Twelve years after living in this country, I can finally say I am a Californian. Though it is not a country, it very much feels like one. And since the state government is teetering on bankruptcy, I think it's almost qualified to be a country all by itself.

I was in the middle of switching content sources on my TV (from a Roku to DirecTV) and somehow saw a couple of ads on live broadcast TV. I usually never watch live TV unless it's the SuperBowl or a soccer match. I DVR everything on broadcast TV and skip through the ads. But I slipped up somehow and managed to stare at some ads on live TV. Most of these ads showed snow. A lot of snow. The theme was all about winter. People heavily dressed up in their sweaters and long boots merrily using the products in the ad. Cars, diamonds, food and clothes..

I glanced out of the window. It was bright and sunny with nary a snowflake in sight. I was lounging in shorts and flip flops. I checked the date - January 2012. What the hell is going on ?
We have enough technology now to personalize the heck out of everything. And why are these broadcast TV nincompoops and retail snake oil marketing folks still not able to figure this out ? It should be fairly easy to show ads relevant to geographic markets on TV. We have done it on the internet. TV's are around for a hundred years longer. And we still can't solve this ?

Making a Californian watch an ad for a car driving in the snow is like showing a slurpee to an Eskimo. Both have a less than zero chance of being excited.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The few times I have traveled to the mid-west and east coast seems like a trip to a foreign country. Only thing missing is the immigration line at the airport. Landing in a city like Boston, Dallas or Denver can be quite revelatory. These cities are more the America you read about and see in the movies. Lots of white people. Dressed from a catalog. With houses that scream 'feature me in Architectural Digest'. Eating an unforgivable amount of processed bland food. Spending borrowed money on landfill decorations. And churches that rival McDonalds for number of customers served.

That's the real America.

Comparatively, California seems out-of-step with the rest of the country. And I blame the weather. Having never lived long enough in a place where it snows heavily to cause a mass retreat into heated spaces, I really appreciate the year round amazing weather, especially in Southern California. That frees up your movement and most importantly your mind. Being outside most of the time is an enviable freedom that we capitalize. And it shows.

My parent's noticed this right away when they visited us a few years back. After spending a few months in California, they visited the East Coast on a guided tour. From Boston to Philadelphia. After returning, they couldn't stop talking about the differences in people, food and attitudes. They felt more at home in California. People were friendlier and the weather was more like back home.

Now that I have extolled the virtues of living in Californa, let me urge you NOT to move here. We are quite happy and you know, expecting the next big earthquake.

Stay away.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

What is the lifespan of a language ? Any language. Would our ancestors from say, two hundred years ago, understand us ? Either in written or oral form ? I seriously doubt it. That would be somewhat like a Marathi speaker chatting with a Gujarati speaker. Some words will be familiar and overall intent would be conveyed, but they are two separate languages.

As an example I will refer to my own native tongue - Marathi. There is an ongoing demand by proud right wing activists in my home state of Maha-Rashtra (meaning 'Great Nation' - we already have a chip on our shoulder), about 'protecting' the 'purity' of the language. Most of the discussion regarding this 'protection' is conducted in what can be only called as a babel of Marathi - English - Urdu and Hindi. Not one of them can conduct a lengthy conversation in classical or pure Marathi.

In fact classical Marathi went out of circulation a few hundred years ago when the Persian and Arabic speaking armies conquered most of India, including Maharashtra, the bastion of Marathi speaking people. The most famous warrior in Maharashtrian history, King Shivaji, the heartbeat of the Marathas and the pride of the current right-wing activists spoke and wrote a Marathi that would be very objectionable today as it would be laced with so many Persian and Arabic words to render the whole point of classical Marathi, moot.

So then why do we cling to this notion of 'classical' language ? Is it nostalgia or a misguided sense of seeking our tribal identity ?

It's a quest we cannot win.

