What can be done?

Mumbai terror attach has again brought up the biggest question that the world faces - how can terrorism be tackled? Any views - sorry - this post doesn't help us get anywhere, but would love to discuss further

Parallel Algorithm for Quick Sort!

It's been a while since I last logged on to Blogger. Over the last few days, I have tried to justify this temporary sabbatical attributing all possible reasons ranging from global warming to crude oil prices, but after extruding these set of reasons through a truth-funnel, the same age old problem emerged as the primary reason - my struggle with blogging topics! This time, it was a problem of plenty. I was confused with tons of topics to blog on - Tata Nano, about my latest challenging drive to highest peak at Cameron Highlands, aircraft technology and the airline industry, IPL business model, Sachin's statistical comparison with other greats, da da da...

I then did the mistake of again asking Ninja for a topic to blog on - and this is what Ninja the geek came up with. So, I thought, well why not? After all this blog was started to enlighten the world! :-)

At first glance, the topic looked fairly okay - "Parallel Algorithm For Quick Sort". Within first few minutes, I realised that I had understood all 5 words listed within the quotes - so should be a no brainer! Little did I know that the phrase that once appeared is one of my finance books would hold true here as well - "the whole is greater than the sum of parts"

Since then, I have spent the last 3 hours trying to figure out what this topic could mean before getting down to blog on it. These are the possible interpretations that I could come up with:

1. At all points, it is equi-distant from algorithm for quick sort
2. Logical sequence of steps (algorithm), parallel to each other, quick to compute in some ways (sorta)
3. Parallel algorithm that fast bowlers in cricket (quicks) could use to sort opposition batting order
4. You type in 4 words in excel - "parallel", "algorithm", "for", "quick" and then use data sort function
5. Parallel algorithm to kick start a scooter?
6. On par with allege rhythm for quick sort?
7. Pyare Lal agle road pe quick sutta!

... yesss... I think, I cracked it! :-)

Tata Nano – the most amazing thing to have happened to auto industry!

All through the post medieval history, any technological advancement has caught human attention – be it Wright Brother’s first flight, invention of internal combustion engine, the first super computer, the discovery of antibiotics, the decoding of human DNA – needless to say, one theme links it all - “technological advancement’. Lately, a new dimension to ‘innovation’ has emerged. Over the past decade or so, ‘cost’ and ‘affordability’ have started to drive changes. A lot of changes are now focused on bringing on redesigned products at much lower cost – be it the $100 laptop, a low-cost mobile phone or an ultra-cheap car. Yes, this post is about Tata Nano, priced at Rs. 1-Lakh or $2,500, it has halved the entry price for a car.

Ever since Mr. Ratan Tata first declared in public to manufacture the 1-lakh car, I have nearly followed every possible news article on this car. To me, this is the most amazing thing to have happened to auto industry, particularly for developing economies and will possibly impact entry level sedan segment world over. Before going in to details of the car and its impact, let me provide the views of a distant observer, from the day the plan became public (~4 years back) till today (just after the official launch of the car)

• Announcement of 1-lakh car project (~4 years back): I thought “hmmm… interesting, but not sure if they can pull it off” I was excited, but didn’t have too much confidence if this would be ever possible!

• My first impression: As more information started to come in, I thought this car would be without doors, possibly with a basic 2-wheeler engine and suspension system, possibly a cloth cover on top instead of a metal roof, no dashboard panel, wooden seats – in short, a car, but possibly not meeting the basic safety requirements and comfort

• My first inference: But even with the above description, 1-lakh car seemed attractive – it would be the same value for money that a Maruti 800 is at Rs. 2 Lakhs. It might have been a success, but Tata would have probably struggled to sell half a million units a year

• At the half way stage: Once Tata announced that it would indeed be a “proper car”, with a cute design, I really got excited about it. For this was not cost cutting, but a complete new invention of "traditional car". In one of the recent interviews, team at Tata Motors described their experience working on 1-lakh car – “we worked towards cutting almost 50-60% of costs for most parts”. Kudos to the team and the leadership – they would have pushed for 1-lakh price tag from seemingly impossible situations at many stages all through the development of this car

