Archis's Blog

July 15, 2010

Windows Phone 7 – my opinions

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , , , , , — archisgore @ 12:00 am

I’ve worked on Windows Mobiles since 2007 (developed the Live Mesh client back then), and have probably gone into depths of that OS few non-team-members have gone into. It was never a big secret that I wasn’t a big fan of the 6.x versions (though I had a good opinion of 5.0 for the day and age that they came in.) I believe WM5.0 was a revolution that never got it’s true appreciation. Until that day, there were two distinct worlds – the Desktop where you have APIs and applications, and the mobile world where you had some puny J2ME kinda stuff which displayed 3 lines of text on a screen. WM5 changed the space drastically by showing the world a first-class application with all the executables and dlls and COM and .Net could be written on it.

A lot of people have been trying to solicit my thoughts and opinions on WP7 and here’s all I have to say about it. Please note that I’ve not been involved in WP7 at all so all my comments are based purely on information available to the public. I would just ask you to please be patient and read through before responding.

Having said that WM did drop the ball on many technical as well as non-technical issues which has completely changed in WP7. I refuse to comment on “success” of WP7 because a lot of people expect the fanboy answer from me – “Hell yeah. It’ll sell like hot cakes in the holiday season.” I’m sorry you won’t get that answer in this post or anywhere else. I don’t say it won’t sell like hot cakes, but that’s not what I care about much. To me, the iPhone brought in a welcome change in the market in how phones are defined, perceived and developed. What customers should expect, and should not expect. I do believe Windows Phone 7 is a welcome improvement to what came before it, but it is a phenomenal improvement in how Microsoft as a company, will look at phones ever after!

As a basis for this post, I’m going to be ultra-crisp-clear about two different issues: Sales and Good-ness. A lot of times, I find myself going around in circles with people who have little reasoning abilities. Sales are the bottom-line for any company – how many units will sell compared to others (there’s no way escaping the fact that sales are _always_ relative!) Good-ness, will be what I think makes a phone great. I do care what you think makes the phone great so feel free to reply.

For anyone who develops a platform (unlike Apple), the first-day sales of a phone are much less important than whether or not it has a lasting impact on the market. The blackberry for instance was never a first-day hit, but it became an icon. Apple’s iPods too, weren’t sold in a day. They set the stage for Apple’s credibility. Imagine January 2007, and the CEO of some other unknown company from Taiwan demonstrating the EXACT SAME PHONE. Would you have cared about it much? Would you give a damn? Sure, you’d say, “I may buy that some day. Looks great.”

Then you’d go about doing your business. That’s just what did happen with Android even with the big multi-billion-dollar company behind it. People posted it on slashdot, people talked about it, people wrote some toy apps. It took over two years for Google to give Android the right image before people bought the phones. And just when I was starting to hear how Android “finally” surpassed the iPhone, a week later, I couldn’t order an iPhone 4 because I was 20 minutes late to the store.

The history lesson was there for a purpose – I have spoken about denial before. Wishing a problem away won’t make it go away. You have to look at it and attack it head on. So what is WP7 doing so much that makes me so optimistic about it’s pervasiveness, but doesn’t excite me about the opening-day sales?

If there’s one thing the Palm fiasco taught us, it’s that reviews, claims, opinions are no indicator of success, and the iPhone 4 went and added another dimension that doesn’t indicate success – opening-day sales. So what does indicate “success”? Read on…

The People: Almost every year, my opinion on what makes a great team keeps changing. For the last two years though, it has consistently remained on people. If a team has good people, no matter what the odds, it will build a great product for me. I don’t mind if nobody else buys the product, but I do care that it fix my problems. One of the biggest differences a failed product and a successful product are the people behind it.

The very first thing you noticed in early 2009 was that the Windows Mobile blog started getting entries regularly. The team showed it cared.  I don’t believe people flock to Apple “despite” its arrogance.  People flocked to Apple because they felt abandoned by us. There were many problems faced by newbies when writing their first app on a Windows Mobile, and this blog started giving template code and tips on how to work around those.

The next big jump came when usability became the 1st priority on the prototypes. A lot of times, programmers, like everyone else, get sucked into the trap of showing how good they are through their code. What that eventually leads to are features nobody asked for. The first iPhone was successful mainly because it was (counterintuitively) surprisingly sober. Look at the 3D desktop space on Linux today. In 2007, I saw all these great promises of melting windows and fading windows, and yet Windows 7 still only sports some really good functionality to tab across open windows that’s much better to get my work done (proven by number of PCs running it). WM6.x series (and Android too) both felt like a few developers showing what fancy stuff they can do on a resume.

Today the people behind Windows Phone 7 tell you what you can do with the phone. It’s no longer about my personal prowess of coding skills, but about unleashing the potential of the user. Today if you asked what camera the Windows Phone will use, the answer you’re most likely to get is, “From the time I decide to take a picture, to the time the picture is showing up on my FB, is less than ten seconds.” I know it didn’t answer your question and that’s just the point I’m coming to next.

Scenarios: The biggest assurance of confidence I got was when I read Terry Myerson’s interview recently where he spoke of the Unique Device ID enforcement on OEMs. Unless you’ve been pushed to write a lot of authentication code on a phone, you’ll never realise the value of this move, but I just knew these guys know exactly what a developer needs. It’s not this specific feature that excited me, but as I mentioned, the thinking behind it that inspired me. It means they finally “get it.”

I personally faced about 10 scenarios in my two years where a unique device ID, secure storage and fluid UIs were necessary. Windows Phone 7 may not cure cancer, but it gets the basics right, basics which are very difficult to change for a company the size of Microsoft. It’s no joke to commit to an API set for the next couple of decades, and that’s where Microsoft still has the advantage of experience.

