Not an Idea

So Idea has gotten one more ad out on its dubious social change platform.

Few points.
Its very very annoying to read a newspaper or a magazine on a mobile phone screen. Have they ever tried it? Which is precisely the reason why everybody and their uncle is out unveiling e-book readers at CES.

Most of the phones shown are iPhones.
Idea doesn't even carry the iPhone.
Airtel does.

Maybe next time an ad with more than 10 minutes of brainstorming, eh?

Pre-paid Piper

Perhaps the good people at Reliance are not familiar with what happened after the interval in the Pied Piper story.

Yes, that's right.

Instead of filing a breach of contract lawsuit like any good man swindled by The State would, he kidnaps the town's children. And as if that wasn't enough he discriminates against the disabled kid.

In keeping with my previous views, yes, he still needs a haircut and a shave.
And oh yeah, Napoleon called. He wants his coat back.

Open Letter

Dear Toilet Cleaner Manufacturers,

You really spare no expense or creativity to come up with some of the best advertisements on Indian television. I mean, showing before and after shots of a (once) dirty toilet is sheer genius. Then there are those with your host visiting said dirty toilet's home with camera crew and getting reactions from satisfied customers. That is sheer genius with a cherry on top.

But hear me out here. How about not playing those ads on prime time TV, say between 8pm-10pm, because, you know, most people have dinner during that time. I don't know about you, but the sight of a dirty loo just as I am about to shove the next tasty morsel into my mouth unnerves me a bit. I mean, I know where all that rajma is going to end up eventually, but I'd rather not think about it right now.

How many customers do you think you gain by this? I certainly will never even consider picking up your product when I am in the market. You spoil my dinner, I don't buy your stuff. Simple.

So here's an idea. Pull those ads. Instead allocate that budget to 'adopting' the toilets on the Railway Station, Bus Stand, etc. Feel free to display your wares, slap your posters all over the place. But keep them as clean as the 'after' pictures in your ads. That would create a positive impression and people would appreciate it. And next time I go to the store, I would remember to buy your brand.

Sincerely,

The Con is On

To continue the story ...

So I received this wonderful text message from the nice people at Sony.

Your Sony service request is logged as job no. 000300646xxx. The initial repair estimate is Rs. 13811.50. For queries contact XXX-XXXXXXXX.

To Sony's credit, they do not round off to the next Rupee, like some places do.

An hour or so later, I got a call .... basically telling me the same thing, though he used the word 'at least' before the 13k ...
Wow, I thought, my aunt does eye transplants for less.
For a 5 year old camera whose purchase price was 12k, that is a bit of a shock, to put it mildly

Then he went on to explain how the entire mainboard has to be replaced. And how I would be better off buying a new one. No shit, Sherlock.

But I see what Sony is doing here... pass off what might be a bum flash capacitor or a spoiled DC-DC converter as a mainboard replacement and 'subtly' encourage the customer to buy a new one instead.

Very devious. But one thing they forgot is that their current breed of cameras is a bit crap, and if they do push me into buying a new one, there is no way I am buying a Sony with all its proprietary tie-ins. If anything, they have put me off Sonys for a long long time.

Better luck next time.

Customer Support for Dummies

Step 1: Assume that the customer is a dummy.
Actually, cancel that - presume that the customer is a dummy and then proceed.

Is it just me who has these encounters? Is it etched on the lines of my palm?

So, to start the rant, the old faithful, Sony Cybershot s40, nigh on 5 years old now, which in camera years is about 85 was having a problem. On fresh, highly charged batteries, it would last 5-6 shots maximum, before the indicator went to zero and the thing gave up the ghost. Sometimes, even before the lens had time to retract.