• The day before the official launch: The day before the Auto Expo Launch, I was betting my money on the following specifications – a price tag of 1.25 lakh, a boxy design, high proportion of plastics esp. with doors, a basic rear engine not meeting environment norms, two doors with seats folding to access the rear seats, etc

• Tata Nano launch: … and then, you get to see a much better car than a Maruti-800, meeting Euro-IV emission norms (I think engine sensors are a must for this), a killer design, plenty of space to seat 4-5 people, etc, etc – in short, a super car! In my books, if I was to benchmark this car with existing models on the road, it is worth at least Rs. 2 Lakhs

… well, at price tag of Rs 1.Lakh, it is a killer product! A pure market share eater!

Congratulations again to the team at Tata Motors, they have really redefined car designing and manufacturing. With the success that Tata Indica and other models have been, I am confident Tata has the operational capability to put the design to assembly line and manage the entire supply chain from suppliers to dealers producing a consistent good quality product. A big thanks to Tata Motors Team!

Harbhajan ban: time for us to set things right...

Sydney test had been a fantastic great test match - for the fight that Indian team put it, I seriously don't mind the result. However, Australian team, umpires and the match referee deserve no respect what-so-ever.

It's been 3-4 days since Aussie's first complained against Harbhajan - for apparently calling Symonds a 'monkey'! I just can't believe it. This is just stupid. You don't need a masters degree in lip reading to understand the kind of language Australians use on the field - apparently all that is absolutely normal stuff for them. The world's best performing team "yes", but one seriosuly needs to question the way they are playing cricket. I would instead watch an ethical Kenya team defeated by most teams by an innings and 450 runs play cricket as opposed to the current Australian lot.

That's not the end of the story - the umpires and the match referee join the party as well. The number of decisions that have gone against India cannot be defined as 'errors' even by the probability corresponding to the long tail of a normal distribution function. Statistically, it is impossible to be at the receiving end of the umpire goof ups so often. Steve Bucknor should be sent out of the game right away - this is not the first time this has happened.

Match referee deserves a spot light as well - what a decision to suspend Harbhajan for 3 tests. If this ban is to be enforced, lets set the whole system right. Suspending the entire Australian team wouldn't be enough. ICC would need to invent a time machine, go back in time and suspend all current and retired players from 1995 or so.

I am a bit worked up - this is not an issue of "just a game of cricket". There is more to it. This is racism at its peak. Team India is representing India the nation as well. There is a narrow line that separates "Well, lets just take the crap" and "compromising on self-respect"... and the line has been crossed. Irrespective of the fine (I hear it is $2.3Mn), team India should call off the tour - no matter what it is, BCCI has sufficient corpus to take the hit. It is a situation far from "for sake of the game and the relationship between the two nations, lets get on with cricket" - India should pack up and leave Oz land right away.

There are millions of viewers world over who are crazy about cricket, just as I am. We watch the game under the assumption that it is fair for one and all. We respect umpire's decisions, assuming that it is a simple case of human error, never for once doubting the "intent". We assume that match referees are there to make sure that things go in the spirit of the game and are the match is fair to one and all. When that basic assumption goes for a toss, I seriously wonder why we have woken up at 3am to watch a test match irrespective of anything else for over two decades - be it long work hours, board exams, etc, etc - just about anything on this planet.

Some very strong and serious measures need to be taken here. This is simply not done - unless the ban is revoked, the umpires/ match referee changed and punished, a few Australian players banned, I refuse to watch the scheduled 3rd test match at Perth. There is absolutely no need to be diplomatic anymore.

... may be, I will chill down in sometime, but I don't think I am gonna edit this post very much even after my head gets down to its STP (standard temperate and pressure)

Experiencing lateral inversion!

