Challenge Accepted !

A bunch of people on my face book feed are participating in some sort of 30 day abs challenge ( yes it sounds exactly as painful and pointless as it is ). Apparently you subject various parts of your body to all sorts of indignation and then realize the true six pack is the one that you buy at the store

But that got me thinking , a 30 challenge is not a bad idea for all sorts of obvious and non obvious reasons

SO I will be attending a 30 day hair growth challenge . Schedule for the first week is  as follows . Weeks two three and four ( plus an extra two or three days will follow )

Day 1 : Observe hair growing at every possible opportunity. Comb when required or when bored or both

Day 2 :  Shampoo hair . Use conditioner Lather and Rinse BUT DO NOT REPEAT .

Day 3:   Pick out your favourite hair . Name it . Now give it a nickname. Introduce it to at least three strangers and two friends

Day 4: Repeat Day 1  but this time pretend you do not care whether your hair grows or not . Use fake laughter to bolster your fake feelings

Day 5 : Recommend hair cuts to everyone else participating in the challenge. Deny any ulterior motive .

Day 6 : Watch TV read a book solve world hunger but don't get carried away by trying to solve world peace as well

Day 7 : Attempt to battle depression as all your hair does not grow at the same rate. Change your conditioner but half way through your shower weep inconsolably and bitterly as the changed conditioner serves as a metaphor for all impermanence and the lie that is monogamy. Switch back to the original conditioner only to realize that it is not longer as satisfying. Exit the shower trip fall but get up again. Smile at your willpower !  ( rush back into the bathroom to wear your clothes

Farewell to Arms Part Deux

We have already discussed certain cell phone specific trials and tribulations here (http://rahul-chandran.blogspot.com/2010/11/farewell-to-arms-aka-great-smart-phone.html)
But why stop now !
So anyway
Most people( as in those who are lucky enough to know me , not in the world ) either have an iPhone ( the damned and  HAHAAHAHA Safari (l)users ) or an Android phone ( witty, charming, forward looking, independent thinkers ) and a vanishingly small number have a Windows Phone ( hapless MSFT employee ) .
Without fail though everyone in each camp can easily point to something totally idiotic in the other ecosystems and awesome about their own ( Editors Note : What do you mean damned I think you meant creative )
But in the shadowy world of betwixt and between and in the cracks and edges of the normal well ordered multiverse ever so often hic sunt dracones…..( Editors Note: Oh for god’s sake dragons really !!! )
Sometime ago I switched to a Nexus ( android ) and honestly was fairly happy with , in fact very happy with it . It’s integration with the GOOG ecosystem and the Now feature all add up to a super nice experience

And then MSFT released their new phone build with inbuilt Swype and Cortana and a host of other improvements (ATT was offering a deal which when combined with the tax break us job creators are entitled to ) it was practically free
So of course I grabbed it ( Nokia 1520 size matters edition )
I loved it!! like its pretty great especially Office and a bunch of other stuff including  the screen size but…. no apps at least not the ones I want and more importantly new ones are always written for android first ( Yes I know Satya has  a plan )
But wait wait I have a nexus too . Soon I found myself doing something very interesting , I am using the Nexus as my phone ( voice ) and for apps that I must have ( primarily the Sirius XM app but also maps voice etc) and I have tethering always turned on . ( which because the Nexus was unlocked and not in cahoots with ATT , ATT seems to have no clue about , viv le revolution , absolutely ! )
The Nokia device tethers to the android device and I use it for all things Office and Netflix ( 6 inches its just awesome ) and some other MSFT stuff , also shopping at AMZN

Initially I felt like a total idiot forward thinking genius carrying two phones but now  I don't even think about it anymore.
Which brings up to the following points

• Now that I have created the road map for world peace in the Smartphone wars can I get a Nobel. In the years to come one can already see the TV pundits wisely nodding and pontificating “Well yes my dear chap two phones , don't you see it was right there staring at us the solution but it took a particular kind of genius to just go with it you know “
• If not a Nobel can I patent this in any way . Well ok I probably wasn't the first person to think of this but I mean after rounded rectangles is “first” even a thing anymore
• Can we pass legislation to make it illegal to tout your phone and or criticize someone else’s unless you own two phones ( thus it is ok and ethical and in fact required almost for me to point what a colossal joke the iPhone is )
• Barring cost the surface 3 may not be the worst idea in the world ( someone has to explain to me why a thinner surface is meaningless to the tech press but every time APPL shaves a nanometer off of a bezel or something there is a collective mulorgy ( multiple orgasmic orgy) in the tech community
• IFF they can get people to write apps for WinPhone it will stay a formidable competitor may even get to 5% or something :-) .
• In case someone does not realize it I might as well point it out Owning three phones is really stupid !

