Sameer Halai

Are people really moving into Seattle?

2010-06-18T21:34:21-07:00

Forbes recently published a visualization based on IRS data which shows where Americans moved between 2008 and 2009. You click on the city name that you are interested in and it shows you a dense sets of lines showing migration paths. Red lines show that there was a net number of people moving out whereas black lines show a net number of people moving in. It's interesting to look at, but really really hard to read, and almost useless due to that. But that's a different story.

I found it interesting to compare this data with the temperature heatmap of that day. We have had an awfully cold spring but this heatmap really drives in the point. That week, the Pacific Northwest was the coldest region in the country! Makes one wonder, if people really are moving to Seattle in hordes, do they really know what they are getting into?

I average 4 dreams a night – what’s the shape of your sleep?

2010-05-22T18:03:20-07:00

Every night, we surrender ourselves to the most enigmatic aspects of our reality - sleep. We voluntarily (or involuntarily) enter this dormant state of being for 1/3rd of our life, each time waking up hours later to face the remaining 2/3rd of of the day.

What exactly happens when we are unconscious? You can always go to a sleep lab and have all sorts of machines monitoring your brain frequencies and other vitals so that you can learn more about how you sleep. But if you want the convenience of doing it yourself, you can try this $0.99 app for the iPhone called Sleep Cycle.

The setup

You start Sleep Cycle, leave it running, and place the iPhone face down on the mattress, somewhere near your head area. SleepCycle uses the accelerometer in an iPhone to detect motion as you sleep. This motion is interpreted as a proxy for how active your brain is at that time. When you wake up the next day, you can see a graph of your sleep activity the past night.

Certain levels of activity are associated with different stages of sleep. Lowest activity corresponds to deep slumber when we have no dreams. Some activity corresponds to the stage of Rapid Eye Movement when we have all of our dreams. And high activity corresponds to light sleep - the kind that leaves you tired when you wake up.

Sleep graphs

I have been monitoring my sleep this way for a couple of months now. I have noticed that on average I seem to have 4 instances of REM like activity levels. Does that mean I have as many distinct dreams each night? Most research points out that this is in fact close to the average number of dreams humans have. However, I rarely remember my dreams; so this is insightful for me to understand that my brain is being creative while I am unconscious

And then there are some days where I have interesting variations. For example, the two graphs below are quit extreme when compared to each other. According to the first one I plunged straight into deep sleep as soon as I lied down. But within an hour I was almost awake. I stayed in the high activity area dipping twice to catch 2-3 quick dreams but was pretty much sleeping lightly for the rest of the night. I am guessing it's one of those nights when your dreams take input from what's actually happening outside and distorts it into a fantasy dream world experience. Unfortunately, I don't remember what I dreamt that night so I have no way of validating this.

The one on the right, however, suggests that I stayed in deep sleep for most of the night. I only had a dream around 5:00 am before going back to deep sleep. Is this one of the nights where I actually remember what I dreamt since there was only one? I am not sure because I really couldn't remember what I dreamt.

Waking up at the "right" time

If you look closely at all the graphs there is one thing in common to almost all of them. They all end on an uptick in my sleep graph - did you notice that? This is no co-incidence. This is the second feature in this app which makes it an awesome alarm clock. You set the time you want to wake up and then use the app as described earlier. Around 30 minutes before your wake up time the app starts looking for increase in activity. As soon as it notices your body's activity level going up, it triggers the alarm even if it's 10s of minutes before your desired wake up time. The theory is that if you are woken up at a time when your body is naturally trending towards being active then you wake up feeling more active and less groggy.

I am not sure I can say for certain that this helped me - it's really hard to notice difference in grogginess - and I am never super happy to wake up And that's the other problem with the app - there's no snooze button. So if I don't want to wake up, I have to quit the app to shut the alarm. Then it stops recording consequent activity, though, so the graphs are not true to the actual time you wake up in case you snoozed.

Augmented mindfulness

At SXSW this year, Robert Fabricant of Frogg Design described Augmented Mindfulness. It's the idea of collecting information about yourself, processing it, reporting it and then reflecting on it to effect change in yourself.

Sleep Cycle is a great app for the curious and I highly recommend trying it out. However, this data can't be exported, nor can it be analyzed or visualized in other ways. So it's limited in how much it can help you in making deeper insights into yourself. It would be great if I could correlate this data with other data about me. For example, I could look at my tweets or social updates of the preceding day to analyze my sentiment and derive my mood and then find correlations with my sleep patterns and how I was feeling that day. Or I could compare it with the food I ate that day that I capture in my food journal.

