Packet Loss

Just came back from (yet another) project "postmortem" on what went wrong and  I can't think of anything more apt than the picture bellow:

(I had seen an earlier version a few years back...but seems it had improved over the time...surely from the contributions of some witty volunteers!)

You'll really have to appreciate the baby-like innocence and naivity of some people:

from day one you start cutting corners everywhere...in budget, competence, time and definitely on quality...where you don't cut corners, but just leave (some of) the corners; whistle blowers are sick and tired of blowing their risk-sirens loud and clear to everyone's deaf ear.

Yet you headfastly go ahead to deliver the half (or quarter or even less) cooked things to the customers without caring a thing about the underlying technology. And then you're utterly surprised to see the resulting mess and innocently asked why!

But Cynisim apart, it's just amazing how much information is lost in transmission. As any  text book will tell you...performance will significatly be improved if you can reduce the number of hops.

May be getting rid of those Project Managers could be a good start!

Scarred

I met J- in a summer school in Denmark. She is doing her masters in physics in a university in Finland. When I casually asked her what brought her there, little did I expect the answer: it's the women-friendly soceity in Finland which prompted her to chose the place!

Now this is rather unusual. I have heard people opting to go for a post graduation abroad for brand names (Harvard, Yale or OxBridge), better research facilities and labs, chance to meet the frontiers of the field, to see the world and know different cultures. Even the potential for money or lucretive employment in future play important roles in such decisions. There could also be some personal reasons like family or boy/girl frieneds.

But a move steered by feminism? No, I've not heared it before. Esspecially when she had many other popular options like US or UK. She has done her bachelor's from IIT Delhi  and any institute in the world would be happy to have her as their master's student.

So I probed a little and what I discovered left me decidedly blue.

During her entire stay of 4 years in the Delhi IIT (or perhaps years before that when she was growing up in Chandigarh) she was discriminated against because of her gender. India is a secular country where the constinution vows to treat people equally irrespective of their race, religion or gender. Yet an elite institute like Delhi IIT imposed a rule that every girl returning back to the university campus after 10 pm would have to sign a logbook detailing why they " had to" go out. Obviously no such rule for boys returning back any time of the day!

Such arbitrary rules....just for the sake of the girls' "safety".....were all over the place and I can't blame anyone feeling suffocated in that atmosphere.

There  was even an incident of rape, not very far from the girls' hostel. The victim was not a student, but that is hardly comforting.

Everytime such a thing occurs, authorities come up with some more " rules" to ensure girls' safety, which essentially means some further restrictions on their basic liberty.

Probably this is not unusual in a country where the police chiefs and minsters publicly say that it is upto the women to prevent the rape and molestation; they should not go out in a provocative attire!

Of course there is no statistics showing girls in bikinies get molested more than those in sari!  Then since when the bigots care for facts!

So at the end of her final year, when she had to chose prospective places for further study, J- googled for the country with best records in feminism. Finland came first and she applied there!

Actual criminal cases can be statisticised, but what about numerous such incidents where young, active and intelligent girls are scarred for life? J- fled to Finland, not everybody can or is willing to take such drastic steps; but they live a life of continuous fear that something might happen to them if they are late at work or spend a couple of hours extra at a friend's place.

It is the competent and capable young Indians like J- who propelled the colonially destroyed country to the front row of global importance within 60 years of independence; and it'll be utterly stupid to lose potentially half of them due to mediaval mindsets of a vocal minority in the Indian soceity.

But most importantly, it's a question of civil liberties and basic rights of half a billion people which no one can ignore.

Bad Loser

Losing crown is a horrible experience and there is barely anybody who can take it gracefully...be it a person or a country.

The reigning supremo of the present world, is just going through this, and Boy, the process is long and painful! So no wonder the reactions are so pathetic at times; like US coach's reaction to the spectacular gold wining performance from the Chinese prodigy Ye Shiwen at the London Olympics.

