Rising up Bright and Early: Why did I +1 a Google Plus post?

The brain is akin to, if not the same as, a sophisticated multi-threaded, multi-processed learning-based neural network. So like any software system, it does several computations in response to an input and produces an output. Most of the time, we just don't ponder about all the computations the brain must have performed in response to a stimulus. However, once in a while, when a response from our brain is challenged or questioned, we are compelled to sit back and look at the application logs for our brain in order to understand how it produced that particular output. This process is called introspection, and can sometimes the intricacies of how your brain works can amaze you.

This morning I +1ed a post that read "Must wake up bright and early tmr. Must report to jury duty. :(". I obviously did not stop to think why my brain asked me to +1 it. I just did it. And that would have the end of story, had the author of the post not commented, "Why did +Somo Banerjee +1 ? Lol".  And so I had to go back and figure out why my brain prompted me to +1 this post. Here I present to you a summarized analysis of what went on in my brain (in a matter of mere milliseconds) to spur that reaction.

Firstly, to my brain, a +1 or a Facebook Like means that the last piece of information received from the optical nerves has triggered an emotion (a smile, a frown, a raised eyebrow, elation, disapproval, origin of a long series of thought computations, etc., etc.) but the emotion was either not strong enough or not well-defined enough to stimulate a verbal response.

Coming back to the post, 

1. The first thing that my brain identified was that fact that the author was not accustomed to and was not looking forward to rising early, hence the emoticon. 

2. Secondly, it figured out that the commonly used phrase 'bright and early' is not valid without making a few dubious assumptions. On top of that, these assumptions are subject to significant changes depending on person and geographical location. As an example, consider my case. I wake up, if my Blackberry doesn't run out of battery, at 4:45 AM. That is 'early' to me. It is far from ‘bright’ at that time, even during the summer months. At best, there is enough light outside to see 20 feet, and at worst, it is still night. By the time it is bright, it is definitely not early for me anymore. 

And if one were to argue that 'bright' indicated a state of mind rather than a measure of available illumination, then the phrase becomes even more murky and subjective. It is not easy to be 'bright' when you have to get out of bed at an ungodly hour of day, especially if you are not used to it. Moreover, 'brightness' might depend on the reason for waking up early. Rising up early to attend a funeral (or in this case jury duty) is almost certain not going to induce 'brightness' of mind. On the other hand, rising up early to meet your brand-new girlfriend at a scenic vista point for breakfast or rising up early to test your brand-new Corvette on the empty freeways can definitely brighten you up.

3. That brings me to the last, and most striking part of the post that caused my brain to determine that this post was +1 worthy. I have heard of people rising up early for a myriad of reasons. Some do it out of habit, some due to lack of time, some to wind up unfinished business, some to start the day early so that there would be enough time to finish up a particularly time-consuming task at hand, to read for exams, to answer a call of nature, to go to the morgue as part of probation requirements, etc etc. But never before have I heard of anyone rising up early to attend jury duty. Jury duty being the cause of an early morning wake-up call was not something I had come up against before. 

That, and only that caused my brain to deduce that this post was +1 worthy. It is as simple as that. And everything you read before that, and either nodded in agreement with, or raised your eyebrows in disapproval to, or scratched your head in confusion to, was just a figment of my imagination, and had nothing to do with how my brain works. 

In fact, I don't even know, nor have any inkling of how it works. 

Nor am I smart enough or interested enough to figure that out. 

Nor am I even going to try.

Have a bright day, whether or not you rose early to read this article.

Room-Bore-Rhythm - Roomba's traversal algorithm

We have had Miss Roomba as our cleaner for over 2 years now, and she has played an important role in my life. Her availability and ability has been partly responsible for my obesity. I have been obsessed with trying to understand her algorithm for floor coverage and have spent hours on the couch fascinatingly watching her in action. I am enamored and at the same time intrigued by this sexy little cleaner.

As far as getting the job done is concerned, she is very adept and efficient. If you wanted a number to quantify her performance, I would say she is about 95% efficient. To put that number in perspective, a human being with good eyes using an average vacuum cleaner is about 90% efficient, which is same as a human being with OCD and bad eyes. An human being with OCD and good eyes is about 80% efficient, because at some point they forget all about the actual purpose of the exercise and become obsessed with organizing the collected dirt in a desired pattern. In short, Miss Roomba is an efficient cleaning machine.