My Fitbit finally got delivered today. It also lets you monitor your sleep and helps you reflect on your data. It will be interesting to compare how the data differs across the two systems. I will find out soon!

Mumbai or Bombay? Doesn’t matter. You’re probably saying it wrong anyway

2010-04-25T14:33:59-07:00

I was born and grew up in Bombay and I moved to the US a little less than 4 years ago. I have noticed many people here unsure about the correct name for the city. If you are not from India, and are reading this, then you have probably also had that question sometime in your mind: What's the correct name, is it Mumbai, or is it Bombay?

First of all, if you have asked the question above, then pat yourself on the back because not everyone even knows those are two names for the same city. Secondly, don't blame yourself for not being quite sure what's the right thing to say because the answer to the question is not so straight forward. It may require a quick dive into the history of the country to understand the context behind it.

Bombay city in Bombay State

You might know that India was ruled by the British for 150 years until they finally left in 1947. But that sentence is misleading because India as a country was formed *after* the British left! Before and during the British occupation, there wasn't as much a country of India as it was a combination of provinces and kingdoms neighboring each other within a geographical area demarcated by water on three sides and the Himalayas on the fourth. There had been periods in its history when most of the regions had come under a common ruler, but for all practical purposes, it was always a fragmented region of loosely connected autonomous territories with different languages and customs.

When the British left, the newly formed government of India faced the task of integrating the 600+ princely states into the idea of a single nation. Using a combination of force and negotiation, this largely succeeded, but not all regions could be integrated completely as there were many forces along regional, linguistic and religious lines that saw the borders and sovereignty of regions in different lights (The most famous one was the Kingdom of Kashmir)

One such region was the state of Bombay. Yes, it used to be the name of a state, with Bombay city as it's capital (like New York, NY). Though the state covered a very large region that included Gujarati speaking people, the burgeoning city of Bombay was situated within a dominantly Marathi speaking population. In the years after India's independence, there was an increase in sentiment within the Marathi speaking population to claim it's own identity around a region that included the city of Bombay.

Bombay city in Maharashtra State

To cut a long story short, after many ups and downs, finally in the year 1960, Bombay state was split into two states: Maharashtra and Gujarat. Bombay city, the former capital of Bombay state, was now the state capital of the newly formed Maharashtra state.

Present political map showing Gujarat and Maharashtra state

And thus began the tension between a cosmopolitan, pluralist, trading city being integrated into a new state formed under linguistic lines. Though the two new states were clearly defined along linguistic lines, it was hard to draw any lines within Bombay city which housed people from all over the country and from all religions and languages. There were tensions among the entitlement felt by Marathi speakers whose state this now was, and that felt by the other local residents of the city who didn't understand why anything should change for them in the city they have always called home.

The world referred to the city as Bombay, the Marathi speakers always referred to it with the colloquial name Mumbai, while Hindi speakers from North India referred to it as Bumbai.

As is usually the case in any separatist or self-determination movement, there were political groups on different sides of the movement driven by a divided population. The dominant party in post-independence India was the Congress which had Gandhi and Nehru in its fold. But in the decades leading to the 90s, there was a surge in regional parties that addressed the sentiments of the local populations. The Shiv Sena, with a mainly xenophobic agenda against non-Marathi migrants to the city of Bombay started gaining prominence among the Marathi speaking population. Their name literally means Army of Shiv(aji) and they were known to use violence and force in pushing their ideology. The Marathi population itself was divided in its support for the party. Some could relate to the idea of respect for Marathi culture, but they didn't find themselves aligned with the use of force and violence. Others were not comfortable with migrants of other communities raking in wealth and power and gaining prominence while they were unable to adapt to the change in this fast growing city. They sympathized with a political party which wielded power on their behalf and painted a picture of a glorious Marathi state and a glorious Marathi city of Mumbai where Marathis get preferential treatment in every sphere. During the infamous communal riots in Bombay in 1992, the chief of the Shiv Sena commandeered his footsmen to kill Muslims in the city and sent a clear message that his party was there to look after the Marathi population and to drive out "foreigners" and "intruders".

Mumbai city in Mahrashtra State

On the rise of such a sentiment, coupled with many other political factors, in the year 1995, the Shiv Sena won the State elections and came into power. The first item on their agenda was to officially rename the city from Bombay to Mumbai, a symbolic gesture to claim the city for the Marathi population. There was some rhetoric added on to justify the change - the British left India 50 years ago, why should we still use the name they gave us? But the message was clear: Bombay belongs to the Marathi population and migrants from South India, North India and non-Hindu religions are unwelcome. This was also followed by a mass renaming of public places to honor, Chattrapati Shivaji a historic Marathi king. Victoria Terminus was renamed to Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus. Sahar Airport was renamed to Chattrapati Shivaji Airport. The Prince of Wales museum was renamed to Chttrapati Shivai Museum. All business were required to display their names in English characters and in Marathi. Non-complying business were raided and vandalized.