The girl was probably still in the pool, when he proclaimed she was on illegal drugs to achieve this fantastic feat! What happened to sportsmanship, admiration for excellence or celebration for the Human achievements no matter where they come from? Aren't these the values Olympics is based on?

Using performance enhancing illegal drugs in big sporting events like Olympics is well known. US athletes are no less guilty of resorting to doping than Chinese or anybody else for that matter. That is why there is so many well organised tests which each athlete in the games has to undergo.

So what made John Leonard to jump into such a big accusation without waiting for the dope test results? Has jealousy and failure has taken over all decency and commonsense?

When it is Ian Thorpe or Michael Phelps then it is awesome achievements by mankind, but when it's Ye Shiwen, it is doping without proof! If this is not racism then tell me what is!

Flo-Jo's 100m record has been left untouched for decades even in today's highly competitive athletics. So by Leonard's "unbelievable-and-hence-doped" argument should that be discarded as well? Or would he bring "Americans-can't-cheat" logic (!) then?

And where does it end by the way? As the IOC medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist said so rightly that the sports will be in danger if  surprise performances automatically provoke suspicion.

I am no fan of China and I would probably dislike the next superpower as much, if not more, than the present one, given China's appauling records on human rights and freedom of speech.

But what this self proclaimed messiah of liberty...the great US...is doing is just ridiculous. And their bad sportsmanship extends every sphere...from sporting arena to global economic summits;

US is just being a bad loser!

Spicy Science

So Higgs boson has been found (well 'almost'; as The Guardian put it so elegantly...."it's a definite may be!").  Congratulations, in which scientific journal is the result published? Oops no where...not even submitted yet!

That's strange. Really, really starnge. A press conference of this magnitude, coverage in main stream media comparable to that of World Cup Football, and no published results in accepted scentific journal yet? It must have been cross verified by some other very reputed groups then?

Well not actually....as none has the required setup !

And this "discovery" (four sigma or whatever) doesn't even point to some hetherto unknown theory or phenomena; nor does it explain any of the gaps in understanding so far. It doesn't complete the unified field theory or explains quantum gravity.

To do any such thing, tons of more data will have to be gathered and analyzed. So why jump the gun then?

I really feel sorry for the big scentists who has to "publicise" such almost true results even before they have got enough time to analyse it in a truely scetific way, as a marketing startegy! After all large hedron colliders don't come cheap and getting such gigantic funding for fundamental research at the time of economic doom and gloom isn't easy.

How can they forget their copetitors across the Atlantic in the Atom Smasher, who had to close the shop. Or the NASA space missions...even though it is in completely different teritory the one thing that is uncannily similar is the need for an astronomical budget.

Hence it seems the scientists resort to the marketting gimmicks . Perhaps they learned it in hard way that equations and experimental details don't sell as much as "God Particle", no matter how prepostorous it may sound!

I can't help remembering that episode of the Big Bang Theory where Leonard was persuaded by Sheldon et all to sleep with a rich, old widow to secure funding for their institute.

Or may be this comparison is a bit unfair on Leonard....at least he didn't compromise his science, merely his sexuality!
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Summer Slumber

It's simply unbelievable...roads in Stockholm are suddenly deserted. The stretch from my office in Kista to home where the traffic normally crawls during rush hours now goes past in a jiffy.

Weekend shopping has also has gone through a phase change; not only I can park my car at the nearest row, but I can chose between, say, a sunny or an under-the-shed spot! The isles in the super markets are empty...no collision of trollies, no queue at the fresh fish counter. And I can now almost walk past the payment counter.

 No, there hasn’t been a great calamity or natural disaster or outbreak of epidemic; just the Swedes have deserted Stockholm in folks as the vacation season started.

 Right after the "Midsommer dag" (the summer solstice on 23rd. June) virtually everybody in Sweden goes on holiday...for five or six consecutive weeks!


This is more than any such thing I've seen or heard anywhere else. And don't forget I've worked for an year in France, whose August vacation is mocked a lot on the other side of the Channel. Even that 4 weeks French vacation is dwarfed by its 6 weeks long Swedish counterpart. In all fairness, even French tend to stagger it partially between the colleagues.