Language has and will always be an ever evolving and dynamic entity. The very nature of our evolution dictates how we communicate. Every generation has their own 'language' and to try and claim adherence to generations prior seems foolish and hardly worth the effort. Imagine if we all spoke classical English. Ye wish'd thou hath not spake thus.

Language evolution has accelerated within the last few generations at an exponential rate than in the Middle ages. We are borrowing and creating new words daily in every language. English now boasts of the most words in any language, almost triple that of it's nearest competitor.
Technological progress, especially in the ubiquitous availability of mobile phones in every metro and cave in the world has interjected foreign words at an alarming rate into local languages. And this is seen as a cause for concern by the linguistic police.

I say, screw 'em.

Creating language is one of the greatest and unique skill that humanity evolved. Just ask the Trekkies who spout Klingon. Arresting it and keeping it bound to ancient rules seems not only stupid but in fact detrimental to our progress. Just as it is important for us to progress technologically, politically, socially and physically - you cannot have any forward movement unless we also progress linguistically. We have to make up the words to discuss what we are about to invent or create else we would be stuck. We tweet, we paypal, we fly, we flash mob and Wii play.

Sic transit gloria lingui !

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

There is something comfortable about a stack of books by your bedside table. You can, at a glance, see the size of each book and read the titles from a distance. An ebook reader doesn't provide the same satisfaction. I am using the Kindle Fire to read ebooks exclusively for the past two months. In the same period I have read about 4-5 paper books. The experience has been quite revealing.

As you are probably aware, I am an early adopter gadget freak. I like to automate my life with technology as much as possible. Often requiring a major shift in my thinking and daily habits. But after using an ebook reader for a couple of months, this is one area where I am still in favor of the old technology.

Paper books add a irreplaceable tactile experience while reading. Reading on an ebook reader (and I have tried this on my iPad as well) is quite distracting and uncomfortable. I have conditioned my body in handling a paper book and I feel it's simply too hard to change that habit. This maybe a hasty conclusion and I think I should probably keep reading on my Kindle for a year or so and then review.

But first impressions, as everyone knows, are lasting impressions.

Since I got the Kindle Fire in Oct 2011, I downloaded over 30 books on it. Some were free on Amazon and some borrowed from my local library. Amazon also allows Prime users to borrow a new book for a month on a physical Kindle. Quite conveniently and without expending any money, I have a good set of books to read for the next few months. I was quite happy.

But I soon discovered something strange. The immediate availability of so many books on the same device is very distracting. I am flipping through ebooks, not able to focus on one book for long. As soon as I get bored in a passage in one ebook, I found myself flipping to another ebook. Just like browsing on the web. Clicking from one hyperlink to another. In and out.

This is unlikely to happen with paper books since you usually carry only one book with you at a time. When you curl up to read in bed or at your local coffee shop, you usually just have the one paper book with you. When a passage gets boring, you take a break, stretch your legs, have a cup of coffee and plough back into the book. There is no other book enticing you to open it and get distracted.

I admit this is an unusual take on the whole paper vs ebook discussion. Most discussions are about the lack of an ability to gauge pages, feel the paper, backlighting, smell of the paper book, double spread pages etc. But this multi-ebook distraction syndrome is what happens with me. I don't know if other readers are going through the same experience. Please comment below. I would really like to know your take on it.

I plan to stick it out though, with my Kindle Fire. The deal it offers (12 new books to borrow from Amazon a year and thousands from my local library ) is simply too good to pass up.

These are crazy times for readers and writers. Exciting, but crazy.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Riding a motorcycle in the US is mostly a recreational activity. That surprised me when I moved here in 1999. I grew up in India, a nation with the highest number of motorcycles and scooters. Everyone in India rides a bicycle in grade school and graduates to either a scooter (mostly girls) or a motorcycle (mostly guys).

But riding a motorbike there is out of necessity and not a recreational activity. Most teenagers and young adults can’t afford a car (even a used one) and so the coming-of-age rite is a trip to the Regional Transport Office (RTO, similar to the DMV) to get a two-wheeler driving license.