The city was divided in its reaction. Some felt that the city had lost a huge part of it's heritage, while some found it to be the culmination of decades of the pro-Marathi self-determination movement. There were oppositions and public protests. There were some small victories - the people were able to stop the Shiv Sena from repainting the city transport buses to match the color of their political flag. But the name stayed on.

So is it Bombay or Mumbai?

Most liberal Indians still prefer calling it Bombay. They are not opposed to the new name, but they don't like the pro-violence, xenophobic political parties and the agendas behind the name change. However, it's used interchangeable - it's almost a factor of the the language you are speaking in which decides what name you use. Personally, if I speak in Hindi, I will always certainly use the word Bombay. If I am speaking in Marathi, Gujarati or Kutchi I will always use the word Mumbai. But when I am speaking in English, I end up using Bombay. And this is in part because it just flows naturally and also because of the incorrect way Mumbai is pronounced by most speakers of English:

Bombay is pronounced as Bomb-(b)ay which almost everyone gets right

In Hindi, it is pronounced as Bum-bu(t)-ee, most non-Indians wouldn't know this pronunciation exists

In Marathi, it is pronounced as Moo-m-bu(t)-ee

However, most English speakers pronounce it as "Moo-m-bye". This is not how the Shiv Sena wants you to say it.

The region of Maharashtra has a great cultural history and has produced some of the best thinkers, saints and philosophers and has highly evolved poetry, prose and the arts. True Maharashtrians are rightfully proud of their heritage while being forward looking and in favor of peaceful evolution of society. They are not stuck on the spelling used to label their city nor are they threatened by an increasingly flattening world. So, you can say what you want, the only people you will offend are the Shiv Sena and it's hard-line followers who don't like you anyway. Others, the Bombayites or the Mumbaikars, are more accepting of people from other places, other religions (and other accents) and wouldn't mind one bit whatever you say.

To put this in a larger context, here are the important dates in the history of the city:

1534 - Bombay islands were captured by the Portuguese.

1661 - The islands were gifted in the dowry to Charles II of England.

1668 - Charles II gave the islands to the East Indian Company on lease.

1708 - Bombay became the H.Q. of the East India Company.

1862 - The islands were merged to shape one stretch.

1869 - Suez Canal was opened and Bombay developed as an international port.

1947 - Bombay was declared the capital of Bombay state.

1960 - Bombay was made the capital of Maharashtra.

1995 - The name was changed to Mumbai

Allergic to your cat? Rub some dirt on it

2010-03-21T01:15:01-07:00

I have had several cats when I was in India and never had any allergies to them. So when we decided to get one here in the US allergies were the last thing on my mind. But as soon as we got the cat home, my nose started running and I couldn't stop sneezing. We ruled out other things and quickly realized that I was in fact allergic to the kitty. I was also able to trace back similar outbreaks in the past to previous encounters with cats which I had earlier ignored.

We really wanted a cat, so giving it back was not an acceptable option. Nor could I go around popping a pill everyday or wearing a mask around home. So we started doing research into exactly what causes these allergies and what's the best way to cope with them.

I was surprised to find out that cat hair has nothing directly to do with allergies. It's actually the dander. And where does dander come from? It's the cat's saliva! When a cat licks itself, the saliva left behind on her body dries up into tiny microscopic particles and becomes airborne. These dander particles contain proteins that come from the saliva and it's these proteins that cause an allergic reaction in people.

I found out different ways people cope with cat allergies. Some take monthly injections which help them suppress the allergic reactions. Some get air purifiers which remove allergens from the air. I also learnt that bathing a cat once a week keeps the dander low. Besides these, there seemed like not much one could do. I started looking at air purifiers which wouldn't blow a hole in the pocket. We also bathed the cat. I was also beginning to look into anti-allergy treatments.

I don't know how but I stumbled upon this product Earth's Balance Dander Free for Cats. It claimed that all I needed to do was spray it on the cat once every few days and I should be allergy free. It sounded like snake oil and I was very skeptical. But before spending $100+ on an air purifier, it seemed reasonable to try out a $10 product and see it it worked.

And it worked! As soon as we sprayed it on our cat, I was allergy free. No more sneezing, no more runny nose, no watery eyes. It was happening, I could hold the cat and play with it and not worry about the disruptive reactions.

