Embedding Excellence

About 10 years ago, and around the same time, we had to shutdown our telematics start-up because of lack of operating capital. Even though the company was trying to establish a footing in the network of embedded devices market ( pervasive computing, as it was called back then ), it lacked the desired infrastructure and the required capital to allow for experimentation. Anyhow, this post is not about a failed start-up.

This post is about the incoming tsunami called Internet-of-Things. The idea of interconnected devices  , in everything, capturing and relaying information for analysis to AI-backend, in the cloud, has just started to churn the investment and tech-world. Google's acquisition of Nest, and Verizon's acquisition of  Hughes Telematics will vouch for the effects of this expected mayhem, and this is only the tip of what follows next. I call this mayhem, because this will brings giants from technology, telecom, automotive, industrial/home automation, services and few others at loggerheads with each other.  I believe, IOT will not only enable ubiquitous computing, but also will establish a platform for future innovations.

There is a pattern in financial technical analysis, called as Elliot Waves. I don't know why it occurs, some say it occurs based on human psychology, but that's left to debate. The key is that it occurs.

The 3rd wave is supposed to be the longest lasting and most rewarding. If we look at the charts of major indices from around the world starting 1970-1980, we'd notice this pattern shaping up in most of them. The Wave2 for this pattern seem to correspond to the dent put in by the 2009 fallout. 

Imagine IOT riding the elliot 3rd wave, connecting the world in a manner it's was always supposed to be connected, and thus paving way for a greater collaborative effort to achieve better resource utilization for solving some of the critical issues that planet may face in future.

Flixomatic

There is a story written recently, with the net and about flix. The story was written at the time when the network space was still ruled by telephone people from 1905, and television people from 1940(the troubled times). As with any other story, this one too had it's share of criticism and skepticism, well to a point where it was almost at the verge of being wiped-out from the slate.
There are three reasons I am writing this post:
1) I have been an audience of Netflix story for quite some time now( perhaps, one of the initial few ).
2) I shorted NFLX back in March, and got a 400% return on investment by May. So I feel obliged towards those on whose behalf I made a positive trade.
3) CBS and HBO are launching their own Net story online, with an expectation to cash on the decreasing popularity of traditional media distribution. I think they are wrong, or at-least CBS is.

A device agnostic-personalized interface is the key ingredient of this story. Switching web-address or mobile app to watch different content doesn't suit well for overall user experience. And when you will multiply a convenient user-experience with a very large number, you will realize the impact of this user-story.

What is there to imagine here, you'd ask.
A 1000$ NFLX in two years perhaps, I'd say.

Spiral of Hope

There is a pattern of space, and of time and of dimensions unknown, called the Golden Spiral. This construct, which has been identified by human intelligence since the Pythagorean days, is so obvious in nature that it seems like an intervention from the beyond.

Every process around us, including human behavior, can be modeled as a Fourier sum of this pattern. As a proof of the previous statement I am presenting a model of Average Global Temperature, below. The line in red is the avg global temperature as recorded for past 140 years, and the line in green is the model generated using a Fourier sum of Golden Spirals.

The next obvious question is how will this model look in next 50-60 years. 

In essence, a Golden Spiral has the property of crushing certain processes down to being insignificant, and thus amplifying the opposition to become largely influential. 

What is there to imagine, you'd ask!! Imagine a scenario, where the present looks bleak, and the problems insurmountably strong. What is important in such a bleak scenario is to not lose hope. A little(no matter how little) hope, if kept alive will in future amplify itself to bring in the desirable result( and sometimes even exceeding expectations ). 

Final War!!

Final war against corruption seems to have fallen short of promises. The two ideology of war and protest are, by their very definition, contrary. War is forceful in nature, protest isn't.
What the team failed to realize is that corruption is not restricted to politicians. Corruption plagues the entire country. A people's movement should not aim at demonizing the few. Instead it should act as a platform to allow a larger mass realize what is wrong.
This realization(consensus) cannot be forced upon, but has to be gained by the masses with consent. Something which has lasted for so long won't go away in one year. If a war needs be fought, it should be an ongoing war(with perseverance) and not a final war(with impatience).

Searching the Omnipresent!!!