 But here in Sweden, no staggering of holidays or splitting it to spread across different times of the year. Everyone will take the whole of it starting at the same time. As the lovely summer in Sweden lasts for about 6 weeks (or less!) no one wants to miss a single day of it.

 This is of course not all...on top of these six summer weeks, there are generous allowances for sick leave or parental leave, if you have young kids. And if you can produce a new progeny, you can say good bye to your office for nearly a year and a half!

I'm not at all in favour of American way of no paid holiday...where the workers are exploited for the benefit of company owners. And I do believe that holidays make the workforce happy and recharged who in turn become more productive.

Still what baffles me about the Swedish way is how do they sustain it? Firstly how can a country function when everybody is on holiday for 6 good weeks? And secondly, how is it viable economically?

Of course certain emergency services have to be kept open even in summer. This is done by a lot of temporary workers (mostly foreign). This is more expensive and often less effective: Last year I had to visit the GP surgery during summer. The doctor who checked me up was a temporary one and had told me that I'll see a different one during my prescribed return visit an week after....as he would move to a different hospital in 3 days! Not the best of medical care, is it?

But the Swedes seem not to mind such minor inconveniences and insists that taking all these weeks together is important, to unwind properly!

 It seems to be working pretty well for them (though not sure how!); so I'm just trying to make the best out of it. After all driving in traffic free roads or finishing weekly shopping in 15 minutes is blissful.

Working in an empty office feels spooky and I do miss the fika with my colleagues. But then I can update my blog more regularly during this rather quiet period.

 So the balance sheet is positive I guess! Or maybe, with passing time I'm becoming one of them.... not in height perhaps, but in spirit, nevertheless!

Begining of the end?

Are the welfare states on the verge of collapse? No matter how I might dislike it, present signs increasingly point towards that.

The concept of sharing and caring, which emerged from the runis of world war II, when people understood the importance of a collaborative soceity in a hard way, seems to be easily forgotten within just sixty years.

The hurricane of biggest world war flattened many barriers quickly:  The strong class barriers and elitism were swept away. It even eroded the centuries old gender discrimination to a large degree and propelled the feminism to a new height. The scarcity of working age men opened the hetherto closed doors to women whose competence dispelled age old myths about "gender-suitable" jobs.

But all these are coming back in a new look. We are seeing a new generation of nouveau riche "celebs" whose socio-emotional gossips in page 3 attracts many more readers than the actual news. The feminism has also taken a back step in the recent years whith the increasing number of stay at home mums; espsecially where the affoardable child care is not available.

In the recent years the welfare states were under big pressure due to increasing demand of the growing population and stagnating economy of the developed nations. The recent economic downturn seemed to work like the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Yet if we look carefully, it seems to be more like a shift in attitude rather than a solely economic one. The neo-elite rich, who once again are controlling the money and power in the society care about nothing but themselves.

Their greed, incompetence and selfishness brought the banking sector to the brink. But the biggest irony is these very people were put in charge to draft the rescue plan where they protected their interest unashamedly while preaching austerity measures for the rest of the soceity.

Wheather it is Obama's incapacity to put stimulous to the economy, or EU's bailout packange to Greece with some absurd conditions of austerity or Cameron's latest rhetoric on benefit cuts....it's the different facets of the same agenda: save the interest of the rich at the expense of common public.

It's fine to destory the best public health care system in the world (NHS) or to terminate the housing benefits for unemployed youth or to cut the child care allowance for struggling families. But you can't take a farthing away from the hefty bonuses of the bank bosses.

As Gandhi once said:"There is enough for everybody's need, but not enough for anybody's greed"!

Wave, particle....and 24th. floor

"Where is M-"? asked a visibly puzzled T-, rushing into my office. I had to say I had no idea and even though we share the same office I do not actually track his minute by minute whereabouts.

"Well, his skype status says he is in office and this is his office isn't it"? grumbled T-. "Last time I checked it was, indeed", said I.