This is for those who keep pinging me with specs. I’m going to say this once, and it’s the last time I will say it, as clearly as humanly possible. I don’t care. You know what the difference between the most popular Nokia feature phones and the horribly useless smartphones was? The Nokia phones could make phone calls. I really don’t care if I have a Bose hand-crafted-by-nuns-from-the-african-rainforest-wooden speaker, if I can’t make a phone call! (This is not a cheap stab at iPhone 4, I’m saying this with a straight face.) The purpose I buy a phone is to make a call. If that call quality is improved, I pay for it. If it isn’t, Idon’t care. You may claim technology “obviously” improves call quality. You’d be so wrong. :-)

To me, the time taken from when I decide to take a picture, to the time it is tagged, categorized in an album and ready to be commented-upon by my friends on facebook is what makes for a good camera. Second to that is the quality of the picture, which while I don’t understand photography, I don’t equate with resolution. In fact, it’s precisely because I don’t know what makes a good picture, that I want to see it to believe it. A camera that takes crisp pictures despite shaky hands is what I love. A 10 megapixel camera that I can’t use is of no use to me.

In the last three weeks, I’ve taken about a thousand pictures in three different cameras. I’ve still yet to share them because moving them out of the phones/cameras as such a pain!

So for those of you who want to judge Windows Phones on technology, I’d suggest you’re looking in the wrong direction. Even if you were given good technology, you’d be looking at it all wrong. It doesn’t take a genius to plug out a 10MP camera and replace it with a 20MP camera (although one notoriously popular phone out there took many years to do that). It takes a genius to design the entire photo ecosystem around it.

All of this depends on Trust.

Trust: You know what made the iPhone popular? No no, apart from all the fancy graphics? Trust in Apple. What Richard Stallman claimed was a lock-in was actually a trust-system. My bank disables my cards if it sees erratic activity. Rather than change the bank, I become a fan of the bank!

The iPhone (until the latest version) delivered on the little promises it made (except the MobileMe fiasco). Frankly, one of the reasons I won’t use any phone except the iPhone for the next year is the lack of trust I have. Since 2007, I’ve used about 20-30 models of phones each of which claimed to be “the iPhone killer.” Every single time, it didn’t just miss the mark slightly, but made me question what demented lunatics tried to con me into buying one.

Once again, we rely on Terry Myerson. His interviews inspire trust, and if he delivers on those little promises by the holiday season, it will be a huge win for the company. Everyone knows they didn’t have the time to do everything the iPhone does, and the very fact that he’s honest about it, assures me it will make an impact. See, we never wanted cut-copy-paste in a phone in order to buy one. What we really wanted was if you claimed that there exists cut-paste, then that it should work each and every time. Myerson gets this. We didn’t want everything in the first OS, we wanted to know that when you did put in cut-paste, that you’d ensure I wouldn’t have to pay 1K dollars (that’s about 40K rupees, and consider the highest paid wages in India are about 60K a month, and there are no return policies in India), for a new phone when you do.

I see this as a brilliant move. There are hundreds of people who simply want their outlook mail to get to the phone, and want assurance that their documents and spreadsheets are accessible wherever they go. They couldn’t care less if the phone cured cancer or not.

Conclusion: Conclusion of the post, not any conclusions drawn from the above. I don’t believe Windows Phone 7 will sell 600,000 units on the day of it’s launch. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I’m sure it will sell to the right demographic and build a hardcore fan-following by delivering on every promise they’re making. If you saw the energy going into the testing and dogfooding programs, there’s no doubt things like, “Making a phone call”, and “taking a picture”, will work smoothly without a hitch. Those who’ve hated the Objective-C pseudo-native style of iPhone coding will welcome the simpler App platform. Will all iPhone app-equivalents be able to be written on Windows Phone 7? Absolutely not.

I wouldn’t go into statements like, “Windows Phone 7 will kick iPhone’s ass.” I think they’re unfair statements subject to a lot of wasteful debates – current phones in the market vs. this-quarter-sales vs. specific model sales vs. all-devices-combined-sales vs. revenues vs. change-of-sales vs. profits.

The question I believe that Windows Phones will answer in the holiday season is, “Will I get a phone that works, and is guaranteed to do all that it claims?”

This is also one of the reasons why I heavily discourage statements which misrepresent our offering in the market. I would be very embarrassed to see a WP7 fan posting, “Windows Phones are kicking iPhone ass”, and then have a stream of comments pointing out the hundred things iPhones can do that Windows Phones can’t. It would only increase mistrust towards our offering. I certainly like to think we’re better than the slashdotter of the last 12 years who claimed, “This is the year Linux will kill Windows.

June 5, 2010

“Crazy Ideas” of Mediocrity

Filed under: Preaching,philosophy — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — archisgore @ 3:46 am

Who isn’t impressed with “crazy ideas” or “crazy things”? Someone saw an apple fall to the ground and formulated gravity. Someone else dreamed of a serpent biting it’s own tail and figured the benzene molecule. A dumb kid in school invented the light bulb, and a patent clerk who was supposedly bad at math gave us relativity.

We all know what makes these (some of them incorrect, and others complete bullshit) stories appealing – they give us hope. Who needs to study chemistry for years and dedicate their lives to carbon atoms when you might as well be dreaming of serpents biting their own tails? It just means we weren’t lucky enough to be dreaming of serpants of we’d totally have that Benzene thingy nailed down!

This trend became all the more popular in the late 90′s in India especially with Dr. Abdul Kalam getting fame and popularity. I remember a lot of schools and universities holding these “science contests” in which supposedly crazy ideas were given prizes. Now I’m all for that, and believe it needs to happen more. What’s somewhat irritating and also annoying is that crazy is defined by unfeasible at times, and physically impossible in others.

Let me explain. Science is about the way we know things work. It isn’t about how we “wish” things worked. Star Trek is science fiction. I wish there existed a Warp Drive. An entry in a science fair that presents how I believe Warp Drive could be built is, according to me, crazy and reward-worth, while on the other hand, an entry that speaks of “If there existed a Warp Drive that could do so and so” is purely under the realm of fiction and has nothing to do with science. You might as well be writing about floo-powder and it wouldn’t be any different.

I’m asked about projects and ideas by college students every day (and even peers sometimes). It is irritating when people present their wishful thinking as a project idea. I’m a maverick myself, and I’m all for risky stuff that may not work (this video proves it). I understand that crazy ideas don’t have to work. I do a lot of stuff myself that ends in embarrassing failures, and I’m totally proud of it, and it only goes on to reinforce my narcissism and ego.

What makes the situation worth discussing is that well-educated and quite demonstrably intelligent people fall for this wishful thinking at times. I know many of you are itching to disagree with me and here to tell me no hurdle is too much to overcome for one who is determined. You want to tell me how education, knowledge, information is not necessary for crazy ideas to work. You want to tell me how one doesn’t have to be a snob to change the world. Here’s some useful advice if you’re one of those who thinks all things are achievable by “the will to do it.”

