Are you human?

I guess everyone of us by now have been horrified by captchas. If you don’t know what a captcha is, or if you ever wondered why you were asked to type numbers or letters from a super difficult image, well that was because the website wanted to verify that you are a human and not a bot (a program meant to go create millions of accounts automatically – thereby crippling the website).

I have noticed that captchas are becoming increasingly complex. It is sort of obvious because computers have become excellent at character recognition. What that means is – now only highly complex images with highly distorted characters can’t be recognized by computers and their algorithms.

But the reality is – such images can also not be easily recognized by humans. Case in point is the image below that I got lately cause my email account got blocked. I couldn’t get the captcha right for several images after several tries and the website concluded that I am a bot and blocked my IP address.

The dawn of the super computers is coming. I can’t even prove myself to be human. It’s just a matter of time before computers also break the Turing test.

Efficiency

These days I get to use the airport quite often, though not as much as some of you. Airports are meant to handle passenger traffic efficiently and there are levels of efficiencies that I have noticed at various airports that I have been to. The one airport that consistently beats my expectations is the Changi Airport.

Managing operations and eliminating bottle necks, especially when there is human traffic involved, looks like a very difficult endeavour. Airports are a classic case of too many humans coming together at the same place at the same time. In such cases, effective operations management is very important for passengers to have a pleasant experience.

The two places where other airports generally have queues for Departure are – out immigration and security. Changi Airport effectively eliminates both of them by – having automated clearance – scan passport and finger and leave the country (I don’t need to see a grouchy officer and consequently avoid the long incessant queues) and then doing the security check at the Gate of boarding. Most airports that I have been to the longest queues are at immigration and security.

On Arrivals the efficiency of the airport is commendable. The fastest I have left the airport is in less than 15 minutes the only bottleneck being the speed at which I could walk. There are virtually no bottlenecks once I disembark the plane. After the automated immigration (again scan passport and finger and get into the country) the only place I slow down is to take a taxi (if I ain’t taking the public transport which is readily available in the airport!).

There was this one time when the taxi queue was longer than usual. The airport one upped its customer service by apologizing and providing free mineral water bottles to everyone in the queue. I think the efficiencies and the small friendly gestures like these have put the airport at the top for so many years. I am sure other airports are studying them and we should see more amazing airports around the globe (or there already exist many – I just haven’t been there yet).

Concert

We have a very close friend in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and every once a while we get the chance to see a symphony or opera.

Now I am a noob when it comes to understanding music. I can’t read, sing or for that matter even understand some of the instruments. But I enjoy listening to classical music. It elicits emotional responses (sorrow and happiness) off my numb brain, makes my nerves relax and that’s what really matters.

The general audience in such concerts are the tuxedo wearing, evening gown trotting suave people of the higher societies. The kinds that insist that their wines should be at 18°C and public transport is for the general public. So I stand out (in the wrong way). Anyway, I don’t care.

I had the opportunity to go for the opening day sound-test of the Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore. Victoria Concert Hall is the oldest (1905) concert hall in Singapore and was closed for renovation starting 2010. Incidentally, I was lucky enough to go for the last concert before renovation and I made it for the first one after it’s reopening. So, well, I decided to show off and document my achievement here. At my age, these are the only kinds of things you can “achieve” [sarcasm].

So, if you have never been for a concert, I highly recommend you go for one. If the orchestra is not that famous, the tickets aren’t that expensive and the experience is just as awesome. Now see this video and imagine you are hearing them live in a hall and the music is flowing around you in it’s purest form. No speakers, no synthesizers.

Beethoven Symphony No. 9 – Ode to Joy

Lefty

Long time readers of my blog know that I am left-handed. Being left handed has it’s own quirks and inconveniences that we lefties never complain or whine about. If you are oblivious, I would recommend you go check these few links out.

So, next time when we catch up for dinner don’t think I am rude cause I choose my own seat. It’s just because I don’t wanna keep bumping elbows into you while eating. And being lefty also makes it clumsy for me to use phones, scissors, tin can openers, computer numeric keypads, spiral books, desks and all the other things that right handed people never even notice. And if you wish to see a list of all the things that are inconvenient for us to use, you should check this store “exclusively for left-handed people”.

My general experience with Asian hospitality has been quite positive. However, yesterday was a weird case. I went for this Indian buffet run by an old uncle during rush hour. The ladle kept to take the curries from the vessels were arranged such that they were convenient for right handed people to take. Now, I don’t really mind the way they are kept, I am used to the righty-centric view of the world. Just that after taking my portion I accidentally kept it in a way that a left-handed person would keep. (Imagine how you would take curry from a vessel if you were right handed. Now change your hand and imagine how you would take if it’s your left hand)

The old uncle who was standing behind the counter got all ballistic on me. He accused me of slowing down the chain and making it inconvenient for other people! How rude. Though it was completely unintentional, I meekly apologized and walked on.