Most vacuum cleaners have to be grabbed by the neck and subjugated into cleaning a room, which they then proceed to do with great reluctance and greater noise. Miss Roomba operates unassisted once a few appropriate buttons on her head have been pressed correctly. You can also give her a cleaning routine for the week and she will remember that and execute it correctly unless there is a bug in her clock which makes her go faster or slower than the rest of the world. In one sentence, Ms Roomba is awesome. She is the best gift you can give to a lazy person who wants his room clean.

But lets consider a different metric - area covered in sq. ft/time taken in seconds. By this criteria, the Roomba will qualify as arguably the slowest vacuum cleaner ever made, even if one were to include the earliest model built by the cavemen in Peru - body made from the skin of a bear wrapped around the rib-cage of a goat, the bag made from the stomach of a pig and the handle from the tusk of an elephant, and operated by wind-power.

Here is the simplified version of Roomba's floor traversal algorithm (with edge cases, error handling and boundary conditions left out for brevity):
1. Select a random integer between 1 and 10 (let's call it x).
2. Select a random integer between 0 and 155 (let's call it y).
3. Select a random integer between 30 and 60 (let's call it t).
3. Turn around y degrees clockwise and travel x feet.
    3.1 If the path being traversed has dirt, clean it.
    3.2 If you encounter obstacles or bump into walls, stop and go to Step 1.
4. If the time elapsed is greater than t minutes, stop and declare success, else go to Step 1.

The closest analogy to Roomba's path traversal is how my one year old baby girl walks. She just gets up and goes, in an assumed angle for an assumed distance, bumping into every obstacle in her way, and bouncing off of every wall she encounters. When she does that, she falls down, stares at me to see my reaction. If my face registers shock or fear or concern, she starts bawling her eyes out. If not, she gets up, picks two more random numbers and off she goes again.

Now that Neato has finally designed a Robotic vacuum cleaner with a laser guidance system which makes a map of the room before it starts cleaning, iRobot might have to try and upgrade Roomba's algorithm to at least match the walking patterns of my four year old boy. I think just doing that will decrease the time taken by the Roomba to traverse a room by a factor of 10.

But if that happens, the novelty and charm of watching Miss Roomba in all her fumbling, bumbling glory will be lost.

Are you fat?

So you thought that if an Android app did not exist for a problem, then that problem is either a) not a problem at all; or b) does not deserve a solution. Well, that's not true. I will give you an example (although there might be an Android app to solve this problem, in which case just pretend that there isn't. I am a dinosaur, I still use a Blackberry, so I wouldn't know if such an Android app existed.)

Problem: Fellow males of the human species (and females who like to wear apparel traditionally designed for men), when and how do you know that you are fat?

Explanation: I have talked to women weighing 95 pounds who would suddenly go on an oatmeal-only diet because they thought they were gaining weight. I also know skinny women who suddenly start starving before the imminent advent of summer because they have to get into their bikinis and look good. But that is not what I mean. I mean F.A.T, like you look like a huge lump of shapeless flesh and adipose tissue that has suddenly sprouted human features.

Solution: There will be several answers at this point, involving one or more of the following:
a) machinery and gadgets, e.g., bathroom scales, sophisticated weighing machines that can measure fat content;
b) smart-phone apps and numerous  metrics, e.g., BMI, weight-to-height ratio, body structure;
c) plethora of subjective data points, e.g., broken furniture, creaking beds, tying shoelaces, ruptured or tight apparel;
d) imbibed behavioral jargon, e.g., lack of mobility, lack of alacrity,
etc.

While none of them would necessarily be incorrect, none of them are the most accurate, or the simplest. Clothes can shrink, apps and machines can be faulty, and subjective data is exactly that - subjective. The most accurate assessment of the direction in which your girth is going is provided by the insignificant little thing you wear around your waist - your belt. If you are shifting between holes on your belt in a counter-clockwise direction, and the angle of the buckle from the ground is beginning to reduce from the desired right-angle, then you know for sure that you are fattening up. This is an indicator that cannot go wrong; it is fault-proof. And it is not an Android app.

If you don't agree, you can ask Siri - she can tell you anything once she understands what you are saying to her. Now that Paul is dead. Unless Paul has been reincarnated as an Android app.

Bid Adieu While Protecting Your BEEP

One of our 'superstar' developers is leaving the company to seek an alternative career. Yesterday the bosses of his project had arranged a farewell company-sponsored lunch and I was one of the invitees in lieu of being associated with the same project. One of the requirements for this lunch gathering was that everyone had to say something nice or funny about the beneficiary of this farewell.