I agree completely with everything you’d want to tell me, and then want you to take a reality check and see a psychotherapist, and perhaps learn some English semantics while you’re at it. You’ll find that there’s a big difference between ‘wish’ and ‘will’. I know the type who claims they have an iron will and they don’t need to learn. I also know they’re lying, not only to me, but to themselves. I also know they’re lazy.

The word ‘will’ implies doing whatever it takes, which is exactly the opposite of what people like these do. If Edison didn’t get the filament right in the first place, his ‘will’ meant that he might have studied metalurgy in order to find the element. It didn’t, according to some, mean he ignored all knowledge of metallic properties and instead “just kept on going” (whatever that would mean.) If you want to invent Warp Drive, I’m all for it. I respect that. if that means having to study String Theory even if you don’t agree with it? So be it. If you think it means ignoring rules of physics, I’m sorry to say you’ll end up doing nothing. I know it’s a pretty inclusive statement I made there without any sort of escape-route for myself, but I stand by it.

It’s a fine line that we as individuals and as a society need to understand. The last century was an era of colonialism. This century was an era of “pre-approved” rebellion (meaning, all parents in a school agree that studying music is out-of-the-box, and once in agreement, all their kids do out-of-the-box approved stuff.) Anti-establishment doesn’t mean irrational.

This isn’t to say that wishful thinking isn’t helpful. However, I know that in many science talent competitions ideas that make no sense are rewarded as being original and out-of-the-box. The problem with this is that understanding of science is not only ignored, but a lack of understanding of scientific principles is actually encouraged and rewarded. Then we go around wondering why kids don’t take to science anymore.

You want to encourage a generation of kids that will solve global problems? Then encourage those who understand the rules, because profound breakthroughs come about by overcoming the limitations imposed by the rules, not by wishing they didn’t exist, or in being denial of their existence. Want Warp Drive to be invented, then encourage the kid who understands the limitations of the speed of light – chances are, he/she will find a way to overcome the rule. The guy who goes around claiming that the speed of light doesn’t matter in the bigger picture, is leading you to a sureshot failure.

May 12, 2010

…therefore God exists

Filed under: Preaching,philosophy — Tags: , , , , , — archisgore @ 6:33 am

As a child I heard this story. Once a prominent mathematician was asked by the King to come to court and prove the existence of God. The mathematician solved some complex problem on the board, and wrote below it, “…therefore, God exists.” I don’t know who the scientist was, but do comment if you know more about this story. I found the story hillarious as a kid, and laughed at how stupid the king was.

As an adult, every day I deal with people using such arguments to make their point or worse, enforce their opinions on us. This is a commentary, and as always will follow with some tips on defending yourself against such people (I personally prefer going on the offensive, because it’s just so awesome to see them try and squirm their way out.) Those who are cursed with a logical mind are unfortunately subject to the constant torture of consciously recognising it all the time. Let’s start with a quick real-life story to illustrate the point.

A couple of years ago, I made a comment about some opinion of a famous personality that I felt was misplaced. As you would have guessed, in less than an hour, my mailbox had the first holier-than-thou super-authoritative mail sitting in it, telling me how great the personality was, and how puny I was in comparison. The mail said nothing of the opinion I commented upon, nor my own comment itself. It said nothing about the issue at hand. The crux of the mail exactly amounted to, “*gibbersh* therefore, you’re wrong.”

Have you ever been at the receiving end of such an argument? Do you feel helpless and frustrated? If it’s any consolation, you’re not alone, and many of us still haven’t figured out a good defense yet. I’ve worked in a “corporate” and “business” environment long enough to know that at least in the top tech companies, this kind of talk isn’t entertained. However, it is too common to be coincidence how much people use this kind of argumentative logic and how often they use it. It feels as if there is some academy where such kind of training is imparted on a mass scale.

The basic premises that lead to such situations are:
1. Existence of a subject in need of attention
2. Lack of sufficient knowledge about the object of the conversation
3. An inherent need for self-gratification by appearing involved in the conversation

As the two premises are fundamentally contradictory, how can they be reconciled? You guessed it! *gibberish* (sub-classed by *tech-gibberish*, *economic-gibberish*, *philosophical-sounding-gibberish*, etc.)

Since actually making a well-thought-out argument is beyond question, and the subject has nothing substantial to say anyway, subject chooses path of lease resistence using the logic ‘afterall, so many people can’t be wrong’ (a blog on this is pending). Stick to the “large corporation”, “famous personality”, or “popular choice’, and you’re relatively safe from being interrogated in depth allowing them to preserve the appearence of caring about bigger picture by rehashing some statements they’d have heard here and there.

Your very first defense against such attacks is identifying the attack. You must be self-aware when a discussion or a debate is moving away from issues relevant to the object. In the case of my story above, the author sent me a 3-page biography of the personality and a lot of info about some program that I did not care about. Knowing that a person is changing the issues of discussion is a vital part of defense. Last evening in another such debate, I faced a new one - a commentator simply pulled out one noun from my sentence and responded with, “Since you said…” and created a sentence of his own using my noun with completely different semantics. It was a new learning for me.

Why should you care? Because they may end up being decision makers that affect your life. Managers, politicians, relatives, etc. When such people become decision makers, it is altogether too difficult to argue or escape from them as their objective is self-gratification only. The best defense is a good offense. They are relatively easy to corner. When cornered, they will go on a last-ditch attack effort by stating more “stuff” which could be things from your past or just general stuff they consider to be your flaws. You see, in their world, everyone is a weasel, and all they need to do is find that one time you screwed up so you will back off. See this as a sign of weakness and exploit it! That is the time to strike back and strike hard. Don’t waste time defending yourself, but quickly bring the conversation back to the topic of focus and you shall win the debate.

The end won’t be as satisfactory as them admitting to being ignorant, but rather with them rephrasing your own point and saying, “That’s what I was saying in the first place.” Leave it at that if you can. That’s the best you can expect.

Any similar experiences you’ve had?

March 31, 2010

When is the time to speak?

