such games. With this in mind, Logitech has announced its new mouse, fondly christened “Click Less, Play More”, although the brand name is “Repeated-Click Mouse”, which typically clicks ten times per one user click! While this figure can be configured, Logitech designers firmly believe 10 is the optimum number for most ville genre games of Zynga. Users generally keep clicking on their fields and cities to grow food, water the plants, construct houses and a variety of such tasks that involve a lot of mouse clicks.

“Our specially designed mouse”, says Logitech VP Michael Rivett, “will allow gamers to click less and play more by offering them multiple clicks, typically 10, for each of their clicks.”

While it remains to be seen how players respond to this new feature of the mouse, the dwindling gamer base of Zynga might still expect a slender redemption.