Now, speaking about a co-worker at his farewell lunch gathering is tricky as well as risky. There are several implicit restrictions.

First, the person is alive and kicking as opposed to being in a blue box covered with floral wreaths. So you have to be chronologically and factually accurate in your statements.

Secondly, you have to be subtle - both with your praise so that you don't embarrass him, and also with your criticism so that you don't end up with a broken nose. So you cannot go down on your knees and say something like, 'Jacob, you are the God of coding and the most adorable human being I have ever met and I love you.' Also, you cannot stick up a particular finger of your right hand and scream, 'Jacob, you are a BEEP BEEP, a thick-BEEPed and BEEP BEEP-BEEPer and I am here only for the food.

Thirdly, you are usually in mixed company - subordinates, peers and superiors. So you have to ascertain that what you say in this gathering does not change your professional and personal dynamics with the rest of the group in a detrimental way. So you cannot say things like 'Jacob, if you had not pointed out that I am a lazy, mediocre and unprofessional employee, I would never have realized that my pretending skills suck. I am working harder on that.'

So after a lot of mental data-mining on the 'Jacob data' in my head, and strict application of the above-mentioned suppression rules, I was ready. But, at the last moment, just as I about to leave, one of my best friends (emergency production issue) showed up and kept me behind.

Regardless, here are a few tips for software developers that can be used while eulogizing a colleague at a farewell lunch. I have accounted for some boundary conditions to prevent the speaker from making a BEEP of himself. I am making the assumption that you do have something to say. You are not there just for free food.

1.       If you don't like him, don't attend.

2.       If you 'more than' just like him, don't attend.

3.       Be brief, concise and factual when you speak.

4.       Partially reveal an inter-personal incident involving this colleague that was beneficial to you. Just reveal enough details so that the group understands your gratitude to the colleague. Don’t narrate the whole story.

5.       Try to deliver the meat in three sentences:

a.       One about some lighter moments that your colleague may have facilitated.

b.      One about your interactions in a professional capacity that stand out in your mind.

c.       One about point 4 (or replace it with a sentence of praise for his professional skills).

6.       Try to end with a final sentence which says good-bye and wishes him luck. A simple and safe example is - 'It has been a pleasure, (slightly tip your head downwards at this pause) and (pause) good luck’ (throw your hands in a resigned manner to demonstrate a tinge of sadness and slowly sit down). If this colleague speaks a different first-language or is going away to a non-English speaking country, use your favorite language translation method to say good luck in that language. Rehearse it before you speak.

7.       Try to make this speech appear to be an impromptu one (take random pauses, say ‘hmmm’ or ‘aaaa’ a few times) but definitely go prepared.

Do men grow up (no pun intended)? Part I - the catch-222

A recent Bollywood movie is titled 'Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji', which literally translates to 'Heart is a kid, Sir!' and which implies - ‘Heart is a child at heart'. In order to ensure that women don't take umbrage with this title, because apparently their heart is all grown-up, the makers have added a tagline, 'Love grows, men don't!!!’ Not growing up is the most common accusation that has ever been thrown at man, albeit mostly by women. In today's advanced day and age, some men have also been known to hurl this accusation at other men, but that's all right. There is nothing wrong with that.

Personally, I am yet to meet a man (myself included, the males on the accusing party mentioned above excluded) who has not been accused of being an imbecile at least once. We get it from all corners - from frustrated mothers, from frantic girlfriends, from fuming ex-girlfriends, from furious wives, from flame-erupting ex-wives. In fact, this accusation has been thrown at man so frequently and with such consistency that man has almost accepted it to be true. If you walk on the streets and stop 100 random men and ask them 'Do men grow up?', 57 of them will ignore you and walk away faster (a clear case of hedging an issue because in your heart of hearts you know it to be true), 23 will either deny it with extreme vehemence (because they are convinced that this actually is true) or shrug and smile (either because they are partially convinced or they are really just dumb), 10 will say they don't care (because they don't), and 9 will agree with you. 1 will turn out to be a woman in disguise.

