Interesting interview case studies

One of my friends was asked this at an EVS interview.

Estimate the number of people that use the MG Road (that's the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road - a major road connecting Delhi and Gurgaon) in a day.

Or you could probably try this one

Estimate the number of crows in the IIT Kanpur campus.

Do post your analysis as comments - I would surely like to know you approach.

Royal Technology Mission of Sweden visits Evalueserve

Yesterday, Novermber 24, 2005, Evalueserve's Cyberpark office was visited by the Royal Technology Mission of Sweden. Apart from H. M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden himself, the delegation comprised of about 40 who's-who of Sweden - Ambassadors, Heads of Universities, and top honchos of companies such as Electrolux, Ericsson, Volvo, Saab were in our office.

The event was supposed to create a furore in the media - Evalueserve was supposed to get a lot of coverege resulting in a lot of brand equity for the company. But sadly enough the entire trip has been a damp squib. I could come up with only three news articles regarding the event and none of them even mentions Gurgaon, leave alone Evalueserve.

I guess I should get used to such conversations:

Them: Where do you work?
Me: At a firm called Evalueserve.
Them: Eval... what?
Me: E-Value-Serve.
Them: Oh, E-Serve?
Me: No, that's different. E-Serve and Evalueserve are not related.
Them: Is it a BPO?
Me: No, it's a KP... we're into knowledge services.
Them: What do you do there?
Me: I'm into Intellectual property, you know - patents, copyrights, etc.
Them (thinking): Poor fellow, could not get a decent job in Infosys or TCS even after IIT.



From L to R: Sweden's King - Carl Gustaf, Evalueserve's COO - Ashish Gutpa, Unkown, Unkown, Evalueserves CEO - Marc Vollenweider


Marc doing the honours. I wonder if either of them knows what that piece of cloth is for ;-) (PS: Neither do I!! Anyone care to explain what this symbolizes?)



Marc giving a speech. We weren't allowed to attent the conference, so don't know what it was all about - but this guy is an excellent speaker!

Device that detects shitty smells!

Got to US Patent 6,966,840 from a post on the Patently-O blog. Here's what the abstract reads:

A novelty device that makes humorous statements when a person is having a bowel movement in a confined bathroom. The device includes an automated character, such as a bird in a birdcage, a skunk with a gasmask or some other character. Within the device is a gas sensor for detecting at least one gas emitted during a bowel movement. The device also includes a speaker for transmitting an audible message. When gases from a bowel movement are detected, audible statements are transmitted and synchronized movements are effected in the automated character.

Notice the part where it says "The device includes an automated character, such as a bird in a birdcage..." - Yeah right! Who wouldn't want to be Long John Silver in the loo with a parrot that goes "Ark, ark - Bloody Farter!"

:-D

PJ of the day!

Got this in an e-mail forward today... thank god it didn't have any cheesy lines like "Send this to 12 other idiots and you'll be an idiot yourself, or else..." Though it did have the 10,000 blank lines interspersed with "Scroll down some more" before you finally reach the punch line!

There once was a Red Indian whose given name was "Onestone". So named because he had only one testicle. He hated that name and asked everyone not to call him Onestone.

After years and years of torment, Onestone finally cracked and said, "If anyone calls me Onestone again I will kill them!" The word got around and nobody called him that any more.

Then one day a young woman named Blue Bird forgot and said, "Good morning, Onestone." He jumped up, grabbed her and took her deep into the forest where he made love to her all day and all night. He made love to her all the next day, until Blue Bird died from exhaustion.

The word got around that Onestone meant what he promised he would do. Years went by and no one dared call him by his given name until a woman named Yellow Bird returned to the village after being away for many years.

Yellow Bird, who was Blue Bird's cousin, was overjoyed when she saw Onestone. She hugged him and said, "Good to see you, Onestone."

Onestone grabbed her, took her deep into the forest, then he made love to her all day, made love to her all night, made love to her all the next day, made love to her all the next night, but Yellow Bird wouldn't die!

What is the moral of this story?

...You can't kill two birds with one stone!!

Muahahahahaha!

Site updates!

