An Interesting Story - Never Underestimate Your Clients' Complaint, No Matter How Funny It Might Seem !!!

This is a real story that happened between the customer of General Motors and its Customer-Care Executive. (as has been communicated to me)

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:
'This is the second time I have written to you, and I don't blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have tradition in our family of Ice-Cream for dessert after dinner each night,but the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It's also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem.
You see, every time I buy a vanilla ice-cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds'
"What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?"

The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an Engineer to check it out anyway.

The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start.

The Engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, they got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes:

He jotted down all sorts of data: time of day, type of gas uses, time to drive back and forth etc. In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup.
All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to check out the flavor. Now, the question for the Engineer was why the car wouldn't start when it took less time. Eureka - Time was now the problem - not the vanilla ice cream!!!!

The engineer quickly came up with the answer: "vapour lock".
 

It was happening every night; but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapour lock to dissipate. 

Learn from Melbourne...

Melbourne is doing something that really excited me. They are putting up bicycle stands for people to take the bike for short to medium distance travel. See one stand above... It is a great idea for people that come to office in car or public transport to use these for small distances. You can leave it at next stand. There is a fee for use and longer usage plans are available.

One thing that I think should be included is helmet rental. I wanted to try out one but was told by a passerby that helmets are required for usage. I am a visitor. Why would I roam around with a helmet around my back?

Inception - great movie to watch

Finally, I would say their is a film this year, that I enjoyed thoroughly. One of the best movies ever made. If you haven't seen it, go watch in theaters while you still can.

I like to watch movies on big screen but time constraints and small release window mean that you should be a continuous lookout for good movies and follow them closely to meet their release schedule. It has happened to me more than once that movie I wanted to watch came to India in a period, when I was in USA and the movie was no longer in theaters in USA. Perhaps, for people like me, global release within days of each other helps a lot. Anyone listening...

Outliers.. an interesting read

Just finished reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. A really well complied book and fascinating analysis. Given my slow pace and (lack of) commitment to reading, I did well to finish the book in under 3 months. But the book kept its attention thorough out the period and I keep returning to it whenever the book reading itch got to me.

I like the depth and must confess that similarity of analysis between the way I contemplate and the way he has done. Perhaps, that's what kept me at it. I would recommend this to anyone who care to think different...

180 Pounds and Falling

I have finally hit the scales at less than 180 pounds. The long term weight trend is now bearish. There was a medium strength pull in last couple of days but yesterday's fall has taken me below 180 mark and also established that the trend is continuing to be bearish. I have lost 7 pounds in last 7 weeks and I used to weigh as much as 212 pounds at some time. But those days are gone... I still remain a foodie and perhaps have to work on it more to go further.

Reducing weight is pretty much like traveling close to speed of light. For acceleration, you need to spend more fuel than what you spent previously. (and for additional weight loss, you need to exercise more than previously) And like there is a limit to how much fast you can go, there is a limit to how much final weight loss you can achieve...

Moving iTunes collection from Windows XP to Windows 7

I have just moved my collection from XP to Win 7 verbatim ... complete with all playlists, ratings and play counts. Thought of sharing the various steps I did to make it happen. It is easy enough if you can do basic copying.

First, move your complete collection to a portable drive .. say F: (and let iTunes manage the collection).

Backup your My Music folder as well as your Document and Settings folder in XP. (generally found under C:\Documents and Settings\...)

Next install iTunes on your Win 7 box. Pretty straight forward.

Start iTunes and deselect all auto search et al. You have a clean iTunes installation. Close down iTunes. Wait for few minutes to ensure that it has exited completely.

Next Follow These...

1. Copy "C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes" from XP backup to "C:\Users\yourusername\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes" in Win 7.

2. Copy "C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes" from XP backup to "C:\Users\yourusername\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes" in Win 7. (this look identical but notice Local Settings in path.

3. Copy "My Music\iTunes" (from my documents backup in win xp) to "My Music\iTunes" in Win 7 Libraries.

In above steps, replace with your user name (yourusername) in corresponding operating systems. Also, if you are like me, you would have moved My Documents from default location to separate drive. Remember to change the path accordingly.