And this accusation is not a contemporary accusation that has been created by women's lib and the rise of feminism. This one has existed since Adam. I am sure that from Adam to Jesus to King Arthur to Lincoln to Churchill to Hitler to Gandhi to Clinton - each one of them has been asked this question - Why don't you grow up? (We will ignore Adam and Clinton for this debate because Eve's accusation had nothing to do with Adam's lack of emotional, psychological or mental growth, as was the case with most of Clinton's accusers). However, the response to this accusation has changed over time, from total denial to angry protest to subdued protest to almost complete acceptance. King Arthur pulled out his sword and beheaded his accuser, so enraged was he. Michelangelo did not understand at all that the accusation was not anatomical and went on a 'carving male nudes out of stone' spree. Leonardo da Vinci decided that becoming ambidextrous and writing left-to-right on a paper with his left hand would definitely show his accuser who was grown-up. Hitler thought that although this accusation didn't apply to him, it certainly did to a large number of his fellow men. So he did what he did. Gandhi just looked at his accuser with his big sad eyes behind egg-shaped glasses and decided that he will stop wearing clothes as a sign of protest. Lincoln stopped shaving, Churchill decided to go on an eating binge, and Columbus, da Gama, Vespucci and Forrest Gump left home in a huff and tried to run away as far as they could.

But gradually over time, the number of accusers and number of accusations per accuser kept increasing at such an alarming rate that man has finally capitulated and has started agreeing to or at least has stopped disagreeing with the accusation. Some have tried protesting, albeit half-heartedly, by mimicking their favorite historical personality's mode of protest. Mel Gibson tried both Hitler and King Arthur in equal measure, replacing the sword with a gun in the latter case, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Andre Agassi, and Salman Khan tried to go the Gandhi route, but didn't have the conviction or chutzpah of the original act. Another section of men have completely accepted this accusation. As a result, they have given up on trying growing up, since in their minds, it is impossible. At some point in their lives all these men must have had very powerful and convincing women around them. Some members of this club are George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden, Tiger Woods, Saddam Hussein, Ben Johnson, O.J., Barry Bonds and George Costanza.

And hence we come to the crux of this issue - the situation. Just like love, maturity is a perception and all perceptive movements are based on how the perceiver perceives this movement, which in turn is totally dependent on the perceiver's perceptive prowess. So, the fact is that men grow up, but women don't possess or have lost the perceptive ability required to perceive this growth. This is partly because of the fact that by believing in this accusation down the ages, women have managed to convince themselves that men cannot grow up. Therefore, they turn a blind eye to all symptoms of maturity in men. And in doing so for generations, based on the principle of 'what you don't use, you lose', women have lost their power to perceive growth in men. And we have a catch-222 situation here

- for men to grow, women have to perceive this growth,

- for women to perceive growth, they have to develop the ability to perceive growth,

- for women to develop the ability to perceive growth, men have to grow,

- for men to grow, women have to perceive this growth.

Catch-222 (also known as 2-catch-22 or transitive catch-22) is the most tangled of human situations and has proven to be irresolvable till date.

In Part 2 of this blog, I am going to provide statistical and graphical evidence that will provide an insight into the growth patterns in men, and I will provide growth perception enhancement tips for women. My goal will be to break the transitiveness of this situation, which is the only way to resolve a catch-222 situation.

YATI - Yet Another Type Indicator**

I recently had the opportunity to attend an MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) session in my company. A woman with a Harvard MBA and a perpetual, albeit annoying, smile spent three hours explaining to me how I go about living my life and doing my work. Ironic, isn't it?
If you google (in the verb form) for Type Indicator, most of the top search results point to MBTI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator), which for me is a clear indication that this must be a really popular and accepted way for employers to to assess their employees' personality types. I found MBTI extremely convoluted and complicated.
However, spurred by MBTI's success, I have decided to come up with my own type Indicator (Carl Gustav Jung might just have stirred in his grave and chuckled at this cockiness) but I have a very good reason, or two. Firstly, if this works, I would show up in the first page of a google search for type indicators. Secondly, I would have simplified type indication to the extent that you will not need a Harvard MBA degree holder to come and spend three hours and 300 busy powerpoint slides to explain your own personality type to you. Hey, I can even make a facebook app and have some cool pics of Hollywood hunks and babes to go with the personality types.If the app becomes popular, I can add cool verdicts like - 'Hey, you are totally unfit to be hired even by MacDonalds, and your lucky mascot is Paris Hilton', or 'You cannot survive 4 hours in any job, and your role model is Lindsay Lohan'.

