Archis's Blog

April 21, 2013

What rescue training taught me about dealing with problems

Filed under: Personal, philosophy, Preaching, Technology — archisgore @ 8:46 am

My first MBA-style “how to do stuff” list. If I get time, I’ll even give it some forced-acronym like “The Five E’s of handling pressure” or something. This will sound a lot like a self-help book as well. You have been warned. If it’s any further warning, I would never read the crap below and follow it myself. So there!

I recently went through a major high-risk scenario at work. When you’re in my line of work, these things are your worst nightmares. We have computational theory itself against us – what we code cannot be verified for correctness by a machine. So we do the best we can, and hope it works. Literally. Even the “best of the best” amongst us is reducing the odds that something could go wrong, rather than improving the odds that everything is right. There’s a big semantic difference between the two.

An year ago, I’d have handled the situation very differently. Usual responses by a human include a lot of things. First is blame. Second is “how do I get out of this as soon as possible?” Third is, “how do I justify my actions”? etc. However, I realized I could handle the pressure with great enjoyment. I’ve been called a masochist before, but this wasn’t that. A few recent rules learnt in my diving world, played a huge role in preparing me to handle anything.

Anyone who has techie friends knows we love our jargon. You can’t walk into a bar in Bellevue without overhearing boasts of “mission critical” and “strategy” and “tactical decision” and all sorts of awesome that would make James Bond walk out in shame.

When you’re training for rescue scenarios however, it is VERY REAL. A wrong decision and someone dies. You can do everything right and someone can still die. Those words actually mean something. An “emergency” doesn’t mean “oh I need a promotion, so I’m going to make things seem important.” An “emergency” means “unless you act now, and use the next 30 seconds correctly, someone is going to die.”

But here are five things I learnt out of diving and rescue training that can really relieve your pressure when dealing with “mission critical” situations.

1. Have reserves for the worst: This is a fundamental rule you learn after you’ve been in horrid situations and have exhausted yourself earlier. Everyone else can say it, but you only mean it when your life is at risk. When you are trying to salvage a dive halfway through, and someone’s reg starts to freeflow and he runs out of air, and you drained your resources in debugging a smaller issue, someone is going to die. When prioritizing, ensure that if at that moment, your entire company’s service went down or your product on millions of machines suddenly has some critical vulnerability, you have the energy to deal with it. If you’re using your reserve energy for anything else, you’re doing it wrong. Take a rescue class and you’ll gain the backbone to tell people to go away. They are important, no doubt, but are they important enough to burn your reserves on at that moment? Reserves are called “reserves” for a reason.

2. You’re not in a life-threatening situation: When you really have been in a situation from which you’re glad to have simply come out alive, you’ll find stress in life goes way down. Lost keys, or a disappointing interruption in internet connectivity, or some pissed-off coworker or whatever the heck you get worked up about, it’s not like you took your last breath, your reg won’t open, and unless you figure it out in 30 seconds, you’re not sure you will ever breathe again.

3. Use your importance: An year ago, I would have double-checked, questioned, and hesitated. Life-threatening situations teach you one thing: you’re the best chance the victim has. By definition you are the best person equipped to make decisions. Use that power. Make those decisions. That is not the time to educate a bystander on the physiology of emergency oxygen. It is not a time to build “consensus”. Nobody can validate your actions. That is the time to get that oxygen in the mouth of the victim as soon as possible. Everything else be damned! Also learn to hand over charge when someone more qualified comes along (a medical doctor for instance.) Life-guarding school should be mandatory to every MBA in dealing with “mission critical” stuff. When you’re dealing with an emergency, and someone says, “He should never have done that in the first place.”, you learn to treat that statement as “noise” rather than a discussion to be had at that moment.

4. Partial aid provided is better than full aid withheld: This is one statement they will drill into your brain every other minute. Derives from point 3 above. When you’re the BEST hope the victim has, everything that you do is helping. If you forget rescue breathing, that’s bad, but not the worst. Others didn’t know WHAT to do at all. As an owner of some task at work or in life, YOU know how something works. YOU have more information than anyone else involved. No matter how disturbed you are, or how tired you are, or how pissed off you are. YOUR bad decision, is statistically likely to be better than someone else’s random guess.