CERN has helped science to finally achieve a statistical milestone, in the quest for the knowledge. Higgs particle( or wave ) discovery will strengthen the Standard Model of particle physics. More than anything, a confirmation of this particle, will establish existence of Higgs field all around us in the fabric of Universe.
A better understanding of Higgs field can lead to an accelerated growth of human potential by removing the veil, which has blinded us for so long, and has resulted in acceptance of an object's mass as an abstract quantity.

What is there to Imagine? We'd ask.
Imagine!! Manipulation of Higgs field may allow acceleration of heavy mass to achieve the speed of light using finite energy source, or may help us to create an invisible entity which does not interact with matter in a normal sense, thus WIMPing it's way through all our sensing equipments undetected.

The Message from the Past

As I steer across the multitude of the current moment, carving my way out of the entangled memories, a message from the past triggered a thought. The message that "nothing is more important than you yourself" was deliverd by an individual, who was adored by some, despised by few, but unquestionably inspired them all. His sheer energy of transformation was evident in his attitude and in his intent to achieve the impossible, and infact he did. On numerous occassion he lagged behind everyone and then caught up to excel above them all.
Some say that the matured souls don't live for long at one place, and so has he moved to a different time-and-space along with his attribute to distort the probable, and to define the improbable, with his never-ending quest.
It was a real honor to have spent time with this friend... the friend called Shulin Nishant.
May god bless his soul.

asatyam computers

There are certain things that money cannot buy. It cannot buy you a cloak to hide your dishonesty. Well! not for long. Satyam computers has grown to be one among the India's largest IT firms, and I always wondered "how?".
Neither they did have the strong business ethics which Infosys has, nor they did have the clout of Tatas, they are not close to even half as diversified as Wipro, they are lax with their people hiring prowess, and frankly the quality of the software they develop is highly compromised.

Question: How can such a business still keep making money?
Answer: By introducing the concept of "911" in Hyderabad. or is it?

Finally, Mr Raju accepted falsifying capital accounts, overstating debt-owned, understating liabilities, and to the tune of one billion dollar. The news didn't surprise me at all, and I am sure there will be many who will share the similar response to the news. The news, which can cause indigestion for corporate India, may just be the beginning. If asatyam can do it, what stops second tier companies?

The Oil Politics

Just in time, as the oil price was becoming unbearable for most of the Middle Eastern economy, Israel decided all-out-war against Hamas(code-named Operation Cast Lead), threatening to render the whole region unstable. An unstable middle-east(with Syria's and Iran's involvement) will put uncertainity for the supply side and has the potential to stall the oil's decline.
However, on the other side, with Gas-Guzzlers(GM, Ford) struggling in the US, and China resorting to contango, the demand is much weaker than expected, and will be so for first/second quarter of 2009.

So does Operation Cast Lead make any sense for now? wouldn't it be better if the operation is commenced in second-quarter 2009 ?

It's all about Oil, it's all about money!! Who cares how many die, and how many live ?

not an answer

"Help your brother whether he is an oppressor or is an oppressed person."
- hadith(237) Holy Q'ran.

Amid the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan. A very critical parameter is being ignored. The fact that both the countries have sprung out of the same empire, and both share a significant chunk of their history, and culture. An India-Pakistan war will not only be devastating to the region, but will be very damaging to the entire world.
Mumbai terror attacks will go down on the pages of history as one of the most degrading and most demeaning act against human dignity. Whatever may would have been the driving factor behind this, be it Jamaat-ud-Dawa's attempt to gain a global limelight, or be it Al-Qaida's attempt to divert the focus from Afganistan/Pakistan border to India/Pakistan Border. The intention cannot be greater than humanity's objective of peace, and stability. The reason for the attack cannot be greater than the will of the humanity to prosper, to seek peace, and to survive.

War is not an answer.

tell you why?

"Round and round
With love we'll find a way just give it time
Round and round
What comes around goes around
I'll tell you why"
- a song from Metal group Ratt.

The hindu mythology suggests that the god(or the supreme authority behind everything in this universe) is actually riding on a chariot and we all are entwined to the wheel of this chariot. Everything, we know of, undergoes the active cycle of creation, existence, growth, and subsequent destruction. Perhaps, the idea behind the concept of wheel of fortune.