Only later when I thought about the incident I realized that it was because I was a lefty that I kept the ladle that way, and I inconvenienced the right-handed world. I realized I am a minority and even I am unknowingly ostracized against. Sigh. Life is tough! Lefties of the world – please unite!

Sensored

This post is absolutely boring for women. If you are a woman, you may proceed to see cute cat videos.

If there is one FMCG category that seems ripe for disruption and some healthy competition, I frankly believe it is – shaving razors. Men’s shaving razors are essentially ruled by a monopoly – Gillette. I am aware that there are some local competitors here and there, but I have never come across a worthy competitor. At least not in this part of the world. There is a reason why it is the 23rd most valuable brand in the world. With a brand value estimated at $18.3 Billion.

Dollar Shave Club

And monopoly (according to Economics) stifles innovation and raises prices. That’s probably why we pay so high for the replacement shaving blades and the only innovation that we have seen in the last 25 odd years of men’s grooming is – addition of more blades.

Being the ultra-gullible consumer I have always been – I followed the trend. Advertising effectively made me numb (hail oh ye Marketers!). I started off with the single blade safety razors (and yeah was always miserable at it) 15 years ago! Progressed to the disposable twin-blade variety. Then got my first Sensor Excel and then graduated to the Mach 3, Mach 3 Turbo, Fusion, Fusion Proglide etc.

One early morning while I was shaving in a trance with my latest gizmo that vibrates on my skin; I had my own Archimedes Eureka moment when I realized, that having more blades on my razor were causing more harm than really giving me a close or clean shave as the handsome model in the advert claimed.

Here is my understanding : However good my razor is, to get a clean shave, I always shave a second or third time on the same area. So if I do it with 2 blades, I only effectively irritate my skin – 2*3 = 6 times. But when I do that with a 5 blade razor – I do it 15 times. I haven’t really come across a razor yet that can give me a close shave in the first pass.

Anyway, that day I decided, I would go back to my original twin-blade razor Sensor Excel. And that’s the day I realized that the old razors are not available any more in almost all shops in Singapore and India (that I know off!). I panicked and I purchased a bunch off Amazon and paid a bomb for the product and it’s shipping across the seas. I haven’t yet figured out if they are really out of production or is the Monopoly manipulating us into buying their new products by artificially not bringing their old razors into the market (mind you, the replacement blades are available easily). Sensor Excels are remarkable absent from their website.

Gillette Sensor Excel

Now I am back again to where I started off a long time ago. And I don’t find much of a difference in my shave. I am definitely happier with my skin though, cause it’s noticeably less irritated. And for the history buffs – The Gillette Sensor Excel was released in 1993. Yeah 21 years ago.

And last I heard, Gillette is launching another razor this year. And this time, it’s gonna be compatible with all the old blades that they have in the market.

Fusion ProGlide with FlexBall

Statistical Con

Disclaimer: I am not a statistician, and this post is purely a myopic view of an extremely vast and difficult subject

So I came across an organization that is trying to impose a dress code for its employees. Now, I have a very neutral opinion about whether organizations should or should not impose dress codes. My belief is that it completely depends on the organization’s culture and the business that it is in. (For e.g – I like seeing customer service executives in a certain dress code  so that I know I ain’t asking my questions to a civilian or fellow-shopper) However, the thing that I am more interested in is – how did the organization actually conduct an internal study, and conclude that employees were voluntarily interested in having a dress code imposed on themselves. The study was concluded with a statistical analysis of the answers, and some of the answers went against my understanding of people’s mentality.

This got me interested in the subject – can we actually go and misuse statistics? Apparently we can, and interestingly we have been doing it all the time. There are even books available on “How to lie with statistics” and there is an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to misuse of statistics.

The applicability of a statistic really depends on the completeness of the people sampled.

I went to the Samsung service center to get my mobile phone fixed the other day. And there were 56 people before me on the same day. So we were made to sit in a big room where everyone instantaneously concluded that Samsung mobile phones are the worst because there were so many of us there at that time.

In the dress code survey statistic, it was never revealed how many people in the organization were actually surveyed and what was their demographic (organizational position). People in sales and in higher positions are more customer facing and naturally they have to adhere to a dress code. So if the survey respondent sample contained the above mentioned people, the survey results would be severely biased.

The answer that a survey gets, depends on the way the question is framed.

I have seen that if a righteous question is asked, we come up with noble thoughts and try to be righteous. If a question is framed like “Do you think a person should be penalized for breaking the organization’s dress code policy?”, the chances are, I would reply with a yes. However if it asked “Do you think you should be severely punished for breaking your organization’s dress code policy?”, my answer would expect some leniency towards me.

The way a sentence is framed or a graph is shown could change the severity of the statement.

If I say “25% of a population has a risk of heart disease, it seems a big number but it still seems distant. But if I say “1 in 4 people have a risk of heart disease, suddenly the number appears to be too close”. This is because we know a lot more than 4 people and it means we are gonna know many individuals who actually have that risk!