Act 1: Scene 1:
Telephone Conversation:

Me: Yes, I have this camera, s40 and it doesn't last even 10 shots on fully charged batteries.
CSE*: How old is this camera?
Me: About 5 years or so..
CSE: Hmmm ... I see, are you using Sony Batteries?
Me: No.
CSE: Sir, I recommend that you use Sony Batteries.
Me: What difference does it make?
CSE: Sir, its the capacity ....
Me: I have a set of 2700mAh batteries, same story.
CSE: Sir, there are other specifications...
Me: Really, like what?
CSE: Errr..... Why don't you test with Sony Batteries and see if it works.
Me: So you want me to spend 1000Rs. on another set of batteries just so you can test your theory? Are you going to reimburse me for them?
CSE: Our service center is open till 6:30 .... this is the address....
Me: You could have saved both our times and just told me this before ...
<hangs up>

*CSE: Customer Service Executive

Act 1: Scene 2:
At Customer Service Center:

Me: <repeating same old story>
CSE:(extracts batteries from camera)
CSE: Now, you see, these are 1.2 volt batteries. Thats why you are facing a problem.
Me: (thinking) Oh God, not another idiot!
Me: Really?
CSE: Yes, you need atleast 2500 megaAmps capacity.
Me: You just said volts.
CSE: Yours only have that written on them.
Me: (thinking) okkkk .. why isn't mercy killing legal, anyway ...
CSE: (showing Sony NiMh cell) See, this is 2700megaAmps. (the '2700' is printed in a larger font than 'Sony', presumably for people like him)
Me: (showing small, but perfectly legible print on my cell) Well, this is a 2000 mAh.
CSE: There is your problem.
Me: Look, when this camera came out, 1200mAh was all there was on the market. It worked fine then. Do your cameras adapt to higher capacity batteries?
CSE: (undoes lanyard) ok. We'll take a look at it. (fiddles with all the buttons)
The mode selector is stuck.
Me: Ohh is it? yeah, I probably didn't check while putting it back together. I moved the switch when it was open, so they don't align anymore.
CSE: (looking at me like I had just confessed to killing my cat and turning it into a handbag) You opened it! <shock><awe><disgust>
Me: Yes, is that a problem? Its out of warranty. And its mine, I can do what I want to with it.
CSE: (avoiding looking at me) I will have to consult with our Engineer to see if we can take this in.
Me: Really? Go ahead.
CSE: <hush-hush conversation on phone. Probably in proprietary Sony® invented language. And compressed in ATRAC>
CSE: Well, we can accept it.
Me: <batting eyelashes> My Hero!
Me: <getting up to leave> Ohhh and by the way... its milliamps. You almost solved India's power crisis single handedly there....


On a side note, 'Executive' in this sense seems to be defined as:

–noun
1.a person or group of persons having administrative or supervisory authority in an organization.
2.the person or persons in whom the supreme executive power of a government is vested.
3.the executive branch of a government.

–adjective
4.of, pertaining to, or suited for carrying out plans, duties, etc.: executive ability.
5.pertaining to or charged with the execution of laws and policies or the administration of public affairs: executive appointments; executive committees.
6.designed for, used by, or suitable for executives: an executive suite.

Some dimwit recruited off the street and made to sit behind a desk after a week of training in parroting phrases out of a manual doesn't really fit any of those meanings.

What gives?

P.S.: Further Scenes and Acts to follow. No doubt, they will be along similar lines.

un:News

While generally flipping through the channels, I came across Star News' coverage of YSR Reddy's helicopter going missing. Typically, since they had nothing to fill the space with, they did what any non self respecting 24x7 Indian News Channel would do: pile on the bullshit.

So I got to hear how the Bell-430 is an inherently dangerous machine, with videos of random helicopters crashing (a few looked like tests to me), how hydraulic systems are a death trap and should be abolished and the like. But most glaring of all, to me, was the enlightened soul informing viewers that the Bell-430 has Rolls-Royce engines which are made by 'car nirmata' Rolls Royce.

About 30 seconds on Wikipedia would have informed them that Rolls Royce was split in 1973 and both pieces have since changed hands several times to get where they are now.

12 Hours after the thing went missing, some bad photoshops and wrong info - thats all they had.

Oh yes, and underwear ads, the bedrock of 24 hours news coverage.

Flutterby

I don't get it.

What are they trying to say?

That Airtel is a company that will give up something it has been pursuing for 15-20 years for something that just flashed past? Just like that. Especially when it is so close to fulfilment.

Or that long term customers mean nothing to them?

