Goodbye Kimi?

After months of speculation, the news is finally out. Fernando Alonso is moving to Ferrari for on a 3 year contract. I am excited as I see Alonso cast in the same mould as Schumacher. Maybe, he is not as complete or as fast as Schumi, but he will get the maximum out of the car every single weekend. Kimi, on the other hand, has never been as consistent, there are days where it seems like he is on a different planet and days where he never shows up on the track.

There is a lot of speculation that he is going to Mclaren. I hope that is true, for losing him would be a big loss to F1.

I don't know what makes me support a particular driver. There are examples like Prost, Schumacher, Kimi, Heidfeld who I liked from day 1 and have looked to support them through their career. I think it is a combination of their performance with reports in the media that make me form an opinion about an individual. There have been only two cases where I changed my opinion, the first was Senna, who I hated initially but became a big fan of later on. The other is Alonso, who has really won over me over the past two years.

Evolution of PC

I was reading yet another article on the relative merits of Mac vs PC. There were many comments that made the point that Macs lost a lot longer than PCs. That got me thinking of whether that was really the case. How long had my PC’s lasted? I realized that I didn’t really know and set out on a trip down memory lane to catalogue the various computers that me and my family have owned.

Siva PC: This was bought by my father in the 80s as an office computer. It cost almost 60,000 rupees (in 80’s money). I think it had a 8086 processor, 640KB of RAM, a 20 MB hard disk and a green screen monitor. Needless to say, it only ran DOS and software like Lotus 1-2-3, Wordstar etc. I don’t think we got too much of usage out of it while my father’s factory was operational, except for some financial accounting. After we closed the factory, we brought the computer home and I remember playing around with it for a few years before it died a natural death.

- Assembled PC #1: The next computer I bought was an assembled PC in 1996. I boasted a 100 Mhz Pentium processor, a massive 4 MB of RAM, a 1 GB hard disk, CD-ROM and a colour monitor. It cost me almost 40,000 rupees back then. I used it till around 2000 when I upgraded to Assembled PC #2. I don’t remember what I did with it, most likely we just gave it away.

- Computer in US : When I went onsite for the second time in late 1996, I bought a computer at Fry’s electronics. It was a slightly more powerful version of the one I had at home with a 133 Mhz processor. I sold it to my roommate when I returned for good. That was also the trip where I bought a 16 MB RAM stick for my PC in India for an unworldly price of 350 dollars.

As Built PC #1: In 2000, it was finally time to upgrade my PC and Vidya and I decided to build a PC together. I had bought a CPU and hard disk from the US and we went to SP Road to buy the remaining parts. We ended up with a Celeron 667, 128 MB of SDRAM (which I later upgraded to 384 MB), a 4.3 GB hard drive and a CDROM (later upgraded to a CD-writer). We retained the 15 inch monitor from the PC which we later upgraded to a second hand 17 inch in 2003. We used this PC till the end of 2004, but when we came back to Bangalore, we stopped using it. I used some of the parts (memory, hard drive) on PC#3, and to my surprise, managed to sell the remaining parts in 2006 for around 1000 rupees.

- Australia PC: When we went to Australia in 2002, we initially picked up a cheap second hand computer, a Pentium 2 model. A few months later, when it seemed like Vidya’s work from home plan would fructify, we invested in a proper model, a Pentium 3 – 700 Mhz monster with 512 MB of RAM, 20 GB hard disk, 17 inch monitor etc for 700 australian dollars. When we returned back to India in 2003, we sold it to my friend Venky.