5. Look Cool Doing it: Perhaps the big point I learnt from GUE folks. If you’re doing something, do it well. There’s no excuse to not have your skills up-to-date. Others derive their cues from you. When you falter, they lose confidence. In a way this derives from point 3 & 4: People have already decided you’re the best hope they have. If you’re the most qualified person, where your decision is likely to be the best one, if you panic, you’re making the situation much much worse. You won’t know everything. But that’s better than not knowing anything. Think of your last doctor visit. If your doctor is worried, concerned, sweating, and informs you that you have a cold, you’re not going to go home very confident. If you’ve not delegated, then you’re in-charge. When people begin panicking, your calm assertive behavior can do wonders to get everyone to focus. There’s a reason I mentioned those IT showoffs. With all that language, it is very easy to lose perspective of the fact that while things are BAD, they’re not THAT BAD. Don’t be the panicking doctor who kills their patient of a heart attack, while informing them they have a cold.

I learnt that applying points 3 & 4 can be quite valuable in emergencies. Whether it’s your service failing, a bad press release, a badly received feature, an angry coworker or whatever it is you’re dealing with. Learn to identify when you KNOW better than others. Learn to USE that advantage to take control because at that moment YOU’RE the best of the worst. Learn to identify a BETTER QUALIFIED PERSON fast and handoff! PROVIDE HELP even if isn’t ALL the help needed. Some help is better than none. IGNORE noise. Remember that all hell can break lose. Your company could go bankrupt. You could get fired. And yet it’s not like someone is DYING. When you face your first panicked diver or your first low-on-air emergency (and I’ve thankfully never had someone go completely out of air on me,) when you’re thinking about whether you’re going to see the surface alive, whether you’re going to surface alone, etc. you really do get a much better grasp on everything else that can go wrong on the surface – you’re ON THE SURFACE! :-)

February 8, 2013

Everyone should grow an onion

Filed under: Personal, Preaching — Tags: , , , — archisgore @ 8:48 am

1991, State College, Pennsylvania. I was in grade school in the 2nd grade. We had one of the most pointless assignments ever. All we had to do, was to lift a certain object (an empty fish tank), and estimate its weight. Public schooling was excellent in the USA back then.

At the age of 14 or 15, 8 years later, I realized what the purpose of that assignment was. The school did little else after that assignment, but when I went home, I spent a lot of time lifting objects and checking their labels. An instinctive ability to estimate weights, temperatures (and someday… bouyancy) developed in me.

Much is written about organic. India hasn’t been spared the fad either. A people who have been eating natural, local, sustainable food for thousands of years, will now go into international chain stores and look for labels that say “locally grown organic”. I have nothing against that practice, mind you.

I do believe, however, that every kid in school, should have an assignment to simply grow an onion. No points, marks or grades. No objective or outcome. All they have to do, is pick up a reusable clay pot that the school holds in stock, walk outside, gather some dirt, plan onion seeds, and grow it. You can use Google or facebook or whatever the heck else you want. The assignment stops when the onion is grown.

I know plenty of people who insist on ensuring a chicken had a happy life before it landed on their tables. I don’t know a lot of people who can tell me what a “good chicken” should look like. I have a hard time explaining to most people what a good quality vegetable should look like. I have nothing against regulatory agencies, and oversight committees. But at a very fundamental level, if you care about such things, by looking at an onion, by smelling and tasting it, you have to be able to tell whether it was naturally grown or not.

Today I bought some spring onions at an Indian store, and I assure you, it had no USDA sticker. It had no certifications. But when they cook, I can objectively tell you they don’t release the amount of water the most expensive bunch bought from OFC would. They may not look as good, but they taste better, and cook better. The other day I was in a grocery store, wanting to buy maple syrup. I had so many syrups thrown in my face, “pancake syrup”, “waffle syrup”, “90% fat-free syrup”, but after 10 minutes of hunting is one bottle that says, “Maple Syrup.” I turn it around and look at ingredients, and there’s only one. “Maple Syrup”. Hallelujah!

