Confessions of a jilted lover

I was in a pretty serious and committed relationship with Google Reader (GR) for the last 4 years. The news of its sudden demise affected me more than I expected it to be. Suffering from a broken heart after GR decided to dump me this way, I did the obvious thing that every jilted lover worth his grain of salt does – I got into a rebound relationship.

Now for the last 5 days, I am having a rather torrid relationship with Bloglines. Since the beginning of time (I mean since the time I discovered RSS) I consumed the internet off Bloglines. Then somewhere around 2008, Bloglines was plain neglected by its owner then, and like others, I jumped ship to GR. And now after 4 years, I complete a circle and transition back to Bloglines again. However, now its not the same old product anymore. Its hosted on Netvibes.

But, jokes apart, the death of GR has had other long lasting scars that are pretty hard to heal. Here is what I would summarize about the way I feel since this betrayal:

1. You can sign petitions, complain and whine. But if a company decides to get rid of a product, there is nothing much you can do about it. Long ago when Microsoft killed Money, I went through the same set of emotions, till GnuCash came to my rescue and I learnt Accounting.
2. On one hand the big companies want us to move completely into the cloud. So much so that we are almost back into the era of dumb terminals and hosting everything off the cloud (Chrome OS?). At the same time, these companies can recklessly close down services that don’t make money for them. How practical is it to move all my digital life into the cloud? Do I “live” at the mercy of these companies?
3. I was slowly consolidating all my online presence onto the Google Platform. Like I mentioned before, my everyday and my everything was being run off Google servers. Now with the sudden demise of GR, I am worried (worried is an understatement). I don’t think Google makes much money off me and sooner or later they will close other properties (read – Calendar, Contacts, Android, Drive, Blogger, Picasa, Feedburner). Whenever that happens, if I don’t have an alternate option, I will plain go through a digital assassination of me. The best option for people like me is to move my eggs from one basket (Google) and distribute it across the internet so that I don't rely on a single service provider (Who needs tight integration anyways?).
4. Platform independent open source software continues to remain a safe bet to trust your data with. Why Open Source? Because even if the current set of product developers decide not to continue its development, the community can take over and make the product survive. And Platform independent because – you don't wish to be dependent on an operating system either.

So, now its 2013 and think hard before you cloudify your existence mere mortals.

Cookie conundrum

One of the value-added activities that I do in my organization is – I occasionally buy cookies (biscuits) to be kept and shared in the common pantry area of my small office. We have a set of 4 cookie options that are already “approved” by our Admin and so we (the cookie buying volunteers) generally end up buying 3 varieties of them each time that we need to top up the 1 common cookie jar. Why one jar you ask? Well cause we are a small organization and the pantry is seriously short of real estate (for a lack of better words) to keep multiple jars. So 1 big jar it is – and each time that we buy, we put all the cookies into that jar. This also explains why we buy 3 of the 4 approved varieties.

On an average a top-up of the jar lasts the entire office’s cookie appetite for 2-3 weeks. Having volunteered to buy the last few times, I have made an interesting observation which I thought is imperative to share with my favourite audience (thyself).

So the approved varied of cookies can be classified into following 4 types

1. Extremely unhealthy (Finger-licking good)
2. Moderately unhealthy (Tasty)
3. Unhealthy (Occasionally eatable)
4. Healthy (Eaten only when no other option available)

Now the jar being tall with an opening on the top (duh – that’s why its a jar!) the order in which I put the cookies inside decides the order in which they can be consumed. For the accountants and computer nerds amongst you – it’s LIFO. The first few occasions, I put the unhealthy ones in the bottom and the nutritious ones on the top. This method, made our cookies last well over a month. People (I guess) waited for the other people to finish the healthier ones on the top so that they themselves could consume the tastier ones below later. Effectively, I ended up controlling people’s diets.

The second time when I did the same however, some smart-pants creatively reached the bottom of the jar and ate the tastier ones before. This time, the cookie jar lasted us a few days less.

And finally, during my last refill, I put the unhealthiest ones on the top. Viola, our entire cookie jar was over in 2 weeks.

So my dear friend what can we conclude? We all crave for unhealthy food. But once we eat unhealthy, then we try to console ourselves by eating healthy food too. All-in-all, I felt like God. I could control people’s eating habits. And, I have decided, from now on, I shall be the full-time volunteer. The next wicked thing I am gonna do is – (you guessed it right) – just buy the healthy biscuits for the entire jar and then observe how long the jar lasts for us.

R.I.P Google Reader

Sad day in the history of the internet for me today. Google announced that it is shelving its much neglected Google Reader. Reader has been my gateway to the internet, my main source of consuming information on the internet and now it is going down. Internet for me will never be the same again without it.

Almost 2 years ago, when I setup my Facebook page, I sorta knew that RSS would die its natural death. But I never guessed it would come so soon. I still actively follow 170 blogs, news and portals that will suddenly be difficult for me to access. I am sure many blogs online (including mine) will now be desolate. Gone are the good old days of Web 2.0.