Does it want viewers to identify with a dude who doggedly pursues his childhood sweetheart only to be distracted at the last moment by a girl with longer hair and larger assets?

Or does the 'Dil Titli Sa' mean that as customers, you will get momentary attention but when you really run into problems, they will have flitted over to the next guy - the one with the fatter wallet - and you will be left holding a dead connection and empty assurances.

How does that tie in to the whole MPEG4 deal? And maybe if his old MPEG2 box was looking so blurry, he should have gotten his eyes checked. Or wiped the condensation from his TV. Or gone easy on the Tequila. Because video codecs don't introduce Gaussian Blur.

Maybe its because I just watched the last episode of the first season of Mad Men ... and the Carousel message really hit me. So much so that I watched it five times after that.

But this sucks. Just having pretty faces and a pretty voice does not make up for lack of an underlying message.

Picture this...

You lazy lazy bastards at Samsung and Motorola ... In the end you are all the same.

Bah.

Look Down!

How supremely irritating is it when you use a new keyboard and the 'Delete', 'Home' and 'End' keys have all been shuffled around?

Electrical Engineering?

Its march was so inexorable that electrocuting elephants could not stand in its way. Not even when it was Edison was the one throwing the switch. Of course Westinghouse's A.C. won, and it slowly but surely made its way into every home.

At some point before all this happening, there must have been a committee sitting in a glass panelled conference room trying to decide how to actually distribute this magical stuff into every room, hell, every wall of every room.

"We shall need 2 wires, Live and Neutral."

"Metal appliances will need to be grounded."

"Of course."

"Ok. Add one more wire. So, Live, Neutral and Ground."

"That's right. And we do it in such a way that Ground is optional. A triangular arrangement perhaps."

"Very Nice. Done. Put that down."

"What shape should the pins be?"

"Well, obviously its not a pleasant experience - to be electrocuted. We all saw that elephant. We should make them flat, so that not even an infant can poke its pinkie in."

"Good point."

"Just had a thought. In the future, they might try powerline ethernet. Do we need to add any features to ensure compatibility?"

"Alex. Stop playing with you damn time machine. And don't mix your stupid hobbies with work."

"Sorry... I just thought ... "

"I don't want to hear it!"

"Sir, What about placement? Where should these sockets be?"

"Since we have ensured that they are poke proof, we should place these sockets two inches off the ground."

"Two inches?"

"Yes, that's the optimum height. Just above the skirting."

"Whatever you say. You are the boss."

In this manner, ignoring the prior invention of the fork, knife, paper clip and all other flat metal objects, all electrical sockets came to be placed a couple of inches off the ground.

There is a reason I mention all this. If it wasn't for these gentlemen, my world would be a different place. Better perhaps, but different nonetheless. My table would push up flush against the wall and stuff would no longer fall off the back. There would be no reason to leave the gap between the bed and the corner that routinely swallows my arm. The toaster's wire would actually reach the socket. I could go on and on ...

Things could have been so much simpler. But they aren't.

I wonder why.

Early Morning Grump...

I officially hate someone.

I don't even know her, it has to be a girl, that much I know. Twice she made me crawl out of the bed I spent four hours warming and judging by the temperature differential, still needed at least two more hours. Its not cool. In fact, if you haven't noticed, it is bloody cold - all the more reason I am pissed at you.

Why do you do it? Why? It wasn't enough that you set off the Fire Alarm two days ago at 7:30 that you had to do it again today?

Damn you to hell!

A Spot of Indigestion

During school days, summer vacations broadly fell into two categories, ones where you would be busier than Gordon Gecko shuffling from one camp to some class or ones where you would catch an afternoon nap listening to Grandmother's stories. While I didn't exactly listen to stories in the later years, my vacations did follow the second track more or less faithfully. Lazy, relaxed and yes, filled with books. In fact, there was a bookstore near our house which had a small library in the back. I finished that one year. Admittedly I gave the M&Bs a wide berth but otherwise all the books that a 12 year old might read were devoured in no time. It took little for boredom to set in again. I experimented with picking up the World Book Encyclopaedia and reading entries at random but that lost its appeal much too soon.