This is quite a complicated experience fraught with lots of forms, photocopies of identity documents, photographs (that you have to supply), tests and of course fees. In addition, one is tempted to offer a bribe to either hide the fact that you are underage or to get the license in a hurry. The road test (if it comes to that) is laughable and perfunctory.

But once this initial hurdle is over you are free to rocket down the road at 40 miles an hour - usually in short bursts of frenzied zip-zap navigation, avoiding other riders, cars, buses and fauna. Riders in India develop extremely keen reflexes and pre-empt traffic flows. They handle sudden changes in direction and are able to turn on a dime passing other vehicles by inches if not centimeters. Since the average riding speed is pretty slow compared to the US, these sharp maneuvers are possible and warranted.

Armed with this intense training since my teens, I lost no time in buying a Suzuki Savage 650, within a year of arrival in the US. I breezed through the DMV road test. The DMV guy was sufficiently impressed to praise me after the test. Quite unlike the experience earlier when I had my car road test.

I started hurtling down Wilshire Blvd everyday to work and marveled at the freedom and joy of riding my motorbike through LA traffic. My car driving American friends called me crazy. They called me an automatic organ donor. Some related their horror stories with a sympathetic shake of the head - a neighbor that crashed and died, a cousin who lost a leg, the twisted heap of a motorcycle they saw one foggy day on the 110 South.

But I couldn’t be happier. Riding on the freeway and on the streets was exhilarating and safer than the Frogger tracks I left in India. Here, drivers observed some modicum of rules, signaled their intentions and got out of the way as soon as they saw a motorbike in their rear-view mirror. I was King of the road. I soon upgraded to a Honda Shadow 750 ACE Deluxe cruiser. Sounds just like a Harley without the false swagger.

A few years later after our first daughter was born, I caved in and acquired a second car. My motorcycle was mostly garaged and I rode it on the weekends, learning the new sport of ‘canyon carving’. For the un-initiated, that involves riding your motorcycle at high speeds through the windy, twisty roads in the San Gabriel and Santa Monica mountains. Up Angeles Crest Highway and down Upper Tujunga Canyon Road. To the Rock Store and over on to the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu. 

I explored these biker havens and hung out with biker pals. Learned the biker code hand signals - the subtle finger wave to say hi, the head-point to indicate cops ahead, the palm down waggle as you passed another rider to say thanks and the shake of the head as you passed a car that didn’t move out of your way as you split lanes. And of course the raised middle finger for cars that suddenly cut in front or jumped out of the car pool lane without warning.

Last year we decided to not get another car after the lease was up on our minivan. I itched to get back on my motorcycle again for regular commuting as I no longer had car pool privileges driving solo in my Prius and I was working from home. Having driven solo in the car pool lane for five years completely spoiled me. I was not ready to get back into a car and deal with the bumper-to-bumper LA traffic again.

Riding a motorcycle in LA is the only reliable way to get to an appointment predictably. Add to that, the free parking for motorcycles in parking lots and streets made it a no-brainer. It’s quite a liberating experience - not having the expense of a second car and the ability to show up for client appointments and dinners at home in time.

On the freeway we bikers usually ride in the carpool lane, if one exists, between the rows of cars, just inside the double yellow line. That, is the steel canyon. Carving those steel canyons daily is the best way to beat traffic. Most regular car drivers will move to the side once they spot riders in their rear-view mirrors. We make it a point to wave to those cars and thank them as we pass.

But make no mistake - riding a motorbike daily in LA traffic is definitely not for the inexperienced (or for the faint-hearted). You have to be prepared for sleepy, distracted and stupid car drivers. Luckily, there is no chance of being distracted while riding a motorbike. You can’t use a phone for texting, smoke or fiddle with the radio. You just ride straight; scan vehicles ahead, behind and both sides. You learn to stay away from wiggly cars. Most importantly you look out for other riders. 