Filed under: philosophy — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — archisgore @ 2:26 am

I finally finished the book “The difficulty of being good” by Gurucharan Das, and these are philosophical ramblings based on some new insight, but mostly a well-articulated reading of old insight. The highlight for those who may not go into the whole potentially large article – this questions whether a bloody civil war is the only option we leave the downtrodden, asks many self-pitying victims to man-up and take responsibility for their failures in life. The key connection between all these situations is that the true victims are never given their right to speech.

Some personal context. My father battled this question all his life, and he is nearly 60. He has no answer in sight. Ten years ago, I was arrogant enough to believe I would find the answer, and my 25 years have not gotten me any closer. I’m afraid I may pass away before I ever figure this one out. Let’s start with a story.

My family had a toxic relative – you know the silly kind who always gets into trouble and needs the entire family to bail them out all the time. The problem is, when they are supposedly prosperous (which is basically when they think they are getting away with breaking rules), they call you losers. They tease you, humiliate you, put you down, and generally accuse you for being jealous if you ever try to correct their ways. They’re making easy money and they control the world. They abuse you and you have to take it. You have no right to speak back because you are a loser. Sounds frustrating right? It is! The solution, most of you might think is simple – just ignore them and get on with your own life. This is no time to speak about it.

Ah, but the world takes a not-so-surprising turn. Said relative gets caught. Their bluffs are called. They are in deep shit. Who but you, their beloved blood relatives are going to bail them out? This is pretty urgent too – they’re in debt, or involved in some criminal trial. You’ve gotta move fast. This is where the real anger and frustration comes in. You have two choices. Either you go to sleep comfortably knowing you potentially drove someone to suicide by not helping them, or you have to help them , “like, right now dude!” to save their skin. Try to talk sense into them at this point and you’re the cruel boaster. Just because they were unlucky in life, you are taking advantage of them by lecturing them. What kind of egoistic bastard are you anyway? This is no time to speak. They’re hurting, they’re in pain, and there you are lecturing them about right and wrong. Wait till they get out and pay you back every single penny with interest through some great new scheme they have already planned.

And the whole cycle repeats itself.

I dare you to comment if you do not know at least one such person, and more than often, many of them. I ask the readers, when is the time to speak? How do you deal with people whom you cannot allow to kill themselves, but you know will never change their ways? It’s a semi-rhetorical question because I don’t really expect a reasonable answer, but go ahead, prove me wrong.

Now let’s go into the 2008 recession. Does it seem familiar? The Bankers were all powerful before the recession and anyone who commented against “the suits” was simply jealous. When they were in deep shit, that was not the time to speak. Many were on the verge of suicide, unless they were paid billions of dollars in bonuses from the taxpayers’ money. When was the time to speak? When should the common man have told them they were wrong and to mend their ways? Thankfully the Americans got Obama to speak for them, but it was a stroke of luck, and many others are not so lucky.

We all feel frustrated and helpless, and the more intelligent of us feel even more so because we are cursed with a conscience. If not for that stupid little voice preventing you from exploiting society, you know that whatever game people are playing, you could beat them at that game, should you choose to follow their own rules. This isn’t the first time I comment on morality being the most horrific curse sent upon mankind.

I see this in the common man. It’s actually a miracle most societies dont descent into civil war immediately. George Lucas’s prequels may have been boring but they did make a point through Padme Amidala, “This war represents a failure to listen. The separatists will never join the republic if they feel threatened.”

Is blowing shit up the only option we leave people forcing them to turn towards terrorism? For all the fear and warnings and notices the government gives us, what education is being provided on the Government’s duties that we can impose on them? I had asked this at my University too. All students at The University of Pune, are given rather thick booklets telling them under what circumstances they may be expelled. Is even a single piece of paper provided to tell the student what recourse they have if a teacher doesn’t show up for classes for an entire semester?

While I don’t know how to make the silly relative listen without resorting to evil, I can assure you not everyone in the world has the same definition of evil. To begin with, we can certainly stop being the silly relative if we want to avoid evil. We can at least stop playing the self-less victim to avoid vindictive retalition. Don’t push your luck too far, for even Yudhishthir had his limits. The silly relative is both the hero and the victim simultaneously. If Shakespearean poetic justice had a visible example, it would be this person.

The question I throw out there is, is Civil War the only resort left when there is a failure to listen? When someone mistakes your kindness for weakness, takes advantage of you over and over again, is being cruel the only resort left? Moreover, do we not reinforce their behaviour by bailing them out? Not doing so would inevitably push them in the victim mode, thereby putting themselves and their families at risk. Is forced institutionalization the only recourse left? Are forced limits on pay and bonuses the only way to control a bunch of self-proclaimed smart-people from ripping off the common public?

There is a reason I say this – I’ve seen the dark side of myself multiple times. We hold ourselves in a system of rules because deep down, when those barriers break, there’s no telling how far we’ll fall. That is what Krishna tells the Pandavas during the war - when rules have been broken, there is no longer a moral boundary between how far they have been broken. Either rules are followed or they’ve been broken. Once broken, both sides get to play by the lack of rules. Yes, insurance companies are right to be afraid of the new US Health Reform, and we’ve certainly not heard the last word on all that bail-out money. The people are mad because the people played by the rules while the “winners” never followed any. If the people decide they are not losers for lack of being able to play the game, they can play it much better than the “winners” using the very same rules.

This is the very reason why Caste Reservations are so popular in India, and why I am pro-reservation. Brahmins constitute barely 3% of the Indian populace. I’m one of them. I’ve seen people of my “superior” caste trample over those born of lower. I’ve seen it happen for a whole decade. How long did we think it would last? They resorted to our own game. Higher castes held authority by being in key positions in Government. Well, the “lower” castes played that same game and won it through majority. They are more. We are a democracy. They decide what everyone else should do. They didn’t invent new rules. They didn’t change the objective function of the game. They didn’t fight. They didn’t hold processions. They played a game that we invented to the last dot on the last obscure page of fine-line rules. We could have prevented all this by being fair, but heck, that was no time to speak.

I am now of an age where the first of the marriages of my generation are beginning to fail, and it is the same story there too. Manipulative and selfish successful people were not only admired, but their behaviour was reinforced. People who were “succesful” through deceit, lies, treachery were glorified. How long before they felt they could get the same advantages over their spouses too? Afterall, wasn’t that behaviour reinforced by their spouses to begin with? Why should they be condemned when they use the very rules their spouses admired them for, against those very spouses? They knew what they were getting into.