"Well, he must be in quantum mechanical world then", T- seemed to be rather satisfied with his apt, geeky sarcasm. "He can actually be present beside his pool at home and in his office at the same time"!

While the two of us were sharing a good laugh at M-'s (and possibly Heisenberg's) expense, the man in demand returned.

"Hey M-, which state are you in right now? wave or particle?" I asked ( How could I let this opportune moment go!).


 "Since we couldn't explain your iCloud status with you enjoying the lovely spring afternoon by your poolside garden in any classical way, we resorted to quantum mechanics", came T- to rescue.

Well, you know what, it was M-'s turn to be geeky this time (let's face it, he is perhaps the smartest among the lot, anyway!),
"you're missing a third state my dear colleagues, it's the 24th. floor, where I was in a meeting", smirked the Swede!

While all three of us cherished a hearty laugh I couldn't help thinking about the virtual-real multi dimensional existance of Modern Times.
                                                       
We are always connecetd but never reachable; our status is  for the whole world to view yet we're unsure about our next moves;we've thousands of buddies to chat with and none to talk to....
                              
The list could go on longer, but my mood (or my emicon?) has already changed from LOL to grumpy!

There are already thousands of physically dead users in facebook, some of them being posthomously exploited by internet fraudsters while the others' virtual immortality just hurt their near and dear ones.

It's multiple-schezophrenic soceity.

Feminist Utopia? Not quite.

Sweden is a country with great gender equality. Nearly half of it's members of parliament are women (without any quota). Swedish men are perhaps the best in world when it comes to taking their fair share of household chores and child care. The salary gaps between genders (even though it exists) is among the lowest in the world. Perhaps still short of ideal world, but definitely the best in this world.

Or so it would seem. But then wouldn't you expect nearly same representation from both sexes in almost all fields, including science and technology? I'm leaving out construction works or similar manual labour jobs for now...firstly because men do have more muscle power than women in general and secondly because I have very limited experience of that domain.

But as the intellectual ability is same in both sexes, how does it then explain the representation of roughly 21% women in technical jobs in IT sector? Which is, not surprisingly, the same as that of female student percentage in engineering departments.

Is it really then the stereotype difference between a male brain and a female one? That the one is tuned for science and the other for humanities? Well, complete absurd as it is, it is in fact is the main factor; not because it is true, but because the society to a large extent still believes it to be true.

Even in egalitarian Sweden, there are distinctly different girls' toys and boys' toys. In day care centers little girls dress up like princess and boys as warriors. Often boys and girls play in different groups in the pre-schools.This society determined  gender stereotypes continue in schools and to universities where girls are expected to enroll in certain departments and boys in others.

Progressive Swedish doesn't say those "girly tastes" are bad, but still maintain that two sexes are "suited" for different things. So women continue to overwhelmingly outnumber men in HR or accounts departments where as men dominate in techie jobs. And since none is considered better or worse than the other, there is no conscious effort or need from any quarter to change it.

Not a true feminist Utopia, is it?

Versailles never ends

Two hundred years after the French revolution, in the Land of "Liberté, égalité, fraternité", a statue modeled on French first lady Carla Bruni Sarkozy is to be erected in Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, part funded by tax payers' money.

To add insult to the injury, Bruni-Sarkozy, who probably never have done a single day's of honest work for a living supposed to represent "plumassière" – a female worker from one of the area's former feather factories.

This brilliant idea to spend more than €40,000 of public money in this statue came from the local Mayor from Sarkozy's ruling right-of-center (?) party.

Was Marie Antoinette more out of touch from the general public when she suggested them to eat cakes, if they don't have breads? At least she wasn't elected by the same public!

I am no fan of French Socialist party; but have to agree with William Geib that "It's sad for the women who were employed in this job. Carla Bruni must have seen more ostrich features on the catwalks than in a factory."

Truly, revolution is not an one time event, you have to keep doing it.  200 years is a long time to gather the scum again!

Seems the Versailles never ends.....!!!