And if the other rider is a motorcycle cop, he will protect you. This is one case where having a cop on your tail feels good. I have had these cops escort me through crazy traffic and create a clear path. Once, I rode behind a convoy of six motorcycle cops and the cars parted like the Red Sea. So you always hope for a motorcycle cop riding ahead in the steel canyon.

It’s been almost a year now, riding my motorcycle daily and not fighting rush hour traffic. I upgraded to a BlueTooth helmet with built-in speakers to enjoy music on my rides. That has definitely boosted my riding experience. I still don’t ride in the rain. There are a few brave souls who do that. I guess I suffered too many soggy Indian monsoons on my motorbike and avoid it when I can.

So the next time you spot a motorcycle rider on the freeway, please make space for them to pass. They, like you, know that riding is a privilege. And it just might be me.

Ride safe.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

We Appleoi tend to be an unsatisfied lot. We don’t settle for the adequate when there is excellence to be found. That’s what attracts us to Apple products in the first place. The meticulously engineered hardware and the pleasing, tactile software creates a product experience that appeals to the perfectionist in us. These products have changed our lives for the better and we have started noticing that life outside these products, sucks.

We want Apple to design everything. The first thought that flits through our mind when we come across a faulty or inadequate product is - why doesn’t Apple make this? Why don’t the designers of this product learn from Apple?

We find fault with other everyday products. Our TV remotes, sound systems, microwaves, hair dryers, automated sprinklers, pepper mills, elevators, cars and thermostats. 

Yes, thermostats. 

But I can cross that off my list. I now have a thermostat designed by Tony Fadell, the same guy who designed the original iPod at Apple. He quit Apple a few years ago and lazed around living a life of insouciance. Until he built himself a new house. He soon found his highly refined design sensibilities repelled by ugly thermostats. None would look good and perform well in his fancy hi-tech mansion.

So he did what any sensible engineer would do. He built himself one.

Meet Nest. A thermostat so cool (sorry), I feel like redesigning my house around it.

The Nest was launched in Nov 2011 and immediately became a sensation on the internets. The initial inventory sold out within a couple of days. I tracked the launch but by the time I read the review and had a good look at the product it was too late. I could only get on the waiting list.

A month later I finally got the Nest. The product experience was exactly that of an Apple device. Only thing missing was the  logo. Installation was a breeze and my Nest was soon controlling my heating system and surfing on my wifi.

Within a few days the Nest learnt our home’s heating requirements, schedule and also figured out if we were home or not. That’s pretty good. But it gets better. Since it’s hooked up to the net, it also retrieves the local weather and plans, recommends energy usage accordingly. That’s one smart thermostat. I never thought I would connect those two words together and be impressed.

And obviously comes with it’s own iPhone app. That comes in handy when you are heading home from a vacation or just a day out on the beach (yeah, it’s winter, but this is SoCal) and want the house warmed up.

Fan-freakin-tastic.

But that’s the problem. Now, everything else in my house seems inadequate and antiquated. In fact, my house itself seems woefully out of place. It’s as if a gadget from the Jetson’s house grew out on my wall.

Thanks to the Apple effect. It’s finally squeezing out of those bunkers down in Cupertino into the wide world. The Apple alumni are going forth and sprinkling their magic design dust on everyday objects. And that is something to celebrate. Fifty years from now folks looking back upon the past will recognize the seed for their present was planted, appropriately, by Apple.

I can’t wait for summer.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Here we are again, in those in-between times in technology, as everyone searches and tries to create the next-big-thing.

The past decade saw triumphant breakthroughs in technology and social behavior - Google defined Search, FaceBook defined Social Interaction and Apple defined Consumer Products. Microsoft tried hard but only their XBox gaming effort yielded any significant results.

Every company and consumer wants the next-big-thing. There is of course Twitter, still yet to figure out a monetization scheme. Amazon shows a lot of promise in cloud computing and online retail innovation. The Asian manufacturers innovate on current technologies - cell-phone, TV and tablets.