As I finish the book, and this blog, I see the same dilemma faced by Yudhisthir before he declares war. In a desperate bid to avoid conflict he asks for five measely villages – it’s not really even an offer. It’s just that one last attempt at getting Duryodhan to listen. It isn’t about land, property or kingdom anymore, but about acknowledgement of existence. It is an attempt to get an acknowledgement of an end to the events of the past and a recognition of the soverignty of the Pandavas. When there was a failure to listen, the only recourse left was to wage a “just war” or “holy war” (a noun we already know to be dangerous).

March 28, 2010

On opinions, objectivity, fact, liking, agreement, bias

Filed under: Preaching — Tags: , , , , , — archisgore @ 12:59 pm

It was long overdue I commented on this. I guess we only write when we’re passionately misrepresented or misinterpreted by someone. I recently read a book called “The Difficulty of Being Good.” Unusually, after a long time did I love a book that was loved by so many other people. The single biggest reason I loved this book is because after Bernard Shaw, I found someone who wasn’t afraid to take sides, make judgements, express opinions. It is when I was expressing this, that I was asked, “Do you like to read biased books?”, and I decided to explain my position, and hope to inspire maybe another one person who may be afraid of opinions.

Art is inherently dependent on interpretation. There is no right or wrong interpretation, but rather my interpretation and your interpretation. I have commented ad nauseum on how so many people look for the correct interpretation based on a populist majority and then stick to it.

This blog is now about opinionated art - literature to be precise. I have always loved people who are opinionated. Others call them biased. I say everyone is biased, and if they’re not, they’ve got no reason to be living on this earth. Very few of those people have opinions though. This consequently translates into literature too. A large portion of populist books are non-judgemental and non-opinionated in nature. We have a tendency to call this unbiased or objective. It simply represents the high levels of cowardice in our social order. Objectivity, by definition is opinionated.

Let’s look at objectivity for a minute. Objectivity, quite literally (and trivially), means towards an objective. Objectivity is focussed and opinionated. Fairness does not mean neutrality. Objectivity is fair, not passifist. If I were to be made an objective judge of one person having stolen something from another person, then in all fairness, I would judge against the thief. Of course I am biased towards something – I am biased towards my definition of good which states stealing is bad. I am not biased towards either of the two actors involved in the crime, however I will label the act as a crime. I am opinionated, objective, and fair, and harshly biased against stealing. Someone who fails to express an opinion either way, is neither objective, nor fair, nor unbiased, but rather biased towards cowardice of maintaining their “good guy” image amongst both parties.

Let’s talk about opinions. During my days of work with open source I said this, and ever since I work for Microsoft, I keep saying it. I said it against the Church when they opposed Dan Brown’s book, and I say it against the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena when they threaten Sachin Tendulkar against his right to free speech. I am a person interested in opinions, because opinions tell me what people truly really are. Facts are easily verifiable. If the Church is threatened by a two-bit author who has little literary skill, then that just demonstrates their “faith” or whatever. It demonstrates that their followers are dumb imbeciles who would not take 10 minues to verify the facts written by Dan Brown. They are not objective and fair. Similarly, if Sachin Tendulkar saying something troubles MNS, it only indicates how weak and dumb they claim their followers are.

Opinions make people interesting. Opinions make people… well people! To suppress an opinion is to kill humanity. If we believe in aatma and crap, then to suppress an opinion is to simply allow the body to live while having killed a person’s soul.

I understand the value of fact. I’m also one of those people who at times will cut through people’s lengthy discussions and ask for cold, hard facts. I want facts because I want to form an opinion. So demands for facts make me all the more opinionated. It doesn’t mean I’m not objective as I explained above, it doesn’t mean I’m not fair, however, it does mean that I stick to what I believe is fair and don’t compromise. I’m not a coward who would prefix every statement with “maybe” or “perhaps”.

I hate it when people start books, conversations, blogs, articles with, “This is only my opinion…” Of course it’s your opinion, that’s why I’m here. Tell me what you want to tell me and I know I am listening to your opinion only. I don’t put any human on the same pedestal as God. Thereby I do not attribute to any human the previlidge of knowing The Universal Truth. Everything I hear and see is opinion.

I often like certain people’s opinions or claims which are controversial or unpopulist and if I ever said it, I am branded as their suporter. Even though we display a great deal of training, we fail to demonstrate much education. Language provides us with so many words with so many precise meanings and we fail to understand. There is a clear distinction between liking something and agreeing with it. I like many books that I don’t agree with – heck I love those books because they simply bring out my humanity in me. Every time I read them, I realise I am an individual, I am a human, I can read this book for the hundredth time and I shall still disagree with it. I positively love the book!

For all our grand historic crap and traditional shit, I find Indians a society filled with uneducated people. Even Mahabharat and Ramayan, and the Geeta, have instances of great characters admiring their enemies. They remained enemies till the end because they disagreed with each other. That doesn’t mean they didn’t admire the enemy’s opinion on something. I love opinions because they connect me with the rest of the world. They make me matter. Reading an opinion tells me there are other individuals like me who think and act. It gives me hope.

I read an interesting quote, and I can’t remember where, “The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.” To hate something passionately also makes us feel good. It is an assertion of our humanity, of our right and free will to have opinions. It asserts our ability to make judgements. I fear that I may someday be indifferent to this world, or it may become indifferent to me. That is when I will have lost my humanity and my soul.

Let us now conclude with bias. What is bias? Bias to me, is a double-standard. Bias is when you apply a rule to one person, but relax that rule to another person. Bias is cowardly. Bias is the opposite of objective and opinionated. Bias is reserving to oneself powers over other individuals. That is the one thing which drives away any passion in me. So in conclusion, I will state that the last thing I would either read, like, or agree-with on the face of this earth, is anything that is biased. I hope that clarifies to everyone whether or not I like biased literature.

This doesn’t mean I hate bias - because that would still have stirred up a passion in me, prompting me to read biased books. I simply consider bias a waste of my already very short life afforded to me on earth. A biased person has no guts, has no courage. A biased person has no thought, no opinion. They will change the rules of the game anytime it is convenient to their narrative. It is purely nonsensical and irrelevant. A biased organism is not human.