RSA NSA how do you tell the difference

So it turns out the RSA corporation was really the NSA in civvies

One of the most interesting things about the whole “the NSA knows where you live and what you think” etc has been in spite of all their vaunted technical prowess the NSA has relied almost completely on no hacking whatsoever but back doors , trapdoors, wide open doors , doors wide shut, transparent doors etc etc and of course the RSA being idiots to trawl data at the “all you can suck from our pipes” buffet

To put it another way they have relied on the age old "here let me make a copy of the key will you "
and of course corporation after corporation bent over while whispering "yes I'll take the vanilla flavored lube if you don't mind please Mr NSA agent man " .

For those who think the corporations had no choice that is garbage, look at lavabit. What do you think would have happened if GOOGLE and MSFT had shut down all services saying the govt was forcing them to break trust and faith with their customers. You really think people would be like "Well if you have nothing to hide..." ."Oh and down with Snowden"

The original sin of course was the Patriot act , and the almost comically grotesque Kafkaesque parody of 1984 it made sure we all live in . When James Sensenbrenner starts talking about how the Patriot act might have gone too far it really is time to listen

Where will all this end up , no clue ( though I would love someone to recall Diane Feinstein). It is clear on this issue the democrats are just as bad or worse than the republicans ( barring a few good men notably Senator Wyden ).

My guess is eventually corporations will bypass NSANET ( yes well I know we call it the internet for now ) for their internal communication while the public continues to get shafted and the 4th amendment slowly moves from law to history. Hopefully we’ll figure something out but apathy is and has been the NSA’s best friend ( the other is sheer stupidity also know as “See Snowden was wrong to ….” )

If a couple of big corporations whose services we all depend on start making a real fuss and service disruption maybe the masses will notice, I’ve practically given up on the telecom companies doing anything I mean they suck so bad when it comes to privacy

OR Linus Torvalds could come up with some sort of open source encryption scheme or some such :-)

MBA Case Study Part troix

 

In past case studies here and here  we looked at various aspects of business strategy. Today we will be looking at certain complicated issues around workplace ethics.

You are happily married. You are also strangely attracted to your boss culminating in regular adulterous carnal events. Because balance is important you are also having an affair with a coworker. Please answer the following (it is important to keep in mind that you are happily married) multiple choice questions

1. Who are you cheating on?
   1. Your Spouse
   2. Your wife
   3. Your co worker
   4. Yourself by not having sex with more people
   5. Other ( please describe at length, in two to three sentences )
2. Your boss is indicating that she might be getting promoted soon thereby creating a vacancy for her position. Should you
   1. Insist that she promote you , thereby making sure that your one-on-one meeting with your boss and subordinate will be very hands on
   2. Insist that she promote your coworker so that your one-on-one with your boss and your skip level can be hands on
   3. Request to be sent on a campus recruitment trip to the top 10 party colleges of the year to set a good example
   4. Refrain from saying anything , this could be a trap
   5. Other
3. Your wife is pleasantly surprised by your improved skills in bed and in conversation asks you “darling where did you learn to do that :-)”. Should you
   1. Tell her you have enrolled in an ONLINE THEORY ONLY “Improve your Cliteracy™”  course
   2. Tell her you felt it was the right thing to do in your soul because you know  love
   3. Refrain from saying anything , this could be a trap
   4. Other
4. Your wife is unpleasantly shocked by your new moves in bed and right away yells “HEY where the hell did you get the idea that was ok!!!” Should you
   1. Say Anything
   2. Other
5. Your boss is thinking about firing your coworker. Should you
   1. Plead your coworkers case so you don't have to go to the trouble of convincing her replacement to have an affair with you
   2. Say that firing is too much and ask for her to be transferred to another department and unselfishly volunteer your time to find a replacement
   3. Request to be sent on a campus recruitment trip to the top 10 party colleges of the year to set a good example
   4. Other
6. In your opinion will hiring a nanny at this point in time Add or reduce balance  in your life
7. Would it make a difference(with ref to question 6) if you had children or not
8. What in your opinion is the secret to having a happy marriage like yours
9. Are there any industry specific factors to be considered when contemplating such an arrangement ( for example if you work in gay porn it might be hard well not hard exactly but anyway …)
10. Who is worse Monsanto or Walmart ( Editor’s Note : we believe the question makes more sense when you add the phrase “or you” at the end )

 

Obamacare is here , run for the hills

Obama care is here. In theory I can buy insurance from the WA health exchange in a bit (oh we are all probably on a path to doom death despair and destruction as per the GOP)

I first lost employee funded insurance  in Jun 2009. Fun times!!!