Then one day I discovered what was hidden behind the World Books. Let me explain. The bookcase in which the World Books were stored initially had started life as a display cabinet and was far too deep. It was built into the wall and as such there was no way to estimate its depth from the outside. Hence there was a stash of books neatly lined up behind the display books, no doubt kept there by my mom who hates clutter and who must have patted herself on the back for thinking of this clever hiding place. Before the suspense gets to you, let me emphasize that I hadn't discovered a Marilyn Monroe edition of Playboy. I must also warn you that all this reminiscing is a build up to a rant (I do seem to do that often, don't I?).

You see, what I had discovered behind the encyclopaedia were old issues of Readers' Digest. Issues going back to 1973. It was this treasure trove that kept me entertained for many days after that. Not just summer vacations, but these issues became regular reading and there was a time when there used to be at least 3-4 of these under my pillow. As far as I could remember, we had had a subscription to RD. But there was something about those issues, maybe what one would call timelessness, that retained their readability 20 years past the date on the cover.

Sadly, I think they have lost it. And it hasn't happened today, its been happening over the past couple of years - ever since they redesigned it and it became worse when taken over by the India Today Group. The 'Win 17 kgs of gold' gimmick just re-enforced the down-the-drain feeling. Not surprisingly, the American Edition displays an even lower expectation of what constitutes a 'Reader'. The issues I have been reading for about 6 months are barely one third the thickness of the childhood ones but seem to have atleast five times as many advertisements.

Its a sign of our times perhaps that we see articles like '10 ways to...' and '5 things that...' in here, a publication that is (I suppose) aimed at the somewhat discerning reader. If I want to read articles like these, there are always those magazines at the supermarket checkout counter. Where are the human interest stories? Where is Drama in Real Life?

In fact, the whole redesign is very picture and graphic oriented which is totally unnecessary in my opinion. It is looks like a presentation, full of bullets and list and large fonts where you try to cover up the lack of material with every clip art in your collection. Due to the large number of advertisements, and obviously advertisements are full of pictures and color and large fonts jumping out at you, sometimes an article gets lost in all that clutter. Its not that hard to miss an article which uses the same sort of stock images of people doing the same kind of everyday activity portrayed in advertisements. Frankly, it looks like the management types have taken over everything, and ruined it in the process.

My last point may be a very small one but it is one which annoys me no end. A business reply post-card stuck in it after every few pages makes it impossible to hold the spine in one hand and flip the pages. Trivial, I know, but its the small things that make a difference.

I guess I will have to stick to the dusty yellowed pages for my reading pleasure. Old is truly Gold.

Sorry to Disappoint

Why are some people so obtuse about certain things?

Before trying so hard to 'draw me out of my shell', did you pause for a moment and think that maybe that is how I am. I like it in my shell, thank you very much.

I am sorry I am not as ebullient and outgoing as you are, but we are not exactly stormtroopers in the clone army, are we?

I am sorry I don't share your enthusiasm about the music you listen to and the movies you watch and honestly, sometimes I don't even give a rat's ass about it. But I don't recall either of us conferring soulmate status on the other. Hell, I don't even recall conferring 'friend' status. So just let it go.

I am sorry I am not in the same league of 'coolness' or of the same wavelength as your old friends, but lets not pretend we are in this by choice. I feel your pain. But do I say it out loud every time? No.

When you ask me for my opinion on every bloody thing, and I just nod or say nothing, it doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. Trust me, I have an opinion on everything. But when I am silent, take it from me that it is not something you would want to hear.

I have a name. Its all very well adding '-ya' to someone's name to make it a nickname but do you really expect me to respond when you add it to my wireless SSID and address me by the concatenation?

Its ok if we are in the same room and there is silence for 10 minutes. Seriously, no pressure.

Regards,

For Moral Policing

I have a confession to make. I watched this. And I don't know why, so lets skip the questions.

Anyway, skipping the usual comments and discussions regarding displays of affection and cohabitation arrangements, there is one thing which I want to seriously comment about.