 For the MBTI assessment, I had to take a humongous 140 questions long psychometric questionnaire, the answers of which were used to determine my "type". By the way, are these questionnaires designed to find what level of psycho you are? Do they really have a metric for the degree of psycho-ness? Can they look at my answers, shake their head and say, 'You are a psycho with a metric of 9, you should be in a loony-bin.' Another thing that worries me about these questionnaires is their fixation with the number 4. Every question has four choices. If they could only think of three, they add d) None of the above, or d) Other. If they could only think of two, they add c) All of the above and d) None of the above. Why is four the magic number? Do people find choosing one out of four tougher and/or more confusing than choosing one out of three, or five? Is that the idea here? And believe me, answering these questions is hard. A typical psychometric question can have the following choices:
    a. Rarely
    b. Frequently
    c. All of the above
    d. None of the above
Look at the odds of giving the correct answer here. Rare and frequent are two highly subjective terms, and I, the person taking the questionnaire, am allowed to decide what is rare and frequent to me. To a software developer, 'the code rarely breaks' might mean 40-60% of the time. To his boss, 'the code frequently breaks' might mean 0.0001% of the time.

I turned out to be an ISTP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISTP_(personality_type)), which is one of the 16 possible types using the four dichotomies of MBTI (Extraversion/Intraversion, Sensing/iNtuiting, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving).

Well, cutting to the chase, here is my theory about personality types. There are only two things about an employee that an employer need to know.
1. Are they clean(C) or dirty(D)? and 2. Are they lazy(L) or industrious(I)?
If a person is clean, their work will also reflect that cleanliness - clean clothes, clean desk, clean code, clean documentation. If a person is industrious, their work will reflect that - they will work extra hours to get things done, they will go the extra yard to finish tasks at hand. So we can have 4 personality types now, instead of 16. You can be one of CL, CI, DL, or DI.

And that's it. The employer must hire a CI type and should not hire a DL type. A DI type can be hired if the emphasis is on getting the job done without much focus on quality, and a CL type can be hired if there is little to do, but the job should be done in a clean, methodical fashion. I am sure that if you are a CL, you are perfectly suited for being the chairman of the budget-making committee in California.

And then here is my sample questionnaire (so as to not annoy Mr. Meyer and Mr. Briggs). But there are only 10 questions. If am convinced that we do not need 140 questions to determine whether a person is lazy or not. In fact, if they are, and they get a 140 questions booklet, they will never get to the end of it.

So, here it is, the ultimate questionnaire for the greatest Type Indicator ever:
1. Do you shower daily?
a. yes
b. no

2. Do you brush your teeth at least once a day?
a. yes
b. no

3. Do you eat home-cooked meal at least once a day?
a. yes
b. no

4. Do you do the dishes before you go to bed every night?
a. yes
b. no

5. Do you like to host a party?
a. yes
b. no

6. Do you get your car washed at least once a fortnight?
a. yes
b. no

7. Do you hire someone to clean your house?
a. yes
b. no

8. How many times do you wear your ______* before you wash it?
a. <=2
b. >2

* Employer can put in which item of clothing they fancy.

9. Do you prefer a condo/apartment to a house with an yard?
a. Yes
b. No

10. Do you unpack your suitcases as soon as you get back from a trip?
a. yes
b. No

If you take the questionnaire, please do send me the answers and I will tell you what personality type you are, and who your lucky mascot/role model is.

** If the employer so desires, they can administer this exercise with a polygraph hooked to the employee, because like all tests, this one also allows all forms of cheating.

Are life events worth celebrating?

Life is a continuous series of 'Let's celebrate this.' events, and 'Let's celebrate that.' events.
I want to pose the questions, 'Why celebrate this?' and 'Why celebrate that?'

Let's consider the most common 'celebrate-able' events:
1. You got a promotion or a salary hike.
2. You had a baby or got married.
3. You bought a house or rented a house on the beach in LA.

All celebrate-able events can be classified into three categories, each identified by the biggest debilitation inflicted by that event on the 'celebrator'.
Category 1. 'Just Lost My Freedom'.
Events in this category: getting married, having a baby, becoming the President, getting married again, having another baby, being re-elected as President.

Events in this category don't deserve even a mention, let alone a celebration. If you do perform one or more of these events, at least don't tell anyone. Wear black and mourn in private.
For example, getting married or having a baby literally makes it impossible for you to do things that you like, like not wanting to have anything to do with toilet seats or diapers or drapes or non-microwaveable foods or clean, non-tattered clothes or .... the list can go on and on.
Getting elected to public office in America is even worse. You are supposedly among the most powerful people on earth now but you cannot even perform the most basic functions of life e.g.,
- indulge in activities that you had considered your birthright growing up (ask Bill Clinton or Antonio Villaraigosa) ;
- speak your mind without mincing words or getting bleeped (ask Joe Biden);
- pursue your hobbies (ask Dick Cheney) ;
- just be yourself (ask George Bush).