Now start iTunes again.

All your music, playlists and settings are back. As if nothing happened.

Note that if you are in different systems, the path to removable drive should be same (such as F:) in both systems. Change the system drive letters, if need be to achieve this. Choose a path that is rarely used such as letters from M: / N: / O: etc.

Good Luck...

Changing Face of India, or, is it?

The new version of old DD classic national integration song "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" (old one, new part 1, part 2) has been released on Zoom. What a waste...

The new version lacked the soul and essence of old in spite of being 3 times longer. Not sure what are they trying to depict. None of the so called "heroes" are in a single frame. They don't want to share screen with each other and you are trying to depict national integration? I don't understand what is Karan Johar doing in this. At least, old one had 3 top actors of that time in single screen shot. Unity shows. You don't have to sing or act. It reflects.

Also, India is much beyond *ollywoods and musicians. We have great sports persons across shooting, chess, hockey and many other beside cricket, great scientists, great industrialists, great entrepreneurs, great social workers, great war heroes and of course, great politicians! And to say that none of the current living souls in India would qualify on proper merits and fill such a national integration song with bogus screen artistes is an insult to Indian citizens and India.

How much low would media go to gain TRPs and exploit us as a nation? We anyway don't have a news channel and I have to rely on BBC world to get meaningful news. We have horrible movie channels that elongate a 2.5 hour entertainment into 4 hr painful experience. And I have to pay to watch this s**t. I'm sick of Neo Cricket for not allowing us to see replays and watch the game on full TV with their cricket-in-an-ad broadcasts.

Capitalism is good, Capitalism-with-curry-and-tadka is bad. But perhaps this is what happens when Indians do it...

GM Diet Final Day

Well, it isn't working the way it supposed to be or hyped to be. I'm still 194 pounds on Day 7. Don't know if it was worth trying. Today is the final day and it is past lunch time... whatever "lunch" there it is...

After six and a half days, I'm still the same. Some people say that I look thinner but scale does not agree...

The most difficult part so far on this diet to me is 10 glasses of water every day. It is cold over here and you don't feel like drinking water that too at a rate of 1 glass every hour...

GM Diet Day 5

Till now, I'm able to follow the veg version of GM Diet. But I cheated today with a cup of tea, a la Indian, with sugar and milk.

Haven't seen much weight loss by this diet. Today morning I tipped the scales at 193 pounds. This is within the tolerance limit of original weight by measuring scale so could be that. Also, it is within the natural fluctuation of body weight so difficult to attribute this to diet plan (It could be also said that I lost more but the scale is showing positive variance).

However, I am now starting to disagree with the diet plan given in above link. If I do succeed in some weight loss, I'll evolve my own variant...

My natural fluctuation in body weight over the years has been between 80 to 90 kg (176 to 198 pounds). It is winter and a couple of kg less in this season may translate into natural shift to leaner me...

Let time be the witness...

Lovely Monsoon Rain... Finally in Noida

Finally, we had rain the way we wanted... full wrath of monsoon...

I enjoyed getting all soaked up and so did my family... getting wet in rain combined with dance music and Chivas Regal on the rocks is a damn good combination... so liberating... it made me forget the enormous loss I had in day today in margin trading on NSE...

Getting sober again now after all the fun... and it is still raining though the fury has subsided considerably.

N97 Maps?

The post at guardian claims that maps from Nokia don't work. I have an E90 and have been using maps for quite some time. They keep getting better with every new upgrade to phone OS. Though, I miss a couple of features from good old initial days in maps (easiness to mark a landmark on map is no longer there) but the quality and accuracy of these maps is awesome, even in India. Perhaps the author didn't know how to load maps using Nokia Map Loader...

I have use the maps, GPS navigation and voice guidance in USA as well as India on E90 and it has worked extremely well. The fact that maps are stored on phone memory (or in SD card, in my case) means that it is much faster to load (about 1 sec). GPS has worked very well and latest release has added location positioning from telcos towers while GPS signal is still being acquired to give a better initial experience.