Markets, off lately, have been stuck at a wrong end of the cycle, where no-one is feeling confident enough to move-on. The developed economy have deleveraged all(most) of the bets on the market, and are waiting on the emerging economy to boost them up. While the emerging economy is being damaged by the very process of deleveraging, leading to a crisis situation with liquidity, which is slowing down their progress significantly.

Amidst this deadlock, which is fueled by lack of enough reason to let them make the first move, something unreasonable has to lead the way.

Will the festival of Dipawali, boosting Sensex by 550+ points act as a trigger, which will end this vicious cycle of fear in the market?
Hope so, and wish everyone a very happy dipawali.

To be or Not to be.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
- Hamlet (Act III, Scene II).

As ancient as the wisdom of the 1600s sounds, the question still remains unanswered. Let's consider the fate of CDS(Credit Default Swaps) - one of the instruments of today's economy, and representing 62 trillion$ worth of contract, well, before the bridge of cards came crashing down. Although this figure was an estimate, it tips the balance of financial stability in favor of resolved(enforced) determination.

As we know, CDS are vehicles of investments, which are built around a contract, using which one party transfers the so-called-question to another party, in return, swapping the methodology of payback against a reference obligation. As confusing as it sounds, the process(called derivative) distances the whole concept(of demand and supply) from the normal grasp of simple mathematics, and even confounds it. Everytime the question gets passed around, a part of the beast(called randomness) gets added to the equation.

Honestly, we, as human race, don't have enough resources(information) to tackle the mighty beast. As it is evident when we ask ourselves, how many of us actually understand the whole process and how many claim that we actually do? That's why we invented Money, we would say. Not to create equality but to amplify our free will.

L'man's Demise

Starting the collapse of Lehman the stocks went tumbling down, on a roller-coaster drive, all around the world. Why should Fed play such a gamble and let one of the significant Financial Institution/Investment Banks die down to bankruptcy?
Finding out what changed since Bear-Sterns, may sort out the determination of Fed's Gamble.
- Inflation under control, at least in the US.
- Oil well below 100$.
- Dollar back in business against Euro/Yen.
- Lessened panic in commodities crisis of the last quarter.
- Enough time for Credit Mania and Financial turmoil to get factored-in.

Perhaps, Fed's decision to say NO was not such a bad Idea. In fact, it was a strong signal for other similar troubled financial firms that the only resort for them is to clean up their own mess, and not rely on "tax payer's money".

Moreover, after a sharp fall the stocks did stabilize. No-where to fall when you are already at the bottom.

Cantor's Aleph and Continuum

For us who may not be familiar with Cantor's Aleph, a brief description - Georg Cantor, a german mathematician, around late 1800, established an enumeration for infinite sets, and named them alephs.
His intution, though he couldn't prove it, that the total number of alephs are infinite and there is a definite order in which they all are arranged
where:
aleph[0] = set of all integers,
aleph[1] = set of all real numbers,
...,
aleph[aleph] = set of all alephs ( aka the GOD, if such an entity exists ).

and the proof of the ordering of aleph led to the famous continuum hypothesis. The rest is history.

There is a duality, left to imagination, of course, between the concept of alephs and the spectrum of human intelligence. The spectrum of human intelligence is likely to be infinite( IQ, EQ, BIQ, FIQ, MIQ... ). There seems to exist an ordering between these independent IQs, and apparently they lead us to believe that there is an Ultimate Intelligence, which encompasses all. But then thats better left to psychology or theology.

Talking of Financial Intelligence, our universities and curriculum has surely, failed to capture it. Why else do we have 7 college dropouts among top 10 Richest persons in this world ? Someday i'll figure out.
Pursuing my this fascination, I got involved with an innovative startup company, named 'Insight Guru Inc.' , which is being operated by an equally credible team. This team nurtures a concept to distrupt the process of financial analysis as is done today. Since my involvement with this team is very recent and brief, it may be unfair to disperse the information about it on a personal blog.

Still, I feel, this team and its product are at the edge of redefining the FIQ, for everyone as we know it. Keep an eye for this startup, if you are an investor or an analyst

Unleash of the demon

The sub-prime mortgage crises in the US and its effect on the global economy has unleashed a demon. The demon of continuously rising commodity(food) prices.