How do I know? Glad you asked. Hold on to that thought about how I don’t know shit, and perhaps others may prefer onions in a certain other way. I actually grew hundreds of onions as a kid. Tomatoes, basil, gourds, and what not. My mom was kind of obsessed with her garden, and three of my neighbours were farmers.

Every single problem about locally grown, organic, sustainable, and happiness of farm animals, would be solved, if we relied less on the “Certified Organic” label, and knew what a good wild hen is supposed to taste like. Remember, I have nothing against convenience. I want someone else to watch my back. There is nothing wrong in not being suspicious of every single thing in life. However, when push comes to shove, you have to know what “one pound” feels like.

January 29, 2013

Few have the time or inclination to harm you

Filed under: Personal, Preaching — Tags: — archisgore @ 12:28 am

One of the many memorable quotes by the famous lawyer, Perry Mason, should apply to a lot of us. “Murder”, he says, “requires a powerful motivation. The murderer is more often a person who knew the victim intimately, than not. A person does not simply wake up one day, and decide to kill another human being.” We should all be the wiser, if we understood this.

I come across plenty of paranoid people. Some more annoying than others (for various reasons, the least of which isn’t that they are massive wastes of your time.) The difference between annoying paranoia and just general fear, is assertiveness. The paranoid love the feeling of being in fear, in much the same way many love the feeling of heartbreak (just read “Man and Superman” already, and save me the need for elaboration.)

As a child, I grew up near some farmland on the outskirts of a major city in India. Plenty of visitors to our home were afraid of “animals” attacking them (). If you’ve been shielded from the forests, you probably know the feeling. They were remarkably afraid of snakes – which is stupid because not every jungle (a farm isn’t a jungle) comes with a stock crew of snakes, tigers, lions waiting to specifically to bite/eat you; the difference between being afraid of lions, and just loving the feeling of being afraid of a suburb and thus inventing lions. This is not to say that snakes aren’t dangerous. So can our dogs be. They’re huge, and they’re highly protective. You especially don’t want to mess with one whose jaw can cleanly cut off a human limb in one bite when necessary.

What was amusing about the fear is the reassurance of self-importance they derived from it. Our dogs, while quite dangerous, were also quite lazy. Same with the snakes. They had comfortable lives, and it was a damned inconvenience for them to even be bothered to get up and do something, unless it involved eating a juicy rat. The idea that a snake is struggling to survive, doesn’t harm a human soul for over five decades, to secretly build up the trust of larger society, all the while waiting for this specific person to walk out of the city limits, and then bite him! We’re not talking about the Australian outback here.

I frequently feel the same paranoia when suggesting anything out of the ordinary. You really are tempting me at times, if you want me to seriously believe that someone went out of their way to invent an entire sport (snowboarding, skiing, etc.) or a restaurant, run the business for many years, build up a reputation, exactly so they could tempt YOU to walk in one day, and that would be the specific day they try to kill you. I’d say if you were really that important, more than likely that industry of choice is the automobile business and commercial flight.

For the paranoid few, I have four words: Nobody gives a damn! Face it. Yes, it sucks, that nobody goes out of their way to build strange webs of conspiracies around you. That doesn’t make it untrue. To cause harm requires effort. Unless causing you harm is of any gain (in the Outback, the gain is ‘tender free-range human’), very few will even think about it. Those who try will do so lazily (causing you harm is the same as going to work – they want to get it done with and hit the bar.)

I understand it sucks to live life knowing nobody’s going to “hack into your accounts” because you have nothing in them that others want. It sucks to know that all that whispering you do in plain visible sight does get attention, but for the amusement others derive out of it. Important secret things aren’t whispered in bars with conspicuous sunglasses. You never know such things are being said – that being the entire point of secrecy. It sucks to know that the products that piss you off, weren’t built to piss you off, but rather because nobody cared that you existed.

The temptation to feel victimized is certainly great – because then you get instant importance. Someone is taking the trouble to victimize you. The reality, I’m afraid, is much much worse than that!

August 22, 2011

Why doesn’t anyone speak of Law-enforcement in India?

