Insignificant me (or Technorati sucks?)..

Now when I usually start with a new project, I invariably search on Technorati before Google, to check if some bloggie dude has written some wise words on my subject. I have found success very rarely though, and have always wondered why.

So when I was spending some time on Technorati today, I tried to test how extensive its search is. So I took a few strings from the posts I have made in the past few days and searched on it. And well, it seems Technorati doesn't know me at all. I do not figure anywhere with them. And I went till the last page every time. And mind you, I am a registered user with them, all with my blog claimed and all. And still, still my friends, it does not recognize me at all.

Why, Technorati? Why why? Am I utterly insignificant to you? Or is it that you suck big time? I tried searching strings from some good (I mean well read) blogs, and again it turned blank results.

And I used to be so sure that it covered a whole lot of blogosphere. So, is it that blogosphere still remains largely unexplored? Reasons, anybody?

~ Ankur.

I need more important things in life..

I have started to blog more these days. And I read more of others' blogs too. So is it because I have more time now in life to do that? Do I have a relatively relaxed time these days? No, not at all. It's very contrary to that. I am very cruched these days at work, from where I normally blog. In fact, I am staying here at work, so late at night, because I have to finish off a very important assignment by tomorrow.

So why am I sitting here and blogging? It is because my project is the most important thing right now on my mind. And hence, I am not doing it. I need something more important to be able to finish this off in time.

Don't understand all of this? Then you should read this thing on Structured Procrastination.

~ Ankur.

Achievement for the day..

I clocked under 5 minutes on today's Sudoku - my best timing yet :D

I admit, this one is really simple. But, whatever.

Yo!

~ Ankur.

Harold and Becky..

So I am doing some research on the US landline telephone industry, and I come across this. All my research summarized in this one hilarious blog entry.

To provide some background -

ILECS are the few large dominant telecom companies in the US with established networks. They rule. CLECs are small low-priced regional players with spots of network here and there, which even they have trouble to find. The Wannabes. Now, the '96 Telecom Act in the US asks ILECs to provide long-distance fiber to CLECs at slashed rates to bring competition in the market, and end the monopoly of these giants. Everyone hates each other - CLECs say ILECs do not cooperate, charge more, and blah. ILECs say it is forced competition, against free market, and other blah. And in this scenario, here goes - Harold and Becky's Excellent Telephone Adventure. An excerpt -

Over time, I speak to two Verizon vice presidents and get a phone call from the President of Verizon Maryland. They assure me that the fault lies with the evil CLEC, which misfiled the order, gave them the wrong address, wrong time zone, and possibly, used magic to shift their tech to another dimension. However, they promise that, assuming Cavalier does not join forces with Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden (which, Verizon tells me, CLECs have been known to do), they will have a tech out on April 7.

A long, but equally rewarding read. If patience really pays, it's here.

And on a slightly different and thoughtful note, I think one can relate Project Managers to this -

I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food.

Yeah, Bruce.

~ Ankur.

Afterlife Telegrams..

So a certain Mr. Paul Kinsella has this great idea - a sure winner for creativity, if not for VCs. And it goes by the name Afterlife Telegrams.

So what does he do? Quite obvious - he sends telegrams for you to the dead people. How? Well, he gets hold of a messenger - actually a terminally ill person (basically, a person who you're sure will die) - and the messenger memorizes your message, dies, goes to heaven, finds your guy, and delivers the message. Neat.

And Washington Post already has him interviewed, and provides a great introduction it too -

Every so often someone gets an idea so brilliant and original that it becomes an instant phenomenon, guaranteeing its creator immeasurable wealth and a place in the pantheon of entrepreneurial geniuses. And then there are ideas like Paul Kinsella's.

Well, people do have their reservations about the success of the idea, and Paul is yet to find his first client - he already has a messenger ready, though! Excerpts from the interview [via Washington Post]:

Q: There are about 18 times as many dead people from all of time as there are people living on Earth today, not counting dead Neanderthals and Australopithecans, who might well have souls, albeit really scruffy ones. So the population of the afterlife would be at least 18 times larger than that of Earth. What makes you think that your messenger could even find the right person?

Paul: That's a good point. If it's all random and chaotic, that's gonna stop him. But we would hope that they have worked out some sort of registry.