January 14, 2010

The resurrected art of bad writing?

Filed under: 1 — Tags: , , , , , , , — archisgore @ 11:30 pm

I recently took to reading some classics again – after a few year hiatus. The first book on my list was “King Solomon’s Mines”. As I read, I appreciated the high quality of bad writing. It’s ingenious. The book is a first-person narration by Allan Quartermain, and as he describes himself as a humble hunter and trader, it would make so much sense that he would write that way. Took be about half the book to realize that. Sure the auther could have been eloquent to show off his own ego, but that would have ruined the book. The writer could have been just a terrible writer, but then the book would have been horrible, yet it’s not! This was the work of a genius.

I don’t have much to say here beyond getting opinions and thoughts. This was quite an interesting read. The only other book with such a curiously unique writing style was Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It’s a book of first-person narrations through letters. The book is also brilliant in being thrilling, encapsulating and mesmerizing, given the limitations the author imposes upon himself then he restricts all narration to letters written between certain people. The letters need to portray different personalities through words alone. Situations such as fear, anger, emotional states of characters, need to be represented through their (the character’s writings). It seems to be we rarely give credit to the magnificient art of simply writing itself!

In case you have any books where you’ve seen such an uncommon writing style, I would love to hear from you.

On an ending note, it just hit me – I’ve been reading reviews about twilight lately and they’re all but inspiring. Maybe those critics aren’t appreciating the good writing here? This “Bella” person seems to be as much a mentally degenerate person in need of institutionalization as anyone could ever be. And the book (according to reviews), is written from her point of view. Maybe you’re not appreciating the writer’s genius here. Wouldn’t it seem wierd if Bella were narrating a well-thought-out, logical story without describing Edward’s body a million times? Twilight may just be the resurrection of the art of bad writing! (There’s no way in hell I’m reading one of those books though)

January 13, 2010

Medical Capsule dilution experiment

Filed under: 1 — Tags: , , — archisgore @ 12:13 pm
Picture of Capsule Dilution experimental setup

Capsule Dilution Experimental Setup (click image for larger version)

So… once in a while you want a controlled release of certain substances in a solvent, and the easiest method with minimal chances of failure is to have a capsule that slowly dissolves in the solvent, thereby unleashing whatever awesomeness you have stored inside.

Timing with capsules can be quite a feat, and for some upcoming big plans, I needed to have a controlled release of large capsules simultaneously. This experiment was designed to study that.

The picture above shows the experimental setup. The capsules used are B-Complex vitamin supplements. I opened one of the capsules to replace the stuff inside with a colourant (thereby allowing me to visually see when the capsule got broken), but since all my solvents were colourless, and the stuff inside was a yellowish powder, I figured it would suffice to use them as-is.

I wanted all this on video, but I left my handicam DVDs in Pune with my parents, and had forgotten to buy new ones, with very little chance of me getting them at 1:30 am in the morning.

Let’s get to the contents of each of the containers – they’re all labelled in the picture. We’ll refer to each container combination as Ci where i=1 to 5.

C1 Water
C2 Water
C3 Isopropyl Alchohol
C4 Diluted Ethanol (Vodka)
C5 Citric Acid + Acetic Acid

Now I’ll get to a table with the timeline as per my log entries and you’ll know just what happened.

 1:35 Capsules were inserted in C1, C3 and C5 to test water, alchohol and acid . All 3 capsules float on all liquids.
 1:35:30  Water bowl (C1) immediately shows dissolution. The capsule’s outer shell is dissolving. I wonder if the width of the bowl was a factor that the achohol and acid didn’t have, so I start to setup C2 with a narrow tumbler.
 1:40:40  C5 shows signs of dissolution, yet mild. C1 is dissolving significantly.
 1:42  C2 is started – starts dissolving within seconds and at 1:42:30 has colours diffusing in the water. The capsule floats.
 1:43:30 C5 is slightly dissolving. Constant rate. Slow. C2 is rapid. C3 has NO CHANGE. I mean this is shocking – the capsule might as well be in an inert fluid. I decide to determine whether the type of alchohol matters. I begin setting up C4 with ethanol (knowing very well that vodka isn’t pure alchohol and my ethanol supplies having run out, I would have to make allowances for the water content in Vodka being responsible for a significant portion of the dissolution)
 1:46:30  C4 started. The capsule floats. C1 is almost broken. C2 is a close 2nd. C5 is now visibly dissolving – the colourants from the capsule’s outer shell are mixing evenly (unlike in water where they were breaking off and sinking to the bottom). C3 – NO CHANGE! C4 is going pretty fast.
 1:48:31  The picture you see above was taken.
 1:49:30  C1 broke. The contents within it sank to the bottom. C2 is almost broken. C3 NONE. C4 catching up fast. C5 broken. C5 seems to have been broken a while ago, but it’s contents weren’t coming out of the capsule. This may have something to do with the fact that these were vitamin tablets containing all acids and perhaps the water had already been saturated with an acid.
 1:52 C2 almost there…. C4 close behind. 
 1:54  C2 the capsule is shrivelled but the contents are not yet exposed to the solvent.
 1:60  C2 broke with contents now exposed to the solvent and started diffusing.
 1:59  C4 still in the race. Given up on C3 it had NO CHANGE!
 2:16  C4 broke. (many logs between 1:59 and this entry have been omitted that only record “no change”)

Each solvent’s start and end time is presented below

  Start Time End Time Duration
C1 1:35 1:49:30 19:30
C2 1:42 1:60 18
C3 1:35 practical infinity infinity
C4 1:46 2:16 30
C5 1:35 1:49:30 (maybe upto 30 seconds before) 19

 

Conclusion: Alchohol in water is a good way to control the dissolution timing of each capsule. Given capsules that are thinner, we could start with a base-line water-dissolution lower than whatever we want, and then mix enough alchohol in the water to fine-tune the time.

December 19, 2009

“Giving up” is not losing

Filed under: 1 — Tags: , , — archisgore @ 2:01 pm

When you find yourself in an unwinnable scenario, what do you do? Do you “patriotically” keep fighting to the death or do you admit that this round is lost and give up? Unfortunately such situations aren’t too uncommon in life – and we all end up in those critical decision-points of our lives where we have conflicting interests, and we don’t know what to do.