Filed under: philosophy, Politics, Preaching — archisgore @ 2:13 am

I wrote once before about Raj Thakery and had a lively debate with a friend. My objection was simple – he broke a law, and he was not held accountable for it. For all my admiration for Batman, I certainly respect the fact that he is always portrayed as an anti-hero by the writers. A moral conflict that is never really quite resolved.

This month it is the Jan Lokpal Bill in vogue. I understand that the laws we have are not sufficient. I understand that there is a need for anti-corruption law reform. But what we really, truly, desperately and urgently need, is the ability to enforce the law. I took some time to go over the Jan Lokpal Bill discussion on the site, and most of it sounds like one of my algorithm-proving design documents (first we send an integer as a parameter, then we check the integer for non-negativity, thereby ensuring it is always >= 0.) My computer, fortunately, is 100% reliable in performing that integer non-negativity check, which is why the algorithm works. That isn’t how India works though. We have rules. We have the law. It isn’t being followed.

I wrote before about Middle-class morality, and how we like to believe we’re better than everyone else. There is a  reason why Gandhi was such a hard-ass on most people. Before criticizing someone else, he was willing to criticize himself. After he was done with identifying all his own faults, we would narrow down on exactly what it is he wants out of others. The fight with the British was distinctly different from what is happening today, and it didn’t quite begin as an Independence struggle. If I remember correctly, “Quit India”, was a  late-comer to the party once he realized every other recourse had been attempted and proven unsuccessful.

The original conflict, the same as in South Africa was, “If we are under the British rule, we are British citizens. Consequently, we must be subject to British rule. We must enjoy all the rights, previledges and responsibilities of British rule. We want British rule. We _demand_ British rule to the last letter of the law.” This isn’t all that different from the American argument either. It started with demanding a colonial representation in the British Parliament, we they were to pay British taxes. When the Brits refused, did they make demands for independence from the British rule.

What is happening in India is similar, but not the same. Unlike the British, there are constitutional laws designed to protect us from corrupt officials. There is law designed to achieve a lot. What is lacking, is the implementation of the law. Now logically speaking, if the law were implemented, we would never find ourselves in this predicament to begin with. The Parliament represents the Will of the people. Some would claim that isn’t true. I had an argument with my mom about this yesterday, and I must disagree. The Prime Minister is right. The Parliament has no obligation to table a bill they don’t want to. If that is not the will of the people of a constituency, the MP would be afraid of not being reelected. It is a self-regulating system. The interpretation against Anna Hazare, that they are holding the country hostage is not all that far-fetched. Democracy is a hard pill to swallow when it doesn’t go our way.

Enforcement:

The first thing I did to uncover more, was to read the FAQ on the website www.indiaagainstcorruption.org. One of the more disturbing statements on that site was, “The government’s agreeing to Anna’s demands was a democratic (not coerced) victory because the tiny fraction of the people of India who participated in the action represented the hearty desires of the masses against corruption.” I find that statement a bit presumptuous. I could say Osama Bin Laden’s tiny fraction who participated in the action against the US represented the hearty desires of the masses. In fact that’s exactly what Osama himself claimed. If we are to be a democracy, and a representative democracy at that, we can never presume anything. If an inconvenient law, rule, measure is taken against us, we must live by it because that is what we are signing up for. First, we must look at the election process – a lot of measures which benefited the masses have made it for 60 years. If the masses want it, it happens.

So either of two things is happening. Either election process is screwed up – in which case, if the very laws that are supposed to protect our democracy are not enforced, what makes you think any array of new laws would be enforced? Or, as the government is saying, the lack of introduction of the bill is, in fact, the will of the people.

