Sameer Agarwal

There are a million and one passwords that I have. Bank accounts, Credit cards, Demat account, Trading account, Computers, Mobile Phone, Email, Social Networking sites, you name it… Sometimes multiple passwords for the same thing. For example, a bank account comes with an ATM PIN and a telephone PIN and an internet banking ID and a regular internet banking password and a transaction internet banking password; and then there’s your account number and your IFSC code and all that jazz!

Phew.. How much are you supposed to remember man! Programs like OpenID are trying to solve this but am not sure how widely used they will be. One often hears about biometric passwords but again such a setup hasn’t seen any ‘integrated’/networked commercial success yet to my knowledge. I’m sure it will happen some day but till that happens one will but need to create some sort of a register (paper or digital) to note all these numbers and passwords down I guess. Of course such a register comes with the BIG risk of theft. Guess it’s a trade-off between relying on your memory or your locker!

Oh yeah I am and I feel like kicking myself. For months now I’ve been thinking of an idea to link up the stock market with social networking. I mean using the “wisdom of crowds” to decide which stock to pick. After all don’t we follow tips given by analysts and friends!

Good idea, yeah… but the trouble is that I just kept thinking and someone else executed! Stumbled across CafeStocks which is still in beta doing exactly the same thing that I kept thinking about for several months. I mean it’s exactly the same thing that I was thinking – sharing tips, ranking stocks based on tips received, ranking people who provide tips, the works! 

So many times we just think, and think, and do nothing beyond it. I remember Michael Dale (corporate trainer) once saying this, and it’s so apt:

You’ve it all figured out in your mind. Now DO IT!

Hope I take some learning from this and don’t miss the bus the next time I’ve some idea.

The IT City, aka Bangalore, still grapples with electricity and water. While there are scheduled power cuts for almost 18 hrs in a week (thanks to Bangalore Mirror for publishing) an equal number or more hours of cut are unscheduled. Well that’s a routine now and I guess I’m not cribbing yet! After all my apartment complex has a generator backup which lights up 1 tube-light and 1fan after “it’s dark” and I pay a hefty ‘maintenance fee’ for the little pleasure. And then I of course pay tax – direct and indirect, and yeah short term and long term and octroi and levies and this and that. So what if the total tax I pay is several times over the per capita income of the country. After all if I have the money I should manage everything on my own, besides paying tax of course!

The trigger of this rant is that there was no electricity and guess what, no water for two hours in the morning today. We do not get water from the government. We buy our water from private bodies who ‘supply’ water through their motorable tankers to our overhead water-tanks. Now this means that we need electricity to have water as well (electric motors pump up the water in the overhead tank)! Today there was no electricity. Nothing unusual. Typically the generator is switched on in such cases but today that conked off as well. So we were literally powerless and dry in Bangalore today for a couple of hours!

Wonder when we as a country will tackle such basic things in life!

What happens when you put a bunch of insecure people together? Cat-fight? Rat Race? Circus? All of them? Well I guess most of us, including the ‘cats’, ‘rats’ and other ‘circus’ material, will pick Option D.

The working class is unsure of their future, their career and their lives because they work for someone for money. And that’s the reason why I call them insecure. They (read we) do not have the strength to live it on their own. Put such people together in a situation where they are competing with each other, directly as peers, or indirectly as reportees or managers and imagine what you get.

By the way, the reason I think there is a competition between reportees and managers is because the reportees often think that they are smarter than their bosses and hence ought to be in their place, and the managers often think that’s true, and sometimes, this is actually true! Also, the whole definition of peers is complicated – is it the people at the same ‘level’ in an organization (out of the zillion levels that exist no matter how ‘flat’ your organization is), is it the people who make similar money, is it the people who passed out of the same class, or what?

So be it peer, superior or subordinate, everybody wants a piece of ‘the’ cake. What is ‘the’ cake – well it’s more money and better respect I guess, but I’m sure the definition of the cake will also vary.

Since making your own cake is too complicated you make a large cake with others. This cake is being made and consumed at the same time. How do you keep getting bites of ‘the’ cake? The logic should be that you get to eat what you can produce. But that’s not how it works and don’t we all know that! So you pounce, push others out of your way, play dirty and whatever else you think will get you your piece.

But the big question now is that even if you make your own cake what’s the guarantee that a competitor will not pounce on it? Do the dynamics change? Probably only to the extent that you’re more motivated to save ‘your’ cake rather than ‘the’ cake. I don’t know…

Well I guess this is an endless thought that I don’t have the ability to conclude. So I better go, join back the circus as of now!

Well I don’t know if I’m not cool or young enough, but I can’t understand why people are using Orkut scraps/Facebook Wall as a public chat. ‘Scraps’ like “Hi” and “What’s your number” are so common on scrapbooks that it’s not funny.

I thought scrapbooks were like “Visitor Books” – a one-way communication, more often an endorsement or criticism. How this became 2-directional is something I can’t fathom. Especially weird is the fact that this is being used as 2-directional communication without any synchronization. To illustrate, lets see How Scrapbook A and Scrapbook B (individual entities) look :

Scrapbook A
Person B: Hi
Person B: I’m doing fine. What plans for the weekend?
Person B: Oh wow! Send me pics when you’re back

Scrapbook B
Person A: Hi, How are you? 
Person A: I’m off to the Bahamas

Weird. Now don’t scrap me to tell me what you think about it!

As if the hue and cry over cheerleaders was not enough, Harbhajan Singh slapped Sreesanth and made him cry, literally…

Now grow up dude – be a man! Either hit him back like Zidane did, or just file a silent complaint. Don’t behave like a kid, crying it out in front of the whole world!

Well that seems to be the attitude of several smokers in my office. 1 cigarette = at least 1 person asking for a light. I’ve observed that several times people just walk up to me and extend their hand without saying a word. As if I’m freakin’ obliged to give them a light. So much for the little courtesies in life!

Is my aura so open? Well if it is then I better do something about it. Quick!

One of those phases when you feel inadequate. One of those phases that appear too long. Those feelings that you can’t articulate, but those still keep troubling your mind… Sounds a bit like a poem, bit like a song! Hell I don’t care, but I’m already feeling better.

And I do feel like deleting this post now that my job is done, and hence not make my ‘inadequacy’ public, but fear that the therapeutic power of blogging rants will be lost….!

My experience could not have been more horrid than this. I bought a WS in June 2006 and foolishly renewed in Dec 2006 as well. The irony is that I must not have listened to it for more than 3 hrs in ~14 months because ’TDM gone’ seems to be better music to the WS receiver. I would have at least called WS technicians 7 times over the period of last 14 months, each time paying Rs 150 but the bloody thing just loves the ’TDM gone’ bit it seems. I’m sure I could have purchased more than 3 hrs of original digitial music for the > Rs 3000 I spent on this crazy thing!

The antenna is always put on the rooftop of an apartment complex and that requires you to check the antenna position again and again. It’s a bigger pain because WS technicians do not even bother to install it properly so the antenna literally blows with the wind.

I have given up on my hopes on WS and now I do not care. Whatever I spent on this has gone down the drain and I am fine with it. If that is the way WS hopes to penetrate the market then good for them!

But I’m doing my bit – here’s my review on Mouthshut

A dipper is meant to signal your intention of overtaking the vehicle ahead of you. Much better than honking and thus creating noise pollution.

When do you intend to overtake though? When you think you’re in a position to. Right. However Bangalore drivers use the dipper in a very innovative manner. In fact it’s sort of a ritual for them – Though must use the dipper when the distance between your vehicle and the one ahead of you is less than or equal to 10 feet.