If I was to rewind back to school days, my NCERT science text book would have defined lateral inversion as “The effect produced by a mirror in reversing images from left to right”. In Kerala, I experienced “Lateral Inversion” in a somewhat different way – for some fuzzy reason, in a statistically significant way, most people got ‘left’ and ‘right’ wrong on most occasions. With time, I understood that ‘left’ is ‘left’ and ‘right’ is ‘right’ only as a matter of ‘convention’ and probably there is no strong logic behind that. On the contrary, with ‘up’ and ‘down’ there is some bit of ‘gravity’ rationale that comes into the picture.

To remain attuned to rest of the world, I decided to mentally define ‘right’ as ‘right’ symbolized by a few subconscious, yet logical rules – I started off with “I eat with my right hand”, shifting gradually to “steering is at the right of a car”. Beyond that stage, I don’t quite remember ever having problems with left and right. So in all probability, “steering is at the right of a car” is the ‘internal rule’ that over the years my directional sense has been calibrated too!

Through my existence on planet earth over the last 2 decades and my experience with excel modelling errors, attempts at solving ‘limited-information-case-studies’, trying my luck with Sudoku puzzles and attending structured communication training workshops, I have come to the conclusion that ‘assumption’ is what determines the ‘outcome’!

This is exactly what I experienced on my trip to Europe. Till then, fate had almost cherry picked my driving experiences as purely ‘right-hand drives’ – India, South East Asia, South Africa and Australia. On my trip to U.S., I took a bus from Boston to Capecod. With the intention to experience the ‘left hand drive’, I went and sat next to the driver, in the front. I was left in a state of being ‘zapped’ in a few minutes – possibly a combination of jet-lag and ‘left to right’ transformation on the road left me in that state. It was strange weird feeling – I couldn’t get to terms with the fact that on-coming vehicles were passing-by at 100 miles an hour to our ‘left’!

This November, Maharaj and I rented an E-class from Stuttgart (Germany). Since I had a valid license, I was the one behind the steering wheel. Frankly, I was a bit apprehensive to driving on the right side of the road. I tried various things to convince myself of this transformation, most notably being – ‘driving on the right side of the road, should by definition be the right side of the road!’

My over-cautious side took over for sometime – I drove at the minimum possible speed, shut the music off, kept 100% of my focus on road and tried to follow the arrows on the road. It all looked very weird! Maharaj was trying to give some fundaes and vibes about driving in Germany. I shut him up and said “… and you rustic! Keep shut and utter only when you find me heading on the wrong side of the road!”

Well, it took me probably half an hour to get used to this left to right transformation – with no better phrase to describe this, I coined it as ‘lateral inversion’!

By day-2 of our drive, I had completely lost it all. I had lost the sense of left and right. There were many occasions when Maharaj told me to turn right and I peacefully took the left turn! Given the rusticity of the situation, Maharaj came to my rescue by putting some rustic vibes – finally, we found a reason to cover up this goof-up and blamed it all on the human brain in general. Apparently, human brain can’t distinguish between left and right without any frame of reference, while up and down is governed by gravity.

I am back to the driving convention world that I am comfortable with. Inverse lateral inversion was rather easy – I got my directional sense right on my Avante during the very first minute of the drive. But, wait a minute, is right the right way to look at it when I am myself not sure if right is right and not left? Would Wright Brothers have the right answer to this mystery? Why are right hand drive cars more suited for left side drive? Confusion prevails, so does lateral inversion!

Europe Trip: London, Paris

London

• Met Boopos at Underground station near his house. On Sunday, he was returning from office at 9:45pm, still early by his standards – senti scene followed as we were meeting after 2.5 years :-)


• Reached Boopos ka apartment, had dinner, gen random fundaes discussed, off to sleep


• Next morning, took a bit easy, Boopos left at 8am, I started after 10am


• Headed to Lords Cricket Ground, The home of cricket! – In the last 26 years, histroy has failed to impress me, but for once, it was interesting to know about the history of Ashes, Lara’s record innings, etc, etc


• Had lunch next to the cricket ground, headed to London eye – a fantastic view of the city and places nearby


• Took a few clicks at the Tower bridge (I thought it was the London Bridge, supposed to have been falling down - so said my nursery rhyme!)