Updated the blog roll section (see column on the right)...

And if you're into blogging too (reading and/or writing) - do take a look at Google Reader (still in beta). It's the best news aggregator you'll ever have! With it you can waste time at office as efficiently as at home!

Also, check out Del.icio.us - I don't know whether it'll prove to be useful - but it's a good time pass - at least for now!

Gotta sleep now... zzzzzzz....

A Punjabi Wedding: Chapter 1 - Sai Baba Keertan and Cocktail Party

This is the second post in a series of posts.

Sai Baba Keertan, Sunday
Just like the first class in the morning (which was usually at the unearthly hour of 8:00 AM - who the fuck gets up at 8:00 AM anyways!) I missed the first ceremony of the marriage :-) In case you're making the obvious inference that the keertan was at 8:00 AM - you're wrong! It was in the evening. I didn't go cuz I was lazy - he he! Why the fuck wants to attend a keertan anyways!

On the insistence of a friend, I had once attended a jagraata, it was insane. People singing bhajans, at the top of their voices and dancing as if they're possessed or something! If you look at it, except for the music and lighting arrangement, it's almost like a rock concert or a disc!

Cocktail Party, Monday
I'm the last person who'd miss his a chance to fill up at a free booze party :-P A friend of mine had come over to stay at my place (hereinafter referred to as the Unidentifiable Friend), and with me scooting off for thr free booze party he'd be left alone at home. So I called up my cousin's place:

Me: Hi! What time should I reach your place?
Cousin's Sister: About 7:30 - 8:00... we'll leave around that time.
Me: Can I bring one of my friend's too?
CS: Actually, we are going to 'their' place and only about 20 from 'our side' are going... let me ask...
CS (to her father): Papa, he wants to bring a friend along
[Random voices, people shouting, heavens falling, shit happening]
CS (finally to me): Umm... ya, you can bring, I guess it'll be okay.. well, yes....
Me (to myself): Okay, okay, I get the point!

This brings us to a very important Rule #1 -

Rule #1: There exists a certain limit on the number of people which can go from hamaari taraf se to unke yahaan pe when the party/ceremony is being hosted at unke yahaan pe
Corollary of Rule #1: You cannot bring friends over when you're going over to unke wahaan pe.

So the Unidentifiable Friend had to stay at home - sorry dude!

After a lot of hunting for partywear at home I was finally wearing a black sweater/pullover and cuordroy pants - the sweater borrowed from the Unidentifiable Friend (the irony of it all!)

So I rushed to my cousin's place and reached there at 7:45 PM only to find 9 missed calls on my cell (which btw, was on silent mode) - and all the 19 people standing outside waiting for me (I was the 20th).

As I neared them, wearing the widest grin humanly possible I could notice each one of them was giving me dirty looks. All the men were wearing suits - with ties! Me, I was in a casual sweater and cuordroy pants. Wrong choice!

That brings us to Rule #2.

Rule #2: For men, the safest attire is business suits. Anything else will be frowned upon by someone or the other.

And those strange looks were the one thing that were going to be constant throughout the night.

After about 45 mins of weaving throught the Gurgaon-Delhi traffic we finally reached the venue. Like normal people attending a party I expected everyone would enter as-and-when they arrived - but no! When you're from ladke waalon ki taraf se and are going to attend a ceremony at the ladki waalon ki taraf you have to make a grand entry. You wait till the entire brigade of five cars has arrived, everyone has assembled, and the troupe is lined up in some strategic manner, known only to the buzurg in the family.

And when you enter the pandaal you find that the entire ladkiwaale are standing at the entrace with folded hands and a line of waiters aka stewards aka dirty-old-men-carrying-trays-with-yummy-snacks standing besides them - all waiting to welcome you!

baamullaza hoshiyaar, shehen shahon ke shehenshaah, hukumat-e-hindustaan, apne parivaar sahit, ladke waale, padhaar rahe haaaaaaain!!!

Well almost!

That brings us to Rule #3

Rule #3: When attending a ceremony organized at unke yahaan pe it is your moral duty as the invitee to enter in full strength, splendor, and glory!