• There is a scene in which the guy gets a kid to do something for him by bribing him with a Halo3 pack. Now, that kid couldn't be more than 9-10 years old and Halo3 is rated 'M17+' by the ESRB. Doesn't the scene deserve a wagging finger by the censor board? In my opinion it is no different if the kid was offered a Camel Lights or a Hustler to run the errand. These game ratings are not taken very seriously anywhere and a couple of years here and there might be ok but a portrayal on screen should have been avoided. Especially since the guy is shown to be a Microsoft Employee and Xbox is a corporate sponsor of the movie [here]. Apparently, the criteria for choosing the two games were based on the fact that these were the most popular games in the character’s eyes.
  Maybe it can't be a legal issue because India does not have a system for rating games yet, but surely moral and corporate responsibility should have stepped in.

And there a couple of things which I want to comment not so seriously about.

• The irritating overuse of English words peppered over sentences to make it 'cool'. Why is it so fashionable to use 'wait' in place of 'intezaar' all the time!
  
  
• The movie begins when the protagonist is 17 years old - just completed the XII board exams the voiceover informs us - and ends when he is 30. In all those years, he doesn't age a day. He is either a baby faced 30 year old or was a very mature looking teenager - take your pick. Also, he has relationships which he breaks off for what could be termed 'moving on'. This not aging and moving on business has me convinced that he is the other John Oldman. Bachna Ae Haseeno ... The Man From Earth has arrived.
  

Too much is not enough

This might be a familiar scenario. A group of (young) people have gathered for a party or on an outing or for no reason at all. A scene where one person has remembered to get a camera for posterity sake. A lot of pictures are clicked, group photos, candid photos, photos with tongues sticking out and rabbit ears. And there is always that moment when in those random hundred photos, a beautiful smile is captured, a pose which even hours at the studio would not perfect emerges.

And when all the heads crowd around the 2.5" screen with its limited viewing angle there is inevitably the one person who says ... "hey! that's perfect for shaadi.com!!"

Why?

When I examined pictures of my friend's red Civic, did I say ... "hey! that's perfect for motors.ebay.com!!" or when I clicked another friend's new furniture, how come there was no comment that went ... "Now that's a craigslist picture!!"

Which brings me to my second point.

In the year and some days I have spent here, I have bought the following things online (in no particular order and off the top of my head)

a. Camera
b. Accessories for (a) - Memory Card, Filters, Spare Battery, Tripod.
c. A USB powered LED snowman
d. 3 x 500GB external hard drives
e. Ipod dock / speakers
f. 100 pack of DVD+Rs ( and a 25 pack of DVD-Rs)
g. 3 plastic folders and a Sharpie (there was free shipping)
h. Wireless Router and a 802.11g USB adapter
i. T-shirt
j. Textbook

In the 23 years I spent in India (ok, only in 2 of those did I have plastic and the cash to back it up), I bought the following things online

a. N/A

Which makes me wonder ... Is the marriage sector the only significant contributor to e-commerce in India?

After all, if we think about it, the typical matrimonial listing and the motors.ebay.com listing I mentioned earlier share a lot in common...

*A term which is so brilliant in its ambiguity that it could only have been invented in a land whose media can endlessly talk about the 'minority community'. So if your fairness is like a soft roomali roti or if your not-insignificant melanin content classifies you as a whole wheat tortilla, wheatish is the umbrella you stand under. I would like to extend this further so that people like me can use ‘multigrainish’ or perhaps ‘thalipeethish’.

So in the heady world of Indian web commerce, shaadi.com is like a sweet, gooey amalgamation of ebay, amazon and deals2buy with extra chocolate chips. I can imagine anxious parents logging into their profiles and frantically punching F5 with the same thoughts crossing their minds that Shrinath had when he saw this for $499, only to have it disappear an hour later after he had 'consulted' me and three other people.

Taking it forward to a world of assorted grandmothers and uncles-with-nothing-better-to-do plugged into the cloud and utilizing the full power of web2.0, one can only imagine the 'enhancements' to the whole experience. A brave new world.

A world where you can sort the prospective matches by 'Last Name' or 'Height' or 'Color' and for the NRIs who come to India for a month to participate in this shindig, even 'Time: Ending Soonest'. A world where you can call up a google maps mashup of the locations where they reside and sort by 'Distance: closest'.