Since then, here is what I have realized about the system as it exists! Trying to buy individual insurance and dealing with the insurance company is roughly equivalent to

Having to sit on a cactus!

A thorny cactus!!

With fire ants on it!!!

Without lubricant!!!!

Clear. Oh good. On the other hand all my gainfully employed friends (99% of whom all make oodles of money by any standard) really don't have a problem with the healthcare system as it stands pre-Obama care .

So like every other system there will be winners and losers and in the current system people like me who have not had access to employee funded HI were clearly the losers. I don’t know if the affordable care act will fix any or all or my issues with the insurance industry but you know what; I am absolutely certain it cannot get any worse. Will there be any losers because of the ACA. Of course! And you know what suck it!!!!!

Recent events with the health situation in my family have made me really think about how ridiculous the Pre ACA situation in this country was/is.

The way in which insurance companies will try and dictate the care you get,  right down to subtly and not so subtly making sure that diagnostics procedures like MRI’s etc are scarce is  downright disgusting.

For someone like me who has options it’s not the end of the world, but I really wonder how other folk manage.(I can guess and it’s not pretty).

The battle over the affordable care act and the road to even more decent outcomes for health care is really very simple:

We are the richest country in the world and some of us think it is not ok to say “there is a treatment available for what you have and if you can’t afford it suffer in silence you serf” or even worse “Your problem could have been easily detected and solved if you only had done your medical checkup in time. Oh no money?could not afford it?  yeah well then death becomes you “

This is a true story,   last year someone I knew died from colon cancer. He was 36. It is very rare in someone so young.

Fun fact : had they caught it time who knows.

Funnier fact : doctor told him to get a colonoscopy some months ago.

Totally hilarious fact: he was not too well off, in between jobs, his shitty insurance would not pay for a colonoscopy for anyone under 50.

Outstandingly ROTFLAMO fact: He could not afford what a colonoscopy would cost on his dime so he choose to risk it . 5 cards later (poker players will get it)…. suck out!!!

The Oscar for the best comedic performance fact: Obama care = death panel

Now when faced with the story above one can say

“shit happens, Blessed be the name and works of Ayn Rand”

or one could try and be a human being and think about ways to mitigate this (no Senator I agree we cannot save everyone) which involves some of us paying for others, so that in the event we ever need the help we get it ( whether it is taxes for a single payer system or a mandate where the healthy subsidize the sick in the event you ever get sick )

And finally while we are at it, this one is for all those idiots who make an excellent living , have employee funded health care , and cannot really point to anything that the affordable care act does , that will personally hurt them but FREEDOM something !!( that would be every single republican in both houses of congress)

You know what, I hope you choke on your vomit and die. I hope you your kin and the ones you love all suffer from cancer of the balls or vagina or whatever and then are told that there is a super easy treatment sadly which cannot be afforded to you because you know freedom

I hope you get a genetically mutated form of chicken pox and watch in amazement and pain as your skin peels off in agony, but you stay comforted at the thought that FREEDOM!

May your next shampoo give you all the side effects of chemo therapy without chemo and then cancer so now you can take chemo again BUT  hey good news ,  because now that you know, why you will never buy that shampoo again !

Hopelessness, dread, despair, gloom, agony, destruction, pain and suffering , may they be your eternal companions.

Oh and Have a nice day!

Debt Ceiling for Dummies(ok to read even if you are not a dummy)

So apparently 44% of Americans or some such number, are opposed to raising the debt ceiling and as always this just means on any given topic 44% of Americans don't get it (cough ios 7)

(Editor’s Note : We would appreciate it greatly if no cheesy credit card analogies were used )

So here is what is hilarious though. I’ve spoken to a few people in the last week or so, people who otherwise can be thought of as reasonably well informed, and each and every one of them suffers from a misunderstanding of the debt ceiling, essentially variations on how “the debt ceiling” is the same as “the debt” and raising the debt ceiling means you are taking on more debt (this at a time when the deficit is falling like a rock)

So let me see if I can explain how this works without using a credit card or dumbing it down.

So every time congress passes a law, it is possible, that it will cost the Govt. Money (from Medicare benefits to appropriations that allow the NSA to read this as I type it) many, many laws have the effect of driving up spending from govt.

Now when the govt needs to spend money to meet its legislative obligations (this is the key part though IT IS NOT OPTIONAL, TREASURY HAS TO MEET THE OBLIGATIONS THAT LAWS PASSED BY CONGRESS CAUSE) it asks the treasury to “make it so”

Now this is where the fun( Editor’s Note: we apologize for this particular usage of the word fun , the author does not get out much) starts, because treasury you see needs to borrow money to pay for the laws passed, and in just about every other country on the planet this is not an issue, if the legislative branch of govt passes a law requiring govt. to spend 100 bucks Treasury can just borrow a 100 bucks to pay for it; since passing the law is TANTAMOUNT TO SAYING YOU FRIGGIN HAVE TO (repeat after me) HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!!!!