Category 2. 'There Goes My Money' events.
Events in this category: Buying a house, renting a house on the beach in Los Angeles, donating to charity, getting invited to a fund-raising dinner by the Republican party candidate, your kid gets into Stanford.

If you really think that these events warrant a celebration, you might as well celebrate being robbed and being a victim of credit-card scam or getting your new Bentley stolen.
For example, buying a house is akin to donating your entire pay-check for the next 30 years and living off the green stuff that grows in your yard when it rains.
Your kid getting into Stanford is just an euphemism for 'a giggly, pimply 16-year old just swindled you out of 50 grand from your retirement fund'. Now when you retire, you have no choice but to live the green stuff that grows in your yard when it rains, now that you have given away 30 years worth of salary and an extra 50 grand multiplied by n (n = number of times you were dumb enough to perform a particular event from the first category).

Category 3. 'Here Comes More Work' events.
Events in this category: Getting promoted at work, graduating from a educational institution, getting elected to public office, getting married, having a baby

Think about it - Why did God give us brains? So that we won't have to slog like ants, or scavenge like vultures. So that we can invent a bunch of amenities that would allow us to do what we we born to do - be lazy and slack off. Laziness is the best by-product of intelligence, and hence is God's gift to mankind. If you ask me, it is really weird if you want to celebrate the possibility of more work.
For example, graduating from high school with flying colors simply means that now you have to slog for the next 10 years of your life to justify it.
Being promoted at work, ideally with a pay-raise, means you now have to work 10 extra hours a week to justify it, hours that you could have spent on the beach in Malibu ogling at 'ogle-worthy' things.

In conclusion, I think that there are only two things in life worth celebrating - failure and serendipity. The luckiest man is one who never gets promoted, no woman can live with him, who cannot pass an exam even if you gave him the solution sheet, who gets lucky every other night and consistently hits jackpots at casinos. Now there is a man whose epitaph will read ,'Here lies a man who deserved to celebrate.'

Express Carwash: Pure Horror, Dude

So this weekend, I finally decided to get an automated carwash at a 76 gas station, after my car dealer told me for the umpteenth time that they have no employees to wash cars on Saturdays, which is very smart, given the fact that their service department is busiest on Saturdays and they so generously promise a FREE car-wash along with servicing which costs only about 400$.

I have paid for car wash only two times in the 5 and a 1/2 years I have owned a car - once because my in-laws were coming over for the first time, and once because the washers were young, aptly dressed, insistent....and extremely HOT. Each time, it had cost me in excess of 15$, plus tips, an alien and very confusing concept for a stingy cheap Indian guy. The gas station had three choices: Express - 3.99, Delux - 4.99 and Premium - 5.99. I went for Premium, that was a no-brainer. This was cheap, even by my measly standards. I asked this Hispanic dude with a really thick Hispanic accent behind the counter for directions to the carwash entrance, and what to do when I get there to and got back this crazy look which says, 'You ignorant illegal immigrant!!!'.

So I went to the car-wash entrance armed with my 5-digit code. The set-up looked innocent enough - a super-sized garage open on both ends with red mopper-like things hanging on two walls facing each other in the center. I also made an intelligent guess that there would be hoses sparaying cleaning liqiuds and water once we got started. The instructions were simple enough - enter the code at the gate and drive in. You will know what to do next. What should have made me a little suspicious were the traffic lights at the exit end of this setup blinking red. Why? Would a dish-antenna on the head of a grass-eating cow make you suspicious? What were traffic lights doing in a setup to clean cars?

So I punched in the code, the lights turned green to say 'Welcome car-wash virgin. The first time is the best; you never forget'. By this time there is another car behind me, and this car was ALREADY CLEAN. So I figured out that the driver dude is a regular. So I begin to act all cool, you know like, Indian dude cool - throw your head back, hum a tune from some Bollywood song, open the first few buttons of your shirt to show off some body hair, roll down the driver window and have the 'one hand on window sill, one hand on steering wheel' pose.

I saunter into the carwash setup and get hit by a blast of cold water. I was rapidly closing my window when the car hit something like a 4 feet speed breaker. I had the car floored, but all I heard was the engine complain and saw no forward motion. I began to freak out already. My car doesn't move. The view in front is also beginning to get spooky. Sprays of who knows what are beginning to shoot up at all crazy angles like tiny explosions, and the whole setup is beginning to appear hazy and misty and blurred. And the lights are blinking green meaning I have more ground to cover, and now there is a beeping sounds which says, 'I cannot believe it takes you 17 minutes to travel 7 feet - dumbass'.