Not to say that there isn't room for improvement, but I find it much better than various other options I have seen for its size.

I wish there was a video out on E90...

Belated Happy New Year!

Well, after long time, I get to post a happy new year greeting to all my blog readers... enjoy where you are.

I have been busy these times, with a course that I'm doing as well as customer engagements and traveling to US... haven't found breathing space yet but I need to start some anyway.

The really black "Black Friday"

The bargain hunting ritual of Black Friday needs to stop. It has increasingly become a pain to society. What happened yesterday had it coming for long. Shopping is celebrated in US and bargain hunting is seen as a sport. The scene outside shops resemble refugee camps of famished people waiting for first meal in years.

Worst part was when people refused to cooperate and kept "shopping". So much for civilized society and developed countries.

From The Horse's Mouth

Here you have, from the horse's mouth, enough clues to tell you what happened behind the curtains. It is very obvious, at least to me, that it is a case of deliberate distribution of nuclear weapons by a sovereign state. I also think that USA knew it all along about "America's Best Ally on War on Terror". Only when things went out of hand, US forced them to admit it and they made him an scapegoat. Scientist generally act in best interests of their nation. It is only the politicians who screw it up.

Do you believe this?

I can't believe the words coming from US diplomats, Rice and Bush. This article analyzes it in detail and I agree with most of what is written there. It is strange that growing corn prices are attributed to India, though, as I understand India consumes much less corn and our primary diet consists of rice and wheat. Corn is being increasingly used for biofuels and the money there is more than money on grain itself. Given that the size of arable land in world is limited and probably decreasing every year, spending valuable grain to produce energy is probably waste of an important resource. You can't grow grain in ocean... for now, that is. Until such innovations are possible, grain should be used more intelligently. India is a net exporter of grain so making these statements proves nothing. US needs to stop the dictatorship attitude that it has.

Edit: The data shows different reality... US consumption is about 1 ton per capita with an increase of 11% last year while Indian consumption is 0.15 ton per capita with an increase of 2% last year. And, US is still crying foul!!!... Looks like some people never get it... with oil threatening to touch $200, corn will probably follow similar trend...

Edit: Putting things in right perspective...

The New India: Part 2...

Here is another example about the new India... It is pity that mere 27 story building is being termed as skyscraper... still a long way to go...

Another Gruesome Story

This is horrible. Very filmi style. In an orthodox society such as India, this will create further apprehensions about adoption. I bet attention hungry morons at media channels will play adoption as a card to create stories like paraya khoon aakhir paraya hota hai...

We as a nation still have a long way to go to realize the value of a human life. The fact that we are billions+ is not helping either.

The New India

Well, here is an eye-opening article. For the people outside India, at current forex rate, 1 crore Indian Rupees is roughly equivalent to USD $250,783 (see at today's rate here). That's a lot of money, in any country. People are no longer hesitant to talk in millions of dollars.

With rupee appreciating the way it has been, it is hurting the indian economy. Though, these people may be justified in asking for huge sums of money, the gap is widening fast. Quoting above article, 

Noted economist Y K Alagh puts it in perspective when he says, “It’s the hype that counts. This is definitely a post liberalisation phenomena. But the stark difference between the haves and have nots is worrisome. Thousands of people are getting crores and crores of people are only getting thousands. That’s the irony.”

This is definitely a big warning. It is irony that huge population of India (~ 25% or 287 million people or roughly equal to population of USA) still lives on less than a dollar a day.

What?

I am feeling the need to write something, anything... Nothing on mind right now... Actually a lot on mind but since most of that is confidential, nothing is left to share as of now... weather has been crazy here in Bismarck. Yup, that is where I am in case I forget to mention about it, at latitude 46.78 and Longitude -100.75 in a small city. I have learned that Maza in this state is the smallest city in USA! Now I suddenly feel that I'm a BIG city :)

The Trick Shot...

What an elaborate setup and trick shot... Well, not really a trick shot in this but domino setup is well designed...