But where is that giant leap ? That particular feeling, a switch flipped in your brain. You see or use a product or service and suddenly everyone is using it within days or weeks. Is it the redefinition of TV ? Or how we pay for goods ? Not these ‘redefinitions’. Think of a completely new product or service.

When Google launched, the Internet search process was a rudimentary catalog search (Yahoo! and AltaVista). Google invented a completely new way to index and search information. Until FaceBook came along, we used MySpace, AOL and Usenet to interact with each other. FaceBook turned it around and made it personal and engaging.

And we all know what happened with Apple.

Now, in 2012, these companies struggle as they reach their organizational peaks of success and category defining product ideas. Today, the startup race is a phalanx of contestants - more like the New York marathon, compared to the relatively few competitors back when the big three started off in the early part of the last decade.

The economy and the market conditions cause the dominant companies to hobble innovation. These companies gobble up new ideas and startups in their bid to outsmart, outlast and sadly enough ’to increase shareholder value’. Will there ever be a startup again that goes from zero to Google sized in a span of 5 years ? Maybe not in the next 5 years.

Consider the last 30 years - for the first 20 years (80’s & 90’s) two companies dominated the tech industry - Microsoft and IBM. Google, FaceBook and a resurgent Apple challenged their hegemony in the last 10 years of that 30 year span. These new 800 pound gorillas curtail startups from getting Google sized. 

Well, until these companies hit their Peter Principle. Then they get complacent, bloated and bureaucratic. Google is already feeling that pain. Hopefully then, a startup with a category defining idea gets space to breathe and grow and innovate without being acquired and absorbed.

The next few years, expect more of the same.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Those words are as familiar to me as 'To Be Or Not To Be' and maybe 'I'll be back'. And as evocative. Much more evocative.

I grew up reading the TinTin series of comics from cover to freakin cover every chance I got. That meant standing in Manney's bookstore in Pune, for hours on end. Kind Mr. Mani allowed us kids to loiter in his store and never ran us off. I think I probably read more books standing in his bookstore than at school. Those comics were expensive (Rs. 90/- if I remember right in about 1980) and we couldn't think of buying them. Hence the long hours shuffling from foot to foot, chortling quietly at the antics of Thompson & Thomson (or is that Thomson & Thompson).

And every summer we decamped to Solapur, to my uncle's house. His boss lived a few houses over and used to travel abroad for work. He had the entire collection of TinTin's and Asterix & Obelix comics. Most of my summer days were spent poring over that collection, reading and re-reading those books until I had memorized every frame and every 'Woah'.

Meanwhile, Hollywood was churning out one comic book movie after another and I watched all of them as they were remade every decade - from Superman to Spiderman and Dennis The Menace to Charlie Brown. I always hoped that one day I would see an ad for a TinTin movie in the newspaper. Apparently, there were some simplistic TinTin movies made, but they never reached me in India.

I moved to America with my set of TinTin books and introduced them to my kids when they could read. Every American who befriended me was oblivious to this treasure trove of adventures. I had given up hope of ever seeing a blockbuster Hollywood movie on TinTin.

Until the news started to surface in 2006 about Spielberg being interested in making it. I was thrilled. If anyone could make a spectacular movie on TinTin, then surely it was Mr. Spielberg. Slowly the news leaked out. Peter Jackson was doing the CGI. It was a performance capture movie. Andy Serkiss was Captain Haddock. It was based on Red Rackham's treasure. And on and on.

Through teaser trailers and online gossip blogs we fans pieced together the making of The Adventures of TinTin. And finally in Nov 2011 the movie launched worldwide except for America. Apparently the lucre of the American Christmas Movie season is too strong to be ignored and TinTin was slotted for release on Dec 20, 2011.

I finally saw the movie with my kids, the day after Christmas.

Thundering Typhoons... Blue Blistering Barnacles... Troglodytes ! 

It was all there...