What's really in the product? This brings us back to the original title of the post. Apparently, the only active ingredient in the spray is bacteria normally found in dirt. Yes, you heard that right. The product is nothing but a clear water suspension of dirt bacteria.

How does it work? Well, this bacteria can neutralize the protein found in the dander which removes the irritant in it making the dander harmless. A sharp reader will notice the opening statement in this post – “I have had several cats when I was in India with no allergies”. Have you made the connection yet? There's more dirt in India – cats get exposed to more dirt and their dander is automatically neutralized! No wonder I was never allergic to any cats in India. It's this sterile environment in the US which causes problems

I used it every few days on the cat for the first few times. Now it's been two weeks since she was last sprayed and I still don't have any allergic reactions to the cat. So if you have been on the fence about getting a cat due to allergies, I highly recommend trying this product.

Tags: cat, pet, cure, allergy

Comparing lack of insurance deaths with traffic accident deaths

2009-11-10T18:44:06-08:00

No. of people that die each year due to lack of insurance in the US: 45,000 [Source: Harvard Study]
No. of people that die each year due to lack of insurance in the UK: 0 ?

No. of people that die each year to due traffic accidents in the US: 42,000 [Source: Car Accident Statistics]
No. of people that die each year due to traffic accidents in the UK : 3,200 [Source: Dept of Transportation UK]

Cost of insuring everyone to reduce lack-of-insurance deaths in the US: 100 billion per year [Source: NY Times comparision report]
Cost incurred due to the 6.4 million auto accidents each year in the US: 230 billion per year [Source: Car Accident Statistics]

%age of traffic deaths to total deaths in the US: 1.68% [calculation]
%age of traffic deaths to total deaths in the UK: 0.5% [calculation]

A death is 3 times as likely to be due to a road accident in the US than in the UK. Since road accidents have a very high skew towards young drivers, it has an asymmetrical impact on the total life expectancy of a country. The more the traffic deaths, the lower the life expectancy.

Life expectancy rank of the US: 50 [source: Wikipedia reference]
LIfe expectancy rank fo the UK: 35 [source: Wikipedia reference]

Top reason for highway crashes: Driver attitude - aggresive/ignorant [Source: Statistics Top 10]

Conjecture: If we improve driver attitude to reduce highway crashes, it can cover the uninsured with the money saved and double the increase in life expectancy with a zero net sum cost!

Thoughts after reading the 1,990 page health care reform bill H.R.3962

2009-11-08T16:11:15-08:00

The bill is broken down into 4 main divisions. I admit that I just breezed through division B, which talks about reforms and cost savings in Medicare, and division D, which talks about reforms for health care for Indians (Native Americans, not me ).

Here's highlights of the other two divisions:

Division A

Insurance becomes a heavily-regulated, highly accountable, fixed-margin marketplace - you make a profit? pass it back to the insured as a dividend
Enforcement of consumer protection, reduced variability, increased guarantee and reliability of health care
Ensures higher quality of coverage, regardless of impact on insurance premiums

Division C

Introduces a bunch of incentives for wellness programs, positive behavior, preventive care, research into effective, evidence based medicine
Introduces incentives to increase the health workforce in the country

Division A levels the playing field, sets some tough but humane standards that really should be met for health coverage to be meaningful. It's a sweeping reform in this area. Division C attempts to offset the costs in the long run by introducing incentives for preventive care and increasing health workforce.

Whether Division C offsets the cost of Division A is debatable, and I personally think it won't magically reduce the bottomline cost of healthcare. What this does succeed in is establishing quality standards which will expose the true cost of real health coverage for everyone in the country. It ensures that cutting health care costs by reducing coverage or turning a blind eye to the problem is no longer an option. The bill is an embodiment of the country's belief that everyone has a basic right to reliable and affordable health care, no matter the cost to everyone. It forces everyone to look at other creative ways to reduce costs and raise money to support this right, starting with increasing Medicare efficiency and taxing the super rich. However, I could't understand how this bill achieves a reduction in insurance premiums. Isn't that the bottomline cost that should be of concern? If you have any insight into this, please leave a comment or email me.

Having read the earlier bill at the start of the summer, this bill comes across as a little more exhaustive and reflects the incorporation of a wider set of opinions, which explains the additional 1000 pages Would be interesting to see how it evolves as it passes through the senate.

Have you read the bill before forming an opinion? Of the 40,000 people who have read the bill so far, 80% oppose it. http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3962/show Also consider reading the NY times comparative report.