I hardly knew anyone! I slipped passed the ladkiwaala brigade waiting to give us the majestic bow, and headed straight for the snacks! Yummy! Well, this was supposed to be a cocktail party, so the booze was next on my agenda... Tequila with orange juice... tasty!

The venue was the courtyard of a school (the bride owns and runs a kindergarten school). The entire courtyard was covered with a ghastly red coloured carpet. The place was floodlit like they were going to have a day-and-night cricket match between the ladkawaalas and the ladkiwaalas!

So, there I was, standing in some obscure corner with a drink in my hand, feeling terribly out of place - wearing only a pullover (what no suit!), and watching the 'dance floor' with aunties, uncles, and kids of all shapes and sizes trying to shake their respective booties!

I was able to dodge umpteen requests for joining the so called 'dance' on pretext of "aap chalo, main bas drink finish karke aata hoon"! Until my cousin's sister (who, surprisingly, is also my cousin, but to prevent any confusion there are two people I'm talking about, (a) cousin - who's getting married, and (b) cousin's sister - who's already married) finally figured out that I was having a drink too many. She finally pulled me onto the dance floor, at the precise time when the 'DJ' decided to stop playing the typical punjabi numbers and moved on to some Boney M. numbers! And there I was trying to be the 'Daddy Cool' on the dance floor when everyone else had stopped dead and was giving dirty looks to the poor DJ!

That brings us to Rule #4

Rule #4: You're not a good DJ if you cannot play non-stop Punjabi numbers and play the latest hindi hit at least ten times during the night.
Corallary to Rule #4: No good DJ ever plays at marriage parties.

So finally, the DJ relented, and started with Kajaraare kajaraare tere kaale kaale naina! And the dance floor was rockin' once again!

The 'to-be' bride and groom were almost 24x7 on the dance floor.

The party ended at 12:00 midnight when someone finally remembered that the Supreme Court orders were to stop all loud music at 10:00 PM.

We, the ladkawaalas, finally left when everyone had had dinner - the entire troupe all together!

A Punjabi Wedding: Introduction and TOC

Introduction
Last week was hectic. A cousin of mine was getting married.

It was the first wedding in the family that I was attending - I had never been able to attend any relative's marriage earlier. During school days it was almost impossible going anywhere from my boarding school at Ajmer (Mayo College). And at IIT, who the fuck wants to attend marriages when there are more interesting things to do in the campus!

So, as I was saying, last week was hectic. I never knew marriages could be such elaborate affairs - this one lasted for one complete week! After the entire affair was over and done with, I realized a marriage is probably the best place to study the psyche of an Indian family and how relationships within it are managed and maintained.

As I began writing down this post I realized I could make it into a mini-novel, complete, with table of contents, et al :-)

So here goes, the first post in the series...

Table of Contents

• Introduction and Table of Contents
• Sai Baba Keertan and Cocktail Party
• Mehndi and Sangeet
• Sagan Ceremony
• The D-Day: Wedding Ceremony
• Reception Dinner
• Epilogue

Oxymorons!

I think the ad agency for Sonata got it all wrong! Who would want a watch with a tagline that goes - "Waqt se do kadam aage" (Two steps ahead of time)! :-D

What is Intellectual Property (IP)?

At the risk of oversimplifying the entire concept of 'Intellectual Property', I'll try explaining, in simple English, what I'm currently working with at Evalueserve. So here goes...

Let's first see what the conventional notion of prorty is. You can claim your rights over property. For example, that piece of land is mine - you can't build a house on it without my permission. That pen is mine - you can't write with it without my permission. You can even physically prevent a person from building on your land or writing with your pen. You can physically verify whether that person is using your land, pen, car, whatever.

The concept of intellectual property is basically the concept of "ideas over which you can claim your rights." For example, you can't use compound XYZ to cure flu - that's my idea. You can't write a webpage which let's you buy a book using a single mouse click - that's my idea! (That's an actual patent owned by Amazon! And that's just one of the nasty patents owned by them!)