So I get out of the car to see what is obstructing me, and see this TINY 3 inch high metal hump which marks the beginning of the car-wash contraption. The dude behind me is having trouble keeping a straight face by now. He is talking into his cellphone and sniggering. So I get back in, thoroughly pissed at the Honda Civic I just spent 400$ on, and try again. With a 23 second pause and a groan that reminded me of a dying grandmother in a bad Bollywood movie, my car finally made it over the hump and into the car-wash gadget. The lights turned red to indicate that I needed to stop now.

Suddenly it became eerily quiet and dark. The air smelled different, musty and oily. And then with a jolt - the walls started moving back and forth, and blasts of liquids in various states of turbulent motion came screaming at me from all directions . I had just done my crouching and flinching and cursing when the car began to shake and vibrate crazily. I fastened my seat-belt and grabbed the steering-wheel tightly. By this time I was pretty sure that the next act would be to eject me through the roof. Then, as abruptly as everything had started, everything stopped, all at once. No shaking, no blasts, all still and eerily quiet.

And then after this pregnant pause, just like those horror movies on TV, all hell broke loose. Moppers, which had looked so innocuous a few minutes ago, were now menacing and mean. They had changed into weird aliens with a million red limbs and exuding strange fluids and were attacking my car from both sides, trying to pry it open and get to me, and I had no idea why. I am sitting there thinking, I am just this software guy. I am not like this doctor who has a PhD in alien diseases, or this scientist who has an invention that can fix the vocal chords of aliens so that they can talk normally and even sing. So I closed my eyes, and began to pray.

I made a promise that if I get through this ordeal alive in one piece, I will never wash my car again. And lo and behold, everything stops, things brighten up for a moment, I start to hum a tune again. Just when I was going to start my engine back up, an immense red thing with million limbs comes thudding down onto my windscreen. It stops a feet from the glass, and shoots slimy greenish fluid towards me - looks like alien vomit. And I now notice that all my windows are slowly getting covered with this fluid, one drop at a time. I lock my doors, and sit still. I don't want to turn my head back, because all alien attacks usually come from there - Alien warfare strategy has a simple rule: Ass-attack is the best kind of attack.

I cant see a thing. And then my car starts getting violently hit from all sides again. I see these flashes of red and green and hear violent thuds that are tossing my car around as if it were a boat caught in a tsunami. And this part goes on forever. I cover my ears and sit in a fetal position and begin thinking about my wife and kid and parents and good friends. I start thinking about all the unfinished projects at work, and how I should have documented my code and written some wikis and checked-in code to the repository when I still had time. My laptop is also in the car ( I was on call) . Maybe that will survive this attack, and become crime scene evidence for some super investigator named J and dressed in black.

Sometime during the time when my brain was busy with these crazy thoughts, the aliens decided to let up. Maybe their time was up and they had failed to split my car open, which was their mission on earth. Everything was bright and rosy again; clear colorless water sprayed at my car, and was getting rid of the green gooey mess. I could see the skies; the tune came back again. The red light turned green again. I started to drive out very slowly and carefully, because I was not sure how well my car had been able to withstand all this pounding and shaking and ass-kicking.

All sci-fi and supernatural movies worth their salt have a 30 second piece in the end that leaves room for a sequel to kick-in - an evil eye, a hand shooting out of the grave, a baby alien crouching under the sofa, a pet cat with the ghost's eyes. The same happened here too. Just when I thought I was out of this nightmare, the car hit something like a 4 feet speed-breaker and stopped. Lots of crazy alarms started blaring all around me, and I was hit by hot winds with the strength of a gale. My car started tossing again, and a huge timer infront of me started counting down from 30. Was this the end? Was I going to explode once the timer hits 0?

The timer winded its way down. I started counting my last seconds. I closed my eyes at 2 and kept them closed. When everything fell silent again, I opened my eyes and ogled to make sure I see so people with wings or in white robes, or no caves with cauldrons of hot oil where humans were being fried. Hallelujah!!!! I was safe. There was just this flashing sign that was saying, 'Move out dumb-ass. That's all the entertainment you get for 6$'.

Home Buying 1: Outrageous Assumptions

Over the last few months, I have been trying to become a homeowner in Los Angeles. Like every big venture, this one is also based on certain assumptions, some of which are outrageous and based on nothing but preposterous optimism.

