Now: Open Source People

Linking to this story from Slashdot.

The story talks about how surveillance cameras are being developed to be smarter so they can alert security personnel to suspicious persons real time and not after the incident.

The last line of the story is what bothers me. If I go to a country like the US and do something suspicious (most of the things that first time visitors to America do seems suspicious to security people there !) I may be tagged : by a surveillance camera no less ! Also, cameras can be developed to look inside my jacket to see if I am hiding a bomb. “Inside my jacket” !!!

Now, what is the need of spending money on all those expensive clothes next time you go to the US of A, I say !

Now, why didnt I think of this before !!!

Just got this brilliant idea…wait listen me out guys !

I think human beings live multiple lives at the same time. Not as in they have multiple personalities. But as in they are living as seperate individuals. Different human beings with seperate bodies, seperate brains but one unique soul. The soul is the operating system which shares memory for different lives. The soul is supporting multiple lives like the kernel of the operating system. We are all only able to access the application-interface of the operating system without knowing what is running underneath.
When one application is terminated or crashes (one life ends), it is replaced by other new apps (lives) or time is freed for the other applications to use. This time-sharing is done so efficiently by the operating system (soul) that we hardly ever notice. When we do notice, we get a sense of deja vu that we are all so familiar with …

Maar dala…maar dala…too maaaaaaaaaaaaaach !!!

Question for all patent lovers

What would you do if someone patented the login page on the internet ?

If you think that is a stupid question from an idealist moron, read this

Ads galore !

On my way back home from work on Friday night I saw a BEST bus. The exterior of the bus was painted KLUB green — which is normal these days. BEST has been renting out its bus exteriors as ad spaces to boost its revenues. What I did notice for the first time, though, was inside the bus, the handles which allow standing passengers to hang on to the bar were decorated with the ad of a famous FM station. Now, this opens up possibilities.

I suggest that we take a step further. Passengers should be asked to hold out placards depicting various ads in exchange for a discount on their bus fare. Maybe, if some of the passengers could recommend a product or two to their co-passengers on the bus, they could get a bigger discount. Once you board the bus, you could be asked to chose from a bunch of products that you would like to endorse for an incentive. For example, women could be ask to pick up a piece of jewellery and sport it while they ride on the bus and hold a sign informing others of the item they are endorsing.
BEST could decide to slot the products they would be endorsing. Non-AC buses could be used to endorse mundane products like soap, toothpaste etc. AC buses could be used to endorse more sophisticated products like cell-phones, cameras etc.
Now, if only I could patent this brilliant idea of mine…….

No more…no more !

Everything must end someday !

Tag here to someplace more interesting

In case you havent been following this case, it is taking an interesting turn.

In case you dont know what I am talking about, go read all the previous posts on this blog.

Status of IT industry

For some reason, I remembered a conversation I had with a friend in college. This was way back when we both were in our final year of Engineering. I was lucky enough to land a minor job in IT whereas this friend of mine was going to join a manufacturing unit as a junior engineer. The pay was about the same.
We were taking a walk in the hot sun mid-afternoon to get something to eat since our hostel mess was closed for the day. Suddenly, for no particular reason, he remarked about our futures. He pointed out that in a few months time, I would be happily sitting in front of a PC in a posh air-conditioned office whereas he would be slogging away in the heat on the workshop floor.

Now, why that struck me was that the level of responsibilities was the same in both jobs, the pay was same, the qualifications of the candidates were the same. So, why the difference in the working conditions ?
Way back, when the IT industry was still taking its baby steps in India, computers were fragile. We were told that we needed to have air-conditioning, humidity control, dirt-free environments etc to keep our PCs safe. This could have been a good reason for housing them in posh, clean air-conditioned offices.
These days, PCs are much more rugged. They are weather-proof, dirt-proof, humidity-proof and have better self-cooling mechanisms. Why, then, do we still have posh offices for the IT industry while most manufacturing units are the same. (I do understand that the working conditions in various industries have improved a lot…but still there is a gap) ?

This might have something to do with the status-factor attached to the IT industry. IT-ians are well-paid (as compared to similar positions in other industries), are much better-looked after by the society (dowry rates are always a good indicator of the value of different career streams)

But this is on the wane. There was a time when the IT career option was open only to Engineering graduates. The big four of IT (TCS, Satyam, Infosys and Wipro) never asked what type of skills were required. They just assumed that only engineers would fit the bill. That was when IT was new to India. The outsourcing freak had just started. Then came the BPO storm and blew away in its winds all other industries. Now, you need not aspire for that Engineering/Medical seat. You can complete your graduation from any college/university that is ready to offer you a seat (these days even a 12th class is a good enough qualification) and you had a very good chance of landing yourself a call-center job. All you needed was to learn how to roll your “R”s and stretch your “A”s in true American fashion.