Which brings me to my third point, the need for all this in the first place.

So how is it that the guy with the yellow undershirt and red shirt with upturned collar is 'objectifying women' when he whistles at a passing girl at the bus stop but the parent who sees a textbox labelled 'Body Type' and proceeds without batting an eyelid isn't?

How is it that these sites are not the forum for exchanging ideas that they ideally should be but marketplaces to get the best deal?

How is it that I can churn out a more carefully worded ad for selling my used microwave on craigslist for $10 than most of the classified matrimonials in the newspaper on which presumably the lives of two people depend?

Isn't marrying into the same sub-sub-sub caste going stagnate the gene pool a bit and increase the chances of your offsprings' IQ going down the toilet? Unless you don't believe in evolution of course.

Does anybody wonder that if Bhishma had just left Amba alone and let her be with the guy she loved, maybe the whole Mahabharat - war - genocide - cousins killing cousins en masse - episode might not have happened.

Or whether the whole massive invasion and shock and awe tactics deployed in the Ramayan were because he loved and cared about his wife or because it was embarrassing that some villain snatched her from under his nose with the age old 'Look there!' tactic. Because I think a person who did care about his wife would not arbitrarily banish her under suspicion of infidelity.

Maybe its the way these tests were designed. While picking up uber-bow and shooting fish in the eyes may be handy skills on the battlefield, everyone knows that the real test of a good husband is the ability to accept that he is wrong all the time, put the toilet seat down, give a good foot massage and parallel parking.

So if we don't live in a world where one can wage war for countless years against evil dictators without worrying about the anti-incumbency factor or the tanking economy, why do we act like we do?

So next time assorted uncle, elder relative ticks me off about my 'internet' lifestyle, I can say that while I may order pizza on dominos.com and check weather.com before stepping out, I don't hawk my daughter online with poorly worded and demeaning advertisements which totally ignore the fact that what a person is all about can never be adequately described by even a large sized book, let alone a pay-per-word listing.

Note 1: Just dipping toes into the larger question of the existence of the whole 'arranged marriage' business. That is whole big debate by itself.

Note 2: The female imagery is because I would be looking at such a screen and copy-pasting pictures of random dudes into photoshop and rubbing a soft brush all over them makes me uncomfortable. Not sexism.

Note 3: This post came about in part due to the conversation #2 from this post, random discussions with friends and the realization that at its core religion just asks you to Eat, Drink and be Merry. All the rest is flapdoodle that
a. has no business being there. Try playing Chinese Whispers with a few million people for a few thousand years.
b. is simply not relevant anymore.
c. was used at one time by the ruling class to exploit the ignorant and the poor. We don't need that now, we have The Bailout.
d. was used to ensure that you carried on what your dad did for a living. To save on letterheads presumably.
e. we assume is the bees knees because it was written by some really clever dudes. So is windows.

Note 4: All said and done, this person is my idol. I hope he pulls it off.

Lost for Words

I agree that most English teachers are African dictators, but without the diamond trade and the gun running and I have experienced my fair share of tyrants. They even drove us to chant, 'We don't need no [sic] Education'. But I don't think even the most hated one deserves to see his/her student spell 'then' as 'den'.

I understand internet lingo and TLAs - 'brb' and 'wtf' are a part of my vocabulary too. It may even be possible to convince me of the relative merit of spelling 'you' as 'u', but 'then' and 'den' do not even share a common pronunciation. So why! Is punching one extra key such an effort?

And really, if optimizing the language is your mission, let it reflect in your programming. Leave English alone. The words you use say a lot more about you than you think.

Also on the list:

friend - fren
where - wer
there - der
this - dis

*No picture today - but wanted to say this for a long long time.

Focus

Am I being near sighted, not looking beyond my own nose when the signs run off into the distance?

Do I fail to see the bigger picture entirely or do I see it, albeit crippled by my shortsightedness?

Is my way of looking at things, my way of thinking, my logic, my reasoning, my ability to deal with things, to handle people, to defuse situations always wrong?

Why?

RANT

Dear IEEE,

I do not need wireless USB.
Please fund someone to come up with tangle-free USB.

Regards

/rant