To be able to assert your rights over a certain physical property you first need to prove your ownership of that property. For example, to claim a piece of land as your own you need to have it registered in your name. To claim a vehicle as your own, you need to have an RC (registration certificate) in your name. To claim a pen as your own (I don't know when you'll need to do that!) you'll probably need a proof of purchase - a sales receipt - for that pen.

Similary, to assert your rights over an IP you need to prove that you own that IP. How can one prove that he/she owns an idea? It's absurd if you really think of it! What does owning an idea actually mean?

Let's take the case of physical property first. In the context of physical property owning can be thought to mean exclusivity. If I build my house on this piece land, you can't. If you eat my food, I get to eat less. So basically, if someone else uses your physical property you will be deprived of that property in some sense or the other.

What about IP? If I employ the idea of using aspirin to prevent heart attacks*, what does it deprive you of? Even you can use the same idea! One subtle difference here is, the issue of importance is not the aspirin - it's the concept of "using an aspiring to prevent heart attacks". Obviously, if I use up the only aspirin in the house to cure my headache you're surely going to die of the impending heart attack! But you can, in theory, go out and get another aspirin and use that to prevent your heart attack instead of your headache. You can still use the idea.

So, if by sharing my ideas, I'm not being deprived of anything, why the need to own IP in the first place? Sample this: You, or your company, has spent a million odd bucks to research this new compound which can lower the levels of cholestrol in the human body. After years of hard work you finally start marketing a drug based on that compound And the day you release the drug in the market, your Chinese competitor reverse engineers it and is selling the same drug for peanuts! Where does that leave you? Would any individual (or company) ever want to invest huge monies in research only to be washed away by cheap competition in the market? How would they get their ROI (new term I learnt :-) Return On Investment!)

This is were IP steps in. By filing a patent in the patent office you stake a claim that the concept/idea of doing such-and-such thing was conceived by me, and no one else can use it without my permission. The patent office then examines your claim and checks whether it's valid. They check for prior art - which basically means they make sure no one else has done the same thing before. If your idea is indeed novel, you're awarded the patent and then you can assert your rights over the IP. In short, you own the idea! Weird, huh?

BUT, but, but - you can't file a patent for an idea alone! Contradicting myself, am I? No! On paper at least, you can't patent a pure idea. You have to patent an embodiment of the idea. For example, you can't patent the concept of manufacturing pens. You have to patent an actual machine which manufactures pens. You have to submit drawings of the machine along with details of how it works to be awarded a patent. No one else can use the same kind of machine to manufacture pens. However, one may use a totally different kind of machine. Your machine employed drawing pen bodies from molten plastic, my machine employes casting pen bodies, or whatever!

BUT, but, but - it seems you in fact can patent ideas! Many countries have things like 'business method patents' and 'software patents' - which complicate everything up! More on such stuff in later posts! This is long enough for now :-)

* Note: The original 'inventors' of aspirin were not aware of it's ability to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Therefore, this idea was novel! I'm not sure whether the newly found use was patented or not! On a separate not read this - History of Aspirin.

Review: Salaam Namaste

Had 'abandoned' this review some time back. Thought of completing and posting it today.

Executive summary of the review:
Good movie, hot Preity Zinta, cool Saif Ali Khan, idiotically hilarious Javed Jaffrey, surprisingly different and funny Abhishek Bacchan, PATHETIC music, and two monstrous pre-natal babies.

Full text of the review:
Salaam Namaste has a yummy looking Preity Zinta, she's looking a tad old - but hey what the heck, she's lost weight! One advice though - "Don't show your belly Preity! You look pretty unpretty with that deshaped navel of yours!" Then there's Saif, with Superman knickers and Playboy boxers.

Ambar (Zinta) is an RJ @ Salaam Namaste - an Indian radio channel @ Melbourne. Nick is the chef cum architech who can't get up early in the morning, and Ambar is the modern girl with an attitude. Ambar screws Nick's (Saif) happiness on-air when he doesn't turn up for an early morning live interview. That leads to a lot of kashamkash between the two with the regular ladna-jhagadna, flirting-shirting that ends up with Ambar and Nick living-in together. The rest of the movie is all about the trials and tribulations of a live-in couple with Ambar getting pregnant and Nick not wanting to take the responsibilty. Zinta does another "Kya Kehna" by not aboring the kid - and in the end makes Saif realize what a dork he's been. A happy-happy ending!