But this America land of the exceptional home of the dysfunctional and so naturally we do things differently here (yes that’s right the switch turns on the other way too).

Here we have a limit of how much treasury can borrow to pay for laws already passed and this limit is called (thank you, thank you) “The Debt Ceiling”.

So every time this limit is reached , treasury has zero interest in borrowing more money, however congress just keeps plugging away and working hard (well not this congress obviously but you know in the past) and the bills keep piling up , which of course means treasury now needs to borrow more money but it can’t … BY LAW !!

Therefore from time to time  treasury will ask congress to pass a law saying something along the lines of

“you know how we said you could only borrow 1000 dollars, just kidding you can borrow up to 2000 now, since you know we passed laws requiring the additional money”.

This clever piece of legislation is known as “Raising the debt ceiling” (pay attention now, it’s not raising the debt, that already happened)

In the past, prior to the tea party metastasizing into the cancer that it has become, congress would always raise the debt ceiling (once again if you are upset about govt spending then the correct time to have that argument is when laws are being passed that incur spending) without too much fuss because everyone understood how the debt ceiling actually works.

But all that of course was before the stupid wing of the stupid party suddenly decided that “debt ceiling” was two words, and that was just too hard, one word at a time as Jesus always said (or would have if he thought about it) so let’s just stick with “Debt” and why on earth would we want to “Raise the Debt” (ceiling omitted™ )

Hopefully you now understand this little piece of governmental trivia (explanation via analogy pending)

 

Todd Starnes is an asswipe and that’s OK

There is a parallel universe (in the sense however that it is the same one as mine) where beauty Pageant type things keep happening with monotonous regularity (and hilarity). For those (who rightfully) have no clue about this world,  recently someone called Nina Davuluri  won the Miss America thingy and a bunch of Americans got to show the world  why

• Twitter will never make any money
• they should never breed and produce offspring
• how cruel evolution is
• why geography and fiction are interchangeable in the minds of many
• some idiots think how Ms. Davuluri is not “American” enough

Todd Starnes  (some sort of moron on fox in some way) on the other hand is unlikely to be as completely ignorant . And predictably Indians hither and thither have all gone on and on about how ghastly racist and self-centered and ignorant the Americans are.

At this point we take a little detour in my tale before I may end up making a point (Editor’s Note: You don't get paid unless you make a point, you do know that yes)

So way back in 2002 ( ish )  I was in  a meeting at MSFT. Present were about 7 to 10 people and like many meetings at MSFT they were all Indians.

So naturally this struck me as funny, and I cleverly made some spectacularly witty quip ( as I often do ) about everyone being an Indian . After the laughter and applause died down, one of the people in the meeting cleared her throat and with considerable vim and vigour pointed out the she was an American, thank you very much!!!! (I think she was born in jersey and yes even though snookie has ruined it all, to be fair yes jersey is technically American)

<Back to the present now yes, yes almost certain to make a point now >

As such the story has no meaning to it (one person did not find something I said funny, it’s not like I am keeping score or anything hahaha) on the other hand it has always stuck with me and even though I am hardly the first person to realize and point this out, all it means to be an American is to want it and say it . That's it!!! (ok fine immigration will get involved once in a while, yes ok more than once in a while, yes fine a lot !!  ) which if you think about is just amazing. I am not aware of any other country where this happens. You can stay in India as long as you want as a white person but you will be gently laughed of the stage (while some kindly stranger calls the local asylum) if you start insisting you are Indian.
I am fairly certain my chances of being Japanese or Chinese or Papua New Guinean are slim to none irrespective of how long I stay there or how much I integrate into their societies . Every once in a while it behooves us to marvel at this sociological thing this amazing amazing fact of life about the US.

Nina Davuluri would be hard pressed to be Miss <insert country here > anywhere except the US. It could happen once in a while I suppose but in this case I am genuinely not surprised, Ms. Davuluri is an American and she convinced some people she was best qualified for a competition. That's all there is to it.

Rather than bemoan the twitter chatter from people clearly stuck in Darwin’s waiting room we should be really happy that here in this country something like this is possible. I have zero interest in pageants and yet I find this pretty uplifting all in all

As for Mr.  Starnes and his ilk, ironically by insisting there is an archetype for “Americans” (cough Christian and white ), they are in fact being the very thing the oppose viz completely Un American

Besides this is nothing new, a 100 odd years ago people like him were screaming “the Irish need not apply” or “who wants these damn Italians” and so on and so forth. Asswipes will be around forever and you know what that’s ok asses need wiping after all !