Q: What if the Hindus are right and we are reincarnated as cows? And you'd have all these cows with elaborate AfterlifeTelegrams.com messages they are contractually obligated to deliver to other cows, but they have no way to do it. Imagine the frustration. Isn't that cruel?

Paul: I admit reincarnation might screw things up.

Q: What guarantee can you give that the terminally ill person won't be a prankster and deliver a subversive message, causing great consternation among the dead? For example, let's say the paid-for message is, "Mom, I love you." But the delivered message is, "Dad says he slept with your sister."

Paul: We will seek messengers of high moral character.

Absolutely! This guy rocks.

~ Ankur.

Bloggingdom is here..

The Bloggers Have Arrived

Log on to your Orkut, now!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time..

After a long long time I managed to pick up a book and finish it off within a week. And it goes with the name The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

And this entry is not here because this has already happened. But that's immaterial, anyway.

So, as I was saying, the book is a great read. And innovatively imaginative. Noone has made me solve maths problems in a novel ever before! The narrative of Christopher Boone, the protagonist in the book, reminds one of Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye, as well as Vernon 'Gregory' Little.

Must read if you are even slightly free.

~ Ankur.

Animal Instinct..

Suddenly I feel a surge of enthusiasm in life that I haven't felt for long. And it is all because of Cranberries and this song of theirs -

Suddenly something has happened to me
As I was having my cup of tea
Suddenly I was feeling depressed
I was utterly and totally stressed
Do you know you made me cry
Do you know you made me die

And the thing that gets to me
Is you'll never really see
And the thing that freaks me out
Is I'll always be in doubt
It is a lovely thing that we have
It is a lovely thing that we
It is a lovely thing, the animal
The animal instinct

So take my hands and come with me
We will change reality
So take my hands and we will pray
They won't take you away
They will never make me cry, no
They will never make me die

And the thing that gets to me
Is you'll never really see
And the thing that freaks me out
Is I'll always be in doubt

The animal, the animal, the animal instinct in me
It's the animal, the animal, the animal instinct in me
It's the animal, it's the animal, it's the animal instinct in me.

Very contrary to the lyrics, I have instantly started to feel just great! It's amazing, what music can do to you.

Life, as we know it, is really strange.

~ Ankur.

Crib session (one more)..

Of late, this blog has assumed a totally different role in my life. When I started with this, it was all happy and cheerful. And now all I do here is vent. But that's the way it is.

So I do not post anything interesting now because I do not read anything these days, and as a result do not come across anything interesting. I don't write about anything happening because it seems nothing happens now in life.

I think I can attribute most of it to the extended hours I spend at work. That just kills me - in a manner of speaking. Lifestyle issues, which seemed such an elusive thought, have cropped in big time. And when all this is happening around me, I get to read this -



Great.

~ Ankur.

Job dissatisfaction..

Job dissatisfaction has finally started to creep in - the fact that it took 10 months to do that, is a wonder.

Business research is highly dissatisfying. You're never doing your own thing. And rightly so, since you do not have the expertise to do it anyway. It doesn't help even if you do it for years together. What functional expertise do you develop? - nothing seemingly tangible. Your domain expertise is useless. Because what do you know? - a highly superficial account of what has been happening, and what others say will happen. Research is a highly misleading term in business research. After a while you start craving for some real understanding of what you are dealing with.

Therefore, there is an urge to go back to the academia, and start from first principles. But with the given track record, I have my own reservations on how long I will survive in a technically inclined setup. Moreover, will that experience make me come back to the same place - would I not want to do something more worthwhile after that? Which brings me to the question - do I actually wish to do what I am doing, in the long run? If not, what do I wish to do? I think I wish to be extremely knowledgable about something and do work - any work - related to that. If it has to do with the larger picture, then great. Yes, I think that would be a fair description of what I would like to do.

There is another thing I dislike a lot. The problem of people doing perception management rather than actual work. The focus is so much more in doing well in the short run, that learning is being sidelined completely. All around I witness people just managing the 10 parameters to get a better rating, to leave a better impression. The system of meritocracy seems to be more of a pretence now. Moreover, so early in one's career, there is an equal focus on people management. I really would like to just not deal with that for some time in my career.

I don't know where this is going, but I think you get the idea. Perhaps the stuff I have written here are just the feelings for a short while, and may not last for long, and my views may turn topsy turvy very soon. I hope that happens. I hope I reach the topsy turvy island soon.