• Caught up with friends for drinks and dinner- Challa, Buttler, Anta, Philip Boopos and Bharath


• Next day, got up at 5am or so and boarded the Eurostar to Paris.

Paris

• Toulouse trip cancelled due to non-availability of tickets.


• Checked-in to a hotel, took the day off and slept – It has been 5 days with very little sleep.
• Got up late at night, went for a walk at around 2am near Montparnasse. Enjoyed the chilly cold winter and the light wind that made it even chiller!
• Next morning, took the Metro to Eifel Tower
• Long queue at the tower, so took a city tour
• Went to ….Museum – I can’t appreciate art, just not inclined to any form of art. But, even for someone like me, this Museum was amazing.
• Saw the much-hyped painting Mosalisa. Must say, other painting and the colour combinations used impressed me a lot more
• Visited Notterdam saw from outside and had a good lunch at a typical French restaurant
• Visited another piece of architecture and the region around that. Saw Lido from outside, the show didn’t start till late at night.
• Got back to Eifel Tower – had a chance to go up right till the top (3rd floor) – the view was simply superb. Eifel tower is amazing – build only of iron trusses and it is rock solid, unshakeable!
• Eifel tower was now lighted and was looking fantastic – a true killer sight
• Took night train to Stuttgart – train journey was okay types, perhaps I had expected the train to be a bit better than what it really was
  

Europe Trip: Introduction

The foundation of this post and the basic ingredients were fused on my way back from what had been a fantastic trip to a chosen few destinations across Europe. This post is a brief account of the terrific trip.

Off late, certain otherwise ‘loyal’ blog-readers, have criticized the typical length and wordiness of my posts. Taking into account the ‘recent-criticism’ and my general typing-laziness has resulted in a bullet point account of the Europe trip!

Pre-trip planning

• First thoughts of Europe trip appeared around a year ago.
• Started to plan for this trip in July, applied for vacation and I was politely told “dare not take-off before the end of project” – so mid-October it was!
• I persevered through my allergic response to book shops and eventually succeeded in purchasing a guide to Europe. I had to literally start my trip planning from scratch. – had no clue to the overall geography of Europe; I still wonder how I managed to pass Social Studies exams at School!
• Started with the ‘mugga-process’ on net, found links to typical Europe trips covering major cities, going deep into history of modern Europe, art, etc, etc
• However, that didn't excite me at all. The very idea of going from one museum to the other, from one city to the other, drained me. This didn’t sound to me like a vacation by any stretch of imagination
• Got back to basics, thought and thought about what I really wanted from the trip
• After a few hundred random iterations of possible Europe travel routes, eventually understood what I was looking for – scenery, winter, snow, drives and may be some bit of technical funades –e.g. car museums or visits to manufacturing plants (e.g. Airbus)
• It was a fairly complex plan – had to fit various constraints to my trip. Maharaj’s 6-day vacation schedule, ideally a weekend in London to meet up Junta, attend cousins’ wedding at Delhi, Diwali at home, attend Slippy’s wedding at Udipi, etc
• Hour-by-hour planning is beyond me, except when it comes to challenging long drives. Lack of time to plan out every detail meant that trip had to be like “reach-the-damn-place, search-for-a-tourist-office, … and take it from there!”

The overall planned trip

Singapore ---> Chennai (0.1) ---> Delhi (2.0) ---> London (1.5) ---> Paris (1.0) ---> Toulouse (1.0) ---> Stuttgart (0.5) ---> Switzerland (3.0) ---> Norway (2.5) ---> Frankfurt/ Black forest (1.0) ---> Delhi (0.1) ---> Chennai (1.0) ---> Udipi (2.0) ---> Chennai (0.5) ---> Singapore
(Figures in bracket are number of days spent)

... the journey begins...