Since October'07 these prices have been soaring, non-stop. Looking at some of the parameters involved:
- perceived financial instability around the world led population intensive countries to hoard the commodities in an attempt to shield themselves from the inflationary effect.
- depletion of oil reserves put a pressure on the demand for bio-fuels thus increasing the corn prices. Demand for corn even led some south-american economy to shun soyabeans for corn(a very cautionary trend).
- Speculators, have always been behind any bubble. Gov. of India even had to put a ban on future trading of Rice and Wheat.
- China's emergence as an economy power. China now can be looked as a gateway which assists in echoing the effect of volatility in economies of the developed world to the developing nations. Redefining a truly connected world( for good and for the worse ).

This current food and agriculture crisis has become too complex, and beyond control of any one country's policy.

Welcome to The Mayhem.

five points someone

Before I am accused of plagiarism against Chetan Bhagat, let me point out that though being from IIT, I missed the renowed position of being a five pointer by few points. not that I didn't try but that its tough.

This post, however, tries to deal with five questions that randomly cropped up at a recent office smalltalk. While talking to a colleague, recently at work, and in a humble effort to know her better. I asked her how would she rate herself on a scale of 1-10 for these:

-how passionate you are ?
-how indecisive you are ?
-how reluctant you are ?
-how wonderful you are ?
-how happy you are ?

her answers : 10, 5, 0, 0, 10.

I personally find a correlation between these five loosely defined emotional context of our personality. passions --leads to--> indecisiveness --causes--> reluctance -results in-> wonderment --is the core of --> happiness.

In an attempt to interpret her answers, I would say, she is, without any question, a wonderful person.

Irrational Dichotomy

Joseph LeDoux, a leading neuroscientist, specialising in the area of human brain's emotional response, points out that, in fact, there are two different paths along which the signals (electrical signals if you will) travel inside our brain in response to a stimuli.

The normal path which, starts from one of the five senses to the thalamus, to neocortex(rational center), which then distributes the appropriate response to other parts of the brain including the amygdala. This circuit is behind our rational decisions.
In addition to the normal path there is another short circuit tripwire which, extends from eyes/ears to thalamus then directly to the amygdala. Amygdala being the emotional center, this tripwire causes an emotional response to an sensory stimulus, and since this path is shorter than the normal one. our emotions are meant to supercede our rationality.

To make things worse the response from these two paths may even contradict themselves.

We are indeed hardwired, by nature's choice, to remain confused for most of the time, and at all of those moments to be equally irrational.

Humpty Dumpty Greenback

'The Greenback' has sent a wave of concern across the entire geography, with its free-fall against a basket of currencies. Everyone is concerned, some are surprised and others in fear:
- surprised at why Fed is letting the fall, and
- fear at the possibility of the US recession getting replicated around the world because of the falling greenback.
Since dollar is the most dominant currency for trade across the world. Its fall has led to increase in every commodity price across the board, from the gold, to the oil, and to the corn.

How does it help Uncle Sam?
Well it brings in extra exports, since goods exported by the US become more competitive in the global market, this is supported by the recent data indicating reduced Trade Deficit.
At the time when nothing seems working for Uncle, neither retail numbers nor consumer confidence, An increased export may be bringing in some hope to curb the shrink of economy to some extent.

Imagine this:
Liquid dollar is flowing all over the floor seeping to every nook and corner of economic prosperity, turning them all green. May be Uncle Sam understands globalization better than anyone else.

nice move still no donuts.

Mr Jobs, has finally laid down arms against the wider and much accepted community of jail-breakers. I being an iPhone user chose not to be a jail-breaker coz my phone had 1.1.2 when I bought it, and I didn't want to mess-up with the new equipment(reverting to 1.1.1).

This unfortunate decision has costed me a lot of agony. Every time I visit a flash or java applet, I regret my decision to not have jail-broken. The mental agony did hurt the most, when I recently installed 1.1.3 firmware upgrade ( approx 106 MB in size ), because this upgrade was backed by my enthusiam to find iPhone SDK, as announced by Mr. Jobs.

Alas, no SDK, no Flash, no Applet. What this new upgrade brought along with major bugfixes is 'The Paradox of Choice', at which Apple is so good at:
The choice to either wait for 1.1.5 or shift to BlackBerry.

WELL!!! iPhone sux.