~ Ankur.

Secret Garden..

There's a certain melancholy that always seeps in with the hours of the twilight. The dusk brings a stillness with itself, a slight haze. Maybe it is also because of the Springsteen songs that I am listening to. They've always made me calm and pensive - like now.

I leave you with a photograph of from my institute at dusk, and a few lines from Springsteen's 'Secret Garden'..

She'll let you in her heart
If you got a hammer and a vise
But into her secret garden, don't think twice

You've gone a million miles
How far'd you get to that place where
You can't remember and you can't forget

She'll lead you down a path
There'll be tenderness in the air
She'll let you come just far enough
So you know she's really there
She'll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She's got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay a million miles away..

- Bruce Springsteen

A million miles away..

~ Ankur.

I want to break free..

I have gotten into the viscious circle of not posting anything, which increases the threshold to post, and hence I do not post anything - while I would like to do that.

I feel something like this -

I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You're so self satisfied I don't need you
I want to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free

I've fallen in love
I've fallen in love for the first time
And this time I know it's for real
I've fallen in love, yeah
God knows, God knows I've fallen in love

It's strange but it's true
I can't get over the way you love me like you do
But I have to be sure
When I walk out that door
Oh how I want to be free, baby
Oh how I want to break free,
Oh how I want to break free

But life still goes on
I can't get used to, living without, living without,
Living without you by my side
I don't want to live alone, hey
God knows, got to make it on my own
So baby can't you see
God knows, gods know, gods know
I've want to break free

- Queen

Soon. Very soon. Someway. Somehow.

~ Ankur.

Knowledge knowledge..

The key to survival success in a knowledge-intensive industry is the knowledge carried around by the people in the organization. Granted, this would be true more for a consulting firm, and less for one which deals with only business research. Yet, this could be the differentiating factor between success and breakthrough for KPO firms in the long run. And perhaps most players in this business are not focusing on the knowledge development aspect as much as they should. Firms tackle this issue by making focused groups, but that is more of an exercise to ease operations than with the intent of providing an environment to learn. These companies now need to provide its people with the freedom, opportunity and encouragement to learn and gather knowledge in these focused environments.

Take Google’s case [via Chad at Infoworld]:

Quite simply, the Google philosophy can be expressed in five general principles: Work on things that matter, affect everyone in the world, solve problems with algorithms if possible, hire bright people and give them lots of freedom, and don’t be afraid to try new things. As a general practice, Google also requires that its engineers spend 20 percent of their time working on personal technology projects unrelated to their primary projects.

Google Suggest was one such project. And if I am not wrong Google Maps was one 20% too. But can the Google 20% time principle be applied in this context? The answer is a big no. With the rate of growth of the KPO industry, that’s a bit too high. But, maybe we can manage a 90-10 principle. Devoting 10 percent of one’s time to a project of related personal interest sounds good and essential. I’d rather go on to say that this is the need of the hour.

I am going to recommend this to my firm.

~ Ankur.

I can't think of a title..

This is one of those posts which have no real purpose, except to let go of the mental barrier of not being able to make an entry, and to cross the threshold.

I have been away for a while, and life has been slightly dull off late. Meanwhile, have got an entirely new machine at workplace, which is very smooth. But that doesn't change much in life.

On a contemplative note, life sucks big time if you don't make any effort. I think I need to make efforts to enjoy life.

~ Ankur.

Pause..

Sitting here on my desk, I suddenly have this sinking feeling - Lost in a herd of people, whom you don't know, whom you don't even wish to know, just there because you're afraid to be anywhere else.

Time flies by, and you are just left thinking about all the good things that you think will happen. People, places, and things you really cared about just go on with their lives. You expect everyone, everything to wait for you, and miss you. But they don't. Everyone has to go on, the world never stops. You are always under the impression that you still care about everyone, everything that you always cared about. But you get so lost in things, which you don't even know for sure are what you wish for, that you never have the time to think about the very same people, the very same things. And you don't even know if you can say that you care. Then slowly you realize that there's a strange gap, with even the people and things closest to you, and it just keeps widening. You are afraid of trivial things like what will you say and what will you type, that you never even make a call, never drop a mail, and never make a visit. You wish to congratulate everyone on what they have achieved, you wish to share with them the sadness that they've gathered, but you just can't. You think that everyone has moved on, leaving you behind. And you never know if they feel the same.