Salaam-Namaste treats the subject of an Indian couple living-in together pretty well. Even sex before marriage is shown- that's like social Hara-kiri! And btw - there's one or two nice smooch scenes out there :-)

Javed Jaffrey is a treat! You'll ROFL when he comes on the screen! I've seen nothing like it before. Debonair (and that's a characted in the movie) - Ambar's boss @ Salaam Namaste Radio Station - was overplayed. Could've skipped.

The last few minutes of the movie, where Ambar and another woman are delivering their babies in the same room is a laugh riot with a surprise package - Abhishek Bacchan - YES! I feel the scene was copied from some Hollywood movie - though I couldn't figure out which. Abhishek Bacchan is amazing though!

The movie drags on during the middle - but it's worth a watch. If nothing else Javed Jaffrey will pull you through :-D

Help in VB!

Yes - I'm coding in VB!! I'm writing an MS Excel macro to automate some tasks here @ EVS and I've run into a strange problem. Please see if you can help me out!

In short: How do I return an object from a function and make sure that the returned object retains *all* the member variables? I think it's called a 'deep copy' - I may be wrong.

In Long: Read the inline comments...

Function A(ByVal x As String) As MSHTML.HTMLDocument

'creates an object of type MSHTML.HTMLDocument
'and does some stuff with it
'now the *entire* object needs to be returned back
Set A = tempObj

End Function

Sub B()

Dim obj As MSHTML.HTMLDocument
Set obj=A("xyz")

'Run-time error in the following statement cuz the object which obj refers to
'does not have all the member variables
'objects within the object are discarded, for example obj.body (an object of IHTMLElement) is 'Nothing'
'when in fact it should have lots of things!
Msgbox(obj.getElementById("link1"))

End Sub

Google Sings!

...and another reason why Google is such an awesome company is cuz it releases cool songs to promote its new services! Check out Get lost and found on your phone, complete with lyrics :-D

Random Stuff

#1
Spotted an article by Pankaj Jalote (Professor, CSE, IIT Kanpur) in The Economic Times (Delhi Edition, Monday, November 07, 2005) on Page 11 (sorry, no online version available). The articles entitles "The Research Edge" and the teaser text is "A PhD degree is structured around three core skill sets, preparing candidates to be competent researchers. Pankaj Jalore examines..."

#2
Read the first two paragraphs of the prologue of One Night @ The Call Center (ON@TCC). This guy knows how to tell a story and surely knows how to immediately bond with the reader. How many of us have looked up the reservation charts to check out the females travelling in the compartment! And the book is priced at just Rs 95! Who would go for the pirated version with crappy printing and the self-destructing book binding when the original is just a hundred bucks (c'mon - that's cheaper than your average pizza out there!)

I didn't read Five Point Someone, but I'll surely read ON@TCC! The fellow's got me hooked. Btw, Dubey is in the drawing room lapping it up before he catches his flight in another two hours! Pure masaala story telling!

#3
Happy Belated Diwali! I guess I'd hop into the "Happy Diwali Bandwagon" too, what, with the 30+ mass mailed "Happy Diwali Spam" (thanks to Orkut) in my inbox!

Diwali was fun, with lots of kaaju ki barfi, eating out, and meeting up with friends. I'm sure I've gained atleast three more kilos with the incessant eating that I've been upto during the past one week!

On the D-day, I got bored after lighting exactly one chikkarginni, two chatais, two anaars (btw - they call if 'flower pot' in English - wtf!), and a couple of bombs! And the rest of the time I was wondering what the fuck made it so interesting when I was a kid! And btw - these were last year's left over crackers, and they're still left over!

Had a small reunion of school friends at Cafe Coffee Day from where we moved on to my place for an improptu daaroo party :-D It was fun meeting up with old friends and discussing school bhasad and reliving past crushes ;-)

Gotta sleep now...