- PC Build #2: After returning back to India in 2003, we moved to Mangalore. In Bangalore, my mother was left without a PC. In 2004, I built the third computer. Unlike the previous computer where I salvaged a lot of parts, this was a complete unit, with a Athlon XP 2000+, 512 MB of RAM, 40 GB hard disk, DVD drive and a 17 inch Samsung monitor. This computer survives till this day, though in a very different form. The guts of the machine (MB+CPU, RAM, HDD) are now in my father-in-law’s machine at Chennai.I’ve upgraded those to a 2.66 GHz Core2Duo E6700 with 2 GB of RAM and 570 GB of hard disk space. The monitor has been exchanged for a 19 inch Viewsonic LCD. The case, keyboard, mouse, speakers and UPS remain functional a full 5 years later. The OS has also evolved, I initially used a copy of Windows 2000, switched to a legal OEM copy of Windows XP in 2006 and when I upgraded the CPU in late 2007, bought a full version of Windows Vista Home Premium.

- Laptop #1: I’ve never been a fan of laptops, despite using a laptop as my primary work machine since 2002. In my view, they were slow and expensive. I finally bit the bullet in 2007 and bought a HP dv6516 tx as a birthday present for Vidya. It cost almost 60000 rupees and had a 1.5 GHz Core2Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, 160 GB hard drive, 15.4 inch screen and a DVD drive. It came with Windows Vista Home Premium. Except for some reliability with wireless networking, it has performed flawlessly over the past 2 years. I upgraded the machine to the RC version of Windows 7 and intend to upgrade to the full version in October. At the same time, I'll probably upgrade the hard drive to a 500 GB one.

- The Future: Both of my computers are fast enough for anything that I throw at them, whether it is browsing or playing games or encoding movies (OK, the laptop is not, but I would not ever transcode a movie on a laptop when a desktop is available as an option). Another big change is the rise of portable computing through devices like the iphone and Nokia internet tablet. As they evolve, they make the case for a full sized desktop or laptop that much less compelling. So, I don’t see myself upgrading my current setup anytime soon, unless something breaks.

Looking back, I see that pretty much every computer has lasted me atleast 3-4 years, so much for PC’s being unreliable. I’ve also had a lot of good luck with components, very few of them have failed on me. Just listing them down has shown how much progress the PC industry has made in terms of speed and specifications. I remember encoding mp3 in 1997, it used to run at 1/3 speed (i.e. over 15 minutes for a 5 minute song). My current computer can transcode video at 5x speed (120 fps for H.264 compression).

YSR Chopper crash

There is such a big fuss being made about the reason behind the chopper crash that killed the Andhra CM, YS Rajashekar Reddy with calls to book all those who have not done their job properly. Is it really news that our government servants are incompetent and least interested in their jobs? Every single day, there are umpteen deaths of common people caused by some babu who decided to take it easy on the job. Like the RTO inspector who takes bribes and allows people without basic driving skills to become killing machines on the road. Or the PWD engineer who screws up our pipelines that mix sewage with our water supply. Why is there no outrage at that? Why are there no demands to chop their heads off?

It isn’t nice to speak ill of the dead, but the reality is that YSR has reaped the fruits of what he has sown. It is he and others of his ilk that have tolerated (and even encouraged) incompetence and substandard delivery of services to the public. Why should we be surprised that he has paid the ultimate price for that?

Another post on ethics in Indian IT

We’re currently transitioning some work from a subcontractor back into our company. Through the transition, it is disturbing to see some of the lack of ethics that are being displayed by people at various levels in the subcontracting company. Some specific examples are

- People accepting our offers in writing and use that as a negotiating tool with a third company. Once they get a job, they turn down the offer throwing our entire planning out of gear

- - People in the higher management of the subcontracting company trying to convince people who have accepted our offers to reject them by offering onsite opportunities and other perks. While this is not a violation of the contract, it clearly goes against the spirit of the contract

The first case is not very surprising because the Indian IT professional’s lack of ethics and pursuit of Mammon is well known. But, it is very frustrating to see Indian IT companies trip each other in this manner. It also causes a project that has been planned over many months to suddenly shift into a constant fire-fighting mode.

A fallout of the situation is that I have to shuttle between Bangalore and Chennai to take control of the transition. I will be getting very familiar with Indian railways over the next few weeks.