Social it is, and social we shall be.

Writing helps?

After having taken a more than 1 month break from blogging, my conscience started questioning me on why do I even bother to blog. Yeah, I know I have gone through this phase before. If you look at it, everything you do in your life can be simply broken down into three things:

1. It earns you money
2. It helps you impress someone
3. It makes you happy

And blogging hasn’t helped me in either. Sorry for the over simplification. I know there are other things like self-actualization and blah blah, but I don’t think I have reached that high in Maslow’s hierarchy yet.

So here are two instances in which writing here so much and for so long helped. Well … kinda .. but it did!

So I have been put onto this crazy ass super stressful project. Without getting into the details, I had to come up with this 30 something page design document overnight for people to work on.  Under normal circumstances, I would have easily taken a week. But years of blabbering about pointless things here gave me the confidence and determination to pull it off and I did!

And in another instance, I kinda managed to write a funny little story about one of my “life experiences” that managed to win me a small little prize. Nothing fancy, but well, yeah had I not been writing here, probably I wouldn’t have pulled that off.

So, all in all, you shalt continue to read me.

The Feb that was!

Whoosh. Just realized that the entire month of February 2013 vanished right before my eyes.  I have had busy months in my life before, but never has a month passed since I started blabbering here that I didn’t get time to rant something. So with a lot of pain and melancholy I wave good bye to February 2013. Never will have anything to say about you, my dear month.

So what exactly was I doing last month? I thought hard and I thought deep. Technically, I didn’t do anything much. Stuck to my routine, travelled a bit and moved houses yet again. I mean, yeah, I again went through the routine of packing-trashing-moving-unpacking and rearranging my tents all over again. When I look at all my friends living the high-life on Facebook, posing in front of the Great Wall for breakfast then the Golden gate bridge for lunch and finally partying their night away in Rio, I wonder whether I should be even mentioning what I do.

Anyway, the highlight of last month was – I got to sit inside a aircraft parked on the tarmac of an airport for 2 hours in the blazing sun. After a while, once all passengers were sautéed they decided to open the aircraft exits (just in case all the steam released from cooking the passengers builds up pressure inside the cabin). With blatant regards for anyone’s safety the exit doors were left open with nothing whatsoever for safety. One of us sautéed veggies could have easily leaped off the door. Anyway, to add garnishing they also redirected my flight and a journey that would have not taken me more than 5 hours, ended up being a 12 hour nightmare. And did I mention that they also ran out of food? So much from an airline that I praise so much all the while.

   

Extortion

School kids are an important mechanism to get donations for charity. I don’t really know the reasoning behind why kids are made to go collect money, but thinking out loud it may be – to create a sense of discipline about money early in their lives or to make them feel that they contributed to a noble cause.

Anyway, I think the intention has always been very clear – it’s the children who have to go and collect the funds. It’s their sweetness and innocence that makes the donor contribute her bit to their cause.

I remember my good old days going door to door collecting funds for some charity. Not only were people extremely stingy, but at most places, I got free things to eat but not a cent in my kitty. I mean, the amount of stuff that I got to eat could have easily been valued at more than 5 times the amount that I actually collected. I learnt an important lesson – people are ready to give away non-monetary things much more easily. But now that I look back, I might very well be eating stale left overs (somehow all I ever got was cold-stuff from the friendly neighbor’s fridge).

But these days, I have found a new trend going on. Parents, bring their kids’ donation card to the office and then make all co-workers contribute. Also to make sure that we don’t set a low bar, the parents put in their first donation which is like a huge number. Then to fit in and not look like a heartless soul, every single body in the office puts in the same amount as what the parent contributed.

In the last week itself, I have spent like a week of my salary donating money to kids whom I have neither seen nor do I know they exist. My only connection with them and the charity (which I know nothing of) is their parents! Sometimes its so bad, that I don’t even know what I am contributing for!

I could very well print a card and take it to office saying it is for my kid’s charity and put some insane figure as my contribution and make others do the same. Don’t get me wrong, I am completely for donations. And if I meet school kids on the street asking me to support their cause, I do put in spare change. But what these parents do is just plain extortion.

The extra-hot coffee

As long as I have been writing this blog, I have been a caffeine junkie. Not something I am proud of, but well also not something that I am trying to abstain from. I love my coffee and if anything, I love to learn and know more about coffees.

Now, the local coffee uncle from whom I get my daily dose of coffee makes his coffee piping hot. But every once in a while, I like to indulge myself and I go to a Starbucks or a local expensive pseudo-Italian/ American coffee shop. Not only are their coffees super expensive but also, they are fattening and not hot enough.