Life just moves on. And sometimes it goes quite a distance before you realize.

And even then, nothing changes.

~ Ankur.

I Love Bloglines..?!

Now, it seems that Bloglines and Ask Jeeves guys came to know that I curse them every now and then. It also seems that they've decided to make me happy in some way or the other, if unable to do that through their service. I received this mail today from a certain Mr. Paul Loeffler -

Dear Ankur,

Congratulations on being one of the first 200 people to email Ask Jeeves about receiving a free "I love Bloglines" t-shirt. We will send your t-shirt to the address that you have provided on March 14, so you should be receiving it in the near future.

If you have any questions/comments, feel free to let us know.

Kind regards,

Paul Loeffler (Fellow Bloglines Enthusiast)
Ask Jeeves, Inc.

Man, they're calling me a Fellow Bloglines Enthusiast :| There's actually nothing like a free lunch. And ya - I did send the mail for the free t-shirt. Whatever.

[Learning for the day: Semantics]

~ Ankur.

Creative Commons..

If you have an eye for detail, you might have observed a new button that has appeared at the bottom of the sidebar of this blog. It says 'Some Rights Reserved' and has been lying there at the bottom for a few days now. This button links to a partial copyright license that I've got from Creative Commons.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit, offering a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors and artists, to build a layer of reasonable copyright. They have built upon the "all rights reserved" of traditional copyright to create a voluntary "some rights reserved" copyright.

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which "all rights reserved" (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare "some rights reserved."

Thus, a single goal unites Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules.

[from Creative Commons]

Till about a week or two back they had indexed all the webpages that have linked to a license from them, and believed it to be around 5 million. But after it's birthday party, Yahoo did the same and found to everyone's amusement that the number is nearly 10 million! I think everyone should get a license from them. It makes absolute sense. Perfectly absolute sense.

~ Ankur.

Firefox, who?

So I realized that my blog appears all haywire in Internet Explorer, while it's perfect to look at through Firefox. IE cannot even interpret all the colours I use for my blog template - which is very awful in my opinion. And it brings me to my request - please use Firefox. I even thought of a subtitle for my blog: "The Life and Times of Mine - best viewed in Firefox!" Unfortunately, this template doesn't have a subtitle thing, so I couldn't have all that fun.

Anyhow, so I went to one of the IT guys here at workplace, and asked - "Hi. Why don't we have Firefox?". And imagine what he replied - "Firefox? What's that?" Whoa! That's IT for you! Anyway, I said - "It's a browser. It has tabs." Bam this came - "Tabs?". Then I just blurted - "It's free." and started back, but I think I heard him saying - "It won't support our applications." I was like - "We are a business research firm - what applications?!"

No wonder Internet Explorer still has nearly 90 percent market share! But it's falling, and Firefox is increasing fast. Wonder what's up with Opera people - someone said they were ahead of their time! And opera was cool, back in CC :)

By the way, the IT guys here are real nice people, and if I just push a little, we might even have Firefox (at least for me). Should I, then?

*Lights fade off and the spot is on the protagonist, who contemplates life and its meaning*

~ Ankur.

Long time..

It's been a while since I last blogged, as lots of stuff kept me busy. Mostly work - have had an insane last week, and now plan to bring some sanity back to life again. And while I was away, the following happened:

1. I bumped into Hello and Picasa. Both these utilities absolutely rock! Fully recommended to all the people clicking their way to glory with their digicams, and also to those who wish to post images to their blogs.

2. Yahoo turned 10. And idiots, they gave out free icecream to everyone except this big user list in India. Even to Alaska! Now those are the people who can open their mouths and dive towards the ground anytime for free icecream. What a waste!

3. I came across this guy with this blog. An amusing read - his blog, if you go bottom up.

4. I found out that a starter drum kit is for about 8 to 10 grands, but presently that's out of the question for me. Also I think I'm trying to take up too many things together, and that I will have to be selective now in my aspirations. So I think till the time I am done with the digicam, the drums will wait. But I might still do something about starting the learning curve.

I think that's about it for now.

~ Ankur.

The first photo session..

I went for my first photo session today. And I liked it.





~ Ankur.