I read an interesting analogy recently – if a soldier is wounded in battle, and if he cares for the cause, he would first go back and heal his wounds so that he may fight with renewed strength the next day. Only a fool would keep on fighting with bulletholes in their chest and die – thereby really “losing” the battle (their goals shall forever remain unachieved).

It’s also an important concept is Poker. Movies like Casino Royale misleadingly portray the character who keeps on raising as having “guts”. Watch the World Series poker tournaments and you’ll find that knowing when to fold is perhaps the most important strategy towards winning. If someone has a Royal Flush, and you know it’s obvious, then how much do you think you’ll scare them by going “all in”?

I had to learn this the hard way in my job, but it’s an important point to know about yourself. If you find yourself in a situation where you know you won’t win, it’s not easy to back out, but it takes much more courage to live for your cause even under ridicule, than to give up and die on the battlefield and lose sight of what you were fighting for in the first place. It’s important to let go of false pride, and really fight for pride.

Then again, let’s focus on that ridicule angle for a moment. I dare you, if you can find one instance where the persons ridiculing you for giving up, were not the very persons who had something to gain from you not giving up, I’ll retract this entire article. I won’t use the word “in most cases”. I’ll guarantee a 100% complete certaintyof this fact. Your loved ones would be the first to ask you to back out and leave. Your loved ones care about the cause you’re fighting for, than a false pride which you will never gratify anyway. Do you really believe the people who ridicule you for giving up, won’t do so inspite of you dying for your cause?

You really want to win? Go back, rethink your strategy, and actually get what you set out to achieve! That’s how you shut up those who dare make fun of you.

December 18, 2009

Identifying The “Undeclared Couple” in a Group

Filed under: 1 — Tags: , , , , — archisgore @ 12:52 pm

What do you do when after three days of sleepless coding, your bug count goes from a good 14 to zero? You find a void in life that can only be filled with formulating meaningless game-theoretic constructs and presenting them to your readers.

So I find myself in this situation last night, and began thinking of a particular category of games that are quite common in life but we rarely ever get to beat them because we can’t formulate them in time. Regular readers will know how important I consider identifying a game in order to win it. The game is actually about a cooperative multiplayer strategy, but when discussing with a couple of people, I quickly realized the “undeclared couple” in your group is a scenario common enough for it to be used as an example. These principles apply in practically every walk of life when you are in a situation where you do not know the objective functions of other players, and especially if two players are cooperating against your interests. Note that we won’t discuss winning strategies here, since they are discussed in depth in classical game theory. We are just trying to make an effort to identify such games when they are played, so that we become better equipped to react when it does happen.

A lot of times, losing such games can lead to frustration, resentment and anger. You feel treated “unfairly” because people sided with other people. It just gets messy because you try to humanize people when you lose so you can blame them, whereas if you were on the winning side, you would just say, “Hey, I looked after my interests. What’re you so worked up about?”  Goes without saying, the workplace is the most high-stakes game with hidden cooperative players – although I have to admit, personally I’ve not come across any work-related cases yet (it may have something to do with the fact that I work in a company where it’s acceptable to flame a VP if you have something to say). In personal relationships, families, newly weds, etc., it’s much too common for comfort.

Let’s start with a simpler example of Poker. If you had  a cooperative player sitting diametrically opposite from you on a poker table (i.e. you have half the players on the table between your turn and their turn),  you gain a distinct edge. Aside from the statistically trivial possibility of your chances being doubled because you get two hands in the game, you also gain a distinct edge in manipulating players who believe that every single player has an objective of making money only for themselves. Simply relaxing this constraint, and where one player is helping another player make money, can make the game so much more advantegous to the cooperative players. In a game of poker, however, the only way to convey information to other players is through your moves. There are games where we have more information at our disposal, should we choose to use it.

This second example applies to practically EVERY situation where a group is involved – be it clubs, activity groups, friend groups, colleagues, a bunch of aunts and uncles, whatever – you name it. We shall look to the example of two of your friends who might be secretly attracted to each other but are too embarrassed to admit it, and require the entire group you hang out with for various reasons (the reasons are faily obvious, but this isn’t an article on pop-psychology, so we’ll leave the reasons to themselves). Really really think back onto those times when two people constantly hang out together, and will seeminly have their objective functions at variance with each other (they will go a long way to say this out loud a million times). I’ve been personally irritated at least twice by such behaviour, so I know the feeling.

So here’s the situation. Two people want to do something “different” from what everyone else wants to do (damn, I guess I’ll write a blog on pop-psychology yet). In a simple one-vote strategy, they lose out. Every player, express their opinion, and assuming a simple model, the group decides to do what got voted the most. If there is a declared couple in the group, they may resolve contention among themselves and present two votes on the game – not all that powerful really. It’s the undeclared couple that gains immense power, especially if other players are not cautious. Now that I think of it, you could look at the voting strategy as a simple betting round of Poker. Each player votes once, but the last player has an advantage since they know every other vote and they can make a move that is more ameable to the group. Then if there are players who haven’t folded or haven’t gone all-in with all that they had to stake, we have a “flop” where players present their “cards” which are statements made in order to sway votes, and another round of betting takes place.

However, one player, gets two votes, and one of those votes is not put on the table until every other vote has been cast. One player can first cast a vote, and if the suggestion is shot down by the time the voting reaches their partner, the partner can present a vote based on better information about what the group wants, while still maintaining an amicable position for both players.

It’s very important to identify such behaviour patterns not only to win that specific round of betting, but to ensure your credibility in the group is not threatened. Over time, this “undeclared couple” will try to weed out those who present a threat to themselves or those who may call their bluff (one of the winning strategies for such games).

This is where we deviate from mathematical game theory into a social phenomenon called “labelling” which too, I comment about a lot. Labelling is the assignment of a label to a certain population to “differentiate” it from the non-labelled population. We see it all around us on a large scale – religion, names, skin color, whatever. I want you to do a simple experiment tomorrow morning. From the start of the day till evening, simply gague your emotional response every time someone uses the inclusive word “us” that includes you. I know it may sound very trivial, but you’ll be surprised at the results.