To put things in perspective a visit to a Starbucks costs me worth a week of my regular street-side uncle made coffee. And then how many calories does a Starbucks have? Well, my favorite coffee – the Vanilla Latte actually contributes to 12% of my RDA. You can see the nutrition content of all of Starbucks products here. Finally, my favorite uncle makes his coffee so hot, that if I am not careful enough I can actually burn my tongue. As for the expensive coffees they are hot enough to be used as ice-packs. Yeah I know, most of you won’t agree with my rant about the degree of hotness of coffee. But lately I have noticed that Indians have a tendency to drink very hot liquids as compared to the rest of the world that I know. So if you are an Indian reading this blog post you know what I mean.

So with all these issues, how do you still splurge and feel less guilty and more happy? Well, Starbucks allows you to customize your coffee. So my order these days is super customized. I ask for a tall Vanilla Latte, non-fat, sugar-free and extra-hot. And with my funny accent most of the times the baristas don't get it. Then I have to repeat again and again and again till the whole place knows. Anyway, trying to be shameless, I don’t care as long as I get my perfect coffee. And it is less sinful with almost half the calories of their original drink.

Lizard Brain

Most of us have heard and know of the “flight-or-fight” response, “amygdala hijacking” and associated behavior. Though I knew the scientific theory I was never that cognitive of its impact on my everyday life till I read Seth Godin’s Linchpin.

Before I write anymore about it, let me define the Lizard Brain the way Seth does it:

“The lizard is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear and rage and reproductive drive.”

And…

“The resistance [sic] is the voice in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow, compromise. The resistance is writer's block and putting jitters and every project that ever shipped late because people couldn't stay on the same page long enough to get something out the door”.

And for the visually motivated amongst us, there is a nice little video that someone put together to explain the lizard brain and its importance:

What is the Lizard Brain?

Okay, in simple words – I find my Lizard brain to be that part of my brain that is judgemental, scared and prevents me from trying or doing anything out of the ordinary. It is that part that keeps reminding me that – people are looking, you are not supposed to do that and I should be happy with whatever I have achieved and not look for more challenges.

The advantage of knowing of its existence now is – I can rationalize my fear. Each time that I am attempting to do something different and my brain prevents me from doing it, I can actually rationalize that its not me but a little part of my brain. Then I can consciously go and do it. So may it be public speaking, helping a stranger or just writing a blog post. Acknowledging its existence has now helped me become a little less shy and more disciplined with life in general. If you are like me, may be understanding this part of your brain might really help!

5 things to do before the new year

I bet all of you are now geared up for 2013. Your resolutions in place and party plans in order, you are just waiting for the the clock to strike 12 to take on 2013 with a bang. But as you wait for the new year to come there are still a few hours of 2012 that can be put to some productive use. So here is the list of 5 things that I am planning to do before 1.1.2013.

1. Clean-up – Regular readers of my blog are aware of my obsession with frugal living. Today is a good time to go through your wardrobe and look at all the clothes that you have not used for the entire of 2012 (I bet you have some). Now take all these clothes and classify them into two groups – To donate or To Use. The ones marked “to donate” go drop off the clothes at your local charity today. And the ones marked “to use” line them up to be used in the first week of January. That way you have a pseudo-new wardrobe without buying new clothes!
2. Donate – I know we all wish to donate. We are very charitable human beings at heart. But when it comes to going through the process of donation, it’s a hassle. So now that you have time, go donate to your favorite charity or open source project. If you need help, here is a short list of projects you may wish to help:
• Firefox
• Gnucash
• Keepass
• TrueCrypt
• VLC Media Player
• Wikipedia
3. Contact that person – Everyone of us has a long lost friend, colleague or relative who we have been wanting to call, email or drop a message for a long time now. Today is a good time to do that. Go pick up the call and wish that person a happy new year, you might just end up making someone’s day!
4. Buy – Today is 31st December. For most businesses today is a Financial year end (or at least a quarter end). Everyone wants to close their books in the black and show profits. You may wanna try your luck at bargaining and get a good deal on the car, house, laptop, bed, wardrobe that you have been eyeing!
5. Change your passwords – Finally, today is a good day to logout off all the websites that you are perennially logged in (yeah your Google, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare account). Clear all your internet history (yeah all the delicious cookies have been tracking every move of yours on the internet, good idea to get rid of them once a while!). Finally, set new passwords for all your frequently used accounts.

Bye bye doomsday

Okay. Its past 12 and we are on the other side of the Mayan doomsday. Yeah some parts of the world are still not, but being self-centric, I will give that a go. I waited and waited and waited. But the world never ended. All the prophesies and Hollywood movies and tonnes of conspiracy theories passed by in a whimper.

Luckily, after the Y2K problem more than 12 years ago, I have learnt to ignore such prophesies. So I didn’t really prepare for this day to be any different. Imagine, had I taken the Mayan’s seriously, I would have partied like there was no tomorrow, spent all my money and had a gala time, only to realize that I have to live another day. My theory of living life like a project with a definite end-date and all scheduled backwards would have gone haywire.

Anyway, now we start living our mundane life till the next doomsday passes us by. NASA was so sure that nothing is gonna happen today that they made a video about it and released it on YouTube more than 2 weeks ago!

Why the world didn’t end yesterday?