RBI 3D-Secure mess -- Credit cards forcing people to pay foreign currency transaction charges
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Recently, I was trying to book a hotel through Agoda.com and the payment was consistently failing on my HDFC Bank credit card. I had faced this issue with other international sites earlier, but switching to my (secondary) SBI credit card allowed me to get the job done. In this instance, however, even SBI wasn't able to fix the situation.
I called up the HDFC Bank call center and explained the issue to them. They gave me the standard BS of "something must be wrong in the system, please try again after some time." I insisted that the issue was at their end and threw some payment jargon to prove my point -- I know a fair bit of the payment card industry internals and the complete mess that the RBI 3d-secure mandate is. The fellow tells me that the only way the transaction can go through is, if I select a non-INR currency on the website. Truly WTF! I bit the bullet and paid in Thai Baht, but was hit by a foreign currency transaction charges @ 3.5% of the transaction value -- as expected.
And now I'm pissed.
If Agoda (or PayPal) has the ability to charge my card in INR, why the fuck is my bank forcing me to pay in a foreign currency? You know why? Because from Day One the RBI 3D-secure mandate has not clarified what would happen if a card issued in India is charged by a non-VBV enabled merchant based out of India. And banks are doing what they do best -- slapping people with unnecessary charges.
[1] Btw, Agoda.com highly recommended for hotel deals in Thailand. Best rates!
I called up the HDFC Bank call center and explained the issue to them. They gave me the standard BS of "something must be wrong in the system, please try again after some time." I insisted that the issue was at their end and threw some payment jargon to prove my point -- I know a fair bit of the payment card industry internals and the complete mess that the RBI 3d-secure mandate is. The fellow tells me that the only way the transaction can go through is, if I select a non-INR currency on the website. Truly WTF! I bit the bullet and paid in Thai Baht, but was hit by a foreign currency transaction charges @ 3.5% of the transaction value -- as expected.
And now I'm pissed.
If Agoda (or PayPal) has the ability to charge my card in INR, why the fuck is my bank forcing me to pay in a foreign currency? You know why? Because from Day One the RBI 3D-secure mandate has not clarified what would happen if a card issued in India is charged by a non-VBV enabled merchant based out of India. And banks are doing what they do best -- slapping people with unnecessary charges.
[1] Btw, Agoda.com highly recommended for hotel deals in Thailand. Best rates!
The Importance Of Good Copy
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Very often I come across websites where copy is written as an afterthought. I cringed when I read this:
Can you guess which type of product this is for?
Can you guess which type of product this is for?
And the answer is...
Labels: web
Ads on Google homepage ?!
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Just noticed this link on the Google India home page It's some dumb contest in association with LiveHindustan.com about "sharing your thoughts in Hindi". Wonder how much they paid for Google to do this.
Labels: random
10 Things To Do In Mumbai On A Lazy Saturday
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Next Saturday, ditch your neighbourhood mall and see Mumbai like a tourist!
1. Go to the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), stand at the centre of the ground floor, and look up. Gaze with awe at the architectural beauty. Enjoy the criss-crossing stairs and galleries, wooden floors, and flawlessly white & cream walls. Ignore the crass marketing disguised as art by Louis Vuitton.
1. Go to the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), stand at the centre of the ground floor, and look up. Gaze with awe at the architectural beauty. Enjoy the criss-crossing stairs and galleries, wooden floors, and flawlessly white & cream walls. Ignore the crass marketing disguised as art by Louis Vuitton.
2. Feel sorry for the foreigners paying 15 times the entry fee. (Rs 10 for indians vs Rs 150 for foreigners).
3. Read the plaque at the ticket counter. Appreciate the value of money and inflation. (the gallery was built with a donation of 4 lakh rupees only)
4. Visit the Prince of Wales museum, now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaja Vastu Sangralaya. Realize that you haven't noticed the magnificent building since you've come to Mumbai. Feel sorry for the foreigners again.
5. Feel sorry for Indians for not getting the audio guide free with the Rs 25 entry ticket. Put the money and take it anyway.
6. Be an Indian and economise by taking only one for two people and share!
7. Leisurely enjoy each and every exhibit. Read the signage in Hindi, if you can. Wonder whether reading in Hindi is harder because of the infrequent usage or because of the crappy fonts.