The untrained mind has an instinctive urge to be “part of” a social group, and it makes us happy. Nothing wrong with that. Now, when you have cooperative players in a game, their differing opinions are defended by the second player who can label the first player as “us”, maintaining their social standing within the group. Any lone player, however, does not have resort to this defense. Over time, both players, for all public appearences, individually start labelling a threatening player as “not us”. They will do rounds within a group and start subtle suggestive reinforcement techniques to indicate how you are not a team player (ever notice how this phrase is parodied heavily in so many TV Shows?) Common statements include, “See how he doesn’t like what we all like to do?” (the minute other players hear “we all” their endorphin system kicks in).

Over time, you may find your opinions become completely irrelevant regardless of what intrinsic value they hold towards the “declared objective” of the group, since the group no longer lets you in on their real objective function.

So now you know why game theory is so important in real life. Ever find yourself in a scenario where your team at work suddenly ignores everything you have to say? Ever notice how a group of two or three people are favoured by the boss regardless of whether they are really optimal for the team? Ever notice how one morning you wake up and find yourself being called “not a team player”, and you have no clue where it’s coming from? Then go read cooperative gaming strategies, cause you’ve just been duped!

October 5, 2009

Pro-Maharashtrian politics

Filed under: 1 — archisgore @ 9:41 am

Oh dear God, here I go into the dirty world of politics. If I get “roughed up” in the near future during one of my trips to Pune, I shall know that it was due to pious and religious people who believe in free speech and they were simply using their right to free speech to make a statement against me.

I have thankfully been isolated from many reports and interviews on this issue by various parties involved, and yet I found defenders of this cause quite weak in their arguments (or at least, not committed to them). From what I do know however, I can surmise some facts and I leave it up to my readers to correct me if I’m wrong.

Now let us first start with the rules of the game. As you all know I don’t believe in “right, righter and rightest”. There is “right” and there is “wrong”. Nobody is “more right” or “less right”. When it comes to the Law, I am not a Judge nor a person contracted by the Indian Judiciary System to act as a delegate, therefore I do not make up my own laws – I have only the letter of the law to follow.

When the law is inconvenient, people turn to “principles” (or invent a few if necessary) and if they are bigger cowards, talk to me about supernatural powers, God, religion, etc. For those who would use religion as a labeling mechanism, I would like to emphasize as I have done in countless other blog posts, that I never question the rules of any game, but I expect every player to follow them – especially the player who establishes the rules. A rule must be defined as f(x) where x is a person and no matter who that person is, the definition of f is immutable. Of course this is my interpretation of my religion, and since I’m neither God myself, nor a contracted agent of God given authority by God to decide between what is right and what is wrong (as so many people around me seem to be), I leave it up to each reader to make up their own mind.

Having established this fact, let us look into the whole violence that was caused in Maharashtra against “North Indians” (a label I have not assigned and am not capable of demarcating) and understand the facts. I would like the reader to fill in whatever information they have regarding one question. Specifically I want to know in short, what was the objective of this whole movement. Is it to stop all that is illegal? If so, I understand completely. The violence itself was illegal, and in retrospect, those who caused it, I assume, have turned themselves in voluntarily in their local police stations to fight for their cause. I would like facts on the numbers of people currently under voluntary arrest.

Now coming to my main point – I find it disturbing just how many literate (I do not call people with a ‘degree’ educated, but I will grant that they can read and write) people in my own state and falling prey to labeling. I am not one who would deny people the opportunity to fight for what they want – if they want jobs and others are taking their jobs, it’s fine to fight for them. I am afraid of people who try to present their personal convenience in a framework of principle so that they get a feeling of moral superiority over others. I recently heard that a certain leader of this movement in a televised interview stated that while all other leaders are donkeys (an imprecise translation), he is “less of a donkey”, and therefore people should support him.

The disturbing reality of such a leader, as history has shown us ever since history has been recorded, is that subconsciously we end up giving him the greatest power on this earth – the power of God – the power to Judge – the power to say what is right and what is wrong – a power I do not allow any human being to have over me. What makes this situation particularly dangerous is, by supporting such people politically we give them the power to execute their judgment – thereby making them Gods. I would prefer a leader who said, “I’m a donkey, elect me.”, or a leader who says, “I am pure, therefore elect me.” Heck, I would probably elect the donkey rather than the pure leader because I know I am a donkey too. I am afraid of anyone who thinks they are Agents of the Supreme Court of India or the Agents of God and can determine they are “less of a donkey compared to me.” Who is to say when they will change their mind on what constitutes “donkeyhood” and what does not?

A famous peom I would like everyone to read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came…
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

It is time we all faced our fears and admitted our own sins. When we break a traffic light, we convince ourselves that we are “less of a donkey than a murderer”. Over time we build a strong resistance against our conscience so that these things don’t bother us. Then we end up in a catch-22 situation – other people have played our game and gone Pro, while we still remain in the Pee Wee league. We built illegal buildings in our Mumbai and others came and they build them over thousands of square acres. Now we want to label them so that we are not judged for our sins. We crapped in our own house and now the stench of others crapping here is bothering us!

I am not saying what is happening is appropriate or legal, but I am certainly saying that two wrongs don’t make a right. There are better ways to improve the situation in the state and it is up to each and every one of us to exploit all such means. Imitation is the highest form of flattery and we cannot “teach them a lesson” by imitating them.

As for the job situation in the state, I am a standing testament to the real situation. Within Pune or within my own state I would not have been given a job two years ago when I passed out. And it wasn’t because of the “North Indians” or the “South Indians” or the “Caste X people” or anyone currently labelled as “them”. It was because I did not have a “B.E.” degree and I did not have a job because back then the B.E.’s were “us” and I was a “them”. Back then, I was a “them” for the very people who would now have me become a part of “us” because some other “them” came and took up all the jobs of those elite “us” in the state. If history has taught us anything, such people are the most dangerous sort of people you can ever hope to encounter. Tomorrow another community may come up and start killing a part of the Maharashtrians who form a part of “us” and have lucrative jobs. Can anyone who has lived in the state seriously tell me with a straight face that the have not seen this happen countless times in their own lifetime already?

This is my request to all those out there, I don’t wish to preach and I don’t wish to pass judgment, but I do want each and everyone of you to make sure that the day they come for you, you will have someone left to speak.

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