As more and more IT and ITES work is outsourced to our companies, the quality of work we do has gone down (by quality, I am not implying the quality of the output, rather the nature of the work itself). As more and more of us are required to lend a helping hand, more and more folks from smaller towns and freshers with humbler educational credits are taking up these jobs.
Let us also look at another angle. The primary reason why work was being outsourced to India was the cost-effectiveness. With increasing salaries in India and the rate at which the cost of living is growing, this cost-effectiveness will take a definite hit. There will be more viable options in other countries. That could lead to one of two things: The Indian IT & ITES industry will slow down or the salaries will have to come down. Under both scenarios, we can forsee a future where the halo around this industry will start to diminish. What then ? What turn will the social status of IT-ians take ? Will they still be the stars of our country ? Will an alternate and more attractive career stream take over as the numero uno ?

These are questions whose answers will unravel inthe next 10-15 years. But does India have the ability and promise to create another such storm ?
We will look at this in future posts.

I am sitting on a goldmine !

According to this an average human being gets about 12000 thoughts per day . Wow !

Now, assuming I am an “average human being”, I too will get around 12000 thoughts per day. If I take one percent of those thoughts to be blog-able, I should have atleast 1200 post possibilities (remember, we are still talking per day here !)
Again, assuming I do get around to putting words around even 1 percent of those thoughts, I would still have 12 posts per day !!!

That would mean that I would end up being the only person with enough time to read my blog…

Hence, I have decided not to pursue that line of thought…..

What should we believe ?

I have written earlier that theologists make space in their observations for God. I have quoted Bertrand Russell as if I knew him and his arguments intimately.
But I sit and wonder this morning: Arent atheists also making space for unproven scientific postulates in their beliefs ? They are ever ready to believe that there are atoms and electrons so tiny that we cannot see them. But they have a problem believing (or even accepting the possibility) that there is a God who we cannot see. We talk about mathematics which is mostly what we human beings made up. Mathematics is our way of intrepreting nature. We create equations, we draw theorems in an effort to reconcile what we see. One of the biggest problems of mathematics is that atleast some part of it works purely with numbers without any other rope with the external world. Now, numbers are what we created. So, could it be all wrong ?

Now, there. I have taken both sides of the argument. I do not know what to believe.

Whenever, I have an argument with someone over the existence of God, I say this: Neither of us really knows if God exists for sure. We just chose to believe one of the two possibilities. There are , of course, very strong reasons for doing so: these could be emotional, logical, cultural etc. But like everything else in the world, these beliefs could change. And like any other personal belief, it is a good idea to keep questioning it and not be dogmatic about it.

Freedom: Where are we headed ?

We have talked about freedom and patents earlier. There is a growing debate in our society on whether we should allow a few people to bind the world down with patents or let the creativity flow by keeping everything free. This is a crucial juncture in our civilization. A lot depends on what we decide. There are two things that can happen now:

Let us first look at the scenario where everything is patented:
There are very few ideas being generated because the source of ideas are not free to be used. For example, you could not read my blog and then build on some of the points I raise here because I would have patented those points. And I would choose to charge anyone who wants to discuss those points. So, slowly, the world could come to a complete standstill. There would be no competition in our markets. (to take a very simplistic example: there would be only one tea seller in the entire of Mumbai because he/she would patent the business model of selling tea on the roadside). To take a most pessimistic viewpoint, Humanity would stutter to its end.

Let us now look at the other scenario where we are free to use and build on other’s ideas/products:
At first, there would be anarchy. People would steal others’ ideas and pass them off as their own. There would be no way to make out who created what. But slowly, the dust would settle. People would start coming up with creative ideas (mostly because the market does not like repetition or repackaging: take hindi movies for examples). More importantly, people would start building on each others’ ideas. They would start customizing everything: software, appliances, designer clothes. There would be a million versions of every new design as soon as some one created it — and each version would be unique in its own way..improving over the original, building on it.
Where would that lead us as a society ? We would be more tolerant of each other (as no one would really own anything and there would be no lack of trust). We would have goods custom-built for us. There would be more individuality.
Also, the creative freedom would mean faster development.

I want to write more…but I want to take a pause and let all this sink in. Am I taking this too far ? Am I making the “society without patents” thing look more endearing than it really is ? Are patents really that bad ? Can a “free society” really be that good ?

Your comments are requested…