8. Get bored, tired, and hungry. Head to samovar for a bite. Enjoy the street art gallery on your way. Get your name on a grain of rice if you're feeling really touristy.
9. Have the overpriced and tasteless aaloo paratha at samovar. Wonder what the fuss is all about.
10. Catch a bus home for a change. Save some money and reduce your carbon footprint as well.
Labels: mumbai
Water wars are very near
Friday, December 25, 2009
My conversation with a puncture mechanic in a truck terminal. (read the English translation instead)
Me: Iska puncture paani mein daal ke check nahin kar sakte kya?
Mechanic: Nahin, paani nahin hai.
Me: Kyon? Toh le aayo
Mechanic: Arre yahaan peene ke liye paani nahin milta, puncture kahaan se check karein
Me: Kyon?
Mechanic: Paani khareedna padta hai
Me: Kitne ka milta hai?
Mechanic: 10 rupye ka dabba aata hai?
Me: Kitna bada hota hai dabba? Utna bada? (pointing to a largish black can)
Mechanic: Nahin, woh 30 rupye ka hota hai.
Me: Kahaan se khareedte ho?
Mechanic: Woh, wahaan, sandaas se
Me: Kya? (visibly shocked!)
Mechanic: Haan, haath-munh dhone ke liye wahin se paani milta hai
Me: Aur peene ke liye? Woh bhi khareedna padta hai?
Mechanic: Haan, magar woh yahaan se milta hai (pointing to what seemed like a government office in the middle of the truck terminal)
Me: Kitne ka?
Mechanic: Yeh chai-waala kucch hazaar rupye deta hai maheene ke. Agar isse chai loh to paane peene deta hai, nahin to mana kar deta hai.
The Wadala truck terminal is situated bang opposite IMAX & Bhakti Park - a well-off housing colony (where I stay), which receives 24hr water supply. I do not know how the housing society manages a 24 hr water supply, but now I know what the people right across the road have to go through.
Shocking!
[English translation]
Me: Can't you check the puncture by dipping the tube it in water?
Mechanic: No, I don't have water
Me: Why? Then get it
Mechanic: We don't get water to drink around here, how do you expect me to get water for this?
Me: Why?
Mechanic: We have to buy water
Me: How much does it cost?
Mechanic: 10 rupees for a can
Me: How big? That size? (pointing to a largish black can)
Mechanic: No, that costs 30 rupees
Me: Where do you buy it from?
Mechanic: There from the toilet
Me: What? (visibly shocked!)
Mechanic: Yes, but only for washing up & bathing
Me: And what about drinking water, you have to buy that too?
Mechanic: Yes, but that we get from here (pointing to what seemed like a government office in the middle of the truck terminal)
Me: How much?
Mechanic: This tea-stall owner pays about 1000 rupees for a month. If you buy tea from him, he lets you drink water, else he refuses.
Me: Iska puncture paani mein daal ke check nahin kar sakte kya?
Mechanic: Nahin, paani nahin hai.
Me: Kyon? Toh le aayo
Mechanic: Arre yahaan peene ke liye paani nahin milta, puncture kahaan se check karein
Me: Kyon?
Mechanic: Paani khareedna padta hai
Me: Kitne ka milta hai?
Mechanic: 10 rupye ka dabba aata hai?
Me: Kitna bada hota hai dabba? Utna bada? (pointing to a largish black can)
Mechanic: Nahin, woh 30 rupye ka hota hai.
Me: Kahaan se khareedte ho?
Mechanic: Woh, wahaan, sandaas se
Me: Kya? (visibly shocked!)
Mechanic: Haan, haath-munh dhone ke liye wahin se paani milta hai
Me: Aur peene ke liye? Woh bhi khareedna padta hai?
Mechanic: Haan, magar woh yahaan se milta hai (pointing to what seemed like a government office in the middle of the truck terminal)
Me: Kitne ka?
Mechanic: Yeh chai-waala kucch hazaar rupye deta hai maheene ke. Agar isse chai loh to paane peene deta hai, nahin to mana kar deta hai.
The Wadala truck terminal is situated bang opposite IMAX & Bhakti Park - a well-off housing colony (where I stay), which receives 24hr water supply. I do not know how the housing society manages a 24 hr water supply, but now I know what the people right across the road have to go through.
Shocking!
[English translation]
Me: Can't you check the puncture by dipping the tube it in water?