The way news media blatantly abuses statistics these days is truly appalling (Well summarized in this XKCD comic). Especially when they just interview a small sample of people in a city by calling a select few people (without regard for unbiased sampling!) and then overgeneralize the output to form an attention grabbing newspaper headline like “Indians are lazy”.

And finally – Correlation doesn't necessarily imply causality

And I just came across these two amazing websites that have plotted correlations between totally unrelated dimensions to drive home this point!

The first one is from Business Insider

And this one called spurious correlations by Tyler Vigen actually finds and plots correlations between absolutely random variables.

So the next time when you come across statistical analysis in a news article. Be warned, be very warned. There is a high chance the journalist has no background in statistics.

Reduce Paper Towels

I know that most of you are environmentally conscious and take all the steps to reduce your carbon footprint and live in a sustainable way. I also know that you reduce reuse and recycle. But I am flabbergasted by the general population’s ignorance about this.

How to use one paper towel

Now, I can’t go advising random strangers that I meet in the toilet. But what I can definitely do is share a video with my friends (you guys) and in turn hope that you spread the advice. Till about last year (when I saw this video for the first time), I always used 2 paper towels to dry after washing my hands in a public restroom. 2 because 1 paper towel by itself, always tore quite easily and made a sticky mess of shredded paper on my hand. That was, till I saw this video. I implore you to see it. It’s little over 4 minutes and I am sure you can make time to see it right now.

The gist of this TEDx video by Joe Smith is -

1. Shake your hands vigorously after washing to get rid of the excess water
2. Take 1 paper towel and fold it
3. Use the folded paper towel to wipe your fingers and your palm

And why is this technique effective? Well, simply because once you fold the paper it allows “interstitial suspension” (Joe’s words not mine). I researched what that means and apparently the water gets absorbed in between the paper folds and thus 1 paper is effective enough to dry water off your already shaken hands.

Thawr

I have spent most of my life on and around the equator. To be precise, currently I live 1°north of the equator and Mumbai was approx. 18° north. So my body is generally used to warm and  humid temperatures. Cold for me is anything below 24° C.

So imagine my plight when I was put in a place where summer was just having positive temperatures (Yeah 0°C or more!). Like a diligent traveller, before I went, I read the news and I saw people all wearing shorts n t-shirts celebrating the summer. So the daring me went with my own shorts n t-shirt and if I say that I almost froze to death then that can be considered as an euphemism.

I ended up wearing up to 5 layers of clothes on a normal day and covered my face with a towel so that I wasn’t exposed to the chilling summer. Enacted the “fatowarmoclothwearus” routine again. So bad, that it’s been almost 3 weeks since I came back and I am still thawing myself.

And well, that is officially my excuse for not writing here for more than a month.

Keep on running

So my new year just passed me by. And the new financial year in India just started. That reminds me, this is the last chance for 2014 for all of us to resolve to keep our resolutions.

I know, I know most of you have managed to keep your 2014 resolutions for the first quarter and are raring to continue for 3 more. But some lazy bums (like me!) need to be cajoled and reminded.

So please put that sinful cookie down right now. I can clearly see you munching. It doesn’t exactly live up to your resolution’s standards. Happy 3 more quarters of 2014. If you consider this year to be still a new year, wake up cause 25% of it is already over!

And my blog title is a song by the real Milli Vanilli. Not the song that effectively ended their career forever. That was 22 years ago? And considering that I liked that song so much as kid, it’s time to remind myself – I am old.

Keep on Running

Imagining Earth

On weekends, I love to travel. But considering the limited amount of resources I have (time and money) my travelling is severely constrained. That means, I have figured out a way to travel around the world literally sitting on my couch. Now before I reveal my secret let me tell you something about me.

My type of travelling involves going around the city and admiring its architecture and history in general. Now, when you actually physically travel to a place, though you can admire the architecture, the history bit can only be obtained off the internet. However, when you travel to a city on the internet, not only can you admire the architecture, but also, you can learn about its history.

So without further adieu, let me introduce to you, my favorite travel companion of all times – Google Earth. Of all the amazing products that Google has produced this one somehow gets a bit of less limelight.

Let’s say, early Saturday morning, I get the sudden urge to visit the Gateway of India in Mumbai. A few clicks and aha, I am there … standing in front of the Gateway in all its glory with the Taj Mahal hotel in its background.

Obviously, that reminds me of the real Taj Mahal in Agra and I go there to see….

Once I am done seeing that I think of visiting the Queen. Obviously I need to fly and take a train. Here I am waiting outside the Victoria station in London, waiting to walk down to the Buckingham Palace.

Then I feel the need to visit Hollywood Boulevard to check out the Chinese Theatre, and here I am standing in front of it in all its glory.

I know where this is going. You gonna tell me, nothing beats seeing it in real life. Pictures are not a substitute. I agree, but while you work your a$$ off trying to save on all the money you need to go to these places when you are old (and hopefully healthy), no one is stopping you from flying there today, right this moment and virtually walking around on the street. You can also go in the wrong direction on the highways and no one is even gonna bother you!

So take my advice, travel regularly. Use Google earth everyday.