Rebooting blogging

It has been a while since I updated the blog. I would blame it on Twitter and Facebook, which encourage a quick blast of words at the cost of a longer post that needs to be thought through. I've resolved to be a little more regular from now on.

To start off, a few snippets from the last couple of weeks. Of course, it was a huge moment in our lives with the arrival of a baby boy on August 13th. It happened on Gokulashtami day, so we have decided to name him Mukund, one of the names of Lord Krishna. I believe it also means One who bestows/gives Moksha/Nirvana.

Nisha was hugely excited by the event. Though she had been wanting a baby sister, it all changed once she saw her brother. Her happiness has been tinged by disappointment, she had made grand plans to call all her friends and show off her baby brother, but we have tried to avoid too much of contact in light of the swine flu scare. She'll get over it, kids have a way of dealing with these disappointments and focussing on positives.

We were a little disappointed with Divakar hospital. Firstly, we got a room facing the main road that had traffic through the day and night. Our bad luck, the hospital was full, so we could not even get a change of room. They also had no catering facilities. Typically, hospitals provide nutritious, dietician approved meals for the patient, but here, we were forced to bring everything from home. There was also the issue of differing charges, we got a bill for 40K, but my friend Krishna got a bill for 85K for similar treatment. The main thing was the medical staff and attention was good.

We came home on 17th Aug and since then it has been an endless cycle of nappy changing and disturbed sleep. But it is all worthwhile when you see Mukund reacting to his environment.

What real estate slump?

I have been calling various real estate developers and private sellers over the past few days to get an idea of the real estate market. Here are some of the quotations that I got

Mantri Espana : A super-duper-ultra-luxurious-out-of-this-world-exclusive apartment complex off the ORR with 5 swimming pools, 9 hole mini golf and flats ranging from 2600 to 100000 sq ft. The prices start at 1.2 crores. I said thank you very much and left.

Mantri Flora: At the junction of ORR and Sarjapur Road, 3 bhk apartments for second sale at around 75 lakhs for 1700 sq ft. This works out to over 4000 per sq ft

Sobha : They had an ad for a 3 bhk @ 50 lakhs. This is for their project on Kanakpura Road. For their projects in this part of town, they have a super luxury project starting at over 1.2 cr. Their luxury projects are “only” 77 lakhs for a 3 BHK

Ozone Evergreens@Haralur Road: Touted as the first “affordable” housing complex in Bangalore, this has a 900 sq ft 2 BHK for 28 lakhs all inclusive. This works out to around 3000 per sq ft. Unbelievably, as the sales woman told me, these don’t feature a balcony as they are “affordable housing”.

SJR Eastwood@Haralur Road: A person was selling a 40x80 plot @2800 per sq feet.

Ferns Habitat@ORR: A 2800 sqft plot quoting at 3300 per sq feet

Lakedew Residency@Haralur Road: A 1500 sqft plot quoting at 2600 per sq ft

I didn't pursue any of these opportunities. If these are the prices post the real estate slump, I am stunned.

Is Indian IT too insecure

Every time we hear Obama's political rhetoric, there is an outcry against the so-called "protectionism" by Nasscom. Frankly, this is making them seem like crybaby's. 

Obama is a politician. Whether in India or US, a politician's primary focus is his constituents and his comments are geared towards them. Right now, the US is hurting with massive job losses, and as their elected leader, it is his duty to address that.

Indian companies too have their own set of favourable circumstances vis a vis American firms, they pay almost no tax on their profits due to the STPI scheme. They have a huge wage advantage, as most of their employees are in India. If these are not sufficicient for them to compete and thrive, then they deserve to fail. after all this is the Capitalism that they so praise in action.

As for Nasscom, what happens to their grand pronouncements on the strength of Indian IT (1 million + employees, 60 Billion revenues)? Surely, an industry of this size should be able to innovate to handle any bouncers of this nature? Or deep within their hearts, do they know that Indian IT is nothing but a bunch of low skilled code coolies whose only advantage is the cost and the minute you take that away, the entire thing will unravel?