The most outrageous of them all is the assumption that the world, this country, my house and I will live on and thrive for 30 years. This assumption sounds almost ridiculous when one considers my age (32), the age of the house (42), the age of this country, and the age of this world, coupled with the current state of world affairs. In my mind, this is the assumption that is most likely to fail. But do I care? Do I give a damn? No. I am more worried about 'exciting' things like 'Do I want a gray, plush carpet or a maple hardwood floor?' and 'Does the house conform to Vaastu principles?'.

Some other outrageous assumptions are 'I shall continue to grow richer, and will be able to recover from this huge debt', 'The value of my house will definitely increase', 'I shall be happier than before by being a homeowner', 'I will definitely get a better interest rate when I refinance my loan' and 'My family will look up to me and say, Hey, you know you did the right thing by blowing away three-quarters of a million dollars on a ungainly hunk of concrete, metal, glass and wood'.

In the home buying process, there are only two things that are guaranteed - 1. I shall live a debt-ridden life for the next 30 years, and 2. My lender will always be there to hound me during this entire time, no matter what happens to me, the house, or the world.

Yet, millions will buy homes this year, like the billions who already have, and the billions who will in the future. And every one of them will take these outrageous assumptions in their stride, and think they did a great job, made a very wise decision, and that they deserve praise and applause.
And worse still, they will get it. The people around them will look up to them as great achievers, will seek their advice and countenance, lap up every word they have to say, and repeat the same follies without a qualm.

If we ever get outsmarted by another species, most likely the ants, the main reason given out would be 'In justifying the rationality of buying million dollar homes, man achieved such gargantuan levels of stupidity that the brain began to lose its efficiency and capability of functioning correctly, and over a period of evolution, gradually lost all power and became a vestigial organ like the appendix. And we, the ants, jumped in at that point, and took over.

Life is an unnecessary waste of time!

I have never attended a company meeting where things were not awesome, people were not highly excited, the future was not bright and the achievements of the recent past were not awesome. Never has anybody said in a company meeting that we suck, we did not achieve anything, the future looks bleak, and we are close to getting sold or filing bankruptcy. Weird. If every company was doing so great, the economy should be going through the roof, which is clearly not the case with unemployment at record highs.

Recently I have been thinking about what advice I can give to my son as he grows up, and I have come to two conclusions - 1. Life is an unnecessary waste of time, and 2. There is nothing to look forward to.

Think about this - if I ask any one of you this question - 'What have you achieved in life so far?'
You might say, 'I aced the SATs'. Yeah, but so did a million other people. Or, 'I met this hot girl at the gym and fell in love'. Yes, but she is still with you, and in all likelihood is not so hot anymore. Or, 'I have the most gorgeous baby.' Yes, and wait till he grows up and sucks life and money out of you, not necessarily in that order. All your achievements, which you have been thinking are awesome, are actually mundane and pedestrian, and have been achieved over and over again by a million other people.

In my life of 35 odd years, I have achieved 3 mentionable things maybe, and that's a big MAYBE. Seems like an awfully long time to achieve 3 things. These things could have been easily achieved in like 3 months. At this rate, by the time I am ready to 'close shop', I will have wasted 70 years to achieve what could have been achieved in 6 months. What an enormous waste of time!!!

Life is humdrum, you do the routine things every day, wake up, eat, sleep, wake up, over and over again. Why is everything awesome? What is there to be excited about? I think realistically, we have nothing to look forward to. Tomorrow will be the same as today, which is the same as yesterday anyways.

So this year, let's make two resolutions. Let's be unhappy and brood away to our heart's content, and let's not be excited about anything. And let's not feel guilty about missing deadlines or being lazy. In fact let's make it a point to do no work and be lazy, because life is a waste of time anyways.

Hello World!!!

Being a software engineer and a computer science academic, it is but mandatory that my first blog is titled this.
So Hello everyone, all blog readers and writers out there, and everyone else who is curious about blogs or apathetic about it.
This is my raving and ranting space, and I will rave and rant here.
I will talk about life a lot, how it sucks and rocks at the same time, and how I am coping with it. I shall also write about software and computer science, because that is my area of professional expertise.
I have a horrible sense of humor, which some people laugh at and some people scoff at, and that will also be on display.
Whatever I write though, and whether you like it or not, will be from my own experiences and knowledge.
So Hello again, and lets share blog space and our experiences and anecdotes.
esesbee