[Note: Even in the case of the earlier draft that was hotly debated, 77% people who actually read the bill voted against it http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/show Either supporters access the bill through some other source that I am not aware of, or they just rely on trust and summaries by others, or only the opposers care to scrutinize the bill in detail. If you want to show your support for the bill, consider voting "Aye", after reading the bill, of course!]

Appendix:Understanding the numbers using some crude, loose calculations

Number of uninsured people this bill would help = 36 million [source: ny times summary]

Cost of proposed plan = $110 billion per year [source: ny times summary]

Assumed average individual premium for job-based insurance = $5,000 per year [source: about.com ]

Assumed average family premium for job-based insurance = $10,000 per year [source: about.com ]

Cost of insuring 36 million people with existing average individual premiums = $180 billion per year [source: calculation]

Cost of insuring 36 million people with existing average family (assuming family of 4) premiums = $90 billion per year [source: calculation]

Cost of the two wars in the last nine years = $919 billion or averaging $91 billion per year [source: http://costofwar.com/]

Number of people in America that die each year due to lack of insurance = 45,000 deaths per year [source: Harvard study]

Number of people in the world that die of malaria each year = 1 million deaths per year [source: Gates foundation]

Cost of completely eradicating malaria from the world = $5 billion per year for 12 years [source: Roll Back Malaria]

Do you monitor your energy consumption?

2009-10-11T15:48:58-07:00

Puget Sound Energy uses Energy Guide to provide very interesting analytical tools to see your energy consumption. It’s similar to tools by Google and Microsoft, both of which do not work with my PSE account.

I hadn’t noticed this visual before which compares our energy consumption with other similar dwellings in the area:

I am not quite sure what we are doing better. When I compare it to the same month last year, my total YoY consumption has gone down:

If we assume no other factors have changed then the main difference seems that we had two more people living with us that month. I remember reading somewhere that hot water consumption is one of the main variable factor in energy bills. Less people means less hot water consumption. Maybe that’s all that makes us “better” than others in our area. If this is true, then just by looking at anyone’s bill in our area one could predict how many people live in that household

Maybe it is due to some other changes we have made e.g. I took down my 24x7 FON hotspot last month. I could be wrong, but I remember from my previous calculations that a 24x7 router adds up to around the same energry consumption as a stove-top used twice a day. Time to put the rusty Kill-a-Watt to some use.

Can you think your way to sharper TV picture quality?

2009-10-08T00:08:50-07:00

When I first hooked up my Comcast HDTV service to my brand new plasma HDTV, it took me a while to realize what I was watching was not HD quality. Things looked a little stretched out and the on-screen text was not quite as sharp as I had heard HD would be. Having never seen any HD content before, however, I wasn’t sure whether what I was watching was HD or not. It definitely looked better to me compared to what I was used to seeing before.

Only after I got a new HD box from Comcast did I quickly realize the difference. It’s much much better and the sharpness and detail is definitely more pronounced. Now that I know what HD looks like, I can definitely tell it apart from SD. (However, I am still not able to tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p, at least not on a 42” screen.)

A Dutch study wanted to see if simply being told that you're viewing an HD picture quality would lead to a satisfactory viewing experience.

Two groups of 30 people watched the same video clip, individually, on the same television. Half were told to expect a better experience thanks to HD technology, an impression backed up by posters, flyers and an extra-thick cable connected to the screen. The other half were told to expect a normal DVD signal.

The results? Those who were told to expect HD quality "witnessed significantly sharper, more detailed images." The takeaway: A discerning eye, gullibility, and many other variables notwithstanding, until you can afford to shell out big bucks for a decent set, you can always try convincing yourself that what you have now ain't all that bad.

I think I agree with the finding and the advice. If you haven’t yet seen what HD looks like, you probably won’t miss it as much as someone who has already experienced it.

[via Lifehacker]

Returning to the Ordinary World

2009-10-07T03:38:32-07:00

A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enligthtened one return to the ordinary world?" Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches."

3 days of downtime at work. Let's see how it goes.

Interesting urban geocache in Vancouver

2009-09-21T21:39:21-07:00

It so happened that a geocacher arrived at a geocache to log a visit. He was dismayed to find that it had been muggled earlier in the day. With the contents gone and no logbook to sign-on, he improvised and decided to write on the remains of the vandalized cache container itself. Since then, many geocachers have been showing up at the site and writing directly on the fake electric box to log their visit. We were in Vancouver recently so we sought it out and logged our visit as well.

Though it’s located in a back alley, I have never seen any geocache which is visible in plain sight from more than 50 feet away!