There’s a reason I say this. Are the masses truly against corruption? Do you know that there have been plenty of law-enforcing people I’ve seen in my life, that the masses have kicked out of office? Arun Bhatia is my classic example. We speak of lack of infrastructure in our city of Pune (where I was born.) We speak with cynicism of all that could be done if the city planning laws were followed. Arun Bhatia became the commissioner of Pune for exactly 48 hours. As soon as he took office, and began enforcing the law, the masses – yes we’re speaking of the masses – the common masses – the regular middle classes, lower-income classes, upper classes, etc. – EVERYONE kicked him out of office in 48 hours. What does that say about the will of the masses? In fact, if I had heard that not a lot of people were against corruption, I’d readily believe it. To think that people from my city of birth are against corruption is a joke! Did they hold agitations to enforce the city planning laws? Did they hold agitations to enforce laws against a certain faction that went into people’s homes and beat them up? I know hundreds of “middle classes” that lie and cheat on their income taxes. What right do you think they have of holding someone else accountable? Why should a politician be treated by a different law? Why must he not get the right to lie and cheat? Why the double standard?

What I’m leading into, is this – if we do pass a bill, will it be enforced? What happens when hundreds of these middle classes are caught in land-deals or property purchases whose value is not honestly declared? What happens when hundreds of these people’s undeclared income is brought under investigation? Will we ignore it? Will we demand that it is inconvenient to us, and it must not be enforced?

This is a very real and dangerous possibility, that may bind our country in chains for another century with a big grand farce. Do the masses with the candles on the streets realize the consequences for themselves? This is not about the Members of Parliament or the Chief Ministers or the Prime Minister. This one’s going to hit home, and hit us all where it hurts. Illegal land deals. Illegal constructions. Illegal electricity bill manipulations. Illegal cooking gas cylinders. Undeclared incomes of doctors, lawyers, businessmen, farmers. I’m not sure all those supporters have thought this through. The fight is politically and diplomatically framed against politicians, and we’re all up in arms “against” an entity that we have clearly bounded and defined. I know plenty of people who have moved vehicles across state boundaries without paying the proper taxes. It is because of a corrupt cop who is happy to take $2 that they avoid paying heavy fines. Would they really want that corruption gone? When it starts to hit us, we’re going to demand leaner laws. We’re going to have talk shows and debates about confiscating whether a poor farmer’s undeclared income is ‘fair’. We’re going to cave in. And like the host of other laws that exist, we will have another one that won’t be taken seriously.

Visibility:

Visibility is a big part of the Jan Lokpal bill being promoted. Allegedly, it will allow corruption to be brought to light, which implies that we don’t yet know that India has corruption. Do you really buy that? Seriously? So you’re sayimg, there is corruption in India, not because it is not prevented, but rather because people don’t _know_ that it happens? Are you kidding me?!

To prevent the Jan Lokpal from abusing its powers, there will be populist measures like video recordings of meetings. We’re back to the point above. Do you think I don’t act against police abuses because I don’t know they happen? Do I not prosecute people in power because there is lack of evidence? So that given a video recording of a misdeed, I’m better equipped to fight irregularities there? I’m afraid of the kind of world we live in, if this belief is widespread.

I can’t prosecute those who abuse powers, because I don’t have the means to. Whether I have a video tape or not, I don’t have the time, resources or guarantee of remaining alive long enough, to fight a case in the courts. Visibility was never the problem. I remember in my own University, I had evidence of breaking of rules and regulations by the director. I have a hatred for that entire institution not because I didn’t have video recordings, but because I could find nobody who would act on the evidence that did exist!

Such populist measures frighten me because if I ever do have a grievance, I will have that video recording thrown in my face, and told to shut up because it shows no irregularity.

Enforce, Enforce, Enforce:

I love the support this issue is getting. I know people are pissed. I know people are frustrated. We’ve had enough. We taken this for over six decades. More bills and laws and authorities are not the way to go. We need to enforce what we have. Enforce laws. Enforce rules. I’m totally in support of adding new laws. But do so consciously knowing what we are all giving up. The sacrifice isn’t the fasts we’ll do, or the protests we’ll hold in the safety of American cities (for us NRIs), or the candles we’ll light. The sacrifice we’ll give up is our own little bribes we’re so used to.

We must ENFORCE! if this is ever to work. Sadly, I’m not convinced that’s going to happen, but am holding out hope that I be proven wrong. I’ll get back to you in one year and we shall see where we stand.

May 12, 2010

…therefore God exists

Filed under: philosophy, Preaching — 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?

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