Dharm-k-shetre Kuru-k-shetre...

Dharm-k-shetre Kuru-k-shetre sam-veta yuyu-tsavah...

Chapter 1,Verse 1 of 'The Bhagvad Gita' translates to a question asked by the blind King to Sanjaya, "What was the outcome of the war ?" - past tense, for a future event! ( reminds of Stephen Hawkings' "Time Loops" ).
Either the king must have been really-really blind, or bhagvad gita may have been written to describe something other than a real-life battle-ground.

Strangely, so as it seems, the same question gets asked by our executive brain( read neocortex ), every time at the beginning of any decision making process. On being asked, various components of the brain report their causal states to the executive, and based on which a decision is made.

Now believe me, if you will, the decision-making-process, involving multiple independent agents is a strange beast. And when those agents have only partial information, the problem becomes too scary to be solved. No universal solution to such type of problem exists in real-time.
Every system(individual) has to approach the optimal solution, to such a problem, using some kind of heuristics.

Since, no universal solution exists, everyone has their own unique way to solve the conflicts they are going through, and its very tough, for any external entity, to gauge or even have a clue of what might be going on.

we all are the outcome of the continuous battle between various modules inside our heads ? Our state at any time is an equilibrium between multitude of utility functions. each of those functions driven by our varied emotions, desires, and expectations.

Try not to be rude to anyone, they all are fighting a war.

To forgive is Divine

Recently, while returning home from a late nite pool game with office buddies, I was misguided to a very strange locality. I never would have know this place existed, if my GPS wouldn't have misled me. This normally happens when its cloudy and the GPS is unable to lock onto minimum of 4 satellites(that is for latitude, longitude, altitude and direction).

Anyhow, after roaming for a while, clueless, and not knowing which direction I was heading, I decided to stop, ask for directions and also get myself a coffee(yes, I do it whenever I am confused, which is virtually everytime - a starbucks gold customer you'd imagine).

The place was seven-eleven, I parked my vehicle, went in, made myself a french-vanilla flavor with columbian base, asked the lady behind the counter, which way is the beltway and headed out.

As I was heading to my vehicle, with a sense of conquest(Alexander too would have felt the same after venturing into unknown territory, i guess). A 12 year old came-up to me, and asked me if he can borrow some money. I politely retorted, 'why ?'
he said he would like to purchase something to eat.
I looked at my wallet, the minimum I had was a 10 dollar bill.
So, I said, 'buddy, let me buy you. what would you like to eat?'
Just as he was about to say something, a short-statured lady arrived at the scene, with another kid by her side. She repeated what the kid had said. I asked, 'ok, how much money you need?'.
she said 3 dollars. I replied I don't have three dollars.
Before I could even complete my statement. She started cursing me, 'Y'all foreigners. encroach our lands, take up our jobs. You won't even help us, when in need...'.

I just stood there not sure what should I say.
After a short pause, I continued, ' Mam, all I have is a 10 dollar bill. If you wish, I can purchase you something for 3 dollars, but I may not be able to lend 10 dollars.'

I was feeling bit like a nebbish as this was an unknown locality, and some of the areas in DC are not very friendly, if you don't belong there. Nonetheless, I kept my calm trying to shove off the warning from my uncle and my friends that I should not roam around in strange places. but I couldn't refrain from my urge to talk back. something she said just stuck in my head and I had to reply back.

So I said, 'Mam, I don't know what you see me as. I am here in a foreign land, far away from home, and parents. I hardly know many people here. Sometimes I find everything strange in your country. The weather, the language and even the people. I am here not to take up your jobs, I am here to do the job in a better way, and earn my share by doing so.'

She was bit amazed, and I could see the stern look in her eyes fade away. I bought them a coffee, and two doughnuts for $2.50.

As I was about to leave. she said, 'this is not a good place to be, for you, at this hour, hush off'.
I boldly replied back, 'if I weren't here. How would I have helped you ?'

I could see her blush and say, 'God, Bless!'.

so what's there to Imagine? I am glad that you asked!
Most of the hatred in the world seem to have cropped-up from mere misunderstandings. A little forgiveness from both sides , if not eliminate, should surely tone hatred down. We better do it sooner than later - before it gets encoded as an idiosyncrasy in our DNA.