Mechanic: No, I don't have water
Me: Why? Then get it
Mechanic: We don't get water to drink around here, how do you expect me to get water for this?
Me: Why?
Mechanic: We have to buy water
Me: How much does it cost?
Mechanic: 10 rupees for a can
Me: How big? That size? (pointing to a largish black can)
Mechanic: No, that costs 30 rupees
Me: Where do you buy it from?
Mechanic: There from the toilet
Me: What? (visibly shocked!)
Mechanic: Yes, but only for washing up & bathing
Me: And what about drinking water, you have to buy that too?
Mechanic: Yes, but that we get from here (pointing to what seemed like a government office in the middle of the truck terminal)
Me: How much?
Mechanic: This tea-stall owner pays about 1000 rupees for a month. If you buy tea from him, he lets you drink water, else he refuses.
Labels: mumbai
Another cute error message
Monday, August 03, 2009
Firefox seems to be getting a personality too! This error message, which I saw the first thing after starting up my laptop, made me smile :-)
So, it's not only web applications that have cute error messages, now.
A post I made earlier about Flickr's "down for maintenance" message.
So, it's not only web applications that have cute error messages, now.
A post I made earlier about Flickr's "down for maintenance" message.
Labels: random
How to make your Hive cluster blazingly fast
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Squeeze it! Literally.
Always, always, always - compress your tables. Most of your Hive query execution time is not going into doing complex computations. Aggregates, averages, and counts across tons of weblog data are not exactly computationally complex. It's the reading & writing of tons of data that's taking time.
In computer science parlance, it's not CPU bound, it's I/O bound.
If your data is already compressed (which in all probability, is the case), then nothing can beat the speed at which you can import it into Hive. Simply use the LOAD DATA LOCAL command to load compressed files into a TextFile table. Hive will automatically detect the compression and decompress on-the-fly when executing queries.
Leaving aside the data import times, here are some (unscientific) benchmarks for a SELECT COUNT(1) query on my raw data tables. From 106 sec down to 60 sec. At 10% of the storage space.
Now, each of these tables was put through a moderately complex Hive query [1], which processed the data using two custom map/reduce scripts, and inserted the procssed data into a new table. Sure, the initial ETL phase is not significantly faster, but look at the amount of space I'm saving.
I'll try to run some complex queries on the table with processed data to compared between compressed and uncompressed storage.
Learn how to compress your Hive tables at Hive Wiki – Compressed Storage
[1] Take a look at the section titled "Processing the raw data (ETL)" here
[2] I forgot to record the table size before dropping the table :-)
Always, always, always - compress your tables. Most of your Hive query execution time is not going into doing complex computations. Aggregates, averages, and counts across tons of weblog data are not exactly computationally complex. It's the reading & writing of tons of data that's taking time.
In computer science parlance, it's not CPU bound, it's I/O bound.
If your data is already compressed (which in all probability, is the case), then nothing can beat the speed at which you can import it into Hive. Simply use the LOAD DATA LOCAL command to load compressed files into a TextFile table. Hive will automatically detect the compression and decompress on-the-fly when executing queries.
Leaving aside the data import times, here are some (unscientific) benchmarks for a SELECT COUNT(1) query on my raw data tables. From 106 sec down to 60 sec. At 10% of the storage space.
| Storage | Row count | Table size | Query time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uncompressed | 8,259,720 | 7,686 MB | 106 sec |
| Compressed – GzipCodec (RECORD) | 8,259,720 | 4,773 MB | 101 sec |
| Compressed – native gzip | 8,259,720 | 736 MB | 60 sec |
Now, each of these tables was put through a moderately complex Hive query [1], which processed the data using two custom map/reduce scripts, and inserted the procssed data into a new table. Sure, the initial ETL phase is not significantly faster, but look at the amount of space I'm saving.
| Storage | Resultant row count | Resultant table size | Query time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uncompressed | 1,561,633 | 1,608 MB | 699 sec |
| Compressed – GzipCodec (RECORD) | 1,561,633 | N/A [2] | 563 sec |
| Compressed – native gzip | 1,561,633 | 86 MB | 510 sec |
I'll try to run some complex queries on the table with processed data to compared between compressed and uncompressed storage.
Learn how to compress your Hive tables at Hive Wiki – Compressed Storage
[1] Take a look at the section titled "Processing the raw data (ETL)" here
[2] I forgot to record the table size before dropping the table :-)
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