From the first scene where Hergè himself draws a ligne claire portrait of TinTin it was clear that Messrs. Spielberg and Jackson had done their homework. Inspite of coming to the party so late in life, Spielberg had understood what it meant to a fan who had obsessed over TinTin growing up.

The movie is simply spectacular. To be precise.

The story has been culled from three of the books, The Crab With The Golden Claws, The Secret Of The Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure. The movie critics were not as kind to the plot as I had hoped. But what do critics know ? They have not smuggled these comics under the blankets and read them by torchlight. These critics wouldn't know their crystal balls from their sceptre. So I ignored the critics and their mis-guided reviews.

I was spellbound aboard the Karaboudjan. Marveling at First Mate Alan's precisely rendered aquiline nose. Smiling at the crates and cans of red crabs. Catching sight of a shop sign for Cutts the butcher. Admired the stiff upper lip of Nestor. Snowy's obsession for big bones. And Loch Lomond...

The beautiful performance capture realism of the actors is brilliant as it completely mirrors the 2D ligne claire comics in pseudo 3D and real 3D. Jamie Bell as TinTin is every bit real as in my imagination 25 years ago. And Andy Serkiss as Haddock is superb! A real Bashi Bazhouk!

I can only wait with baited breath to find out who enacts Prof. Calculus.

Each character has been worked on in meticulous detail. The expectation, I am sure was very high. Bianca Castafiore was flabbergasting. It was as if she rose from the comic book and jumped onto the screen. Thompson & Thompson (or vice versa) need a bit of work though. I feel they could be funnier. Somehow, they seem less British, even though played by two of the funniest Brits - Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I hope they will evolve over the next few movies.

The action sequences were every bit thrilling as I had hoped them to be. The chase on the ship, the yellow airplane, the mirage in the desert and even the motorcycle chase through Bagghar were excellent and only possible because Mr. Spielberg had a few Indiana Jones under his belt.

I watched the movie in 2D so as to not spoil my viewing experience with the distraction of 3D. I plan to see it soon in 3D and compare how it holds up to that gimmick.

Clearly, this is a movie by a fan for fans.

Five Stars... Mr. Spielberg... just a little to the left !

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

It has been a while since I wrote anything meaningful besides the status updates on FaceBook and Twitter. The last few months I have felt an increasing sense of self-resentment arising from this obsessive need for consuming information rather than producing it.

It is time to start writing.

I started Gautam's Gyan as an email newsletter sometime in 2001, before the age of blogs. I emailed it to a few of my friends and they liked what I wrote. That encouraged me to start my own blog when Wordpress was launched.

But I wrote sporadically and since the advent of FaceBook and Twitter I more or less gave up long form writing.

Not any more.

Welcome to Gautam's Gyan 2012. I will be publishing a few long and meaningful posts every week on a variety of topics - to practice my writing skills and hopefully imparting a bit of my 'gyan' :)

Iacta alea est !

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Check this out:

And the finals:

Though frankly my favorite was the 'Thriller' dance by Darth Vader & The Stormtroopers (which as Dave Barry would agree is a fabulous name for a rock band). What do you think ?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

According to the blurb on their website:

Mailroom is online software that allows your entire team to manage all your website email, respond to customer email faster, and make customer conversations more productive. That is, everything you need to deliver great customer service via email.

Could this be the road to Web 3.0 ?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

It tries to answer the conundrum: Which is the better deal: The more expensive car that is cheaper to operate, or the less-expensive car that drinks more gasoline?

I am so glad I bought mine on Jan 1, 2006. Right about June 2009 I would have recovered the premium I paid for the Prius. Though I got an awesome deal (sticker price) and I got $3500 from the IRS as tax credit. So I think I made money on this deal eventually :-)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Here is their latest song 'Yaha Koi Aanay Wala Hai' (Someone is about to come here):

I like most of their songs so do check them out on iTunes or www.stringsonline.net. Enjoy !

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I think i will be using this one for a while until Google shuts it off for losing revenue..

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Wonderful cover of the Led Zeppelin classic.. Enjoy !

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »